That the subject may be fully before Congress, I transmit also a copy
of the former report of the Board, being that on which the work was
undertaken and has been in part executed. Approving as I do the opinion
of the Board, I consider it my duty to state the reasons on which I
adopted the first report, especially as they were in part suggested by
the occurrences of the late war.
The policy which induced Congress to decide on and provide for the
defense of the coast immediately after the war was founded on the marked
events of that interesting epoch. The vast body of men which it was
found necessary to call into the field through the whole extent of our
maritime frontier, and the number who perished by exposure, with the
immense expenditure of money and waste of property which followed, were
to be traced in an eminent degree to the defenseless condition of the
coast. It was to mitigate these evils in future wars, and even for the
higher purpose of preventing war itself, that the decision was formed to
make the coast, so far as it might be practicable, impregnable, and that
the measures necessary to that great object have been pursued with so
much zeal since.
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