"
One of Lieutenant Lee's first assignments in the engineering corps was
the construction of harbor defenses in Hampton Roads. As he labored to
make these as strong as possible, he little dreamed that it would be
his problem, a quarter of a century later, to study how he might
demolish them.
From Hampton Roads he was transferred to Washington, and made assistant
to the chief engineer--an agreeable change as it brought him close to
his wife's home. Mounted on a favorite steed he could easily "commute"
back and forth between office and home. On one occasion it is related
that he invited a brother officer, Captain Macomb, out home for the
night, and as the latter had no mount, Lee took him up behind himself,
and down Pennsylvania Avenue they went, saluting other officers whom
they encountered, with great glee. That was one time when a
commutation ticket was good for two.
Five years after graduation he had worked up to a first lieutenancy,
and two years more found him a captain. In 1835 he was appointed on a
commission to fix the boundary line between Michigan and Ohio. A few
months later he was detailed to make an important study of the
Mississippi River and Valley with a view to determining how to prevent
the annual overflows with their consequent damage to property.
Pages:
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67