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

are fit to be captains but not to be field officers, so that sistem ought to be left aside, merit, activity and attention constantly pay’d to instruction, duty and discipline must be the only recommendation for promotion above the rank of captain, a board of superior officers be the judge of it, and the necessary precautions to be taken to hinder private interest from prevailing.

as the number of troops keept on foot during the time of peace shall be inadequate to that necessary in time of war, they must be alwais in the best and most regular order, so that being distributed among the regiments raised for a war they should bring with them discipline, instruction and enable the other men to perform in a short space of time every part of a soldier’s duty with propriety.

the young officers who should be willing to acquire some military knowledge ought to be permitted to follow the after mentioned military academy and proper encouragement given to them, those to be admitted in the quarter master department ought to be obliged to it, because it is not only to perform their duty in all its different parts chiefly when an army of some extent has to move in a difficult country.

It is not very difficult to form an officer of foot, or of horse, it does not require a long space of time, but an officer of Artillery and an Engineer want a great application to be perfectly instructed in all the different branches of their service. being more acquainted with the duty of these two corps than of any other I will particularize as much as in my power the different methods to be follow’d for the instruction of their officers, and the regulations to be established to attain it. Their service is of so important a nature, and of such a consequence in the field that no pains ought to be spared to have them fully acquainted with the theorical and practical parts of it

the military operations of these two corps have such a connection that it is not possible to be a good officer of Artillery without having a pretty extensive knowledge of the service of an Engineer and this one to serve with some reputation must be acquainted with the principal parts of the artillery service, then I think that it should be advantageous to the good of the service to have these two corps united, to form one only, and that each officer should acquire the necessary knowledge to be able to perform with propriety what belong to one or the other of these two duties, according to what circumstances should require from him.

A well-established military academy and kept up with great care, is the basis which is to serve to raise that corps to the pitch of instruction necessary to it. officers of knowledge, carefull, and attentive must be put at the head of it, they must consider that the pains they shall take are to form officers who are to have charge afterwards of important operations, which require sometimes great military talents. there must be attached to it a good professor of mathematicks and another of drawing. every young gentleman to be admitted in the said academy must have had a liberal education, and be previously instructed in arithmetick, geometry including trigonometry, at his coming in, his knowledge of mathematicks must be carry’d to perfection, he shall receive instruction about the different machines employed by the artillery or the engineers, their construction, the forces to be employed to put them in motion, and their effect. he shall be taught to survey by every method, and to draw exactly the ground surveyed by him, to make plans and profils of works and buildings in the greatest detail, the above mentioned parts belong entirely to the professors, what follows must be thought [taught] by the commanding officers

The young gentlemen shall be instructed how to chuse positions for an army in consequence of the part of the country to be covered and the communications to be kept open, they will learn to fortify them by field works depending from the nature of the ground, the number of troops supposed to be employed to defend them, and the strength of the ennemy. They shall be taught to determine the most advantageous batteries on a field of battle, and their construction in the most expeditious manner; they are to be instruits in the greatest detail of all what relates to the fortify’d towns including the maritime places, their training, construction, and the estimate of the quantity of work and expences, those parts can not be attended to with too much care, because the least blunder is often attended with infinite bad consequences. They shall receive instruction concerning the subterraneous fortification, the attack and defense of works by the means of mines. They shall be taught how to reconnoitre an ennemy’s fortification, lay it on the paper, and determine exactly the different distances from it. every year the commanding officer of the academy should make choice of a piece of ground fit to lay out a front of fortifications, the directions in the heighth of the works should be mark’d with poles, he should explain to the young gentlemen the use of each part of it, and the reasons which have determined the direction of it; that part being finished they will proceed to the attack of it, all the batteries and works necessary from the opening of the trenches to the reduction of the place are to be laid out and some parts of it to be done to give them an idea of the different construction made use of in those occasions, they will pay a particular attention to the advantages afforded by the nature of the ground, also to the means the besieged could employ to oppose the approaches with success. that being performed every young gentleman is to survey that front and its attack and make a copy