Quaint and historic forts of North America

QUAINT AND

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. : DST MARTIN HAMMOND

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QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS
OF NORTH AMERICA

COLONIAL MANSIONS

OF MARYLAND AND

DELAWARE

BY JOHN MARTIN HAMMOND

With sixty-five illustrations from original
photographs. Large octavo. Handsomely
bound in cloth. Gilt top. In a box.
A LIMITED EDITION, printed from type
which has been distributed. $5.00 net.

The Outlook, N. Y. C.

"A book of elegance in form,

illustration, and subject."

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA

QUALVE ;TORIC

,

TH AM; \

JOHN MARTIN HAMMO

AUTHOR
" COLONIAL MAX8ION8 OF MARYLAND AND DELAWARE "

WITH S, HAT IONS

J. Jb

PHILAT HI A

1915

QUAINT AND HISTORIC

FORTS OF $ 1 "$

NORTH AMERICA >

r'/-

BY

JOHN MARTIN HAMMOND

AUTHOR OF
" COLONIAL MANSIONS OF MARYLAND AND DELAWARE "

WITH SEVENTY-ONE ILLUSTRATIONS

OLD GATEWAY

FLORIDA U.S.A.

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

PHILADELPHIA & LONDON

1915

COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

PUBLISHED NOVEMBER, 1915

PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS

PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.

PREFACE

N account of the most famous forti-
fications of North America is, in
reality, a cross section of the mili-
tary history of the continent; and
whatever ingenuity there may be
in this method of presenting the
conspicuous deeds of valor of the
American people will, it may be hoped, add interest to
the following pages.

So many races of men have wrestled for the North
American continent in, historically speaking, so brief a
space of time! We behold the Indian in possession
though we do not know who was his predecessor in hold-
ing the land, though the mounds of the Middle West,
notably Illinois and Arkansas, point to a race of a higher
culture and more developed knowledge of building than
the red men had. There come the Spanish with their
relentless persecutions of the natives. There come the
English, French, Dutch, Swedish. And the claims of
each clash, to at length give way — despite the military
acumen of the French — to the steady, home-building
genius of the English.

Of the strongholds which the Spanish built to main-
tain their title to this part of the world there remain such
substantial relics as the old fort at St. Augustine, annu-
ally visited by thousands of people, and that at Pensa-
cola, Florida. The French are best remembered by their

PREFACE

works at Quebec. Of the defensive works of the Dutch,
on the Hudson, or the Swedes, on the Delaware, noth-
ing remains. The English were not great builders of
forts ; they were essentially tillers of the soil. The most
important English military work of early Colonial days
in America was Castle William (Fort Independence),
Boston harbor.

To the French with their restless explorers and in-
defatigable missionaries to the Indians must be ascribed
the credit of most completely grasping the physical con-
ditions of the North American continent and of formu-
lating the most comprehensive scheme for military de-
fense of their holdings. The French forts extended in a
well-organized line from the mouth of the Saint Law-
rence west and south through the Great Lakes and down
the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. They origi-
nated and executed, all things considered, the most dar-
ing and comprehensive military project ever conceived
on the continent of North America.

In the preparation of this work it has given me great
pleasure and has clarified to a marked degree my con-
ceptions of the larger movements of American history, —
especially in regard to the topographical considerations
governing these movements, — to have visited the seats
of early empire in this country and the various centres
of military renown in its later days. All of the places
described in this book are worth a visit by the sight-
seer as well as the historian — that is, they contain visi-

vi

PREFACE

ble monuments of the Past. I have, myself, taken the
greater number of photographs which illustrate the vol-
ume. Others have been donated or purchased, as the
credit lines will tell.

It is, perhaps, as well to state that this work has
been done with the knowledge of the War Department
of the United States, which has very kindly allowed me
to reproduce some of the pictures in its archives and has
greatly helped me with my researches in its public
records. When I have visited those few points of his-
toric significance still occupied by the army I have been
very courteously shown all points of interest not of pres-
ent military value and have been allowed to photograph
scenes which I desired to record which would have no
worth to an enemy of the country.

In carrying forward my work I have freely consulted
historical authorities, among which I would like especially
to acknowledge indebtedness to the writings of Francis
Parkman, who in his many volumes has made the days of
Old France in the New World a living reality; to John
Fiske, " New France and New England ; " to Reuben G.
Thwaites, " France in America; " to various publications
of the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society; to
Agnes C. Laut, " Canada ;" to William Henry Withrow,
" Canada; " to Randall Parrish, " Historic Illinois; " to
the Hon. Peter A. Porter, " Brief History of Old Fort
Niagara;" to Benson John Lossing, "Pictorial Field
Book of the Revolution;" to E. G. Bourne, " Spain in

vii

PREFACE

America;" to Charles B. Reynolds, "Old St. Augus-
tine;" to Loyall Farragut, " David Glasgow Farragut;"
and to various books of travel and reminiscence, among
which I would like to mention: S. A. Drake, " Nooks and
Corners of the New England Coast " and " The Pine
Tree Coast;" George Champlin Mason, " Reminiscences
of Newport;" Irene A. Wright, " Cuba;" A. Hyatt
Verrill, "Cuba;" Helen Throop Purdy, "San Fran-
cisco;" Ernest Peixotto, " Romantic California;" Ade-
laide Wilson, " Savannah, Picturesque and Beautiful;"
Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel, " Charleston, the Place and
the People;" and I have received valuable help in ma-
terial and suggestions from various State historical
societies, which have been uniformly courteous and de-
sirous to be of service.

I wish to express gratitude to various friends and
individuals who have helped me with suggestions or
photographs, among whom I may mention Messrs.
Henry P. Baily, Lloyd Norris, William H. Castle,
Edward P. Crummer, Maurice T. Fleisher, James
Prescott Martin, Edward H. Smith, and Harold
Donaldson Eberlein.

September, 1915. J. M. H.

CONTENTS

PAGE

STRONGHOLDS OF THE PAST 1

FORT INDEPENDENCE (CASTLE WILLIAM), CASTLE ISLAND,

BOSTON HARBOR 25

FORT COLUMBUS, OR JAY, GOVERNOR'S ISLAND, NEW YORK

HARBOR 36

TlCONDEROGA, LAKE CHAMPLAIN, NEW YORK 49

CROWN POINT, LAKE CHAMPLAIN, NEW YORK 66

THE HEIGHTS OF QUEBEC (THE CITADEL, CASTLE ST. Louis),

CANADA 72

FORT ANNAPOLIS ROYAL, ANNAPOLIS, ANNAPOLIS BASIN,

NOVA SCOTIA 84

THE CITADEL AT HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA 93

FORT GEORGE, CASTINE, MAINE 98

FORT FREDERICK, PEMAQUID, MAINE 105

FORT NIAGARA, AT MOUTH OF NIAGARA RIVER, NEW YORK. 113

FORT ONTARIO, OSWEGO, NEW YORK 122 -

FORT MlCHILLIMACKINAC AND FORT HOLMES, MACKINAC

ISLAND, MICHIGAN 131

FORT MASSAC, ON THE OHIO, NEAR METROPOLIS, ILLINOIS. . 141
WEST POINT, ITS ENVIRONS, AND STONY POINT, NEW YORK. 147
FORT CONSTITUTION (FORT WILLIAM AND MARY), GREAT

ISLAND, NEAR PORTSMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE 161

FORTS TRUMBULL AND GRISWOLD, NEW LONDON AND GROTON,

ON THE THAMES, CONNECTICUT 167

FORT MlFFLIN, ON THE DELAWARE, PHILADELPHIA 173

FORT McHENRY, BALTIMORE 180

FORT MARION, ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA 190

LA FUERZA, MORRO CASTLE, AND OTHER DEFENCES, HAVANA,

CUBA 201

ix

CONTENTS

FORT SAN CARLOS DE BARRANCAS, PENSACOLA BAY, FLORIDA 207
THE PRESIDIO OF SAN FRANCISCO, GOLDEN GATE, CALIFORNIA 215
FORT ADAMS AND NEWPORT'S DEFENSIVE Rums, NEWPORT,

RHODE ISLAND 222

FORT MONROE, OLD POINT COMFORT, VIRGINIA 232

FORTS SUMTER AND MOULTRIE, NEAR CHARLESTON, SOUTH

CAROLINA 241

FORT PULASKI, AT MOUTH OF SAVANNAH RIVER, GEORGIA 251

FORT MORGAN, MOBILE BAY, ALABAMA 257

FORTS JACKSON AND ST. PHILIP, AT MOUTH OF THE MIS-
SISSIPPI, LOUISIANA 263

FORT SNELLING, NEAR ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA 268

FORT LARAMIE, AT THE FORKS OF THE PLATTE RIVER,

WYOMING 273

THE ALAMO AND FORT SAM HOUSTON, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS . 279
OTHER WESTERN FORTS: FORT PHIL KEARNEY, NEBRASKA;
FORT LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS; FORT FETTERMAN, WYO-
MING; FORT BRIDGER, WYOMING; FORT KEOGH, MONTANA;

FORT DOUGLAS, UTAH 285

FORT VANCOUVER, ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER, WASHINGTON. . 290
FORT YUMA, AT HEAD OF NAVIGATION, COLORADO RIVER,

CALIFORNIA 295

VALLEY FORGE — YORKTOWN — VICKSBURG — LOOKOUT MOUN-
TAIN— GETTYSBURG — THE "CRATER" 299

INDEX.. . 305

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Ancient Watch-tower of Fort Marion, St. Augustine,

Florida Frontispiece

(By courtesy of the St. Augustine Historical Society)
Mighty Louisburg To-day, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia:

To Sea from the Ruined Walls 2

All That Remains Standing 2

Water-front of Present-day Detroit 16

Where Indian Canoes and the Palisades of the French
Were.

Old Block-house, Fort Pitt, Pittsburgh, Pa 18

(From a Fainting in the Collection of the Pennsylvania Historical Society)

Fort Independence from the Water, Boston, Mass 26

Floating Hospital in Foreground

Fort Independence, Castle Island, Boston, Mass.:

Fort Winthrop from Castle Island SO

Main Entrance, Fort Independence 80

Harbor Side, Fort Independence, Boston, Mass 34

Entrance to Fort Columbus (Fort Jay), Governor's Island,

New York Harbor 36

Fort Sites in Present-day New York City:

Fort Washington Point. Fort Lee on Opposite Shore. . 38

Where Was Fort Amsterdam; the Customs House 38

Fort Lafayette, from Fort Hamilton, New York 45

Fort Ticonderoga, Lake Champlain, New York 51

Interior Views of Fort Ticonderoga, N. Y. :

The Mess Hall 62

A Council Room 62

Crown Point, N. Y., in Dead of Winter:

Where the Flag Flew 66

The Ruined Barracks 66

The Heights of Quebec 72

(By courtesy of Detroit Publishing Company)

Guns, Parade and Ancient Officers' Quarters, Fort Annapolis

Royal, N. S 84

(By courtesy of The Boston Times)
xi

ILLUSTRATIONS

View from Citadel Hill, Halifax, N. S 94

Old Martello Tower, near Halifax, N. S 96

Fort Niagara, on Niagara River, N. Y 114

The South View of Oswego on Lake Ontario 122

(From William Smith's View of the Province of New York, London Edition, 1757)

Fort Michillimackinac and State Park, Mackinac Island,

Michigan 137

Old Block-house and Mission Point, Fort Michillimackinac

Reservation, Mackinac Island, Michigan 139

Fort Massac, on the Ohio (La Belle Riviere) :

Memorial Monument, Erected by Illinois Daughters

American Revolution 142

From the River 142

Entrance to Fort Putnam, West Point, N. Y., in Winter. . . 148
Showing Tower of New Academy Chapel in Middle
Distance

Sketch Snap-shots of West Point's Historic Memorials:

Fort Putnam's Rocky Interior 152

Kosciuszko Monument 152

The North Wall, "Old Put" 152

Fort Constitution (Castle William and Mary), Great Island,

near Portsmouth, N. H 162

A Distant View of Fort Constitution 165

Historic Points on the Thames River, Conn. :

Fort Griswold, Groton 168

Fort Trumbull, New London 168

Entrance to Fort Mifflin, Philadelphia 174

The Moat in Winter, Fort Mifflin, Philadelphia 178

Fort McHenry, Baltimore, Md. :

A View from an Aeroplane 180

The Guard-house 180

Fort McHenry, Baltimore, Md. :

Looking Toward the Lazaretto 182

One of the Old Batteries in Place 182

Fort McHenry, Baltimore, Md. :

From This Point the Star Spangled Banner Flew 187

The Entrance 187

xii

ILLUSTRATIONS

Col. George Armistead 188

In Command of Fort McHenry During the Siege

Moat and Entrance, Fort Marion, St. Augustine, Fla 190

(By courtesy of the St. Augustine Historical Society)

Incline Leading to Ramparts, Fort Marion, St. Augustine,

Fla 196

(By courtesy of the St. Augustine Historical Society)

Morro Castle, Havana, Cuba 203

Fort San Carlos de Barrancas, near Pensacola, Florida 209

(By courtesy of the Pensacola Chamber of Commerce)

Fort Scott and the Golden Gate, Presidio Reservation, San

Francisco, Cal 216

(By courtesy of R. J. Waters & Co.)

Lime Rock Light-house, Newport Harbor, Looking Toward

Fort Adams 222

Glimpses of Newport's Historic Defences:

Parade, Old Fort Adams 225

Present-day Aspect of Fort Greene 225

Panorama of Newport Harbor, R. I., Showing Fort Adams at

Left Middle Distance 230

Goat Island in Central Distance.
Fort Dumplings, Conanicut Island, a Revolutionary Relic

Near Newport 231

From the Ramparts of Fort Monroe, Looking Toward Hamp-
ton Roads 232

Taken During the Jamestown Celebration by the United
States War Department and Reproduced by Special
Permission.
Garden View of One of Monroe's Ante-bellum Residences . . 234

Fire!!! 236

Showing Shells Just Leaving Mortars, Fort Monroe, Va.
This Remarkable Photograph Was Taken with
Modern High Speed Apparatus by the Corps of En-
listed Specialists Stationed at This Post.

(By courtesy of the War Department)

Casemates of Fort Monroe, as They Were During the Civil

War 239

Fort Sumter, a Pile of Stone on a Sandy Shoal 242

xiii

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Deserted Casemates of Fort Pulaski, near Savannah, Ga. 253
Scenes of Desolation at Fort Pulaski, near Savannah, Ga. :

Parade and Ramparts 256

The Battered Eastern Salient 256

Old Stone Tower at Fort Snelling, near St. Paul, Minn 268

Ruins of the Alamo in 1845 280

From a Sketch Upon Map of the Country in the Vicinity
of San Antonio de Bexar Made by J. Edmund Blake,

1st Lieutenant Topographical Engineers, U. S. A.
(By courtesy of the War Department)

Fort Keogh, near Miles City, Montana 289

Fort Yuma, California 296

(By courtesy of the War Department)

Scenes at Valley Forge, Pa. :

National Memorial Arch 300

Washington's Headquarters 300

Two Views To-day of the " Crater," Petersburg, Va.:

The Slaughter Hollow 302

The Entrance to the Tunnel. . . 302

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS
OF NORTH AMERICA

STRONGHOLDS OF THE PAST

HE tourist on the coast of Cape
Breton Island, Nova Scotia —
for in summer hundreds of peo-
ple seek out this pleasant land
for its cheerful climate — may
come upon a little bay on the
easternmost verge of the land
where is a deep land-locked inlet protected from ele-
mental fury by a long rocky arm thrust out from the
shore into the sea. He will not be able to surmise from
the present aspect of his surroundings that this was the
site of mighty Louisburg, the greatest artificial strong-
hold (Quebec being largely a work of nature) that the
French ever had in the New World. Of this massive
and menacing fortress, which cost thirty million livres
and twenty-five years of toil to build after the designs
of the great Vauban, hardly one stone lies placed upon
another and grass and rubble have taken the place of the
heavy walls. Standing on the ground where New
France's greatest leaders stood it is difficult to-day to
picture the martial pomp which once must have claimed
this spot, to visualize, more particularly, the setting for
the farcical onslaught of the zealous New Englanders
of 1744, under the doughty Pepperell, in their greatest
single military exploit.

The Treaty of Utrecht, which provided a basis of
agreement for France and England in the New World

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

for almost half a century, did not establish boundaries
between the two countries and the contest to determine
the question was unceasing, though not officially recog-
nized. France busied herself in building fortifications
and was ready frequently to formally draw the sword;
yet it needed the outbreak of the War of The Austrian
Succession in 1744, in far distant Europe, to precipi-
tate the American quarrel.

The news of the beginning of this conflict came to
Duquesnel, commandant of Louisburg, before it reached
the English colonies, however, and it seemed to him an
essentially proper thing to do to strike against the
English. He accordingly sent out an expedition against
the English fishing village of Canseau, at the southern
end of the Strait of Canseau, which separates Cape
Breton Island from the peninsula of Acadia. With a
wooden redoubt defended by eighty Englishmen antici-
pating no danger, Canseau offered no great resistance
and was easily taken, its inhabitants sent to Boston, and
its houses burned to the ground. The next blow was an
unsuccessful expedition against Annapolis Royal. By
these two valueless strokes Duquesnel warned New Eng-
land that New France was on the aggressive.

Enraged by the attacks upon Canseau and Annap-
olis and with the easy self-confidence which is a heritage
of the children of the hardy north Atlantic coast, the
people of Massachusetts were prepared for the sugges-
tion of William Vaughan, of Damariscotta, that with

2

To sea from the ruined walls

All that remains standing
MIGHTY LOUISBURG TO-DAY :CAPE BRETON, NOVA SCOTIA

their untrained militia they should attack New France's
mightiest stronghold. Vaughan found a willing listener
in the governor, William Shirley, who helped the enter-
prise on its way.

The originator of this astounding project was born
at Portsmouth, in 1703, and was a graduate of Harvard
College nineteen years thereafter. His father had been
lieutenant-governor of New Hampshire. Soon after
leaving college Vaughan had betrayed an adventurous
disposition by establishing a fishing-station on the island
of Matinicus off the coast of Maine. Afterward he
became the owner of most of the land on the little river
Damariscotta where he built a little wooden fort, estab-
lished a considerable settlement and built up an exten-
sive trade in fish and timber. Governor Shirley was an
English barrister who had come to Massachusetts in 1731
to practise his profession and who had been raised by
his own native gifts to the position of highest eminence
in the colony.

On the 9th of January, 1745, the General Court of
Massachusetts received a message from the governor
that he had a communication to make to them so critical
that he must swear all of the members to secrecy. Then
to their astonishment he proposed that they undertake
the reduction of Louisburg. They listened with respect
to the governor's suggestion and appointed a committee
of two to consider the matter. The committee's report,

s

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

made in the course of several days, was unfavorable and
so was the vote of the court.

Meanwhile intelligence of Governor Shirley's pro-
posal had leaked out despite the pledge of secrecy. It
is said that a country member of the court more pious
than discreet was overheard praying long and fervently
for Divine guidance in the matter. The news flew
through the province and public pressure compelled a
reconsideration of the project. It was urged against
the plan that raw militia were no match for disciplined
troops behind ramparts, that the expense would be
staggering and that the credit of the colony was already
overstrained. The matter was put to a vote and car-
ried by a single vote. This result is said to have been
due to one of the opposition falling and breaking his
leg while hurrying to the council.

The die was now cast and hesitation vanished.
Shirley wrote to all of the colonies as far south as Penn-
sylvania, but of these only four responded : Connecticut,
Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Massachusetts,
which blazed with holy zeal as, since the enterprise
would be directed against Roman Catholics, it was sup-
posed that heaven would in a peculiar manner favor it.
There were prayers in churches and families. New
Hampshire provided 500 men, of which number Massa-
chusetts was to pay and provide for 150; Rhode Island
voted a sloop carrying fourteen cannon and twelve
swivels; Connecticut promised 516 men and officers pro-

STRONGHOLDS OF THE PAST

vided that Roger Wolcott should have second rank in
the expedition; and Massachusetts was to provide 3000
men and the commanding officer.

This last condition was one of the hardest to fulfil,
for, as Governor Wanton of Rhode Island wrote, there
was not in New England " one officer of experience nor
even an engineer." The choice fell upon William
Pepperell, of Kittery, Maine (then a part of Massa-
chusetts), who though a prosperous trader had had little
experience to fit him for commanding an attack upon
a great fortress. Pepperell's home is still standing at
Kittery and is a substantial structure as befitted its
affluent master.

There was staying at Pepperell's house at this time
the preacher Whitefield. Pepperell asked his guest
for a motto for the expedition. "Nil Desperandum
Christo Duce " was suggested ; and this being adopted
gave to the expedition the air of a crusade.

A novel plan was suggested, among others, to Pep-
perell by one of the zealots of New England. Two
trustworthy men, according to this plan, were to be sent
out at night before the French ramparts, one of them
carrying a wooden mallet with which he was to beat
upon the ground. The other was to place his ear to the
ground and wherever a concealed mine would give back
a hollow sound was to make a cross mark with chalk so
that the New England boys would know where not to
walk when they attacked the fort. The French sentry

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

meanwhile, it was supposed, would be too confused by
the unusual noise of the thumping to take any action.

Within seven weeks after Shirley issued his procla-
mation preparations for the expedition were complete.
The force, all told, numbered about four thousand men.
Transports were easily obtained in the harbor of Boston
or in the towns adjoining. There was a lack of cannon
of large calibre, but it was known that the French pos-
sessed cannon of large calibre, so cannon balls and sup-
plies to fit such guns were carried along, it being foreseen
that the army would capture sufficient of the French can-
non to supply its needs. Of other supplies there was a
sufficiency and, to overbalance the lack of any military
training whatever in the officers, Governor Shirley had
written a long list of instructions for the siege. These
instructions, after going into such minute directions as
how to make fast the windows of the Governor's apart-
ment at Louisburg, and outlining a complex series of
military manoeuvres to be undertaken after dark by men
who had no idea of the country they would be in, ended
with the words, " Notwithstanding the instructions you
have received from me I must leave you to act, upon
unforeseen emergencies, according to your best discre-
tion."

On Friday, April 5, 1745, the first of the transports
arrived at Canseau, the rendezvous, about sixty miles
from Louisburg, and this little post which had now a
small French garrison changed hands again. Captain

STRONGHOLDS OF THE PAST

Ammi Cutter was put in command with sixty-eight men.
On Sunday there was a great open-air concourse at which
Parson Moody preached on the text " Thy people shall
be willing in the day of Thy power." Parson Moody's
sermon was disturbed by the drilling of an awkward
squad whose men were learning how to handle a musket.

For three weeks the expedition lay at Canseau wait-
ing for the ice to clear from the northern waters, and
then, on the morning of the 29th, it set out expecting to
make Louisburg by nine o'clock that evening and to
take the French by surprise as Shirley had directed.
The French, of course, had been aware all the time of
the location of the enemy and had even had intelligence
from Boston when the affair was first bruited about. A
lull in the wind caused a change in the plan of taking
the French by surprise and it was not until the keen
light of the following morning that the New Englanders
saw Louisburg, no very great sight at that, as the build-
ings of the town were almost completely hid behind the
massive walls which encircled them.

And now how were matters going on inside the
mighty walls? Badly, it must be admitted. The garrison
consisted of five hundred and sixty regulars, of whom
several companies were Swiss, and of about fourteen hun-
dred militia. The regulars were in bad condition and
had, indeed, the preceding Christmas, broken into mu-
tiny because of exasperation with bad rations and with
having been given no extra pay for work on the fortifica-

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

tions. Some of the officers had lost all confidence in their
men and the commandant, Chevalier Duchambon, suc-
cessor to Duquesnel, was a man of hesitant and capri-
cious mind. It is thus to be seen that the fortress was
fatally weak within though in material circumstances it
was the strongest on the North American continent.

The landing of the provincial forces was accom-
plished creditably about three miles below the fortifica-
tions. Vaughan then led about four hundred men to the
town and saluted it with three cheers, much to the dis-
comfiture of the garrison, which was entirely unused to
this kind of warfare. He then marched unresisted to the
northeast arm of the harbor where there were magazines
of naval stores. These his men set on fire and he the
next day set about returning to the main force.

The strongest outlying work of Louisburg was the
Grand Battery more than a mile from the town. As
Vaughan came near this work he observed therein no
signs of life. One of Vaughan's party was a Cape Cod
Indian. This red man was bribed by a flask of brandy
which Vaughan had in his pocket to undertake a recon-
noissance, which he carried through in a unique fashion.
Pretending to be drunk, and waving his flask around his
head, the Indian staggered toward the battery. There
was still no life. The Indian entered through an em-
brasure and found the place empty. Vaughan took
possession and an eighteen-year-old drummer boy
climbed the flagstaff and fastened thereon a red shirt as a

STRONGHOLDS OF THE PAST

substitute for the British ensign. Thus also did the
Massachusetts men acquire the cannon for which they
had been hoping.

It is difficult to understand how it was that the
Grand Battery was deserted. " A detachment of the
enemy advanced to the neighborhood of the Royal Bat-
tery," writes the Habitant de Louisburg in his invalu-
able narrative retailed by Parkman. " At once we were
all seized with fright and on the instant it was proposed
to abandon this magnificent battery which would have
been our best defence, if one had known how to use it.
Various councils were held in a tumultuous way. It
would be hard to tell the reasons for such a strange pro-
ceeding. Not one shot had been fired at the battery,
which the enemy could not take except by making regu-
lar approaches as if against the town itself, and by be-
sieging it, so to speak, in form. Some persons remon-
strated, but in vain; and so a battery which had cost the
King immense sums was abandoned before it was at-
tacked."

The battery contained twenty-eight forty-two
pounder cannon and two eighteen-pounders. Several
of these guns were opened upon the town the next morn-
ing, " which," wrote a soldier of New England in his
diary, " damaged the houses and made the women cry."

In this good-natured fashion did the whole siege
progress. It is hardly possible to write about the in-
formal procedure in an orderly fashion. Accomplishing

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

incredible tasks in fashions opposed to all of the laws of
warfare the New Englanders went on with only rudi-
mentary observance of discipline under their merchant
commander. While the cannon boomed in front the
men behind the lines wrestled, and ran races, and fired
at targets, though ammunition was short, and chased
French cannon balls for exercise, bringing back the can-
non balls to be used in the guns. Some of the men went
fishing about two miles away. Now and then some of the
fishermen lost their scalps to Indians who prowled about
the camps of the besiegers.

At last the impossible happened. Discouraged by
humiliating failures and badly, though not fatally, bat-
tered, mighty Louisburg surrendered. The strongest
work of man in the New World had fallen to ignorant
New England fishermen! The soldiers of France re-
ceived the ridicule of the whole Old World and an effort
was made from Versailles to recover the point lost, but
unsuccessfully.

Louisburg was restored to the French Crown in 1748
by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. It was to fall again
to English arms in the Seven Years War, which ended
with the complete extinction of French power in the
New World; but with the account of this siege, which
was conducted painfully and formally in accord with the
rules of war, we need have no concern. The great
fortress was then destroyed block by block and Time has
continued the work of demolition which the English
began.

10

STRONGHOLDS OF THE PAST

While Louisburg and Quebec were great eastern
strongholds of the French in America, their centre of
power in the far west was Fort Chartres on the Missis-
sippi River, at the mouth of the Kaskaskia River, Illi-
nois. Here they held gay sway over a wilderness empire
that included many Indian tribes and extended over
thousands of miles.

The first Fort Chartres was commenced in 1718 when
Lieutenant Pierre Dugue de Boisbriant, a Canadian
holding a French commission, accompanied by several
officers and a large body of troops, arrived at Kaskaskia
by boat from New Orleans. A site was selected about
eighteen miles north of that little village and by the
spring of 1720 the fort was substantially completed.
It was a stockade of wood strengthened with earth be-
tween the palisades. Within the enclosure were the
commandant's house, a barracks, a store-house and a
blacksmith shop, all constructed of hand-sawed lumber.

Almost immediately a village of Indians and traders
sprang up around the place and the enterprising Jesuits
built a church, St. Anne de Chartres, where many a
service was recited for motley congregations of red and
white. For thirty-six years this first Fort Chartres
flourished and during this time was the setting for
dramatic and pregnant happenings. Here, in 1720,
came Phillippe Francois de Renault, bringing with him
five hundred San Domingo negroes into the wilderness,
thus introducing negro slavery into Illinois. In 1721

11

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

the post was visited by the famous Father Xavier de
Charlevoix, in whose train was a young Canadian officer,
Louis St. Ange de Belle Rive, who was destined after-
ward to be the commandant of the fort. Under the ad-
ministration of the Sieur de Liette, 1725-1730, a cap-
tain in the Royal army, the French forces were engaged
in armed pacification of the Fox Indians. Belle Rive
succeeded de Liette and under his sway the post became
the scene of social gayety.

In 1736 there left Fort Chartres a disastrous expedi-
tion against the Chickasaw Indians on the far distant
Arkansas River. The result of this expedition was a
defeat in which D'Artaguette, the leader, de Vincennes,
for whom the little town of Vincennes, Indiana, is
named, Father Senat, a Jesuit, and about fifteen other
Frenchmen were taken prisoners and held for ransom.
The ransom not arriving, the prisoners were roasted at
a slow fire by their savage captors. A second expedition
against the Chickasaws in 1739 was somewhat more suc-
cessful.

By 1751 the fort was much out of repair and in this
year there came to command it a French major of en-
gineers (Irish by descent) Chevalier Macarty, who was
accompanied by nearly a full regiment of grenadiers.
In 1753 the second Fort Chartres, a solid structure of
stone and one of the strongest fortifications ever erected
on the American continent, was commenced by Macarty
and his men. In 1756 it was finished. The site chosen

12

STRONGHOLDS OF THE PAST

was about a mile above the old fort and about half a
mile back from the Mississippi River and would seem to
have been a strange selection for such a structure, as it
was low and marshy.

Of the first Fort Chartres not a sign remains to-day,
and its exact site is a matter of disagreement. Of the
second Fort Chartres the old powder magazine is to be
seen. The fort itself has succumbed to the encroach-
ments of the river, which cut away its bank even so far
back as to undermine the walls of the fort itself and,
in 1772, to cause the desertion of the structure by its
garrison. The quarry from which the limestone of which
the walls were constructed was obtained was located in
the great bluffs four miles east of the point. The finer
stone with which the arches and ornamental parts were
faced came from beyond the Mississippi.

The fort covered altogether about four acres and
was capable of sheltering a garrison of three hundred
men. The expense of its erection was one million dol-
lars, a sum of money only equalled in those days by the
expenditure for the fortifications of Louisburg, Quebec,
and Crown Point. It is generally believed that large
profits went to the commandant and to others interested
in its construction.

The command of the point in 1760 passed from
Macarty to Nenon de Villiers, who led the French and
Indians against Washington at Great Meadows in the
skirmish which virtually was the opening engagement of

is

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

the French and Indian War, a part of his force on this
occasion being drawn from the garrison of Fort
Chartres.

The veteran St. Ange de Belle Rive, stationed at
Vincennes, took charge of the fort in 1764 and had the
melancholy distinction of surrendering it to the English,
October 10, 1765, when Captain Thomas Stirling came
from Fort Pitt with one hundred Highlanders of the
42d British regiment, — a fitting distinction when one re-
members that St. Ange had been in command of the
first fort shortly after its establishment, and when there
was no rival to French power in all of the West.

A predecessor of Fort Chartres in making sure
French dominion of the West was Fort St. Louis, on
Starved Rock, on the Illinois River, about forty miles
southwest of Chicago of to-day and not far distant from
the present-day city of Ottawa, Illinois. Of Fort St.
Louis there remains not a trace, but to its existence and
to La Salle, its intrepid founder, there will for centuries
be a natural monument — that great towering crag upon
whose flat summit the stronghold was built.

A natural phenomenon of great geologic interest,
Starved Rock rises directly from a level river plain. Its
sides are as steep as castle wall and attain a height of
one hundred feet and more. The river washes its western
base and its summit overhangs the stream so that water
can be drawn therefrom by means of a bucket and a
cord. On three sides the pinnacle of the rock is inaccess-

14

STRONGHOLDS OF THE PAST

ible and the fourth side might be held by a handful of
men against an army. The top of the cliff measures
about two hundred feet in diameter and is flat.

On this ideal site, in 1682, the French built Fort St.
Louis. In less than three months fourteen thousand
Indians lay encamped on the plains of the river within
sound of the guns of the fort. To-day the point is a
pleasure park.

From Fort St. Louis many an exploring expedition
pushed forth into the wilderness and here many a treaty
was concluded with savage tribes. While frequently
obliged to give up command temporarily Henry de
Tonti, La Salle's very faithful lieutenant, was supreme
at Fort St. Louis practically from its foundation until
its abandonment in 1702. In 1718 a number of French
traders were making it their headquarters, but its mili-
tary history ceased with Tonti's departure.

A predecessor even of Fort St. Louis was Fort
Creveco2irr — Fort of the Broken Heart — which wore
its poetic name for only a few months after its construc-
tion in 1680, by La Salle, on the east shore of the Illinois
River, not far below Peoria Lake. Fort Crevecreur
was destroyed by mutineers during the absence of its
commander, Tonti, and was not rebuilt, Fort St. Louis
succeeding to its mission. The exact site to-day is a
matter of dispute.

Fort Crevecreur was the fourth in La Salle's com-
prehensive scheme of a chain of fortifications to extend

15

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

from Quebec, the centre of French power, up the St.
Lawrence, through the Great Lakes, across the portage
country which lay between the western lakes and the
headwaters of the navigable tributaries of the Missis-
sippi and then down the Mississippi to its mouth, thus
hemming in the English to their coast possessions east
of the Appalachian range, and ensuring the vast major
part of the American continent to the French. The
other three of La Salle's fortifications at this date were
Fort Frontenac, now Kingston, Ontario, Canada; Fort
Niagara, commanding the passage from Lake Ontario
to Lake Erie, and Detroit, commanding the passage
from Erie to Michigan.

The foundation of the city of Detroit thus needs no
further pointing out. Where La Salle's tentative forti-
fications were the city now presents a busy water-front,
with steamers and factories and great buildings where
Indian canoes and the palisades of the French once
were.

Developments of this plan of La Salle's, which was
adhered to tenaciously by the French for almost a cen-
tury, until they fell before the slow-growing mass of the
English, were Michillimackinac and a chain of posts
along the Ohio River. Of this Ohio series the most
important element was the much fought over Fort
Duquesne — the objective of Braddock's fateful march
— later Fort Pitt, and now the city of Pittsburgh.

The visitor to Pittsburgh to-day will find on Fourth

16

STRONGHOLDS OF THE PAST

street, midway between the Monongahela and Allegheny
Rivers, a little block-house, more correctly a redoubt,
sixteen by fifteen feet in lateral dimensions and twenty-
two feet high. The structure is constructed of brick
covered with clapboards and with a layer of double
logs, and contains thirty-six port-holes in two layers.
This little block-house is all that remains to-day of Fort
Pitt. It was built by Colonel Boquet in 1764 and was
purchased by private parties in the early days of Pitts-
burgh. In 1894 the property was deeded by its owner of
that generation, Mrs. Mary E. Schenley, of London, to
the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Daughters of the
American Revolution, and is maintained by this organi-
zation to-day for the benefit of the public.

The situation of Fort Pitt and its predecessor, Fort
Duquesne, was of immense strategic importance in the
early days of the American nation, the considerations
which gave it value having operated in the field of com-
merce in late years to make Pittsburgh notable as a
manufacturing and distributing centre. It stood at the
gateway to the Ohio River and the rich country which
the Ohio waters, and since it commanded the Ohio it
commanded the key to the West.

These considerations were appreciated by the Colo-
nial Virginians, and in 1754 Captain William Trent was
commissioned by Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, to
erect a fort at the juncture of the Monongahela and the
Allegheny Rivers at the expense of the Ohio Company.

2 17

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

Captain Trent commenced his work in February, 1754,
but in April, 1754, surrendered to a detachment of
French under Le Mercier.

The French then commenced the erection of a fort of
their own on the extreme neck of land between the rivers.
They finished their work in the summer of that year and
named it Fort Duquesne in honor of Governor- General
Duquesne, of Canada.

In the same year a force of English colonists, about
150 strong, made a tentative advance against the work
under the leadership of our own George Washington,
then a young man. Washington found the post too
strong for attack and became himself the object of hos-
tile attention from the French, being forced to fall back
to Great Meadows and to erect a temporary triangular
earth fortification there which he named Fort Necessity.

In 1755 it was the plan of the British ministry to
concentrate its forces in the colonies in three directions
of attack against the French. One blow was to be
struck at Acadia; a second blow was to be struck at
Crown Point, and a third, under General Braddock, an
English-born officer of wide Continental experience, at
Fort Duquesne.

Braddock's unfortunate march began May 27, 1755,
from Fort Cumberland, Maryland (Cumberland, to-
day), and of the details of that disastrous journey little
need be told in these pages as the story is already famil-
iar. Braddock had the bravery of his calling and the

18

STRONGHOLDS OF THE PAST

arrogance and presumption of the European brought
into contact with provincials. He did not believe that
anything very good could come out of the colonies and
did not hesitate to show this attitude of mind. On the
line of march he scorned to send out scouts ahead as was
necessary in fighting Indians. He insisted on sending
his Continental troops in solid order against an enemy
who fought behind trees and stumps in any kind of
order that suited his purpose. He committed all of the
stupidities that vanity and overweening self-confidence
could dictate, and, when the French in a despairing last-
minute effort against overwhelming numbers had found
easy victory, gave up his life on the field of battle. He
was buried beneath the feet of the retreating troops so
that their steps should obliterate from the fiendish enemy
the location of his last resting place.

The English loss in this battle was 714 men killed
and a shattering of their military prestige with all of the
Indian people of the borderland. The French loss was
3 white men killed and 27 Indians. The access to their
influence amongst the savage tribes because of their
unexpected victory was much.

Fort Duquesne fell to the English in 1758 when
7,000 men under Brigadier General John Forbes slowly
and circumspectly proceeded against it. The French
deserted the post after attempting to destroy it and the
English took possession November 25 of that year. A
new fort was commenced under Forbes which stood on

19

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

the Monongahela side of the city at the south end of the
present West Street and between West and Liberty
Streets. It was occupied in 1760 and was completely
finished in the summer of 1761. The stone bomb-proof
magazine stood until 1852 when the Pennsylvania Rail-
road built its freight terminal here.

Of the remainder of the line of French forts along
the Ohio River there are no relics left, though memorials
have been established at several points. The first of
this Ohio River chain was Presque Isle on Lake Erie,
now the little city of Erie, Pennsylvania. For some
years after French domain in the New World Presque
Isle was of importance and, indeed, for some years after
the Revolution.

The post was taken by the English in 1759, and in
1763 fell a victim to Indian attack as a corollary to the
Pontiac conspiracy which had as its object the complete
extinction of English life in the West. The fort, a
rectangle of earth and wooden palisades, stood on the
west bank of Mill Creek and at the intersection with
the shore of the lake. Here the veteran Indian fighter,
General Wayne, died in 1796. In 1876 the State of
Pennsylvania erected a block-house on the site of the
old fort as a memorial. This block-house is now in-
cluded in the grounds of the Pennsylvania Sailors and
Soldiers' Home.

From Presque Isle there was a portage to Fort Le
Boeuf, now the little city of Waterford, Pennsylvania.

20

STRONGHOLDS OF THE PAST

Fort Le Bceuf stood at High and Water Streets,
Waterford, though there is at this point no sign of its
existence. It was erected in 1753 and fell before
Pontiac's far-reaching conspiracy in 1763.

Venango, the next of the French line of forts east
of Pittsburgh (Duquesne), was the fore-runner of
Franklin, Pennsylvania, and stood at Elk and Eighth
Streets. Of Venango, too, no sign remains. It fell to
the Indians in 1763.

South of Pittsburgh the English had a post at
Brownsville, on the Ohio River, Pennsylvania, built in
1754, and known as Redstone Old Fort. The French
had Fort Massac to which about one thousand troopers
retired after the evacuation of Fort Duquesne. Later
years also saw small fortifications developed on the
Ohio River, some holding the potentialities of future
greatness such as that at the falls of the Ohio River,
which was to be the nucleus of the settlement of the
present-day city of Louisville, Kentucky.

At the south end of Lake Erie during the French
occupancy of the West stood Fort Sandusky which has
given its name to the City of Sandusky of to-day. On
the Maumee River, Indiana, was Fort Miamis, Miami
of to-day.

In the early days of the French there had been a
trading post at the site of the future great city of
Chicago, but it remained for the United States, in 1803,
to establish a formal fortification here, Fort Dearborn,

21

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

of bloody memory. Fort Dearborn, as every good
Chicagoan knows, or ought to know, stood at the south-
ern approach to the Rush Street bridge and extended a
little across Michigan Avenue and somewhat into the
river, as it now is. The ground rose into a little mound
yielding a fine view of the surrounding flat prairie land.
Here the pioneer soldiers erected a rude stockade of logs
fifteen feet in height and enclosing a space sufficiently
large to contain a small parade ground, officers' quarters,
troop barracks, guard house, magazines and two block-
houses, one at the northwest and the other at the south-
east corner of the palisade. This rude structure with
its small garrison was the seed of the present-day great
city.

Upon the outbreak of the War of 1812 General Hull,
who was commanding the American army of the border,
ordered the evacuation of Fort Dearborn, as the place
was too remote to be adequately defended and as its
possession meant no access of strength to the United
States. There were at this time in the garrison four
officers and fifty-four non-commissioned officers and
privates under the leadership of Captain Nathan Heald.
The wives of the two senior officers were with them and a
number of the privates had, also, their families, so that
the stockade contained twelve women and twenty chil-
dren.

Though an experienced soldier, Captain Heald
seems to have misjudged the temper of the hostile

22

Indians surrounding his post and to have too easily
accepted their assurances of non-interference with the
garrison as it left the fort. At all events, on August 15,
1812, Captain Heald evacuated his fort, and though the
Indians allowed the little company — a long cavalcade —
to proceed as far as the end of present-day Eighteenth
Street without molestation, they then fell upon men,
women and children indiscriminately. Of the company
of Americans only a handful survived.

In 1816 Fort Dearborn was rebuilt and regarrisoned
but after the Black Hawk war fell into disuse, and in
1837 was abandoned by the army. It was used for
various purposes by different departments of the Fed-
eral government until 1857, when it was torn down ex-
cept a small building which stood until the great fire of
1871. A commercial building now occupies the site
which is commemorated by a small bronze tablet set into
the wall by the Chicago Historical Society in 1880.

At the foot of Eighteenth Street at the point where
the attack upon the devoted column commenced, a
beautiful bronze monument has been erected depicting a
scene from the massacre.

Fort Gage, Illinois, memorable as the first objective
of George Rogers Clark in 1778, stood at the historic
little village Kaskaskia, of French foundation, on the
Kaskaskia River near the confluence of that stream with
the Mississippi. In shape an oblong, 280 feet by 251
feet, constructed of squared timbers founded upon heavy

23

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

earthwork, Fort Gage was never heavily garrisoned.
It was the point to which the British retired when the
crumbling walls of Fort Chartres would no longer hold
them. In 1772 the garrison consisted of one officer and
twenty soldiers. In 1778 when Clark reached the spot
there was not a British soldier on duty and the fort was
in command of a Frenchman.

Fort Clark, Illinois, was erected in 1813 on the site
of the future city of Peoria, Illinois, and about where
the Rock Island depot now stands. For several years it
gave its name to the locality and was a post of impor-
tance garrisoned by rangers and United States troops.
At one time it sustained a severe Indian attack

The foundation of Cincinnati, Ohio, was Fort Wash-
ington, which was in existence until after the War of
1812.

FORT INDEPENDENCE

(CASTLE WILLIAM)

CASTLE ISLAND— BOSTON HARBOR

HAT Bostonians are thankful
people truly appreciating their
public blessings is amply proved
by the way in which they turn
out to Fort Independence, Castle
Island, now a part of the Marine
Park of their city, for the fresh
air and unexciting recreation it offers. Other citizens
of other cities create parks from their historic places
and, then, content to know that they have them when
they want them, allot the day and night watchmen
entire seclusion in these domains. With Bostonians
it is different: On any bright and cheering day
throngs can be found at the old fort, of various classes
and of widely sundered poles of thought; but joined
together in one great common heritage, a capacity
for making use of that which they have and of taking
their pleasure in a devout and noiseless manner not
to be seen amongst the habitants of any other great
American city.

It is a pleasant place, Castle Island, and the air
there on a sunny day sweeping in from the great reaches
of Boston's environing waters is a true elixir. The
views in various directions are entrancing, showing, in
one direction, wide expanses of blue with dim islands in
the distance and cottony clouds overhead; in another,

25

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

the shipping and sky-line of Boston harbor and the
jumbled city. Geographically stated, Castle Island is
a body of hard, rocky land, most of which is occupied by
the historic old fort, and it is situated three miles from
the head of Boston Harbor and two hundred yards from
City Point, South Boston, to which it is connected by a
wooden causeway. On the mainland, close at hand, lies
Boston's famous Aquarium, where the frying fishes
play!

Viewed from the head of the causeway, the fort is a
very gay and martial figure though in sober earnest it
has never fired a shot in anger in its life. Structurally
speaking, it is a pentagonal, five-bastioned enclosure
whose granite walls occupy all of the crest of the emi-
nence which makes up the island. To the right, from
this stand-point, one sees running off a long thin shal-
low strip of gravelly sand, which geologists assert has
been a gift from the sea since the erection of the fort.
Originally, they say, the main portion of the island was
larger than it is now ; so what was taken from one place
seems to have been added on to another.

Passing over the causeway one sees to the left hand,
across a ribbon of water, the island which Fort Win-
throp crowns in a very modest and inconspicuous fashion.
Passing over a draw-bridge one enters the reservation
and finds one's self beneath the shadow of the walls of
the fort and on the historic ground which its predeces-
sors and itself have held in fief for many, many years.

26

FORT INDEPENDENCE

Benches may be found here and there for the rest-seek-
ing wayfarer, but if one is inspired to wander around the
walls he will find many interesting sights, and will be
increasingly struck by the strength and formidableness
of the abandoned military work, highly suggestive of
the time when this island was the seat of military power
of his Majesty, the King of England, in his colonies in
America.

Historically speaking, Fort Independence is one of
the oldest fortified spots in America and it was of ex-
ceeding great dignity in the early days of this country.
But four years subsequent to the incorporation of the
town of Boston, an interesting event which took place
in 1630, Governor Winthrop and a party of his
Puritans visited the island and, we are told, were de-
tained by the ice without shelter for a day and a night.
Nevertheless so well able were they all to detach them-
selves from their personal petty feelings that they each
subscribed five pounds sterling of Great Britain from
their own pockets in order to raise the place to the
dignity of a fortified point. Two " Platforms " and a
fort were to be erected, these platforms being in the
nature of bateaux with guns mounted upon them. In
the July following their adventure, which had taken
place in early spring, they induced the legislature to
consent to fortifying the place. The first fort has been
described as a " castle with mud walls." The masonry
was of lime made from oyster shells.

27

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

In 1644 the arrival of a French man-of-war in the
harbor of Boston so alarmed the citizens of the province
that the fort which had gone into decay was rebuilt at
the expense of six neighboring towns. It was now con-
structed of pine trees, stone and earth, was 50 feet
square inside and had walls 10 feet thick.

In 1665 the fort was repaired and enlarged, — the
spirit of military preparedness which had been awak-
ened by the Frenchman's arrival having evidently been
kept up. A small castle was added with brick walls and
three stories in height. There was a dwelling-room on
the first floor of this " castle " ; a lodging-room above ; a
gun-room over the latter furnished with " six very good
saker guns " and three lesser guns were mounted upon
the roof. In this same year occurred an event which
gave rise to much curious speculation at the time and is
retained in legend. On the 15th of July a stroke of
lightning entered one of the rooms of the fort, killed
Captain Richard Davenport, the commanding officer,
and did not enter the magazine, only a step away,
beyond a thin partition, where there was stored enough
gunpowder to have blown the fort beyond the seas.

Still the spirit of fire had its due, for in 1673 the
fort was burned to the ground. In the year following
a new fort of stone was erected. It had four bastions,
mounted thirty-eight guns and sixteen culverins, in
addition to a water battery of six guns, and was a very
imposing work indeed.

28

FORT INDEPENDENCE

In 1689 the people of Boston, favoring the Crom-
wellians in England, seized the royal governor, Edmund
Andros, and placed him in confinement. They took
possession of the castle and appointed Mr. John Fair-
weather commander to succeed Captain John Pipon.

But all dissension is smoothed down by the hand of
Time. Under the administration of Sir Williams
Phipps, an appointee of King William, the fort was
named Castle William and the Crown donated a large
sum of money toward the erection of a stronger struct-
ure. The ordnance then became 24 nine-pounders, 12
twenty-four pounders, 18 thirty-two pounders, and 18
forty-eight pounders; and the bastions became known
by the names of the " Crown," the " Rose," the
" Royal," and the " Elizabeth." This augmentation of
strength was the more necessary as a French invasion of
the New England colonies was apprehended.

And so we run on through the years: In 1716 Lieu-
tenant Governor William Dummer, a well-known name
in the history of Massachusetts, assumed command of
Castle William, agreeable to orders from the Crown,
and thereby incurred the ill-feeling of the general court
of the province which heretofore had had prerogative
in the appointment of a commandant. In 1740 the fort
was repaired in anticipation of war with France and a
new bastion mounting 20 forty-two pounders was
created and named Shirley bastion.

Ordnance presented by the King arrived in 1744; a

29

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

second magazine was built in 1747; and a third added
during Shirley's administration. In 1747 a riot oc-
curred in Boston and the governor took refuge at the
Castle. Upon assurance that his authority would be
sustained the governor returned to the city two days
after his flight.

On the 15th of August, 1757, Governor Pownal
arrived to assume the government of the province.
Sir William Pepperell, conqueror of Louisburg, held
command of Castle William. In accordance with cus-
tom Sir William surrendered the key of the castle to
the new executive and said, " Sir, I hand you the key of
the province." Not outdone at all, Governor Pownal
replied, " Sir, the interests of the province are in your
heart. I shall always be glad, therefore, to see the key
of the province in your hands." Thus the doughty old
warrior was maintained in his command until his death
in 1759.

In this same year died Captain Lieutenant John
Larrabee, who had lived for fifty years on the island in
the service of the Crown. In 1764 the Castle was used
as an inoculation station during the ravages of a plague
of smallpox which swept the little city.

It was about this time that the fort began to take
part in the events with which Boston is associated before
the outbreak of the American Revolution. Stamps by
which revenue was expected to be raised from the
colonies were brought to Boston in 1765 and for security

so

FORT WINTHROP FROM CASTLE ISLAND

Main Entrance
FORT INDEPENDENCE, CASTLE ISLAND, BOSTON, MASS.

FORT INDEPENDENCE

were lodged in Castle William. Vigorous opposition in
America caused the repealment of the act of which they
were intended to be the tokens of enforcement and they
were taken back to England at the expiration of not
many months. These, it will be seen, were not the
stamps which figured in the famous Boston Tea Party,
but they were of the same nature. The maintenance
of a large force of military at Castle William by the
Crown in the years immediately following this was a
source of irritation to the patriots of the day, and had
an influence in determining the events which brought
about the separation from the Mother Country.

Captain Sir Thomas Adams, who died on board the
frigate Romney, was buried on Castle Island October 8,
1772, and his obsequies were conducted with great pomp.
In removing earth to Fort Independence thirty years
later his corpse, enclosed in a double coffin highly orna-
mented, but upon which the inscription had become
illegible, was dug out, and, no one discovering at the
time whose remains the coffin contained, it was com-
mitted to the common burying ground at the south
point of the island where its resting-place was soon
not to be distinguished from that of the common soldiers
which surrounded it.

With this coffin necessarily others were removed, and
one was favored with an inscription which betrayed, we
may assume, either native simplicity or British sarcasm.
It read : " Here lies the body of John, aged fifty years, a
faithful soldier and a Desperate Good Gardner " !

si

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

It does not appear that the force quartered on the
island was engaged in the first two battles of the Revo-
lution. The commandant of the castle had been sent in
February, 1776, to seize powder and other military
stores at Salem; but he was delayed at the ferry by the
militia until the objects of the depredation had been
moved beyond his reach. He returned peaceably to
the island. The same officer was ordered from Castle
William at this time with five hundred men to draw the
Americans, by a false attack, from their posts at Rox-
bury. The attack did not succeed and the burning of
five or six houses in Dorchester was the only result.

In the meantime a formidable force of Americans
was concentrated in the vicinity of Boston under Wash-
ington; so General Howe, the successor of General
Gage, evacuated the town March 17, and the British
fleet dropped below the Castle. The embarkation had
been a scene of confusion and distress, it being the
27th of March before the transports were able to put to
sea. At their departure the British troops threw into
the water iron balls and shot, broke off the trunnions
of the ordnance given to Castle William in 1740, de-
stroyed the military stores and battery apparatus which
they could not take with them and finally blew up the
citadel, leaving the island a mass of ruins. Part of the
British fleet lay in the lower harbor until June, when
it was harassed by American troops under General Lin-
coln and raised the blockade of Boston Harbor after

32

FORT INDEPENDENCE

the exact duration of two years. With the British troops
the seat of the war was removed from Massachusetts,
and Castle Island was thenceforth, unmolested, in
American possession.

Colonel John Turnbull was the officer sent by Gen-
eral Washington to take possession of the island after
the evacuation. Lieutenant Colonel Paul Revere was
stationed on the island from 1777 to 1779.

At the conclusion of the Revolution it was enacted
by the legislature of Massachusetts that all criminals
of the State under sentence of confinement should be
removed to Castle Island. Pursuant to this law con-
victs were sent to the island, and though their number
never exceeded ninety their audacity taxed the vigilance
of the garrison; they made several bold, fruitless efforts
to escape, and in their mutinies some were killed and
some wounded. Others met their death while endeavor-
ing to form subterranean passages. Stephen Bur-
roughs, whose extensive forgeries gave him great noto-
riety, here learned the art of a nailer, and in his published
memoirs has publicly boasted of his Castle Island
exploits.

It was with reluctance that the legislature of Massa-
chusetts could bring itself to the cession of the Castle
to the United States government, but the State was
nevertheless willing to sacrifice the partial advantage
to the public good and, October, 1798, passed an act by
which the transfer was accomplished.
3 ss

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

In 1799 President Adams visited the fort and was
received with due honors. It was at this time that the
name was changed to Independence. With regard to
this, Captain Nehemiah Freeman wrote: " The bap-
tism was not indecorous and the godfather (President
Adams) is certaintly unexceptionable; but Fort Inde-
pendence must count some years before he can entirely
divest his elder brother of his birthright; and though
the mess of pottage might have been sold in 1776 yet
the title of ' The Castle ' is rather endearing to the in-
habitants of Massachusetts and is still bestowed by the
greater part as the only proper appellation."

A new fort was now planned and constructed under
the direction of Lieutenant Colonel Louis Toussard,
who was inspector of all of the posts of the Eastern
seaboard. The first stone was laid May 7, 1801, and
the whole superstructure was raised from an original
design not influenced by the structure standing hitherto.
On the 23d of June, 1802, the national colors were first
displayed at the new fort. The work was a barbette
fortification and was not materially different from the
present-day structure.

The five bastions of the fort were named, in 1805, as
follows : First, " Winthrop " after Governor Winthrop,
under whose auspices the first fort was built; second,
" Shirley," who repaired Castle William, erected other
works and made it the strongest fortified point in
British America ; third, " Hancock," after the first gov-

84

••on

FORT INDEPENDENCE

ernor of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, under
whose administration new works were thrown up;
fourth, " Adams," after John Adams, who bestowed
its present name upon the fort and collected materials
for its construction; fifth, "Dearborn," after General
Dearborn, Secretary of War, under whose auspices
Fort Independence was actually rebuilt.

In 1833 the garrison was withdrawn and the post
given over to the Engineers Department for construct-
ing a new work, in effect a modernification and im-
proved edition of the former structure. Work was
prosecuted at intervals during the succeeding eighteen
years. The post was regarrisoned July 4, 1851. The
garrison was finally withdrawn November 25, 1879, and
Fort Independence went out of service.

Not long after that the island was deeded to the
city by the Federal War Department for use as a pub-
lic park. That it could ever be of service as a fighting
man now in its old age is extremely improbable. The
defence of Boston depends upon batteries located at a
far greater distance from the city.

To the north from Fort Independence can be seen
the island upon which Fort Winthrop is situated and
in the distance at the mouth of the harbor can be seen
dimly the site of Fort Warren. Both of these posts
have reached a dignified age, but neither has years or
historical importance approximating that of their big
brother.

FORT COLUMBUS, OR JAY

GOVERNOR'S ISLAND— NEW YORK HARBOR

Even Governor's Island, once a smiling garden, appertaining
to the sovereigns of the province, was now covered with fortifi-
cations, inclosing a tremendous block-house, — so that this once
peaceful island resembled a fierce little warrior in a big cocked hat,
breathing gunpowder and defiance to the world! — Washington
Irving, "Knickerbocker's New York."

HE graceful little island of Wash-
ington Irving is described in a
recent publication of the govern-
ment printing office at Washing-
ton after the following eloquent
fashion: " Irregular in form but
approaches nearly the segment of
an oblate spheroid, its longest diameter being from north
to south, and about 800 yards in length. The transverse
•diameter is about 500 yards. It has an elevation above
high-water mark of 20 feet, and its face is smooth and
green, with a rich carpet of grass."

On the top of the highest feature of this smooth,
green face with its rich carpet of grass is Fort Columbus,
more properly known by its ancient name of Fort Jay.
No doubt you will find it hard to visualize the impor-
tance of Fort Jay. It is the head-quarters of the De-
partment of the East of the army of the United States,
you may be told. Yes, you will answer indifferently,
it is a quiet little place, not nearly so noisy as the
roaring forties of Broadway; it keeps to itself and is a
sort of annex to the foot of the city to prevent the sea-

36

ENTRANCE TO FORT COLf.MIU S (FORT JAY) GOVERNOR'S ISLAND,
NEW YORK HARBOR

FORT COLUMBUS, OR JAY

ward view from the Battery being without variety 1 Yet
once on a time, not much more than a hundred years ago,
Fort Jay was of so great importance to the city that the
citizens all, rich men, poor men, beggarmen, and thieves
(then, too), turned out in a body to build up the place
overnight.

The first point of land ever occupied in New York
by the Dutch was Governor's Island, we are told on the
excellent authority of Joseph Bankers and Sluyter, of
Wueward, in Frusland, in " A Voyage to The Ameri-
can Colonies in 1679-80 ": " In its mouth (East River)
before the city, between the city and Red Hook on Long
Island, lies Noten Island (Governor's Island) opposite
the fort, the first place the Hollanders ever occupied in
the bay. It is now only a farm with a house and a place
upon it where the governor keeps a parcel of sheep."

The fort here referred to was not Jay but Fort Am-
sterdam, later Fort George, of historic memory, which
stood on Manhattan where the Customs House of New
York City now is. " Red Hook on Long Island " later
was fortified, too, forming one of the line of defences cap-
tured by the British from the Americans in their descent
upon New York in the early days of the Revolution.
The Indian name for Governor's Island was Pagganck,
and Noten, — as above written, — or Nutten, or Nooten,
came about from the abundance of nuts which could be
found on the island.

In 1637, the redoubtable Wouter Van Twiller, first

37

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

governor of the colony under the New Amsterdam com-
pany of which he had been a director, secured for his per-
sonal use the island. It is fair to look at this gentleman
inquisitively. " The renowned Wouter (or Walter)
Van Twiller was descended from a long line of Dutch
Burgomasters," says Washington Irving, " who had suc-
cessively dozed away their lives, and grown fat upon the
bench of magistracy in Rotterdam; and who had com-
ported themselves with such singular wisdom and pro-
priety that they were never either heard or talked of —
which, next to being universally applauded, should be
the object of ambition of all magistrates and rulers.
. . . many a dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of
birds, comes to be considered the very type of wisdom.
This, by the way, is a casual remark which I would not for
the universe have it thought I apply to Governor Van
Twiller. It is true he was a man shut up within himself,
like an oyster, and rarely spoke except in monosyllables ;
but then it was allowed he seldom said a foolish thing.
So invincible was his gravity that he was never known to
laugh or even to smile through the whole course of a long
and prosperous life. Nay, if a joke were uttered in his
presence, that set light-minded hearers in a roar, it was
observed to throw him into a state of perplexity. Some-
times he would deign to inquire into the matter, and
when, after much explanation, the joke was made as
plain as a pike-staff, he would continue to smoke his pipe

38

Fort Washington Point. Fort Lee on Opposite Shore

Where was Fort Amsterdam ; the Customs House
FORT SITES IN PRESENT-DAY NEW YORK CITY

FORT COLUMBUS, OR JAY

in silence and at length, knocking out the ashes, would
exclaim, ' Well, I see nothing in all that to laugh about.'
" The person of this illustrious old gentleman was
formed and proportioned as though it had been moulded
by the hands of some cunning Dutch statuary, as a model
of majesty and lordly grandeur. He was exactly five
feet six inches in height, and six feet five inches in cir-
cumference. His head was a perfect sphere and of such
stupendous dimensions that Dame Nature with all her
sex's ingenuity would have been puzzled to construct
a neck capable of supporting it; wherefore she wisely
declined the attempt and settled it firmly on the top of
his backbone just between the shoulders. His body was
oblong and particularly capacious at bottom ; which was
wisely ordained by Providence, seeing that he was a man
of sedentary habits and very averse to the idle labor of
walking. His legs were short but sturdy in proportion
to the weight they had to sustain ; so that when erect he
had not a little the appearance of a beer-barrel on skids.
His face, that infallible index of the mind, presented a
vast expanse unfurrowed by any of those lines and
angles which disfigure the human countenance with what
is termed expression. Two small gray eyes twinkled
feebly in the midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude in
a hazy firmament, and his full-fed cheeks, which seemed
to have taken toll of everything that went into his mouth,
were curiously mottled and streaked with dusky red, like
a Spitzenberg apple."

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

After the seizure of the colony by the British in 1664,
the island became a perquisite of the governor's office, a
sort of retreat from care for the occupant of that har-
assed position, and was developed into a smiling garden.
At this time it became known as Governor's Island, the
name that has become its official designation on the
charts of the present day.

The first immigrants to New York under the English
were assigned by the council to Nutten Island for deten-
tion until the presence or non-presence of contagious dis-
ease in their ranks could be proved. These immigrants
were about fifty Palatines who had been driven from
their home land by the war between Louis XIV and
Holland and Austria. Subsequently 10,000 followed
these first fifty unfortunate exiles. The island thus be-
came the first quarantine station of the city of New York.

During the wars of the Spanish Succession until the
Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 the people of the colonies of
British North America were in constant dread of attack
by the French navy and during this time it was urged
continually that Governor's Island should be changed
from a garden to a fortified spot. Notwithstanding this
fact the successive executives Slaughter, Fletcher and
Cornbury did nothing toward carrying out the desires of
their subjects.

It was a happy-go-lucky, careless era. Indeed when
one looks back upon the perils of the early colonies and
how they were survived it is like looking back upon the

40

FORT COLUMBUS, OR JAY

perils of childhood and wondering how one ever man-
aged to get through. The colonies " just growed," which
is true of a variety of things in this world, no doubt.

During Governor Cornbury's administration, fifteen
thousand pounds (a value in present day terms of far
beyond seventy-five thousand dollars) was appropriated
for building a fort upon Governor's Island, but Gov-
ernor Cornbury used the money to build a pleasure house
instead, to which he and succeeding governors might re-
tire from press of business.

Governor Cornbury, we may believe, was an edifying
addition to the staid burgher circles of old New York.
He was a small, shrimpish man, we are told, and inordi-
nately vain. Being a cousin to her most Christian Maj-
esty, Queen Anne, to which circumstance he owed his
appointment, and having been assured that he resembled
her hugely in appearance, he was in the habit of dressing
himself like a woman and posing upon the balcony of his
home, — that New Yorkers might be thrilled by a re-
flection of royalty. Despite his royal connections his
household was most impecunious and his wife gained a
reputation for borrowing things which she had no inten-
tion of ever giving back. Whenever the executive coach
would be seen going the round of the streets on social
duties bent, the good wives who might expect visits from
her ladyship would say, it is said, " Quick, put away
that fancy work and that vase" (or this and that),
" Kathrine ! Her ladyship is about to call upon us."

41

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

Father Time strolled on through the terms of the
various royal governors noting their idiosyncrasies and
continually hearing the cry that Governor's Island
should be fortified, but not by any of these gentlemen did
he discover action taken. It was not until after the
Continental Congress, October 6, 1775, directed that
means should be immediately devised to make New York
defensible that the little city one morning woke up to
find that there were rudimentary fortifications on Gov-
ernor's Island. Of course these fortifications were sup-
plementary to the fort on the main island upon which the
city chiefly depended, Fort George. This was the name
the English had given to Fort Amsterdam's successor,
an enlarged and strengthened edition of its original.

Of little avail did all of these works prove, however,
for the English, after the battle of Long Island, August
27, 1776, were easily masters of the Americans in that
part of the world. On August 30th, Admiral Howe
sailed up New York Bay and anchored near the island,
and the city of New York passed into British possession,
not to be surrendered until the close of the war.

The little force of men on Governor's Island under
the command of Colonel Prescott abandoned the place
on the approach of the British. One man was injured by
a bullet in the arm as they were pulling away from the
island. The place was garrisoned by the British during
their occupancy of New York and was fortified more ex-
tensively than it ever had been before.

42

FORT COLUMBUS, OR JAY

The site of all of these works was the site of present-
day Fort Columbus or Fort Jay.

After the Revolution the value of Governor's Island
as a place of fortification was not taken advantage of
and the works were allowed to fall into decay. In 1784
Governor Clinton leased the spot to a certain Dr. Price
as the site for a hotel and race course. This course was
open during 1785 and 1786 and had staged upon it
many exciting trials of speed.

We have seen Governor's Island as a flowery retreat
for the governors of New York from the cares of office,
and we have looked in upon it in the charge of the rough
soldiery of England. We now see it as the scene of the
dissipations of the rabble and the lusty young sports of
the old city. Yet another day is in store for the historic
spot.

After the retirement of Washington from the presi-
dency the irritation between France and this country
became intense, and fears were entertained of conflict
between the European nation and its young former pro-
tege. Agitation began once more in New York for the
building up of the defensive works on Governor's Island.
Pressing recommendations were made to the federal
authorities. The story may be taken up and carried on
here in the words of a government report :

' The Secretary of War reported, December 19,
1794, that one bastion commanding two low batteries
had been undertaken and was in a considerable state of

43

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

forwardness, but observed that the works being only
sodded would not stand very long. On January 18,
1796, the Secretary reported to the Senate that Gov-
ernor's Island had been fortified with a fort made of
earth and two batteries, under its protection, partly lined
with brick masonry ; that there had been erected two hot
air furnaces, a large powder magazine and a barracks
for the garrison; on February 10, 1797, that no altera-
tions had been made since January 1796, except in the
repairs and such additions as could be made to the garri-
son. During this time there had been expended by the
general government on the fortifications of the island as
follows: 1794, $1,327; in 1795, $6,866.54; in 1796,
$1,124.

" But now the apprehension of a French invasion
caused such clamor for protection among the people that
immediate attention by the general government was be-
stowed upon properly fortifying Governor's Island.
Thirty thousand one hundred and seventeen dollars was
at once appropriated to be expended upon the fort, which
now became known as Fort Jay. Such was the fervor of
the day that the professors and students of Columbia
College went in a body to Governor's Island and worked
on the fortifications with shovels and wheelbarrows.

" Liberal appropriations were made by Congress in
the three succeeding years for completing and improving
the fort. In 1799, Congress appropriated $30,116.18;
in 1800, $20,124; in 1801, $10,338.05. No further im-

44

FORT COLUMBUS, OR JAY

provements were made until 1806, when Fort Jay with
the whole of its buildings was demolished except the
walled counterscarp, the gate, the sally-port, the maga-
zine, and two barracks ; all the rest was removed to give
place for a work of durable materials. On the site of the
old fort a new one, Fort Columbus, was erected, an in-
closed pentagonal work with four bastions of masonry,
calculated for one hundred guns, being of the same shape
on three sides as Fort Jay, with the addition of fourteen
feet on each side, and on the north side of a ravelin, with
two retired casemates. Such was Fort Columbus when
it was completed in 1809."

Despite the flurried haste of New Yorkers to have
the fort completed, despite the unprecedented exertions
of the Columbia students with shovels and wheelbarrows,
Fort Columbus, or Jay as it has been rebaptized of re-
cent years in military circles, has never been in active
service.

Indeed, during the war of 1812, only three years
after its completion, the need of a post farther out to sea
than this called for the erection of that quaint little brick
strong-box just off present-day Fort Hamilton known
as Fort Lafayette. It was called originally Fort Dia-
mond but was renamed in honor of the great Frenchman
on his visit to this country in 1824. Overshadowed by
its great modern neighbor (Fort Hamilton), the little
fortification is rarely observed, but it is still in active

service and might give good account of itself if called

45

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

upon to do so, better account in fact than its sire nestling
close to America's greatest city.

Not far from Fort Jay on Governor's Island is a
little work whose name is not unfamiliar to New
Yorkers. It is Castle Williams. Begun in 1807, it was
completed in 1811 and as a military weapon has never
been of service to the city which it was created to help
protect. As a landmark in the harbor, however, it has
acquired some little distinction solely through merit of
the years, just as some men live through an entirely
commonplace youth and middle age to become in their
last years notable figures in their communities as class-
mates of Father Time.

At about the time that Castle Williams was being
constructed, a similar work was in erection just off the
Battery, Manhattan, on a ledge of rocks now a part of
the city itself. This was Fort Clinton, which is the Cas-
tle Garden, or Aquarium, of the present day. Fort Jay
and Castle Williams, Fort Clinton and the Battery were
the outing places of New Yorkers before the Civil War.
To the Island or the Battery did the residents of the city
repair for air and recreation on holidays and Sundays.
An illuminating picture of this phase of the city's life
is drawn by Abram C. Dayton in his " Last Days of
Knickerbocker Life in New York."

" Castle Garden, the legend says," he writes, " was
created to protect the city against invasion. Whether
these invaders were to be New Jersey Indians armed

46

FORT COLUMBUS, OR JAY

with bows and arrows or Staten Island pirates bent upon
destruction with popguns and firecrackers is not re-
lated; but it is certain a very limited force would have
been required to effect an entrance through its brick
walls. About the time we write of its loud-mouthed
armament had been removed" (about 1860) : " it had
been placed by special orders from somewhere on a
peace footing. It was neither a concert saloon, an opera
house, nor a receptacle for needy immigrants; but the
old white-washed barn was devoted to the restaurant
business on a very limited scale, as ice cream, lemonade,
and sponge cake constituted the list of delicacies from
which to select. The ticket of admission required to pass
its portcullis cost one shilling; but that was a mere form
instituted to guarantee perfect decorum, for it was re-
deemed as cash in exchange for either of the above speci-
fied articles of refreshment. At the close of a summer
day its frowning battlements were crowded with listeners
eager to catch a strain of martial music wafted from
Governor's Island.

" Rabineau's swimming bath was moored to the
wooden bridge which connected the old fort with the
Battery grounds ; and on its roof protected by an awn-
ing might be seen, after banking hours on summer after-
noons, substantial citizens comfortably seated and re-
freshing themselves after their bath with the sea breeze,
accompanied by mint julep and sherry cobblers."

Prior to 1852, Fort Columbus was for several differ-

47

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

ent short periods of time empty of troops, but since that
year it has always contained a garrison. In addition to
being the head-quarters of the Department of the East,
the old post is now used as a military prison and as a
landing-place for the aerial branch of the army.

A visit to Governor's Island to-day is a pleasant ex-
cursion for a stranger in new New York and the port
would be a new sight for most New Yorkers, so un-
familiar are familiar places to those who are closest to
them. One must have a pass from the military authori-
ties at the island to go through the old works, but this
can be secured upon written application without great
difficulty by any citizen of the United States.

A fine figure of a place Fort Columbus seems to be,
— rather a braggart in its way! It spreads out, girded
by its " dry moat," over the crest of the hill on which it
is placed, in a truly threatening attitude. But one does
not need to be told that this is hollow sham. A single
shell from a modern engine of war would, no doubt,
finish all of its pretensions.

Looking from its sunny interior beyond its battle-
mented walls one can see the airy fabric of New York's
marvellous sky-scrapers against the eastern sky, a poig-
nant contrast to the old stronghold. Age and youth!
In this comparison the fort has that advantage which
always inheres in years, it has seen youth grow from in-
fancy and it knows the quick passing of all things.

TICONDEROGA

LAKE CHAMPLAIN— NEW YORK

NE could desire to be at the bold
promontory of Ticonderoga in
1609, when the virgin woodside
gazed anxiously at Samuel Cham-
plain, that intrepid French
adventurer, as he fired his bell-
mouthed musket against the mys-
tified Iroquois. The echoes of the discharge of this
ancient firearm were seldom allowed to die in these wil-
dernesses until the beginning of the Nineteenth Century,
until the complete ascendency of white man over red
had been established.

Standing upon the ramparts of the old fort one
may to-day easily imagine himself in a virgin forest
world. Civilization has set her hand upon Lake Cham-
plain, but her work is not obtrusively near to the fort.
The hills to the rear are still wooded; the waters, to front
and sides, are clear; and the same blue bends over
all. The immediate surroundings are little different
from those in which Champlain fought his opera-bouff e
fight and inaugurated the long struggle between red
men and white in this part of the world.

We must remember that in 1609 the French had
already taken hold of New France. They had a queru-
lous, contumacious baby of a colony on the Saint Law-
rence at Quebec and to this point came many curious

4 49

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

red men. With some of these red men the French had
formed alliance.

One tribe of these allies had seen the thunderous
cannon and guns of the French and had suggested that
these weapons be taken out and turned upon some of
the ancient enemies of that tribe. The idea had ap-
pealed to Champlain as eminently a clever one, and with
eleven other Frenchmen armed with arquebuses and
clad in light armor he had set out, on the 28th of June,
with three hundred amiable red people. The party
proceeded up the Saint Lawrence as far as the river
which afterward became known as the Richelieu and
here paused for feasting and a carouse. During the
course of this ceremony three-quarters of the Indians
became huffy over a trifle and left for their homes in
a hurry, reducing the expedition to eleven Frenchmen
and seventy-five Indians.

As the expedition proceeded the Indians consulted
their tutelary spirits. A small circular tent would be
raised of skins over saplings and into this would crawl the
medicine man with shudders and groans. A grand com-
motion would be heard and then the voice of the spirit
would speak in a thin, treble squeak. The tent structure
would dance violently around and the savage spectators
would feel that their divinity was having a very busy time.

At length the French and Indians approached the
lake which was to bear the name of the white chief, and
made their way upon it in canoes. They came to a

50

TICONDEROGA

promontory of land which bore the resounding Iroquois
name of Ticonderoga, or " meeting of waters," in recog-
nition of the fact that the waters of Lakes George and
Champlain come together at the base of the eminence.
Here they met a flotilla of skin canoes bearing a large
war party of Iroquois and the issue of this little trip of
Champlain's may now be said to have been fairly joined.
The Iroquois, not being much given to fighting on
water, paddled to land, while the invaders decided to
spend the night in their canoes. All night long the air
resounded with yells and epithets and bandied menaces,
but, at length, morning broke and put an end to the
unseemly clamor. The Frenchmen were concealed in
the bottoms of canoes until a dramatic moment should
arrive to show themselves. Their companions landed
and now that they had come to their desire were filled
with terror of the Iroquois, calling loudly for Cham-
plain to come forth and destroy his opponents with
thunder and lightning. The doughty Frenchman, feel-
ing secure in his armor and his arms, threw aside the
skins which covered him, and strode forth like a white
god in shining raiment. The gallant Iroquois were filled
with consternation at the sight of him. Raising his
arquebus, into which he had stuffed four balls, he fired
at short range, slaying two chiefs and wounding one. A
second shot caused the defenders to break and flee, and
this gave Champlain's allies opportunity to kill and capt-
ure to their hearts' content.

51

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

The expedition made its way back to Quebec filled
with exultation. Thus did Ticonderoga come upon the
pages of history.

This engagement of Champlain's — incidental as it
seems — had far-reaching consequences in the destiny of
France in the New World. By the slaughter of the
Iroquois Champlain mortally offended the Five Na-
tions, which was an all-powerful Indian confederation,
incurring an enmity never remitted. The alliance of the
Long House with the English was one of the factors that
helped to turn the scale in their favor in the long contest
for balance of power which the years brought about be-
tween France and England in the New World.

On this very same day of July, 1609, while Cham-
plain's arquebus was frightening the solitudes of this
leafy part of the wild New World, a little vessel known
as the Half Moon was in anchor on the New England
coast while the carpenter fitted a new foremast. A few
weeks later the Half Moon was in the Hudson and had
come to anchor above present Troy in the precincts over
which the warriors of the Long House kept watch.
Thus does the Muse of History play different parts
with two hands.

Time passed and French and Indian war parties
again and again went by the point of land on which
Ticonderoga now stands, bent on marauding and har-
rying the English villages. Lake Champlain and Lake
George had become part of the great highway between

52

TICONDEROGA

French world and English world. Finally, in 1735,
Crown Point, the fore-runner of Ticonderoga, was es-
tablished by the French as an organized centre of power
and an outpost thrown toward the English. Twenty
years after this Ticonderoga came into prominence.

The year 1755 was a doleful one for the English
colonies. It was the year of Braddock's defeat. In
January, Shirley, governor of Massachusetts, proposed
an attack on Crown Point. The other colonies were
taken with the idea and raised levies of men and funds.
A heterogeneous army was the result under the leader-
ship of William Johnson, of New York, with the rank
of Major-general, separately bestowed upon him by
each of the colonies taking part. His selection was due
not only to his immense personal popularity but to his
influence in the Long House of the Five Nations as
well, no other white man of his time having so much
authority with the dwellers in the forest. Of white
men he had altogether about eight thousand and he
had his Indian allies.

That in an army which included men from Massa-
chusetts, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and
New Hampshire there should be some bickering and
disagreements was inevitable, but, at length, the column
reached the foot of Lake George, which had become
known to its French acquaintances as Lac le Sacrement.
Now it received a new baptism. " I have given it the

53

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

name of Lake George," wrote Johnson to the Lords
of Trade, " not only in honor of His Majesty but to
ascertain (assert) his undoubted dominion here." Lake
George it has been ever since. A camp was made where,
after a time, Fort William Henry was built, and a most
unmilitary camp it was, if we can believe the accounts
of contemporaries. Though a dense forest gave cover
for an enemy to its very borders, no effort was made
to clear away the trees. Painted Indians lounged
around, traders squabbled together, and New England
clergymen preached to the savages long Calvinistic
sermons.

Meanwhile the French at Crown Point were prepar-
ing a surprise for Johnson. Large forces under the
German Baron Dieskau had come up, and Dieskau had
assumed command of the united troops. He had no
thought of waiting to be attacked. He told his men
to be in readiness to move at a moment's notice. Officers
were to take nothing with them but one spare shirt,
one spare pair of shoes, a blanket, a bearskin and pro-
visions for twelve days. The Indians were to make
up their minds not to take scalps until the enemy had
been entirely defeated, because the operation of taking
a scalp was too lengthy a proceeding, and kept them
from killing other men. Then Dieskau moved on to a
promontory which commanded both Lake Champlain
and Lake George. It was a high wooden mount with

54

TICONDEROGA

a magnificent view of the waters; in short, our old
friend Ticonderoga.

The German baron for a time made camp here, the
first formal military occupation of this point, but at
length, being misinformed by an American prisoner,
who had been threatened with torture, as to the force
Johnson had, he prepared to move in haste and with
deadly intent against the American colonials. News
of Braddock's defeat had just then become general in-
formation, and throughout the ranks of the ignorant
white men of the French party and of all their savage
allies ran an unwarranted contempt for English bravery
based on accounts of that lamentable massacre. Dies-
kau left a part of his force at Ticonderoga, and embark-
ing with the rest in canoes and bateaux made his way
through the narrow southern part of Lake Champlain
to where the town of Whitehall now stands, a point at
which they pitched camp.

The close of the next day found them well on toward
Johnson and on the day after that the battle of Lake
George took place. It is unnecessary to go into detail
about this. The first part of the day went against the
Americans, who had foolishly sent out against Dieskau,
when they received word of his approach, an insufficient
number of white and red forces; but the end of the
day found the Americans victorious. Dieskau was
badly wounded and was a prisoner.

The story goes that a delegation of chiefs waited

55

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

upon Johnson while Dieskau was in his cabin. The
unwilling guest made some comment about them to his
host after their departure. " Yes, they wish to be
allowed to burn you," was the response. Johnson took
extraordinary pains that the French leader should not
fall into the hands of his savages, and Dieskau died a
peaceful death as a result of his wounds several years
later, midst the civilization of Bath, England, whence
he had gone in hopes of being benefited by the waters.

Johnson commenced now to build Fort William
Henry at one end of Lake George, and the French,
quickly recovering from their set-back, began building
at the other end, on the site of Dieskau's camp, the
famous Fort Ticonderoga. The building of the French
fort consumed the greater part of 1756 and 1757,
and was consummated under the reign, in Canada, of
Vaudreuil.

The original plan of Fort Ticonderoga was of a
bastion fort, but afterwards star-shaped outer walls,
following plans of the great Vauban, were added.
The French built solidly in their various military works,
and Fort Ticonderoga was an enduring and strong
construction.

We have seen Fort William Henry and Fort Ti-
conderoga started as rivals. The survivor of these two
was Ticonderoga, and the destruction of Fort William
Henry was the occasion of one of the saddest and most
horrible massacres in American history. In 1757 the

56

TICONDEROGA

Marquis de Montcalm, chief of the French king's forces
in Canada, was at Ticonderoga and with him was the
Chevalier de Levis with about eight thousand regulars,
Canadians and Indians. The troopers and the irregular
forces were camped around the walls of Ticonderoga
near the lake and in the rear of the fort where the emi-
nence of land on which the fort stands continues in a
gentle plateau before commencing its descent. A color-
ful, picturesque camp it was, with its red Indians, its
half-breed whites, and its careless soldiery. The officers
and gentlemen of consequence were lodged in the fort
where they ate in the mess hall and lounged and smoked
and drank at leisure.

With his eight thousand men Montcalm set forth
on the first of August, 1757, across the little neck of
land which divides Lake Champlain from Lake George,
leaving a small detachment to hold the fort, and made
his way along Lake George to near Fort William
Henry. His Britannic Majesty's stronghold was solidly
built and was in command of a capable officer, Lieuten-
ant Colonel Munro, a brave Scotchman, but its gar-
rison was insufficient, and reinforcements were never
sent. Montcalm attacked.

So well did the little band of beleaguered men con-
test their position, that when inevitably they surrendered
very favorable terms were offered. It was agreed that
the English troops should march out with the honors of
war and be escorted to Fort Edward by a detachment

57

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

of French troops ; that they should not serve for eighteen
months, and that all French prisoners captured in
America since the war began should be given up within
three months. The stores, munitions, and artillery were
to be the prize of the victors, except that the garrison,
in recognition of its bravery, was to retain one field-
piece. The Indian chiefs were consulted in the making
of these terms and agreed to them by shaking of the
hands.

When the capitulation took place, a scene very dif-
ferent from that which had been anticipated was to be
viewed. The Indians, excited by the presence of so
many captives, as they considered the English prisoners
of war, were not to be restrained and, though measures
were taken to hold them in rein, fell upon the helpless
men and women and butchered them mercilessly.

The morning after the massacre soldiers were set to
work destroying all that remained of Fort William
Henry.

The year that followed the massacre — 1758 —
brought the most formidable looking and least eff ective
of all of the attacks against Ticonderoga. The English,
thoroughly incensed at the loss of Fort William Henry,
had set themselves with determination to destroy Ti-
conderoga and to this end had raised a great force of
regular soldiery, provincial militia and those invaluable
irregular border troops of which Roger's rangers are
a good example, and had placed them under the com-

58

TICONDEROGA

mand of General Abercrombie. The whole body lay
encamped in June, 1758, at the head of Lake George,
within easy striking distance of the terrible French
stronghold. It numbered nearly fifteen thousand men,
all told. Montcalm's forces were not one-fourth so
numerous and the great French leader was sadly sure
of disaster to himself and his men.

That disaster did not, indeed, fall upon the French
as the outcome of this undertaking on the part of the
British is to be ascribed primarily to the unfortunate
choice of a leader which they had had made for them
and to Providence, which early in the campaign re-
moved from their midst the only military talent which
they seem to have possessed. Abercrombie was a politi-
cal heritage of corrupt powers in England, where the
government had undergone a great reconstruction since
the horrors of Fort William Henry, and had been kept
in authority solely on account of pressure which could
be brought to bear at home. Lord Pitt had appointed
as second in command of the expedition one of the few
military geniuses of his age, — as all of his contempo-
raries admitted, — the young Lord Howe, elder brother
of the more famous Sir William Howe, who later com-
manded His Majesty's forces in America against the
rebellious colonies. " The noblest Englishman that has
appeared in my time and the best soldier in the British
army," said Wolfe, of him. In a minor skirmish at
the very first of the reconnoitring around Ticonderoga

59

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

he was killed by an Indian's bullet, and the English
troops were left to flounder on from one blunder to
another.

The last part of the march against Ticonderoga was
commenced on the morning of July 4 and by July 6
the soldiers were at the head of Lake George and in
touch with the enemy in Ticonderoga just over a ridge
of woods.

The ridge of land on which Ticonderoga is situated
continues northwest without the sharp decline that
marks its topography in every other direction. Along
this spine, then, the English attack might be expected,
so in this quarter Montcalm had had barriers built of
fallen trees, laid together so as to form a zig-zag parapet
nine feet in height and with a platform behind, from
which the French soldiers might shoot without exposing
themselves. Along the entire front of this barricade
the ground was strewn with sharp-pointed boughs.
Obviously it was not a position that infantry could
take without the aid of artillery.

Yet, under Abercrombie's command, the English
advanced against this work without waiting for the
cannon which they had with them to be brought up.
Between noon and nightfall of July 7 they made six
gallant assaults without result. A perfect hades of
shot and flame those logs became. The scene has been
described by one of Roger's rangers who took part in
the action, and his description, found in an old letter,

60

TICONDEROGA

was published a decade ago in Harper's Magazine, by
one of his descendants. " The maze of fallen trees with
their withered leaves hanging broke their ranks and the
French Retrenchment blazed fire and death " he wrote.
" They advanced bravely up but all to no good purpose
and hundreds there met their death. My dear Joseph
I have the will but not the way to tell you all that I
saw that awful afternoon. I have since been in many
battles and skirmishes but I have never witnessed such
slaughter and such wild fighting as the British storm
of Ticonderoga. We became mixed up — Highlanders,
Grenadiers, Light Troops, Rangers and all, and we
beat against that mass of logs and maze of fallen timber
and we beat in vain. I was once carried right up to
the breastwork, but we were stopped by the bristling
mass of sharpened branches, while the French fire swept
us front and flank. The ground was covered deep with
dying men and, as I think it over now, I can remember
nothing but the fruit bourne by the tree of war, for I
looked upon so many wondrous things that July day
that I could not set them downe at all. We drew off
after seeing that no human valour could take that work.
We Rangers then skirmished with the French colony
troops and the Canada Indians until dark while our
people rescued the wounded, and then we fell back. The
Army was utterly demoralized and made a headlong
retreat during which many wounded men were left to
die in the woods."

61

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

On the day following his victory Montcalm had a
great cross planted in the battle-field bearing words,
composed by himself, which have been translated by
Parkman as follows:

Soldier and chief and rampart's strength are nought ;
Behold the Conquering Cross ! 'Tis God the triumph wrought.

The old fort was to fall into English hands the next
year, however, when Amherst, commander-in-chief of
the English forces in America, advanced against it with
a force of British and Americans. Montcalm had hur-
ried to the defence of Quebec with the greater part of
his force and Ticonderoga was in the command of
Boulemarque, a capable officer, but one no more able
than any other man to accomplish the impossible. He
could not hold the position with the inconsiderable force
he had against that opposed to him. A stroke of Provi-
dence was not to be anticipated a second time. So,
while the British encamped under the walls of the fort
prepared to attack it the next day, Boulemarque set a
fuse to the powder magazine and marched his men out.
There was a great explosion and a rending of walls,
and Ticonderoga's besiegers knew that the fort was
their prize.

Through the rest of the French and Indian War,
which was from this time forward a tale of uninter-
rupted success for the British arms, Ticonderoga played
no part except that of a garrisoned English possession.

62

The Mess Hall

A Council Room
INTERIOR VIEWS OF FORT TICONDEROGA. N. Y.

TICONDEROGA

Its walls were repaired where Boulemarque's match
had shattered them.

The prestige of the fort had now become such that
in the fermenting first days of the outbreak in the
colonies against the Mother Country it was conceived
that the seizure of the place would have an immense
moral effect in the colonies. A sturdy Vermont man,
Ethan Allen, with his Green Mountain boys, was given
the task of seizing it. In early spring, 1775, Allen ap-
proached the old Indian stronghold now held by merely
a handful of British, who had no idea that the Americans
were in action against them. One cannot depreciate the
tenacity of purpose and hardiness which carried Ethan
Allen and his men through the inhospitable wilderness to
success in their enterprise, but the military valor of the
action was not great. With his men Allen crept up to
the unsuspecting stronghold, seized the sentry, and,
while his men scattered through the fort making pris-
oners of its inmates, thundered at the door of the com-
manding officer: " Open in the name of the Great
Jehovah and the Continental Congress." While know-
ing little of the Continental Congress, the officer sub-
mitted to the inevitable.

The news of Allen's exploit was spread through the
colonies and was a determining influence with many
undecided Americans. His resounding phrase has been
repeated by school-boys many times since and is per-
haps more familiarly associated with the name of Ti-
es

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

conderoga than any of the great exploits which have
marked its past.

For a time the Americans held on to the fort. In
1776 a large force was concentrated here, since it
guarded that very vital means of access to the heart
of the colonies which the British persistently tried to
make use of. It was from this point that in 1776
Benedict Arnold set forth with a small fleet of vessels
to attack Sir Guy Carleton at Valcour Island. Though
the American fleet was almost entirely destroyed, it,
nevertheless, set back the plans of the British one year
and delayed their projected invasion from the north
that long.

In 1777 Burgoyne invested the fort and, by dragging
some guns to the top of Mount Defiance, an eminence
which commands Ticonderoga, caused General Arthur
St. Clair of the American forces to evacuate the place.
Burgoyne occupied the fort for a passing visit but was
soon on his way into the colonies by the ancient trail
which war parties for generations had trod, fortunately,
for the colonies, to meet defeat and loss of his army at
the battle of Saratoga.

The fort remained in the hands of the British until
after the surrender of Yorktown, though Colonel Brown
of Massachusetts made a brave effort to take it once
more. During the War of 1812 it listened to the guns
of McDonough's improvised fleet in action with the

64

TICONDEROGA

British, but it had no active part in this action or in this
war, itself.

In 1806 the property on which the old fort stands
was leased from Union and Columbia colleges by
William F. Pell of New York, it being a part of a State
grant to these institutions. Mr. Pell built a summer
cottage for himself and, in 1816, purchased the land.
The cottage was destroyed in 1825 and a second build-
ing known as the Pavilion was erected. The Pavilion
is still in use and has never been out of the Pell family.

The walls of Ticonderoga, the fort, were not greatly
prized by the early holders of this Pell tract and it
remained for the present head of his generation,
Mr. Stephen H. P. Pell, to appreciate the historic value
of the old place and to set about a work of restoration
and repair. The foundations of the walls were still
solid and some of the old buildings were still standing
when, in 1909, Mr. Pell began his work of rebuilding.
The original plans of the fort were secured from the
French government. The work of rehabilitation has
been carried forward in strict accordance with author-
ities. Historic points in the grounds surrounding the
fort have been marked with tablets and monuments and
each year sees an increasing number of visitors coming
to Ticonderoga to inspect this history-filled place.

CROWN POINT

LAKE CHAMPLAIN— NEW YORK

would be hard, gazing upon
Crown Point to-day, to realize the
storms and terrors it let loose upon
the English colonists not quite
two hundred years ago. Girt by
the smiling waters of one of
America's most beautiful lakes,
overtopped by a verdant mountain, and gazing out
upon green fields in the shade of majestic woodlands,
all of the atmosphere of the place is one of peace and
aloofness from the pain of human suffering. Yet
the name " Crown Point " was a sinister thing in the
early days of the English colonists, particularly in
the northern provinces. The New England matron
putting to bed her infant Stephen Brewster or little
Praise-the-Lord Jones, or the Dutch vrouw in the
country round about Albany with her little Van
Rensselaer Tasselwitch, had but to utter this dreadful
name, " Crown Point," to bring her child into the
most docile state of apprehension. From Crown Point
went forth the scalping parties of French, Indian and
half-breeds, which preyed upon the borders of the Eng-
lish colonies, carrying wrack and horror wherever they
went. A glad and beautiful place, it nourished in its
heart an evil spirit.

The settlement of the Crown Point district by the

66

Where the flag flew

The Ruined Barracks
CROWN POINT, N. Y., IN DEAD OF WINTER

CROWN POINT

French began soon after the opening of the eighteenth
century. The beautiful lake which bears the name of
its discoverer had been known in France for more than
a century, and the country which lay between Lake
Champlain and Lake Ontario — all that wilderness
stretch of northern New York of to-day — had been
charted with a fair degree of exactness, as well. The
riches of the region were well sensed. Accordingly, a
large and important province was planned by the
French political geographers whose eastern boundary
should be the Connecticut and whose western boundary
should be Lake Ontario. North was the St. Lawrence
River, and the southern confine was rather misty, ex-
cept that it was determined that it should be all that
could be kept from the English. The metropolis and
capital of this fine project was to be a place situated
at that peculiar bend in Lake Champlain where there
was a projecting tongue of land, making a fine site
for settlement, fortification and development. In other
words, it was to be Crown Point, or Pointe de Couronne,
as the French had it. A body of settlers was sent over
about 1729, and in 1731 a fortification was commenced
at the tip of the Crown Point peninsula which was
named Fort Saint Frederic. The remains of this forti-
fication are barely visible on the lake side of the point
to-day near the Champlain Memorial light-house. And
now a few words as to the geography of this part of
Lake Champlain.

67

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

The lake, as all know, is a long, narrow tongue of
water. About mid-way down it is constricted to even
more than its usual slender width (" slender" as pro-
portioned to the length) and the water is carried off at
a sharp angle to the east. Just before the constriction,
however, there is a protuberance, and on the west shore
of this protuberance, or bay, there stands to-day the
thriving little foundry town of Port Henry. Directly
across the water from Port Henry, and at the point
where the lake makes a sharp bend to the east, is a
long, narrow point of land, and this is Crown Point.
Crown Point has water on two sides of it. Though
only a short distance from Port Henry by boat, it is
quite a long distance by land, for, then, one must drive
down to the base of the peninsula and work out to the
point along the five-mile extent of the peninsula. The lake
on the east side of Crown Point peninsula is so narrow
that a cannon could easily fire across it. Behind Port
Henry, that is, on the west side of the lake, is a precipi-
tous mountain-side. The Point, therefore, was well
protected in the days when cannon were with difficulty
to be found in America and when they could not be
transported easily through the wilderness of the New
World. It could only be approached by water or by
the long, narrow strip of land which joined it with the
mainland, and either one of these approaches it could
master very easily.

The first fort on Crown Point, Fort Saint Frederic,

68

CROWN POINT

was a little five-pointed star-shaped fort. Though small
in size, it played a far larger part in events than the
mighty successor which the years brought and which
we shall presently come to. Fort Saint Frederic was
for twenty-five years the only French stronghold in
this part of the world. In 1756 Ticonderoga was begun.
In the council-rooms of old Saint Frederic what strange
visitors might have been seen, what bizarre juxtaposi-
tions of Old World and New, of sophistication and
savagery! During all of its life the little fort was a
rendezvous for Indians. Here, too, the Baron Dieskau
made himself at home before setting out on the expedi-
tion, unfortunate for himself, against Johnson on Lake
George. Here might have been seen Montcalm and
other of the mightiest and craftiest warriors of old
France in the new.

Except as a centre for Indians and a council hall
for white and red, the little fort did not ever take part
in fighting. When the English finally advanced in
force against the strongholds on Lake Champlain,
Ticonderoga was the point which bore the brunt of the
onslaughts. First, Johnson came against these two
hornet nests of French and Indians and accomplished
little. Then Abercrombie made his futile and disgrace-
ful try (" Mother Nabercrombie " he was long after-
ward known in the colonies). Finally the two forts
fell before the large force which Amherst, in 1757,
brought against them and as a result of the need of men

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

at Quebec which had depleted their strength beyond the
power of resistance. Fort Saint Frederic, like Ticon-
deroga, was deserted without a shot being fired, though
its departing commander tried to destroy it by fusing
the magazines.

Under the British the old French fort was dis-
mantled and allowed to fall into decay. So well did the
situation of Crown Point appeal to the British, how-
ever, as a place of fortification and so important was a
hold upon Lake Champlain deemed, that the British
began the construction of a massive fortress, on the
most approved model, which was completed as far as it
was ever carried within the course of a few years after
Amherst's occupation of the point and which cost ten
millions of dollars. This is an outlay which would be
large even to-day. The jagged ruins of the walls of
this fort, which never fired a shot in anger, are what one
sees now on Crown Point when paying the old place a
visit.

When Ethan Allen took Ticonderoga with his
Green Mountain boys, Crown Point also fell to the
Americans without resistance. It came passively into
English hands again and after the Revolution was
allowed to fall into decay.

Not far from the remains of Crown Point fort is the
beautiful and large monument to Samuel Champlain,
known as the Champlain Memorial. It takes the form
of a light-house and is most solidly and durably con-

70

CROWN POINT

structed. Erected through the joint subscription of the
States of Vermont and New York, the monument is,
as well, a tribute to public spirit. In character the
light-house is memorial of the past rather than symbolic
of the future; a heroic statue in bronze of Champlain
faces the east and at the base of the statue is Rodin's
" La France," presented to the States of New York
and Vermont for this undertaking by France.

THE HEIGHTS OF QUEBEC

(THE CITADEL, CASTLE ST. LOUIS)

CANADA

HAT hardy mariner, Jacques
Cartier, sailed up the St. Law-
rence River in 1535, but it was
not until 1608, when Cham-
plain's vessel brought the first
permanent colonists of New
France, that Quebec was
founded. The storm-tossed little caravel entered the
St. Lawrence in the early summer of that year. Cham-
plain landed his miscellaneous following, built "L'Habi-
tation," as he named the first official residence in
Quebec, and laid the foundations of a small fort, an
act portentous of the stirring events which the future
held calmly waiting their turn and which were to give
Quebec so conspicuous a place in the military annals of
the New World.

The first fortifications were little more than gun
platforms placed at an advantageous position so as
to command the river. Their site became the location
of Castle St. Louis and is to-day the eastern end of the
Dufferin Terrace. So it is easy to remember where
Champlain laid the foundations of the new city.

The new seat of power was shortly to see its master
exerting his authority in a way not to be lightly mis-
taken. Treachery was plotted by some among Cham-

72

THE HEIGHTS OF QUEBEC

plain's followers, who planned to assassinate their chief
and sell his new city to the Spaniards. News of this
move was brought to Champlain's ears. He caused the
ringleaders to be seized by his soldiers and hung in the
fort until dead. In this fashion the stronghold saw its
first acts of violence. Scurvy marked the passage of
the first winter in the New World of the little fort's
defenders, and by the spring only the most hardy were
alive.

The years which came between 1608 and 1629, the
date of the first formal siege of Quebec, brought
enlargement and strength to both the fort and the city.
During this period both had been frequently surrounded
by hostile Indians, who feared the white man's guns
too much to attempt an attack by storm but who prowled
around beneath the very ramparts of the fort seeking
for unwary adventurers who might be without the gates.
The control of the little colony in France had passed
through various hands, but always the chief executive
in the New World had been its founder, the rugged
Champlain. The year 1629 finds the little colony in
the possession of the Company of the 100 Associates, an
organization founded by His Excellency, Cardinal
Richelieu, and of which His Eminence was himself a
member, and the winter of this year finds the colony
in its usual desperate straits, beleaguered by winter and
by savage foe and deserted in all but name by its
sponsors in France.

78

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

In the spring of 1629 the inhabitants of Quebec
were gladdened by the intelligence that a fleet had been
discerned from Cap Tourmente in the mouth of the
river and that it was even then approaching the city.
It was supposed that this was the long-wished-f or squad-
ron of relief ships and that all would be prosperity and
good cheer in the town for a time now. The citizens
assembled on the walls of the fort to descry the distant
sail, when word was brought by a friendly Indian that
the looked-for vessels, far from being messengers of
peace, were, in fact, emissaries of war; that they were
English, and that they had just burned and pillaged a
fishing village in a care-free, happy-go-lucky fashion on
the way up the river. War had been declared between
England and France and Quebec had not received word
of it! Joy was changed to woe.

The next day emissaries arrived from Sir David
Kirke, the English admiral in command of the fleet,
demanding the surrender of the town and the fort, but
Champlain, believing that help would soon arrive from
France and not being of the temper, anyhow, which
quickly gives up, turned these messengers away with
words of defiance. The first siege of Quebec was now
begun.

To tell the truth it was an informal sort of matter,
anyhow, this first siege of Quebec. The English vessels
pounded away at the town for a day or two in a casual
fashion and then drifted down the river. The French,

74

THE HEIGHTS OF QUEBEC

on their part, had but fifty pounds of powder and were
very careful about wasting any of this. Time passed
and still no aid came from distant France. At length
the intelligence which Champlain had been dreading was
brought to him. The long-awaited French relief ships
had entered the mouth of the St. Lawrence only to be
overcome and seized by the English blockader. Hope
had now departed, and when, in July, three English
ships sailed up to the town, Champlain and his sixteen
soldiers watched them apathetically because they knew
that they, themselves, could do no more. Quebec was
surrendered to the English and on July 20, 1629, the
English flag for the first time flew over the little settle-
ment. Said one of Kirke's captains: (< There was not
in the sayde forte at the tyme of the rendition of the
same, to this examinate's knowledge, any victuals save
only one tubb of bitter roots."

It was not until 1632 that Quebec was restored to
the French by the treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, and
during its three years of English occupancy the point
had made no progress. The Indians did not like their
rough, new associates and trade had languished. Even
the fort was in sad condition.

The summer of 1632 saw the little settlement in
French hands and under the guidance of Emery de
Caen, a fiery French Huguenot. The next year found
the colony once more in the direction of the veteran
Champlain. It is not clear why de Caen was given

75

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

power for this one year. On Christmas Day, 1635, the
Father of New France passed peacefully away in the
fort which had seen so many of his earthly activities.
His body was laid to rest in a " chambre particulier,"
according to old record. Late investigation inclines to
the belief that Champlain's last resting place was a
niche hollowed out of the stone half way down Mountain
Hill in full view of the strand on which his early
" Habitation " was built.

The successor of Champlain, M. de Montmagny, a
Knight of Malta, rebuilt of stone Champlain's fort
shortly after his arrival in 1636, and Castle St. Louis
had now a most martial appearance. Close to the castle
was the Jesuit presbytery, this close conjunction of
church and Mars well typifying the union of powers
which held authority in the colony. All public functions
were religious in character and the black-robed priests
held the balance of power in the council-room.

Throughout the quarter century following Cham-
plain's death the threat of Iroquois marauding hung
over the little city and in 1660 Castle St. Louis wit-
nessed a strange spectacle. It was the burning at the
stake by the French of an Iroquois captive as a retalia-
tion against the savages for their outrages. The Indian
met his fate with fortitude, but reviled his captors un-
ceasingly and predicted a dire future for the city. At
length death put an end to his sufferings and his pre-
dictions. His spirit, according to the priests who were

76

THE HEIGHTS OF QUEBEC

standing by, winged its way to the place of the re-
deemed, having been freed from sin by the fiery ordeal
through which its body had passed.

Time went its way and brought the second siege of
Quebec to Castle St. Louis. The bold and impetuous
Frontenac was now at the helm of state and it was due
to a three-headed expedition of his against the English
colonies that this second siege was brought about. In-
cidentally, this expedition may be looked upon in
another light as the opening blow in that long struggle
between New France and New England which was to
result in the extinguishing of the latter power in the
New World. Three war parties set out from the forti-
fications at Quebec, Montreal and Three Rivers. The
first reached the Dutch settlement of Corlaer (Sche-
nectady) on the Hudson and brought about the horrible
and historic Schenectady massacre. In similar fashion
the other parties fell upon towns in New England. The
northern English colonies which had hitherto been kept
asunder by jealousies united against a common foe and
equipped an expedition which was to set forth from
Massachusetts against Quebec.

The vessels of the fleet consisted of thirty-two ships
ranging in size from the Six Friends, a roisterer of the
seas which had been engaged in the dangerous West
India trade, and mounted forty-four guns, to humble
fishing smacks. The commander was William Phips,
afterward Sir William Phips, a strange favorite of

77

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

Fortune whose adventurous and large-fisted career
carried him through gold-seeking in the Spanish Main,
knighthood from the British Crown, and the gover-
norship, by royal appointment, of Massachusetts.
Volunteers were called for and nearly four thousand
men responded to the call. Provisions were laid in
for four months and all was ready for the start.

After waiting so long in Boston for help from Eng-
land that winter was almost at hand, Sir William at
length gave the order to sail and the New England
armada was launched upon its career. Its only lacks
were a pilot who knew the St. Lawrence River, a
sufficiency of gunpowder and a commander competent
to direct the expedition. The eventual failure of the
undertaking was not hard to forecast.

The fleet anchored a little below Quebec in the
autumn of 1690. Frontenac was ready and waiting for
it. A messenger was sent from the fleet to the French
governor demanding surrender. He was taken in a
canoe to the landing place and blindfolded. Then he
was directed up the steep streets and crooked stairs of
the little city by a devious path to Castle St. Louis
where Frontenac, with his aides in full uniform, was
waiting to receive him. During his progress onward
he was jostled and pushed to make him think that there
were immense crowds of people in the little city, and
hoarse orders were shouted near his ear to imaginary
soldiery. At length he stood in the council-room of our

78

THE HEIGHTS OF QUEBEC

little fort and the bandage was taken from his eyes. The
scene of splendor before him at first filled him with con-
fusion, but he quickly recovered poise and delivered his
message.

" No," returned Frontenac, " I will answer your
general only by the mouths of cannon, that he may learn
that a man like me is not to be summoned in this fashion.
Let him do his best and I will do mine! "

During the short and futile siege which followed,
the cannonading between the vessels of Sir William's
fleet and the French fortification was so terrific that
experienced military officers declared that they had
heard nothing like it. At length the besiegers sailed
away baffled and the furious little fort grumbled down
to another season of peace. Phips reached Boston
in November, and the rest of his fleet straggled in one
by one, such as were not lost in the storms of the perilous
Nova Scotia coast. Frontenac, in celebration of the
deliverance of Quebec, established the little church of
Notre Dame de la Victoire which stands in Quebec as a
memorial of those days.

The beginning of the eighteenth century saw the
fortifications of Quebec strengthened and enlarged.
Vauban, the great engineer, furnished the plans which
were carried out under Frontenac's personal supervision.
For twenty leagues around, the habitants were pressed
into service and even the gentlefolk of the colony volun-
teered for work with pick and spade, so eager was the

79

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

sentiment to carry out Vauban's plans. A line of solid
earthworks was extended on the flank of the city from
Cape Diamond to the St. Charles River, and now for
the first time the summit of Cape Diamond was fortified,
this redoubt with sixteen cannon being the foundation of
the present-day citadel of Quebec. In the foundation
of the new work a copper plate, discovered at the de-
molition of the old walls in 1854, was buried bearing the
following inscription:

In the year of grace 1693 under the reign of the Most
August, Most Invincible and Most Christian King, Louis the
Great, Fourteenth of that name, the most Excellent and Most
Illustrious Lord, Louis de Buade, Count of Frontenac, twice
viceroy of all New France, after having three years before re-
pulsed, routed and completely conquered the rebellious inhabi-
tants of New England, who besieged this town of Quebec and
who threatened to renew the attack this year, constructed, at
the charge of the King, this citadel, with the fortifications
therewith connected, for the defence of the country and the
safety of the people and for confounding yet again a people
perfidious towards God and towards its lawful king. And he
has laid this first stone.

In 1709 the sturdy colonists of New England
planned another expedition against Quebec. This time
the home government had promised to help. But
arrangements were delayed and it became late autumn
before the expedition was ready to set out. Under
the circumstances a fight against the frigid winter of

80

THE HEIGHTS OF QUEBEC

Quebec as well as its stone strongholds was not to be
considered.

The next attempt upon the little city took place in
1711, when a strong fleet under Admiral Sir Hovenden
Walker set sail from Boston on the 30th of July. Under
a different commander this effort might have resulted
in success to the British arms, but Admiral Walker
scorned all advice and drove his big frigates on so reck-
lessly amidst the dense fogs and sharp reefs of New-
foundland, that eight battleships were beaten to pieces
by the waves and rocks. Eight hundred and eighty-
four people, thirty-four of them women, were drowned.
Admiral Walker sailed ignominiously back to Boston,
and in Quebec the happy French changed the name of
their little church of Notre Dame de la Victoire to that
of Notre Dame des Victoires.

Yet the persistence of the English was at length to
have its way. In 1720 the walls of Quebec were en-
larged and made mightier, and the citadel, largely in
the form in which it exists to-day, was erected. Vaud-
reuil, the last governor of New France, loudly pro-
claimed that the city was impregnable. In 1759 came
the expedition of Wolfe against Quebec, the final out-
come of which and the method of attack, with Wolfe's
heroic death on the Plains of Abraham, is a story that
every schoolboy knows.

This conflict was the first in which the citadel took
part. The mighty works in which Vaudreuil trusted

6 81

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

so loudly had been overcome on their first trial, while
the high-perched, precariously-placed little " Castle,"
which Champlain had first built and which his successors
had altered to suit their times, had withstood innumer-
able Indian attacks and had seen three assaults by
Europeans fail against it. The spirit of the men who
manned the forts had changed with their times.

There is another tale of siege and Quebec which is
not widely familiar and yet which all Americans should
know. It is the story of Montgomery's expedition
during the Revolution — an expedition in which he lost
his life and in which Benedict Arnold played a conspicu-
ous part.

Richard Montgomery was a lieutenant in Wolfe's
army and was thoroughly familiar with Quebec. At the
outbreak of the War of Independence he was deputized
to lead an army up the Hudson and by the familiar ap-
proach along the Richelieu River and the St. Lawrence
to Quebec. Benedict Arnold led another force through
the tangled forests of northern Maine and New Hamp-
shire, reaching Quebec ahead, even, of Montgomery.
The combined forces laid siege to the city through the
winter, and in the most desperate assault of all, one
in which Wolfe's feat of scaling the cliff was attempted,
Montgomery lost his life. After six months the United
States troops departed, confessing failure.

From that time to this the military history of
Quebec has been uneventful. In the early part of the

82

THE HEIGHTS OF QUEBEC

nineteenth century old Castle St. Louis, which had
stood so many storms and assaults, succumbed to fire.
The site is now an open square with some relics and a
fine view over the river.

The great citadel of Quebec rises three hundred
and fifty feet above the river and covers nearly forty
acres. The portion of the works overlooking the St.
Lawrence is called the Grand Battery, while the sur-
mounting pinnacle of the citadel is known as the King's
Bastion. From the King's Bastion a most glorious
panorama is spread out before one, embracing the city,
the great river, hundreds of miles of forest and farm
land, the Laurentian mountains in the distance in one
direction and the green hills of Vermont far away in
another.

All of the old works of Quebec have been retired
from active service in a military sense. The city is
protected by modern fortifications in other quarters.

Two memorials record two great events in the his-
tory of the citadel. The chief is the Wolfe-Montcalm
monument erected just behind the Dufferin Terrace
in a little green enclosure known as the Governor's
Garden. The second is a simple tablet set up in the
face of the cliff on the river-front below the citadel,
marking the spot where the United States General
Montgomery fell in the winter of 1775.

FORT ANNAPOLIS ROYAL

ANNAPOLIS— ANNAPOLIS BASIN, NOVA SCOTIA

ORE by accident than by design
the Sieur de Monts, in 1604, with
his oddly assorted band of adven-
turers on the foggy Bay of Fundy,
steered into the rocky entrance
which leads into the beautiful land-
locked basin of present-day Annap-
olis in Nova Scotia. One of his followers, the Baron
de Potrincourt, was so enchanted by the beauty of the
scene that he asked a grant of land here. This was
given him, and upon this land in the next year he built
himself first a fort, then a house, and then several more
houses. This was the beginning of Port Royal, now
known as Annapolis, the second oldest fortified place
in the Western Hemisphere.

The voyager to-day may repeat de Monts's experi-
ence and with no design to do that, too. Fogs wrap
the eastern and western coasts of Nova Scotia in an
impenetrable blanket most of the time. The traveller
who sails, — let us say, — from St. Johns, New Bruns-
wick, for the Annapolis Basin, crosses sparkling waters,
and then, as he enters the mountainous cleft which gives
entrance to this beautiful bay, comes into the belt of
mist which obscures all of the coast. He hears the fog
horn on the point at the entrance, — which de Monts
did not hear, — and then suddenly, like an apparition,

84

FORT ANNAPOLIS ROYAL

the land looms into view; there is a lane of shrouded,
uncertain water, between towering misty headlands;
and, then, he is beyond the mists. Annapolis Basin,
bright and blue with soft clouds overhead, like a high-
land lake, lies before him. At the far head of the Basin,
where the delicate horizon merges into the sky, is
Annapolis. It is not hard to understand Potrincourt's
enthusiasm for this beautiful spot. It is hard to under-
stand how de Monts himself could have passed over
this locality in favor of the barren Isle St. Croix for
his first settlement, for this is what he did.

The winter of 1604 was passed by the little coloniz-
ing expedition at St. Croix — the sandy island which is
now the boundary line between Canada and Maine.
Potrincourt went back to France with de Monts to
secure supplies and settlers for his own pet project,
whose setting was Annapolis Basin, and returned with
his chief in June, 1605, to find that the companions they
had left behind them at St. Croix had had a sorry winter.
The whole settlement was then moved over to Potrin-
court's Port Royal. This was the beginning of
Annapolis.

The makeup of de Monts's expedition was thor-
oughly typical of the colonizing bodies sent out by
France in that day. There were men of the noblest
blood of France, of whom our Potrincourt was a con-
spicuous example, and there was, also, the sweeping of
the off scouring of the most dissolute cities of the Old

85

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

World. The motives which inspired these different
men were no doubt as mixed as the character of the
men and as pleasant a theme of speculation, but with
this we will have nothing to do. The second winter
of de Monts's adventurers, even at sheltered Annapolis,
was severe, and it was with joy that the men saw the
spring of 1606 arrive and bring with it the little ship
from France which annually brought supplies and new
blood from the Old World.

In this ship there was one arrival who must be given
a special consideration. A poet-lawyer, — a strange com-
bination, at that, — Marc Lescarbot eventually was to
write his name in fame as the author of one of the
earliest histories of New France, one of the most au-
thentic records in existence of the early adventures of
the French in the New World ; but in our regard of him
now we must consider the high spirit and bold emprise
which he brought with him to cheer his companions and
to help them through the rigors of this early settle-
ment. A rhymester of some skill, he tuned his lyre to
the most trivial events to keep his associates in good
spirits, and in this last endeavor displayed an ingenuity
which cannot help but endear him to all generations
which like brave deeds done in blithe ways. He organ-
ized the Ordre de la Bon Temps, the only requirements
for membership in which were presence in the little
colony, and the duties of whose members were on suc-
cessive days to provide a banquet for their brethren.

86

FORT ANNAPOLIS ROYAL

There was formality attached to the office, too. Theat-
rical masques were gotten up and odd tasks were devised
for all Knights of the Merry Time. Lescarbot infused
a brave spirit into even the most dreary of the odd crew
which made up this colony. We can picture the merry
adventurers in their rude little fort engaged in their
pranks of drollery thousands of miles away from home
and with inhospitable wilderness and bleak shores for
environs.

The charter of the colony was revoked in 1607, by
one of those pleasing inconsistencies of royalty which
inspire in the student of the past so thorough a belief
in the theory of the divine right of kings, and the brave
Order of the Merry Time to a man, with retainers and
family vessels, embarked upon the skittish little vessels
in which they entrusted themselves to the Atlantic and
sailed back to France. It was not for three years that
any of them returned, but in 1610 perseverance on de
Potrincourt's part had triumphed over royal pudding-
headedness once more, and in that year he came back
again to his colony. It is related that he found every-
thing in Port Royal exactly as he had left it, not a lock
or a bar in the little fort having been disturbed by the
Indians, who displayed, in addition to their honesty,
another engaging trait of fidelity to friendship by the
many manifestations of joy which they made at having
with them again their friends, the Frenchmen. Not
again was Port Royal to be entirely deserted.

87

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

In 1613 the Jesuits of Port Royal, a class to them-
selves, abandoned the place and attempted the settle-
ment of a picturesque inlet on Mount Desert Island
on the coast of present-day Maine, their inlet still bear-
ing the name of Frenchmen's Bay. The freebooting
Argall, a piratical seafarer from the new colony of
Virginia far south on the Atlantic Coast, heard of this
settlement and descended upon it in force. Most of
the French were killed after a brave but ineffectual
resistance, and fire and axe were given to their settle-
ment. In the following year this Argall heard of the
presence of Port Royal, for news travelled slowly in
those days, and proceeded against that point after com-
pleting his work of pillage at Mount Desert and St.
Croix. Taking the little place by surprise with a
superior force, he scattered the inhabitants, burned the
village, and razed the fort to the ground. Potrincourt,
a survivor, returned to France and fell fighting at the
siege of Mery in the following year.

From this time until the signing of the treaty of
St. Germain-en-Laye in 1632, Port Royal and Acadia
were held in the hands of the British, and during this
time occurred that odd experiment of Sir William
Mackenzie to make of Acadia a New Scotland or
Caledonia. The Scottish knight obtained the concession
of the Acadian peninsula from King James in 1621 and
founded a colony on the site or very near the site of
Port Royal, building a fort at this point. Charles I

88

FORT ANNAPOLIS ROYAL

renewed the charter granted by his predecessor, and
created an order of minor nobility known as the Knights
Baronets of Nova Scotia. It became Mackenzie's idea
to establish in the New Caledonia the feudal institutions
of the Old World. His colony was not a success even
during its short life, and in 1632 Port Royal passed by
treaty to the French, thus putting an end effectually
to New Caledonia and its Knights Baronets of the
dissolute Charles's erection.

The see-saw between French and English was once
more to incline in the English favor as regards Acadia.
The cession of this peninsula to the French had always
been looked on with disfavor by the New England
colonists, because it gave their hereditary enemies a
secure base from which to send out privateering ex-
peditions against their shipping. In 1654, Cromwell
the Protector dispatched a force to ensure the subjuga-
tion of the Dutch on the Island of Manhattan. Peace
with Holland was concluded by England before this
purpose was effected, and it was then determined to
turn these arms to the reconquest of Acadia. An ex-
pedition was accordingly fitted out secretly in Massa-
chusetts and dispatched upon its mission. The French
forts on the Penobscot and at St. John were speedily
reduced. Le Borgne was at Port Royal with one hun-
dred and fifty men but he attempted little resistance
and the post once more came into English possession.

89

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

Until 1667 Port Royal was in the hands of the
English, and then by the Treaty of Breda the whole of
Acadia was returned to the French. During their
occupancy the English had spent large sums repairing
the fortifications in Acadia under their control, and in
this undertaking the importance of Port Royal was
duly recognized.

For the next generation the French made Port
Royal their base, and the place acquired an evil reputa-
tion with the English because of the marauding sea
expeditions which proceeded from out of there. Finally,
in 1690, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts raised a
levy and empowered Sir William Phips to go against
the ancient stronghold. This doughty gentleman was
successful in his mission and the port was in English
hands again — this time hands of destruction.

After the departure of their enemies the French
rebuilt Port Royal and it became, once more, a busy
shipping point and the haunt of privateers. It is not
difficult to-day to appreciate the fine strategic value of
Port Royal, set at the head of its beautiful landlocked
basin, but it is difficult, to-day, as the river now stands,
to appreciate how vessels of any burthen could go up to
its wharves. But at that time, doubtless, the river had
not filled up to the degree that it has to-day.

In 1704 and again in 1705, the pertinacious New
Englanders went upon futile expeditions against Port
Royal, each time being driven off without much loss

90

FORT ANNAPOLIS ROYAL

and each time evincing a singular lack of spirit in their
enterprise, a lack of spirit all the more remarkable
when one considers the undertakings which they faced
and carried through at other times in their history. The
taking of Port Royal seems to have become a sort of
obsession with them — a theme for an idle hour, a pet
worry which they would take up when all other worries
failed them. Finally, in 1710, before the onslaught of a
combined force of Her Majesty Queen Anne's soldiery
and New England militia, Port Royal fell to the Eng-
lish for the last time, bravely and gallantly fighting
against overwhelming odds. Its spirited commandant,
M. Subercase, with a famished army of one hundred
and fifty men, marched out through the ranks of three
thousand five hundred enemies and the red flag of
England was raised where the white one of France had
flown. Port Royal was renamed Annapolis in honor
of the English sovereign, and Colonel Vetch, with four
hundred and fifty men, occupied the fort. Though it
was endangered by French arms several times there-
after, the little fort was never again out of English
possession.

The sod ramparts of the fort have been carefully
maintained and are to-day the cherished possession of
Annapolis — or Annapolis Port Royal, as its inhabitants,
making an odd mixture of its names, prefer to call it.
From them one may gaze down the placid little river
over a scene very like that upon which its French and

91

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

English commanders looked on their separate turns and
different generations. It is difficult really to visualize
the events through which the little fort has passed, but
if one considers that its history goes as far back beyond
the days of the American Revolution as the beginning
of the twentieth century comes this side of the Revolu-
tion, one begins to perceive how big is its historical back-
ground as events go in America.

The officers' quarters, — a quaint, sturdy, low build-
ing,— and the magazine are still standing in the fort
at Port Royal, both very ancient and very suggestive
edifices, neither one as ancient as the walls of the little
fort.

THE CITADEL AT HALIFAX

NOVA SCOTIA

HE province of Acadia had been
in English possession for nearly
half a century when, in 1749, the
powers that were in the Mother
Country decided that Annapolis,
the little game-cock city of the
peninsula, whose history went
back to 1605, was not a fitting place for the capital
of the province. Its harbor, while beautiful and se-
cure, was not large enough for the purposes that Eng-
land had in mind; moreover, it was on the western
side of the peninsula, so that to get to it from Europe
one must pass around Cape Sable and up the foggy
Bay of Fundy. And so we find that the home author-
ities projected a new city, which was to be the capital
of the province and whose location was to be the
magnificent harbor of Chebucto on the east coast of
Acadia. That they did not go astray in their antici-
pations of the future is proved by the present-day
Halifax, Nova Scotia's principal city, the child of the
plans of these Englishmen of 1749.

The value of Chebucto as a harbor had been known
for many years before this time, we may assume. It
had been for many years a rendezvous for British ves-
sels in American waters. When D'Anville's misfor-
tuned fleet of French men-of-war was scattered by

93

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

the elements, its remnants came together in Chebucto
Bay. That there was some form of settlement on the
shores of the bay ere this time is highly probable, but
the existence of human life in any organized form here,
if such existence there was, has been completely over-
shadowed in retrospect by the magnitude of the enter-
prise by which the present-day Halifax was founded.

As a consequence of its last war there were in
England numbers of young and able-bodied men set
suddenly at liberty who had been engaged in military
or semi-military pursuits. Liberal inducements were
offered these people to go to the projected metropolis.
A free passage, maintenance for a year was promised,
and grants of land varying from fifty to six hundred
acres were given. The Imperial Government voted the
sum of forty thousand pounds to help defray ex-
penses. This sum was increased to four hundred thou-
sand pounds before five years had passed. The Hon.
Edward Cornwallis was appointed and the protection
of British institutions and laws was promised.

The fleet on which the colony set sail entered Che-
bucto Bay in the month of July, 1749. There were
thirteen transports, conveying nearly three thousand
settlers. These were men of good stock, and the vigor
with which they attacked the problems before them was
sufficient evidence of this fact. Streets were promptly
laid out, a civil government was organized, and the
entire population got to work on the practical issue

94

THE CITADEL AT HALIFAX

of providing shelter for themselves and their families.
Houses were built, and, last, but not least, in that day
and generation a fort was erected on the rounded top
of the hill around which they had plotted their town.
This was the forerunner of the citadel of Halifax of
to-day. Around the entire settlement was built a high
palisade.

The early history of Halifax did not include sieges
or sustained attacks by an enemy, but it was in the
atmosphere of unrest and conflict from its first days.
While the French residents of Acadia had not been
molested in their possession of land in Nova Scotia,
they had never taken the oath of allegiance to England.
Among them were many turbulent spirits who incited
the Micmac Indians of the country to outrages against
English people and who took part in these outrages
themselves in the disguise of savages. Moreover, the
French had pressed the boundaries of Canada as close
to the boundaries of Acadia as they dared, and they
continually tried to foment ill feeling amidst the simple
Acadian peasants against the English. The story of
the days between the conquest of Acadia by the English
and the final peace between France and England in
the New World is one of partisan warfare, of forays
and minor sieges and attacks by land and water.

All of these things went on around Halifax, and
enemy vessels even slipped into her harbor in bold
dashes upon rich covey or unsuspecting foe. From

95

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

Halifax went forth Lawrence at the order of Gov-
ernor Cornwallis to oppose the French at Beasejour,
now Cumberland, where the French had built a fort
on what they claimed was their own ground. Lawrence
built another fort on the opposite side of the little
stream of Missigouache, which the French claimed to
be the boundary between the rival domains, and went
back to Halifax for reinforcements. His building the
fort was opposed by the French skirmish, and the blood
shed in this little skirmish was the first blood to flow
in combat between France and England in Old World
or New since the treaty of Aix la Chapelle.

In the council rooms of the citadel at Halifax the
order to deport the French peasantry, or Acadians, was
debated. From the government house here went forth
the orders that this act should be done. The story of
the deportation of the Acadians and of their sufferings
has been told many times in prose and very beautifully
by Longfellow in verse.

During the American Revolution and during the
War of 1812, Halifax was the centre of activity of the
British naval forces, and so it has continued to this day.
During the War of the Revolution and the War of
1812 merchant vessels were brought to this port to be
sold as prizes. During the great European war of this
time of writing merchant vessels suspected of carrying
contraband and seized by the British in the American

96

THE CITADEL AT HALIFAX

Atlantic waters have been taken to Halifax to be passed
on by a prize court.

The citadel of Halifax is not one of its prime de-
fences to-day. It has become more of a public park
than a strong arm for battle. From its walls magnifi-
cent views of the harbor of Halifax can be obtained,
one of the most splendid harbors in the world, to-day as
stimulating to enterprise as in the days when Chebucto
Bay was cast for the part of a great port by the Lords
of Trade of England.

FORT GEORGE

CASTINE-MAINE

HE little town of Castine, on the
Penobscot River, Maine, is a
favorite resort for summer
visitors, who are attracted by its
fine air, its abundance of sea
food, and its accessibility to the
interior of the country. These
same considerations together with the fine strategic
location of Castine Peninsula at the head of Penob-
scot Bay, guarding the entrance to the Penobscot
River, influenced the French adventurers of three hun-
dred and more years ago to plant their settlement of
Pentagoet and to build a fort in this very vicinity.
Traditions of the settlement and grass-covered ruins
of the fort are still to be discovered at Castine.

In the course of the years there came here the British
at war with the colonies, and His Majesty's forces built
Fort George, an important post in its day and one
of the best preserved Revolutionary works in New
England. These ruins are the scene of pilgrimage
of hundreds of people annually — merry parties from
the summer colonies which dot the shores of Penobscot
Bay or from Mount Desert Island, around the corner
as the land lies from Castine.

The remains of Fort George might even to-day be,
with no disproportionate labor, put into condition for

98

FORT GEORGE

defence. The fort was a square bastioned work pro-
tected by a moat excavated down to solid rock. Each
bastion was pierced with four embrasures. Though no
buildings now remain inside the fortress, the position
of the barracks, magazine and guard-house may easily
be traced.

Standing on the ruined wall of Fort George, one
can easily discern in what features lay its strength and
importance. The approach on three sides is by steep
ascents, and especially is this the case to the south or
seaward, the quarter from which attack might be ex-
pected. The shape of the peninsula is seen. Very
similar to the peninsula on which Portland is situated,
it is a large swollen heart of land hung to the mainland
by a cord from the north. To the south the eye has a
wide prospect, bounded in the distance by the blue
mountains of the Camden range. To the west is
Brigadier's Island, and blue water where Belfast lies
in the distance. To the north Fort Point can be seen
with the granite walls of the never-completed Fort
Pownall, begun by Governor Pownall in 1759. North
of east is more water and the distant solitary Blue Hill.

The military history of Fort George reflects no
great credit on American sagacity, though it throws
into strong light the national aggressive spirit. The
first four years of the American Revolution passed very
peacefully in Maine (then a part of Massachusetts),
though its hardy seamen and backwoodsmen were not

99

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

backward in joining the fighting forces to the south.
Then, in 1779, the British powers in Halifax decided
to carry the war into the northern colonies. Accord-
ingly, in June of that year, Colonel Francis M'Lean
was despatched from the aforesaid port with nine hun-
dred men to seize and fortify the well-known peninsula
of Castine or, as it was then known, Penobscot Penin-
sula. He landed on the 12th of June, and with great
energy commenced to establish himself firmly in his
position.

The news was immediately carried to the Massa-
chusetts fathers at Boston. Hancock was then Gov-
ernor and General Gates commanded the Eastern De-
partment of the colonies, with headquarters at Provi-
dence. With that cocksureness for which the Puritan
colony has been distinguished since its foundation, the
rulers of Massachusetts at Boston put their heads to-
gether without notifying Gates, the Continental Con-
gress, or the leaders of the war in this country, and
resolved to push an expedition against M'Lean. An
embargo of forty days was put upon vessels in Massa-
chusetts ports, so that transport possibilities could not
put to sea, and a large land and naval force was raised.

The army was commanded by Solomon Lovell;
the fleet by Captain Saltonstall of the Warren, a fine
frigate of thirty-two guns. Peleg Wadsworth was
second in command to Lovell, and Paul Revere, of
Longfellow's poem, was in charge of the artillery. The

100

FORT GEORGE

land forces numbered about twelve hundred men, and
this number might be augmented by three hundred
marines from the fleet. There were enough guns of
large calibre and other supplies of war. The fleet was
formidable in appearance and equipment, but it was
entirely lacking in discipline and co-ordination, as was
shortly to be seen.

The force appeared off Castine on the 25th of July,
1779, and found the fort unfinished and thoroughly
unprepared for defence. M'Lean despatched mes-
sengers to Halifax for aid, and kept busily on with
his defences. Two bastions had not been begun and
the two remaining, with the curtains, had not been raised
more than four or five feet. Captain Mowatt, a thor-
oughly-hated British naval officer, and the bombarder
of defenceless Portland, was in the harbor with three
light vessels with which he took position to prevent a
landing on the south side of the peninsula. A deep
trench was cut across the isthmus connecting with the
mainland.

No landing could be made except beneath the pre-
cipitous bluff, two hundred feet high, on the west.

On the third dav the Americans succeeded in land-

•

ing and in securing a position on the heights. Instead
of making a final assault upon the unfinished fort now,
however, they dallied where they stood, threw up earth-
works and fought out a wordy battle amongst them-
selves as to how to go ahead. The commanding officers

101

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

disagreed on any one plan, so, finally, at this late date,
they appealed to General Gates for instructions. Two
weeks passed and Sir George Collier arrived with a
British fleet to relieve his beleaguered countrymen. The
Americans were obliged to take to their heels.

General Wadsworth retired to his home near Thom-
aston, not a great distance from Castine, and was cap-
tured by a British detachment sent out from the fort
for the purpose. His escape from the fort with a com-
panion, Major Burton, is one of the interesting minor
episodes of the history of that point. Suffice it to say
that General Wadsworth on a dark night managed to
get over the walls by the aid of a torn blanket and
reached the mainland. Eventually he made Portland
and safety.

For the remainder of the Revolution the British
were at Castine, from whence they went forth on many
expeditions of depredation. The loss of this little
peninsula became a serious consideration, indeed, to the
Americans.

During the War of 1812 Castine once more became
a British stronghold, when, in 1814, the American de-
fenders gave up the post to a force which made it a
centre for plundering coast towns east and west, levying
forced contributions, and destroying ship-yards. At
this time Bangor was taken, Belfast visited, and Hamp-
den pillaged. After a stay of eleven months the British
left Castine in April, 1815. In the neighborhood of the

102

FORT GEORGE

fort they left a reputation for gayety, their stay having
included a round of balls, teas, and dinners.

The history of Castine as a fortified point under
New France commences with the re-occupation of
Acadia, Nova Scotia, under Richelieu's strong direction.
Castine, or Pentagoet, as the French called it, was an
extreme outpost against the English and was to be
maintained at all costs. In 1654, however, it fell to the
conquering hand of Sedgwick, a Massachusetts officer
who reduced all French posts in Acadia. Sedgwick
describes it as a small well-planned work mounting
eight guns. It was not until 1670 that the French flag
was again unfurled over Pentagoet, and, at this time,
it is shown in old records that the place was considerably
enlarged and strengthened, only to fall, in 1674, to
buccaneers from San Domingo, who carried off
Chambly, the commander, and held him to ransom.

The next Frenchman whom we find at Pentagoet
was that strange product of sophistication and savagery,
the Baron St. Castine. Vincent, Baron St. Castine,
came to America with his regiment in 1665, and the
wild life of the great forests seems to have called him
from the first. When his regiment was disbanded
shortly after its arrival in this country, Castine plunged
into the forests and took up life in the fashion that the
Indians lived it. He joined the tribe of the Abenakis,
a mighty people of that day, and become so high in
their favor that he married the daughter of the chief,

103

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

Madocawando, an implacable foe of the English. In
1685 we find Castine in command at Pentagoet with
his dusky followers around him. He never changed
his wife, though we have reason to believe that, like
Sir William Johnson, of later times, he found pleasure
in many coppery enchantresses. Toward the close of
this century his fort and trading post was captured and
destroyed by the English, and the Baron himself, it is
believed, returned to his native France. His half-breed
son, by his Indian wife, for many years carried fire and
sword against the English and was a picturesque figure
in the wars of the Massachusetts border.

FORT FREDERICK

PEMAQUID— MAINE

HE English clenched hand which
answered the brandishing of the
French mailed fist at Pentagoet,
now Castine, was Fort Frederick
at Pemaquid, that anciently-
known peninsula which marks
the entrance to the Kennebec
River. Parts of the walls of old Fort Frederick are
still standing, its entire outlines are plainly to be
discerned, and it is a favorite point of visit with the
many people who make their homes in this part of the
Maine coast during the summer months.

Pemaquid, itself, is one of those long arms of rock
which are characteristic of the Maine coast. A good
word picture of the locality has been painted by S. A.
Drake, the chronicler of Maine coast history. " A belt
of rusty red granite stretches around it above low water
mark," he writes, " and out into the foaming breakers
beyond. Pastures pallid from exhaustion and spotted
with clumps of melancholy firs spread themselves out
over this foundation. In the extreme corner of this
threadbare robe there is a light-house. You look about
you in vain for the evidences of long occupation which
the historic vista has opened to you in advance."

While there have been many wild reports that the
settlement on Pemaquid antedated that on Massachu-
setts Bay, itself, there is lacking weight of historical

105

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

evidence to support this contention. Pemaquid was
visited by Captain John Smith in 1614, but that
doughty mariner makes no mention in his account of his
visit of having seen any Europeans at the place, as he
undoubtedly would have done had his vision encount-
ered any such settlers. William Bradford, the con-
scientious chronicler of early Plymouth doings, tells
us that in 1623 " there were also in this year some scat-
tered beginnings made at Pascataway by Mr. David
Thompson, at Monhegan and some other places by
sundry others," and it is very conceivable that Pemaquid
Point might properly be included amongst these " some
other " places. In 1625 we find Samoset, the famous
chieftain of Pilgrim days, selling to a certain John
Brown land at Pemaquid, the sign-manual Samoset
used, according to his custom, being a bended bow with
an arrow fitted to the string.

In 1630 there were certainly the beginnings of a
settlement at Pemaquid and the foundations of a for-
tress. Shortly after this time the locality was visited by
Dixy Bull, one of the freebooters of that day, who pil-
laged the place in leisurely and thorough fashion.
Another settlement was developed and this shared the
fate of its predecessor during the evil days of King
Philip's War. But the close of King Philip's War
brought better days to Pemaquid, when the govern-
ment of New York, under royal letters patent, assumed
control of that place and constructed a strong timber

106

FORT FREDERICK

redoubt there with a bastioned outwork. This was to
provide a rallying point for the frightened settlers. It
was completed in 1677 and garrisoned by soldiers from
New York. The fort was known as Fort Charles
and the town around it, which was built up on the site
of the old settlements, was known as Jamestown.
Under the new regime a military government was estab-
lished, of which the commandant of the post was the
head. The free living inhabitants of the post were irked
at being under strict martial rule.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Breda, Acadia had
been returned to France and with it Pentagoet (Cas-
tine) and the possession of the Penobscot River. The
French, in the general fashion which they affected,
declared that the Kennebec and the country tributary
thereto belonged to Acadia. This contention the Eng-
lish disputed. We have, therefore, the rival powers at
their two extreme outposts, — the French at Pentagoet
and the English at Pemaquid, — in violent opposition to
each other.

In 1688, Sir Edmund Andros, Governor of Massa-
chusetts, made a sudden descent upon Castine, the
town, and plundered the place. Castine, the man, in-
cited his friends the Abenakis and soon had the border
in a blaze. He planned a retaliatory descent upon
Pemaquid. Spies were sent to New Harbor, an out-
post of Pemaquid, and preparations were made to move
in force.

107

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

In August, 1689, the war party, led by Castine in
person, landed on the eastern shore of Pemaquid Penin-
sula without being discovered. The attack was planned
with care. The main village lay about a quarter of a
mile from the fort. The farms where most of the in-
habitants were at work were three miles from the fort.
One band of the assailants was to throw itself upon the
fort and village, and another to cut off the village from
the farms.

The plan was carried out without a hitch. The men
at the farms ran for the fort and were shot down or
taken prisoners. The assailants next turned their atten-
tion to the fort. The big rock in back of the fort, which
makes so conspicuous a feature of the locality to-day,
was occupied by savages, who fired down upon the de-
fenders of the stronghold, and the attack was pressed
fiercely from other quarters. For twenty-four hours
Weems, the commander, held out. Then, when fourteen
out of his garrison of thirty had been wounded, he sur-
rendered on condition that the occupants should be free
to leave unmolested. Fort and village were set on fire
and Pemaquid for the second time had been swept out
of existence.

Under Sir William Phips, who acted by royal in-
struction, Pemaquid was rebuilt and regarrisoned in
1692. Unlike the old fortress, the new one was built
of stone in a most substantial and enduring fashion, and
so enlarged as to take in the high ledge of rock which

108

FORT FREDERICK

had been the vulnerable point of the old defences. The
new work was known as Fort William Henry. Cot-
ton Mather, the indefatigable chronicler of that period,
speaks of it as follows:

William Henry was built of stone in a quadrangular figure,
being about 737 foot in compass without the walls and 108 foot
square within the inner ones. Twenty-eight ports it had and
fourteen (if not eighteen) guns mounted, whereof six were
eighteen-pounders. The wall on the south line, fronting to the
sea, was twenty-two foot high and more than six foot thick at
the ports, which were eight foot from the ground. The greater
flanker, or round tower, at the western end of this line, was
twelve foot high. The wall on the east line was twelve foot
high, on the north it was ten, on the west it was eighteen.

Impoverished Massachusetts demurred at having to
pay the bills for the work, but Phips drove the State to
meet the obligation.

The ruler of New France at this time was the
energetic and far-sighted Frontenac, who believed that
he must reduce the new English fortress or himself
lose his hold on his Indian allies. With character-
istic promptness he set out about the task that he had
visioned. Two ships and some hundreds of savages
were despatched to take the fort. The fort had been
forewarned through the heroism of a young New Eng-
lander, John Nelson, who faced the Bastile or death
by the headsman's hands to get word to his brethren in

109

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

New England of the expected expedition. The gar-
rison was on its guard and so the expedition miscarried.

Frontenac was not the man to be put off with one
reverse, however, as the New Englanders should have
realized but did not. In August, 1696, Iberville, with
two war-ships and a mixed force of French and Indians,
appeared before Fort William Henry and took the
garrison completely by surprise.

There were about one hundred men in the fort
under the command of Captain Pascho Chubb. Cas-
tine and his Indians who are supposed to have landed
at New Harbor, two miles away, set up entrenchments
in the rear of the fortress (where the cemetery is),
thus cutting off the garrison on the land side. Cannon
were landed and batteries erected on adjacent shores
and islands. With so much energy did the besiegers
work that their batteries opened fire at three o'clock
of the afternoon following the day on which they ap-
peared before the fort.

To the first summons to surrender Chubb returned
a defiant answer, but when the first shells began to
burst within his lines he seems to have lost his courage.
Intimidated, in addition, by Iberville's threat to show
no quarter if he persisted in resistance, he hastened
to throw open his gates to the foe. The Indians, hard
enough to keep in order, anyhow, found one of their
race in irons in the prison of the fortress and imme-
diately began a slaughter of the surrendered English.

no

This outbreak was restrained with difficulty, and the
English were loaded on ships and sent to Boston.

Two days were consumed by the French in destroy-
ing the fortifications at Pemaquid and they then set
sail for St. John's River, narrowly escaping destruc-
tion by a fleet sent out from Boston in pursuit.

The next attempt to fortify Pemaquid was made
in 1729, when Colonel Dunbar was sent over with a
royal commission to rebuild the fort at the charge of
the English crown. This work he set himself to with
a right good will, and he called his fort Fort Frederick
in honor of the Prince of Wales, father of George III.
Fort Frederick stood until the opening of the Revo-
lutionary War, when the inhabitants of Pemaquid de-
stroyed the works rather than man them, advancing
the unique argument that since the people were not
strong enough to defend them they were a source of
weakness rather than strength!

That the inhabitants of this coast were not lack-
ing in spirit is shown, however, by an incident of the
War of 1812, which may be told here. The enemy's
cruisers kept the whole coast in alarm because of their
frequent depredations against defenceless points. One
day one of these cruisers hove to in New Harbor and
a barge fully manned put out for shore. A small
militia force had been stationed by the Americans at
old Fort Frederick and this force was hastily sum-
moned. The English barge drew near. It was hailed

in

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

by an old fisherman who warned the British officer
not to attempt a landing.

" If a gun is fired the whole town will be destroyed,"
replied the Britisher.

Not a single gun, but a number of them, answered
this threat. The rocks of the shore bristled with fowl-
ing pieces and ducking-guns and all manner of fire-
arms. The barge drifted helplessly to sea, its occu-
pants badly wounded, and the master of the war-ship,
after taking his helpless men on board, sailed away
to Halifax.

Old Fort Frederick, in 1814, saw the beginning of
the historic combat between the vessels Boxer and the
Enterprise, in which the Enterprise, U. S. A., com-
manded by Lieutenant Burrows, was victorious.

FORT NIAGARA

AT MOUTH OF NIAGARA RIVER— NEW YORK

HE main building of old Fort
Niagara, " The Castle," is prob-
ably the oldest piece of masonry
in the State of New York, hav-
ing been constructed by the
French in 1726. The stone-work
of the barracks, a structure 134
by 24 feet with walls only eight feet in height, goes back
to 1757, and in this year was, also, built the magazine.
The bake-house, replacing a former one on the same site,
was put up by the British in 1762 and the two stone
block-houses by them in 1771 and 1773.

In the two hundred and eighty-eight and a half
acres of the government reservation here one is in touch
visibly with the Past. And what deeds of the Past these
old stone buildings might tell if they were given power
of speech!

The name Niagara is of Iroquois origin, as are so
many names of New York State, and is of ancient ap-
plication to the river and the falls which bear them.
The falls of the Niagara are indicated on Champlain's
map of 1632 and in 1648 are spoken of by the Jesuit
Rugueneau as " a cataract of frightful height." It is
certain that the indefatigable emissaries of the order of
which he was a member had penetrated to the region
of the great falls before this. In 1678 the falls were

8 113

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

visited by the Friar Louis Hennepin, who drew a
curious picture of them, still preserved, and gave a more
curious and exaggerated description.

In the year that the good Friar Hennepin was pay-
ing his respects to Nature's great wonder, Robert
Cavelier Sieur de la Salle was building his fort at Fron-
tenac, now Kingston, Canada West, and in 1675 King
Louis XIV, that brilliant and indefatigable monarch
of France, whose legislative labors in opposition to race
suicide in Canada justly earned him the title of the
Father of Canada, bestowed upon our cavalier a large
grant of land near his fort. La Salle, inspired by the
brilliant discoveries of Marquette and Joliet in the
region farther west than that wherein he had his baili-
wick, determined to explore the lands south of Ontario
and to connect the territories which he hoped thus to
acquire with Quebec by means of a series of posts. Em-
powered by his royal master with letters warrant to
embark upon this form of enterprise, he crossed over
Ontario, picked out a settlement point at, or near, the
present Lewiston, New York, and commenced the build-
ing of a small vessel on Cayuga Creek above the falls,
the supplies for this vessel being carried from his little
settlement near Lewiston, below the falls, and in the
direction of his main base at Fort Frontenac. At the
same time he commenced the construction of a small fort
at the mouth of the Niagara River, which would guard
the approaches to his work farther in the interior and

114

FORT NIAGARA

would also serve as one of the chain of posts by which
he hoped to secure to France the territory which he
meant to acquire.

This little fort on Niagara Point at the mouth of
the Niagara River was kept up by La Salle during the
remainder of his career in the New World, and was con-
tinued by the Marquis de Nonville, Governor of New
France, who, in 1687, raised it to the dignity of a " fort
with four bastions." At this time it was in the command
of Troyes with 100 men. Soon after this the little place
was besieged by Senecas, and while the four bastions
and the other defences beat off the savage foe, the gar-
rison perished almost to a man from the ravages of dis-
ease. Shortly after the point was abandoned and
allowed to fall into decay. During the succeeding years
of misfortune to the French the fort was filled only with
weeds and vines and savage visitors, — early prototypes
of present-day tourist throngs, — and it was not until
1725 that the place was reoccupied and rehabilitated.

From this time for many years Fort Niagara was a
little city in itself and for a long time the greatest point
south of Montreal or west of Albany. The fort, proper,
covered about eight acres and had its ravines, ditches
and pickets, curtains, counterscarps and covered way;
stone-towers, laboratory and magazine ; mess-house, bar-
racks, bakery and blacksmith shop. For worship there
was a chapel with a large dial over the door to mark the
course of the sun. ' The dungeon of the mess-house,

115

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

called the black hole, was a strong, dark, and dismal
place; and in one corner of the room was fixed the ap-
paratus for strangling such unhappy wretches as fell
under the displeasure of the despotic rulers of those
days. The walls of this dungeon, from top to bottom,
had engraved upon them French names and mementos
in that language. That the prisoners were no common
persons was clear, as the letters and emblems were chis-
elled out in good style."

The immense strategic importance of the post was
not lost on the English. It guarded approach to the
treasured winter regions of the great lakes with their
store of furs, and it furnished a fine base for negotia-
tions with the Indians of New York State and the keep-
ing of them in a state of disaffection with the English.

In 1755, during that series of preliminary conflicts
which marked the beginning of the great battle royal
between France and England for the possession of the
New World, an expedition against Niagara was fitted
out by Governor Shirley, of Massachusetts, and pro-
ceeded under his command as far as Oswego. Thus far
it went and no farther, for sickness and desertion
thinned the ranks of the men, and unfavorable weather,
as well as the presence of the French in strength at
Frontenac just across the lake, rendered unwise further
advance in the Governor of Massachusetts' project. It
was not for four years, 1759, that the arm of the Eng-
lish was used in strength against the busy, ancient fort.

116

FORT NIAGARA

In this year General Prideaux, a capable officer,
with Sir William Johnson, of New York, as his second
in command, was despatched with a force of English
colonial troops and Indians against the post. Fort
Niagara was garrisoned by 600 French soldiers under
the command of Captain Pouchot, a chevalier of the
order of St. Louis. About a mile up the river was a
little wooden stockade commanded by the half-breed
Joincaire-Chabert, who with his brother Joincaire-
Clauzonne and a clan of Indian relatives had long been
a thorn in the side of the English in influencing the
powerful Five Nations against them. But Sir William
Johnson was beginning to have that ascendency over
this savage federation which was to be so great an aid
to the English from this time forward and had with him
now 900 warriors of this clan to lead against the French.
So Joincaire closed up his little stronghold and joined
his forces to those of Pouchot, the combined strength of
the two by no means being sufficient to beat off the
English attack.

There was another resource upon which Pouchot
confidently relied, however, and this was prospect of
help from the back countries controlled by the French.
By order of Vaudreuil, the Governor of New France,
the French population of the Illinois, Detroit and other
distant posts had come down the Lakes, a motley and
picturesque throng, to help maintain the ascendency of
France in the New World. They were now gathered

117

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

at various posts of the French back country, and no
sooner did Pouchot learn that the English were about
to attack him than he sent messengers to summon all of
these forces to Niagara.

The siege began with the clumsy lack of forethought
which seemed to mark all military operations of those
days, which depended chiefly upon native courage and
final enthusiasm of assault to carry through than wise
f oreplanning. The English trenches were so unskilfully
laid out that they were raked by the fire of the fort.
However, the English at last got down to business and
their batteries commenced to play upon the French. A
prematurely bursting shell from one of the coehorns
killed Prideaux at almost the first discharges of the bom-
bardment and the command fell upon Sir William John-
son, who proceeded with an enheartening energy to
carry on the good work. At the end of three weeks
the rampart of Fort Niagara was breached, more than
100 of the soldiery therein had been killed and the gar-
rison was in extremity. Yet Pouchot fought on val-
iantly, resting upon the arrival of reinforcements from
the French and savage forces which he had summoned.
At length a distant firing told him that these were near.

Pouchot went with an officer to the bastion next to
the river and listened anxiously to the firing which told
him that his reinforcements were in conflict with the
English and trying to cut a way through to the belea-
guered stronghold. For a time he heard the sound of

118

FORT NIAGARA

battle and then all was still. At length a friendly Indian
who had passed unnoticed through the lines of the Eng-
lish came to the French commander. ' Your men are
defeated," he said in substance. Pouchot would not be-
lieve him. Nevertheless it was true and this fact was
the death-blow to French hold of Fort Niagara. In the
articles of surrender shortly afterward drawn up, it was
specially stipulated that the French should be protected
from the Indians as they feared that the massacre of
Fort William Henry would be avenged upon them.
Johnson was able to restrain his lawless allies and,
though the fort was given to pillage, no French lives
were taken after the surrender.

From this time until the close of the American War
of Independence the post remained in English hands.
During the Pontiac War of 1763 the Indians made an
unsuccessful attack upon it and its garrison frequently
took part in small skirmishes with lurking unfriendly
Senecas in the woods around the post. Heavily gar-
risoned by the English during the Revolution, it served
as a base for the war parties which frequently devas-
tated the State of New York. Both the expedition led
by Colonel Butler, which culminated in the massacre at
Wyoming, New York, in 1778, and that which laid
waste Cherry Valley in the same year, started from Fort
Niagara.

That the American forces were not unaware of the
evil dominance of this post on the far western border of

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QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

New York, we cannot doubt, as one of the objects of the
expedition led by General Sullivan against the Indians
in 1779 was the destruction, if possible, of Niagara; but
this campaign ended only with the destruction of Indian
villages. Subsequent to the declaration of peace be-
tween England and America, the point was held by
English troops until it was taken over by an American
garrison in 1796, probably having the distinction of
being the last post surrendered by the English to the
Americans in the United States. In 1799, in anticipa-
tion of another Indian war, the post was heavily rein-
forced.

A description of Fort Niagara between 1805 and
1814 has been given by a daughter of Dr. West, surgeon
to the post during those years.

It was then surrounded on three sides with strong pickets
of plank, firmly planted in the ground and closely joined to-
gether ; a heavy gate in front of double plank, closely studded
with iron spikes. The fourth side was defended with embank-
ments of earth under which were formerly barracks, affording
a safe though somewhat gloomy retreat for the families of
soldiers, but which had been abandoned and the entrance closed
long before my remembrance, having been so infested with
rattlesnakes that had made their dens within that it was hardly
safe to walk across the parade.

The last chapter in the history of the fort was not
a glorious one, though thoroughly typical of the desul-
tory character of the conflict between Great Britain and

the United States which is known as the War of 1812.

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FORT NIAGARA

The official declaration of the imminence of hostilities
reached Fort Niagara, June 26, 1812, and preparations
were immediately undertaken to strengthen and defend
the work. The fort was then under the command of
Captain Leonard, United States Artillery, with 370
men. During the night of December 19, 1813, the Eng-
lish, 500 strong, under Colonel Murray, crossed the
river, captured the sentinels and took the work by sur-
prise, killing 65 of the American garrison and taking
prisoner almost all of the remainder, with a loss to them-
selves of five men killed and wounded. A disgraceful
side of the matter is that none of the American officers
were at their posts at this time, but were off* junketing
somewhere in the country near by. Twenty-seven can-
non of large calibre, 3000 stand of small arms, and a
large amount of clothing, garrison equipage, and com-
missary stores fell into the hands of the British, who,
as well, destroyed the villages of Lewiston and Buffalo,
besides all of the dwellings on the lake as far as Eigh-
teen-Mile Creek.

The capture of Fort Niagara was shortly afterwards
characterized in the following terms by General Cass
who was ordered to the frontier: " The fall of Niagara
was owing to the most criminal negligence ; the force in
it was fully competent for its defence."

The English held Niagara until the close of the war
and surrendered it to the United States in March, 1815.
The career of the point from that time to the present

has been merely one of growing old gracefully.

121

FORT ONTARIO

OSWEGO— NEW YORK

T was in 1722 that Oswego, New
York, was made the site of an
armed camp and, at that, it was
more through the stubborn de-
termination of Governor Bur net
of the colony that the thing should
be done than through any willing-
ness of the staid burghers of the State Assembly to
co-operate with their executive in schemes leading to
future good. As a matter of fact, Governor Burnet
is said to have paid the bill for establishing his little fort
out of his own pocket, though he may have made this
sum up in some other direction — authorities do not tell
us this kind of thing! Yet this little post was to become
one of the most decisive factors in determining the
result of the conflict between France and England for
the New World, the flags of three Christian nations
were to fly over it at different periods, and warriors
white, red, French, English and colonial were to
struggle for its possession. So much grows out of so
little!

One of the earliest mentions of Oswego in the his-
tory of the colonies is that in 1687 the Onondaga In-
dians presented a petition to the mayor and common
council of Albany, that busy little trading post, request-
ing them to establish a trading post and fort at this

122

FORT ONTARIO

point. The mayor and common council evidently
thought that this was too wild an undertaking; for no
defences existed there when, in 1696, the restless
Frontenac landed at Oswego Point on a punitive ex-
pedition against the Five Nations and built himself a
little stockade fort before pressing on to fruitless vic-
tory into the interior of the country.

The strategic importance of the location to the Eng-
lish was not lost on these astute empire builders, giving
access as it does with the Hudson Valley by way of the
Oswego River, through Oneida Lake, to the headwaters
of the Mohawk River, or giving access to the Susque-
lianna Valley by way of the Oswego River, Lake Onan-
daga and the head of the Susquehanna. During the
governorship of Lord Bellemont, in the province of
New York, the establishment of a post at Oswego was
contemplated, and material was even ordered from
England for the purpose, but it remained for Governor
Bellemont's successor to carry out in effect what had
been before done in theory.

In 1727 Governor Burnet called the attention of
the councillors of the province to the fact that he had
established a post at Oswego (the name was borrowed
from the Iroquois), and added that he had sent a cap-
tain, two lieutenants and sixty soldiers to the point and
that he intended to keep a force there always.

This announcement came to the ear of the gover-
nor of New France and so incensed him that he sent a

123

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

letter to Governor Burnet asking that official why, in
opposition to the plain stipulations of the Treaty of
Ghent which forbade the erection of works of defence
or offence, he had constructed and manned this fort.
Governor Burnet replied by calling attention to the
French building of " Oneagorah " or Niagara, thus
showing that the practice of justifying a soiled pot by
pointing to a black kettle is of ancient foundation.
Anyhow, Governor Burnet went cheerfully on with his
fortifying of Oswego, though Governor Beauharnais
sent several expeditions to harass and deter his work-
men.

This first fortification at Oswego was of a very
simple character. Beauharnais complained that it was
" a redoubt with galleries and full of loop-holes and
other works belonging to fortifications," but Burnet
merely says that the " walls were four feet thick of
large good stone " and finds no other details to dilate
upon. In 1741 the colony authorized the expenditure
of 600 pounds, sterling, to " erect a sufficient stone
wall at a proper distance around the trading house at
Oswego, either in a triangular or quadrangular form,
as the ground will best admit of, with a bastion or
block-house in each corner to flank the curtain." Later
on we find that complaints were made to the General
Assembly that the contractors who had the job in hand
were using clay instead of stone and that they were
skimping their work fearfully in order to line their

124

FORT ONTARIO

pockets generously. This is one of the very earliest pub-
lic scandals of New York State and one that seems to
have eluded the muck-raker so far.

The post was abandoned between the years 1744
and 1755 as, on the outbreak of hostilities with Canada,
its occupants feared that they could not in their ex-
posed and unsupported position withstand an attack
in force from Quebec.

As the years went on, however, the post of Oswego
became increasingly valuable to the English and they
in turn became far more able to hold their own. Situ-
ated as it was between Niagara and the ocean, — be-
tween the back country of the French and their metrop-
olis of Quebec, — it fairly broke the back of the long
wriggling French line of settlements, which extended
from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the mouth of
the Mississippi.

In 1755 the English authorities agreed upon a plan
of invasion of Canada and resolved to make Oswego
their base of operations. Accordingly Colonel Shirley,
of Massachusetts, with his own and Sir William Pep-
perell's regiments, with some New Jersey and New
York militia, in addition, made his way to Oswego,
arriving there about the end of June, 1755. They
were prevented by sickness and ill luck from proceed-
ing against Niagara as had been their intention, and
the one great thing that they accomplished was the
rehabilitation of the old fort. They also commenced

125

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

a fort on the west side of the river, which they called
Fort Ontario, and Fort Ontario has survived to the
present day. An extract from the " Gentleman's
Magazine " of 1756, New York Colonial Documents,
gives an idea of this undertaking:

When it was determined that the army at Oswego should go
into winter quarters, they began a new fort upon the hill upon
the east side of the river, about 470 yards from the old one ; it
is 800 feet in circumference and will command the harbor ; it is
built of logs from 20 to 30 inches thick; the wall is 14 feet high
and is encompassed by a ditch 14 feet broad and 10 feet deep ;
it is to contain barracks for 300 men. On the other side of
the river west from the old fort another new fort is erecting;
this is 170 feet square. A hospital of frame-work, 150 feet by
30 feet, is already built and may serve as a barrack for 200
men, and another barrack is preparing of 150 feet by 24.

The second new fort noted in this extract is Fort
George, a rude structure and one not fitted long to
stand against the elements.

Another result of Shirley's expedition was to cause
the French, who had heen rather inactive, to bestir
themselves. In the fall of 1755 they heavily reinforced
their posts, sending to Fort Niagara a lively young
Captain named Pouchot. In 1756 this observant man
despatched a memorial to his superiors at Quebec,
setting forth that the English at Oswego were not on
the alert, or in force, and that the capture of the post
was a feasibility. The authorities at Quebec thought

126

FORT ONTARIO

well of this idea, so well in fact that Montcalm, him-
self, who was at Fort Frontenac, — newly arrived in New
France to take over the command of the military forces
of the whole French new world, — took charge of the
expedition, which was organized on Captain Pouchot's
suggestion.

Before proceeding in force against Oswego, Mont-
calm ordered De Villiers to proceed with 700 men to
the headwaters of the Oswego River and to observe
the enemy at Oswego. This force advanced rapidly,
surprised and took Fort Bull, on Wood Creek near
the head of Oneida Lake, and destroyed a large amount
of provisions destined for Oswego. On May 7, 1756,
a party of Indians set out from Fort Niagara, made
a descent upon some ship carpenters near Oswego, and
returned to Niagara with twelve scalps. These re-
peated successes, joined with Braddock's defeat, pro-
duced a profound effect upon the Indians and caused
the Iroquois Federation to side for the time with the
French. Throughout the early summer of this year
Montcalm's men continued to harass the garrison at
Oswego, capturing many stores of provisions designed
for Fort Ontario. Montcalm hurried his preparations,
so that by August he was ready to march against
Oswego with 3000 men well equipped. He landed on
Four-inch Point, east of Oswego, on August 11, and
marched to a swamp a short distance in the rear of
Fort Ontario, where he gave charge of the engineer-

127

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

ing operations now developing upon his expedition to
Captain Pouchot.

Pouchot constructed a road through the swamp in
one night and opened up with a battery upon Fort
Ontario at sixty paces distance. The garrison fled in
disorder across the river to the old fort. Montcalm
sent a strong force to cross the river above to cut off
retreat and opened fire the next morning with a battery
on the river bank. Colonel Mercer, the English com-
mander, was killed and his men soon surrendered. The
spoils of the conqueror were 120 cannon, 9 vessels of
war in process of construction, and a great quantity
of provisions and munitions of war.

There now occurred another one of those horrible
massacres which fouled the name of the French through
their inability to control their savage allies. The pris-
oners numbered 1700, many of them civilian employees
in the ship-yards, and Montcalm had pledged their
safety. Notwithstanding this, more than a hundred
were killed by the savages, either quickly or by the
slow process of torture. The French losses in the siege
were 30 killed and wounded, and the English killed in
fighting numbered 150.

The artillery of the English forts at Oswego was
removed to Fort Niagara and the forts were dismantled.
The forts remained unoccupied until 1759, when the
English advancing to the attack of Fort Niagara left
a force of 500 men here to protect their rear and keep

128

FORT ONTARIO

open their lines of communication. The French ad-
vanced against this small command and would have
taken it by surprise had not a priest insisted upon speak-
ing to the troops before they went into battle. The
English became apprised of the approach of the French
during this delay and sallied out to attack them, with
victory in the subsequent battle crowning their efforts.

In 1760 General Amherst strengthened the forts
at Oswego and left a large force here which became
valuable in the war against Canada. This was one of
the few fortunate moves that this general made.

Fort Ontario was also an important base for the
British during the war of American Independence. In
1777 the English Colonel St. Leger gathered 700 men
here and was joined by Brant with 700 Indians. The
combined forces marched to besiege Fort Stanwix at
the head of the Mohawk River, but were defeated and
pursued back to their base, where they hurriedly em-
barked for Montreal.

In 1783 General Washington prepared an expedi-
tion under Colonel Willett to capture Fort Ontario.
The command assembled at Fort Stanwix and marched
for Oswego. When within a few miles of the fort their
presence was discovered and made known to the British
by some wood-cutters, and Colonel Willett, on learn-
ing that his chance of taking the post by surprise was
gone, marched back to Fort Stanwix without making
an attack. Peace was soon declared and no further

operations were conducted,
o 129

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

The post was transferred to the United States
in 1796, with the other frontier posts which Great
Britain had held. From then until the outbreak of the
War of 1812 it was allowed to fall into decay, and at
the beginning of that conflict was but partially armed
and quite unable to withstand an enemy. The English,
hearing of its condition, and hearing, moreover, of the
presence in the fort of large quantities of stores of all
kinds, sent a fleet with 3000 men against the place.

The British force appeared before the town May 5,
1814. The Americans prepared a battery on shore and
gallantly repulsed efforts at landing, until at length
the British, through pure force of numbers, were able
to accomplish this first step. The Americans then re-
treated up the river in good order, burning the bridges
in their rear. Their number was 300. The British,
baffled in taking any prisoners, burned the barracks,
spiked the guns and retired. The American loss was
6 killed, 881. wounded and 24 missing. The British loss
was 235. From that time to the present Fort Ontario
has remained in possession of the United States.

The years saw the town of Oswego grow up around
Fort Ontario. The fort was rebuilt of wood in 1839
and of stone in 1863. In 1901 the garrison was with-
drawn and the old fort is now a public reservation for
the use of the citizens of Oswego, its days of military
life probably ended forever.

FORT MICHILLIMACKINAC AND
FORT HOLMES

MACKINAC ISLAND— MICHIGAN

f> T was a conjunction of the Church
and the State which began the
career of Fort Michillimackinac,
more than three centuries ago, at
Saint Ignace, a point on the Can-
adian side of the Straits of Mack-
inac; the Church in the person of
the restless Father Marquette and the State in the form
of its indefatigable military servant, the Sieur de la
Salle. In 1673 Father Marquette established the mis-
sion of Saint Ignace in a thriving village of the Ottawas,
who were, Francis Parkman tells us, among the most
civilized tribes of the American natives. Two years
later La Salle visited the place in the Griffon, the first
vessel to sail the Great Lakes. This barque the inde-
fatigable Frenchmen had just constructed on Cayuga
Creek just above Niagara Falls.

The beginnings of a fort were already made when
La Salle came to St. Ignace, that is, a palisade had been
erected. Its defenders were Indians. La Salle sent
the Griffon back to civilization for supplies and rigging
for a second sailing vessel. Fortunately for history,
which would have lost one of its most picturesque fig-
ures, he decided to remain, himself, at Saint Ignace and
not to accompany his beloved Griffon on its round trip.

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QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

That bewildered little ship was overcome by the fury
of one of the lakes. At least it never returned, or was
heard of, and reasonable surmise is that it found its
haven beneath the waters. La Salle filled in his spare
hours at Saint Ignace in the casual practice of his pro-
fession, by completing and strengthening the puny de-
fences which Father Marquette had caused to be erected.
Thus came into existence the first Fort Michilli-
mackinac.

Indian tradition concerning the name Michilli-
mackinac is curious. It relates that Michapous, chief
Of spirits, sojourned long in the vicinity of the Straits
of Huron, on a mountain on the border of the lake.
Here he first instructed man to fabricate nets and to
take fish therein. On the island of Michillimackinac he
left spirits named Imakinakos and from these legendary
possessors came the name Michillimackinac which means
Great Turtle. The tradition is not altogether clear.
Suffice it to be assured that the word is of Indian
origin, and doubtless its patient originators were thor-
oughly well pleased with it.

The next distinguished visitor to Saint Ignace was
La Motte Cadillac, whose name is spread so generously
around all of this lakeside region of Michigan and
whose errand was to strengthen the fort which La Salle
had erected on Father Marquette's foundation. Use-
less labor this proved to be, for the growing importance
of Detroit and the determination of the French to build

132

FORT MICHILLIMACKINAC

up this point at the expense of the more northern and
less accessible trading-post caused Saint Ignace to wane
in importance and its stockades to be unoccupied.

In 1712 the little setttlement was moved bodily to
the southern side of the straits at the point where
Mackinaw City now stands and the second Fort
Michillimackinac was erected, destined to a far more
eventful history than the first. Time ran on. The
French lost their grip of the New World and sur-
rendered Michillimackinac with other places to the
English. Let us see how the little place looked in
English possession. Parkman has well described it:

Doubling a point he sees before him the red flag of England
swelling lazily in the wind and the palisades and wooden bas-
tions of Fort Michillimackinac standing close upon the margin
of the lake. On the beach canoes are drawn up and Canadians
and Indians are lazily lounging A little beyond the fort is a
cluster of the white Canadian houses roofed with bark and pro-
tected by fences of strong round pickets The trader enters
at the gate, and sees before him an extensive square area sur-
rounded by high palisades. Numerous houses, barracks, and
other buildings form a smaller square within, and in the vacant
space which they enclose appear the red uniforms of British
soldiers, the gray coats of Canadians, and the gaudy Indian
blankets mingled in picturesque confusion ; while a multitude of
squaws with children of every hue stroll restlessly about the
place. Such was Fort Michillimackinac in 1763.

A peaceful spot this was for the scene of bloody
savagery which was shortly to be enacted in its pre-

iss

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

cincts. The Indians who were neighbors of Michilli-
mackinac had never become reconciled to the English-
man's presence in their wilderness. Many of these
savages had fought with the French against the Eng-
lish and had lost relatives or friends in battle, thus lay-
ing the foundations for blood feuds which in the Indian
custom could only be wiped out with blood. In addi-
tion to that, their leaders were conspirators with the
great Pontiac in his aim to push the English back
beyond the mountains whence they had come and to
restore the forests to the savages. When news came
in the spring of 1763 of Pontiac's activities around
Detroit, the Ojibwas and Ottawas near Michillimack-
inac determined that they, too, must taste of blood.
The massacre of the garrison of this post was planned.
The Indians' plans were laid well but they should
not have had the uncontested success that they did
have. All accounts point to a great measure of care-
lessness and lack of sufficient estimation of his neigh-
bors on the part of the unhappy commander of the
garrison. This officer was Captain Etherington and
with him were about thirty-five men and the full com-
plement of under-officers. Several times Etherington
was warned that the red-skins were plotting mischief,
and his own observation might have acquainted him
with this fact as well. Yet with true British phlegm
he waved aside all suggestions that were made to him
and even went so far as to threaten to punish any one

134

FORT MICHILLIMACKINAC

who disturbed his garrison with stories of impending
disaster. It is not remarkable that the Indians found
him unprepared.

On the morning of the fourth of June the weather
was warm and sultry. It was his majesty King
George's birthday and for this reason there were festal
arrangements at the fort. The soldiers were allowed
liberty to wander where they would, in or out of the
stockades, and the Indians had permission to play a
game of ball in honor of the day. As time went on the
fort became filled with Indians, chiefs and humble fol-
lowers of the ranks, old hags, young women and
children.

The hour for the ball game approached. This game
of ball, or baggataway as the red men called it, was
a favorite with the Indians. It was very much like the
lacrosse of the present day, in fact was the original of
that game. There were two goals and the players
attempted to toss a ball through one of these two goals
with sticks. They were not allowed to use their hands
to throw the ball, so the game required a degree of skill
as well as agility and endurance.

The Ojibwas and the Sacs, two rivals of long
standing, were the contestants and excitement ran high.
Captain Etherington, with one of his lieutenants, was
lounging at the gate of the fort whooping on the
Ojibwas, for he had promised them that he would bet
on their side. Suddenly the ball arose in the air in a

135

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

graceful curve and fell within the walls of the fort.
The players, an excited mob, burst after it yelling. Sus-
pecting nothing, Etherington stepped aside with a laugh
to let the howling mass sweep in the walls of the citadel.

The Indians' stratagem had been completely suc-
cessful. Before he knew what was being done, Ether-
ington, with his lieutenant, was seized and bound, while
the Indians, reinforced by their comrades amongst the
spectators of the game, seized tomahawks which the
squaws had concealed beneath their blankets and fell
on the hapless members of the little garrison. There
commenced one of those familiar scenes of butchery
with which border tradition and the accounts of wit-
nesses who escaped have made us familiar. Men were
stricken down and held between Indians' knees while
they were scalped, still alive. Women and children
were slaughtered. Bodies of both sexes were mangled.
Frenzied red warriors scooped up handfuls of blood
and drank it in gulps. Soon the chapter was ended.
Only a few of the little garrison — kept, like Ethering-
ton, on account of rank or for some particular reasons
— were left alive.

From this day for four years Fort Michillimackinac
was without a garrison. Then, with the subjection of
the red tribes, the English came back to their border
posts and Michillimackinac was once more filled with
soldiery. In the early days of the Revolution the walls

136

FORT MICHILLIMACKINAC

of the fort were strengthened and the garrison was
increased.

The strategic location of the fort had never been
advantageous for purposes of defence, however, so in
November, 1779, Major de Peyster, fearful of attacks
by the Americans, moved his garrison over to the little
island of Michillimackinac and built the third Fort
Michillimackinac, that which is standing to-day. The
location which Major de Peyster chose was on the
southeastern portion of the island, which is three miles
wide and seven miles long, and there is a fine harbor
at the point chosen for the location of the fort. This
third fort Michillimackinac was occupied by the British
on July 15, 1780, but was not used by them during
the Revolution. In 1796 it was turned over to an
American garrison as the sequel of an extensive cor-
respondence between the young new nation and its
tenacious old mother country.

As it was necessary to know what disposition to
make of her newly-acquired border forts, the United
States at the close of the eighteenth century despatched
a certain Uriah Tracy to visit the frontier of the coun-
try and report on the condition of the fortifications
there. His letter about Michillimackinac, preserved
in the War Department files, gives a picture of the
place in December, 1800. The body of the letter
follows :

137

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

HON. SAMUEL DEXTER, Secretary of War:

In consequence of your predecessor's request to visit post
in the Western territory I proceeded to Plattsburg . . . and
on to Michillimackinac. Our fort at Michillimackinac is one of
our most important posts. It stands on an island in the straits
which lead from Lake Michigan into Lake Huron four or five
miles from the head of the strait. Fort Michillimackinac is an
irregular work partly built with a strong wall and partly with
pickets ; and the parade ground within it is from 100 to 125 feet
above the surface of the water. It contains a well of never-fail-
ing water, a boom proof used as a magazine, one stone barracks
for the use of the officers, equal if not superior to any building
of the kind in the United States, a good guard-house and bar-
racks for soldiers and convenient store-houses for produce, etc.,
with three strong and convenient block-houses. This post is
strong both by nature and by art and the possession of it has a
great influence with the Indians in favor of the United States.
The whole island on which the fort is situated belongs to the
United States and is five or six miles in length and two or three
miles in width. On the bank of the strait adjacent to the fort
stands a large house which was by the English called Govern-
ment House and was kept by the British commander of the fort
which now belongs to the United States.

The island and the country about it is remarkably healthy
and very fertile for so high a northern latitude.

URIAH TRACY.

The breaking out of the War of 1812 found only
57 soldiers under Lieutenant Porter Hanks at Fort
Michillimackinac. Moreover, the federal authorities at
Washington neglected to notify several of their border
forts that war had been declared. Accordingly when

138

FORT MICHILLIMACKINAC

Captain Roberts, in command of a British force con-
sisting of English soldiers, volunteers and Indians to
the number of about 900, descended upon the little
post, Michillimackinac was not in the attitude of
resistance.

Thus captured by the British, the post was a most
important stronghold for them during the continuance
of the conflict between the two countries. Not only
did it give them a base of great strategic possibilities,
but its easy capture had an immense moral effect upon
the Indian tribes round about, bringing many of these
tribes to the British aid and being the direct cause of
much of the Indian trouble that Americans suffered
on the western frontier at this time.

The English set to energetically fortifying the point
as soon as they had assumed charge. A hill-top back
of Fort Michillimackinac became the site for a block-
house which is standing to this day, and the walls of
Mackinac were strengthened and made greater. A
letter from R. McDouall, the British commander, of
date July 17, 1814, says:

I am doing my utmost to prepare for their (the American)
reception. Our new works on the hill overlooking the old fort
are nearly completed and the block-house in the centre will be
finished this week, which will make the position one of the
strongest in Canada. Its principal defect is the difficulty of
finding water near it, but that obviated and a sufficient supply
of provisions laid in, no force that the enemy can bring will be
able to reduce it.

139

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

The Englishman's opinion of the invulnerability
to attack of his block-house was proved by events and
was evidently shared by the Americans, for, when they
came in force against Michillimackinac, they attacked
from a different quarter. The American forces were
under the command of Colonel Croghan and Major
Holmes, who was beloved throughout the American
army for his engaging personality and many fine qual-
ities. During the short and unsuccessful attack Holmes
was mortally hurt. At the conclusion of the war, when
Michillimackinac and its new block-house were sur-
rendered by Great Britain to the United States, the
name of this talented young officer was applied to the
block-house. The surrender of Michillimackinac took
place July 18, 1815.

From the date of its surrender until 1895 Fort
Michillimackinac was regularly garrisoned by United
States troops, but in this latter year the garrison was
withdrawn and the works were left in the charge of a
caretaker. The block-houses were in rather dilapidated
condition and the grounds had become overgrown when,
in 1909, the Mackinac Island State Park Commission
of Michigan was created and in the hands of this or-
ganization the old fort has fared well. The block-house
has been restored and the grounds of the fort and its
buildings have been maintained at the public expense.
Every year Michillimackinac is visited by sight-seers
and the island is a popular summering place for many.

140

FORT MASSAC

NEAR METROPOLIS— ILLINOIS

HE far too far-seeing French in
1702, in furtherance of their de-
sign of dominion in North Amer-
ica, despatched a detachment of
about thirty men from Kas-
kaskia under the temporal com-
mand of M. Juchereau de St.
Denis and the spiritual direction of fiery Father Mer-
met to establish a trading post, mission and fort, as
near as convenient to the mouth of the Ohio River to
guard the southern access to this vital means of travel.
The result of this expedition was the establishment of
Fort Massac, the site of the future little city of Metrop-
olis, Illinois.

Consider the map as it is to-day, showing Metrop-
olis and the surrounding country, and see the fine
position that Fort Massac had in the day of its estab-
lishment : It was about thirty-six miles above the mouth
of the Ohio, quite far enough up to be out of the reach
of any flood of that great torrent and also to be beyond
the convenient call of marauding expeditions which
might be making the Mississippi their route north; it
faced to the south the mouth of the Tennessee River
and was not far from where the Cumberland and
Wabash rivers joined their courses to the Ohio, and
thus it had fine trading advantages. Therefore it is

141

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

not to be wondered at that for a time the new post
flourished mightily. Juchereau traded and Father Mer-
met preached to satisfied savages and Frenchmen.

Of Father Mermet's work it has been said that his
gentle virtues in every-day life and his fervid eloquence
in the spiritual rostrum made him beloved and respected
by all.

At early dawn his pupils came to church dressed neatly
and modestly each in a deer-skin or robe sewn together from
several skins. After receiving lessons they chanted canticle;
mass was then said in presence of all the Christians, the
French and the converts — the women on one side and the men
on the other. From prayers and instructions the missionaries
proceeded to visit the sick and administer medicine, and their
skill as physicians did more than all the rest to win confidence.
In the afternoon the catechism was taught in the presence of
the young and old, when every one, without distinction of rank
or age, answered the questions of the missionary. At evening
all would assemble at the chapel for instruction, for prayer and
to chant the hymns of the Church. On Sunday and festivals,
even after vespers, a homily was pronounced; at the close of
the day parties would meet in houses to recite the chaplets in
alternate choirs and sing psalms till late at night. Saturday
and Sunday were the days appointed for confession and com-
munion and every convert confessed once in a fortnight. The
success of this mission was such that marriages of the French
immigrants were sometimes solemnized with the daughters of
the Illinois according to the rites of the Catholic church.

Tradition says that the site of Massac had been used
by de Soto for a palisade in 1542, but whether this is

142

MEMORIAL MONUMENT
(Erected by Illinois Daughters American Revolution)

From the River
FORT MASSAC, ON THE OHIO ( LA BELLE RIVIERE )

FORT MASSAC

true there is no positive evidence to prove. Juchereau's
settlement consisted of a palisaded fort, a trading house,
several log cottages and the chapel which Mermet christ-
ened " Assumption," and this name was applied to the
entire settlement for some years. The name " Massac "
did not originate until half a century later. For a time,
indeed, the point was known as the " Old Cherokee
Fort."

Juchereau was removed from Massac and went to
the southern waters of the Mississippi, where he found
many large " fish to fry " which need not be described
in this chapter, and the good Father Mermet was taken
back to Kaskaskia. Deprived of its mainsprings in
this fashion, the little post began to languish and shortly
came to grief because of rising disaffection among the
surrounding Indians. The place was abandoned by
the French fleeing for their lives and leaving behind
them thirteen thousand buffalo skins which were eagerly
seized by the Indians from whom they had been pur-
chased at the rate of munificence usual to those days.
Tradition has it that the post was re-established by
adventurers shortly after its abandonment and was used
as a trading centre pure and simple, but the once lively
little foundation of Juchereau and Mermet was not
again conspicuous in the events of that border until
the French and Indian War of 1756-63.

During this time it was a rendezvous for the French
on the Ohio River and was their last defence in the

143

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

campaign of the English which finally wrested La Belle
Riviere from the lilies of France. In 1756 French sol-
diers landed here in force, threw up earthworks and
erected a stockade with four bastions mounting eight
cannon. Henceforth in French records the site was
known as Fort Massac. In 1763, by the terms of the
Treaty of Paris, Massac became an English possession
together with all of the rest of the French strongholds
in North America, but it was not until the spring of
1765 that the troops of France finally marched out from
the fort. The English during the thirteen years that
they held the Illinois country never occupied the point
with troops.

The event in which Fort Massac played a part, which
was to have the greatest influence in its section, took
place, however, not during its French and Indian days,
but later, when the American colonies were asserting
their independence of the Mother Country. All of the
Illinois country was held then by His Majesty's troops,
but it was common information that the French in-
habitants of the conquered country were not extraor-
dinarily well disposed to their rulers and that the gar-
risons of the English strongholds here had been largely
reduced to aid the fight on the eastern sea-coast. Ac-
cordingly it entered the head of one George Rogers
Clark, a daring borderman of twenty-six years, Vir-
ginian by birth, that it would not be an impossible task
to take from the English by force the country which

144

FORT MASSAC

they had in this manner seized from the French. June,
1778, saw him landing at Fort Massac, then ungar-
risoned, with a small body of men, and this same day
probably saw the American flag unfurled for the first
time west of the Ohio River, as it is confidently be-
lieved that Clark brought a copy of the new standard
with him. From Fort Massac the expedition set out
and achieved the ends which its commander forevisioned
with many deeds of daring. It opened the gates to
American settlement of all the northwest country of
the United States.

Fort Massac was not occupied by troops until 1794,
when, in view of probable collision with Spain and
France, Washington despatched Major Thomas Doyle,
of the United States Army, to rebuild and occupy the
post. This was done and for some years it was of im-
portance. In 1797 about thirty families had settled in
the neighborhood, Captain Zebulon Pike being in com-
mand of a garrison of eighty-three men. At different
times General Anthony Wayne and James Wilkinson
occupied the fort as their head-quarters. In 1812 it was
garrisoned by a Tennessee volunteer regiment, but at
the close of that conflict the fort was evacuated once
more.

In 1855, according to an account of Governor Rey-
nolds, of Illinois, Fort Massac was in good condition.
The walls, 135 feet square, were strong and at each
corner was a stout bastion. A large well of sweet water

10 145

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

was within the fortress and the walls were palisaded
with earth between the wood.

The site of old Fort Massac is to-day a State park
and the Illinois chapter of the Daughters of the Amer-
ican Revolution have restored the old fort as far as
possible to the form that it bore at the time of the Revo-
lution. It is additionally interesting as being the sole
survivor of that long line of forts with which the French
hoped to hold the Ohio River.

WEST POINT, ITS ENVIRONS AND
STONY POINT

AT ENTRANCE TO HUDSON HIGHLANDS— NEW YORK

HE long trough of land which
runs 384 miles from New York
to Montreal, consisting of the
Hudson River Valley, Lakes
George and Champlain and the
Richelieu River Valley, is with-
out doubt the most vital of
American natural highways and its importance has been
recognized from the earliest days of American history.
The French in the days when the lilies of France waved
over half of the American continent sent their war
parties down this depression to prey upon the English
settlements, and hence came about the building of
Ticonderoga at the northern entrance to the long march.
The American colonists years afterward, when they had
need to defend the southern mouth of the valley, forti-
fied West Point and its neighboring points and crags,
their first cover being taken at Peekskill some three or
four miles south of West Point. It will be remem-
bered that in 1777 came about that menacing campaign
in the Hudson in which the British from the south
under Sir Henry Clinton and in the north under Gen-
eral Burgoyne attempted a juncture of forces at
Albany, the intention being to divide the American
colonies along the line of the historic Hudson Valley

147

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

and then to reduce each half at leisure while the British
fleet prevented any efforts at union by way of the
sea-coast. Burgoyne surrendered in October of that
year at Saratoga, which is roughly half way between
Lake George and Albany, but to Sir Henry Clinton,
whose campaign was one of disaster to the Americans,
a few moments may be given in profitable speculation.

The American forces opposed to Clinton on the
lower Hudson consisted of about 1200 Continentals
under the command of the choleric old General Israel
Putnam and were concentrated several miles south of
West Point, where three forts had been built at great
expense earlier in the year. Fort Independence was
on the east side of the Hudson just north of Peekskill;
Forts Clinton and Montgomery were on the west side
directly opposite, Montgomery being the more northern
of the two. South of the location of the forts stood
Dunderberg Mountain, outpost of the highlands of the
Hudson. The river was obstructed by a boom and
chain opposite Fort Montgomery and protected from
British approach by two frigates on the northern side
of the chain.

Forts Clinton and Montgomery were under the
command of General James Clinton, brother of the
recently-elected Governor George Clinton of New
York, at this moment attending a session of the legis-
lature at Kingston. Hearing of the approach of the
British against the forts, he adjourned the legislature

148

WEST POINT AND STONY POINT

and hastened to his brother's assistance with such militia
as he could gather.

This completes the convocation of the Clintons in
this engagement; Sir Henry Clinton, in command of
the British forces, General James Clinton, in command
of the two western forts ; and Governor George Clinton,
hastening to the aid of brother James at Fort Clinton.

The approach of the British caused General Put-
nam to place his Continentals on the eastern shore be-
hind Peekskill and to bring over from the western shore
a large force to reinforce his own. The British galleys
advanced far enough up the river to prevent communica-
tion between the two American bodies, and it then
became plain that it had been the hope of the English
commander to cause the Americans to divide their
forces by making a feint at the eastern shore where
Putnam supposed that the strength of the British
would be. The Americans had played into his hands.
On the morning of the 6th of October Sir Henry
Clinton landed his main forces on the western shore,
and by sending a detachment around Dunderberg
Mountain managed to attack Forts Clinton and Mont-
gomery from the rear while another force engaged them
from the south.

The result of this engagement was that while the
Americans fought pluckily they were overcome by the
British, with a loss of 250 killed, wounded and missing,
as opposed to the British casualty list of 40 killed and

149

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

150 wounded, and that the two western forts fell into
the hands of the English. The boom and chain across
the river were destroyed, and the British fleet sailed up
the river and attacked Fort Constitution on Constitu-
tion Island opposite West Point. Fort Constitution
was hastily abandoned.

Such a signal success on Sir Henry Clinton's part
should have caused him to push quickly on to effect a
junction with Burgoyne, who had written him of his
desperate straits at the northern end of the Hudson,
but, having done this much, the English knight seemed
to think that nothing more was expected of him, for,
beyond sending a marauding expedition up the Hudson
as far as Kingston, he made no further northern ad-
vance and retired to New York with his entire force.
Had he joined Burgoyne in time to prevent the capitu-
lation of the latter, it is probable that the whole history
of this country would have been written in another
fashion from that date.

Fort Constitution, which held so short an argument
with the British fleet opposite West Point, was the
first fortification of the series of works which lie in the
vicinity of West Point. In August, 1775, a commit-
tee appointed by the State of New York and consist-
ing of Isaac Sears, John Berrien, Christopher Miller,
Captain Samuel Bayard and Captain William Bedlow,
began the erection of forts and batteries in the vicinity
of West Point. As an adviser to this committee Ber-

150

WEST POINT AND STONY POINT

nard Romans, an English engineer, was employed, and
under his direction Martelaer's rock, now Constitution
Island, was chosen for the site of the principal forti-
fication. The fort, which was commenced under
Romans's supervision but finished by another military
architect, was named Constitution and cost altogether
about $25,000. The remains of the fort are still visible
on the island, the outlines of the walls being discernible,
with the location of the principal point.

After the retreat of Sir Henry Clinton from before
West Point, — a voluntary retreat, it should be ob-
served,— the Americans saw that they must strengthen
their defences at this place. Anxious to have the passes
here strongly guarded, General Washington wrote to
General Putnam, asking that he would give his most
particular attention to the matter. Duty called Put-
nam to Connecticut and little was done in the matter
until the arrival of General Macdougal, who took com-
mand on March 20, 1778, by whom West Point was
approved as the location of the principal defences.

There now comes upon the scene the Polish patriot
Kosciuszko, who had been appointed to succeed a
French engineer, La Radierre, in the Hudson High-
lands and who had taken up his new duties coincident-
ally with the arrival of General Macdougal. Kos-
ciuszko pushed forward the construction of the works
with great vigor.

151

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

The principal redoubt was constructed of logs and
earth, was 600 feet around within the walls, and its
embankments were 14 feet high with a base of 21 feet.
The work was situated on a cliff which rises 187 feet
above the river, and upon its completion in May was
named Fort Clinton. The remains of Fort Clinton are
carefully preserved to-day and comprise that line of
grass-covered mounds which edge the eastern side of
the plateau on which West Point Academy is situated.
In the midst of these quiet green mounds stands a monu-
ment to Kosciuszko, erected by the corps of cadets of
1828. From the ruins a beautiful view of the Hudson
is to be obtained, though the new buildings of the Acad-
emy cut off much which formerly was contained in the
view from this point.

To support Fort Clinton works were constructed
and batteries placed on the hills and mountains of
West Point. On Mount Independence, which over-
hangs the military school, a strong fort was built and
named, when completed, Fort Putnam, in honor of the
sturdy patriot of Connecticut.

The remains of Fort Putnam, or " Old Put," as it
came to be known in the neighborhood, were for many
years the scene of picnickers' journeys up the steep
hill-side whose crest it crowns and for many years were
allowed to lie in a condition of disorder and decay. Of
recent years the United States Government has taken
in hand the old works and has restored them to as near

152

Fort Putnam's Rocky Interior

Kosciuszko Monument

The North Wall, "Old Put"
SKETCH SNAP-SHOTS OF WEST POINT'S HISTORIC MEMORIALS

WEST POINT AND STONY POINT

their original condition as can be learned. The walls
Jiave been rebuilt where necessary and the brick case-
mates relaid. The result is that Fort Putnam to-day is
the best preserved and most interesting of the souvenirs
of the war-like days of West Point.

A rocky, inhospitable looking, irregular stone en-
closure, Fort Putnam to-day gives one a very good idea
of the stern, rude conditions with which our forefathers
labored in the founding of our republic. From the
walls of the fort a most enchanting prospect is to be
gained from any direction, enchanting to either the
lover of beautiful natural scenery or to the lover of his-
toric memorials; for the Hudson Valley and its tower-
ing hills lie out before one to any point of the compass.
Upon the points of these high hills were located bat-
teries and strong works in the days when Putnam was
young, each battery and work with its quota of rough
colonial militia determined to fight to the last man
against the trained soldiers of Europe. South of Fort
Putnam were two small works known as Fort Wyllys
and Fort Webb upon the eminences to be seen from
" Put." On the crown of Sugar Loaf Mountain was a
redoubt known as South Battery.

In addition to the construction of Forts Clinton and
Putnam and their supporting batteries, Fort Constitu-
tion was strengthened and re-garrisoned, and between
West Point and Constitution Island was stretched a
huge iron chain, links of which are preserved in the

153

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

museum at West Point. The chain was manufactured
by Peter Townshend, of the Stirling Iron Works,
Orange County, and was made of links two feet in
length and in weight over 140 pounds each.

At the close of 1779 West Point was considered the
strongest military post in America, and a large quantity
of gunpowder, provisions and munitions of war was
collected there. These considerations, in addition to
the strategic value of the place, made of it a great prize
for the enemy, who tried in various ways to seize it for
his own. Yet the great menace to the place lay not
without, where the British soldiers were, but within,
and the story of that fact is one of the saddest things
of American history.

The treason of Benedict Arnold had its setting at
West Point, though its foundations were laid months
before he assumed command of this important locale.
Indeed, at the moment of Arnold's appointment to the
command of West Point, the American general had
been in correspondence with Sir Henry Clinton for
eighteen months.

It is supposed that the defection of Arnold and his
plans for the surrender of West Point began in Phila-
delphia during the winter of 1778, when he was ap-
pointed governor-general of that city after the evacua-
tion by the British. Fond of show and feeling the
importance of his station, he began to live in style far
beyond his income, and pecuniary embarrassments

154

WEST POINT AND STONY POINT

began to multiply around him. He lived in the mansion
that had once sheltered William Perm (and which is still
standing) , kept a coach and four, and gave splendid ban-
quets. When impatient creditors began to press him
for funds, he resorted to devious ways of raising money.
So open did the scandal become of his indecent use of
his position for private gain that charges were laid
against him before Congress implying abuse of power,
and the whole matter was handed over to Washington
to have tried before a military tribunal. The verdict
in the trial was rendered January 26, 1780, after a
lengthy consideration of the case, and two of the four
charges against Arnold were sustained. Washington
was ordered to reprimand the officer, convicted by a
jury of his peers, and did so in as kind a fashion as ever
a reprimand was given. Indeed, at the time, Washing-
ton, himself, came in for censure because his reprimand
was so ambiguously worded that it might be construed
to praise the impetuous warrior who had fought for
the new republic rather than to reprove the errant ad-
ministrator. However, from this time it is supposed
that Arnold planned to benefit himself and to deal the
American cause a vital blow.

The military importance of West Point being plain,
it was equally plain that the British would be willing
to pay handsomely for its surrender. Arnold settled
upon the place as the prize that his treachery should
hold out to the English, and by various pieces of wire-

155

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

pulling succeeded in having himself appointed its com-
mander-in-chief . The general opinion of this American
leader then was that he was headstrong and self-willed
but not characterless. His impetuosity and violence
were esteemed good qualities, which fitted him for the
work of the soldier while they unfitted him for admin-
istrative duties. His good will toward his fellow-coun-
trymen was not doubted. In August, 1780, Arnold
took command of West Point and made his head-
quarters in a rambling old house which had belonged
to Colonel Beverly Robinson, Colonel Robinson having
espoused the English side of the quarrel during the
Revolutionary War and having been obliged to take
refuge in the English lines in consequence.

The chief correspondent of Arnold in the English
ranks was Major Andre, and for a long time Sir Henry
Clinton did not know the identity of the American gen-
eral with whom Andre was in communication. To his
missives Arnold affixed the signature of Gustavus and
wrote in the character of a commercial correspondent
of a business house. Andre on his part signed his letters
John Anderson.

The general plan by which Clinton was to take
possession of West Point through Arnold's connivance
had many ramifications, but its chief text as concerns
us was that Clinton should make a strong demonstra-
tion against the post and that Arnold, after a weak de-
fence, should yield it to him. The final negotiations

156

WEST POINT AND STONY POINT

which touched the amount of money which Arnold was
to receive for his treachery were concluded by Clinton
through the intermediation of Andre, who assumed the
guise of a spy in order to carry out his commander's
behests. It was while returning from this trip to
Arnold's headquarters and but one day before the drama
was to be consummated that Andre fell into the hands
of American forces and the papers which he bore were
brought to light.

The morning of the 24th, the day set by Arnold
for his surrender to Clinton, dawned bright and fine.
Washington was expected at Arnold's headquarters
from Hartford. As he sat at breakfast Arnold re-
ceived a message from Colonel Jameson, stationed to
the south, which contained the intelligence not that the
British were approaching, but that a Major Andre had
been captured. Hastily asking to be excused, Arnold
made his way to the room of his young wife, the beau-
tiful Margaret Shippen, of Philadelphia, and bade her
a brief farewell ; then he let himself out of the house by
a back way and took a short path to the water-shore
where he summoned a boatman and had himself rowed
to the British fleet. Washington arrived at Arnold's
headquarters in time to gather up the loose ends of
things and prevent the dreadful catastrophe that the
loss of the strongest of the American positions would
have meant.

157

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

It has been claimed that the influence of Arnold's
wife, who was of a Tory family and had been an ardent
British sympathizer before her marriage, had much to
do with Arnold's desertion from the cause he had first
embraced. There is no evidence to finally set at rest
this conjecture. Margaret Shippen had many friends
amongst the British officers and Major Andre was the
chief amongst these friends, but there is no reason to
believe that she was base at heart, that she was not de-
voted to her husband, or that she could not realize how
utter would be his undoing. After his downfall she re-
joined him in New York and shared with him patiently
all of the contempt and odium that were his portion for
the rest of his life, from American and English alike.

The military academy at West Point was established
by Act of Congress which became law March 16, 1802.
The establishment of such a place had been proposed
to Congress by Washington in 1793, and even before
the close of the Revolution he had suggested such an
institution and had even fixed on West Point as the
location. Little was done in the matter even after the
act of Congress of 1802, until in 1812, by a second
enactment, a corps of engineers and teachers was or-
ganized and the school actually started. The beautiful
buildings of the Academy are the fruit of the last gen-
eration's labor.

Stony Point lies south of West Point, separating

158

WEST POINT AND STONY POINT

Peekskill Bay on the north from Haverstraw Bay on
the south. Opposite is Verplanck's Point. The river
here is very narrow. In 1779 Clinton had strongly forti-
fied Stony Point, thus cutting off West Point's com-
munications from the south and establishing a strong
base from which to proceed against that place. Wash-
ington saw that Stony Point must be captured.

To carry out his bold scheme — for the spot was
deemed impregnable to assault — he called upon General
Anthony Wayne — " Mad " Anthony — and asked him if
he would undertake such a commission. " General, I'll
storm hell if you'll only plan it," Wayne is said to have
replied.

The situation of Stony Point was a fortress in itself.
At high tide it was practically an island, the ravine on
the shore side through which the railroad passes now-a-
days being then a marshy inlet of the river. From the
river the rock rose precipitously, and was at its highest
point 700 feet above tide.

The assault was made under cover of darkness, July
15, 1779, the American forces advancing secretly under
the guidance of an old negro who had learned the watch-
word of the fort for that night. This watchword
was, " The Fort's Our Own." The phrase has been
carved above the doorway of the reservation, where it
may be seen by all visitors to-day. One by one the
sentries were approached and overpowered, and the

159

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

Americans were almost within the walls before their
presence was discovered. By two o'clock on the morning
of July 16 the fort was the possession of the assailants.

The stores of the English were destroyed and the
post was evacuated.

Stony Point is now a public reservation of the State
of New York. The battle-ground is in charge of the
American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society,
which has marked the locality of the redoubts and of
interesting points.

FORT CONSTITUTION
(FORT WILLIAM AND MARY)

GREAT ISLAND NEAR PORTSMOUTH— NEW HAMPSHIRE

HE records of the War Depart-
ment at Washington say that
Fort Constitution reservation
" contains twelve acres. It is
situated on a rocky projection
in the Piscataqua River at the
entrance to the harbor of the
City of Portsmouth. It is about three miles below the
city on the west side of the river, on the eastern end of

* Great Island,' being the most eastern end of New
Hampshire. It was formerly an English fort called

* William and Mary ' and was occupied by United
States troops in 1806."

The location of Fort Constitution may be fixed more
exactly by saying that it is very close to Newcastle, one
of the outlying dependencies of Portsmouth. A long
low stone structure thrust out on a wave-washed spit
of rock, its picturesque appearance stimulates the fancy
of every visitor who approaches Portsmouth by water.

Adjoining the fort is a light-house erected in 1771,
and on a rocky eminence overlooking the fort is a
ruined martello tower of striking aspect.

The history of Fort Constitution goes back to the
early beginnings of settlement on the New England
coast. In 1665 the commissioners of King Charles II

11 161

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

began to erect a fortification on the point here, but were
halted by the prohibitions of the Massachusetts fathers.
In 1700 there existed a fort on Great Island and prob-
ably on the site of the present structure. This fort was
visited by the Earl of Bellemont and declared by him
incapable of defending the river, notwithstanding the
fact that it mounted thirty guns.

A new defensive structure was planned by Colonel
Homer, who recommended as additional works a strong
tower on the point of Fryer's (Gerrish's) Island and
batteries on Wood and Clark's Islands. His main
plans were carried out and with slight alterations
formed the fortification which was known at the time
of the Revolutionary ferment as Castle William and
Mary, its name sufficiently emphasizing the period of
its conception. While Castle William and Mary had
an honorable career in a passive fashion during the
French wars by frightening off French descents upon
the flourishing little city which it guards, it does not
spring into the lime-light until 1774, when it becomes
the scene of the first capture of arms made by the
Americans in the struggle against the Mother Country.

In the year we have under consideration the Gov-
ernor of New Hampshire was the able and passionate
Sir John Wentworth. An account of the seizure of
the supplies at Fort William and Mary may be suc-
cinctly given by means of extracts from Sir John's
letters of that period, a series of which was published

162

FORT CONSTITUTION

in 1869, in the " Historical and Genealogical Register "
by the Honorable John Wentworth, of Chicago.

In a letter to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated Ports-
mouth, December 20, 1774, Governor Wentworth says:

On Tuesday the 18th instant, in the afternoon, one Paul
Revere arrived with letters from some of the leaders in Boston
to Mr. Samuel Cutts, merchant, of this town. Reports were
soon circulated that the Fort at Rhode Island had been dis-
mantled and the Gunpowder and other military stores removed
up to Providence and ... it was also falsely given out that
Troops were embarking at Boston to come and take possession
of William and Mary Castle in this harbour. These rumors
soon raised an alarm in the town; and although I did not ex-
pect that the people would be so audacious as to make any at-
tack on the castle yet I sent orders to the captain at the fort to
be upon his guard.

On Wednesday news was brought to me that a drum was
beating about the town to collect the populace together in order
to go and take away the Gunpowder and dismantle the Fort.
I immediately sent the Chief Justice of the Province to warn
them from engaging in such an attempt. He went to them
where they were collected in the centre of the town near the
townhouse, explained to them the nature of the offence they
proposed to commit, told them it was not short of Rebellion and
intreated them to desist from it and to disperse. But all to no
purpose. They went to the island and, being joined by the
inhabitants of the towns of Newcastle and Rye, formed in a body
of about four hundred men and the Castle being in too weak a
condition for defence (as I have in former letters explained to
your lordship) they forced their entrance in spite of Captain
Cochrane who defended it as long as he could ; but having only

163

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

the assistance of five men their numbers overpowered him.
After they entered the Fort they seized upon the captain and
triumphantly gave three huzzas and hauled down the King's
colours. They then put the captain and men under confine-
ment, broke open the Gunpowder magazine and carried off
about 100 barrels of Gunpowder but discharged the Captain
and men from their confinement before their departure.

On Thursday, the 15th, in the morning a party of men
came from the country accompanied by Mr. (Gen. John)
Sullivan one of the New Hampshire delegates to the Congress,
to take away the cannon from the Fort, also. Mr. Sullivan
declared that he had taken pains to prevail upon them to re-
turn home again ; and said, as there was no certain intelligence
of troops being coming to take possession of the Castle, he
would still use his utmost endeavors to disperse them.

While the town was thus full of men a committee from them
came to me to solicit pardon or a suspension of prosecution
against the persons who took away the Gunpowder. I told
them I could not promise them any such thing; but if they dis-
persed and restored the gunpowder, which I most earnestly
exhorted them to do, I said I hoped His Majesty may be thereby
induced to consider it an alleviation of the offence. They
parted from me, in all appearance, perfectly disposed to follow
the advice I had given them; and having proceeded directly to
the rest of their associates they all publickly voted ... to
return home. . . .

But, instead of dispersing, the people went to the Castle
in the night headed by Mr. Sullivan and took away sixteen
pieces of cannon, about sixty muskets and other military stores
and brought them to the out Borders of the town.

On Friday morning, the 16th, Mr. Folsom, the other dele-
gate, came to town that morning with a great number of armed

164

1

FORT CONSTITUTION

men who remained in Town as a guard till the flow of the tide in
the evening when the cannon were sent in Gondolas up the river
into the country and they all dispersed without having done
any personal injury to any body in the town.

On the Fourth of July, 1809, an explosion of powder
took place at Fort Constitution in which four men and
three boys were killed and a number of bystanders
wounded. The cause of the explosion was the care-
lessness of a sergeant with a lighted fuse, and the
unlucky hour that he chose for his celebration was a
time when his colonel (Colonel Walbach) had a number
of guests to dinner. None of the diners were injured,
and a quaint contemporary account tells their natural
distress at various of the phenomena around them.
" One poor fellow," says this account, " was carried
over the roof of the house and the upper half of his
body lodged on the opposite side near the window of
the dining-room ; the limb of another was driven through
a thick door over the dining-room leaving a hole in the
door the shape of the foot."

The appearance of Fort Constitution to-day is not
very warlike and it does not play a very active part
in the city's defences. The walls of the older part of
the fort are of rough stone topped with brick. Over
the arch of the sally-port here is a date, 1808. These
walls have been partly enclosed by unfinished walls of
granite of later construction.

The martello tower, to which reference has already

165

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

been had, was constructed during the War of 1812
and was begun one Sunday morning while two British
cruisers were lying off the Isle of Shoals. Its pur-
pose was to prevent a landing on the beach at the south
side of the main work. An assault on that work was
not attempted at the time, but who can say that the
promptness of the New Hampshiremen in thus adding
to their defences in the face of the enemy did not have
its moral value in forestalling an attack? The tower
had three embrasures.

FORTS TRUMBULL AND GRISWOLD

NEW LONDON AND GROTON, ON THE THAMES— CONNECTICUT

HE sunny waters of the Thames
at New London, Connecticut,
present a smiling aspect, and
from the high flag-staff of trig
little Fort Trumbull the stars
and stripes float gaily. Across the
river on the hill above the little
town of Groton is the State reservation containing the
remains of Fort Griswold, with rough zig-zag paths
approaching the summit of the hill. Adjacent to Fort
Griswold is the stone monument which commemorates
the Fort Griswold massacre. Many sunny years will
not wipe out the memory of the bloody deeds of that
violent hour.

Fort Trumbull is situated one mile from the mouth
of the Thames River and one mile and a half below the
little city of New London, with whose history it is asso-
ciated. A modest work of substantial construction, it
covers only thirteen acres and is so restricted for living
space that it cannot accommodate a full garrison within
its walls. Fort Griswold is a work of far more ancient
and rougher construction. It is not garrisoned to-day
and has not been garrisoned for many years, though in
the fighting days of the two forts it was the more
important of the two places.

The little village of New London is a favored water-

167

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

ing place for many in summer and its safe and acces-
sible harbor has made it desirable as a haven for the
storage of summer light craft during the winter months.
These same considerations hold true of Groton on the
other side of the river. Thousands of visitors every
summer go over the historic defences of Fort Griswold
or gaze upon the equally historic site of Fort Trumbull.

The erection of two forts was begun in 1775 by the
citizens of New London and Groton, one on the west
side of the Thames which was designated in the cor-
respondence of the time as a " block-house with em-
brasures," and the other, a more pretentious work, on
the east side of the river and designated at once " Fort
Trumbull." In 1776 Washington directed General
Knox to examine the harbor of New London. This
gentleman carried out his commission in workmanlike
fashion and reported that the harbor was a safe and
well-protected retreat for vessels in any wind that blew.
The harbor is three miles long and seldom encumbered
with ice.

In that same year Captain Shapley was ordered to
take command of Fort Trumbull, and Colonel William
Ledyard of Fort Griswold on Groton Hill. Later,
Ledyard was placed in command of the two positions.
In 1777 he revised, strengthened and enlarged Fort
Trumbull, and in 1778 performed this same work upon
Fort Griswold. Under his direction, in 1779, strong
works were thrown up on Town Hill, New London.

168

Fort Griswold, Groton

Fort Trumbull, New London
HISTORIC POINTS ON THE THAMES RIVER, CONN.

FORT TRUMBULL

Finally, in 1780, the assembly of New London ordered
his accounts paid.

The successful operations of the Continental forces
in Virginia in 1781 caused Sir Henry Clinton to cast
about for some means of distracting his opponents and
of recalling Washington from the South, preferably
by some deed of enterprise in the North. He fixed on
New London as the scene of operations, as he had
heard that there were many stores in the little town,
and as the leader of the expedition he picked out
Benedict Arnold, the traitor, who had just returned
from scenes of pillage on the James River, Virginia.
The choice of Arnold may have appealed to some
saturnine sense of humor in Clinton, as Connecticut,
it may be remembered, was Arnold's native State and
New London not far from the scenes of his boyhood.

The little works at New London and Groton, de-
spite the conscientious efforts of Colonel Ledyard,
were not positions of much consequence. Fort Trum-
bull, we are told, was merely a strong breastwork of
three sides, and open in the rear, mounting eighteen
12-pound guns and three 6-pound guns. Its garrison
numbered twenty-three men. Fort Griswold was some-
what more formidable, being " an oblong square with
bastions at opposite angles, its longest side fronting
the river in a northwest and southeast direction, its
walls of stone 10 or 12 feet high on the lower side and
surrounded by a ditch; in the wall pickets projected

169

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

over for 12 feet; above, a parapet with embrasures and
within a platform for cannon, with a step to mount to
shoot over the parapet with small arms."

In addition to these, — the main defences — there was
the little work on the summit of Town Hill, New
London, which mounted six small-bore guns and which
had become known by the airy title of " Fort Nonsense."

It being manifestly impossible to hold Fort Trum-
bull with a force of twenty-three men, the Americans,
on the approach of Arnold and the British, took all of
their forces and placed them in Fort Griswold. At its
best the garrison of this point was not as numerous as
the attacking body and it was made up of untrained
militia gathered at the moment's call.

The result of the battle, when battle was finally
given, was a foregone conclusion. The British soldiery
landed September 6, 1781, and advanced in force. The
plucky American garrison tried desperately to hold
back the onslaught, fighting most of the men in sight
of their own homes, but without effect. After a sharp
engagement the fort was taken and the conclusion of
the combat was a signal to Arnold's forces for an in-
discriminate slaughter of the Americans, many of whom
had thrown down their arms. Of the 160 men making
up the garrison all but 40 were killed or wounded,
and the vast majority of them after resistance had
ceased. The wounded, contemporary testimony asserts,
were placed in carts under Arnold's direction and

170

FORT GRISWOLD

dumped over the edge of the hill here which is very
steep.

The British then entered Groton and New London
and set them on fire. Arnold finally led his forces back
to New York.

To commemorate the gallant defence of Fort Gris-
wold and the terrible scenes which it had witnessed, the
State of Connecticut began the erection of a monu-
ment on Groton Heights in 1830 and carried the shaft
to the height of 127 feet. At this height the monu-
ment rested until 1881, when it was carried eight feet
higher. On the face of the shaft is a tablet which
bears the following inscription:

This monument was erected under the patronage of the
State of Connecticut, A.D. 1830 and in the 55th year of the
independence of the United States, in memory of the brave pa-
triots who fell in the massacre at Fort Griswold on this spot on
the 6th of September, A.D. 1781, when the British under the
command of the traitor Benedict Arnold burnt the towns of
New London and Groton and spread desolation and woe
throughout this region.

Various spots in the little grounds of the fort have
been marked with tablets. The grounds are carefully
maintained and are open to visitors at all times.

Though no effort was ever made to rebuild Fort
Griswold, a like fate did not befall Fort Trumbull. At
the outbreak of the War of 1812 the embankments of
Fort Trumbull were nothing but green mounds. A

171

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

formal work was commenced, leaving the old block-
house inside the new lines. During this war the fort
was often threatened but never attacked.

An anecdote which shows the spirit of the locality
is retailed by Lossing: l

When the British squadron which drove Decatur into the
harbor of New London in 1813 menaced the town with bom-
bardment the military force that manned the forts were defi-
cient in flannel for cannon cartridges. All that could be found
in New London was sent to the forts and a Mr. Latham, a neigh-
bor of Mrs. Anna Bailey's, came to her at Groton seeking for
more. She started out and collected all the petticoats of little
children that she could find in town. " This is not half enough,"
said Mr. Latham on her return. " You shall have mine too,"
said Mrs. Bailey as she cut with her scissors the string that
fastened it, and taking it off gave it to Latham. He was satis-
fied, and, hastening to Fort Trumbull, that patriotic contribu-
tion was soon made into cartridges. " It was a heavy new one
but I did not care for that," said the old lady while her eyes
sparkled. " All I wanted was to see it go through the English-
men's insides." Some of Decatur's men declared that it was
a shame to cut that petticoat into cartridge patterns ; they
would rather see it fluttering at the mast-head of the United
States or the Macedonia as an ensign under which to fight upon
the broad ocean.

The present Fort Trumbull was begun in 1839 on
the foundations of its two predecessors and finished at
a cost of $250,000. Part of the old block-house of the
first Fort Trumbull is still preserved in the confines
of the present fort.

1 Lossing, vol. i, p. 617.

FORT MIFFLIN

ON THE DELAWARE— PHILADELPHIA

? VISIT to Fort Mifflin, Mud
Island, on the Delaware River,
Pennsylvania, to-day reveals a
star-shaped fort of familiar pat-
tern and of most substantial con-
struction. It has the distinction
of being within the corporate limits
of one of the largest cities on the continent of North
America, — Philadelphia, — yet a more deserted or for-
lorn looking spot it would be hard to imagine. Without
benefit of policemen or any of the familiar marks of a
great city, it might well serve in a " movie " for an
ancient stronghold in a desert waste and may have been
discovered by some enterprising movie manufacturer
before these words are in print. Not always quiet, how-
ever, Fort Mifflin was the scene of one of the heaviest
cannonadings of the War of Independence, when it
sturdily held off the combined English naval and land
forces until its own walls were reduced to powder.

The ground on which the Fort Mifflin of to-day
stands was deeded to the Federal government by the
State of Pennsylvania in 1795, and the present works
were commenced in 1798. As the strategic advantage
and the ease of fortification of the point had been amply
demonstrated during the Revolution, a large and strong
fortress was built and garrisoned until changing con-
ns

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

ditions of warfare caused its importance to be a thing
of the past and its garrison to be withdrawn in 1853.
During the Civil War the fort was garrisoned by a
volunteer regiment and served as a detention place for
prisoners taken during that conflict, but this structure
saw no service in this war and, indeed, has never fired
a shot in anger. After the Civil War the place was
deserted, though the government has ever since kept
a care-taker there. The government land reservation
includes over three hundred acres. In other parts of
the island are more modern government stations, but
in these we have no present interest.

The old fortification is surrounded by a deep moat
over which are bridges leading to its three sally-ports.
Only one of these entrances is open now. Passing
through the thick walls of this entrance, one finds one's
self facing a large parade ground, which is surrounded
by quaint, old-fashioned structures — the barracks and
officers' quarters of a by-gone day. On the south of
the parade is a very charming little Georgian chapel,
through whose broken window-panes pour in damp
winds.

In the casemates of the old fort were confined
Morgan's men during the Civil War. It is a dark and
dismal trip to the damp rooms in which these men were
confined, as one goes through narrow subterranean cor-
ridors beneath the thick walls of the fort. One comes
to a large cavernous chamber lighted from above by a

174

FORT MIFFLIN

single narrow slit. At one end of this chamber is an
open fire-place. On the walls are scribbled numerous
names and messages from Morgan's men. It might
perhaps be an interesting matter to copy down these
names and messages, if one had the patience and time
to do so, but hardly a task within the province of this
chapter. May be the room was cheerful enough in the
days of its use with the big fire-place containing a roar-
ing fire, but it is dismal now, in all conscience!

From the walls of Fort Mifflin there is a fine view
of the Delaware River. Natives of the neighborhood
say that the marshes round about yield fine gunning
during the season. Directly across the Delaware from
Fort Mifflin — the river being about a mile wide, here —
are the remains of Fort Mercer and the outworks which
made up this strong little post in the days of the Revo-
lution. Fort Mercer and its earthworks are preserved
by the nation, forming a public reservation which annu-
ally receives many visitors.

The ancient Whitall house — a two-story building
of red brick — still stands at Fort Mercer, reminding
one of the intrepid old lady who occupied it during the
battle. Old Mrs. Whitall was urged to flee from the
house but refused, saying, " God's arm is strong and
will protect me; I may do good by staying." She was
left alone in the house and, while the battle was raging
and cannon-balls were driving like sleet against her
dwelling, calmly plied her spinning-wheel. At length

175

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

a twelve-pound ball from a vessel in the river, grazing
the American flag-staff (a walnut tree), at the fort,
passed at the north gable through a heavy brick wall,
perforated a partition at the head of the stairs, crossed
a recess, and lodged in another partition near where the
old lady was sitting. Conceiving Divine protection a
little more certain elsewhere after this manifestation of
the power of gunpowder, the old lady gathered up her
spinning implements and with a step as agile as youth
retreated to the cellar, where, not to be pushed out of
her house by any circumstance, she continued her spin-
ning as industriously as before. When the wounded
and dying were brought to her house to be cared for,
she went industriously at the work of succor, not caring
whether she tended friend or foe. She scolded the
Hessians vigorously for coming to this country on a
work of butchery, and at the same time ministered to
their sufferings.

The third American redoubt lay farther down the
river at Billingsport.

It will be recalled that Howe, with his English
regulars and Hessians, spent the winter of 1776-77
in New York with occasional forays from that point.
In July, 1777, after a trial of wits with Washington
in northern New Jersey, he embarked his troops and
set sail to the south. Washington's uneasiness as to
the whereabouts of his foe was set at rest after three
weeks by hearing of the landing of Howe at the head

176

FORT MIFFLIN

of the Chesapeake Bay. There then ensued the battle
of the Brandy wine and that series of skirmishes which
ended in Howe's taking possession of Philadelphia,
then the capital of the country, with the removal of the
American official papers to York.

To secure his position and keep his lines open in
Philadelphia, however, it was necessary for Howe to
take the American positions at Billingsport, at Fort
Mercer and at Fort Mifflin. The works at Billingsport
fell quickly before a surprise attack, and it now re-
mained to take Mifflin and Mercer.

The garrison at Mercer consisted of two Rhode
Island regiments under Colonel Christopher Greene.
At Mifflin there was about the same number of the
Maryland line under Lieutenant- Colonel Samuel
Smith. The American fleet in the river consisted
chiefly of galleys and floating batteries, and was
anchored off the present League Island. It was under
the command of Commodore Hazlewood.

Count Donop, with 1200 picked Hessians, was sent
by Howe to take Fort Mercer. On the morning of
October 24, he appeared before the little fort. Though
the Americans had only 400 men with fourteen cannon
they were not dismayed but stood to their arms. The
battle commenced at four o'clock in the afternoon and
raged with great fierceness. It resulted in the repulse
of the assailants and the death of their commander,

12 177

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

Count Donop, to whom a monument has been erected
at Fort Mercer Park.

The firing of the first gun against Fort Mercer
was the signal for the British fleet to open upon Fort
Mifflin. A heavy cannonade continued until the British
were obliged to draw off. A hot shot struck one of
their large ships, the Augusta, and this vessel burned
to the water's edge.

For a season the Americans held undisputed pos-
session of their section of the Delaware, but then the
British returned the charge with increased force. Fort
Mifflin was made the centre of attack. Batteries were
posted upon Province Island, — now a part of the main-
land directly off Mud Island on which the little fort
stood, — and on this side the fort was not finished. A
large floating battery was also brought up the river
within forty yards of one angle of the fort. Altogether
the British had fourteen strong batteries, in addition
to four 64-gun and two 40-gun ships. The engage-
ment opened on the 10th of November and continued
for six consecutive days without interruption. In the
course of the last day more than a thousand discharges
of cannon were made against the little fort on Mud
Island. By this time there was little left of its walls
and no single chance of the garrison holding out longer.
The officer in command escaped to Fort Mercer with
the remnants of his force. It is said that the British
were preparing to draw away from Fort Mifflin and

178

FORT MIFFLIN

had made up their minds to give up the siege, but
information from a deserter caused them to keep on
for the few days necessary to reduce the weakened
stronghold.

So strong a force was now sent against Fort Mercer
that Colonel Greene was obliged to evacuate that post,
leaving behind some guns and ammunition with military
stores.

The American fleet sought safety in flight up the
Delaware. One brig and two sloops escaped to Bur-
lington. Seventeen other vessels, unable to escape, were
abandoned by their crews and burned at Gloucester,
just across from the Philadelphia of to-day.

The Delaware River and Philadelphia were now
in the hands of Howe. For a long winter he was to
lie inactive while Washington took up position at Val-
ley Forge and spent that historic winter with his men
of which so much has been written. Instead of work-
ing for the future the British spent their time in balls
and the Meschianza. Let Americans of to-day be thank-
ful that they found Philadelphia manners and Phila-
delphia belles so altogether delightful!

FORT McHENRY

BALTIMORE

HE spot whereon the flag-staff
stood which bore the stars and
stripes that fervid morning upon
which Francis Scott Key arose,
saw that our flag was still there
and jotted down the national
anthem on the back of an en-
velope before going down to breakfast, still conspires
with a large and lusty successor of this first staff to
keep Old Glory flying in the heavens. The immediate
surroundings, the harbor outlook, the busy city now
sending its clamor over the point on which the old fort
stands, all have changed in the years, but the part of
the fort from which the banner of the new republic
was sent forth so many years ago has undergone little
transformation. A triangle of ground pointing toward
open water, and a bare staff, these have little that Time
can work wizardry with. The simple focus of Key's
inspiration has not been lost in the years, but the rest
of the picture which roused his songster's mood is only
to be brought back by effort of imagination.

Fort McHenry is now a public park, the last federal
trooper having been drawn out of the reservation in the
fall of 1913. As such it has been beautified by the
City of Baltimore, if the placing of benches in con-
venient spots, the sodding of terraces, and the clean-

180

A View from an Aeroplane

The Guard-House
FORT McHENRY, BALTIMORE, MD.

FORT McHENRY

ing of walks are to be considered in the nature of beauti-
fication; and it is occasionally used by Baltimoreans as
a place of airing. Situated on a point of land separat-
ing the two parts of Baltimore's heart-shaped harbor,
it gives charming views of the city. Gazing straight
ahead from the walls of old Fort McHenry, one can
see far down the river (very wide here) into the dis-
tance where the river joins the Chesapeake Bay. In
the blue of the horizon can be faintly discerned the
low squatty outline of the little hexagon of stone built
by General Robert E. Lee before the Civil War and
known as Fort Carroll.

To the right hand, from this vantage point on the
water side of Fort McHenry's parapets, lies Spring
Garden, the larger but the less busy part of Baltimore's
water-front. To the left is the entrance to " the har-
bor," as it is affectionately called by Baltimoreans, with
entire disregard for that magnificent half -moon of water
of more recent development which we have already
descried to the right.

The various points of historic interest in the fort
and its grounds are marked with tablets and appro-
priate memorials, this work having been done in recent
years by the city, by the Maryland chapter of the
Daughters of the American Revolution and by various
public-spirited bodies of the municipality.

As one enters the grounds of the old fort, he is
confronted first by a long, low, wooden structure with

181

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

an archway through which can be gained a glimpse of
a broad grass space. This is the parade. On the right
of the parade is a row of cottages facing a narrow
street, and at the end of this modest thoroughfare can
be seen the eastern abutments of the old fort. As one
approaches the fort itself the star shape of the walls
is plainly observable and its dimensions easily taken in.
It is not a large place, this historic old work, and makes
no great impression upon the beholder from its ma-
terial aspect. Batteries of ancient guns are mounted
on the walls fronting the river. These were saved
from destruction some years ago by the energetic work
of some of the historical societies of the city. The
reservation is entirely surrounded by a stone sea-wall
which makes a very acceptable promenade, and here
on summer days may be found couples viewing the
beautiful marine prospects, and small boys indefatig-
ably crabbing or fishing, but these energies have a purely
legendary interest, for the crabbing and fishing for which
the place was once famous are not now what they ought
to be.

Seen from the river as one enters Baltimore by
steamer the old fort is at its best, for then one sees the
long grassy inclines and the level of the parade ground
and the soft foliage of trees contrasted sharply with
the smoky city in the background. The fort proper
is barely visible from the river, its walls not rising above

182

Looking Toward the Lazaretto

One of the Old Batteries in Place
FORT McHENRY, BALTIMORE, MD.

FORT McHENRY

the crests of the high embankments thrown up in front
of it.

The point of land on which Fort McHenry is situ-
ated— Whetstone Point, as it was known in old times
— was patented in 1662 by Mr. Charles Gorsuch of
the Society of Friends, and the stretch that he acquired
amounted to about fifty acres. It is thus that it comes
upon the pages of history in the possession of one
sworn not to use methods of violence. Time passed
on, Mr. Gorsuch's tract was divided, and at last came
the brewing of the Revolution. It was this which
brought Fort McHenry into existence.

A battery was thrown up on the point, and in 1776
a boom was stretched across the river to the Lazaretto,
a little projection of land on the northern side of the
stream. Two hundred and fifty negroes were employed
in this work and their labors extended over a period of
almost two years.

Yet this original of Fort McHenry did not see
active service during the Revolution. Its greatest days
were to be reserved for that short conflict which finally
decided the Mother Country in the opinion that the
American Colonies were of a right and ought to be
free and independent. That so decisive a battle as the
repulse of the British fleet before McHenry should
have been staged at Baltimore is peculiarly appropriate
when we remember the prominence of that type of
sailing vessel known as the Baltimore " clipper " in

183

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

the commerce of the country before the war and the
great service these same slim, speedy vessels did as
privateers during that conflict. The Baltimore clippers,
it is not amiss to note, were built at Fell's Point, about
a mile and a half across the river from Fort McHenry,
where modern Broadway, a thoroughfare, now has its
terminus.

It was before the outbreak of the War of 1812 that
the foundations of present-day Fort McHenry were
laid. In the closing ten years of the eighteenth century
there was much ill feeling against England and war
was declared in rumor many times before the actual
outbreak of hostilities took place. At one of these
periods of apprehension the citizens of Baltimore, at
their own expense, started the erection of a star-shaped
fort under the direction of John J. Rivardi, engineer.
In 1794 this erection, not complete but well started
toward completion, passed to the Federal government
and was named Fort McHenry in honor of James
McHenry, secretary to Washington during the Revo-
lution and Secretary of War from 1796 to 1800. The
works were completed in 1805 and the formal cession to
the Federal government took place in 1816.

It is hard to over-estimate in the history of the
country the importance of the defence of Fort Mc-
Henry and of the engagement at North Point, —
a corollary of this defence, — though Marylanders them-
selves have been comparatively indifferent to it until

184

FORT McHENRY

lately. With that pride of race which is a heritage of
the South and the feeling which that pride engenders
that their men will do well as a matter of course, Mary-
landers have given this engagement rather casual atten-
tion until very recent years. Indeed, up to the last
decade, it was not unusual to hear Baltimoreans refer to
the heroic defenders of North Point, who checked a
force many times more powerful than their own and
inflicted terrible injury in mortally wounding the assail-
ants' commanding officer, as the " North Point racers,"
in humorous appreciation of the nimbleness of foot and
ingenuity in evading observation which the men showed
when finally they did break ground and retreated to Bal-
timore. Yet the times were critical enough, Heaven
knows, and the part that these same racers and Fort
McHenry played a worthy one in the final summing up.
The British, it will be remembered, had proceeded
by easy stages up the Chesapeake Bay, burning and
pillaging wherever they chose and meeting little opposi-
tion. A detachment had crossed to the northwest
through Bladensburg and had seized and given to the
flames Washington, the capital of the nation, itself;
and now the united force was turning its attention to a
leisurely march north through Baltimore to the northern
cities, where they hoped to complete their subjugation
of the country. Their complete reverse at McHenry
set back all of their plans, giving the northern cities
time to arm and prepare, and demoralized them to a

185

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

great degree, their demoralization being accompanied
by a corresponding enheartening of all American
sympathizers. The importance of the action is thus
readily seen.

The historic attack upon Fort McHenry began on
the morning of September 13, 1814, and continued until
7 o'clock of the next morning. During the engagement
more than 1800 shells were fired by the attacking force.
The total American loss was four killed and twenty-
four wounded. In the land engagement of North Point
which preceded the attack by water on the city the
American loss was 150 killed and wounded and the
British loss about 600.

While Fort McHenry was the main defence of
Baltimore, the city showed arms in other directions as
well. On the northern side of the harbor (across the
river from Fort McHenry) were two long lines of
fortifications which extended from Harris Creek, north-
ward across Hampstead's Hill, now Patterson Park, —
about a mile in length, along which at short distances
were thrown up semicircular batteries. Behind these on
more elevated sites were additional batteries, one of
which, known as Rodger's Bastion, overlooked Fort
McHenry. There were, also, connecting lines of breast-
works and rifle-pits running parallel with the northern
boundary of the city, connected in turn by inner bastions
and batteries, the precise location of which is not known.
A four-gun battery was constructed at Lazaretto Point,

186

From This Point the Star Spangled Banner Flew

The Entrance
FORT McHENRY, BALTIMORE, MD.

FORT McHENRY

and between this point and Fort McHenry across the
mouth of the harbor a number of vessels were sunk.
Southwest of the fort, guarding the middle branch of
the Patapsco (known as Spring Garden) against the
landing of troops to assail Fort McHenry in the rear,
were two redoubts, 500 yards apart, called Fort Coving-
ton and the City Battery. In the rear of these upon
the high ground of the present Battery Square was a
circular battery. A long line of platforms for guns
was erected in front of Fort McHenry and was known
as the Water Battery.

During the night which followed the unsuccessful
afternoon engagement of the 13th a landing party was
sent in boats with muffled oars to slip past the City
Battery and Fort Covington and to take these works
and McHenry in the rear. That this effort was not
more successful is due to the presence of a large hay-
stack near one of the American sentries. This sentry,
becoming suspicious, tojiched a match to the hay-stack,
and the sudden flames showed the landing party of
British. In the engagement that followed the British
were repulsed.

It was at dawn of the 14th that Francis Scott Key,
who was a prisoner on the British flag-ship, received the
inspiration to write " The Star Spangled Banner." He
saw that, despite the furies of the night, the American
flag still waved over the little fort. The words which
he jotted down in the joy of that moment were the sub-

187

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

ject of some reworking on his part, but, it is understood,
had not been materially changed when he showed them
to his brother-in-law, Judge Nicholson, after his ex-
change the next morning. The words were found to fit
perfectly to the popular tune "Anacreon in Heaven."
Carrying the stanzas to the printing office of Benjamin
Edes, copies of it were ordered printed. This was the
birth of " The Star Spangled Banner."

The real hero of the attack upon Fort McHenry
is not, perhaps, given the acclaim that should be his. It
was sturdy Colonel Armistead, commander of the fort.
His intrepid spirit and fine ingenuity undoubtedly saved
the day.

Among the tributes which were rendered to Colonel
Armistead after the engagement may be repeated that
of his old friend, the veteran Colonel John Eager
Howard, who sent him a brace of ducks and some wine
with the words:

The British are off and the Devil with them. You deserve
the thanks of a grateful country. I am sending a brace of ducks
and a bottle of Burgundy. I hope you may enjoy them.

During the Civil War Baltimore was again fortified.
On the night of May 13, 1861, Major-General Butler
occupied Federal Hill, a commanding eminence over-
looking the city and harbor. In the following month a
strong fort was erected here by General Brewerton,
which included the entire crown of the hill and mounted

188

COL. GEORGE ARMISTEAD
In command of Fort McHenry during the siege

FORT McHENRY

fifty guns. The building of Federal Hill Fort was an
answer to the action of a mob in Baltimore in April,
1861, which planned to seize Fort McHenry. This
effort was frustrated by the garrison of 100 men under
Captain Robinson which put up such a war-like front
with such a display of grape and canister, that the enter-
prise was abandoned.

In September, 1914, during the Star Spangled
Banner Centennial, the fort and grounds were loaned
to the City of Baltimore by the War Department for
use as a public park. It is not to be expected that the
old fort will ever again be called into active service.

FORT MARION

ST. AUGUSTINE— FLORIDA

HE ancient city of St. Augustine,
the oldest place of European
settlement on the North Ameri-
can continent, is on the east
coast of Florida at the mouth of
the St. Augustine River and at
the northern end of a long
lagoon formed by Anastatia Island, which separates the
waters of the lagoon and of the Atlantic Ocean. Our
interest in the quaint spot may be concentrated in Fort
Marion, a Spanish bravo which has fought the city's
battles for more than three hundred and fifty years.
Probably the most picturesque of fortifications in the
United States, Fort Marion annually receives thousands
of visitors, many drawn from the leisured throng who
have made St. Augustine the winter social capital of the
American nation.

Fort Marion is situated at the northern end of St.
Augustine, where its lonely watch-tower may have a
clear view of the shipping channel which leads from the
city across the long bar Anastatia Island to the ocean.
The fortification is a regular polygon of four equal sides
and four bastions. A moat surrounds the structure, but
the moat has been dry for many years. The entrance
is to the south and is protected by a barbacan, or, less
technically, an arrow-shaped out-work. A stationary

190

FORT MARION

bridge leads part way across the moat and the path is
then continued on into the fort by a draw-bridge.

Over the entrance is an escutcheon bearing the arms
of Spain with gorgeous coloring, which has been much
dimmed by the hot sun of Florida. A legend now
partially obliterated sets forth that "Don Ferdinand,
the VI, being King of Spain and the Field Marshal
Don Alonzo Fernando Hereda, being Governor and
Captain General of this place, San Augustin of Florida,
and its province, this fort was finished in the year 1756.
The works were directed by the Captain Engineer Don
Pedro de Brozas y Garay."

Passing through the entrance to the fort one finds
one's self in a dark passage, on the right and left of
which are low doorways, that on the right being the
nearer. Glancing through the right door-way one sees
three dark chambers, the first of which was used as a
bake-room and the two others of which were places of
confinement for prisoners. Looking through the dark
door-way a few steps forward to the left one gazes into
the guard-room.

Walking on one comes into the open court, 103 feet
by 109 feet; immediately to the right is the foot of the
inclined plane which leads to the upper walls. To the
left is the well. On all sides of the court are entrances
to casemates. Directly across from the entrance is the
ancient chapel, which heard masses sung while the
English colonies were just being started. The altar and

191

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

niches still remain and over the door of this place of
worship is a tablet set in the wall by French astron-
omers, who here once observed the transit of Venus.

Passing up the inclined plane to which allusion has
already been made one finds one's self on the ramparts
of the fort. A charming view is to be obtained on all
sides, but particularly looking out to sea. At each angle
of the fort was a sentry-box and that at the northeast
corner was also a watch-tower. This tower, probably
the most familiar remembrance of old Fort Marion, is
twenty-five feet high. The distance from watch-tower
to sentry-box (or from corner to corner) of the old fort
is 317 feet.

The material of which the fort is constructed is the
familiar sea-shell concretion used so largely in Florida
and known as "coquina." It was quarried on Anastatia
Island, across Matanzas Inlet from the city, and was
ferried over to the fort site in large barges. The sub-
stance is softer when first dug than when it has been
exposed to the air and light for a season, sharing this
property with concrete, to which it is analogous in other
ways, so the walls of the fort are more solid to-day than
when they were built.

The history of Fort Marion takes one back to early
bickering between Spanish and French on the North
American continent. In 1562 Jean Ribaut, a sturdy
French mariner, sailed into the waters of Florida, ex-
plored the waters of the St. John's River (at the mouth

192

FORT MARION

of which busy Jacksonville now stands) and planted a
colony and a fort on the St. John's with the name of
Fort Caroline. The river he called the River of May,
in remembrance of the month in which he first set eyes
upon it. In 1564, Laudonierre, a second Frenchman,
came with supplies and reinforcements for Fort Caro-
line, but paused on his passage to investigate an inlet
farther south than the mouth of the St. John's River.
This inlet he called the River of Dolphins, from the
abundance of such creatures at play in the waters here
and on the shores of the inlet, which later generations
were to know as St. Augustine harbor; he descried an
Indian village known as Seloy.

The jealous King of Spain heard of the French set-
tlement in Florida and was displeased. He sent an ex-
pedition under Juan Menendez de Aviles to colonize the
country with Spaniards and to exterminate the French,
who added to the misfortune of not being Spaniards
the mistake of not being Catholics. Menendez sailed
into Florida waters in September, 1565, reconnoitred
the French colony on the St. John's River and then
sailed south several days, landing at the Indian village
of Seloy. Here he decided to establish the capital of
his domain. The large barn-like dwelling of the Indian
chief was made into a fort. This was the original of
Fort Marion of to-day. Then on September 8, 1565,
Menendez took formal possession of the territory, and
named his fort San Juan de Pinos.

13 193

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

Of the Sixteenth Century quarrels of Frenchman
and Spaniard, of Huguenot and Catholic, there is not
space in this chapter to tell. Suffice it to say that even
in so broad a land as Florida, which according to the
interpretation of the day included all of the present
United States and British Canada, there was not room
enough for two separated small French and Spanish
colonies to subsist together, and for Catholic and Hugue-
not to be in one world together was beyond all reason.
So the next step in the history of our fort is the expedi-
tion of Menendez against the French and the perpetra-
tion by him of one of the most horrid massacres that has
ever stained the New World.

Let us picture a blinding night in September, 1565,
at Fort Caroline. The Spanish leader, it is known, has
established himself at the River Dolphins. One of the
equinoctial tempests to which Florida is subject was
raging. The French in their dismantled little post have
deemed no enemy hardy enough to venture out in such
elemental fury. Laudonierre himself has dismissed the
weary sentinels from the wall, secure in the thought that
Nature, herself, is his protection. He does not know
the tenacity of the Spaniard. Menendez, setting out
from his new stronghold with a few hundred men and
struggling on against the storm, is even now within
striking distance of the doomed French retreat. A sud-
den rush upon the sleeping garrison and the Spaniards
are within the fort. No mercy is shown. One hundred

194

FORT MARION

and thirty men are killed with little resistance. One
old carpenter escaped to the woods during the melee,
but surrendered himself to the Spaniards the next morn-
ing with pleas for mercy. He was butchered with his
prayers upon his lips.

Menendez returned to St. Augustine and in a few
days heard that some of the French ships which had fled
in disorder during the rout at the fort had landed their
crews about twenty miles south of St. Augustine. He
immediately set out for the spot with one hundred and
fifty men. The hapless French without food and with-
out shelter surrendered themselves to Menendez. All of
them (over a hundred in number) with the exception
of twelve Breton sailors, who had been kidnapped, and
four ships' caulkers who might be useful to the
Spaniards, were put to the knife in cold blood. Again,
word came to Menendez that castaway Frenchmen were
south of St. Augustine. It was the remainder of the
French squadron under Ribaut — more than three hun-
dred and fifty in number. Menendez repeated his tactics
with this company as well. He allowed them to trust
themselves to his mercy and then conclusively proved
that there was no mercy in the heart of a Spaniard of
the Inquisition by putting the whole company to death
ten at a time. The spot where these two butcheries took
place is known to this day as Matanzas, or the Place of
the Slaughters.

Immediately now the Spaniard began to make him-

195

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

self more secure in Florida. His stronghold at St.
Augustine was amplified and Fort Caroline, the luck-
less French fort, was rebuilt and renamed San Mateo.
In 1568 the French under de Gorgues descended upon
the Spanish at San Mateo and put the whole garrison to
the sword. San Augustin was not attacked, however,
and for two hundred years held the Spanish flag
supreme in this part of the New World.

For twenty years after its foundation Menendez's
little fort of San Juan de Pinos saw no military service,
though it was made strong and formidable. Then the
clash of arms came to its ears, accompanied by great
catastrophe. These were the years of the English sea-
kings. Raleigh, Drake, Grenville, Gilbert, Frobisher
were sweeping the oceans in their diminutive craft, mak-
ing anxious the captains of many a Spanish galleon.
In September, 1585, Drake sailed on a freebooting voy-
age from the harbor of Plymouth, England, with more
than an ordinarily large number of men and ships, and
in May, 1586, this little armada chanced to be in sight
of San Augustin. The procedure may now be told in
the words of one of Drake's seamen:

Wee descried on the shore a place built like a Beacon
which was indeede a scaffold upon foure long mastes raised on
ende. . . . Wee might discover over against us a Fort which
newly had bene built by the Spaniards ; and some mile or ther-
about above the Fort was a little Towne or Village without
walls, built of wooden houses as the Plot doeth plainely shew.

196

FORT MARION

Wee forthwith prepared to have ordnance for the batterie ; and
one peece was a little before the enemie planted, and the first
shot being made by the Lieutenant generall himself at their
ensigne strake through the Ensigne, as wee afterwards under-
stood by a Frenchman, which came unto us from them. One
shot more was then made which strake the foote of the Fort
wall which was all massive timber of great trees like Mastes.

And so, in the charming, inconsequential fashion of
the times, the narrative goes on, carrying the battle with
it. The fort fell into the hands of the English after a
stubborn defence by its Spanish occupants and was de-
stroyed. The village was sacked and burned. Drake
then sailed on his way.

The fort was rebuilt and stood secure until 1665,
when San Augustin was sacked by buccaneers under
Captain John Davis and it shared the destruction of the
town. Then a substantial structure, the Fort Marion of
to-day, was begun. Work was continued for successive
generations, until in 1756 the stronghold was declared
finished. The new structure was christened San Marco.

During these years the fort was not without service,
however. In 1702 and again in 1740 San Augustin was
attacked by English forces from the English colonies to
the north, and Fort San Marco, even while not complete,
bore the brunt of these attacks. The second expedition
against San Augustin was under the leadership of Gov-
ernor Oglethorpe, of Georgia, and arose to the dignity
of a siege of the city. For weeks the English forces lay

197

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

beyond the city walls and were then driven off by rein-
forcements brought from Cuba.

With the construction of Fort San Marco the erec-
tion of city walls was undertaken, too. The walls of old
San Augustin ran from Fort San Marco around the city
and were constructed of "coquina." Only the so-called
"City Gate" remains of these walls to-day.

In 1763 the warrior which had withstood armed
assault fell to the attack of diplomacy, for it was in this
year that England made its trade with Spain whereby
Spain was given back Cuba, which England had wrested
by force of arms from that country, and England was
given Florida. The flag of Castile and of Aragon was
hauled down from the wall of the old fort and the British
lion was raised in its place. Fort San Marco became in
British hands Fort St. Mark.

During the American revolution Florida was the
only one of the fourteen British colonies which remained
loyal to the Mother Country. The fervor of the northern
coasts found no kindred spark in old St. Augustine.
The town became a haven for Tories. She opened her
gates and an oddly-assorted throng came flocking in.
There was the Tory colonel Thomas Browne, of
Georgia, tar and feathers still sticking to his skin from
his experience with the Liberty Boys, of Savannah.
There was Rory Mclntosh, always attended by Scotch
pipers, who paraded the narrow streets breathing out
fire and slaughter against the colonies. The Scopholites,

198

FORT MARION

so-called from Scophol, their leader, marched down, 600
strong, from the back country of North Carolina, burn-
ing and killing in their course through Georgia. With
such additions, St. Augustine was not content with
passive loyalty and became a centre for military opera-
tions against the southern colonies. Many a council did
the rooms of Fort St. Mark witness, which had as its
result death and privation to the rebellious Americans.

Two expeditions were attempted by the colonists
against Fort St. Mark. The first under General
Charles Lee fell short because of mismanagement. The
second advanced as far as the St. John's River. Con-
sternation in St. Augustine reigned supreme; slaves
were impressed to help strengthen the fortifications ; citi-
zens ran hither and thither with their valuables. But the
Americans were menaced by fever at the St. John's and
faced the prospect of a midsummer encampment in
Florida, so they turned about and went north. Fort
St. Mark was not to leave English hands by force.

In 1783 took place another one of those shuffles
between high contracting parties by which each party
thinks that he has secured the better of the bargain.
England traded Florida to Spain for Jamaica. Spain
traded Jamaica to England for Florida. In 1821 Spain
ceded Florida to the United States, and in 1825 the
name of the fort was changed from Fort St. Mark to
Fort Marion in honor of General Francis Marion, of
Revolutionary fame.

199

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

The Seminole War began in 1835 and continued
until 1842, costing the United States two thousand lives,
and forty million dollars. Fort Marion was the centre
of the military operations of this conflict and it was the
scene of the disgraceful episode of treachery by which
Osceola and other Indian chieftains were captured. In
1838 General Hernandez, in command of the United
States forces, sent word to Osceola that he would be pro-
tected if he should come to Fort Marion for talk of
peace. With seventy of his followers the Indian came
to the conference and was placed in irons. The prisoner
was taken to Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor, where
from much brooding and confinement he died. The same
tactics were repeated in another sitting with Coacoochee,
the remaining great leader of the Seminoles, and the
Seminole War was ended. Coacoochee was confined in
Fort Marion, where his cell is pointed out to visitors.
His fate became that of an exile, for with his people he
was transported to a western reservation.

During the Civil War Fort Marion had a brief
flurry of excitement when the fort was seized by
Southern sympathizers in 1861. It quickly fell before
Federal troops, however, and had no further active part
in that war.

The old fort is still government property, but its
days of activity are long since past. That it will be main-
tained for many years as a reminder of the past is, how-
ever, well assured.

LA FUERZA, MORRO CASTLE, AND
OTHER DEFENCES

HAVANA— CUBA

HE city of Havana was located
where it stands to-day in 1519,
after a four years' unsatisfactory
trial of a site on the opposite, or
south, coast of the island. It
jogged along comfortably
through all of the ordinary perils
of that time until 1538, when it was attacked and sacked
by a French privateersman. The authorities in the home
country determined to provide some means of defence for
the baby metropolis, and one Hernando de Soto, an
impecunious adventurer who had followed Pizarro to
Peru, and had returned enriched with plunder from that
unhappy land, was commissioned governor of Cuba and
Florida with instructions to build a fortress at Havana.
De Soto came to Havana in the fashion of leisure of
the times, and in pursuit of his royal master's instructions,
laid the foundations of a fortress. This work was finished
under the direction of his lieutenant while he, himself,
was searching an El Dorado in Florida and was finding
a miserable death by fever on the Mississippi. The
structure which de Soto left as his legacy to Havana is
the Castillo de la Fuerza, half hidden, to-day, between
the Senate and old post-office building on the Plaza de
Armes. La Fuerza has been credited with being the

201

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

oldest inhabitable and inhabited structure in the Western
Hemisphere and the claim is not easily disputed. As
early as 1544 a royal decree had been given forth that all
vessels entering Havana harbor should salute the little
fortress with a ceremony not enjoyed by any other city in
the New World save Santo Domingo.

The form of la Fuerza is that of a quadrilateral,
having a bastion at each of the four corners. The walls
are twenty-five feet in height and are double. There is a
moat which has not contained water for many years, and
arrangements for a draw-bridge which has been replaced
by a permanent plank walk. To the seaward is a watch-
tower similar in design to that on the fort at St. Augus-
tine, and in this tower is a bell which, tradition says, was
rung wildly whenever in the old days a suspicious sail
came into the view of the watchman. The little bronze
image in the top of the tower is known as "La Habana."
When de Soto sailed out from Havana harbor on that
storied expedition through the American wilds which was
to end in his death, he left la Fuerza, and with it his com-
mand as governor, in charge of his bride, Isabel de
Bobadilla. For four years Lady Isabel waited for her
lord's return, spending anxious hours in the little watch-
tower of the fort. Only when the tattered remnants of
that splendid army which had accompanied the adven-
turer were brought back to Havana was her long sus-
pense ended.

The cellars of la Fuerza contain damp dungeons

202

LA FUERZA

used as receptacles for modern rifles and ammunition,
this part of the old fort being given over to the purposes
of an armory.

In 1554 Havana was again attacked by the French
and partially destroyed and in the following year it fell
a victim to pirates. During the wars which marked the
reigns of the Emperor Charles V, of Spain, and his son,
Philip II, the colony became more and more the object
of attack by Spain's enemies, and in 1585, Havana hav-
ing been seriously menaced by Sir Francis Drake, it was
determined to build additional defences for the city. In
1589 Morro Castle, the Castle of the Three Kings and
the Bateria de la Punta were begun; by 1597 they were
completed.

The word " Morro " means promontory, and Castle
del Morro is merely the fortress on the point. The design
of Morro is that of the quaint Moorish fortress in the
harbor of Lisbon, but it has been changed so much for
modern defensive uses that it does not now greatly re-
semble its original. The work is irregular in shape, is
built on solid rock, and rises from 100 to 120 feet above
the level of the sea. Its situation on the northern one of
the two points of the entrance to the harbor of Havana
gives it a great importance. Opposite Morro, across the
harbor mouth, is la Punta.

To visit Morro one climbs to the fort by an inclined
road cut out of rock, shaded with laurels and royal poin-
cianas. Hedges of cactus hem in the road. The pilgrim

203

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

reaches at last the moat. This was cut out of solid rock
and is seventy feet in depth. Passing over the draw-
bridge and advancing through the dark walls of the
work, one comes to the inner court, from whence there is
a passage to the ramparts. Here is a fine outlook over
city and harbor, from the seaward side of the ramparts,
where there is a battery of twelve guns known as the
" Twelve Apostles."

Some of the prison cells in Morro are directly over
the water and in one spot a steep chute leads to the sea.
Your guide will tell you that from here bodies of pris-
oners, both living and dead, were shot out to become the
food of innumerable sharks waiting below.

The most active service that Morro has seen was in
1762, when Havana was taken by the English under Ad-
miral Pocock and Lord Albemarle. In June of that year,
shortly after the outbreak of war between France and
Spain as allies against England, a fleet of 44 English
men-of-war and 150 lighter vessels, bearing a land force
of 15,000 men, appeared off Havana. The Spanish de-
fenders numbered 27,000 men, of whom a sufficient garri-
son was at Morro. The English landed on the coast to
the east of our fortress and worked around to the rear of
that structure to an eminence where the fortification of
Cabanas now stands. The siege began on June 3 and
continued until July 30, when, after a stubborn defence,
Morro fell.

The long resistance of the point against an over-

204

LA FUERZA

whelming force is largely to be credited to the indomi-
table spirit of its commander, Velasco, who, though he
knew that his position had been undermined and his men
were deserting him, refused to surrender. The fort was
taken after the mines had been sprung and the walls had
been battered down. Captain Velasco died of wounds
received during the siege, and on the day of his funeral
hostilities were suspended by the English in recognition
of his bravery.

The authorities in Spain decreed that a ship in the
Spanish navy should always bear the name of Velasco,
and the vessel so named at the time of the Spanish- Ameri-
can war was sunk in Manila Bay by the Boston.

Havana fell thirteen days after Morro and for a year
was in the hands of the enemy.

Stretching along bare hilltop back of Morro is Ha-
vana's greatest fortress, built in 1763 after the departure
of the unwelcome English guests whose coming had
shown the weakness of the city's defences. Cabanas, or
to give its full name, Castillo de San Carlos de Cabanas
(Saint Charles of the Cabin), is nearly a mile in length
with a width of about one-fifth of a mile. Its cost was
$14,000,000. When King Charles III of Spain, under
whose direction the work was commenced, was told the
total of expenditures, it is said that he walked to the
window of his study and gazed intently out of it,
remarking that such an enormous and expensive con-
struction should be visible from Spain.

205

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

Within the fort are innumerable walks, dungeons and
secret passages. To the right of the entrance is the
famous " Laurel Moat " where unfortunate Cubans and
other political prisoners were shot without benefit of
trial. The condemned men were compelled to kneel
facing a wall, and this wall marked with bullets in a line
nearly one hundred feet long is a grim present-day
memento of Spain's ruthless rule in the island. The spot
has been marked with a bronze tablet which records its
history.

Other fortifications in Havana include Principe
Castle, built in 1774, and Atares Castle, 1767. There
are two ancient little round towers of defence at Chor-
rera and Cojimar.

FORT SAN CARLOS

PENSACOLA BAY— FLORIDA

ENSACOLA Bay is a lozenge-
shaped body of water, the entrance
to which from the Gulf is at the
southern point of the figure, and
the southern side is formed by
Santa Rosa Island, which stretches

. .. J T 1

out in a long sandy line here to
divide sea and inland water. On the western shore,
near the head of the bay, is situated the busy city of
Pensacola, one of the most active shipping points on
the Gulf and also one of the most ancient. About six
miles south of Pensacola, and near the mouth of the bay,
is the city's ancient defence, Fort San Carlos de Bar-
rancas, which has gone through ten generations and
more of life as humans reckon it and has done valiant
service under four flags.

The military (and social) history of Pensacola Bay
commences in 1558, when Philip II, of Spain, commis-
sioned Luis de Valesca, viceroy of New Spain, to under-
take the settlement of Florida. After a preliminary sur-
vey Valesca, in the summer of 1559, sent 1500 soldiers
and settlers to make a beginning at Pensacola Bay, this
body of water having been adjudged the best roadstead
and the most favorable for the support of human life on
the Gulf Coast. A tentative settlement was established,
but for some reason the site did not please the expedition

207

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

and its leaders attempted unsuccessfully to find a better
one. The winter that followed and the next summer
were filled with privation and the colony became much
reduced in numbers. During the second summer most
of the settlers went with Angel de Villafane to Santa
Elena, Port Royal Sound, south on the Atlantic coast
(South Carolina, to-day) and the remainder was recalled
by Philip II, who thereupon decreed that no further
effort should be made to settle the west coast of Florida,
a royal promulgation which circumstance and lack of in-
centive to the contrary conspired to make eff ective for
more than a century. If one accepts this abortive ex-
pedition as the beginning of settlement in Florida then
Pensacola is the oldest point of European residence in
the United States, antedating St. Augustine by seven
years.

The Spaniards did not regard La Salle's effort at
colonization at the mouth of the Mississippi River with
favor and were not at all displeased at his misfortunes.
To forestall other efforts of the French they undertook
a survey of the coast and established a colony at Pensa-
cola in the last years of the Seventeenth Century. This
was the beginning of Pensacola of to-day.

When Iberville, in 1699, sailed from France with
several vessels containing colonists for Louisiana and
when in due course of time he arrived off Pensacola, he
found the Spaniards firmly established with a fort with
four bastions and some ships of war. The Frenchmen

208

FORT SAN CARLOS

asked for permission to disembark his forces. His re-
quest was refused and he then sailed along the coast
until he found a landing to his liking near the present-
day Biloxi, Mississippi. The governor of Pensacola at
this time — and the first governor of the colony — was
Don Andre D'Arriola. The fort was named San
Carlos de Barrancas.

There came in 1719 a war against Spain in which
France and England were allies opposed to her. The
French thereupon sent in this year M. de Serigny with
a sufficient force to take possession of Pensacola which
was valuable to the French on account of its proximity
to Louisiana and its accessibility to the West India
Islands. The expedition was entirely successful as,
after an attack by land by 700 Canadians, the com-
mander of the Spanish garrison, Don John Peter Mata-
moras, surrendered with the honors of war.

It is probable that the Spanish stronghold at that
time was not the one which has come down to us to-day,
though it bore the same name and was, very possibly,
built on the same site.

The news of the surrender of Pensacola caused a
great stir in Spain, and an expedition was fitted out to
recover the lost territory. The command of the expedi-
tion was given to Don Alphonse Carracosa and the
force consisted of 12 vessels and 850 fighting men. Don
Carracosa achieved success, as at the sight of his fleet
part of the French garrison deserted and the rest sur-

14 209

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

rendered, to be treated with great severity by the
Spanish. Don Matamoras was re-established and an
expedition was despatched against the French at Mobile
without result satisfactory to the Spanish.

The French were to have their day, again, however.
De Bienville invested Pensacola by land and Count de
Champmelin by sea. After a stubborn resistance Mata-
moras surrendered, giving the French between twelve
hundred and fifteen hundred prisoners. The French
dismembered the greater part of the fort and left a small
garrison in the remainder of the structure.

Under the peace of 1720 Pensacola was restored to
the Spanish and thus was ended the port's first experi-
ence of warfare. Fort San Carlos was rebuilt substan-
tially in the form that it bears to-day, and in 1722 an-
other fortification was built on the point of Santa Rosa
Island where Fort Pickens long years afterward was to
maintain a gallant defence.

Fort San Carlos is a little semicircular structure
most solidly put together but not of great pretension as
to size. On account of its fine location, however — having
no heights near which could dominate it, and having a
fine sweep over the entrance to the bay which it is de-
signed to protect — it was of importance in the days of
short-range cannon.

In 1763 the whole of Florida, which, of course, in-
cluded our brave little fort at Pensacola, passed into the
hands of the English by treaty with Spain, and an

210

FORT SAN CARLOS

English garrison took possession of Fort San Carlos.
Upon the outbreak of hostilities again between Spain
and England, Galvez, the Spanish governor of Louisi-
ana, sailed from New Orleans in February, 1781, with
1400 men and a sufficient fleet to reduce Pensacola. He
was joined by squadrons from Havana and Mobile and
in May of that year entered Pensacola Bay. The fort
here was in the command of Colonel Campbell with a
small garrison of English. After a sufficient resistance
Colonel Campbell surrendered and Galvez took charge.
In 1783 the whole province of Florida was ceded to
Spain, and Pensacola remained under a Spanish ruler
for thirty-one years after this latter date.

The next eventful interval in the life of Fort San
Carlos had to do with one of the most popular figures of
United States history, Andrew Jackson. In 1814, dur-
ing the progress of the second war of the United States
with England, Jackson was made a major-general and
was given command of the Gulf Coast region where he
had been operating against the Creek Indians. While
arranging a treaty with these conquered savages he was
informed by them that they had been approached by
English officers, through the connivance of the Spanish
commander at Pensacola, with offers of supplies and
assistance to fight against the Americans. Two British
vessels arrived at Pensacola August 4 and Colonel
Edward Nicholls in command was allowed to land troops
and to arm some Indians. Late in August seven more

211

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

British vessels arrived at Pensacola and the mask of
Spanish neutrality was thrown aside when Fort San
Carlos was turned over to the British, the British being
allowed to hoist their ensign thereon, and Colonel
Nicholls was entertained by the Spanish governor as
his guest.

Jackson was at Mobile, Alabama, not very far dis-
tant as the crow flies from Pensacola, and when the in-
telligence of these happenings had been confirmed im-
mediately set about raising a force of Americans. By
November he had 2,000 volunteers and early in that
month marched from Fort Montgomery (Montgomery,
Alabama) upon Pensacola. November 6 he was two
miles from that city. To ascertain the Spaniard's in-
tentions he sent Major Pierre to wait upon the com-
mandant of the city and was rewarded for his pains by
having his envoy fired upon. By midnight Jackson had
his men in motion against the city, and in the hot en-
gagement which followed the Spanish and British were
badly worsted. The British fled down the Bay in their
ships, blowing up Fort San Carlos in their retreat and
carrying away one of the higher Spanish officers — cer-
tainly, on the whole, a not very grateful return for the
benefits bestowed upon them by their hosts.

The Creek and Seminole Indians who had begun to
rally to the English standard were much impressed by
this display of force on the part of the Americans and

212

FORT SAN CARLOS

esteeming Jackson a very bad medicine, indeed, wisely
decided to return to the prosaic paths of peace.

During the Civil War, Fort San Carlos played no
conspicuous part. The limelight of fame was thrown on
its close neighbor, Fort Pickens, on Santa Rosa Island.
This latter post at the outbreak of the war was in charge
of Lieutenant Adam J. Slemmer, a Pennsylvanian, who,
seeing the conflict impending, concentrated (in Fort
Pickens as being the easiest one of them all to defend)
the forces in the various forts under his jurisdiction.
From January 9 to April 11, 1861, Slemmer was in a
state of siege in Fort Pickens and on the latter date
was relieved by forces from the North. The point was
held by Federal troops throughout the war.

A curious incident which occurred early in 1914 at
Fort San Carlos recalled vividly to the officers there the
part the little Spanish post played in the days when
pirates roamed the Spanish Main and all of this part of
the world was new. A stranger came to the fort with an
old parchment which he declared showed the location of
buried treasure in the old fort. He would not tell how
he came by the document, but its evident antiquity
aroused interest and for an idle hour's interest the
officers of the post decided to dig for the buried treasure.
On the parchment was a well drawn plan of the fort
with a cross in a particular corner of the parade. This
point was located with some little difficulty and men
were set to digging. For a time nothing interesting

213

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

occurred, but after a while one of the men struck a
rotten wooden board which proved to be the top of an
old well. At the bottom of this covered-over well was
discovered a lot of watery mud which, when it had been
dug into, revealed the top of an old chest. Darkness
fell now and it was not considered worth while to con-
tinue operations until the next day. The next morning
when the men went back to work they found that the
stirring up of the earth and water had caused the ob-
ject, whatever it was, to sink so deep into the unstable
soil of the spot that it could not be recovered 1

THE PRESIDIO OF SAN FRANCISCO

GOLDEN GATE— CALIFORNIA

AND in hand with the Military
went the Church during Spain's
days of dominion in the New
World. Where the soldier walked,
there too, came the priest. At first
when all of the New World was
new, when the hold of the Old
World was insecure, it was the soldier who pointed the
path, but when Spain's hand had a firm grasp upon her
possessions it was the priest who took the lead. The
records of Spain on the east coast of America are rec-
ords of bloodiness and cruel oppression. On the west
coast where the friar led the way we find deeds of gen-
tleness and love. Where Florida reveals a memory of
hate in two old bastioned fortresses — Marion and San
Carlos — with dingy dungeons and rusty chains, Cali-
fornia shows its missions with their silvery chimes and
its presidios, the two institutions being bound together.
Four presidios were established by Spain in old Cali-
fornia to guard its missions ; the first, at San Diego ; the
second, at Monterey; the third, at San Francisco; and
the fourth, at Santa Barbara. It is the third which be-
speaks our interest in this chapter, owing to its impor-
tance in the present day as well as to its historic and
natural charm.

The presidio at San Francisco was established in

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THE PRESIDIO

settlement in the future United States), but, while the
immediate aspect of the country round about Spam's
presidio of 1776 at San Francisco has changed, the situ-
ation of the post has remained the same ; and the view of
land and water here is just as entrancing to-day as it
was on that day in 1769 when the expedition from San
Diego saw the far-famed Golden Gate.

The Presidio of San Francisco, the most important
military station of the Pacific coast, is situated on the
northwest rim of the city, north of Golden Gate Park
(and north of the exposition grounds of 1915) and con-
nected with that park by a beautiful boulevard one mile
long. The grounds comprise more than fifteen hundred
acres, developed for military purposes in the most
modern fashion. From almost any part of the grounds
or the approach thereto enchanting views of the won-
derful bay of San Francisco are to be obtained.

A description of the view of the presidio as you
approach the place on the boulevard from Golden Gate
Park has been given by Ernest Peixotto in his
"Romantic California," which may well be repeated
here:

In the meantime the city boasts one splendid driveway that,
with a connecting link completed, will rank with the famous
roadways of the Old World.

Only a decade or two ago the Presidio (it still bears its
Spanish appellation) was an isolated military post separated
from the city by several miles of barren, sandy thoroughfares.

217

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

Now some of the handsomest homes crown the hill tops about it,
and owe their chief attraction to the glorious views of bay
and shore that they command. To start some fine afternoon
toward sunset from one of these homes and take a drive around
the cliffs is an experience not soon to be forgotten.

A few blocks run brings you to a stone gateway, its posts
topped with eagles; you turn sharply to the right through a
grove of eucalypti, swing round a curve and then you stop the
motor. From the red Macadam roadway upon which you stand,
the hills fall gently in a broad amphitheatre to the barracks and
parade grounds laid out symmetrically along the shore, and
teeming with soldier life. Beyond, the waters of the bay mirror
the azure of the sky — a blue, tinged with green, like those half-
dead turquoises that they sell in the marts of Tunis. The
North Beach hills, thick-studded with the modest homes of the
city's alien population, gleam white against the Contra Costa
Mountains — verdant in winter, tawny and dry in summer — with
the lumpy silhouette of the Monte Diablo, the Devil's Mountain,
poking over the shoulder as if it, too, wished a peep at so fair a
prospect.

Across the stretch of intervening water, stern-wheeled river
steamers ply northward to San Pablo Bay; on through the
Carquinez Straits and up the Sacramento River, their silhouettes
varied once in a while by some grim battle-ship or cruiser steam-
ing to the Navy Yard at Mare Island, headquarters, home and
hospital for all our ships in the Pacific. Anchored in the middle
of the bay, Alcatraz lies terraced with batteries, low, forbidding,
while to the north rise the hills of Marin County bathed in
purple shadows and clustered around the base of Tamalpais.
The whole scene is suffused with the rosy flush of the westering

218

THE PRESIDIO

sun that gilds the islands, warms the greens of the eastern sky,
and blushes the hills with its ardent glances.

One turns from the picture with regret, only to follow on
to new vistas. You wind through groves of evergreens and
eucalypti out into the open meadows, a riot of flowers in spring-
time, that top the cliffs above the Golden Gate. The famous
straits lie just below, Fort's Point antiquated bastions on their
hither shore fronting the white-washed walls of the harbor-light
on the Point Bonita bluffs opposite.

To take up the thread of our historical narrative, the
presidio remained a possession of Spain's until 1824
when Mexico finally became free from its mother
country and the flag of Mexico took the place of the
banner of Castile and Aragon at the Golden Gate.

In 1846 the American flag was raised in all of the
presidios of California, an interesting chapter of
national expansion far too large for abridgment here.
In 1849 commenced the era of San Francisco's pros-
perity and presidio's importance with the discovery of
gold in California and the onset of the hordes of gold-
seekers who came through the Golden Gate.

The presidio was visited by Richard H. Dana in
1859 and is described by him:

I took a California horse of old style and visited the Pres-
idio. The walls stand as they did, with some changes made to
accommodate a small garrison of United States troops. It has
a noble situation and I saw from it a clipper ship of the very
largest class coming through the Gate under her fore and aft

219

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

sails. Thence I rode to the fort, now nearly finished, on the
southern shore of the Gate, and made an inspection of it. It is
very expensive and of the latest style. One of the engineers
is Custis Lee, who has just left West Point at the head of his
class, a son of Colonel Robert E. Lee who distinguished himself
in the Mexican war.

The fort with the "expensive equipment" to which
he refers is Fort Winfield Scott, which was seven years
building and cost $2,000,000. It is now out of date, but
is a picturesque feature of the harbor and is of service
to the presidio authorities of the present in various
minor capacities.

Opposite Fort Winfield Scott, across the Golden
Gate, which is here at its narrowest width of one mile,
can be seen the white buildings of Fort Baker. Other
defences of San Francisco, visible from the presidio, in-
clude Fort Miley, on Point Bonita; Point Lobos, and
Alcatraz Island, a picturesque body of land whose
Spanish name memoralizes the pelicans which once made
the place their home.

During the Spanish- American War the presidio was
a scene of activity as the point of departure of our sol-
diers for the Philippines. The national cemetery for the
burial of soldiers who have died on duty in the Philip-
pines is situated here, too, and each returning transport
brings back its sad burden, far lighter now than in the
days when the islands were first feeling the weight of
American rule.

220

THE PRESIDIO

Connected with the history of the presidio is a pretty
story which Bret Harte has woven into a familiar one
of his poems. It concerns the pathetic love of Dona
Concepcion Arguello, daughter of the Spanish Com-
mandant Don Luis Arguello, for Rezanov, chamberlain
of the Russian emperor, who came, during the days of
Spain's possession of this land, to negotiate for Russian
settlements in California. Rezanov won the heart of his
host's daughter and sailed away to gain the consent of his
emperor to marriage with her. Years passed and no
word came from Rezanov. At length Sir George Simp-
son, the Englishman, in his trip around the world,
brought word that Rezanov had been killed by a fall
from his horse while crossing Siberia on his homeward
journey. Dona Concepcion, who had faithfully waited
his return, became a nun and when she died was buried
near the old Mission church in the Presidio grounds.

FORT ADAMS AND NEWPORT'S
DEFENSIVE RUINS

NEWPORT— RHODE ISLAND

HERE is an odd little cluster of
islands on the eastern side of the
entrance to Narragansett Bay.
The most important of these is
Aquidneck and on the southern
extremity of Aquidneck Isle is
situated Newport. At the south-
ern extremity of Newport is Brenton's Point and on
Brenton's Point is Fort Adams. This is the proper way
to build up a climax!

Picture to yourself a sunny Fourth of July in 1799;
this is the day on which Fort Adams is to be dedicated
with imposing ceremonies. From out of the little many-
spired city across the sparkling blue waters of Newport
Bay winds a little procession around the shore road
which leads to the fort. First of all, comes the company
of soldiers which is to garrison the post. It is Captain
John Henry's company of artillery. After this comes
the major-general of the State militia with his staff in
gorgeous gold braid. Following him is the famous
Newport Artillery Company with two brass field pieces
making a brave show. Then there are the Newport
Guards with two brass field pieces. Finally there is a
company of citizens.

They are all assembled at the fort. Major Tousard,

222

FORT ADAMS

of the corps of engineers of the army of the infant re-
public, is speaking: He says: "Citizens: Happy to
improve every occasion to testify my veneration for that
highly distinguished citizen who presides over the gov-
ernment of the United States, I have solicited the Secre-
tary of War to name this fortress, Fort Adams. He
has gratified my desire. I hope that the brave officers
and soldiers who are and shall be honored with its de-
fence will by valor and good conduct render it worthy
of its name, which I hereby proclaim Fort Adams." A
salute was fired from the four brass field pieces and the
great cannon of the new fort. In the distance Fort
Wolcott on Goat Island fired guns and the standard
of the young United States was unfurled at the head of
the flag-staff. Thus was christened one of the most
important of American coast defences.

For twenty-five years thereafter Fort Adams was
maintained with a small garrison supplied from Fort
Wolcott, under whose jurisdiction it was. In 1824 the
present Fort Adams was commenced, a star-shaped
fortress of grey granite, with outworks, upon an initial
appropriation by the Federal government of $50,000.
It was finished, under successive appropriations, in
1841. The garrison was withdrawn from 1853 to 1857
and between the years 1859 and 1862, since when it has
been continuously occupied. The present area of Fort
Adams reservation is about 200 acres, and it contains
modern works which need no description.

223

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

If one should go back in point of Time beyond the
gay little ceremony which marked the beginning of Fort
Adams, he would find that Brenton's Point had been a
site for martial works before this. Its strategic pos-
sibilities for defence were early recognized in the Revo-
lution, as, in the spring of 1776, a light breast-work was
thrown up here by the Americans behind which they
mounted several guns. In April, 1776, the Glasgow, a
British war vessel of twenty-nine guns, came into New-
port Harbor and anchored near Goat Island. On the
following morning such a heavy fire was brought to bear
upon the ship from Brenton's Point that it cut its cable
and made out to sea. A few days after this the Scar-
borough and the Scymetar of His Majesty's service
were, likewise, badly battered by fire from these earth-
works.

Late in the summer of 1776 the British obtained
possession of Aquidneck Island. They made their head-
quarters at Newport, and erected a temporary barracks
on Brenton's Point where the American battery had
been. For three years they held possession of Rhode
Island and then were removed by orders from their
commander-in-chief, embarking October 25, 1779.

The next visitors to Newport were the French. The
French fleet, under the command of Admiral de Ternay,
appeared in Newport Harbor August 10, 1780. Gen-
eral Rochambeau and his army shortly put ashore.
General Heath, in command of the American forces in

224

Parade, Old Fort Adams

Present-Day Aspect of Fort Greene
GLIMPSES OF NEWPORT'S HISTORIC DEFENCES

FORT ADAMS

Rhode Island, was at the wharf to welcome Rocham-
beau. There were speeches and the American officers
wore cockades of black and white as a courtesy to the
allies, the cockade of the formal American uniform being
black and that of the French, white. It was not long
before the French had been made to feel at home and
had settled down to a long stay.

General Rochambeau's defences consisted of a line
of earthworks completely enclosing Newport on the
north, cutting off access to it by land from any other
part of the island. Traces of this line can still be dis-
cerned by the inquiring visitor to Newport. Strong
temporary fortifications were thrown up at Brenton's
Point on the future site of our Fort Adams, and on all
of the islands of the harbor were placed guns. The
northern water-front of the city was held by a strong
redoubt, built by Rochambeau and known as Fort
Greene. This was at the site of the present Fort Greene
Park, at the head of Washington Street.

Rochambeau was the second visitor to these shores
with a French army. The first allies had not made a
pleasant impression with the Americans, it must be ad-
mitted, chiefly because of their leader's, D'Estaing's,
apparent unwillingness to come to grips with the enemy
except where such action might directly benefit his own
country. Doubtless he acted on orders from Versailles I
But General Rochambeau seemed to be under different
instructions, for he immediately placed himself under

15 225

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

the authority of the American leaders and ingratiated
himself with the people. His stay at Newport is a
brilliant chapter in the social history of that city.

One of the pleasantest episodes of the French occu-
pation of Newport was the visit of Washington to his
French associate in arms. Rochambeau had chosen as
his residence and headquarters the comfortable and
beautiful dwelling at the corner of Clarke and Mary
Streets known as the Vernon House. In March, 1781,
Washington, accompanied by his young aide-de-camp,
Lafayette, came to Newport and was received here with
much formality. The interest with which the French
officers regarded their guest is evidenced in some of the
journals which they published at the close of the war
on their return to their own country. Amongst minor
incidents, Washington led a dance with the beautiful
Miss Champlin, and French officers, taking the instru-
ments from the musicians' hands, played a minuet, " A
Successful Campaign."

A merry time this French occupation of Newport
brought about, and traditions of the gayeties and por-
tentous politenesses of the period are still retailed in
the little city. A finer body of men than the French
army had probably never taken the field. Many had
been through the Seven Years War. Officers of the
most cultured circles of the Old World embraced a
chance of campaigning in the New World with the
pleasure of school-boys in a new experience.

226

FORT ADAMS

One of the officers of the French force was the Vis-
count de Noailles, in whose regiment Napoleon was
afterward a subaltern. Another was Biron, a figure in
the French Revolution, and who in 1793, having un-
successfully commanded the republican armies in La
Vendee, was guillotined. There was the Marquis de
Chastellux, — an elegant, — whose petits soupers became
the talk of every one fortunate enough to be invited.
Later Chastellux's " Travels in America " were to be-
come a treasured gallery of pictures of the nation when
it was new. There were Talleyrand, Chabannes,
Champcenetz, de Melfort, la Touche, de Barras, de
Broglie, Vauban, and Berthier, the military confidant
of Napoleon, and many others. With such an infusion
of genius and culture it is not remarkable that the little
city developed an exotic bloom and that the records of
this period in Newport are among the gayest in Amer-
ican social history. Nor should one be surprised that
the anxious mothers of young daughters of Newport
in that time (as we learn now from the betraying evi-
dences of long preserved letters) passed vigilant hours
of watchfulness in the sudden maelstrom of French
gallantry !

The Chevalier de Ternay, commander at sea of the
French forces, died soon after the arrival at Newport
and was buried in Trinity church-yard where a slab was
erected to his memory.

In 1781 the French marched out of Newport, joined

227

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

Washington in his campaign at Yorktown, and the
result soon was the surrender of Cornwallis and the
virtual end of the War of Independence.

In May, 1794, Governor Fenner addressed the fol-
lowing letter to George Champlin, of Newport:

Last evening I received a letter from Mr. Rochefontaine the
engineer dated New London . . . informing me that he should
depart from New London for Newport this day and desiring me
to transmit to him my orders and the names of the gentlemen
appointed by me to be the agents for the fortifications and to
supervise their execution. I have to ask the favor of you to
undertake the business with Col. Sherburne until my arrival at
Newport, and to wait on the engineer and deliver him my letter
of appointment. Give him the necessary information and as-
sistance. Your compliance will render great service to the
State and in a particular manner oblige your ob't servant,

A. FENNEE.

The building of the new fort was assigned to Major
Louis Toussard, and soon it was ready for its dedica-
tion. At the time of this ceremony the battery was
completed and was mounted with 32-pounders on sea-
coast carriages.

Strangely enough it was as a protection from the
very allies with whom the United States had triumphed
against Great Britain that Fort Adams was called into
being. It will be recalled by the reader of history that
at this period France under the Directory was in con-
stant embroilment with the United States. Citizen

228

FORT ADAMS

Talleyrand was bent upon turning the new nation to
France's ends. In 1798 a French cruiser actually had
the impudence, after the capture of several American
vessels, to bring her prizes into an American port to
escape the more dreaded British. President Adams, as
all know, eventually brought the Directoire Executif
and Citizen Talleyrand to their senses in no uncertain
fashion, but for a time affairs between the two countries
were in a very unsatisfactory condition.

To President Adams is due, too, the foundation of
the present American navy and the increasing impor-
tance of Fort Adams. He saw the necessity in the
future for a great naval base well located on the coast.
A commissioner sent out by him reported that the harbor
of Newport most fully answered the specifications he
had in mind, and from this time the works on Brenton's
Point acquired a new value.

The greater part of the construction of the second
Fort Adams, which was begun in 1824, was done under
the personal supervision of General J. G. Totten of the
United States army in coast defence. It is said that
during the progress of the work a full set of plans of
the fortress mysteriously disappeared and as mysteri-
ously reappeared after a long interval. Gossip also
gratuitously asserts that a copy of these plans could be
found in the Admiralty office of Great Britain. How-
ever that may be, the plans would be of little value to
any one to-day.

229

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

Associated with Totten was that General Bernard
of the first Napoleon's staff who was raised from the
ranks by the Corsican for his skill as a military engineer.
Bernard came to the United States in 1816 and offered
his services to the infant republic. While his gifts
have been generally conceded, his personality must have
been far from winning. Colonel McCree, chief of en-
gineers, resigned rather than serve with him, and har-
mony between the Frenchman and Colonel Totten was
only secured by an agreement through which work was
divided and each man was bound to accept the other's
plans.

There are passages beneath the walls of Fort Adams
known only to the engineers. These are always closed,
for they are of no use in piping times of peace and
might become a trap for curious, unwary visitors. A
story is told of an exploring party years ago, before
the entrances were barred. This party penetrated far
beneath the fort. Suddenly their lantern went out and a
scream and a splash from the front showed that one
of the party was in distress. A beautiful girl had
stepped over the edge of a subterranean reservoir.
What could be done! There was a rush and another
splash. One of the young men had jumped in the dark
into the dank pool beside the drowning girl. He was
able to keep himself and his fair charge afloat until a
rope reached them. The hero of the tale was the late
Washington Van Zandt of the Newport family.

230

FORT ADAMS

During the War of 1812 Fort Adams saw no active
service, and this is true, too, of the Civil War.

The vicinity of Newport held many fortified points
during the Revolutionary War and some of the remains
of these can be seen to-day. One of the most interest-
ing of these relics is " Dumplings," at the southern tip
of Conanicut Isle. A belligerent little round stone
tower, it has as pugnacious an appearance to-day as it
had when a few hardy Americans garrisoned it against
the English; and it is a favorite picnic point for parties
from Newport or from the summer colonies on the west
side of Narragansett Bay. Other ruined defences
(grass-grown and decayed) are to be found on Conani-
cut whose history is so obscure that even legend has little
to say about them ; but they are all a part of the expres-
sion of the doughty spirit which moved Newport and its
vicinity during the Revolution.

Goat Island in Newport Harbor, now the home of
the Fort Wolcott torpedo station, and a naval hospital,
was, we are told by Edward Field, in his interesting
monograph, " Revolutionary Defences in Rhode
Island," the site of a fortification as early as 1700.
This early fortification was known as Fort Anna; later
Fort George; then, Fort Liberty; and, at the time of
the Revolution, Fort Washington.

FORT MONROE

OLD POINT COMPORT— VIRGINIA

ORNING bugle call, the evening
gun, grey ships of war stealing in
from a misty sea with long plumes
of soft black smoke, military uni-
forms on the streets and trig bright
houses are, probably, the average
civilian's impressions of a stay at
Old Point Comfort where is located Fort Monroe.
" Fort " or " Fortress," for the place changes its sex
indifferently according to the state of mind of the
speaker, it probably satisfies the popular conception of
a mighty stronghold of defence more completely than
any other such establishment in the United States.
And, indeed, it is a great defensive work, guarding one
of the most vital points of entrance in this country,
menacing hostile approach to the very capital of the
country itself.

At the southern limit of the western shore of the
Chesapeake Bay is a long sandy peninsula whose ex-
tremity in times of flood is cut off from the mainland
by a narrow wash of water, and on this sometimes iso-
lated tip of the peninsula is situated Fort Monroe. The
grounds of the reservation, which includes all of the
residence portion of the little community, too, embrace
about 280 acres of almost always dry land. The walls

232

FORT MONROE

of the fort itself encircle the greater part of this number
of acres.

From the summit of these walls one looks out upon
a wide prospect of waters. To the south is Hampton
Roads, into which empty the waters of the James, the
Elizabeth and the Nansemond Rivers. To the east lies
the wide expanse of the lower Chesapeake Bay, giving
access to the Potomac and the network of other rivers
which the bay holds as tributaries. From all directions
except from the west pours in upon Old Point a vivi-
fying draught of pure salt air. From the west, — from
the mainland, — come all manner of humidities, unpleas-
antness and mosquitoes, but this is only one of four
points of the compass.

It is a healthy place, this Old Point Comfort, so
healthy, indeed, that in a grave government report of
1877 the army surgeon at the post tells his superiors
in Washington that there is a legend in the army that
the air of the place conduces to fecundity in the families
stationed there. He adds that from his own professional
practice and his observation of the number of children
playing in the streets he believes that there is more than
fancy in the idea I

The visitor to Fort Monroe will almost invariably
come by water, though there is a roundabout way of
reaching the post by way of trolley from Newport News
— through quaint old Hampton, past Hampton Institute
and over a long trestle to the reservation. He will see,

233

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

first, on putting foot upon the wharf and fighting off
the hungry hordes of hackmen and baggage smashers,
the red walls of a popular hotel. To the right is a
triangular park, on the far side of whose spread of
green is a row of modern cottages of pretentious archi-
tecture, which are given over to the superior officers
stationed at the post. Beyond the roofs of these can
be seen, in glimpses, the battlements of the old fort.
Perhaps our visitor will penetrate on farther back into
the grounds, along the winding main street, until he
comes to the main entrance to the fort, faced by an inn
much used by officers and the military set. Here there
are cottages, of less imposing aspect than those facing
the sea, which are given over to the younger officers and
their families. Here also one has his first clear view of
the fort walls.

Without a doubt it is recollection of the moat that
one carries away from Fortress Monroe, primarily.
This broad band of water, encircling the high, grey old
walls of the place, appeals strongly to one's romantic
sense. Ho, warder! to the draw-bridge! And all that
sort of thing. There is a draw-bridge, too, — five of
them, in fact, at the five entrances to the fort. So, ho,
for the draw-bridge and a view inside the fort!

The visitor who crosses the narrow way leading
across the moat and penetrates to the interior of For-
tress Monroe will not be greatly impressed by show of
military works. These are all quietly and modestly

234

FORT MONROE

ready in the background, somewhere. He will find him-
self in a charming sort of park which strongly suggests
the tropics in its luxuriance of foliage of all kinds.
Indeed the air of Old Point, for some reasons, supports
tropical plant growth that will not live in the country-
side immediately adjoining. One of the effective sights
that the visitor sees in the fort are the clumps of fig
trees which are to be found, and there are to be found,
too, magnolia and rhododendron and crape myrtle.

There is a large parade ground, flanked on the east
and north by long barracks. The rest of the grounds,
not including the casemates, is given over to residences,
to various store-houses and to a building of the Coast
Artillery School which has been located at Monroe since

1867.

The casemates of the old fort are used as residences
for married private soldiers and for other purposes, not
transparently military. The long rows of heavy cannon
once to be seen here are to be found no more, their place
being taken by modern batteries elsewhere.

There is to be seen the casemate in which Jefferson
Davis, president of the Confederate States, was con-
fined after the working out of the destiny of the Lost
Cause. It is not different from its neighbors, and is an
inconspicuous little compartment in a wall with an orna-
mental little two-post doorway and one window. Many
curious visitors stop before it.

Old Point Comfort and all of this section of the

235

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

lower Chesapeake have seen many strange visitors and
cargoes in the Past. Doughty old Captain John Smith
came to Hampton Roads and wrote about what he saw
with that wealth of picturesque detail which those old
chroniclers loved to pour forth. The name Point Com-
fort itself came from the circumstance that Smith was
cast into this Hampton Roads on the wings of a storm
at sea and that he hailed the first strip of solid land that
he saw as a comfort, indeed. At an early period a settle-
ment was made here, as a subsidiary of the Jamestown
colony, and, as early as 1611, a fort was built on the
point as a defence against Indians and freebooting
marauders of buccaneer type. The fort was armed and
known as Fort Algernon, in honor of Lord Algernon
Percie, one of the directors of the Virginia Company.
The greatest fort of the country was once called
Algernon !

This little fortification was not of long life, however.
It was maintained for a few years by the Jamestown
colony but went into decay after the failure of its
parent. The strategic value of the Point as a place for
defence was not lost sight of, however, in any succeed-
ing generation, though the place was not called into
service for many years.

The foundations of Fortress Monroe were laid in
1819, and the works were carried forward actively for
ten years. The plans were drawn by the famous
Bernard, one-time aide-de-camp of the first Napoleon,

236

g. M
"

FORT MONROE

and one of his leading engineers. It was Bernard's am-
bition to construct in the United States (he came to the
United States in 1816 and immediately entered the em-
ploy of the government) one great fortress like the
works of Antwerp, in the fortification of which he had
a large share. Fort Monroe, named in honor of the
president who did so much to make sure that the coast
defences of the country should be adequately founded,
was the result of this vision.

It is to be seen that the life of the present fortifica-
tion begins after the War of 1812, but the military his-
tory of the vicinity of Fort Monroe prior to that time is
full of interest.

During the Revolution the mouth of the Chesapeake
was guarded by British cruisers and a rigorous blockade
was maintained. Despite this, during the war no less
than 248 privateers were fitted out in the waters of the
Chesapeake and managed to gain the high seas by elud-
ing the vigilance of the patrol beyond the capes.

In 1779 General Leslie sailed from New York with
3000 of His Majesty's troopers to land upon the penin-
sula not far from the site of Fort Monroe and there to
await orders from Lord Cornwallis, who was in North
Carolina. He entered Hampton Roads and took Nor-
folk and Portsmouth, fortifying the latter place as a
base for future operations. After some weeks of in-
activity, he re-embarked and sailed to reinforce Corn-
wallis at Charleston. In the following year Clinton

237

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

ordered the traitor Arnold with 50 sail and 1600 soldiers
to replace Leslie.

The Arnold expedition proceeded up the James
River in 1781 and set the torch to the public buildings
of Richmond. After pillaging Petersburg, it returned
to Portsmouth and threw up strong intrenchments.
Lafayette attempted to stay this destroying band but
had not force enough of his own and did not receive
expected reinforcement. The fleet which had been sent
to augment his numbers was engaged by the British
under Admiral Arbuthnot off the capes and compelled,
after a hot engagement, to withdraw to Newport. The
English thus retained their hold on Hampton Roads
and were enabled to send additional forces to General
Arnold under General Phillips. In April the combined
forces under Arnold moved again up the James River,
burning and pillaging.

Cornwallis occupied Portsmouth shortly after this,
but soon again moved to Yorktown, where he threw up
huge intrenchments, the outlines of which are plainly
discernible at the present day. In September, 1781, the
French under Comte de Grasse were successful in enter-
ing the Chesapeake to co-operate with Washington,
Lafayette and Rochambeau. The British fleet under
Admiral Graves sturdily contested the capes, but was
forced to surrender the hold which it had maintained
so effectively. In the ensuing month occurred the his-
toric surrender of Cornwallis.

238

2

FORT MONROE

During the War of 1812, a British order in council
declared the Chesapeake to be in a state of blockade, and
in 1813 Rear- Admiral Cockburn of His Majesty's navy
was sent to Lynnhaven Bay, near Norfolk. The Amer-
icans had a large flotilla in Hampton Roads, and had
constructed Forts Norfolk and Nelson on the Elizabeth
River near Norfolk and had thrown up intrenchments
on Craney Island, these dispositions all being under the
direction of Brigadier General Robert B. Taylor.

At daybreak of June 22, 1813, a determined attack
was made by the British under Cockburn from land and
sea, which was repulsed. Three days later quiet Hamp-
ton was captured after a gallant defence by an inade-
quate garrison and the town pillaged in barbaric fashion.
Soon after, Cockburn withdrew to the coasts of South
Carolina and Georgia, but resumed his operations in the
lower Chesapeake March 1, 1814. In July, 1814, he
was largely reinforced and with a combined land and
naval expedition commenced that march up the Chesa-
peake which culminated in the sacking of Washington
and the final repulse of the expedition at Fort Mc-
Henry. This was the last important engagement of
the War of 1812.

During the Civil War Fortress Monroe saw stirring
scenes, though it had no very active part in any of them.
In October, 1861, Hampton Roads off the fort was the
rendezvous for great land and naval forces under
Admiral Dupont and General Sherman designed to

239

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

capture Hilton Head. In the January following
another great force was brought together here for oper-
ations on the Carolina coast. In the spring of 1862
McClellan's army arrived at Old Point and went to
Yorktown.

In March of 1862 occurred in Hampton Roads the
episodes of the Merrimac. A watcher on the walls of
Fort Monroe would have seen this queer, square vessel,
covered with railroad iron, sailing down the blue waters.
He might have seen the sinking of the Cumberland with
the greater part of her crew despite her desperate, im-
potent efforts against this new kind of adversary. He
might have witnessed the destruction of the Congress
by fire and the partial disabling of the Minnesota. He
might have heard in the old fort that night the barrack-
room gossip of the new giant and whispers of the ex-
pected arrival of a United States champion which was
to take up the gage of combat. The next day he might
have seen from the ramparts the struggle between the
Merrimac and the Monitor, which ushered in a new
chapter in naval warfare and began the era of the steel-
clad knight of the seas.

Later Old Point Comfort became the base of opera-
tion of the Army of the James.

In 1893, during the celebration of the Columbian
Exposition, Hampton Roads was the rendezvous under
the guns of old Monroe for the vessels of all of the
nations of the world. The old fort sees the most im-
portant manoeuvres of the United States navy of to-day.

240

FORTS SUMTER AND MOULTRIE

NEAR CHARLESTON— SOUTH CAROLINA

HE bombardment of Fort Sumter
from Fort Moultrie began at
dawn of April 12, 1861, and con-
tinued without remission for
about 36 hours, or until noon of
the second day. During that
time, though shot and shell played
havoc with the walls of both the besiegers and the be-
sieged, no human being was hurt, — a strange prelim-
inary, indeed, to the most murderous civil war since
the invention of gunpowder in the history of the world.
This has been called the first time in history that
two forts waged battle against each other. It was like
two strong men. tied by the feet, almost beyond reach
of each other, being allowed to strike at each other until
one or the other should fall.

To understand something of the conditions which
governed this very historic bout between Fort Sumter
and Fort Moultrie, one must have some idea of the lay
of the land at Charleston. Charleston, itself, it may be
pointed out, is situated on a long narrow spit of land at
the juncture of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers. The
arrow-head formed by these two rivers points almost
directly toward the mouth of Charleston Bay, where the
waters of the two rivers joined mingle with the Atlantic
Ocean. Let us go to the point of the arrow-head upon

16 241

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

which Charleston is situated, to the Battery, — that is,
Charleston's most famous public park, — and gaze sea-
ward: Five miles away, across a shimmering blue, we
see a little geometrical dot almost midway between the
jaws which hold Charleston Bay. This is Fort Sumter,
a little stone work built by the United States Govern-
ment in 1828 on a sandy shallow. Fort Moultrie is
situated on Sullivan's Island, on the northern one of the
two jaws of the bay, a body of land really distinct from
the mainland but which seems from this distance to be
a part of that land. Of the two fortifications, Fort
Moultrie is the older and by long odds the more inter-
esting as to past.

Wise heads of both sections in 1860 saw that war
was inevitable between the North and the South, though
patriots did their best to prevent armed conflict. But
the doctrine of State individualism or State's Rights
was too firmly established to be gotten from the body
corporate without a purging of blood, just as individual
rights in the social structure can never be enforced to
the last limit without conflicting with the community
purpose. So when, on Christmas night, 1860, Major
Anderson, commanding at Fort Moultrie, moved his
whole force secretly over to the sub-post, Fort Sumter,
and sent his women and children to Charleston, with
the request that they be sent north, the citizens of
Charleston, at least, knew that the issue had been
squarely met, to be settled at the court of last resort.

242

FORT SUMTER

Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel, in her delightful reminis-
cences of Charleston, writes:

Doubt and delay were gone. Then came the call to arms . . .
January, February, and March were so full of crowded life
that they seemed an eternity, yet one dreaded lest eternity
should end. End it did when one night at eleven o'clock seven
guns thundered out over the town and every man sprang up,
seized his rifle and ran to the wharves. It was the signal that
the relieving fleet (from the north) was on its way south, and
that the whole reserve must hurry to the islands.

During all this time Fort Sumter had been supplied
with provisions and necessaries by the citizens of
Charleston.

When Major Anderson in command at Fort Sumter
accepted Beauregard's terms of surrender and saluted
the new flag, he was conveyed, with all the honors of
war, in the steamer Isabel to the United States fleet
which had lain idle in the offing.

From this time until the end of the Civil War
Charleston was in a state of siege. There was a short
period of preparation on both sides before the Federal
fleet appeared, November, 1861, outside the quaint old
city. The city maintained its integrity complete against
attacks by water, and finally fell to a move in force by
land in the last year of the war, when the defenders of
Charleston were withdrawn and all of the men of the
remnants of the armies of the Confederacy were being

243

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

concentrated for one last desperate protest against the
inevitable.

After the Civil War Fort Sumter was repaired and
strengthened and is still a seat of military power as a
sub-post of Fort Moultrie.

To reach Fort Moultrie one goes from Charleston
by ferry to the northern side of the Cooper River and
takes a trolley which leads seaward along the coast
across an inlet to Sullivan's Island, which has become a
popular summer place with many people of Charleston.

Fort Moultrie, when once it is reached, is not a
pretentious place, — the old works, that is, — being simply
a star-shaped fort of brownish-red brick on which the
hot southern sun pours down in quantity. It overlooks
a rumpled beach and the sea on one side and flat unin-
teresting land on the other. To the seaward one can
gaze upon Fort Sumter and find it not more interesting
of aspect close at hand than it is at a distance. Beside
the gate of Fort Moultrie is a small marble shaft which
marks the grave of Osceola, the Seminole chieftain. If
one has devoured Indian tales in his youth he will no
doubt be more interested in this simple memorial than
in the immediate aspect of military things around him.
It was in Fort Moultrie that Osceola was jailed after
his capture in Florida and it was here that he died, —
from a broken heart, if one is still interested in Indian
stories !

The present Fort Moultrie was started in 1841 on

244

FORT MOULTRIE

the site of a famous old palmetto structure of the same
name which had stood since early Revolutionary days.
In 1903, with the exquisite tact which it displays occa-
sionally, army headquarters in Washington decided to
change the name of the fort to Fort Getty in honor of
some deserving soldier whose career is recorded in the
files of the Army Department, but the loud chorus of
indignation that greeted this move carried all the way
from Charleston to Washington, and the name of that
delightful old Revolutionary character, William H.
Moultrie, is still preserved at the spot where his first
battle was fought.

The foundations of Fort Moultrie were laid in
January, 1776, when a Mr. Dewees, owner of the island
which bears his name, was ordered to deliver at Sul-
livan's Island palmetto logs eighteen to twenty feet
long and not less than ten inches in diameter in the
middle; and Colonel Moultrie was ordered to superin-
tend the erection of a fort from this material. It was
not completed in June when the British came into view.
In design a double square pen it was built of palmetto
logs piled one upon the other and securely bolted to-
gether; the space between the outer and inner pen was
about sixteen feet and this was filled in with sand;
there were square bastions. The walls were intended
to be ten feet high above the gun platforms where were
mounted 64 guns.

The British fleet bearing a land force was under

245

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

the command of Admiral Sir Peter Parker, and reached
Cape Fear early in May, where it was joined by Sir
Henry Clinton from New York with a portion of the
troops which had participated in the Battle of Bunker
Hill. Clinton assumed command of all the land forces.
On the 4th of June the fleet appeared off Charleston
bar and a small force of men was landed on Long
Island, the island just north of Sullivan's Island, and
on the 28th of June advanced under Sir Peter Parker
to give battle to Fort Sullivan, as Moultrie was then
known. There were brought into action in this engage-
ment the following English vessels: The Bristol and
Experiment of 50 guns each; the frigates Active, Sole-
bay, Acteon, Siren, and Sphinx of 28 guns each; the
Thunderbomb and Ranger, sloops, of 28 guns ; and the
Friendship of 22 guns, in all, a very powerful squadron.
The Americans had their unfinished palmetto fort, 64
guns and 1200 men. Several days before the battle the
fussy General Charles Lee, whom Washington after-
wards in his only recorded uncontrolled exhibition of
temper called, at the battle of Monmouth, " a damned
poltroon," had removed to another defence of the city
half of the small quantity of gunpowder which Moultrie
had been given for the defence of his fort.

The command of the defence of Charleston had been
given to General Lee by the Continental Congress, and
General Lee had appeared in the city on the same day
that the British fleet was sighted off the bar. From

246

FORT MOULTRIE

the first he seems to have been in conflict with Moultrie.
Moultrie's fort, he said, was poorly designed, and doubt-
less it was; Moultrie should provide a means of re-
treat for his men, and Moultrie replied that they would
never use it; and Moultrie this and that. Moultrie
himself, his admirers were forced to admit, was " a
man of very easy manners, leaving to others many
things which he had better have attended to himself."

But the point is that Moultrie carried this same
easiness of manner and mental poise into battle with
him and was on this account an ideal officer to direct a
fight. He had, moreover, the unlimited confidence and
affection of his men and he knew the people he was
working with.

The British appeared off Fort Sullivan just when
the feeling between General Lee and Moultrie was at
an acute stage. We find Moultrie now at face with the
problem of defending his " slaughter pen " fort against
an overwhelming force with the insufficient quantity of
gunpowder which General Lee had left him.

The ships formed in double column and poured a
terrific fire upon the fort. Moultrie feared that the
concussion of the shells would rock his guns off their
platforms. " Concentrate upon the Admiral, upon the
fifty-gun ships! " This was Moultrie's direction to his
men. The Americans, expert marksmen that they were,
obeyed his commands and the Bristol and the Experi-

247

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

ment suffered fearfully, the captains of these two great
ships being mortally wounded.

The Americans now began to run short of powder.
Colonel Moultrie sent a despatch for more. He was in
pressing need, but no one would have guessed it from
his message which read as follows :

I think we shall want more powder ; at the rate we go on I
think we shall. But you can see for yourself; pray send more
if you think proper.

Rutledge sent 500 pounds, and Lee, who was at
Haddrell's with 5000 pounds he had taken from Fort
Sullivan, sent no powder but the message:

If you should unfortunately expend your ammunition with-
out driving off the enemy spike your guns and retreat with all
the order you can. I know you will be careful not to expend
your ammunition.

General Lee had an idea that battles were fought
with bows and arrows and gunpowder kept to celebrate
the victory afterwards with! And he was determined
that that retreat should take place, because he had
prophesied a retreat by all the laws of war some weeks
before.

The cannonade went on, the fire from the fort being
at a much slower tempo than that from the ships. And
now a new fact was discovered in the art of war: The
soft palmetto logs with sand in between were a better
bulwark than solid stone. Cannon balls entered them

248

easily and stopped just as easily without sending
splinters all around. Shells threw the sand up in the
air and the sand fell back again to the spot whence it
had risen.

The Bristol, the flag-ship, suffered more than any
other of the British vessels. At one time Sir Peter was
the only man unwounded on the quarter-deck, and he,
too, presently was hurt.

The Act eon went hard aground on the shoal where
Fort Sumter was afterwards to be raised and had to be
abandoned, being set on fire before she was deserted.

The rattle-snake flag flying over the American fort
was shot down, and Sergeant Jasper, leaping over the
parapet, braved the fire of the British to recover the
emblem. Sergeant Jasper lost his life at Savannah in
an effort to duplicate this same feat.

At length the British drew off beaten. They had
lost heavily, on the flag-ship alone 104 men being killed.
The American loss was 12 killed and 25 wounded.
When the news of this defeat reached England, though
the intelligence was given out by the Admiralty in the
most politic fashion possible, it was a terrible blow to
English pride. " That an English admiral with a well-
appointed fleet of 270 guns should be beaten off by a
miserable little half-built fort on an uninhabited sand
bank was incomprehensible," wrote a correspondent
from London. Had Moultrie had powder enough the
British loss must have been much heavier than it was.

249

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

On the 9th of April, 1780, Fort Moultrie was again
in action, when it opened upon Admiral Arbuthnot's
fleet which was sailing into the harbor in the course of
the operations against Charleston that year. It was
unable to prevent the passage of the fleet but it inflicted
some damage to the vessels and killed 27 of the enemy.
Shortly after Fort Moultrie fell to an overwhelming
force of British who attacked by land, and was not
again in action during the Revolution.

FORT PULASKI

AT MOUTH, SAVANNAH RIVER— GEORGIA

HE trip from beautiful Savannah
to the battered ruins of the once
famous brick fortress, Pulaski,
takes one through that gold and
green country which one comes
to associate with the name of this
charming southern city. Fort
Pulaski is that great hexagon of brick which one sees
from incoming steamers on Cockspur Island at the
mouth of the muddy Savannah River, and all the coun-
try round about is marshy, reedy land, cut up by big
and little streams with no hills to be seen and only
scraggy pine trees breaking the flat monotony of the
horizon.

If one would go to Fort Pulaski from Savannah, he
seeks out the little railroad which runs to Tybee, and
whose passenger traffic is confined almost exclusively
to summer. There he will be received by the hospitable
southern trainmen and put off the train near the light-
house which graces the northern end of Cockspur Island.
Here, if he has been wise and has made his arrangements
properly, he will be met by a boat from the light-house
and will be carried across to the island.

Arrived at the landing which gives access to the
fort, one is struck by the graceful desolation of the scene.
The boards and timbers of the wharf have rotted, and

251

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

ends of planks hang down toward the water like
withered arms. Yet the brilliant Georgia sunshine gives
a charm to it all. One does not feel in the presence of
decay ; one feels only in the presence of something that
is passing painlessly away.

This same feeling one carries up the long, straight,
muddy path leading to the ruined monument of valor
through the marsh which surrounds that work. One
comes to a broad ditch now full of mud and weeds and
faces the remains of a once sturdy draw-bridge. Pass-
ing over this and between the mounds of former out-
works one at last faces the entrance to Fort Pulaski.

The walls of this great brick fortress, which cost a
million dollars and was one of the greatest brick for-
tresses of its time, tower over one with great impressive-
ness. The brick face is pierced by long narrow slits for
rifle fire, and these peer at one vacantly. A large ditch,
or moat, surrounds the fort, and this still contains water
owing to the low elevation of the island above tide, but
it is choked with rank vegetation and though horrid of
aspect would not be a serious bar to the approach of
any storming force.

Crossing the ditch, one passes through a long pas-
sage and past massive wooden gates studded with iron
bolts and, at length, comes out upon the parade ground.
Where brilliant columns once formed and marched in
martial evolutions now wave tall saplings except where
the solitary care-taker of the fort has cut these growths

252

FORT PULASKI

down to make room for a vegetable garden. The walls
go around in a great circle above this parade, the angles
of the circumference not being easily perceptible from
our vantage point. To the right hand and the left hand
stretch casemates in which officers and men dwelt. On
the far side of the parade are open casemates fitted for
cannon, for this is the quarter from which attack might
be expected. Close at hand is a spring whose clear
water flows ceaselessly from the rusty iron mouth which
the hand of man has provided and neglected.

Passing across the parade to the gun casemates,
which occupy the flanks of the fort on three quarters
of the compass, one finds the flooring still in good con-
dition, this fact being due to the protected nature of
this part of the fort and to the sturdy quality of the
planks which are three inches thick and of some close-
grained wood — probably cypress. The circular gun-
tracks are still visible. Where one can peer through
holes in the floor one gazes down into dank, dark depths
from which the light is reflected evilly by scummy water.

At the northeast angle of the fort are the remains
of one of the magazines. If one cares to prowl in here
and is willing to make entrance through a mysterious
black hole into an uncanny void, he will be rewarded
for his adventure by being able to pick up some rusty
grape-shot and smaller odds and ends of murderous
looking iron.

Ascending to the parapet of the fort by means of

253

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

one of the twisting iron stairs which are to be found at
each angle, or by the broad stone stairs adjacent to the
habitable casemates, one has a wide view of land and
sea. To the east lies the mouth of the Savannah River
where this stream joins the Atlantic Ocean. In this
direction, too, can be seen long, low, sandy Tybee Point,
where Fort Screven, the modern defensive work, lies.
To the south are marshes and in the distance the gleam
of the river up which the Union forces brought their
cannon to attack Fort Pulaski in 1862. To the north
and west — more marshes.

The island on which Fort Pulaski is situated was
acquired by the government in 1830 by purchase from
Alexander Telfair and sisters (an old and wealthy
Savannah family) and the title of the government
thereto for the purposes of a fortification was confirmed
by the State of Georgia by act December 27, 1845.
The entire reservation occupies about 150 acres.

The site for the fort was selected by Major General
Babcock, United States Corps of Engineers, and work
was begun in 1831 under the direction of Major General
Mansfield. Sixteen years passed before its mighty
walls, containing thirteen millions of bricks, were com-
pleted. The name Pulaski was given to the fort in
honor of Count Casimir Pulaski, the Polish patriot who
lost his life in the siege of Savannah by the Americans
during the Revolution, the scene of this sad event being
the Spring Hill redoubt near the site of the present
Central of Georgia railway station.

254

FORT PULASKI

The military history of Fort Pulaski does not cover
a long period of time. When, in December, 1860, the
news reached Savannah of the removal of Major An-
derson, in command of the United States forces in
Charleston Harbor, from Fort Moultrie to Fort
Sumter, there was an open expression of opinion that
Georgia should forestall such occupation of the forts on
her coast by the forces of the Federal government ; and
when, on January 2, 1861, it became known that Gov-
ernor Brown had ordered the seizure and occupation of
Fort Pulaski by the military under the command of
Colonel A. R. Lawton on the following day, the city
was wild with enthusiasm.

Says Adelaide Wilson in her delightful history of
Savannah :

Looking back upon the arrangements that were made for the
setting out of that first military expedition, there is temptation
to smile at the amount of impedimenta that was prepared for
the small forces of less than two hundred men. There was scant
time between the promulgation of the order and the hour named
for its execution, yet when, on the morning of the third, the
companies marched down to the wharf to embark on the little
steamer Ida, it is safe to say that they were encumbered with
much more baggage than served later in the war for an entire
division in the field. Every man had his cot, every three or four
men his mess-chest, with kettles, pots, pans and other cooking
utensils in liberal allowance, not to speak of trunks, valises,
mattresses, camp-chairs, etc., — in all a pile large enough to
make the heart of a quartermaster sink within him. It was evi-

255

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

dent that the troops long had anticipated the call upon their
services, and also that the mothers, wives and sisters of Savan-
nah had, with anxious forethought, determined that their loved
ones should carry into service as many of the comforts of home
as possible.

The siege of Pulaski by the Federal troops, April,
1862, was not long at the climax, though it was long in
preparation. The Federal forces gathered slowly south
of Savannah and then moved to the attack. By means
of a channel in the flats to the south of the fort which
the Confederates had left unguarded, they were able to
post their guns in advantageous positions. As the re-
sult of a heavy bombardment the walls of the fort were
battered in at the east salient and the garrison was
obliged to surrender.

The visitor to Fort Pulaski to-day may see some
of the wounds in the walls which the fort sustained on
that occasion. The worst injuries were repaired by the
United States troops during their occupancy of the
fort, and the course of these repairs may be traced by
the discerning eye through the different color of the
bricks.

Shortly after the Civil War, Fort Pulaski was
abandoned. It is still controlled by the government and
is in the care of a retired soldier of the United States
who lives a life of seclusion, disturbed only by the very
infrequent sight-seer or by parties of young men of the
neighborhood who find the marshes of the reservation
an excellent gunning preserve.

Parade and Ramparts

The Battered Eastern Salient
SCENES OF DESOLATION AT FORT PULASKI, NEAR SAVANNAH, GA.

FORT MORGAN

MOBILE BAY— ALABAMA

OBILE BAY, that pear-shaped
body of water, with its far-reaching
system of water tributaries, has
been a scene of settlement and
fortification since the early days of
French attempts at settlement in
the New World. There was, to
begin with, Fort Louis de la Mobile, which protected
the infant first settlement of Mobile, precursor of the
city of to-day. In various guises Fort Louis passed from
one to another of the different races of men with which
the history of Mobile Bay is associated. Then there are
the forts placed on the islands at the mouth of Mobile
Bay and the forts at the head of the bay where the big
rivers flow in. Finally there is Fort Morgan (Fort
Bowyer to begin with) which occupies the point of that
long, thin peninsula of land which forms the southern
boundary of Mobile Bay, dividing its waters from the
waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Fort Morgan to-day is in ruins and has never been
thoroughly rebuilt since its capitulation to Farragut in
one of the hottest battles of the Civil War. The gov-
ernmental reservation of land on which the works are
situated contains about 500 acres and is occupied, as
well, by modern defences. The view from the point
on which the old fort is situated gives a wide prospect

17 257

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

of blue water and sky. Across the ship channel is his-
toric Dauphine Island, on which Fort Morgan's sister
fort, Fort Gaines, was situated, and where the govern-
ment to-day maintains extensive batteries. To the right
are the waters of Mobile Bay, with the smoke of the
city thirty miles to the north. To the left are the sunny
waves of the Gulf.

The first that we hear of Mobile Point as a place of
fortification was in 1812, when the Spanish evacuated
Mobile. General Wilkinson, in command of the United
States forces in the southwest, put nine guns as a bat-
tery on Mobile Point and made his way on up to the
city, where he commenced to fortify the perdido. Sub-
sequently Mobile Point appealed to him as a better
place for defensive works than a spot so far up the bay,
and he placed a fortification here, which was called Fort
Bowyer in honor of Lieutenant-Colonel Bowyer.

The next occupant of Fort Bowyer was a more pic-
turesque personage than General Wilkinson, none other
than Andrew Jackson. Upon his retirement from
Pensacola in 1814, Jackson stopped at Fort Bowyer
and left a force there of 130 men under the leadership
of Major William Lawrence. On September 12 the
British appeared before the fort with land and naval
strength and demanded the surrender of the little struc-
ture. Major Lawrence refused to surrender.

The British strength on this occasion consisted of
the Hermes of 22 guns, the Sophia of 18 guns, the
Car on of 20 guns, Anaconda of 18 guns, all vessels of

258

FORT MORGAN

large size, under the command of Captain Percy. It
was a squadron which Jackson had driven from Pensa-
cola Bay and it was thirsting for revenge. There was,
in addition, a land force under Colonel Nichols of a few
marines and about 600 Indians which assailed Fort
Bowyer from the rear.

The battle began early on the morning of the 15th.
The word for the day in the American ranks was
" Don't give up the fort," and this originated an oft-
repeated phrase. A heavy cannonade continued with-
out interruption until 5.30 o'clock in the afternoon. The
flag-staff of the Hermes, Captain Percy's flag-ship, was
shot away and Lawrence gave the order to cease firing
while he hailed the vessel to find out whether she had
lowered her colors. The only answer was a murderous
volley of grape-shot from another quarter. The flag-
staff of the fort then happened to be struck, and the
Indians and British on shore, thinking that the plucky
little garrison had surrendered, ran forward with ter-
rible cries. They were met by a terrific hail of lead
which drove them back for good.

Finally the battered English vessels drew off. The
Hermes was found to be in such bad shape that she was
set on fire by her crew and abandoned. Her destruc-
tion was completed by the explosion of her magazine.
The British loss was 232, of which number 163 were
killed. The American loss was 4 killed and 4 wounded.
The British in this engagement outnumbered the
Americans more than six times.

259

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

The great adventure of Fort Morgan's life, how-
ever, was in the Civil War at the time of the taking of
Mobile. The stronghold had been considerably en-
larged and strengthened and had been re-christened by
its Confederate possessors at the outbreak of that dis-
astrous struggle between brother and brother. It is
described in official records of the time as a pentagonal
bastioned work, with a full scarp brick wall, 4 feet 8
inches thick, its armament consisting of 86 guns of
various calibres. The garrison, including officers and
men, numbered 640.

The force under Farragut consisted of fourteen
large wooden steam vessels of war and four iron-clads
of which the Tecumseh arrived from Pensacola just in
time for the engagement. The wooden vessels were
lashed together in pairs and the whole column was
headed by the iron-clads.

It was on the morning of August 5, 1864, that
Farragut commenced his passage into Mobile Bay.
Long before the break of day through the whole fleet
could be heard the boatswain's whistles and the cheery
cries of " all hands " and " up all hammocks." The wind
was west-southwest, just where Farragut wanted it, as
it would blow the smoke of the guns on Fort Morgan.
At four o'clock the fleet set in motion, led by the four
monitors. At 6.47 the booming of the Tecumseh 's guns
was heard and shortly afterward Morgan replied. The
story may now be taken up in the words of an officer
on board the flag-ship Hartford:

260

FORT MORGAN

The order was to " go slowly, go slowly " and receive the fire
of Fort Morgan. At six minutes past seven the fort opened,
having allowed us to get into such short range that we appre-
hended some snare; in fact, I heard the order passed for our
guns to be elevated for fourteen hundred yards some time before
one was fired. The calmness of the scene was sublime. No im-
patience, no irritation, no anxiety, except for the fort to open ;
and after it did open full five minutes elapsed before we an-
swered. In the meantime the guns were trained as if at a target
and all the sounds I could hear were " steady boys, steady ! Left
tackle a little ! So, so !" Then the roar of a broadside and the
eager cheer as the enemy were driven from their water battery.
Don't imagine they were frightened ; no man could stand under
that iron shower; and the brave fellows returned to their guns
as soon as it lulled, only to be driven off again.

At twenty minutes past seven we had come within range of
the enemy's gunboats which opened their fire upon the Hartford,
and as the Admiral afterward told me made her their special tar-
get. First they struck our foremast and then lodged a shot of
120 pounds in our mainmast. By degrees they got better eleva-
tion ; and I have saved a splinter from the hammock netting to
show how they felt their way lower. Splinters after that came
by cords, and in size sometimes were like logs of wood. No
longer came the cheering cry " Nobody hurt yet." The Hart-
ford by some unavoidable chance fought the enemy's fleet and
fort together for twenty minutes by herself, timbers crashing
and wounded pouring down, — cries never to be forgotten.

By half past seven the iron-clad Tecumseh was well
up with the fort and drawing slowly by, when suddenly
she reeled to port and went down straightway with
almost every soul on hoard. She had struck a mine.

261

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

For a time this appalling disaster spread confusion in
the fleet.

"What's the matter?" was shouted from the flag-
ship to the Brooklyn just ahead.

" Torpedoes," was the response. •

" Damn the torpedoes," said Farragut, " go ahead."

Go ahead the fleet did and at length had passed Fort
Morgan and was in the sheltering waters of the bay.
The cost of this operation in the Union fleet was 335
men. Of the 130 men in the Tecumseh when she was
struck only 17 were saved.

Fort Gaines, the works on the western side of the
channel, now surrendered. But Fort Morgan kept on
fighting. The Union vessels were in Mobile Bay, but
they had not yet forced the indomitable fort on Mobile
Point to its knees. Admiral Farragut wrote to a friend :

We are now tightening the cords around Fort Morgan.
Page is as surly as a bull-dog and says that he will die in his
ditch

How little people know the risks of life. Drayton made his
clerk stay below because he was a young married man. All my
staff, — Watson, McKinley and Brownell, — were in an exposed
position on the poop deck but escaped unhurt while poor Hegin-
botham was killed.

For seventeen days Fort Morgan held out, though
bombarded continuously. Then at length she surren-
dered, her citadel destroyed and her walls nearly blown
to pieces. It is this pathetic shell that now greets the
visitor's eye on Mobile Point.

FORTS JACKSON AND ST. PHILIP

AT THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI— LOUISIANA

HE two forts which were the
scene of Farragut's first brilliant
exploit in running by the enemy's
works with wooden vessels have
not been regularly garrisoned
since 1871 and have been main-
tained only in a casual sort of a
fashion. Stronger and newer defences have taken their
place, though these two spots have had a long and honor-
able existence in the defence of the mouth of America's
greatest river and of its picturesque French-Spanish-
American chief city, New Orleans. Situated 32 nautical
miles by river from the Gulf of Mexico and about 22
miles from the light-house at the head of the passes of
the Mississippi, they occupy the first habitable ground
bordering the river, at a sharp bend known as English
Turn. Fort St. Philip is on the northern bank of the
river, Fort Jackson on the southern. Though so far
from the Gulf by river, Fort St. Philip, owing to the
peculiar formation of the mouth of the Mississippi, with
long fingers spread out into the sea, is only a short
distance from the Gulf as the crow flies.

About a mile above the site of Fort Jackson there
stood an ancient French fortification known as Fort
Bourbon, which gradually yielded to the encroachments
of time so that now there is of it nothing left. Fort

263

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

St. Philip, itself, was founded by the French and was
surrendered to the United States in 1803 with the pur-
chase of the Louisiana territory.

The situation of the two forts was early recognized
by the United States as possessing much military value,
and in 1812-1815 St. Philip was made over by the
United States authorities and Fort Jackson was built.
Fort St. Philip at the time of the Civil War consisted
of a quadrangular earthwork with brick scarp rising 19
feet above the level of the river and a wet ditch with
exterior batteries above and below. Fort Jackson,
largely added to between 1824 and 1832, was a penta-
gonal bastioned fortification built of brick with case-
mates, glacis and wet ditch; and of the two was the more
formidable work.

The two forts saw service in 1814 against the British.
At this time the name Jackson was applied to the south-
ern fort in honor of the fiery American commander
whose defence of that city has become an inspiring
legend.

The Confederate Government had early taken pos-
session of the forts and had put them in complete order.
When Farragut's fleet appeared, early in the spring of
1862, Fort Jackson with its water battery mounted 75
guns and Fort St. Philip about 40. The works were
garrisoned by about 1500 men, commanded by Briga-
dier General J. K. Duncan ; St. Philip being under the
direct command of Lieutenant- Colonel Edward Hig-

264

FORT JACKSON

gins. Just above the forts the Confederates had placed
a fleet of 15 vessels, including the iron-clad ram Man-
assas. Below Fort Jackson they had obstructed the
river with a heavy chain brought from Pensacola. This
chain was pinned to the under side of a row of cypress
logs which were 30 feet long and four or five feet in
diameter. The spring freshets caused this chain to
break and it was replaced by two lighter chains sup-
ported in similar fashion.

As a first move against the Confederate strong-
holds, Farragut sent Commander Porter with his fleet
of mortar vessels to bombard the forts. The bombard-
ment opened on the 18th of April and continued with-
out remission for six days, but though breaches were
made in the walls and the levee was broken at one place
so that the beleaguered men had a difficult task to keep
the waters of the Mississippi from drowning them out,
the action was inconclusive.

It was then that Farragut determined upon the bold
move (later duplicated at Mobile) which was so great
an element of his fame. At two o'clock on the morning of
April 24, 1862, he set his fleet in motion up the river.
The chain barriers were cut and the fleet contrived to
get past the fort without serious damage or loss of life.
Thus was accomplished the feat of passing, with wooden
vessels in a stream half a mile wide, two forts specially
prepared to resist such an effort. The Confederate

265

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

fleet was met beyond the forts and repulsed after a sharp
engagement.

Farragut now passed on to New Orleans to make
sure of the rich prize of a city whose export business
at that time was the greatest in the world, while Porter
was left behind with a sufficient squadron to continue
the bombardment of the forts. After being under con-
tinuous fire until the 28th of the month the forts sur-
rendered, and have never since been in active service.

The reservation of Fort Jackson contains 557.6
acres and that of Fort St. Philip 1108.85 acres. The
reservations consist entirely of swamp lands, during
season of high water being almost completely inundated.
Those portions containing the forts, quarters and other
buildings are leveed on all sides, but notwithstanding
the protection thus afforded there are times when the
water rises so high as to become a source of great incon-
venience in going about. This is especially the case
when rain is added to the water which percolates through
the levees.

Any account of Fort Jackson would be incomplete
without allusion to its alligators. These reptiles consti-
tute one of the principal objects of interest to visitors
and may be seen in numbers floating in the moats or
basking on shore in the sunlight. They are from five to
fifteen feet in length and possess great strength. It was
customary to feed them with bread and crackers from
the bridges over the moats, calling them up by whistling,

266

FORT ST. PHILIP

and from frequent occurrence of this act they seemed to
become accustomed to the signal and responded to it
just as might dogs.

The rattlesnakes of the vicinity are numerous and
formidable. One was caught here measuring \\l/2 feet
and having 27 rattles. Black snakes are large but rare.
Moccasins, of which there are two varieties, attain a
large size and are frequently very venomous.

The mosquitoes constitute a serious obstacle to the
enjoyment of life to the infrequent garrisons at this
post, for they not only ply their calling with great dili-
gence during the night but in summer are equally zeal-
ous throughout the day. Various expedients are
adopted to avoid and drive them away. The smudge is
brought into frequent and useful requisition. Gloves
are worn and covering of mosquito netting is frequently
used to protect the neck and head.

FORT SNELLING

NEAR ST. PAUL— MINNESOTA

HE historic post of Fort Snelling,
Minnesota, for more than a gen-
eration after its establishment, in
1819, the most remote western
outpost of the United States, is
situated at the confluence of
the Minnesota and Mississippi
Rivers, eight miles southeast of Minneapolis by river
and six miles from St. Paul. It lies in a region of rare
natural beauty, in the vicinity of the Falls of Minnehaha,
Bridal Veil Falls, and other points locally notable and
is, itself, no mean attraction to the many visitors who
are attracted to the locality every year. The old fort
standing on its high bluff at the headwaters of America's
greatest river is a most picturesque object.

The reservation of Fort Snelling contains 1,531
acres, though originally this tract was much larger than
now. The fort structure which one sees from the river
is an irregularly shaped bastioned wall conforming in
outline to the high plateau of land upon which it is situ-
ated. It occupies the extreme end of the point of land
formed by the juncture of the two rivers, and on the
Mississippi side the bluff upon which the fort is situated
descends abruptly to the water, the river there running
almost in a canyon. On the Minnesota side the slope is
more gradual and ends in a low marshy flat which ex-

268

FORT SNELLING

tends from one-third to one-half a mile and is frequently
submerged during high water. The altitude of the post
plateau above the river is 300 feet.

The establishment of Fort Snelling was one of the
fruits of the work of Lieutenant Z. M. Pike, the first
American to explore and chart the peak which bears his
name. In 1805 this officer was in command of an explor-
ing expedition and held a conference with the Sioux
Indians on an island at the mouth of the Minnesota
River which now bears his name. He secured from the
Indians for military purposes a strip of land nine miles
on each side of the Mississippi River and extending from
the conference island to the Falls of St. Anthony, near
which Fort Snelling is.

It is to be remembered that in 1805 the settlement
of the American nation did not extend beyond the
Mississippi River. The country west of Lake Michigan
and on the headwaters of the Mississippi River, though
a part of the United States, thanks largely to George
Rogers Clark, was in a state of nature with only the trails
of Indians and traders and the remains of little French
settlements as the foundation for the civilization which
was to grow up within it.

The privileges which Lieutenant Pike secured from
the red men were not immediately taken advantage of
by the United States authorities. Time passed and the
War of 1812 with England gave the War Department

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

of this country quite as much as it could take care of.
Finally, in 1819, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Leaven-
worth, of the Fifth United States Infantry, was sent
with his regiment to locate a fort upon the reserve se-
lected by Lieutenant Pike. Colonel Leavenworth
reached the headwaters of the Mississippi without in-
cident and rendered his first monthly report in Septem-
ber, 1819.

Scurvy broke out now among the troops and this,
added to the natural inclemencies of the climate here
in winter, prevented any work being done until the
spring of 1820. In May, 1820, Colonel Leavenworth
moved his troops to a point on the west bank of the
Mississippi River, about a mile and a half above the
present location of Fort Snelling. The site chosen by
him for the fort was the present military cemetery. He
made preparations to commence the work, but Colonel
Josiah Snelling assumed command in August and se-
lected the location where the fort now stands.

Work actually commenced September 10, 1820, and
went steadily ahead until October, 1822, when the post
was first occupied. During this time Colonel Snelling
was in command and his regiment was engaged in the
work.

For two years after it had been finished the post
was known as Fort St. Anthony — at Colonel Snelling's
suggestion — after the falls which are near the place,

270

FORT SNELLING

but, in 1824, it was visited by General Scott, who sug-
gested to the War Department that the name should be
changed to that which it bears to-day as a compliment
to its builder.

The defences and some of the store-houses and shops
were built of stone, but the quarters for the soldiers
were log huts until after the Mexican War. The huts
have now given way to comfortable barracks of modern
construction, but the stone construction and the shops
remain to-day as they were when the fort was far dis-
tant from civilization.

During the Civil War the fort was a concentration
point for volunteers. In 1878 a plan of enlargement to
accommodate a full regiment was entered upon in ac-
cordance with the policy then inaugurated by the War
Department of having the soldiers of the country con-
centrated at a few points rather than scattered through
a number of small posts.

While Fort Snelling has never seen active service
itself it has had an active existence as a distribution
point for those posts which were in conflict with the
enemy during the United States' occasional Indian
Wars. During the serious Sioux outbreak of 1862 in
Minnesota it was the head-quarters of the campaign
against the Indians, though the fighting took place from
subsidiary posts in contact with the red men.

For twenty years after its completion Fort Snelling

271

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

was in the midst of the Sioux with no white neighbors
except traders, agents of fur companies, refugees from
civilization and disreputable hangers-on. In 1837 an
enlargement of the military reserve and the coming of
the first tide of white settlers who were to develop this
country caused the eviction of this last class of depen-
dents. One of the nearby squatters took his grog-shop
to a point not far away. Around this point a settlement
grew up. This settlement is now the proud city of St.
Paul.

FORT LARAMIE

AT THE FORKS OF THE PLATTE RIVER— WYOMING

NE of the most famous of the western
Indian forts of the United States
is situated on the west bank of the
Laramie River, one and a half
miles above the junction of that
stream with the Platte. Though
deserted the post is still a pictu-
resque figure, recalling the days when it administered
authority for seven hundred miles around. The prop-
erty now comprises part of the ranch of Mr. John
Hunton.

Before the white man had established a habitation
where Fort Laramie stands the whole of the country of
the North Platte River was a hunting-ground and
battle-field for different tribes of Indians. Countless
herds of buffalo roamed the land and it was rich in fur-
bearing animals, as well.

In 1834 William Sublette and Robert Campbell,
coming to this part of the country to trap beaver, found
themselves obliged to construct some sort of protection
against the roving bands of vagabond Crows and Paw-
nees which occasionally swept along the Platte, stealing
where they could. They built in that year upon the
present site of Fort Laramie a square fort of pickets
18 feet high, with bastions at two diagonal corners, and
a number of little houses inside for their employes. In

18 273

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

1835 they sold out to Milton Sublette, James Bridger
and three other trappers, who went into partnership with
the American Fur Company and continued the beaver
trapping business.

In that year the American Fur Company sent two
men named Kiplin and Sabille to the Bear Butte and
Northern Black Hills to persuade the Sioux Indians
to come over and hunt their game and live in the vicinity
of the fort. Their ambassadors succeeded so well that
they returned with over one hundred lodges of Ogalla
Sioux under Chief Bull Bear. This was the first ap-
pearance of the powerful Sioux nation in this part of
the country, which they speedily overran, driving away
Pawnees, Cheyennes, Crows and all others from its
very borders.

Of course the fort speedily became a trading post
where the Indians bartered a buffalo robe for a knife,
an awl, or a drink of " fire water." Anything that the
company had to trade was at least of the value of one
buffalo robe. An American horse brought fifty of
them; any pony was worth twenty or thirty. Any old
scrap of iron was of great value to an Indian and by
him would be speedily converted into a knife. Fire-
arms he had none and his arrow-heads were all made of
pieces of flint or massive quartz, fashioned into proper
shape by laborious pecking with another stone. The
Sioux then had no horses, but herds of wild horses were
abundant on their arrival and it was not many years
before they learned their use.

274

FORT LARAMIE

In 1836 the picket fort began to rot badly and the
American Fur Company rebuilt it of adobe at an ex-
pense of $10,000. The people who lived inside of the
fort at this time called it " Fort William," after William
Sublette, but the name could not be popularized. The
fort being built on the Laramie River, not far from
Laramie Peak, the American Fur Company's clerks
in their city offices labelled it Fort Laramie and by that
name it was destined to be called.

It seems that Laramie was a trapper, one of the first
French voyageurs who ever trapped a beaver or shot a
buffalo in the Rocky Mountains. He was one day
killed by a band of Arapahoes on the headwaters of the
stream which has ever since been called by his name.

The American Fur Company retained possession of
the fort until 1849 when it sold it to the United States
government for four or five thousand dollars. Bruce
Husaband was the last representative of the company
who had charge of Fort Laramie.

The first United States troops which arrived here
came in July, 1849, under the command of Major
Sanderson of the Mounted Rifles. They were com-
panies C and D of that regiment. Company G of the
Sixth United States Infantry arrived in August of the
same year under command of Captain Ketchum. In
the summer and fall of 1849 a large number of additions
were made to the buildings at the post.

In 1846, just prior to its occupancy by the United

275

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

States, Francis Parkman, the future historian, then
little more than a boy, visited Fort Laramie and wrote
a description of the place in that singularly vivid style
which characterized his best work as a historian. His
description may be abridged:

Looking back, after the expiration of a year, upon Fort
Laramie and its inmates, they seem less like a reality than like
some fanciful picture of the olden time; so different was the
scene from any which this tamer side of the world can present.
Tall Indians, enveloped in their white buffalo robes, were strid-
ing across the area or reclining at full length on the low roofs
of the buildings which enclosed it. Numerous squaws, gayty
bedizened, sat grouped in front of the rooms they occupied ; their
mongrel offspring, restless and vociferous, rambled in every
direction through the fort; and the trappers, traders, and en-
gagees of the establishment were busy at their labor or their
amusements. . . .

Fort Laramie is one of the posts established by the " Ameri-
can Fur Company " which well nigh monopolizes the Indian
trade of this region. Here its officials rule with an absolute
sway; the arm of the United States has little force; for when
we were there the extreme outposts of her troops were about
seven hundred miles to the eastward. The little fort is built of
bricks dried in the sun, and externally is of an oblong form, with
bastions of clay, in the form of ordinary blockhouses, at two of
the corners. The walls are about fifteen feet high, and sur-
mounted by a slender palisade. The roofs of the apartments
within, which are built close against the walls, serve the purpose
of a banquette. Within, the fort is divided by a partition: on

276

FORT LARAMIE

one side is the square area, surrounded by the offices, store-
rooms and apartments of the inmates ; on the other is the corral,
a narrow place, encompassed by high clay walls, where at night,
or in presence of dangerous Indians, the horses and mules of the
fort are crowded for safe keeping. The main entrance has two
gates, with an arched passage intervening. A little square win-
dow, high above the ground, opens laterally from an adjoining
chamber into this passage ; so that when the inner gate is closed
and barred, a person without may still hold communication with
those within, through this narrow aperture. This obviates the
necessity of admitting suspicious Indians, for the purposes of
trading, into the body of the fort; for when danger is appre-
hended, the inner gate is shut fast and all traffic is carried on by
means of the window. This precaution, though necessary at
some of the Company's posts, is seldom resorted to at Fort
Laramie ; where though men are frequently killed in the neighbor-
hood no apprehensions are felt of any general design of hostility
from the Indians.

A train of emigrants encamped outside the fort for
the night on their long journey across the plains.

A crowd of broad-rimmed hats, thin visages, and staring
eyes appeared suddenly at the gate. Tall, awkward men in
brown homespun; women, with cadaverous faces and long lank
figures, came thronging in together, and as if inspired by the
very demon of curiosity ransacked every nook and corner of the
fort. The emigrants prosecuted their investigations with untir-
ing vigor. They penetrated the rooms, or, rather, dens, in-
habited by the astonished squaws. Resolved to search every
mystery to the bottom, they explored the apartments of the

277

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

men, and even that of Marie and the bourgeois (the commandant
of the fort). At last a numerous deputation appeared at our
door but found no encouragement to remain. . . . Having at
length satisfied their curiosity, they next proceeded to business.

On the 19th of August, 1854, a Mormon train was
encamped about ten miles below the fort on the Platte
River. The Indians having killed a cow or ox belong-
ing to the train had been complained of by the Mormons
to the commanding officer, who sent Lieutenant Grattan,
of the Sixth United States Infantry, with thirty men of
Company G and two howitzers, to recover the cow and
bring the thieves to the garrison. They met a large
number of Indians (Sioux) under the leadership of a
chief named Mattoioway about eight miles from the fort
and a conflict ensued in which Lieutenant Grattan's com-
mand, with the exception of one man, was annihilated.
The survivor was hidden in some bushes by a friendly
Indian and brought to the fort that night where he died
two days afterward. The bodies of the slain were buried
in one grave where they fell and a pile of stones marks
their resting place.

THE ALAMO AND FORT SAM
HOUSTON

SAN ANTONIO— TEXAS

HE Alamo, which is famous for its
heroic defence against the Mexi-
cans by Travis and his men, is
situated in San Antonio, Texas,
and is the point of pilgrimage
annually for many hundreds of
the visitors to the southwestern
part of the United States. On the outskirts of San
Antonio is the modern great military plant, Fort Sam
Houston, the Alamo's lusty successor.

The Alamo, as late as 1870, was used for military
purposes by the United States government, but of re-
cent years it has been preserved purely as a monument
to those brave men who lost their lives in it fighting
bravely to the last a battle which they knew to be hope-
less from the first. Upon the front of the building has
been placed an inscription which reads, " Thermopylae
had its messenger of defeat. The Alamo had none."
The building, itself, is a low structure of the familiar
Spanish mission type, and its main walls, though con-
structed in 1744, are almost as solid to-day as when new.
The chapel of the Alamo bears the date 1757, but this
was of later building than the rest of the place.

The city of San Antonio owes its foundation to the
establishment in 1715 by Spain of the mission of San
Antonio de Valero, which in accordance with the custom

279

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

of that country combined priestly enterprise with mili-
tary prerogative. The Alamo was a quadrangular,
central court structure built to house the troops of Spain
and to sound the call to worship. It was acquired by
Mexico with the rest of the Spanish possessions when
this southern neighbor of the United States, in 1824,
finally secured its independence from the parent country.

At the time of the siege, San Antonio was a town of
about 7,000 inhabitants, the vast majority Mexican.
The San Antonio river which, properly speaking, is a
large rivulet, divided the town from the Alamo, the
former on the west side and the latter on the east.
South of the fort was the Alamo village, a small suburb
of San Antonio.

The fort itself was in the condition in which it had
been left by Cos, the Mexican general, when it had been
surrendered in the fall of 1835. It contained twelve
guns which were of little use in the hands of men un-
skilled in their use, and owing to the construction of the
works most of the guns had little width of range.

In command of the place at the beginning of the
winter of 1835 was Colonel Neill, of Texas, with two
companies of volunteers, among whom was a remnant
of the New Orleans Greys. Early in 1836 Lieutenant
Colonel William B. Travis, a brave and careful officer,
was appointed by the Governor of Texas, which had as
yet only a provisional government, to relieve Colonel
Neill of his command.

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THE ALAMO

The volunteers, a hard-headed and independent lot,
wished to choose their own leader though they were will-
ing to have Travis second in command, and called a
meeting, where they elected as full colonel one of their
number, James Bowie, a forceful figure of early Texan
history. Bowie's name to-day unfortunately is chiefly
remembered by virtue of the " Bowie " knife. Travis
arrived at the fort early in February, just two weeks
before the Mexicans under the detested Santa Ana came
in view, and naturally enough refused to recognize the
superior authority of the officer so informally placed in
power, as did the men whom he had brought with him.
There was thus divided authority in the Alamo at the
time of the siege.

All disputes were dropped, however, upon the ap-
proach of the enemy. The advance detachment of the
Mexican force which came in four divisions arrived in
San Antonio on February 22, and was welcomed by an
eighteen-pound shot from the little American garrison.
Santa Ana procured a parley and demanded the sur-
render of the entire garrison, the terms to be left to his
discretion.

A dramatic scene took place in the Alamo, tradition
tells us, when news of this proposal came to the ill-
starred place. Colonel Travis drew a line upon the
ground. " All those who prefer to fight will cross this
line," he is reported to have said. Every man crossed
the line and Bowie, who had been stricken to his bed

281

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

with pneumonia, roused enough to ask that his cot be
carried with his men. It was well understood that the
issue of the fray, if once Santa Ana succeeded in taking
the post, would be the death of every man without
mercy; and the chances of withstanding an attack were
known to be weak.

When finally the Mexican host was assembled it
numbered about twenty-five hundred men. The Ameri-
can garrison, which was swelled by a reinforcement of
82 men from Gonzales who managed to get through the
lines of the besiegers into the fort, numbered altogether
188 men. The siege commenced on the 24th of Feb-
ruary ancl continued without cessation until the morn-
ing of the 6th of March, when there was a grand assault.

The final assault occupied not more than half an
hour. The blast of a bugle was followed by the shuffle
of a rushing mass of men. The guns of the fort opened
upon the charging columns which came from all direc-
tions. The outer walls were taken despite the efforts
of the pitiful handful of their defenders, and the battle
then became a series of desperate fights from room to
room of the old structure. Travis fell with a single shot
through his forehead and his gun was turned on the
building. Bowie was found on his cot in his room at the
point of death from the malady which had stricken him;
with his last flicker of strength he shot down with his
pistols more than one of his assailants before he was
butchered where he lay, too weak to move his body.

The chapel was the last point taken and the inmates

282

THE ALAMO

of this stronghold fought with unremitting fury, firing
down from the upper part of the structure after the
enemy had taken the floor. Toward the close of this
episode Lieutenant Dickenson, with his child strapped
to his back, leaped from the east embrasure. Both were
shot in the act.

One of the garrison was Davy Crockett, a well-
known and beloved backwoodsman, known for his
quaint sayings and homely wisdom. Crockett was
found beside a gun in the west battery with a pile of
slain around him.

The number of Mexicans killed has never been cor-
rectly estimated though it has been placed as high as a
thousand. The most accurate estimate lies probably be-
tween 500 and 600.

A few hours after the engagement the bodies of the
slaughtered garrison were gathered by the victors, laid
in three heaps and burned. On February 25, 1837, the
bones and ashes were collected by order of General Sam
Houston, as well as could be done, and buried with mili-
tary honors in a peach orchard then outside Alamo vil-
lage and a few hundred yards from the fort. The place
of burial was not preserved and the ground which con-
tains the remains of these heroic men has long since been
built over.

During the Mexican War the walls of the Alamo
buildings were repaired and the buildings newly roofed
for the use of the quartermaster's department.

Fort Sam Houston, the modern successor of the

283

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

ancient Alamo, was first located on Houston Street
where one of San Antonio's great new hotels now stands.
Its present ideal situation on a high plateau 762 feet
above the level of the Gulf of Mexico was chosen in 1872
and the grounds first comprised 162 acres of land. The
fort was built around a quadrangle 624 feet square, in
the centre of which was erected a gray stone tower 88
feet in height. Of recent years large accessions of land
have made the post over one thousand acres in extent
and the buildings have been largely added to, over two
and a half millions of dollars being expended upon the
fort by the national government. It is now one of the
most important of the United States' military posses-
sions. During the Spanish-American war the place
acquired celebrity as being the scene of organization and
training of the Rough Riders.

Immediately before the outbreak of the Civil War
the Alamo was commanded by that soldier who was to
lead the armies of the Lost Cause and whose name is a
household heritage in the south to-day, Robert E. Lee.
Associated with him here was Albert Sydney Johnston.
The house occupied by General Lee was situated on
South Alamo street and here he wrote his resignation to
the United States authorities before assuming command
of the enthusiastic and untrained masses of South-
erners.

During the Civil War San Antonio was the head-
quarters of the Confederacy in the southwest and the
Alamo was used for storage.

OTHER WESTERN FORTS

FORT PHIL KEARNEY. NEBRASKA; FORT LEAVENWORTH.
KANSAS; FORT FETTERMAN, WYOMING; FORT BRIDGER.
WYOMING; FORT KEOGH. MONTANA; FORT DOUGLAS. UTAH

NE of the most dreadful Indian fights
in the history of the Middle West
is associated with Fort Phil
Kearney, on the Platte River,
Nebraska, which was in 1848, at
the time of its establishment, the
only United States post between
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 350 miles distant, and Fort
Laramie, 420 miles to the west. It stood midway be-
tween the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains
on the California Overland route and was established
for the protection of west-bound emigrant trains from
hostile Indians.

Fort Phil Kearney was a storm centre during the
Sioux War, which began in 1863 and continued inter-
mittently for nearly ten years, and the " Kearney Mas-
sacre " occurred during this time. On the morning of
December 21, 1866, the fort received word that the wood
train was being attacked by Indians and was in need of
assistance. Immediately Brevet Lieutenant Colonel W.
I. Fetterman with seventy-six men was ordered to pro-
tect the train.

Colonel Fetterman moved rapidly upon his errand,
and the sound of heavy firing soon showed that he was in
contact with the enemy. The firing continued so long
that the commandant, Colonel Carrington, became

285

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

alarmed for the safety of the detachment and sent out
as many men as he could spare for reinforcement.
These men were under Captain Ten Eyck. The rest of
the story may be taken up in the words of Senate Docu-
ment 13, 1867:

Colonel Ten Eyck reported as soon as he reached the
summit commanding a view of the battle-field that the valley
was full of Indians ; that he could see nothing of Colonel Fetter-
man's party, and requested that a howitzer should be sent him.
The howitzer was not sent.

The Indians who at first beckoned him to come down now
commenced retreating and Captain Ten Eyck, advancing to a
point where the Indians had been standing in a circle, found
the dead, naked bodies of Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Fetterman,
Captain Brown and about sixty-five of the soldiers of their
command. . . . At about half the distance from where these
bodies lay to the point where the road commences to descend
to Peno Creek was the dead body of Lieutenant Grummond, and
still farther on, at the point where the road commences to de-
scend to Peno Creek, were the dead bodies of three citizens and
four or five of the old, long-tried and experienced soldiers.

Our conclusion, therefore, is that the Indians were massed
on both sides of the road ; that the Indians attacked vigorously
in force from fifteen hundred to eighteen hundred warriors and
were successfully resisted for half an hour or more; that the
command then being short of ammunition and seized with panic
at this event, and the great numerical superiority of the Indians,
attempted to retreat toward the fort; that the mountaineers
and old soldiers who had learned that movement from the

286

OTHER WESTERN FORTS

Indians in an engagement was equivalent to death remained in
their first position and were killed there ; that, immediately upon
the commencement of the retreat, the Indians charged upon
and surrounded the party who could not now be formed by
their officers and the party was immediately killed.

Only six of the whole command were killed by balls and two
of these, Lieutenant Colonel Fetterman and Captain Brown, no
doubt inflicted this death upon themselves, or each other, by
their own hands for both were shot through the left temple and
powder was burnt into the skin and flesh about the wound.
These officers had also oftentimes asserted that they would not
be taken alive by the Indians.

In its appearance Fort Kearney was typical of the
Indian forts of the period, being little more than a
stockade on the level prairie with the necessary houses
inside. The parade ground occupied four acres and
was flanked by a few straggly cottonwood trees. The
post was deserted not long after the building of the
Union Pacific railroad six miles away, which destroyed
the reason of its being; after its desertion fell victim to
its ancient enemy, for it was burned by the Indians.

Fort Leavenworth, Leavenworth, near Kansas City,
Kansas, whose name occurs so often in the records of
Indian warfare of the West, was established May, 1827,
by Colonel Henry Leavenworth, commanding a de-
tachment of the Third United States Infantry. At first
the post was extremely unhealthy, a large part of the
command being prostrated by malarial fever. It was

287

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

evacuated in 1829 and reoccupied in 1830, then, and for
several years, being known as Cantonment Leaven-
worth. Since the latter date the place has never been
without United States troops and it is to-day the largest
fixed post in the United States military service.

The first mission of Fort Leavenworth was to pro-
tect the emigrant trains which set out from St. Louis,
several hundred miles to the east, and passed this point
on the way to California, or Oregon, by the famous old
Santa Fe Trail, the California Overland Trail or the
Oregon Trail, each of which went by this place. As the
years went on the fort became more and more a base of
supply for the army posts established further west. Its
central location, which made it ideal as a distributing
point to any part of the West, is the factor which is at
the base of its importance in the present day.

Fort Fetterman, Wyoming, was established in July,
1867, and named in honor of the officer who lost his life
commanding the detachment destroyed by the Indians
at Fort Kearney. In the following month the Indians
of the vicinity were actively hostile. The old post was a
most picturesque point in its day, being situated on a
high bluff which shows its pointed palisade in fine relief
against the sky. It is now deserted.

Fort Bridger, Wyoming, another of the Indian posts
of the past, was one of the most important points on the
Great Salt Lake Trail. It was located on the Black
Fork of the Green River and was established in June,

288

OTHER WESTERN FORTS

1858. The immediate locality had long been known as
Bridger 's Fort because of the situation here of a trading
post of James Bridger, one of the most noted trappers
and guides of this section. In its establishment it was
intended to be a base of supplies for the army of General
Albert Sydney Johnston moving against the Mormons
in Salt Lake Valley in 1857 to 1858. That winter the
entire command encamped in the valley just above the
site of Fort Bridger and upon its removal the permanent
post was located.

Fort Keogh, Montana, one of the still existing Indian
posts, was established, in 1876, on the right bank of the
Yellowstone River, two miles above the mouth of the
Tongue River, Custer County, on a high elevation above
the river bottom, by General Terry during a campaign
against the Sioux. It was named in honor of Captain
Miles Keogh, killed in the battle of the Little Big
Horn, popularly known as Custer's Massacre, June 25,
1876. The area of the post reservation is 90 square miles.
In appearance Fort Keogh is typical of the other forts
of its class.

Fort Douglas, Utah, is at the base of the plateau of
the Wahsatch Mountains and is part of the suburbs
of Salt Lake City. The reservation contains two square
miles of territory, and the scenery from any part thereof
is extremely fine. The post was established October,
1862, by Colonel P. E. Connor, of the Third Regiment
of California Infantry.

19

FORT VANCOUVER

COLUMBIA RIVER— WASHINGTON

O delve into the history of Fort
Vancouver, or Vancouver Bar-
racks as it is known to-day, is to
recall that time when the far
northwest of the United States
was in the making, when there
was no definite boundary be-
tween England, Spain, Russia and the American nation
in this part of the American continent and when all of
these great nations, with the addition of France and
little Portugal, to boot, were claimants to the Columbia
River and the wildernesses which it held tributary.

The first white men to descry the mouth of the
Columbia from the sea were, no doubt, the Spaniards,
for Heceta, in 1775, and Bodega and Arteaga in the
same year and, again, in 1779, made brief excursions
into the river. In 1792 Captain Robert Gray, of Bos-
ton, with the good ship " Columbia," ascended the stream
for twenty-five miles and claimed possession of it for the
United States. He named the river for his vessel.
Several months after Gray had been on the stream the
English nation, as represented by Captain Cook's lieu-
tenant, ascended the stream for over a hundred miles,
making careful record of his trip. The three great
nations Spain, England, and the United States had
each valid claims. Portugal, Russia and France were

290

FORT VANCOUVER

early eliminated from the struggle for possession which
was thereupon fought determinedly by the first three
countries.

In 1819 by the Florida treaty with Spain that coun-
try ceded to the United States all of her claims north of
the 42nd degree of latitude and so, here, Spain grace-
fully stepped out of the ring.

The close of the War of 1812 with Great Britain
saw that power in possession of the disputed country,
but the Treaty of Ghent, 1815, provided that each na-
tion should restore what it had taken from the other by
force. Thereupon the United States resumed posses-
sion of the fort at the mouth of the Columbia which it
had formerly maintained. In 1818 was signed the Joint
Occupation Treaty between the two countries, by which
it was provided that the northwest coast of America
should be open to citizens of both powers for the period
of ten years. Finally, in 1846, was signed the agree-
ment between Great Britain and the United States by
which the northern boundary of the Northwest was
fixed at the line of 49 degrees, where it rests to-day.
The United States received about 750 miles of the river
and England about 650 miles. While there was much
diplomatic jockeying and juggling and while the two
nations came periously close to a resort to arms, the ques-
tion, on the whole, was settled with great amicableness and
the decision once arrived at was accepted with entire
good nature by each party to the contract.

291

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

Now let us ask why was it that the Northwest of
those days was considered so great a prize that six of
the World Powers should contend for its possession?
The domain, though a princely one, was not a necessity
to a young nation — our own — which had illimitable
leagues of arable soil still untilled. It was remote from
all of the powers of Europe. The answer to our ques-
tion is to be found in the one word, furs. The North-
west was a treasure house through virtue of the fur-
bearing animals which it contained.

As early as 1806 a trading station was established
in the valley of the Columbia River by The Northwest
Fur Company, an English corporation. In 1810 the
Pacific Fur Company, which was to found the fortunes
of John Jacob Astor, was organized by that gentleman
in New York and, in 1811, the first of Astor's ships
arrived at the mouth of the Columbia River to erect the
trading post of Astoria, whose fortunes have been so en-
tertainingly told by Washington Irving in the book of
that name. The Hudson Bay Company had also made
entrance to this rich field.

During the War of 1812 the Pacific Fur Company
retired from its positions in the Columbia valley and the
Hudson Bay Company absorbed its English rival, the
Northwest Fur Company. The English built a strong
fort at Astoria which they called Fort George. But
several years after the conclusion of the war between
England and America, the Pacific Fur Company re-

292

FORT VANCOUVER

sinned possession of its posts in the Columbia, with the
backing of the United States government, under the
authority of the Treaty of Ghent and the Hudson Bay
Company, and though events proved that it could main-
tain an amicable joint household with Astor's corpora-
tion at Astoria, began to look about for a site for head-
quarters of its own. Since the Columbia River at that
time seemed destined to become the dividing line be-
tween English and American possessions, a site was
chosen on the north side of the river, about 120 miles
above its mouth. Here a strong post was established
in 1825 and named Vancouver, in honor of the British
mariner. The site was not deemed as suitable for the
purposes of a fort as a situation a short distance away,
so a second Fort Vancouver was built on the last chosen
spot. This is the Fort Vancouver of the present day,
and the site of the city of Vancouver, Washington.

The new post was made the Pacific head-quarters
for the Hudson Bay Company and became a great mart
of trade from California to Alaska and for innumerable
little stations in the Rocky mountains and the hinter-
land thereof. The fort, itself, was an imposing structure
with a picket wall twenty feet high, buttressed with
massive timbers inside. It enclosed a parallelogram five
hundred feet by seven hundred feet and contained forty
buildings, including a governor's residence of generous
proportions. The lands outside of the fort proper were
cultivated and were exceedingly productive. The em-

293

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

ployees of the company were comfortably housed and
formed a happy community, and to the point came red
men in various garbs, hunters, trappers and woodsmen,
a picturesque throng in craft of all description.

This is a sketch of the post in 1846, the year in which,
through the treaty between England and America, it
became a possession of the United States. In 1849 a
company of United States Artillery, under Captain J.
H. Hathaway, took possession of the place in the name
of the republic and the stars and stripes waved where
the lion of St. George had held the breeze. It is an in-
teresting commentary of the times to remember that to
reach their destination Captain Hathaway and his sol-
diers were obliged to sail around Cape Horn in a sailing
vessel, the voyage consuming many months. In the
Spring of 1850 a company of mounted riflers arrived at
the post overland from Fort Leavenworth.

An additional interest is given Fort Vancouver by
knowing that at various periods prior to the Civil War
Grant, Sheridan, McClellan, Hooker, and other of the
famous United States leaders of the Civil War were
stationed here. It was in a campaign against the
Indians not far distant from Fort Vancouver that Gen-
eral Sheridan fought his first battle.

FORT YUMA

AT HEAD OF NAVIGATION, COLORADO RIVER— CALIFORNIA

HE comedian of Uncle Sam's
military posts is old Fort Yuma
on the Colorado River at the
southwestern extremity of Cali-
fornia. To mention the name in
a barrack-room where there are
seasoned soldiers is to call forth
a reminiscent smile and the old story of the hen that
laid hard-boiled eggs. These and that other one of the
officers, who when they die at Fort Yuma and appear
before his Satanic Majesty (by some strange miscar-
riage of justice) shiver with cold and send back to the
fort for their blankets.

Other posts in Uncle Sam's itinerary are hot, but
Fort Yuma spends all of its time in heating up with a
passion for its work and an unrelenting attention to
detail that have become legendary. During the months
of April, May, and June no rainfall comes, and the
average temperature is 105° in the shade. Of course
the post does much better on some occasions, and at
other times it falls below this batting average.

The most active days of Fort Yuma as a military
post were found just before and for a few years subse-
quent to the Civil War, though that great conflict had
no part in Yuma's past. During the days that Cali-
fornia was having its mind made up for it to become a

295

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

part of the United States, and during the days in which
it was beginning the great experiment indicated, Yuma
was of much importance as a base for United States
troops. In addition to this it exercised and has always
exercised a restraining influence upon those restless
spirits of the desert, the Apache Indians. Being situ-
ated on the border between the United States and
Mexico, it has some little to do in seeing that the cus-
toms regulations of this country are preserved. And it
has always secured importance from being one of the
stations on the old Santa Fe trail.

After receiving the Gila at a point 100 miles from
its mouth, the Colorado River turns suddenly westward
and forces its way through a rocky defile, 70 feet high
and 350 yards long and 200 yards wide, thus cutting
off a narrow rocky bluff and leaving it as an isolated
eminence on the California side of the river. Here
stands Fort Yuma, grey and sombre above the green
bottom lands of the river, which are covered with a dense
growth of cottonwood and mesquite. Chains of low
serrated hills and mountains limit the view on nearly
every side — all bare and grey save when painted by the
sun with delicate hues of blue and purple.

Before reaching the fort the traveller passes through
a long road shaded by young cottonwoods and mesquite
interspersed with an impenetrable growth of arrow-bush
and cane. Then he comes to a bend of the river where
the water loses the ruddy tint which gives it its musical

296

FORT YUMA

name of " Colorado " and, finally, he brings up at the
fortification, which in the distance appeared heavy and
forbidding but which near at hand resolves itself into a
collection of substantial adobe houses inclosed by deep
verandas with Venetian blinds which shut out every
direct ray of sunlight.

All the buildings at the post are of sun-dried brick
and neatly plastered within and without. They are one
story in height, have large rooms with lofty ceilings
and facilities for the freest ventilation. The roof and
walls are double, inclosing an air chamber. Each house
is surrounded by a veranda and adjacent houses have
their verandas in communication, so that the occupants
may pass from one to another without exposing them-
selves to the heat of the sun.

What entitles the post to the name of fort are certain
unpretentious intrenchments scattered along the slopes
of the bluff overlooking the river and commanding the
bottom lands adjacent. They are not visible from the
river and the visitor is not aware of their existence until
he steps to the edge of the bluff and looks down upon
them. The parade is a stony lawn. Not a blade of
grass is to be seen and everything is of that ashy light-
grey color so trying to the eyes. It is a relief to gaze
out upon the green bottom lands through which one
passed before ascending to the top of the eminence
where stands the fort.

Being so excessively dry the air at this post plays

297

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

strange pranks with articles made for use in less arid
climates, as many a young officer's wife has found to
her cost when bringing trunks and other household para-
phernalia to her new home. Furniture put together in
the North and brought here falls to pieces; travelling
chests gape at their seams, and a sole-leather trunk con-
tracts so much that the tray must be pried out by force.

Ink dries so rapidly upon the pen that it requires
washing off every few minutes and a No. 2 pencil leaves
no more trace upon a piece of paper than a piece of
anthracite coal would leave. To use a pencil it is neces-
sary to have it kept immersed in water before calling
upon it for service. Newspapers require to be unfolded
with care, for if handled roughly they crumble. Boxes
of soap that weigh twelve pounds when shipped to Fort
Yuma weigh only ten pounds after having been there
for several weeks. Hams lose 12 per cent, in weight
and rice 2 per cent. Eggs lose their watery contents
by evaporation and become thick and tough. The effort
to cool one's self with an ordinary fan is vain, because
the surrounding atmosphere is of higher temperature
than the body. The earth under foot is dry and powdery
and hot as flour just ground, while the rocks are so
hot that the hands cannot be borne upon them.

' The story of the dog that ran across the parade
at mid-day on three legs barking at every step may be
correct," writes an officer who was stationed there,
" though I have never seen it tried."

VALLEY FORGE-YORKTOWN—
VICKSBURG— LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN
—GETTYSBURG— THE "CRATER"

p N the nature of the case field forti-
fications are temporary erections,
earthworks thrown up for an im-
mediate emergency; but, occasion-
ally some bright deed or some
momentous consequence gives these
defences a fame more enduring
than walls of stone planned with deliberation and exe-
cuted with leisured care.

Who has not heard of Valley Forge and the heroic
winter of 1777-1778 which Washington spent there
with his meagrely clad men? Valley Forge is now a
public reservation about twelve miles north of Phila-
delphia, on the Schuylkill River. Excursion trains
run out from that city to the park, so it is easy of
access. The grounds cover hundreds of acres, but the
principal points are plainly marked and may be quickly
reached.

One of the most interesting souvenirs of Washing-
ton's immortal encampment at Valley Forge is the little
stone house which the great commander used as his
headquarters. An unpretentious, substantial structure
of the typical style of building of the days in which it
was constructed, it is in excellent preservation, strong

299

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

and sturdy as on the day of its erection. The building
contains numerous Washington relics and curios col-
lected by the State authorities or presented to the park
by men and women of various parts of the nation.

One of the most conspicuous objects of the reserva-
tion is the Memorial Arch erected by the United States
government to the memory of the men and officers who
shared the privations of that terrible winter at this spot.
It is of Roman character and stands on a commanding
eminence in the central part of the grounds. Near at
hand is planned the Washington Memorial Chapel,
which the Future may complete, or leave unbuilt, as it
sees fit.

Fort Washington, a small redoubt or earth, is not
far from the Arch and has been carefully preserved
against the encroachments of Time. The lines of the
earthworks may also be made out.

A historic site is Yorktown, Virginia, the sleepy
little village on the peninsula between the James and
York rivers Cornwallis surrendered to Washington and
the French allies in 1781, thus making sure of American
Independence, and where the Army of the Potomac en-
camped under McClellan in 1862, throwing up massive
earthworks. The traces of both Cornwallis' and McClel-
lan's encampments are easily to be made out to-day.

The American and French forces marched from
Williamsburg, September 28, 1781, driving in the

300

National Memorial Arch

Washington's Headquarters
SCENES AT VALLEY FORGE

VICKSBURG

British outposts at Yorktown as they approached and
taking possession of the abandoned outworks. Form-
ing a semicircular line about two miles from the British
intrenchments they completely invested the enemy, the
York River enclosing his forces to the northeast. Octo-
ber 17, Cornwallis offered to discuss terms of surrender.

The beginning of the year 1863 — to make a jump
from the Revolution to the Civil War — saw the turning
of the tide for the United States, and it was in this
year that the decisive battles of Vicksburg, Gettysburg
and Chattanooga were fought. The battle-grounds of
each of these engagements have been created national
parks and are maintained in such a fashion that the
visitor may follow the movements of the troops in those
great clashes.

After the capture of the posts north of Vicksburg,
on the Mississippi, and the opening of the mouth of the
river by Farragut's taking of New Orleans in 1862,
Vicksburg was the only remaining defence of the Con-
federacy on the Mississpipi, and the sole remaining link
between the Confederacy's east and west portions. The
principal works of the city were on a commanding emi-
nence, giving a clear sweep of the river and the sur-
rounding country, which was swampy and almost im-
passable. They were competently manned, capably offi-
cered and well supplied.

The place, altogether, was deemed almost impreg-

301

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

nable. To follow out all of the steps by which its re-
duction was brought about is not the province of this
chapter. The United States troops under the compara-
tively unknown commander, U. S. Grant, began to
operate at the end of January, 1863, and on July 4
concluded their task in the unconditional surrender of
the main fortification of the Confederates. The sur-
render of Vicksburg came one day after the conclusion
of the battle of Gettysburg which occupied the first
three days of July.

The reservation of the Vicksburg National Park
contains 1,255.07 acres and was acquired pursuant to an
Act of Congress approved February 21, 1899.

The grounds of the Gettysburg National Park,
Adams County, Pennsylvania, comprise 2,054 acres
and their acquisition was commenced in 1873. The
scenes of the principal movements of the battle have
been marked with suitable monuments. The battle of
Gettysburg proved conclusively that the South could
not invade the North. It was the last gallant attempt
of a completely invested country to strike a fatal blow
before the strangle-hold of its enemy should bring the
end.

The largest of the national military parks is Chicka-
mauga and Chattanooga National Park, which comprises
5,688 acres in the State of Georgia, in addition to nearly
150 acres in the State of Tennessee, the park being

302

Cfc

The Slaughter Hollow

The Entrance to the Tunnel
TWO VIEWS TO-DAY OF THE "CRATER," PETERSBURG, VA.

THE " CRATER "

situated on the line between the States. In Tennessee
is located Lookout Mountain. The acquisition of this
reservation began under the provisions of an Act of
Congress approved August 19, 1890.

On the outskirts of Petersburg, Virginia, the re-
mains of Forts Haskell and Steadman, the scene of the
" Crater " episode, and part of the defences of the
capital of the Confederacy which fell before Grant in
1865, have been preserved as a private enterprise. For
a small consideration the " Crater " and the earthworks
will be shown to the visitor. The Federal forces op-
posed to Fort Steadman — at the suggestion of a miner
from Chambersburg, Pa., it is said — constructed a long
tunnel from their lines to beneath the Confederate
stronghold. An enormous quantity of powder was
here, and when it was set off a body of soldiers was to
charge through the breach and take the Confederate
positions.

The powder was exploded and the plan was success-
ful in so far that it blew several hundred men into
eternity, but when the attacking column reached the
cavity in the ground its men became confused, giving
the Confederates time to reform and to pour in a ter-
rible fire upon the Union men concentrated in the broken
ground below. The result was terrible carnage of
United States troops. The " Crater " had become a
death trap. Nearly three thousand men were killed in

303

QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS

it in thirty minutes, the most disastrous loss the Federal
forces suffered in so short a time during the war.

The " Crater " to-day is a peaceful spot glorified by
tall trees which keep the scene in continual gloom. The
depression in the ground is ten feet or more in depth
and about two hundred feet in diameter. A short walk
brings one to the entrance to the tunnel where the lines
of the United States were stretched.

INDEX

Adams, Fort, Newport, R. I.,
222-231

Alamo, Texas, 279-284

Allen, Ethan, 63, 70

Amsterdam, Fort, 37

Andre, Major, 156

Andros, Edmund, Royal Gov-
ernor of Mass., 29, 107

Annapolis Royal, 2, 84-92

Arnold, Benedict, 64, 82; his
treason, 154 et seq. ; 169, 171,
238

Atares Castle, Havana, 206

Baltimore, Fort at, 180-189

Battery, The, New York City,
46

Belfast, Me., 99

Belle Rive, Louis St. Ange de,
Commanding Chartres, 12;
stationed at Vineennes, 14;
surrenders Chartres to Eng-
lish, 14

Boston, Fort at, 25-35

Boston Tea Party, 31

Bourbon, Fort, on the Missis-
sippi, 263

Bowie, James, inventor of Bowie
knife, 281

Braddock, 18; his march and
death, 19, 53, 127

Bradford, Wm., 106

Brownsville, Pa., 21

Burgoyne, General, 64

Burnet, Governor of New York,
122, 123, 124

Cadillac, La Moote, 132

Caen, Emery de, 75

Canseau, Nova Scotia, expedi-
tion against, 2; fleet arrives
at, 7

Castine, Baron Vincent de, 103,
104

Castle Garden, New York City,
46

Castle St. Louis, Quebec, 72, 77,
82

Castle William, Boston, 25, 35

Castle Williams, New York
Harbor, 46

Champlain, Memorial Light
House, 67

Champlain, Samuel, 49, 50, 51,
52, 60, 72, 73; dies at Quebec,
76

Charles, Fort, Me., 107

Charleston, South Carolina,
Fort at, 241-250

Chartres, Fort, site selected, 11;
disastrous expedition leaves,
12; second fort built, 12; sur-
renders to English, 14

Chebucto Bay, 93, 94, 97

Chicago, Illinois, 21; Historical
Society, 23

Cincinnati, Ohio, 24

Citadel of Halifax, 93-97

Citadel of Quebec, 72-83

Clark, Fort, Illinois, 24

Clark, George Rogers, 23, 24,
144, 145

Clinton, Fort, New York City,
46

Clinton, Fort, New York, 148,
149

Columbus, Fort, New York,
36-48

Constitution, Fort, New Hamp-
shire, 161-166

Constitution, Fort, New York,
150

305

INDEX

Cornbury, Governor of New

Amsterdam, 41
Covington, Fort, 187
"Crater," The, near Petersburg,

Virginia, 303
Crevecoeur, Fort, 15
Crockett, Davy, falls at Alamo,

283
Crown Point, 53, 66-71

Damariscotta, 3

Davenport, Captain Richard, 28

Davis, Jeff, cell at Fort Monroe,

235

Dearborn, Fort, 21, 22, 23
Dearborn, General, Secretary of

War, 35

Defiance, Mount, 64
De Soto, 142, 201
Diamond, Fort, 45
Dieskau, 54, 55, 56, 69
Donop, Count, 177
Dorchester, Mass., 32
Douglas, Fort, Utah, 289 et seq.
Drake, Sir Francis, menaces

Havana, 203
Duchambon, successor to Du-

quesnel, 8

Dufferin Terrace, Quebec, 72, 83
Dummer, William, Governor of

Mass., 29
Dumplings, Fort, near Newport,

R. I., 231
Duquesne, Fort, erected, 18;

falls to England, 19
Duquesne, Governor General of

Canada, 18
Duquesnel, Commandant of

Louisburg, 2

Edward, Fort, New York, 57
Erie, Pa., 20

Falls of Minnehaha, 268
Federal Hill Fort, Baltimore,

188, 189
Fetterman, Wyoming, 288 et

seq.

Franklin, Pa., 21
Frederick, Fort, Maine, 105-112
Frenchman's Bay, Me., 88
Frontenac, in command at Que-
bec, 77, 78, 79, 110
Frontenac, Fort (Kingston,
Canada), 114, 127

Gage, Fort, 23, 24

George, Fort, at mouth of Col-
umbia River, Ore., 292

George, Fort, Me., 98-104

George, Fort, New York City,
37

Gettysburg, 302

Governor's Island, New York
Harbor, 36, 37, 41, 42, 43, 44-
48

Griswold, Fort, Conn., 167-172

Hamilton, Fort, New York, 45
Havana, Cuba, Forts at, 201-

206

Heald, Captain Nathan, 22, 23
Heights^of Quebec, 72-83
Hennepin, Friar Louis, and his

map, 114

Holmes, Major, 140
Holmes, Fort, Michigan, 131-

140
Howe, Sir William, 59

Independence, Fort, Boston,

25-35, 148
Irving, Washington, 36

Jackson, Fort, Louisiana, 263-
267

306

INDEX

Jay, Fort, New York, 36-48
Johnson, William, of New York,
53, 54, 55, 56, 69, 104, 117,
119

Johnston, General Albert Sid-
ney, 284

Kaskaskia, Illinois, 143
Keogh, Fort, Montana, 289
Key, Francis Scott, 180, 187
Kirke, Admiral Sir David, at-
tacks Quebec, 74
Kosciuszko, 151

Lafayette, Fort, 45

La Fuerza, Cuba, 201-206

Laramie, Fort, Wyoming, 273-
278

Larrabee, Captain Lieutenant
John, 30

La Salle, Robert Cavelier, 114,
131

Laurel Moat, Havana, 206

Leavenworth, Fort, Kansas, 287
et seq.

Le Bceuf, Fort, 20, 21

Lee, Robert E., 181; resigns
from U. S. Army, 284

Lescarbot, Marc, 86

Louisburg, Nova Scotia, im-
portance of, 1; incentives to
attack, 2; preparations
against, 4; a novel plan, 5;
expedition sails, 6; strongest
outlying work, 8; siege pro-
gresses, 10; restored to France,
10

Louis de la Mobile, Fort, Ala-
bama, 257

McHenry, Fort, Maryland, 180-

189
McHenry, James, Secretary of

War, 184

McKenzie, Sir William's ex-
periment in Nova Scotia, 88,
89

M'Lean, Colonel Francis, 100
Mackinac Island, State park

commission, 140
Marion, Fort, Florida, 190-200
Marion, General Francis, 199
Marquette, Father, 131-132
Massac, Fort, Illinois, 21, 141-

146

Matanzas Inlet, Florida, 192
Menendez, Juan, de Aviles, 193
Mercer, Fort, New Jersey, 175
Mermet, Father, 142, 143
Metropolis, Illinois, 141
Michillimackinac, Michigan,

131-140

Mifflin, Fort, Pa., 173-179
Monitor and Merrimac, seen

from Fort Monroe, 240
Monroe, Fort, Virginia, 232-240
Montcalm, Marquis de, 57, 59,

60, 62, 69, 127, 128
Montgomery, Fort, Alabama,

212
Montgomery, Fort, New York,

148, 149

Montgomery, Richard, 82, 83
Montmagny, Governor of Can-
ada, 76

Monts, Sieur de, discovers An-
napolis basin, 82
Morgan, Fort, Alabama, 257,

262

Morro Castle, Cuba, 201-206
Moultrie, Fort, South Carolina,
200, 241-250

New London, Conn., 167 et

seq.
Newport, R. I., Forts at, 222-

231

307

INDEX

Newport Artillery Co., 222
Niagara, Fort, New York, 113-

121
Nonsense, Fort, 170

Ontario, Fort, New York, 122-

130

Ordre de la Bon Temps, 86
Osceola, Monument at Fort

Moultrie, 244
Oswego, New York, 122, 130

PeU, S. H. P., of New York,

restores Ticonderoga, 65
Pell, William F., of New York,

acquires Ticonderoga, 65
Pemaquid, Maine, 105, 106, 111
Pensacola, Florida, Fort at,

207-214
Pentagoet, or Castine, 103, 105,

107

Peoria, Illinois, 24
Pepperell, William, of Kittery,
Maine, chosen to head ex-
pedition, 5; home still stand-
ing, 5, 30, 125

Phil Kearney, Fort, 285 et seq.
Philadelphia, Fort at, 173-179
Phips, Sir William, 29, 78, 79,

90, 108, 109

Pickens, Fort, Florida, 213
Pike, Lieutenant C. M., secures
Fort Snelling reservation, 269
Pipon, Captain John, 29
Pitt, Fort, Block-house at

Pittsburgh, 17
Plains of Abraham, 81
Port Henry, New York, 68
Portsmouth, New Hampshire,

Fort at, 161-166
Potrincourt, Baron, founds An-
napolis Royal, 84, 85, 87

Presidio of San Francisco, Cal..

215-221

Presque Isle, a memorial of, 20
Principe Castle, Havana, 206
Pulaski, Fort, Georgia, 251-256
Putnam, Fort, 152
Putnam. General Israel, 148,

151

Quebec, 49, 51, 62; Historic
Forts at, 72-83

Redstone Old Fort, 21
Renault, Phillippe Francois de,

introduces negro slavery to

Illinois, 11
Revere, Lieutenant Colonel

Paul, 33, 100, 163
Ribaut, Jean, 192
Richelieu Cardinal, 73
Robinson, Col. Beverly, 156
Roxbury, Mass., 32

St. Augustine, Florida, Fort at,

190-200

St. Clair, General Arthur, 64
St. Denis, Juchereau de, 141,

142, 143
St. Frederic, Fort, New York,

67, 68, 69, 70
St. Louis, Fort, 14
St. Paul, Minn., foundation, 272
St. Philip, Fort, Louisana, 263-

267
Sam Houston, Fort, Texas, 279-

284

Samoset sells land at Pema-
quid, 106
San Antonio, Texas, Forts at,

284-289
San Carlos, Fort, Florida, 207-

214
Sandusky, Ohio, 21

308

INDEX

San Francisco, Cal., Presidio at,
215-221

San Marco, Fort, 197, 198

Scott, Fort Winfield, San Fran-
cisco, 220

Screven, Fort, Georgia, 254

Shippen, Margaret, 157-158

Shirley, William Governor of
Mass., organizes expedition
against Louisburg, 3; his list
of instructions, 6; 53, 116, 125

Smith, Capt. John, sees Hamp-
ton Roads, 236

Snelling, Fort, Minn., 268-272

Stanwix, Fort, 129

Star Spangled Banner, 188

Starved Rock, 111., 14

Stony Point, New York, 158-
160

Sumter, Fort, South Carolina,
241-250

Ticonderoga, New York, 49-65,

147

Tracy, Uriah, 137
Travis Col. William B., of the

Alamo, 280

Trumbull, Fort, Conn., 167-172
Turnbull, Col. John, 33

Valesca, Luis de, his settlement

at Pensacola Bay, 207
Valley Forge, 179
Vancouver, Fort, Washington,

290-294
Van Twiller, Wouter, or Walter,

Governor of New Amsterdam,

37,38

Vauban, 1, 56, 79
Vaudreuil, last Governor of New

France, 81

Vaughan, William, of Damaris-
cotta, suggests attack on
Louisburg, 2; his career, 3;
captures grand battery, 8, 9

Venango, 21

Vicksburg, Miss., 301

Vincennes, Ind., 12

Wadsworth, Peleg, 100, 102
Walker, Admiral Sir Hovenden,

81

Warren, Fort, 35
Washington, Fort, Valley Forge,

Pa., 300
Washington, Fort, Cincinnati,

Ohio, 24
Washington, George, 18, 32, 33,

129, 155, 157, 168, 176,

Waterford, Pa., 20

Wayne, "Mad" Anthony, 145,

159
Wentworth, Sir John, Governor

of New Hampshire, 162
West Point, New York, 147-160
White Hall, New York, 55
Wilkinson, James, 145
William Henry, Fort, Mass.,

109, 110
William and Mary, Fort, New

Hampshire, 161-166
William Henry, Fort, New York,

54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 119
Winthrop, Fort, Boston, 26
Winthrop, Governor of Mass.,

27,34
Wolcott, Fort, Torpedo Station,

231
Wolfe, captures, Quebec, 81

Yorktown, Va., 64

Yuma, Fort, Cal., 295-298

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