Another significant result of the war was the sudden development of scientific engineering 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 ships.  Captain Isaac Hull, in command of the Constitution, had been detained at Annapolis shipping a new crew until July 5th, the day when Broke’s squadron left Halifax; then the ship got under way and stood down Chesapeake Bay on her voyage to New York.  The wind was ahead and very light.  Not until July 10th did the ship anchor off Cape Henry lighthouse, and not till sunrise