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Fort Jackson was an American Civil War-era fortification in Virginia that defended the southern end of the Long Bridge, near Washington, D.C. Long Bridge connected Washington, D.C. to Northern Virginia and served as a vital transportation artery for the Union Army during the war. Fort Jackson was named for Jackson City, a seedy suburb of Washington that had been established on the south side of the Long Bridge in 1835. It was built in the days immediately following the Union Army's occupation of Northern Virginia in May 1861. The fort was initially armed with four cannon used to protect the bridge, but these were removed after the completion of the Arlington Line, a line of defenses built to the south. After 1862, the fort lacked weapons except for small arms and consisted of a wooden palisade backed by earthworks. Two cannon were restored to the fort in 1864 following the Battle of Fort Stevens. The garrison consisted of a single company of Union soldiers who inspected traffic crossing the bridge and guarded it from potential saboteurs. Following the final surrender of the Confederate States of America in 1865, Fort Jackson was abandoned. The lumber used in its construction was promptly salvaged for firewood and construction materials and, due to its proximity to the Long Bridge, the earthworks were flattened in order to provide easier access to Long Bridge. In the early 20th century, the fort's site was used for the footings and approaches to several bridges connecting Virginia and Washington. Today, no trace of the fort remains, though the site of the fort is contained within Arlington County's Long Bridge Park, and a National Park Service 2004 survey of the site indicated some archaeological remnants may still remain beneath the park. == Occupation of Arlington == Before the outbreak of the Civil War, Alexandria County (renamed Arlington County in 1920), the county in Virginia closest to Washington, D.C., was a predominantly rural area. Part of the original ten-mile-square District of Columbia, the land now comprising the county was retroceded to Virginia in a July 9, 1846, act of Congress that took effect in 1847.〔(Alexandria County, District of Columbia ) Arlington (Va.) Historical Society. Accessed June 18, 2008.〕 Most of the county is hilly, and at the time, most of the county's population was concentrated in the city of Alexandria, at the far southeastern corner of the county. In 1861, the rest of the county largely consisted of scattered farms, the occasional house, fields for grazing livestock, and Arlington House, owned by Mary Custis, wife of Robert E. Lee.〔(Evacuation of Arlington House ) U.S. National Park Service, March 27, 2002. Accessed June 18, 2008.〕 The county was connected to nearby Washington via the Long Bridge, which spanned the Potomac River. On the river flats of the Virginia side of the river was Jackson City,〔(Sketch of the seat of war in Alexandria & Fairfax Cos. ) V.P. Corbett, Washington, D.C., 1861. U.S. Library of Congress, LC Civil War Maps (2nd ed.), page 522.〕 a seedy entertainment district named after President Andrew Jackson and home to several racetracks, gambling halls, and saloons.〔(The Heritage behind Long Bridge Park ) "Long Bridge Park," Department of Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Resources. Arlington, Virginia. Accessed June 13, 2008.〕 Following the surrender of Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 14, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln declared that "an insurrection existed", and called for 75,000 troops to be called up to quash the rebellion.〔E.B. Long with Barbara Long, ''The Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac 1861-1865'' (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1971), pp. 47-50〕 The move sparked resentment in many other southern states, which promptly moved to convene discussions of secession. The Virginia State Convention passed "an ordinance of secession" and ordered a May 23 referendum to decide whether or not the state should secede from the Union. The U.S. Army responded by creating the Department of Washington, which united all Union troops in the District of Columbia and Maryland under one command.〔Long, p. 67〕 Brigadier General J.F.K. Mansfield, commander of the Department of Washington, argued that Northern Virginia should be occupied as soon as possible in order to prevent the possibility of the Confederate Army mounting artillery on the hills of Arlington and shelling government buildings in Washington. He also urged the erection of fortifications on the Virginia side of the Potomac River to protect the southern terminuses of the Chain Bridge, Long Bridge, and Aqueduct Bridge. His superiors approved these recommendations, but decided to wait until after Virginia voted for or against secession.〔Cooling, Benjamin Franklin, III, ''Symbol, Sword, and Shield: Defending Washington During the Civil War'' Second Edition Revised (Shippensburg, PA: White Mane Publishing Company, 1991), pp. 32-26, 41.〕 On May 23, 1861, Virginia voted by a margin of 3 to 1 in favor of leaving the Union. That night, U.S. Army troops began crossing the bridges linking Washington, D.C. to Virginia. The march, which began at 10 p.m. on the night of the 23rd, was described in colorful terms by the ''New York Herald'' two days later: The occupation of Northern Virginia was peaceful, with the exception of the town of Alexandria. There, as Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth, commander of the New York Fire Zouaves (11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment), entered a local hotel to remove the Confederate flag flying above it, he was shot and killed by James Jackson, the proprietor. Ellsworth was one of the first men killed in the American Civil War.〔Ames W. Williams, "The Occupation of Alexandria," ''Virginia Cavalcade'', Volume 11, (Winter 1961-62), pp. 33-34.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fort Jackson (Virginia)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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