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EPILOGUE
Fort Sumter lay so battered at war's end that U.S. Army Engineers
found it easier to level some of the higher walls than to bring the most
damaged portions back to their original height. Eleven lower casemates
were rebuilt for 100-pounder Parrott rifles, but for most of the rest of
the century the fort remained unoccupied, and its principal service was
as a lighthouse.
The commencement of the Spanish-American War in 1898 led to
construction of Battery Huger in the central section of the fort. By
1899 the battery was equipped with two new 12-inch rifles on steel
carriages and concrete foundations. The battery was manned from 1917
until 1919, but that ended the fort's military occupation until World
War II, during which the outdated pair of guns were replaced by two
90-millimeter antiaircraft guns.
The fort was designated a national monument in 1948. What remains of
Major Anderson's Fort Sumter is essentially the first tier of casemates.
some of which have been reconstructed. Ruins of some of the officers'
quarters and enlisted men's barracks have been excavated, as has a
portion of the old parade ground, but most of the original parade were
filled during the construction of Battery Huger.
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Back cover: Evening Gun at Fort Sumter, by John Gadsby
Chapman. Courtesy of The Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia.
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