Chapter VI: Part 6

The spot whereon the flag-staff stood which bore the stars and stripes that fervid morning upon which Francis Scott Key arose, saw that our flag was still there and jotted down the national anthem on the back of an envelope before going down to breakfast, still conspires with a large and lusty successor of this first staff to keep Old Glory flying in the heavens. The immediate surroundings, the harbor outlook, the busy city now sending its clamor over the point on which the old fort stands, all have changed in the years, but the part of the fort from which the banner of the new republic was sent forth so many years ago has undergone little transformation. A triangle of ground pointing toward open water, and a bare staff, these have little that Time can work wizardry with. The simple focus of Key’s inspiration has not been lost in the years, but the rest of the picture which roused his songster’s mood is only to be brought back by effort of imagination.

The Guard-House

FORT McHENRY, BALTIMORE, MD.]

Fort McHenry is now a public park, the last federal trooper having been drawn out of the reservation in the fall of 1913. As such it has been beautified by the City of Baltimore, if the placing of benches in convenient spots, the sodding of terraces, and the cleaning of walks are to be considered in the nature of beautification; and it is occasionally used by Baltimoreans as a place of airing. Situated on a point of land separating the two parts of Baltimore’s heart-shaped harbor, it gives charming views of the city. Gazing straight ahead from the walls of old Fort McHenry, one can see far down the river (very wide here) into the distance where the river joins the Chesapeake Bay. In the blue of the horizon can be faintly discerned the low squatty outline of the little hexagon of stone built by General Robert E. Lee before the Civil War and known as Fort Carroll.

To the right hand, from this vantage point on the water side of Fort McHenry’s parapets, lies Spring Garden, the larger but the less busy part of Baltimore’s water-front. To the left is the entrance to “the harbor,” as it is affectionately called by Baltimoreans, with entire disregard for that magnificent half-moon of water of more recent development which we have already descried to the right.

The various points of historic interest in the fort and its grounds are marked with tablets and appropriate memorials, this work having been done in recent years by the city, by the Maryland chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and by various public-spirited bodies of the municipality.

As one enters the grounds of the old fort, he is confronted first 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Two expeditions were attempted by the colonists against Fort St. Mark. The first under General Charles Lee fell short because of mismanagement. The second advanced as far as the St. John’s River. Consternation in St. Augustine reigned supreme; slaves were impressed to help strengthen the fortifications; citizens ran hither and thither with their valuables. But the Americans were menaced by fever at the St. John’s and faced the prospect of a midsummer encampment in Florida, so they turned about and went north. Fort St. Mark was not to leave English hands by force.

In 1783 took place another one of those shuffles between high contracting parties by which each party thinks that he has secured the better of the bargain. England traded Florida to Spain for Jamaica. Spain traded Jamaica to England for Florida. In 1821 Spain ceded Florida to the United States, and in 1825 the name of the fort was changed from Fort St. Mark to Fort Marion in honor of General Francis Marion, of Revolutionary fame.

The Seminole War began in 1835 and continued until 1842, costing the United States two thousand lives, and forty million dollars. Fort Marion was the centre of the military operations of this conflict and it was the scene of the disgraceful episode of treachery by which Osceola and other Indian chieftains were captured. In 1838 General Hernandez, in command of the United States forces, sent word to Osceola that he would be protected if he should come to Fort Marion for talk of peace. With seventy of his followers the Indian came to the conference and was placed in irons. The prisoner was taken to Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor, where from much brooding and confinement he died. The same tactics were repeated in another sitting with Coacoochee, the remaining great leader of the Seminoles, and the Seminole War was ended. Coacoochee was confined in Fort Marion, where his cell is pointed out to visitors. His fate became that of an exile, for with his people he was transported to a western reservation.

During the Civil War Fort Marion had a brief flurry of excitement when the fort was seized by Southern sympathizers in 1861. It quickly fell before Federal troops, however, and had no further active part in that war.

The old fort is still government property, but its days of activity are long since past. That it will be maintained for many years as a reminder of the past is, however, well assured.

LA FUERZA, MORRO CASTLE, AND OTHER DEFENCES

HAVANA--CUBA

The city of Havana was located where it stands to-day in 1519, after a four years’ unsatisfactory trial of a site on the opposite, or south, coast of the island. It jogged along comfortably through all of the ordinary perils of that time until 1538, when it was attacked and sacked by a French privateersman. The authorities in the home country determined to provide some means of defence for the baby metropolis, and one Hernando de Soto, an impecunious adventurer who had followed Pizarro to Peru, and had returned enriched with plunder from that unhappy land, was commissioned governor of Cuba and Florida with instructions to build a fortress at Havana.

De Soto came to Havana in the fashion of leisure of the times, and in pursuit of his royal master’s instructions, laid the foundations of a fortress. This work was finished under the direction of his lieutenant while he, himself, was searching an El Dorado in Florida and was finding a miserable death by fever on the Mississippi. The structure which de Soto left as his legacy to Havana is the Castillo de la Fuerza, half hidden, to-day, between the Senate and old post-office building on the Plaza de Armes. La Fuerza has been credited with being the oldest inhabitable and inhabited structure in the Western Hemisphere and the claim is not easily disputed. As early as 1544 a royal decree had been given forth that all vessels entering Havana harbor should salute the little fortress with a ceremony not enjoyed by any other city in the New World save Santo Domingo.

The form of la Fuerza is that of a quadrilateral, having a bastion at each of the four corners. The walls are twenty-five feet in height and are double. There is a moat which has not contained water for many years, and arrangements for a draw-bridge which has been replaced by a permanent plank walk. To the seaward is a watch-tower similar in design to that on the fort at St. Augustine, and in this tower is a bell which, tradition says, was rung wildly whenever in the old days a suspicious sail came into the view of the watchman. The little bronze image in the top of the tower is known as “La Habana.” When de Soto sailed out from Havana harbor on that storied expedition through the American wilds which was to end in his death, he left la Fuerza, and with it his command as governor, in charge of his bride, Isabel de Bobadilla. For four years Lady Isabel waited for her lord’s return, spending anxious hours in the little watch-tower of the fort. Only when the tattered remnants of that splendid army which had accompanied the adventurer were brought back to Havana was her long suspense ended.

The cellars of la Fuerza contain damp dungeons used as receptacles for modern rifles and ammunition, this part of the old fort being given over to the purposes of an armory.

In 1554 Havana was again attacked by the French and partially destroyed and in the following year it fell a victim to pirates. During the wars which marked the reigns of the Emperor Charles V, of Spain, and his son, Philip II, the colony became more and more the object of attack by Spain’s enemies, and in 1585, Havana having been seriously menaced by Sir Francis Drake, it was determined to build additional defences for the city. In 1589 Morro Castle, the Castle of the Three Kings and the Bateria de la Punta were begun; by 1597 they were completed.

The word “Morro” means promontory, and Castle del Morro is merely the fortress on the point. The design of Morro is that of the quaint Moorish fortress in the harbor of Lisbon, but it has been changed so much for modern defensive uses that it does not now greatly resemble its original. The work is irregular in shape, is built on solid rock, and rises from 100 to 120 feet above the level of the sea. Its situation on the northern one of the two points of the entrance to the harbor of Havana gives it a great importance. Opposite Morro, across the harbor mouth, is la Punta.

To visit Morro one climbs to the fort by an inclined road cut out of rock, shaded with laurels and royal poincianas. Hedges of cactus hem in the road. The pilgrim reaches at last the moat. This was cut out of solid rock and is seventy feet in depth. Passing over the draw-bridge and advancing through the dark walls of the work, one comes to the inner court, from whence there is a passage to the ramparts. Here is a fine outlook over city and harbor, from the seaward side of the ramparts, where there is a battery of twelve guns known as the “Twelve Apostles.”

Some of the prison cells in Morro are directly over the water and in one spot a steep chute leads to the sea. Your guide will tell you that from here bodies of prisoners, both living and dead, were shot out to become the food of innumerable sharks waiting below.

The most active service that Morro has seen was in 1762, when Havana was taken by the English under Admiral Pocock and Lord Albemarle. In June of that year, shortly after the outbreak of war between France and Spain as allies against England, a fleet of 44 English men-of-war and 150 lighter vessels, bearing a land force of 15,000 men, appeared off Havana. The Spanish defenders numbered 27,000 men, of whom a sufficient garrison was at Morro. The English landed on the coast to the east of our fortress and worked around to the rear of that structure to an eminence where the fortification of Cabanas now stands. The siege began on June 3 and continued until July 30, when, after a stubborn defence, Morro fell.

The long resistance of the point against an over-whelming force is largely to be credited to the indomitable spirit of its commander, Velasco, who, though he knew that his position had been undermined and his men were deserting him, refused to surrender. The fort was taken after the mines had been sprung and the walls had been battered down. Captain Velasco died of wounds received during the siege, and on the day of his funeral hostilities were suspended by the English in recognition of his bravery.

The authorities in Spain decreed that a ship in the Spanish navy should always bear the name of Velasco, and the vessel so named at the time of the Spanish-American war was sunk in Manila Bay by the Boston.

Havana fell thirteen days after Morro and for a year was in the hands of the enemy.

Stretching along bare hilltop back of Morro is Havana’s greatest fortress, built in 1763 after the departure of the unwelcome English guests whose coming had shown the weakness of the city’s defences. Cabanas, or to give its full name, Castillo de San Carlos de Cabanas (Saint Charles of the Cabin), is nearly a mile in length with a width of about one-fifth of a mile. Its cost was $14,000,000. When King Charles III of Spain, under whose direction the work was commenced, was told the total of expenditures, it is said that he walked to the window of his study and gazed intently out of it, remarking that such an enormous and expensive construction should be visible from Spain.

Within the fort are innumerable walks, dungeons and secret passages. To the right of the entrance is the famous “Laurel Moat” where unfortunate Cubans and other political prisoners were shot without benefit of trial. The condemned men were compelled to kneel facing a wall, and this wall marked with bullets in a line nearly one hundred feet long is a grim present-day memento of Spain’s ruthless rule in the island. The spot has been marked with a bronze tablet which records its history.

Other fortifications in Havana include Principe Castle, built in 1774, and Atares Castle, 1767. There are two ancient little round towers of defence at Chorrera and Cojimar.

FORT SAN CARLOS

PENSACOLA BAY--FLORIDA

Pensacola Bay is a lozenge-shaped body of water, the entrance to which from the Gulf is at the southern point of the figure, and the southern side is formed by Santa Rosa Island, which stretches out in a long sandy line here to divide sea and inland water. On the western shore, near the head of the bay, is situated the busy city of Pensacola, one of the most active shipping points on the Gulf and also one of the most ancient. About six miles south of Pensacola, and near the mouth of the bay, is the city’s ancient defence, Fort San Carlos de Barrancas, which has gone through ten generations and more of life as humans reckon it and has done valiant service under four flags.

The military (and social) history of Pensacola Bay commences in 1558, when Philip II, of Spain, commissioned Luis de Valesca, viceroy of New Spain, to undertake the settlement of Florida. After a preliminary survey Valesca, in the summer of 1559, sent 1500 soldiers and settlers to make a beginning at Pensacola Bay, this body of water having been adjudged the best roadstead and the most favorable for the support of human life on the Gulf Coast. A tentative settlement was established, but for some reason the site did not please the expedition and its leaders attempted unsuccessfully to find a better one. The winter that followed and the next summer were filled with privation and the colony became much reduced in numbers. During the second summer most of the settlers went with Angel de Villafane to Santa Elena, Port Royal Sound, south on the Atlantic coast (South Carolina, to-day) and the remainder was recalled by Philip II, who thereupon decreed that no further effort should be made to settle the west coast of Florida, a royal promulgation which circumstance and lack of incentive to the contrary conspired to make effective for more than a century. If one accepts this abortive expedition as the beginning of settlement in Florida then Pensacola is the oldest point of European residence in the United States, antedating St. Augustine by seven years.

The Spaniards did not regard La Salle’s effort at colonization at the mouth of the Mississippi River with favor and were not at all displeased at his misfortunes. To forestall other efforts of the French they undertook a survey of the coast and established a colony at Pensacola in the last years of the Seventeenth Century. This was the beginning of Pensacola of to-day.

By courtesy of the Pensacola Chamber of Commerce

FORT SAN CARLOS DE BARRANCAS, NEAR PENSACOLA, FLORIDA]

When Iberville, in 1699, sailed from France with several vessels containing colonists for Louisiana and when in due course of time he arrived off Pensacola, he found the Spaniards firmly established with a fort with four bastions and some ships of war. The Frenchmen asked for permission to disembark his forces. His request was refused and he then sailed along the coast until he found a landing to his liking near the present-day Biloxi, Mississippi. The governor of Pensacola at this time--and the first governor of the colony--was Don Andre D’Arriola. The fort was named San Carlos de Barrancas.

There came in 1719 a war against Spain in which France and England were allies opposed to her. The French thereupon sent in this year M. de Serigny with a sufficient force to take possession of Pensacola which was valuable to the French on account of its proximity to Louisiana and its accessibility to the West India Islands. The expedition was entirely successful as, after an attack by land by 700 Canadians, the commander of the Spanish garrison, Don John Peter Matamoras, surrendered with the honors of war.

It is probable that the Spanish stronghold at that time was not the one which has come down to us to-day, though it bore the same name and was, very possibly, built on the same site.

The news of the surrender of Pensacola caused a great stir in Spain, and an expedition was fitted out to recover the lost territory. The command of the expedition was given to Don Alphonse Carracosa and the force consisted of 12 vessels and 850 fighting men. Don Carracosa achieved success, as at the sight of his fleet part of the French garrison deserted and the rest surrendered, to be treated with great severity by the Spanish. Don Matamoras was re-established and an expedition was despatched against the French at Mobile without result satisfactory to the Spanish.

The French were to have their day, again, however. De Bienville invested Pensacola by land and Count de Champmelin by sea. After a stubborn resistance Matamoras surrendered, giving the French between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred prisoners. The French dismembered the greater part of the fort and left a small garrison in the remainder of the structure.

Under the peace of 1720 Pensacola was restored to the Spanish and thus was ended the port’s first experience of warfare. Fort San Carlos was rebuilt substantially in the form that it bears to-day, and in 1722 another fortification was built on the point of Santa Rosa Island where Fort Pickens long years afterward was to maintain a gallant defence.

Fort San Carlos is a little semicircular structure most solidly put together but not of great pretension as to size. On account of its fine location, however--having no heights near which could dominate it, and having a fine sweep over the entrance to the bay which it is designed to protect--it was of importance in the days of short-range cannon.

In 1763 the whole of Florida, which, of course, included our brave little fort at Pensacola, passed into the hands of the English by treaty with Spain, and an English garrison took possession of Fort San Carlos. Upon the outbreak of hostilities again between Spain and England, Galvez, the Spanish governor of Louisiana, sailed from New Orleans in February, 1781, with 1400 men and a sufficient fleet to reduce Pensacola. He was joined by squadrons from Havana and Mobile and in May of that year entered Pensacola Bay. The fort here was in the command of Colonel Campbell with a small garrison of English. After a sufficient resistance Colonel Campbell surrendered and Galvez took charge. In 1783 the whole province of Florida was ceded to Spain, and Pensacola remained under a Spanish ruler for thirty-one years after this latter date.

The next eventful interval in the life of Fort San Carlos had to do with one of the most popular figures of United States history, Andrew Jackson. In 1814, during the progress of the second war of the United States with England, Jackson was made a major-general and was given command of the Gulf Coast region where he had been operating against the Creek Indians. While arranging a treaty with these conquered savages he was informed by them that they had been approached by English officers, through the connivance of the Spanish commander at Pensacola, with offers of supplies and assistance to fight against the Americans. Two British vessels arrived at Pensacola August 4 and Colonel Edward Nicholls in command was allowed to land troops and to arm some Indians. Late in August seven more British vessels arrived at Pensacola and the mask of Spanish neutrality was thrown aside when Fort San Carlos was turned over to the British, the British being allowed to hoist their ensign thereon, and Colonel Nicholls was entertained by the Spanish governor as his guest.

Jackson was at Mobile, Alabama, not very far distant as the crow flies from Pensacola, and when the intelligence of these happenings had been confirmed immediately set about raising a force of Americans. By November he had 2,000 volunteers and early in that month marched from Fort Montgomery (Montgomery, Alabama) upon Pensacola. November 6 he was two miles from that city. To ascertain the Spaniard’s intentions he sent Major Pierre to wait upon the commandant of the city and was rewarded for his pains by having his envoy fired upon. By midnight Jackson had his men in motion against the city, and in the hot engagement which followed the Spanish and British were badly worsted. The British fled down the Bay in their ships, blowing up Fort San Carlos in their retreat and carrying away one of the higher Spanish officers--certainly, on the whole, a not very grateful return for the benefits bestowed upon them by their hosts.

The Creek and Seminole Indians who had begun to rally to the English standard were much impressed by this display of force on the part of the Americans and esteeming Jackson a very bad medicine, indeed, wisely decided to return to the prosaic paths of peace.

During the Civil War, Fort San Carlos played no conspicuous part. The limelight of fame was thrown on its close neighbor, Fort Pickens, on Santa Rosa Island. This latter post at the outbreak of the war was in charge of Lieutenant Adam J. Slemmer, a Pennsylvanian, who, seeing the conflict impending, concentrated (in Fort Pickens as being the easiest one of them all to defend) the forces in the various forts under his jurisdiction. From January 9 to April 11, 1861, Slemmer was in a state of siege in Fort Pickens and on the latter date was relieved by forces from the North. The point was held by Federal troops throughout the war.

A curious incident which occurred early in 1914 at Fort San Carlos recalled vividly to the officers there the part the little Spanish post played in the days when pirates roamed the Spanish Main and all of this part of the world was new. A stranger came to the fort with an old parchment which he declared showed the location of buried treasure in the old fort. He would not tell how he came by the document, but its evident antiquity aroused interest and for an idle hour’s interest the officers of the post decided to dig for the buried treasure. On the parchment was a well drawn plan of the fort with a cross in a particular corner of the parade. This point was located with some little difficulty and men were set to digging. For a time nothing interesting occurred, but after a while one of the men struck a rotten wooden board which proved to be the top of an old well. At the bottom of this covered-over well was discovered a lot of watery mud which, when it had been dug into, revealed the top of an old chest. Darkness fell now and it was not considered worth while to continue operations until the next day. The next morning when the men went back to work they found that the stirring up of the earth and water had caused the object, whatever it was, to sink so deep into the unstable soil of the spot that it could not be recovered!

THE PRESIDIO OF SAN FRANCISCO

GOLDEN GATE--CALIFORNIA

Hand in hand with the Military went the Church during Spain’s days of dominion in the New World. Where the soldier walked, there too, came the priest. At first when all of the New World was new, when the hold of the Old World was insecure, it was the soldier who pointed the path, but when Spain’s hand had a firm grasp upon her possessions it was the priest who took the lead. The records of Spain on the east coast of America are records of bloodiness and cruel oppression. On the west coast where the friar led the way we find deeds of gentleness and love. Where Florida reveals a memory of hate in two old bastioned fortresses--Marion and San Carlos--with dingy dungeons and rusty chains, California shows its missions with their silvery chimes and its presidios, the two institutions being bound together.

Four presidios were established by Spain in old California to guard its missions; the first, at San Diego; the second, at Monterey; the third, at San Francisco; and the fourth, at Santa Barbara. It is the third which bespeaks our interest in this chapter, owing to its importance in the present day as well as to its historic and natural charm.

The presidio at San Francisco was established in 1776 by an expedition which set out in two parts in June of that year from Monterey; one part to go by land, the other by water. The objective point of the two was a bay which had been discovered in 1769 by an expedition from San Diego. It was named in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi, hence, San Francisco. The land expedition included Friars Palou and Cambon, a few married settlers with large families, and seventeen dragoons under the command of Don Jose Moraga, who was to be the commandant of the new post. It carried garden seed, agricultural implements, horses, mules and sheep. This party reached the neighborhood of the Golden Gate on June 27 and, without waiting for the detachment which was coming by sea, chose a site for the presidio and began work upon the modest buildings of that station. The seed was placed in the ground, the cattle and sheep put out to graze and the horses and mules set to labor. All was activity.

The first part of September saw the buildings of the post substantially complete and on September 17, the feast of the Stigmata of Saint Francis, solemn possession of the Presidio, in the name of the King of Spain, was taken by the grizzled soldier Moraga, while a mass was celebrated by Palou. A Te Deum was sung, a cross was planted and salutes were fired over land and water. Thus was the presidio of San Francisco founded.

By courtesy of R. J. Waters & Co.

FORT SCOTT AND THE GOLDEN GATE, PRESIDIO RESERVATION, SAN FRANCISCO]

It is a far cry from 1776 to the present day (though not so long as from 1776 back to the first day of Spanish settlement in the future United States), but, while the immediate aspect of the country round about Spain’s presidio of 1776 at San Francisco has changed, the situation of the post has remained the same; and the view of land and water here is just as entrancing to-day as it was on that day in 1769 when the expedition from San Diego saw the far-famed Golden Gate.

The Presidio of San Francisco, the most important military station of the Pacific coast, is situated on the northwest rim of the city, north of Golden Gate Park (and north of the exposition grounds of 1915) and connected with that park by a beautiful boulevard one mile long. The grounds comprise more than fifteen hundred acres, developed for military purposes in the most modern fashion. From almost any part of the grounds or the approach thereto enchanting views of the wonderful bay of San Francisco are to be obtained.

A description of the view of the presidio as you approach the place on the boulevard from Golden Gate Park has been given by Ernest Peixotto in his “Romantic California,” which may well be repeated here:

In the meantime the city boasts one splendid driveway that, with
a connecting link completed, will rank with the famous roadways
of the Old World.