City digging for history of Civil War era dirt forts
By Earl Kohnfelder, The Pittsburgh Press, Monday, April 6, 1992
In June 1863, as Gen. Robert E. Lee's army advanced northward toward Pennsylvania, near panic erupted in Pittsburgh, fueled by dispatches that the city was Lee's objective.
Certain that the rebels were coming, businessmen closed factories, shops and mines and ordered the workers to build a series of dirt forts, called redoubts, on high ground along the city's perimeter.
History was to prove the alarm unfounded. The Confederates engaged the Union forces nearly 200 miles east of Pittsburgh, in the Battle of Gettysburg.
The crude fortifications became obsolete on July 6, 1863 -- just a few weeks after they were built -- when word arrived of the Confederates' defeat.
They were to become the most neglected aspect of Pittsburgh's military history. As years passed, the earthwork ramparts were smoothed out to make room for homes and schools and playgrounds, according to Michael Eversmeyer, a historic preservation planner for the city.
No tangible remnants of the forts remain, although the sites of a few have been virtually pinpointed.
Eversmeyer, at the request of the city's Historic Review Commission, has set out to determine the exact sites of all the forts and commemorate them with historic markers.
"I think it's important that we get as much information as we can about the forts, mark the sites and create a repository of knowledge about them in the immediate communities," John DeSantis, chairman of the commission, said.
The commission's effort picks up on an idea expressed 63 years ago in a Pittsburgh Press story tracing the history of two forts in the Arlington area.
The author wrote "perhaps it is within the province of some of our historical societies to take suitable action to awaken public interest and mark the spots where the principal forts stood."
A copy of a sketch of the "defenses of Pittsburg, made by order of Capt. Craighill, Corps of Engineers, U.S.A." in July 1863 shows the approximate locations of 19 redoubts and 14 artillery batteries.
Two were built north of Manchester on sites now occupied by The Pressley Ridge Schools on Marshall Avenue and the Hospital Linen Service on Marvista Street. The former was called Fort McKeever.
The site of Fort McKinley, built by workers from the Jones & Laughlin South Side mill, is occupied by the Arlington Outdoor Recreation Center and Playground.
The Arlington Civic Council last year nominated the site for historic designation, but later withdrew it pending Eversmeyer's search.
About 10 blocks east of the playground, near St. Peter Cemetery and overlooking Becks Run Road, is the approximate site of Fort Smalls, built entirely by black laborers.
Several forts were built on Mount Washington and Duquesne Heights, another at a high point in the West End. One sat above either end of Fingal Street in Mount Washington. Another was in the block now bounded by Oneida, Virginia, Meridan and Sycamore.
Another appeared to have been built on Troy Hill, another above Girty's Run near Millvale. One was established in the Highland Park area, or perhaps Stanton Heights. Craighill's sketch shows that two were built in Garfield Heights.
The largest, called Fort Black, was located on a hill overlooking Hazelwood, at approximately the point where Winterburn and Bigelow streets meet today.
Rifle pits and battery emplacements were set up between the forts, notably to the east and south, to protect roads leading to the city, Eversmeyer said.
Remnants of Arlington's Fort McKinely were still visible as late as 1925 when the city built the present playground, using the [my copy cut off] meyer said.
Michele Traficante-Balcer, present of the Arlington Civic Council, said she often used the playground as a child. "We didn't say we were 'going up to the playground.' We said we were 'going up to the fort,'" she said.
"It's a beautiful view from up there," she said. "You can see from Point State Park clear up the Mon (River) to Homestead. I think we'll still pursue a historic designation for the site."
In 1863, accelerating the panic felt in the city were telegraph messages -- one from Gov. Andrew G. Curtin, the other from Secretary of War and former Pittsburgh attorney Edwin M. Stanton -- stating Pittsburgh was in "imminent danger."
The mills, mines and shops were closed on June 15, a Monday, as butchers, bakers, teachers, clerks and laborers set out with picks, shovels and maps for the city's high ground. The Pennsylvania Railroad contributed 200 men and 20 carts to the effort.
The feeling of urgency, however, was not unanimous.
"Some of the workers went to bars and drank instead, and the mayor (Benair Sawyer) had to order the bars closed to alleviate the party atmosphere," Eversmeyer said.
The redoubts were created by digging ditches and using the dirt to construct walls, called ramparts, behind them. Artillery pieces sat on wooden platforms behind the ramparts.
Work continued for two weeks, although many redoubts were finished within a week's time.
More advanced notice might have allowed more time for thought. According to Gary Augustine, president of the Western Pennsylvania Civil War Round- [my copy cut off] instant criticism.
"The earthen walls at some forts were 8 to 10 feet high and so steeply banked that people asked if the militia would be shooting ducks," Augustine said.
"And some of the openings for the cannons faced in toward the city. Some people wondered if the workers expected the Confederates to capture the city, then shoot them when they tried to leave."
DeSantis said the Historic Review Commission is inviting people who have knowledge about any of the fort sites to contact Eversmeyer at 255-2243.
"We'll sort out what's real and what's legend," he said.
Caption: Fort locations
These are the locations of dirt forts thrown up on city's high ground in fear the Civil War would come to Pittsburgh.
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