Fort Robert Smalls (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
Pittsburgh · Pennsylvania · Civil War
History & Significance
Constructed hastily in June 1863 when Pittsburgh faced invasion by Confederate forces during the Gettysburg campaign, Fort Robert Smalls was one of two earthen fortifications explicitly built by free African American laborers to defend the industrial city. Concerned that the Confederate Army might target Pittsburgh for invasion, the U.S. War Department established the Department of the Monongahela to provide a formal Federal military presence in Western Pennsylvania during the Gettysburg campaign, with departmental headquarters in Pittsburgh.
The Army dispatched Maj. Gen. William T. H. Brooks to organize the defenses of Pittsburgh. Brooks authorized the construction of several miles of earthworks and a series of small forts to control access to the city.
It stood at the top of McGuire's Hill at the mouth of Becks Run in Arlington Heights. The fort's distinctive naming honored Robert Smalls, who escaped from slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina with his crew and their families by seizing a Confederate transport ship and piloting it to the safety of a Union blockade around the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina in 1862.
Like most of Pittsburgh's temporary Civil War fortifications, the redoubt was never engaged in combat—Lee's advance halted at Gettysburg—and it survived until the 1940s before being demolished during urban development. The fort stands as a monument to the labor and sacrifice of free Black residents who fortified their community during the war's crisis.
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Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Robert_Smalls
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_in_the_American_Civil_War
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Smalls
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