New Guns for an Old Fort

This V-shaped Water Battery held three generations of armaments, each reflecting the latest technology and precision in gun manufacture. In 1830, its first guns were considered adequate to sink the wooden-hulled ships of a passing naval flotilla. From 1872 to 1898, the fort was redesigned after the Civil War, enlarged, and fitted with more powerful guns; advances in cannon casting made possible the installation in 1896 of 15-inch Rodman Cannon capable of hurling a 434-pound, 15-inch explosive sphere three miles. From 1898 to 1920, a pair of rapid fire 4-inch guns of the Endicott period stood atop the thick concrete emplacement known as Battery White, where their principal role was to protect the minefield in the river channel as part of a large and elaborate 341-acre fort system designed to sink heavily armored naval ships.

Fort Hunt, Virginia · United States