Lies, Trickery, and Redemption: Fort Jefferson During the Civil War
Constructing Fort Jefferson didn’t just take 16 million bricks; it took a massive amount of manpower. In addition to the Army Corps of Engineers, labor in the form of Irish immigrants from the north and slaves from Key West were brought in to complete the project.
But despite decades of work, the fort was never fully completed.
Secession and deception
On January 10, 1861, Florida seceded from the Union. Recognizing the importance of the North maintaining control of Fort Jefferson, Major Lewis Arnold, along with 66 artillery soldiers, rushed for the still-uncompleted fort, arriving just eight days later on January 18. The very next day, January 19, an armed schooner from the South arrived and demanded surrender. Major Arnold told the schooner that they would be destroyed if they did not leave immediately.
The schooner abruptly departed, but Major Arnold had told a bald-faced lie — not a single cannon had arrived at Fort Jefferson yet.
Eight cannons did arrive just a week later. The number of soldiers and cannons at Fort Jefferson continued growing over the course of the Civil War, and the North maintained control of the Dry Tortugas. The Fort became a base for the US Navy’s Anaconda Plan, which blockaded the…
