Qualla: Fort Foote

Fort Foote: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided, Public domain. Gideon Welles, Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy, stood on the parapet of Fort Foote on October 22, 1864 and watched the new 200-pounder Parrott rifles fire their first salute over the Potomac. The big guns roared, the smoke drifted downriver, and Welles wrote that he felt a melancholy come over him. The fort is not wanted, he confided to his diary, and will never fire a hostile gun. No hostile fleet will ever ascend the Potomac. He was correct. Fort Foote was completed three weeks before Appomattox. Its garrison fired the great guns in practice, in salute, and in mourning for Lincoln. They never fired them in anger.

Read more: Fort Foote on Qualla

Image: Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided | Public domain

Fort Foote: The Ironclad Scare

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dfowlerdc, CC BY-SA 3.0. Until 1862 the only thing standing between Washington and a hostile fleet on the Potomac was Fort Washington, a stone work originally built in the War of 1812. Then on March 8 and 9 of that year, the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia clashed at Hampton Roads in the first battle of...

Read more: Fort Foote on Qualla

Image: Dfowlerdc | CC BY-SA 3.0

Fort Foote: Cedar Posts and Chestnut Logs

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit C.O. Washington Barracks, D.C., Public domain. Colonel John Gross Barnard, chief engineer of the Washington defenses, broke ground in the winter of 1862-63. Construction was slow until four companies of soldiers arrived in August 1863 to do the heavy work. Because the bluff was a coastal position, iron was used sparingly. The...

Read more: Fort Foote on Qualla

Image: C.O. Washington Barracks, D.C. | Public domain

Fort Foote: Malaria and Mosquitoes

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit War Department. Office of the Chief of Engineers. 1818-9/18/1947, Public domain. Garrison life at Fort Foote followed the same rhythm as any other Civil War-era post - reveille before sunrise, drill and gunnery practice through the day, taps at nine in the evening. But the bluff sat above a large swamp, and the swamp produced clouds of mosquitoes every summer...

Read more: Fort Foote on Qualla

Image: War Department. Office of the Chief of Engineers. 1818-9/18/1947 | Public domain

Fort Foote: A Park That Almost Was

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit War Department. Office of the Chief of Engineers. 1818-9/18/1947, Public domain. The Army held Fort Foote until 1878, then abandoned it. The bluff was briefly used during both world wars - the U.S. Army installed antiaircraft batteries during the Second World War - but the earthworks themselves slowly returned to forest. In the 1960s the Smithsonian and the N...

Read more: Fort Foote on Qualla

Image: War Department. Office of the Chief of Engineers. 1818-9/18/1947 | Public domain