World War I
Following a period of care-taking status, the fort was garrisoned for a brief time during the Great War. Nearby Fort DuPont was the main defense site with Fort Delaware and Fort Mott serving as a sub-posts, according to army records. In March 1919, soldiers began the process of mothballing the old fort, removing everything except items pertaining to the three 12-inch guns of Battery Torbert, according to Pvt. James C. Davis, a Fort DuPont soldier who worked on the detail. In a Newark Post article, he recalls his orders were to bury everything with explicit orders not to throw anything in the river or remove articles from the island. According to Davis, soldiers buried three pieces of artillery on the island. Only one gun has since been recovered; a 15-inch Rodman gun exhumed from the northwest bastion was sold for scrap during World War II. By the end of the Great War, Fort Saulsbury in Milford, Del. was near completion, and with longer range guns rendered the three forts as secondary lines of defense.
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