Last updated: November 22, 2023
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Design and Armament of Fort Warren
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Selection of Georges Island
Following the War of 1812, the federal government established the Bernard Board to assess all coastal fortifications throughout the United States. Tasked with creating a permanent system of defenses, the board, led by Simon Bernard, released their first report in 1821.The report included site selections for naval facilities and fortifications. They eventually recommended 200 US coastal fortifications to guard the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. When the board revisited Swift’s recommendation nearly a decade later, they determined that a fortification on Georges Island would be beneficial because of its location in Boston Harbor.
Design
The federal government acquired Georges Island in 1825, and construction on a granite seawall began that same year. Major James Kearney and Second Lieutenant H.A. Thompson designed the fortification to include five bastions.[1] The designers also considered the island’s topography in the design, placing the cover face on the northernmost hill, and the Sallyport at the lowest point of the island. This fort received the name Fort Warren, after the famed doctor and general who died during the Battle of Bunker Hill. The fortification on Governors Island, previously known as Fort Warren, then became known as Fort Winthrop.
Sylvanus Thayer, known as the "father of West Point," served as the superintending engineer of both Fort Warren and Fort Independence on Castle Island. Construction began in the early 1830s and took almost twenty years to complete. This elongated construction timeline happened in part because the urgency to complete third system fortifications lessened as the memory of the War of 1812 faded. Also, inconsistent government funding and the availability of skilled laborers affected the pace of the construction. Mostly completed in 1861, the cost of construction totaled around $582,903. Constructed with local granite from both Quincy and Cape Ann, the fortification is comparable to other third system fortifications. Walls of Fort Warren are eight feet thick and range from 600 to 666 feet high. Designed to be a fortification of "First Importance," the fortification could hold 300 guns and a garrison of around 1,000-2,000.[2]
Alarmed by the attack on Fort Sumter in April of 1861, Bostonians urged the federal government to better protect the Massachusetts coastline. Fort Warren had been designed with multiple gun emplacements, but it contained only one condemnable gun and had not yet been garrisoned by the federal government. Unable to sit by and wait, Massachusetts governor John Andrew sent George Boutwell to Washington D.C and New York to deliver a letter to the Secretary of War that urged for a military plan to allow for militias to be sent out to the harbor islands. Boutwell first received authorization from General John Wool of the Department of the East. Before receiving authorization from the Secretary of War, Governor Andrew garrisoned both Fort Independence and Fort Warren. The first troops arrived on Georges Island in April and served under Major Ralph Newton. The first arrivals at Fort Warren faced the boring and monotonous task of cleaning up construction debris that had been left on the island. They stayed for a few months, leaving in June.[3]
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Arming the Fort
The arming of Fort Warren proved to be a difficult task as the war raged on. Governor Andrew relentlessly lobbied for the armament of the fort. During a visit to the fort in 1863, the Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, found the armament of the harbor deficient and declared an enemy ironclad vessel could enter the harbor if it tried. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Wells, refused to divert any of his ironclads to Boston to assist in the protection of the harbor. The ordinance bureau did not allow states to purchase their own ordinance, and by October of 1862, Fort Warren still had limited available guns.
Left with no other options, Andrew decided to purchase the guns abroad. However, this lengthy process translated to years of waiting for support, with Bostonians fearful of an attack. By 1864, Fort Warren had 97 guns at its disposal. In an 1865 address, the mayor of Boston reported that more guns had been sent out into the harbor, making the coastal forts: "The most impregnable forts in the Atlantic area."
In August of 1865, the US Navy assigned the ironclad Shawnee to the harbor to be stationed near Fort Warren, thus completing the armament of the harbor for the remainder of the US Civil War.[4] While the fears of Bostonians and Massachusetts lawmakers proved to be unwarranted, Fort Warren would have been severely underprepared in the instance of an attack.
Following the Civil War, the military used the fortification during the Spanish- American War, World War I, and World War II, before selling Georges Island as surplus. The state acquired the island 1958.
Footnotes:
[1] Fort Pulaski National Monument, "Third System," National Park Service, last modified December 4, 2020, accessed November 2022; Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Cultural Landscape Report: Boston Harbor Islands National & State Park, Volume 1: Historical Overview (Boston: National Park Service, 2017) 89-91.
[2] Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Volume 1: Historical Overview, 90; Shurcliff & Merill, Landscape Architects, History and Master Plan Georges Island and Fort Warren Boston, (Boston: Metropolitan District Commission; Parks Division, 1960), 9-18; Minor Horne Mclein, Prison Conditions in Fort Warren, Boston, During the Civil War, (unpublished dissertation, 1955), 3-4.
[3] Mclein, Prison Conditions in Fort Warren, Boston, During the Civil War, 4-27.
[4] Mclein, Prison Conditions in Fort Warren, Boston, During the Civil War, 14-27; Shurcliff & Merill, History and Master Plan Georges Island and Fort Warren Boston, 16.