Fort DuPont was an earthwork fort built in 1861, completed in spring 1862, and in use till 1865 when it was abandoned. The land was owned by Micheal Canton prior to the war and returned to him afterward. The fort was a hexagon with 100-foot-long (30 m) sides. The fort was an artillery installation defending the eastern approaches of Washington.
During the war the following pieces were stationed at the fort:
- 3 - 8 inch howitzers (en embrasure)
- 3 - 24 pounder seacoast guns (en barbette)
- 2 - 6 pounder field guns
- 1 - 24 pounder Coehorn mortar.
Fort DuPont never fired guns in hostile action; however, after the surrender of Confederate forces at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, according to John Longyear, "the Chain of forts around the city and the batteries of field artillery between, made a ring of cannons around the city which were fired for several hours. The line of cannon salutes running round and round the other always proceeding in the same direction, so that it went round and round the circuit 20 to 30 miles". There are few remains of the actual fortifications. (Source: Wikipedia)
Fort DuPont Park is a 376-acre (1.52 km2) wooded park under the management of the National Park Service. It is one of Washington's largest parks and protects an important sub-watershed of the Anacostia River. The park is a popular place for picnics, nature walks, indoor ice skating, mountain bike riding, gardening, environmental education, music, skating, sports, and ranger-led Civil War programs.
The indoor ice skating rink is located in the heart of Ward 7 in Southeast DC and strives to provide increased opportunities and inspiration to the young people of Washington, DC and the surrounding area through ice skating and educational activities. The ice arena is open Monday - Friday, 8 am - 4 pm. For additional information visit https://dpr.dc.gov/page/fort-dupont-ice-arena.
Please note that GeoCachers must abide by all DC DPR rules, regulations and other restrictions. Night caching is expressly forbidden. Parking is available. BYOP. Please rehide the cache as found. There are a number of kid friendly SWAG items in the cache, but please remember that if you take something, you must leave something of equal or greater value. There is a FTF GeoCoin for the first to find the cache.