taiV 0f %t\xi |ork 
 
 l^^o. 58. 
 
 IN" ASSEMBLY, 
 
 February 27, 1863. 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF NEW YORK. RELATIVE 
 TO THE DEFENCES OF THE HARBOR OF SAID CITY. 
 
 Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, ) 
 New York, February 23, 1863. I 
 
 Hon. T. C. Callicot, 
 
 Speaker of the Assembly of the State of JVew York: 
 
 Sir — In accordance with the instructions of this Chamber, I 
 have the honor to transmit to you the memorial of the Chamber, 
 on the insufficiency of the present defences of the harbor of this 
 city, and^o request that you will lay it before the Assembly of 
 the State for their notice and consideration. 
 
 I have the honor to be, respectfully, 
 Your obedient serv't, 
 
 JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS, Jr., 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 
 
 To the Hon, the Legislature of the State of JVew York, in Senate 
 and Jissembly convened: 
 
 The memorial of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of 
 New York, respectfully represents : 
 
 That the defences of the harbor of New York are notoriously 
 inadequate to the protection of the vast interests and wealth of 
 a city which is at once the terminus of the great avenues of 
 
 [Assem, No, 58,] 1 
 
2 [Assembly 
 
 western ' and northern trade, the storehouse of national and 
 foreign products, the financial centre of American commerce, and 
 the metropolis of a continent. 
 
 Of the wisdom and necessity of making this great gateway of 
 the State and nation absolutely impregnable, there can be no 
 doubt. 
 
 Until quite recently, but little effort had been made to place 
 the existing fortifications in a state of efficiency, but your memo- 
 rialists believe that under the supervision of that distinguished 
 and energetic officer, native of this State, Major General Wool, 
 all is being done that is at present practicable in this direction. 
 
 It is of great importance that there should be no delay in the 
 completion of the fortifications at Sandy Hook, which command 
 the anchorage of the outer bay and the main channel of approach 
 to the city, and your memorialists suggest that the State govern- 
 ment may, with great propriety and in accordance with precedent, 
 make appropriations for that purpose, and look for repayment at 
 a future day from the General government. 
 
 Other minor fortifications might be added, which would keep 
 any vessels which succeeded in passing the main works under 
 continuous fire. The report of Major J. G. Barnard (now Briga- 
 dier General, commanding the defences of Washington), made to 
 the Secretary of War in 1859, on the '* Dangers and Defences of 
 New York,'^ and printed at the order of this Chamber, a copy of 
 which is annexed to this memorial, points out the dangers and 
 the remedy. 
 
 In addition to these fixed works, your memorialists are of 
 opinion further, that some floating defences, either iron-clad gun 
 boats, rams, or batteries, armed with guns of the heaviest calibre, 
 should at once be built. The present condition of the East river 
 approach renders such kind of defence imperatively necessary. 
 
 The exigencies of the naval service, in a war of such unex- 
 ampled magnitude, render a dependence upon it, for home pro- 
 tection, uncertain and vague. It is called upon to defend or 
 obstruct a coast line of thousands of miles in extent. At times 
 our harbor swarms with gun boats and ships of war, at others, 
 hardly a solitary vessel is left for our defence. 
 
 This Chamber has made such representations on this subject 
 to the Navy Department as will, it is hoped, secure more certain 
 protection, but it is not safe to rely on the heavily taxed resources 
 of the General government. 
 
No. 58.] 
 
 If, in time of peace, we have neglected the wise warning to 
 prepare for war, at least, now in war let us not omit to provide 
 against the contingency of foreign interference. This State and 
 this city should be prepared for all the eventualities and acci- 
 dents of war, whether of sudden and temporary attack, or of 
 matured and declared invasion. 
 
 To be thus prepared, the State and city of New York should, 
 in the opinion of this Chamber, at once construct and own float- 
 ing defences, in the possession of which there would be certainty 
 and security. 
 
 Your memorialists believe that it is only necessary to present 
 this view of the subject, as the result of their deliberate and 
 matured opinion, to secure early and effective action on the part 
 of the Legislature and the approval of the Chief Executive of 
 this great State. 
 
 New York, February 21, 1863. 
 
 A. A. LOW, 2d Vice President. 
 JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS, Jr., 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 THE DANGERS AND DEFENCES OF NEW YORK. 
 
 Addressed to the Hon. J. B. Floyd, Secretary of War, by Maj» 
 J. G. Barnard, Corps of Engineers, U. S. A. 
 
 PART L 
 
 In a paper prepared nearly a year ago, but which from circum- 
 stances unnecessary here to explain, has not yet gone out of my 
 possession, I used the following language, which will now answer 
 my purpose as a brief sketch of what I consider to be the ** dan- 
 gers " to which New York is exposed, and as an introduction to 
 what I shall say as to the defences required. 
 
 ** * * * It seems to me proper to allude to the entire 
 change in the nature of the problem to be considered in the de- 
 fence of this city, since the system under which the existing 
 works have been constructed, was adopted — or rather, since the 
 defence of New York, as a part of the general system of coast 
 defence, was decided upon by the Board of Engineers of 1816.'^ 
 As late as 1840, I find the Chief Engineer, in describing the 
 then existing works at the Narrows, (viz : the present Fort Ham- 
 ilton, Fort Lafayette, on the Long Island side, and the old Forts 
 Tompkins and Richmond, and Batteries Hudson and Morton, on 
 
^ ? 4 [Assembly 
 
 ^ Staten Island, reporting that (when these old works shall have 
 been repaired) 'with the Narrows thus defended, and the works 
 near the city in perfect order. New York might be regarded as 
 pretty well protected against an attack by water through this 
 passage.' And more explicitly he elswhere states, with regard 
 to repairs of the old works just named, on Staten Island, 'nothing 
 further, indeed, being contemplated for this position, except the 
 construction of a small redoubt on a commanding hill a little to 
 the southwest.' When it is borne in mind that since the quite 
 recent date of the report from which these quotations are taken 
 (1840), there has been constructed a new Fort Richmond, of three 
 or four times the size of the old work — that a large new work in 
 place of Fort Tompkins has been commenced — that a new water- 
 battery, nearly equal to Fort Richmond, has been-recommended 
 and planned by the present Board of Engineers — in fact, that an 
 enormous increase of works has been decided to be necessary, 
 over those thus cited by the Chief Engineer as sufficient to render 
 New York ' pretty well protected by water through this passage,' 
 it seems to me evident that the problem involved in this ' protec- 
 tion ' has changed its character." 
 
 " These remarks are not made as a criticism upon former 
 Boards, or the Chief Engineer, but to show that a defensive sys- 
 tem for New York such as is 7iow demanded, has never been con- 
 templated as a whole, and that the problem, as it now presents 
 itself, is a modified and enlarged one." 
 
 " It has become so, owing to the immense developments which 
 have been exhibited in the means of maritime attack within the 
 last few years, and also to the rapid growth of the city itself, 
 and of the nation of which it has become the commercial metro- 
 polis. Indeed, the experience which the nation had had when 
 the defensive system of 1816 was adopted, was not such as could 
 prompt a system adapted to our present circumstances. While 
 formidable invasions of our territory had been made by land, the 
 small works then in existence on Governor's and Bedlow's islands, 
 had proved sufficient to protect the city ; and such efforts as 
 were made elsewhere against our maritime places, proved how 
 weak were the powers of attack of that day against fortifications 
 — how little was required to secure our seaports and maritime 
 cities. While the means of maritime attack have of late years 
 assumed a magnitude and formidableness not dreamed of when 
 our defensive system was planned, and our country has so 
 
No. 58] 
 
 5 
 
 increased in population, wealth and military resources, that no 
 enemy can hope to make any impression by an invasion of our 
 territory — our great maritime places like New York, have, on the 
 f other hand, increased in even greater proportion, in everything 
 that could make them objects of attack." 
 
 " The works deemed adequate in former years for the defence 
 of New York, could not, therefore, in the nature of things, be 
 adequate at the present day." 
 
 " The recent war of England and France against Russia, may 
 illustrate my meaning; for it has taught us what to expect were 
 either of. these nations to wage war against the United States." 
 
 "No invasion of territory, no attempt at territorial conquest 
 was made, or thought of ; for it was well foreseen that no decisive 
 results would- flow from such means. The war consisted exclu- 
 sively in attacks upon maritime places — great seaports — seats of 
 commercial and naval power. Such places by their vast import- 
 ance to the well-being and prosperity of a nation — -by the large 
 populations and immense amount of wealth concentrated in them, 
 and by their exposure to maritime attack, offer themselves at once 
 as points at which the most decisive results may be produced. 
 Crondstadt, Sebastopol, Sweaborg, Kinburn, Odessa, Kertch, 
 Petropauloski, and other places of less note, were in succession or 
 simultaneously objects of attack , while such as the first named 
 became, indeed, the true seats of war." 
 
 Around Sebastopol assailed and assailant gathered their re- 
 sources, on the result of the arduous struggle may be said to 
 have turned the issue of the war. Had it not been so decided 
 there, Cronstadt would have been the next field of combat — for 
 which, indeed, the Allies had made the most enormous prepara- 
 tions." 
 
 " Is it not certain that in future all war of maritime powers 
 against the United States, will take a similar course ? All ter- 
 ritoral invasion being out of the question, it is against our great 
 seaports and strategic points of coast defence — such as New 
 York, New Orleans, and San FranciscO' — pre-eminently New 
 York — that an enemy will concentrate his efforts. Against these 
 he will prepare such immense armaments — against these he will 
 call into existence special agencies of attack — which (unless met 
 by an inexpugnable defensive system) shall insure success." 
 
 The mere defence of the city against ordinary fleets is no 
 longer the question ; but through the defensive works to he here 
 
6 [Assembly 
 
 erected, the nation is to measure its strength against the most lavish 
 use of the resources of a great maritime power, aided by all that 
 modern science and mechanical ingenuity in creating or inventing 
 means of attack, can bring against them; in short, in fortifying 
 New York, we are really preparing the battle-field on which the is- 
 sue of future momentous contests is to be decided.^' 
 
 I most respectfully invite your attention to the last paragraph 
 here quoted. No language that I could now use, would convey 
 a stronger idea of my profound sense of the real dangers of New 
 York. If the conclusion that I arrive at is well founded, it de- 
 mands the instantaneous attention of the War Department, and 
 of Congress. If this conclusion is well founded, then there is no 
 topic connected with the question of national defence which will 
 have a stronger bearing upon these constantly recurring issues 
 with foreign nations, in which we see the war-cloud gathering, 
 which may yet, ere long, burst upon us, than this same topic of 
 the ** defence of New York." I will say more specifically, that 
 on the alternative whether, on the one hand. New York is 
 open to the attack of a maritime force, or liable to be sacked by 
 the sudden dash of an army landed in the vicinity ; or, on the 
 other, is so securely defended by water and land, that it may hurl 
 the invader back to the ocean — will depend greatly the issue of 
 peace or war. 
 
 It is a species of folly approaching to insanity, for a nation so 
 constantly holding up to its neighbors the momentous issue of 
 war — so unavoidably liable to constant entanglements with the 
 most powerful nations on the face of the earth, to leave this 
 great commercial metropolis liable, the very day almost that war 
 is declared, to the most fearful blow. 
 
 It is estimated that the great fire of 1835 destroyed $17,000,000 
 of property. Yet its ravages were confined to a very limited 
 erea. How, in money or in words, could we estimate the loss of 
 property, the destruction of military and naval armaments and 
 stores, the paralysis of the nation's commerce, the shock upon 
 our warlike power, the disgrace upon our scutcheon, which would 
 or might result from a successful attack, and a more or less pro- 
 longed occupation of the port or harbor ? 
 
 I trust, sir, I have succeeded in impressing you with a vivid 
 idea of the " dangers " to which New York is exposed, and of the 
 importance of its perfect defence. If so, then I am sure you will 
 concur with me in the opinion that, not as a local question con- 
 
No. 58.] 
 
 7 
 
 cerning New York merely, nor the State of New York, nor any 
 sectional group of States, but as a great national question, one in 
 which the issues of peace and war, of national triumph or na- 
 tional disgrace are involved, the prompt organization of a com- 
 plete and adequate system of defences for New York, is de- 
 manded. 
 
 To say what this-defensive system should be, will, perhaps, be 
 more difficult. I have said before, that the subject as a whole^ 
 had not yet been discussed in the new lights in which recent years 
 have presented it. I could, therefore, on many points give only 
 individual opinions, and, of course, these must be very general in 
 their nature. 
 
 But even in attempting to give such opinions, I am met by 
 the embarrasssing fact that the shadow of doubt has been recently 
 thrown over even the elementary principles which have generally 
 governed our defensive works, by high authority ; even yourself, 
 sir, seem to have found reason to entertain such doubts. 
 
 Far be it from me to desire to.withhold from the freest discus- 
 sion anything connected with this great question. I have assum- 
 ed the problem of the defence of New York to be a modified and 
 enlarged one. I am willing if you choose, sir, that it should be 
 discussed even in its simplest elements ; and, still further, as every 
 species of battery, armed with such artillery as we now have, 
 whether it^be the simple earthen parapet, or the massive castel- 
 lated structure, lifting its numerous guns, tier upon tier, are con- 
 fessedly inadequate (without auxiliary aid of some kind) to the 
 perfect sealing up of a channel against the rapid passage of a hos- 
 tile fleet, I shall be the first to hail the inventor, be he one whose 
 "functions are confined to the most elevated branch of military 
 science," or to the workshop of the mechanic, who will provide 
 us with something which will do this. 
 
 In attempting to discuss the merits of our coast defences, one 
 is met at the very outset by the opposing characters of the cri- 
 ticisms by which they have been assailed. It is now scarce twenty 
 years since the entire system was subjected to severe animadver- 
 sion from the, then, highest military authority of the government, 
 from one whose public services, military and civil, and high posi- 
 tion and character, gave great weight to his strictures.* 
 
 It was maintained by the authority to whom I refer ; 
 
 " 1. That, for the defence of the coast, the chief reliance should 
 be on the navy." 
 
 * See Senate Pocument No. 293^ page 1, 24th Congress, 1st session, vol. 4. 
 
8 
 
 [Assembly 
 
 " 2. That, in preference to fortifications, floating batteries 
 should be introduced wherever they can be used." 
 
 "3. That we are not in danger from large expeditions, and, 
 consequently," 
 
 "4. That the system of the Board of Engineers comprises 
 works which are unnecessarily large for the purposes they have 
 to fulfill." 
 
 It was owing to these strictures that the House of Represen- 
 tatives, by resolutions of May 9th, 1840, called upon the War 
 Department " to lay before this House as soon as practicable, a 
 report of a full and connected system of national defence," &c. 
 
 The subject was referred by the War Department to a board 
 of officers of the army and navy, among whom was the present 
 Chief Engineer. The report of that board (see Doc. 206, H. R. 
 26th Congress, 1st session), fully endorsed by the Secretary of 
 War, Mr. Poinsett, is universally admitted to be one of the most 
 able and comprehensive expositions of the whole subject of coast 
 defence extant, and, generally^ as a complete refutation of the 
 strictures upon our actual system. 
 
 This discussion has become now somewhat out of date. I al- 
 lude to it, however, to call your attention to the two last strictures 
 there made against our system, viz : 
 
 " That we are not in danger from large expeditions, and, con- 
 sequently," 
 
 " That the system of the Board of Engineers comprises works 
 which are unnecessarily large for the purposes they have to ful- 
 fill ;" and to ask you to bear in mind that the engineers are now 
 censured (whether deservedly or not is not the question) for having 
 been for the last twenty years carrying on its constructions under 
 this very assumption, that we are not ''in danger Irom large ex- 
 peditions." 
 
 I do not discuss, at present, the accuracy of this proposition 
 twenty years ago, or whether if true then^ it has ceased to be so 
 now. 
 
 The report which I have mentioned may be said to have 
 silenced opposition for the next ten years ; but it will (as I have 
 said before) be considered out of date, at present, owing to the 
 rapid developments since made in means of maritime attacks. I 
 therefore pass to more recent animadversions upon the system. 
 
 In 1851 the following resolutions were adopted by the House 
 of Representatives : 
 
No. 58.] 9 
 
 *'lst. Resohed, That the Secretary of War be directed to 
 report to this House, the second Monday in December next, on 
 the subject of the land defences of the country, in which he will 
 review the general system adopted after the w^ar with Great 
 Britain, and since pursued, in regard to the permanent fortifica- 
 tions then deemed necessary for the national defence ; and that 
 he report, whether the general plan may not be now essentially 
 modified, by reducing the number of works proposed to be 
 erected, and by abandoning some of the forts now in progress of 
 construction." 
 
 *' 2d. Resolved, That the Secretary of War also report the 
 number of fortifications which have been built, including those 
 nearly completed under the general system, the number in pro- 
 gress of construction, and the number not yet commenced, but 
 proposed to be erected, and in such form as will conveniently 
 show the States and Territories in which the several forts are 
 situated, or to be located ; when the work was commenced ; 
 when completed, or expected to be finished ; the number and 
 calibre of the guns mounted or to be mounted ; the estimated 
 cost, the amount expended, and the sums yet required to finish 
 or construct, as the case may be, each work and the Secre- 
 tary of War, to carry them into effect, addressed the following 
 queries to several distinguished officers of the army and navy :* 
 
 "1st. To^what extent, if any, ought the present system of for- 
 tifications for the protection of our sea-board to be modified in 
 consequence of the application of steam to vessels of war, the 
 invention or improvement of projectiles, or other changes that 
 have taken place since it was adopted in the year 1816 ?" 
 
 " 2d. What reliance could be placed on vessels of war, or of 
 commerce, floating batteries, gun-boats, and other temporary 
 substitutes for permanent fortifications ?" 
 
 " 3d. Is it necessary or expedient to continue the system of 
 fortifications on the nothern lakes?" 
 
 The character of the strictures with which the defensive sys- 
 tem was then assailed, may be judged from the resolutions of 
 Congress, and from the queries proposed. Essentially they were 
 the same which we are constantly hearing now, the same which 
 
 * These oflScers were Commodore Stewart, Commodore Morris, Commodore Perry, Com- 
 mader Cunningham, Commader Dnpont, Lieutenant Lanman, Lieutenant Maury, Lieu- 
 tenant Dahlgren, of the Navy ; General Totten, Colonel Thayer, Colonel De Russy, Major 
 Chase, Major Delafield, of the Army. 
 
 [Assem. No. 58.j g 
 
10 
 
 [Assembly 
 
 forever will be heard to the end of time, upon all established 
 systems, viz : that it was behind the times, that railroads, tele- 
 graphs, increase of population, war-steamers, and steam ocean- 
 navigation generally, and Big- Guns, in particular, had render- 
 ed the system of defence quite obsolete. 
 
 As to the replies of these several army and navy officers, it 
 may be briefly stated that the defensive system was sustained by 
 Commodores Stewart and Morris, Commanders Cunningham and 
 Dupont, Lieutenants Lanman and (with qualifications) Dalhgren, 
 of the navy, and by General Totten, Colonel De Russy, and 
 Major Delafield of the Engineers.* That it was opposed or cen- 
 sured as requiring modifications by Commodore Perry and Lieu- 
 tenant Maury of the navy, and Major Chase of the Engineers. 
 Now, it must be borne in mind that all the recent " changes 
 which are now supposed to have rendered our maritime defensive 
 works obsolete, or " old fogyish," viz. : increase of population, 
 great concentration of wealth, population, and national resources 
 in our great cities, railroads, telegraphs, ocean steam-navigation, 
 and the consequent facility of bringing upon our coasts suddenly 
 large armies in steam fleets, improvements in calibre, and carac- 
 ter of seacoast and naval ordnance, horizontal shell-firing, &c., 
 were then well known, and, indeed, formed the foundation of the 
 strictures of that day. What has happened since, has been but 
 the realization of what was then foreseen. 
 
 If there is any exception to the broad statement just made, it 
 is found in the recent improvement in small arms; but this is a 
 matter which I conceive to have very little bearing on the topic 
 in hand. 
 
 A few quotations, .therefore, from the replies of tho? officers 
 who opposed or demanded modifications in the system, will be 
 interesting for colnparison with the views of objectors of the 
 present day. 
 
 Commotdore Peray says, " and besides, we have the experience 
 of history to show that extensive military works are alike des- 
 tructive of the prosperity and the liberties of the people, saying 
 nothing of the enormous cost of construction, and the keeping 
 them in condition for service. I may instance the fortresses of 
 Spain, of Portugal, and of the former republics of Genoa and 
 Yenice, as gigantic works, now of little use, and looked upon by 
 the voyager only as monuments of the extravagance and peculat- 
 
 * Colonel Ttayer did not respond ; his opinions, however, >vcre weU known. 
 
No. 58.J 11 
 
 ing spirit which, at the time of their erection, characterized the 
 people of those governments." 
 
 Experience, moreover, shows that while the fortifications of 
 San Juan de Ulloa at Yera Cruz, the Moro of Havana, the Castle 
 protecting the harbor of Carthagena upon the coast of Columbia, 
 the Venetian fortress of Xapoli de Romania in Greece, the Castle 
 of St. Elino in Malta, and many others of similar extent and 
 character, are considered by some impregnable, they command 
 only a circuit embraced within the range of their guns, and can- 
 not in any manner prevent a landing of the en*emy upon the 
 coast beyond the extent of such range : in a word, these works 
 are useful only to command the entrances of the ports which they 
 were intended to defend, ^^nd to cover, with their guns, vessels 
 anchoring in their immediate vicinity. The celebrated fortress 
 of Gibraltar neither commands the passage of the Straits, nor the 
 anchorage on the Spanish side of the bay of that name. They 
 are, in truth, like chained monsters, harmless beyond the reach 
 of their manacles ; not so with steam batteries : they have the 
 means of locomotion, and their power can be made effective at 
 any point upon the coast capable of being reached by an enemy's 
 vessel." 
 
 " Of all the coasts of Europe, that of Great Britain is the 
 least provided with fortifications; and yet her soil has not been 
 trodden by a successful enemy since the conquest ; solely pro- 
 tecting he/ military and naval arsenals by perfect and well- 
 garrisoned works. She depends mainly for defence of her coast 
 upon her navy, and the warlike spirit of her yeomanry ; and the 
 very absence of fortified works prevents a deceitful reliance upon 
 such defences, and keeps alive the more gallant and more certain 
 dependence upon their own personal prowess." 
 
 "And thus it should be with us. Man to man, the Americans 
 are at least equal to any other race : and they are fully capable 
 of driving back to their ships or capuring any number of troops 
 that might have the termity to land upon our soil." 
 
 Lieutenant Maury says : " Now were it possible for an enemy 
 with the greatest army that ever was led into battle by the 
 greatest captain, to take the country by surprise, and to land at 
 Long Island Sound, or in Lynn Haven bay, and to be disem- 
 barking hfs last piece of artillery before he was discovered, these 
 railroads, the power of steam, with the aid of lightning, would 
 enable the governmeiit, before he could reach the heights of 
 
li [Assembly 
 
 Brooklyn, or the outskirts of Norfolk, to have there in waiting, 
 and ready to receive him and beat him back into the sea, a force 
 two to one greater than his, however strong." 
 
 "Suppose that in 1847 there had been in active operation, be- 
 tween Vera Cruz and the city of Mexico, a line of magnetic tele- 
 graph, and such a railroad as is the Erie road of New York, — 
 Can it be supposed that our generals, being cognizant of the facts, 
 would have so much as entertained the idta of landing there as 
 they did, and laying siege to the town?" 
 
 " All the world knows where our railroads are, and that the 
 Country is protected from military surprise and invasion from the 
 sea, by a net- work of telegraphic wires ; the mere knowledge of 
 the fact that Norfolk and New York can bring to their defence 
 such 4-esources, will forever prevent the thought in the mind of an 
 enemy of landing in force at Lynn Haven Bay, or on Long 
 Island." 
 
 *' Those, roads, therefore, render a siege to any of the works of 
 defence before those places, out of the question." 
 
 "To lay siege to any place along our sea-front involves not 
 only the disembarking of an army, but the landing also of the 
 siege train. This requires time." 
 
 " From the time that the head of our invading column jumped 
 out of the boats up to their waists in the water, at Vera Cruz, till 
 General Scott Was ready to send his summons to the city, was 
 thirteen days, and it was four days more before his heavy artil- 
 lery drew overtures from the besieged, — total, seventeen days." 
 
 "Imagine an army, the best equipped, it may be, the world 
 eVer sawj that should attempt to beleaguer one of our strong- 
 holds for seventeen days 1 Within that time, we could bring 
 against him by railroads and steamboats, millions of the freemen 
 which this cdUntry evel* holds in reserve to light its battles. It 
 might be Boston before which this imaginary army is supposed 
 to sit down in imaginary siege ; or it may be New York, Phila- 
 delphia, Norfolk, CharlestoUj or New Orleans, — it is immaterial 
 where. In less thian half the Yera Cruz time, we could throw 
 millions of men into any one of these places, and subsist them, in 
 the meantime, by a daily market-train of cars and steamboats 
 catering for them in the abundant markets of the Mississippi Val- 
 ley." 
 
 " It is impossible that any army, however brave, spirited, and 
 daring, should over think of invading a country like this, and at; 
 
No. 58.] 13 
 
 tacking us upon our own ground, when we have under our com- 
 mand such powers of concentration, and such force in reserve as 
 twenty millions of freemen, the electric telegraph, the railroad 
 car, the locomotive, and the steamboat." . 
 
 And again, alluding to an invasion of Washington : "Now, is 
 it not obvious, supposing the country to be in a reasonable state 
 of preparation at the commencement of war — supposing this much 
 — is it not obvious, by sending telegraphic messages, and using 
 the powers of steam for conveyance, the American general might 
 sight down here, in Washington, and at daylight the next morning 
 commence an attack upon that enemy, both in front and in rear, 
 with almost any amount of force, consisting of regulars, volun- 
 teers, and militia, that can be named ? Retreat for such a foe 
 would be out of the question, and re-embarkation an impossi- 
 bility. 
 
 " Therefore, so far as the system of 1816 was intended to defend 
 the country from invasion along the Atlantic sea-board, steam, 
 railroads, and the telegraph, have rendered it as effete as did the 
 invention of fire-arms the defences which the military science of 
 that age had erected against the shafts of the archer.'- 
 
 "Suppose the system of 1816 to have been completed ; that 
 the fortifications therein contemplated had all been built, provis- 
 ioned, eqijipped, and garrisoned. Now, saving only those which 
 protect the large cities from the guns of men-of-war, suppose the 
 alternative should be presented to our military men, whether they 
 would undertake to defend the country from invasion with such a 
 complete system of fortifications, but without the assistance of 
 railroads, steamers, and telegraph ; or with the assistance of rail- 
 roads, steamers, and telegraph, but without the aid of fortifica- 
 tions. 
 
 " I suppose, could such an alternative be submitted to every of- 
 ficer of the army, from the oldest down to the youngest, that 
 there would be but one answer, and that would be, * Down with 
 the forts, and give us the railroad, the locomotive, the steamboat, 
 and the telegraph.' " 
 
 But, Lieutenant Maury does not dispense entirely with forts; 
 he says further, *' It is chiefly to keep such ships {i. e., ships of 
 war) yVom burning our cities and havens within reach of their 
 broadsides, that we want forts and castles." 
 
 Exactly so. It is just for that, and if he had said " burning our 
 
14 [Assembly 
 
 cities and occupying our havens," (using the term forts and 
 castles" technically,) I might almost say, only that^ that we want 
 them. 
 
 But, as we have seen before, the cry " Down with the forts, and 
 give us the railroad, the locomotive, the steamboat, and the tele- 
 graph," does not mean "Down with all forts," but only such as 
 we do not want to protect our " cities and havens ;" a very im- 
 portant qualification certainly. 
 
 Furthermore, he says, " The forts already completed, or well 
 advanced towards completion, are believed to be sufficient for 
 this." At the date this was written, the great port of the Pa- 
 cific, San Francisco, had not a fort even begun ; the great port 
 and commercial metropolis of the Atlantic, New York, had not 
 on its great avenue of approach, the Narrows, works at all capa- 
 ble (see the opinion of Dahlgren, a brother officer of the navy, 
 and one of the very ablest officers of the navy, printed in juxta- 
 position to Lieutenant Maury's) of protecting this great city from 
 "burning" by the broadsides.or curved fire of ships of war. But 
 this is but a specimen of the accuracy and soundness of criticism 
 with which our defensive system has usually been assailed. 
 
 Lieutenant Maury, however, argues that " if one gun, in open 
 battery on the shore, * whether mounted on a tower or not,' be 
 superior to ' one or two' ships of war, surely our seaport towns 
 of second and third rate importance (the italics are mine) may safe- 
 ly rely upon open batteries on the beach to protect them from 
 * British' or any other ' men-of-war.' " 
 
 I make one more citation from Lieutenant Maury, that you may 
 compare with opinions more recently expressed : 
 
 ' The fortifications of the coast,' says the board of army offi- 
 cers, whose able report of 1840 quieted the public mind, and 
 fastened for ten years longer upon the country the eff'ete system 
 of 1816, ' The fortifications of the coast,' say they, ' inusthQ com- 
 petent to the double task of interdicting the passage of ships and 
 resisting land attacks — two distinct and independent qualities. The 
 first demands merely an array in suitable numbers^ and in proper 
 proportions^ of heavy guns, covered by parapets, proof against shot 
 and shells.'' " 
 
 ** Now, I propose to show that the railroads, and the means of 
 locomotion in this country, sufficiently defend our fortifications 
 from land attacks ; and that, consequently, the principal requisite 
 henceforward in a system of fortifications for the coast, is merely 
 
No. 58.] 
 
 15 
 
 an array, in suitable numbers and proper proportions, of heavy 
 guns along the beach, to cover the approaches of ships from sea 
 to seaport towns." And particularly I call your attention to his 
 recommendation, " That no further expenses be incurred for pre- 
 paring our fortifications along the Atlantic sea-board to with- 
 stand sieges by landJ^ 
 
 Having given, I think, a fair view of the arguments of the ob- 
 jecting naval officers, I now proceed to give a few citations from 
 Major Chase's response. As an engineer officer of rank, connected 
 with the present system of coast defence from its initiation, his 
 objections, or demand for modifications, deserve careful consid- 
 eration. 
 
 After giving a history of the rise and progress of the present 
 system of coast-defence, referring to the experience of our last 
 war with Great Britain, reviewing the " new and important ele- 
 ments in the national defence and security w^hich have been rap- 
 idly, almost magically, developed in the last thirty -five years, 
 such as the increase of population, the progress of improvement 
 in agriculture, manufactures and commerce, and in facile lines of 
 intercommunication," he says : 
 
 "In view, then, of all these things, and especially of the new 
 elements — moral, political, and physical — claimed to have been 
 developed, and to have greatly increased the power of the United 
 States, and which must be considered in relation to the future ar- 
 rangement of the national defence^ the undersigned thinks that the 
 general plan adopted thirty-five years ago should be essentially 
 modified, by reducing the number and size of the works proposed 
 to be constructed, and by abandoning some of the defences now 
 in progress of construction, or which are about to be constructed 
 under existing appropriations made by Congress." 
 
 " The undersigned is also of the opinion that the best interests 
 of the country require that the subject of modification should be 
 submitted to aboard, composed of artillery and engineer officers, 
 and some eminent civilians; that no new work should be com- 
 menced, even if it has been appropriated for by Congress ; and 
 that no appropriation should be made by Congress for the com- 
 pletion and repairs of existing works, until the whole subject of 
 the national defence has been considered and reported upon by 
 the said board." And he further advances the opinion, "Suf- 
 ficient has been said to show that railways and the electric tele- 
 graph contribute largely to the national defence ; th^t the works 
 
16 
 
 [Assembly 
 
 covering' our large sea-ports, and other important points, placed 
 in connection with the railways and telegraph, if they were now 
 to be constructed, might be much reduced in size and cost, if not 
 in number ; that the facility with which these works could be re- 
 lieved in" case of an attempted siege, would have rendered it only 
 necessary for them to be made secure against a coup-de-main.^' 
 
 " Under these views of the subject, it is at once perceived that, 
 whilst the extension and invention of railways (and the electric 
 telegraph) do not supersede, they greatly diminish the necessity 
 of adding to the number and cost of the fortifications on the sea- 
 board ; or, in other words, that the future prosecution of the 
 system of defence by permanent fortifications, should be on a very 
 reduced scale in comparison with the magnificent one adopted 
 thirty-five years ago." 
 
 And, in relation to the influence of steam-navigation and im- 
 provements in artillery, he says : 
 
 " The navigation of the ocean by steam, and the application of 
 steam to vessels of war, have certainly added to the facilities of 
 naval operations in making attacks and transporting troops. 
 But such operations are necessarily confined to short lines, like 
 those between France and England, in the Mediterranean, or on 
 the lakes between Canada and the United States." 
 
 " Attacks by steamers can only be formidable when they are 
 numerous, and filled with troops destined for a grand attack ; 
 but when they are thus filled with troops, munitions of war, pro- 
 visions, armament, and their regular crews, little room is left for 
 the fuel necessary to propel them to the scene of action and in 
 retreat. Such steamers cannot be propelled either conveniently 
 or rapidly until the propelling power can be produced at a less 
 outlay for fuel. At the rate supposed to be the maximum of 
 speed of war steamers, lines of operations over one thousand miles 
 (five hundred in advance and five hundred in retreat) cannot be 
 occupied advantageously, or with the efficiency necessary to a 
 great movement of strategic or direct attack. Numerous trans- 
 ports would be necessary to convey supplies of coal to conve- 
 nient places on the coast, where depots for the same would have 
 to be established and defended at great cost, for they would be 
 constantly in danger of attack by sea and land by enterprising 
 assailants. Besides, the great loads of men, munitions, arma- 
 ments, provisions, and fuel, that war and transport steamers 
 would be obliged tQ carry, u^ultiply the d£i,ng§rs of navigation." 
 
No. 58.] n 
 
 Certainly, steamers could make sudden and brief attempts to 
 enter harbors and destroy towns ; but fast-sailing ships, with fa- 
 vorable winds, could do the same if this kind of marauding and 
 piratical warfare was carried on by any Christian nation calling 
 itself civilized, and if not opposed by the same machines of war 
 as those used by the enemy and by acts of retaliation." 
 
 " Such attempts might be successful in attack and retreat if 
 made in the night, even if the harbor was strongly fortified, if 
 the fortifications were unaided by rafts and hulks lying across 
 the channels." 
 
 *' But a demonstration on a large scale against the important 
 ports and arsenals, for the purpose of taking possession and 
 levying contributions, requires considerable land forces, even 
 against such points as were not defended by batteries ; for at 
 such points, in time of war, earth erections would be made and 
 easily supplied with cannon of heavy calibre, that would do great 
 damage, by direct and vertical cannonade, to the enemy's vessels 
 and forces afloat, after they had entered the harbor, and proba- 
 bly compel them to leave it, and force them to select a more 
 distant point for the initiative of attack." 
 
 If the enemy, strong in ships and soldiers, could be driven 
 from Boston by the erection of some redoubts in the course of 
 one night, it is hardly to be supposed that he would attempt to 
 recapture i^e position, or to attack any other position similarly 
 situated." 
 
 " Any such demonstration at the present day would be checked 
 by the means just enumerated, and be met on its flanks and in 
 front by the mobile forces rallied by the telegraph to the point 
 of attack." 
 
 " The improvement in artillery, as regards size and efiiciency, 
 has been, of late years, very great ; but it inures more to the 
 benefit of the defence than the attack. In the same way that, if 
 steam, applied to ships of war, aff'ords any advantages to the at- 
 tack, steam, applied on railways, combined with the electric tele- 
 graph, affords greater advantages to the defence, by reason of 
 the greater facility with which forces may be moved by the lat- 
 ter means." 
 
 From all which it may be safely asserted, that the navigation 
 of the ocean by steam, the application of steam to vessels of war, 
 and recent improvements in artillery and other military inven- 
 tions, do not exhibit the attack of forts on the sea-board superior 
 [Assem. No. 58.] 3 
 
18 
 
 [Assembly 
 
 to the defence, when those forts are connected with railways, and 
 are brought within succor of the surrounding population ; nor do 
 they render additions to the present fortifications in number, size 
 or cost, in any wise necessary. But, on the contrary, the im- 
 provement in artillery, if those fortifications had now to be built, 
 would enable their plans to be reduced one-half'm size, and the 
 armament one-fourth in amount." 
 
 In what precedes, I believe, I have given a fair and complete 
 view of the "objections " to the system of coast defence, as they 
 were urged scarcely eight years ago. I do not pretend that our 
 views of the problem of coast defence should be exactly the same 
 that they were at that date ; for I think, in relation to some of 
 our great sea-ports at least, the developments of the recent war 
 of the Allies against Russia, has made the problem quite a new 
 one. But I do affirm that that war exhibited but a development, 
 or realization rather, of the changes which form the basis of 
 these criticisms of 1851. Let us, therefore, sum up these objec- 
 tions of 1851. 
 
 Our forts need no longer be so large; " forts and castles " may 
 even be dispensed with, and a few powerful guns, "in open bat- 
 teries," substituted. The idea of strength against land attack 
 (or siege) is by one critic scouted. "Now, were it possible for 
 an enemy, with the greatest army that ever was led into battle, 
 by the greatest captain, to take the country by surprise, and to 
 land at Long Island Sound or in Lynn Haven Bay, and to be dis- 
 embarking his last piece of artillery before he was discovered — 
 these railroads, the power of steam, with the aid of lightning, 
 would enable the government, before he could reach the heights 
 of Brooklyn, or the outskirts of Norfolk, to have there in wait- 
 ing, and ready to receive him, and beat him back into the sea, a 
 force two to one greater than his, however strong." While 
 another thinks that " the facility with which these works could 
 be relieved, in case of an attempted siege, would have rendered 
 it only necessary for them to be made secure against a coup de 
 main,^^ And his opinions, as to "demonstrations on a large 
 scale, against the important ports and arsenals," will be found 
 in the passage already quoted. 
 
 I pass now from " objections" of 1851 to " objections" of 1858. 
 These are found in a "Letter," addressed to yourself, Sir, by 
 Lieutenant Morton, of the Engineers, which has been published, 
 and which, as it appears to have not only had much influence 
 
No. 58.] 
 
 19 
 
 upon your own views, but on the minds of the public, deserves 
 much more than a passing notice. They are summed up by the 
 author in the following language : 
 
 " The first objection I offer to the existing system is with 
 respect to the size. It adopts, even in localities where there is 
 plenty of room,* diflferent sorts of masonry casemated castles, of 
 the smallest area that will hold the number of guns required, in 
 from two to five tiers; the guns firing through embrasures in the 
 scarp wall, which is exposed to its base, or nearly so, to the fire 
 of flotillas. This remark applies to the sea fronts of all our 
 sea-coast forts of importance. (Those not on this principle are 
 small, and situated in localities where one sort of work will 
 answer as well as another.) The works referred to have, in 
 some cases, land fronts : that is, fronts which do not bear on the 
 approaches of ships, or on anchorage ground. These are arranged 
 sometimes on the bastion system, sometimes on the German ; but 
 in all cases are contracted and weak,f owing to the dijQ&cultyJ of 
 joining strong land fronts to casemated sea fronts, of small 
 development." 
 
 " The small area of these works will prevent them, in the first 
 place, from holding any more ammunition and stores than they 
 will need if exposed to protracted bombardment. As to a siege, 
 those which are out of the reach of help, such as Key West, 
 Fort Point,#8hip Island and Pensacola, will, probably, be short 
 of supplies very soon, and be reduced from that cause. There 
 will be, in no case, the interior space required to accommodate the 
 magazines, &c., which must be located and protected, at the 
 points I have specified, and where the plan of fortification is still 
 to be decided upon." 
 
 *' A second disadvantage springing from the contracted area 
 is, that there is not enough room on the terrepleins to spare for 
 temporary bombproofs, traverses, <fcc., which are necessary to 
 protect the barbettee guns from the ricochet and reverse fire, and 
 vertical fire. Also, the garrison, as well as the guns, will be 
 closely packed, and during a bombardment the chances of casu- 
 
 * ^'As at Key West, Ship Island, Fort Point, Pensacola, the site of Fort Tompkins, 
 and Fort Richmond, at Sandy Hook, Fort Adams, and other places." 
 ■j- " Without any exception, they are smaller than a Vauban front." 
 
 j " In illustration of this, see Forts Adams and Schuyler, in each of which two sides of 
 the main work are flanked by flanking casemates in the outworks. This arrangement is 
 certainly open to criticism ; but I mention it only to show that it has been found diSicult 
 to connect the sea and land fronts; and I wish it to be understood, that I do not find fault 
 ■with the plan of these works, but only object to this plan being followed hereafter, now 
 that it appears to be unsuitable to circumstances that have arisen since they were built." 
 
20 [Assembly 
 
 alties will be increased from this cause ; and from the fact that 
 the heads of the casemate arches being open on the interior, and 
 having a direction towards a common centre, more fragments of 
 a single shell, bursting inside the work, will probably enter 
 them, than if they were developed on longer lines.'' 
 
 " 3d. Works built on this system expose a large mark to the fire 
 of flotillas,* which can hardly be missed ; and a certain propor- * 
 tion of the entire number of shots must, therefore, be counted upon 
 to enter the embrasures, carrying with them splinters of stone.'' 
 
 " Those shots which do not hit the embrasures will produce a 
 certain effect in shaking the wall ; and, considering the calibres 
 and number of the guns that enter into the armament of a 
 modern flotilla, there is reason to fear breaching."f 
 
 "It must be noted, also, that a small front is exposed to a 
 morq converging fire than a large one ; a point of importance, 
 according to all military authorities." 
 
 *' 4th. The use of casemates brings one tier of guns about at the 
 level of the ground, or site ; and in those cases where a ditch 
 cannot be made to surround the work (as is the case, for exam- 
 ple, at Fort Adams, Fort Schuyler, Fort Sumter, Fort Indepen- 
 dence, Fort Hamilton, and others), the defect results that an 
 entrance may be effected by the enemy by surprise, or under 
 certain other circumstance, by these embrasures. [It appears 
 that the southern tower at Bomarsund was entered, and taken 
 by a small party of French, who entered through the embrasures, 
 though all the garrison had not yet retreated from it into the 
 keep.] The iron shutters, recently proposed, will not entirely 
 remove this defect, which is inherent to small fronts. 
 
 " 5th. The present system is carried out to advantage only on 
 sites close to the water ; and hence, in many cases, the advan- 
 tages offered by the nature of commanding plateaus or promon- 
 tories have been neglected, and works built at the foot of heights, 
 even when an artificial site was necessary for the purpose."J 
 
 * " M. Richild Grivel (1857) is of opinion that, considering the greater calibre and 
 force of the sea-service guns recently adopted, and the comparative safety afforded them 
 by floating batteries, no isolated masonry fort, however solidly constructed, can long resist 
 an attack properly conducted." 
 
 t "It is certain that the scarps of our sea-coast works are no stronger than those of 
 Bomarsund; brick walls of eight feet thickness, or the same backed with concrete, or 
 granite backed with concrete, form our scarps, which are three feet thinner around each 
 embrasure, and are, in many cases, not bonded to the counterfeits in the rear. I do not 
 tissert that the walls of Bomarsund were breached from the water, but refer back for a com- 
 parison between large guns afloat and small ones ashore, to show that a less accurate fire, 
 provided it is from heavier guns, will eflfoct a breach." 
 
 I " As at Fort Adams, Fort Richmond, Fort Point, and others." 
 
No. 58.] 21 
 
 A system of fortifications, or of anything else, which requires 
 time and money to construct, and which, when constructed, are 
 intended to last for years, must have more flexibility than ordi- 
 narily belongs to works of this nature, if it can meet the views 
 of objectors, who, in the brief space of seven years, on the one 
 hand, scout the idea of land defence entirely, or denounce our 
 works as too strong in this particular ; and on the other, criti- 
 cise these land defences as "weak and contracted." 
 
 I do not exactly understand what Lieutenant Morton's remedy 
 is for all these alleged evils ; for, though he has proposed a " sys- 
 tem^' of " detached bastions," connected by earthen curtains, the 
 "smallest application of which would be a pentagon of 550 yards 
 a side, and the largest sizes being polygons of 750 yards a side," 
 he himself records, without answering the objection, " that the 
 extent of ground occupied by the inclosure is too great for some 
 of the sites which are available for the location of batteries ;" 
 and moreover states expressly, "It must be recollected that I 
 propose to fortify in this manner only certain points of the sea- 
 coasts, which I mention, and, in view of future cases, define the 
 nature of;" and his specification and definition is as follows : 
 
 " I propose that the system sketched in the preceding discus- 
 sion should be used at Key West, Ship Island, San Francisco, 
 possibly at Pensacola, and at other or future points of United 
 States territory, which are comprised in the following class, or 
 classes, viz : places that are fitted by nature to form bases of op- 
 erations for sea w^arfare, by being located where they may pro- 
 tect our commerce, and from which that of the enemy may be 
 annoyed ; that are convenient places of retreat for repairs or 
 safety for government ships and for privateers, or merchantmen 
 pursued by the enemy; that can be made also safe and conve- 
 nient depots for artillery, ammunition and stores ; or places that 
 may, in addition to some or all of the above properties, be made 
 centres of defence from land, as well as sea attacks, of territories 
 isolated or distant from the United States." 
 
 Neither the specification nor the definition apply to more than 
 an exceedingly small portion of the " sites" requiring sea-coast 
 batteries, while the objection that he records applies to most of 
 them. If, therefore, the objections made to the " dififerent sorts 
 of masonry casemated castles" are valid, we find no substitute in 
 his essay, and however forcible the objections may be, until some- 
 thing better is proposed or invented, we must be content with 
 
22 
 
 [Assembly 
 
 them ; for I shall show hereafter that " masonry casemated cas- 
 tles" have played a great part in preserving sea-ports, commer- 
 cial and naval depots (the true and proper objects of coast de- 
 fence) from destruction — that they have fulfilled completely the 
 objects for which they were constructed. 
 
 Let us examine the subject a little more closely. Years ago it 
 had passed into a proverb in France that a gun on shore is 
 worth a ship at sea,"* and the French " Aide-memoire d'artil- 
 lerie" expresses the same idea in other words : " That a battery 
 of four pieces of large calibre, well placed and well served, ought 
 to get the better [avoir raison] of a ship of 120 guns." 
 
 But the question, which of the two will " get the better" in a • 
 direct contest, is a very different one from that which concerns 
 the mere rapid passage of a ship or steamer through a channel de- 
 fended by a battery ; and it is, I think, in overlooking in a 
 measure this important distinction that Lieutenant Maury, and 
 many others, arguing from the surprising results of certain well- 
 known contests between very small open batteries and ships, have 
 proposed, instead of stone batteries, " one or more heavy guns 
 planted in open battery along the beach." 
 
 Even if it was admitted that the fire of a gun in an " open bat- 
 tery" was necessarily so much more effective (which I greatly 
 doubt) than that of onie in a casemate, it may be remarked that 
 as (in the present state of artillery) it is, at best, but one out of 
 great many shots that touches a ship in a vital part, or sets her 
 on fire ; Sifew guns cannot be expected to prevent the passage of 
 a fleet, nor even of a single vessel. 
 
 I have said already that no battery, or system of batteries, has 
 yet been invented which shall seal hermetically a channel (like 
 the Narrows, for instance,) the passage of which offers to an en- 
 terprising enemy an object sufficient to induce him to run the risk 
 at all hazards. What, then, can be done ? We must, to defend 
 such a passage, use only guns of the most destructive capacities ; 
 and we must multiply them, so that we can throj;v upon him a per- 
 fect hail-storm of fire throughout his whole path ; and we must 
 leave no spot either in approaching his object, or after he gets be- 
 fore it, not under our fire ; and even then we must, in many cases, 
 call in auxiliary aid. 
 
 Again, with regard to the open battery, this peculiar efficiency 
 which Lieutenant Maury attributes to it does not belong to it at 
 
 * ''Vn canon k terre vaut un vaisseau a la mer." 
 
No. 58.] 23 
 
 all, except in certain sites, which cannot always, nor even fre- 
 quently, be found. 
 
 Lieutenant Dahlgren says : "So far, therefore, as casemated 
 batteries are concerned, shells have added very little to the pow- 
 er of ships ; but against guns cn barbette they will be found of 
 material assistance, especially if charged with balls and used as 
 shrapnel. And against open works, the concentration afforded 
 by the well-served broadsides of one or more ships, should suffice 
 to silence the works if the vessels have no unusual disadvantages 
 to encounter, and are brought within sure distance." And again, 
 in his very interesting and able remarks on the " Incidents of the 
 War," at the conclusion of his work on " Shells and Shell Guns 
 
 " The fire of a small barbette, or uncovered work, can always 
 be kept under by the rifled musket and shrapnel, judiciously 
 posted, taking the advantage of such shelter as the locality af- 
 fords, or using pits for the sharp-shooters if necessary. The 
 broadside can then be brought to bear, or the men sent ashore 
 in force to assamlt. Circumstances may even admit of the land- 
 ing one or two cannon to breach the work. 
 
 The unqualified assumption that a tower or small redoubt, 
 with its two or three guns, can of itself make good the defence 
 against a heavy ship, would naturally suggest more than is con- 
 templated ; for in that case, why resort to the cost of extensive 
 works to defend a harbor, when a few towers might fully answer 
 the purpose? But the fact is, that the advantage of site which 
 is required to give effect to this species of defence, is rarely to be 
 found just where it is needed. It existed neither at Cronstadt nor 
 at Sweaborg ; and at Sebastopol the elevated works of this nature 
 only served to command the position for attack on Fort Constan- 
 tine from seaward. Of themselves, they could not have prevent- 
 ed the entrance of a single vessel into the port, nor have inflicted 
 any material damage on an enemy making the attempt. 
 
 " Again, it frequently happens that the works are too limited 
 in extent, or isolated and not capable of mutual support ; the 
 masonry may be bad, the site low, and the guns unprotected by 
 casemates, the ordnance of inefficient power and not commanding 
 all accessible positions, the garrison inadequate in numbers and 
 quality. In such cases the ship cannot fail to have the ad- 
 vantage, and it only remains to use it by attacking in proper 
 force, rapidly and energetically, concentrating the full fire of the 
 line at decisive distances upon the unguarded or weak points, 
 
24 
 
 [Assembly 
 
 and affording no opportunity for improving the state of the 
 works. Under this head may be classed those actions where 
 ships have been eminently successful — Algiers, Acre, Yera Cruz, 
 Kinburn, Petropauloski," &c., &c. 
 
 Even if the advantages of site" existed, a small number of 
 guns would not always answer the purpose. The whole jront of 
 the 'public lands on Staten Island, at the Narrows, is (or will be) 
 girdled by open earthen batteries, but it is not enough — nor would 
 I trust these open batteries alone^ if they could contain guns 
 enough. 
 
 Grivel^ (who is quoted as entertaining the opinion that " no 
 isolated masonry fort, however solidly constructed, can long re- 
 sist an attack properly conducted,") uses the following language : 
 We could then" (he refers to the case in which the site is low 
 and ships can approach near), " if we feared being commanded 
 or taken in enfilade by fires of ships, substitute for earthen bat- 
 teries, works in masonry, casemated, and with several stories of 
 covered fires. [The italics are mine.] This kind of fortification 
 will expose, it is true, its ' personnel' to the chance of embrasure 
 shot, or to wounds from stona fragments, (as if any warlike 
 structure had yet been invented in which there was no danger) 
 and its material to that of a breach ; but these inconvenieaces 
 will be in part compensated by the assured protection^ to the 
 greater part of its artillery, from the plunging or enfilading fires 
 of ships." An " assured protection to the greater part of its ar- 
 tillery" is certainly a great object attained by "this kind of forti- 
 fication," and it doubtless would be able longer " to resist an at- 
 tack properly conducted" than a work which, like Kinburn, had 
 no such assured protection. 
 
 Let me now allude to objections applying particularly to these i 
 kind of works ; and^r^^ as to this liability to breaching here hint- 
 ed at by Grivel, and urged again by Lieutenant Morton, who re- 
 fers to Grivel's authority and opinions. There is not one single 
 fact on record derived from the numerous attacks of the Allies 
 on Russian " casemated castles" (and they presented themselves 
 to the Allied fleets almost everywhere, and with all that consti- 
 tutes the " objections" to this class of works in their most glaring 
 form), nor in the history of any other maritime attacks on forti- 
 
 * La Marine dans I'attaque des fortifications etle bombardement des villes du littoral,*' 
 par M. Richild Grivel, Lieutenant de Vaisseau : Paris, 1856. His opinion" is worth as 
 much as any other iudividual's, perhaps. We shall see hereafter on what grounds such 
 Qpinions ar« founded. 
 
No. 58.] 
 
 25 
 
 fications, to justifiy this fear. The only event of the war which 
 gives any apparent ground for it, is the attack on Kinburn. 
 
 To draw any conclusion from this affair, it is necessary to un- 
 derstand the character of the works which had to oppose the tre- 
 mendous armament arrayed against them. GrivePs account of 
 them conveys a ver}^ erroneous impression. He says : " The cit- 
 adel of Kinburn, built upon a tongue of sand, could be ranked in 
 the category of those kiasonry-casemated works for which the 
 Russians seem to manifest a preference for the defence of insular 
 positions or of such low sites. This fort, armed upon all its 
 faces, offered an incomplete tier of covered fires, surmounted by 
 a long barbette battery with earthen parapets ; its armament 
 amounted to more than sixty guns (bouches a feu), of which, 
 about half bore upon the open sea. Two new batteries, armed, 
 one with ten, the other with eleven pieces, and covered with sand 
 parapets, were located beyond on the extreme point, and comple- 
 ted, in concert with those of the other shore, the defence of the 
 pass of Otchakow.'' 
 
 One would imagine from this, that we had here a very perfect 
 specimen of Russian works and of sea-coast defences generally; 
 that the " masonry-casemated works" were such as set at defiance, 
 before Cronstadt, the united maritime power of France and 
 England. 
 
 Lieutenant Morton appears to draw his account of Kinburn en- 
 tirely from Grivel (adding, however, quite gratuitously, "a cer- 
 tain proportion of sixty-pounder gujis^^ to the armament of these 
 (supposed) formidable works.) 
 
 Having arranged his works, Grivel disposes of them as follows : 
 
 "The contest had lasted /o2^r hours, and, during this short 
 space of time, the combined fires of our cannon of great penetra- 
 tion, and of our mortars, had sufficed to put the place out of 
 condition (hors d'etat) to resist longer. Represent to yourself all 
 its cannon dismounted, practicable breaches in the sea-front, all 
 its edifices burnt or in ruins ! In a word, the fort of Kinburn 
 was, after the picturesque expression of our sailors, capsized 
 {chavire de fond en coinble), and if its entire garrison was not 
 buried under this complete disaster of the defences (son materiel), 
 it is because the soldiers not employed at the pieces had been 
 sheltered in the casemates, of which a portion, resisting our 
 bombs, had remained intact.'^ 
 
 [Assem. No. 58. J 4 
 
[Assembly 
 
 So, tlie men in the " casemates" fared rather better than those 
 serving barbette guns (open batteries), with which our modern 
 critics are so exclusively in love ; and had they been gun-case- 
 mates^ well arranged and well constructed, it is likely that the 
 comparative security would have been about the same. 
 
 But let us contrast this imposing account of the works, and the 
 somewhat terrific exposition of the result, with the actual facts.* 
 
 Dahlgren, drawing his information from " official accounts by 
 English and French Admirals," describes the works and their lo- 
 cation as follows : 
 
 " The Boug and the Dnieper issue into a large basin, formed 
 partly by the projection of the main shore, partly by a long nar- 
 row strip of sand beach, which continues from it and takes a 
 northwesterly direction, until it passes the promontory of Otcha- 
 kov, where it terminates, and from which it is separated by the 
 channel whereby the waters of the estuary empty into the Black 
 Sea. 
 
 *• The distance between the spit or extremity of this tongue 
 and the Point of Otchakov, or the main shore opposite, is about 
 two miles ; but the water is too shoal to admit of the passage of 
 large vessels of war, except in the narrow channel that runs 
 nearest to the spit and its northern shore. Here, therefore, are 
 placed the works designed to command the entrance. They are 
 three in number. Near the extreme point of the spit is a covered 
 battery, built of logs, which are filled in and overlaid with sand, 
 pierced for eighteen guns, but mounting only ten. 
 
 " Advancing further along the beach is a circular redoubt, 
 connected with the spit battery by a covered way. This work, 
 built* of stone, and reveted with turf, is open, and said to be the 
 most substantial of the three ; it has eleven cannon, and within 
 is a furnace for heating shot. 
 
 " Further on, and where the beach has widened considerably, 
 is Fort Kinburn, a square, bastioned work, extending to the sea 
 on the south, and to the w^aters of the estuary on the north. It 
 is casemated in part, though but few of these embrasures were 
 armed — its chief force being in the pieces en barbette and some 
 nine or ten mortars. The masonry, though solid, is represented 
 by an eye-witness not to be bomb-proof, and so dilapidated by 
 
 *The author of Chambers' Pictorial History of the Russian war, says of Kinburn : *' The 
 fort at that place had been so little attended to by the Eussians, that an English lieuten- 
 ant had some time previously oflfered to seize and blow it up if he had three hundred men 
 to aid him; but when the Russians saw the English steamers cruising about, they began to 
 strengthen the fort and augment the garrison," &c. 
 
No. 58.] 27 
 
 age that the mortar was falling out from the interstices, leaving 
 the stone to disintegrate. The interior space was occupied bv 
 ranges of wooden buildings, slightly constructed, and plastered 
 over. 
 
 " This fort is said to be armed with sixty pieces. The English 
 admiral states that all three of the works mounted eighty-one 
 guns and mortars. The calibres are not given officially, but sta- 
 ted in private letters to be 18-pounders and 32-pounders." 
 
 The above description will, I think, quite justify the further 
 remark as to these works : 
 
 " Thej were inferior in every respect, and manifestly incapa- 
 ble of withstanding any serious operation by sea or land. The 
 main fort was particularly weak in design, and dilapidated ; all 
 of them were indifferently armed and garrisoned." 
 
 So much for the works. As to the character of the armament* 
 brought to the assault, the same authority says : 
 
 " The Allied force was admirably adapted to the operation, 
 embracing every description of vessel, from the largest to the 
 smallest, and all propelled by steam. They were screw-liners, 
 and like vessels of inferior class, side-wheel steamers, screw gun- 
 boats, floating-batteries, mortar-vessels, &c., each armed in what 
 was considered the most approved manner.'' And this truly for- 
 midable naval force carried besides " some thousand troops" on 
 board, all (Resigned to attack these " dilapidated" works of Kin- 
 burn. 
 
 Without going into the particulars, I will simply give Dahl- 
 gren's account of the affair : 
 
 " The French floating-batteries {Devastation^ Lave and Ton- 
 nante steamed in to make their first essay, anchoring some six or 
 seven hundred yards off the S. E. bastion of Fort Kinburn, and 
 at 9.20 opened fire, supported by the mortar-vessels, of which 
 six were English, by the gunboats, five French and six English, 
 and by the steamer Odin, 16." 
 
 " The heavy metal of the floating batteries (said to be twelve 
 50-pounders on the broadside of each) soon told on the walls of 
 the fort; and the vertical fire was so good that the French 
 
 *I find no detailed statement of the total number of vessels, ^uns, troops, <fec.,of the 
 Allied force. The " Pictorial History" gives the following as the English quota, viz. : " 6 
 steam line-of-battle ships, 17 steam frigates and sloops, 10 gun-boats, 6 mortar-vessels, 3 
 steam-tenders, 10 transports — making 52 vessels, carrying in all about 1,500 guns, and 
 5,000 troops of all kinds." 
 
 The French force is not stated ; but there were 4 ships of the line, a number of steam- 
 vessels and gun-boats, besides the 3 famous floating-batteries (here first employed), and a 
 considerable body of troops. The troops of both nations were landed previous to the naval 
 attack, and the place invested by land. 
 
v28 ^ [Assembly 
 
 admiral attributed to it, in great part, the speedy surrender of 
 the place. The gun-boats also made good ricochet practice, 
 which was noticed to be severe on the barbette batteries." 
 
 " The Russian gunners, in nowise daunted by this varied fire, 
 plied their guns rapidly in return, directing their attention 
 chiefly to the floating-batteries, which were nearest. 
 
 " Exactly at noon, the admirals steamed in with the Royal 
 Albert, 121, Algiers, 91, Agamemnon, 90, and Princess Royal, 
 90, with the four French liners in close order, taking position in 
 line, ranging N. W. and S. E., about one mile from the fort, in 
 twenty-eight feet water/' 
 
 "At the same time, a squadron of steam frigates,* under Rear- 
 Admirals Stewart and Pellion, dashed in through the passage to 
 the basin, opening fire on the spit and central batteries in pass- 
 ing, and anchoring well inside of Fort Nicholaiev and Otchakov. 
 The attack seaward was completed by the Acre, 100, Cura^oa 
 $0, Tribune, 30, and Spkynx, 6, opening on the central battery ; 
 while the Hannibal, 91, Dauntless, 24, and Terrible, 21, assailed 
 that on the spit. To this storm of shot and shells, the Russians 
 could not reply long. In the spit battery, the sand falling 
 through between the logs, displaced by shot and shells, choked 
 the embrasures, and blocked up the guns. In the fort, the light 
 wooden buildings were in flames at an early hour j then the walls 
 began to crumble before the balls which came from every quar- 
 ter, front, flank and rear ; and as the guns were disabled suc- 
 cessively, the return became feeble, until few were in condition 
 to be fired, the central redoubt alone discharging single guns at 
 long intervals. The Russian commander, however, made no sign 
 of surrender ; but the admirals, seeing that his fire had ceased, 
 and further defence was unavailing, hoisted the white flag at 
 1.35 F. M., upon which the works were given up on honorable 
 terms." 
 
 " The garrison consisted of about fourteen hundred men ; their 
 loBS is differently stated, — the French admiral says eighty 
 wounded, — another, forty-three killed and one hundred and 
 fourteen wounded." 
 
 *' The English suffered the least, having but two men wounded, 
 besides two killed and two wounded in the Arrow, by the burst- 
 ing of her two 68-pounder Lancaster guns." 
 
 * Valorous, 16, Furious, 16, Sidon, 22, Leopard, 12, Gladiator, 4, Firebrand, 6, Strom- 
 holi, 6, Spiteful, 6, Asmodee, Cacique and Sane. 
 
I 
 
 No. 58.] 29 
 
 *' The superiority of the Allied vessels in number and calibro 
 of ordnance was very decided ; they must have had at least six 
 hundred and fifty pieces in play, chiefly 32-pounders, and 8-inch 
 shell guns, with a fair proportion of 68-pounders and mortars, 
 besides the 50-pounders of the French floating-batteries. To 
 which the Russians could only reply with eighty-one cannon 
 and mortars, and no guns of heavier calibre than 32-pounders, 
 while many were lower. The great disparity in offensive power 
 was not compensated to the works by the advantage of com- 
 manding position, the Russian fort and redoubt being upon 
 nearly the same level with the ships' batteries, and also very 
 deficient in proper strength. On the other hand, the depth of 
 water did not allow the liners to approach nearer than one mile ; 
 and thus their fire was by no means so intense as it would have 
 been at shorter range." 
 
 " This was the sole occasion in which the floating-batteries had 
 an opportunity of proving their endurance ; which was the ques- 
 tion of most importance, as no one could doubt the efiect of long 
 50-pounders, or 68-pounders, when brought within a few hun- 
 dred yards of masonry, and able to retain the steadiness indis- 
 pensable to a breaching fire." 
 
 "No siege operation had ever embraced batteries of such 
 power,' for though the English had employed long 68-pounders at 
 Sevastopolj^et the distance from the objects exceeded a thousand 
 yards ; and the concentration of fire, so far as any opinion can 
 be formed from the published statements, was far inferior to 
 that of the thirty-sis: 50-pounders, in the broadsides of the three 
 batteries anchored in close order." 
 
 " They were hulled repeatedly by shot ; one of them (the 
 Devastation), it is said, sixty-seven times, without any other 
 efiect on the stout iron plates than to dint them, at the most, one 
 and a half inches, — still, there were ten men killed and wounded 
 in this battery by shot and shell which entered the ports, — and 
 the majority of damage to the French personel (twenty-seven 
 men) occurred in the three floating-batteries." 
 
 The affair proves nothing, unless it be that " dilapidated " and 
 ill-designed and ill-constructed works, armed w^ith inferior cali- 
 bres, cannot contend against such an overwhelming array of 
 force as was here displayed. But the failure to derive from it 
 any conclusion against " masonry-casemated" works, or "castles," 
 is the more signal, owing to the very important fact that it was 
 
30: [Assembly 
 
 mainly a contest of "open" or "barbette" batteries, whose 
 superiority over casemated ones has been so much insisted on. 
 
 In this account we hear nothing of " practicable breaches," 
 though doubtless thirty- six 50-pounders, at 500 yards, would 
 "tell" on the walls of such a fort. Yet, as the "vertical fire 
 was so good that the French admiral attributed to it, in good 
 part, the speedy surrender of the place," while the "ricochet 
 practice," from the gun-boats, was "severe" upon these open 
 batteries — while the " edifices " behind them ( old wooden build- 
 ings, " slightly constructed and plastered over") were in a blaze, 
 which must have made, by heat and smoke, the service of the 
 guns almost impracticable — there is no difiiculty in accounting 
 for the result of the contest. 
 
 Whether or not a "practicable breach" was made, is of little 
 consequence, in such a case ; but, turned upside down as (accord- 
 ing to Grivel) the defences were, with the garrison nearly buried 
 in the "ruins," it appears there were only 157 (out of 1,400) 
 killed and wounded — a very small loss, under all the circum- 
 stances. 
 
 The fact is, that these "open batteries " were "turned upside 
 down" — the guns disabled and dismounted, by the deluge of 
 direct, vertical and ricochet fire poured upon them — as in all 
 "open batteries," in such situations, ever will happen* 
 
 I have given much space to this affair of Kinburn, for Grivel 
 parades it as a fair illustration of what " floating batteries, com- 
 bined with bomb-vessels, gun-boats, &c.," can do against " ma- 
 sonry-casemated " works. I have shown how* inaccurate (by 
 comparison with the official accounts) is Grivel's version of the 
 ajffair ; and I have further shown, that no conclusion whatever can 
 be drawn from this contest of insignificant works, armed with low 
 calibres, against such overwhelming means of attack as were here 
 arrayed ; unless, indeed, it be this (a fact before well known), 
 that for low sites, open batteries are the most inefficient of all. The 
 
 * According to the "Pictorial History," the Russian artillerymen at these **open bat- 
 teries" were exposed besides to the fire of sharpshooters. It says " Bazaine," (the Gen- 
 eral commanding the French troops) " placed two companies of chasseurs under cover, 
 at a distance of 400 yards from the east side of the fort, and kept up a fusilade on the 
 Russian artillerymen." 
 
 As to the armament, the same author says, — "The captors found nearly 80 guns 
 mounted in the fort and batteries, mostly long and heavy 18 and 24 pounders; but there 
 were many others ready for mounting, platforms to support them, and newly constructed 
 casemates, raising the total of guns to 174." 
 
 Notwithstanding that the fort was (according to Grivel) capsized" (chavire) and the 
 garrison nearly buried in the "ruins," it does not appear that they were fully sensible of 
 their condition. The " Pictorial History" says, — "The officers in general bore the scene" \ 
 (the surrender) "with dignity, but with deep mortification; and many of them were said 
 to be on the verge of mutiny against the governor, so strongly did they resist any proposals 
 for a surrender." 
 
No. 58.] 
 
 31 
 
 fort of Kinburn surrendered, not because it was breached, not 
 because its defenders were so far diminished by their losses as to 
 be unable to protract the contest, but simply because the guns 
 and gunners, exposed in all possible ways, were put hors-de-com- 
 bat, and the calibres were incapable of doing any great damage 
 to the vessels, at the distance they were stationed. 
 
 With regard to the effect and endurance of the much-vaunted 
 Jlcaing-batteries, Commander Dahlgren very judiciously remarks : 
 
 *' The use that can be made of floating-batteries, as auxiliaries 
 in attacking shore-works, must depend on further confirmation 
 of their asserted invulnerability. It may be that the perform- 
 ance at Kinburn answered the expectation of the French empe- 
 ror as regards offensive power, for that is a mere question of the 
 battering capacity of the heaviest calibres, which is undoubted ; 
 but the main issue, which concerns their endurance, cannot be 
 settled by the impact of 32-pounder shot, fired at 600 and 7 00 yards. 
 Far heavier projectiles will in future be found on all sea-board 
 fortifications ; and the ingenuity of the artillerist may also be 
 exerted more successfully than at Kinburn. Still, it is not to be 
 doubted that the floating-battery is a formidable element in 
 assailing forts, even if its endurance falls short of absolute invul- 
 nerability ; and the defence will do well to provide against its 
 employment." 
 
 Experiments in England have shown, that such vessels, pro- 
 tected by wrought 'iron plates 4 J inches thick, were incapable of 
 resisting a solid 68-pounder shot at 400 yards.* Such shot, and even 
 greater, they will certainly have to resist, if they are to contend 
 with the modern armament of our fortifications. Grivel sagely 
 cautions them to take position at such a distance that they cannot 
 be penetrated. The only possibility, however, of breaching a 
 well-constructed masonry revetment consists in placing the bat- 
 tery at very short distance. The difficulty of breaching increases 
 enormously, even in land batteries, with increase of distance ; far 
 more in floating-batteries, owing to the unavoidable motion of the 
 vessel, which, at considerable distances, scatters the projectiles 
 far and wide.f 
 
 * *'The target was an immense construction of timber and iron, combined exactly, like 
 tbe sides of the batteries ; iron 4 in. thick. Twenty-four rounds of GS-poundres were fired, 
 the first 14 of which, at 600 yards ; and after the first few rounds, the timber gave way in* 
 all directions. The last 10 rounds, at 400, and the work of destruction was complete. The 
 last shot fired went completely through the target, timber and iron included." (CiTil Engi- 
 neer and Architect's Journal, Jan. 1858. 
 
 t The idea that a, floating structure can be made shot-proof, whilo the walls of a fort can- 
 not be, is so transparently absurd as scarcely to require refutation. All that will be main- 
 tained, probably, will be, that in general the latter are not shot proof. I shall allude to 
 this subject again. 
 
32 
 
 [Assemble? 
 
 The works at Bomarsund were taken by means of land bat- 
 terieSf which breached the exposed walls of the towers and main 
 work. 
 
 There is no more stringent rule of fortification than that 
 which demands that all masonry shall be covered (by earth works 
 or otherwise) from the action of land batteries, where the circum- 
 stances of the location render their use practicable. The Russians 
 disregarded this rule in the arrangement of their works at Bomar- 
 sund, and to that disregard owed the prompt reduction of the 
 place. The masonry was faced with large blocks of granite, of 
 very irregular shape, backed by rubble. I doubt very much 
 whether Lieutenant Morton's assertion is tenable, that it is cer- 
 tain that the scarp of our sea-coast works are no stronger^than 
 those of Bomarsund. 
 
 Concerning the action of the land batteries, Sir Howard 
 Douglas says : " Authentic information, for the accuracy of which 
 the author vouches, enables him to state that, with respect to 
 the effect of solid shot on the granite, with which the walls were 
 faced, the French guns made no impression on the blocks when 
 they struck perpendicularly in the middle of their faces ; nor 
 did the shot fired from the powerful 32-pounder British guns 
 split the granite when so struck ; but, when the blocks were hit 
 by the latter near the edge, or on a joint of the masonry, they 
 were displaced, the joints penetrated, the wall shaken ; and this 
 not being backed with solid masonry, but filled in with rubble, 
 the mass was thrown down, and a practicable breach formed. 
 This successful operation is very generally, but erroneously, 
 stated to have been effected by the fire of the ships, and is even 
 strongly held up as a proof of what ships can do, and ought to 
 attempt elsewhere." 
 
 The large joints which the rubble facing Of Bomarsund offered, 
 facilitated greatly the action of batteries. Such joints are not 
 found in our scarps, exposed to vessels' fire ; nor, in general, are 
 such walls (where casemated and pierced for guns) " backed with 
 concrete." 
 
 But the experimental practice of the " Edinburgh," upon the 
 walls of Bomarsund (after the capture), deserves to be recorded ; 
 for here, if ever, with all the means, and no hostile shot to en- 
 counter, a ship's batteries might be expected to breach " granite 
 
 * See Appendix "A." 
 
No. 58.] 
 
 33 
 
 walls." The " Edinburgh " had, in this case, all the essential qua- 
 lities of a floating battery, viz. : the largest and most powerful 
 guns in the British navy : shot-proof sides would not have added 
 to her offensive powers. 
 
 I give Sir Howard Douglas^ own words: — ''But the results of 
 the experimental firing at the remnant of the fort, which, unless 
 the previous firing of the ships during the attack was absolutely 
 harmless, must have been somewhat damaged, and moreover 
 shaken by the blowing-up of the contiguous portions, do not war- 
 rant this conclusion, even should the attacking ships be per- 
 mitted, like the 'Edinburgh,' to take up, quietly and coolly, posi- 
 tions within 500 yards, and then deliberately commence and 
 continue their firing, without being fired at! The firing of the 
 ' Edinburgh,' at 1,060 yards, was unsatisfactory. 390 shot and 
 shells were fired, from the largest and most powerful guns in the 
 British navy (viz. : from the Lancaster gun of 95 cwt., with an 
 elongated shell of 100 lbs; from 68-pounders of 95 cwt., and 
 32-pounders of 56 cwt., solid shot guns ; from 10-inch shell guns 
 of 84 cwt., with hollow shot of 84 lbs. ; from 8-inch shell guns 
 of 65 and 60 cwt., with hollow shot of 56 lbs.), did but little 
 injury to the w^ork. At 480 yards, 250 shot, shell, and hollow 
 shot were fired. A small breach was formed in the facing of the 
 outer wall, of extremely bad masonry, and considerable damage 
 done to the ^mbrasures and other portions of the wall ; but no 
 decisive result was obtained, no practicable breach formed, by 
 which the work might be assaulted, taken, and effectually des- 
 troyed, although 640 shot and shells (40,000 lbs. of metal) were 
 fired into the place, first at 1,060, and then at 480 yards." 
 
 Truly, if floating batteries can do no better than this when 
 they have it " all their own way," I think we need not be in very 
 great apprehension for (even) our " isolated forts," which Grivel 
 seems to think (and Lieutenant Morton quotes his opinion) 
 "cannot long resist an attack properly conducted, however solidly 
 constructed they may 6e." (The italics are mine.) 
 
 The harbor defences of Sabastapol were very fair specimens 
 of Russian " masonry-casemated " works, and are types of the 
 same class of works built in this country ; though the material 
 of which they were built w^as very inferior, and they we're in 
 many ve7'y important details (as I shall show hereafter), particu- 
 larly embrasures, vastly inferior to our oldest specimens, and not 
 
 [Assem. No. 58.] 5 
 
34 
 
 [Assembly 
 
 to be compared at all with those built by us in the last few years. 
 The ''Naval Cannonade" of these works on the l7th of October, 
 1854, might be expected to throw some light upon the relative 
 powers and liabilities to injury of the two characters of arma- 
 ments here opposed. But such is not the case. The Russian 
 works were not armed with the powerful seacoast guns now 
 deemed essential ; and on the other hand, the allied fleet was 
 nothing hut a fleet — i. e., it was not provided with those special 
 means of attack (gun-boats, mortar-vessels, floating-batteries, &c.) 
 which will always hereafter he provided for such attacks. It was, 
 therefore, an old-fashioned affair^ and might rather be set down 
 as the last attempt to array ships of-the-line and ordinary vessels-of- 
 war against fortifications. This question has long been practically 
 (though not confessedly, perhaps) settled. It was settled before 
 our Mexican war, when for near a whole year our fleets threaten- 
 ed San Juan de UUoa, yet never ventured to measure their 
 strength with it, notwithstanding they had the precedent of the 
 quite recent, much-vaunted French triumph over this very work*. 
 It was practically settled throughout this whole European war^ 
 in which the powerful allied fleets (the most powerful naval 
 armaments the world had ever seen) threatened, in turn, all the 
 strongholds of Russia on the Baltic ; and, notwithstanding^ that 
 public opinion at home, and naval pride in the fleet, demanded 
 some exploit which should be commensurate with the immense 
 preparations made, retired abashed, and confounded, before the 
 
 masonry-casemated castles,'^ whose " crockery " walls did not, 
 after all, seem to invite a close contact, or " hard knocks and 
 which so proudly fulfilled their mission in protecting, throughout 
 that war, the military and naval depots, the wealth, the com- 
 merce, and the national honor of Russia. 
 
 Sweaborg, indeed, sufiered ; but it was from a distant bom- 
 bardment, which left her fortifications and her harbors intact, 
 and only showed the necessity of protecting at greater distance, 
 all great depots^ or great cities. 
 
 Bomarsund- — alas for Bomarsund! or rather for the prestige 
 of the mighty naval armament which would have assaulted it. 
 07ie single " masonry-casemated castle bid defiance to this: 
 proud armament, whose chiefs, concluding wisely that " discre- 
 
 ♦ It is worthy of remark in this place, that this **casemated castle " (like very many 
 of the Russian batteries of the same character) had nothing but casemate guns. There was 
 not (as is invariably the case with our own works) an open battery " (barbette) on the 
 top ; the upper tier of arches being simply made bomb-proof by earth, and roofed over. 
 
No. 58.] 
 
 35 
 
 tion was the better part of valor," sent home for 10,000 French 
 troops, who, with a few 16 and 32-pounder guns in land-batteries, 
 speedily reduced the work. 
 
 The Naval Cannonade " at Sebastopol was a mere '^simulacre^^ 
 of an operation, of which the inutility was felt, and from which 
 no other results were expected than a diversion of the attention 
 and strength of the garrison from the land side, where a real 
 struggle for predominance was going on between the artillery 
 fires of beseiged and besiegers. 
 
 The allied fleet consisted of 14 French, 10 British and 2 Turk- 
 ish ships-of-the-line (some few of which had auxiliary steam 
 power), and a number of side- wheel steamers to tow these ; and 
 carried in all about 2,500 guns. It was opposed by about 280 
 guns from the works. The fleet kept itself (in general) at a 
 respectable distance (from 1,500 to 2,000 yards) ; too far to inflict 
 any material injury with its armament (32-pounders, with a 
 moderate proportion of 8-inch shell guns) upon the works ; — too 
 far to receive much from the inefficient armament of the Russian 
 works. 
 
 The only exception to this remark applies to the detached 
 English squadron under Sir Edmund Lyons, consisting of the 
 "Agamemnon," Sanspareil," London," *'Arethusa," and *'A1- 
 bion," the first named of which vessels took a position at 750 or 
 800 yards from Fort Constantino, while the others stretched 
 along, at abfcut the same distance from Fort Constantino, the 
 Wasp Tower " and " Telegraph Battery." Dahlgren describes 
 the result as follows : 
 
 " The Agamemnon was very seriously maltreated, though not 
 to such an extent as to impair her power of battery or engine. 
 She was on fire several times ; was struck by 240 shot or shells ; 
 and, singular to say, only lost 29, while her second, just by, lost 
 10 men. The Albion sufi'ered still more, and in an hour was 
 towed out, crippled, and on fire in more than one place, with a 
 loss of 81 men. The crews of the London and Arethusa fared 
 rather better, but the ships nearly as ill ; and they, too, remained 
 in station but a little time after the Albion. The Queen was 
 driven off soon after she got into her new position, in great 
 danger; and the Rodney had the bare satisfaction of getting 
 aground and afloat after experiencing some damage." 
 
 " The valtle of the small works on the cape and blufi's was 
 clearly defined in these results ; being above the dense cloud of 
 
36 
 
 [Assembly 
 
 smoke that enveloped the ships and the lower fo; Ls, their aim 
 was not embarrassed, while the seamen labored under the diffi- 
 culty of firing, with an inconvenient elevation, at objects that 
 they saw but seldom, and then but dimly and briefly. As a 
 consequence, three line-of-battle ships and a frigate were driven 
 off very shortly and in great peril, and a fourth badly cut up ; 
 while the Agamemnon lay opposed to one of the heaviest sea- 
 forts with two tiers of casemates, and at the end of five hours 
 came off with comparatively little loss.'' 
 
 Whatever superiority of effect the batteries on the heights 
 may have had (and we have so few details about these works 
 that we can draw^ no sure conclusion from this mere naked state- 
 ment of damages received by the vessels, it evidently was not 
 for want of being hit often enough (smoke or no smoke), that 
 the "Agamemnon" escaped with so little injury. She "was 
 struck by 240 shot and shells;" and it is only due to the ineffi- 
 ciency of the projectiles by which she was struck, that she was 
 not destroyed. 
 
 With respect to the damages received by Fort Constantine, I 
 quote again from Dahlgren, at length : 
 
 " The distance of the Agamemnon and Sanspareil from Fort 
 Constantine (l7th October, 1854) was assumed to be about 800 
 yards ; Lord Raglan states it to have been rather less. These 
 two ships could bring to bear about 8l guns, and the firing from 
 them probably lasted some four hours. There can be no doubt 
 that it inflicted much damage, for the Russian commander-iur 
 chief admits it in his official report ; but not sufficient to impair 
 the strength of the masonry, and far short of effecting a breach 
 in it." 
 
 "At Bomarsund, the results were rather different: — Three 
 32.pounders of 42 cwt. (guns of inferior weight), were landed from 
 a ship's spar deck, and placed in battery at 950 yards from the 
 North Tower — the masonry of good quality and 6 J feet thick. 
 Ill eight hours, the wall between two embrasures was cut 
 through from top to bottom, offering a practicable breach, to 
 effect which 48t shot and 45 shells were fired,* being at the rate 
 of one round from the battery in rather less than a minute ; or, 
 from each gun, one in 2|- minutes. The Tower surrendered." 
 
 "It seems almost incredible that three pieces should be able 
 to accomplish fully that which eighty-seven pieces tftterly failed 
 
 * Report of General Neil, Commanding Engineers. 
 
No. 58.] Si 
 
 to do, the distances from the object being alike — particularly 
 when it is considered that many of the latter were of greater 
 calibre, and most of them employed much heavier charges where 
 the calibres were similar. The guns of the ship, if fired at the 
 same rate as those of the battery, which was not unusually rapid, 
 (one round in two and three-fourth minutes), would have dis- 
 charged some seven thousand seven hunered shot and shells in 
 the course of the four-hours, supposing no interruption : a num- 
 ber of which, if properly applied, would appear, from the results 
 of three guns, to have been sufficient to breach the wall of the 
 fort in fourteen places ; whereas they did not effect a single 
 breach, which is abundant proof of the lack of accuracy. They 
 must either have been dispersed over the surface of the fort, or 
 else missed it altogether, and this could have been due only to a 
 want of the precision which was attained by the battery. The 
 constantly preferred complaint of motion in the ships A^as not to 
 be urged, because on the day of cannonading Sebastopol there 
 was scarcely a breath of wind, and the ships were too large to 
 be easily moved by the swell, unless very considerable. That 
 the fort did no greater damage to the ships than it received from 
 them, proves no more than that its fire was quite as illy directed, 
 and the calibres too low. It is said that the Agamemnon was 
 struck in the hull by two hundred and forty shot and shells, 
 which must have been but a small portion of what was fired, 
 though suflBcient to be decisive, if, as already observed, the 
 calibre had been heavier." 
 
 A number of projectiles sufficient to produce fourteen "prac- 
 ticable breaches " if thrown by a land battery, here failed, not 
 only to produce a single breach, but even "to impair the strength 
 of the masonry." 
 
 Commander Dahlgren, indeed, deprecates the " want of pre- 
 cision but that degree of precision by which a breach is efi'ected 
 by a land battery, is utterly unattainable from a floating struc- 
 ture, and the perfect calm which prevailed on this occasion can- 
 not be counted on, in general, and even the swell in tbe calmest 
 days is quite sufficient to disperse the projectiles from a floating 
 battery, at four hundred and five hundred yards, far and wide.* 
 
 ♦Commander Dahlgren commends the "Nelsonian vigor" of this spirited and bril- 
 liant episode enacted by the detached squadron." With all deferences to so competent a 
 judge, I cannot help remarking that if there was "Nelsonian vigor," there was no ''Nel- 
 sonian" result. The trifling damage done to the fort was a poor compensation for the loss 
 of over two hundred men, and the serious injuries all the vessels of this detached squad- 
 ron received. 
 
[Assembly 
 
 I hav^ said that, as to the contest of ordinary navil means, or 
 fleets with fortifications, the question has, long since, been prac- 
 tically settled. 
 
 The following extract from Grivel will show how the matter is 
 regarded even by those who believe that fortifications 7nay be 
 successfully attacked by naval means specially adapted to the 
 objects. 
 
 " If the coast defences are at the same level, or can be com- 
 manded by the floating artillery ; if the depth of water permits 
 to combat them separately and to approach at half-point-blank 
 distance, (that is 300 or 400 metres.) we would still say to the 
 ships, however well armed we suppose them : Never attack with- 
 out an imperious and absolute necessity." 
 
 But if these works occupy positions which command the sea 
 while they reciprocally sustain each other ; if sub-marine obsta- 
 cles, or other causes, oblige the floating artillery to maintain a 
 greater distance, we do not hesitate to say to ships : 
 
 "Keep off, the match is too unequal, but bring up your siege 
 floating-batteries." 
 
 " For then will be the time to substitute these formidable ma- 
 chines of war, and their artillery of great penetration, for the 
 vulnerable sides and guns of less .range of ordinary vessels." 
 Even in the most favorable case he can describe, he says to 
 ships : " Attack not without an imperious and absolute necessity." 
 
 The question of direct contest for superiority between forts 
 and naval armaments will be narrowed down to this : If forts 
 are to protect the channel (as they usually are) through which a 
 fleet must pass to reach our ports or cities, or naval and military 
 depots, the fleet will either run by, or, if the works are too for- 
 midable, decline contest altogether : but, if the object of attack is 
 sufficient to justify the preparation — {the great port and city of J\*ew 
 York for instance) and the defences are such as to invite the ef- 
 fort, the maritime enemy will provide these " formidable machines 
 of war," and enter into a direct contest with them, with a view to 
 their reduction. 
 
 I am now considering the latter branch of this subject, and 
 think that I have made it clear that so far as we have yet any 
 experience, there is nothing to justify the apprehension that the 
 masonry scarps of casemated batteries can be destroyed by the 
 cannonade of floating-batteries. Of course, if such vessels are 
 permitted, unopposed by the guns of the battery itself, to take 
 
No. 58.] 
 
 39 
 
 their own time, and to expend unlimited quantities of projectiles, 
 they doubtless can batter down any wall. So far as yet tested by 
 experience, their bulwarks are not proof against eight-inch and 
 ten-inch solid shot at 400 yards. If proof against such projectiles 
 at 800 or 1,000 yards,* it is a well-known fact in breaching, that 
 the number of projectiles necessary, even from a land battery, in- 
 creases enormously with increase of distance. How much more 
 from a floating structure^ which cannot maintain any such concen- 
 tration of fire, at such a distance, as is necessary to cause serious 
 injury to well-constructed walls ! Those, however, who believe 
 in such operations, will probably contend that nothing analogous 
 to producing a " breach" is necessary, but that embrasures will 
 be destroyed, and guns dismounted, and gunners disabled by em- 
 brasure shots and splinters from the masonry cheeks, or by frag- 
 ments of broken projectiles. 
 
 This subject has not been overlooked by the corps whose duty 
 it is to make such constructions. A series of experiments was 
 commenced five years ago at West Point by General Totten, 
 Chief Engineer, and taken up again in 1855, for this very purpose 
 of determining the best kind of embrasure, and the necessary 
 thickness of the scarp, to resist these modern projectiles. The 
 results have been published f and are open to the examination of 
 every one. They may be briefly summed up in the following 
 quotations : 
 
 '* A thic^iness there of five feet has been assumed in our con- 
 structions, and satisfies all these conditions well." (Alluding to 
 the interior arrangement of the casemate with reference to the 
 handling of the gun, &c., &c.) "But it has been a question of 
 interest, increasing with the growing calibre of naval armaments, 
 whether this thickness is now sufiicient. And it was in conse- 
 quence thereof that some very severe firing was directed against 
 our second target. The gun was a ten-inch Columbiad, placed 
 within 114 yards, firing solid balls, weighing 128 pounds, with a 
 charge of 18 pounds of powder. 
 
 " The general conclusion from these trials is, that whether of 
 
 * I think it somewhat discreditable to the inventive resources of those whose duty it is to 
 construct and perfect artillery, that this question of a v«:hot-proof vessel should be an open 
 one. The quantity (and therefore the thickness) of the iron sheathing is limited for the 
 floating-battery. I know no necessary limit to the calibre or weight of the projectile used 
 against it, or why we should now stop at ten-inches, when the navy has already successful- 
 ly introduced an eleven-inch gun capable of throwing a solid shot. The eleven-inch shot 
 weighs g more than the ten-inch. I shall allude to this subject of large calibres for sea- 
 coast batteries in another placb. See Appendix "D." 
 
 t Casemate Embrasures, Totten," being No. 6 of Papers of Practical Engineering," 
 published by the Engineer Department. 
 
40 
 
 [Assembly 
 
 cement concrete, of bricks, or of hard stones, the pjrtion of the 
 wall at and around each embrasure, having the thickness of five 
 feet only, should be no larger than is indispensable for the 
 adaptation of the gun and carriage to the embrasure ; if restricted 
 to a small area this thickness will suffice — not otherwise. 
 
 " The thickness of five feet will resist a number of these balls, 
 impinging in succession on that space, provided the bond expand 
 promptly, above, below, and on each side, into a thickness great- 
 er by some 2 J feet, or 3 feet, or m.ore. Were the wall no thick- 
 er generally than five feet, being reinforced only by piers some 15 
 feet apart, it would soon be seriously damaged by battering at 
 short distances with such calibres. 
 
 " To repeat : the scarp at the embrasure may be safely made 
 of the thickness of five feet, provided the thickness immediately 
 above, below, and on the sides, be increased considerably. The 
 space required to be of about this thickness to accommodate ad- 
 vantageously the gun and carriage, is so small that it may be 
 said to be part of the thicker surrounding mass by which it 
 really is supported in its resistance." 
 
 And with regard to the embrasure, it is stated : 
 
 " Our experiments show that wrought-iron is the best material 
 for insertion as above mentioned ; and that a thickness of 
 wrought iron of eight-inches, solidly backed with masonry, will 
 resist an eight-inch solid ball fired with 10| pounds of powder 
 from a distance of 200 yards. It is necessary, as is also shown 
 by the firings, that the plates of iron should have considerable 
 breadth to prevent heavy balls from forcing themselves in be- 
 tween the inner edge and the masonry, thereby crowding the 
 plate edgewise into the throat." 
 
 From these results an embrasure has been devised by the Chief 
 Engineer, and sanctioned by the War Department, having 
 wrought-iron throat-plates 8 inches thick (capable of resisting 
 the impact of an 8-inch solid shot from 200 yards distance), and 
 the whole surrounding structure of granite-blocks, of large di- 
 mensions, bonded together, and into the adjacent thick parts of 
 the wall, in the strongest manner that such a structure can be 
 made. Those who deny the capability of such a construction to 
 resist sufficiently the projectiles of an hostile armament, should, 
 at least, 'prove that their incredulity is justifiable, by experiments 
 as elaborate as those I have referred to. 
 
 But the discussion is cut short at once by the following para- 
 graph from the report : 
 
No. 58.] 
 
 41 
 
 Were it not for the vastly greater cost, the whole scarp 
 might be faced with iron — indeed might be made of iron only ; 
 but, until there shall be much stronger reasons than now exist, 
 or are now anticipated, for believing that well-constructed ma- 
 sonry batteries may be breached by naval broadsides, the cheap- 
 er construction may be safely followed — especially as, should 
 such a necessity ever arise, they may be externally plated with 
 iron." 
 
 If the necessity arises — if there shall hereafter be " stronger 
 reasons than now exist, or are now anticipated,'' for giving still 
 greater strength to the surrounding wall — the alternative is open 
 to us, as to those who construct the floating-battery, {without the 
 objection of weight, so very difficult to overcome in that struc- 
 ture), to coat it (about the embrasures, or further, if necessary) 
 with iron plates. 
 
 Those who are curious on the subject of " Embrasures," and of 
 the risks to which the gunners behind them are exposed, would 
 do well to examine the work referred to. 
 
 They will find, among other things, that while some of the 
 modem European works present an exterior ope. ing of 54 square 
 feet (in which area, owing to the flaring cheeks, nearly all the 
 small projectiles are reflected through the throat, while large 
 ones are broken and their fragments hurled within), no embrasure 
 has been constructed in the United States since 1815 having an 
 exterior oj>3ning exceeding 10 or 11 square feet; and that the 
 model embrasure of 1855 practically reduces the opening to that 
 of the throat, which is hut square feet — an object not much 
 larger than the muzzle of a large gun. The security of the gun- 
 ners behind this embrasure is as great, probably, as it is practi- 
 cable to give anywhere;"^ it is probably greater than in an open 
 barbette battery. 
 
 The question of the capacity — actual and possible — of ma- 
 sonry -casemated castles" to resist the fire of a hostile armament, 
 need not be pursued further. When we bear in mind that the 
 hostile " floating batteries," of whatever description, will them- 
 selves be exposed to the most formidable projectiles that can be 
 
 * A simple expedient, advocated by one of our officers, and partially practiced in Eu- 
 rope, to raise the embrasure so that all embrasure shot would pass over the heads of the 
 gunners (as in the barbette battery), would, in a great degree, do away with the danger of 
 the " embrasure shot" of all kinds, and with the necessity of grape -proof *• shutters," ap- 
 plied to the new embrasure . 
 
 [Assem. No. 58.] 
 
 6 
 
42 
 
 [Assembly 
 
 thrown from shore batteries — that when they choose to come to 
 ^' close quarters" to attempt to breach, their " embrasures'' pre- 
 sent openings (see Paper No. 6, before referred to) through which 
 deluges of grape, canister, and musket balls can be poured upon 
 the gunners;* and consider what experience has so far shown, 
 and reason has taught us, with regard to the casemate, we need 
 not be under apprehension that our casemated works will be bat- 
 tered down; nor doubt that they will, as they did in Russia, 
 answer the important purposes for which they were designed. 
 
 It only remains to show the necessity of such works. It, in 
 general, costs much less to place a gun behind an earthen para- 
 pet than to build a masonry structure covered with bomb-proof 
 arches, in which to mount it.f All authorities agree that an open 
 barbette battery (GrivePs very forcible admission has been quo- 
 ted), on a low site, and to which vessels can approach within 300 
 or 400 yards, is utterly inadmissible. It may safely be said that, 
 in nine cases out of ten, the sites which furnish the efficient raking 
 and cross fires upon the channels, are exactly of this character ; 
 and indeed it very often happens that there are no other s.\ 
 
 When such sites are found, it rarely happens that they aiford 
 room for sufficient number of guns in open batteries. § Hence the 
 necessity of putting them tier above tier, which involves, of 
 course, the casemated structure. Such works furnishing from 
 their lower tier a low, rasing fire, and (if of several tiers) a 
 plunging fire from their barbettes, ofier as favorable emplace- 
 ments for guns as can be contrived, and afford to their gunners a 
 
 * Grivel seems to think that, as to embrasure shot, the floating and land battery are on 
 equal terms; but the embrasure of the floating structure cannot be made as small as that 
 of the casemate; nor can the expedient of shutters," or of raising tae embrasures above 
 the heads of the men, be resorted to. 
 
 t The discrepancy in cost is not, however, by any means, what this naked statement 
 would make it appear. A gun behind an open parapet is exposed to being disabled or 
 spiked by a mere boat's crew taking the battery by surprise. (Some degree of defensive 
 strength is necessary in all cases; and in .sowie cases the necessary strength involves (inde- 
 pendent of other causes) the construction of a regular fortification. The open earthen bat- 
 teries of Lieutenant Morton rest on inclosed bastions of masonry, each of which is larger 
 than most of our harbor works. 
 
 X Take the case of Sebastopol, about which there are heights. None of them (Command- 
 er Dahlgren's remarks have already been quoted) furnish proper sites for defending the 
 harbor. Cronstadt offered no other sites whatever than artificial ones in, or islands almost 
 level with, the water. Our own harbors generally ofi"er the same illustration of the ab- 
 sence of favorable sites for open batteries. 
 
 § Staten Island, at the Narrows, furnishes an apt illustration. The heights here are of 
 about 120 feet. From the open batteries of Fort Tompkins, on the summit, heavy guns 
 will rake the approach, and have a plunging fire upon passing vessels. The entire face of 
 the heights (so far as the United States properly extends) is, or is to be, girdled with open 
 earth batteries at heights of 60 and 45 feet. We have here about as many guns as ca'i be 
 ranged in such batteries. But it is not deemed enough ; nor is the character of the fire 
 such as to dispense with the numerous, and close, and rasing fires to be obtained from the 
 sites at the water's edge, on which Fort Richmond is already built, and another similar 
 
 pasemated castle" is to be built. 
 
No. 58.] 
 
 43 
 
 degree of security quite as great as can be given to men thus en- 
 gaged.* 
 
 On subjects which have a mere speculative importance, there 
 is no danger in giving rein to speculation ; but on those of such 
 real and intense practical importance as the s curity against hos- 
 tile aggression of the great city and port of NcvV York, it is not 
 admissible to set aside the experience of the past, or the opin- 
 ions of the best minds who have devoted themselves to such sub- 
 jects. A means of defence, sanctioned by its being confided into 
 protect the great ports of Europe, which has protected the great 
 ports of Russia against the most formidable naval armament that 
 ever floated on the ocean, has a claim upon our confidence which 
 mere criticism cannot diminish ; and a claim to' be adhered to in 
 place of all new " systems, until time and trial shall have neces- 
 sitated (not merely justified) the change. 
 
 If, then, we refer to the practice of other nations to find what 
 has been judged necessary for the defence of important ports — to 
 experience, to find how such defensive systems have stood the test 
 of actual trial, we may draw useful conclusions with regard to 
 what is now required to defend New York. We shall find at 
 Sebastopol — a narrow harbor, which OAved its importance to its 
 being the great naval depot of Russia, on the Black seaf — an ar- 
 ray of 700 guns, about 500 of which were placed in five mason- 
 ry-casemated" works (several of them of great size), and the re- 
 mainder ii) open batteries. t These defensive works fulfilled their 
 object, and sustained the attack of the allied fleet on the 17th of 
 October, 1854, without sensible damage. 
 
 The facility with which sea-ports are attacked by fleets, the 
 enormous preparations required, the great risks encountered in 
 landing a besieging army on the coast of a formidable enemy 
 (while, for protection against the former species of attack, costly 
 works are necessary, and against the latter, field works and men 
 can, in emergency, aff'ord protection), naturally caused the Rus- 
 sians to make these water defences their first object. Yet, though 
 almost unprotected on the land side, Sebastopol resisted for a 
 
 * The criticism as to their capacity for men and stores is scarcely deserving of notice. 
 When they are merely water-batteries (as most of them are), they require quarters enough 
 for men to work the guns (5 or 6 to each piece), and ammunition storage enough for one or 
 two protracted cannonades. In the mere service of the guns there is no crowding whatever. 
 
 f An important point, surely; but how small its importance, and the interests involved in 
 its defence, compared with iVeir York I 
 
 X It is worthy to remark, that the only battery mentioned as silenced by the allied fire 
 during the cannonade of the 17th of October, 1854, is that of the Quarantine Fort, an open 
 barbette" — silenced, as Grivel says, malgre Pabride son parapet en terre" (notwithstand- 
 ing the shelter of its earthen parapet.) 
 
[Assembly 
 
 whole year an attack on that quarter ; and illnstrater! how, with 
 plenty of men and material, an energetic and effectual land de- 
 fence may be improvised, where the sea defence is provided for, 
 as thoroughly as it was at that place.* 
 
 Let Crondstadt be another example. Great as was the import- 
 ance of its defence to Russia, it was not greater, it was by no 
 means as great, as that of New York to our own country. This 
 port and military and naval depot was defended (in its main ap- 
 proach) by upwards of 600 guns,f 500 of which were mounted 
 in five " masonry-casemated ^' works; the remainder in an open 
 barbette battery, which enfiladed the main channel. This num- 
 ber is formidable in itself; yet the same number mounted in New 
 York harbor would not afford anything like such a formidable 
 defence as was found at Cronstadt, owing to its great area, and 
 long line of approach, compared with the latter.J 
 
 These works fulfilled their object. They protected the great 
 port and depot of Cronstadt and the capital of the empire from 
 invasion. For two successive years did the mighty armaments of 
 France and England threaten ; but they were overawed by the 
 frowning array of " casemated castles which presented itself, 
 and declined the contest. § 
 
 Let us turn our eyes now to the great naval depot of France. 
 After the almost incredible expenditure lavished here, in creating 
 a harbor facing the shores of her great rival, England, and an 
 equally profuse expenditure in providing all that constitutes a 
 great naval depot, we may suppose that the best means, without 
 regard to cost, which the science of man could devise, would bo 
 employed here, to make this great seat of naval power secure 
 against the formidable means of attack possessed by the great 
 maritime power most likely to be the assailant. The means there 
 employed are (so far as regards mere harbor defence) precisely 
 the same (viz. : casemated works in several tiers, combined with 
 open batteries, where the locations are favorable) ; and the appli- 
 cation of means is the same as we have found so successful in 
 Russia, the same which constitutes the system of harbor defence 
 of New York. 
 
 * See Appendix '«E." 
 
 f Besides 120 guns on two ships of war, stationed so as to rake the approach. 
 
 J For a more detailed account of the defences of Sabastopol, see Appendix "B." 
 
 § A special armament was being fitted out in England, expressly to attack Cronstadt, had 
 the war lasted another year. It consisted of several hundred " floating-batteries," gun- 
 boats, mortar-vessels, <fec., &c. It would have been interesting, in a professional point of 
 view, to have seen the result; but it is quite doubtful after all, whether the Allies would 
 have taken the bull by the horns." They would probably have directed their attack 
 upon the shoal-water approaches between the Finland shore and the ielafid of Cronstadt. 
 
No. 58.] 
 
 45 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Let us now consider what, in the present state of the art of 
 war, and in the light of the experience we now have, is required 
 for the defence of the port and city of New York. 
 
 In commencing this paper, I have ventured to call this problem 
 a modified and enlarged one ; the course of the previous discus- 
 sion will have shown, however, that I do not believe that we know 
 of anything particularly new in the means to be employed. It is 
 rather in the amount and character of the armaments to which 
 New York will be exposed, which involves a new consideration 
 of the amount and arrangement of defensive means. 
 
 In reviewing the recent European war, we are struck with tho 
 facility with which immense bodies of troops are transported and 
 maintained in a distant country, which of itself furnished nothing. 
 France shipped to tho Crimea upwards of 300,000 men, and Eng- 
 land some 90 or 100,000. We cannot doubt, therefore, that 
 either of these powers aan suddenly equip a large army, transport 
 it over the ocean, 3,000 miles, to our shores, and maintain it a 
 year or more in a hostile attitude. 
 
 (The question of being able to maintain a footing on our shores^ 
 is quite another thing.) 
 
 We are struck, too, by the immense power of creation possessed 
 by these powers (particularly England), in calling forth all man- 
 ner of warlike military and naval constructions. It seemed as if 
 the governments had but to will, and the immense manufacturing 
 establishments and ship-yards of England were capable of re- 
 sponding to the most unlimited demands, in the briefest possible 
 time. Taught, by the experience of two seasons, the inutility of 
 ordinary naval meaj;is ag;ainst the Russian defences in the Baltic, 
 a flotilla of several hundred vessels, gun-boats of different sizes, 
 bearing pieces of the most formidable calibres, mortar-vessels, 
 "floating-batteries," dispatch vessels, &c., all propelled by steam, 
 were constructed in an incredibly short space of time.* 
 
 Such flotillas could be created with the same facility and sent 
 to our shores, if there should be found a sufficient motive for it. 
 
 The third point which attracts attention, is the peculiarly ma- 
 ritime character of the war. It is not by marching armies into 
 the interior of the enemy's territory, but by assailing his maritime 
 
 * A brief account of these vessels, taken from an interesting paper, Notes and Observa- 
 tions on the Review at Spithead, by Commander W. M. Walker, U. S. Navy," will be 
 found in Appendix C." 
 
46 
 
 [Assembly 
 
 seats of population, wealth and power, that the war was pro- 
 secuted ; and one of their great maritime depots became the true 
 seat of war, about which its issue was decided. 
 
 The lesson to be derived by ourselves is too obvious to be 
 dwelt upon. Our own great maritime places would be the points 
 at which alone an European enemy could hope to strike great 
 blows; JYew York preeminently. If it is left undefended, or is 
 inadequately defended, its immense commerce, its rich depots of 
 wealth and military and naval resources, the lives and property 
 of its citizens, will be, throughout the whole period of the war, at 
 an unpitying enemy's mercy ; and the national honor will suffer 
 an indelible stain, by such a degradation of its great commercial 
 emporium. If defended as it should be, its defences must be cal- 
 culated to grapple with such armaments as we know can and will 
 be brought against it ; and upon the success of the contest, im- 
 mense consequences, perhaps, as at Sabastopol, the issue of the 
 war, will depend. 
 
 The Boards of Engineers who have recently had under consi- 
 deration portions of the defensive system of New York, have not 
 been insensible that great additional strength was now required, 
 over what had been considered sufficient in former years. But 
 they have never had time (each member being charged with 
 onerous individual duties) to take that patient survey of the whole 
 subject which it requires. Moreover they have only been called 
 upon to decide projects of particular works ; and I may add, that 
 it is only quite recently that we have had the means of taking 
 this re-survey of our wants, with the full light which a perfect 
 knowledge of the events of the recent European war alone could 
 give us. 
 
 It would be presumptuous in me to say exactly what new 
 works, or what new arrangements are required ; but I can say, 
 with confidence, that the security of New York requires a vast 
 addition to what now exists ; that it demands their prompt execu- 
 tion; and, enlightened by previous labors of the Board of Engi- 
 neers, and by the opinions of officers of experience, can point out, 
 in a general way, what is necessary, or, at least, what I believe 
 to be so. 
 
 First — The Narrows is the great avenue of approach to New 
 York, and the shores being there barely one mile apart, they fur- 
 nish the means of a most formidable defence. I have before 
 alluded to the difficulty of, by mere array of batteries, absolutely 
 
No. 58.J 
 
 47 
 
 sealing a channel against the rapid passage of vessels. The true 
 principle, therefore, for the defence of an object like New York, 
 of such importance that the mere passage of the batteries would 
 be risked, is, not only to make those batteries of the most formi- 
 dable nature, but so to array batteries that the entire waters, not 
 only of the channel of approach, but those in which the enemy 
 must lie in his after offensive operations, shall be under their 
 fire.* The Board of Engineers has already considered the nature 
 and extent of additional works at the Narrows ; and so far as the 
 first condition of a formidable array of batteries is concerned, I 
 think they have met all the requisites. They have decided that 
 there should be, at this passage, batteries sufficient to concentrate 
 a fire of 300 guns upon every point of a vessels path within range. 
 When we consider the character of the armament intended for 
 these works,! it will be admitted that the passage, under the 
 most favorable circumstances, will be a thing of no ordinary risk. 
 Combined with the use of obstructions^ either floating or fixed, 
 and of floating defences on our part, the defence can be made of 
 the most formidable character. 
 
 But such an array of batteries does not now exist. To accom- 
 plish it, we require, on Staten Island, besides Fort Richmond, 
 (nearly completed) the completion of Fort Tompkins (just com- 
 menced) ; the construction of another casemated battery south 
 of Fort Richmond, (for which plans are proposed) and the exten- 
 sion of the ^arthen batteries. Fort Tompkins will cost about 
 $650,000, and the new battery and earthen works about as much 
 more; or $1,300,000 in all, for the works yet to be constructed 
 on Staten Island. 
 
 This is but for the Staten Island side of the Narrows. To 
 provide the concentration of 300 guns upon the passage, and to 
 command the.Avaters of Gravesend Bay, the works on the Long 
 Island side must be enlarged by extending batteries (either open 
 or casemated) along the blulf below Fort Hamilton, and Fort 
 Lafayette must be remodeled. As the additional works on this 
 side have not been planned, I can only say that I suppose that 
 an expenditure^'of about $500,000 will be required on the Long 
 Island shore. 
 
 So much for the defences of the Narrows; but to fulfill the 
 condition, that an enemy's fleet shall be kept underfire wherever 
 
 * See Appendix "D." 
 
 f 8" and 10'' Columbiads, and 42-pounders for hot shot, and 8-inch seacoast howitzers 
 for the shorter ranges. 
 
4S [Assembly 
 
 he may be,* one or more works are required to fill the gap 
 between the Narrows and the interior line of works, on Bedlow's 
 and Governor's Islands. At least one such work should be built 
 on Robbins' Reef — a site about midway between the Narrows and 
 Governor's Island, which rakes the approach through the Nar- 
 rows and commands the outlets of the " Kills." A work on this 
 site may be roughly estimated at $500,000. 
 
 The foregoing are what, I think, are imperatively demanded 
 for the Narrows approach to the city. They include (Fort Rich- 
 mond being nearly completed) the construction of two new works 
 on Staten Island, Fort Tompkins (just commenced) and the new 
 projected casemated battery ; of additional works at Fort Ham- 
 ilton, and the remodeling of Fort Lafayette ; and the construc- 
 tion of at least one new work on Robbins' Reef, and an expendi- 
 ture of from two to three millions of dollars. 
 
 But to prevent the occupation of the outer harbor and a dis- 
 embarkation in Gravesend Bay, and march on Brooklyn, other 
 works are required, and they may be so arranged, w^hile they ful- 
 fill these objects, as to add greatly to the risks an enemy w^ould 
 encounter in reaching New York with his fleet. 
 
 To prevent disembarkation in Gravesend Bay, a work seems 
 indispensable on the point of Coney Island. Such a work, in 
 conjunction with the proposed new batteries at Fort Hamilton, 
 would sweep the waters of Gravesend Bay, and take up fire upon 
 a fleet attempting the passage of the Narrows, at a lower point 
 than the Narrows batteries, crossing fire with them. It may 
 indeed, in conjunction with another work to be mentioned here- 
 after, be made to constitute another and outer line of defence to 
 the Narrows approach. 
 
 The work on Sandy Hook, authorized by Congress, and just 
 being commenced, is intended, mainly, to prevent the occupation 
 and use of the outer bay by an enemy's fleet. 
 
 It does not thoroughly seal all the entrances to that bay ; but 
 if the works I have described exist above, he will not encounter 
 the fire of Sandy Hook with no greater object than merely to 
 enter the bay. To make a more perfect defence of these outer 
 waters, however, a work on the ''West Bank" is desirable, 
 which would command the mouth of all the lesser entrances to 
 the outer harbor, and, in conjunction with the Coney Island work. 
 
 * The fulfillment of this condition would be completed by throwing up temporary batte- 
 ries along the East and North rivers, in the city and opposite the shorea. 
 
No. 58.] 
 
 49 
 
 form the outer line of the Narrows defences, already mentioned. 
 Perhaps, too, a work on the Romer shoal which should co-operate 
 with Sandy Hook, and command the " Swash " and " East 
 channels, might be judged expedient. 
 
 The work on Sandy Hook will cost $2,000,000 ; and as to those 
 I have mentioned, it can only be stated that they would require 
 something like $2,000,000 more. 
 
 The narrow passage around Staten Island through the Kills 
 can be passed by light-draught gun-boats and similar craft. It 
 can be easily defended by obstructions or shore batteries ; but 
 whichever means are resorted to, some shore works sufficiently 
 strong to endure an assault are necessary. I only point out the 
 fact, without attempting to indicate what they should be. 
 
 The East river approach is defended by the formidable work 
 of Fort Schuyler. Another work opposite to it, on Willett's 
 Point, is deemed necessary ; and the two will, with such auxiliary 
 means as can be easily provided in time of war, complete the 
 defence. The w^ork on Willett's Point may be set down at the 
 same cost as Fort Schuyler, $800,000. 
 
 I have now indicated in a very general way what I suppose 
 necessary to put New York in a satisfactory state of security. 
 I have shown, or have attempted to show, not only that it was 
 not now in such a state, but that works requiring some six or 
 eight millions of dollars are imperatively demanded. The sum 
 is large, it is true ; but it is only about the amount of revenue 
 collected here in two months. If I have convinced you, as I have 
 tried to do, and as I certainly believe, that in our next war with 
 a great maritime power, more important issues will be involved 
 in the adequate defence of New York than in almost any other 
 preparation, defensive or offensive, we can make, then I shall not 
 fear that you or the nation will consider the millions required 
 disproportionate to the object. I believe that the people of the 
 United States can and will be made to understand that the 
 defence of New York is a national^ and not a local question; and 
 as such will be willing to provide for it. 
 
 If I am asked when these works should be undertaken, I 
 answer that I consider that all those that involve the defence of 
 the Narrows are so immensely important to New York that they 
 should be commenced immediately, and carried on with the largest 
 appropriations that can be advantageously' applied, to completion ; 
 
 [Assem. No. 58.] 7 
 
60 
 
 [Assembly 
 
 and simultaneously with them, the work on <^oney Island. 
 ^ These works (Fort Tompkins, the new water-battery on Staten 
 Island, the additional works at Fort Hamilton, and the work on 
 Coney Island) will cost about $2,000,000 ; and I urgently recom- 
 mend that at least $500,000 be asked from Congress for them. 
 
 The works just mentioned (with the work on Sandy Hook, also 
 in progress,) would place this approach in a respectable state of 
 defence ; and the other works in the outer bay could be com- 
 menced at a later period; but all that are decided by competent 
 authority to he necessary should be built as soon as possible. 
 
 A complete view of the dangers and defences of New York 
 requires some allusion to the subject of an invasion by land, and 
 particularly from Long Island. The idea of such a danger has 
 nothing whatever of novelty in it. That the British army actu- 
 ally did land in Gravesend Bay — defeat the Continental forces 
 under Gen. Washington, at Brooklyn, and capture New York, is 
 well known That, to prevent the repetition of such an opera- 
 tion during the last war, a large body of militia was called out, 
 is equally well known ; and the liability to a repetition of such 
 an attack has been dwelt upon in almost every official paper 
 treating of the defencee of New York. 
 
 The Chief Egineer, General Totten, proposed to secure the 
 city from danger in this particular quarter by an outer harrier; 
 and if the outer bay could be ejffectually closed, of course the 
 danger would be removed. But so to close it will require works* 
 which, if built at allj will not probably be very soon. 
 
 The subject has been before almost every Board of Engineers 
 that has had the defence of New York under consideration, from 
 1816 to the present time. They have presented no formal plan 
 that I recollect, for land defences on Long Island, (at least not 
 of late years,) for they have always found other demands con- 
 cerning the defences of New York far more pressing ; and have 
 probably thought, too, that while the general character of the 
 defence was sufficiently obvious, every year that elapsed would 
 alter the details of the problem. 
 
 There are two or three very broad principles bearing on this 
 subject, which I think every one will assent to. 
 
 First: A landing in the face of such a force as could speedily 
 be concentrated (or rather such as always would be at hand in 
 New York) is an operation of great risk^ as well as great labor, 
 
 * It is not anticipated that the work on Sauday Hook can alone close this bay. 
 
Nq. 58.] 
 
 61 
 
 requiring special means and arrangements. JVo enemy will take 
 this course so long as he can with his fleet (or with vessels specially 
 adapted to the object) reach the city and effect his object without 
 a landing. While, therefore, this latter operation is open to an 
 enemy, while he can with his fleet, or the gun-boats, or the float- 
 ing batteries of his fleet, force his way within range of the city 
 from his shell-guns or curved fire, the question of danger from 
 land attacks sinks into utter insignificance. 
 
 The works to prevent this latter operation are of great mag- 
 nitude, as I have endeavored to show in the course of this paper ; 
 require large amounts of money, and much time to complete. 
 Those to prevent the former (land attack) are of a comparatively 
 trivial character. I concur, in fact, with the opinion expressed 
 by yourself, sir, in your annual report, that (at least until the 
 harbor defences are completed) nothing but earth works, to be 
 thrown up in time of war, are necessary.* 
 
 Second : All the arguments which opposers to our system of 
 coast defences have of late years brought forward, bear with their 
 full force upon our defensive strength m this relation; not at all 
 upon the degree of strength required for harbor defences. In the 
 words of a M^ury, if the " greatest army that ever was led into 
 battle by the greatest captain" were to land on Long Island, 
 and be disembarking his last piece of artillery before he was 
 discovered — these railroads, the power of steam, with the aid of 
 lightning, Tfould enable the government, before he could reach 
 the heights of Brooklyn, to have there in waiting, and ready to 
 receive him and beat him back into the sea, a force two to one 
 greater than his, however strong and Major W. H. Chase, (in a 
 quotation already given,) has expressed opinions if not quite so 
 strong as these, somewhat similar. It is not necessary to em- 
 brace the particular views of either of these officers to acknowl- 
 edge that there is force in their arguments. 
 
 Third. The great danger to New York and its dependencies 
 from this kind of an attack, is from the safe and convenient land- 
 ing at Gravesend, and the short line of march thence to Brook- 
 lyn. Should we find ourselves engaged in war, with no other de- 
 fence in this quarter than those now existing, prompt and ener- 
 getic measures would have to be taken to improvise a defence 
 
 * I consider, however, that the work on Coney Island should be immediately built, to 
 prevent a landing in Gravesend Bay, or on Coney Island ; but this is not included in the 
 category of land defences, as advocated by others. 
 
52 [Assembly 
 
 against this danger ; and doubtless prompt and energetic measures 
 could and would be taken. 
 
 With the work I propose on Coney Island, however, this land- 
 ing becomes unavailable, and the danger of land attack on Brook- 
 lyn or New York becomes comparatively insignificant. A land- 
 ing', as before remarked, in the face of the dense and warlike pop- 
 ulation of New York, augmented as the numerical force of its de- 
 fenders may be, in a day or two, by overwhelming numbers from 
 other quarters, is one of the most dangerous operations of war. 
 It will not be undertaken on the 07)671 ^ea-^^org of Long Island, 
 where at any moment the disembarked force would be liable to 
 have its communication with its fleet cut off. It would only be 
 made from Long Island Sound, whence a march of fifteen or 
 twenty miles, at the shortest, would be necessary to reach Brook- 
 lyn. At whatever rate such a danger may be estimated, it is suf- 
 ficient to say that in twenty-four hours after a declaration of war 
 (if thought necessary) an army of 50,000 men may be entrenched 
 on the line of approach to Brooklyn. 
 
 The work on Willett's Point will, by no means7 have an insig- 
 nificant bearing on such defence. To " leave it behind" is not 
 simply to leave a fortification in the enemy's rear ; it is to have 
 in his rear an entrenched " tete-de-'pont,''^ whence in twen+y-four 
 hours an overwhelming force may he thrown from the JYew York 
 side upon his rear, cutting him off from his fleet. 
 
 In conclusion, I would say in this connection, that the policy 
 of our government, and of the Engineer Department, has always 
 been (and I conceive, always should be) first, to close all the great 
 approaches hy water, leading to our dock-yards, commercial cities, 
 &c., and to locate their defences in such a manner as to force any 
 landing that may he attempted to as great a distance as possible. 
 The defence against approaches by an army landing, must be by 
 our troops, (surely if the nation and the people have in themselves 
 any inherent power of self-defence, it is here they can meet the 
 foe and " beat him back into the sea,") with the assistance of 
 temporary works, and all the expedients of engineering talent 
 and skill, on such route as an enemy may have selected. But to 
 leave the coast and construct a girdle of forts about any of our 
 cities as they now exist, would be as wise as to have constructed 
 permanent defences along Brooklyn and Harlem Heights, where 
 they were made in 1814 and '15, now within the cities, and to be 
 traced or known only from old maps and plans. Fort Greene, 
 
No. 58.] 
 
 53 
 
 one of the commanding sites of the Brooklyn line of 1814-^15, 
 has been not only occupied by the city, but its commanding emi- 
 nence leveled. Nothing short of the power of a despotic gov- 
 ernment, with ability to take possession of hundreds of acres (and 
 dwellings), and forbid the erection of any structures either upon 
 the sites or within gun-shot of them^ could accomplish the scheme 
 of either establishing a girdle of works about Brooklyn, or secure 
 permanently the sites for them. 
 
 The fact that sites, deemed eligible tioiij, are being built upon, is 
 the best proof that they are becoming no longer so. 
 
 Whether these propositions are admitted or not, it is most cer- 
 tain that, at present, the great " dangers" of New York are 
 through the inadequately defended water approaches. It is to 
 these dangers I most urgently call your attention, and the atten- 
 tion of Congress and of the people of the United States, for it is 
 not a question of local, but of national concern. 
 
 This paper has swollen to a length unanticipated by me in 
 commencing it ; but I have judged it imperative at a period in 
 our growth as a nation, and in the history of our relations with 
 the other great powers of the world, when, I conceive, the sub- 
 ject of security to our great cities and ports has acquired more 
 than ordinary urgency, and when at the same time the very prin- 
 ciples on which such security can be obtained are called in ques- 
 tion, to review thoroughly the whole subject, glancing at the ar- 
 guments (A past years to see how they have been justified by the 
 progress of events, and discussing at length the occurrences of 
 the recent European war which bear on this subject. If I shall 
 convince you that there is urgent and immediate necessity for 
 prosecuting in the most energetic manner all the defensive works 
 now authorized by Congress for the defence of New York, and of 
 commencing new ones without delay — and if, by means of this 
 paper, I shall awaken the attention not only of the people of New 
 York, but of all who take the safety, honor and welfare" of 
 their country to heart, to the importance of the subject, my ob- 
 ject will be accomplished. 
 
[AsSEMBtr 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 [A.] 
 
 The following description of the manner of construction and 
 materials used ^ in some of the Russian and Prussian works (Bo- 
 marsund among others) is interesting ; and will illustrate the 
 degree of authority belonging to the assertion just quoted. It 
 is derived from authentic sources. 
 
 The masonry is described as of boulders, with one end broken 
 off to form the face ; then the sides broken, to give beds and 
 builds of every variety of shape, varying in the number of sides, 
 their length, and hence, angles made with each other. No stone 
 other than the Finland granite, scattered over the surface in 
 boulders, is available in a large part of northern Europe. These 
 are used for the face of the wall, the filling being brick or other 
 masonry. The result is a facing of most excellent material for 
 durability as to time, but very inferior and of little or no 
 strength in bond. The stones are left with rounded surfaces 
 on the back, and present uo bond of any value, and in size vary 
 as they were picked from the fields, every stone being worked to 
 its largest dimensions for a face, and cut to fit the adjacent ones 
 previously laid. 
 
 Thus, for example, the face of the walls are formed. The 
 joints perpendicular to the face, as a necessary consequence, vary 
 in depth, according to the size of the boulders, and the bed 
 into which it is being prepared to be laid, varying from 6 to 12 
 inches in a work witnessed under construction. None of the 
 stones could be considered as large ; altogether and exceedingly 
 indifferent character of masonry to resist artillery, although 
 good against weather and escalade. Such were the Bomarsund 
 towers and casemated water-battery. At Cronstadt the masonry 
 of the scarps and the water fronts is superior to any masonry to 
 be found in the fortifications of Europe ; and equal in every res- 
 pect to that in our dry-docks at Brooklyn and Norfolk. At Se- 
 bastopol it was very indifferent as to the size and quality of the 
 material, though well put together, being of headers and stretchers, 
 with horizontal beds and vertical joints ; but in pieces from 8 to 
 12 inches rise, and 2 to 4 feet in length for the stretchers, 
 and the mortar not very hard. The coping of the docks and 
 
No. 5a] 
 
 55 
 
 sea-wall of the dock harbor was excellent, and of large blocks 
 of Finland granite, and what appeared to be Quincy granite ; 
 but the scarps of the MalakofF, the crenated wall on the west of the 
 city, and the harbor casemated forts, were very poor masonry, 
 both in quality of material and its small size ; the material 
 not as good as the Connecticut sandstone in some of our old har- 
 bor defences. 
 
 [B.J 
 
 The following more detailed account of the defences of Cron- 
 stadt and Sebastopol, is derived from an authentic source : 
 
 The Russians gave their attention, first to securing the dock- 
 yards and establishment at Cronst^dt. By permanent casemated 
 batteries, upon precisely the same principles we have adopted 
 (differing in some details only), they closed the main entrance 
 against large and small vessels ; and were adding, during the 
 existence of the contest, to these casemated defences, in the con- 
 struction of a new work on the shoal opposite Cronstadt (south 
 side of main channel). The narrow circuitous channels through 
 the shoals, from the island of Cronstadt to the Finland shore, 
 were defended by hulk ships permanently anchored at advanta- 
 geous positions ; as was, likewise, the shoal water between the 
 island of Cronstadt and the main land to the southward. A 
 numerous flotilla of steam propellers and sailing gun-boats, with 
 many boals propelled with oars, armed each with a heavy gun, 
 together with many steam sloops of war, were ready to operate 
 anywhere about or on the shoals ; their services would be most 
 available at critical moments. 
 
 The city of Cronstadt, on the eastern end of the island, was 
 inclosed by permanent fortifications. 
 
 On the western side, crossing the island, these works took in 
 every building of the commercial city and naval dock-yards ; 
 but were so near as to have brought destruction upon the city 
 and naval establishment, by any siege operations carried on 
 against the permanent defences. To obviate this serious diffi- 
 culty, a line of entrenchments was thrown up across the island, 
 far in advancts of the permanent works. These entrenchments 
 were armed with heavy ships' guns, having ditches commanded 
 by concealed caponiers, fraised and palisaded. 
 
 Such were the defences of the main ship-channel to St. Peters- 
 burg and the naval establishment, against ^oa^/w^ offensive ope- 
 
56 
 
 [Assembly 
 
 rations. Within this line the city of St. Petersburg is approach- 
 ed only through shoal water and among islands. 
 
 All these channels were commanded by temporarily-construct- 
 ed batteries, mounting from 6 to 12 heavy guns, on wrought-iron 
 carriages. 
 
 But the city of St. Petersburg on the land, and the whole 
 coast and shores from it, down to the enemy's anchorage, on the 
 north and south, were bare of lines or entrenchments of any 
 kind. 
 
 A large army was in camp south of St. Petersburg, ready to 
 march at any moment, to oppose a landing, or meet any troops 
 the allies might venture to land. Both at Cronstadt and Sebas- 
 topol, as well as Sweaborg, Bomarsund and Riga, their defences 
 were in progress of construction, or rather unfinished ; those at 
 Cronstadt being actually under construction, both in the dock- 
 yard and casemated forts ; but the land defences they had the 
 good sense to omit, until the great and open route by water had 
 been secured. This latter object they had most successfully at- 
 tained at Sebastopol, that resisted the combined attack of the 
 most powerful armament Europe could bring to bear against 
 fortifications ; and the works thus prepared effectually served to 
 protect the fleet, dock-yards, city, and all they were destined to 
 secure. But time did not enable the Russians to carry out their 
 plans to cover the land side of these harbor defences. On the 
 west of the city they had a crenated scarp, which held out to 
 the last against the French. Along the south they had nothing 
 but the little Malakoff tower, of two tiers of loop-holes for infan- 
 try, and five guns in barbette — a work with a circular trace, the 
 gorge not exceeding 27 feet radius (out to out), admitting of 5 
 loop holes only on each side of the door. Temporary earthen 
 works were hastily thrown up, on ground most advantageously 
 formed for such a noble and gallant defence as the Russian engi- 
 neer's skill enabled him to call into action ; while the resources 
 of an immense fleet enabled him to arm and equip his works. 
 
 A first, second, and even third line of defences, the two latter 
 always in advance of their first, occupying positions on the crest 
 of the dock-yard hills, the Russian engineers pushed forward to 
 meet their allied enemy ; but no permanent works of any kind 
 existed to oppose the allies on the south, saving the little, ex- 
 posed, masonry Malakoff, the stone of which was no better than 
 some of our best mortar, and was destroyed from a distance of 
 
No. 58.] 
 
 57 
 
 more than 1,500 yards, by the first battery constructed against 
 it. There can be no doubt that the Russians labored under every 
 disadvantage from the temporary character of their works; and 
 it is very certain that neither the Redan nor KornilofF bastion 
 (the Malakoff) would have been entered by a French or English 
 soldier to the day the Russians evacuated them, had there existed 
 either a masonry counterscarp, or scarp with suitable bomb-proofs, 
 for the Russian troops. Another winter's campaign would unques- 
 tionably have been necessary, had the works been of this more 
 permanent character ; and it may well be doubted whether the 
 resources of the Allies could have equaled such a prolonged 
 contest. 
 
 [ c. ] 
 
 The floating batteries are of very uncouth and unwieldy 
 appearance, partaking in model about equally of a canal boat 
 and a galliot. In general, their construction is that of iron ships ; 
 the decks are of 9-inch plank resting upon lOJ-inch beams, 
 placed 1 foot 9 inches from centre to centre ; the " top sides " 
 are covered with 6-inch plank, over which, extending to 3 feet 
 below the water line, is a sheathing of wrought-iron plates, 14 
 feet long, 20 inches wide, and 4J inches thick, each secured to 
 the hull by 1 J-inch screw bolts. They are brig-rigged, are fitted 
 with non-condensing engines and screw propellers, and can 
 make, undeft^ steam alone, 4J to 5 knots. They are pierced 
 for 30 guns, and mount from 14 to 16 sixty-eights. 
 
 DIMENSIONS. 
 
 Horse Extreme 
 
 power. Length. breadth. Depth. Draft. 
 
 Meteor 150 173 43.6 14.7 7.9 
 
 Thunderbolt 200 186 48.6 18.6 6.6 
 
 The only vessel of this class which has been tested in action 
 was under French colors in the attack upon Kinburn. She was 
 struck in the hull 58 times, without receiving any other injury 
 than the indentation of the plates to depths varying from one- 
 fourth to one and one-fourth inches.* Of important particulars 
 respecting the alleged invulnerability of these vessels, I could 
 get no account, and must admit a want of faith in it. 
 
 * See Dahlgren's account, p. 27 et seq., ante. Xothing heavier than a 32-pound shot 
 was fired by the Russian batteries at Kinburn. — (Author's note.) 
 
 [Assem. No. 58. J 
 
 8 
 
58 
 
 [Assembly 
 
 The raortar boats are cutter-rigged vessels of ab^at 70 tons, 
 very much resembling in general form and appearance the 
 " Anchor Hoy," which was formerly, and perhaps still may be, 
 attached to the Norfolk Navy Yard. Their draft is five feet. 
 Each mounts a 13-inch mortar. 
 
 GuN-BOATS. — The largest of these vessels are three-masted 
 schooners, of fine models, of 800 tons, and 210 feet long, with 
 engines of 350 horse-power, and a speed under steam of 10 to 
 11^ knots. 
 
 They have a crew of 100 men, and their armament consists of 
 two 68-pounders, of 95 cwt., on pivots — one between the fore 
 and main masts and one on the forecastle — and four 32-pounder8 
 on truck carriages. The most note-worthy peculiarity of these 
 craft is the arrangement of their boilers, which is as follows : 
 Their light draft renders it impossible to place the boilers out of 
 danger below the water line, without occupying too much of the 
 floor of the vessel ; therefore they are furnished with two descrip- 
 tions of boiler — the "service" and the "fighting" boiler. The 
 first is of the usual form of British marine boiler ; the latter, 
 cylinder tubular. For ordinary service, both boilers are used ; 
 but in close action, the lower or fighting boilers only — these 
 being sufficient to furnish rather more than half speed. 
 
 The second class gun-boats are schooners of 650 tons, and 180 
 feet long, with engines of 200 horse power, and a speed under 
 steam, of nine knots. They are manned with eighty men, and 
 mount, on pivots, one 68-pounder, 95 cwt., and one 32 of 65 cwt., 
 and four 12-pounder howitzers. 
 
 The third class, the most numerous, are schooners of about 110 
 feet in length, with engines of 60 horse power, and a speed, 
 under steam, of eight knots, with a draft of about 6 J feet ; they 
 have a crew of 40 men, and the same armament as the second 
 class. 
 
 The fourth class are schooners of 80 feet in length, a draft of 
 five feet, engines of 20 horse power, and a speed, under steam, of 
 six knots, a crew of 30 men, and are armed, a part of them with 
 one 68-pounder, and one 32-pounder ; others with two 32-pounders. 
 
 The two latter classes are provided with movable shields of 
 iron-plate, bullet-proof, which are shipped at pleasure ; raising 
 the height of the bulwarks to about seven feet in case of having 
 to force a passage defended by riflemen. 
 
 The engines of all these vessels are " non-condensing," "direct- 
 
No. 58.] 
 
 59 
 
 acting," of great simplicity and compactness, and work to three 
 times their nominal power. 
 
 They usually carry a pressure of 60 pounds; the boilers" 
 are tested to 180; and such is the fidelity with which the work 
 has been executed, that no break-down or accident has occurred 
 on board of any one of them.* 
 
 [ D- ] 
 
 The Engineers are not the inventors nor makers of ordnance. 
 They can but apply to the best advantage such as is supplied to 
 them. 
 
 It does strike me that its construction should, so far as it is in- 
 tended for harbor defence, be studied exclusively in the light of 
 its adaptability to that object, and without regard to conformity 
 to other models. Large calibres are imperatively demanded for 
 coast defence, nor is there any objection arising from the weight 
 of the guns, which applies so strongly in naval use. Yet the 
 navy have successfully introduced a gun (Dahlgren's 11-inch 
 gun) which throws a solid shot one-third heavier than our 10- 
 inch columbiad. 
 
 It is even reported that the Ordnance Department are about 
 abandoning the use of solid shot in our 10 inch guns, as if against 
 these new means of attack (iron-clad floating-batteries con- 
 structed expressly to batter on fortifications) a 10-inch shell 
 could hav% any 62*6 1 whatever. 
 
 If we must throw shells^ at least let us throw them of such 
 size that they may have thickness enough not to break against 
 any thickness of iron a vessel's side may oppose. Let us make 
 them such that (to use the sportsman's phrase) ''every shot shall 
 be a bird." 
 
 The Turks have, for the defence of the Dardanelles, guns of 30 
 
 * "Notes and Observations on the Review at Spithead," by Commander M. M. Walker, 
 U. S. Navy. 
 
 A very detailed account of these vessels (as also an immense mass of interesting matter, 
 which would have been of great service to me in preparing this paper, but which I have 
 been unable to avail myself of, though I have received much valuable information from 
 its author) is contained in the able report to the Secretary of War of Major R. Delafield, 
 Corps of Engineers, one of the Commissioners sent to Europe during the recent European 
 war, by the Hon. Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, for the purpose of examining 
 and reporting upon the state of the military art at a period deemed so favorable for observ- 
 ing its modern developments. 
 
 This report, unfortunately for the cause of military science in this country, has not yet 
 been published; neither has that of his able coadjutor. Major Mordecai, of the Ordnance 
 Corps. 
 
 The report of Capt. McClellan, the third Commissioner, (from which an extract is made 
 in appendix " E ") was published more than a year since, and has been promptly appre- 
 ciated by the military profession. 
 
60 
 
 [Assembly 
 
 inches calibre, carrying a stone ball. I do not k'>ow whether 
 there is any impossibility or impracticability in the construction 
 of guns of this size ; but I cannot see why a gun of greatly 
 superior calibre to anything we now have should not be made 
 expressly for harbor defence. 
 
 Such guns could not be fired with the rapidity of smaller ones; 
 perhaps, too, like the Turkish guns, it would be found best to 
 establish them on fixed lines of direction; but one such shot 
 that hits would be worth a hundred smaller ones. A 30-inch 
 hole could not he plugged ; and the explosion of a 30-inch shell 
 would send a vessel to the bottom. 
 
 Of the capability of such guns to inflict injury and of the 
 efficiency of batteries mounted with them, an opinion may be 
 formed by the single instance (so far as 1 know) that their quali- 
 ties have been exhibited, viz : the retreat in 1807 of the fleet of 
 Admiral Duckforth. 
 
 " The defences of the channel had been allowed to go to decay ; 
 but few guns were mounted, and the forts were but partially gar- 
 risoned. In Constantinople not a gun was mounted, and no pre- 
 parations for defence were made ; indeed, previous to the 
 approach of the fleet, the Turks had not determined whether to 
 side with the English or the French, and even the French am- 
 bassador had the greatest difficulty in persuading them to resist 
 the demands of Duckforth. 
 
 The British fleet consisted of six sail of the line, two frigates, 
 two sloops, and several bomb-vessels, carrying eight hundred and 
 eighteen guns (besides those in the bomb-ships.) 
 
 " Admiral Duckforth sailed through the Dardanelles on the 
 19th of February, 1807, with little or no opposition. This being 
 a Turkish festival day, the soldiers of the scanty garrison were 
 enjoying the festivities of the occasion, and none were left to 
 serve the few guns of the forts which had been prepared for de- 
 fence. But while the Admiral was waiting on the sea of Mar- 
 mora for the result of negotiations, or for a favorable wind to 
 make the attack upon Constantinople, the fortifications of this 
 city were put in order, and the Turks actively employed under 
 French engineers and artillery officers in repairing the defences 
 of the Straits." Campbell, in his Naval History, says : " Admi- 
 ral Duckforth now fully perceived the critical situation in which 
 he was placed. He might, indeed, succeed, should the weather 
 become favorable, in bombarding Constantinople; but unless the 
 
No. 58.] 
 
 61 
 
 bombardment should prove completely successful in forcing the 
 Turks to pacific terms, the injury he might do to the city would 
 not compensate for the damage which his fleet must necessarily 
 sustain. With this damaged and crippled fleet he must repass 
 the Dardanelles, now rendered infinitely stronger than they were 
 when he came through them. 
 
 " Under these circumstances, the Admiral determined to re- 
 treat ; and on the 3d of April escaped through the Dardanelles, 
 steering midway of the channel, with a favorable and strong cur- 
 rent. 
 
 " This escape, however," says Baines, " was only from de- 
 struction, but by no means from serious loss and injury. In what 
 instance in the whole course of our naval warfare, have ships re- 
 ceived equal damage in so short a time as in this extraordinary 
 enterprise ? In detailing the extent of this damage, we will take 
 the ships in the order they descended. The first had her wheel 
 carried away, and her hull much damaged, but escaped with the 
 loss of only three men. A stone shot penetrated the second be- 
 tween the poop and quarter deck, badly injured the mizzen-mast, 
 carried away the wheel, and did other serious damage, killing 
 and wounding twenty men. Two shot struck the third, carrying 
 away her shrouds and injuring her masts ; loss in killed and 
 wounded, thirty. The fourth had her mainmast destroyed, with 
 a loss of sixteen. The fifth had a large shot, six feet eight inch- 
 es in circuaiference, enter her lower deck ; loss fifty-five. The 
 sixth not injured. The seventh, a good deal damaged, with a 
 loss of seventeen. The eighth had no loss. The ninth was so 
 much injured that, had there been a necessity for hauling the 
 wind on the opposite tack she must 'gone down her loss was 
 eight. The tenth lost twelve. The eleventh was much injured, 
 with a loss of eight — making a total loss in repassing the Darda- 
 nelles of one hundred and sixty-seven ; and in the whole expedi- 
 tion, two hundred and eighty-one, exclusive of two hundred and 
 fifty men who perished in the burning of the Ajax. 
 
 " Such was the effect produced on the British fleet sailing with 
 a favorable wind and strong current past the half-armed and 
 half-manned forts of the Dardanelles. Duckforth himself says, 
 that had he remained before Constantinople much longer — till 
 the forts had been completely put in order — no return would 
 have been open to him, and the unavoidable sacrifice of the 
 squadron must have been the consequence. Scarcely had the 
 
62 
 
 [Assembly 
 
 fleet cleared the Straits before it (the fleet) was reinforced with 
 eight sail of the line ; but, even with this vast increase of 
 strength, the English did not venture to renew the contest. They 
 had effected a most fortunate escape. General Jomini says that 
 if the defence had been conducted by a more enterprising and ex- 
 perienced people, the expedition would have cost the English 
 their whole squadron.''* 
 
 Truly, if half-dilapidated batteries (worked probably by un- 
 practiced hands) could inflict these serious damages upon a fleet 
 not engaged in actual contest, by merely trying to run by, under 
 the most favorable circumstances of wind and tide, what might 
 not such batteries be capable of? 
 
 " In what instance," says Ad. Baines, " in the whole course of 
 our naval warfare, have ships received equal damage in so short 
 a time as in this extraordinary enterprise ?" 
 
 It is to be remarked, however, that we have as yet had no fair 
 instance of the power of modern shell guns from land batteries 
 against ordinary ships of war. In the few direct contests which 
 the Allies had with Russian fortifications, the modern armament 
 does not appear to have existed ; and where shells were thrown 
 from guns, they appear to have been of inferior calibre. Yet the 
 Russians with the shell-guns of their fleet blew up two Turkish 
 frigates at Sinope infifteen minutes. 
 
 One of the main causes of inefficiency in coast batteries, which 
 has given color to the idea that they may be passed, or even at- 
 tacked with impunity, I conceive to be the want of skill and care 
 in the use of the gun. The result is a prodigious smoke, and a 
 prodigious throwing away of balls, and very little damage done. 
 This has been, however, by no means peculiarity of coast defen- 
 ces. The same system of randon firing has hitherto prevailed, 
 both in the use of small arms in land and of heavy ordnance in 
 sea battles ; nor has it occurred apparently to even the greatest 
 masters of the art of war, to ask why, for one man wounded, or 
 for one effective shot in a vessel's hull, so many thousands of shot 
 should be thrown uselessly into the air. 
 
 But this question is now asked, both in the use of the soldier's 
 rifled musket and in the management of ships' guns, as well as of 
 artillery of all kinds. 
 
 It is at last discovered that it is of more importance to teach 
 the soldier to direct his piece with accuracy of aim, than to per- 
 
 » Halleck, " Military Art and Science." 
 
No. 58.J 
 
 63 
 
 form certain motions on parade with the precision of an automaton. 
 The same idea is now infused into all the departments of military 
 and naval science, and is a necessary result of the recent great im- 
 provements in the construction of arms. In short, the truth has 
 at last become apparent that the old-fashioned system of random 
 firing, though perhaps like the " charge of the six hundred" at 
 Balaklava, " bien magnifique, 7i^est pas la guerre.^^ 
 
 It is of the utmost importance that we should apply this prin- 
 ciple to the management of our sea-coast batteries, and give it a 
 practical effect. The volunteers of our cities will constitute 
 mainly, in time of war, the gunners of our forts and manipulators 
 of our sea-coast guns. In time of war they will probably be ex- 
 ercised in these duties. But it is most desirable that we should 
 have at all times a body of gunners practiced in these exercises. 
 The result would be, not only to give to our citizens, as well as 
 citizen-soldiers, confidence in the defences provided for their se- 
 curity, but it would disseminate military knowledge, and an in- 
 telligent idea of the bearing and objects of the different defensive 
 works. To carry out this idea, it would be desirable that there 
 should be at each considerable seaport town a sufiicient garrison 
 oi artillery troops to aid in the instruction of the volunteers. In 
 the present condition of the army this cannot be hoped, but per- 
 haps it might, at least, be found practicable to detail an artillery 
 officer or two for the purpose. 
 
 [ E. ] 
 
 On the relative value and strength of earthen and masonry 
 revetted works, the following extracts will be read with interest. 
 
 The first is from the Report of Capt. George B. McClellan, 1st 
 Cavalry, one of the "Military Commission to Europe:" 
 
 This would seem to be the proper place to notice a popular 
 fallacy which, for a time at least, gained extensive credence. It 
 was, that the siege of Sebastopol proved the superiority of tem- 
 porary (earthen) fortifications over those of a permanent nature. 
 It is easy to show that it proved nothing of the kind ; but that it 
 only proved that temporary works in the hands of a brave and 
 skillful garrison are susceptible of a longer defence than was gen- 
 erally supposed. They were attacked as field works never were 
 before, and were defended as field works never had been defend- 
 ed. The main difference between properly constructed perma- 
 nent fortifications (intended to resist a siege) and temporary 
 
64 [Assembly 
 
 works, is, that the latter seldom present an insuperable obstacle 
 against assault, while the former always do. In addition, per- 
 manent works have a better command over the adjacent country, 
 and are more carefully and perfectly planned. The masonry 
 walls which render an assault impossible, cannot be seen from 
 the distance, and can be destroyed only by establishing batteries 
 on the crest of the glacis, or the edge of the ditch ; the earthen 
 parapet alone being visible beyond that point, they may, until 
 the besiegers arrive there, be regarded .in the same light as field 
 works, with the difference that the garrison are not harassed by 
 the necessity of being constantly prepared to repel an assault. 
 
 " Now, in the siege of Sebastopol, the trenches of the besiegers 
 never reached the edge of the ditch ; so that, had the fortifica- 
 tion been a permanent one, the most difficult, slow, and danger- 
 ous part of the siege remained to be undertaken, viz : the crown- 
 ing of the covered way, the establishment of the breach batter- 
 ies, the descent and passage of the ditch, and the assault of the 
 breach ; in other words, at the moment when the weakness of the 
 temporary works became apparent and fatal, the true strength of 
 the permanent defences would have commenced coming into play. 
 
 " Assuming the progress of the attack to have been as rapid as 
 it was under existing circumstances, the besiegers on the 8th of 
 September would not yet have been in a condition to crown the 
 covered way, the siege would certainly have extended into the 
 winter ; and it may even be doubted whether the place would 
 eventually have fallen, until the Allies were in sufiicient force to 
 invest the north as well as the south side." 
 
 These views are, I believe, fully sustained by the other com- 
 missioners. Majors Delafield of the Engineers, and Mordecai of 
 the Ordnance Corps. 
 
 But a more remarkable confirmation is found in the recently 
 published " Journal of the Operations of the Engineers " at the 
 siege of Sebastopol, by the French Engineer-in-Chief, Gen. Niel, 
 which I also extract. 
 
 It furnishes, at the same time, a simple and intelligible expla- 
 nation of the extraordinary length of defence of that place. 
 
 " Struck by the length of the siege of Sebastopol, certain 
 foreign officers have expressed the opinion that masonry-revetted 
 scarps are not of incontestable utility in fortified places.'' 
 
 " Sebastopol, a vast retrenched camp, defended by field fortifi- 
 cations of strong profile, derived its principal strength from an 
 
58.J 65 
 
 armament such as. could only exist in an aisive maritime 
 arsenal, and from a large army which always preserved its free 
 communications with the interior of Russia." 
 
 " If the enceinte had been provided with good revetted scarps ; 
 if it had been necessary to breach these, and subsequently have 
 been compelled to penetrate through difficult passages, in rear 
 of which the heads of our columns would have met an army, 
 Sebastopol would have been an impregnable fortress." 
 
 " When we compare, in effect, the Works of attack at Sebastopol 
 with those of an ordinary siege, we will see that on the 8th of 
 Sept., 1855, the day of the last assault, we had only executed, 
 after the greatest effort, the besieging works which precede the 
 crowning of the covered way : we had not then, as yet, entered 
 upon that period of the works of a siege which is the most diffi- 
 cult and the most murderous ; and there was no occasion to en- 
 gage ourselves in them, since the ditches and parapets of the 
 enceinte were not insurmountable, as the sequel has proved." 
 
 " The difficulty consisted in conquering the Russian army upon 
 a position prepared long beforehand for its defence, quite as 
 much as in surmounting the material obstacle of the fortification." 
 
 "Our places of arms being established at thirty metres from 
 the besieged works, we were able to choose our own time for 
 action, and to throw ourselves unexpectedly upon the enemy 
 when the fire of our artillery had forced him to shelter himself, 
 up to the last minute, behind his numerous blindages ; to have 
 gone further would have been inviting the initiative in the attack 
 on the part of the Russian army." 
 
 " The absence of scarp walls, which would have secured the 
 place from escalade, did not exercise a less influence upon the 
 defence ; for the besieged were compelled to keep permanently 
 at the gorges of the works, strong reserves, in readiness to repulse 
 the assault, which they saw themselves menaced with from the 
 commencement of the siege." 
 
 " Finally, it can be remarked, that these reserves, which were 
 decimated night and day by the concentric fire of our batteries, 
 were able to issue out from the enceinte through wide debouches, 
 without having to pass through the narrow defiles which are 
 formed by the draw-bridges of revetted places ; they were, then, 
 a permanent threat for the besiegers, who were exposed to seeing 
 their trenches anexpectedly invaded by the greater part of the 
 Russian army," 
 
 [Assem. No. 58.] 9 
 
66 
 
 [Assembly 
 
 " Neither side, consequently, was in a position analogous to 
 that which is presented in the siege of a fortified place, pro- 
 tected from insult by good masonry scarps." (Note to page 443.) 
 
 And again, page 423, the same authority remarks (the italics 
 are mine) : 
 
 " Now, it (the Russian army) is no longer able to escape from 
 the concentric fires of our batteries ; for, not being protected by 
 masonry scarps, it is obliged constantly to keep united strong 
 reserves in order to repulse the assault with which it is at every 
 instant menaced." 
 
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