A Cold and Cheerless Habitation

Military Records and the Interpretation of Historic Interiors at Fort Point National Historic Site

Winter 1997, Vol. 29, No. 4

By Mary K. Grassick

Situated on the southern tip of the Golden Gate, Fort Point played a vital role in San Francisco's harbor defense during and after the Civil War. The brick and granite fort rises in four tiers above the San Francisco Bay; three casemated tiers contained guns facing the Golden Gate straits, and the top tier was armed with mounted guns on all sides. The only example of a casemated Third System fort completed on the Pacific Coast, Fort Point is shaped in a modified rectangle with a center parade and two bastions and has only one entrance on the land front.1

Construction of the fort began in 1853 under the supervision of Lt. Col. James L. Mason of the Army Corps of Engineers. An 1854 inspection of the construction site proclaimed Fort Point "the key to the whole Pacific Coast in a military point of view" and recommended the project "receive untiring exertions."2 With the coming of the Civil War, Fort Point was required before it was armed and before its quarters were ready for occupation. Bvt. Brig. Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, although soon to resign his position commanding the Department of the Pacific to join the Confederacy, directed the occupation of Fort Point in February 1861. Johnston garrisoned the fort with two companies of artillery and ordered it made "inhabitable."3

Johnston also ordered the fort's heavy ordnance mounted. Ordering and installing the fort's armament was the responsibility of the engineer in charge of construction, but the post commander was instructed to furnish the engineers with men to assist in mounting the guns.4 By October 1861, thirty heavy artillery pieces were installed in the first tier of casemates, two twenty-four-pounders each in the second- and third-tier casemates, and twenty-one guns on the top tier. Of the latter, eleven protected the land front.5

Most of the units stationed at Fort Point were artillery companies, although these were supplemented by infantry troops during the Civil War. The number of men stationed at the fort varied from 55 enlisted men and 4 commissioned officers in 1861 to a high of 456 men and 15 officers in June 1865. The heaviest concentration of troops began during the winter of 1864–1865 and continued until the Eighth Regiment of California Volunteers was mustered out of service at the post in October 1865.6

After an unsuccessful effort by the army to convert it into a detention center, Fort Point was left vacant, although it was used temporarily during World Wars I and II. It housed bachelors' quarters and a vocational school during the 1920s, and when construction of the Golden Gate Bridge began in 1933, the fort was saved from destruction on the recommendation of Joseph P. Strauss, the bridge's designer.7 Fort Point National Historic Site was established in 1970 and has been managed by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area since 1972. The fort is the main structure at the site, located on the northern end of the Presidio reservation in San Francisco. The Presidio, a military post since 1776, was transferred to the National Park Service in 1995.

In 1994 the National Park Service's Division of Historic Furnishings published a Historic Furnishings Report chronicling living conditions at Fort Point and documenting some of the fort's inhabitants—both officers and enlisted men—during the Civil War period. The Division of Historic Furnishings is responsible for researching and recording historic use and occupancy of historic structures within the National Park Service. Research is compiled in a Historic Furnishings Report, which provides the basis for the park's interpretation of the building, its occupants, and its relationship to the community and the environment. Historic Furnishings Reports emphasize the documentation of historic interiors, and many include furnishings plans, which include specific recommendations for object acquisition and placement at the site. The Division of Historic Furnishings is part of the National Park Service's Interpretive Design Center, located in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. It serves sites throughout the National Park system, and furnishings projects range from the Fordyce Bathhouse in Arkansas to the Edison laboratory in New Jersey to the Mascot Saloon in Alaska.

Various types of evidence are used in developing Historic Furnishings Reports—contemporary photographs and drawings, letters and diaries, inventories and oral histories. Military sites, however, offer additional possibilities for research because occupants and their activities are documented in federal records. The Historic Furnishings Report for Fort Point, California, provides some interesting examples of the detailed stories military records contain and illustrates how federal records can help historians explore the material culture of military posts.

Although well-armed, intimidating, and, in the words of one inspector, "presenting a bold front to the Ocean," the quarters at Fort Point left much to be desired. Sometimes overcrowded, and always damp and cold, "its interior arrangements offer but a cold and cheerless habitation to the soldier." Obviously, Fort Point's location on the San Francisco Bay affected its residents. Cold, wet fog was a constant at the fort and made for unpleasant and unhealthful conditions in the casemate quarters. A heavy mist enshrouded the fort an average of 265 days each year, and "the condensation of the fog on the cold walls keeps up dampness in the rooms and not infrequently small pools of water collect on the floors."8 Poor conditions prevailed in most casemated forts, and although army officials complained that casemates were "without exception damp, illy ventilated, and unhealthy," the practice of lodging troops and officers in casemates continued at Fort Point through the 1880s.9

Aside from the dampness associated with all casemate quarters, soldiers at Fort Point and at other posts in the San Francisco harbor area had to contend with cool summer temperatures and an insufficient fuel allotment. When the fort was originally garrisoned in the spring of 1861, the Third Artillery's regimental quartermaster was "obliged to issue an extra quantity of fuel. The consumption of fuel, on account of the dampness of the quarters, still continues to exceed the allowance to the Troops."10 The department allowed less fuel in the summer months than in the winter, and men stationed at Fort Point required at least as much fuel in summer as in winter.

The shortage in fuel was caused in part by timbering at the Presidio in the early 1850s. Because the army had chopped scrub oak and other trees for fuel when the ration was insufficient, by 1859 there remained "scarcely a tree fit for ornament or use."11 When Bvt. Maj. William Austine assumed command of Fort Point in the summer of 1861, he requested the summer fuel allotment be doubled. He petitioned for a separate fuel allowance for the offices and guard house because "fires are required daily in the summer months," and the men on guard detail were forced to gather pieces of wood from the shore to heat the guard room. He also argued that the fog, dampness, and high winds caused "rheumatism and severe colds."12

Both enlisted men and officers lived in the casemates at Fort Point. Married and single officers lived on the second tier. Each casemate on the third tier was designed to house twenty-four enlisted men and accommodate six two-tier bunks. By the winter of 1864–1865, however, the garrison was increased from around one hundred men to more than four hundred. The departmental medical inspector complained that the effect of overcrowding and "bad ventilation" in the casemates became "manifest in the frequency of Rheumatism, Pulmonic affections and fevers of low type."

Although cold and unhealthy, the quarters were very well maintained during the Civil War period and continued to be kept up until the garrison was withdrawn in 1868. The same medical inspector found "the state of police of the entire Fort is faultless" and reported with approval that "the excellent state of police of the quarters etc neutralize to no little extent, the great tendency to disease induced by these crowded, damp and illy ventilated quarters."13

The man largely responsible for these orderly conditions was Capt. Joseph Stewart of the Third Artillery. Stewart first assumed command of Fort Point on July 13, 1863. Like many of the commanders of Fort Point, Stewart was a West Point graduate with experience serving in California and other western garrisons. Stationed at Alcatraz Island at the beginning of the Civil War, Stewart had developed a "manoevering machine" for moving heavy guns around the battery. He offered the invention to the army and was sent to Fort Monroe, Virginia, in January 1862 to meet with a board established to examine the machine. The machine consisted of "an axle attached to the chassis of a gun carriage, and a rope attached to the carriage proper and wrapping around the axle." It provided several advantages for the operation of heavy guns. First, it enabled three, rather than four, cannoneers to work a gun. Second, the guns could be worked with less than three cannoneers. Third, the guns were prevented from running into the battery too strongly. Finally, the cannoneers were protected from enemy fire because they worked the guns from the terreplein (the platform behind the parapet where guns are mounted). The board examined the machine and declared "it greatly facilitates the operation of running the gun from and into [the] battery." They suggested it be applied to wooden barbette and casemate carriages. After Stewart took over the command of Fort Point, he offered the invention to the Department of the Pacific at no cost, but it is not known whether his offer was accepted, or indeed, whether this machine was ever used.14

Fort Point under Stewart's command was bustling and efficient. He was involved in developing an officer training program at the fort as well as in assessing the fort's existing armament and planning for its completion. He supervised troops stationed at the Presidio who were sent to drill in heavy artillery at Fort Point and, with his colleagues in the harbor, devised several systems of signals designed to communicate between Fort Point, Fort Alcatraz, and the U.S. Revenue steamer Shubrick, permanently posted in the San Francisco Bay during the war.15

The press approved of Stewart's efforts at Fort Point, proclaiming him "well known to the public as a brave man and competent commander." The Pacific Monthly commented on the "willing obedience" he received from the soldiers at Fort Point, who were "on constant drill, loading and reloading, and kept busy in cleaning the guns, ammunition, and Fort."16

Not all commanding officers earned the high regard enjoyed by Stewart, however. Bvt. Maj. and Capt. George P. Andrews, Third Artillery, assumed command of Fort Point in March 1862. He was relieved of his command by Stewart the following July, although he remained at the post for some months afterward. While in command at Fort Point, Andrews showed concern and compassion for those in his charge. He wrote to the Department of the Pacific on behalf of a deserter, recommending he be restored to duty without trial; he supported laundresses in danger of losing their quarters; he requested a rheumatic soldier be transferred to a more congenial post; and he requested leniency for an incarcerated private who had "profit[ed] by what he has already suffered."17

Certain officers serving under Andrews, however, perceived his command as neither benign nor efficient. While serving at Angel Island in May 1864, Andrews was summoned before a board convened to examine and report upon his mental condition. The board met in San Francisco and was empowered to subpoena and examine witnesses in the case. Meeting off and on for one week, the board interviewed officers who related incidents that had occurred while they served under Andrews at Fort Point. Dr. John Van Sant, an assistant surgeon who had served at Fort Point for eighteen months, testified, "for a considerable period I have seen him when his attention seemed to be wholly engrossed with the raising of poultry—talking about this on all occasions and constantly recurring to it when other topics of conversation would be introduced."

Surgeon Van Sant and Andrews proved to be incompatible, and Van Sant resented Andrews's request for his removal on the grounds that there would "probably" be no cases of sickness at the post under Andrews's command and that Van Sant was "personally obnoxious to the Commanding Officer." Van Sant claimed that Andrews was drunk "perhaps the greater part of his time," his conversation "incoherent or unconnected." He related that once when Andrews was in command at Fort Point he was "very drunk and exceedingly disorderly—alarming the Post by his loud outcries." Andrews carried on "using threatening gestures and continuing his riotous acts" until he was stopped "by the interference of others."

Van Sant was not the only colleague who believed Andrews had a drinking problem. Maj. James Van Voast remarked: "During the time I was under his command at Fort Point—the Major, when under the influence of liquor, exhibited idiosyncrasies in his actions and conversation. . . . I attributed these idiosyncrasies to his indulgence in intoxicating liquor and to the present rebellion." A private citizen who had known Andrews for some time also claimed that drinking "seemed to excite him to an immoderate degree. . . . It caused [him] to talk extravagantly and wildly at times."

Many of the officers giving testimony felt that Andrews was merely an eccentric, and in the words of Col. René De Russy, "at times a great talker . . . [he] expresses himself at these times, apparently more for the sake of talking than expressing what I would suppose to be his proper sentiments . . . he has, at times, left me in doubt whether his mind was altogether sound." The board, however, had no such doubts and declared that none of the testimony led them to believe Andrews was of unsound mind. Andrews retired as a colonel from the First Artillery in 1885.18

Interpretive staff at many national parks are interested in expanding the interpretation of women, minorities, and children at their sites, and with that goal in mind, a section on army laundresses was included in the Fort Point Historic Furnishings Report. In accordance with an 1802 act of Congress, each company in the army was allowed four laundresses to wash clothing for enlisted men and officers. Laundresses drew one daily ration, were entitled to receive medical services at the post, and received fuel, bedding straw, and quarters. By the 1860s, the established ratio was one laundress for every nineteen men. Because laundresses enjoyed an official relationship with the army, records relating to payment, rations, and housing, when they exist, are included in military records.

At Fort Point, the garrison fluctuated from around 125 to more than 450 men, so there were probably at least six laundresses attached to the post at any given time. Most army laundresses were wives of noncommissioned officers, although some laundresses at Fort Point were married to enlisted men. In December 1864, Mrs. McDonald was a laundress for Company H, Third Artillery, stationed at Fort Point. Her husband was an enlisted man with the company, and her musician son transferred from Company B in order to be with his family.19

Women working for the troops often found themselves in an unfortunate situation when they misunderstood army procedure or relied too heavily on the army's generosity. The letters that survive are from those women who went straight to the top with their complaints or requests, attempting to interest the general commanding the Department of the Pacific in their situation.

In one instance, Mrs. McManus was hired to wash mess linen for 1st Lt. George Walker, Company I, Ninth Infantry, and when payment was disputed, she forwarded her bill to department headquarters. Whether Mrs. McManus billed incorrectly or was trying to deceive Walker, as he claimed, cannot be determined, but according to Walker, "it seems to be a common thing for camp women to collect bills through Hd. Qrs." Mrs. McManus was eventually paid twelve dollars for washing mess linen for six months, and fifteen dollars for three months’ regular washing.20 Mrs. Quinn, the cook for the officers' mess at Alcatraz, had a similar problem with her wages, claiming in a letter to the department that she was owed $109. She found her situation especially difficult because "they all knew . . . I have nothing but what I can earn for myself and two children."21

When her husband's company was transferred to Alcatraz, Mrs. Daly found herself and her five children left behind at Black Point while the other camp women were quartered at the Presidio. The Daly family occupied a tent "without fire," and although she begged the general commanding the department to take an interest in her predicament, it is not known if he did so.22 Mrs. Elmer Howard generated plenty of interest, however, when she eloquently requested that she be stationed with her husband: "a good young man six foot and not thirty years old and he loves me and I love him. We commenced soldiering together and we want to end together." No action was taken to assist Mr. Howard's case after an officer expostulated: "Mrs. Howard is a woman of notoriously bad repute as a common prostitute and drunkard, formerly well known to the police of San Francisco, recently out of Mission County jail, where she was sent for being a ‘public nuisance’ and a ‘vagrant.’ She is in my opinion a proper candidate for the ‘Home of the Inebriate’ or more properly for the State Insane Asylum."23

Mrs. John H. Chipman, who was promised "quarters an[d] rations and . . . my passage would be paid," was left destitute in Redwood City with her twelve children after her husband joined Company C of the Eighth California Volunteers and was posted at Fort Point. Claiming that the army had no right to take her husband and leave her destitute, she declared to the general commanding the department, "you would never [have] got my Husband if I had known how I have been used." Capt. Jasper M. Barthelow, commanding Company C, assured the commanding general's office that quarters for the company laundresses would be ready when they arrived and that Private Chipman had been instructed to get his wife—and presumably the twelve children as well.24 Mrs. French, laundress for Company B, Eighth Volunteers, was also left "without means to maintain herself any longer away from the company." Six weeks after Company B was posted at Fort Point, laundresses’ quarters were still not available, and since Mrs. French's newly reenlisted husband had not yet been paid, he could not "assist her in her necessity."25

Records for Fort Point also confirm the presence of at least twelve black cooks working at the fort during the Civil War period. When the companies of the Eighth California Volunteers arrived at Fort Point in 1864 and 1865, three of the six companies brought with them cooks "of African descent." These men enlisted in California and were originally included with enlisted men on the monthly post returns, but after some administrative confusion, they were listed separately. An April 1865 circular from the Department of the Pacific declared: "Ass't undercooks [are] not to be blended with the totals for the enlisted men."26

It is likely that the men were legitimately mustered in as members of the Eighth California Volunteers. State volunteer regiments were called up by the governor, and the state decided which recruits were acceptable. However, if these troops were federalized—placed under control of U.S. military law and custom and paid, clothed, and housed by the army—they were bound to obey U.S. Army regulations. The inclusion of the volunteer companies on post returns for Fort Point indicates they were under control of the federal government.

The issuance of the April circular indicates that the regular army realized that the twelve undercooks of African descent were incorrectly included as enlisted men on the monthly post returns. The undercooks were ineligible to be enlisted for two reasons. First, there was no provision for the position of undercook within the army's regimental organization, and second, after black enlistees were admitted to the U.S. Army in 1863, they were only allowed to belong to the United States Colored Troops. This ineligibility was probably behind the new policy of listing the undercooks separately on the return. In April, the return notes "8 colored undercooks"; four of the cooks had departed with Company B when it was transferred that month. In May, four cooks were listed on the return, two had deserted, and the whereabouts of the two remaining cooks are not known. The cooks attached to Company K were discharged from the service on May 6, 1865, yet they were still with their company in September, and Capt. Gaston d'Artois was approached by headquarters of the Eighth California Volunteers requesting information about their discharge. In June, the four cooks attached to Company D were awaiting sentencing at Fort Point; charges made against them are not known but may stem from an incident occurring earlier in the spring.27

In April 1865 there had been some trouble between the cooks and the orderly sergeant, or first sergeant, in Company D, Eighth California Volunteers. Three young undercooks and one kitchen servant were attached to Company D. Two of the cooks, John L. Lajune and Theophilus Zavery, protested to the department about "the ill-treatment they have received from members of that company, particularly by the orderly sergeant." In May, Alexander Smith, who had joined as a kitchen servant but was later designated an undercook, complained of the treatment he received from a member of his company. He was "repulsed and driven from the captain's quarters" in response to his complaint. The department commander authorized Smith's absence from the post and directed the officer commanding Fort Point to inquire into the facts and report to the department. The department felt strongly about mistreatment of servants or enlisted men. Upon learning of Lajune and Zavery’s complaint, the commander wrote, "any officer noncommissioned officer, or private who ill-treats or uses abusive language to persons employed as undercooks will be arrested and promptly punished. Post and Regiment commanders will make it their special duty to see that the class of persons above referred to are properly protected in their rights and persons."28

The four men attached to Company D were all born in Kingston, Jamaica: John Lewis Lajune, Thomas Ritchie, and Theophilus Zavery all enlisted as cooks, while Alexander Smith, a former waiter, signed on as a kitchen servant. The four cooks attached to Company B all enlisted in San Francisco: James Hutchinson from Missouri, Richard Polk from Washington, D.C., Charles Mitchell from Maryland, and Martin Broomfield from New Grenada (South America), who later deserted at Fort Stevens. The oldest group of cooks signed on with Company K: Peter J. Vickers from Bermuda, age thirty-four; William Lawrence from Virginia, age thirty-three; and Lewis Sevaliner from New Orleans, age thirty-six, enlisted as cooks, along with the twenty-year-old Charles R. Pollock.29

Staff at Fort Point National Historical Site can incorporate the experiences of the twelve undercooks into the site’s interpretative program in a number of ways. The site is currently redoing a small traditional exhibit on blacks in the Civil War and is adding a section on the undercooks. Interpreters leading guided tours of the fort can talk about these men when they visit the enlisted men’s kitchen and mess hall, then expand the discussion to include such diverse topics as the acquisition and preparation of food at the fort, civilians working for the army, relations between officers and enlisted men, or the army’s treatment of minorities

Information on women at Fort Point, and laundresses in particular, is being added to the site’s exhibit on women and the Civil War. In addition, stories of laundresses working in the Fort Point area have been incorporated into the site’s curriculum-based program for fourth- and fifth-grade students. The program explores work being done at Fort Point during the Civil War and focuses on the work of laundresses, soldiers, and hospital stewards.

Due to upcoming repairs on the Golden Gate Bridge, site staff expect to move the park’s primary visitor contact point temporarily away from the fort itself. The new location will be on the site of the original laundresses’ quarters, and interpreters plan to take advantage of this change to develop programs based in part on the experiences of laundresses of the period as related in their letters.

Documented events such as soldiers scavenging for firewood to heat the guard room or Captain Andrews’s drinking on duty can be translated into furnishings that prompt discussion about life at Fort Point. An empty wood box in a furnished guard room can encourage visitors to consider the work involved in heating spaces within the fort day in and day out throughout the year. Interpreters might also point out the implications of the cold and damp on the morale and health of the men stationed at Fort Point. Decanters, glasses, and liquor bottles exhibited in the officers’ quarters can lead to discussions on subjects as various as recreation, diet, and standards of behavior for officers. In this way, a single incident documented in military records can serve as a starting point for any number of paths to understanding daily life at Fort Point.

The federal records at the National Archives and Records Administration relate the absorbing, complex, and sometimes violent stories of Fort Point’s occupants and provide a new context for understanding the routine activities and notable events that took place at the fort guarding the Golden Gate. Research using military records uncovers new details about the men and women who lived and worked at Fort Point, furnishes important clues to the material culture of the site, and ultimately provides interesting and accurate information to improve the interpretation of the site.

Mary K. Grassick is a staff curator with the Division of Historic Furnishings, Harpers Ferry Center, National Park Service. She received her master of arts from George Washington University and wrote the Historic Furnishings Report for Fort Point National Historic Site.

Notes

1. The Third System refers to the third generation of permanent forts built to protect U.S. coasts. "Casemated" describes an arched, fortified, masonry room.

2. Joseph K. F. Mansfield, Mansfield on the Condition of the Western Forts, 1853–54, ed. Robert W. Frazer (1963), p. 122. 

3. U.S. Department of War, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (1897), series 1, vol. 50, part 1, p. 444.

4. Richard C. Drum to John H. Lendrum, Feb. 26, 1861, Letters Sent by Department of the Pacific (DoP), Records of U.S. Army Continental Commands, 1821–1920, Record Group 393, National Archives and Records Administration (hereinafter, records in the National Archives will be cited as RG ___, NARA).

5. George H. Elliot to Joseph G. Totten, Oct. 14, 1861, Letters Received, Records of the Office of the Chief of Engineers, RG 77, NARA, cited in Edwin C. Bearss, Historic Structure Report, Fort Point Historic Data Section, Fort Point National Historic Site (1973), pp. 191–193.

6. Post Returns for Fort Point, Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1780's–1917, RG 94, NARA.

7. Bearss, Historic Structure Report, pp. 345–350.

8. Charles Keeney to Drum, Dec. 7, 1864, Letters Received by DoP, RG 393, NARA.

9. House, Report of the Secretary of War, 1875–1876, 44th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 1, H. Exec. Doc. 1674.

10. H. G. Gibson to Thomas Swords, Mar. 4, 1861, Letters Received by DoP, RG 393, NARA.

11. Gibson to Swords, Sept. 17, 1859, ibid.

12. William Austine to Swords, Aug. 2, 1861, ibid.

13. Keeney to Drum, Dec. 7, 1864, ibid.

14. Joseph Stewart to Henry W. Halleck, Oct. 9, 1861, and attachments, ibid.

15. Stewart et al. to Drum, Aug. 26, 1863; Stewart to DoP, Sept. 5, 1863; Drum to Andrew Bowman, Oct. 6, 1863; and Stewart et al. to DoP, Dec. 4, 1863, all in ibid.

16. The Pacific Monthly 11 (May 1864): 567–568, in Fort Point National Historic Site reference file, San Francisco, CA.

17. Andrews to Drum, Sept. 2 and 9, 1862; Andrews et al. to DoP, June 30, 1862; and Andrews to Drum, Mar. 18, 1863, all in Letters Received by DoP, RG 393, NARA.

18. Proceedings of a Board of Officers, May 25–June 8, 1864, ibid. See also George Washington Cullum, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., from Its Establishment, in 1802, to 1890, 3d ed., rev. and exp. (1891), pp. 477–478.

19. Stewart to DoP, Dec. 8, 1864, Letters Received by DoP, RG 393, NARA.

20. George W. Walker to Drum, Apr. 28, 1865, and attachments, ibid.

21. Mrs. Quinn to Drum, Sept. 26, 1864, and attachments, ibid.

22. Mrs. Daly to Drum, June 1, 1865, ibid.

23. Mrs. Elmer Howard to Drum, May 10, 1865, and attachments, ibid.

24. Mrs. John H. Chipman to Drum, Mar. 1865, ibid.

25. Gaston d'Artois to Drum, Jan. 18, 1865, and attachments, ibid.

26. April 1865 entry, Post Returns for Fort Point, RG 94, NARA: "Remarks: 12 colored undercooks dropped from aggregate per circular Headquarters DoP, April 7, 1865."

27. John Green to Drum, Sept. 10, 1865, Regimental Records for Eighth California Volunteers; Headquarters, Eighth California Volunteers to Capt. d'Artois, Sept. 14, 1865, Regimental Letterbook, Eighth California Volunteers; and Post Returns for Fort Point, all in RG 94, NARA.

28. Drum to Charles Anderson, Apr. 26, 1865, and May 8, 1865, Letters Sent by DoP, RG 393, NARA.

29. Muster Rolls and Regimental Records, Eighth Infantry, California Volunteers, RG 94, NARA.