153. FORT LAFAYETTE
Once on an island that is underneath the east pier of the Verrazano Bridge
Fort Lafayette, called the “Bastille of the North,” was one of the massive coastal fortifications built to defend New York City from attack by sea. This island fort was about 400 yards offshore from what is now Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. The fort was begun during the War of 1812 and completed in 1818 as Fort Diamond, later to be renamed in honor of the Marquis de La Fayette. Until 1861, the fort sported 72 cannon that guarded the harbor, but it was converted to a prison during the Civil War and housed Confederate soldiers as well as spies and political prisoners. In 1868, the fort burned and was not rebuilt.
Early in his administration, President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus, and many suspected secessionists were incarcerated at Fort Lafayette without trial. In the old brick fort, the conditions varied according to the reporter. Some suspected that the commanding officer, Lt. Col. Martin Burke, favored the Confederates detained here, since his family came from the border state of Maryland. Reports do indicate that he was harshest on the Union prisoners. However, when stories about the easy treatment of Southerners appeared in New York newspapers, the public was outraged—so Burke cracked down on all prisoners equally. In 1861, when Lincoln had some members of the Maryland Legislature arrested so they could not vote on secession from the Union, they were detained here. Although they shared their cramped quarters with cannon, they were well provided for and enjoyed good food, liquor, and furniture. Southerners who had been caught trying to run the Union blockade were not as lucky: they were chained to the walls.
Fort Lafayette, ca. 1915.
Many notable political figures spent time in this prison, including the mayor of Baltimore, George William Brown; the editor of the Baltimore Republic, Beale Richardson; and Gen. William Fitzhugh Lee, Robert E. Lee’s son. One Union general, Charles Stone, who had commanded troops at Ball’s Bluff in 1861, was imprisoned here for two months without being charged. Some believed he was a traitor and had met with the enemy before the battle to deliver secrets, but no betrayal was ever proven. After the war, Stone lived in self-imposed exile in Egypt. He returned to New York Harbor in the 1880s to work as an engineer, preparing the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty.
Landing prisoners at Fort Lafayette, 1861.
Robert Cobb Kennedy, one of the Confederate conspirators who tried to burn down New York City by setting fire to a dozen hotels in November 1864, was eventually captured and detained at Fort Lafayette, where, true to form, he attempted to set fire to his cell. There, on March 25, 1865, he was hanged before a large crowd. Some members of the public paid as much as $50 for a ticket to view the execution. Press coverage at the time mentioned that the gallows did not work correctly, so it took Kennedy a half hour to die at the end of a rope. He was buried in the cemetery at Fort Hamilton, but later his family removed the body to an unknown location somewhere in Brooklyn. Another of the conspirators, Lt. Col. Robert Martin, was also sent to Fort Lafayette to stand trial, but he was released in February 1866. Martin later moved to Brooklyn, where he operated a tobacco warehouse. When he died in 1901, he was buried in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery.
154. GOVERNORS ISLAND
New York Harbor, by ferry from Battery Park. Hours: F 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Sat–Sun 10:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. General information: www.govisland.com or (212) 440-2200.
Castle Williams, ca. 1911.
During the Civil War, the military facilities on Governors Island were used not only to protect the harbor but as a base of supply for the forts along the East Coast, including those forts deep within enemy territory. The island served as an operations headquarters and a prison as well. Governors Island is much larger than it looks: it covers 172 acres. On the island is a wide variety of buildings, some dating back over 200 years. Castle Williams, built between 1807 and 1811, is in the shape of a sandstone circle 200 feet in diameter. It was pressed into service as a prison for nearly 700 Confederate enlisted men, while nearby Fort Jay (renamed Fort Columbus during the Civil War period) held Confederate officers. Castle Williams was also where a firing squad executed the bounty jumper James Devlin in 1865. He had been found guilty of joining at least three different regiments to collect the enlistment bonuses, each time deserting the unit as soon as he had his money. The basement of a building near Fort Jay held the most dangerous spies who had already been convicted or were awaiting trial. Throughout the course of the war, the island was also used to process thousands of volunteer and conscripted men prior to their assignment to duty. Also on the island is the Block House, a brick Greek Revival building built in the early 1840s that has served as a hospital, prison, and officers’ quarters. A young lieutenant by the name of Ulysses S. Grant lived here from April to July of 1852. He liked the fresh sea air on the island and wrote to his wife that the location made it easy to get to the city whenever he wanted. To the south of the Block House is the Episcopal Chapel of St. Cornelius the Centurion. In the nave are many battle and regimental flags, including the one that Gen. Philip Sheridan carried in the battle of Five Forks in April 1865.
In 1861, the government commissioned the steamship The Star of the West to take supplies from Governors Island to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor to relieve the siege it was then under. The ship was one of many that Cornelius Vanderbilt made available for use by the military at a rate reported to be somewhere between $10,000 and $30,000 a month. When The Star of the West reached the mouth of Charleston Harbor on January 9, 1861, she was fired upon by the cadets at The Citadel, a military academy overlooking the harbor. After the ship was hit three times, it turned around without accomplishing its mission and returned to Governors Island. In effect, these were the first shots fired in what was to become the Civil War.
Fort Jay, ca. 1900.
In 1865, just days before the end of the war, one Confederate prisoner, Capt. William Robert Webb, could stand imprisonment on Governors Island no longer, so he swam to freedom. When he finally pulled himself out of the water at the Battery, no one believed he was an escaped prisoner, so he was able to make his way safely back to Tennessee.
155. FORT WOOD, NOW LIBERTY ISLAND
New York Harbor, by ferry from Battery Park. Hours: Daily 8:30 a.m. – 6:15 p.m. General information: www.nps.gov/stli or (212) 363-3200. Admission charge.
Fort Wood was the name given to the fortifications on Bedloe’s Island in 1814. It was named for Lt. Col. Eleazer Wood (1783–1814), who had been killed at the battle of Fort Erie in Canada during the War of 1812. It was not until the Statue of Liberty was constructed here in 1886 that Bedloe’s Island became known as Liberty Island. Fort Wood’s massive stone walls (in the shape of an 11-pointed star) were converted into the base for Lady Liberty. During much of the Civil War, Fort Wood was used as a supply and weapons depot. One interesting footnote is that on July 13, 1860, the last man executed for piracy in America, Albert Hicks, was hung by the neck on Bedloe’s Island in front of a crowd of nearly 10,000 people.
Postcard view of the Statue of Liberty, ca. 1965.
156. FORT GIBSON, NOW ELLIS ISLAND
New York Harbor, by ferry from Battery Park. Hours: Daily 8:30 a.m. – 6:15 p.m. General information: www.nps.gov/elis or (212) 363-3200. Admission charge.
Only a small section of Fort Gibson, which was built on tiny Oyster Island, remains. It can be seen outside the Immigration Museum on what is now known as Ellis Island. Originally Fort Gibson was designed to be nothing more than a battery of artillery hastily erected to defend the harbor during the War of 1812. It was named in honor of Col. James Gibson who, like Eleazer Wood (see Fort Wood, site 155), had been killed at the battle of Fort Erie. The 3-tier, 20-gun battery was not needed during the Civil War, so it was dismantled in 1861 and the guns sent elsewhere. The barracks and ammunition supply depot remained until the island was taken over as a federal immigration station in 1892. At that time, land was reclaimed from the harbor, more than doubling the size of the island and obliterating the military facilities. It was only recently that excavations uncovered the fort’s foundation stones.
157. HART ISLAND, DAVIDS ISLAND, AND FORT SLOCUM
Long Island Sound, off the coast of the Bronx. Restricted access.
The federal government bought a portion of Hart Island in the 1860s to serve as a military training ground. Here more than 50,000 Union troops went through basic training. Notably, three black infantry units drilled here. Today this island serves as New York’s potter’s field, where nearly a million homeless and destitute people have been buried. During the Civil War, many of the recruits who died of disease during training were also buried here. A 16-foot-tall obelisk was erected in their memory. During the twentieth century, their remains were transferred to other military cemeteries. In the final days of the Civil War, Hart Island also served as a prisoner of war camp. A total of 3,413 captured Confederate soldiers were held here; of those, 235 died in the camp. Their remains were originally interred on the island, but in 1941 they were moved to the Cypress Hills National Cemetery in Brooklyn.
Landing Dock at Fort Slocum, ca. 1916.
In 1862, De Camp General Hospital was set up on Davids Island, a small island next to Hart Island, to treat Union casualties. Later in the war, the facilities were expanded to accommodate wounded Confederate prisoners as well. Twenty-two buildings were erected quickly to house up to 2,500 patients at a time, but after the war the treatment center was downsized. In 1896, the medical installation on the island was renamed Fort Slocum in honor of Civil War Gen. Henry Warner Slocum. The base was abandoned in 1966, and recently the island was given to the city of New Rochelle to convert to recreational purposes.
