The land on which Fort Hays was built was fought over on June 22, 1864, when the Union army first attempted to cut one of Lee’s vital rail supply lines, the Petersburg Railroad, usually called the Weldon Railroad, about three miles west. Although the Federals were unsuccessful in what is known as the Battle of Jerusalem Plank Road, they gained ground here and began entrenching. Fort Hays was constructed between August 26 and September 7 after Union victories on August 18-21 in the Second Battle of Weldon Railroad, also called Globe Tavern. Built to handle ten field guns, the fort held four cannons and a 300-man garrison. Like most forts in the Federal siege lines around Petersburg, it was named posthumously for a Union officer, in this case Gen. Alexander Hays of Pennsylvania, a West Point graduate of the class of 1844 who served in the Mexican War, later became a construction engineer, entered the Civil War as colonel of the 63rd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers on September 29, 1862, after suffering a severe wound in the Second Battle of Manassas, rejoined the army in June 1863, led a II Corps division at Gettysburg with conspicuous gallantry, and was killed on May 5, 1864, west of Fredericksburg in the Battle of the Wilderness near the intersection of Brock Road and Orange Plank Road; he is buried in Allegheny Cemetery, Pittsburgh.