fortification, whether these be continued, extended, or modified, I beg leave to express an emphatic dissent from all theories having for their object the substitution of active ships-of-war for permanent works. This would be placing the navy in a false position before the country; giving it duties to perform for which its organization is inapplicable; preparing for its future discredit and loss, through failures to execute that which should never have been undertaken, which is not embraced in the general scope and design of a naval establishment.

To retain the navy for harbor defence was entertained at the commencement of the last war with England; the proposition to do so sprung from the apprehension that it could not compete with the vastly superior English forces upon the ocean. But at that time some brave and sagacious officers in the high ranks saved the navy from the fate that threatened it, and to these gentlemen it owes all its subsequent honors, usefulness, and prosperity. If any such ideas prevail, at this day, in or out of the profession, those holding them would do well to pause and consider what the navy would have lost, and what the country would have lost, if our ships-of-war had at that eventful period been deprived of the opportunity of filling so bright a page in the nation's history by their achievements upon the ocean. In this connexion an eloquent passage in the speech of a great statesman is recalled, delivered in the Senate of the United States in 1838. After alluding to our being at war with England, at a moment when she had gained an ascendancy on the seas over the whole combined powers of Europe, and quoting the familiar verse of her poet,

"Her march is o'er the mountain wave,
Her home is on the deep,"

Mr. Webster says: "Now, sir, since we were at war with her I was for intercepting this march; I was for calling upon her, and paying our respects to her at home; I was for giving her to know that we, too, had a right of way over the seas, and that our officers and our sailors were not entire strangers on the bosom of the deep; I was for doing something more with our navy than to keep it on our shores for the protection of our own coasts and our own harbors; I was for giving play to its gallant and burning spirit; for allowing it to go forth upon the seas, and to encounter on an open and an equal field whatever the proudest or the bravest of the enemy could bring against it. I knew the character of its officers and the spirit of its seamen, and I knew that in their hands, though the flag of the country might go down to the bottom, while they went with it, yet that it could never be dishonored or disgraced.

"Since she was our enemy, and a most powerful enemy, I was for touching her, if we could, in the very apple of her eye; for reaching the highest feather in her cap; for clutching at the very highest jewel in her crown.' "The ocean, therefore, was the proper theatre for deciding this controversy with our enemy; and on that theatre my ardent wish was that our own power should be concentrated to the utmost.”

It would be ill suited, indeed, to the spirit of this nation to retain its naval forces in its own waters during a war, especially if that war was with a naval power. Steam, this new element in the affairs of the world, has very materially changed our position with reference to other nations. Our distance from Europe, measured in time, is now reduced to a brief period of ten days. These United States have hitherto been advancing the general cause of human liberty by an active and progressive peace; but do not events abroad more and more indicate that we may, at no distant day, be forced into our own defence-to aid this cause of freedom by an active war?

Respectfully submitted.

S. F. DUPONT, Commander United States Nary.

No. 5.

Report of Lieutenant J. Lanman.

NEW YORK NAVY YARD, September 20, 1851.

SIR: In obedience to the within order of the honorable the Secretary of the Navy, I have the honor to submit the following, as the result of my best reflections upon the subject referred to in your communication of the 17th June last, addressed to the honorable the Secretary of the Navy :

1st. "To what extent, if any, ought the present system of fortifications for the protection of our seaboard 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?"

The great change produced upon all maritime nations by the application of steam must, of course, have a most important bearing in regard to the system of our national defences, as adopted in the year 1816, and that system most applicable to the same purpose at the present day.

I desire to say that should a foreign power design hostilities against the United States, their steamers, with transport ships in tow, would not attempt to pass our fortifications, but could land thousands of troops upon our shores at the numerous points convenient for so doing, and free from the annoyance of any battery.

At the same time, I conceive it all important that our seaports should be protected; yet the great improvements made in projectiles, and the advancement in the science of gunnery, would suggest that our fortifications need not be so extensive, and consequently erected at much less expense. Though I would not demolish any of the works now completed, yet those being erected could be so modified as to receive the heavy armament of the present day, and be finished at much less expense than by carrying out the designs of fortifications planned many years since and not yet completed.

2d.

What reliance could be placed on vessels-of-war, or of commerce, floating batteries, gunboats, and other temporary substitutes for permanent fortifications?"

In reply I would say that great reliance could be placed on war steamers of moderate draught of water, armed with our efficient eight and ten-inch columbiads, as they should at all times be in readiness to take in tow any armed vessels at the naval station, and in a few hours from port could oppose the landing of the enemy upon any part of the adjacent coast.

Sailing vessel of the commercial marine and river steamers (suitable for the purpose) would be available means of transporting troops to oppose the landing upon our shores of any hostile force.

Floating batteries and gunboats, and other temporary substitutes for permanent fortifications, I conceive to be heavy expenditures of the public treasury, and not of the least possible benefit to the government. Of course I would except such temporary means of defence as a case of emergency might demand. when the people of our country are ever ready to look out for themselves.

3d. "Is it necessary or expedient to consider the system on fortifications on the shores of the northern lakes?"

The same answer will apply to those works that I have made in regard to the fortifications on our seaboard. Those unfinished should be modernized, and

those in service armed with projectiles and otherwise adapted to the improvements of the year 1851.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

Hon. C. M. CONRAD,

Secretary of War.

JOSEPH LANMAN, Lieutenant United States Navy,

No. 6.

Report of Lieutenant M. F. Maury.

NATIONAL OBSERVATORY, Washington, August, 1851.

SIR: I have received a communication from the Secretary of the Navy, covering the copy of a letter from yourself of June 17, 1851, requesting him to communicate certain resolutions of Congress concerning land defences and fortifications to several officers of the navy, and "to obtain their separate opinions in writing" upon the following points, viz:

1st. "To what extent, if any, ought the present system of fortifications for the protection of our seaboard 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, gunboats, and other temporary substitutes for permanent fortifica

tions ?"

3d. "Is it necessary or expedient to continue the system of fortifications on the northern lakes?"

The resolutions are:

"1st. Resolved, 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 war with Great Britain, and since pursued, in regard to the permanent fortifications then deemed necessary for the national defence; and that he report whether the general plan may not now be 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 progress 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."

I am directed by the Secretary of the Navy to give this subject my "best reflections, and to communicate the result to the Secretary of War."

To make clear the result of my reflections upon this subject it is first necessary to pass, at least briefly, in review the condition of the country immediately preceding the year 1816, when the present system of fortifications was adopted, and to contrast the condition and military resources of the United States then, and their condition and military resources now.

H. Rep. Com. 86—29

In 1816 our population was eight millions; we had just come out of a trying and expensive war with the most powerful nation in the world; our soil had been invaded, the Capitol burned, towns had been besieged, villages laid waste, and the people greatly harassed by the presence among them of an insolent foe. The application of steam as a motive power, even to river craft, was but an experiment, and men had not yet waked from their dream in which they first saw upon the ocean visions of steam navigation. Railroads had not then begun to thread themselves over the country, nor had the first telegraphic wire streaked the horizon. The country had been and might again be invaded; the alarm could be spread only at the rate of one hundred miles a day; and to repel the enemy our generals could bring up their forces only at the rate of what, in this day of steam and railroad car, would be considered as a snail's pace; twenty miles was a good day's march for an army.

Under these circumstances, with the horrors of war and the dread of invasion fresh in the minds of the people, it was natural that the attention of the government should be directed to a system of defence along our borders which, in another war, should make the weak points strong, the salient impregnable, and the exposed, the rich, and the tempting secure; thus rendering the country in another war safe from invasion. Accordingly, the plan was to line the seaboards with forts and castles, which should oppose the advances of the enemy, beat him back, resist sieges, and support garrisons for defence, until re-enforcements should arrive or the patience and the energies of the assailants should become exhausted. Under these circumstances the present system of fortifications was commenced.

For defending the approaches to any particular part of the coast, the engineer, in planning his works, had to take into account the importance to us of the place to be defended; the importance which the enemy would probably attach to its occupation by himself; and the force that he would or could, probably, bring against it. Also an element which entered largely into the engineer's plans was the kind of force, the calibre of guns, &c., that his fort would have to withstand.

But since that time great changes have taken place. The relative importance of ports and harbors, and places to be defended along the coast, has greatly changed. The implements of warfare and the means of attack and defence have changed; structures that were well calculated to resist the batteries of the best appointed ships in 1816, would now tumble down before the appliances of modern warfare. The improvements which have since taken place in ships, their armaments and locomotion, are vast; and therefore works may be found along our coast which, though sufficient in their day, would now be wholly inadequate to the purpose for which they were intended.

At best, a fort can actually defend so much of the coast only as lies within the range of its guns; outside of this range and enemy may disembark an army, land his heavy ordnance in the very sight of the strongest castle, as we ourselves have since done at Vera Cruz, and proceed to invest, from the rear, the strongholds of the country. It was therefore practicable for a bold and dashing enemy, notwithstanding the powerful and costly works at Old Point Comfort, in Virginia, to land in sight of these works an army, in Lynn Haven bay, march up to Norfolk without coming in reach of the protecting battery, and invest the city and the navy yard-the very places the guns of these forts were intended to protect.

True, it was practicable to erect works of defence at Lynn Haven bay; but being erected, the sagacity of our engineers perceived there were still other places and times at which an enemy might land and march up to Norfolk without once coming in range of the Lynn Haven guns. The country saw this, and perceived that effectually to prevent an enemy of naval resources from landing on our coast in war would require a structure but little short of a

Chinese wall, with bastions mounting guns to range and rake every point, from one end of our extended sea-front to the other.

Solomon's exchequer could not withstand the drafts which such a complete system of defence would make upon the treasury; and neither the minds of the people nor the purse of the public was prepared to incur it. Accordingly, the most important points were selected for fortifications, which, even if completed, would not have protected the country from invasion; they would only have prevented the enemy from anchoring with his fleet in the most safe roadsteads, and from landing with his forces at the most convenient places, and from battering down our cities with the guns of his men-of-war.

And upon the carrying out of this system, as incomplete as it necessarily was, there was involved, according to the estimates of the most skilful and accomplished engineers, a sum of money which it would be difficult for the imagination to conceive, for it required eight or nine places of figures to comprehend it, so enormous was the amount.

While this system, expensive and defective as it was, was in progress, com-menced those changes in the country to which I have alluded; a change of population from eight to twenty odd millions, in the means of spreading the alarm of an intended invasion; a change from the signal fire on the mountain and the horse and his rider, to the fiery footed messenger of heaven, to raise the country. For the foot pace of twenty miles a day, as the weary rate of our advancing armies, a change which ties infantry, cavalry, and artillery all to thetail of the iron horse, mounts them on railroads, and speeds off with them at the rate of twenty times twenty miles a day, with the ability to land them at the appointed place at the appointed time, refreshed with the ride and ready for battle; a change in ordnance and missiles of death, which are far more destructive and much more terrible in battle than any ever known in the annals of military warfare, Anno domini 1816.

These changes are enough to revolutionize the system of coast defences.. They have rendered effete in part the system of 1816.

Railroads are now already completed, or actually in process of construction,. leading from New York up among the granite hills of New England-back to the lakes and beyond the mountains-cuts the great Miami bottom, and spread-ing themselves out over the rich prairies beyond.

From Norfolk they go north and south, and are ramifying themselves far away into the back country, with the intent of reaching the very heart of the nation in the good valley of the west.

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 disembarking 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 waiting: and ready to receive him and beat him back into the sea, a force two to onegreater than his, however strong.

Suppose that in 1847 there had been in active operation between Vera Cruz. and the city of Mexico a line of magnetic telegraph and such a railroad as is. the Erie road of New York, can it be supposed that our generals, being cogni-zant of the facts, would have so much as entertained the idea 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 pro-tected from military surprise and invasion from the sea by a net-work of tele-graphic wires; the mere knowledge of the fact that Norfolk and New York. can bring to their defence such resources will forever prevent even the thought in the mind of an enemy of landing in force at Lynn Haven bay or on Long Island.