Fort Willard was a Union Army fort built in 1862 as Redoubt “D” to Fort Lyon by detachments of the 34th Massachusetts Infantry, one of 63 forts surrounding the District of Columbia during the Civil War as part of the Defenses of Washington. Located on a high point overlooking low ground along the Potomac River, it commanded a clear view to the river when the landscape was cleared of trees and served as the southernmost fortification in the Washington defenses. Major John Gross Barnard of the Corps of Engineers was in charge of construction of the Washington defenses. Built as a lunette with a ditch and parapet facing south and open to the rear with no ditch on the north side, the fort was later named for Colonel George L. Willard, who was killed at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863. Regiments garrisoned there included the 34th Massachusetts Infantry, 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery, 10th New York Heavy Artillery, and 1st Wisconsin Heavy Artillery. Earthen fortifications, cannon platforms, and the remains of a bombproof and magazine still survive, while ten support buildings to the northeast, including the cookhouse, officer’s quarters, and barracks, no longer exist. After the Civil War the site lay fallow for many years, and when the Belle Haven subdivision began to be developed in the 1930s, the fort site was reserved in an area that eventually became Fort Willard Circle; its relative isolation within a quiet residential neighborhood has helped its archaeological and cultural features remain relatively undisturbed except by erosion and tree growth.
