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