Overview
For generations, military planners treated the Delaware River and Bay as the maritime gateway to Wilmington and Philadelphia. Day one begins with Fort Delaware State Park on Pea Patch Island, a fortress completed around 1859 that became a major Confederate prisoner-of-war camp during the Civil War. Nearby Fort DuPont State Park carries the defense story into the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when new coastal artillery systems were built to protect shipping and the industrial cities upriver. Day two follows the waterway south to Fort Miles Museum and Historical Area at Cape Henlopen. Built for the threats of World War II, Fort Miles protected the entrance to Delaware Bay with heavy guns, observation towers, bunkers, and support buildings. The route's long geographic span is part of its value: travelers can see how the same strategic problem—defending the Delaware—produced very different fortifications across changing eras of warfare.
