This book offers a detailed account of the major fortifications of North America, providing a lens through which to view the continent’s military history. The strongholds discussed span centuries of conflict and colonization, involving Indigenous nations, European empires, and the emerging United States. Through these forts, the book traces the movement of competing powers—Spanish, French, Dutch, Swedish, and English—as they sought to claim and defend territory.
Included are descriptions of early Spanish forts such as St. Augustine and Pensacola; French defensive systems stretching from Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico; and English colonial works like Castle William in Boston Harbor. Later American fortifications and Civil War sites, including Fort Sumter, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg, demonstrate the continued strategic importance of topography and military engineering.
The author draws upon extensive personal travel, photography, and historical research, with acknowledgments to key historians such as Francis Parkman and John Fiske. Supplemented by photographs, many taken by the author, and supported by archival material from the U.S. War Department, the volume serves both historical scholars and visitors interested in these lasting monuments of North America’s military past.
- Strongholds of the Past
- Fort Independence (Castle William), Castle Island, Boston Harbor
- Fort Columbus, or Jay, Governor’s Island, New York Harbor
- Fort Ticonderoga, Lake Champlain, New York
- Crown Point, Lake Champlain, New York
- The Heights of Quebec
- Fort Annapolis Royal, Annapolis, Annapolis Basin, Nova Scotia
- The Citadel at Halifax, Nova Scotia
- Fort George, Castine, Maine
- Fort Frederick, Pemaquid, Maine
- Fort Niagara, at Mouth of Niagara River, New York
- Fort Ontario, Oswego, New York
- Fort Michillimackinac and Fort Holmes, Mackinac Island, Michigan
- Fort Massac, on the Ohio, near Metropolis, Illinois.
- West Point, Its Environs, and Stony Point, New York
- Fort Constitution (Fort William and Mary), Great Island, near Portsmouth, New Hampshire
- Forts Trumbull and Griswold, New London and Groton, on the Thames, Connecticut
- Fort Mifflin, on the Delaware, Philadelphia
- Fort McHenry, Baltimore
- Fort Marion, St. Augustine, Florida
- La Fuerza, Morro Castle, and Other Defenses, Havana, Cuba
- Fort San Carlos de Barrancas, Pensacola Bay, Florida
- The Presidio of San Francisco, Golden Gate, California
- Fort Adams and Newport’s Defensive Ruins, Newport, Rhode Island
- Fort Monroe, Old Point Comfort, Virginia
- Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie, near Charleston, South Carolina
- Fort Pulaski, at Mouth of Savannah River, Georgia
- Fort Morgan, Mobile Bay, Alabama
- Forts Jackson and St. Philip, at Mouth of the Mississippi, Louisiana
- Fort Snelling, near St. Paul, Minnesota
- Fort Laramie, at the Forks of the Platte River, Wyoming
- The Alamo and Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas.
- Other Western Forts:
- Fort Phil Kearney, Nebraska
- Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
- Fort Fetterman, Wyoming
- Fort Bridger, Wyoming
- Fort Keogh, Montana
- Fort Douglas, Utah
- Fort Vancouver, on the Columbia River, Washington
- Fort Yuma, at Head of Navigation, Colorado River, California
- Field Fortifications
- Valley Forge
- Yorktown
- Vicksburg
- Gettysburg
- The “Crater”
Source
Hammond, John Martin. Quaint and Historic Forts of North America. J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, London. 1915.