Fort Marshall was a historical American coastal four-point bastion fort located in what is now the Highlandtown and Canton neighborhoods of Baltimore, Maryland. It was built at the outset the American Civil War in 1861, to protect the eastern approaches of Baltimore from Confederate attacks. The fort remained garrisoned for the duration of the war. After 1866, the fort's buildings were salvaged for other purposes and the area ultimately became the site of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Roman Catholic Church, surrounded by the developing residential neighborhoods of southeast Baltimore.
Establishment
After hostilities broke out between the United States and the Confederacy in 1861, Lt. Col. Henry Brewerton of the Union Army was charged in August of that year with strengthening the defenses of Baltimore. The extant Fort McHenry and Fort Carroll were found to be dilapidated and inadequate to the city's protection. Brewerton launched a refurbishment of these fortifications, and established many new forts, such as Forts Federal Hill and Worthington. Lines of elaborate barricades on every approach to the city, and homes fortified for the occupancy of riflemen and sharpshooters demonstrated the military's commitment to holding the city at all costs, or at least denying it to the Confederates. The number of Union installations in the city was such that the army had "transformed Baltimore into something just short of a military base."
A key part of Brewerton's extensive defensive plan for the city, Fort Marshall was established on "Snake Hill," in a still rural area east of the city border. This site, also known as "Murray Hill" or "Potter's Hill," was located approximately a mile and a half from the city center, and was on higher ground than Fort McHenry, allowing its guns to survey a wider area. Designed as a four-pointed star fort, Fort Marshall was built principally by the 7th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the fall of 1861, and named for Colonel Thomas H. Marshall. Marshall had been an officer in the Maine 7th, but died at Baltimore shortly before, on October 25, 1861. The encampment outside the walls of the fort structure proper was known as Camp Emory, named for Union General Emory Upton. Armed with thirty-three heavy artillery pieces, the fort operated in tandem with Fort McHenry, which sat on the opposite side of Baltimore's Northwest Harbor. By war's end, its gun complement would further increase to 60 pieces. The fort also boasted a barracks capable of housing 400 soldiers, with a fully subterranean magazine.
History
Fort Marshall was considered one of Baltimore's more important defenses during the war. Its strong earthwork fortifications were positioned near to the center of the city. There it protected the eastern flank of the city, along with nearby Fort Worthington, from the threat of Confederate raid or invasion. Fort Marshall also shielded the Union military hospital at nearby Patterson Park, half a mile to the west. In addition, as the riots of April 1861 had proven, Baltimore itself was hardly a bastion of Union sympathizers, and so the fortifications served the dual role of enforcing the compliance of hostile Baltimoreans within, while protecting the city from Confederate attack from without. To this end, units from the Fort conducted regular patrols and drills in the city proper, for the purpose of, as one contemporary Union account put it, "reminding the city rebels that their masters were not far away." Celebrations of the Fourth of July at the forts of Baltimore involved large artillery salutes, both to commemorate the day as well as to serve as a "gentle reminder to the Secesh [secessionists] of that city that Fort Marshall was prepared for any emergency." Patrols from the fort also guarded lines and bridges along the Baltimore and Philadelphia Railroad after several bridges had been burned by saboteurs. Detachments from the fort were sent to various towns in Maryland's Eastern Shore in order to defend the polls during the 1864 United States elections, when pro-Union voters were facing voter intimidation. Troops were also sent on raids of nearby warehouses suspected of dealing in contraband or goods intended for smuggling to the South. One such incident uncovered a stock of gunpowder, bowie knives and short rifled muskets, worth at least $4000 () in a stash below Canton.
