Letter From the Chief of Engineers to the Secretary of War (Classic Reprint) - Tapa blanda

Excerpt from Letter From the Chief of Engineers to the Secretary of War

On the 27th December, 1776, Congress -

Resolved, That General Washington shall be, and he is hereby, vested with full, ample, and complete powers to raise and collect together, in the most speedy and effectua manner, from any or all of these United States, sixteen battalions of infantry, in addition to those already voted by Congress; to appoint officers for the said battalions of infantry; to raise, officer, and equip three thousand light-horse,three regiments of artillery, and a corps of engineers, and to establish their pay. That the foregoing powers be vested in General Washington for and during the term of six months from the date hereof, unless sooner determined by Congress.

Under this law it is probable, that some organization styled a Corps of Engineers, was established in the Army under the rules and regulations of General Washington.

The news of the conflict of the colonies with Great Britain, together with the efforts of our diplomatic agents abroad, soon brought a crowd of foreign officers, principally French, to our shores, some of whom had been educated as military engineers, and were commissioned in our Army as such, and assigned to the various armies and commands as needed. Among the arrivals in the early part of 1777 were four officers from the royal corps of engineers of the French army, who were commissioned, respectively, in the engineers, with the rank, one, of brigadier-general, two, of colonel, and one of lieutenant-colonel, the brigadier-general, Louis le Bgtate du Portail, taking precedence and rank of all other engineers in the service.

The propriety of establishing by law, a Corps of Engineers in the Army, was one of the subjects which attracted the attention of Congress, and, on the 6th March, 1778, a letter, dated the 3d of the same month, from a congressional committee in the camp, inclosing a plan for the establishment of a Corps of Engineers, was received in Congress, but action on the matter was then postponed. On the 27th May, 1778, the following resolution was passed:

Resolved, That in the Engineering Department three companies be established, each to consist of-

Pay per month.
1 captain... $50 00
3 lieutenants, each... 33 33
4 sergeants, each... 10 00
4 corporals, each... 9 00
60 privates, each... 8 33

These companies to be instructed in the fabrication of field-works, as far as relates to the manual and mechanical part. Their business shall be to instruct the fatigue parties to do their duty with celerity and exactness, to repair injuries done to the works by the enemy's fire, and to prosecute works in the face of it.

The commissioned officers to be skilled in the necessary branches of mathematics; the non-commissioned officers to write a good hand.

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