Fort Blair, one of three lunettes or blockhouses erected at Fort Scott in the spring of 1861, stood at the corner of Second street and National avenue. It was built under the same conditions as Fort Henning (q. v.) and was equipped with two 24-pounder siege guns. The government failed to furnish fixed ammunition for these guns, and Peter Riley, of the Sixth Kansas, then a clerk in the ordnance department at Fort Scott, made sacks of flannel and filled them with powder to be used in charging the guns. At the time of Price's raid these two pieces of artillery stood at the point of the mound north of the plaza, where they could be seen by the enemy, and no doubt served to deter the Confederate general from attacking Fort Scott.