19th Century and The Civil War
- for more information about the fort's history during the 19th century, see Fort Columbus
By the 1830s, four ranges of brick barracks replaced wooden barracks around the quadrangle inside the walls of the fort. The barracks were built as the fortification's ability to protect New York was diminished by the construction of Fort Hamilton and Fort Wadsworth at The Narrows of New York Harbor. The Greek Revival style barracks, unified by two-storey Tuscan porticos first served as officers' and enlisted men's housing for the permanent garrison.
During the American Civil War, the armorment of the fort was upgraded with nearly 50 10" and 15" Rodman cannons. Three 10" and one 15" Rodman cannons were retained at the fort's east entrance gate and north overlook to Lower Manhattan when the remainder were scrapped in October 1942 for the war effort during World War II.
In the early years of the Civil War, the north barracks were used to hold Confederate officers taken as prisoners of war pending transfer to other Union prisons such as Camp Johnson in Ohio, Fort Delaware or Fort Warren in Boston Harbor.
Read more about this topic: Fort Jay
Famous quotes containing the words civil war, century, civil and/or war:
“The utter helplessness of a conquered people is perhaps the most tragic feature of a civil war or any other sort of war.”
—Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835–1930)
“At first,
our bodies were as one.
Then
you were unloving,
but I still played the wretched favorite.
Now
you’re the master
and we’re the wife.
What’s next?
This is the fruit I reap
from my diamond-hard life.”
—Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.)
“Physical force has no value, where there is nothing else. Snow in snow-banks, fire in volcanoes and solfataras is cheap. The luxury of ice is in tropical countries, and midsummer days. The luxury of fire is, to have a little on our hearth; and of electricity, not the volleys of the charged cloud, but the manageable stream on the battery-wires. So of spirit, or energy; the rests or remains of it in the civil and moral man, are worth all the cannibals in the Pacific.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Show’rs on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence; and, from despair
Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires
Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue
Vain war with Heav’n, and by success untaught,
His proud imaginations”
—John Milton (1608–1674)