Fort Delaware

I wrote about improvements to be made at this fort in my last post.

From Wikipedia.

A former harbor defense facility designed by U.S. Army Chief Engineer Joseph Gilbert Totten and located on Pea Patch Island in the Delaware River.

During the Civil War, it was used as a prison for Confederate prisoners of war, political prisoners, federal convicts and privateer officers.

In the 1890s, a three-gun concrete battery of 12-inch guns named Battery Torbert was erected in the  fort.  By 1900, the fort was a part of a three-fort concept, the first forts of the Coast Defenses of Delaware,  working in conjunction with Fort Mott in Pennsville, New Jersey, and Fort DuPont in Delaware City, Delaware.

--Old Secesh

Other Events Affecting the Civil War-- Part 5: Improvements in Artillery

**  A turning point of the war was the firing on Fort Sumter.  It didn't have to happen and made the Confederacy look like the bad guys for starting the war.

Fort Sumter would have had to surrender in a few days because of lack of provisions.

**  Incredible improvements in artillery velocity and accuracy made masonry forts obsolete.

**  Ironclads made wooden warships obsolete.

**  Incredible fortunes were made during the war.

**  After the war, the GAR had a huge impact on politics.

**  Was Albert Sidney Johnston as good of a general as everyone thought?

--Old Secesh

Fort Macon-- Part 2

In 1862, Union forces led by Major General Ambrose E. Burnside launched a campaign against the North Carolina coast, intending to capture Fort Macon and Beaufort Harbor.  They took possession of Morehead City on 23 March and captured Beaufort three days later.

Five artillery companies of North Carolina troops were garrisoned at Fort Macon under Col.Moses J. White.  Altogether they amounted to 450 men and 54 heavy guns.  The Union forces demanded he surrender.  He refused.

On 28 March Brig. Gen. John G. Parke established siege positions within a half mile of the fort.  He made a final demand for surrender .  Early the next morning, Parke's batteries opened fire on the fort in a bombardment that lasted 11 hours.

The Union rifled cannons carried the day.  This was only the second time in history that rifled cannons had bombarded a masonry fort and this one demonstrated the growing obsolescence of forts as a means of defense.  It took only a few hours for the cannons to crack Fort Macon's walls and threaten a magazine.

--Old Secesh

The Problem with Masonary Forts: You'd Think I Would Be Able to Spell Masonry

Here I am at 60, and I just came across a word I have been spelling incorrectly all these years. I would have sworn it was spelled masonary. And I have a deep interest in the pre-and-post Civil War masonry forts along the US coast. But a spell-check of the last post about Fort Monroe shows the word is spelled masonry.

It's like the scotch and clipper ship called the Cutty Sark which I was sure was spelled Cutty Shark. And then there was Niagra Falls, as I would spell it. And I was sure of it. I even went to the place twice and it was still Niagra, until one of my students said that I had misspelled it in some lesson I was teaching. We got into a discussion about it and I looked it up...and the student was the teacher's master.

I must learn to eat grasshopper.

So, education is an ongoing thing.

Congradulations!!


Well, that was how I spelled that word on the Great Sign of the Wheeling Northbrook Holiday Inn in Illinois until somebody pulled over off River Road and said I hadn't spelled it correctly. Supposed to be "Congratulations!" As in "T" not "D."

Learn Something Every Day, I always Say. --Old B-Runner