The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1932-09-22
A Flaming Month In Maryland's History

Revolutionary battery. When the fort
was completed in 1898, it was named
Fort McHenry in honor of Col. James
McHenry, of Baltimore, who had been
an aide to General Washington dur
| ing the Revolution and who was Sec
rotary of War under President Wash
ington and President John Adams;
and although the reservation was not
formally coded to the Federal Gov
eminent until 1916, it was garrisoned
by Federal troops in 1893.
Fort McHenry was built of Balti-
more-made brick set in oyster shell
mortar and is shaped as pentagonal
star, with a span of 300 feet between
each of the star points. Its walls are
fourteen feet high and thirty-fve feet
thick, and the original plan permitted
a four-foot drop back of the first
Henty-foot section as a protection
to the men who manned it's guns. The
thickness of these walls can be read
lily seen at the sallyport, which con-
tains two dungeons of arched brick
that run underground into both sides
of the fort walls, in addition to an Of
fee for the captain of the guards and
= guardhouse with iron-barred cells.
| A&&
! The dungeons, each of which is IL
feet wide, feet high and 80 feet long,
have entrances that are six feet wide
and three feet high; and each of these
entrances is protected by thick wood
en- doors heavily studded with iron
bolts. When these doors were closed
the only possible ventilation and light
for the prisoners who were confined in
the dungeons was by means of SER
les of arched brick piping, one foot in
diameter, which led up to the inside
ground level.
Passing through this interesting
archway, with its heavily iron studded
doors at both ends of the passageway,
one Immediately sees the plan of the
inside area of the fort. Here were the
quarters for the old garrison, each OF
whose barrack buildings is approx
mately seventy-ive feet long, eigh-
teen feet deep and two stories high
with Colonial wooden porches running
the full length of each building.
! Standing in the entrance one sees the
headquarters building, on the second
floor of which the commandant lived,
while the offices for the post were on
the ground floor. Next in line is the
old powder magazine with walls eight
! feet thick all around and inclosing
a storage room that is twenty feet
long by twelve feet high and wide,
and placed between the headquarters
building and the officers quarters,
which is now occupied by caretaker
of the fort and partly used as rest
room. Then comes the two-barrack
buildings for the enlisted men, COM
plotting an oval surrounding grass
plot on which still stands the old
pump that supplied the garrison with
, water.
The lower floors of the building are
built of brick and each building is di-
vided into communicating rooms, up
stairs and down, with an outside en-
trance to each division and stairways
| to the floors above.
A moat runs between the fort walls
and the upper outside batteries, with
arched brick bomb proofs running
under each respective battery for
! storage of explosives; and when the
heavy doubled doors at each end of
the sallyport were closed in time of
siege, the only other means of en-
trance into the fort for those who
served the outside batteries was thru
a unique one-man tunnel that runs
under the walls of the fort.
One can but conjecture what would
have happened if Fort McHenry had
fallen under the British assault in
September, 1914. For political and
commercial reasons, the merchants of
New England had not supported the
War of 1872 with much enthusiasm.
The Hartford convention little later
agreed that the New England States
should secede from the Union and
make separate peace with the enc