Fort Huger

Fort Huger. Why Here?. Where you are standing might not feel like an ideal location for a fortification today, but in 1861, this was the perfect place for an artillery battery to block the James River approach to Richmond, the Confederate capital., When the Civil War broke out, the Confederacy found itself with thousands of miles of shoreline, all of which needed protection from the vastly superior Union Navy. The river in front of you was a direct approach to Richmond just 60 miles to your left. It was a river with no defenses on the outbreak of war. Fort Huger was paired with another fort across from you at Mulberry Point with the hope to create an impassable crossfire for any Union ships that might try to pass by., After a year in operation, the usefulness of forts like this was compromised when on March 8, 1862, within earshot off to your right, the fight between the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia changed naval warfare forever. New ironclad ships were not vulnerable to the fire from this battery as was proven two months later. On May 8, the ironclad Galena shelled Fort Huger while Fort Huger's return volleys simply bounced off her hull. Finding that their fire could not harm these new vessels, the defenders here were forced to destroy their weaponry and abandon the fort., (captions) , Labor shortages in the Confederacy made construction of works like this difficult. Often local Black populations were either hired or pressed into work. Huger was constructed with a combination of free and enslaved labor. Free workers or the owners of the enslaved were paid 50 cents for each day's work., USS Galena, by Oscar Parkes , Firing ranges of James River forts