Before the siege in 1862, Fort Abercrombie had no defensive fortifications, appearing in 1860 as a group of buildings around a square without walls or blockhouses. After troops there received word of attacks by Dakota warriors on settlements in Minnesota, they quickly built a cordwood stockade around the fort’s perimeter. Albert M. Wright, who fled there with his family as a 14-year-old during the siege, recalled that the place was a fort only in name, with buildings around a square and only a cordwood breastwork around the central flagstaff, inside which stood three twelve-pound howitzers, the fort’s only guns. In September 1862, the cordwood stockade and cannon bastions helped drive off attacks on the fort, and by late February 1863 they had been replaced by palisade walls and blockhouses.