page_title: Fort Corcoran
section_title: Wartime use
hierarchical_section_title: Fort Corcoran / Wartime use
caption_attribution_description: English: Sketch of Fort Corcoran. Published in Harper's Weekly, December 14, 1861. Image can be seen in its original format here.
context_page_description: Fort Corcoran was a wood-and-earthwork fortification constructed by the Union Army in northern Virginia as part of the defenses of Washington, D.C. during the American Civil War. Built in 1861, shortly after the occupation of Arlington, Virginia by Union forces, it protected the southern end of the Aqueduct Bridge and overlooked the Potomac River and Theodore Roosevelt Island, known as Mason's Island.
  The fort was named after Colonel Michael Corcoran, commander of the U.S. Fighting 69th Infantry, Irish Brigade 69th New York Volunteer Regiment, one of the units that constructed the fort.
  Fort Corcoran was home to the Union Army Balloon Corps and the headquarters of the defenses of Washington south of the Potomac River, and served throughout the war before being dismantled in 1866. Today, no trace of the fort remains, although the Arlington County government has erected a historical marker at its site.
context_section_description: As originally designed, Fort Corcoran's planned 12-gun complement would have been manned by 180 artillerymen, and the fort's 576 yards of perimeter would have been guarded by 620 soldiers, for a total garrison of 800 men. The initial garrison was the 13th New York Volunteer Infantry, and the fort's 12 guns were manned by Company K of the 2nd Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment. However, the demands of war meant that the 2nd Wisconsin Regiment was needed for the Peninsula Campaign and left Fort Corcoran in late 1861. Throughout the war, Fort Corcoran's rear location and proximity to the supply depots of Washington meant that a steady stream of Union regiments rotated through the fort and the military camps nearby for much of the war. In August 1861 alone, regiments from Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Michigan, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania served in or near the fort. So many troops were stationed in and near the fort, in fact, that in a report on March 31, 1863, General Barnard, chief engineer of the defenses of Washington, said Fort Corcoran was among a small number of sites that had "more enlisted men than required as artillery garrisons."
  On May 17, 1864, Brigadier General A.P. Howe, Inspector-General of Artillery for the Union Army, concluded an inspection of the garrisons of the various forts defending Washington, D.C. At Fort Corcoran, an "interior work," he found little to commend, with the exception of the size of the garrison, which consisted of three companies of the 2nd New York Heavy Artillery. The men he found to be "very ordinary" in artillery drill, "very deficient" in infantry drill, and "a low state" of discipline overall. These problems, he concluded, were the fault of the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Palmer, who "shows inefficiency in the command." General Howe also counted three magazines and 11 guns (one less than the 1861 plan) of various types at the fort: two 8-inch seacoast howitzers, two 12-pounder heavy guns, four 12-pounder light Napoleons, and three 10-pounder Parrott rifles.
caption: A sketch of Fort Corcoran, as published in Harper's Weekly in December 1861. The view is of the southern wall of the fort.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2007:09:12 10:17:49", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3581", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "934", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "384"}