>> [speaking spanish] [cannon fire] >> we want to welcome you all to castillo de san marco national monument, part of your national park service. behind you is the castillo which is a fortification but it's the first one made out of stone in

saint augustine. it was built for a very particular reason. spain decided they had to build the stone fortification in saint augustine to ensure their foothold on the florida territory. they were concerned about england encroaching and pushing them out of the area and they saw florida as important in helping to defend their hold on the caribbean and central south america. they started construction in 1672 so you have 23 years worth of construction and the biggest reason for all that time is only about 175 people were working on the project at any one time. all the stone had to be quarried from the island across the bay and shipped across a no mechanical stuff, no metal barges, it was all man-made stuff. brute force and ignorance played a part and add to that the fact that really they are dealing with very simple machines building these ramps and pulleys and things like that. spain always wanted to have stone fortifications here.

all the way back to the late 16th century. 15 80's or so they were talking about a way to defend all of their caribbean holdings. piracy was a big problem. the treasure fleets were being preyed on and the king of spain sent over one of its best engineers, one of its best generals, to figure out a way to defend against piracy. they came up with an idea, fortifying spain's ports. the plan was puerto rico, havana come all these would be fortified. at the bottom of the list was saint augustine. ignacio diaz had the original plan and how they would use the land in the area they had to work with. literally, it is a 1/5 scale model. it was defending the frontier between two nations. if you look at maps of sieges from the 16th and 17th century

they will have fortifications around the city. you will see 15 or 16 of these in some places that they built up to go ahead and conduct a three or four year siege of the city so it was a common design. he took that design and worked with the area which is one of the reasons why the inside is a little bit odd ball because windows are slammed into a corner. there are things out of balance. that was in the architectural details. the original design of the fort 's was called trace of italian. it has a couple of innovations that come from different people. right off the bat, they stole one from leonardo da vinci. the way the walls flare out at the base, it increases the fort and distributes ground pressure over a greater surface area so we don't sink into the marshy ground. with the wall angled the way it is, it will have shots that will

glance off. once the castillo is built, over time, they see they have to modify the way they will defend this area because we are on a finger of land surrounded on three sides by water. there is only one approach down from the north to get to the city by land. you want to be able to defend the whole thing. the best way to do that encompasses the fortification. this took so much effort to go ahead and build. the amount of effort it would take to build a snowfall -- a stone fort around the whole city, it really wasn't worth it so they built wooden fortifications, small outline fortifications and ultimately walls around the city itself 14 high foot walls with gun and placements around the three sides of the city. they turned the city into a fortification. where we are now is a much where the last five fortifications were built. from here, even a little for

pound gun, a little four pound gun can fire a four pound iron ball. most of that horseshoe coming into the harbor is under the small guns. what we've got here is one of the swedish iron cannons that were arming the castillo in 1702. it was one of the major sieges that took place here at saint augustine. prior to this fortress being held, the city had been burned to the ground by invaders, privateers or pirates several times. spain went ahead and decided they would invest in building this fortification in stone that not only was it going to be a gun platform to defend the city in the harbor, it was going to be a safe haven, sit itself for the entire community.

the plan was was once this fortress was built, the city came under attack, everybody in town could abandon their homes and grab their valuables and live inside the fortress until hope came from the next community. the problem was, that was havana, cuba. they would be inside the sport wedding for help to get here for up to three month. the fort was really geared for that. all the rooms on the left side were storage rooms. the north and east side stored guns. in 1702, in the fall, the english came down from charlestown, south carolina and attacked saint augustine and by the second day, the spanish decided to abandon the city. the guns upstairs provide a covering fire for the bastions so that the people of town can make their way to the fortress. this is one of the guns doing that. this barrel is of note because during the second day of the siege this gun exploded. through the front end of the gun

off the top of the fort and buried it with enough force so as not found until the 1960's when they were putting a new water main in. to use an example of how much force there is involved in these cannons firing, this 18-pounder had served the fort for number of years before but they forgot to keep track of how many shots had been fired. they had to keep track of how many shots the iron guns are because iron guns only have a lifespan of about 12 or 1300 shots. beyond that, too much damage have been done to the interior of the gun so that it would shatter. for me, this gun is important because in the 1702 siege, there are four spanish soldiers killed in this 51 day siege. this gun here accounts for three of them. 1702 was also significant because we get the city we have today because the english upon

realizing the siege was over help got here from havana and they did not want to face that so they burned the city to the ground and marched out. the spanish go back into town the next day and they see the english are gone and declare victory. they hold the fortress and saint augustine so they won. but they have to rebuild the city. there are actually 30 buildings in town today that can trace their heritage, either the core of the building foundation or almost the whole building, back to those decades right after 1702. this is one of the rooms that's associated with the artillery complex. for a while, this was living quarters for the artillerymen so there was an alarm upstairs and they could for out of here and go up the ladder way and get to the gun deck and command the view of the harder burke -- of the harbor and the city.

later on, this became part of the governor's complex. the city was under siege, the governor would be living inside this room over here and this was the room where he met all of his officers and i made their plans and figured out things. one thing that helps us with that is this is also one of the rooms of the most original decorations because you can see in the wall we've got the stripes the go long and there is the little round scallop work at the top and smaller scallops at the bottom. they were all colored. this room here is one of the lead in rooms to the old powder magazine. the door without sin there is only three foot high and three foot wide. this is probably the oldest part of the fort other than a foundation. it's one of the original structural parts of the fort.

the walls are 6-8 feet back -- thick and it has a vaulted arch. if it took hits above, the force goes down through the foundation to protect the contents. that room was also abandoned only after three years of the fort being used because there is no ventilation. florida was really humid and humidity is the enemy of black powder. it likes to suck the air dry. it takes the moisture out of the air. so that room was abandoned because there is no way for any ventilation to get in there. it was sitting unused. when the 17 of two siege hit -- when the 1702 c chit, 1500 people came into the fortress and one of the first things they do is to figure out where to put the garbage. they don't want it laying outside.

it could rot and you get disease buried you don't know how long you will have the entire city in here. you have to establish a garbage pit. that became the garbage pit. that old abandon gunpowder magazine. they throw the garbage in there. the interesting part of this is remember the gun i told you about that blew up question mark it killed three gunmen, three crew members, but not only did it killed three crew members, it wounded another one plus six more guys. when the thing is said and done the doctors ended up taking the like of one man and an arm off another. the leg and arm in those days would go into the garbage. they got tossed in there as well. when the sieges over the city has been burned to the ground so it's more important to rebuild the city then to something garbage so they sealed up the door. time goes by and the latter way which is the next room they decide we don't need it and they

sealed the top and seal the doorway and forget about it. for a long. of time, the only doors anyone knows about is this one in here and the one we were in before, the governor's day room and his living quarters during the time when we had the vaulted arches put in. we just have these two rooms in time goes on and the americans come in in 1832 and start putting bigger guns upstairs on top of the gun deck. they start hearing cracking from the ground below the gun. the crew backs away in the cannons fall through the gun deck into the rooms below. no problem, we will go downstairs and public and out and start all over again and fix the floor later. they get down here in the get into this room and there is holes in the ceilings. where did the gun go? this is a solid stone wall. then they start thinking -- an old spanish fort, they had all that gold, secret room, early

retirement. the post got gold fever. the lieutenant commander of the post had to take it on himself to get lowered on a rope into that hole to find that done. he got down there and found that doorway sealed in and that's when he got gold fever. he literally kicked his way through the ceiling. he got into their anti-felt this huge black mound was all the treasure chest. he was going to dig into it and find his goal. ultimately when the army breaks through the doorway, and the to room out, they find the head -- the bones of over 100 head of longhorn cattle. they find bones of chickens and the bones of a human hand and arm and human leg and put taken by the doctors back in 1702 and tossed in there. believe it or not, those human bones and all the other bones are the seed of truth that all

the legends about people being sealed up in the walls of the fort, that there was a dungeon in the fort and torture chambers. it all comes from that history in 1702. there is a lot more to this fort being a military fortification because this fort was built to protect the community. later on as you go to the history of the city, this fortification is a primary target of henry flagler. he would like it on because this is prime real estate, a great place to build a hotel. the city keeps its fortification because it becomes an entrenched part of the city's effort of history. the grounds around this fort are where people had their picnics easter celebrations and other things. you got the two that have been tied together for so long. it's hard to pull the two apart. >> throughout the weekend,

american history tv is featuring saint augustine, florida. our cities tour staff travel there to learn about its rich history and learn more about saint augustine and other stops in our tour at www.c-span.org/ cities tour. you are watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend on c-span three. >> at age 25, she was one of the wealthiest widows in the colonies and during the revolution while in her mid-40's, she was considered an enemy by the british who threaten to take her hostage britt later, she would become our nation's first first lady at age 57. martha washington, this sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's original series, first ladies, influence and image examining the public and private lives of the women who filled the position of first lady and her influence on the presidency from arthur washington to mo shell obama, send -- two michelle obama.

as a comp limit to the series, c-span's new book --" first ladies." it provides lively stories of fascinating women and creating an illuminating and entertaining and inspiring read. it's now available as a hardcover or an e-book through your favorite bookstore or online bookseller. >> we take you live now to the university of virginia in charlottesville. today is an all-day conference on the end of the civil war. historians will talk about the surrender of the confederate armies, the assassination of resident abraham lincoln the postwar political and cultural environments in the north and south as well as the meaning of the war for african-americans. it's getting under way now and we have covered all day right here live on american history tv on c-span three. >> jerry gallagher and elizabeth braun, their work in organizing this