Park Ranger provides glimpse into San Francisco's Civil War past

Digital Journal ^ | 5/24/11 | Jonathan Farrell

[mgstarr]

San Francisco - On the south side of the Golden Gate Bridge at the entrance of San Francisco Bay is Fort Point. Windy and dusty it sits underneath the Golden Gate Bridge as something from another place and time. Constructed in 1861 just as the Civil War was begriming, the old fort with its seven-foot-thick walls, was actually one of dozens of forts and sentries established to defend the San Francisco Bay from invasion.

[snip]

From its beginnings as a sleepy little village of the Ohlone tribe, San Francisco then called Yerba Buena by arriving Europeans, was a distant outpost of Spain's empire. When Mexico gained independence from Spain, struggling to form its nationhood, San Francisco was part of Mexico. Yet as San Francisco became the hub of the growing population of people from everywhere, when gold was discovered San Francisco became an inevitable acquirement of America's growing expansion westward.

[snip]

With the gold rush and the rise of industries and commerce, there was a need to defend the area. "Fort Point was the most elaborate for its time, with a multiple-tiered design at a cost of over $3 million, Fort Point could provide 30 minutes of gun fire at an invading ship," he said.

[snip]

As Fort Point and other sentries were established they were key installations of defense for San Francisco and California's growing wealth. "Even the now infamously yet tourist-attracting Alcatraz was used as an additional battery," said Martini. The various sentries and forts helped keep potential invaders further away from the harbor.

For its time, Fort Point was state-of-the-art, used as a counter-balance to the conflict of the Civil War. "Gold from California, and more importantly gold and silver from Nevada's Comstock Lode, definitely aided the Union cause financially," said Martini.

[mgstarr]

[freedumb2003]

I have been to that very spot and all around there.

Too damn bad SF is loaded with San Fransiscans. They have taken a paradise and turned into a hell-hole filled with only attack panhandlers and the extremely rich (who never actually set foot in their own city).

[skeeter]

Cool place, and not very heavily visited.

BTW more important to the union than Sierra Nevada gold were the mercury deposits in New Almaden 50 miles south of the city. The mineral was used in percussion caps and the south bay had one of the largest deposit in the world at the time.

I read once that this was the main reason Lincoln pressed so hard to have California join the union.

[SunkenCiv]

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[ApplegateRanch]

Nice interactive map of SF Bay defenses. Gives the active dates of each installation when you click on the map tags.

Harbor Defense of San Francisco

[Joe 6-pack]

There's some very good early SF history to be found in William Sherman's Memoirs. He had been stationed there in the late 1840's and early 1850's and witnessed the early gold rush and blossoming of the city.

[rockrr]

Now you’ve got my curiosity aroused, but linkee no workee.

[ApplegateRanch]

try this

I would have sworn I tested the link, but IAC, it looks like an "22" got added the end of the URL.

[rockrr]

Yep, that worked ;-)
Now I have enough to keep me distracted for three days!

[I Buried My Guns]

"...BTW more important to the union than Sierra Nevada gold were the mercury deposits in New Almaden 50 miles south of the city..."

I mountain biked there, and the area still has signs posted warning not to eat the fish in the nearby lake.

The area has a really cool story; an entire town in Wales moved, almost en masse, to the area to work the mines.