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Manhattan
The Guns That Never Fired in Anger
by John Coppola
There was a time when New York Harbor was ringed by a series of defensive artillery
batteries to protect this vital waterway. Sadly, only a few remain.
Few people know that the greatest time of battery construction occurred during the Civil
War. The Union, in general, and New York, in particular, were afraid that the
Confederate's ironclad, the CSS VIRGINIA (aka The Merrimac) was going to steam through the
Narrows, and sink or destroy commercial shipping, and, in effect, singularly produce a
naval blockade of the harbor. Numerous batteries were built to ward off this threat. Two
of them remain. You can see the largest just north of the Staten Island stanchion of the
Verrazano Bridge, and another, smaller one lies just north of the lighthouse at the
entrance of Kill Van Kull.
None of these batteries saw action because The Merrimac did not have either a pilot or
charts to negotiate the shoals off George's Bank and Grave's End Bay.
Every New Yorker knows the largest batteries ever built in the harbor. They are the twin
batteries marking the entrance to the East River. The one on the tip of Manhattan, at
Battery Park, is a land-based tourist attraction. The other, on Governors Island is
currently closed to the public, but you can see her casemates opposite the Staten Island
Ferry Terminal when you sail through the Battery. A remaining Governors Island fort can be
seen from Buttermilk Channel just south of the old Coast Guard base church, and the old
officer's club was built into it. None of these batteries ever fired in anger.
By the way, did you know that Governors Island was a test site for an early Wright
brothers'airplane? And, did you know that Samuel Morse laid and tested the first
underwater telegraph cable between Governors Island and Manhattan, or, that Samuel Colt
first demonstrated a harbor mining system in 1842 in the waters of the Battery channel.
Obviously, local fishermen protested-fearing he would blow up their vessels.
Listen - can you hear the 19th century voices of civilian and military New Yorkers?
- March 2000
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