Fort Huger is a historic

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...

located near Smithfield,

Isle of Wight County, Virginia Isle of Wight County is a county (United States), county in the Hampton Roads region of the U.S. state of Virginia. It is named after the Isle of Wight, England, south of the Solent, from where many of its early colonists had come. As of the ...

. The site is the location of an abandoned

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

fort on the south side of the James River across from

Fort Eustis Fort Eustis is a United States Army installation in Newport News, Virginia. In 2010, it was combined with nearby Langley Air Force Base to form Joint Base Langley–Eustis. The post is the home to the United States Army Training and Doctrin ...

/Mulberry Point. It was named for Major General Benjamin Huger, commander of the

Confederate States Army The Confederate States Army (CSA), also called the Confederate army or the Southern army, was the Military forces of the Confederate States, military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) duri ...

's Department of Norfolk at the time it was built. Fort Huger was an integral part of the Confederate Army's

James River The James River is a river in Virginia that begins in the Appalachian Mountains and flows from the confluence of the Cowpasture and Jackson Rivers in Botetourt County U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowli ...

defenses in late summer 1861 through spring 1862. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 2008.

History

Fort Huger's site on Harden's Bluff (or Hardin's/Hardy's Point)Fort Huger (2) at American Forts Network
/ref> was selected by Virginia's state engineer Colonel

Andrew Talcott Andrew Talcott (1797–1883) was an American civil engineer and close friend of Civil War General Robert E. Lee. He did not serve during the Civil War, as he could not fight against the Union, nor fight against his brothers in the South. He travel ...

in August 1861 to supplement

Fort Boykin Fort Boykin is a historic site in Isle of Wight County, Virginia, located along the James River. The history of the site is believed to date back to 1623 when colonists were ordered to build a fort to protect them from attacking Native Americans ...

, also on the south bank of the James, and the Mulberry Point battery on the north bank. The fort was also designed by him.Fort Huger (2) at FortWiki.com
/ref> Construction began immediately under Capt. E.T.D. Myers and Capt. John Clarke. The fort was completed in March 1862 with positions for 15 guns, 13 of which were occupied. A Confederate Engineer Bureau report of March 12, 1862 lists one 10-inch

columbiad The columbiad was a large-caliber, smoothbore, muzzle-loading cannon able to fire heavy projectiles at both high and low trajectory, trajectories. This feature enabled the columbiad to fire solid Round shot, shot or Shell (projectile), shell to ...

, four 9-inch Dahlgren shell guns, two 8-inch columbiads (all on

barbette Barbettes are several types of gun emplacement in terrestrial fortifications or on naval ships. In recent naval usage, a barbette is a protective circular armour support for a heavy gun turret. This evolved from earlier forms of gun protection ...

carriages) and six hot-shot 32-pounders on ship carriages. All of these weapons were

smoothbore A smoothbore weapon is one that has a barrel without rifling. Smoothbores range from handheld firearms to powerful tank guns and large artillery mortars. Some examples of smoothbore weapons are muskets, blunderbusses, and flintlock pistols. ...

s. The fort included a hot-shot furnace and was enclosed at the back by an earthen wall facing a swamp. The garrison was Lt. Col. Fletch Archer's 5th Virginia Infantry Battalion. This included two companies as artillery in the fort and three companies as infantry outside the fort. There was confusion of command at the fort between Archer and CSA Capt. De Lagnel, a former naval officer who commanded the fort's artillery companies. Generals John B. Magruder and

Robert E. Lee Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was a general officers in the Confederate States Army, Confederate general during the American Civil War, who was appointed the General in Chief of the Armies of the Confederate ...

wrote letters to address this confusion, essentially placing Archer in overall command and De Lagnel in charge of the artillery. Correspondence between Lt. Col. Henry Cabell and Brigadier General

Lafayette McLaws Lafayette McLaws ( ; January 15, 1821 – July 24, 1897) was a United States Army officer and a Confederate general in the American Civil War. He served at Antietam and Fredericksburg, where Robert E. Lee praised his defense of Marye's Heights ...

indicated other deficiencies at the fort. There was no "clear zone" in the woods behind it that attackers would have to cross under fire, wooden structures in the fort might catch fire under bombardment, and there were no bomb-proof shelters. The lack of proper fortress carriages for the 32-pounders was also a deficiency, and the gun crews were not being drilled in reloading their weapons. In April 1862 Capt. J. M. Maury took command of the fort's artillery.Fort Huger Project at Archaeological Consultants of Carolinas, Inc.
/ref> On May 8, 1862, Fort Huger was attacked by a Union Navy squadron that also attacked

. The warships included USS ''Galena'', ''Aroostook'', and ''Port Royal'' under Commander John Rodgers as part of the

Peninsula campaign The Peninsula campaign (also known as the Peninsular campaign) of the American Civil War was a major Union operation launched in southeastern Virginia from March to July 1862, the first large-scale offensive in the Eastern Theater. The oper ...

, an unsuccessful Union offensive from

Fort Monroe Fort Monroe is a former military installation in Hampton, Virginia, at Old Point Comfort, the southern tip of the Virginia Peninsula, United States. It is currently managed by partnership between the Fort Monroe Authority for the Commonwealth o ...

to Richmond. Fort Boykin was soon silenced and abandoned, as its guns lacked the range to reply to the bombardment.Fort Boykin at American Forts Network
/ref> The Union ran low on ammunition firing against Fort Huger and withdrew, but returned on the 16th reinforced by the ironclads USS ''Monitor'' and USRC ''Naugatuck''. This bombardment resulted in the Confederates spiking their guns and abandoning Fort Huger. A report by Union Navy Lt. John Waters after examining the fort showed that many of the concerns noted in mid-March were addressed, including clearing the woods behind the fort and building bomb-proofs.

Present

The site was acquired by Isle of Wight County Parks and Recreation in 2005 and opened to the public as a park in 2007. Archaeological investigations are ongoing. Five replicas of Civil War-era

cannon A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during th ...

s are at the fort.

References

External links

Fork Huger Park - Isle of Wight County MuseumIsle of Wight County Parks and Recreation website

History

Present

See also

References

External links

Further reading