The first duty to be taught and learned under such circumstances was guard duty, and that was no holiday work. The daily detail consisted of about seventy-five men, and was divided into the interior and exterior guard. During the daytime a line of sentinels enclosed a space in front of the prisoners’ quarters, within which they were permitted to exercise, and these sentinels at retreat were drawn in to the casemate entrances. Guards were also placed at the sally-port and postern, and near the staircases leading up to the ramparts. Outside, a picket line entirely surrounded the fortifications; watch being kept not only to prevent escape from within, but also to forbid the approach of boats from the sea or the shore.
Such duty on a bleak island, exposed to the terrible cold and storms of a New England winter, was no pastime. Occasionally some of the outposts would be untenable by reason of the dash of waves, and often inspection and relief of the posts was effected with great difficulty because of the icy condition of the ground. In the most severe storms the guard was replaced by patrols, each of two men, who walked the line, one patrol being despatched every fifteen or twenty minutes.
One dark howling night the sentinel, on post near what was called the grave-yard, reported to the officer that a white form had twice passed between him and the fort, and upon close questioning the soldier admitted that he had not challenged, because he feared it was a ghost. There was considerable stir, in and outside the fort, until an inspection had shown that no prisoner had escaped and no intruder could be found.
The sentinel was allowed two hours of extra guard duty, and an order was posted at the guard-house denouncing severe punishment in any future case where ghosts were allowed to pass a beat without challenge and arrest.
Inasmuch as many who will read these pages may never have seen the inside of a fort, a few words descriptive of Fort Warren, may not be amiss.
The Fort proper is constructed almost entirely of hewn granite. The area enclosed is not far from six acres, of which the parade ground occupies five. The general form of the area is a pentagon, but at each of its five angles a bastion projects in such manner that every portion of the ditch which surrounds the walls, can, in case of need, be reached by musketry and howitzers from the casemates.
This area is surrounded by casemated walls, which are in fact huge bomb-proof buildings, structures of stone with heavy arches of brick to support the great mass of earth which is required to protect them from shells thrown from mortars. In these casemates are quarters for the officers and men of the garrison, magazines for ammunition, storehouses for all manner of supplies, a hospital of generous dimensions, a huge cistern for water, an ice-house, cook, and mess-room, besides space for a large battery of heavy guns facing towards the sea. Some of these vaulted chambers are lighted through the outer walls by means of embrasures calculated for howitzers, or by loop-holes intended for defence by musketry. Others look out upon the parade ground, and have upon that face the appearance of stone dwellings of one storey, entered by ordinary doorways, and lighted through spacious windows. Those which occupy the northwest side of the parade are of two stories, one being below the level of the interior grade. These are for use as officers’ quarters, and during the war, those which are entered from the doors nearest to, and on either side of the entrance arch, were occupied by the civilians and officers among the prisoners confined in the fort.
The interior depth of the casemates, from the inner to the outer wall, does not vary much from sixty feet, giving ample space, equal indeed to the depth of a large city residence. The barracks for the soldiers are divided into rooms, generally about sixty by twenty feet, and during a part of the war many of them were assigned to the enlisted men who were prisoners.
A full garrison for Fort Warren would be not far from twenty-five hundred men, and that number could be quartered in the casemates.