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THE U.S. ARMY AT ALCATRAZ 7. What did the U.S. Army do at Alcatraz? In the 1850's, the United States Army began building fortifications on Alcatraz Island, part of a triangle of forts built to defend the Golden Gate and provide security for San Francisco, through which fortunes of gold from the California gold rush were being shipped. Alcatraz was an active military post, part of the coastal defense. The physical look of the island today is much different from the way Alcatraz Island looked when the Army arrived on Alcatraz. While the Army's design called for turning Alcatraz into a two-tiered plateau, to be created by blasting away the hillside and leveling the parade ground all the way to about where the cellhouse library was during the prison era, then reducing the overall height of the citadel level, they stopped well short of that amount of excavation. Nevertheless, the "battleship-like" look of the island today was a big change from the original look, and the deep excavation into the cliffs, resulting in the parade ground, was a major construction project. The tactical objective of the excavation and leveling was defensive, using the level and lowered top tier of Alcatraz for emplacement of large mortars. In the 1860's, America's Civil War made pro-Union Californians concerned about possible attacks from Confederate forces. California's treasure of gold, still trickling down into San Francisco from the Sierra foothills, as well as the commercial developments and enterprises that the earlier flood of gold had spawned, would have been attractive to the cash-strapped Confederacy. But when it came time to upgrade the fortifications in San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz became a victim of advanced technology. The concept of "rifling" weaponry--modern artillery that spiraled missile-shaped projectiles with great speed and accuracy--replaced the "smooth bore" cannon technology that featured a round cannonball shot out of a cannon. Range and accuracy improvements were significant. Early in the Civil War, this new rifling cannon technology was brought to bear against Fort Pulaski, in Georgia. Fort Pulaski was breached in hours, instead of days. This new cannon technology made Alcatraz strategically irrelevant; the opening to San Francisco Bay became the critical point of defense for the Army. Enemy ships would be engaged before they got through the Golden Gate. So, though Alcatraz' defenses were upgraded, the focus of the modernization project became Fort Point, and Alcatraz' massive cliff excavation project was eventually discontinued. 8. Was Alcatraz ever involved in military battles? No. And that might be a good thing, judging from the performance of our military forces back in 1876. The big Centennial celebration in July of 1876--festivities held all around the country in honor of America's 100th birthday--included a spectacular demonstration in San Francisco Bay, showcasing the military might protecting the citizenry. An old schooner had been anchored in the bay, loaded with explosives and flammable coal oil, while an estimated 50,000 spectators lined the hills of San Francisco to watch our naval vessels blow it up. Firing commenced shortly before noon, but not a single shot scored a direct hit. Eventually, under cover of the heavy smoke from the bombardment, a small boat was dispatched to set fire to the old schooner, so that it would finally explode for the onlookers. On Alcatraz that day, a cannon demonstration began with similar results, when the first rounds fired at a Lime Point target also proved inaccurate--though the Alcatraz cannon eventually found their mark. 9. When was Alcatraz first used as a prison? In the wartime scramble of the 1860's, Alcatraz became a convenient place for local military units to incarcerate soldiers deemed unfit for regular duties by the military justice system. Alcatraz Island was out of the way and security for the inmates wasn't an issue--the cold, swift tides of San Francisco Bay are a strong deterrent to escape. Alcatraz worked so well as a prison for the U. S. Army, that Alcatraz Island was officially named "Pacific Branch U.S. Military Prison" in 1907, then "Pacific Branch U.S. Disciplinary Barracks" in 1915. This marked the first time the Army had designated one place as this type of a regional prison. Before Alcatraz, every military command had its own stockade. The prisoners on Alcatraz during the military years were a varied lot--including stowaways discovered on foreign vessels calling on San Francisco, Civil War privateers, prisoners from the Army's various Indian campaigns out west, even a German diplomat during World War I--serving time alongside disloyal officers, conscientious objectors, run-of-the-mill miscreants and deserters from America's military campaigns. The Army's prisoners on Alcatraz were incarcerated, at first, in a guardhouse above the moat in the sallyport. As more convicts came to Alcatraz during the early Civil War years, a wooden structure was built behind the guardhouse, replaced by a brick building after the Civil War. More serious discipline cases were housed in the basement of the citadel on top of the island. A convict "population explosion" occurred around the turn of the century, with the Spanish-American War. Work on fortifications was put aside, as buildings were thrown together to house the new inmates. Eventually, the Army used Alcatraz exclusively as a military prison. 10. Why did the Army leave Alcatraz, and the Bureau of Prisons take over? By the early 1930's, the U.S. Army had concluded that Alcatraz didn't work as a prison location. World War I was long over, the Army was downsizing, and barren islands are remarkably expensive locations for prisons--everything on Alcatraz had to come to the island on a boat, they had to generate their own power and they were cut off from the rest of the military command. But this was during America's "Great Depression"--money was tight everywhere. The federal government had already sunk millions into Alcatraz Island for the Army, consequently, the War Department was looking for another federal agency to take Alcatraz off their hands. The same fiscal constraints applied to the Department of Justice, which was looking for a high-security prison location. It was a perfect fit. The War Department was happy to unload Alcatraz, the Department of Justice was happy to take it. While the allure of the security provided by an island location was a consideration for the Department of Justice, the fact that the acquisition didn't cost anything played a big part in the selection of Alcatraz. As it was, when the Bureau of Prisons came in to upgrade the facilities, they could only get budget approval to replace the bars in half the cellblocks. 11. How was the Army prison different from the Federal Penitentiary? Military prisoners at Alcatraz were expected to fulfill their military commitments by spending their duty hours working, as they would if they were in regular duty status. During much of the military prison era at Alcatraz, the prisoners spent their days breaking up large rocks with sledgehammers, making room for development on "The Rock". Army prisoners continued changing the face of Alcatraz Island, building retaining walls and shaping the hillsides, then vegetating the barren rock. Army prisoners built the cellhouse on Alcatraz Island, with construction completed in 1912. Military inmate laborers subsequently turned to laundry work, as the United States Army decided that Alcatraz Island would be a good centralized location for a laundry facility to serve military personnel stationed in the San Francisco Bay Area. This laundry work continued beyond the duration of the U.S. Army's presence at Alcatraz. When the Department of Justice took control of Alcatraz Island from the Army in 1934, the emphasis changed from hard work to tight security. The federal penitentiary kept the laundry job for the Army, and they also kept 32 of the worst inmates from the Army prison on Alcatraz. Then, Bureau of Prisons officials combed the other federal prisons, identified their most disruptive and escape-prone inmates, and put them on the train to Alcatraz. These inmates were incarcerated in the same cells in the same cellhouse, but life on Alcatraz Island for these troublemakers was much different from how it had been for the collection of deserters and petty criminals held by the Army. |