Interior Fort

The Interior Fort was the most imposing earthwork on Maryland Heights, with a nine-foot-high parapet, an accompanying ditch, and five embrasures in its north wall that served as artillery positions for howitzer guns and later thirty-pounder Parrott Rifles to defend the crest from attack from the north. A Union recommendation that all plateaus or gentle slopes between the crest and Harpers Ferry be held suggests its purpose and origin. Built during the winter of 1862-1863 as a rectangular earthwork, it included part of the mountain's crest and a narrow plateau just below, bordered the Exterior Fort on the west, and encompassed the Stone Fort within its southeast corner. Archaeological surveys recorded thirteen powder magazines on Maryland Heights, including three within this fort; these thirty-foot by twenty-foot rectangular excavations were dug eight feet deep, supported by a heavy timber superstructure, and covered with earth and sod to store gunpowder and shells. Work around a powder magazine could be hazardous, as Joseph Barry, a local citizen, recalled when a company of Hundred-Day Men from Ohio used large shells from an ammunition wagon to build a cooking fire, causing a terrific explosion that shook the surrounding hills, sent utensils flying over the treetops, and killed or wounded nearly every man in the group.

Maryland · United States