[Archived] Civil War Defenses of Washington Bus Tour October 1

Registration Now Open for October 1 Tour of Union Fortification Sites

The Friends of Fort Ward will sponsor a guided bus tour on the Civil War Defenses of Washington on Saturday, October 1. The tour will be led by military historian Dale Floyd, who has specialized in military fortifications and 19th-century military history. The bus will depart from Fort Ward Museum, 4301 West Braddock Road, at 8 a.m. and return to Fort Ward at 5 p.m.  Cost for the tour is $75 for members of the Friends of Fort Ward, and $90 for non-members.  The registration deadline is Thursday, September 29.  To register or to find out more about the tour, contact Fort Ward Museum at 703.746.4848 or visit www.fortward.org.   

The Defenses of Washington comprised an immense ring of Union forts that protected the Federal capital of Washington, D.C., during the Civil War. By 1865, the defense system included 164 armed and unarmed forts and batteries, making Washington the most heavily defended city in the Western Hemisphere at that time. Today, the impact of urban development, erosion and other forms of deterioration has destroyed many of these forts.  Mr. Floyd will lead participants to the sites of several that still feature significant remains, including Forts Marcy, C.F. Smith, Foote and Stevens. The tour will depart from Fort Ward, one of the largest forts in the system and the best preserved of those that still exist. 

Mr. Floyd has written and edited numerous publications on military history, and has led tours to a variety of historic fortification sites in America and around the world. He is the author of the NPS publication, “A Historic Resources Study of the Civil War Defenses of Washington.” He has served as an archivist in military records at the National Archives, a historian with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Office of History, and a historian with the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program. He participated in researching, compiling and writing “A Historic Resources Study of the Civil War Defenses of Washington, D.C.” for the National Park Service in 2004.

For more information, visit www.fortward.org or call 703.746.4848.