sable force occasionally in motion in that quarter. Some rich lands, as we know, and possibly some gold mines, may, in time, be found in the possession of these Indians; if so, they may again have white neighbors disposed to "feel power and forget right," and whose fondness for rich lands, lotteries, and gold mines, and whose lawless and avaricious propensities may prove stronger than their love of justice or love of country. In this case, nothing but force, promptly applied, can possibly enable the Government of the United States to maintain their authority, protect the Indians, and preserve the moral power of the law and the Union; these must stand together, or they will fall together.

The proposed posts, to answer the purposes for which they are recommended, should be designed for not more than three or four companies each; and be so well fortified as to enable their garrisons to defend them against any number of Indians or other description of force attacking them, with small-arms, or without cannon. For this purpose, I would recommend a single three-story barrack building, 80 or 90 feet long, 40 feet wide, and 32 feet high; with two martello towers, placed within 30 to 40 feet of each end of the barrack building, so that a line passing diagonally through the opposite angles and centre of the barrack building, will pass through the centre of both towers; each tower would then be calculated to defend a side and an end of the barrack building; the whole to be built of stone or brick, flat-roofed, covered with sheet-lead of the thickest kind, and the whole work to be made fire-proof throughout; to be enclosed with a strong stone or brick wall, commencing at each tower, and extending thence at right angles until the enclosure is completed in the form of a rectangular parallelogram. In or near one of the angles of the wall opposite to the centre of the barrack building, and as distant therefrom as practicable, to construct a powder magazine and an ordnance store, with a large traverse or embankment between these two last-mentioned buildings and the barrrack block; in or near the opposite angle of the wall to construct a subsistence and quartermaster store.

The wall, enclosing the work, to be five feet thick at the base, gradually reduced to two feet at top, and to be sixteen feet high, to be defended by field-pieces, principally in the second story of the towers, with Hall's patent and Chambers's repeating rifles, to be distributed equally through the towers and barrack rooms.

I offer these suggestions thus in detail, from a strong conviction of the utility of such works, and of the necessity of attending to the fact that there is not, to my knowledge, any one branch of military service in which officers of the army have proven themselves to be so deficient, or to which their attention has been so seldom called, as that of the selection of sites and the projection and construction of efficient works of defence upon our inland frontier. If there is, upon this whole line of frontier, a single work which forms an exception to this general remark, such work has escaped my notice.

I have often taken leave to suggest the propriety of some improvement in this class of our works of defence; and to admonish the officers of my command to take no step in the selection of a site, or in the construction of a work, however temporary, but with a view to the purposes of war; and carefully to ascertain whether, if attacked before the return of another day, they are at all points ready for action. I ask, in the event of such an attack, can each garrison sustain itself against an in

vading foe, so as to ensure his destruction, or give him a degree of annoyance proportioned to the numerical strength and elementary instruction of the troops attacked, and as the military reputation of the republic and the safety of the frontier demand? These inquiries can never be answered in the affirmative, until we abandon our prejudices in favor of such works as we now have at all our inland posts: such as blocks of defenceless or but partially fortified barracks, twice or thrice as large as is necessary or proper for the garrison usually assigned to them, where there should be small forts, strong and compact, adapted in all respects to the small garrisons to which they must in time of war be intrusted; such forts as would, in the space of forty years, cost the United States but little, if any thing, more than the miserable barracks that our infantry has been constantly building and rebuilding during the last thirty-four years. Let war take place to-morrow, and we shall be, as we have hitherto been, unprepared to give that instant protection to our frontier inhabitants which the general excellence of our institutions and the moral numerical strength of our army would enable us, without such a line of posts as that which I here recommend.

Our plans of inland posts are commonly prepared by officers either unacquainted with the topography of the country for which the little interior works are designed, or too much occupied with the more engrossing business of great and complicated works, and of money and accounts, to pay proper attention to the comparatively trifling subject (as it has been too often considered) of furnishing plans for little wilderness forts.

Whenever a military post of any description is to be established within the geographical limits of my command, I claim the privilege of selecting the site; and if a plan of the work is not furnished by higher authority, I hold it to be my duty to prescribe the plan; and with the aid of the principal engineer, or other suitable officer of my command, to superintend the construction of the work.

The Quartermaster General, or other junior officer, might as well be authorized, in a state of war, to sit down in his office at Washington, a thousand miles from the theatre of war, and make plans for every night's encampment of an army engaged in active operations against an invading foe, as to be authorized to furnish plans for military posts, intended (as the posts to which you and I have referred are intended) for placing the inland frontier in a state of defence preparatory to war. I know it will be said, as it has been said, that the Quartermaster General is required only to furnish plans of barracks-as the Chief of the Ordnance department is required only to furnish plans of magazines and other ordnance buildings: I answer-and I shall be sustained by every officer of military mind, that the all-important consideration in establishing a military post is security from the approach of an enemy; works of defence are therefore to be regarded as meriting our first attention; magazines, ordnance stores, barracks, and whatever regards the health and comfort of the troops, come next. But, according to the plans from the Ordnance and Quartermaster departments, (few of which have I ever been honored with, or been able to find until the arsenals or barracks to which they referred were erected,) I have found the barracks and other buildings so planned and so constructed as to require ten times as much expense, and near ten times as much force, to fortify and provide for their defence and security in war, as the simple plan which I propose would require. If,

in a state of peace, such plans as those to which I object are to be furnished by staff or other junior officers at the city of Washington, it cannot but contribute to indicate to the army and to the nation a disposition on the part of the General-in-chief to deprive or screen the department commander from the trouble of the most important duty that can possibly devolve on him in peace or in war, next to that of actual combat in the field of battle. In the war of 1812, '13, and '14, in which you and I participated, I am sure I never heard of the selection of a site for a permanent post, within the limits of any military district, otherwise than under the direction or with the concurrence of the immediate commander of such district.

In war, such commander is every where, in all countries of which history gives us any knowledge, admitted to be the proper person for superintending those duties, because he is more immediately responsible, and more awfully responsible for the fitness and efficiency of all his preparations for action than any other officer can be. My own impression is, that the responsibilities and duties are, and ought to be, precisely the same in peace as in war, at all times and in all places, preparatory to aetual combat. The point of heaviest responsibility and most laborious duty, I hold to be the point in my command of highest honor, and of which you cannot deprive me without doing me an irreparable injury.

I have never permitted myself for an instant to entertain a wish to be screened from any sort of duty or responsibility, in war or in peace; and although I have had occasion, for near three months past, by reason of a dislocation of one of my ankles, to use a crutch, my health is otherwise good, as it has been for twenty years past. Having had but two or three days' sickness since my arrival at Memphis, in the year 1831, and having recovered the use of my limb, I will, with great pleasure, repair promptly to any part of my command, in the performance of any duty that may be assigned to me.

Being convinced that it is not possible to combine more strength, health, comfort, and economy in any small work of defence against Indians, than the little forts which I have taken leave to recommend; nor can I devise any plan of an arsenal or barrack by which either can be rendered so entirely secure, at so small an expense, and by so small a force, particularly for the arsenals and barracks in the slaveholding States; where, prejudice and party spirit out of the question, it must be obvious to every man of any foresight, that the increasing and consequent danger of the miserable elements of insurrection render it necessary that every arsenal and barrack should be fortified, and held ready for action; considering, too, that the period of greatest danger is during the first moments of an insurrection or invasion, when an attack is least expected, when there is not a moment's time for preparation; these views of the subject are equally applicable to the attacks of Indians, pirates, and black incendiaries: so long as there is even a remote probability of an attack from any such foe, is it not imprudent in the extreme to leave valuable arsenals barracks, or frontier posts without adequate means of defence? And what means of defence would be so effectual and so economical as the martello towers and stone walls simply arranged, as above proposed? If a more effectual plan of defence can be devised, I will most cheerfullyaccept it in preference to that which I propose; but the works which have seen upon every section of the national frontier during thirty-fou☛

years past, warrant me in saying that, simple as my plan is, I have no apprehension of seeing one better adapted to the purposes of economical protection.

In the Southern part of the United States, my plan embraces an advantage of which every officer who has been cooped up in such barracks as we are usually compelled to occupy will readily appreciate. According to the old plan, three or four blocks of barrack and store rooms are built around what is called a parade, so that there is but little or no opening left for the free circulation of air in any direction. In my plan, it will be seen that the barrack building forms the centre of the work, and is exposed to the action of the atmosphere on each side and each end, all the windows of the two upper stories being higher than the top of the outer wall. The central parade of the old plan is worse than useless; the drill and all other parade duties should take place, as they most conveniently take place, always (excepting in time of a siege, when such duties seldom or ever occur) outside the work, in some neighboring field or shady grove.

I have no apprehension that any man of experience will doubt that the proposed stone or brick wall, sustained by two martello towers, will be a stronger and safer means of defence than the blocks of any barracks. The barrack building, which I propose, having a basement story for store-rooms, and large barrack rooms in the two uppers tories, with suitable passages, should have every window supplied with an iron shutter perforated with loop-holes, for defence with rifles. These barrack rooms may be rendered as airy and comfortable as the best private mansions of Louisiana. To these barrack rooms, of which there may be twelve in the upper stories of each block of ninety by forty feet, may be added eight others, somewhat smaller, viz: four in the upper stories of each tower. The barrack block may be made so strong as to fulfil all the objects of a formidable citadel.

In support of these views, I desire your attention to the annexed copy of a correspondence with Lieutenant Colonel Vose, the present commander of Fort Towson. Upon this subject it is but just to premise that I know of no officers of their rank more respectable or exemplary in their conduct, than Lieutenant Colonel Kearney, the officer under whose command Fort Towson was erected, and Lieutenant Colonel Vose, the present commandant. The position is a very important one, inasmuch as it forms the salient angle of the Southwestern front of the republic, liable to an attack from the civilized forces of a neighboring empire, as well as from several different tribes of Indians, with some of whom we have no treaties, and who know us only as their supposed enemies. It was proper therefore in all things regarding the plan and construction of the work, that the primary object should have been preparation for defence. To this primary object all notions of personal convenience should have yielded. The fact however seems to have been quite otherwise: the building is doubtless very much of a fancy building. In place of a strong small fort-such as that recommended by me in my inspection report for 1827, and such as I have now the honor to recommend, which could be defended with two or three companies of infantry or riflemen against ten thousand Indians-there is a splendid thing that was to have been called Cantonment, (a name which I rejoice to find is no longer to be applied to our frontier posts,) which appears, from the accompanying description

of it, to embrace more of the comfortable properties of an interior country palace, than of a place of defence; a place calculated to give our promising young officers from West Point the effeminate habits of fashionable idlers, fitting them for the amusements of a carpeted saloon, or carpeted office without duty, rather than for the rugged scenes of war. The name of the post (Towson) being intimately associated with the most vigorous and brilliant scenes of the war of 1814, should have ensured to the important position which it occupies a real military work.

I have often, as you know, urged the propriety of dry, comfortable, healthy quarters; but these may be made as well in the towers and barrack blocks which I recommend, as in the widely-extended cantonmentplan of Forts Towson, Gibson, Jesup, Leavenworth, Crawford, and Snelling.

In addition to what I have said in favor of the small forts here recommended, the adoption of such a plan of defence would soon enable us, in the event of a war rendering it necessary, to call a large portion of our regular force from the inland frontier to the seacoast, or from one part of the frontier to another; we could do so without risking the safety of that part of the frontier thus temporarily weakened; inasmuch as any one of the proposed works may be efficiently defended, as long as its subsistence and ordnance stores would last, by three or four companies of volunteers or militia.

Should it be necessary, as it would probably often be, to send to any one of those small posts a reinforcement for temporary purposes, this should be done without making any change in the work. The additional temporary force should be placed in sheds or huts outside the fort, or in tents, should the reinforcement be too great to find room inside. But this would but seldom occur, as the proposed forts will be large enough to af ford occasional shelter to more than double the number of troops intended for the permanent garrison.

I propose, as a part of my plan, the abandonment of Fort Leavenworth, and the garrison of that post to occupy Council Bluffs; the garrison of Fort Gibson to be equally divided between that post and the proposed new post, at our highest point on the Arkansas river; three companies of the 3d, now at Fort Towson, to occupy the proposed new post, at ou highest point on Red river; one company of the 3d, now at Fort Jesup, to be ordered to Fort Towson; at which place there should be stationed two or three companies of mounted dragoons, and two other troops at Fort Gibson. These four or five troops of mounted dragoons to be held ready for active service, as a disposable force, to keep in check disorderly parties of Indians, and make occasional visits to the new posts on the Red, the Arkansas, and Missouri rivers; the remaining part of the dragoons, with six or seven companies of the 6th infantry, to be held as a disposable force at Jefferson barracks, for the protection of any part of the Western or Southwestern frontier that may happen to be disturbed by Indians or other force.

Judging from what I have seen of the country from Fort Towson to Fort Gibson, and thence to Fort Atkinson, inclusively, I have no doubt that a supply of good stone may be obtained for building the proposed new works on the Red, the Arkansas, and the Missouri rivers. At the mouth of St. Peter's, the site occupied by Fort Snelling embraces a surfi