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Historical Highway MarkersFort AlbionQ-83
In April 1814, during the War of 1812, British forces commanded by Adm. Sir George Cockburn established Fort Albion on the southern tip of Tangier Island. The fort, which included barracks, a hospital, a church, parade grounds, and gardens, housed hundreds of African Americans who had gained their freedom by escaping to the British. Many of them enlisted as Colonial Marines and received military training here. From this base the British launched raids up and down the Chesapeake Bay, including those on Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. In March 1815 they left the island and destroyed the fort. The site is now under water.
Department of Historic Resources, 2014 See a problem? Report it to HighwayMarkers@dhr.virginia.gov. |
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References/Bibliographic Citation: Calendar of Virginia State Papers, 10: 320, 321, 333, 336, 341, 348, 388. Ralph E. Eshelman, The War of 1812 in the Chesapeake (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 260-262. Roger Morriss, Cockburn and the British Navy in Transition (Columbia, SC, University of South Carolina Press, 1997), 99, 108-109. Tangier Island Nomination for National Park Service National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Alan Taylor, The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2013), 276. |