Figure 83. — Joseph Saxton (1799-1873). 

 From original photograph in National Acad- 

 emy of Sciences Library. 



head of the Topographical Department. I called on 

 him at his office. It had been over two years since we 

 had met, and I was shocked at his evident failure and 

 rapid aging during that short period. He said he was 

 overwhelmed with work, but it was not that which was 

 wearing him out; he had his duty to perform and was 

 doing it to the best of his ability. He said many years 

 of his life had been spent in the South. He had warm 



friendship for some of those then engaged in "this 

 fratricidal war," and it was the horror of the thought 

 of that, and not the work that was killing him. He 

 felt he was not fit for the place he was filling, and 

 would gladly retire and relinquish it to some younger 

 man. 



Night was coming on; it was after the hour for 

 closing his office. I waited for him and together we 

 walked from the department towards Willard's Hotel. 

 He talked of old times, and gave a graphic description 

 of the experiments which led to his efficient snag 

 boats. We dined together, and then went to the 

 house of Prof. A. D. Bache, then at the head of the 

 Coast Survey, where we met Prof. Henry, Commodore 

 Dahlgren and Joseph Saxton, my old schoolmate and 

 friend. It was a most enjoyable evening, and I never 

 saw Col. Long more animated than he was, when 

 Prof. Bache read a letter just received from Com- 

 mander Farragut on the great value of the work of 

 the Coast Survey, which had enabled him to so place 

 his gun boats under the banks and out of sight and 

 range of the guns of the forts for protection of the 

 harbor of New Orleans; that by calulation they could 

 so handle the guns and mortars as to drop almost 

 every shell within the forts. It was a most interesting 

 sight to see Col. Long and Commodore Dahlgren, 

 with maps, scale and compass locating these gun boats. 



This was the last time I enjoyed the company of 

 either Long or Dahlgren. The letters that for years 

 I had been receiving from the Colonel dropped off. 

 This I attributed to the heavy duties during the war, 

 as head of the engineering department of the army. 

 Some time in September 1864, scarce two years after 

 the pleasant evening at Prof. Bache's, I saw a notice of 

 the death of Col. Long at Alton, 111., on the 4th of 

 September of that year. No doubt his life was 

 shortened by the cares and anxieties of the first years 

 of the war. I have always considered him the lead- 

 ing engineer of his time, and I am not alone in that, 

 for B. H. Latrobe referred to him as the father of the 

 engineers of his day .... [65] 



192 



