By Col. W.R. KING.
[Footnote 1: A lecture delivered before the students of Sibley
College, Cornell University, December 4, 1891.--_The Crank_.]
It is not an easy matter to present a dry subject in such an
attractive form as to excite a thrilling interest in it, and military
science is no exception to this rule. An ingenious military instructor
at one of our universities has succeeded in pointing out certain
analogies between grand tactics and the festive game of football,
which appears to have greatly improved the football, if we may judge
from the recent victories of the blue over the red and the black and
orange, but it is not so clear that the effect of the union has been
very beneficial to military science; and even if such had been the
case, I fear there are no similar analogies that would be useful in
enlivening the subject of military engineering.
From the earliest times of which we have record man has been disposed
to strive with his fellow man, either to maintain his own rights or to
possess himself of some rights or material advantage enjoyed by
others. When one or only a few men encroach on the rights of others in
an organized community, they may be restrained by the legal machinery
of the state, such as courts, police, and prisons, but when a whole
community or state rises against another, the civil law becomes
powerless and a state of war ensues. It is not proposed here to
discuss the ethics of this question, nor the desirability of providing
a suitable court of nations for settling all international
difficulties without war. The great advantage of such a system of
avoiding war is admitted by all intelligent people. We notice here a
singular inconsistency in the principles upon which this strife is
carried on, viz.: If it be a single combat, either a friendly contest
or a deadly one, the parties are expected to contest on equal terms as
nearly as may be arranged; but if large numbers are engaged, or in
other words, when the contest becomes war, the rule is reversed and
each party is expected to take every possible advantage of his
adversary, even to the extent of stratagem or deception. In fact, it
has passed into a proverb that "all things are fair in love and war."
Now one of the first things resorted to, in order to gain an advantage
over the enemy, was to bring in material appliances, such as walls,
ditches, catapults, scaling ladders, battering rams, and subsequently
the more modern appliances, such as guns, forts, and torpedoes, all of
which are known as engines of war, and the men who built and operated
these engines were very naturally called engineers. It is this kind of
an artificer that Shakespeare refers to when he playfully suggests
that "'tis the sport to have the engineer hoist with his own petard."
The early military engineer has left ample records and monuments of
his genius. The walls of ancient cities, castles that still crown many
hills in both hemispheres, the great Chinese wall, the historical
bridge of Julius Cæsar, which with charming simplicity he tells us was
built because it did not comport with his dignity to cross the stream
in boats, the bridge of boats across the Hellespont, by Xerxes, are
all examples of early military engineering. The Bible tells us "King
Uzziah built towers at the gates of Jerusalem, and at the turning of
the wall, and fortified them." We may note in passing that the
buttresses, battlements, and bartizans with which our modern
architects ornament or disfigure churches, peaceful dwellings, and
public buildings, are copied from the early works of the military
engineer.
Coming down to the military engineers of our own country, we find that
one of the first acts of the Continental Congress, after appointing
Washington as commander-in-chief, was to authorize him to employ a
number of engineers. It was not, however, until 1777 that a number of
engineer officers from the French army arrived in this country, and
were appointed in the Continental army. General DuPortail was made
Chief Engineer, and Colonel Kosciusko, the great Polish patriot, was
among his assistants. Other officers of the Continental army were
employed on engineering duty; and under their supervision such works
as the forts and the great chain barrier at West Point were built, and
the siege operations around Boston and Yorktown were carried on.
After the close of the war, in 1794, a Corps of "Artillerists and
Engineers" was organized. This corps was stationed at West Point, and
became the nucleus of the United States Military Academy. In 1802, by
operation of the law reorganizing the army, this corps was divided, as
the names would indicate, into an Artillery Corps and Corps of
Engineers. The Corps of Engineers consisted of one major, two
captains, four lieutenants, and ten cadets. The Artillery Corps was
again divided into the Ordnance Corps and several regiments of
artillery, now five in number, while the duties of the Corps of
Engineers were divided between the Engineer Corps and a Corps of
Topographical Engineers, organized at a later date; but on the
breaking out of the late rebellion it was deemed best to unite the two
corps, and they have so remained until the present time. The Corps of
Engineers now consists of 118 officers of various grades, from second
lieutenant to brigadier general, of which last grade there is only one
officer, the chief of the corps, and it requires something more than
an average official lifetime for the aforesaid lieutenant to attain
that rank. Hardly one in ten of them ever reach it. Daniel Webster's
remark to the young lawyer, that "there is always room at the top,"
will not apply to the Corps of Engineers. The officers are all
graduates of the Military Academy, which institution continued as a
part of the Corps of Engineers until 1866. The vacancies in the corps
are filled by the assignment to it of from two to six graduates each
year, and there is attached to the corps a battalion of four companies
of enlisted men, formerly called Sappers and Miners, but now known as
the Battalion of Engineers.
We now come naturally to the duties of our military engineer, and here
I may remark that these duties are so varied and so numerous that a
detailed recital of them would suggest Goldsmith's "Deserted Village:"
... "And still the wonder grew
That one small head could carry all he _ought to know_"
[Never lose sight of fact for the sake of rhyme.]
In general terms, his duties consist of: