Tabby in the construction of Civil War masonry forts (not dial-up friendly)

[Terry C.]

NOTE: This is an addendum to the topic Experiments Against Ironclad and Fortress Armor of 2008 posted by seacoastartillery. Since it is very photo-heavy, I decided not to post it there and bog down that thread.

Me and Pam took a bike trip to Florida yesterday, and on my agenda was getting some photos better showing how and where tabby was used as a construction material at Fort Clinch on Amelia Island.

So while she was lounging on the beach, I took the camera into, onto, and around the fort. Didn't have as much time as I'd like to have spent, so I had to concentrate mainly on the points related to this topic.

Already discussed is the use of tabby for foundations.






Something I missed until it was literally staring me in the face was this large gun emplacement. The barricade is made entirely of tabby.

I don't know if there was ever actually a gun mounted here, but judging by the radius of the track, it would have been one of the bigger guns at this fort. There are IIRC five barbettes this size, much larger than the ones where the Rodmans are mounted, but only this one is barricaded.

T&M, you were there with your tape measure. Can you shed some light on this type of structure and what might have been mounted here?






But my main focus was the use of tabby in construction of the fort itself.

Here you can see tabby fill in an unfinished section of the outer wall.








Here the bombproof shelters would have been if they had ever been completed. You can see that the walls are filled with tabby.








In other areas, where the walls are not intended to be bombproofed, there is no tabby filler.




Here are some photos from atop one of the bastions. You can see how tabby was used to build up over the masonry. The grates aren't part of the period construction, they were put there for safety (they weren't there many years ago). The grates would not have been installed until the bastion was built up to full height.










And finally, here are some photos from atop another bastion that has been completed. The walls go much higher. How high the tabby goes, I can't say. The entire top of the bastion outer wall is covered with a layer of earth.

[seacoastartillery]

      Terry,    We didn't pay too much attention to those mounts as they didn't look like any Civil War mounts we ever ran across before.  Without inquiring of the fort historian, we would speculate that they were a modified Panama Mount used for 155 MM Guns and Howitzers of the WWI and WWII periods or perhaps some Endicott period gun mount for supporting a gun in the 4.7" Armstrong-Whitworth, towed, rapid-fire, class.  The radius of that track looked like it was 50% larger than even the 15" Rodman Gun would require and, of course, it is just one outer track, not four.  Excellent photos of Fort Clinch showing all those Tabby structures..........Great photos!

Did you see that original 10" Rodman that the guide told us in 2005, was removed from Fort Taylor?  If so, where was it located this time?

Thanks,

Mike and Tracy

[Terry C.]

It's possible that these larger mounts were constructed in place of some of the original mounts when the fort was reactivated in the early 20th century. That might also explain why they are only on the two northernmost sides of the fort (facing the Atlantic).

The Rodman is, I believe, by the front gate at the park entrance. I'd planned to stop on the way out and make sure that it was the same barrel that I'd photographed on an earlier trip, when it was sitting on timbers out in front of the fort. But we were later leaving than I expected and I didn't have time.


There are untold numbers of gun fragments buried all over the site, many guns have been destroyed there. The ground was once littered with partially exposed chunks of iron. Most can and will never be recovered, as new construction has covered them over.

The jetties behind the fort also contain many gun fragments mixed in with the rocks. When I was a kid I'd located at least a dozen pieces of iron gun tubes, difficult to distinguish from the rock because of the growth of oysters and mussels. All of these are long since buried by beach restoration.

I'm always finding fragments that were either recently exposed or moved to isolated areas out of the general tourist traffic. Seems as if the current management considers these 'unsightly' and not really worthy of interest.

I'd rather see a genuine rusty fragment than a beautiful fake gun any day.

I stumbled upon these walking through a ditch (where I wasn't supposed to be).






The fragments appear to be from a fairly large gun, but not a Rodman (too straight). What the beam was, I have no clue. Could have been something mundane as construction material, or it could have come from an original barbette carriage...

It's the mystery that makes it interesting.

[seacoastartillery]

     Terry,    In your last photo the cylindrical thing looked a little like one of these Endicott Period projectiles which we found at Fort Hancock, NJ at Battery Potter.  At Battery Potter, a huge steam powered lift hoisted the whole gun, carriage and all equipment up to a barbette position from which it fired.  Those are the style projectiles that they fired back in 1894 to 1898 in these "Disappearing Gun" Batteries.  Some were kept active until the 30s.  Anyway, the mounts ARE NOT of Civil War vintage.

Regards,

Tracy and Mike

The first and only steam-powered lift battery in the country.  Too complicated; too expensive to build.




10" shells, we believe.

[Terry C.]

There's nothing in the photo to show scale, but those fragments are much too large too have been part of any shell that might have been used at the fort. There is also a subtle but noticeable taper.

I would estimate the diameter to have been at least 20", if not larger.


BTW: I was wrong about the fort being reactivated briefly in the early 20th century. It was reactivated in 1898, but only for a period of a few months. Not into the 20th century, and probably not long enough for any long-term reconstruction.

[Terry C.]

This is the only photo I have of the Rodman, taken when it was still out in front of the fort:




Here is a satellite image of Fort Clinch. You can pick out the larger gun emplacements on the two northernmost walls, as well as the stone barricade (just below the north bastion).

Click on the image for a larger version:

[GGaskill]

This looks like it was some kind of front pintle mount with a set of wheels bearing on the raised circular area and the outboard set on the rail at the outside.  Maybe was used for earlier pieces than Rodmans.  It must have been a pretty tall mount to fire over that wall.

[Terry C.]

This looks like it was some kind of front pintle mount with a set of wheels bearing on the raised circular area and the outboard set on the rail at the outside.  Maybe was used for earlier pieces than Rodmans.  It must have been a pretty tall mount to fire over that wall.

It was constructed in 1898, for a disappearing rifle.

I found one obscure reference to this structure in, of all places, a Florida Department of Environmental Protection document.

It doesn't give any other description of the gun, or even whether a gun was ever mounted. I've been searching and haven't found any other references to a disappearing rifle at Fort Clinch. Given the short time that the fort was occupied during the Spanish American War, it's very possible this structure was built but never used.