Despite the successful attempts of the architect to give to the magnificent new buildings at West Point a mediæval character, there is nothing about them to suggest a feeling of oldness, a feeling that they are linked with the history of the place. Not until one wanders among the ruins of old Fort Putnam, explores the crumbling works of the chain of Redoubts on the surrounding hills, or rambles over the débris of Fort Constitution on Constitution Island, does he feel the flavor of age, the romance of West Point of the past. It is only then that the imagination races back over the years to the days of the Revolution where it pauses to rebuild the stirring events that filled the daily lives of our ancestors in their desperate struggle for our independence. Looking backward through the vista of more than a century the most commonplace happenings seem powdered with the golden dust of romance. Interwoven with each event are the names of the men who helped to make possible these free United States: Washington, Hamilton, Knox; and of him who was almost successful in thwarting their efforts, the traitor Benedict Arnold.
As far back as the time of the French and Indian Wars both the Americans and British recognized the great value of the control of the Hudson River. It would seem, therefore, that when the Revolution broke out both sides would take every means to seize and fortify the most strategic points along its banks. Strange to say, the Americans were as indifferent about its control as the British, so that the Revolution was in progress for three years before West Point, the natural key to the river’s defense, was fortified.
During the Revolution the British were operating from Manhattan on the south and Canada on the north as bases. Had they controlled the Hudson, they could have separated the eastern from the middle colonies, which division would have prevented the patriots from military combination and from interchanging the necessary commodities for both sections.
Immediately after the battles of Concord and Lexington, the Congress of New York, acting upon a suggestion from the Continental Congress, sent a commission to the Highlands to select “the most proper place for erecting one or more fortifications.” Constitution Island, and the sites where Forts Montgomery and Clinton[1] were afterwards built, were chosen. Nothing much was accomplished, however, in the way of fortifications despite the appointment of another commission that recommended the absolute necessity for works at West Point opposite Constitution Island.
Washington, accompanied by General Heath, finally sailed up the river in 1776, and General Heath tells us that “a glance at West Point without going on shore evinced that this post was not to be neglected.” Meanwhile the Revolution dragged on into its third year, 1778, but still no fortifications at West Point. Due to Washington’s persistence, work was begun there early in January, 1778. General Parsons with his brigade arrived at West Point on the 20th of January and began the erection of defenses. The weather was extremely cold, provisions were scarce, the men inadequately clothed, and the troops poorly supplied with the proper implements to carry on their labor. Altogether, a very depressing and discouraging situation confronted Parsons’s men as they debouched upon the Plain and surveyed their surroundings. If any thought could have given them courage it must have been the reflection that at least they were somewhat better off than their comrades in arms down at Valley Forge, who, despite their wretched condition, were bravely keeping alive the patriotic fires of the Revolution.
What a contrast was that first sight of West Point to Parsons’s troops to that offered today! Instead of the beautiful level parade ground surrounded by fine granite buildings they found an undulating plain covered by a growth of yellow pines ten or fifteen feet high, without house or habitation. The only point of similarity was the snow, waist high. After strenuous efforts to get logs from the neighboring hills, a few rude huts were hastily thrown together, and then, at the end of three weeks, the soldiers fell to work with a will, building Fort Clinton under the direction of a splendid young French engineer by the name of de la Radière. The cold was most intense, but the men went up the river, cut the timber for the Fort, and assembled it so that when the river was open, it might be floated down to the Point. Their hard daily toil was not relieved by any diversions in the evening, for West Point was a veritable wilderness. General Parsons, in writing to Colonel Wadsworth, said of West Point, “to a contemplative mind that delights in a lonely retreat from the world ’tis as beautiful as Sharon, but affords to the man who loves the society of the world a prospect nearly allied to the shades of death.... News arrives here by accident only.” The poor soldiers had to repair night after night to their little log huts and get what pleasure they could from one another’s society.
The rigors of the winter and the hardships to which the Revolutionary soldiers were accustomed overwhelmed the delicate constitution of the brilliant young de la Radière. Unhappily, he contracted a severe cold that culminated in consumption from which he died the following mid-summer. Another European, attracted by the justice of the Revolutionary cause, succeeded de la Radière. Thaddeus Kosciusko, a Pole of education and culture, joined Parsons’s officers, with whom he became a great favorite, not only on account of his engineering ability but by reason of his charming manners, soft and conciliating, and by the elevation of his mind. One officer wrote that he took much pleasure in accompanying Kosciusko with his theodolite measuring the heights of the surrounding mountains.
Today Kosciusko’s name is more familiar to West Pointers than de la Radière’s, for an enchanting little garden, a tiny retreat hanging on to the cliff near the river, bears his name, and a monument, in the northeast corner of the Plain near Port Clinton that he helped build, commemorates his devotion to the Revolutionary cause.
Kosciusko’s presence and energy put new life into the work of construction. Shortly afterwards, when orders came from Washington to expedite the completion of all of the forts, Parsons and Kosciusko, under the direction of Colonel Rufus Putnam, immediately commenced excavations for Fort Putnam.[2] The men now daily trudged up the small hill back of the Plain and began making clearings for the fort’s foundation. It was hard laborious work, extremely fatiguing, and, to add to the men’s discomfiture, they were greatly annoyed by large rattlesnakes with which the hill top seemed to swarm.
While the land defenses were being so well prepared, steps were taken to prevent enemy ships from passing up the Hudson. The topography of West Point and the adjacent country lent itself most admirably to the plan of obstructing the river.