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Fortress America |
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The New Nation is Tested and Threatened With the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the American Revolution officially came to an end and the United States came into its own. It would take another six years to write and ratify a Constitution and elect a President. The world didn't wait that long to test the new nation. America was immediately confronted by old and new adversaries on all sides - both land and sea. The French had the Louisiana Territory which was as big as the United States. The Spanish were in Florida and the desert southwest. The British were in Canada. All of them were in the Caribbean. There was disputed territory on both the northern and southern borders. On the high seas, the British Navy harassed American ships and personnel. Over in the Mediterranean, Americans had their first encounter with Muslim terrorists - the Barbary pirates.
Peace treaty notwithstanding, the British continued to involve themselves against their former colonies by aiding and supplying Native Americans on the western frontier, which was then around the border of present-day Ohio and Indiana. In November 1791, near present-day Fort Recovery, Ohio almost 1,000 American soldiers were killed in a battle with the Shawnee. This was the Battle of the Wabash. It literally killed half the standing American army at that time and almost five times as many men as Custer would lose at the Little Bighorn 85 years later. George Washington's presidency was only a year old. In 1794, facing the possibility of yet another war with the European continent, Washington ordered the construction of a series of fortifications to protect American ports and waterways. It set in motion a strategy for the defense of the United States mainland using powerful fixed fortifications at key points. This strategy would continue through 32 Presidents until after World War II, even though fixed forts would become vulnerable and obsolete during the Civil War. Attacking and Defending Forts People have built forts for both defense and power projection for thousands of years. The most vital part of a fort is its walls. To keep attackers out and protect the people inside, walls were designed to counter the weapons they were most likely to face. In the early days, that would have been arrows, spears and people - lots and lots of people. To counter that, walls were quite high and the defense was close in. As siege technology advanced, so did forts. When battering rams and towers came along, so did moats. Forts were built on islands or on sheer rock faces. Laying siege to a fortress was a lengthy process that might take months or even years. Disease, hunger, thirst, morale and treachery became the main weapons. Victory went to the side that held out the longest. The quickest way to overwhelm a fort is to get inside by breaching its walls, but that capability was centuries in the making. Penetrating the walls required banging on the same place with something very heavy over and over and over again, which simply wasn't possible with the weapons of the day. This strategic stalemate continued for many centuries.
Then along came gunpowder. Discovered accidentally late in the first century A.D. by Chinese alchemists looking for an "elixir of youth", the explosive propellant was quickly adapted for military use. Weapons evolved quickly and simultaneously in many different cultures including the Chinese, the Japanese, the Muslims and the Europeans. By the start of the 14th century, cannons, rockets and flame weapons firing projectiles were being used in both the attack and defense of forts. Range, accuracy, power, types of shells and portability were still lacking, but the die was cast. The technology now existed to bang walls with something very heavy over and over and over again from long range. Forts and their tactics had to change to survive. So walls became thicker and built out of harder material. They also had to become lower and wider to support the new architecture. This made forts more vulnerable to direct assault, so multiple walls were built inside one another. In between walls were wet or dry moats. Bastions were created at corners and blind spots to allow flanking fire by both rifles and artillery against an enemy assault at the wall. Obstacles were placed on approach routes and covered by fire. Covered areas, called casemates, were built inside the fort to give the defenders overhead protection and the ability to move around while under fire. Guns of various calibers were mounted in layers, with the casemate guns firing through embrasures and the top guns mounted "en barbette", meaning they were fired over a parapet. Defenders started fighting outside the fort, deploying delay forces and extending the defensive perimeter. Multiple forts with overlapping fields of fire were used to protect key areas and each other. Some forts were dug into the ground or covered with dirt and vegetation to mask themselves from enemy gunners.
The attackers had two primary tactics - blast the walls into rubble and storm it and/or hammer the inside to the point where the fort surrendered. To counter fort defenses against direct assault, the enemy would dig siege trenches which zigzagged towards the fort. They would bring up their cannons and mortar when they were within range and start blasting. They could continue to dig right up to the fort or even under it to set explosives. American forts went through all these evolutions over the 150 years (1800-1950) they were in operation. For the first 50-60 years, the forts had the advantage. A sailing ship bouncing around the water trying to catch the wind simply couldn't hope to outgun or outrun the firing batteries of a strong coastal fortification. During the War of 1812, Baltimore's Fort McHenry fought it out with British forces that had just burned Washington D.C. The fort successfully turned back the British invasion and became the inspiration for "The Star Spangled Banner". By the American Civil War, all that had changed. In the space of three years (1861-1864), weapons technology advanced to the point where the forts simply couldn't keep up. Larger caliber rounds, new fuses and increased accuracy of weapons doomed the forts. Rifled projectiles, unlike the cannonballs of old, had enough penetration, kinetic energy and explosive power to blow apart masonry walls with one or two shots.
Ships were now steam powered, giving them the speed and maneuverability to minimize effective hits from shore batteries. There were also ironclads. Everyone has heard of the Monitor and the Merrimac. They were 1862 prototypes that found themselves engaged almost by accident. In the last year of the Civil War, ironclads were heavily used by both sides. They mounted multiple cannons and were heavily armored. As shallow-draft gunboats, they could come close to shore or other ships and blast away almost with impunity. The Confederate ironclad ram CSS Tennessee in 1864 was the most powerful and dangerous warship in either navy. At the Battle of Mobile Bay, it inflicted tremendous damage on Admiral Farragut's Union fleet. The Tennessee finally surrendered after being surrounded by Union ships, rammed repeatedly by Union ironclads and pounded by broadsides at point blank range. The Union repaired it and quickly put it back in action as the USS Tennessee. It continued fighting until the end of the war after which it was sold for scrap. Land-based attacks were also more menacing since artillery now had the mobility to move with the front line assault troops and the power to inflict heavy damage. The strategy of ringing a fort with modern cannon and pounding them into submission was used very effectively in the Civil War by both sides. What Happened to Them? America's forts once extended from Maine to the Florida Keys, the Great Lakes and San Francisco Bay. Starting out as palisades made of wood and dirt, they progressed to installations built with millions of bricks and finally to poured concrete and steel. The heyday of the fort ended with the Civil War, but forts were built, re-built and reinforced until World War II. After that, many of them were simply abandoned, falling into disrepair, hammered by the elements and reclaimed by the land and sea. Fortunately, the National Park Service and various state and private agencies have preserved a significant number of these installations for posterity. Some, like Alcatraz and Fort Sumter, are household names and tourist attractions. Others, like Fort Powell and Fort McRee, are gone and almost forgotten. One is still operational. Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia has continued as an active Army base to this day - moat and all. Completed in 1834 to defend the entrance to Chesapeake Bay, it was the largest and most heavily armed of all the seacoast forts. Currently the home of the Army's Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), it is scheduled for de-activation in 2011 but has survived such actions before.
Visiting and Exploring Forts Forts are great for exploring and learning. Many have been included in parks and historical sites. They are almost always located in interesting places. They may not be that easy to get to sometimes, but definitely interesting. Even though they may have similar design and appearance, every fort has its own story to tell. Some fought furious battles. Others stood ready but never saw any action. Many are haunted. Fort Barrancas in Pensacola, FL has a Confederate soldier that has been seen by the staff and visitors alike. He reportedly has even spoken to unsuspecting tourists exploring deep inside the fort and been mistaken for a re-enactor when none were present that day.
Forts and their surroundings are excellent for geocaching. There are also letterboxes, waymarks and shutterspots. If you are a benchmark hunter, you're in luck. These forts are engineering marvels and always have recognizable benchmarks on the grounds or nearby. For instance, Fort Gaines on Dauphin Island near Mobile, Alabama has four of them. The system of fortifications around Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island in Pensacola, FL has over a dozen. You can look up benchmarks on geocaching.com. You'll need a GPS device, a good search plan and some detective work to find them. GPS coordinates for benchmarks are approximate, since GPS didn't exist when they were placed. You'll also be using the original USGS description to find them. Don't forget to bring along a camera to take a picture of the benchmark to post with your log. I hope this little introduction to forts has been enjoyable and interesting and that you will get out there and do some exploring on your own. If not, the pages of this section will let you do some virtual exploring. As always, we welcome your comments to our email or our Guestbook. Enjoy....
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