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heard of any provision for water in the fort that would supply a garrison of more than four hundred men.
The only provisions other than meat which the men had to live on were the hard buns or hard tack.
All these provisions were conveyed into the fort by being rolled along in barrels, over a sandy road for about three quarters of a mile.
And along this sandy road was the only way that our heavy cannon could be conveyed over the beach and up on the ramparts or anywhere else.
I was informed that a twelve-inch bore cannon, the largest then ever made, was about to be sent to the fort to be tested experimentally.
It weighed about twenty-six tons, and I assumed there must be some other method of locomotion.
Knowing that some railroad ties, rails, and cars belonging to the enemy had been captured at Alexandria, I sent a requisition to the Secretary of War for a sufficient number of them to lay railroad tracks from the wharves through the gateway into the fort and around the inner part of its circumference, with branches running into these several magazines, and one upon the ramparts so as to take the heavy guns up there.
I got a favorable answer to my requisition, and then I consulted Colonel De Russey upon the question of putting a branch up the sand beach where the loose sand above tide was some four or five inches deep, while the rolling of the surf left, as on other beaches, the sand below for a hard shore.
When I explained the matter to the colonel, he said:--
“What? Do you propose to put a railroad track over this soft sand?”
“Yes.”
“And run cars over the track?”
“Yes; and not only that, Colonel De Russey, but I want to carry a twenty-six ton cannon up to a certain point.
Now which way do you think we had best bring it?”
“Why,” said he, “General, you cannot carry anything on a track laid over this dry sand, and above all that very heavy gun. Why, it would sink your whole railroad track and ties in the sand.”
“I am not an engineer, Colonel,” I replied, “but I do know something about building a railroad.
We build them on the sand ”
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
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