Fort Columbus - Peacetime Role

Peacetime Role

In subsequent years, Fort Wadsworth, Fort Hamilton and Fort Lafayette at the Narrows of New York Harbor reduced the need for the Upper Harbor forts, and in time, the Army transferred most properties in Upper New York Bay to other federal agencies or sold them to the state of New York. Fort Columbus, however, included 68 acres (280,000 m2), a sufficient land mass for a modest garrison at a reasonable proximity (1000 yards) from Manhattan, making it the most practical of the 1812-era forts for the Army to retain and continue to garrison.

Personnel stationed at Fort Columbus began to record meteorological observations in the 1820s.

As the closest major army post to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, Fort Columbus for many years served as a first posting or a major departure point for newly graduated cadets shipping to army posts along the Atlantic or Pacific coasts. Many future generals in the Civil War were posted to or passed through Fort Columbus as young junior officers. They included Abner Doubleday, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, John Bell Hood, Theophilus H. Holmes Thomas Jackson, Henry Wager Halleck, James B. McPherson, John G. Barnard and others.

In the 1830s, the protective value of Fort Columbus diminished with the advance of weapons technology, but other uses evolved for the army post. The Army renovated the fortification beginning in 1833 with the construction of four barracks that remain to the present day. That same year the Army Ordnance Department established the New York Arsenal as a separate installation, adjacent to but not part of Fort Columbus, as a major depot taking delivery of contracted manufactured arms and weapons and distributing both contract and federally manufactured weapons to army posts across the nation.

The army located its General Recruiting Service for infantry troops at Fort Columbus in November 1852 and many regiments in the army detailed officers to Fort Columbus on recruiting details. In 1836, South Battery became the Army School of Music Practice, training young boys to become company drummers and fife players and regimental musicians.