Unrealized Expectations

In 1777, a British gun battery of four cannons and four mortars stood near this area, but these relatively small weapons could not inflict significant damage on the fort. British commander Barry St. Leger had ignored advice to bring larger cannons because he expected near-deserted and ramshackle defenses. Instead, he found several hundred men putting the finishing touches on the fort bastion behind this site. The fort's commander later admitted that if St. Leger had arrived better prepared, the fort must inevitably have fallen. The battery was protected by fascines, bundles of brush bound tightly and laid horizontally into a wall of earth, and after receiving intelligence from prisoners, St. Leger acknowledged that if the defenders intended to hold the fort, his artillery was not sufficient to take it.

Rome, New York · United States