Fort Reynolds (Virginia)

Fort Reynolds
Part of the Civil War defenses of Washington, D.C.
Arlington, Virginia, USA
Fort Reynolds historical marker
Fort Reynolds
Coordinates	38°50′15″N 77°05′41″W / 38.8376°N 77.0948°W / 38.8376; -77.0948
Type	Earthwork fort
Site information
Controlled by	Union Army
Condition	Stabilized
Site history
Built	1861
Built by	U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
In use	1861–1865
Materials	Earth, timber
Demolished	1865
Battles/wars	American Civil War

Fort Reynolds was a Union Army redoubt built as part of the defenses of Washington, D.C., in the American Civil War.

The fort was located in Fairlington, Arlington County, Virginia. It was constructed in September 1861 to command the approach to Alexandria by the Four Mile Run valley and was itself protected by nearby Battery Garesche. It had a perimeter of 360 yards (329 m) and emplacements for 12 guns.

The fort was originally called Fort Blenker after Colonel Louis Blenker's brigade stationed nearby. In late 1863, the fort was renamed after Major General John F. Reynolds, who was killed on 1 July at the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania.

Before the outbreak of the Civil War, Alexandria County (renamed Arlington County in 1920), the northernmost county in Virginia and the closest to Washington, D.C., was a predominantly rural area. Originally part of the District of Columbia, the land now comprising the county was retroceded to Virginia in a July 9, 1846 act of Congress that took effect in 1847. Most of the county is hilly, and at the time, most of the county's population was concentrated in the city of Alexandria, at the far southeastern corner of the county. In 1861, the rest of the county largely consisted of scattered farms, the occasional house, fields for grazing livestock, and Arlington House, owned by Mary Custis, wife of Robert E. Lee.