Oregon’s Fort Stevens and the Columbia River
Logan Barrett, Director of History & Collections
When people think about the American Civil War, the United States’s Pacific Northwest is not typically one of the first regions that comes to mind. However, Oregon, the country’s 33rd state admitted to the union just two years prior to the war’s outbreak in 1859, both impacted and was impacted by wartime experiences. During the war, Confederate raiding ships disrupted maritime commerce and trade in the Pacific and the United States was forced to consider additional coastal defenses due to the threat. At the mouth of the Columbia River, the largest waterway in the region, Oregon’s Fort Stevens serves as an example of how the Civil War-era navies made a national impact that often extended beyond the places of major land battles.
​
At the extreme northwest corner of Oregon–where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean– sits the fishing port of Astoria. Named for investor John Jacob Astor, Astoria was established in 1811 in a strategically important coastal space contested by both indigenous people as well as multiple European empires. Near the westernmost encampments of the Lewis and Clark expedition, the city became the oldest permanent American settlement west of the Rocky Mountains. By 1850, steamboats were frequently traveling the Columbia and the river proved vital to the development of Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The river’s defense was deemed crucial to the future of the region. When the Civil War began in 1861, Oregon did not maintain a state militia. Oregon’s first governor, John Whiteaker, did little to increase the state’s ability to participate as he held pro-slavery views sympathetic to the Confederate cause. Whiteaker’s political enemies characterized him as a traitor to the United States and he was replaced as governor by Republican A.C. Gibbs in 1862 by a state population largely opposed to slavery. During Gibb’s gubernatorial administration, Oregon provided both men and material to the war effort. By the end of the Civil War, there were around 25 military posts in the state. While many of these posts were primarily used in operations against indigenous people– such as the Snake War against the Northern Paiute and Bannock and Western Shoshone bands– installations such as Fort Stevens near Astoria were built specifically because of Confederate hostilities in the Pacific.
Throughout the war, the Confederate Navy commissioned over twenty raiding vessels to disrupt United States maritime commerce and trade in international waters. With most of the U.S. Navy’s resources committed to the blockade of the Anaconda Plan, unarmed merchant and fishing ships were left defenseless. The U.S. Navy strategy largely left the Confederate raiders free to prey on these vulnerable ships with only a few notable exceptions such as the Battle of Cherbourg in which the USS Kearsarge sunk the highly successful and publicized CSS Alabama off the coast of France in 1864. While historians have deemed the commerce raiders as one of the most successful operations of the Confederate Navy, the financial, material, and human resources spent on Pacific coastal defenses remain an undervalued impact of Confederate commerce raiders.
View of Astoria, Oregon, published in Harper's Weekly, May 30, 1868
Most of what remains of Fort Stevens today dates from the 20th century
Semi-completed in 1864, Fort Stevens was an earthwork battery near Astoria. The fort, originally called the Fort at Point Adams, was part of a system of three artillery posts at the mouth of the Columbia River along with Forts Columbia and Canby on the northern side of the river in Washington Territory. Authorized by Congress in early 1862, these installations became the “Three Fort Harbor Defense System.” These forts, plus additional Pacific coastal defenses around San Francisco Bay, were developed in direct response to fears that Confederate raiders in the Pacific–such as the famed CSS Shenandoah– would attack the shipping industries of these significant ports. Fort Stevens became part of the national coastal defense system rapidly expanded during the Civil War. Though intended to be a permanent structure, Fort Stevens was originally one of many Civil War-era coastal forts hastily constructed as an earthwork battery. The fort’s armament included seventeen 10-inch smoothbore Rodman guns. In 1865, the fort received its current name in honor of Isaac Stevens, a popular former territorial governor of Washington killed during the Battle of Chantilly in Virginia on September 1, 1862.
After the Civil War, Fort Stevens continued to serve as a military installation defending the Columbia River. Into the twentieth century, its infrastructure improved from the original earthworks to concrete. Though the fort never saw action during the Civil War, Fort Stevens did gain some combat experience during World War II. On June 21, 1942, a Japanese submarine attacked Battery Russell at Fort Stevens, launching around seventeen shells. Minimal damage was inflicted on the fort, and for reasons not revealed by the historic record, Fort Stevens did not fire back on the submarine. During this event, Fort Stevens became the first and only continental United States military post fired upon by a foreign enemy since the War of 1812. The fort was decommissioned from service in 1947.
Today, the fort can be visited at Fort Stevens State Park which is maintained as part of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail. While twentieth-century infrastructure obscures the Civil War-era installation, the fort nevertheless serves as a reminder that the naval experiences of the Civil War covered not only water but also land. Though not manned by the naval branch of service, coastal forts were a land-based extension of maritime life.