Concerning forts

A friend and colleague, although a long-time resident in these parts, is in his heart of hearts a New Yorker. Recently, he visited Fort Warren in Boston Harbour, and interpreted its existence as a symptom of Bostonian egomania. Boston, he reasons, is less important than it thinks it is. Well, that could be true of most cities, and quite a few nations.

However, forts on the East Coast are not so much relics of bygone civic pride as they are relics of bygone military priorities. Many of them are archaeological layer cakes, because what was a good site for a fort early in the 17th century remained a good site until the dawn of the nuclear age. Materials changed: the earliest ones were earthworks. They were succeeded by stone, then brick, then more elaborate stone (such as Fort Warren), and finally earthworks again, but revetted with concrete. The forts with the longest history contain traces of every occupation, from the 1630s to the 1950s. Some are still in use, and in unlikely places if the measure of importance is Manhattan.

By the time Fort Warren was built, New York had eclipsed Boston as the East's premier port. However, that had been true only for a generation or so, and a sizable part of the nation's GNP was still collected at the Boston Customs House. Protecting such a port made good sense at the national level.

It made even more sense to a nation that generally preferred investing in forts to investing in a navy. American policy hated and feared navies, as it had in the War of Independence, until very late in the 19th century. Forts were the thing. They were palpable and accountable, and government could put them where they seemed to be needed. They could even be brought back cheaply from extreme states of neglect.

Locations were equal parts national politics and sound strategy. Boston generated large customs revenue and had a navy yard. Portsmouth, NH and Kittery, ME had customs revenues, had (still has) a navy yard, and stood at the gateway of an inland sea tailor-made for invasion, so it was fortified. Maine's Kennebec River, far from any city, produced an enormous percentage of the nation's merchant marine tonnage, so its mouth was fortified. And so on. That all three points might better have been defended by one offshore naval squadron was lost on Jefferson's administration, and several succeeding administrations through the 1800s. It was also lost on most Americans. Voters could see forts. They made voters feel good. You could never tell what those aristocratic naval officers were up to, out there over the horizon. Up to a point, the voters were right: any good harbour that was undefended was likely to be a target just because it was undefended.

Generals and politicians were still thinking like that in the Cold War. Greater Boston is ringed with the remnants of antiaircraft missile batteries called into existence by MIT, Raytheon and other interests with the ear of the Eisenhower administration. So are most American cities once within range of Soviet bombers. Like all forts, they ceased to exist not as a matter of local vanity, but because newer weapons (ICBMs) made them obsolete. The ruins of the missile batteries are not as picturesque as older forts. If they were, we would be more aware of them, and the motivations behind a Fort Warren would be less abstruse.