Draft:Military history of Key West

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SH-3A Sea Kings of HS-4 over Key West in 1962

The military history of Key West encompasses a broad span of history of military involvement in the United States' southernmost city of Key West, the most prelevant of which being a substantial increase of naval operations and U.S. military installations during the American Civil War and Soviet-United States tensions of the Cuban Missile Crisis during the Cold War. As of 2024, U.S. Navy aircrafts operating within the Naval Air Station Key West (NAS) conduct air-to-air combat training and routine Joint task force missions with the U.S. Coast Gaurd in the Gulf of Mexico and the Carribean sea.

In 1766, British govenor of East Florida recommended the establishment of a military post in Key West for the British Armed Forces to have increased control of its surrounding areas. The post was never installed. In 1821, John W. Simonton lobbied Washington for the installment of a naval base on Key West upon purchasing the island from Juan Pablo Salas of St. Augustine. In 1822, U.S Naval officer, Matthew C. Perry, sailed into the Key West harbour and claimed the island on behalf of the U.S. government. While Florida had succeeded and joined the Confederate States of America in 1861, Key West remained a member of the U.S. Union due to control of its naval base. Fort Zachary Taylor, constructed in 1845, had been a major military outpost in Key West during the Civil War. Key West served as an important point for military fortifications and coastal defense installments, with the most notable of these including Fort Jefferson and the East and West Martello Towers. Key West later became a major center of refuge for migrant Cubans during the Ten Years' War from 1868–1878. An influx of more than 14,000 ships carrying soldiers, sailors, laborers, and tourists came through the island's harbour during Word War II.

With the beginning of the Cuban Missle Crisis in 1962, Key West became a significant location for the installation of missle defense systems and millitary personnel in the event of a sudden attack from Cuba. In his speeches regarding Fidel Castro, president John F. Kennedy often used the phrase "90 miles from Cuba" in reference to Key West's close proximity to Cuba.

Key West currently holds a variety of utilities used by U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force Reserve, and Air National Guard fighter and rescue squadrons for exircises and unit level training within its NAS. The island is also a major control point and operations center for the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Air National Guard and Army National Guard units, along with other federal agencies, and allied military forces. Key West also includes numerous tenant commands, naval facilities, and auxiliary annexes.

Pre-Colonial and colonial era (1763-1826)

Portrait of David Porter, a captain in the United States Navy and United States Minister Resident to the Ottoman Empire in 1831.

With the British taking control over Florida from Spain in 1763, Key West remained mostly uninhabited. Smugglers and pirateers often used the island to conceal valuables; Bahamians and Cubans often visited for fishing and other various forms of resource manufacture.

In 1766, British Major General and East Florida govenor, James Grant, proposed the idea of to establishing a military base on Key West in order to further regulate any activity in its surrounding areas. Grant often urged that a post or settlement on Key West would be ideally situated for trade with Havana and have a strategic advantage point in the case of a war, however nothing came of his plea. After observing fleets of about 30 Cuban and 14 Bahamian fishing vessels in the Florida Keys, Grant became insistent on preventing the intrusion of foreign vessels, as he feared their presence could threaten British control of Florida. Grant consisted of no means to prevent the situation. The island saw an increase in inhabitance following the War of 1812, with fishermen from New England possibly settling in the areas surrounding Key West, including a brief settlement on the island of Key Vaca.

On January 19, 1822, American buisnessman John W. Simonton of Alabama purchased Cayo Hueso (Key West) from Royal Spanish Navy Artillery officer, Juan Pablo Salas (who had aquired the island from a Spanish Land Grant in 1815) for $2,000. Simonton and his friend, John Whitehead, had been interested in the island's strategic location within wide shipping lanes through the Straits of Florida and its deep water ports. Upon aquiring the island, Simonton began lobbying for the construction of a millitary base in order to prevent piracy.

Commodor Mathew C. Perry, commander of the East India Squadron and the USS Shark

On March 25, 1822, Lt. Mathew C. Perry commandeered the USS Shark, a schooner armed with 12 guns, sailed into Key West, and formally claimed the island as de facto property of the United States. Upon claiming the island, Perry renamed Key West to Thompson's Island and its harbour Port Rodgers in honor of Secretary of the Navy Smith Thompson and War of 1812 hero and President of the Navy Supervisors Board John Rodgers. In 1823, Commodor David Porter of the USS Firefly, the flagship of a five ship squadron tasked with the disruption of British trade in the West Indies, was granted control over Key West. With a large portion of wealthy merchant fleets operating through the island's ports, the waters of Key West became a significant point of interest for pirates to prey on shipping lanes. Key West's Naval base was established in 1823 in order to avert theft of the island's merchant vessels. Porter, who ruled Key West under martial law as a military dicator, was delegated with the assigment of counter-piracy and control over the island's surrounding slave trade.

The HMS Macedonian, commanded by James Biddle of the West Indies Squadron.

Following the signing of the Adam-Onis Treaty by Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, and foreign minister of Spain, Luis de Onis, in 1819, thousands of tracts of coral and Atlantic shallowes offshore of the Florida Keys (what now makes up the Florida Reef), was made an extension of U.S. soil. "An Act to Protect the Commerce of the United States, and Crimes of Piracy" was signed into law and authorized by president James Monrore to create a special unit of the Navy, that would be known as the West Indies Squadron, to combat piracy and the slave trade in the waters surrounding Key West and the Florida Keys. Commodor James Biddle was named the squadron's first commander and was assigned a fleet of 14 ships. Biddle employed mostly heavy-drafted ships that proved to be innaffective in the pursuit of pirate's who favored shallow-drafted vessels for agile navigation in the shoals and reefs of the West Indies.

On April 2, 1822, the HMS Macedonian left Boston to join Commdor Biddle's West Indies Squandron to gaurd U.S. merchant shipping and suppress piracy. During it's deployment, seventy six of the Macedonian officers and men died, seventy four of which were attributed to yellow fever.

Secretary Smith Thompson replaced Biddle with Commodor Porter on December 22, 1822, and was formally apointed “to command the vessels-of-war of the United States on the West India station… for the suppression of piracy.” Porter organized his command of 10 Chesapeake Bay schooners and 5 swift shallow-drafted vessels reffered to as the “Mosquito Fleet”. Porter established his military depot and squadron's headquarters in Key West on April 6, 1823, and reffered to it as Allenton in honor of Lieutenant Allen of the Schooner Alligator. In 1831, Porter noted on the stategic value of Key West's military outpost by stating:

"The advantages of Key West's location as a military and naval station has no equal except Gibralter. ... It commands the outlets of all trade from Jamaica, the Caribbean Sea, the Bay of Honduras, and the Gulf of Mexico, and is a check to the naval forces of whatever nation may hold Cuba."

— Commodore David Porter, Florida's past: People and Events That Shaped the State, Volume 2, chapter 30 , page 121

Porter was court-martialed after invading the town of Fajardo, Puerto Rico and resigned from the U.S. Navy on August 18, 1826.

American Civil War and 19th century conflicts (1861-1898)

Civil War

Painting of Fort Zachary Taylor by Seth Eastman

Florida succeeded from the United States Union on January 10, 1861. While Florida had oficially withdew from the Union and joined the Confederacy on February 28, 1861, Key West remained in the hands of the Union due to control of its naval base for the duration of the war. Construction of the Fort Zachary Taylor, began in 1845 and was built at the southwest tip of Key West after the War of 1812 as part of the "Third Tier System of Defense Fortifications plan" to defend the southeast coast of the United States. The fort was built with a large gunpowder magazine at either end of the barracks and was supported by two artillery batteries, Martello Towers, which now exist today as the Martello Gallery-Key West Art and Historical Museum. Prior to the Civil War, increasing concerns of a conflict with the South prompted government officials to organize a seizure of Fort Taylor from Florida's possesion.

On December 11, 1860, Lieutant Colonel Lorenzo Thomas of the U.S. Army, disturbed by the Union's vulnerable position in Key West, reported in the Official Record of the Union and Confederate Armies that:

"The present condition of affairs in this State indicates very clearly that Florida, by the act of her people, will seceed from the Federal Government. I have reliable information that as soon as the act is committed an attempt will be made to seize upon Fort Taylor. I therefore request instructions what I am to do- endeavor at all hazards to prevent Fort Taylor being taken or allow State authorities to have possesion".

— Lieut. Col. L. Thomas, The War of the Rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies, chapter 4, page 342

At midnight on Sunday, January 13, 1861, three days after Florida's succession, Captian James M. Brennan of the 1st U.S. Artillery Regiment transported 44 of his men from the Key West Barracks to Fort Taylor to secure their position from the Confederates. Brennan later sent a message to Washington requesting reinforcements and the presence of at least one or two warships in the harbour. Key West later became an important outpost for supressing blockade runners, with the Union Navy uitilizing thier srategic position as an operations headquarters for their East Gulf Blockading Squadron. For the duration of the war, Key West stood as a stronghold for the Union's prevention of resource transport to the Confederacy through South Florida. Key West's salt production industry was temporarily shut down by the Union after in increase in Confederate sympathizers smuggling the product to the south.

A hospital located on Garden Key near Fort Jefferson

Construction of the U.S. military coastal fortress, Fort Jefferson on Garden Key (70 miles west of Key West), began in 1845 after a survey conducted by Commodore John Rodgers in 1829 stated that a military outpost in the Dry Tortugas would provide a strong naval advantage within the Gulf Coast. With the begging of the Civil War, 62 men of Major Lewis Golding Arnold's Second U.S. Artillery Regiment were transferred to the fort to prevent it from falling into rebel hands. A drill on January 26 ,1861, was performed by the fort's Superintending Engineer, Captain Montgomery C. Meigs, to test the integrity of the post's artillery. The weapon's capabilities proved dissapointing, as it took twelve primers to fire two rounds. The vessel, Brooklyn, anchored briefly on Garden Key on February 2 to unload twelve mountain howitzers before traveling to Pensacola. 160 soldiers of Col. Bill Wilson's 6th New York Infantry Regiment was transfered to Fort Jefferson on July 4, 1861. New York soliders were relieved in March of 1862 when the 7th New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry arrived under the command of Col. Haldimand S. Putnam. New Hampshire soldiers were relieved in June of 1862 with the arrival of the 90th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment under the command of Lt. Col. Louis W. Tinelli. New York soldiers were replaced with the 47th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment in December of 1862. Two years later, the 110th New York Volunteer Infantry arrived in March of 1864.

Post-Civil War era

10 Years' War

See also: San Carlos Institute

On October 10, 1868, an uprising led by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes for Cuban independence from Spain ignited the 10 Years' War, wherein a mass exodus of Cuban migrants fled north to Key West to escape growing disruptions. With a majority of these exiles being Cuban cigar manufacterers who brought there operations with them, Key West's cigar industry saw extensive growith from the 1860s to the late 1880s. On November 11, 1871, a Cuban heritage center and museum, the San Carlos Institute, was founded by members of Key West's exile community on 516 Duval Street in Key West. The institute soon became a major conspiritorial center for the Cuban independence movement, with numerous meetings taking place with notable Cuban revolutionaries, including José Martí. Key West bacame an important location for Martí to raise funds, support, and unity in the Cuban resistence movement against Spanish colonial rule.

Spanish-American War

See also: USS Maine Mast Memorial

On January 24, 1889, the USS Maine left Key West for Havana to protect American interests in Cuba and conduct winter naval exircises in the Gulf of Mexico during the Cuban War of Independence. Three weeks later on the night of Febuary 15, 1889, while docked at the Havana harbour, an explosion occured on the Maine's bow after more than 5 tons of gunpowder charges for the vessel's six- and ten-inch guns had detonated. 251 enlisted sailors of the ship's crew of 355 men were killed.