ngineering in the United States. This branch of the military
service owed its efficiency and almost its existence to the military
school at West Point, established in 1802. The school was at first much
neglected by government. The number of graduates before the year 1812
was very small; but at the outbreak of the war the corps of engineers
was already efficient. Its chief was Colonel Joseph Gardner Swift, of
Massachusetts, the first graduate of the academy: Colonel Swift planned
the defenses of New York Harbor. The lieutenant-colonel in 1812 was
Walker Keith Armistead, of Virginia,--the third graduate, who planned
the defenses of Norfolk. Major William McRee, of North Carolina, became
chief engineer to General Brown and constructed the fortifications at
Fort Erie, which cost the British General Gordon Drummond the loss of
half his army, besides the mortification of defeat. Captain Eleazer
Derby Wood, of New York, constructed Fort Meigs, which enabled Harrison
to defeat the attack of Proctor in May, 1813. Captain Joseph Gilbert
Totten, of New York, was chief engineer to General Izard at Plattsburg,
where he directed the fortifications that stopped the advance of
Prevost's great army. None of the works constructed by a graduate of
West Point was captured by the enemy; and had an engineer been employed
at Washington by Armstrong and Winder, the city would have been
easily saved.

Perhaps without exaggeration the West Point Academy might be said to
have decided, next to the navy, the result of the war. The works at New
Orleans were simple in character, and as far as they were due to
engineering skill were directed by Major Latour, a Frenchman; but the
war was already ended when the battle of New Orleans was fought. During
the critical campaign of 1814, the West Point engineers doubled the
capacity of the little American army for resistance, and introduced a
new and scientific character into American life.

THE BATTLE BETWEEN THE CONSTITUTION AND THE GUERRIERE

From 'History of the United States': copyright 1890, by Charles
Scribner's Sons.

As Broke's squadron swept along the coast it seized whatever it met, and
on July 16th caught one of President Jefferson's sixteen-gun brigs, the
Nautilus. The next day it came on a richer prize. The American navy
seemed ready to outstrip the army in the race for disaster. The
Constitution, the best frigate in the United States service, sailed into
the midst of Broke's five ship