The Last Commander of Fort Fremont: Capt. Charles D. Winn

I had nev­er heard of Fort Fremont until last week at yoga class when Vincent and Zella Rosenthal hand­ed me a Friends of Fort Fremont newslet­ter they brought back from their South Carolina vaca­tion.  The fort, erect­ed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1899, formed part of the coastal defens­es built dur­ing the Spanish-American War peri­od.  Located on Saint Helena Island near Beaufort, SC, it sits across the bay from Hilton Head Island.  The fort was manned by about 100 per­son­nel on a 170-acre reservation. 

The fortification’s main weapon con­sist­ed of three 10-inch “dis­ap­pear­ing breech-loaded can­nons.”  The guns were advanced tech­nol­o­gy for that peri­od in his­to­ry.  In order to fire on a tar­get, they were raised up; after fir­ing they dropped back down out of sight from ene­my ships. 

The 10-inch can­nons were man­u­fac­tured in Bethlehem, PA, then shipped in sec­tions to an armory on the Hudson River, where they were fur­ther tem­pered and assem­bled into a sin­gle tube.  The bar­rels weighed 33 tons, and the process took nine months in all.  The ordi­nance includ­ed 650-pound armor-pierc­ing shells and 600-pound explo­sive rounds.  The Beaufort Gazette described wit­ness­ing the fir­ing of the can­nons:  “Blue grey muz­zles appeared omi­nous­ly above the grass cov­ered embank­ment.  Then a deaf­en­ing boom shook heav­en and earth.  When [the shell] splashed down, it sent a geyser hun­dreds of feet in the air.”

Fort Fremont was deac­ti­vat­ed in 1912.  Two of the 10-inch guns went to France dur­ing World War I, and one went to Sandy Hook Proving Ground, NJ, and was even­tu­al­ly scrapped.  In October 2004, the Trust for Public Land and the Beaufort County Council paid two pri­vate landown­ers $5.4 mil­lion for the prop­er­ty in order to cre­ate the Fort Fremont Historical Park.  Today the Friends of Fort Fremont main­tain the prop­er­ty and oper­ate a his­to­ry cen­ter that has a scale mod­el of the 10-inch cannons.

Vince and Zella gave me the newslet­ter because it fea­tured an arti­cle about the fort’s last com­man­der:  Capt. Charles Winn, who was born in Winchester. 

Charles D. Winn (1871−1942) was a son of William and Patty Poston Winn.  The Winns were an influ­en­tial fam­i­ly in Winchester.  William was a sad­dler and also kept a hard­ware store on Main Street.  Among their kins­men, Robert Winn was the first pres­i­dent of Citizens National Bank, and James Winn oper­at­ed the “Winn Furniture Company and Undertaking.”

Charles Winn grad­u­at­ed from Virginia Military Institute at age 22 then returned home to serve as cap­tain of the 2^nd Kentucky Volunteer Infantry.  The unit mus­tered into ser­vice in 1898 dur­ing the Spanish-American War, but the war end­ed before they deployed over­seas.  The Army installed Captain Winn as com­mand­ing offi­cer at Fort Fremont where he served from 1909 until the base closed. 

In 1918 Winn fought with the American Expeditionary Forces in France.  He par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Oise-Aisne, Meuse-Argonne, Champagne, and Lorraine cam­paigns and earned a Distinguished Service Medal.  He emerged from the war as a lieu­tenant colonel at the age of 46. 

Winn retired from the ser­vice in 1930 and resided in Oakland, CA.  His wife, Elizabeth Keene Winn, died sev­en years lat­er.  Winn returned to Winchester and resided at 290 South Main Street.  He passed away at Walter Reed Hospital on July 31, 1942.  He and his wife are buried in Arlington National Cemetery.