by a long, low, wooden structure with 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 material 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 indefatigably 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.
[Illustration: Looking Toward the Lazaretto
One of the Old Batteries in Place
FORT McHENRY, BALTIMORE, MD.]
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 the
crests of the high embankments thrown up in front of it.
The point of land on which Fort McHenry is situated--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
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 Revolution 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 McHenry and of the engagement
at North Point,--a corollary of this defence,--though Marylanders
themselves have been comparatively indifferent to it until 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, Marylanders have given this engagement rather
casual attention 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 assailants’ 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 Baltimore. 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 opposition. 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 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.
[Illustration: From This Point the Star Spangled Banner Flew
The Entrance
FORT McHENRY, BALTIMORE, MD.]
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, northward
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 breastworks 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, 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 Covington 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, touched 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
subject 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 exchange 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.
[Illustration: COL. GEORGE ARMISTEAD
In command of Fort McHenry during the siege]
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
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 enterprise 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
The ancient city of St. Augustine, the oldest place of European
settlement on the North American 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.
[Illustration:
By courtesy of the St. Augustine Historical Society
MOAT AND ENTRANCE, FORT MARION, ST. AUGUSTINE, FLA.]
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 barbican, or, less technically, an
arrow-shaped out-work. A stationary 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 niches
still remain and over the door of this place of worship is a tablet
set in the wall by French astronomers, 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 substance 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, explored the waters of the St. John’s River (at the mouth
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 Caroline, 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 settlement in Florida
and was displeased. He sent an expedition 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 final possession of the
territory, and named his fort San Juan de Pinos.
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 Huguenot to be in one world
together was beyond all reason. So the next step in the history of
our fort is the expedition of Menendez against the French and the
perpetration 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 sudden rush upon
the sleeping garrison and the Spaniards are within the fort. No
mercy is shown. One hundred and thirty men are killed with little
resistance. One old carpenter escaped to the woods during the
mêlée, but surrendered himself to the Spaniards the next morning
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 without 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 hundred 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 himself more secure
in Florida. His stronghold at St. Augustine was amplified and
Fort Caroline, the luckless 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, making anxious
the captains of many a Spanish galleon. In September, 1585, Drake
sailed on a freebooting voyage 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 therabout above the Fort was a
little Towne or Village without walls, built of wooden houses as
the Plot doeth plainely shew. 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 understood 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.
[Illustration:
By courtesy of the St. Augustine Historical Society
INCLINE LEADING TO RAMPARTS, FORT MARION, ST. AUGUSTINE, FLA.]
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 destroyed. 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 Governor Oglethorpe, of Georgia, and arose to the dignity of a
siege of the city. For weeks the English forces lay beyond the
city walls and were then driven off by reinforcements brought from
Cuba.
With the construction of Fort San Marco the erection 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 McIntosh, always attended
by Scotch pipers, who paraded the narrow streets breathing out fire
and slaughter against the colonies. The Scopholites, so-called
from Scophol, their leader, marched down, 600 strong, from the back
country of North Carolina, burning and killing in their course
through Georgia. With such additions, St. Augustine was not content
with passive loyalty and became a centre for military operations
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.