mjr251
Private
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2014
- Location
- Near Port Arthur, Texas
Sometimes when doing research, you come across a true gem.
Last year I paid a researcher to dig up some Civil War maps and engineer drawings for me from the National Archives. Though some were already available online through the JF Gilmer collection, most of them, including a map of proposed earthwork defenses for the city of Orange, Texas, I had never been able to find online.
One of the drawings was of a casemate fortification, named Fort Point, at Pelican Island in Galveston. This drawing, along with a similar one of Fort Griffin in the Gilmer collection, bears the signature of Richard M. Venable, who was a captain of engineers on the staff of General E. Kirby Smith, commander of the Confederacy's Trans-Mississippi Department. Venable's drawings were copies of originals done by Colonel Valery Sulakowski. His original map of Fort Sabine, later renamed Fort Griffin in honor of Colonel William H. Griffin of the 21st Texas Infantry Regiment (which is strange, because Griffin was unpopular with both his soldiers and fellow commanders. Sulakowski was also unpopular, as he and Griffin were both considered stern disciplinarians, but he had two Texas forts named for him), is included here.
This Fort Point drawing is a gem because of its description and schematic of the layering of railroad iron, timbers, and sand. Sulakowski placed a lot of value in layered protection for the fortifications he designed in Texas, and Fort Griffin had the same type of construction. I've read various descriptions (none of them from wartime reports) of Fort Griffin having been constructed of railroad iron and cypress logs, but I have no doubt that milled timbers were used in Sabine Pass just as at Galveston.
When the war ended, US Navy Lieutenant Lewis W. Pennington (who was a Sabine Pass resident who stuck with the old flag when the nation split in 1861) was the first Federal commander to set foot at Sabine Pass since the battle at Fort Griffin on September 8, 1863. Apparently impressed with the structure, Pennington described the bombproofs (rooms built into the parapet to shelter the garrison during bombardment) and magazines at Griffin as being "covered with two feet of solid timber, two layers of railroad iron, and four feet of earth (sand) on top." Without even (likely) knowing him, Pennington described Sulakowski's design almost as well as he did in the Fort Point drawing.
It's interesting that the concept of layering different materials as armored protection, which we see now in the Chobham-type armor of US M1 Abrams tanks, had already been put into combat use so many years ago.
Last year I paid a researcher to dig up some Civil War maps and engineer drawings for me from the National Archives. Though some were already available online through the JF Gilmer collection, most of them, including a map of proposed earthwork defenses for the city of Orange, Texas, I had never been able to find online.
One of the drawings was of a casemate fortification, named Fort Point, at Pelican Island in Galveston. This drawing, along with a similar one of Fort Griffin in the Gilmer collection, bears the signature of Richard M. Venable, who was a captain of engineers on the staff of General E. Kirby Smith, commander of the Confederacy's Trans-Mississippi Department. Venable's drawings were copies of originals done by Colonel Valery Sulakowski. His original map of Fort Sabine, later renamed Fort Griffin in honor of Colonel William H. Griffin of the 21st Texas Infantry Regiment (which is strange, because Griffin was unpopular with both his soldiers and fellow commanders. Sulakowski was also unpopular, as he and Griffin were both considered stern disciplinarians, but he had two Texas forts named for him), is included here.
This Fort Point drawing is a gem because of its description and schematic of the layering of railroad iron, timbers, and sand. Sulakowski placed a lot of value in layered protection for the fortifications he designed in Texas, and Fort Griffin had the same type of construction. I've read various descriptions (none of them from wartime reports) of Fort Griffin having been constructed of railroad iron and cypress logs, but I have no doubt that milled timbers were used in Sabine Pass just as at Galveston.
When the war ended, US Navy Lieutenant Lewis W. Pennington (who was a Sabine Pass resident who stuck with the old flag when the nation split in 1861) was the first Federal commander to set foot at Sabine Pass since the battle at Fort Griffin on September 8, 1863. Apparently impressed with the structure, Pennington described the bombproofs (rooms built into the parapet to shelter the garrison during bombardment) and magazines at Griffin as being "covered with two feet of solid timber, two layers of railroad iron, and four feet of earth (sand) on top." Without even (likely) knowing him, Pennington described Sulakowski's design almost as well as he did in the Fort Point drawing.
It's interesting that the concept of layering different materials as armored protection, which we see now in the Chobham-type armor of US M1 Abrams tanks, had already been put into combat use so many years ago.