cer for the efficient discharge of his duties as professional knowledge. The engineer's duty is a responsible one. He is called upon to decide important questions, to fix the positions of defensive works, (and, thereby, of the troops who occupy them;) to indicate the manner and points of attack of fortified positions. To give him the proper weight with those with whom he is associated, he should have, as they have, adequate rank.

The campaign on the peninsula called for great labor on the part of the engineers. The country, notwithstanding its early settlement, was a terra incognita. We knew the York river and the James river, and we had heard of the Chickahominy; and this was about the extent of our knowledge. Our maps were so incorrect that they were found to be worthless before we reached Yorktown. New ones had to be prepared, based on reconnoissances, made by the officers of engineers.

The siege of Yorktown involved great responsibility, besides exposure and toil. The movements of the whole army were determined by the engineers.

The Chickahominy again arrested us; where, if possible, the responsibility and labor of the engineer officers were increased. In fact, everywhere and on every occasion, even to our last position at Harrison's Landing, this responsibility and labor on the part of the engineers was incessant.

I have stated above in what manner the officers of engineers performed their duties. Yet, thus far, their services are ignored and unrecognized, while distinctions have been bestowed upon those who have had the good fortune to command troops Under such circumstances it can hardly be expected that the few engineer officers yet remaining will willingly continue their services in this unrequited branch of the military profession. We have not sufficient officers of engineers, at this time, with any of our armies to commence another siege, nor can they be obtained. In another war, if their services are thus neglected in this, we will have none.

Another evil of no inconsiderable magnitude was experienced in this campaign, growing out of the want of a properly organized engineer service in this country. In an European service every "corps d'armée," (or division, if this were the highest unit of command,) would have its proper proportion of engineer troops, and to their charge would be committed the engineer train carrying the intrenching tools for the use of the troops. For example, a corps of 30 or 40,000 men would have in the French service a train of 41 wagons, of which 30 would carry 10,000 intrenching tools. This train would be under the immediate charge of a company of sappers, whose business it would be to issue them to the troops when wanted, to be with the working parties, directing the same, and to receive the tools back again when the work was completed.

For want of such an organization the issue of intrenching tools to the army was necessarily left to the quartermaster's department. This departpartment, burdened with its immense duties, could not give especial attention to this. In consequence of which important works were frequently delayed, as at Yorktown, where details assembled to make roads were sent back for want of tools, though they were in ample quantities on board the transports.

Furthermore, it was impossible to maintain any system of responsibility for the tools. The soldier found an axe or a shovel a very convenient thing to have at his camp, and carried one off with him. When the army moved he found it inconvenient to carry, and threw it away.

Thus, notwithstanding the number of tools issued to the army at Yorktown and on the Chickahominy, we were almost wholly dependent in making the works at Harrison's Landing upon new supplies from the transports sent to the James river.

The pontoon equipage which accompanied the army was got up (as already mentioned) by Lieutenant Colonel Alexander, assisted by Captain J. Č. Duane. The former had acquired an enviable reputation as the builder of the Minot's Ledge light-house, possessed great practical ingenuity, and had had the means of knowing the best results arrived at in other services in this branch of military art.

Captain Duane possessed a more extensive and thorough practical and experimental knowledge of military bridges than any other man in this country.

They gave, after full consideration of the subject, their preference to the French system. Even had they adopted this system blindly, because it was French, they would not have been without solid reasons, for the French have studied and experimented upon the best systems known to the world. Whatever may be said about the difference in the character of the country, roads, &c., the thing to be done here and in Europe (now that our armies have assumed European magnitude) is essentially the same.

But these officers had before them the best modern inventions of Europe and America. The India rubber pontoon they knew thoroughly; corrugated iron bodies, and countless other "inventions" of American genius, were before them, and the former experimented upon.

My own prepossessions had been in favor of the Birago system of sectional pontoons and Birago (so-called) trestles.

The experience we had proved the wisdom which adopted the system in question. Not to advance, by any means, that nothing better can be found, (the substitution of iron for wood was one of the probable improvements well understood by the officers named, but not, at the time, adopted for substantial reasons,) it is enough to say that the French pontoon was found to be most excellent, useful, and reliable for all military purposes. They were used by the quartermaster's department in discharging transports, were precisely what was needed for the disembarkation of General Franklin's division, constituted a portion of the numerous bridges built over Wormley creek during the siege of Yorktown, and were of the highest use on the Chickahominy; while over the lower Chickahominy some 75,000 men, some 300 pieces of artillery, and the immense baggage trains of the army, passed over a bridge of the extraordinary length of nearly 650 yards-a feat scarcely surpassed in military history.

The Birago trestle, of which I had formed so high an opinion, proved itself dangerous and unreliable; useful for an advanced guard or detachment; unfit, in general, for a military bridge. Of the American India rubber and the Russian canvas pontoon we had no fair experiment. They may both be useful, but, again, I think, not reliable for a "military bridge," considered in all its aspects and uses.

The weight of the French pontoon is objected to, but a certain flotation power is required which it is not easy to get, nor are the ways unobjectionable which seek to get it with less weight, and the vehicle which carries it is not heavier loaded than other vehicles of an army train. Less length would certainly make it more manageable on our narrow roads, while for advanced guards and dashing minor enterprises greater lightness is requisite. Perhaps an iron sectional pontoon may be contrived which will meet these requirements; but prudence demands that the safety of an army shall not be jeopardized by giving it a bridge which experiment has not fully tested. American genius is fertile in this as in all other expedients; but no genius can provide for an object which is not understood.

The numerous proposers of "flying" bridges forget that if a military bridge is intended to be carried with an army it is also intended to carry an army-its columns of men, its cavalry, its countless heavy wagons, and its

ponderous artillery. It must carry all these, and it must do it with certainty and safety, even though a demoralized corps should rush upon it in throngs. No make shift expedient, no "ingenious" inventions, not tested by severe experiment, nor light affair of which the chief merit alleged is that it is light, will be likely to do what is required, and what the French pontoon has so often done.

Here, perhaps, I might close; but it occurs to me that this paper, purporting to give a history of the operations of the engineers from the organization of the army of the Potomac to the close of its campaign on the peninsula, can hardly be considered complete without a retrospect pointing out the mistakes that were made, and thus tracing the causes of its failure to their true sources, according to my notions of them.

66

One of the prominent among the causes of ultimate failure was the inaction of eight months from August, 1861, to April, 1862. More than any other wars, rebellion demands rapid measures. In November, 1861, the army of the Potomac was, if not fully supplied with all the material," yet was about as complete in numbers, discipline, and organization as it ever became. For four months the great marine avenue to the capital of the nation was blockaded, and that capital kept in a partial state of siege, by a greatly inferior enemy, in face of a moveable army of 150,000 men. In the winter of 1861-'62 Norfolk could and should have been taken. The navy demanded it, the country demanded it, and the means were ample. By its capture the career of the Merrimack, which proved so disastrous to our subsequent operations, would have been prevented. The preparation of this vessel was known, and the Navy Department was not without forebodings of the mischief it would do.

Though delay might mature more comprehensive plans and promise greater results, it is not the first case in which it has been shown that successful war involves something more than abstract military principles. The true question was to seize the first practicable moment to satisfy the perhaps unreasonable, but natural longings of an impatient nation for results to justify its lavish confidence, and to take advantage of an undivided command and untrammelled liberty of action while it was possessed. When the army did move a plan was adopted perfectly certain to invite, nay, to compel interference; and when the army was to go by Annapolis to the lower Chesapeake, I felt confident that one half would scarcely have embarked before the other half would be ordered back to Washington. The enemy was then at Manassas, and the feint (even if no reality) of an attack on Washington was so obvious, so certain to create a panic which no executive could resist, that interference with the removal of the mass of the army was certain.

When the enemy had fallen back behind the Rappahannock and destroyed the railroad bridges, the circumstances were greatly changed, and there were strong arguments for the line adopted; yet results have proved how many reasons there were to be considered besides the purely military ones, which opposed themselves to the adoption of such a line. The facts connected with the withholding of McDowell's corps have been so completely exhibited in the proceedings of the McDowell court of inquiry that every one who wishes can form his own judgment. Whether it was wise or unwise, it was one of those things resulting from the taking a line of operations which did not itself cover Washington.

At the time the army of the Potomac landed on the peninsula the rebel cause was at its lowest ebb. Its armies were demoralized by the defeats of Port Royal, Mill Spring, Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Roanoke Island, and Pea Ridge, and reduced in numbers by sickness, loss in battle, expiration of period of service, &c., while the conscription law was not yet even passed.

It seemed as if it needed but one vigorous gripe to end forever this rebellion so nearly throttled. How then happened it that the date of the initiation of the campaign of this magnificent army of the Potomac was the date of the resuscitation of the rebel cause, which seemed to grow strong pari passu with the slow progress of its operations?

However I may be committed to any expression of professional opinion to the contrary, (I certainly did suggest it,) my opinion now is, that the line of Yorktown should have been assaulted. There is reason to believe that they were not held by strong force when our army appeared before them, and we know that they were far from complete. The prestige of power, the morale, was on our side. It was due to ourselves to confirm and sustain it. We should probably have succeeded, and if we failed it may well be doubted whether the shock of an unsuccessful assault would have been more demoralized than the labors of the siege.

Our troops toiled a month in the trenches or lay in the swamps of the Warwick. We lost few men by the siege, but disease took a fearful hold of the army, and toil and hardship, unredeemed by the excitement of combat, impaired the "morale." We did not carry with us from Yorktown so good an army as we took there. Of the bitter fruits of that month gained by the enemy, we have tasted to our heart's content; they are not yet exhausted.

The siege having been determined upon, we should have opened our batteries on the place as fast as they were completed. The effect on the troops would have been inspiring. It would have lightened the siege and shortened our labors, and besides we would have had the credit of driving the enemy from Yorktown by force of arms, whereas, as it was, we only induced him to evacuate for prudential considerations.

Yorktown having fallen, however, as it did, it was right to pursue the enemy with our whole force, but the battle of Williamsburg, fought as it was, without reconnoitring the position, without concert of action among the different corps and division commanders, and almost without orders, was a blunder which ought not to have happened.

We knew of this position beforehand, and we knew it was fortified. We might have been sure, if the enemy made a stand there, that it would be a strong one, for he would be fighting for time to get his trains out of our reach. We fought, and we lost several thousand men, and we gained nothing. If we had not fought till next day a battle would in all probability have been unnecessary, but if it had been, we could have had time to have brought up our resources, reconnoitred our position, and delivered our attack in such a way that some results might have flowed from it. We had every advantage. Franklin's division landed at West Point on the next day, and Sedgwick's division on the day following. These two divisions, had the enemy waited another day at Williamsburg, could have cut his communications, and in that case, we would have been superior in his front, and have had two divisions in his rear. His hasty retreat, and perhaps his capture, must inevitably have followed, and the great object of keeping Franklin so long embarked, and finally sending him to West Point, would have been accomplished.

On leaving Williamsburg we should have crossed the Chickahominy and connected with the navy in the James. We should have had an united army, and the co-operation of the navy, and probably would have been in Richmond in two weeks. The fact that we did not know the character of the Chickahominy as an obstacle, (as it lay across our direct road to Richmond,) that our transports were on the York river, and that the railroad furnished a good means of supply to the army, that we wished to connect with McDowell coming from Fredericksburg, &c., determined our route. Ia Rep. Com. 108-27

taking it we lost, essentially, all that was worth going so far to gain, viz: the James river approach, and the co-operation of the navy.

The route chosen, two weeks should not have been spent in traversing the forty miles from Williamsburg to Bottom's and New Bridge and, the barrier of the Chichakominy being left unguarded at Bottom's Bridge, no time should have been lost in making use of the circumstance to turn and seize the passage of New Bridge, (which might have been done by the 28th, and even earlier had measures been pressed to prepare for it.)

The repulse of the rebels at Fair Oaks should have been taken advantage of. It was one of those "occasions" which if not seized do not repeat themselves. We now know the state of disorganization and dismay in which the rebel army retreated. We now know that it could have been followed into Richmond. Had it been so, there would have been no resistance to overcome to bring over our right wing. Although we did not then know all that we now do, it was obvious enough, at that time, that when the rebels struck a blow at our left wing they did not leave any means in their hands unused to secure success. It was obvious enough that they struck with their whole force; and yet we repulsed them in disorder with three-fifths of ours. We could have followed them up at the same time that we brought over the other two-fifths.

After it was known that McDowell was called off to another quarter, there was no longer hope of an increase of force by the junction of his corps. There were no other re-enforcements to look for beyond what we received by the middle of the month of June. The rebel force was known or supposed to be constantly increasing by conscription, by the influx of troops from other parts, and by the breaking up of Beauregard's army.

At last a moment came when action was imperative. The enemy assumed the initiative, and we had warning of when and where he was to strike. Had Porter been withdrawn the night of the 26th, our army would have been concentrated on the right bank, while two corps at least of the enemy's force were on the left bank. Whatever course we then took, whether to strike at Richmond and the portion of the enemy on the right bank, or move at once for the James, we would have had a concentrated army and a fair chance of a brilliant result, in the first place; and in the second, if we accomplished nothing, we would have been in the same case on the morning of the 27th as we were on that of the 28th, minus a lost battle and a compulsory retreat; or had the fortified lines (thrown up expressly for that object) been held by 20,000 men, as they could have been, we could have fought on the other side with 80,000 men instead of 27,000; or, finally, had the lines been abandoned, with our hold on the right bank of the Chickahominy, we might have fought and crushed the enemy on the left bank, reopened our communications, and then returned and taken Richmond.

As it was, the enemy fought with his whole force, (except enough left before our lines to keep up an appearance,) and we fought with 27,000 men, losing the battle and 9,000 men.

By this defeat we were driven from our position, our advance of conquest turned into a retreat for safety by a force probably not greatly superior to

our own.

In view of the length of time which our operations before Richmond actually consumed, there is now no doubt that the depot at the White House should have been fortified, as well as one or two points on the railroad thence to the Chickahominy; that the téte-de-pont at Bottom's Bridge should have been completed, and likewise tétes-de-pont or strong positions prepared to cover the debouches from our bridges to the left bank of the Chickahominy. With