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| This an uncropped version of that same picture from Fort Brady Part 1. |
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| And this is a longer shot of the same location pictured in the
previous post. All of a sudden they don't look like so much of a
match. The top picture has a hill that the photographer is
standing on, and there is no hill in the lower picture of the supposed
same location.
So of course the best solution to this sort of puzzler is to look for
more information.
So I go looking for more pics of Fort Brady. |
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| Now, this picture is clearly the same location as the top pic.
The man sighting the gun is now standing up and resting on the
breech. But other than that, it's almost exactly the same.
Lets find another. |
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| This one is titled Fort Brady, Va. Battery of Parrott guns manned
by Company C, 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery.
Whoah.
Something is wrong here. Fort Brady has only 4 embrasures that
point toward the river.
And look at the woodwork. The logs don't match up. They
are vertical in the first pic, horizontal in this one.
Is one an early version, and the interior was redone later, in a
different style? |
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| This is Fort Brady under construction. No vertical logs, just
horizontal.
A further search of Fort Brady pics turns up an interesting anomaly. |
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| I find this picture. Look at the name. "Aikens Landing, Virginia (vicinity Battery Abbot, Fort Brady Battery named for Col Henry L Abbot, 1st Conn H Artillery"
"Vicinity Battery Abbot, Fort Brady?"
And the sign the man on the mound has his hand on. It reads
"Battery Abbot."
What Battery Abbot?
Nobody ever said anything about a Battery
Abbot.
There are no maps showing a Battery Abbot. It's not on the
tour, shall we say. |
| And look closely at the detail of the far left of the pic. |
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| Look familiar? |
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| Look at the parapet above the breech of the rear cannon. Look
familiar? You bet it does.
So I start looking for Battery Abbot pics. |
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| Bingo.
This picture is called, simply, "Battery Abbot."
But I recognize the location immediately. It's right across the
ravine, just south of Fort Brady. You extend the Union line just a
tad farther south than Fort Brady, the "southern anchor" and
you have Battery Abbot. It adjoins Fort Brady, and it's manned by
the same artillery regiment. |
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| Here's a detail from the above pic.
And there's my vertical parapet.
Confirmed.
The pics of Fort Brady that don't match up are actually pics of
Battery Abbot, which adjoined Fort Brady. But for some reason Battery
Abbot has been completely forgotten. None of the contemporary maps
show it. The park service doesn't talk about it. Nobody
knows anything about it. Just a couple of photographs lost in the
archives. Well, now that I've confirmed the existence of a
Battery Abbot, I make a second trip back to Fort Brady to double check
the locations I have figured out, and I'm gonna see what Battery Abbot
has to show me. Routine confirmations. Hah! Because at this
point, the mystery suddenly deepened far beyond anything I had imagined. --to
be continued-- |
