Fort Huger

During the Peninsula Campaign in eighteen sixty-two, Fort Huger stood on Harden’s Bluff on the James River as part of the Confederate defenses protecting Richmond. Confederate engineer Col. Andrew Talcott surveyed the site in eighteen sixty-one, and it was named for Gen. Benjamin Huger, commander of the Department of Norfolk. Slaves and free blacks built the fort under the Confederate Engineer Bureau, and detachments of Lt. Col. Fletcher Archer’s Fifth Virginia Infantry Battalion were stationed there. By August eighteen sixty-one, several guns were ready to defend the channel, and in March eighteen sixty-two the fort’s thirteen guns included one ten-inch Columbiad, four nine-inch Dahlgrens, two eight-inch Columbiads, and six thirty-two-pounder naval hot-shot guns. On May eighth, eighteen sixty-two, Union Cmdr. John Rodgers led a gunboat squadron up the James River; after shelling Fort Boykin, U.S.S. Galena, U.S.S. Aroostook, and U.S.S. Port Royal attacked Fort Huger at eleven twenty A.M. Aroostook and Port Royal shelled the bluffs from downstream while Galena passed the fort seven times, firing to suppress the Confederate guns, which failed to damage the Union squadron. Rodgers then stopped Galena near the fort and battered the Confederate ramparts while the other gunboats steamed past. On May twelfth, eighteen sixty-two, the ironclads U.S.S. Monitor and U.S.S. Naugatuck went up the James River to protect the Union supply line, and Confederate gunners at both forts fired without damaging them. Five days later, U.S. marines and sailors occupied both forts without resistance and found Fort Huger abandoned, its guns spiked, its carriages burned, and its magazines destroyed.

Rushmere, Virginia · United States