page_title: Fort Mifflin
section_title: Reconstruction through War of 1812
hierarchical_section_title: Fort Mifflin / History / Reconstruction through War of 1812
caption_attribution_description: Fort Mifflin Commandant's House Taken in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in December 2003.
context_page_description: Fort Mifflin, originally called Fort Island Battery and also known as Mud Island Fort, was commissioned in 1771 and sits on Mud Island on the Delaware River below Philadelphia, Pennsylvania near Philadelphia International Airport. During the American Revolutionary War, the British Army bombarded and captured the fort as part of their conquest of Philadelphia in autumn 1777. In 1795 the fort was renamed for Thomas Mifflin, a Continental Army officer and the first post-independence Governor of Pennsylvania. The United States Army began to rebuild the fort in 1794 and continued to garrison and build on the site through the 19th century. It housed prisoners during the American Civil War. The army decommissioned Fort Mifflin for active duty infantry and artillery in 1962. However, while the older portion of the fort was returned to the City of Philadelphia, a portion of the fort's grounds are still actively used by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, making it the oldest fort in military use in the United States. Historic preservationists have restored the fort, which is now a National Historic Landmark.
context_section_description: The ruins of Fort Mifflin lay derelict until 1793, when rebuilding began under what was later called the first system of US coastal fortifications.  Pierre L'Enfant, also responsible for planning Washington, D.C., supervised the reconstruction and designed the rebuild in 1794. Reconstruction work began on the fort in 1795 under the auspices of engineer officer Louis de Tousard, who from 1795 to 1800 traveled along the coast between Massachusetts and the Carolinas working on coastal defenses. The initial goal was to rebuild the fort to accommodate 48 guns. The army probably built the outer room of "Casemate #11" during the reconstruction of the fort from 1794 through 1798 and used it as a "proof room" to make cannon charges.  The buildings at Fort Mifflin included barracks for soldiers in the 1790s, measuring 117 feet (36 m) by 28 feet (8.5 m) and consisting of two stories. The original barracks contained seven rooms, five of them each designed to house 25 men.  The army officially named the fort after Thomas Mifflin, a Continental Army officer and the first post-independence Governor of Pennsylvania, in 1795. Rebuilding the fort consumed $94,000 of a total fort budget of $278,000 in 1798 and 1799 alone (in 1799 money). Also, the US Congress met in Philadelphia until 1800 and Fort Mifflin was well garrisoned until then, usually with two companies.
  Over a cross-shaped hole in the ground previously designated as a last-ditch defensive area near the center of the fort, the army built the extant citadel structure to house the commandant in 1796.  Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Rochefontaine replaced Pierre Charles L'Enfant as chief engineer at Fort Mifflin in 1798 and completed the citadel structure to house the commandant.  Lieutenant Colonel Rochfontaine used and improved original designs of L'Enfant.  The Commandant's House exemplifies Greek Revival architecture, rare on Army installations in the United States.  The army also built the six cavelike casemates as defensive structures in the case of an enemy siege during the reconstruction of 1798–1801. Soldiers used a "bake oven" just inside the main gate and the entrance to the bomb-proof casemate for baking bread, as a chapel, and as a mess hall. The army designed the largest casemate (#1) as a barracks. The three smaller casemates were used for storage. The architects intended Casemate #5, about half the size of Casemate #1, as the headquarters of Fort Mifflin in the time of attack.
  The army built the blacksmith shop before 1802; it is probably the oldest surviving complete structure at Fort Mifflin. In 1814, a two-story officers' quarters, measuring 96 feet (29 m) by 28 feet (8.5 m), was built.
  In the 1811 annual report of the secretary of war, Fort Mifflin was described as "...mounting 29 heavy guns, with a water battery without (outside) the works, mounting 8 heavy guns... with brick barracks for 100; within 3/4 of a mile... (is) the Lazaretto, which are good barracks for 400 men."
caption: The commandant's house
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