Washington's Engineer by Norman Desmarais (speed reading book TXT) 📕

Companies. I dare pray you to have the goodness to run them over and you will see what is to be their service and their instruction; you will see that the officers are to have the means of acquiring all the knowledge necessary to engineers, and that the soldiers will learn to Construct all the works relative to fortifications. May I therefore be permitted to observe that it would be very advantageous to the state of pensilvania to furnish a number of these soldiers who, returning into their own Country after being instructed, may be of the greatest utility to it. As I flatter myself your excellency will judge of it in the same manner, and your eagerness to form every kind of establishment useful to the state which you govern is well known, I take the liberty to propose to you the formation of one of these Companies of sappers and miners, to belong to the state itself. This plan has been mentioned to general washington and met his approbation in that case. As there are two vacancies in the Company of Mr. McMurray they Could be granted to two gentlemen of the state of pensilvania for this purpose; if your excellency should be acquainted with any gentlemen disposed to embrace this profession and proper for it, I should esteem it a favor you would send them to me for examination. The qualities necessary for the officers of sappers and miners are in the first place a good education in general, which will be a security for the integrity of their sentiments.

It must be Considered that these officers becoming Engineers and so in a situation to have in their hands the plans of the frontiers of the fortifications, the memorials concerning them, in a word all that has relation to the defence of the state, they ought to be qualified to inspire great Confidence in their fidelity and in their attachment to their Country; in the next place it is proper they should have some mathematical Knowledge—the more they have the better; but we may not exact a great deal from young men who do not exceed the age of twenty, who besides have had a good education, possess a fund of intelligence and show an inclination to instruct themselves, they may be the easier dispensed with, as there will be a master of mathematics attached to the Companies, and they will be furnished with regard to this object with all the means to supply the defects of their education.13

The companies of sappers and miners still lacked a full complement of officers and enlisted men by the summer of 1780. In fact, despite the influx of foreign volunteers, the Continental Army never had as many engineers as it needed. Washington’s compelling need for technical assistance also forced him to seek the creation of a separate geographer’s department to supplement the work of the engineers. The officers complained that the problem resulted in part because they had never “been put upon a proper footing for the recruiting business.”14 Meanwhile, the officers already on active duty were “acquiring a knowledge of the service to which they . . . were destined,”15 but they waited impatiently to perform some worthwhile service for their country.

Washington reinstituted drafts from the line in an effort to get the troops he still needed. He proposed to take one man from each regiment. Joseph Plumb Martin was drafted into the Company of Sappers and Miners as a corporal. General Duportail recommended Captain Daniel Nevin to General Washington, who wrote to the president of Congress on January 26, 1780,

Sir: I have the honor to inclose the copy of a letter from Brigadier General Du Portail. From the character he gives and which I have otherwise received of Capt Neven, I shall be happy it may please Congress to make the appointment solicited. As the Engineers we now have are only for a temporary service and it will always be essential to have men skilled in that branch of military science in this country, it appears to me to be a necessary policy to have men who reside among us forming themselves during the war under the present Gentlemen. Capt Neven has a turn to this profession which joined to his past services induce me to wish he may become a member of the corps; and it seems but reasonable that he should have the rank and from the time mentioned in General Du Portail’s letter.

I request also the directions of Congress to the Board of War on the subject of Commissions for the officers of Sappers and miners. These Gentlemen in consequence of the resolution of Congress for establishing these companies, underwent an examination by General Du Portail and were found the best qualified among a number of candidates. Considering their appointment as a thing of course they were nominated in General orders [of August 2, 1779] and an arrangement of them sent soon after to the Board of War for the purpose of obtaining commissions. These I now learn they have not yet received. As probably the Board do not think themselves authorized to grant the Commissions, without the instructions of Congress, I take the liberty to trouble them upon the subject. The Gentlemen in question, several of whom left Regiments in the line to come into these companies begin to be anxious about the delay. By the establishment of the Corps of Engineers the men for these companies were to be drafted from the line; but the weakness of the batalions has hitherto suspended it. An attempt has been made to recruit but without success. The officers ’till the companies can be formed are engaged in acquiring a knowledge of the service to which they are destined against the next campaign. These companies if any active operations are to be carried on will be very important; we feel the want of something of the kind whenever we have works to construct; but, at any rate,