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:
“During the Civil War the area became a refuge for service- dodging Texans, and gangs of bushwhackers, as they were called, hid in its fastnesses. Conscript details of the Confederate Army hunted the fugitives and occasional skirmishes resulted.”
—Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The gods being always close to men perceive those who afflict others with unjust devices and do not fear the wrath of heaven.”
—Hesiod (c. 8th century B.C.)
“The essence of the modern state is that the universal be bound up with the complete freedom of its particular members and with private well-being, that thus the interests of family and civil society must concentrate themselves on the state.... It is only when both these moments subsist in their strength that the state can be regarded as articulated and genuinely organized.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“He was ... a degenerate gambler. That is, a man who gambled simply to gamble and must lose. As a hero who goes to war must die. Show me a gambler and I’ll show you a loser, show me a hero and I’ll show you a corpse.”
—Mario Puzo (b. 1920)