Fort Ninety-Six

“ Immediately Governor Pownal collected such a military force as was at command, and embarked with them on board the King George, and the sloop Massachusetts. Arriving, he threw these auxiliaries with some warlike stores into the fort at a most fortunate juncture; for within thirty-six hours after the departure the fort was actually assailed by a body of four hundred French and Indians. ”

“ The fort could be seen above the palisade, as the stronghold stood on a little knoll. I could see that the mouths of six cannon were thrust toward us, and they seemed like to speak no gentle message.
We were clearly about to meet more than a match for our little force, yet I believe that never a one halted or wished to turn back. If we were to die, we would die fighting.
On we rushed. Within the fort all was activity now. The roll of the drum continued, and the flashes and reports 85on the side farthest from us told me that the fire from our sloops had drawn some answer from the grim fort. ”

“ Long gives the following account of the fort in his time. He makes a strong attack on the policy of fortifying a place which he designates a “still unfinished battery stuck into a quagmire at the entrance of Kingston Harbour,” and says that the immense charges incurred on its behalf had by 1757 helped to cripple the island financially. He says:
This fort mounts eighty-six large guns, kept in excellent order. It contains a large magazine, a house for the commandant, barracks to contain three hundred soldiers, with all convenient offices, and casemates. ”

“ Like all American forts, it was formed with earthen ramparts, covered by rich green turf, and defended by tall stockades of dry white timber. Within were seen the shingle-covered roofs of the low barrack buildings, tarred and painted black, and all glistening in the sunshine. Two of the lower bastions were faced with stone and washed by the azure water of Lake George, while a deep fosse secured the fort on the landward, and dangerous morasses protected its flanks. Beyond lay a cleared space, where the timber of the old primeval forest had been cut down for garrison purposes. ”

“ He maintained a force of trappers who were always welcome at his fort, and whom he generously kept without cost to themselves. He taught the Indians blanket-weaving, hat-making, and other trades, and he even organized them into military companies. The fort which he built was enclosed on four sides and of imposing dimensions and convenience. It mounted twelve pieces of artillery, supported a regular garrison of forty in uniform, and contained within its walls a blacksmith shop, a distillery, a flour mill, a cannery, and space for other necessary industries. ”

“ Morning bugle call, the evening gun, grey ships of war stealing in from a misty sea with long plumes of soft black smoke, military uniforms 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. ”

“ Joseph, Ouiatenon, Green Bay, Michillimackinac, Detroit, the Maumee and the Sandusky—and also upon the forts at Niagara, Presque Isle, Le Boeuf, Verango and Fort Pitt. Most of the fortifications at these places were slight, being rather commercial depots than military establishments. Still, against the Indians they were strongholds, and the positions had been so judiciously selected by the French that to this day they command the great avenues of communication to the world of woods and waters in the remote North and West. ”

“ These forts were defended and protected as well as circumstances would permit. They would have been but as houses of cards in the warfare of civilized men; but they were of service against the simple tactics of the savage. A blockhouse of solid timber, with rude barracks, a magazine, a well, the whole surrounded by a high stockade with loopholes, — such was the wilderness fort. They were designed to admit of communication with each other, and so with the centres of civilization, whence from time to time supplies and reinforcements for their garrisons might be brought to them. ”

“ Both forts are built of brick. The guns of Fort Jackson are twenty-five feet above the level of the river, and those of St. Philip nineteen feet. The guns of the outer batteries of both forts are fourteen feet above the river. When the rebels took possession of these forts there were only thirty-six guns mounted, none of which were of larger calibre than thirty-two-pounders. All the carriages were poor. The plans for completing these forts were taken from the Custom house at New Orleans, just after the rebellion broke out, and the works were finished in accordance with the original intention. ”

“ The fort being finished, the governor commanded two guns to be mounted, which could not be done without great toil and labour; as also a house to be built within the fort, and afterwards the narrow way, that led to the said fort, to be broken and demolished, leaving no other ascent thereto than by a ladder. Within the fort gushes out a plentiful fountain of pure fresh water, sufficient to refresh a garrison of a thousand men. Being possessed of these conveniences, and the security these things might promise, the French began to people the island, and each of them to seek their living ”

“ Immediately rebuilt by the English, a Virginia garrison occupied the post, and it was named Fort Pitt. Then a larger fort was built at a cost of $300,000 and garrisoned by artillery, which the enemy vainly besieged in 1763. The next year a town site was laid out near the fort, and in 1770 it had twenty log houses. After the long succession of wars and massacres on that frontier had ceased, the village grew, and business began developing—at first, boat- and vessel-building, and then smelting and coal mining and the manufacture of glass. ”

“ It is upon the north bank of the Potomac, in Washington county, Maryland, about fifty miles below Cumberland. It was built in 1755-6, under the direction of Governor Sharpe. The material is stone, and cost about thirty thousand dollars. The fort is quadrangular, and contained barracks sufficient for seven hundred men. This was one of the six forts built as frontier defenses against the encroachments of the Freneh and Indians.
Capital Punishment.—Husbandry in Lower Virginia.—Fruits of the Social System. ”

“ It derives its name from the fact that, while the English had possession of the fort in 1759, a party of soldiers from the garrison went out to fish at the place represented in the picture. The hills, now cultivated, were then covered with dense forests, and afforded the Indians excellent ambush. A troop of savages, lying near, sprang silently from their covert upon the fishers, and bore off nine reeking scalps before those who escaped could reach the fort and give the alarm. ”

“ In less than five minutes the boat, distinctly visible, with those salient points of color, the red coat and the white flag against the silver-gray water, had rounded the bend; every Indian runner was out of sight; and the line of warriors had relapsed into their silent staring at the fort, where the garrison dragged out three hours of such poignant suspense as seldom falls to the lot of even unhappy men. ”

“ It is there, towards the village, over against those hillsides, over against Damloup, that the enemy’s onslaught was shattered. And the fort, on its plateau, with its superstructure half crushed, with breaches in its double wall, seems like the formidable hulk of an ironclad which still floats upon the waters, not yet abandoned by its crew. ”

“ To see a fort is naturally supposed to be not the most formidable of undertakings; but to see Fort Fisher means a ride of miles over the bleakest of sand bars; means the climbing of great heaps of sand, under the hottest of suns; means a scrambling over irregular chasms and precipices of sand, where the explosions have destroyed at once every semblance of fortification and every foot of solid earth—means all this, prolonged for hours, under the penalty of the consciousness that otherwise you would be pretending to see Fort Fisher, when you were doing nothing of the sort. ”

“ Offices, warehouses, barracks, and hunters' lodges were banked round the inner walls of the fort. The garrison consisted of thirty-nine common soldiers and a few officers. In addition, there hung about the fort the usual habitués of a Northern fur post,—young clerks from England, who had come out for a year's experience in the wilds; underpaid artisans, striving to mend their fortunes by illicit trade; hunters and coureurs and voyageurs, living like Indians but with a strain of white blood that forever distinguished them from their comrades ”

“ 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 conditions [174] 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. ”

“ They had their troubles, however, for the rebels were, or had been, expected, and a very small attempt at defence was made in the shape of a line of fortification along the bank of the river, which looked very well at a distance, but, on examination, would not stand a kick, being nothing more than turf loosely piled up. The mouths of several creeks were staked so that junks could neither go up nor down; and here and there we found a small military fort consisting usually of twenty men, but wretchedly armed and apparently fit for nothing else than to run away. ”

“ It is worthy of remark, that as military posts, all those lately established by the British are far superior, in point of situation, to those delivered up. The ground on which the new block house is building, on the British side of Niagara River, is nine feet higher than the top of the stone house in the American fort, and it commands every part of the fort. The chief strength of the old fort is on the land side; towards the water the works are very weak, and the whole might be battered down by a single twelve pounder judiciously planted on the British side of the river. ”

“ The French are men; they are fortifying everywhere. But you are all like women, bare and open, without fortifications." Not one representative of seven colonies had authority to reassure him. Sir William Johnson did, indeed, negotiate a treaty of alliance with the Iroquois and the western Indians; and the Virginia assembly, yielding at last to Governor Dinwiddie's insistent demands, appropriated some money for maintaining the wooden fort, well named Fort Necessity, which Colonel Washington had built on the Ohio. ”

“ In fact these two inside forts could be used as citadels, or a place of refuge when the long exterior lines of defense were captured. And this was the case with fort "C" in the battle of Allatoona. The whole formed a mountain fortress.
The Federals call the intrenchments at "R" "rifle pits," to which they bear about as much relation, in regard to strength, as a battleship does to a dispatch boat. Commencing about one hundred and twenty-five yards west of the fort "C," and on the south side of the Cartersville road, are two lines of intrenchments running nearly parallel with that road. ”

“ Whole towns, cities indeed, are spread out upon the inclined surfaces, that only a few years back were deemed unfit for cultivation, and consequently unworthy of consideration, while at the entrance to each port and harbor is seen some old fort, which, fifty years ago, would, in the midst of profound peace, bristle with the glittering bayonet of men-at-arms; and each morning and evening pour out the formal thunder that bespeaks the character of the fortress and the rank of its commander. ”

“ Whilst the remainder of the army spent their time here, the 4th, 21st, and 44th, being landed above the fort, were busied in the siege. This small work stands, as I have stated, at the extremity of a promontory. Towards the sea its fortifications are respectable enough, but on the land side it is little better than a blockhouse. ”

“ We shall soon begin a fortification on this side that will command the East River and the town. The troops in the City are fortifying in one of the Streets that will command the old fort, if the Enemy should get possession of it, (and are putting down the rear of the fort.) We have begun another Fort near "Hell Gate." The men of war have dropped down below the town and are very quiet, but supplied from the City by orders of this Congress. Our troops are very hearty and fare well as times will admit, most of the valuable articles are moved out of the City, and one third of the inhabitants. ”

“ Our firing now became regular, and was answered from the rebel guns which encircled us on the four sides of the pentagon upon which the fort was built. The other side faced the open sea. Showers of balls from ten-inch columbiads and forty-two-pounders, and shells from thirteen-inch mortars poured into the fort in one incessant stream, causing great flakes of masonry to fall in all directions. When the immense mortar shells, after sailing high in the air, came down in a vertical direction, and buried themselves in the parade-ground, their explosion shook the fort like an earthquake. ”