Fort Washington Gun Platform

Almost feels like a pleasant walled garden now. Quite a contrast to the noise and volumes of black powder smoke with the guns in use.

Looking at the mounts, these guns would have been on disappearing carriages?

grahamp, interesting information here: https://www.nps.gov/fowa/learn/historyculture/stories.htm

If you click on "Mammoth Guns" you see the emplacement of a 15 inch Columbiad that looks similar to what is shown here, similar but not identical.

There were later disappearing guns at Ft. Washington, click on "Battery Decatur."

I like the photograph, evocative of an earlier time and military technology.

David

To add a little more... Just looked at my copy of Seacoast Fortifications of the United States An Introductory History by Emanuel Raymond Lewis (1979). It shows a pair of (replica) Model 1841 Seacoast guns at Ft. Washington, location looks identical to the photograph.

David

These gun positions would have been for smaller guns than the 15 inch Rodmans, but most likely similar smoothbore guns. If you want to see actual 15 inch Rodmans in position where they were originally installed, just up the road from Fort Washington is Fort Foote, where a pair of the Rodman cannon sit on their carriages in the woods.