56 
faint outline were but the preparation and training of his 
mind for the real work of his life. Reared under the eyes 
and guardianship of a relative distinguished for his math- 
ematical attainments, receiving as extensive a military 
and scientific education as West Point at that early day 
could give, called by his position in Surveyor-General 
Mansfield’s office, not only to exercise the science which 
the duties involved, but to take extended views of our 
country as to the interconnection of its parts, and their 
relations to commerce or war, then practically taught the 
duties of a military engineer in what concerns the defence 
of harbors, and finally carried through the ordeal of actual 
war in the campaigns of armies in the field, he was now 
prepared for the great work of his life,— the fortification 
of our seaboard frontier. When I call this the great work 
of his life, I am not unaware that it is but a part of 
that work, — still the most important part, and one to which 
his other labors may be considered incidental. 
A brief reference to the condition and progress of sea 
coast defence at that period is here appropriate. Previous 
to the Revolution, our seaport towns had not grown into 
large cities, nor were there great naval establishments 
military depots to invite the enterprises of an enemy: 
During that contest, the harbors of Boston, New York, 
Philadelphia, Charleston, &c. had been, to a certain extent 
“fortified” against naval attack, by slight earthen batteries, 
in some few cases by small and (as we would now call them) 
insignificant earthen forts. A work of palmetto logs and 
sand on Sullivan’s Island, Charleston harbor, mounting bat 
30 guns, decisively repulsed, early in the Revolutionary W4% 
the attack of the British fleet, under Sir Peter Parkers 
consisting of two frigates and six sloops-of-war, carrying 
. 270 guns, destroying four of the smaller vessels, and 
