Great Engineers & Scientists

They're as American as kielbasa and cabbage, lobster and baked beans. Thaddeus Kosciusko, Richard Gridley, and Rufus Putnam may not be household names, but their contributions to the American Revolution burn as brightly as fireworks on the Fourth of July. Here are three engineering heroes your high school history teacher never told you about.

Thaddeus Kosciusko

Thaddeus Kosciuszko was the chief engineer for George Washington's Continental Army. Born in Poland, Kosciuszko built fortifications that blocked the British approach to Philadelphia at Fort Mercer, planned American defenses at the pivotal battle of Saratoga, and built an "American Gibraltar" at West Point along the Hudson River.

In October 1777, American forces at Fort Mercer repelled an attack by 2,000 Hessian mercenaries. Although the British would later capture this Kosciusko-designed fortification on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River, the tide of war had already turned - thanks in part to Kosciusko himself.

In September 1777, the Continental Army had won the Battle of Freeman's Farm, the first of two contests at the Battle of Saratoga in upstate New York. Following orders from General Horatio Gates, Thaddeus Kosciuszko fortified the high ground west of the Hudson River, denying the British access to the valley below and funneling the invaders towards the Continentals' main fortifications. There, during the Battle of Bemis Heights, the Americans halted the British and forced General John Burgoyne's ill-fated withdrawal.

The eventual surrender of Burgoyne's Army protected the Northeast and New England from future invasions, and convinced France to aid the Americans in their war for independence. In 1783, in recognition of his dedicated service, Thaddeus Kosciuszko was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General and became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

Richard Gridley

Richard Gridley was a Boston-born military engineer who planned American defenses at Breed's Hill and was wounded at the Battle of Bunker Hill while manning a cannon. He was also Chief Engineer in the New England Provincial Army. Until he retired in 1781 at the age of 70, Gridley continued his labors for the Continental Army. Even today, a monument to this colorful figure bears a quote from General Washington: "I know of no man better fitted to be Chief Engineer than General Gridley."

Gridley's finest hour came during the Battle of Breed's Hill, a contest more commonly known as the Battle of Bunker Hill. On the night of June 16, 1775, General Israel Putnam marched 1,500 Continentals to the Charlestown Peninsula, a narrow isthmus with a commanding view of British-controlled Boston. There, a combative Richard Gridley built fortifications first on Bunker Hill and then on Breed's Hill. Because the latter height was more defensible, the Americans located their primary redoubt there.

Using Gridley's plans, soldiers dug ditches 160-ft. long and 80-ft. wide with earthen walls. Just before dawn, the HMS Somerset sighted the earthworks, but could not elevate its 128 guns high enough to reach General Putnam's position. Hours later, British infantry mounted the first of two bloody assaults, suffering their greatest losses of the war. Although the colonists would loose this early battle of the American Revolution, they would ultimately win the war.

Rufus Putnam

Rufus Putnam was a millwright who enlisted in the Continental Army after the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775. Though commissioned as an officer of the line, Putnam was later named Chief of Engineers of the Works of New York after the fortifications he built at Dorchester helped drive the British out of Boston. Putnam's fortifications also helped the Continental Army secure important victories at Sewall's Point, Providence, New Port, Long Island, and West Point.

Putnam's fortifications at Dorchester Heights (or "Dorchester Neck", as Bostonians called the place) were some of his finest. There, the former millwright was joined by military engineer Richard Gridley and four thousand Continental soldiers. Working day and night, the Americans dug enough earth to built a parapet some 12-ft. thick and 6-ft. tall. Packed with gravel and covered in rawhide, the earthworks housed heavy guns and mortars which threatened nearby British ships.

As Thomas W. Clarke wrote in The New England Magazine (April 1898), British General William Howe then concluded that "the harbor would be untenable for the fleet the day the Dorchester batteries opened". As Howe himself said, the Continentals "have done more in a night than my army could have done in a month. It must have been the employment of 12,000 men."

Resources:

http://www.polishamericancenter.org/Kosciuszko.htm

http://www.nps.gov/crossroads/chrono.htm

http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/Depts/MilSci/Resources/sarfield.html

http://www.hq.usace.army.mil/history/coe.htm#1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bunker_Hill

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufus_Putnam

http://www.hq.usace.army.mil/history/coe.htm#2

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/AMERICAN-REVOLUTION/2002-08/1029549463