Fort Dupont Park is a wooded park under the management of the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propert ...

located in

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

. The name of the park comes from the old

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

earthwork fort that lies within the park. The fort was one of several designed to defend Washington from a Confederate attack during the Civil War. There are few remains of the actual fortifications. It is one of Washington's largest parks and protects an important sub-watershed of the

Anacostia River The Anacostia River is a river in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States. It flows from Prince George's County in Maryland into Washington, D.C., where it joins with the Washington Channel to empty into the Potomac River at Buzzard Point. ...

. The park is a popular place for picnics, nature walks, indoor ice skating, mountain bike riding, gardening, environmental education, music, skating, sports, and ranger-led Civil War programs.

Adjacent parks

Fort Dupont Park is adjacent to a series of other national and DC parks. Commonly people refer to all of them together as Fort Dupont. These are the adjacent parks: * US government: ** Fort Chaplin Park ** Fort Davis Park ** Fort Stanton Park ** Smithsonian

Anacostia Community Museum The Anacostia Community Museum (known colloquially as the ACM) is a community museum in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, D.C., in the United States. It is one of twenty museums under the umbrella of the Smithsonian Institution and was th ...

* DC government: ** Benning Stoddert Recreation Center ** Alger Park ** Fort Battery Ricketts ** Avalon Playground

Facilities

Concert venue

Fort Dupont has a 40-year history of offering a summer concert series. Many famous musicians and bands in the Washington, D.C., area have played this venue.

Hiker-biker trail

The unpaved Hiker-Biker Trail is the primary trail in the park, but there are various side spur trails throughout the parks. While most call the entire park Fort Dupont Park, it is actually four adjacent parks, Fort Chaplin, Fort Dupont, Fort Davis and Fort Stanton, and the trails run through them all from Grant Street SE (north of Benning) south to Erie Street SE near the Avalon Playground. There are about a total of of trails. The Park service first sought funding for of the Fort Circle Trails in 1967 as part of its 1968 budget. The first of trail, from Pennsylvania Ave to Ridge Road, was opened on November 10, 1968.

History

Fort Dupont was an earthwork fort built in 1861 as part of the

Civil War Defenses of Washington The Civil War Defenses of Washington were a group of Union Army fortifications that protected the federal capital city, Washington, D.C., from invasion by the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War (see Washington, D.C., in the Am ...

, completed in spring 1862, and in use till 1865 when it was abandoned. The land was owned by Micheal Canton prior to the war and returned to him afterward. The fort was a hexagon with sides; inside was a flag pole, deep well, officer quarters, and barracks, while outside was a guard house. The fort was an artillery installation defending the eastern approaches of Washington. During the war the following pieces were at the fort: * 3 - 8 inch howitzers (en embrasure) * 3 - 24 pounder seacoast guns (en barbette) * 2 - 6 pounder field guns * 1 - 24 pounder

Coehorn A Coehorn (also spelled ''cohorn'') is a lightweight mortar originally designed by Dutch military engineer Menno van Coehoorn. Concept and design Van Coehoorn came to prominence during the 1688–97 Nine Years War, whose tactics have been su ...

mortar. Fort Dupont never fired guns in hostile action; however, after the surrender of Confederate forces at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, according to John Longyear, "the Chain of forts around the city and the batteries of field artillery between, made a ring of cannons around the city which were fired for several hours. The line of cannon salutes running round and round the other always proceeding in the same direction, so that it went round and round the circuit 20 to 30 miles".A Historic Resource Study: The Civil War Defenses of Washington: Part 2, USDOI, 1998

References

External links

Fort Dupont Park official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dupont Civil War defenses of Washington, D.C. Forts in the District of Columbia American Civil War forts Fort Dupont Park Fort Dupont Park Fort Dupont Park Forts on the National Register of Historic Places in Washington, D.C. Fort Dupont Park Southeast (Washington, D.C.)