From the Mathews County Historical Society website- Fort Nonsense was built in 1861 under the supervision of 2nd Lieutenant William Henry Clarke, CSA using black enslaved labor to prevent Union forces from advancing westward from the Chesapeake Bay toward Richmond. There were no battles waged in Mathews County. However, the county was the scene of intense partisan activity on behalf of the Confederacy. Not only did Mathews County farms provide food for Confederate armies, salt was a vital commodity and its production was a minor industry. The numerous creeks and inlets provided safe haven for county watermen, known as the “Confederate Volunteer Coast Guard” to smuggle food from the Eastern Shore and to harass Union shipping moving up and down the Bay. The most notable of these partisan commerce raiders were John Taylor Wood and John Yates Beall. These activities prompted Union forces to come down hard on Mathews County and three major sweeps were conducted to put a stop to these activities. The largest of these Union attacks was led by Brigadier General Isaac Wistar in October of 1863. It involved hundreds of infantry, two cavalry units and two units of artillery as well as numerous army and navy gunboats. Although cattle and grain were taken, boats and salt works destroyed and other prisoners taken, Wood and Beall were never captured in Mathews. All of these attacks came from Gloucester which was under Union control early in the war. Because these attacks came from the west, the fort was facing in the wrong direction. The legend is that a local citizen remarked, “My, what a piece of nonsense”. It has been called Fort Nonsense ever since.

Intersection of earthwork with Route 14.

Images were taken at the intersection of the earthwork with route 3. The first three pictures are of the west side of Route 3.

The next few images are of the east side of Route 3.

A map of the fort is shown below.

There are three Civil War Trails signs near the entrance to the park.

Entrance to the fort

The first stop on the trail on the right

The earthwork continues on your right as you walk down the path southward toward Route 14.

As I continued further south I encountered the next marker on the short connecting path.

Toward the overlook

Pictures from the overlook from south to north

Next I walked back to the connecting path and around to the marker on the other side of the lower part of the redoubt opposite the overlook near Route 14.

I returned north to the short connecting path and headed west toward route 3 and then took a right turn heading north along a path that paralleled Route 3.

The upper earthwork was on my right. It appeared to start with an area that looked like a cannon platform shown in the two images below.

I moved along the wall south to north and followed it as it turned west toward Route 3.