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San Francisco, California |
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Fort Point National Monument |
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Text from the Park Service Brochure: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began work on Fort Point in 1853. Plans specified that the lowest tier of artillery be as close as possible to the water level so cannonballs could ricochet across the water's surface to hit enemy ships at the waterline. Workers blasted the 90-foot cliff down to 15 feet above sea level. |
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The structure featured 7-foot thick walls and multi-tiered casemated construction typical of Third System forts. It was suited to defend the maximum amount of harbor area. While there were more than 30 such forts on the East Coast, Fort Point was the only one built on the West Coast. In 1854, Inspector General Joseph F.K. Mansfield declared "this point as the key to the whole Pacific Coast...and it should receive untiring exertions." A crew of 200 labored for eight years on the fort. In 1861, with war looming, the Army mounted the fort's first cannon. Col. Albert Sidney Johnston, commander of the Department of the Pacific, prepared Bay Area defenses and ordered in the first troops to the fort. Kentucky born Johnston then resigned his commission to join the Confederate Army; he was killed at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. Throughout the Civil War, artillerymen at Fort Point stood guard for an enemy that never came. The Confederate raider CSS Shenandoah planned to attack San Francisco, but on the way to the harbor, the captain learned that the war was over; it was August 1865. Severe damage to similar forts on the Atlantic Coast during the war- Fort Sumter in South Carolina and Fort Pulaski in Georgia- challenged the effectiveness of masonry walls against rifled artillery. Troops soon moved out of Fort Point and it was never again continuously occupied by the Army. The fort was nonetheless important enough to receive protection from the elements; in 1869, a granite seawall was completed. |
| Design and Construction
Fort Point is an excellent example of a Third System coastal fortification, a system adopted after the War of 1812 to protect major U.S. harbors. The plan was drafted before the east and west bastions were added. The fort had three tiers of casemates (vaulted rooms housing cannons), and a barbette tier with additional guns and a sod covering to absorb the impact of enemy cannon fire. The only entrance was a sally port with iron-studded doors. Work began in 1853. Since few local sources of building materials were available, granite was imported from as far away as China before engineers gave up the idea of stone. Some eight million bricks were made in a brickyard nearby. The Civil War showed that masonry forts could be destroyed by new rifled cannon. Thus, no sooner than it was completed, Fort Point needed modifications. As of the 1870's Battery East, a great earthen atop the bluff just to the southeast, bolstered fortifications at the point. |
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Lighthouse This is the third lighthouse built at this site- a natural promontory from which to guide mariners through wasters that can be treacherous in fog. The first was demolished shortly after construction in 1852 to make way for Fort Point. The second, north of the fort at the tip of the point suffered from constant erosion. The present lighthouse was used from 1864 until 1934, when the foundation for the Golden Gate Bridge blocked its light. Artillery and Hotshot Fort Point never mounted the 141 cannon that its planners envisioned. By October 1861 there were 69 guns in and around the fort: 24-34, 42 pounders and 10 and 8-inch Columbiads. After the war, the Army installed powerful 10-inch Rodman guns in the lower casemates; these could fire a 128 lb. solid shot more than t miles. At its greatest strength, the fort mounted 102 cannon. In addition, the fort had "hotshot" furnaces; iron cannon balls could be heated red hot, loaded into a cannon, and fired at wooden ships to set them ablaze. |
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Bastions and Seawall Each of Fort Point's bastions held 15 small cannon to discourage attackers from scaling the fort. By protruding from the main structure, the bastions allowed defenders to fire from a protected position along their own walls rather than revealing themselves by peering down over the parapet. To protect the fort from land attack, a small cannon battery was designed for the west end of the scarp wall at the front; it was built, but cannon were never mounted. |
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Because the land on which the fort stands was cut down to within 15 feet of the water, a seawall was needed for protection. This 1,500-foot-long structure is an impressive engineering feat. Granite stones were fitted together and the spaces between them sealed with strips of lead. Completed in 1869, the wall held fast for more than 100 years against the Golden Gate's powerful waves until it began to give way in the1980's. The National Park Service rebuilt the wall and placed boulders seaward to deflect the force of the waves. |
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Garrison During the Civil War, as many as 500 men from the 3rd U.S. Artillery, the 9th U.S. Infantry, and the 8th California Volunteer Infantry were garrisoned here. Stationed thousands of miles from the major theaters of combat, the men spent their days in routine drills, artillery practice, inspections, sentry duty, and maintenance chores. Enlisted men bunked with 24 to a casement on the third tier; officers had single or double quarters one tier below. To supplement coal heating fuel, soldiers gathered driftwood from the shore. Bvt. Maj. William Austine, the fort's commander, summed up conditions in an 1861 report: "During the summer months the post in enveloped in fogs, and dampness and high winds constantly prevail, and consequently rheumatism and severe colds are very common." |
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The following year, some of the fort's cannon were moved
to Battery East on the bluffs nearby, where they were more
protected. In 1882 Fort Point was officially named Fort Winfield
Scott after the famous Mexican War hero. The new name never caught
on here and was later applied to an artillery post at the Presidio.
Into a New Century. In 1892 the Army began constructing the new Endicott System concrete fortifications armed with steel breech-loading rifled guns. Within eight years, all 102 of the smoothbore cannons at the Fort Point had been dismounted and sold for scrap. The fort, moderately damaged in the 1906 earthquake, was used over the next four decades for barracks, training and storage. Soldiers for from the 6th U.S. Coast Guard Artillery were stationed here during World War II to guard minefields and the anti-submarine net that spanned the Golden Gate. |
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Preserving Fort Point In 1926 the American Institute of Architects proposed preserving the
fort for its outstanding military architecture. Funds were
unavailable and the idea languished. Plans for the Golden Gate
Bridge in the 1930's called for the fort's removal, but Chief Engineer
Joseph Strauss redesigned the bridge to save the fort. "While the old
fort has no military value now," Strauss said, "it remains
nevertheless a fine example of the mason's art....It should be preserved
and restored as a national monument." Preservation efforts were
revived after World War II. On October 16, 1970, President Richard
Nixon signed the bill creating Fort Point National Historic Site.
The fort tells the story of its years spent guarding the Golden
Gate. Webmaster Note: Text from the Park Service Brochure. |
 Fort Point now lies in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge |
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