DEFENSES ON VIEW

n May 24, 1861, work began on building forts that would protect Washington, D.C., during the war. Meticulous renderings of forts, drawbridges, magazines, bombproofs,, “A glance at the map will show it to be almost a continuous forest. It is not deemed necessary to connect the works by a continuous line of parapet, but the intervening woods should be abatised and open ground traversed by a line of artificial abatis, and infantry parapets, half-sunk batteries, &c., placed so as to protect these obstructions and to see all the irregularities of the ground not now seen from the works.” A member of the 79th New York “Highlander” described the fortification work as “the hardest kind of manual labor; spades were trumps and every man held a full hand.”