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ago should be essentially modified, by re- tranquillity at home, and repel aggresducing the number and size of the works sions from abroad. proposed to be constructed, and by abandoning some of the defences now in progress of construction, or which are about to be constructed under existing appropriations made by Congress.

The undersigned is also of the opinion that the best interests of the country require that the subject of modification should be submitted to a board composed of artillery and engineer officers, and some eminent civilians; that no new work should be commenced, even if it has been appropriated for by Congress; and that no appropriation should be made by Congress for the completion and repairs of existing works, until the whole subject of the national defence has been considered and reported by the said board.

The Secretary of War desires "that the chief engineer and the above-named officers, (Colonel Thayer, Lieut. Colonel De Russy, Major Delafield and Major Chase,) should direct their inquiries particularly to the following points:

"1st. How far the invention and extension of railways have superseded or diminished the necessity of fortifications on the seaboard?

"2d. In what manner and to what extent the navigation of the ocean, by steam, and particularly the application of steam to vessels of war, and recent improvements in artillery and other military inventions and discoveries, affect the question?

"3d. How far vessels of war, steambatteries, ordinary merchant ships and steamers, and other temporary expedients, can be relied upon as substitutes for permanent fortifications for the defence of the large seaports?

"4th. How far the increase of the population on the northern frontier, and of the mercantile marine on the northern lakes, can obviate or diminish the necessity of continuing the system of fortifications on those lakes."

The results of the inquiries made by the undersigned in the premises are expressed as follows:

1st. The invention and extension of railways and of the electric telegraph, in connection with the great increase in the number and size of steam vessels navigating the rivers, bays, lakes and ocean, have added greatly to the strength of the Union, by bringing the most distant sections within a few days' travel of the centre, and do thus contribute to preserve

The lines of railways, assuming the radiating point at New-York, will shortly be extended to most of the important seaboards and inland towns in the United States. The telegraph lines following the rails, and also diverging from them, are beginning to interlace the country in every direction. By these means, and the rapid increase of our population indigenously and by immigration, agriculture and manufactures have been surprisingly extended throughout our broad domain, and an internal commerce has arisen, by the interchange of the products of art and of our various climates, which is considered to be of greater value than the exterior commerce of the country. With the exception of a few articles, our artificial and natural productions embrace everything that can be produced in any part of the world.

These are immense elements of

strength to a nation, and insure its power and prosperity. This is the moral effect.

The existence of these railways and telegraphs contributes directly and physically to the defence of the country, by enabling men and military supplies to be collected promptly and moved rapidly to points threatened with invasion. Railways extend already along the coast, in some instances in double lines, from Portland to Savannah, connecting all the intermediate cities and other important points with the canals and rivers and the naval and military arsenals and depots. From this great base line, other lines, convergent and divergent, have reached lakes Erie, Ontario and Champlain, and they are rapidly approaching and crossing the great lakes and rivers of the west. And it is hoped that Congress will not long delay, in conjunction with the state of Texas, in making such a donation of lands as will enable private enterprise to commence and complete a railway leading from some point between the mouth of Red River and New-Orleans, through Louisiana and Texas to El Paso, and thence through the valley of the Gila to San Diego, in California.

A single example of the pervading extent of the railway system will at once illustrate the subject, and exhibit in a favorable light these new means for the national defence. The completion of the railway, now in course of construction, from Wilmington, in North Carolina, tó

1

main.

Manchester, in South Carolina, will en- have rendered it only necessary for them able troops to be transported continuous- to be made secure against a coup-dely, by railway, from the valley of the Tennessee to Norfolk, in two days, to Washington in two and a half days, and to Charleston and Savannah in one day. The extension of the railway now being made from Chattanooga, on the Tennessee River, to Nashville, will enable the volunteers from the superb military population of Tennessee to be carried to the most distant points of the north and south Atlantic, almost at a moment's warning, and in the course of three or four days; whilst the speedy completion of the road from Atalanta, in Georgia, to Montgomery, in Alabama, and the probable construction of a road from Montgomery to Mobile and Pensacola, will bring the Gulf of Mexico within a day's travel of the same great State of Ten

Under these views of the subject, it is at once perceived that, whilst the extension and invention of railways (and the electric telegraph) do not supersede, they greatly diminish the necessity of adding to the number and cost of the fortifica\tions on the seaboard; or, in other words, that the future prosecution of the system of defence by permanent fortifications should be on a very reduced scale in comparison with the magnificent one adopted thirty-five years ago.

nessee.

At the North the system of railways is much more extended. The New-York and Erie road, now complete, is proposed to be extended along the shore of Lake Erie to Cleveland, and thence to Detroit, from whence a road has been carried to Chicago, on Lake Michigan. The seaboard base of railways will thus be brought within easy communication of the most distant lake frontier.

The Massachusetts, Vermont, St. Lawrence and Montreal railways will bring the whole Canada frontier, extending from Lake Ontario down to Montreal, within twenty-four hours' travel on an average, of Boston, Portland and NewYork.

The transportation of troops on railways may be effected with great promptness. The first regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers, raised in Philadelphia, the most distant point from the scene of action, were transported so rapidly to New-Orleans via Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania railways, that the regiment, one thousand strong, was placed in the van of the volunteer forces, raised for the campaign against Mexico, under General Scott.

Sufficient has been said to show that railways and the electric telegraph contribute largely to the national defence; that the works covering our large seaports and other important points, placed in connection with the railways and telegraph, if they were now to be constructed, might be much reduced in size and cost, if not in number; that the facility with which these works could be relieved, in case of an attempted siege, would

2d. The navigation of the ocean by steam, and the application of steam to vessels of war, have certainly added to the facilities of naval operations in making attacks and transporting troops. But such operations are necessarily confined to short lines, like those between France and England, in the Mediterranean, or on the lakes between Canada and the United States.

Attacks by steamers can only be formidable when they are numerous and filled with troops destined for a grand attack; but when they are thus filled with troops, munitions of war, provisions, armament and their regular crews, little room is left for the fuel necessary to propel them to the scene of action and in retreat. Such steamers cannot be propelled either conveniently or rapidly until the propelling power can be produced at a less outlay for fuel. At the rate supposed to be the maximum of speed of war steamers, lines of operations over one thousand miles (five hundred in advance and five hundred in retreat) cannot be occupied advantageously, or with the efficiency necessary to a great movement of a strategic or direct attack. Numerous transports would be necessary to convey supplies of coal to convenient places on the coast, where depots for the same would have to be established and defended at great cost, for they would be constantly in danger of attack by sea and land from enterprising assailants. Besides, the great loads of men, munitions, armaments, provisions and fuel that war and transport steamers would be obliged to carry, multiply the dangers of navigation.

Certainly steamers could make sudden and brief attempts to enter harbors and destroy towns, but fast-sailing ships with favorable winds could do the same, if this kind of marauding and piratical

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warfare was carried on by any Christian tions in number, size or cost, in any wise nation calling itself civilized, and if not opposed to the same machines of war as those used by the enemy and by acts of retaliation.

Such attempts might be successful in attack and retreat, if made in the night, even if the harbor was strongly fortified, if the fortifications were unaided by rafts and hulks lying across the channels.

as

necessary. But, on the contrary, the improvement in artillery, if those fortifications had now to be built, would enable their plans to be reduced one-half in size, and the armament one-fourth in amount.

The substitution of the ten-inch Columbiad for the mixed and most inefficient armaments with which our fortifications have been garnished at great expense, is But a demonstration on a large scale already forced upon us by the introducagainst the important ports and arsenals, tion of those superb guns on board of vesfor the purpose of taking possession and sels of war. It would be ridiculous, if it levying contributions, requires considera- be intended to adhere in any degree to ble land forces, even against such points the present system of seacoast defence, to were not defended by permanent retain the present armaments, composed batteries; for at such points, in time of principally, as they are, of twelve, eighteen, war, earth erections would be made and twenty-four, thirty-two, and forty-two pouneasily supplied with cannon of heavy ders. It is the opinion of many persons, calibre, that would do great damage, by entertained for years past, that but one direct and vertical cannonade, to the class of guns should be generally used in enemy's vessels and forces afloat, after our batteries on the coast, and that these they had entered the harbor, and probably guns should be of the largest calibre compel them to leave it, and force him to which experiment has demonstrated select a more distant point for the initia- could be efficiently used. tive of attack.

If the enemy, strong in ships and soldiers, could be driven from Boston by the erection of some redoubts in the course of one night, it is hardly to be supposed that he would attempt to recapture the position, or to attack any other position similarly situated.

Any such demonstration at the present day would be checked by the means just enumerated, and be met on its flanks and in front by the mobile forces rallied by the telegraph to the point of attack.

The improvement in artillery, as regards size and efficiency, has been, of late years, very great, but it enures more to the benefit of the defence than the attack. In the same way that, if steam applied to ships of war afford any advantage to the attack, steam applied on railways, combined with the electric telegraph, affords greater advantages to the defence, by reason of the greater facility with which forces may be moved by the latter means.

From all which it may be safely asserted that the navigation of the ocean by steam, the application of steam to vessels of war, and recent improvements in artillery and other military inventions, do not exhibit the attack of forts on the seaboard superior to the defence, where those forts are connected with railways and are brought within succor of the surrounding population; nor do they render additions to the present fortifica

Fort McRee, in the harbor of Pensacola, is supplied with one hundred and twenty guns, composed of about equal numbers of twenty-four, thirty-two and forty-two pounders. The average effective range of these guns may be stated at 1,100 yards, and the weight of metal that may be projected from the entire battery 3,920 pounds. Now thirty ten-inch Columbiads would throw the same weight of solid shot, and strike an object, with precision, at 2,200 yards distant; so that, whilst the number of guns at Fort McRee might be reduced seventy-five in one hundred, the effective range by solid and hollow shot would be increased one hundred in one hundred, and the efficiency of the batteries greatly increased, at the same time the size of that work might be reduced at least one-half.

3d. Our large seaports and naval depots being already covered by extensive works, and requiring but small additional defences, the discussion of the question as to the superiority of those defences over vessels of war, floating batteries, ordinary merchant vessels and steamers, and other temporary expedients, would seem to be unnecessary. All experience, however, has shown that any kind of floating defences is inferior, on every score, to land batteries, where the localities will permit the latter to be used. This subject has been ably discussed and illustrated in the report made by a board of officers to the Secretary of War, in 1840, on the national

and proposed to be expended on the defensive works extending from Rouse's Point to the Sault of St. Marie, would have been, and will be more beneficially applied to the improvement of the lake harbors and dependent rivers, thus promoting the interests of commerce in time of peace, and affording naval depots for our naval forces in time of war.

defences. Other temporary expedients, such as rafts, hulks sunk in channels, and ridges of stone thrown across the same, could be relied upon, in most instances, only as auxiliary defence to land batteries. 4th. In considering how far the increase of population on the northern frontier, and of the mercantile marine on the northern lakes, obviates the necessity of continuing the system of fortifications on By demonstrating that such an application those lakes, it will be necessary to bring of the public money would directly promote into view some of the elements of the national defence, not only on the lakes, strength, moral, physical, and political, in substitution of fortifications, but on the possessed by the United States, and which seaboard, in aiding the defence by fortifica have already been alluded to in this report. tions, much of the opposition entertained, The chief moral and political element on constitutional grounds, towards internal is the aversion to war with the United improvements, would be removed. States, felt by Great Britain, whose Under these views, it is the opinion of present superiority in naval means of the undersigned, that the whole system of attack make her, of all nations, alone fortifications for the defence of the northformidable to us. This aversion arises ern and lake frontiers should at once be from the intimate and entangling relations abandoned, and that no more money be in commerce with this country, and applied even for the repairs or completion from the dependence of England upon the of the existing works. United States for the chief supply of cotton to the leading branch of her manufactures. And this aversion to the slightest approach of international hostility is not abated by the consideration, that the untoward event of war with the United States would prompt Russia and France to carry out their long-cherished designs of aggrandizement in Turkey, Syria, and India.

The principal physical elements are: first, the facility with which, by means of existing railways, we could approach Montreal with a large force, and drive thence the British forces to seek shelter under the walls of Quebec, and finally from all Canada; by which simple and rapid movement the two provinces would fall without a struggle into our possession, with one-half of its population, at least, inclined to a change of sovereignty; and second, the superiority of our mercantile marine, affording convertible means for a naval force, giving us the mastery of the lakes, and enabling us to crush any partisan attempts coming from the Canada shore;-and third, the superiority of our advantages on the score of a military population lying along the

whole northern and lake frontier.

These great moral, physical, and political advantages being undeniable, the continuation of the system of fortifications, on the northern and lake frontier, would involve a useless waste of public

The undersigned, in conclusion, would express his opinion in repetition, that a board of artillery and engineer officers and civilians should be formed, to take into consideration the whole subject of the national defences, as called for by the resolutions of the House of Representatives, passed in the session of 3d March, 1851, and as particularly and searchingly alluded to by the Secretary of War, in his order of 17th April, 1851, with a view to the changes necessary to be made in the "third system of defence," commenced thirty-five years ago, and of the adaptation of the same, inversely, to the increased power, political, physical, and moral, of the United States;-the composition of such a board being well calculated to have the whole subject opened fairly and discussed freely, by which errors of opinions, particularly those arising from professional prejudices and interests, would be exposed and corrected, the truth in the premises made manifest, and the good of the common-wealth secured.

Civilians versed in national and inter

national policy, and officers known to be opposed to the system of defence on its present scale, as well as those who have declared in its favor, would cause the pour and contre to be fairly stated, and all sophistry and false principles to be detected and discarded.

In the event of such a board being formed, it is suggested that the ayes and noes on all important questions should be ordered to be taken and recorded.

Cuba and the United States.

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ART. VIII-CUBA AND THE UNITED STATES.

THE POLICY OF ANNEXATION DISCUSSED.*

THE present and prospective condition her coming under the control of Great of Cuba is one of deep interest. Ap- Britain or France. The geographical pearances indicate that Spain cannot position of Cuba is such that she must long continue to hold possession of that either belong to Spain, become an indeisland, unless she changes, and that pendent government, or be annexed to greatly, her policy in reference to it. our republic. In no event could our Should the Spanish Government extend government permit her to be acquired to the people of Cuba the privileges they by any European power, and any such so much desire; allow them an equal attempt would necessarily involve the participation in the offices of honor and nation making it in a war with the Uniprofit, instead of bestowing them exclu- ted States. Spain, doubtless, relies greatsively upon natives of Old Spain; re- ly upon the assistance which she exmove the burdens placed upon com- pects to receive from England and merce, and otherwise modify the harsh France, in the event of any serious atfeatures of their present policy, Spain tempt being made to free Cuba from her might for years retain possession of dominion. the island of Cuba. Nor would she susIt is said that she has assurances to tain any loss in thus changing her policy, that effect, from one or both of these because the increased trade and com- governments. Taking the view of the merce of Cuba, resulting from a more liberal policy, would more than compensate the Spanish Government for the concessions it might make. But we are apprehensive that Spain will obstinately refuse to ameliorate the condition of that people until a successful resistance shall have been made to the Spanish authorities, and Spain shall have lost her dominion over the island of Cuba. We say we are apprehensive that such will be the result, for we think that if Spain would give to the people of Cuba a wise, liberal and good government, the situation of Cuba would then be better than any which she can occupy under existing circumstances. There are many evils which, we think, would attend a war in Cuba for her freedom and independence, even if she should eventually achieve them, and should ultimately be annexed to our republic. There are many satisfactory reasons why Cuba should not be annexed to the United States, unless it becomes a matter of necessity to annex her in order to prevent

*The editor of the Review deems it scarcely ne

cessary to say, that he does not hold himself responsible for the opinions of his contributors. Upon the subject of Cuba, which is now so "uppermost" in every one's thoughts, he is willing it should be fairly and impartially handled. It is certainly one of deep Southern interest, at least. There are many sober truths in the article which follows, but some things again which are not so obvious. So far as the Review is concerned, it is not prepared to take a position now, but will do so soon, in an article of some elaboration.

subject which we do, we are constrained to say, that what she considers her greatest security, we regard as her greatest danger. In our opinion, any attempt on the part of England and France to render "permanent the union of Cuba with the crown of Spain," by interfering to prevent hostile enterprises against that island, and by giving assistance to the Spanish authorities in any struggle which may take place between them and the people of Cuba, would only serve to hasten the event which Spain, England and France, all seem so much to dread; that is, the annexation of Cuba to the United States. Although we do not approve of hostile enterprises, undertaken by our citizens against the island of Cuba, either for the purpose of exciting the Cubans to insurrection, or of aiding them in throwing off the Spanish government, and believe that it is the duty of our government to use all proper and necessary means to prevent such expeditions, yet we cannot recognize any right in the English and French governments to establish a "police of the seas," and to interfere for the purpose of having our laws executed. We are capable of managing our own affairs, without any supervision on their part, and we consider any such interference, implying, as it does, a distrust of the good faith of our government, as officious intermeddling with that which does not especially concern them.