Fort Patrick Kelly was a rear-area supporting fortification used during the winter of 1864-65, when Union troops camped in winter quarters in and around it while remaining ready to man the breastworks against any Confederate attack from the south. After months of hard fighting around Petersburg in the summer of 1864, General George Meade, commander of the Army of the Potomac, ordered a chain of forts and interconnected earthworks that eventually stretched from the Jerusalem Plank Road, now Crater Road, west to the captured Weldon Railroad and then eastward to protect the southern approaches behind the Union army. In his weekly report of October 29, 1864, Major Nathaniel Michler, Acting Chief Engineer of the Army of the Potomac, recorded Captain Dexter's report that Fort Patrick Kelly was completed except for the abatis and additional slashing in front of and on the flanks of the fort, with about two more days of work needed by one company of engineer troops to finish them. The fort was named for Patrick Kelly, born in 1822 in Castlehacket, County Galway, Ireland, who immigrated to New York City in his mid-20s and later opened a mercantile business. After hostilities began in 1861, he joined the 69th New York and fought at First Bull Run, later entering the 88th New York State Volunteer Infantry and eventually becoming its colonel. As leader of the 88th in the Irish Brigade, Kelly was leading from the front on June 16, 1864, during the opening days of the Petersburg Campaign when, in a successful attack on Confederate Battery #14 outside Petersburg, he was struck in the head by a minie ball and killed instantly.