FORT HOWELL
FILM BY EYEFULL.TV
Fort Howell, owned and maintained by the Land Trust, is a pentagonal earthworks fort built in 1864 during the Civil War. Despite natural erosion and the vegetation growth over the past 150 years, the fort remains discernible. Today, it is open to the public with parking, interpretive signs, and a gravel path surrounding the fort. A kiosk provides historical context, and metal soldier figures by local artist Mary Ann Ford are displayed on the grounds. Admission is free, and the fort is open from dawn to dusk. Guided tours are available through a partnership with the Coastal Discovery Museum.
Built by the 32nd United States Colored Infantry Regiment (Union) from Pennsylvania and the 144th New York Infantry (regiments belonging to the Hilton Head District, Department of the South, United States Army), the fort was constructed from late August or early September to mid-October 1864, using shovels, spades, picks, and axes. Supervised by Captain Patrick McGuire and the 1st New York Engineers, it was designed as a semi-permanent artillery fort to protect Mitchelville, the nation's first freedman’s community, located nearby. The Fort was constructed on an open site just southwest of the settlement, likely on a recently logged site or a fallow cotton field. Fort Howell is part of the Network to Freedom, a national network of sites connected to the Underground Railroad.
Though Fort Howell saw no combat, it exemplifies the military engineering of its time, featuring two bastions, a moat, a wooden palisade, four magazines, and emplacements for up to 27 guns—16 of them garrison guns (also called “seacoast” or siege guns).
Fort Howell is one of the most intact and best preserved Civil War field fortifications in South Carolina and is particularly significant as a fine example of a sophisticated Federal earthwork built in an area occupied by the United States Army for an extended period. The Fort has been recognized on the National Register of Historic Places and as a site on the National Park Service's Network to Freedom - Underground Railroad and the Civil War Discovery Trail.
While its method of construction—built-up earth, reinforced by wooden timbers and supplemented by wooden platforms as necessary—was typical of field fortifications for infantry and artillery alike, its design was necessarily more elaborate than those manned by infantry, as it was intended to maximize the effectiveness of an artillery fortification whose guns were fixed, or essentially so. Though designed by engineers, it was constructed by infantrymen under their supervision.
The Land Trust strives to preserve the Fort in its original state and provide education information about the Fort's role in our country's history.
