THE COVER

Assistant Inspector Ira B. Lykes' drawing shows a portion of Fort Jefferson on Garden Key of the Dry Tortugas Islands, in the Gulf of Mexico 70 miles west of Key West, Florida. Begun in 1846 as the key to America's defenses in the Gulf, the fortifications were garrisoned for the first time in January 1861. Federal troops held it during the War Between the States and used it as a hospital and military prison.

The alleged confederates of John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of President Lincoln were incarcerated in the great hexagonal fortress, and Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, the Maryland physician who set the broken leg of Booth, won widespread public sympathy for his labors there during a scourge of yellow fever in 1867. After members of the regular medical staff had succumbed to the disease, Dr. Mudd tended the sick and dying until he in turn was stricken. He was pardoned in 1869.

On January 4, 1935, Fort Jefferson became the 67th national monument.