West Battery | “Forts Useless and Ridiculous”
The overgrown and rundown ruin of the West Battery. [2008, Dunlap]
View of the ruin in 1944. [Scrapbooks of Althea Boxell 7:16 / Dowd Collection / Provincetown History Preservation Project Page 2042]
Within the ruin. [2008, Dunlap]
Text last updated in 2015 | During the Civil War, concerned about the Confederate navy trying to blockade the harbor, the federal government erected a three-gun earthwork battery at the eastern tip of Long Point and a five-gun earthwork battery about 1,800 feet to the southwest. Because the Long Point batteries never saw wartime duty, townsfolk called them “Fort Useless” and “Fort Ridiculous.”
They were under the charge of Sgt. John Rosenthal and were not decommissioned until 1873, after which the barracks came across to land at 473 Commercial. Both fortifications are discernible as relatively flat-topped mounds.
¶ Republished on 28 December 2023.