autumn of 1860; but the upper embrasures were entirely open; temporary sally-ports, for the convenience of laborers, remained unstopped, and the works were exposed to easy capture at any time. Fort Taylor was nearer completion. Its casemate-battery was mounted, and Captain (afterward Brigadier-General) J. M. Brannan, with a company of the First Artillery, occupied barracks about half a mile distant.

The seizure of these forts by the secessionists was delayed chiefly because the laborers employed on them were mostly slaves belonging to

2 This fort covers an area of about thirteen acres, or nearly the whole of the Garden Key. It is calculated for an armament of four hundred and fifty guns when complete, and a garrison of one thousand men. It commands the inner harbor of Key West.

362

THE SECESSIONISTS AND THE FORTS.

the friends of the conspirators, and their owners did not wish to lose the revenue derived from their labor any sooner than would be absolutely necessary. It was believed that the forts might be seized by the Floridians at any time. There was an armed band of secessionists at Key West, headed by the clerk of Fort Taylor, whose second in command was the editor of a violent secessionist newspaper there. Military officers connected with the forts were known to be secessionists, and these afterward abardoned their flag and joined its enemies; and some of the most respectable of the residents, holding office under the Government, had declared their intention to oppose Captain Brannan to the utmost, if he should attempt to take possession of and occupy Fort Taylor. The disaffected were so numerous that Brannan was compelled to act with the greatest circumspection. At one time it seemed impossible for him to be of any practical service to his country, so completely was he in the power of the secessionists, civil and military.

At that time the United States steamer Mohawk, Captain T. A. Craven, was cruising for slave-ships in the vicinity of the Florida Keys and the coast

1860.

of Cuba; and at about the time of Mr. Lincoln's election," CapNovember 6, tain (afterward Quartermaster-General) M. C. Meigs arrived, to take charge of the works at the Tortugas. He went by land, and was satisfied from what he heard on the way that an attempt would be made by the secessionists to seize the forts at the Keys, for their possession would be an immense advantage to the conspirators in the event of war.

preparations were made to throw Captain Brannan's company into Fort Taylor, and strengthen both fortresses against all enemies A little

1 This fort is near Key West, and, with Fort Jefferson, commands the northern entrance to the Gulf of Mexico. It is of great strength. It is calculated for an armament of one hundred and seventy-eight guns. arranged in three tiers. This picture is from a sketch made by one of the garrison, and published in Harper's Weekly in 1861.

FORTS JEFFERSON AND TAYLOR RE-ENFORCED.

363

November,

stratagem was necessary; so the Mohawk, which had been lingering near Key West, weighed anchor and departed, professedly on a cruise in search of slave-ships. This was to lull into slumber the vigilance of the secessionists, who were uneasy and wide awake when the Mɔhawk was there. She went to Havana on the 16th," where her 1560. officers boarded two of the steamers of lines connecting Key West with both New Orleans and Charleston, and requested to be reported as "after slavers." As soon as they were gone she weighed anchor, and on Sunday morning, the 18th, returned to Key West. The Wyandotte, Captain Stanley, was there, and had taken position so that her battery would command the bridge that connected Fort Taylor with the island.

While the inhabitants of Key West were in the churches, Captain Brannan quietly marched his company by a back path, crossed the bridge, and took possession of the fort. He had sent munitions and stores by water. The two forts were immediately put in a state of defense, and they and the port of Key West were irretrievably lost to the insurgents.

The Administration did not like these performances of loyal commanders, because they were "irritating" to the secessionists; and Captain Craven received peremptory orders from the Navy Department to go on a cruise. He lingered around the Keys, believing that his services would be needed near those important forts that guarded the northern entrance to the Gulf of Mexico. He was not mistaken. The presence of his vessel admonished the secessionists to be cautious. At length, on the 18th of January, the day on which the insurgents at Pensacola demanded, a second time, the surrender of Fort Pickens,' the steamer Galveston, from New Orleans, bearing a military force for the purpose of capturing the forts near Key West, appeared in sight. At the same time the United States trans. port Joseph Whitney was there; and a company of artillery, under Major Arnold, was disembarking from her at Fort Jefferson, then in command of Captain Meigs. This apparition caused the Galveston to put about and disappear. Forts Taylor and Jefferson were now in a condition to resist the attacks of ten thousand men. Various plans of the secessionists to capture these forts were partially executed, but no serious attack was ever attempted afterward.

Let us now consider the siege of Fort Pickens.

From the 18th of January, on which day Colonel Chase, the commander of the insurgents near Pensacola, demanded the surrender of Fort Pickens, and was refused, Lieutenant Slemmer and his little garrison, like Anderson and his men in Fort Sumter, worked faithfully, in the midst of hourly perils, to strengthen the fort. Like the dwellers in Fort Sumter, they were compelled to be non-resistant while seeing formidable preparations for their destruction. The country, meanwhile, was in a state of feverish anxiety, and loyal men at the seat of Government, like Judge Holt, the Secretary of War, and General Scott, strongly urged the propriety of re-enforcing and supplying that fort. The President was averse to any "initiatory" move

1 See page 171.

* See statement of Surgeon Delavan Bloodgood, in the Companion to the Rebellion Record, Document 4. • Mr. Bloodgood was in service on the Mohawk at that time.

* See page 172.

364

SIEGE OF FORT PICKENS.

ment on the part of the Government; but when, at the middle of January, it was announced that the insurgents had actually seized the Navy Yard at Warrington, and Forts Barrancas and M'Ree, and were menacing Fort Pickens, he consented to have re-enforcements sent. These, consisting of only a single company of artillery, under Captain Vogdes, ninety in number, were taken from Fortress Monroe, whose garrison was already too weak to be safe against an attack by Virginians, while at the same time General

Scott held three hundred troops in readiness for the purpose, at Fort Hamilton, in New York harbor, where they were not needed.'

On the 24th of January, the National war-steamer Brooklyn left Fortress Monroe for Fort Pickens, with Captain Vogdes and ten artillerymen, and provisions and military stores. It was also determined to employ three or four small steamers, then in the Coast-Survey service, for the same purpose, under the command of Captain J. H. Ward of the Navy, who was an early martyr in the cause of his country. These movements were suspended in

January, 1861.

consequence of a telegraphic dispatch sent from Pensacola on the 28th," by Senator Mallory, to Senators Slidell, Hunter, and Bigler, in which was expressed an earnest desire for peace, and an assurance that no attack would be made on Fort Pickens if the then present status should be preserved."

This proposal was carefully considered, both with a view to the safety of the fort, and the effect which a collision might have upon the Peace Convention about to assemble in Washington. The result was that a joint telegraphic dispatch, prepared by the Secretaries of War and the Navy, was sent, the next day, to Lieutenant Slemmer and the naval commanders off Pensacola, in which instructions were given for the Brooklyn not to land any troops at Fort Pickens unless it should be attacked, but to give the garrison any needed stores. The commanders of the Brooklyn and other vessels were charged to be vigilant, and to act promptly in the event of an attack. It was stipulated, in the sort of armistice then agreed upon, that the commander of cach arm of the service should have the right of free intercourse with the Government while the arrangement should last. This proposition proved to be only a trick on the part of Mallory and his associates to gain time for the collection of a larger force near Fort Pickens, while that

1 Statement of Lieutenant-General Scott, dated at "Washington City, March 30, 1861," and published in the National Intelligencer, October 21, 1862.

2 Statement of General Scott, above cited.

3 Reply of Ex-President Buchanan to General Scott's statement, dated "Wheatland, October 28, 1862." 4 See page 235.

PREPARATIONS TO RE-ENFORCE FORT PICKENS.

365

work should remain comparativély empty and absolutely weak, and so be made an easy prey through treachery or assault. Thus for more than two months re-enforcements were kept out of Fort Pickens while the rebellion was gaining head, although the armistice really ended with the closing of the Peace Convention, and its failure to effect a reconciliation.

• March 12, 1861.

When the new Administration came into power, on the 4th of March, a new line of policy was adopted, more consistent with the National dignity, but not less cautious. Informed that the insurgents were greatly augmented in numbers near Pensacola, and were mounting guns in Fort McRee, and constructing new batteries near, all to bear heavily on Fort Pickens, General Scott again advised the Government to send re-enforcements and supplies to the garrison of that post. The Government acted upon his advice, and by its directions on the same day" the General-inChief dispatched a note to Captain Vogdes of the Brooklyn, saying:--" At the first favorable moment you will land with your company, re-enforce Fort Pickens, and hold the same till further orders." unsafe to send such orders by mail or telegraph, for the insurgents controlled both in the Gulf States, and this was sent from New York, in duplicate, by two naval vessels. From that time unusual activity was observed in the Navy Yard at Brooklyn; also on Governor's Island and at Fort Hamilton, at the entrance to the harbor of New York. There was activity, too, in the arsenals of the North, for, while the Government wished for peace, it could scarcely indulge a hope that the wish would be gratified.

It was

With the order for the fitting out of an expedition for the relief of Fort Sumter was issued a similar order in relation to Fort Pickens. Supplies and munitions for this purpose had been prepared in ample quantity, in a manner to excite the least attention, and between the 6th and 9th of April the chartered steamers Atlantic and Illinois and the steam frigate Powhatan departed from New York for the Gulf of Mexico with troops and supplies.' In the mean time the Government had dispatched Lieutenant John L. Worden of the Navy (the gallant commander of the first Monitor, which encountered the Merrimack in Hampton Roads), with an order to Captain Adams, of the Sabine, then in command of the little squadron off Fort Pickens, to throw re-enforcements into that work at once. The previous order of General Scott to Captain Vogdes had not been executed, for Captain Adams believed that the armistice was yet in force. Colonel Braxton Bragg, the artillery officer in the battle of Buena Vista, in Mexico, to whom, it is said, General Taylor coolly gave the order, in the midst of the fight"a little more grape, Captain Bragg"-was now in command of all the insurgent forces at and near Pensacola, with the commission of brigadiergeneral; and Captain Duncan N. Ingraham, of the United States Navy (who behaved so well in the harbor of Smyrna, a few years before, in defending the rights of American citizens, in the case of the Hungarian, Martin Kostza), had charge of the Navy Yard at Warrington. On the day of Lieutenant Worden's arrival there, Captain Adams had dined with these faithless men, and had returned to his ship.

1 See page 80s.

2 This squadron consisted of the frigate Subine, steam sloop-of-war Brooklyn, gunboats Wyandotte and Crusader, store-ship Supply, and the St. Louis.