LIEUT.-COL. CHARLES B. WOODMAN, U.S.V.
Second-in-Command.

At this station the post administrative staff was made up of Lieutenant J. B. Paine, adjutant; Lieutenant Gowing, quartermaster and commissary; and Lieutenant Bryant, surgeon. In addition to his duties as battery commander, Captain Whiting also performed those of ordnance officer, an assignment for which he was eminently well fitted by previous study and training. There was much work to be done in the early days at the post, for its armament, after long years of neglect, was in horrible condition. Both batteries turned to with a will, however, and in a creditably short time the fort itself was cleaned and swept until it would have satisfied the most exacting inspector, while guns and carriages were freed from rust, scraped, painted, and put into condition for immediate action. It is due to the command to say that when it marched out, on September 19th, it left behind it a post which, in point of absolute neatness and readiness for action, might well have served as a model for any artillery garrison, regular or volunteer.

There was little to be recorded beyond the ordinary garrison routine. One incident, which occurred during the work of preparing the fort for emergencies, is worth relating. There were found one or two guns in which, at some forgotten period, priming wires had been broken off in the vents, eventually becoming firmly fixed there by rust. With this fact as a foundation, an enterprising New Bedford reporter built up a lurid story of spiked guns and Spanish spies, which went the rounds of the newspapers, causing infinite disgust to the garrison and endless amusement to the rest of the regiment. The choked vents were drilled out as soon as discovered, and the guns at once made available; but to this day the mention of spiked guns will provoke an explosion if made in the presence of any Fort Rodman artilleryman.

On June 15th, Lieutenant Connor and his detachment of regulars were relieved and ordered back to Fort Adams, which meanwhile had been reinforced by the Forty-seventh New York Infantry, a fact mentioned to show the straits in which the Government found itself in obtaining garrisons for its artillery posts. On the 9th of June, Lieutenants Wilson and Cheney served as members of a general court martial at Adams. Having been promoted major and brigade-surgeon, Lieutenant Bryant left the post on July 8th, to report for duty with Lee's Seventh Corps, then at Jacksonville, and from this date the affairs of the medical department were placed in charge of a contract surgeon from New Bedford. At one time during the summer certain turbulent spirits among the engineer employees at the post required attention from the garrison, but firm and prompt action by the artillerymen put an instant end to the trouble, and effectually discouraged any further outbreaks of a like sort. By general order from army headquarters, dated July 23rd, the post officially was named "Fort Rodman," in honor of the memory of Lieutenant-Colonel William Logan Rodman, Thirty-eighth Massachusetts Infantry, who fell at the head of his regiment in the assault on Port Hudson in 1863. Thus, after waiting forty-one years for a name, the old fort at last received that of a Massachusetts soldier, while a garrison of Massachusetts volunteers was on duty to assist at its christening.

THE THIRD BATTALION AT FORT
WARREN

XIII.

The last of the three regimental subdivisions—the Third Battalion, under Major Frye—meanwhile quietly had been going on with its artillery work at Fort Warren. Other than the ordering of Major Morris, Seventh Artillery, from Winthrop to Fort Schuyler, N.Y., on May 27th, leaving Captain Richmond the ranking officer at the mortar battery, there had been no changes in the garrisons of the sub-posts about the harbor. The departure of Colonel Pfaff and Lieutenant-Colonel Woodman, with their commands, had rendered necessary a reassignment of battery duties at Fort Warren, and Colonel Woodruff issued orders accordingly on June 13th. Of the regular batteries, "C" (Schenck's), Second Artillery, took charge of the 10-inch rifle and 4-inch rapid-fire guns—at that time in process of being mounted—in Bastion B, while "G" (Brown's), Seventh Artillery, had its station at the 10-inch rifles of the ravelin battery. Surplus men from these two batteries, as the daily recruiting swelled their ranks, were told off for manning various groups of the older type guns in the fort. Of the volunteer batteries, "M" (Braley's) was assigned to the field and machine gun sections for the protection of the channel mine-lines, Nantasket Roads mine-field, and the cable chute through which the entire system was controlled; "I" (Williamson's) went to the 15-inch Rodman guns in Bastion A; "F" (Danforth's) drew the battery of 10-inch Rodmans on the channel face of the fort; while to "E" (Gibbs') fell the barbette and casemate batteries of 8-inch rifles at the southeastern angle. These assignments were made for a very definite purpose, and they remained in effect until after the destruction of the Spanish fleet at Santiago, when, to break the monotony of gun-drill on one type of gun, the volunteer batteries interchanged at their stations.

MAJOR JAMES A. FRYE, U.S.V.
Commanding Third Battalion.