The Harbor Defenses of Narragansett Bay was a United States Army Coast Artillery Corps harbor defense command. It coordinated the coast defenses of Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island from 1895 to 1950, beginning with the Endicott program. These included both coast artillery forts and underwater minefields. The command originated circa 1895 as an Artillery District, was renamed Coast Defenses of Narragansett Bay in 1913, and again renamed Harbor Defenses of Narragansett Bay in 1925.Stanton, pp. 455-481Coast Artillery Organization: A Brief Overview at the Coast Defense Study Group websiteRinaldi, pp. 165-166Berhow, pp. 430-434
Geography The southern part of Narragansett Bay is defined by the mainland to the east and west and by two large islands, Aquidneck Island to the east and Conanicut Island (which is also the town of Jamestown) to the west. Thus, the southern part of the bay is divided into three arms. The western arm is called the West Passage, between Conanicut Island and the mainland. The middle arm is called the East Passage, between Conanicut and Aquidneck Islands. Because the city of Newport and its sheltered harbor are on and defined by Aquidneck Island, the East Passage was the main area of fortification until the Endicott Period of the late 19th century. The eastern arm of the bay, between Aquidneck Island and the mainland, is called the Sakonnet River, although it is not geographically a river. The north end of it is too narrow and shallow for most vessels to pass, and thus it was not heavily fortified until World War II. The southwestern portion of Conanicut Island resembles a beaver, with the southern part called Beavertail and the northern part called Beaver Head.
History Early Rhode Island forts Colonial period Prior to the Revolution there was only one significant fort in Rhode Island: Fort Anne (later Fort George, eventually Fort Wolcott) on Goat Island in Newport harbor. The site was first fortified with an earthen battery in 1700, replaced by Fort Anne (named for the reigning Queen of England) in 1702. It was gradually enlarged until in 1727 it was described as a 50-gun stone fort, which in 1730 was renamed Fort George, after George II.Roberts, pp. 706-707Duchesneau, John T., History of Fort Wolcott website In 1764 and 1769 two attacks on British ships by persons dissatisfied with British rule took place at and near the fort. In 1764 persons who believed was carrying stolen goods from local merchants seized the unmanned Fort George and fired on the ship, which escaped. In 1769 had seized two ships from Connecticut in the course of customs enforcement. The merchant captain whose ships had been seized led a mob which captured and burned the ship on Goat Island, near Fort George.
Another fortified site of the Colonial period was Brenton's Battery, on Brenton's Point in Newport, later the site of Fort Adams. This battery had four guns in 1641, and two guns in 1683. It was rebuilt in the 1750s.
Revolutionary War
In 1775 the American Revolution broke out. Fort George was seized by patriot forces and renamed Fort Liberty. In 1776 the fort was rearmed with 25 guns, a mix of 24- and 18-pounders, with a 50-man garrison under Captain Samuel Sweet. The patriots built at least two other batteries in Newport, one on Easton's Point at Battery Park, site of the later Fort Greene, and another at Castle Hill.Early Newport forts at American Forts Network The Easton's Point battery once forced the besieging HMS Scarborough to move away from the town.Roberts, p. 702 Another 12-gun battery was built on Conanicut Island across the bay from Newport, initially named the Dumpling Rock Battery or Fort Brown, after its commander, Abdiel Brown. This fort was also called Fort Conanicut after 1779.Roberts, p. 706 The patriots also fortified the bay's West Passage with the Beaver Tail Fort and the Conanicut Battery.
On 6, 10, and 14 April 1776, four guns at Brenton's Point manned by the Artillery Company of Newport drove off British ships attempting to attack Newport. Despite this, the British captured Newport on 8 December by assaulting the Beaver Tail Fort and Conanicut Battery in Jamestown, then sailing around the west and northeast parts of Conanicut Island to approach Newport from the north.Duchesneau and Troost-Cramer, pp. 16-19 They renamed the main fort as Fort George, and occupied the city for three years, building a barracks at Brenton's Point. The appearance of a French fleet off Newport in mid-1778 caused the British to scuttle some of their own ships in an attempt to block the harbor. Patriot forces attempted to recover Newport in August 1778, fighting the Battle of Rhode Island about seven miles north of the town, but were unsuccessful. However, the British abandoned Newport in October 1779, concentrating their forces in New York City. At this point Fort George was reoccupied by the patriots and became Fort Washington.
An expedition of 5,500 French troops under Count Rochambeau arrived in Newport by sea on 10 July 1780. They built Fort Chastellux (later known as Fort Harrison and Fort Denham) on high ground behind Goat Island (near King Avenue, later renamed Chastellux Avenue), not far from the current site of the Ida Lewis Yacht Club, and rebuilt and re-used the British barracks on Brenton's Point.Roberts, p. 701 A French map of this period reportedly shows a total of 39 forts and batteries in Newport and Middletown. A year later the French left Rhode Island to join Washington's forces north of New York City, eventually participating in the Yorktown campaign that effectively won the Revolution. Their overland route from Newport to Yorktown is marked today as the Washington–Rochambeau National Historic Trail.
1783-War of 1812
Newport received several new forts under the first system of US fortifications in the 1790s. By this time Newport was considered the most important coastal site in New England, with two companies of the Regular Army's Artillerists and Engineers stationed there.Wade, p. 57 Its naturally well-protected harbor, if seized by an enemy, could serve as a base for land and sea attacks on Boston or New York. Major Louis Tousard, a French military engineer with the Corps of Artillerists and Engineers, designed all four of the new forts in the Newport area. The most significant was the first Fort Adams on Brenton's Point, on the site of the current Fort Adams, which mounted 17 guns.Duchesneau and Troost-Cramer, pp. 18-24 The other large fort was Fort Hamilton on Rose Island, northwest of the harbor and intended for 60 guns. However, construction on this fort was abandoned while still largely incomplete.Fort Hamilton (RI) at American Forts NetworkFort Hamilton (RI) at FortWiki.com Two smaller forts were a rebuilt Fort Dumpling on Conanicut Island with 8 guns, and the new Fort Greene on Easton's Point (also called North Point), mounting 12 guns on the site of the Revolutionary War battery.Fort Greene (Newport) at American Forts Network Fort Adams was completed in 1799, Fort Dumpling was completed in 1798, and Fort Greene was mostly complete when work was halted in 1800. In 1798 Fort Wolcott was renamed for the last time, after the recently deceased Oliver Wolcott, Governor of Connecticut and a general in the revolution. The fort was also refurbished with 38 guns.Fort Wolcott at American Forts Network
Around 1806 a war scare with Great Britain prompted another round of fort construction that was later called the second system of US fortifications. In Rhode Island the improvements were modest, being limited to repairs at Fort Wolcott and Fort Adams. In the Secretary of War's report for 1811 Fort Dumpling was noted as incomplete, and Fort Greene was "in a state of ruin".Wade, pp. 242-243
Rhode Island was not attacked in the War of 1812. State troops were mobilized to garrison Fort Adams and Fort Greene.
1816-1890
Although heavily fortified locations were not attacked in the War of 1812, the British managed to bypass or suppress the weak defenses at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay and burn Washington, DC. As a result, Congress approved a large-scale program of improved masonry forts, later called the third system of US fortifications, to replace the relatively small forts of the first and second systems. Newport was selected for one of the largest forts ever built in the United States, the new Fort Adams. Two other forts of the third system, Fort Monroe in Virginia and Fort Jefferson in Florida, were its only rivals in size in North America.Duchesneau and Troost-Cramer, pp. 25-35 Fort Adams' initial design was by French military engineer Simon Bernard, and the first 13 years of its construction were personally overseen by Joseph G. Totten of the Army Corps of Engineers, the foremost American fort designer. The fort was begun in 1825 and was first garrisoned in 1841, with construction continuing through 1858.Parkman, pp. 16-18 A drawing in the National Archives shows that a similarly large fort in Jamestown on Conanicut Island, at the eventual location of Fort Wetherill, was considered but not approved. The new Fort Adams was unusual among American forts in having a tenaille and crownwork, plus a detached redoubt, protecting the fort on the landward side. These were designed to break up and channel an assault force, effectively forcing an attacker to resort to a long siege.Weaver, pp. 120–133 In 1854 the fort was armed with 200 guns, and had positions for over 400. About 50 of these were 24-pounder flank howitzers, short-barreled guns for defense against an assault, mounted in casemates in the tenaille and redoubt.Duchesneau and Troost-Cramer, p. 154
Fort Wolcott went into caretaker status in 1836 and was never re-garrisoned; it was probably abandoned in the 1900s.
During the Civil War Fort Adams was an important mobilization center, and served as the home garrison of the 15th US Infantry Regiment. For a few months in 1861 it was also the US Naval Academy, which was transferred from Annapolis, Maryland to Newport due to the Confederate sympathies of Maryland. However, the academy soon moved to the Atlantic House hotel.
New defenses were also built on Dutch Island to guard the West Passage. An eight-gun battery was built and armed by the 14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (Colored) in 1863–64. A battery for eleven 10-inch Rodman guns was also built at the south end of the island; it extended in a north–south line and had wide arcs of fire on either side. However, it was vulnerable to flooding and was never armed.Schroder 1998, pp. 14-18
The Civil War had shown that masonry forts were vulnerable to modern rifled cannon, particularly in the siege of Fort Pulaski near Savannah, Georgia in 1862. Also, the 15-inch (381 mm) smoothbore Rodman gun was introduced during the war. In the 1870s through 1890s Fort Adams was rearmed with eleven 15-inch Rodmans, thirteen 10-inch (254 mm) Rodmans in the original casemates, and four 100-pounder (6.4-inch (163 mm)) Parrott rifles in a set of casemates that pointed south towards potential attackers. New earth-protected positions were built for five of the 15-inch guns, two atop the southwest corner of the fort and three new positions south of the fort; the remainder were on the barbette tier atop the fort. Parrott rifles had shown an alarming tendency to burst when fired, so procurement was stopped shortly after the Civil War and they were deployed only in limited quantities.Duchesneau and Troost-Cramer, pp. 154-156
In 1867-69 a battery for six 15-inch Rodman guns was built on Dutch Island and armed with five of the weapons. In 1870 a massive fort mounting forty 15-inch Rodman guns was proposed for Dutch Island, but funding for this was cut off in 1875, and within a few years nearly all coast defense funding was cut off nationwide.Schroder 1998, pp. 20-21