EULOGY ON THE LATE GENERAL JOSEPH G. TOTTEN. 267 



inflicting a loss of 205 in killed and wounded (eleven times as many per gun 

 employed against them as the English lost at Trafalgar;) thus decisively dem- 

 onstrating the value of fortifications, and the superiority of land batteries to 

 ships. But with an immense sea-coast line and sparse population, it was im- 

 possible to hold our seaports against the great naval power of the mother coun- 

 try, and the war of the Revolution was mainly a contest of land forces. After 

 the attainment of our independence, the importance of fortifying our harbors 

 impressed itself on the mind of General Washington, and the political agitations 

 which grew out of the French Revolution, and which threatened to iuvolve the 

 new-born Power of the West, prompted early action in this direction. In that 

 day war, though a science, bad not grown into one which makes tributary to it 

 all other sciences, as it has since done. Fortification, indeed, had reached a 

 high degree of perfection, but the elaborate treatises on that subject scarcely 

 touched the subject of harbor defence, so little art was apparently supposed to 

 be involved in throwing up batteries to defend the entrances of ports. The art 

 of a Vauban and Cormontaigne was little concerned in the war from which we 

 had just emeiged. and the circumstances were too dissimilar, the theatre too 

 large and too thinly populated, the armies engaged too small, to afford to the pre- 

 cepts of a Lloyd or a Templehoff much apparent applicability. While the war 

 developed generals of unquestionable ability in the spheres in which they acted, 

 it seemed to be conceded, that for military science, and especially for the art 

 of fortification, we must look to Europe. Hence we find so many of the early 

 harbor defences of our principal seaport towns to have been built under the di- 

 rection of foreign officers who had found employment among us, and who did 

 not always possess the knowledge of the art to which they laid claim. 



The importance of a Military Academy for the training of officers for the mil- 

 itary service, and especially for the engineers and artillery, had been acknowl- 

 edged even from the very outset of the struggle for independence. We find 

 even the Continental Congress appointing a committee " to prepare and bring in 

 a plan of a Military Academy," and the first Secretary of War, General Knox, 

 in an official report to the President, discusses the subject at much length. The 

 establisbment of such an institution is known to have been a favorite object of 

 General Washington, and in his annual message in 1793 he suggests the inqui- 

 ry, " whether a material feature in the improvement " of the system of military 

 defence " ought not to afford an opportunity for the study of those branches of 

 the art which can scarcely ever be attained by practice alone;" and in 1796 he 

 states that " the desirableness of this institution had constantly increased with 

 every new view he had taken of the subject." 



An act of Congress of 1794 bad provided for a corps of artillerists and engi- 

 neers, to consist of four battalions, to each of which eight cadets were to be 

 attached, and made it the duty of the Secretary of War to procure books, instru- 

 ments and apparatus for the benefit of said corps ; and in 179S Congress author- 

 ized the raising of an additional regiment, increased the number of cadets to 

 fifty-six, and empowered the President to appoint four teachers of the arts and 

 sciences necessary to the efficiency of this "corps." Of the four teachers, 

 none were appointed prior to January, 1801, at which time Mr. George Barrun 

 was appointed teacher of mathematics, and the institution, " which was nothing 

 more than a mathematical school for the few cadets then in the service," was 

 nominally established. 



It was soon discovered that the regiment of artillerists and engineers could 

 not combine with effect the two duties assigned to its members, and a law was 

 therefore framed separating them into two corps, and declaring that the corps of 

 engineers should be stationed at West Point, New York, and should constitute 

 a Military Academy. This act of March 16, 1802, which is the organic law of 

 the corps of engineers and of the Military Academy, provided for the appoint- 



