Fort Totten Park

History

Fort Totten was a Union Army defensive earthwork built during the Civil War. Construction began in August 1861 and was completed in 1863. It was one of seven temporary earthwork forts in the Northeast quadrant of the city, part of the Fort Circle defense of Washington, D.C. Today it is a park administered by the National Park Service in the Fort Totten neighborhood.

Structure

Fort Totten was a medium-sized, seven-sided polygon with a perimeter of 272 yards. It sat atop a ridge along the main road from Washington to Silver Spring, Maryland, about three miles north of the Capitol and a half-mile from the Soldiers' Home where President Abraham Lincoln spent summers. Earth walls were about 15 feet thick and 8 feet high, surrounded by a dry moat over seven feet deep and twelve feet wide, and beyond that a cleared area with an abatis.

Gun platforms inside the walls accommodated various cannon: four 6-pounder field guns, eight 32-pounder Parrotts, two 8-inch siege howitzers, one Coehorn mortar, one 10-inch mortar M. 1841, three 30-pounder Parrotts, and one 100-pounder Parrott. Wartime garrisons included the 76th New York Infantry, 2nd Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery Regiment, 136th Pennsylvania Infantry, and 137th Pennsylvania Infantry. The fort saw action during the Battle of Fort Stevens on July 11 and 12, 1864, when Confederate General Jubal A. Early attacked.