castillodesanmarcos
Castillo De San Marcos
National Monument, St. Augustine - Florida
This was a real interesting fort. It is built of 400,000 Coquina blocks, all cut and set by hand. (for more on Coquina, see right hand side bar which is from Wikipedia) This fortress has served six different flags, survived hurricanes, and withstood bombardments and sieges. One of the interesting facts is that the Coquina stone would absord cannonballs. During the 1702 seige of the fort, the English attempted to take the fort from the Spanish, after a day of shelling the fort, the Spanish would, dduring the night, repair and replaster the walls where cannon balls had struck. By mornings light, the English were once again looking at a fort that had no visable damage.
The construction of the fort began in 1672 and finish in 1695. There were several modifications and changes over the years but the basic design remains the same.
Coquina (pronounced /koʊˈkiːnə/) is an incompletely consolidated sedimentary rock of biochemical origin, mainly composed of mineralcalcite, often including some phosphate, in the form of seashells or coral. It is created in association with marine reefs. While not usually referred to as such, it is actually a subset of limestone.
Coquina is quarried or mined as a source of paving material. It is usually poorly cemented and easily breaks into component shell or coral fragments, which can be substituted for gravel or crushed harder rocks. Large pieces of coquina of unusual shape are sometimes used as landscape decoration.
Because coquina often includes a component of phosphate, it is sometimes mined for fertilizer.
Occasionally used as a building stone in Florida throughout its history, it formed the walls of the Castillo de San Marcos, Saint Augustine. The stone makes a very good material for forts, particularly those built during the period of heavy cannon use. Because of its softness, cannon balls would sink into, rather than shatter or puncture, the walls of the Castillo de San Marcos.
When first quarried, coquina is extremely soft. This softness makes it very easy to remove from the quarry and cut into shape. However, the stone is also at first much too soft to be used for building. In order to be used as a building material, the stone is left out to dry for approximately one to three years, which causes the stone to harden into a usable, but still comparatively soft, form.
The courtyard looking from the south west. Though it appears small in size, the rooms off the courtyard are actually quite deep, making the fort quite sizeable
By 1740 the gun deck of the fort had cannon of various design and size. The largest could throw a shot 3 1/2 miles. The earthen walls on the outside of the fort not only provided protection as well as a safe passageway way for troups and supplies, it was also built to the height that matched the cannons at their lowest elevation thus making it possible to fire cannons at the enemy coming over these walls.
From the right you see the fort wall , then the 40 foot wide moat, the area between the moat wall and the wall to the left is the covered way whch allowed men and supplies to be moved without being seen. This protective wall was built into the slanted earthen wall called a galcis which helped protect the fort from cannon fire and set crossing enemies to a height that exposed them to cannon fire from the fort. The moat was not filled with water though it could be by opening flood gates on the seaward side of the fort. The Spanish used the moat to hold livestock when under attack.
The hot shot furnance, used to heat cannonballs red hot before they were fired at wooden ships to set them ablaze.
This is a view of the fort from the NW side of the fort looking at the drawbridge. This bridge leads to another smaller fort like structure called a Ravelin. The ravelin contained a second drawbridge and the moat ran around all four sides. This drawbridge would be closed each night while the inner one would only be closed in the event of attack.
The Spanish settlers were quite short. Ponce de Leon himself was only 4;10" This would help explaing the size of the watchtower on the cornors of the fort. The view was quite limited through the windows of the watchtowers. see below.