A History of Fort Wadsworth, New York Harbor Draft

Black, Frederick

With newspaper and news broadcasts regularly informing Americans about the latest decisions and developments respecting the MX project, neutron bombs, rapid deployment forces, or other existing or proposed parts of the nation's military resources, it is sometimes difficult to realize that throughout most of its history the United States maintained a passive, highly defensive military posture. The ideology of the American revolution identified militarism and aggression as inherent in monarchy and empire. True republicanism could be free of the perils of standing armies and the burdens of an ocean-going navy. With the broad Atlantic separating the new nation from the Old World, a defensive military posture was embraced and maintained for over a century. The permanent monuments to that defensive policy appear in the form of late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century forts, many of which still stand near east and gulf coast ports and harbors. Among the half dozen such works surviving in the vicinity of New York harbor are those on the grounds of the military post now known as Fort Wadsworth. That post is on the Staten Island side of the Narrows, the body of water, less than a mile wide, which connects Upper New York Bay with the lower bay. This study is a history of the site and institution of Fort Wadsworth, in so far as that site served for the mounting of guns to be used against hostile ships. That service began with the British, who occupied Staten Island and other parts of the lower Hudson Valley during the War of American Independence, and it continued to the end of World War I. Indeed, a few guns and batteries remained in service during World War II. According to Emanuel Raymond Lewis, American harbor and seacoast fortifications have experienced eight stages or generations. Fort Wadsworth participated in the first six of these stages and was significantly and adversely affected by the same developments as produced the last two. Accordingly, the Lewis chronology provides the general organizational structure for this study. No comprehensive history of Fort Wadsworth exists, and the present study breaks new ground. Much of what has been written about the site contains flaws of one type or another, particularly respecting the long period before 1920. A number of articles and pamphlets have been written by or under the auspices of commanding officers of the post since World War I. That literature, although weak on the more removed aspects of the installation's career, is useful for recent years. The aim of this report is to tell the story of Fort Wadsworth and its function in harbor and seacoast defense as that story can be pieced together from primary sources. The use of the original documents is especially imperative respecting the first century of European colonization of the area, because of what is almost a mythology about the early beginnings of the post. Moreover, since little has been written about Fort Wadsworth during the period 1776 to 1920, primary sources afford the only means for a reconstructions of its past.

A History of Fort Wadsworth, New York Harbor Draft

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