University of Virginia Library

24. XXIV.
TOPOGRAPHICAL ENGINEERS.

While the bill for reorganizing the Army was
under consideration during the last session of Congress,
the Military Committee of the House of
Representatives addressed a circular to the Chiefs
of Bureaus stationed in Washington, requesting
their views in relation to the wisdom and propriety
of its several provisions. The various letters
received by the Committee in reply to their circular
were subsequently printed by order of Congress,
and a copy of the curious and amusing document
thus formed has recently found its way to this
country. Its contents are of such an interesting
and extraordinary nature, considered in either a
literary or military point of view, that it is much
to be regretted it was not published in a more accessible

form. Stereotyped, and given to the world
with a few humorous illustrations, it would have met
with an unprecedented sale, leaving Fanny Fern's
Leavings, Bernum's Swindle and Wickoff's Love
Chase far in the distance.

The chef-d'œuvre of this unique document, the
richest cream where all is richness, is undoubtedly
the letter of Brevet Brigadier-General Joseph E.
Totten, Chief of the Corps of Fortification Engineers.
As a pompous display of dullness, bigotry
and narrow-minded views, it is worthy of the pen
of the celebrated Col. Sibthorpe. It would require
more time and ability than I have at my disposal
to attempt a thorough review of the General's
letter. I shall therefore confine myself to a slight
fusilade against the most salient point of this redoubtable
piece of military engineering.

It will be remembered that the Army Bill above
alluded to, contained among other provisions, one
“discontinuing the Corps of Topographical Engineers,
and transferring its officers to the Corps of
Engineers or other corps and regiments.” The

Corps of Topographical Engineers, organized in
1838, consists of forty-six officers, most of whom
have served in the field, not without some little distinction,
and whose scientific skill, not acquired
without hard study and experience, has been constantly
called in requisition in the construction of
military roads, improvement of rivers and harbors,
building light houses, establishing boundaries and
particularly in increasing the geographical knowledge
of the country by explorations of new and
comparatively unknown territories. The faithful
discharge of these duties requires the utmost familiarity
with the higher and more abstruse branches
of science, and the young officer engaged in them
has the satisfaction of knowing that he is doing
something useful for his country, and that his exertions
are appreciated by his countrymen. The
Corps of Engineers, (commanded by Brevet-Brigadier
General Totten,) have no other specific
duty in time of peace than to erect permanent fortifications.
These works, built of brick, cut stones,
dirt and cement, were invented as a system of national
defence by an old person named Vauban,
some years since, and as he confessed himself (never
dreaming of Sebastopol) that the best of them
could be captured in forty days, it may be a question,
as the boy said when he learned the alphabet,
“whether it's worth while to go through so much
work to do so little.” But, leaving the question
aside, it is very evident that the officers of the
Corps of Engineers, being constantly employed in
this manner, according to a system of unvarying
rules, have little opportunity to display any ability
beyond that of other stone masons, and the highest
stretch of their ambition in time of peace, must
probably be to become the happy inventors of
some new conglomerate, breccia, putty or other
unpleasant stuff spoken of in the works of old
Dennis Mahan. I do not allude to the duties of
either Corps during a state of war, for the reason
that both then, become to some extent, soldiers, lose
their distinguishing characteristics and perform
nearly identical services. It could scarcely be expected
that the Officers of the Topographical Engineers
would be contented at undergoing the operation
so pleasantly alluded to as “being discontinued,”
or that they would feel any ecstatic delight
at being merged in the Corps of Fortification Engineers,
to become manufacturers of permanent fortificacations,
dirt pies on a large scale, which, (Sebastopol
excepted,) anybody can knock down again in
forty days. Such a life holds out little prospect
of distinction, and I am persuaded that, no matter
how much talent or ability a young man may possess,
if, when he has completed his education, you
give him a fixed salary for life, and make him a
stone mason, a stone mason he will remain, and
never be heard of in any other capacity. But
Brevet Brigadier General Totten does not view
the matter at all in this light. Believing that his
corps is the embodiment of every thing that is useful
and improving; that the manufacture of putty
is the most scientific employment under the sun;
or in the words of another old lady, “there is but
one what-d'ye-call-it, and he is its thingumbob,” —
he utterly objects to the introduction of the unfortunate
topographers, on the ground that their capacity
is not sufficient to master the tremendous
duties of the Corps of Engineers, and that it would
be doing his officers great injustice to associate
with them men of such inferior ability. And how
do you imagine he proceeds to prove the topographical
inferiority? By quoting the graduating standing
of these officers at the Military Academy at
West Point.

Says the General — “Those cadets only who
graduate at, or near the head of a class at West
Point, are promoted as Lieutenants in the Corps
of Engineers; the succeeding cadets are promoted
in the Topographical Engineers and Ordnance.”
And then to render clear the injustice of merging
the two corps, he produces statistics to show that
the average graduating standing of the Officers
of Engineers is represented by the number 2½,
while that of the inferior Topographers actually
amounts to 11¼. (One of the officers having unhappily
stood 55th, was promoted in the Infantry,
and transferred.) This is indeed a fearful distinction.

Since the publication of this alarming discovery,
a friend of mine who has the misfortune
to be a Topographical Engineer, (but who constantly
wears a citizen's dress, for fear some one
will find it out,) tells me he never walks the street
without fancying a huge 11¼ chalked between his
shoulders, attracting the public attention and obloquy.
If he meets an Officer of Engineers, he
reverently makes way, respectfully murmuring 2½;
and he has entirely lost the power of looking out
for No. 1, so absorbed is he in the thought of
No. 11¼. It may be considered a very fair method
of classification to take an officer's graduating
standing at the Military Academy as a guage
of his mental calibre for the remainder of his existence,
possibly the rule might work to admiration
in a corps where no incentives were held out for
study or improvement: but to show that in the
army at large it has, like “Taylor's Theorem,” its
failing cases, allow me to adduce one or two instances.

The present Secretary of War, Hon. Jefferson

Davis, who, I presume, General Totten would not
consider quite destitute of ability, graduated twenty-third
in his class, and the present Minister to China,
Hon. Robert M. McLane, late M. C. from Maryland,
formerly of the Topographical Engineers,
and by no means an idiot, graduated thirty-seventh
in the class of 1837. But the Corps of Topographical
Engineers was only formed in 1838,
while the Engineers date from the time when Noah,
sick of the sea, landed and threw up a field-work
on Mount Ararat. I remember well a time-honored
legend at West Point, which told how one
of the earlier classes at that institution was composed
of but two members. At their final examination,
one was sent to the Board to demonstrate
the 47th problem of Euclid; but after a little hesitation
he confessed his inability to draw the figure,
though he felt confident he could make the demonstration.
The second here rose, and diffidently
remarked, that though he could not demonstrate
the proposition, he was able to draw the figure.
This division of labor was accordingly made, the
figure drawn in a style of unrivaled elegance by
the one, who was placed head in drawing, and forcibly
demonstrated by the other, who was placed
head in mathematics.

Both gentlemen were deservedly promoted in the
Corps of Engineers. If this story be true, and I
certainly do not vouch for it, the singularly small
number representing the graduating standing of
the Corps of Engineers may be accounted for.

But if West Point standing is referred to as a
means of judging of the ability of an experienced
officer, why not go farther back in his antecedents?
Why not, on Brevet Brigadier General Totten,
prove that the officers of the Corps of Engineers
at their first introduction to this world of sin and
sorrow, weighed from 12 to 16 pounds each, while
the Topographical babies were but puling weakly
things, averaging at the best but seven and a quarter?
Why not refer to the Sunday Schools, where
the little Engineer Infants at the early age of five,
could repeat with fluency the Apostles' Creed, the
Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, while

the poor little Topogs (weighing then scarcely
eleven and a quarter) could scarcely get through
their A B — A B'S, and ask for sugar? It strikes
me illustratious chief of a Super-topographical
Corps, that these researches would be eqnally apposite
and convincing.

The letter of the Brevet Brigadier General,
contains many other funny statements, besides the
statistics: the document contains many funny letters
besides the Brevet Brigadier's, but I have no
time to allude farther to them at present. I would
merely suggest to a discerning public, the propriety
of having the whole published by subscription,
elegantly bound in gilt and morocco, after the
manner of the Knickerbocker Gallery. Then with
the proceeds, by the side of that limpid lake, from
whence the calm waters of Salt River placidly
meander to the sea, I would have erected a beautiful
cottage, in form, a mural castle, with the
number 2½ in brazen block letters above the portal.
Here in quiet contemplation over what he
has done, and in the tranquil enjoyment of his self

esteem, Brevet Brigadier General Totten might
pass the remainder of his days in happiness and
peace. But he should not be allowed to write any
more letters!