Could naval carpenters replace the missing engineers?

Could the Navy's carpenters and gun crews have built the shore batteries themselves?

They could provide labor, carpentry, and gun crews, but needed engineers to assess the ground, design routes, and lay out stable battery positions.

The Navy was willing to move the guns forward and provide their crews. Naval carpenters also had the tools and experience to cut timber and construct wooden works. The missing expertise concerned routes, the quality of the ground, and the design of positions that could support heavy artillery. At the first fort, naval craftsmen had worked under Army engineering direction. Once that direction was lost, their ability to build or balance timber structures did not establish whether the underlying soil could carry a battery safely.