Fort Delaware

Fort Delaware is a former harbor defense facility, designed by chief engineer Joseph Gilbert Totten and located on Pea Patch Island in the Delaware River. During the American Civil War (1861–1865), the Union / United States Department of War / United States Army used Fort Delaware as a prison for Confederate prisoners of war, political prisoners, miscellaneous civilians, federal convicts, and privateer officers. A three-gun concrete battery of 12-inch guns, later named Battery Torbert, was designed by Maj. Charles W. Raymond and built inside the fort in the 1890s. By 1900, the fort was part of a three fort concept, the first forts of the Coast Defenses of the Delaware, working closely with Fort Mott further upstream on the opposite shore, in Pennsville, New Jersey, and Fort DuPont downstream in Delaware City, Delaware. The fort and the island currently belong to the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) and encompass a living history museum, located in Fort Delaware State Park.

Text adapted from “Fort Delaware” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Fort Delaware ranks #2,234 of 3,813 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #48 of the 53 mapped in United States. Founded 1859, it is older than 8% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 270 atlas entries founded in the 19th century. See how United States compares in the castle statistics.

View on the interactive castle map →

Read the full history on Wikipedia ↗