Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1909-06-30

e1D its beams under the piercing rays
of the electric searchlight The
fortress to-day is one of the most formidable
guardians of the country's coast line
The guns that look over the para
pet have a heavy modern interest 10
and the mine fields in the water be-
yond have their attraction in the very
mystery of their hidden strength but l s~
the strongest appeal at Fortress Mon e
roe Is TO be found in the reminders
OF a past which everywhere subord.- EAE
mates the present SVS
An old school-day friend, second in NIL
command at the Virginia fort gave EA|
the visitor pass which admitted him III
to the moderngun batteries. places al
that are guarded from the inouisitive VA
view OF persons unknown personally
10 the authorities, for the newspaper III
stories OF spies in the land are not
1oundatlonless. The big guns and d
thelr complicated mechanism, with I'd
their destructive possibilities were Ia
new and strange but one gives them Ia
up Tor the first day for the more no.
tent allurements-the trophies OF war
that Washington wrested from Corn
wallis; the classmates whose ports
NOW dIsused, look over the seated Al
moat. and the great live oaks that ~
guard the parade ground, which lies
within the ramparts.
Fortress Monroe has been re- RI
christened Fort Monroe by the mill ~
tary authorities 1t is too beautiful a &c.
place to make masculine desienatiop
fitting. and no excess of gallantrv 10
heeued 10 make the assertion. The stronghold
was constructed a century ago. but it looks as
II 1t had been lifted bodily from some mediae-
val European principality and planted here on
the shore of the new world.
You walk for full mile on the ramparts be-
n pi Of fI,o
you all the way lies the moat runnngIin from
the sea Masonry. pierced with portfolios and
rooted In deep with sand and sod is the ma
terial of this bulwark of defense
Inc 1--we oaks that grow within the fortress
are green through the year. They are older
much older-than the masonry walls which
hedge them in protectngly from the winter
sea blasts. Under a group of the oaks at the
ocean side of the parade ground are placed the
priceless war relics of the revolution They
are the old brazen smooth-bore cannon which
CORVALLIS yielded up to Washington at York
town. The British visitor to Fortress Monroe
is left in no doubt as to the identity of these
bits OF antiquated ordnance. In bold relief
Just above the trunnions is inscribed the state
ment that the cannon were part of the fruits
or the American victory the troops of
King George
The French allies of the continentals must
have made merry over the taking of one of
these field pieces. The name of the maker let
into the knob of the cascabel shows that the
gun was cast in France Another inscription
shows that the English took it from the French
on Canadian battlefield. The Frenchmen
took the cannon. and with it revenge on the
field at Yorktown. 1t probably was out of
sheer generosity of spirit that the allies made
no claim to the cannon on the ground of prior
ownership. They gave the trophy to Washing
ton. and 1t is in the safekeeping of the soldiers
of his country to-day.
There are 500 artillerymen at Fortress Mon.
roe. and when the statement is made that
there is room for their maneuvers as foot sol
diers on the drill parade plain better idea
may be obtained of the extent of the field
within the fortress than could be conveyed BY
mere figures. The barracks face the parade
and thanking them the officers quarters
o'1-fashioned frame structures of the southern
style. suggesting summer comfort. The com
fort has no strength beyond the suggestion
however. for some of the suffering ones say
that the high rampant walls cut OF all the ses
breeze in summer
A few of the bachelor officers aud a numbe,
of corporals and sergeants are lodged in the
old classmates of the fortress-a COOL il some
what cramped. Quartering 1t was in one o
these classmates that Jefferson Davis presi
dent of the confederacy. confined for som,
time after his capture 1t is the general belle
Fortress Monroe a dungeon. The case
mate Is occupied to-day by junior officer O
artillery. and he makes no complaint of hard
skip The mistake in Jefferson Davis cas-
in putting him in irons. Miles did
under orders, and did 1t protesting If Lincoln
had not been assassinated Davis probabl
never would have been in chains and his i'm
prsonment would have been of the briefes-
The south realizes this. and some of the bitter
ness of the episode is said to be lost
There are so officers of artillery statione
at Fortress Monroe. Fewer than one-fifth @
the number appear on the rolls as officers G
the garrison. The rest are students at tn
postgraduate artillery school. which the go,
eminent conducts at the fortress for tn
younger commissioned men of the servic,
The officers have a club which is quartered /
a place having counterpart in Americs
The classmates Of the ramparts of the fort ar
connected by arched passageways forming
long stone-encased gallery. generous sc,
ton of this battement interior has been DIT,
empted for the lighter side of army life