Elements of Military Art and Science / Or, Course Of Instruction In Strategy, Fortification, Tactics Of Battles, &C.; Embracing The Duties Of Staff, Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, And Engineers; Adapted To The Use Of Volunteers And Militia; Third Edition; With Critical Notes On The Mexican And Crimean Wars.

by H. W. Halleck

preparing the battle-field on which the issue of future momentous

contests is to be decided."

A few, however, object to the system at present adopted, on the ground that casemated works do not offer sufficient resistance to ships and floating-batteries, and that earthen works, covering a greater area, will accomplish that object much more effectually, while their longer land fronts will be more difficult of reduction by siege.

It cannot be doubted that earthen batteries, with guns in barbette, can, as a general rule, be more easily taken by assault, that they are more exposed to vertical and ricochet firing, and more expose their gunners to be picked off by sharpshooters. Moreover, they give but a very limited fire upon the most desirable point, as the entrance to a harbor. On the other hand, it has not been proved that masonry-casemated works, when properly constructed and properly armed, will not effectually resist a naval cannonade, whether from ships or floating-batteries. The results of recent wars, and of the West Point experiments by General Totten, would seem to prove them abundantly capable of doing this. Against such proofs the mere ad captandum assertion of their incapacity can have but little weight—certainly not enough to justify the abandonment of a system approved by the best military authorities of this country and Europe, and sanctioned by long experience.

Major Barnard, in speaking of the capacity of masonry casemated forts to resist the fire of a hostile armament, and of the propriety of abandoning them for earthen batteries in our system of Coast Defences, uses the following forcible language:—"When we bear in mind that the hostile 'floating batteries,' of whatever description, will themselves be exposed to the most formidable projectiles that can be thrown from shore batteries,—that when they choose to come to 'close quarters,' to attempt to breach, their 'embrasures' present openings through which deluges of grape, canister, and musket balls can be poured upon the gunners; and consider what experience has so far shown, and reason has taught us, with regard to the casemate,—we need not be under apprehension that our casemated works will be battered down; nor doubt that they will, as they did in Russia, answer the important purposes for which they were designed."

"It only remains to show the necessity of such works. It, in general, costs much less to place a gun behind an earthen parapet, than to build a masonry structure covered with bomb-proof arches, in which to mount it. All authorities agree that an open barbette battery (Grivel's very forcible admission has been quoted), on a low site, and to which vessels can approach within 300 or 400 yards, is utterly inadmissible. It may safely be said, that in nine cases out of ten, the sites which furnish the efficient raking and cross fires upon the channels, are exactly of this character; and indeed it very often happens that there are no others."

"When such sites are found, it rarely happens that they afford room for sufficient number of guns in open batteries. Hence the necessity of putting them tier above tier, which involves, of course, the casemated structure. Such works, furnishing from their lower tier a low, raking fire, and (if of several tiers) a plunging fire from their barbettes, offer as favorable emplacements for guns as can be contrived, and afford to their gunners a degree of security quite as great as can be given to men thus engaged."

"On subjects which have a mere speculative importance, there is no danger in giving rein to speculation; but on those of such real and intense practical importance as the security against hostile aggression of the great city and port of New York, it is not admissible to set aside the experience of the past, or the opinions of the best minds who have devoted themselves to such subjects. A means of defence, sanctioned by its being confided in to protect the great ports of Europe—which has protected the great ports of Russia against the most formidable naval armament that ever floated on the ocean, has a claim upon our confidence which mere criticism cannot diminish; and a claim to be adhered to in place of all new 'systems,' until time and trial shall have necessitated (not merely justified) the change."

"If, then, we refer to the practice of other nations, to find what has been judged necessary for the defence of important ports,—to experience, to find how such defensive systems have stood the test of actual trial,—we may draw useful conclusions with regard to what is now required to defend New York. We shall find at Sebastopol—a narrow harbor, which owed its importance to its being the great naval dépôt of Russia on the Black Sea—an array of 700 guns, about 500 of which were placed in five 'masonry-casemated' works (several of them of great size), and the remainder in open batteries. These defensive works fulfilled their object, and sustained the attack of the allied fleet, on the 17th of October, 1854, without sensible damage."

"The facility with which seaports are attacked by fleets—the enormous preparations required—the great risks encountered in landing a besieging army on the coast of a formidable enemy (while, for protection against the former species of attack, costly works are necessary, and against the latter, field works and men can, in emergency, afford protection), naturally caused the Russians to make these water defences their first object. Yet, though almost unprotected on the land side, Sebastopol resisted, for a whole year, an attack on that quarter; and illustrated how, with plenty of men and material, an energetic and effectual land defence may be improvised, where the sea defence is provided for, as thoroughly as it was at that place."