Chapter 8: So Much By So Few

While the topogs assigned to the war zone contributed directly to victory in the field, the Topographical Bureau also provided indirect support for the war effort. With more topog officers assigned to the Army field commanders, emphasis on civil works declined. Congress suspended appropriations for certain river and harbor improvements for the duration of the war and for a period thereafter. Officers who remained in the United States carried on with their work as best they could. Some continued their surveys of the Great Lakes and others worked on improving harbor defenses. Supervision of lighthouse construction proceeded, as did work on a few remaining civil works projects, but most of the corps' work was war related, including the supervision of the construction of steamboats for use in Mexico and continuing military reconnaissance patrols in Texas.

In 1846 the Corps of Topographical Engineers had forty-two officers, including six brevet second lieutenants. Two-thirds of the officers were working in the United States. Lt. Col. James Kearney, helped by six lieutenants, was in charge of the Great Lakes Survey; in the Gulf of Mexico islands of the Tortugas Major Hartman Bache and a team of two captains and two lieutenants oversaw surveys for the defense of the islands; and before their departure to Mexico in September, Lieutenants Derby and Scammon worked on a survey of the defenses of New Bedford harbor. Major Campbell Graham had recently completed a survey along the northern boundary; several of his assistants, including Emory and Pope, received orders to report to field commands. Before reporting to Scott's army gathering in Mexico, Major Turnbull, helped by two

captains and one lieutenant, began to close his accounts on harbor improvements on Lakes Ontario and Erie. Brevet Lt. Col. Stephen Long remained at his Office of Improvements of Western Rivers in Louisville supervising the disposition of his equipment after the suspension of funds for improvements to the western rivers. There was a captain assigned to the Topographic Bureau as Colonel Abert's assistant and another on the sick rolls, one lieutenant at work on the Coast Survey, one assigned as an instructor at West Point, and three others assigned to the bureau to complete maps and calculations of the Northern Boundary Survey.1

Other officers were either in or near the war zone. By November 1846 Taylor's command had three Topographical Engineers and Wool and Kearny each had four. In addition, the corps had two lieutenants in Texas doing surveys. Major Graham, another topog, served as a courier to deliver the U.S. government's rejection of the armistice arranged by General Taylor after the capture of Monterrey. Three other officers, including Johnston and Hardcastle, had also received notification alerting them for duty in the war zone.2

Surveys for the defenses of the frontier and coastal regions proceeded in 1846. The coastal surveys involved surveying sites for fortifications and approaches to seaports from various points. Military reconnaissance expeditions of the coasts and inland frontier for the purpose of making maps were also part of this endeavor. Colonel Abert recommended the surveys of the Great Lakes be given high priority because they "are highly interesting to the military as well as the commercial interests of the country, and ought to be prosecuted with great vigor."3

The Corps of Topographical Engineers still did not have its own enlisted personnel. Abert continued to press the War Department to authorize the permanent attachment of soldiers to the Topographical Bureau, arguing that in a small army it was impractical to detail temporarily soldiers from other branches to serve with the Topographical Engineers and ineffective because these soldiers were unfamiliar with topographical functions. Said Abert:

There can be no doubt that great economy would result from an enlisted body of about 200 men, including non-commissioned officers, as well as more efficiency to the service. Such a system would soon, by its economy, compensate for all its cost, on any of our surveys; but in operating in the field with an army, the necessity of it is very great. All the reasoning in its favor resolves in the simple axiom, that a man is better for a duty by knowing something about it.4

Congress did not agree. Despite the merit of Abert's proposal and its low cost (about $20,000), Congress would not assign enlisted personnel to the Topographical Engineers until 1861, when the Civil War broke out. In the field, the topog officers faced continual difficulties because of the lack of trained assistants. Because field commanders often were reluctant to provide enlisted men to help, the Topographical Engineers found it necessary to go to the expense and trouble of finding and hiring suitable civilian assistants.5

In 1847, the Corps of Topographical Engineers became even more war oriented. By November 1847 Abert reported twenty topogs, about half of the entire corps of forty-one officers, were serving in Mexico. Despite the drain of personnel assigned to the field commands, regular defense related and civil works projects made headway. Surveys for the defensive work construction in the Tortugas and New Bedford harbor reached completion, and new surveys in New York harbor commenced. Surveys for the defenses of San

Diego, Monterey, and the bay of San Francisco were under way in California, and there were followup surveys taking place in Texas.7

Though Congress had reduced funds for river and harbor improvements, a reduced number of topogs carried on with various civil engineering projects and surveys in the East. Three topogs worked on the Coast Survey; four remained at work on the Great Lakes Survey; and one supervised the paving of Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, a project no doubt of high visibility in the capital. As the Topographical Engineers supervised lighthouse construction on an infrequent basis in the past, Congress in March 1847, transferred more lighthouse construction projects to the corps, an action that marked the real beginnings of the corps' involvement in this new field.8

Without funds for his Western Rivers' improvement work, Bvt. Lt. Col. Stephen Long turned to other projects. He took the opportunity to make necessary repairs on five of the corps' snag boats (named Gopher, Dragon, Hercules, Sampson, and Sevier) used to keep the rivers clear of obstacles. When the Gopher and Dragon were repaired in October 1846 they were turned over to the Quartermaster Corps for transports in the war zone. Long also supervised construction of a marine hospital, planned future river surveys, and supervised the construction of six steamers for the Quartermaster Corps. By February 1847, a contractor completed the first steamer, the General Jessup, in Louisville and readied it for service on the Rio Grande. It was followed by the Colonel Hunt. In Cincinnati a contractor finished building the General Harner, and in April readied it for service in the Gulf of Mexico. The fourth, the Ann Chase, was delivered from Cincinnati to New Orleans in June. The General Butler and Colonel Clay were under construction and expected to be ready by October 1847. In November 1846, Long also arranged for the construction of a steamer dredge for use in the Texas channels. Named the Lavaca, the dredge was

ready by March 1847 for the tasks of deepening and widening the mouth of the Lavaca River.9

After Taylor and Wool marched their armies into northern Mexico, other topogs moved into Texas to continue survey and map work. In May 1847 Abert dispatched 2d Lt. Joseph D. Webster to Texas to continue the surveys started by Taylor's topographers. Webster had graduated from Dartmouth in 1832, entered the corps in 1838, and worked on road construction in Wisconsin and on the Great Lakes Survey. His orders entailed making an accurate survey of "the country embraced on the inclosed plan, upon the Texas side of the River, including both shores of the river, and East as far as the line from [Point] Isabel to Matamoros." His instructions included making road reconnaissance patrols and estimating material requirements for bridges between Brazos Santiago and the Rio Grande landing at Berrita. Since he did not have military assistants, Webster obtained authorization to hire a civilian assistant at three dollars a day.10

By January 1848 Webster reported that he had finished his survey and forwarded his completed map the following month. Besides adding more to the geographical knowledge of the lower Rio Grande, Webster suggested the advantages in constructing a railroad instead of a vehicular road. Abert did not respond to this suggestion, but now instructed the topog to cross over into Mexico to examine the river at Tampico. Following the ratification of the peace treaty between the two countries, Webster received orders to return to the United States to complete his map. Because he made his survey in Mexico near the end of the war, his map, like that of the Valley of Mexico, increased fear among opponents of the war in the United States that a plot existed to annex all Mexico. More likely the Topographical Bureau merely wanted to obtain as much information as possible in order to fill in the gaps of the more expedient surveys done by the topogs assigned to the field commands.11

In his annual report to the War Department in 1847, Abert proudly noted corps wartime achievements:

But one feeling seems to have animated them, to be efficient in any capacity which the wants of the service required. Always ready, always willing, and always capable, they have proved I hope the value of the corps, and its readiness to encounter any hazard which this country required, as their own gallant feelings would suggest. The war has shown them in the various capacities of engineers, commanders of detachments, in all of which they have proved their efficiency and usefulness, and the admirable results of the military school of which they are graduates.12

In his annual report the next year, Colonel Abert supplemented his praise for the accomplishments of his corps with new project recommendations. The senior topog first pointed out that two-thirds of the officers of the corps served actively in the field during the Mexican War, that two Topographical Engineers died as a result of wounds (Blake and Williams), that several had returned from Mexico either with wounds or sick from fatigue and exposure. The reports of the commanding generals, he proudly noted, often complimented the Topographical Engineers for their services. Abert particularly cited four members of his branch Joseph E. Johnston, George W. Hughes, William H. Emory, and William H. Warner. No mention, however, was made of John C. Fremont. In praising Johnston for his leadership of troops, Abert wrote, "in that capacity [Johnston] acquired great reputation for the skill he displayed in the drill and discipline of the regiment, and for his gallantry in command on several important occasions."13 The report also lauded the other three officers. Hughes was cited for his services as commander and military governor; Emory, for his heroic duty with Kearny and also for providing important geographical knowledge; and Warner, for his service with Kearny and his many important surveys in California. "I have named these four officers," Abert added,

because they were so fortunate as to obtain positions and exercise commands independent of and separate from their proper corps' function,

exhibiting the versatility of talent in the corps, and its ability to fulfill any military duties which it may be found necessary or proper to assign to it.14

Abert then moved briefly to the important geographical contributions made by the Topographical Engineers in the field during the war. He pointed out that the observations and reconnaissances made by the corps while operating with the armies in Mexico were being compiled in a map. Emory's report, a map of Kearny's march from the Missouri to the Pacific, maps of engagements, and Lieutenant Abert's report and map of New Mexico were also in progress. These two reports, Abert noted, added much to the geographical knowledge of that region of the world and furnished civil, military, and commercial information for future use.15

Abert pointed out that the lack of adequate geographic and topographic information had posed special problems for the Army at the beginning of the war, and he argued that it was best to collect this type of information in peacetime. He stressed that accurate geographical and topographical knowledge of a country were particularly essential to military operations. "They are the eyes of the commanding general," the chief topographer wrote, and "With these he can see the country, and can know how to direct and combine all his movements or marches, whether offensive or defensive, and without them he is literally groping in the dark, incapable of plans for his own operations, or of anticipating those of an enemy." Some of the most important movements and operations, he added, were governed by reconnaissances, usually well out in front of the advancing army. Abert went on to state that the Topographical Engineers were charged with collecting geographic and topographic information, and that could be best done in time of peace.16

Abert concluded with a list of recommended projects. The period of the Mexican War reconnaissances led to a significant number of explorations; these he suggested should lead to the undertaking of civil and military construction projects in the West. He considered further exploration of the Red River very important to opening that river to navigation. A necessary measure, he suggested, entailed building a series of forts along the river in order to provide an artery through Comanche country. In order to facili-

tate the defense of the New Mexico frontier, he further pointed out the need to tie in a military road to the navigable waters of the Red River. As a result a transportation link could be established to the Rio Grande. Exploitation of the region's agricultural and mineral resources would follow. The colonel did not hesitate to add that "These distant military posts and military roads are the pioneers of civilization and wealth."17

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed on 2 February 1848. The treaty provided for Mexican recognition of the Rio Grande border with Texas, the cession of California and New Mexico, American payment of $15 million to Mexico, and the American government's assumption of claims made by its citizens against Mexico. The United States acquired 529,017 square miles of territory. Polk concurred and the Senate ratified the treaty on 10 March. Despite more problems among the Mexican leadership, the two governments exchanged ratifications on 30 May. On 12 June American occupation troops departed Mexico City, and on 1 August the last American soldiers boarded their transport in the harbor of Vera Cruz to sail home.18

In 1848 the War Department established military departments in the newly acquired western lands. During the years between the Mexican War and the Civil War, the Topographical Engineers became a principal arm of the federal government in exploring and developing the West, in addition to its usual civil works roles improving rivers and harbors, building roads, and constructing lighthouses.19

The topogs also adjusted to peacetime routines. After the ratification of the peace treaty and the troops returned to the United States, the Army went through the usual reductions in personnel and funds. By the end of 1848 the Army had reverted to a peacetime strength smaller than the 10,000 authorized in 1815, with

units also returning to peace strength. Although the Army retained a higher proportion of officers to enlisted men than in the prewar years, the officers breveted to captains, majors, and colonels during the war reverted to their prewar grades. Active duty promotions in the Army, and particularly the small Corps of Topographical Engineers (the authorized strength remained unchanged at 36 officers between 1838 and 1861), returned to its usual agonizingly slow pace with officers advancing in grade based on a system of seniority. Promotions were limited to vacancies created by death, retirement, resignation, disability, or incompetency. Officers joining the corps as a second lieutenant could look forward to at least two promotions within 14 years, hardly a dazzling prospect to the ambitious. None of the six field grade officers appointed in 1838 (Abert, Kearney, Long, Bache, Turnbull, and James Graham) resigned, retired, transferred, or received a promotion before the summer of 1861. One officer's promotion to the vacancy created by Major Turnbull's death in 1857 represented the only change to this small but key group in over twenty-three years.20

Such grim promotion prospects or other personal matters caused several topogs to leave the Army or transfer to other branches. Between 1848 and 1856 seven members of the corps resigned from the Army and two transferred to another branch. After his resignation in 1851, Hughes entered the railroad business. The loss of Johnston and Emory, who went to the two new cavalry regiments in 1855, deprived Abert of two of his most able captains at a critical time in the corps' history. Significantly, several of these resignations and transfers left gaps in the ranks of the Topographical Engineers that were never really filled, another symptom of the decline of the bureau and the corps during that decade. It is also interesting to note that five of the resignations occurred during Jefferson Davis' four year tenure as the Secretary of War (1853-1857). His rigid attitude on granting leaves of absence, which allowed officers time off for up to eighteen months to han-

dle urgent private business or important personal affairs, most likely prompted Hardcastle and Peck to resign.21

Those who stayed on as topogs endured low pay, hard and dangerous work, and family separations. By the end of 1856 there were thirty-five topogs still on the rolls, and the number grew to forty-five in 1861. These trained and talented engineers could have easily switched over to the more lucrative engineering opportunities in civilian fields. A strong esprit de corps and a preference to be a member of a small elite branch appears to explain the unusually high retention rate of topogs returning from Mexican War service. George Derby, despite his reputation as a humorist poking fun at the military, perhaps best summed up the major reasons for the topogs to stay in the Army:

. . . the faithful discharge of these [topographical] duties required the utmost familiarity with the higher and more abstruse branches of science, and the . . . 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.22

The work of a corps of fewer than forty officers between the Mexican and Civil Wars now appears impressive. These scientist-soldiers achieved the outpouring of accurate and professional maps, the exact delineation of international boundaries, the construction of civil and military works, and a vast accumulation of additional scientific knowledge. The railroad surveys in the 1850s showed the feasibility of spanning the continent nearly a decade before actual construction began.

during the Civil War. Because the promotion outlook appeared poor, both Emory and Johnston transferred to the Cavalry in 1855 because of better opportunities for advancement. Topogs like Hughes, Hardcastle, Abert, and Peck went into business or academic life. Illnesses caused the deaths of a few more including Derby and John McClellan. The massacre of two topogs by Indians underscored the dangers of the frontier. Pit River Indians attacked and killed Captain William H. Warner near Goose Lake in northeastern California in 1849. Four years later Ute Indians killed Lieutenant John W. Gunnison near the Sevier River in Utah.23

During the 1830s and 1840s the Secretaries of War allowed Abert considerable leeway in running his bureau as he chose. His influence reached its peak during President John Tyler's administration (1841-1845), and his suggestions to the Secretaries of War were often treated like commands. During the Polk administration, however, these close and friendly relations lessened. Abert's difficulties with Polk and Secretary of War Marcy essentially stemmed from politics. The President and the Secretary of War harbored suspicions that several bureau chiefs, including Abert, were politically opposed to the administration. The President resented the chief topographer's opposition to his views regarding a rivers and harbors bill in 1846. Polk also omitted Abert's name from a long list of nominees for brevets for Mexican War service.24

By the 1850s the existence of a separate military engineering corps became tenuous. Although the topogs remained active, the Topographical Bureau began to decline after 1852. Relations between Colonel Abert and Secretary of War Charles Conrad (1850-1853) took a turn for the worse in 1852, when Conrad accused Abert of violating his orders by revealing the identity of the person who was to head the Office of Tennessee River Improvements to a congressman who had a vital interest. Later Conrad accepted Abert's apology, but this and other disputes left relations between the two men permanently strained. When Jefferson Davis took over the War Department the following year, he increasingly questioned the exis-

tence of a separate corps and administrative bureau and did not see the need to retain a separate engineering corps.25

Control over duties the Topographical Bureau had done in the past began to slip away. Other science-oriented federal agencies were being established, and they began to assume some of the duties of the Corps of Topographical Engineers. The existence of the Smithsonian Institution, the Naval Observatory, the Office of the U.S. Coast Survey, and the establishment of the Pacific Wagon Road Office in the Department of the Interior reduced the services of the topogs from the levels called for in the previous two decades. Historian William H. Goetzmann notes that the prestige of the corps began to wane by 1855, in part because of the removal of proper functions from the corps plus some suspicion of sectional bias associated with the corps' evaluation of the Pacific Railroad Survey. Even though topogs carried out the famous Pacific railroad surveys and many other western explorations, control of these operations were later vested in an Office of Exploration and Survey under the direct control of the Secretary of War. The Corps of Engineers also began again to take over responsibilities for a portion of the river and harbor improvements work.26

As Colonel Abert's leadership abilities declined with age and failing health, so did the fortunes of the Corps of Topographical Engineers. In 1861, just three days before the firing on Fort Sumter, the old colonel retired because of physical disability. Major Hartman Bache and Colonel Stephen Long served as heads of the corps until 1863. The 45 topogs on the rolls in 1861 dropped to 32 a year later: 8 resigned from the Army to join the Confederacy, 4 including Abert retired, and one (Derby) died. Of the 32 remaining officers of the corps, 10 were on detached duty with U.S. Volunteer units. Not only did the bureau experience a shortage of officers, but the War Department gradually assigned more topogs to other organizations. With its civil works generally suspended, with only a small civilian work force, with most of its officers on duty elsewhere, and with no enlisted men at all, the Topographical Bureau spent most of its wartime duties running its office and waiting for its demise. On 3 March 1863, Congress approved "An Act to promote the efficiency of the Corps of Engineers," which abolished the

Corps of Topographical Engineers as a distinct branch of the Army and merged it with the Corps of Engineers. Its functions have remained a responsibility of the Corps of Engineers ever since.27

The Corps of Topographical Engineers remained a separate branch of the Army until 1863, primarily because of the ability of its chief, Colonel John Abert. He proved a good soldier, an able engineer, and an excellent administrator. Strictly military duties took up little of the Topographical Engineers' time or energy, with the result the corps served as a major scientific agency of the federal government for nearly twenty years. If the functions of this scientific corps did not appear all that essential to the War Department, the topogs certainly proved their worth to a young nation desperately short of trained engineers but anxious for results that only skilled engineers could provide.28

Was there then a need for a separate Corps of Topographical Engineers? The answer may be found in the years between 1815 and 1850 when the Corps of Engineers concentrated considerable effort on the construction of a system of coastal fortifications and continued to work on this system until 1861. Had the Topographical Engineers returned to the Corps of Engineers in 1838, building these fortifications most likely would have remained a primary function of topographical officers. That, however, did not happen. Colonel Abert was given an opportunity to take full advantage of the unique functions and skills of a small specialized corps. During the period of the Mexican War, he effectively guided his officers in their attempts to glean vast amounts of new geographic information.29

As noted, the officers who returned from the Mexican War went on to greater accomplishments in western exploration and in their respective military careers. Most significantly, several of these officers played a major role in the outcome of the Civil War. The

TABLE 2-TOPOGRAPHICAL ENGINEERS APPOINTED GENERALS
(U.S.A., VOLUNTEERS, BREVETS) IN THE CIVIL WAR

Ranks and Names January 1861	Highest Civil and Lifetime
Majors
Hartman Bache	Brig. Gen (brevet, 1865)
Captains
Thomas J. Cram¹	Maj. Gen. (brevets, 1866)
William B. Franklin¹	Maj. Gen. (brevet, 1865)
Andrew A. Humphreys	Maj. Gen. (Vols, 1862; brevets, 1865; Brig. Gen. Chief of Engineers, 1866)
George G. Meade¹	Maj. Gen. (Brig. Gen. Vols, 1861; Maj. Gen. Vols, 1862; Brig. Gen. USA 1863; Maj. Gen. USA, 1864)
John Pope¹	Maj. Gen. (Vols, 1862; Brig. Gen. USA, 1862; brevet Maj. Gen., 1865)
William E Raynolds	Brig. Gen. (brevet, 1865)
Martin L. Smith¹	Maj. Gen., C.S.A.
William F. Smith	Maj. Gen. (brevets, 1865)
George Thom¹	Brig. Gen. (brevet, 1865)
Amiel W. Whipple	Maj. Gen. (brevets, 1863; died, 1863)
Israel C. Woodruff	Brig. Gen. (brevet, 1865)
First Lieutenants
Henry L. Abbot	Maj. Gen. (brevet Brig. Gen. Vols, 1864; brevet Brig. Gen., 1865; brevet Maj. Gen. Vols, 1865)
Nathaniel Michler	Brig. Gen. (brevet, 1865)
John G. Parke	Maj. Gen. (Brig. Gen. Vols, 1862; brevet Maj. Gen., 1865)
Orlando E Poe	Brig. Gen. (Vols, 1862; brevet, 1865)
Gouverneur R. Warren	Maj. Gen. (Maj. Gen. Vols, 1863; brevet Maj. Gen., 1865)
Brevet Second Lieutenants
James H. Wilson	Maj. Gen. (brevets, 1865)
Former Topographical Engineers
William H. Emory¹	Maj. Gen. (Brig. Gen. Vols, 1862; Maj. Gen. Vols, 1865; brevets, 1865)
John C. Fremont¹	Maj. Gen. (Maj. Gen., 1861)
Joseph E. Johnston¹	Gen., C.S.A.
Eliakim P Scammon¹	Brig. Gen. (Vols, 1862)
Joseph D. Webster¹	Brig. Gen. (Vols, 1862)
Thomas J. Wood¹	Maj. Gen. (Brig. Gen. Vols, 1861; Maj. Gen. Vols, 1865; brevets, 1865)

Sources: George T. Ness, Jr., "Army Engineers in the Civil war," Military Engineer 57 (Jan-Feb 1965):40; Thomas H. S. Hamersly, Complete Army and Navy Register of the United States of America, From 1776 to 1887 (New York: T. H. S. Hamersly, 1888), pp. 249, 271-72, 379-80, 428, 446, 528, 630, 636, 677-78, 695, 697, 712, 771-72, 803-04, 844-41, 853-54, 868, 874-75, 876; Volunteer Services section, pp. 94, 114.

list of those who achieved the rank of general (Regular Army, Volunteers, and brevet promotions) is impressive: George G. Meade, John Pope, Joseph E. Johnston, William B. Franklin, William H. Emory, John C. Fremont, Martin L. Smith, Thomas J. Wood, Eliakim P. Scammon, George Thom, Thomas J. Cram, and Joseph D. Webster. These twelve officers represented approximately 25 percent of the total strength of the Corps of Topographical Engineers during the Mexican War. During the war a total of twenty-four officers who had served at one time or another in the Topographical Engineers were promoted to generals, an impressive number considering that the corps had forty-five officers in 1861.30

The traditions of the Corps of Topographical Engineers are maintained today in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The corps continues to pioneer technological advances in map making through its Army Engineer Topographic Laboratory, and some Engineer topographers currently carry on their mapping responsibilities as part of the Department of Defense Mapping Agency. Army topographic battalions, separate companies, and other specialized detachments directly support field commands in the United States and overseas.

In World War I the Army produced more than nine million copies of maps. In World War II, the Army Map Service, a direct descendent of the old Topographical Bureau, produced over 500 million copies of 40,000 different maps. Large numbers of maps and other topographic services were provided during the Korean and Vietnam wars. Army topographers have cooperated with the U.S. Geological Survey, the federal agency responsible for preparing detailed topographic and geologic maps of the United States and its territories.31

Following treaty agreements, the Corps of Engineers' topogra pliers have assisted foreign governments' map making efforts. Taking to the field and operating under conditions not unlike the Topographical Engineers a century earlier, Army topographers have

participated in the Inter-Americas Geodetic Survey in mapping Latin America. Other Army topographers mapped countries under the most grueling conditions. Reminiscent of Emory's reconnaissance of the Southwest, Army topographers of the 64th Engineer Battalion (Base Topographic) in the 1960s surveyed such diverse areas as Libya, Ethiopia, and Iran and the tropical jungles of Liberia. The topogs who served during and following the Mexican War left a remarkable legacy. They aided in winning the war. They made useful up-to-date maps and reports which helped to accelerate the movement of people to the West. They improved young America's navigation and transportation system, thereby opening markets and raising the output of goods and services. What is amazing is that all of these remarkable achievements were done by an organization which by the end of 1847 consisted of only forty-three officers.