EARLY in April, when war was imminent, Governor Wolcott, with two
officers of his staff, sat down to the study of a war-map of the
Massachusetts coast which had been prepared and carefully revised to
meet existing conditions. It is no exaggeration to say that this map
furnished material for the most serious thought. The map pitilessly
showed that from the Merrimac River, on the northern boundary, to the
Taunton River, on the southern, there were on navigable waters, open to
some of the many forms of naval attack—whether by fleet bombardment,
cruiser raid, or torpedo-boat dash—no less than forty-one cities and
towns, none with less than one thousand of population, whose inhabitants
aggregated one million seventy-seven thousand, or over forty-three per
cent. of the population of the State. Furthermore, it appeared that, at
a low estimate, the property interests exposed in these towns reached
the enormous sum of $1,586,775,000—surely a tempting bait for any
adventurous naval commander in the service of a desperate and bankrupt
enemy.
But the map relentlessly showed more than this: it demonstrated the
absolutely defenceless condition of this rich strip of coast. At Boston
there were indications of a rudimentary defence; at New Bedford stood
the obsolete granite walls of old Fort Rodman; Fall River was protected
by the guns at Fort Adams and the batteries at Dutch Island; but
elsewhere along the coast there was not to be found even the pretence of
preparation for the surely coming war.
The obsolete defenses, however, were not alone in giving cause for grave
concern. The question of manning them had to be considered. As a matter
of record, there were scattered along the coast from Fort Preble, Me.,
to Fort Trumbull, Conn., eight batteries—one ("F") a light battery—of
the Second Artillery, whose duty-strength on the 16th of April may have
been approximately six hundred men. There were but three of these
batteries on duty on the Massachusetts coast—"C" (Schenck's) and "M"
(Richmond's) at Fort Warren; "G" (Niles') at the yet incomplete battery
at Long Island Head, Boston Harbor. Where more trained gunners were to
be had was problematical. The bill providing for the organization of the
Sixth and Seventh Regiments of regular artillery had been passed by
Congress as late as March 7th, and these new commands were only in
process of evolution. It was not until the 16th of May that the first of
the newly raised batteries took station in New England, and even then
its standard of efficiency was low, owing to the heavy percentage of
recruits in its ranks.
The condition of affairs in Boston Harbor was most interesting. Here was
a city with an estimated population of five hundred and fifty thousand;
with an assessed valuation of $1,012,750,000; with business interests to
be reckoned by daily bank-clearings of $20,000,000; with annual exports
and imports of $189,879,839—in short, the second seaport of the country
in commercial rank. Naturally it would be expected that the general
Government, which hardly could be ignorant of the enormous interests
just shown, would have made some pretence at giving them adequate
protection. But what were the grim facts in the case?
In 1886, the so-called Endicott Board on Fortifications—whose scheme of
defence, with some minor modifications, still remains the standard
project for the erection of our coast works—recommended an expenditure
of $10,910,250 for the defenses of Boston Harbor. This sum covered the
cost of guns, mounts, emplacements, submarine mines, and a flotilla of
eighteen torpedo-boats for local service. Large as it may seem, it yet
represents a levy of but one and seven-hundredths per cent. on the
assessed valuation of the property exposed at this port, and furthermore
it was intended that its expenditure should be distributed through a
period of ten years. How faithfully this programme was carried out by
the authorities at Washington may be shown by the following table, in
which the first column of figures indicates the number of breech-loading
rifles and mortars required by the complete scheme of defence, while the
second exhibits those actually mounted for service during the late war: