There were still keen memories of Jackson’s fight with the British at New Orleans, and Britain was currently developing her West Indies possessions. Trouble in Cuba was near. Texas, a new republic, seemed about to form an alliance with France or England, thus providing the Europeans with a foothold on the Gulf Coast.
Thirty Years of Construction
During the first half of the 1800’s the United States began a chain of seacoast defenses from Maine to Texas. The largest link was Fort Jefferson, half a mile in perimeter and covering most of 16-acre Garden Key. From foundation to crown its 8-foot-thick walls stand 50 feet high. It has 3 gun tiers, designed for 450 guns, and a garrison of 1,500 men.
The fort was started in 1846, and, although work went on for almost 30 years, it was never finished. The U. S. Engineer Corps planned and supervised the building. Artisans imported from the North and slaves from Key West made up most of the labor gang. After 1861 the slaves were partly replaced by military prisoners, but slave labor did not end until Lincoln freed the slaves in 1863.
The War Between the States
To prevent Florida’s seizure of the half-complete, unarmed defense, Federal troops hurriedly occupied Fort Jefferson (January 19, 1861), but aside from a few warning shots at Confederate privateers, there was no action. The average garrison numbered 500 men, and building quarters for them accounted for most of the wartime construction.
Little important work was done after 1866, for the new rifled cannon had already made the fort obsolete. Further, the engineers found that the foundations rested not upon a solid coral reef, but upon sand and coral boulders washed up by the sea. The huge structure settled, and the walls began to crack.
Yellow Fever
For almost 10 years after the war, Fort Jefferson remained a prison. Among the prisoners sent there in 1865 were the “Lincoln Conspirators”—Michael O’Loughlin, Samuel Arnold, Edward Spangler, and Dr. Samuel A. Mudd. Dr. Mudd, knowing nothing of President Lincoln’s assassination, had set the broken leg of the fugitive assassin, John Wilkes Booth. The innocent physician was convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor.
Normally, Tortugas was a healthful post, but in 1867 yellow fever came. From August 18 to November 14 the epidemic raged, striking 270 of the 300 men at the fort. Among the first of the 38 fatalities was the post surgeon, Maj. Joseph Sim Smith. Dr. Mudd, together with Dr. Daniel Whitehurst, from Key West, worked day and night to fight the scourge. Two years later, Dr. Mudd was pardoned.