I recommend
this subject to your attention, and also the proposition submitted at
the last session of Congress and now renewed, for a reorganization of
the Topographical Corps. This reorganization can be effected without any
addition to the present expenditure and with much advantage to the
public service. The branch of duties which devolves upon these officers
is at all times interesting to the community, and the information
furnished by them is useful in peace and war.
Much loss and inconvenience have been experienced in consequence of
the failure of the bill containing the ordinary appropriations for
fortifications which passed one branch of the National Legislature at
the last session, but was lost in the other. This failure was the more
regretted not only because it necessarily interrupted and delayed the
progress of a system of national defense, projected immediately after
the last war and since steadily pursued, but also because it contained
a contingent appropriation, inserted in accordance with the views
of the Executive, in aid of this important object and other branches
of the national defense, some portions of which might have been most
usefully applied during the past season.
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