Fortifications

There are no remains of the fort that was located near today’s 40th and Chesapeake Sts. NW on the highest point of land within the District of Columbia. It was originally called Fort Pennsylvania because reserve contingents from that state built it. It was later renamed in honor of Major General Jesse L. Reno who was killed on Sept. 14, 1862 at the battle of South Mountain, MD.

The fort and its connecting battery were built in the summer of 1861 on prime farmland formerly owned by brothers Giles and Miles Dyer. In a letter to his brother, Private Adam S. Bray of the Third Pennsylvania Reserves lamented that “we cut down orchards with fine app and peach trees with fine peaches and also some large corn fields we have destroyed too houses that were in our way to build the battery.” In 1863, Mrs. James Dwyer submitted a claim to the government for its use of her land. As a result, she received $50 per month for her land until the army abandoned it.

Commanding three roads converging on the village of Tennallytown made the location ideal for a military campground and signal station. President Lincoln visited the installation on at least three occasions. In July 1864, Confederate cavalry alerted General Early that the fort’s defenses were too strong to attack. But Private Alfred Bellard of the Veteran Reserve Corps thought “nothing could have saved it as there was no troops round the city but our brigade and were supposed to be unfit for duty.” Nevertheless, Early shifted his army from the River Road to the Seventh Street Pike and Fort Stevens. Men from the signals station observed clouds of dust and alerted garrisons to the east that the enemy was approaching.

At the end of the war, the land was sold to developers and subdivided. Many newly freed African Americans migrated to the vicinity of the fort; some bought parcels of land; others built shanties and shelters and squatted. All remains of Fort Reno were destroyed when an underground reservoir and pumping station were built in the early 1900s.