we visit three of the surviving forts with dale floyd. author of the studies for the national park service. >> right now, we are in the museum at fort ward which has a variety of different artifacts in it. the nice thing is they have a map of the defenses of washington and it gives you a good idea of where they are today. we have at fort ward, which is here. and, today, we are also going to go to fort foot, which is down here and all the way up to fort stevens, which is up there. the reason that the forts were built was to basically to protect the capital of the united states. it first started in may of 1861. soon after, virginia, seceded from the union. the troops moved over one night, across the potomac, over in arlington and alexandria and started building fortifications. after the first battle of manassass in july of 1861, in which the union was actually defeated, the men came streaming back into the city and the city, the confederates could have walked in and taken the city. after that, with the fear, more and more fortifications wer

we visited three of the surviving forts with dale floyd. >> right now we are in the museum at fort ward with a variety of artifacts in it. one of the thins they have a map of the defense of washington. we are at fort ward which is here. today we are are also going to go to fort foot, which is down here and all the way up to fort stevens which is up there. the reason that the forts were built was basically to protect the capital of the united states. it first started in may of 1861. soon after virginia succeeded from the union. after the first battle of ma nas sas in july of 1861 in which is union was actually defeated, the men came streaming back into the city. literally the confederates could have talked into the city. after that fear more and more fortifications were built. general john g. barnard was in charge of them for almost the whole war started developing a system of fortifications around the capital and how they would actually defend the city from enemy invaders. after second ma nas sas which was a union defeat. fear again and more impetus to make sure that the fortifications