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Transcriber’s note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
A detailed transcriber's note is at the end of the book.
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
* * * * * *
[Illustration:
By courtesy of the St. Augustine Historical Society
THE ANCIENT WATCH-TOWER OF FORT MARION, ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA]
QUAINT AND HISTORIC FORTS OF NORTH AMERICA
by
JOHN MARTIN HAMMOND
Author of
“Colonial Mansions of Maryland and Delaware”
With Seventy-One Illustrations
[Illustration:
OLD GATEWAY
FORT MARION
ST AUGUSTINE
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
An account of the most famous fortifications of North America
is, in reality, a cross section of the military 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 holding 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 maintain their title
to this part of the world there remain such substantial relics
as the old fort at St. Augustine, annually visited by thousands
of people, and that at Pensacola, Florida. The French are best
remembered by their works at Quebec. Of the defensive works of
the Dutch, on the Hudson, or the Swedes, on the Delaware, nothing
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 indefatigable
missionaries to the Indians must be ascribed the credit of most
completely grasping the physical conditions of the North American
continent and of formulating the most comprehensive scheme for
military defense of their holdings. The French forts extended in a
well-organized line from the mouth of the Saint Lawrence west and
south through the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi to the Gulf
of Mexico. They originated and executed, all things considered, the
most daring 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 conceptions 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 visible monuments of the
Past. I have, myself, taken the greater number of photographs which
illustrate the volume. 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
historic significance still occupied by the army I have been very
courteously shown all points of interest not of present 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 America;”
to Charles B. Reynolds, “Old St. Augustine;” 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 Francisco;” Ernest Peixotto, “Romantic California;” Adelaide
Wilson, “Savannah, Picturesque and Beautiful;” Mrs. St. Julien
Ravenel, “Charleston, the Place and the People;” and I have
received valuable help in material and suggestions from various
State historical societies, which have been uniformly courteous and
desirous 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
TICONDEROGA, 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 MICHILLIMACKINAC 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 MIFFLIN, 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
FORT SAN CARLOS DE BARRANCAS, PENSACOLA BAY, FLORIDA 207
THE PRESIDIO OF SAN FRANCISCO, GOLDEN GATE, CALIFORNIA 215
FORT ADAMS AND NEWPORT’S DEFENSIVE RUINS, 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 MISSISSIPPI,
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, WYOMING; 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 MOUNTAIN--
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 Painting 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 30
Main Entrance, Fort Independence 30
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)
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
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 Hampton
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 Enlisted 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
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
The tourist on the coast of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia--for
in summer hundreds of people 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
elemental 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 stronghold (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 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
recognized. 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 precipitate 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 anticipating 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 England that New France was
on the aggressive.
[Illustration: To sea from the ruined walls
All that remains standing
MIGHTY LOUISBURG TO-DAY, CAPE BRETON, NOVA SCOTIA]
Enraged by the attacks upon Canseau and Annapolis 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 suggestion of William Vaughan, of Damariscotta, that with
their untrained militia they should attack New France’s mightiest
stronghold. Vaughan found a willing listener in the governor,
William Shirley, who helped the enterprise 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, established a considerable settlement
and built up an extensive 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, made in the course of several
days, was unfavorable and so was the vote of the court.
Meanwhile intelligence of Governor Shirley’s proposal 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
carried 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 Pennsylvania, 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
supposed that heaven would in a peculiar manner favor it. There
were prayers in churches and families. New Hampshire provided 500
men, of which number Massachusetts was to pay and provide for 150;
Rhode Island voted a sloop carrying fourteen cannon and twelve
swivels; Connecticut promised 516 men and officers provided 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 Massachusetts), 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 Pepperell 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 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 proclamation
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 possessed cannon of large calibre, so cannon balls and
supplies to fit such guns were carried along, it being foreseen
that the army would capture sufficient of the French cannon 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
apartment at Louisburg, and outlining a complex series of military
manœuvres 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 discretion.”
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 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 waiting 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 buildings 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 hundred militia. The regulars were in bad condition and
had, indeed, the preceding Christmas, broken into mutiny because
of exasperation with bad rations and with having been given no
extra pay for work on the fortifications. Some of the officers
had lost all confidence in their men and the commandant, Chevalier
Duchambon, successor to Duquesnel, was a man of hesitant and
capricious 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 accomplished creditably
about three miles below the fortifications. Vaughan then led about
four hundred men to the town and saluted it with three cheers, much
to the discomfiture 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 reconnoissance, 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
embrasure 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 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 Battery,” writes the Habitant de Louisburg in his
invaluable 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 proceeding. Not one shot had been fired at the battery,
which the enemy could not take except by making regular approaches
as if against the town itself, and by besieging it, so to speak,
in form. Some persons remonstrated, but in vain; and so a battery
which had cost the King immense sums was abandoned before it was
attacked.”
The battery contained twenty-eight forty-two pounder cannon and two
eighteen-pounders. Several of these guns were opened upon the town
the next morning, “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 informal procedure in an
orderly fashion. Accomplishing incredible tasks in fashions
opposed to all of the laws of warfare the New Englanders went
on with only rudimentary 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 cannon 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, battered, mighty Louisburg
surrendered. The strongest work of man in the New World had fallen
to ignorant New England fishermen! The soldiers of France received
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.
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 Mississippi River, at the mouth of the Kaskaskia
River, Illinois. 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 between 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 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 afterward to be the
commandant of the fort. Under the administration of the Sieur de
Liette, 1725-1730, a captain 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 expedition 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 successful.
By 1751 the fort was much out of repair and in this year there
came to command it a French major of engineers (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 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 encroachments 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 dollars, 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 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 remembers
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 inaccessible 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 military history ceased with Tonti’s
departure.
A predecessor even of Fort St. Louis was Fort Crevecœur--Fort of
the Broken Heart--which wore its poetic name for only a few months
after its construction in 1680, by La Salle, on the east shore of
the Illinois River, not far below Peoria Lake. Fort Crevecœur 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 Crevecœur was the fourth in La Salle’s comprehensive scheme
of a chain of fortifications to extend 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 Mississippi 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 fortifications 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 century, 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.
[Illustration:
Copyright, Detroit Publishing Co.
WATER-FRONT OF PRESENT-DAY DETROIT
Where Indian canoes and the palisades of the French were]
The visitor to Pittsburgh to-day will find on Fourth 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 Pittsburgh. 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 organization 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 commerce 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 Colonial 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. 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 hostile
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.
[Illustration:
From a painting in the collection of the Pennsylvania Historical
Society
OLD BLOCK-HOUSE, FORT PITT, PITTSBURGH, PA.]
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 familiar. Braddock had the bravery of his calling
and the 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 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 Railroad
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 included in the grounds of the Pennsylvania
Sailors and Soldiers’ Home.
From Presque Isle there was a portage to Fort Le Bœuf, now the
little city of Waterford, Pennsylvania. Fort Le Bœuf 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, of bloody memory. Fort Dearborn, as every
good Chicagoan knows, or ought to know, stood at the southern
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 southeast
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 children.
Though an experienced soldier, Captain Heald seems to have
misjudged the temper of the hostile 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 Federal government until 1857, when it was torn down except
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 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 importance garrisoned by rangers and United States
troops. At one time it sustained a severe Indian attack.
The foundation of Cincinnati, Ohio, was Fort Washington, which was
in existence until after the War of 1812.
FORT INDEPENDENCE
(CASTLE WILLIAM)
CASTLE ISLAND--BOSTON HARBOR