OBITUARY NOTICES. 
375 
is probably quite true to say that he failed in nothing that 
he undertook, great or small. 
He was soon near the head of his class at West Point, then 
first captain of the Corps of Cadets, and finally at the very 
head of his class on graduation. Being then, July 1, 1852, 
promoted to brevet second lieutenant in the Corps of Engi¬ 
neers, he was assigned to duty on the construction of Fort Del¬ 
aware and on river and harbor works for two years. During 
the next five years he was assistant instructor and then prin¬ 
cipal assistant professor of engineering at the Military Acad¬ 
emy. From 1859 to 1861 he was in command of engineer 
troops in Washington Territory, one of the works there ac¬ 
complished being the construction of a wagon road from 
Vancouver to Cowlitz river, through the difficulties presented 
by primitive forest and remoteness from civilization. This 
road was the first land communication between the Colum¬ 
bia river and Puget sound. 
In the first year of the rebellion, 1861, he returned to the 
East and served as assistant engineer on the staff of the com¬ 
manding general of the Department of Virginia. At this 
time he reached the rank of captain in his corps, when, al¬ 
though but thirty years of age, he was immediately ordered 
to take charge of the construction of the several heavy per¬ 
manent fortifications on the coast of Maine, consisting of 
Forts Preble, Gorges, and Scammell, in Portland harbor; 
Fort Popham, at the mouth of the Kennebec river, and Fort 
Knox, at the narrows of the Penobscot river—operations re¬ 
quiring the maturest engineering and administrative ability. 
All these were masonry forts of the highest order in solid 
granite and brick-work. At that critical period, with the 
activity incident to extensive military operations in the field, 
great demand was made on the professional resources of the 
Corps of Engineers, and it was a high honor for a young 
captain to be entrusted with so responsible a duty. It was 
necessary that he should work out problems of management 
inevitably new to a young man, for those works were not 
only extensive individually, but numerous and widely sep- 
54—Bull. Phil. Soc., Wash., Vol. 13. 
