Officers' Quarters
by Paul Branch, Fort Historian
(published in the Summer '04 Ramparts)
During
the last few issues of the Ramparts
a section entitled ‘Outside the Walls of Fort Macon’ has been
included. This section describes various exterior buildings and
structures that once existed as part of the ‘Fort Macon Military
Reservation.’ This article is a continuation of that series and
describes a set of four small cottages that served as the Officers’
Quarters, erected just outside the fort's walls. These cottages
deserve an in-depth look because one of the goals of the Friends of
Fort Macon is to rebuild one of these cottages for historic
interpretation.
Prior to the War Between the States, the fort’s commanding
officer had a two-story house known as the Eliason House provided as
his quarters. Another nearby building left over from the fort’s
construction was also used as an officer’s quarters. Other
officers of the garrison were housed inside the fort.
During the 1862 siege of Fort Macon in the War Between the
States, the two exterior officers’ houses were destroyed.
Thereafter, all officers were forced to live in the casemates of the
fort. Of the five casemates on the fort’s eastern wing that
comprised the ‘officers’ row,’ one was used as the fort commandant’s
quarters, another as an officers’ mess room, and three accommodated the
remaining officers.
During the war, overcrowding of the fort by multiple
companies of troops was to be expected. In the years following
the end of the war, however, the overcrowding continued because a large
contingent of military and civilian prisoners also had to be
accommodated in the casemates.
During most of the post-war years, at least two companies
of soldiers occupied the fort, sometimes more. Officers for each
company consisted of a captain, and two or more lieutenants. In
addition, there was usually a post surgeon (medical officer) present
and sometimes a regimental officer in command of the post. Thus
the overcrowding of officers into available officers’ casemates was
keenly felt, especially when married officers also had their wives and
families present with them.
On June 2, 1869, fort commandant Brevet Major G. W.
Brayton, 8th U.S. Infantry, wrote the Department of the South
headquarters to describe the condition of the officers’ quarters:
“A portion of the casemates occupied by officers are divided into two
rooms by a partition running half way to the ceiling, and are infested
by rats, mice, centipedes and bugs of all kinds . . . some of the
officers are compelled to use their back room for a kitchen and the
heat from the stove makes it almost impossible to remain in the
casemate. One casemate has been used during the past month by two
officers with families, one (partitioned) room to each officer.”
Brayton went on to state that exterior quarters for the
officers could be erected outside the fort without much expense, which
in turn would help relieve overcrowding for the enlisted men in the
fort. He continued:
“If this plan is not deemed adviseable I would state that there are
eight very nice cottages belonging to the government at Goldsboro, N.C.
and only one company stationed there, and respectfully suggest that the
(Quartermaster Department) be directed to have four of them taken down
and shipped here. This can probably be done at less expense than
to build new.”
Over the next few weeks, much consideration was given to
Brayton’s request as it made its way through the Army
bureaucracy. An estimate for three new-built officers’ quarters
was about $5000. The estimate for removing four existing cottages
at Goldsbory and transferring them to Fort Macon, in contrast, was
$1250, but with an estimated 50% loss of material. However, in
view of the difference of expense, even with a high loss of materials,
the Army Quartermaster General agreed on July 23, 1869 to the transfer
of four cottages from Goldsboro.
Unfortunately, dismantling the cottages and transporting
them by railroad and boat to Fort Macon was the easy part.
Reassembling the bewildering mass of materials into four useable
cottages was quite another matter. On September 11, 1868, fort
commandant Brevet Lieutenant Colonel John D. Wilkins, 8th U.S. Infantry
wrote to the Department of the South headquarters: “I am sorry to
inform the Commanding Genl. That although the cottages sent here from
Goldsboro have duly arrived (a mass of lumber representing the same and
at present in “Chaos"), I have been unable to make any progress in
their
erection.”
The foreman from Goldsboro acquainted with how to put them
together was delayed, and Wilkins investigated the possibility of
hiring local laborers cheaper than the $2000 estimated as necessary to
do the work. Ultimately, to save expense Wilkins was directed to
do the work through his own post quartermaster using artificers and
soldiers of the two companies of the 8th U.S. Infantry garrisoning the
fort. Work on two of the cottages progressed to the point that on
October 1, Wilkins wrote his wife that the chimneys were built and he
expected the roofs to be completeed that week. In expectation of
moving into one of them soon, he enthusiastically sent his wife window
measurements for curtains and instructed her to obtain estimates on
shipping their furniture. “The rooms are not large,” he told her,
“but will answer our purpose very well.” He also talked with a
local black woman “represented as a good cook & . . . a
hard-working woman, & willing” whom he was interested in hiring as
a servant. Soon he was able to move into a cottage that was
finished.
By November, 1869, an Army Inspector noted that two of the
cottages were finished. Unfortunately, the other two had only
been partially completed when the post quartermaster was forced to
suspend work on them. This was due to the exhaustion of funds
authorized to do the work. The Inspector reported that only about
$300 were needed to finish them, and recommended that this amount be
authorized. The Army Quartermaster General granted the sum for
work to resume.
By February, 1870, a third cottage was completed. At
that time the two companies of the 8th U.S. Infantry at the fort were
transferred elsewhere. In their place came two companies of the
4th U.S. Artillery. The new fort commandant, Major Joseph
Stewart, had the artificers of his command continue work on the last
house. He wrote to the Department of Virginia headquarters on
March 17, 1870: “It is contemplated to use lumber on hand (received
from Goldsboro) to complete the fourth cottage mentioned. All the
required lumber can be thus obtained, except that required for doors,
casings, mantlepieces, etc.”
Unfortunately, the men Stewart had working on the house
apparently were not as skilled as those of the 8th U.S. Infantry in the
previous garrison. An Army Inspector noted during an April, 1870
inspection:
“The frame of a fourth set (of officer’s quarters) is up, with very
poor prospects of completion, as the orders directing its erection
state the work shall be done by the artificers of the command, which
amounts to saying, two inexperienced carpenters shall complete the
work,
or, in other words it will be a very long time before the building will
be completed.”
This prediction proved to be true because by September,
1870, the house was still unfinished, and additional work was becoming
necessary on the other three. At this time, Stewart was reduced
to having only one artificer working on the house. In a letter to
Department of the East headquarters on September 20, 1870, he noted:
“the carpenter detailed (for this work) is a very slow workman at best
and his services will increasingly be required for some months, and I
trust the Commanding General wil . . . authorize the continuous
employment of the man detailed until the work mentioned shall have been
finished.” Eventually, this last house was also finished.
The four cottages were set up in a line running about 135
feet from and parallel to the northeast front of Fort Macon. They
faced away from the fort. The houses were wood framed structures
with pine weatherboard siding and cypress shingles on the roof.
They were 59 feet long by 40 feet wide. Each consisted of a main
structure with a 6-1/2 foot wide veranda across the front and a
ten-foot long breezeway at the rear, which linked two kitchens with the
main structure. A central front door allowed access to a
7-1/2-foot wide hallway running the length of the main structure.
On each side of the hallway were two rooms and one closet. A
common fireplace was shared by each pair of rooms. From the back
door of the main structure, the breezeway provided access to the
attached kitchens. A short distance beyond the kitchens was a
privy. Because cattle of local residents left to forage on Bogue
Banks frequently wandered around the cottages, fences were later
erected to enclose a small lot around each cottage.
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Even with the four cottages ready for use, it was usually
necessary for two officers to live in each cottage. When officers
were married, it was not uncommon for two officers, their wives and
children to share a single cottage. As in the case of Captain
Elliott Coues, Assistant Surgeon of the post, who moved into one of the
cottages, he, his wife and young daughter shared the cottage with an
unmarried officer. Coues’ wife Jeannie included a hand-drawn
floor plan of her “cottage by the sea” in a March 12, 1870 letter to
her sister, showing their living arrangement. The front right
room was occupied by the unmarried officer. The left front room
was a common parlor. The rear room on the left was occupied by
the Coues family. The right rear room was a common dining
room. Only one of the kitchens was used. The other kitchen
was used instead as quarters for servants (army regulations made
allowance for each captain and lieutenant to hire a servant to cook,
clean, wash, etc).
For the remainder of the fort’s occupation during the
Reconstruction years, the cottages saw constant use by officers of the
garrison. Unfortunately, hard use and constant exposure to the
elements began to take a toll on the structures almost
immediately. A November 18, 1872 report on the condition of the
buildings of the post noted that: “The plastering, brickwork of
the fireplaces, woodwork, painting and glazing are all dilapidated, and
in bad condition. The boards of the kitchen floor are an inch
apart and the kitchens so cold, and full of drafts in winter as to be
untenable. The buildings need cleaning, whitewashing, painting
and glazing and all the doors and windows need refitting and
repairings.”
In his annual report of September 10th, 1874, fort
commandant Captain John I. Rodgers wrote that the cottages “were not
put up in a workmanlike manner; the window sashes and doors do not fit
their frames; the lumber has been in use nine years, and the weather
boarding, porches, and shingles are beginning to decay, so that the
buildings leak. Extensive repairs will soon be necessary.”
The following year, Rodgers’ annual report of September 13, 1875, noted:
“The officers quarters are getting very old and
dilapidated. The sills are rotting and the weather-boarding is
becoming shaken and sun-cracked from exposure. These houses are
reconstructed buildings; they are not susceptible of repairs.
They may be patched up and made to do for officers or laundresses for a
year or two, but if the post is to be garrisoned for a long time, new
quarters for the officers and barracks for the men should be begun
soon.”
The War Department did not intend to maintain a
garrison at Fort Macon permanently. At the end of Reconstruction
in 1877, the fort garrison was withdrawn. Only an ordnance
sergeant remained at the post as a caretaker. He took residence
with his family in one of the officers’ cottages. The post of
Fort Macon remained in caretaker status for most of the remainder of
the 19th century. The abandoned buildings of the post suffered
greatly from neglect and the effects of storms and the elements.
In 1897, the Army did have a brick cistern built to replace a rusted
iron cistern at the ordnance sergeant’s cottage, but otherwise no
repairs were made to the buildings in this period. During 1898,
when the post was occupied again during the Spanish-American War, the
officers quarters were probably re-occupied again, although it is
doubtful that any further repairs were made to them.
In January, 1902, the poor condition of the cottage
occupied by the ordnance sergeant and his family caught the attention
of Major J.A. Lundeen, the commander of the post of Fort Caswell, of
which Fort Macon was a sub-post. Lundeen reported to Department
of the East headquarters that the caretaken should either have quarters
rented for him in Beaufort, or else new quarters built for him.
Because of the need to retain the ordnance seergeant continuously at
the post rather than commute across the harbor from Beaufort, the
construction of new quarters for him seemed the only option.
However, the Quartermaster Department eventually decided instead to gut
the cottage in which he was living, keeping only the framing, and
comletely refurnish it inside and out. The cistern was to be
enlarged and various other repairs made. A total of $974 was
authorized in January, 1903 for this work.
Thus one of the four cottages was completely
repaired and placed in almost new condition. The effort and
expense to accomplish this soon became pointless, however. The
Army decided later that year to close the post of Fort Macon and
withdraw the ordnance sergeant. On December 25, 1903, the
ordnance sergeant was relieved of duty and the post
transferred to the jurisdiction of the Engineer Department. In
the weeks following, arrangements were made to sell off the dilapidated
buildings remaining on the post, with the exception of the
newly-renovated cottage used by the ordnance sergeant.
On March 9, 1904, a sale was held to dispose of the
old buildings (which included not only three of the officers’ quarters,
but also the post hospital, a storehouse and two small sets of
non-commissioned officers’ quarters). In this sale, one of the
officer cottages brought $25. The other two cottages brought only
$7 each. These and the other old buildings included in the sale
were removed.
All that remained now on the Fort Macon Military
Reservation were the fort itself and the one repaired officer
cottage. During 1904-06, the Engineer Department allowed a
foreman working on one of its harbor improvements projects at Beaufort
Harbor to live in the cottage, and act as a watchman for the
fort. Thereafter the cottage remained abandoned until 1913, when
it was finally decided to offer it at public sale. In November,
1913 an offer of $50 was made for the cottage, which the Army
subsequently accepted. With the removal of this cottage, the last
building on the Fort Macon Military Reservation other than the fort
itself was gone.
Today, there are still two tangible reminders of the
little row of officers’ quarters that once stood outside Fort
Macon. In the woods on the northeast slope of the fort glacis are
the remains of a brick fireplace foundation of the kitchen of one of
the cottages. Not far away, stand the other reminder. The
old brick cistern that once served the one renovated cottage still
remains as the first thing visitors see when they walk up to the
fort. It has survived long after the cottage it served, and the
other three that once stood with it, have passed into history.
Special Source
Notes: In addition to the copies of fort records and documents in the
collection of Fort Macon State Park, the following sources were
consulted for this article: John Darragh Wilkins Papers, W.R, Perkins
Library, Duke University; Letters of Jeannie Coues, David Deans
collectin, Rochester, N.Y.