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Girl from Europe
Recruit
Status: offline |
 Posted - October 29 2004 : 6:32:16 PM
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I just wonder if the army had engineer corps (sappers ? pioneers ?) and - if yes - then who commanded them.
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Benteen
Lt. Colonel
Status: offline |
Posted - October 14 2005 : 11:42:04 AM
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I'm sorry about waiting so long to reply. Because I really haven't been here that long. Any way yours is an interesting question. And I have found some information for you.
Courtesy of http://www.hq.usace.army.mil/history/brief.htm
The history of United States Army engineers can be traced back to June 16, 1775, when the Continental Congress organized an army with a chief engineer and two assistants. Colonel Richard Gridley became General George Washington's first chief engineer; however, it was not until 1779 that Congress created a separate Corps of Engineers. Army engineers, including several French officers, were instrumental in some of the hard-fought battles of the Revolutionary War including Bunker Hill, Saratoga, and the final victory at Yorktown (> > >).
At the end of the Revolutionary War, the engineers mustered out of service. In 1794, Congress organized a Corps of Artillerists and Engineers, but it was not until 1802 that it reestablished a separate Corps of Engineers.
Courtesy of http://www.hq.usace.army.mil/history/coe.htm#1
Colonel Richard Gridley
(No known Picture)
America's First Chief Engineer
(June 1775-April 1776)
Born January 3, 1710, in Boston, Massachusetts, Richard Gridley was the outstanding American military engineer during the French and Indian wars from the Siege of Louisburg in 1745 to the fall of Quebec. For his services he was awarded a commission in the British Army, a grant of the Magdalen Islands, 3,000 acres of land in New Hampshire, and a life annuity. When the break with the mother country came, he stood with the colonies and was made Chief Engineer in the New England Provincial Army. He laid out the defenses on Breed's Hill and was wounded at the Battle of Bunker Hill. He was appointed Chief Engineer of the Continental Army after Washington took command in July 1775. He directed the construction of the fortifications which forced the British to evacuate Boston in March 1776. When Washington moved his Army south, Gridley remained as Chief Engineer of the New England Department. He retired in 1781 at age 70. He died June 21, 1796, in Stoughton, Massachusetts.
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Benteen
Lt. Colonel
Status: offline |
Posted - October 14 2005 : 11:54:16 AM
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Magdalen Islands
The land of the Acadians...
In 1755, the destiny of the Acadian people took a tragic turn. It was the "Grand Derangement" (the Exile) and the Acadian population was deported all across the continent. Some managed to escape the deportation and came to the Îles de la Madeleine, which was then ruled by the iron fist of a merchant named Richard Gridley The Acadians working for Gridley hunted walrus and ran the Island fisheries. In 1789, following the French Revolution, other families came from Saint-Pierre and Miquelon under the leadership of father Jean-Batiste Allain, who was responsible for creating the first written records of the settlement. This was the true beginning of the colonisation of the Islands.
Under British control in 1763, the Islands were annexed to Newfoundland, until 1774 when the Quebec Act annexed them to Quebec. Isaac Coffin was granted the Îles de la Madeleine in 1798, and he forced the Madelinots to pay rent on lands that they had cleared with their own hands and occupied for more than 25 years. This feudal domination along with the merchants' exploitation of the fishermen, created a climate of misery and injustice; which explains the Islanders' continued emigration to new lands. Emigrating Madelinots founded several villages on Quebec's Lower North Shore: Blanc-Sablon (1854), Havre Saint-Pierre, Natashquan (1855), and Sept-Îles (1872). Only in 1895 did a Quebec law allow the Madelinots to buy back their lands from the grant holder. Freed from colonial oppression, they began to overcome their difficulties and work towards self-sufficiency.
For more details about the history of Les Iles-de-la-Madeleine, we suggest you try the book "The Îles de la Madeleine – A brief History" by Jean-Charles Fortin and Paul Larocque, les editions de L'IQRC, available at the tourist information office.
Courtesy of http://www.tourismeilesdelamadeleine.com/magdalen-islands/decouvrirLArchipel_histoire_ang.cfm
The discovery of the Islands
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Micmac Indians poetically named the archipelago "Menagoesenog", a word that means "islands brushed by the waves". Well before the arrival of the first Europeans, Indians were coming to the Islands to fish, and to hunt for seal and sea cows (walrus).
In June 1534, Jacques Cartier inscribed in his diary the first written report about the Islands, which he called "Les Araynes" (from Latin "arena", meaning "sand"). He named the first islands he came upon Île Margaulx (today Rocher aux Oiseaux) and Île Brion. He wrote in his ship's log: "These islands have sandbanks and good passages around them, 6 or seven fathoms. This island is the best land we have seen, better even than Terre Neuve (Newfoundland). We found a land with great trees, fine meadow, fields of wild wheat and flowering peas, as many species as I ever saw in Brittany, and it seemed as if all had been planted by man's hand."
In 1629, Samuel de Champlain wrote on a map, "La Magdeleine", near the area of Île du Havre Aubert. However, it is said that the archipelago's present name, Îles de la Madeleine, was given in honour of Madeleine Fontaine, wife of François Doublet de Honfleur, and concessionaire of the Islands in 1663. Under the French Regime, the Islands were passed from hand to hand without lasting colonisation or exploitation.
... and a country of the sea
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Seafarers and fishermen all, the Madelinots are familiar with both the joys and the trials and tribulations of maritime life. Many tragic shipwrecks have been recorded (more than 400), and these were more often than not foreign ships swept ashore in storms while passing the islands. Survivors often decided to make the Islands their home. Legends and extraordinary true stories colour the Islanders' oral tradition, kept alive from a time when they lived in almost total isolation.
Although modern methods of communication have eased this isolation, the Madelinots still maintain their unique way of life and retain their distinctive accent. In 2002, the population totalled 13,172 inhabitants including five percent Anglophones, largely of Scottish descent. |
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Benteen
Lt. Colonel
Status: offline |
Posted - October 14 2005 : 12:15:58 PM
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This Gridley character is a study!!! He's an interesting one that's for sure. The more I dig the more I find. One does have to wonder what made him change sides. Soo... could this be the reason?
Courtesy of http://www.blupete.com/Hist/NovaScotiaBk1/Part1/Ch02.htm
Quinpool:
"In 1534 Jacques Cartier was the first to report an extensive walrus fishery in 'Acadian' waters in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which has practically become extinct, south of Greenland. The St. Malo navigator stated the Magdelen islands were surrounded with "many great beasts, like huge oxen, with teeth (tusks) like an elephant, that go in the sea." This is the first walrus or seacow record in America. Colonel Richard Gridley, Boston, was at the siege of Louisburg and at the fall of Quebec in 1759. He received a grant of the walrus fishery the French had conserved.
One of the earliest executive acts following erection of Prince Edward Island into a separate government in 1770 was an attempt to check destruction of the walrus fishery, which nevertheless, was finally ruined during the succeeding half-century. None have been taken for 100 years. These animals weighed up to 4,000 pounds. Oil from the blubber was fine quality, a little of the flesh was eaten, the rest thrown away or some used for fertilizer, while the skins were accounted valuable for harness and similar uses. After the War of Independence in 1783, Governor Patterson of St. John's Island (Prince Edward Island) advised British authorities: - "New England vessels are in a fair way to destroy the sea-cow fisheries, if there are not some steps taken to prevent them. The chief resort of these fish is about this island and the Magdalen islands."
Colonel Gridley, Magdalen islands, admitted killing 5,000 principally females, in a summer. The young were little value and were abandoned. Gridley's slaughter was mainly on land and out of season. He fled to Boston, when an order was issued for his arrest. Females, in the spring calving season, frequented shallow water or established themselves at sunny places on land. Relatively few males were taken, as they usually kept in deep water. If a calf was captured or killed, the mother would not leave the spot and became an easy victim. Fishing captains generally kept a calf on board and caused it to make noise to attract females." |
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engineers/sappers 
