War of 1812

In 1808, Congress approved funds to fortify the coastline because of the prospect of another war with England after mounting tensions that followed the British attack on the U.S. ship Chesapeake in June 1807, even though the United States had not taken sides in England’s war with Napoleonic France. In this atmosphere of crisis, Fort Trumbull was rebuilt under the new federal fortification program known as the Second System as a five-sided work of uneven length made of masonry and sod and equipped with eighteen heavy guns, which Frances Caulkins later judged far superior to the former structure from a military point of view. Congress declared war on Britain in June of 1812, though all of Connecticut’s congressmen voted against it, and by 1813 federal troops were stationed at Fort Trumbull while British ships maintained a tight blockade outside New London Harbor for most of the war without attacking New London itself. In 1814, the British instead attacked Essex on the Connecticut River and Stonington near the Rhode Island border.

New London, Connecticut · United States