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

me absolutely necessary, to have that important Branch of the Administration governed upon the same Plan and constant Principles. Let us remember that a great many things tend to break the union between the American States. All the Continental Establishments ought to be calculated to reinforce that union. Thus, if in this instance there were at the head of the Department of the Artillery and fortifications many Officers independent one from another, great inconveniences might result from it. These Officers would differ in opinion and soon be jealous and enemies of one another. Some might acquire more influence with Congress than others. So in the Establishment of fortifications in the Distribution of the Means of Defense, each State might be treated, not according to what its situation, its importance requires, but according to the Credit of the Officer who has the Direction of that Department.

Some persons will perhaps imagine that the three Directors of Districts proposed are not necessary, that for the sake of economy the Colonels and the Lt. Cols. of the Regiments may be charged with the functions attributed to those Directors. but if they observe those functions shall be to make under the Direction of the Director General an exact Reconnoitre of all the frontier, to search for the most proper places for the Forts and for all the Establishments relative to War, after that to plan those Establishments, preside over their erection, they will confess probably, that the Director of the District shall have enough to do without clogging them with the particular command and care of a Regiment, which they could never attend to. But, as I have mentioned, a field Officer of each Regiment shall be detached with the Directors of the District to assist them and have under them the command of the Captains and Subalterns employed in the Busyness above mentioned.

I do not think it necessary here to expatiate myself upon Talents and Knowledge which the Duty attributed to the Director of the District requires of them as well as of the Director General. I take the Liberty to refer on that Head to the Memorial, wherein I endeavored to sketch what is to be done. A Vauban [Marshall Vauban] is the greatest engineer France and europe had; he lived under the reign of Louis XIV it is he who framed the general plan of defense of the kingdom and gave the situations and designs of almost all the fortified places [Duportail’s note in his hand] would be necessary in this Moment to the United States and nobody unless he thinks himself as able a Man as that famous Marshall, can undertake, without the greatest diffidence, that difficult work. And he who would undertake it without any fear proves that he has not the least idea of it.

ACADEMY

The necessity of an Academy, to be the Nursery of the Corps, is too obvious to be insisted upon. The Academy must be commanded under the Director General by a field Officer, assisted by a Captain. It requires a Master of Mathematics and of Natural Philosophy, one of Chemistry and one of drawing; as for Military Matters, it belongs to the Officers of the Head of the Academy to give those kind of Instructions. This is not the Place of enlarging upon this Subject. The Student ought to spend three years at least at the Academy. According to the total number of Officers of the Corps, ten or twelve Students should be sufficient to keep the Corps compleat. But as it is very advantageous to introduce in it the soonest possible, Men of Theory and Knowledge, I will propose here to leave in each Company the place of Second Lieutenant vacant, to fill those vacancies with the first Students which will receive their instruction at the Academy. So the number of Students in this Moment might be of twenty, and I do not doubt that it shall remain such afterwards, because if the union of the states is durable the Establishment proposed here will certainly be found too Inconsiderable and if I propose it so it is only to fall in with the present Circumstances and Dispositions.

[Note by Duportail in his hand]—it is not improper perhaps, to observe here that according to the calculations i make the total establishment such as i propose it including the academy the rations and clothing will not cost much more than two hundred thousand dollars only i lessen a little the pay of the soldiers which is a little too high.

DUPORTAIL.

philad. Sept. 3046

The Corps of Engineers was disbanded in November 1783, but Duportail’s model was adopted when the army was revived. (See appendix B for a list of the chiefs of the Corps of Engineers, 1774 to 1893.)

7

PRISONERS OF WAR

Several of the engineers were taken prisoner after the surrender of Charles-town on May 12, 1781. General Duportail was now cut off from news of the outside world during these long and dreary months. He concluded that France must be roused to greater vigor in the prosecution of the war. He wrote a lengthy memorial to the French minister, the Chevalier de la Luzerne, but he could not send it to him until several months later. He wrote in great detail about the part he thought France would have to play to achieve a victory, beginning,

If France wishes to see the end of this present war it seems to me necessary for her to bend her efforts more directly toward the cause and object of this war; that object is the establishment of the independence of the United States and to oblige England to recognize it. The way to succeed in this appears to be to establish the independence by the fact of driving the English from all the points where they remain. Now if we will consider the actual state of things we shall see with regret that the English, very far from having lost ground since France signed the Alliance with the