GARRISON LIFE AT GOVERNOR'S ISLAND, N. Y. HARBOR. 593 
 
 GARRISON LIFE AT GOVERNOR'S ISLAND, NEW YORK HARBOR. 
 
 A GUN CASEMATE. 
 
 One May day we embarked in a small 1 
 steamer at South Ferry and landed on Gov- 
 ernor's Island, a distance of abovit a thou- 
 sand yards from New York City. The spire 
 of Trinity, and the clustered towers and 
 domes of the buildings on lower Broadway, 
 reminded us how near we were to the sur- 
 charged arteries of commerce ; but as we lay 
 under one of the bastions the noisy traffic of 
 the city was altogether inaudible, and we felt 
 the alleviation of a sylvan calm. The grass 
 was in the freshness of early spring, and rip- 
 pled in the soft wind. We could see Staten 
 Island in the south and the Orange Mount- 
 ain in the west, both veiled in a purple haze, 
 through which a suggestion of green was glim- 
 mering. A multiform procession of vessels 
 was beating toward the narrow estuary of the 
 river, and a few schooners were approaching 
 from the same direction. A perpetual fleet 
 of tows and ferry-boats was breaking the 
 water off Battery Park into foaming eddies 
 and sibilant spray. While the city was so 
 near that we could define the individual 
 loungers in the little sea-bound park, its ac- 
 tivity found for us no echo, and we might 
 have been a thousand miles instead of a 
 Vol. XXI.— 44. , 
 
 thousand yards away from the marts of the 
 world. The metallic ring of the blocks, as 
 one of the schooners altered her tack, and 
 the breathing of the tow-boats, were the 
 only sounds from beyond that reached this 
 insular retreat. A flock of pigeons flapped 
 in and out of the dark port-holes in the cir- 
 cular fort, and a hen marshaled her brood 
 of chickens among a pyramid of black can- 
 non-balls. A soldier in blue uniform, with 
 the red stripe of the artillery down the 
 seam of his trowsers, was crossing the green- 
 sward, and a nursery-maid added the 
 pink of a parasol to the color of the scene 
 as she strolled along the sea-wall. We 
 could hear the voices of some boys who 
 were playing, and of two fishermen who 
 were at work among the shad-nets along 
 the southern shore. The muzzles of can- 
 non pointed at us from the walls of the 
 fort; but peace never seems more perma- 
 nent than amid the unused materials of war, 
 and idleness became sweet as we sat under 
 the bastion. 
 
 Governor's Island is separated from Brook- 
 lyn by an arm of the bay about half a mile 
 wide, which at one period was shallow 
 
S94 GARRISON LIFE AT GOVERNOR' S ISLAND, N. Y. HARBOR. 
 
 BIRD S-EVE VIEW OF GOVERNOR S ISLAND. 
 
 enough to allow the fording of cattle. The 
 island's area is sixty-two acres, and its eleva- 
 tion is about twenty-two feet above low- 
 water mark. It was the first settlement of 
 the Dutch in New York, and from the num- 
 ber of excellent huts that grew up on it, its 
 aboriginal name of Pagganek was supplanted 
 by that of Hutten Island. During tiie Eng- 
 lish colonial period it became a perquisite 
 attached to the office of governor, which 
 fact is the basis of its present nomenclature, 
 and, in the hands of the governors, it was 
 transformed from a barren plantation into a 
 bowery garden. 
 
 From the revolution in 1688 to the treaty 
 of Utrecht in 17 13, great fears were enter- 
 tained by the British colonies in North 
 America of an assault by the French navy, 
 and the fortification of Red Hook, the Nar- 
 rows, and Governor's Island was urged ; but 
 notwithstanding tlie apprehended danger, no 
 measures of defense were taken, other than 
 the appropriation of fifteen thousand pounds 
 for the construction of a fort commanding 
 the Narrows, and this amount was diverted to 
 another purpose. Governor's Island, with 
 its luxurious lawns and groves, was then, as 
 it is now, a charming retreat, and the fifteen 
 
 ■ 1 1 FERRY TO governor's ISLAND. 
 
GARRISON LIFE AT GOVERNORS ISLAND, N. Y. HARBOR. 
 
 thousand pounds were spent in building a 
 summer-house and garden, where on fine 
 afternoons, under the arching trees that rus- 
 tled somniferously, the chief magistrate of the 
 province found rehef from what Mr. Evarts 
 lias sonorously called " the complications of 
 statesmanship and the exactions of politics." 
 
 From 1756 until the meeting of the 
 Continental Congress, the island was suc- 
 cessively possessed by Governors Hardy, 
 Delancy, Colden, Moore, Dinsmore, and 
 Tryon, some of whom leased it for their 
 personal benefit ; and it was not until 1775 
 that the fortifications were begun. Delayed so 
 long, they then proved of little use. After 
 the battle of Long Island and the dis- 
 comfiture of the Americans, Admiral Howe 
 
 sailed up the bay and anchored off Govern- 
 or's, from which the garrison under Colonel 
 Prescott retreated to the city without other 
 loss than the arm of a soldier, which was 
 shot off by a ball from a British ship as he 
 was embarking. The abandonment of 
 the city by the Americans left the island in 
 possession of the enemy, who further forti- 
 fied if and garrisoned it; but at the conclu- 
 sion of the war it fell into disuse, and in 
 1784, Governor George Clinton leased it to 
 a person who built a hotel and race-course 
 upon it. Races were run in 1785 and 
 1786. A renewed fear of invasion, this 
 time by the French, led to petitions for the 
 
 improvement of the fortifications, and in 
 1794 thirty thousand pounds were appro- 
 priated for the purpose; an additional ap- 
 propriation was made later, and the com- 
 pletion of the work was considered so 
 urgent that the professors and students of 
 Columbia College went in a body to the 
 island and labored on the fortifications with 
 shovels and wheelbarrows. But Fort Jay, as 
 the new structure was called, did not seem 
 adequate, and in 1S06 it was replaced by 
 Fort Columbus, the existing fortification, 
 which is an inclosed pentagonal work. Cas- 
 tle William was completed in 181 1. 
 
 This is a circular granite battery built on 
 a bed of rocks at the extreme westerly point 
 of the island, which being submerged at 
 
 low water was formerly a peril to navigation. 
 The castle, with its tiers of cannon, has a 
 formidable look to passengers by the Staten 
 Island ferry-boats which pass and repass 
 within hailing distance of it, but it is in a 
 condition of crumbling decay, and the guns 
 of a Thimderer would make short work of 
 leveling it. During the war of the rebellion, 
 as many as eleven hundred prisoners were 
 confined in the castle at one time, and it is 
 still used for a few military offenders. We 
 pass a sentry at tlie gate whose bayonet is 
 twinkling in the sunshine, and beyond the 
 narrow portals we stand in the reverberant 
 amphitheater formed by the circular walls. 
 
 CONFEDERATE fKISONEKS IN FOKT COLUMBUS. 
 
596 GARRISON LIFE AT GOVERNOR'S ISLAND, N. Y. HARBOR. 
 
 c/ ^ f 
 
 SALLY-PORT, FORT COLUMBUS. 
 
 It is chilly and humid in here : the air is 
 prison-like, but the dome of azure sky and 
 feathery clouds is ample. The prisoners are 
 not deprived of sunshine and cannot com- 
 plain of austere treatment. They are em- 
 ployed about the grounds of the fort, and 
 though they are guarded in deference to the 
 miUtary code by a soldier with loaded 
 musket and revolver, they usually find so 
 much fellow-feeling in him that their industry 
 is not overtaxed. While we sat under the 
 bastion, a pair of them passed from one 
 mound to another with loads of earth, and 
 their pace was measured to the furthest pos- 
 sible prolongation of idleness ; meantime the 
 custodian rested on his musket at a distance, 
 and it seemed that if the men had been 
 more energetic they would not have har- 
 monized as well with the peaceful scene. 
 
 The cells are entered from galleries around 
 the amphitheater, and their space is alter- 
 nated with batteries. Not all the guns are 
 mounted, and parts of the tiers are unoccu- 
 pied. The crust of whitewash is falling off 
 the stone walls in flakes which spot the 
 floors, and the buildings have an air of un- 
 tidiness. The heavy doors of the cells are 
 grated, and the windows are set in port- 
 
 holes pierced six or seven feet through the 
 walls of the castle. The bedding is rolled 
 up, and on a center-table of common boards 
 a small Bible and a prayer-book are swamped 
 in a superabundant assortment of sensational 
 periodicals. The deep-set windows in the 
 ports reveal glimpses of the refulgent bay 
 and the purple heights of Staten Island: it is 
 like looking through an inverted telescope, 
 so distant does the point of view seem from 
 the object; but the prisoners do not devote 
 their leisure to the outlook : they spend their 
 evenings largely in card-playing or in read- 
 ing the sensational literature aforesaid. 
 
 Until a few years ago, Governor's Island 
 was a recruiting depot, and the constant ar- 
 rival of newly enlisted men and their subse- 
 quent departure for the frontier provided 
 variety and excitement for the permanent 
 dwellers in the fort. Many of the recruits 
 were Germans, who, landing with little 
 money, soon found themselves impoverished 
 and, without a knowledge of English, un- 
 able to obtain employment. The recruiting 
 officer was glad to accept them: they were 
 honest, industrious and vigorous; he spent 
 a few hours " about town " with them, 
 treated them to beer and extolled the pro- 
 
GARRISON LIFE AT GOVERNOR'S ISLAND, N. V. HARBOR. 597 
 
 fession of arms. Passed by the surgeon 
 and transported to the island, they suffered 
 many indignities from the petty officers and 
 the impositions of the men; their kits were 
 despoiled, and their inability to understand 
 some of the orders led to peremptory pun- 
 ishments. Finding that every article of his 
 outfit had been stolen, except the clothing 
 he wore and a pair of trowsers, one recruit 
 determined to save the latter at all events, 
 
 at isolated forts, far from civilization, and 
 where it too often happened they fell into a 
 pitiable state of unambitious inaction. The 
 recruiting depot is now at David's Island, 
 in the Sound. 
 
 -Massive as the walls of the castle are, 
 the concussion produced by the discharge 
 of a cannon causes them to sway alarmingly. 
 Some time ago, the commandant was Col- 
 onel Loomis, who, either on Washington's 
 
 and secretly stowed them away in one of 
 the big guns. On the following day, some 
 dignitary sailed down the bay and a salute 
 was ordered. The cannon thundered in 
 proper succession until the time of that 
 containing the recruit's trowsers came, when 
 there was an unaccountable pause. The 
 officers stormed, and the men were dis- 
 mayed; the match ignited, but the charge 
 would not explode. When another gun 
 had been loaded and fired as a substitute, 
 the cause of the failure was sought and dis- 
 covered, to the unspeakable disgust of the 
 gunner, who vented his wrath with an oath, 
 of which under the extenuating circum- 
 stances his superior officers did not choose 
 to take notice. 
 
 It was the custom to transfer recruits soon 
 after their reception to the Western frontier, 
 where, in many instances, the whole term 
 of their service was spent in a fruitless life 
 
 birthday or on the Fourth of July, delayed 
 ordering a salute until a late moment. The 
 guns were quickly loaded, and in the haste 
 they were discharged before their muzzles 
 were properly out of the port-holes. A 
 petty officer and his wife occupied one of 
 the apartments over the battery. Every 
 piece of furniture in their room was com- 
 pletely dismembered; the chairs and tables 
 fell into chaotic heaps ; the feathers fluttered 
 out of a new-fashioned helmet, and an in- 
 firm old lady bounded into the air with the 
 resilience of childhood. This incident was 
 narrated to us by Hospital-Steward Robert- 
 son, who has been stationed at Fort Colum- 
 bus some twenty-five years. 
 
 The view from the parapet of the castle 
 reaches far and wide over the river and the 
 bay, which quivers and twinkles in the 
 spring sunshine. There are guns even up 
 here, and the sparrows twitter garrulously 
 
S98 GARRISON LIFE AT GOVERNORS ISLAND, N. Y. HARBOR. 
 
 over the black pyramids of shot. The area 
 of the island is now fully revealed, — the 
 granite grass-crowned bastions, the low 
 earth-works, the verdant moat, the monoto- 
 nous buildings of the arsenal, the vivid sweep 
 of lawn before the officers' quarters, and the 
 preeminent flag-staff with its tri-colored ban- 
 ner, which is drawn out by the breeze to its 
 full proportions. 
 
 Some of the men in the garrison aver 
 that the ghost of John Yates Beall, who 
 was hanged here in 1865, stalks along the 
 parapet in the moonlight. 
 
 In 1864, the United States steamer Michi- 
 gan, the only guard-ship on the great lakes, 
 was anchored off Johnson's Island in San- 
 dusky Bay, where nearly two thousand five 
 hundred Confederate prisoners were con- 
 fined. Beall conceived the project of capt- 
 uring the vessel, releasing the prisoners, 
 and reducing the towns along the shore. 
 
 One morning in September, the steamer 
 connecting Detroit with Sandusky was 
 seized by twenty-four armed men, who 
 had come on board as passengers, bringing 
 with them various innocent-looking trunks, 
 which contained their weapons. The crew 
 was overpowered, and the passengers were 
 landed. Another steamer was seized and 
 scuttled, and the pirates, at whose head was 
 John Yates Beall, proceeded for Johnson's 
 Island. It had been previously arranged 
 that a Confederate named Cole should, in 
 an assumed character, become acquainted 
 with the officers of the Michigan, and that 
 while he was entertaining them on shore, 
 Beall should seize their vessel. Cole made 
 himself popular on board the Michigan, and 
 his invitations to a dinner were willingly ac- 
 cepted. When the hour of the entertainment 
 arrived, Beall was standing off the harbor, 
 waiting for a signal that was to indicate 
 
GARRISON LIFE AT GOVERNORS ISLAND, N. Y. HARBOR. 
 
 that Cole had succeeded in his purpose of 
 drugging the officers' wine. He waited im- 
 patiently and in vain. As the signal did 
 not come, he wished to attack the Michigan 
 without cooperation from tlie land, but his 
 men mutinied, and he was compelled to 
 retreat. Cole's real character had been 
 discovered at the last moment. Beall scut- 
 tled his steamer, and became a fugitive for 
 four months, when he was captured at Sus- 
 pension Bridge. He was sentenced to death 
 by the late Governor Dix, and was hanged 
 on Governor's Island, February 24th, 1865. 
 
 On the south side of the island, reaching 
 from Castle William to Buttermilk Channel, 
 a low sea-wall has been erected, and it is a 
 favorite promenade of the nursery girls, 
 who avert their eyes as the handsome young 
 prisoners pass with the loads of earth. The 
 
 artillery in various forms, and acres of shells, 
 in the hollows of which some wrens have 
 built their nests. The cannon are stacked 
 in terraces, and stroke the ground with their . 
 sinister lengths. The shot is erected in uni- 
 form and numberless pyramids. But the 
 sun falls softly on these implements of war, 
 and the incidents in their history, which the 
 clerk of the ordnance imparts to us, seem 
 unreal. The clerk of the ordnance is an 
 intelligent, familiar, self-possessed little 
 man, who surveys his domain with great 
 complacency. He has the air of one who 
 feels that the destructive power of the im- 
 plements around him is within his personal 
 control. "It's a great responsibility," his 
 manner distinctly says ; and it really is, for, 
 besides the care of the arsenal, the clerk has 
 the superintendence of much perilous work. 
 
 blocks of granite deposited on the grass for 
 future absorption in the wall are occupied 
 by readers and idlers in an agreeable state 
 of passivity. The children are omnipresent, 
 and their amusements reflect the military bent 
 given to their fancies by the surroundings. 
 There are enough toy drums, trumpets, 
 cocked hats, and wooden cavalry-horses to 
 stock a shop. While the nursery maids are 
 sunning themselves on the sea-wall, scenes 
 of carnage are being enacted on the green- 
 sward by their charges, and victories are 
 won in the realm of the imagination, com- 
 pared with which the most brilliant pages 
 of history are lusterless. 
 
 An immense quantity of military material 
 is stored along the northern shore. There 
 are dilapidated trains of battery wagons, 
 
 Accidents happen occasionally from the 
 carelessness of the men employed. When 
 condemned pistol cartridges are emptied, 
 some loose powder is found attached to 
 them, and they are cleared of it by being 
 burned in a fire. Several months ago, a 
 man who was engaged in this work threw 
 a wheelbarrow load into the flames, and 
 retraced his way to the large open bin con- 
 taining the empty shells, upon which he sat 
 down. Presumably a spark of fire had 
 clung to his trowsers, for in an instant the bin 
 exploded, and he was very severely burned. 
 The clerk of the ordnance has invented 
 an ingenious machine for emptying the con- 
 demned cartridges. It is a deep trough 
 filled with water and fitted with a double 
 tray. The cartridges are placed percussion 
 
6oo GARRISON LIFE AT GOVERNOR'S ISLAND, N. V. HARBOR. 
 
 A COLONIAL GOVKRNOR TAKING HIS EASE. 
 
 end up, in rows of circular perforations 
 made in the lower shelf of the tray, over 
 which the upper slielf is closed. The 
 upper shelf is fitted with a series of pins 
 that correspond in position with the car- 
 tridges, and when it is closed a workman 
 
 strikes the heads of the pins in quick suc- 
 cession; the points explode the cartridges 
 as the needle of a modern carbine would do, 
 and the load is expelled into the water of 
 the trough. 
 
 The clerk led us through the cool, dark gal- 
 
GARRISON LIFE AT GOVERNOR'S ISLAND, N. Y. HARBOR. 6oi 
 
 MHXICAN ARMOR IN THE MUSEUM. 
 
 leries of the stores in which the muskets were 
 stacked from the floors to the ceilings, some 
 of them twisted and bent by service, others 
 unused, and of the latest pattern. 
 
 Passing out of the stores, along a path 
 bordered by cannon, we reach a superb lawn 
 threaded by vivid walks of red brick, set 
 with the smooth exactitude of a mosaic. 
 When the lamps are glimmering in the sum- 
 mer twilight, and the foliage hangs duskily 
 against the gray and crimson sky, there are 
 
 OLD ARTILLERY SADDLE IN THE MUSEUM. 
 
 Vol. XXI.— 45. 
 
 few prettier places than the green on Gov- 
 ernor's Island. The water of the bay is 
 dyed to a coppery yellow by the reflected 
 light, and the sailing-vessels move along 
 like phantoms. The band plays in the 
 pavilion, and the most animated airs sound 
 distant and pensive. The beauty of the 
 scene is appreciated by many loungers, and 
 perhaps the young officers in attendance 
 on the pretty ladies in musUn are most sus- 
 ceptible to the pervading tenderness of the 
 hour. But the green is attractive at all 
 times ; in the afternoon, the children have 
 
 possession of the walks, and their voices 
 lend another charm. No wonder that Gov- 
 ernor's Island is considered the most de- 
 sirable station an army officer can have. 
 The garrison ladies have many fair young 
 friends who come to stay a week or longer, 
 and occasionally an entertainment is given, 
 to which guests come from the city. The 
 officers have a club-house, incipient yet, but 
 comfortable, for smoking, reading, and gos- 
 sip. The club also possesses the nucleus of a 
 museum; and in an adjoining apartment the 
 remains of Sheridan's famous war-horse are 
 embalmed. Prior to our visit a little boy stood 
 in mute admiration of the defunct charger 
 
602 
 
 THE HEART OF A ROSE. 
 
 for a few minutes, and then, turning to his 
 mother, said: 
 
 " When General Sheridan dies, I suppose 
 they'll stuff him, too, and mount him on 
 Winchester." 
 
 The island is at present the head-quarters 
 of the Department of the Atlantic, of which 
 General Hancock is commander. Fort 
 Columbus is occupied by two batteries of 
 artillery, numbering about one hundred 
 men. Many improvements have been made 
 under General Hancock's administration. 
 The ferriage has been abolished, and the 
 private boat succeeded by a government 
 steamer with excellent accommodations. 
 The yield of the wells being impure, Brook- 
 lyn water has been introduced by a flexible 
 pipe carried under Buttermilk Channel, and 
 it is proposed to bring illuminating gas to 
 the island in the same way. Several taste- 
 ful cottages have been built for the staff 
 officers, and the grounds are now as carefully 
 cultivated as when the old colonial governors 
 smoked their after-dinner pipes and lived in 
 agreeable ease on the pretty little island. 
 
 Fort Columbus, with its five bastions, 
 fills the center of the island, and is sur- 
 rounded by a moat, in which the grass is 
 smooth and intensely green. Beyond the 
 sally-port, which is surmounted by an elab- 
 orate group of statuary, we enter a cool 
 archway leading into a hollow square, 
 
 formed by the quarters of the ofiicers and 
 men. There is a lawn in front and inter- 
 secting walks between. The buildings have 
 wide piazzas, which are abundantly sup- 
 plied with easy-chairs made by the con- 
 victs at Fort Leavenworth, and a soldier's 
 life is probably less irksome at Fort Colum- 
 bus than at any other post. The barracks are 
 clean, well-ventilated, and in good repair. 
 The ordinary rations are supplemented by 
 supplies of fresh fish and plenty of garden 
 produce. Among various other resources of 
 amusement, the men have a " coterie," 
 which gives entertainments once a month, 
 and a theater, which is utilized for negro 
 minstrelsy. The theater is a small apart- 
 ment over the barracks; a miniature stage 
 is erected, and'the proscenium is decorated 
 with silhouettes of cannon, shields, and eagles. 
 When interrogated as to the available talent, 
 one of the corporals became fervid. " Some 
 of the men sings exquisite, and plays the 
 pe-an-er bully! " he declared. The theater 
 is also used as a reading-room, and a center- 
 table is filled with a variety of periodicals. 
 
 On the sea-wall outside Castle William 
 stands the gun which, as the sun disappears 
 behind the deep-blue hills in the west, pro- 
 claims the end of day to the city. At the 
 same moment the flag flutters down from the 
 staff, the bugle calls to quarters, and night 
 falls on the garrison at Governor's Island. 
 
 THE HEART OF A ROSE. 
 
 A ROSE like a hollow cup with a brim — 
 A brim as pink as the after-glow ; 
 Deep down in its heart gold stamens swim, 
 Tremble and swim in a sea of snow. 
 My Love set it safe in a crystal glass. 
 Gently as petals float down at noon. 
 Low, in a whisper, my Love's voice said : 
 " Look quick ! In an hour it will be dead. 
 I picked it because it will die so soon. 
 Now listen, dear Heart, as the seconds pass. 
 What the rose will say," my Love's voice said. 
 
 I look and I listen. The flushed pink brim 
 Is still as June's warmest after-glow; 
 Silent as stars the gold stamens swim. 
 Tremble and swim in their sea of snow. 
 I dare not breathe on the crystal glass, 
 Lest one sweet petal should fall too soon. 
 False was the whisper my Love's voice said — 
 If he had not picked it, it had been dead. 
 But now it will live an eternal noon. 
 And I shall hear, as the seconds pass, 
 What the rose will say till I am dead.