William Henry Chase (June 4, 1798 – February 8, 1870) was a Florida militia colonel during the events in early 1861 that led to the American Civil War (Civil War). On January 15, 1861, on behalf of the State and Governor of Florida, Colonel Chase demanded the surrender of Fort Pickens at Pensacola, Florida and of its U.S. Army garrison. Chase had designed and constructed the fort while he was a captain in the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Lieutenant Adam J. Slemmer, commander of the fort, refused the surrender demand. An informal truce between the administration of President James Buchanan and Florida officials, including their still sitting U.S. Senators, avoided military action at Pensacola until after the Battle of Fort Sumter in April 1861.
Chase was promoted to major general in the "Army of Florida" (Florida militia) a few days after his first demand for surrender of the fort. His entire military service to the emerging Confederate cause occurred during the secession crisis prior to the Battle of Fort Sumter. Chase repeated his surrender demand on January 18, 1861, but Fort Pickens was never surrendered to militia or Confederate States Army forces during the Civil War.
Chase, a United States Military Academy graduate, served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from 1815 to 1856. He attained the rank of major and became the senior officer of the engineers along the Gulf Coast of the United States, where he was responsible for design, construction and maintenance of a number of forts, including those below New Orleans and at Pensacola, Florida and Key West, Florida.
Chase married into the southern Mathews family and developed plantation and business interests in the Pensacola area while promoting and supervising defense projects, all of which contributed to the growth of Pensacola as a city and thriving port. After his retirement from the U.S. Army, he was a slave owner, banker, president of the Alabama and Florida Railroad Company and writer in defense of the merits and importance of the cotton economy. After his role at the beginning of the Fort Pickens confrontation, the 62-year-old Chase returned to the operation of his business interests and took no part in the Civil War.
Early life William Henry Chase was born in Buckfield (Chase's Mills), Massachusetts, now Buckfield, Maine, on June 4, 1798.Allardice, Bruce S. More Generals in Gray. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995. (pbk.). p. 56.Eicher, John H., and David J. Eicher. Civil War High Commands. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001. . p. 170. His parents were Thomas Chase, member of an old Massachusetts family, and Sarah (Greenleaf) Chase, niece of John Hancock, president of the Second Continental Congress, signer of the United States Declaration of Independence and first and third Governor of Massachusetts.
Chase graduated from Phillips Academy, Class of 1812, and the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1815.Cullum, George W. Biographical Register of Officers and Graduates of the United States Military Academy. Vol. 1, 1868. . Retrieved July 18, 2012. p. 155. He was ranked thirteenth of forty in a class which included future explorer Benjamin BonnevilleCullum, 1868, p. 157. and Confederate Army General, Adjutant General and Inspector General Samuel Cooper.The only mention of his wife in the references is that he married into a southern family. Allardice, 1995, p. 56.
United States Army service Upon graduation from West Point, William H. Chase was appointed brevet second lieutenant in the Army Corps of Engineers and was assigned as an assistant engineer in the construction of the defenses of Brooklyn, New York. In 1816–1817, he was engaged in making surveys in the vicinity of Lake Champlain, New York. Chase worked on the repair of Fort Niagara, New York in 1817–1818. He was appointed second lieutenant on April 15, 1818. Chase spent almost all of the remaining 38 years of his U.S. Army career working in the Gulf Coast States.
Chase began his duties in the Southern States as an assistant engineer in construction of Fort Pike, Louisiana in 1819–1822. He was promoted to first lieutenant on March 31, 1819. He was assigned as superintending engineer of the defenses of the Rigolets and Chef Menteur Passes of the Mississippi River in 1822. He worked on the defenses of Fort Jackson, Louisiana in 1823–1824. In 1824, he briefly returned to the north to supervise improvements in the breakwater at Plymouth Beach, Massachusetts.
On January 1, 1825, Chase was promoted to captain. Between 1824 and 1828, he was superintending engineer of forts at the Rigolets, Chef Menteur, Bienvenue and Bayou Dupre Passes to New Orleans. He also conducted inspections of improvements on the Ohio River in 1825, on the Great Raft in the Red River in 1828 and on sites for lighthouses between Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana and Mobile Bay, Alabama in 1829.
In 1828, Chase was assigned as superintending engineer of the harbor defenses of Pensacola, Florida. Although he had several other assignments during the time of this assignment, he held the position at Pensacola until 1854. From 1829 to 1834, Chase was engaged in the construction of Fort Pickens in the harbor near Pensacola, Florida.
In 1829, Chase also worked as superintending engineer on improvements on the Pascagoula River in Mississippi. He was further assigned as superintending engineer for improvements on the Escambia River in 1833–1834, of Choctaw Pass in Mobile harbor and Heron Bayou in 1834–1837, on Fort Morgan, Alabama in 1834–1841, on Fort Jackson, Louisiana in 1835–1841, of improvements at the mouth of the Mississippi River in 1834–1837 and of deepening Dog River Bar at Mobile Bay in 1837.
On July 7, 1838, Chase was promoted to major and became the senior officer of engineers on the Gulf Coast. He was now constructing forts mainly with rented slave labor, making him the largest renter of slaves on the Gulf Coast. From 1840 to 1844, Chase supervised the construction of Fort Barrancas at Pensacola.De Quesada, A. M. 'A History of Florida Forts: Florida's Lonely Outposts'. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006. . Retrieved July 19, 2012. p. 107.
In 1844, Chase began service on special boards of engineers for examination of various improvements, including Florida Reef in 1844–1845; the Gulf frontier of Mississippi and Texas in 1845; briefly, the Atlantic Coast Defenses in 1848; the Memphis Tennessee Navy Yard in 1851; the floating dock and other improvements at the Pensacola Navy Yard in 1851; the United States Custom House at New Orleans in 1851; and the Passes of the Mississippi River and Harbor at Lake Pontchartrain in 1852.
Chase's service with the Corps of Engineers concluded with tenures as superintending engineer of the improvement of Choctaw Pass and Dog River Bar at Mobile Bay between 1852 and 1854 and of construction of Fort Taylor at Key West, Florida between 1852 and 1854. This assignment engaged Chase in the construction of the second of the three Florida forts which remained under the control of the Union Army throughout the Civil War.Fort Jefferson on Garden Key in the Dry Tortugas was the third fort along with Fort Pickens and Fort Taylor. Schafer, Daniel L. Thunder on the River: The Civil War in Northeast Florida. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2010. . p. 286n18.
In 1856, Chase refused appointment as superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, stating that he feared the appointment would injure his health. One historian states that Chase's refusal of the West Point appointment was due to his immersion in his business interests at Pensacola.Burnett, Gene M. 'Florida's Past: People and Events That Shaped the State'. Englewood, FL: Pineapple Press, 1986-1991. . p. 182. Chase resigned from the U.S. Army on October 31, 1856.
Chase published several tracts on engineering matters, including a joint publication with other officers concerning levees on the Mississippi River, as well as a promotional pamphlet on Pensacola real estate sales. Among those publications were: Brief Memoir Explanatory of a New Trace of a Front of Fortification in Place of the Present Bastioned Front. New Orleans: The Jeffersonian, 1846. and Memoir on the defence of the Gulf of Mexico and the strategic principles governing the national defences. New Orleans: The Jeffersonian, 1846.
Life at Pensacola Chase also was setting up a bank at Pensacola and acquiring property and developing land and lots in the Pensacola area in particular during his army career.Cuevas, John. 'Cat Island: The History of a Mississippi Gulf Coast Barrier Island' Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2011. . p. 143.In his brief 4-paragraph background section on Chase, Cuevas incorrectly identifies Chase as becoming a colonel in the Confederate Navy in early 1861 instead of a colonel, and later major general, in the Florida militia or "Army of Florida." He says that Chase was to be appointed the superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy in 1854 but other sources, such as Allardice, show this occurred in 1856 and that Chase's resignation in 1856 was largely due to his refusal to take this appointment. Cuevas states that Chase was put in control of federal forts and the navy yard at Pensacola, omitting mention of Fort Pickens. One historian, who also details Chase's private dealings at greater length, notes that Chase's private activities might land him in prison today but that in those days the lines between military, government and private interests were blurred at best.Burnett, 1986-1991. p. 179.
In 1849, Chase prepared a report favoring construction of a railroad between Pensacola and Montgomery, Alabama for the committee formed to find the ways and means to construct such a railway.Chase, William H. 'Report of William H. Chase: Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means made at the Rail Road Convention held in the city of Montgomery, December 3d, 1849, to devise ways and means for building a rail road between Montgomery and Pensacola'. Montgomery, Job Office of the Alabama Journal: 1849. . Retrieved July 18, 2012. In 1853, Chase was among the incorporators of the Alabama and Florida Railroad Company after it received approval from the Florida legislature.Turner, Gregg. 'A Short History of Florida Railroads'. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub., 2003. . Retrieved July 18, 2012. p. 27. After his retirement from the U.S. Army in 1856, Chase was president of the Alabama and Florida Railroad Company from 1856 until 1861.
Following his resignation from the U.S. Army on October 31, 1856, Chase operated his business interests in the Pensacola area, was a city alderman for Pensacola and wrote nationally syndicated articles promoting the power and importance of the cotton economy, "King Cotton."Chase, W. H. The secession of the cotton states: its status, its advantage and its powers. In "De Bow's Review, Agricultural, commercial, industrial progress and resources." Volume 30, Issue 1, New Orleans, January 1861. pp. 93–101. Reprint: New York? : s.n., 1860? . He married Ann Paul Mathews.
Fort Pickens crisis service A Florida convention passed an ordinance of secession on January 10, 1861.Long, E. B. The Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac, 1861–1865. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971. . p. 24. Just three weeks after South Carolina had passed an ordinance of secession, Florida became the third State to secede from the Union. Florida officials immediately began to seize federal property. Florida Governor Madison Starke Perry appointed William Henry Chase as colonel of the Florida militia to command forces ordered to seize the federal forts and property around Pensacola because of his intimate familiarity with the property and his former position as a senior U.S. Army officer.Allardice, 1995, p. 57. About 800 Florida troops had gathered at Pensacola when Chase took command a few days later.