In February 2026, the West Point Press published my book, Key of America: Fortress West Point and the Highlands Department in the American Revolution, completing my long writing journey. This article has been adapted from the “Epilogue” of that book. During the Bicentennial of the United States, the Department of History at the United States Military Academy (USMA) assigned three officers the task of writing a study “to verify, illuminate, and broaden the base of information required to write a concise history of fortification construction” as a follow-on to The River and the Rock (1969). Since the Department of History first printed the manuscript, “Highland Fortress,” in 1979, instructors in the Department of History have used it as a resource to help them explain to cadets the significance of West Point’s fortifications to the winning of the American Revolution.
Since I first used the “Highland Fortress,” I had nurtured the idea that this remarkable story should be available to a wider audience of those interested in the American Revolution, the Hudson Highlands, and West Point. I proposed such a project for my academic sabbatical, and it was approved by the West Point leadership. Years have passed since my sabbatical, but I can now say that I have repaid my debt to the Academy for that time as the project is now finished. You can order a free copy on the West Point Press’s website, https://press.westpoint.edu/books/key-of-america/. Final work on the book coincided with another project after retirement from Marist College (University now) to preserve the American Revolutionary batteries, forts, and redoubts of Fortress West Point for the Semiquincentennial (250th anniversary) of the War for Independence.
Some of you may remember the American Revolutionary themed “Sound and Light Show” on our first 4th of July in Beast featuring Fort Putnam and other sites illuminated by search lights. Some may have even taken dates up to the ruins of Fort Putnam or to Chain Battery on Flirtation Walk, not realizing that you had passed Water (Green) Battery. My future wife Lois and I loved the views from the navigational light on Gee’s Point (the west point) never realizing that we were near the site of Lanthorn Battery. Because most readers of The Days Forward have an appreciation of the history of their West Point alma mater, I think that a review of the construction of the various military works and what we are doing to preserve those works will give you insights some 250 years later into the meaning of West Point as Fortress West Point from the perspective of the American Revolution.
Called by General George Washington “the key of America,” Fortress West Point was the anchor in the Highlands Department of the Continental Army designed to defend the Hudson River at its west point from a British joint operation. Its dependencies in the Department stretched from the Fishkill Supply Depot on the north to “the Lines” on the Croton River in the Neutral Grounds to the south.
In 2011, four friends, including my wife Lois and me (USMA ’69), formed the Friends of the American Revolution (FAR) at West Point with the mission of preserving West Point’s fortifications for posterity. The other two friends had recently moved into quarters in the Lusk Housing Area, and I had been urging them to look at the two nearby forts, Meigs and Wyllys. It took working with my wife Lois to rescue Thaddeus Kościuszko’s Garden from neglect to energize them about things American Revolutionary. Since 2013, FAR, under the direction of its presidents, have worked closely with four superintendents and eight commanders of the U.S. Army Garrison, West Point, to gain support for the project and to produce results on two forts, two redoubts, and three batteries.
Against the backdrop of educating cadets at USMA, the Semiquincentennial, the 250th Anniversary of the War for Independence, provides new opportunities to tell the story of Fortress West Point in the Highlands Department and its contributions to victory. The West Point Class of 1969 already made a significant contribution with a $250,000 gift that in November 2025 completed phase 1 of the stonework of Redoubt #4. This followed the Class of 1970’s $500,000 donations for Fort Meigs, Fort Clinton, and Water, Lanthorn, and Chain Batteries. The Class of 2009 put up $300,000 for Redoubt # 2.
(Courtesy of Jane Wooley, Dry Stone Conservancy, Inc.)
So, here is what the Fortress West Point initiative is all about. The fortifications in the Highlands Department evolved over time and in distinct phases. Fort Constitution on present-day Constitution Island was the main effort from 1775 to 1776 with Romans’s Blockhouse and Romans’s, Marine, Hill Cliff, and Gravel Hill batteries. Forts Clinton and Montgomery with a chain across the Hudson occupied manpower and resources from 1776-1777. Fortress West Point finally lived up to the early vision of June 1775 for Constitution Island and the west point starting in January 1778 and continuing until 1784. At its peak, the Fortress consisted of three concentric defensive rings with the chain at their center. The outermost ring contained the outlying redoubts: #1, #2, #3, #4, and North, and Middle (South) on the eastern shore. Closer were Forts Meigs, Wyllys, Webb, Putnam, Sherburne’s Redoubt, and Redoubts #5, #6, and #7. The final ring contained Fort Clinton, the four water batteries on the west bank, and Marine and Greaton’s batteries on the Island. The British would have had to penetrate each ring successively to make their approach to lay siege to Fort Clinton and to gain control of the Great Chain, which would have required naval support. The cost would have been great, particularly in time and resources.
Courtesy of the United States Military Academy Digital History Center (Department of History)
At the time of the 125th anniversary of the American Revolution and later in 1909, several years after USMA’s Centennial, a Board of Officers recommended work on key fortifications, which led the Detachment of Engineers to commit one noncommissioned officer for 229 days “[t]rimming trees, clearing out brush, rebuilding fallen walls and old parapets and preparing stones or boulders for inscriptions” on almost all of the sites. The work on the various parapets and the inscriptions on the designated boulders was substantial enough that the engineers concluded “that these various historic works are now in condition to withstand ordinary wear and tear for many years to come.” In fact, they believed that the work done at Fort Putnam—“this historic and important fortification”—in particular, would “maintain it for another one hundred years.”
The Bicentennial of the American Revolution in 1975 provided the next major opportunity to reclaim West Point’s legacy. Fort Putnam was the primary project, with a “partial restoration” that included construction of sections of the parapet, restoration of casemates, construction of the McLean Museum Building, and installation of fourteen replica cannons. For the remaining western fortifications, Fort Clinton and Redoubt #4 received upgrades to support infrastructure. All others, including those on Constitution Island, were cleared of brush and marked with memorial plaques. Infrastructure was installed on Constitution Island, and Redoubt #7 was designated for repair. Beyond these, the project “Preservation of Redoubts and Forts on West Bank” was never completed.
The breakthrough for FAR came on 20 April 2018, when the West Point Superintendent approved the Strategic Plan on behalf of USMA and directed the “West Point Fortifications” be placed on the list of Academy “Funding Needs,” saying, “We are the stewards, and it is our ethical responsibility.” Six years later, in the spring of 2024, the present Superintendent, with the help of the leadership of the Association of Graduates (AOG), once again placed the Fortress West Point project in the superintendent’s Unrestricted Endowment & Fund.
Under the direction of its Executive Committee, FAR produced strategic and engineering plans for the garrison to provide a blueprint for the preservation of twenty-one American Revolutionary fortification sites. Under the supervision of the West Point AOG and with funding from the West Point class of 1970 and other donors, the stone foundations at Fort Meigs in the Lusk Housing Area were restored in 2018, followed by Fort Clinton and the Water (Green), Lanthorn, and Chain batteries in 2024. Phase 1 of the preservation of Redoubt #4 was funded in May 2025 by the West Point Class of 1969 and Redoubt #2 in the fall of 2025, funded by the West Point Class of 2009. FAR is committed to implementing West Point’s and FAR’s Strategic Plan to preserve the remaining fortifications. We just need funding to continue. Please alert AOG to any corporate or foundation donors that might want to leave a 250th anniversary legacy.
FAR’s leadership has worked with appropriate USMA professors to recruit cadets willing to do their senior capstone projects on subjects related to Fortress West Point. Cadet history and computer science majors researched African American troops in the 6th Connecticut, who helped
construct Fort Meigs and designed an augmented reality simulation of Fort Wyllys. Two other teams of cadets designed and built the viewing platforms at Fort Meigs in 2019 and at Kościuszko’s Garden in 2023 as their senior capstone projects in Civil Engineering.
The Semiquincentennial, the 250th Anniversary of the War for Independence, provides new opportunities to tell the story of Fortress West Point in the Highlands Department and its contributions to victory. The work of FAR, combined with the Department of History’s Digital History Center, will provide a living laboratory for cadets in the required core course “The Army of the Republic: Leading Citizen Soldiers” (HI101) and follow-on courses to understand West Point’s Revolutionary heritage and the construction of its mutually supporting batteries, forts, and redoubts. Starting in 2011, the Friends of the American Revolution at West Point accepted as a challenge the Board of Officers’ conclusion about its work on Fort Putnam in 1911 to preserve all of West Point’s existing fortifications from the American Revolution “for another one hundred years.”[i]
[i][i]. For all footnotes, see “Epilogue,” Key of America: Fortress West Point and the Highlands Department in the American Revolution (West Point: The West Point Press, 2026), https://press.westpoint.edu/books/key-of-america/.