III. PHYSICAL SETTING

B. Man-made Features

1. Relative Positions of Principal Features

e) Fort Carlos III

As yet no plan or drawing of Fort Carlos III has been located. Descriptions of the fort are found in the reports of the post commandants. In addition, we may assume that Fort Carlos III was similar in construction to Fort Carlos II, its predecessor, and Fort San Esteven of the Arkansas, its successor.

(1) The Stockade

Commandant de Villiers in July 1781 described the fort. He reported that, assisted by the habitants, the garrison turned to and erected a stockade of “red oak stakes thirteen feet high, with diameters of 10 to 15 or 16 inches, split in two and reinforced inside by similar stakes to a height of six feet and a banquette of two feet.”[28]

Captain Dubreuil in mid-February 1783 had a working party erect a plank curtain on the river front, where the caving bank had thrown a down a section of the stockade.[29]

During the attack, Commandant Dubreuil reported, the foe peppered the stockade with small-arms fire, “but the bullets penetrated no more than an inch, because of the evergreen oak of which the palisades were made.”[30]

There were apparently two gates giving access to the stockade. Captain Dubreuil in describing his preparations for the sortie, wrote: “I gave the orders to yell as the Indians do when they attack.”

“At this time Colbert sent, by a road opposite from the one which” had been selected for the sortie, Doña Luisa de Villars.[31]

Historical Architect John Garner, who has done extensive re search on late-18th century fortifications, has studied the commandants’ descriptions of the stockade and has prepared the drawing of the Fort Carlos III stockade which is found in this report.

(2) Bastions

Instead of blockhouses, the fort had bastions. These bastions were probably at opposite angles of the stockade. On May 22, 1783, Captain Dubreuil reported, to enable them to employ effectively the cannons mounted in the north bastion, it had been “necessary to terrace it because it was too low and the shot hit it.”[32]

On April 17, 1784, the commandant certified that “to erect two esplanades in front of the bulwark [bastion] at the north of this fort, there were employed 20 men” for three days at 2 reales each, “which includes a flag with a royal shield, for 37 pesos.”[33]

Stanley Faye, in his monograph, wrote that Captain Dubreuil, after assuming command at the post, added a bastion at one angle of the stockade.[34]

At Fort Carlos II, Captain Pittman of the British Army reported, there was a stockade “in a quadrangular form, the sides of the exterior polygon are about one hundred and eight feet, and one three pounder is mounted in the flanks and faces of each bastion.”[35]

Fort San Estevan of the Arkansas, of which there is a plan, had two bastions--one in the northeast angle and the other at the southwest angle.[36]

According to the inventory for Fort San Estevan, there was “one stockade with two doors [gates] banquettes and esplanades; two works [bastions] four loopholes [embrasures], each in normal condition.”[37]