Ashby's Fort followed Washington's fort design, with diamond-shaped bastions projecting from each corner to give a clear 270° view of approaching forces and strong positions from which to fire on anyone trying to breach the walls. Original bastion outlines remain visible in the ground to the left and right of the front gate. Washington pressed his men to complete the work quickly without wasting effort because there were too few men and tools to carry on the undertaking with vigor. The four-foot-wide front gate, though narrow by modern standards, was wide enough for horses and the small wagons able to travel the rugged terrain and virgin forests. Although Col. Washington ordered a barracks built, archaeological evidence indicates that people lived within at least two bastions, which were open and partitioned into rooms rather than filled with dirt to support heavy artillery, as was common on larger military forts.
