Fortress Hunting: The Castillo de San Marcos

We all remember our first. The Castillo de San Marcos is the first fortress I remember visiting and became one of the most influential places in my life. It inspired a a lifetime of curiosity and exploration. So I think it is appropriate that the Castillo is the first fortress I write about on my website.

History

The Spanish started building the Castillo in 1672 next to their northermost outpost, Saint Augustine, Florida. Spain had been exploiting the hell out the Caribbean over a century at this point and the neighborhood was getting crowded. Those pesky Brits set up shop in the Carolinas and Georgia. Then, Spain’s “dig a bunch of gold out of the ground in South America, put it on boats and hope it floats safely back to Barcelona” economic model was further threatened. Constuction was mostly completed when it was attacked unsuccesfully by the British in 1702. In 1740 a complete and renovated Castillo withstood an even larger British siege in the hilariously named “War of Jenkins’ Ear”. In addition to these large sieges, various pirates and smaller military attacks failed to breach the walls. Although they were rough on the town with Saint Augustine being burned to the ground several times.

The British did finally get control of the Castillo in 1763 after a crap showing by the Spanish in the Seven Years’ War. Under new management, the Castillo shifted from seacoast fortress to prison. A role it retained from the next 150 years or so. American revolutionaries captured in Georgia and Carolina got royal time out in what was now called “Fort St. Mark.”

With a British loss in the Revolutionary War, Spain moved back in. The Castillo’s main adversaries still came from the north as pesky Americans started filtering in to Florida. Spain had had enough by 1821 and handed over the Castillo and the rest of Florida by treaty to the United States.

The US continued the Castillo’s run as a prison and renamed it again to “Fort Marion.” The army imprisoned Native Americans captured in the Seminole wars there. US soldiers captured in the Civil War languished under Confederate captors until the US Navy showed up and the rebs wet their pants. After the Civil War, the Army imprisoned more Native Americans there. Also tourists started flocking to the Castillo once Henry Flager started plunking down hotels nearby. Other than a brief stint as a Coast Guard facility during WWII tourism was the fort’s main role from 1900 on.

Layout and construction

The Castillo is a simple fortress. A square four point star bastion design possesing a single gun deck. Around the whole thing is a deep moat (good for grazing cattle) and a covered way with a small ravelin to guard the door. The outerworks do link up with the city defenses known as the Cubo Line, but everything is pretty standard. It’s a relatively small fort as well. From tip to tip on the bastions it is only about 200 feet. Inside, your typical barrel arched casemates house all your siege fortress essentials, such as store room, barracks, powder magazine, church (#Spain), and so forth.

The really special thing about the Castillo is the stone it is made from, coquina. Only found in Florida and Eastern Caribbean, coquina is shell based limstone filled with air pockets. As stone goes, it is fairly soft and easy to shape. When struck by a cannonball, coquina tends to dent like styrofoam, as opposed to shattering like harder stone. Cannonballs from British siege guns stuck in the fort as “a knife sticks into cheese” according to one soldier. The Castillo could take a punch, but this soft stone erodes very quickly. Weather, time, and millions of tourists are slowly wearing the fort’s walls into stumps and ruining the sleep patterns of the Park Service facilities team.

My Experiences

I’m pretty sure I first went the Castillo in 1984. My grandfather took the family after we helped him retire to Florida. I’ve been back at least once at least every year since. Twenty years after my first visit, I fired my first cannon there as a volunteer. Five years after that, it was the subject of the capstone project for my history degree. I’ve made some of my closest friends on that gundeck. Hell, my ashes might get scattered there. It’s a special place to me. Needless to say, I know every corner of it and I could write an article a month about my times there and would have enough material for the next ten years. Don’t worry, a few of those stories will likely come out soon enough.

Visiting Today

The Castillo de San Marcos is located right on the waterfront in downtown St. Augustine, Florida. Having served under five flags already, it now operates under the arrowheaded aegis of the National Park Service. This does mean an entry fee, but quit complaining, it’s worth it. You can visit seven days a week, but hours change slightly seasonally and they close on Christmas. Do not park on site. The parking lot is tiny, with old school meters, and frequent ticket wielding ranger patrols. It frequently floods with tour busses, seawater, or both. When it is dry, a tourist trolley will run you over. Maybe even when it is wet. Just pay to park at the St. Augustine city lot and walk over. The crosswalk across Castillo Drive in front of the cheesy pirate museum is safer anyways.

The premier thing to see at the Castillo is one of the cannon firings. They tend to be every hour on the half hour, for most of the year. It lasts about 20 minutes and well, it involves cannons and explosions. I don’t think I need to sell the appeal of this too hard. If you get there early enough, post up on the white line painted on the deck near the demonstration cannon. That’s the safety line for the public, and standing there during the demo will yield you the best pictures.

Keep an eye out for some fun things as you wander around the outside of the Castillo. The moat is dry, but you can find the inlets the army built in to fill the moat after popular opinion demanded the moat be flooded. Also outside the walls, you can find a 19th century shot oven and a section of wall used for musketry practice.

On the inside, check the upper sections of the casemate walls for graffiti in the plaster. There are scrawlings from Spanish, British, and American soldiers. A British frigate chalked on the wall in charcoal is the most amazing example of this organic art. It might be off limits nowadays, due to how sensitive it is, but it worth asking a ranger if you can still see it. Another fun thing to keep an eye out for is traces of the red and white plaster that waterproofed the fort. One of the exhibit spaces has a diorama of the Castillo in its House of Burgundy glory. I can almost imagine how stunning it would look in shining white with a crown of red.

Finally, take some time to closely examine the Spanish guns all around the fortress. Many are trophies from the Mexican American war and some are surprisingly old. The scrollwork and engraving on the bronze pieces is beautiful. A couple have my favorite tough guy cannon phrase on them: “Violati Fulmina Regis”. This means “Thunderbolts of an angry king”. If I was a king I would totally put this on my cannons. I might still get a tattoo of it.