page_title: Long Point (Cape Cod)
section_title: Long Point Battery
hierarchical_section_title: Long Point (Cape Cod) / Long Point Battery
caption_attribution_description: English: The Long Point Battery, Provincetown, Massachusetts a Civil War coastal artillery battery From: Conclusions and Recommendations for the former Long Point Battery, Provincetown, MA; Project Number D01MA054901 Defense Environmental Restoration Program for Formerly Used Defense Sites Ordnance and Explosive Waste Draft Report: January 1997
context_page_description: Long Point is a peninsula located in Provincetown, Massachusetts, at the extreme tip of Cape Cod, as it curls back in on itself to create Provincetown Harbor. The Long Point Light was built on this point in 1827. The lighthouse once shared this peninsula with a settlement of fishermen that came to be known as Long Point, Massachusetts. This Provincetown village grew and thrived from 1818 until the late 1850s. When the settlers decided to leave Long Point, they took most of their houses with them – about 30 structures in all – by floating them across the harbor.
  During the American Civil War, the military established a defensive coastal artillery post and garrison at this location. The Long Point Battery came to be known as "Fort Useless" and "Fort Ridiculous" among the local residents.
  Today, Long Point is a ghost village – nothing remains, except for the lighthouse and an earthen mound, the last remnant from the earlier military post.
context_section_description: During the War of 1812, the British navy had controlled Provincetown Harbor. Seeking to correct the lack of fortifications, the U.S. Army surveyed the harbor from 1833–1835, and noted that "the point had a large civilian population".  The Army returned to build the planned Long Point Battery during the American Civil War. Army documents state that:
  the point ... was deserted by the time construction of two earthwork [artillery] batteries began in early 1863. Construction was completed in December of 1863. The outer battery consisted of three 32-pound [15 kg] guns and a built-in powder magazine.  The inner battery, connected to the outer battery by a 1,650-foot [500 m] wooden walkway, consisted of six 32-pound [15 kg] guns and two built-in magazines.  A barracks for quartering a company of soldiers, an officer's quarters, and stables were constructed south of the inner battery.
  The batteries were designed by and built under the supervision of Major Charles E. Blunt of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The Army, however, did not actually "construct" the officer's quarters – instead, the company's three officers were headquartered in the last remaining house from the earlier village.  On March 5, 1864, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ceded "an indefinite area (approximately 150 acres)" of Long Point to the United States Government.  The new barracks housed a company of 98 enlisted soldiers from the Unattached Companies of Massachusetts Volunteer Militia.  The 12th Unattached Company, which had been detached from an existing regiment of the Massachusetts Militia, at first served a 90-day tour of duty at the post from May through August 1864.  Most of the men reenlisted for another 100-day tour, this time as the 21st Unattached Company from August through November.  In November 1864, they enlisted once again for a full year, but they were mustered out at the end of June 1865, as the war had come to an end. The enlisted barracks was floated across the harbor postwar, and still exists as 473 Commercial Street in Provincetown.
  The batteries on Long Point remained operational until the post was abandoned in 1872, but they were never used in combat.  In the years following the war, the people of Provincetown, aware that they were protected against an enemy that would never materialize, soon labelled the batteries "Fort Useless" and "Fort Ridiculous". The earthworks of the batteries remain, eroded down to sand dunes.
caption: Long Point Battery, circa 1865.
  US Army Corps of Engineers.
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