Officers of the US Army Venture into Research, 1840-60

摘要

The engineering skills taught at the West Point military academy in the mid-nineteenth century left officers of the US Army's scientific corps ill-prepared for the research they would undertake when assigned to design large cast-iron cannon and control of floods on the Mississippi River. They succeeded where close observation and qualitative reasoning sufficed; had difficulty where the necessary principles in mechanics, hydrology and geology were not yet in textbooks; and lacked adequate means of testing their designs. Massive amounts of partially analysed data in their reports obscured critical omissions. The river research led to flood control with a levees-only scheme that proved difficult to revise even after disastrous floods. The iron research delayed adoption of steel artillery. A few 20-inch bore cannon were successfully cast for coast defence but could neither be loaded nor trained rapidly enough to be useful weapons.