Designed as a water battery that would allow fire from its cannon to skim across the water, the battery at Gravelly Beach was to consist of twelve 15-inch guns, arranged in five pairs and one flank gun on each end. There were to be six traverses, each containing a magazine. Because of its placement in the natural drainage of the valley, two large masonry culverts were needed to protect the battery from water damage, although only one culvert was actually built. This culvert was 170 feet in length and contained 395 yards of masonry. The remains of the culvert can still be seen today.

In March 1873, the Engineer Department authorized the placement of one 15-inch cannon at the Gravelly Beach Battery. The 15-inch Rodman was mounted by September, but the cannon never fired a single shot; the carriage and the platform didn't align properly, which prohibited the gun from discharging. As it would turn out, this was the only Rodman cannon mounted at Lime point until the Spanish-American War at the end of the century.

In the Endicott period, a large portion of Gravelly Beach Battery was destroyed or built over during the construction of Battery Kirby. Only a magazine Traverse of the old battery survives to this day.1

1. Thompson, Erwin N. Historic Resource Study: Seacoast Fortifications, San Francisco Harbor. California: GGNRA, 1979.