The view of Fort Knox from across the Penobscot is a bit...vague. Without proper optical instruments handy to bring everything into clear (and magnified) focus, what one sees is a smudge of red, which is the brick glacis that faces to the east, and the low granite monster which is the fort itself. "Surely whatever that is, it is no impediment to our advance," any competent 19th century British naval officer would have mused.