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It appears from this table that the appropriations for the sea service during the first 15 years of the present century amounted to a little less than ninety millions of dollars per annum, and for the wear and tear of ships and "the extraordinary expenses in building and repairing of ships, &c.," the annual appropriations amounted to thirty millions of dollars.

Our own naval returns are also so imperfect that it is impossible to form any very accurate estimate of the relative cost of construction and repairs of our men-of-war. The following table, compiled from a report of the Secretary of the Navy in 1841, (Senate Document No. 223, 26th Congress,) will afford data for an approximate calculation:

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It appears from the above table that the cost of constructing ships-of-the-line is about $6,600 per gun; of frigates, $6,500 per gun; of smaller vessels-of-war, a little less than $5,000 per gun. The cost of our war steamers (the Fulton, 4 guns, built in 1838-39, cost $333,770 77; the Mississippi and Missouri, 10 guns each, built in 1841, cost about $600,000 apiece‡) is over $60,000 per gun! It is obvious, from the nature of the materials of which forts are constructed, that the cost of the support must be inconsiderable. It is true that for some years past a large item in annual expenditures for fortifications has been under the head of "repairs." Much of this sum is for alterations and enlargements of temporary and inefficient works, erected interior to and during the war of

• Returns incomplete.

+ Broken up in 1840.

By the returns in the Navy Department up to December 31, 1841, $553,850 32 had been expended on the Mississippi, and $519, 032 57 on the Missouri; but all the returns had not then come in. The entire cost of construction and modification of these steamers, to fit them for service, differs but little from their estimated cost of $600,000 apiece.

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1812. Some of it, however, has been for actual repairs of decayed or injured portions of the forts; these injuries resulting from the nature of the climate, the foundations, the use of poor materials and poor workmanship, and from neglect and abandonment. But if we include the risk of abandonment at times, it is estimated, upon data drawn from past experience, that one-third of one per cent. per annum of the first cost will keep in perfect repair any of our forts that have been constructed since the last war; whereas the cost of repairs for our men-of-war is more than seven per cent. per annum on the first cost of the ships. The cost of steamships will be still more; but we have not yet had sufficient experience to determine the exact amount. But the cost of running them is so great that the Secretary of the Navy, in his last annual report, says: "Their engines consume so much fuel as to add enormously to their expenses; and the necessity that they should return to port after short intervals of time for fresh supplies renders it impossible to send them on any distant service. They cannot be relied on as cruisers, and are altogether too expensive for service in time of peace. I have therefore determined to take them out of commission and substitute for them other and less expensive vessels."

On this question of relative cost, we add the following extract from the report of Mr. Bell in 1841:

"The relative expense of guns in forts and on board ships-of-war or floating batteries is strikingly disproportionate. The most favorable estimate will show that guns afloat will cost, upon an average, a third more than the cost of guns in forts. Well-constructed forts, bearing any number of guns, may be erected at less than half the amount required to build good steam batteries bearing the same number of guns. The steamships now on the stocks at New York and Philadelphia, 1,700 tons burden, and designed to carry only eight guns each, it is estimated will cost $600,000 each. A floating battery of the largest class contemplated by a distinguished advocate for that mode of harbor defence, carrying two hundred guns, with its tow-boats, it is estimated cannot cost less than $1,400,000; and the smallest, carrying one hundred and twenty guns, not less than $700,000. A ship-of-the-line carrying eighty guns it is estimated will cost, without her armament, $500,000. Fort Adams is constructed for four hundred and fifty-eight guns; when finished will have cost $1,400,000. Forts are built of solid and of the most part of imperishable materials. By proper care and a small annual expenditure for repairs they will last and be available for centuries; while the cost of the repairs that ships-of-war and floating batteries will require in every twelve or fifteen years will equal the cost of the original construction. In other words, in respect to the expense, vessels-of-war and floating batteries will require to be reconstructed every twelve or fifteen years. The injury done to fortifications in the most serious engagements can usually be repaired in a few days, or at most in a few weeks, while the damages to ships-ofwar and floating batteries in a similar engagement would require extensive repairs in every instance, and often render them unworthy of repair.

"Upon this data a satisfactory estimate may be made of the relative expense of the two modes of defending our principal harbors and naval depots. In presenting these views, I would not be understood by any means as disparaging the value and efficiency of war steamers and floating batteries when employed as an auxiliary force in any system of coast or harbor defence that may be adopted; nor is any idea entertained that they ought or can be altogether dispensed with."

It should be noticed that in the above report Mr. Bell not only attributes to our navy the entire defence of our shipping at sea, but also attaches importance to war steamers and floating batteries as an auxiliary force in any system of coast or harbor defence that may be adopted. We regret that the friendly feelings shown towards the naval service in the reports of Messrs. Poinsett, Bell, and Spencer, and of the board of officers on national defence, have not been re

ciprocated by the author of the Apalachicola report. That report is filled with sneers at the intelligence of the distinguished military officers of the board, and at the defensive system of the honorable Secretaries of War. It not only asserts that our defensive policy should be nearly exclusively by naval means, but it charges upon one branch of our military service the secret design of foisting upon the country a large standing army and laying the foundation upon which a great military policy will be erected; it endeavors to prejudice this service in the public estimation by calling upon the country to be on its guard against these covert designs. It moreover charges that fortifications, in furnishing garrisons to the army, have, by their "corrupting influences," so enervated that army and enfeebled its physical strength that it has perished "and melted away before the hardships of the first campaign within the boundaries of our own country."

This is not the place to enter upon the defence of the Florida army, if such defence be now necessary; but we affirm that no body of men ever exhibited more universal bravery, courage, and constancy than was shown by our soldiers during the tedious and harassing operations of that war. Wherever the foe

could be found he was met and conquered, no matter what his superiority in position or numbers. They showed no signs of being "enervated in spirit or enfeebled in physical strength," but they fought, and bled, and conquered, officers and men, side by side.

II. The Apalachicola report, after denouncing fortifications as utterly worthless as water defences, remarks that the sphere in which they can be of any use is in retarding the enemy's operations upon an inland frontier. "But even here," it says, "they have been assailed by the contempt of experienced soldiers;" "this system of fortifications is not the true defence of the country, and the further prosecution of it should be abandoned;" "our country should be relieved from the intolerable burden of defences by fortifications," &c. It moreover indorses the opinion that we should "confine our preparations (for defence) to the maritime frontier, as the inland border needs none, and the lake shores under all circumstances would be under the dominion of the strongest fleet."

From the middle ages down to the period of the French revolution wars were carried on mainly by the system of positions-one party confining their operations to the security of certain important places while the other directed their attention to their siege and capture. But Carnot and Napoleon changed this system, at the same time with the system of tactics, or rather returned to the old and true principle of strategic operations. Some men, looking merely at the fact that a change was made, but without examining the character of that change, have rushed headlong to the conclusion that fortified places are now utterly useless in warfare, military success depending entirely upon a good system of marches. On this subject Jomini remarks that "we should depend entirely upon neither organized masses nor upon material obstacles, whether natural or artificial. To follow exclusively either of these systems would be equally absurd. The true science of war consists in choosing a just medium between the two extremes. The wars of Napoleon demonstrated the great truth that distance can protect no country from invasion; but that a state to be secure must have a good system of fortresses and a good system of military reserves and military institutions." "Fortifications fulfil two objects of capital importance: first, the protection of frontiers; and, second, assisting the operations of the army in the field;" "every part of the frontiers of a state should be secured by one or two great places of refuge, secondary places, and even small posts for facilitating the active operations of the armies. Cities girt with walls and slight ditches may often be of great utility in the interior of a country as places of deposit where stores, magazines, hospitals, &c., may be sheltered from the incursions of the enemy's light troops. These works are more especially valuable

where such stores, in order not to weaken the regular army by detachments, are intrusted to the care of raw and militia forces."

"Fortifications," says Napoleon, "are useful both in offensive and defensive wars; for although they cannot alone arrest the progress of an army, yet they are an excellent means of retarding, fettering, enfeebling, and disquieting a conquering foe."-(Maxim 40.) In all military operations time is of vast im portance. If the advance of a single division of the army be retarded for a few hours only, it not unfrequently decides the fate of a campaign. Had the approach of Blucher been delayed for a few hours, Napoleon must have been victorious at the battle of Waterloo. An equilibrium can seldom be sustained for more than six or seven hours between forces on the field of battle; but in this instance the state of the ground rendered the movements so slow as to prolong the battle for more than thirteen hours-thus enabling the allies to effect a concentration in time to save Wellington. Many of Napoleon's brilliant victories resulted from merely bringing troops to bear suddenly upon some decisive point. This concentration of forces, even with a regular army, cannot be calculated on by the general with any degree of certainty unless his communications are perfectly secure. But this difficulty is much increased where the troops are new and undisciplined. When a country like ours is invaded, a large number of such troops must suddenly be called into the field. Not knowing the designs of the invaders, much time will be lost in marches and countermarches; and if there be no safe places of resort, the operations must be indecisive and insecure. To a defensive army, fortifications are valuable as points of repose upon which troops, if beaten, may fall back and shelter their sick and wounded, collect their scattered forces, repair their materiel, and draw together a new supply of stores and provisions; and as rallying points where new troops may be assembled with safety, and the army in a few days be prepared to again meet the enemy in the open field. Without these defences, undisciplined and inexperienced armies, when once routed, can seldom be rallied again without great losses. But when supported by forts they can select their opportunity for fighting, and offer or refuse battle according to the probability of success; and, having a safe place of retreat, they are far less influenced by fear in the actual conflict. It is not supposed that any system of fortifications can hermetically close a frontier. "But," says Jomini, "although they of themselves can rarely present an absolute obstacle to the advance of the hostile army, yet it is indisputable that they straiten its movements, change the direction of its marches, and force it into detachments; while, on the contrary, they afford all the opposite advantages to the defensive army; they protect its marches, favor its debouches, cover its magazines, its flanks, and its movements; and, finally, furnish it with a place of refuge in time of need." "If the enemy should venture to pass the line of these places without attacking them, he could not dispense with besieging, or, at least, observing them; and if they be numerous, an entire corps with its chief must be detached to invest or observe them, as circumstances might require." His army would thus be separated from its magazines, its strength and efficiency diminished by detachments, and his whole force exposed to the horrors of partisan warfare. It has therefore been estimated, by the best French military writers, that an army supported by a judicious system of fortifications can repel a land force six times as large as itself.

On the use of fortifications as inland defences, we quote from the writings of the Archduke Charles, who as a general knew no rival but Napoleon, and whose military writings are equalled by none, save the works of General Jomini. "The possession of strategic points," says the archduke, "is decisive in military operations. The most efficacious means should therefore be employed to defend points whose preservation is the country's safeguard. This object is accomplished by fortifications; for fortified places resist for a given time, with a small number of troops, every effort of a much larger force; fortifications should

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therefore be regarded as the bases of a good system of defence." "I advise the construction of permanent works as the most efficacious method of securing strategic points." "It should be a maxim of state policy in every country to fortify in time of peace all such points, and to arrange them with great care, so that they can be defended by a small number of troops; for the enemy, knowing the difficulty of getting possession of these works, will look twice before he involves himself in war." Establishments which can secure strategic advantages are not the works of a moment; they require time and labor. He who has the direction of the military forces of a state should in time of peace prepare for war; whatever he does should have reference to the rules of strategie; the military organization of the state, the construction of fortifications, the direction of roads and canals, the positions of depots and magazines, all should be attended to. The proper application or neglect of these principles will decide the safety or the ruin of the state. Fortifications arrest the enemy in the pursuit of his object, and direct his movements upon less important points; he must either force these fortified lines, or else hazard enterprises upon lines which offer only disadvantages. In fine, a country secured by a system of defence truly strategic has no cause to fear either the invasion or the yoke of the enemy, for he can advance to the interior of the country only through great trouble and by ruinous efforts. Of course, lines of fortifications thus arranged cannot shelter a state against all reverses; but these reverses will not, in this case, be attended by total ruin, for they cannot take from the state the means nor the time of collecting new forces, nor can they ever reduce it to the cruel alternative of submission or destruction."

We know of no better illustration of these remarks of the archduke and General Jomini, (both of whom it should be borne in mind are warm admirers of Napoleon's system of strategic warfare, and both of whom have written since the period at which modern military quacks date the downfall of fortifications as defences,) than the military histories of Germany and France.

For a long period previous to the thirty years' war, its strong castles and fortified cities secured the German empire from attacks from abroad, except on its extensive frontier, which was frequently attacked; but no enemy could penetrate to the interior till a want of union among its own princes opened its strongholds to the Swedish conqueror; nor then did the cautious Gustavus Adolphus venture far into its territories till he had obtained possession of all the military works that might endanger his retreat. Again: in the seven years' war, when the French neglected to secure their foothold in Germany, by placing in a state of defence the fortifications that fell into their power, the first defeat rendered their ground untenable, and threw them from the Elbe back upon the Rhine and Mayne. They afterwards took the precaution to fortify their positions and to secure their magazines under shelter of strong places, and consequently were enabled to maintain themselves in the hostile country till the end of the war, notwithstanding the inefficiency of their generals, the great reverses they sustained in the field, the skill and perseverance of the enemy they were contending with, and the weak and vacillating character of the cabinet that directed them.

But this system of defence was not so carefully maintained in the latter part of the eighteenth century; for at the beginning of the wars of the French revo lution, says Jomini, "Germany had too few fortifications; they were generally of a poor character and improperly located." France, on the contrary, was well fortified; "and although without armies, and torn to pieces by factions," (we here use the language of the archduke,) "she sustained herself against all Europe; and this was because her government, since the reign of Louis XIII, hed continually labored to put her frontiers into a defensive e ndition, agreeably to the principles of strategie. Starting from such a system for a basis, she subdued every country on the continent that was not thus fortified; and this reason

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