On the off chance that you guys might enjoy this, I thought I'd share a few pictures of Ft. Washington with you. It's a beautiful place with with an interesting, but thankfully not very exciting history. It was built on the Potomac River, downstream from DC and the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. It didn't stop the Canadians from burning down the White House.
The fort was built about 3/4 of the way to Mt. Vernon, but on the Maryland bank of the Potomac. This is a photo of the fort from the Virginia side of the river. It's an imposing structure.
Here is a picture of the fort’s main gate, looking out across the river toward Mt. Vernon. Yes, it has a draw bridge.
Pictures looking up the bluff, with the river to my back.
The place is honeycombed with various mortar and long tube batteries. These much later installations were built in reinforced concrete at a time when muzzle loading pieces were still the norm, a very short-lived period of time.
This is a map of the installation, to give you a sense of the scale of this series of fortifications.
Some pictures from the ramparts, first looking across the river toward Mt. Vernon to the southeast, then directly below the fort showing some of the batteries below the ramparts. Yup, that’s a lighthouse out on the point.
Part of the fort's defenses included torpedo batteries. These weren't the motorized torpedoes that we're familiar with. Rather, you can think of them as explosive bouys that were moored beneath the surface and detonated from the shore when a ship full of pyromaniac Canadians were judged to be near the torpedo.
There are painted box turtles galore, some more serious turtles, deer all over the place, snakes, groundhogs and countless birds.
Here's a picture of a deer taking a dump that I'm very proud of.
And, like most of the Capitol region, there are cherry trees.
I won't bore you with pictures of the trail that I slog through. It's just a deer trail through the woods. Not much to see, really.
I hope you found this interesting. It blows me away that this exists a mere 10 miles south of the District line. It played a big role in the project that I undertook last year and it's quite important to me, which is why I took the time to post this great big mess for you. It's an amazing place.