It slithers through about two city blocks of forest on the edge of Land's End beach. It took an act of Congress to build it and a Mexican revolution for people to forget it. It seems the Navy was scared the Spanish fleet would invade Port Royal Sound, then the deepest natural harbor between New York and Key West, after the USS Maine mysteriously exploded, condemning 260 American sailors to the depths of Havana Harbor. So Fort Fremont just sat there, home to three concussion canons that could blast across the nearly five miles of sound between Parris Island and Hilton Head Island, protecting Beaufort. Fort Fremont finally was abandoned to the timber rattlers when the remnants of its garrison were packed up to chase Pancho Villa through Texas in 1911.
Rattlesnakes love all that concrete.
The ghostly gray compound can be seen only from the back of the fort. Its ramparts are hidden behind the dunes and are invisible from the beach. From the top of the fort the sound of the currents opens to a partial view of the water through 80 yards of sun-spotted forest. Two of the turrets are overgrown with sea grape and wisteria. Swirling from a thousand cracks, the vines wrap around everything within their reach.