Defense Strategies

During the Civil War, Point Lookout faced threats from within from thousands of prisoners, from Confederate soldiers seeking to free their comrades or gain territory, and from a surrounding pro-Southern population. Union strategists answered with a complex defense plan of three forts, a series of rifle pits, and a gun battery arranged to catch enemies in crossfire, while navy gunboats offshore strengthened the position and made Point Lookout virtually unassailable with the weapons of the day. In the center of the peninsula, Fort #1 was a four-gun redoubt with ten-foot-high walls and a twenty-foot-wide dry moat built to prevent uprisings from the prison pen. Fort #2, Fort Lincoln, was the main fortification and center for base activity. About one hundred yards offshore on the Chesapeake Bay side, Fort #3 was a manned four-gun earthen fort similar to Fort #1.

Maryland · United States