Fort Slocum (2)

Fort Slocum (2) (1896-1965) - Fort Slocum was a U.S. Army post occupying Davids’ Island in Long Island Sound from 1 Jul 1896 to 30 Nov 1965. It was named after Henry Warner Slocum, a distinguished U.S. Civil War veteran who commanded the XII Corps at Gettysburg and served later in Congress. Davids’ Island had been occupied by the military, though not continuously, from 1861 until it was designated Fort Slocum in 1896. During the Civil War, and until December 1866, the entire island was known as De Camp General Hospital. From 1862 it served as a hospital for wounded Federal soldiers. After Gettysburg, sometimes it accepted Confederate wounded as well, and thus served simultaneously as hospital and prison camp, combining both Federal patients and Confederate inmate/patients. After De Camp closed, the post was known as Davids’ Island Military Reservation, until it was formally named after Gen. Slocum. After the Army abandoned it for the last time in 1965, it has been known simply as Davids’ Island.

Thus Davids' Island was used by the American military for roughly a century. Over this time it was called upon to reinvent itself in various ways, on numerous occasions. As Walter Millis points out in his classic Arms and Men (Putnam, 1956), Americans have always mistrusted a standing army, so that in times of peace the army is allowed to atrophy until the next war brings emergency mobilization once again. Military history, like combat itself, consists of long periods of boredom punctuated by episodes of sheer terror. Ex bello pax; but, having fought a successful war, the Army must turn around and fight the peace, staving off reductions in force and closure of facilities. To do this requires constant reinvention. The history of Davids' Island and Fort Slocum is of a piece with this larger cycle. Its emergency facilities ballooned during the Civil War, only to fall quickly into disrepair. It was reinvented several times, then abandoned, almost for good. It was reinvented again as a recruit depot for the end of the Indian Wars (this time though with permanent rather than just temporary buildings), then as a coast artillery post around the Spanish-American War, again as a recruit depot in World War I, then as an Army campus, home to a series of schools, in the interwar period. At several times it was almost abandoned once again. In World War II it reinvented itself several times over (the last of which was to become an Air Force base, without an airstrip) only to close once again. It reopened during the Cold War again as a campus and for coast defense, only to close for the last time at the onset of Vietnam. Subsequent attempts at civilian reinvention, and there were several, have all come to nought; and today the island lies in desolation, almost all physical remains of its history having been removed.

Fort Slocum Aerial 1936

Fort Slocum 1888-1889

U.S. Civil War and its Aftermath

For most of its history, Davids’ Island/Fort Slocum was not heavily fortified. After serving as a hospital during the U.S. Civil War, the island was used briefly for recruiting. From 1870 through 1872, the 8th U.S. Infantry used the post to rebuild itself to full strength after Reconstruction duty, on its way to the Indian Wars. From 1872 to 1874 the island was occupied at various times by units of artillery: Batteries N and L of the 1st, and Batteries H, M and N of the 3rd. In 1874 the post was closed, and almost abandoned, only to be reopened in 1878 as the Principal Depot, General Recruiting Service, serving all the territory east of the Mississippi. It retained this mission until in 1894 the Army decentralized recruiting, giving this task to the various individual regiments instead of a single general depot.

That this "fort" was not heavily fortified for so much of its military history (including the Civil War) is not really paradoxical. In modern usage, an Army post is designated a “fort” when it is more or less permanent, and a “camp” when it is more or less temporary. (“More or less;” because forts, as in this case, may be abandoned; camps may also be abandoned, or as in the case of Gordon or Jackson, may be upgraded to forts.) The simple name “fort” does not however imply that it is heavily armed, or even fortified against attack. For example (as Alison Hoagland's pioneering research in Army Architecture in the West [U Okla 2004] makes clear), despite Hollywood and Disneyland, the typical fort of the American West during the last phase of the Indian Wars was not hidden behind a log palisade, but was quite open. (Plains Indians might raid isolated expeditions, but they would not attack any concentration of troops, not even the single company or two that might garrison the typical Western fort.) As a result, an Army fort in the Indian-fighting West did not look different from one in the more pacified East. (The ideal in all cases, as Hoagland observes, was to recreate the New England village green -- minus the dominating church.) Thus it was that Fort Slocum was heavily fortified only for two brief periods during its century-long military history. The first of these occurred during what are called the Endicott and Taft eras, when high-profile masonry forts (made obsolete during the Civil War) were being replaced with low-profile reinforced concrete -- and when guns were becoming breech-loading, rifled, and capable of ever-longer ranges. (To understand these successive eras in context, cf. E. R. Lewis, Seacoast Fortifications of the United States: An Introductory History [Annapolis, 1979].)

Endicott and Taft Periods

Fort Slocum was first fortified and heavily armed as a coast artillery post during the Endicott Period. Its armament was formidable, but the fortification soon became obsolete, and the armament in turn was scrapped. From 1891, construction was begun on an Abbot quad containing sixteen 12” mortar emplacements, divided into Battery Haskin and Battery Overton, on the southeast corner of the island. They were put into service in 1897. These were soon joined along the north end of the east coast of the island by two direct-fire batteries, known as Battery Kinney (to the north; operational by 1901) and Battery Fraser (to the south; operational by 1904). These batteries mounted two 6”, and two 5” breech-loading rifles, respectively. At some point during the construction of the mortar batteries, they were joined by Battery Practice, a direct-fire concrete battery. At first Battery Practice mounted a 15” smoothbore Rodman gun (which was moved in 1899 to the south central part of the island, where it has been displayed ever since). The same battery also mounted a 10” Rodman sleeved to become an 8” muzzle-loading rifle, and an 8” Model 1888 breech-loading rifle that replaced the 15” Rodman.

Fire from Fort Slocum would have triangulated with that of Fort Schuyler and Fort Totten to the south, defending together the northern approach to New York City. The mortars in particular were a very formidable defense but during the brief period this defense was in place, there were no serious naval threats. Within 15 years or less the entire complex of fortifications had become redundant; by 1907, Fort Slocum was withdrawn from the Artillery District of New York, and the guns placed on caretaker status until gradually they were removed, and destroyed, before World War I.

Fort Slocum Endicott Period Battery

Battery	No.	Caliber	Type Mount	Years	Notes
Battery Haskin	8	12"	Mortar	1892-1892-1897-1919
Battery Overton	8	12"	Mortar	1892-1892-1897-1919	Pit A Destroyed
Battery Practice	2	8"	Rodman	1896-1899	Heavily overgrown
Battery Kinney	2	6"	Pedestal	1904-1917	Destroyed; guns to Battery Fergusson, Fort Tilden
Battery Fraser	2	5"	Pedestal	1901-1917	Destroyed
Source: CDSG

Fort Slocum Plan, 1921

World War II

During World War II Fort Slocum reinvented itself successively as a staging area for the European Theater of Operations, and as the site of specialized schools. Threatened again with closure, from 1946-49 it became Slocum AFB, HQ of the 1st Air Force. (The island was too small for a landing strip, and was the only AFB in history that could be reached routinely only by boat.) It was abandoned 1949-50, only to be reopened once again as Fort Slocum, an Army post. From 1951 it housed the Army Chaplain School, until 1962; and the Armed Forces (later Army, later Defense) Information School until its final abandonment in 1965.

Cold War

During the Cold War, though again briefly, Fort Slocum became part of the coast defense system when it housed the Integrated Fire Control for Battery NY-15, Battery D, 55th Artillery (Anti-Aircraft) beginning in 1955. The truncated battery of 8 Nike Ajax missiles it controlled were housed off-post, for safety reasons, nearby on Hart Island. The missiles were not themselves nuclear. However the battery’s mission was to defend NYC against attack by Soviet bombers, potentially armed with nuclear weapons, by intercepting them over central Long Island. This defense too quickly became obsolete, when ICBM missiles displaced long-range bombers in the Soviet arsenal.

Thus Fort Slocum’s position as an active fortification was brief and ineffective, although its history was long and it served the Army in various other ways over little more than a century. For most of its history it was less bellicose: hospital, recruit depot, and campus.

Current Status

After the Army left, the island changed hands several times among those interested in developing it. These parties included the Job Corps of the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity, the City of New Rochelle (several times), Con Edison (which wanted to build a nuclear power plant there), a development group from Honolulu (which wanted to build an exclusive high rise community there), and most recently Donald Trump (who wanted to rename it Trump Island and build a Trump Tower there which would have been visible from Manhattan). Development plans consistently were thwarted, mainly by the inability to build a bridge which would provide ready access to the island. In the meantime, a series of arson fires, particularly the Great Fire of 21 April 1982, destroyed most of the buildings. Wooden building were destroyed; brick buildings left shells; those not burned were tumbling down. The island became sort of an Eastern ghost town (though it was still possible to walk the island and to recognize most of the remnants). In 2004 Congresswoman Nita Lowey provided an ongoing stream of federal money for the abatement of environmental hazards. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was charged with this abatement; which culminated, at the command of the current property owner, the City of New Rochelle, in Dec. 2007, to destroy almost all that remained. As a result most of the remains were demolished in 2008, culminating with the destruction of the iconic 1929 water tower on 9 Sept.

As a result all that remains to mark the U. S. Army’s more than a century-long tenure at Davids’ Island Military Reservation/Fort Slocum, is the road system; a 1914 flagpole; some lampposts, fire hydrants, and garbage shelters (deemed not worth destroying); the 15” Rodman gun display; and the mortar batteries and Battery Practice (which were deemed too difficult to destroy). (In fact the direct fire batteries had been destroyed in the 1930’s to build barracks, and one of the four mortar pits was destroyed during World War II to build a small arms range.) From 2008, for the first time since before the U.S. Civil War, there is nothing visible from shore that would indicate that Davids’ Island was ever inhabited, by the Army or anyone else. Although technically the island is not posted, it is forbidden by the City to visit without special permission (and its Harbor Patrol will enforce this prohibition); though there has been some discussion that it may be sold to Westchester County for use as a park.

If and when that happens it will be possible for the public to walk the site, though there will be almost nothing to indicate its colorful history. This is in contrast to various other abandoned forts, such as Ft. Worden (and the nearby coast artillery batteries), or Vancouver Barracks or Madison Barracks or Ft. Adams or Governors’ Island which have been preserved substantially while at the same time they have been converted to other uses. On the other hand, because the demolition was part of a public process (rather than left to the whims of private developers) there has been considerable documentation, including archaeological digs, extensive photography, and GPS positioning; so that some of the history has been preserved even as the site has been destroyed.

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Location: Davids' Island, Long Island Sound, New York Maps & Images Lat: 40.88336 Long: -73.770212 Multi Maps from ACME Maps from Bing Maps from Google Elevation: 20'

Sources:

• Roberts, Robert B., Encyclopedia of Historic Forts: The Military, Pioneer, and Trading Posts of the United States, Macmillan, New York, 1988, 10th printing, ISBN 0-02-926880-X, page 580
• Wikipedia
• CDSG Fort Slocum

Links:

• NY State Military Museum
• Fort Slocum - Michael Cavanaugh
• Coast Defense Study Group, CDSG Press, CDSG Digital Library

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Fort Slocum (2) Picture Gallery

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• Fort Slocum Map 1888
  Fort Slocum Map 1888
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  DeCamp General Hospital 1863