Commanding First Battalion.
]
But Salem, with its heavy property interests, its large coastwise trade,
and its enormous coal-pockets—so tempting to a coal-hungry enemy—had to
be protected as best might be; and, as soon as the camp had been
settled, Captains Frothingham and Nutter, under the supervision of Major
Dyar, set their men at work, with shovel, pick, and barrow, on the
feeble defenses. Time was lacking for the remodelling of the entire
work, even if the numerical strength of the working details had
permitted, and work was confined to strengthening the weak channel face
of the fort. Here, from plane drawn by Lieutenant Francis, a civil
engineer by profession, an earthen parapet of strong profile, with stone
revetment, was constructed. The working tools and derricks required in
the undertaking were supplied by the city authorities of Salem, who in
this, as in many other ways, showed a desire to be of every assistance
to the garrison. Guns of at least medium calibre were urgently needed,
and Colonel Pfaff endeavored, through the department commander, to
obtain a battery of six 8-inch converted rifles. In this attempt he was
unsuccessful, though a number of guns of this type lay idle at Fort
Warren, where they had been dismounted and removed from the casemates.
While the carriages of these guns were not properly adapted for use in a
barbette battery, they yet might have served the purpose after a
fashion; especially since this war, it always must be borne in mind, was
from first to last a war of makeshifts. As the event proved, however,
the garrison at Fort Pickering was forced to remain content with the
armament of small-calibre, rapid-fire guns supplied through the
enterprise of the State of Massachusetts. It so happened that both
Captains Frothingham and Nutter, prior to the war, had been conspicuous
for their devotion to the study of modern artillery work; their men were
well grounded in the principles of sea-coast gunnery, and their being
thus stationed at a post absolutely destitute of modern heavy ordnance
seemed no light hardship.
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