Union soldiers built a ring of fortifications. There are notations in the records that the 2nd PA HA personnel were initially assigned to Forts Totten (7), Bunker Hill (9), and Lincoln (10).
2nd Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery was part of the 112th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers. Under Colonel Augustus A. Gibson they were assigned to First Brigade, Defenses North of the Potomac with Regimental headquarters at Fort Lincoln.
They worked 12 hour days to build two forts facing to the northeast (Stevens #5 and Slocum #6). Two pictures at Fort Stevens (#5 in the map) can be seen if you click here.
At first, companies of soldiers did construction work before being called to drill and prepare for battle.
My great grandfather volunteered in August 1863 when hired laborers, carpenters, teamsters, blacksmiths, and others made up the work crews. Of the thousands of contrabands--fugitives from slavery--that took refuge in the city, hundreds labored on fortifications and served the garrisons. He was near DC from August 1863 until March 1864. That is when Company F was ordered to help in the battles to take command of Richmond.
Life for enlisted men in the forts began at dawn. Drills, repairs, duties, parades, and inspections consumed their day. "The time passed pleasantly enough," wrote one solder, spared from the hardships in the field of battle.
Click to see outline.
Prior to the Civil War, only one fortification existed for the capital's defense. Outmoded Fort Washington was nearly 12 miles down the Potomac. It was built to guard against enemy ships following the War of 1812.
Sites a few miles outside city limits were picked by Barnard's engineers because they were high points that overlooked the terrain. Natural fords upriver from the city, allowing the enemy to cross the Potomac during low water, prompted the building of other forts and batteries. Rifle pits filled the gaps.
By spring 1865 (four years after the war started), the defense system totaled 68 forts and 93 batteries with 807 cannons and 98 mortars in place.
Twenty miles of rifle trenches flanked the bristling strongholds, joined by more than 30 miles of military roads over which companies of soldiers and guns could move as reinforcements. Washington had become the most heavily fortified city in the world.
Laborers piled up earthworks (ramparts) so that parapets 12 to 18 feet thick faced outward. Within the ramparts, field and siege guns were mounted on platforms to lay down a wide angle of fire. Outside the earthworks, a steep slope led down to a dry moat. Beyond this wide ditch, felled trees with sharpened branches pointed outward (called an abatis) and ringed the fort. Work parties cleared all brush
Inside the fort a rounded structure of heavy timbers heaped with 10 or more feet of rammed earth formed the magazine for storing ammunition and kegs of gunpowder. A cannon proof mound of dirt sheltered gun crews and officers. Often the dirt covering was notched to make a place from which rifleman could fire. Every fort had a well or spring for clean water and a flagstaff to fly the Union colors.