THE COAST ARTILLERY JOURNAL - Air Defense Artillery

246 THE COAST ARTILLERY JOURNAL
Mobile, and Fort Conde at New Mobile. These forts were all of miserable construction,
being made of materials readily at hand, such as stakes, trees, and
earth, with portions of them covered with palm leaves. Governor Bienville had
been very energetic in his endeavors to insure French control of the region, but
he made the mistake of scattering his command among a number of small,
widely separated posts, and the equally great mistake of attempting to establish
his colony upon a commercial rather than upon an agricultural basis like that
of the Atlantic Coast colonies.
In 1713, M. de la Motte Cadillac, the new governor, decided to remove his
headquarters from Mobile to Biloxi Bay. Old Biloxi had been accidentally
burned, so he erected another fort upon the point of land ill1ll1ediatelyfronting
Ship Island, at a place which was called New Biloxi. The fort was sometimes
called Fort Louis. In 1717 a hurricane, sweeping over Dauphine Island,
choked the harbor with sand, whereupon Ship Island became the principal
depot and place of anchorage. The fort on the island was rebuilt and storehouses
were established.
Fort Rosalie, built by the French in about 1716 on a bluff overlooking the
Mississippi above New Orleans and intended primarily as an Indian post, was
an irregular pentagon, enclosed by palisades, and without any bastions. It was
destroyed by the Indians in 1720, but was rebuilt. In 1764 the site was
occupied by the British with Fort Panmure. At that time Fort Rosalie was
in ruins.
During all the early years of the century, the Spanish continued the inactivity
which had characterized the two preceding centuries. Neglectful of
their opportunities, they had permitted nothing to disturb the even tenor of
their existence at Pensacola. In 1700 the governor had visited Ship Island
to protest at the French incursion into Spanish territory, but the voyage was
without result and he took no further action. In 1704 Fort San Carlos was
burned to the ground and rebuilt as a compact, though small, semi-circular
structure, solldly put together. In 1715 a new mission, located further down
St. Bernard Bay, was established in place of that of San Francisco in Texas.
By 1717 the extension of French. settlements in Louisiana began to cause
much uneasiness in Pensacola, and in that year the governor had the defenses
strengthened. In the following year, the Spanish built Fort San Marcos de
Apalache at St. Mark's, and the French erected Fort Crevecoeur on St. Joseph's
Bay, east of Pensacola. This was too much for the Spanish, and the governor
remonstrated to such effect that the French fort was evacuated within a few
months. The Spaniards then built a fort upon the site, but soon afterwards
abandoned the place.
The rupture between France and Spain first occurred in Europe, but as soon
as Governor Serigny at Mobile learned that war had been declared, he decided
upon an expedition against Pensacola. Sending some eight hundred Indians by
land, he embarked with about four hundred men on three vessels, hoping to
capture the Spanish stronghold in a surprise attack. Landing upon Santa Rosa
Island, early in 1719, he captured a Spanish outpost. Dressing his men in