270 EULOGY ON THE LATE GENERAL JOSEPH G. TOTTEN. 



best memorial, and exhibit in a masterly manner the principles of sea-coast and 

 harbor defence, and their application to our own country. In a paper of this 

 kind it will not be out of place to give some idea, at least, of the arguments and 

 views contained in these documents. An elaborate report of 1826, from which 

 I qiiote, gives a general resum^ of the principles which have guided the labors 

 of the board, and of the results arrived at: 



" The means of defence for the seaboard of the United States, constituting a 

 system, may be classed as follows : First, a navy ; second, fortifications; third, 

 interior communications by land and water; and fourth, a regular army and 

 well-organized militia. 



" The navy must be provided with suitable establishments for construction, 

 and repair, stations, harbors of rendezvous, and ports of refuge, all secured by 

 fortifications defended by regular troops and militia, and supplied with men and 

 materials by the lines of intercommunication. Being the only species of offen- 

 sive force compatible with our domestic institutions, it will then be prepared to 

 act the great part which its early achievements have promised, and to which its 

 high destiny will lead. 



" Fortifications must close all important harbors against an enemy, and se- 

 cure them to our military and commercial marine; second, must deprive an 

 enemy of all strong positions where, protected by naval superiority, he might fix 

 permanent quarters in our territory, maintain himself during the Avar, and keep 

 the whole frontier in perpetual alarm; third, must cover the great cities from 

 attack; fourth, must prevent as far as practicable the great avenues of interior 

 navigation from being blockaded at their entrances into the ocean ; fifth, .must 

 cover the coastwise and interior navigation by closing the harbors and the sev- 

 eral inlets from the sea which intersect the lines of communication, and thereby 

 further aid the navy in protecting the navigation of the country ; and sixth, 

 must protect the great naval establishments. 



" Interior communications will conduct with certainty the necessary supplies 

 of all sorts to the stations, harbors of refuge, and rendezvous, and the establish- 

 ments for construction and repair, for the use both of the fortifications and the 

 navy ; will greatly facilitate and expedite the concentration of military force 

 and the transfer of troops from one point to another; insure to these also unfail- 

 ing supplies of every description, and will preserve unimpaired the interchange 

 of domestic commerce even during periods of the most active external warfare. 



" The army and militia, together with the marine, constitute the vital princi- 

 ple of the system. 



"From this sketch it is apparent that our system of defence is composed of 

 elements whose numerous reciprocal relations with each other and with the 

 whole constitute its excellence ; one element is scarcely more dependent than 

 the whole system is on any one. Withdraw the navy, and the defence becomes 

 merely passive; withdraw interior communications from the system, and the 

 navy must cease in a measure to be active for want of supplies, and the fortifi- 

 cations can offer but a feeble resistance for want of timely re-enforcements ; with- 

 draw fortifications, and there only remains a scattered and naked navy. " 



The relation of the navy to fortifications is one of those subjects not always, 

 well appreciated, and hence the cause of mischievous notions and mucli misrep- 

 resentation. No pains is spared in these reports to make this subject clearly 

 understood. After the quotation just given, Colonel Totten remarks: 



" It is necessary to observe, in the first place, that the relation of fortifica- 

 tions to the navy in a defensive system is that of a sheltering, succoring power, 

 while the relation of the latter to the former is that of an active and powerful 

 auxiliary ; aud that the latter ceases to be efficient as a member of the system 

 the moment it becomes passive, and should in no case (we allude to the navy 

 proper) be relied on as a substitute for fortifications. This position may be 

 easily established. 



