Fort Pickens

“ Whoever permanently holds Pensacola and Florida is entitled to the possession of Fort Pickens. Whoever holds the States in whose limits those forts are placed is entitled to the forts themselves, unless there is something peculiar in the location of some particular fort that makes it important for us to hold it for the general defense of the whole country, its commerce and interests, instead of being useful only for the defense of a particular city or locality. ”

“ Some experience, or at least observation of the gunpowder argument, has taught us that attack is always a more grateful office than defence, and, if we are to judge of the sturdy resolution of the inmates of Fort Pickens by the looks of the officers and crews of the fleet, Fort Pickens will fall no easy prize, if at all. ”

“ The Brooklyn and the other vessels of war in the vicinity will remain, and she will land the company and provisions and defend Fort Pickens, should it be attacked, exercising the utmost vigilance. The President yesterday sent a special message to Congress commending the Virginia Resolutions of Compromise. The commissioners of different States are to meet here on Monday next, 4th February. During their session, a collision of arms ought to be avoided, unless an attack should be made on Fort Pickens, and then it must be repelled. ”

“ On the very morning after his inauguration, the President found on his desk at the White House a communication from the War Department, accompanied by official reports, according to which Fort Sumter could hold out, even if not attacked, only a few weeks longer, and Fort Pickens in Pensacola Bay was also in great danger, unless strengthened by men and supplies. From that hour the fate of the two forts formed his most serious anxiety. He called on General Scott and other officers of the army and navy for information and advice. ”

“ There was also a large force of men camped in the yard—some accounts say 1,000—while the schooner had a full crew on board, with a long pivot gun and two broadside guns in place. It is a remarkable fact that the yard where she was fitted and the schooner herself were within easy range and plain sight of Fort Pickens, and the fact that she intended to sail out after American merchant ships was obvious. But not a shot was fired from the fort to disturb her owners or the workmen. ”

“ The italics are not in the original document, of course, but they are inserted to make plain the way in which Adams ignored the Confederate118 work of preparing to capture Fort Pickens by increasing the effectiveness of Fort McRae and Fort Barrancas. To land a man in Fort Pickens would be “viewed as a hostile act,” and would “bring on, by precipitation, a collision.” To improve the Confederate Fort McRae was not to be considered! Certainly the contempt which the Southern people of that day felt for men of the North was not without some justification. ”

“ We promised him immunity for the past and safety for the future, and, easing off the main sheet, he lays the Diana on her course for the fleet.
Fort M’Rae, one of the obsolete school of fastnesses, rounds up on our left. Beyond it, on the shore, is Barrancas, a square-faced work, half a mile further up the channel, and more immediately facing Fort Pickens. A thick wood crowns the low shore, which trends away to the eastward, but amid the sand the glass can trace the outlines of the batteries. Pretty-looking detached houses line the beach ”

“ There is no doubt that an attack upon Fort Pickens was contemplated the very night these reinforcements arrived. The assaulting party was composed of five hundred picked men, two hundred and fifty of whom were from the Mississippi Ninth, to be led by C. H. Harris of the Home Guard; fifty from the Tenth Mississippi, and the others from other troops at Pensacola. All necessary preparations were made for moving about 11 o’clock at night. The storming party were led down to the Navy Yard, from whence it would probably have embarked in boats. ”

“ General Robert E. Lee has been named Commander-in-Chief of the Forces of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and troops are flocking to that State from Alabama and other States. Governor Ellis has called out 30,000 volunteers in North Carolina, and Governor Rector of Arkansas has seized the United States’ military stores at Napoleon. There is a rumour that Fort Pickens has been taken also, but it is very probably untrue. In Texas and Arkansas the United States regulars have not made an attempt to defend any of the forts. ”

“ Welles, I, 16, 22-23, 25; Bancroft, II, 127, 129-130,138,139, 144; N. and H., III, Chap. XI, IV, Chap. I. Enemies of Lincoln have accused him of bad faith with regard to the relief of Fort Pickens. The facts appear to be as follows: In January, 1861, when Fort Pickens was in danger of being seized by the forces of the State of Florida, Buchanan ordered a naval expedition to proceed to its relief. Shortly afterward—January 2—Senator Mallory on behalf of Florida persuaded him to order the relief expedition not to land any troops so long as the Florida forces refrained from attacking the fort. ”

“ The brick copings have been removed from the parapets, and strong sand-bag traverses have been constructed to cover the gunners, in addition to the “rat-holes” at the bastions. More heavy guns are expected, which, with the aid of a few more mortars, will enable the garrison to hold their own against every thing but a regular siege on the land side, and so long as the fleet covers the narrow neck of the island with its guns, it is not possible for the Confederates to effect a lodgment. If Fort M’Rae was strong and heavily armed, it could inflict great damage on Pickens ”

“ There is a drawbridge in the rear of the work, which is a simple parallelogram showing twelve guns mounted en barbette on the sea-face. The walls are of brick, and the guns are protected by thick merlons of sand-bags. The sole advantage of the fort is in its position; it almost looks down into the casemates of Pickens opposite at its weakest point, and it has a fair command of the sea entrance, but the guns are weak, and there are only three pieces mounted which can do much mischief. ”

“ The interior of the fort was thus as vulnerable as the exterior.
Governor Pickens at once sent to Montgomery a telegram reporting the visit of the President’s messenger. A lengthy discussion ensued in the Confederate Cabinet. Toombs, the Secretary of State, said: “The firing upon that fort will inaugurate a civil war greater than any the world has yet seen ”

“ A picket was also stationed at the narrow isthmus connecting with the main-land.
These were not all the difficulties in their way. Supposing them able to pass the sentinels in the passage and at the outer door of their quarters, they must then cross the open space and ascend the wall under the eye of the guards posted on the parapet. Admitting the summit of the rampart gained, the exterior wall was defended with strong pickets driven obliquely into the earthen wall of the fort. From this point was a sheer descent of twenty feet to the bottom of the ditch. ”

“ Our own line—visible from the garden—had fewer forts, two of which, Fort Gregg and Battery 45, protected our immediate neighborhood. These forts occasionally answered a challenge, but there was no attempt at a sally on either side.
The most painful circumstance connected with our position was the picket firing at night, incessant, like the dropping of hail, and harrowing from the apprehension that many a man fell from the fire of a picket. But, perhaps to reassure me, Captain Lindsay and Captain Clover, of General Wilcox's staff, declared that "pickets have a good time. ”

“ In the afternoon, Governor Pickens sent Colonel J.J. Petigru and Major Elison Capers, both field-officers of the rifle regiment, in full uniform, to interview Major Anderson. Their looks were full of wrath, and they bowed stiffly and indignantly in answer to our smiling salutations. I was present at the conversation that ensued, but did not take notes. They told the major that perhaps he was not aware that an agreement had been entered into with President Buchanan not to re-enforce the forts in the harbor. ”

“ We passed close to Fort Pinckney, our volunteers exchanging hurrahs with the garrison. It is a round, two-storied, yellow little fortification, standing at one end of a green marsh known as Shute's Folly Island. What it was put there for no one knows: it is too close to the city to protect it; too much out of the harbor to command that. Perhaps it might keep reinforcements for Anderson from coming down the Ashley, just as the guns on the Battery were supposed to be intended to deter them from descending the Cooper. ”

“ This building was surrounded by a rough wall of stone, with flankers at the angles, forming what was called the fort. [40] Piquet reconnoitred it from his canoe with the eye of a soldier. "It is 74
V1 commanded," he says, "on almost every side; two batteries, of three twelve-pounders each, would be more than enough to reduce it to ashes." And he enlarges on the evils that arise from it. "It not only spoils our trade, but puts the English into communication with a vast number of our Indians, far and near. It is true that they like our brandy better than English rum ”

“ At the period of its destruction, Piqua was quite populous. There was a rude log fort within its limits, surrounded by pickets. It was, however, sacked and burnt on the 8th of August, 1780, by an army of one thousand men from Kentucky, after a severe and well conducted battle with the Indians who inhabited it. All the improvements of the Indians, including more than two hundred acres of corn and other vegetables, then growing in their fields, were laid waste and destroyed. The town was never afterwards rebuilt by the Shawanoes. ”

“ For this reason, the life of the inhabitants of the frontier was one of constant peril and alarm. Many a scene of dismal barbarity was enacted, as the history of the times testifies, and even those who felt themselves in some measure protected by their immediate neighbors, the Delawares, never lost sight of the caution required by their exposed situation.
The vicinity of the military garrison at Pittsburg—or Fort Pitt, as it was then called—gave additional security to those who had pushed farther west, among the fertile valleys of the Alleghany and Monongahela. ”

“ The enemy advanced to within a few hundred yards of our pickets, when they established a skirmish line, and began to entrench. I had not force enough to attack them, requiring all the troops that I could collect to hold the main lines, and to do the necessary picket duty in front. In order to accomplish this, I had to make drafts upon the garrisons at Fort Johnston, and batteries Haskell, Tatum, &c., which, although small, were the largest that could be spared, and then at some hazard. In this way one hundred (100) men were withdrawn from Fort Johnston. ”

“ The President shook his head, and entered upon a brief account of the fighting after the battle of Gaines's Mill, praising my Soldier's brother, Major Charles Pickett, who had been wounded at Frazier's Farm, carrying the flag on foot after his horse had been shot from under him. I saw the President's eyes flash as he said:
"I am too much of a soldier to keep out of it in this way, I want to be in the fray. I would much have preferred fighting in the field to warring in the council chamber. I had gone out to consult with the Generals when the artillery duel between Jackson and Franklin began. ”

“ It was evidently impossible to proceed further by water, and Pike realized, now that it was too late, how fatal a mistake had been made in starting so late in the season. After consultation with his party, it was resolved to leave a small detachment with the bulk of the provisions in a log fort, and proceed in sledges with the hardiest of the men to the sources of the Mississippi. ”

“ Afterward in speaking about the location of Pike's Fort to an old settler, Samuel Lee, now residing at Long Prairie in this State, he told me that he had been at the place many years before, and when he was first at the place the bottom tier of logs were still there. I visited the spot two years ago for the purpose of getting one of the stones that were used to build the fire-place, and took one that will weigh about 75 pounds, which I am keeping as a relic. The pile of stone is getting scattered about; the ground has never been cleared and broken up, but is used as a pasture. ”

“ There was a battery between the fort and the river, but the Americans could spare no men to work it. The enemy displayed great coolness and bravery in forcing the pickets, making their way into the fosse, and scaling the revetment, in the face of a severe fire from the little garrison. When a sufficient number had obtained entrance thus far, they forced their way through the feebly-manned embrasures, and decided the conflict with bayonets, after a desperate struggle with "the handful of determined patriots, many of whom were armed only with pikes. ”

“ Virginia. Every Federal post gave them up to us, from Arlington, where Colonel Robert E. Lee laid down his allegiance to the old flag, to the Pacific, where my Soldier had upheld the integrity of his country against hostile Indians and foreign foes.
In July, 1861, Captain Pickett resigned from the United States Army, made a perilous journey from San Juan, passing by sea around to New York, going thence to Canada and then southward, barely escaping arrest three times. From the window of a railway car along a Kentucky road is seen an old home where he spent a night in his long journey. ”