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The Fort on Mud Island, 1777.
Credit: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division
Originally built in 1771, Fort Mifflin was strategically located on Mud Island in the Delaware River between New Jersey and Pennsylvania, downriver from Philadelphia. During a five-week battle in 1777, the British Navy fired more than 10,000 cannonballs into the fort, in what became one of the largest bombardments in the Revolutionary War.