Fort Sumner (Maryland)
historical fort in Montgomery County, Maryland, US
Fort Sumner was built during the American Civil War by the Union Army in the Brookmont section of Bethesda, Maryland, just northwest of Washington, D.C.
Construction
The earthwork fort was an 1863 expansion of Fort Alexander, Fort Ripley, and Fort Franklin, which were built to protect the Washington Aqueduct, the new water supply for the city, and the adjacent Potomac River shoreline. Fort Sumner was named for Major General Edwin Vose Sumner, who died in 1863 from fever he contracted while at his daughter's house.
The fort had a commanding view above the Potomac River and included 30 artillery pieces.
In addition to the aforementioned components, the site was situated near Battery Bailey and Battery Benson, overlooking Little Falls Branch.
Battery Bailey was named for Captain Guilford D. Bailey, killed in action at the Battle of Fair Oaks, and Battery Benson was named for Captain Henry Benson, mortally wounded in action at the second engagement at Malvern Hill.
Remains
Fort Sumner was razed in 1953. There are a few visible remains of Battery Bailey in Westmoreland Hills Park, which can be seen from the adjacent Capital Crescent Trail. Part of the site was acquired by the Army Map Service (AMS) early in World War II and renamed Fort Sumner. The AMS was renamed US Army Topographic Command in 1968 and merged into the Defense Mapping Agency in 1972, at which time the site was renamed Defense Mapping Agency Topographic Center. The Defense Mapping Agency and its successors, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, occupied the site until the early 2010s.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Fort Sumner (Maryland)” is historical fort in Montgomery County, Maryland, US. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Fort, Sumner and Maryland, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “historical fort in Montgomery County, Maryland, US” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5472149. Authority coordinates are 38.955, -77.124. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1863, 1953, 1968 and 1972.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fort Sumner (Maryland)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.