Fort Huger, near Smithfield on the James River, was one of the Confederate defenses built to help block Union movement toward Richmond. Chosen and designed in August 1861 by Colonel Andrew Talcott and completed in March 1862, it mounted heavy guns but soon exposed problems in Confederate river defense, including confused command and concerns about its design, shelter, and gunnery readiness. During the Peninsula campaign, a Union Navy squadron attacked in May 1862, and after a second assault featuring ironclads, Confederate forces spiked the guns and abandoned the fort. Today the site is important chiefly as an archaeological landscape interpreting this brief but strategic episode.