59 
Tt 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 organi¢ law of the Corps of 
Engineers and of the Military Academy, provided for the 
appointment of a certain number of officers and Cadets,* 
(not to exceed twenty in all,) and declared that “ the prin- 
cipal Engineer, or, in his absence, the next in rank, shall 
have the superintendence of the Military Academy, under 
the direction of the President of the United States.” 
It is not my purpose. here to follow further the his- 
tory of that institution; I have alluded to its initiation as 
4 step taken to provide for an acknowledged want of the 
period, — an institution for teaching the military sciences 
to young men entering the army, and for creating a com- 
petent Corps of Engineers. It was soon found, howevers 
that the duties of Engineer officers were inconsistent with 
their remaining at West Point, and themselves constituting 
“a Military Academy.” Most of them were soon called 
to duties along the seaboard, in constructing our fortifica- 
tions, while, as the wants of theservice and of the Academy 
have been more clearly seen, the number of Cadets has 
been increased, to supply not only the Engineers and Artil- 
lery, but officers of all arms of the service, and the various 
Professorships and departments of instruction now exist- 
ing have been established. 
As the duties of the Corps became more and more exten- 
sive, its chief, though charged with the administration of its 
* Besides ten Cadets of Engineers, forty Cadets “of Artillery” 
ized by this law; making fifty Cadets in all. 
