Building Mayfield Fort

Building Mayfield Fort. , Turn around and look at the fort towering above you. Think about building something this big with heavy equipment, digging and moving all that dirt by hand, and doing so in just a matter of months. Now imagine a six-sided structure, totally enclosed on all sides with a 200 foot diameter open space in the center, big enough to house three small buildings, also built by hand. Envision the trenches lining the inside and the dirt removed in making them turned into parapet walls fortified by large logs and small branches intertwined together to keep the earth from eroding away , all moved here manually. Picture the sixteen gun openings, placed in regular intervals around the fort each holding a huge naval gun captured from the Gosport Navy Yard in Norfolk. Now thing about how high up you are, surrounded by totally open fields of fire that favored you and your fellow soldiers. This was Mayfield Fort.,

The Rebel works have trenches…and abatis. The planking in the embrasures would indicate that no siege guns were ever in position. One can hardly believe that here is the monster Manassas, which for eight months has been the fright and bugbear of the country. , , N.Y. Morning Herald, March, 1862

, [Captions:] , This image shows details of an earthwork fort at Centreville just outside of Manassas. The fort at Mayfield was constructed in the same manner. , Library of Congress, Views of the earthwork defenses built near Tudor Hall. Note the railroad and boxcar in the foreground in the image on the right. The earthworks built here were constructed primarily to defend this vital supply line. , Library of Congress