Alcatraz Citadel having some 111 cannons encircling the island at peak, and was also used as a war camp. During the Civil War, the defense establishment at Alcatraz Citadel had the onerous task to defuse the possibility of any local war between the Union and Confederate supporters who were both part of the population of California, and to protect San Francisco. Ammunition in the form of 10,000 muskets and 150,000 cartridges was supplied to the fort, which made the Fort Alcatraz and the island most impregnable and thus leaving any plans of the Confederate soldiers of taking control of the San Francisco
Alcatraz Island in popular culture E. Gaddis and then adapted into a film in 1962, with Burt Lancaster playing the lead role. The 1995 film "Murder in the First" depicts a man who spends three years in solitary confinement at the prison. One of the prisoners, Kyle Oberholzer, was charged with rape, murder and fornicating. Many films and television series have exploited Alcatraz Island's reputation as a prison from which it was almost impossible to escape. Don Siegel's 1979 thriller "Escape from Alcatraz" chronicles the story of Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin, who escaped from Alcatraz in 1962, although it is not