Battery B

Battery B. . , Over the 20 years that Fort Knox was under construction, plans for the fort changed and parts of it had to be rebuilt. Such changes occurred in Battery B. This battery, built in 1845 for 15 guns, was the first place ready for cannons. Even though the battery was essentially complete, no cannons arrived., Fort Knox's Battery B and Battery A (530 feet to the south), still had no cannons when the Civil War began in 1861. Maine's government pressured the federal Department of War to properly arm Fort Knox and other Maine forts. The federal government responded, but complications arose. The cannon emplacements in Batteries A and B had been made originally for 32-pounder cannons. With improvements in cannon production techniques, the older 32-pounder cannons had been replaced with larger and more powerful 10-inch Rodman cannons., Because of this change, crews working for Capt. Thomas Lincoln Casey, the supervising engineer in 1861, had to spend months rebuilding and reinforcing the gun emplacements. Finally, the first cannons to be installed here, two 10-inch Rodman cannons, arrived in 1863. Over the next three years, six 10-inch Rodmans and an even larger 15-inch Rodman were added., The single cannon barrel remaining here is from a 15-inch. Rodman. This barrel was one of the cannon parts "saved" from World War II salvage efforts and was left here for educational purposes.