Fort Mifflin

Infobox_nrhp | name =Fort Mifflin
nrhp_type = nhl


caption = Soldiers' Barracks
location= Fort Mifflin Road
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
locmapin = Pennsylvania
area =
architect= John Montresor
Pierre Charles L’Enfant
Louis de Tousard
architecture=
added = August 29, 1970
governing_body = Local
refnum=70000554cite web|url=http://www.nr.nps.gov/|title=National Register Information System|date=2007-01-23|work=National Register of Historic Places|publisher=National Park Service]

Fort Mifflin, originally called Fort Island Battery, and also known as Mud Island Fort, was commissioned in 1771 and sits on Mud or Deep Water Island on the Delaware River in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.#tag:ref|The island's back channel has since been filled in.|group=notes During the American Revolutionary War, the fort was a centerpiece of the British conquest of Philadelphia. The name "Fort Mifflin" became official in 1795. The fort was rebuilt at the start of 1794 during the presidency of John Adams to a design by Pierre L'Enfant, and added to in the 19th century.

History

Construction

In 1771, Governor John Penn recognizing the vulnerability of the port of Philadelphia to invasion and requested Mass. Governor Thomas Gage to send someone who could design defenses for the city. General Gage assigned Engineering Captain John Montresor to the task. Montresor presented six designs to the Governor and Board of Commissioners to be constructed on Mud Island – also know as or Deep Water Island – as proposed by the board. [Harvnb|Scull|1881|pp=414–415.] #tag:ref|The details for the six alternate designes can be found at the David Library; "Montresor Papers" catalogued by Harold Finigan.|group=notes

When the Commissioners reviewed the plans, they thought them all to be too expensive and insisted on economy despite Montresor's protestaions about budget.Harvnb|Scull|1881|pp=415–416.] Montresor stated that his prefered plan would cost about £40,000 and that he intended to mount "32 pieces of cannon, 4 mortars and 4 royal howitzers... which at 6 men each make 240 men required, 160 musketry, in all 400 garrison." The General Assembly passed a bill releasing £15,000 for the construction of the fort and buying one of Mud Island as a site, which were owned by Joseph Galloway, the Speaker of the House. [Harvnb|Scull|1881|pp=416–417.] The board instructed Montresor to begin construction but failed to provide him with the funds he deemed necessary to properly do the job. On June 4 1772, Montresor left the head workman in charge of the construction project and disgruntled, returned to New York. The project floundered on for about a year, when it stopped for lack of guidance and funding.Harvnb|Scull|1881|p=417.] By this time only the south walls, which were built in stone, had been completed. [Harvnb|Liggett|Laumark|1979|pp=41–42.]

Following the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin headed a committee to provide for the defense of Philadelphia. The construction of the fort was finally completed in 1776. During this period Fort Mercer was constructed across the Delaware River from Fort Mifflin. While Fort Mifflin was on an island, Fort Mercer sat opposite on the banks of the Delaware.cite web |url=http://www.phila.gov/recreation_old/fortmifflin/Fort_Mifflin_History/fort_mifflin_history.html |title=The History of Fort Mifflin, the Fort that saved America |author=City of Philadelphia |publisher=Phila.gov Retrieved on 11 October 2008.]

Construction was restarted in 1776 by the Philadelphia Committee of Public Safety. The Americans intended to use Fort Mifflin (and its counter fort, Mercer) to control the activity of the British Navy on the River Delaware.Harvnb|Liggett|Laumark|1979|p=41.] Obstacles called "chevaux de frise" were assembled and placed in 'tiers', spanning the width of the River Delaware. They were wooden framed "boxes", 30 feet square, constructed of huge timbers and lined with pine planks. When lowered onto the riverbed, the frames were filled with 20 to 40 tons of stone to anchor them in place. Two or three large timbers tipped with iron spikes were placed in each frame set obliquely facing downstream. The boxes were then chained together to maintain continuity. The Chevaux de frise presented a formidable obstacle impale unwitting ships. The system was designed with "gaps" to allow passage of friendly shipping. Only a select few knew the location of this safe passage through this barrier. Forts Mercer and Mifflin would have been able to fire at anyone attempting to dismantle these obstacles.

iege in American Revolutionary War

After the defeat of Washington at the Battle of Brandywine, the British took control of Philadelphia in September of 1777. The British forces then laid siege to Fort Mifflin and Fort Mercer in early October 1777. The seige was intended to open up the supply line for the British Army. Captain Montresor, who had designed and led the early construction of the fort, led the seige, planning and building the seige works used against Fort Mifflin. The siege, which lasted until the middle of November, destroyed much of Fort Mifflin. During the siege, 400 soldiers held off over 2,000 British troops and 250 ships until November 10, when the British intensified their assault, launching an incessant barrage of cannonballs into the fort. On November 15 1777, the American troops evacuated the fort. Their stand, which denied the British Navy free use of the Delaware River, allowed the successful repositioning of the Continental Army for the Battle of White Marsh and subsequent withdrawal to Valley Forge. The seige was the only time the fort saw action in its entire history.

The buildings standing today from the post-1795 construction. The white stone walls of the fort are the only survivor of the pre-revolutionary war British construction. Evidence of the 1777 British bombardment, the greatest bombardment of the American Revolution, can be seen by the pockmarks in these stone walls. This massive bombardment is also known as The Battle of Mud Island to local residents living near Fort Mifflin. The ruins lay derelict until 1793 when Pierre L'Enfant, who was responsible for planning Washington D. C., supervised the reconstruction and designed the rebuild in 1794. and reconstruction work began on the fort in 1795. After the construction of Fort Delaware in 1820, Fort Mifflin was relegated to secondary status. During the 19th century, the area around the fort was drained and filled until eventually the fort was no longer on an island by the western bank of the Delaware River.

American Civil War

During the Civil War, Fort Mifflin was used to house Confederate prisoners of war, as well as Union soldiers and civilians accused of breaking the law. On November 24, 1864, LTC Seth Eastman, the great American Western frontier painter, was sent to Ft. Mifflin to supervise the discharge all of the over 200 civilian and military prisoners. On January 2 1865, Eastman reported his garrison consisted of B Company, 186th PA Vol, a detachment of recruits and the hospital staff. On August 20 1865, Eastman was relieved by CPT Thomas E. Merritt, with A Company, 7th US Veteran volunteers.

After the Civil War

In 1866 A Company of the 7th US Veteran Volunteers vacated the fort and was replaced by the District Engineer Office, Corps of Engineers. The fort discontinued as an active post. Between 1866 and 1876 Fort Mifflin underwent intermittent repairs, armament upgrade, and moderinization by the Corps of Engineers. Construction of The detached high battery (south of the fort) was constructed from 1870 to 1875, however it was never finished. The Torpedo Casemate was constructed in 1876. From 1876 to 1884, the fort was the custodial responsibility of the Philadelphia District Office of the Corps of Engineers.

During the Second World War, anti-aircraft guns were stationed at the fort to defend the nearby Fort Mifflin Naval Ammunition Storage Depot (NASD) and the US Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. Marine Corps units out of the PNSY guarded the NASD, at the northern end of what was Mud and Cabin Islands, while regular Army troops were assigned to the historic fort proper. By April 24 1942, Battery "H" of the 76th Coast Artillery Regiment was stationed at the fort. The unit was the fist Negro CA unit in US history.#tag:ref|The oral history of one of these soldiers, Mr. Isaac Wright, has been preserved in the Ralph J. Bunche Oral History Collection (RJB #665) at Howard University.|group=notes By the summer of 1942, the 601st CA was stationed at Fort Mifflin. In 1954 the fort fell out of use as a military post. When it closed, Fort Mifflin was the oldest fort in continuous use in the nation (1771 to 1954). In 1962, Fort Mifflin was deeded back to the City of Philadelphia.

Restoration

Arsenal: restored in the early 1990s by Harold Finigan.

Artillery shed: re-roofed in the early 1980s by architect J. Dickey.

Blacksmith shop: restored by John Dickey in 1969.

Sutler/storehouse: renovated by G.E. Brumbaugh, 1960.

Soldiers' barracks: restored in the 1990s by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Officers' quarters: major restoration by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the 1980s, and the kitchen wings were restored.

Hospital: restored by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the early 1980s

tanding buildings

Arsenal: One storey brick structure convert|24|ft|m by convert|44|ft|m. It was built in 1815–1816 as a guardhouse and prison. By 1839 it was designated as an arsenal. (Historic American Building Survey (HABS) #PA1225.

Artillery Shed: Built in 1837 for the storage and protection of cannon on an interior raised platform. (As cited in a report from the Engineers Dept, 28 Nov 1837; American State Papers 7:580)

Blacksmith Shop: Built before 1802, it is probably the oldest structure in the fort. (RG77 NAB)

Sutler Building/Storehouse: A brick, one storey builing measuring convert|55|ft|m by convert|20|ft|mm. It was completed on 27 December 1842 (Tompkins to Jessup, Consolidated Correspondence, Box 662, RG 92 NAB).

Soldiers' Barracks: Built in the 1790s, the barracks measure convert|117|ft|m by convert|28|ft|m and consist of two storeys. It originally had 7 rooms, of which 5 were designed to house 25 men each. The building was extensively renovated in 1836, and again later when the roofline was changed to add the second floor. (HABS # PA-1225E)

Officers Quarters: A two storey building measuring convert|96|ft|m by convert|28|ft|m that was built in 1814. (#475, RG 77, NAB). Renovated in 1836, the building had a 2 two story kitchen wing added in the 1840s. These wings were removed before the 1920s (HABS #PA-1225F).

Commandant's House (Citadel): Originally a cross shaped hole in the ground in the center of the fort and designed as a last ditch defensive area, the presnt structure was built in 1796. This structure was completed by LTCOL Stephen Rochefontaine, who replaced Pierre Charles L'Enfant as chief Engineer at Ft Mifflin in 1798. Rochfontaine used L'Enfant's original designs and improved on them. Today, the Commandants House is partly restored after a 1983 fire and is one of the only Greek Revival structures of its kind situated on a Army installation in the United States. ASP 1:11

Hospital/Messhall Built about 1819 north of the fort walls, this building was converted to a messhouse in 1837. (ASP 7:632)

West Sallyport: Proposed in 1864, completed by 1866. (B-566, RG 77, NAB).

Casemates Built as defensive structures in the case of an enemy siege, the six cavelike structures were built in the reconstruction of 1798-1801. A "BAke Oven" just outside the Main Gate and the entrance to the Casemate or Bombproofs was used for baking bread and as a, chapel and mess hall. Casemate 31, the largest of the rooms was designed as a barracks and was used by the numerous Confederate prisoners that occupied the fort from 1863 to 1865. There are three smaller casemates that were used as storage areas and held political prisoners during the Civil War and Casemate #5, about half the size of Casemate #1 would have been utilized as the headquarters in the time of attack.

East Magazine: (Torpedo casemate) Noted in the 1875 Annual Report "The construction of the torpedo casemate has commenced", it first appears on a map in 1886. (RG77, NAB)

Casemate 11

Recently, Casemate #11 was unearthed at Fort Mifflin. The rooms in the farthest interior are of the original construction in 1771, with the outer room built during the post Revolutionary war reconstruction of the fort (1794-98) and used as a "Proof Room", a room to make cannon charges. When the rooms became obsolete they were changed into the Nusiance Lab for Solitary Confinement around 1863 and abandoned in 1867 and covered over when the additional gun placements were built along the wall. It was then completely obscured and forgotten when the nearby Torpedo Casement was built in 1874-75. There are several references to "Casemate #11" in this location, but the only evidence known was the cap of what was believed to be a chimney and nothing more. It was not until the rooms were uncovered in August 2006 was the complexity of the inner rooms was discovered, along with the trove of historical artifacts inside that had not seen the light of day in 139 years. Claims of the discovery being a hoax or "planted" are unfounded and numerous historical documents and eyewitness accounts bear that out.

Casemate #11 housed Fort Mifflin's most famous prisoner, William H Howe. Howe was a Union soldier accused of desertion and murder. Howe was held at Fort Mifflin from March 1864 until April 1864 when he was transferred to Moyen Manson Prison (no longer there, located in Philadelphia on Patterson Ave.), after attempting to escape his solitary confinement cell in Casemate #11 and transferred back to Fort Mifflin on the day of his execution on August 26, 1864 and held in the fort's Wooden Guard House, just steps from the gallows where he would be hung. He has the distinction of being the only person ever executed by the army where tickets to the execution were sold to the public. Inside the casemate the signature of William H. Howe can be clearly seen. Prior reports of Howe being illerate are completely false. Howe wrote to President Lincoln twice in his own hand asking for clemecy. The letter is filled with bad grammar and run on sentences, but it is clearly in Howe's hand and the signature found in the cell is a perfect match to the two letters to Lincoln.cn Other artifacts found in the casemate included pottery, a tin cup, the cell doors with numerous grafahtii written on the inside by various people in the 1860s, a tin chamber pot, period buttons from the Civil War, an 1864 wine token, a penny dated 1864 in remarkable condition and dozens of animal bones. Various graffiti of the Civil War period also grace the interior walls.

Notes

References

;Notes

;Bibliography
*citation |last1=Liggett |first1=Barbara |last2=Laumark |first2=Sandra |title=The Counterfort at Fort Mifflin |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/1493677 |journal=Bulletin of the Association for Preservation Technology |volume=11 |issue=1 |publisher=Association for Preservation Technology International (APT) |pages=pp. 37–74 |date=1979
*citation |last=Scull |first=G. D. (ed) |title=The Montroser Journals |url=http://www.1stroyals.org/documents/Montresor.pdf |journal=Collection for the Year 1881 |publisher=New York Historical Society |date=1881

Further reading

* Dorwart, Jeffrey M., "Fort Mifflin of Philadelphia: An Illustrated History," University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, May 1998, ISBN 978-0-8122-1644-8, 264-pages
* Hardway, Ronald V., "Benjamin Lemasters of Nicholas County, West Virginia : his ancestry, his war record, his descendants"
* Jackson, John, "Fort Mifflin: Valiant Defender of the Delaware" James & Sons, Norristown, PA; 1986, 206 pages
* Jackson, John, "The Pennsylvania Navy, 1775-1781" Rutgers University Press
* Martin, Joseph Plum, "Private Yankee Doodle" Western Acorn Press, 1962
* McGuire, Thomas J., "The Philadelphia Campaign, Vol. II: Germantown and the Roads to Valley Forge," Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA, 2006. ISBN 978-0-8117-0206-5, pages 181 to 222.

ee also

*Philadelphia International Airport
*Eastwick
*Schuylkill Arsenal
*Philadelphia Lazaretto

External links

* [http://www.fortmifflin.us Fort Mifflin official website]
* [http://www.generalatomic.com/AmericanHistory/fort_mifflin.html American History Fort Mifflin]
* [http://www.fortmifflin.com Fort Mifflin Historical Society]
* [http://www.ushistory.org/march/phila/mifflin.htm Attack on Fort Mifflin]

*Geolinks-US-buildingscale|39.8753|-75.213