DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, as best as I can pass it along to you. During the Civil War, there was a fort built west of Congress Avenue, right near where you're rolling now. Fort Magruder, they called it — named for General John Bankhead Magruder, the commander of Texas Confederate forces.
And it was not a small ambition. The plan was for three forts ringing Austin, built to stop a Union attack coming up from the coast. Three forts.
Congress Avenue, the Houston Road, and College Hill. Austin was going to be ringed in earthworks and ready for a fight. That was the plan, anyway.
In the winter of 1863 into 1864, Major Julius Kellersberg took charge of actually building Fort Magruder — an L-shaped earthen structure, sited along what was then the San Antonio Road. Large enough to hold two hundred soldiers. Now, here's the part the marker does not let you look away from: wartime manpower shortages meant citizens provided slaves to construct that fort.
The labor that raised those earthen walls was not free. Fort Magruder was built on bondage, and the marker says so plainly. Then, early in 1864, Union forces attacked Texas — not from the coast as everyone had been watching for, but from the Red River area of Louisiana.
And with that, Fort Magruder was abandoned. The other two forts on the Houston Road and College Hill, near as we can tell from the marker, never came to be at all. Three forts planned, one built, none of them ever fired a shot in defense of Austin.
The coast never came calling. The threat arrived from a direction nobody had fortified against. That's the whole story of Fort Magruder — built in a hurry, abandoned in a hurry, and still out there somewhere west of Congress Avenue, underneath all of this.
What the marker says
Fort Magruder, C.S.A. During the Civil War, Fort Magruder was built near here west of Congress Avenue. Named for Gen. John Bankhead Magruder, commander of Texas Confederate forces, it was one of three forts planned to protect Austin from a possible Union attack from the coast. In the winter of 1863-64, Maj. Julius Kellersberg supervised building of the L-shaped earthen fort. Due to wartime manpower shortages, citizens provided slaves to construct the fort. Large enough for 200 soldiers, the fort was sited along what was then the San Antonio Road. Other forts were planned for the Houston Road and College Hill. In early 1864, Union forces attacked Texas from the Red River area of Louisiana, and Fort Magruder was abandoned. (2003)