The Journal of San Diego History
SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY
October 1959, Volume 5, Number 4
Jerry MacMullen, Editor
FROM THE RAMPARTS OF BATTERY McGRATH
Looking across Ballast Point in 1910. Battery Fetterman (in white circle) was built on the site of the old Spanish Fort Guijarros. Battery Wilkinson is in the foreground.
TREELESS FORT ROSECRANS, ABOUT 1911
Officers’ quarters in the foreground, barracks in the distance. The little white steamer at the Quartermaster Wharf is the General DeRussy, which connected the fort with San Diego.
BATTERY WILKINSON SPEAKS
One of the 10-inch seacoast guns, on a disappearing mount, has just fired at a target raft several miles away. Another gun at the extreme right is being serviced for firing.
“. . . THE CAISSONS GO ROLLING ALONG!”
Two 12-pounder Napoleons on carriages, with caissons complete, rolled into Rosecrans to protect the mine-field; these 1863 Model smooth-bores later were used for saluting.
THE GENERAL PAYS A VISIT
The 28th and 115th Companies, Coast Artillery Corps, being inspected by Brig. Gen. Tasker H. Bliss, Commander of the Department of California, in the autumn of 1911.
RAG-TAG AND BOB-TAIL
No match for the machine-gun equipped Mexican Federalists, the Insurrecto “army” fled across the border after the Battle of Tijuana in 1911, and was interned at Fort Rosecrans.
MUTE GUARDIANS OF THE PAST
The former mine-defense 12-pounder smooth-bores, later used as a saluting battery, now occupy concrete pedestals at the entrance to the Headquarters Building, Fort Rosecrans.
Note: With the exception of the illustration on Page 64, which is from the historical files of the Union Title Insurance Co., all photographs are by the author.
