Most truly yours,
Charles Alexander.
The whole event from beginning to end was well managed and the gentlemen present enjoyed every minute of the time spent at Macedonia. The affair was managed by Colonel Alexander and Mr. Dooley, and not a single detail for the comfort or pleasure of the Executive Council was omitted. July 22d, 1909, and Macedonia will be long remembered by the members of the Executive Council who participated in this most enjoyable occasion.
FORT SHERIDAN.
BY LIEUT. ERNEST VAN D. MURPHY, FT. SHERIDAN, ILL.
In 1888 the United States Government, following its traditional policy in the bestowal of names on its fortifications and the stations of its armed forces, selected and gave to the new military post recently established on the shores of Lake Michigan, the name of “Fort Sheridan,” in commemoration of that illustrious Irish-American soldier, General Philip H. Sheridan, who had, but a few years previously, died while in chief command of the army. Placed as it is, on the high bluffs overlooking the blue waters of our exclusively American Sea, the natural advantages of the site combined with the carefully thought out scheme of construction, to say nothing of the care and interest that has been manifested by the various commanding officers, who have, since its foundation been charged with the carrying out of the designs of the War Department, all combine to make the post, as a whole, a worthy memorial of its gallant namesake.
The French, far back in the colonial period, recognized the importance, to their schemes of trade and colonization, of the control of the great natural channels of communication between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley, and to secure their supremacy established a number of military posts in northern Illinois—Fort St. Joseph on the eastern side of Lake Michigan; Fort Crevecœur and Kaskasia among others. Following the French, the British and afterward the American Governments continued the policy of the French and kept up a number of establishments whose functions were mainly to provide a measure of control over the Indian inhabitants. Fort Dearborn, on the present site of the City of Chicago, was built in 1804 and was kept up until the settling of the country and the consequent removal west of the aborigines made its further maintenance unnecessary.
STEPHEN FARRELLY, ESQ.,
Of New York City.
A Life Member of the Society, and a Member of the Executive Council.
These early posts in the northwest were, as a rule, mere stockades, with such block-houses and angles let into the trace as were necessary to prevent dead spaces and command the ditch. They provided shelter from the rifle fire of that day but were of little value against artillery. So today, Fort Sheridan, the successor of Fort Dearborn, is not, from a military standpoint, a place of even temporary defense, much less a stronghold. The control of the natural and artificial ways of communication between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi, is dependent now, as a century ago, not on heavy ordnance and great fortifications, nor on our naval strength on the lakes, for unfortunately we have none—but depends directly upon such forces of the mobile army as the government may have available at a crisis. Thus it may be seen that Fort Sheridan, as one of the largest stations of the regular army, plays an important part in the subject of the strategical defenses of our northern frontier. Its central location, with the unparalleled railroad facilities of Chicago at hand; the water routes of the lakes and the excellent road system of the northern-central states permit the garrison to be moved rapidly and surely to the points at which its presence, in time of national need may be necessary.