Imatges de pàgina
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local peculiarities. As auxiliaries of fortifications they will always be useful, however, and as substitutes in the cases just supposed indispensable.

6. No improvements or inventions of modern times tend in any degree to lessen the efficiency of fortifications as means of coast defence, while the principal one, namely, the firing of shells from guns, unquestionably augments their relative power.

NORTHERN FRONTIER.

The Secretary of War presents another interrogatory (the fourth) in the following words: "How far the increase of population on the northern frontier, and of the mercantile marine on the northern lakes, obviates or diminishes the necessity of continuing the system of fortification on those lakes?"

The system of defence for these lakes recommended by the joint board in 1840 (see Doc. 206, page 100) comprised the following works:

1. Fort Brady, at the straits between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. Estimated cost of repair...

2. Fort Mackinac, at the junction of Lake Michigan with Lake Huron. Estimated cost of repair....

3. Fort Gratiot, at the outlet of Lake Huron. Estimated cost of repair...

$75,000

50,000

50,000

Note.-All these are old works, long occupied by United States troops, and it is designed to give them further strength and means of accommodation for garrisons.

4. A new fort and barracks near Detroit. Estimated cost of con

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5. Defensive works and barracks at Buffalo. Estimated cost of

$250,000 171, 755

66,000

construction.... Amount expended

$150,000 116, 500

Amount required to complete.....

33,500

6. Repair of old Fort Niagara. Estimated cost of repair. Amount expended....

$84, 027

59,027

Amount required to complete.

25,000

7. Repairs of old Fort Ontario. Estimated cost of repair.. Amount expended..

$83, 013

78, 013

5,000

Amount required to complete..

Note. These two are old works, the former having been always garrisoned, I believe.

8. And a fort at the outlet of Lake Champlain. Estimated cost

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These, it was thought, should be executed as soon as the means of the treasury would allow.

And it was recommended in the above report, and in others on the same subject, that at the approach of war with England

9. Works should be placed at the mouth of the Genesee river

10. A fort should be built at Sackett's Harbor.

11. Another at a narrow part of the St. Lawrence river.

12. That a large barrack establishment should be prepared at Plattsburg. 13. Stone house, &c., at the head of the Kennebec and Penobscot.

14. A fort at Calais, on the St. Croix; and,

15. A large barrack establishment near Albany.

These last mentioned preparations for war (Nos. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15) may still be left (as was designed) to be reconsidered at any time that such a certainty may seem to impend.

Nothing has yet been done to Forts Brady, Mackinac, or Gratiot, and though the maintenance of these forts in a war with England would undoubtedly be necessary, they may, with less damage than the others, be left as the last, to receive all the additional strength their situations demand.

In the meantime

the indispensable repairs that small appropriations will accomplish should be provided for; for instance, a part of the very old wall of Fort Mackinac having fallen down, a small grant was asked last year for its repair, a request that is this year repeated.

Fort Wayne, the new fort near Detroit, has, since the date of the report above referred to, been built and is now in perfect condition, and there remains therein only the re-erection of officers' quarters destroyed by fire just after being completed, and the addition of some other quarters, storehouses, &c., the barracks being very nearly finished; the remaining expense being estimated at $66,000.

Fort Ontario, at Oswego, has also been finished, with several entirely new quarters, storehouses, barracks, &c., together with a long sea-wall, found to be necessary to preserve the site. Only small grants, for slight repairs, will be needed for this work for some time; but of which one for nine hundred dollars is now asked. This fort is not a permanent one, and, if required to be maintained many years hence, may need repairs somewhat extensive.

Fort Niagara has received extensive repairs, and is in a defensible condition; but the expenditure having been restricted to the fortification proper and to the magazine, the accommodations for the garrison, which are remains of the old French work, are in a bad condition, and need repair for the health and comfort of the troops. A new hospital was hardly finished, a year or two ago, when it was destroyed by fire, originating in another part of the fort; which accident, with the similar one at Fort Wayne mentioned above, shows that economy even exacts that buildings be made fire-proof. The effect of this fire upon some palisading, as well as upon the hospital, and the decay of some wooden gun platforms, make a small appropriation necessary. The old stone houses will have to be rebuilt, though they may be kept up for a short time, and some enlargement must be given to quarters; all which will, perhaps, involve an expense of $25,000.

At Buffalo, Fort Porter has been built, and is finished. It is a tower enclosed by a battery. It commands the entrance into Niagara river, and also the shore and anchorage in front of the city of Buffalo, nearly up to the mouth of Buffalo harbor. There is connected with the fort a good house for officers' quarters that was purchased with the site. There will be needed, further, another battery and tower, to be placed at or near the mouth of the harbor, at an additional cost, beyond the means in hand, of, say, $33,500.

Such barracks as may be wanted at a future day may there be hired or hastily erected.

Fort Montgomery, outlet of Lake Champlain.-This fort is not less than half finished; indeed, considering the difficulties and expense that attended the making a foundation of piles under the whole fort, it may be said to be two-thirds finished. The remaining expense may be estimated at $224,142.

We see, therefore, that of all the new works designed to be executed on the northern frontier, in anticipation of a war, there remains to be expended— At Fort Wayne, Detroit, for buildings...

At Buffalo, for tower and battery

At Fort Montgomery, outlet of Lake Champlain..

On repairs of old works there is now, or soon will be, needed—

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$66, 500 00 33,000 00 224, 142 00

323,642 00

$25,000 00

5,000 00

20,000 00

50,000 00

373, 642 00

Making a total of..........

If we add to this sum the estimates, before given, for—

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There will be a grand total for the northern frontier of

528, 642 00

I thought it best to show first the actual condition of things on the northern frontier, before proceeding with a reply to the specific inquiries of the honorable Secretary of War.

The great length to which this report has extented, notwithstanding that a sincere desire to keep it within more reasonable limits has induced me to omit considerations that I wished to adduce, must now restrict my remarks, referring to some previous reports wherein the subject of our northern defences have been specially treated-I mean, particularly, first, a report of a special board of engi neer officers, addressed to the Secretary of War, December 27, 1838; second, a letter from the chief engineer to the Secretary of War, of February 20, 1839; and, third, a report to the Secretary of the Navy, from a joint board, consisting of Commodore Morris and the chief engineer, dated November 18,

1845.

It is undoubtedly true that the augmented population and extended naviga tion of the upper lakes will afford great resources in that quarter to the nation, on the occurrence of a war with England, and there seems to be a feeling with many that in such an event a great flood of armed men would sweep across the whole surface of Canada, effacing all organized resistance, and trampling down all opposition. That this is possible may not, I suppose, be questioned, but that it will not be done is certain, if there remain in our councils firmness to resist all such fruitless impulses, and wisdom to see and pursue the proper course.

All Upper Canada might be thus swept, from Lake Superior down to Montreal, without a real conquest of the country, and, indeed, without gaining any advantage of vital moment. Kingston, in all that distance, is the only place at which anything like a serious impression would be made upon the military means of defence; and, as the flood should pass away, all that part of the province, if loyal before, would not be made less so by the desolation spread around.

No solid resistance would be made to such an inroad, and there being no fortications worth defending in a way to compromise the safety of the regular troops, these would retreat before it, accumulating, as they receded, into the lower province, where would be found, supported by the most formidable natural obstacles, not the force of Canada merely, but also the army and navy of England, in daily communication with the mother country, and where would have to be fought and won the battles which alone would secure a conquest. Any plan of operation that contemplates overrunning Upper Canada, or making such attacks upon it, would be costly, beyond all calculation, in life and treasure, and unnecessary and fruitless after all. A country is conquered by concentrated efforts of well appointed armies upon vital points, often a single point-a levy en masse is the great resource of defence; a well prepared and well appointed army is the only reliable, as it is also, by far, the cheapest means of invasion.

If we send a single army into Canada by Lake Champlain and the peninsula. lying between the Richelieu and St. Lawrence, and possess ourselves of Montreal, or of both shores of the St. Lawrence at any place below that city where the channel can be commanded, all the wide extent of the British possessions above that point will be paralyzed, being entirely cut off, not only from the mother country, but also from all relief from Lower Canada, including Quebec, and from the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. To do this a great battle must be gained-probably on the peninsula just mentioned, and being gained, must be followed up by other victories, ending in the capture of Quebec-the last barrier that can be manned by the British. The policy of the defence will be, while keeping an eye upon any preparations for the attack just mentioned, by every resort, device, and effort, to agitate the frontier above, and thereby draw the attention, and, as far as possible, the means of our government to the defence of that frontier. They will generally expose there but few regular troops, but will collect volunteers, militia and Indians in as large numbers as possible. They will detach thither bodies of ship-carpenters and sailors, and make great efforts to obtain and keep a naval ascendency, if not everywhere, at least wherever possible.

This was exactly the policy followed by the English during the war of 1812, and with full success. By judgment, perseverance, and activity, they kept the strength of this country so attenuated, by stretching along a frontier of many hundred miles, that no great effort could be made anywhere; and upon the true point of attack reduced the efforts to means so feeble as to end only in discomfiture and disgrace. Our government had its attention always, more or less, turned in the right direction, and several times attempted to assemble armies on the Champlain frontier, but always withdrew these troops, giving way to clamor raised by other frontier districts that were assailed, or believed themselves endangered by British enterprises.

The British took Chicago, Mackinac, Detroit; besieged Fort Meigs; attacked Fort Sandusky; captured Black Rock and Buffalo two or three times; they fought the battles of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane; besieged and assaulted Fort Erie; they captured Fort Niagara and Fort Ontario; attacked Sackett's Harbor; took Ogdensburg, French Mills, Malone, &c. All these certainly for no design or hope of conquest and extended occupation, but for the purpose of keeping up an excited state of feeling and an energetic warfare that would fully occupy this government. When in 1814 the assembling of six or seven thousand men at Plattsburg, under General Izard, seemed to threaten their weak point, the English forthwith began to concentrate their best troops in opposition, and no sooner was that general withdrawn to reinforce the Niagara frontier than this English force dashed forward in hopes, by profiting of our weakness to make themselves masters of the lake, and thereby cover for an indefinite period their vital point.

If there has been a great increase of power and reasoning in the United

States since the war of 1812, there has, on the other hand, been a great change of the same sort in the population, and also in the military means of Canada. The Rideau canal opens a communication between Montreal and Lake Ontario, and the Welland canal between Lakes Erie and Ontario; and good roads and canals from Toronto, on Lake Ontario to Lake Huron, all deep in the heart of the country, and not to be intercepted except by victorious armies. All the light draught war steamers of Great Britain can be sent fully armed, provisioned, and manned, directly from sea up to the very head of Lake Ontario; and we can now do nothing whatever, and shall be unable to do anything except by the erection of a fort at some commanding point on the St. Lawrence to stop this transit. War steamers or other armed vessels, though of smaller size, may branch off from this main line into Lake Champlain, and others into Lake Erie. Besides, the number of British merchant steamers on Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence, above Montreal, is greater than of American steamers; and between Montreal and Quebec there are several of the largest size, so that as many troops as they might desire to send could be transported in twenty-four hours from Quebec to Montreal; in two or three days to Kingston; and in three or four days to the head of Lake Ontario and the shores of Lake Eric. They have, moreover, a strong new fortification at Kingston which will require a siege to reduce, and which, with other defences, covers a large naval depot, and also the outlet of the Rideau canal. Under these and other circumstances favorable to the power of Canada, the relative numbers of the people of the two countries afford no measure of relative strength for military purposes, especially at the beginning of a war; and even as to numbers we shall find the difference less when we call to mind that the people of the British Islands are quite as near in time to this frontier as our most remote States, and that the help those islands will send will consist of war steamers and regiments of disciplined troops. It will not be with Canada alone that we shall have to contend, but with Canada and Great Britain-the latter a nation always ready with great military power, and prepared with naval means to throw a large army upon the lake shore as soon, at least, as we should be ready to face them with our undisciplined levies. Our plan of operations being to move forward from the foot of Lake Champlain as a base, we should not permit any demonstration nor any real attacks from Canada upon the frontier above to direct us, although great efforts will undoubtedly be made to that end all along the line from Montreal to Lake Superior.

We have not now, and without great and costly efforts could not acquire the naval ascendency on Lake Ontario and on the St. Lawrence. We could not attain to it at all without putting our building establishments under cover of fortifications.

By the time one-half dozen merchant steamers on Lake Champlain could be prepared and armed, the English might pour into the lake through their canals adequate naval means, supplied by Montreal, Quebec and the St. Lawrence, to make the struggle for the mastery on that lake a doubtful one at least. If they could think it possible that we should fail to fortify the outlet of the lake, the contemplated enlargement of the canal from Chambly to St. John's, (about twelve miles,) whereby war steamers could pass into that lake as they now may into Lake Ontario, would undoubtedly be executed.

Upon Lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan we unquestionably have a great superiority in naval preparation, which is likely, moreover, to increase from year to year; and if timely care be taken to arm and man a suitable portion of these, the mastery may be retained.

If there be truth and force in the foregoing statements and opinions, a war with England will begin with the naval supremacy against us, along the whole range of the St. Lawrence and the head of Lake Ontario; with means in the enemy's hands of contending for, at least, if not seizing, a like supremacy on

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