Fort Severn

For the trading post in Canada, see Fort Severn First Nation.

For other uses of the names "Severn" and "Fort Severn", see Severn (disambiguation).

Fort Severn
Annapolis, Maryland
Fort Severn in 1853
Coordinates	38.9818°N 76.4812°W / 38.9818; -76.4812
Type	Fortification
Site information
Owner	United States Naval Academy
Controlled by	United States
Site history
Built	1808
In use	1808-1845
Demolished	1909
Battles/wars	None

Fort Severn, in present-day Annapolis, Maryland, was built in 1808 on what was known as "Windmill Point", the same site as an earlier American Revolutionary War fortification of 1776. Although intended to guard the Annapolis harbor from British attack, it never saw action during the War of 1812 and its Chesapeake campaign in 1813-1814 during frequent British Royal Navy attacks up and down the Chesapeake Bay. The British fleets used the Bay as a sort of "British Lake" under feared and detested Rear Admiral George Cockburn, (1772-1853), and later with the additional fleet under Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane, (1758-1832), attacking and burning numerous Maryland shore towns and farms, eventually including the infamous "Burning of Washington" (with The Capitol, the President's House", Washington Navy Yard and other public buildings) in August 1814, and a naval expedition and raid against Alexandria, Virginia up the Potomac River, and the subsequent unsuccessful attack against Baltimore's Fort McHenry (built at a similar time but more elaborate style then smaller Severn) in the Battle of Baltimore, the outlying Battle of North Point, which followed in the next month, resulting in the famous American legendary story of the writing of the poem by Frederick/Georgetown lawyer/poet, Francis Scott Key, (1779-1843), initially named "The Defence of Fort McHenry", which later set to music became the four-versed song "Star Spangled Banner", our national anthem. After a significant number of years of peace between the U.S. and Great Britain, with the signing of numerous treaties adjudicating many of the political and territorial issues with the former "mother country", and with few other opposing powerful nations from Europe, threatening the continent in light of a far more well-trained and powerful American military, the United States Department of the Navy acquired obsolete Fort Severn, and two other nearby river military bases, from the U.S. War Department and the United States Army on 19 October 1845, for the establishment of the nation's second oldest military college, their future "United States Naval School" (later renamed the U.S. Naval Academy). The purchase included the ruins of the neighboring fortifications of old Fort Madison, across the Severn River to the northeast at Greenbury Point (later site of numerous high radio transmission towers for the Navy's military communications system in the middle 20th Century). The Academy used the structure of the old round-shaped brick-vaulted fort along with the surrounding brick and wood-frame military operations buildings arranged in a row along the shoreline heights of Windmill Point initially for classrooms until its demolition in 1909. The Naval Academy was temporarily evacuated in April 1861, to temporary quarters in Newport, Rhode Island by passing Massachusetts and New York state militia units aboard several vessels, including the "school ship" for training midshipmen in ship-handling chores, anchored off-shore of the old "U.S.F. Constitution" of the "Original Six Frigates" (nicknamed "Old Ironsides" - second to be launched in Boston in October 1797, next to Baltimore's "U.S.F. Constellation", launched earlier in September) of the first U.S. naval building program for the new reorganized American Navy in 1794-1797, since the Revolutionary War and the days of the old Continental Navy. With the advent of the American Civil War, local secessionist southern-sympathizers in the surrounding Maryland and Annapolis country-side had threatened to capture the old frigate, already then a symbol of American naval history. Federal naval officers and the commandant of the Academy had holed up in the old fort, threatening to destroy both the school and the ships if any armed body of men came too close to the naval reservation in that crucial month of March-April 1861. After the conclusion of the "war of rebellion" and the victorious northern Federal armies soon returned the U.S.N.A. after some discussion and controversy to Annapolis.

History

American Revolution

Walter Dulany family acquired land on the Severn River near Annapolis, Maryland, in 1753. This family and the city of Annapolis contributed land for the construction of the Army's fort. An earlier more primitive earthen fortification from the American Revolutionary War-era of 1776, previously existed in the area.

Fort Severn: 1808-1845

The War Department constructed Fort Severn in 1808 on a 10-acre lot in Annapolis, Maryland. At a time of worsening tensions between the United States and Great Britain and an embargo against trade, the War Department built Fort Severn as a defense for Annapolis. Located on Windmill Point, Fort Severn offered protection to harbor of Annapolis, which would have been a key target of the British forces. Although constructed as a more substantial fort than the original, this second Fort Severn never saw military action. Americans suspected that the British Army might attack the area during the War of 1812, but no conflict occurred at the fort during the war.

Soldiers continued to garrison Fort Severn after the war. The post surgeon took meteorological observations during 1822. Fort Severn occupied 10 acres and several antiquated wooden buildings by 1845.

In 1845, the United States Secretary of War, William L. Marcy agreed to transfer Fort Severn to the jurisdiction of the United States Department of the Navy and its Secretary of the Navy, former historian George Bancroft, effective 19 October 1845. In so doing, Secretary Bancroft overcame ongoing Congressional opposition to the idea of an onshore naval school, similar in ways to the previous 1801 establishment of the United States Military Academy on the Hudson River at West Point, New York.

Naval Academy use

The Navy turned Fort Severn into a classroom building at the future U.S. Naval School for young naval recruits and future cadets (later renamed midshipmen as like those onboard naval warships). The new Naval School started in October 1845 with 56 midshipmen and seven professors.

The leaders developed a new curriculum requiring midshipmen to study at the Academy for four years (equivalent to classical college education) and to train aboard ships each summer. That format forms the basis of the far more advanced and sophisticated curriculum at the Naval Academy today. The curriculum in the nineteenth century included mathematics and navigation, gunnery and steam, chemistry, English, natural philosophy, and French.

Demolition

Due to deteriorating structure, and despite protests from military heritage and historical preservation groups (which at that early time did not carry much weight or political clout), the Naval Academy demolished the old Fort Severn edifices in 1909. United States Naval Academy expanded in personnel and aereal extent. Over the next decade, a series of modern gray-stone, granite buildings in the "French Second Empire" of architecture with their traditional mansard slate roofs, (including the massive wings of "Bancroft Hall", (begun 1901-1906), with student dormitory, dining halls and other uses, along with the landmark domed Naval Academy chapel, and various classroom/academic offices structures) replaced the old wooden structures surrounding the old round brick-courses of Fort Severn. On 28 March 1977, the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution placed a plaque in remembrance of the original fort and its soldiers at its former site on the previous shores (now several hundred yards inland due to the landfilling) of the Severn River.

References

• Soley, James Russell, Historical Sketch of the United States Naval Academy, 1876

External links

• DAR Fort Severn website