Bastion C is the only bastion retaining its original form and protective outworks. It is one of five arrowhead-shaped corners built as the fort’s strongest strategic locations. The bastion form was developed in Italy at the end of the 15th century to enable gunners to fire parallel to the main walls. Prior to that time, defenders within a fort could not mount a crossfire that would effectively cover the space at the foot of the walls. Bastion C contained the fort bakery, commissary storerooms, and mess halls, and these uses remained largely unchanged through World War II.