Fort Willian Henry - SSORC (1 Viewer)

[Fraxinus]

There are a few people really interested in Fort William Henry, especially SSORC. The link below also contains a ton of information about BoM, starting around page 76.

The British Engineer who built the fort was William Eyre of the 44th -- on loan to the New York Area by Braddock, so he was not at the BoM.

The link below contains 2 letters -- on pages 168 and 178. The page 168 is a letter from Eyre to Napier indicating that the fort still needed some improvements, though nothing is specified. The second letter, a month(s) later, is from another officer describing the fort and the still needed improvements. What might be of interest to SSORC is the fort magazine locations are described in the second letter.

For FWH, probably best to page back to 168 and start the read there.

http://www.archive.org/stream/militaryaffairsi00cumb#page/178/mode/2up

Earlier in this same volume, there is a ton of detail and original correspondence about the BoM. The actual strength tables are presented from Fort Cumberland before the battle and after the battle at Dunbar's camp. Interesting and fun read.

 

[ssorc1]

Wow. Thanks again. You have been an incredible source of info. Much appreciated. It was funny as I had a talk with Jenkins shortly after I started this new project, as I was curious as to if he had begun to build out the corner section of Fort William Henry that I had sold to him and he mentioned some other collectors who were in the process of building forts. Thanks to your first few links I have managed to get the section laid out to scale and to start building out the framework. I used a combination of illustrations and original plans, different views and photos from the reconstructed fort etc. and put them all into my computer to establish scale and basic structure. As much as I'd love to build out the whole fort it would require an addition to my house my wife is not willing to see happen so... I will definitely send you the progress pictures. I've been taking shots from the beginning so it should be easy to follow for anyone else wanting to attempt it. Be fun to actually build it the way they did with overlapping logs, filled with earth etc. but I figured I'd try and save on some of the materials as this is going to be big enough as is. Again, tanks for being such a great source. Cheers, ssorc1

 

[Fraxinus]

http://civilwarfortifications.com/dictionary/dictionary.html

Defintely look at the bastion, standard method of tracing at this link. Actually, this method is very easy --- intersecting lines. Very minimal math (4th or 5th grade) and the only angle you need to be able to draw is a 90 degree. The math is:

What is 1/8 of the length between bastion points?
And what is 2/7 of the length between the bastion points?

Then just intersecting lines and a few right angles.

Tons of great information here, and as a "fort guy" , read "penetration of shot!!!"

And this is maybe really helpful, the Fort Ligioner Site. Take the virtual tour and carefully look at the photographs. The virtual tour rotates 360 degrees as you drag across the photos--- really nice.

http://www.fortligonier.org/

I am guessing the fort walls did not look like or function like lincoln logs. The ends are tongues were either an upper half tongue or a lower half tongue. There would be only 1 daido cut at each end of the log -- not 2 like in lincoln logs. Instead, the walls were held together by connecting the front and back walls together, frequently. You can see the cross-section members in the FHM diagrams. The result was a wall honeycombed with cross supports and then dirt filled. You can see the butt ends of the connections frequently in the photographs of Ligioner.

This makes constucting the walls so so much easier, and you can easily fake the butt ends of the cross supports unless you are really planning to shoot cannons balls!!!! All cuts can be made on a table saw with a daido.

Those butt ends sticking out of the walls at Ligioner had me baffled for weeks before figuring out what they were.

 

[ssorc1]

Thanks again for the links. I had noticed in the reconstructed FW that they used far too many "modern" construction methods - but that was probably due in part to having to deal with thousands of tourists, safety issues, codes etc. It is a facsimile. I think you are dead on with Fort Ligonier and the butt joints. The illustration of the cross section of FWH clearly shows that the log beams were laid across each other at intervals - not in a typical overlapping "log cabin" way - and using a daido cut and probably nailed down for support at every level. Once the framework was built with all the cross support it was then filled in. There is some question as to the powder magazines that they suggested to be placed under each bastion and how space was cleared for those, allowing for headroom etc. Luckily I won't be building it at actual size - while I can't say I wouldn't want to if I had several acres to do it. I also went to some images I had of the prop FWH from the Last of the Mohicans movie and they seemed to use the log cabin method of overlapping beams. That might have just been a short cut to make it look as close as possible without getting the purists on their case. I'll keep you in the know on my progress and let you know how I go about building it. I'm only doing one bastion for now so I may try and go as authentic as I can to the actual construction method but also as a modeller - as it is a diorama for my figures first - I may cut a few corners on authenticity. You've been a great resource. Cheers, ssorc1

 

[Fraxinus]

SSORC, I hope you got to view the pictures links I posted under the FORT LIGIONER thread. The tab for the virtual tour of Fort Ligioner includes the Magazine, just scroll over the photo to rotate 360 degrees.