This will, however, create
complication, which is nearly as objectionable here as in the calibre of
guns. Thus it is that any solution may prove not exactly the best one
for the particular cases which may arise under it. All that should be
demanded is, that, by the application of sound judgment to the data
which experience and invention afford, our probable wants may be as well
met as practicable. Some system we must have; and, on the one hand, zeal
for mobility, commendable as it is, must not be permitted to invite
grand disasters through failures of the pontoons to do their allotted
work; while, on the other hand, a morbid desire to insure absolutely
trustworthy solidity of construction must be restrained from imposing
needless burdens, which may habitually make our crossings Fredericksburg
affairs. Between these extremes lies the right road. American skill has
hardly exhausted its resources on this problem. The suspension-bridge
train, a description of which General Meigs has published, is deserving
of consideration for many cases in campaigns. General Haupt's remarkable
railroad-bridges thrown over the Rappahannock River and Potomac Creek,
the latter in nine working-days, were structures of such striking and
judicious boldness as to justify most hopeful anticipations from the
designer's expected treatise on bridge-building.
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