EULOGY ON THE LATE GENERAL JOSEPH G. TOTTEN. 281 



the enormous office labor he found necessary to attend to on the first assump- 

 tion of charge of the bureau, he had visited every fort and battery on the sea- 

 coast of the United States. His inspections were not superficial and hasty ; 

 they were most thorough and searching. His investigations embraced, at the 

 same time, the general scope and purpose of the work, its adaptability to its 

 great objects, and the minutest detail in its construction. It was now that 

 the country derived the full benefit of his indefatigable researches while at 

 Newport. 



I have already alluded to the lack of knowledge and experience in this coun- 

 try of the art of construction, especially in its applications to the peculiarities of 

 fortification. To supply this lack was a great end of Colonel Totten's labors 

 at Fort Adams. At few other points did the locality or circumstances of the 

 construction render practicable such researches. This remark will apply par- 

 ticularly to the works on the Gulf of Mexico. The regions bordering the Gulf 

 were, at the close of the war ot 1812, but recent acquisitions to the territory of 

 the United States. Sparsely populated and isolated from the rest of the Union 

 as (before the application of steam to the navigation of the Mississippi) they 

 were, they would be defended, if defended at all, only by the aid of fortifica- 

 tions. The fact that New Orleans had been almost wrenched from our grasp, 

 and the impression then everywhere felt that if it had been captured it would 

 not have been relinquished, stimulated the government to secure the possession 

 of this important place and of other strategic points on the Gulf by immediate 

 fortification. Accordingly, designs for works — mostly prepared by General 

 Bernard — were among the first labors of the board of engineers, and the forts 

 on the river and lake approaches to New Orleans, at the entrances to Mobile 

 bay and Pensacola harbor, were almost simultaneously commenced. Around 

 New Orleans especially the engineers had to contend with formidable difficul- 

 ties. The deadly climate, the treacherous soil, on which no art could build a 

 structure so massive as a fortification that should not sink one or more feet, 

 warping and dislocating the walls and arches, the difficulties of procuring the 

 services of mechanics and laborers, the want of building materials, &c, all com- 

 bined to make construction exceedingly difficult, to forbid any of its niceties, and 

 to hinder all research or experiment. Some of these Avorks had been entirely 

 finished at the period we have arrived at, others nearly so, and left to " settle "' 

 before the weight of the earthen parapets was added. 



Considering all these unfavorable circumstances, these works had been built 

 in a manner creditable to the energy and skill of the engineers; but a few 

 years' neglect, aided by a damp and tropical climate, had given many of them 

 an appearance which, to the superficial observer, promised anything but effi- 

 ciency. Indeed, it was a popular belief in New Orleans at this time that Fort 

 Jackson, on the Mississippi, had sunk so much that its guns could not be brought 

 to bear on the river — a belief doubtless due to the unnecessarily highness of the 

 levees by which it had been surrounded to protect its site from inundation, and 

 to the rapid growth of vegetation on and about the fort. Such was the condi- 

 tion of this work when Colonel Totten first visited it in 1841, and the author 

 of this paper, who had but recently taken charge of it, has yet a vivid recollec- 

 tion of the thorough inspections of this and other works, the tedious voyages in 

 open boats through the intricate " bayou " navigation about New Orleans, in 

 company with his chief, as well as the copious and most minute instructions 

 which he received. Destitute of American experience on such points, the 

 designer had followed European precedents, or the constructing engineer had 

 been left to his own devices as to much that relates to the interior arrangements. 

 The wood-work of magazines, inadequately ventilated, had rotted and fallen in 

 ruins ; the covering of the bomb-proof casemates, imperfectly understood, had 

 failed to exclude water, which percolated through the piers and arches, or 

 gathered in muddy pools on the floors. The work to be done to bring the forts 



