Chase's service with the Corps of Engineers concluded with tenures as superintending engineer of the improvement of Choctaw Pass and Dog River Bar at Mobile Bay between 1852 and 1854 and of construction of Fort Taylor at Key West, Florida between 1852 and 1854. This assignment engaged Chase in the construction of the second of the three Florida forts which remained under the control of the Union Army throughout the Civil War.Fort Jefferson on Garden Key in the Dry Tortugas was the third fort along with Fort Pickens and Fort Taylor. Schafer, Daniel L. Thunder on the River: The Civil War in Northeast Florida. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2010. . p. 286n18.
