Battery Kemble Park
See the Park Map web page for an interactive fort location map.
LOCATION
Battery Kemble is located in Battery Kemble Park, which is situated along Chain Bridge Road between MacArthur Boulevard and Loughboro Road. Unlike most other forts that are part of the Civil War Defenses of Washington, there is no information panel that identifies the fort and provides a brief history. However, the park entrance on Chain Bridge Road is marked by a Battery Kemble-Fort Circle Parks sign.
Park in the small parking lot at the entrance to Battery Kemble Park. The road continues and ends at a picnic area with a larger parking lot, but this is not the place to be if you want to see the fort. Other sources suggest using this parking lot and then walking up a very steep hill, but if you park near the road you are already at the top of that hill.
WHAT TO SEE
From the parking lot, walk back out to Chain Bridge Road and proceed north (right) for about 200 yards. If you reach a house on the right side of the road you have gone too far—there are houses on the left side of the road. Be on the lookout for a clearing with a small mound holding a Geodetic Survey Marker. An arrow on the marker points directly at the fort, though this is merely a coincidence.
Mound with the geodetic survey marker
Geodetic survey marker
A trail forms a semicircle around the fort and comes back out on Chain Bridge Road closer to the parking lot. You may have noticed this trail running along the road during your walk to the survey marker, and you were in fact walking past the fort during this time. The fort is covered in vegetation and it is hard to see any of the walls, but they do exist. There is one clearing on the south end that takes you into the fort. You must cross the defensive ditch that was dug at the base of the wall and then climb up to the top where you will find a granite marker. However, the interior of the fort is a jungle, so unless you are wearing long pants, a long sleeve shirt, and have applied insect repellent, you probably won’t want to go farther. Poison ivy and ticks are a common problem in the area.
There are no other exhibits at the site. A visit to Battery Kemble is for Civil War fanatics only.
Wall of Battery Kemble
HISTORY
Named after Gouveneur Kemble, founder of the West Point Foundry that produced artillery for the U. S. military, Battery Kemble was completed in the fall of 1861 and armed with two 100-pounder Parrott rifles (pounder refers to the weight of the cannonball that could be fired). From the hill, which is nearly 400 feet above the Potomac River, the guns could aim out towards the water and into Virginia. The battery was manned by the 2nd U. S. Artillery, the 9th New York Heavy Artillery, and Company A of the 1st New Hampshire Heavy Artillery.
Battery Kemble was abandoned after the war, and the land was returned to the original owners. The remains of the fort and the surrounding land were acquired by the federal government in the early 1920s.
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Last updated on April 25, 2020
