THE COAST ARTILLERY JOURNAL - Air Defense Artillery

COLONIAL FORTS 249
cordon. Under the ramparts of the curtains of the three fronts were small casemates
arched with brick. A glacis and a covered way surrounded the fort.
The embrasures needed repairs, and the walls and casemates reqgJred new
facing-the latter particularly, for they were "much out of repair' and let in
Rain." The sleepers of the platforms being rotten, some needed "entirely to
be new Laid and others to be repaired with Planks."
The fort at Pensacola was tetragonal in form, with salients at corner. At
each angle a small round tower projected a story above the curtains and mounted
the smaller guns. The fort at Santa Rosa Island covered the entrance to
the harbor.
When hostilities broke out between England and Spain in 1779, Don Bernardo
de Galvez, Governor of Louisiana, invested the English fort at Baton
Rouge, which was in West Florida. Lieutenant Colonel Dickson, in command,
found himself unable to resist the enemy's forces, and surrendered to Galvez.
In 1781 Governor Galvez and Admiral Salamo laid siege to Pensacola. The
place was strongly fortified, and held by a thousand men under the command
of General Campbell. The English bravely defended Forts St. Michael and
St. Bernard for a long time against the Spanish bombardment, but an unlucky
accident caused the explosion of a magazine of Fort St. Michael. The explosion
ca.rried away a part of the wall of the principal redoubt and resulted in the
capture of the fort. Realizing that the loss of Fort St. Michael rendered Fort
S1.Bernard untenable, General Campbell did not await the Spanish assault, but
capitulated with honorable terms.
The treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States, signed
in 1783, surrendered all territory east of the mississippi between the Great Lakes
and Florida, and set the southern boundary of the United States at the thirtyfirst
degree of North latitude from the Mississippi to the Chatahouchee River,
thence to the Flint, thence to the head of St. Mary's, and down that stream to
the sea. England had not then long held possession of Florida and had recently
had some of that territ9ry taken by force. She was not, therefore, particularly
relnctant to part with the country, and so, without defining boundaries, she
ceded Florida to Spain. The boundary dispute thus opened up, continued for
a dozen years, Spain claiming that England was not in de facto possession of
West Florida and could therefore confer no title to any portion of it. The
United States ultimately won the dispute, and a treaty was signed in 1795 confirming
the boundary line agreed to between the United States and Great Britain.
In 1793 Governor Cardonelet, governor of Louisiana, strengthened the defenses
of New Orleans. The fortifications which the French had placed around
the city had decayed, so the governor planned a new system. Southeast and
immediately above the city Fort St. Louis was built upon the river, while Fort
St. Charles was erected immediately below at the northeast corner. Fort St.
Ferdinand, a strong redoubt, was erected at the rear opposite the center of the
city, ",,-jthFort St. John and Fort Burgundy at the northwest and southwest
angles, respectively. These works were connected by deep ditches, and a battery
was placed at the center of each flank of the town. The batteries constructed by