Written by: Leyton Furlong
Perched on top of St. Joseph’s Prospect Hill, overlooking bustling downtown, you’ll find a series of earthworks lined with cannons and wooden structures. During the Civil War, this was the site of an ambitious fortress built to scare off Confederate forces. However, the fort was dangerous to locals, and Fort Smith soon became more of a threat to its own people than the Rebels.
Why St. Joseph mattered in 1861
In 1861, the nation was embroiled in a full-blown war. As a border state, Missouri’s loyalties were divided. At the Start of the War, the majority of St. Joseph’s population supported the Confederacy. Because of St. Joseph’s strategic position as a key rivertown on the Missouri River, the Union couldn’t afford to lose it. By late summer of 1861, the pressure to secure the city only grew as Rebel forces made frequent attempts to occupy the city, and a guerrilla sabotage near St. Joseph derailed a civilian train, killing 17.
Building Fort Smith on Prospect Hill
From September to October of 1861, about 3,000 Union reinforcements arrived in St. Joseph to enforce martial law. The largest of these detachments was the 16th and 52nd Illinois Infantry Regiments under Colonel Robert F. Smith. Col. Smith’s men wasted no time in setting up camp. Using former slaves, prisoners of war, and rebel sympathisers, Fort Smith was completed by November of 1861. The Fort’s walls were constructed from dirt and rock with a series of cannons operated by Battery B of the 2nd Illinois Artillery Regiment. Some soldiers were said to have looted doors from local businesses to aid the construction.
When practice shots went wrong
The troubles with the fort began when it started to test out its cannons. The first live firing exercise occurred in December of 1861, intending to hit a practice target on Kill Hill in the South End. Instead of hitting the target, the cannonball struck the train station and destroyed a passenger platform. A second cannonball grazed the Pony Express stables, tore through a bowling alley, and finally demolished a small outhouse. Although no one was hurt, the incident highlighted the potential hazard posed by the fort. In another incident, two boys were killed after sneaking into the fort and setting off a barrel of gunpowder, which destroyed one of the powder magazines.
Low morale and a short lifespan
At the fort, morale was low. Many soldiers became ill during the winter, with at least two dying. Rations were poor, discipline was sometimes nonexistent, and defections were commonplace. Some soldiers even began to question if the fort was even capable of defense at all.
Although nearly all of the units stationed there were transferred elsewhere and the fort was allegedly condemned in February of 1862, Battery B of the 2nd Illinois Artillery remained at the fort until April. In that time, another accident occurred on February 22nd during a President’s Day celebration. While loading one of the cannons to fire off a ceremonial salute, one of the cannons prematurely detonated and severely injured one of the artillerymen.
Rediscovery and the park today
The fort was abandoned by mid 1862, and other units and local militias guarded St. Joseph for the remainder of the war. The Fort was last noted in an 1868 illustration of St. Joseph, and then seemingly disappeared from the historic record. A portion of the fort’s dirt walls was rediscovered in the early 2000s, and the city eventually voted to rebuild the fort as a park in 2013. The park today features many replica cannons identical to those used by Union soldiers during the war. Also on site is a wooden shack which displays blueprints for cannons as well as exterior benches for possibly the most scenic view of Downtown.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Fort Smith Park
802 Prospect Avenue, St. Joseph, MO 64501
Fort Smith Park is typically open seasonally (often listed as April 16 to October 14) and includes interpretive features like three full-scale reproduction cannons and restored redoubts.