Part 14 (2/2)
=Fort Clinton=, in the northeast angle of the plain, was built in 1778 under the direction of the Polish soldier, Kosciusko. Sea Coast Battery is located on the north waterfront, Siege Battery on the slope of the hill below the Battle Monument. Targets for the guns on both batteries are on the hillside about a mile distant. Battery Knox, which overlooks the river, was rebuilt in 1874 on the site of an old revolutionary redoubt.
Bright are the moments link'd with thee, Boast of a glory-hallowed land!
Hope of the valiant and the free, Home of our youthful soldier band!
_Anonymous._
While Fort Putnam was being built Was.h.i.+ngton was advised that Dubois's regiment was unfit to be ordered on duty, there being ”not one blanket in the regiment. Very few have either a shoe or a s.h.i.+rt, and most of them have neither stockings, breeches, or overalls. Several companies of inlisted artificers are in the same situation, and unable to work in the field.”
What privations were here endured to establish our priceless liberty!
It makes better Americans of us all to turn and re-turn the pages of the real Hudson, the most picturesque volume of the world's history.
West Point during the Revolution was the Gibraltar of the Hudson and her forts were regarded almost impregnable. Fort Putnam will be rebuilt as an enduring monument to the bravery of American soldiers.
The best way to study West Point, however, is not in voluminous histories or in the condensed pages of a guide book, but to visit it and see its real life, to wander amid its old a.s.sociations, and ask, when necessary, intelligent questions, which are everywhere courteously answered. The view north seen in a summer evening, is one long to be remembered. In such an hour the writer's idea of the Hudson as an open book with granite pages and crystal book-mark is most completely realized as indicated in the Highland section of his poem, ”The Hudson”:
On either side these mountain glens Lie open like a ma.s.sive book, Whose words were graved with iron pens, And lead into the eternal rock:
Which evermore shall here retain The annals time cannot erase, And while these granite leaves remain This crystal ribbon marks the place.
Under Spring's delicate marshalling every hill of the Highlands took its own place, and the soft swells of ground stood back the one from the other in more and more tender coloring.
_Susan Warner._
[Ill.u.s.tration: LOOKING NORTH FROM WEST POINT BATTERY]
=West Point to Newburgh.=
The steamer pa.s.ses too near the west bank to give a view of the magnificent plateau with parade ground and Government buildings, but on rounding the point a picture of marvelous beauty breaks at once upon the vision. On the left the ma.s.sive indented ridge of Old Cro'
Nest and Storm King, and on the right Mount Taurus, or Bull Hill, and Break Neck, while still further beyond toward the east sweeps the Fishkill range, sentineled by South Beacon, 1,625 feet in height, from whose summit midnight gleams aroused the countryside for leagues and scores of miles during those seven long years when men toiled and prayed for freedom. Close at hand on the right will be seen Const.i.tution Island, formerly the home of Miss Susan Warner, who died in 1885, author of ”Queechy” and the ”Wide, Wide World.” Here the ruins of the old fort are seen. The place was once called Martalaer's Rock Island. A chain was stretched across the river at this point to intercept the pa.s.sage of boats up the Hudson, but proved ineffectual, like the one at Anthony's Nose, as the impetus of the boats snapped them both like cords.
Some years ago, when the first delegation of Apache Indians was brought to Was.h.i.+ngton to sign a treaty of peace, the Indians were taken for an ”outing” up the Hudson, by General O. O. Howard and Dr.
Herman Bendell, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Arizona. It is said that they noted with cold indifference the palaces along the river front: ”the artistic terraces, the well-kept, sloping lawns, the clipped hedges and the ivy-grown walls made no impression on them, but when the magnificent picture of the Hudson above West Point revealed itself, painted by the rays of the sinking sun, these wild men stood erect, raised their hands high above their heads and uttered a monosyllabic expression of delight, which was more expressive than volumes of words.”
The queenly Hudson circling at thy feet Lingers to sing a song of joy and love, Pouring her heart in rippling wavelets sweet, Which sun-kissed glance up to thy throne above.
_Kenneth Bruce._
Sir Robert Temple also rises into rapture over the northern gate of the Highlands. ”One of the fairest spectacles to be seen on the earth's surface; not on any other river or strait--not on Ganges or Indus, on the Dardanelles or the Bosphorus, on the Danube or the Rhine, on the Neva or the Nile--have I ever observed so fairy-like a scene as this on the Hudson. The only water-view to rival it is that of the Sea of Marmora, opposite Constantinople.”
<script>