America's Fortress : A History of Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas, Florida Paperback / softback

by Thomas Reid

Part of the Florida History and Culture series

Paperback / softback

Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks

Description

Americaâ€™s Fortress offers a compelling narrative of the people who envisioned, constructed, and garrisoned this important military installation . . . Reid brings to life the human experience of the fort that pulsated inside the enduring walls of brick and mortar.â€â€”Peter S.

Carmichael, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, author of The Last Generation: Young Virginians in Peace, War, and ReunionKnown as the â€œAmerican Gibraltar,â€ Fort Jefferson, located in the Dry Tortugas, Florida, was the most heavily armed coastal defense fort in United States history.

Perceived as the nationâ€™s leading maximum-security prison, the fort also held several of the accused conspirators in the Lincoln assassination.

Americaâ€™s Fortress is the first book-length, architectural, military, environmental, and political history of this strange and significant Florida landmark.

This volume also fills a significant gap in Civil War history with regard to coastal defense strategy, support of the Confederacy blockade, the use of convicted Union soldiers as forced labor, and the treatment of civilian prisoners sentenced by military tribunals.

Reid argues that Fort Jeffersonâ€™s troops faced very different threats and challenges than soldiers who served elsewhere during the war.

He chronicles threats of epidemic tropical disease, hurricanes, shipwrecks, prisoner escapes, and Confederate attack.

Reid also reports on white northernersâ€™ perceptions of slaves, slavery, and the emerging free black soldiers of the latter years of the war.

Drawing on the writings of Emily Holder, wife of Fort Jeffersonâ€™s resident surgeon, Reid is the first to offer a female perspective on life at the fort between 1859 and 1865.

For history buffs and tourists, America's Fortress offers a fascinating account of this little-known outpost which has stood for over 150 years off the tip of the Florida Keys.