SIGNIFICANCE

Fort Webb was named for Colonel Samuel Bletchley Webb, who was wounded at the battles of Bunker Hill, White Plains, and Trenton. He was captured in a failed expedition to Long Island in December 1777, and the soldiers of his Additional Continental Regiment from Connecticut constructed Fort Webb throughout the winter of 1777-1778 while he was on parole. During that time, Colonel Webb was a prisoner of war of the British.

Major General Benedict Arnold provided this description in the documents found on Major John Andre in 1780: “Fort Webb Built of Facines & Wood. a slight work very dry & liable to be set on fire as the approaches are very easy, without defences, save a Slight Abattis. “

According to the USMA Department of History document  Highlands Fortress, “The new fortifications were to be constructed primarily of earth and wood, although stones were used in the construction of the scarps and ramparts. All three of the southern positions are now known as forts, but during the revolution they were known primarily as batteries and redoubts…. Fort Webb was a combination infantry redoubt and artillery battery.”

Polish engineer Colonel Kosciuszko located the sites based on his mathematical calculations of the distances that could be covered by cannon fire among Forts Putnam, Wyllys, Meigs and Webb. In the event of an attack occurring by land to the west at the highest point at Redoubt 4, these fortifications would offer a second line of defense as the British attempted to head down toward Fort Clinton and then to the Great Chain.