Fact or fiction? Fort D myths and legends

Myths and legends can prevent telling the full story of a historic site. This is the case with Fort D, Cape Girardeau's sole remaining Civil War fort, and Missouri's only surviving urban fort.

John Wesley Powell, second lieutenant, 20th Illinois Volunteers, and later captain on Gen. Grant's staff, designed and supervised construction of the forts in Cape Girardeau. Fort D is a redan, a triangular structure pointed in the direction of threats. This is the first myth -- the forts defended against river attack. The Mississippi River was always in Union hands, and threats from farther south were slight because of federal forces at Cairo, Illinois, and Union gunboats plying the river. The forts in Cape Girardeau defended against the primary threat -- land attack.

Second, legend says a tunnel leads to the river from the basement of the stone blockhouse, built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1937. Any original building inside the fort was wood, built to house ammunition. (Soldiers camped between Fort D and the seminary, and at the south end of North West End Boulevard.) Bedrock is close to the surface in this area, and constructing a tunnel would require drilling through rock. This legend may come from confusion of the Underground Railroad with tunnels. The "underground" meant concealed from sight, not literally underground, and there is no evidence the network to smuggle slaves to freedom existed in Cape Girardeau.

Visitors often think the 1937 building is the fort, note bars on the windows, and assume it held prisoners. A stone building would have been easy to demolish during an attack using cannon. The fort is the earthen walls -- not the building. Earth absorbs artillery hits better than stone, brick or wood. City workers added bars to the windows relatively recently, when vandalism became a problem.

Some think all the forts fired during the Battle of Cape Girardeau on April 26, 1863. The attack extended from Bloomfield Road north to Broadway, never advancing past present-day Caruthers Avenue. Thus, Fort D had no line of sight to fire on attackers. Forts B and C did fire, as well as a battery located near present-day Southeast Hospital.

Finally, there are myths concerning the preservation of the fort in the 1930s. Some think the WPA reconstructed the walls. Accounts and photographs in the 1920s contradict this. According to the Sept. 24, 1924, issue of the Southeast Missourian, "Fort D stands today as it was left by the soldiers during the Civil War." Preservationists saved Fort D when Mary Hunter Giboney Houck deeded it to the American Legion in 1936.

Regulations for WPA projects on historic earthworks specified use of hand tools. The stone building was added because original plans for redans called for one, although none existed at Fort D in 1861. The building was a museum and meeting place for the American Legion until 1945, when deeded to representatives of the Girl Scouts. The Scouts deeded it to the city in 1948.