Joseph G. Totten

5 presidential military commissions, each engraved on vellum with martial vignettes (each approximately 18 x 14 in., sight), each accomplished in a clerical hand, and each with appropriate War Office registration docket and embossed paper seal of the War Office. Attractively and uniformly framed with an engraved portrait of the respective president and an appropriate military illustration. Comprising:

J.G. Barnard, Memoir of Joseph Gilbert Totten. 1788-1864, Read at the Washington Session, Jan. 6, 1866. National Academy of Sciences (http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/alphabetical-listing/memoirs-t.html)

THOMAS JEFFERSON, as third President, document signed ("Th: Jefferson"), commissioning Totten as Second Lieutenant of Engineers, Washington, D.C., June 11, 1808, countersigned by the Secretary of War ("H. Dearborn");

JAMES MADISON, as fourth President, document signed ("James Madison") commissioning Totten as First Lieutenant of Engineers, Washington, D.C., March 9, 1811, countersigned by the Secretary of War ("W. Eustis");

MARTIN VAN BUREN, as eighth President, document signed ("M. Van Buren") commissioning Totten as Colonel of Engineers, Washington, D.C., April 1, 1839, countersigned by the Secretary of War ("J. R. Poinsett");

JAMES K. POLK, as eleventh President, document signed ("James K. Polk") commissioning Totten as Brevet Brigadier General “For Gallant and Meritorious Conduct at the Siege of Vera Cruz,” Washington, D.C., August 23, 1848, countersigned by the Secretary of War ("W. L. Marcy");

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, as sixteenth President, document signed ("Abraham Lincoln") commissioning Totten as Brigadier General of Volunteers, Washington, D.C., April 13, 1863, countersigned by the Secretary of War ("Edwin M. Stanton").

In 1805, Joseph Gilbert Totten (1788-1864) of New Haven, Connecticut, graduated from West Point and was promoted to Second Lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers. He resigned in 1806 to serve as secretary to the Surveyor General of the Northwest Territory for two years. In 1808, Thomas Jefferson reappointed him to his former rank, which began his nearly 56 years of uninterrupted military service (55 years and 10 months, in addition to the 2 years he had already served). General Winfield “Old Fuss and Feathers” Scott served 53 years, and twentieth-century generals such as Omar Bradley, Douglas MacArthur, and John Vessey all served fewer than fifty years each. Few men served longer or more substantially than Totten, though Revolutionary War veteran John Walbach and Hyman Rickover, the “Father of the Nuclear Navy” served longer, at 57 and 63 years, respectively.

Totten’s career in the Corps of Engineers spanned the development of the United States’ coastal defense program. He helped construct New York’s harbor defenses and supervised the construction of Fort Clinton in Castle Garden (now Battery Park), 1808-1812. James Madison promoted Totten to First lieutenant in 1811 just before the War of 1812, where Totten distinguished himself for gallantry and meritorious service.

During the War of 1812, Madison again promoted Totten, this time to captain in the corps of engineers, where he served as supervising engineer for the fortification of Lake Champlain, the St. Lawrence River, and other coastal defenses. He served in operations on Lake Champlain, the Niagara and St. Lawrence Rivers, and the Great Lakes. He helped capture Fort George in Upper Canada (Ontario), repel the British Fleet on Lake Ontario, took part in the Battle of Plattsburg, and blew up the abandoned Fort Erie, also in Upper Canada. Still under Madison’s presidency, Totten was breveted major in 1813, and lieutenant colonel in 1814, for meritorious service and gallantry, respectively.

President James Monroe promoted Totten to major in 1818, and breveted Totten colonel in 1824. John Quincy Adams promoted Totten to lieutenant colonel in 1828. Between 1825 and 1838, Totten supervised the construction of Fort Adams in Newport, Rhode Island. In 1838, Martin Van Buren gave Totten one of his most important commissions: The President made Totten a full colonel and Chief Engineer of the Army. Totten continued to build shore defenses and harbor works as well as with the drydocks at the Pensacola Navy Yard. Totten then served under General Winfield Scott at the Siege of Vera Cruz (1847) during the Mexican-American War. President Polk marked Totten’s advancement to a generalship when he awarded him the rank of brevet brigadier general for “gallant and meritorious conduct” in the battle.

In 1851, he joined the lighthouse board and began reforming the notoriously dangerous lighthouse designs. His most notable design achievement was rebuilding Boston Harbor’s Minot’s Ledge Light, considered the “most wave-swept structure in North America,” after the first lighthouse was destroyed in spectacular fashion with the loss of both lighthouse keepers. Totten designed a granite-constructed tower, with its first forty feet serving as a massive anchor block attached to the ledge with iron pins and its own enormous weight. It took five years to construct (1855-1860) and stands to this day.

During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln made the breveted rank permanent by promoting Totten to full brigadier general in 1863. Although it would seem unusual for Lincoln to have conferred an important promotion on a seventy five year old man, Totten was still quite active. Having been a member of the commission on the improvement of New York Harbor, in 1859-1861 he made a reconnaissance of the Pacific coast in order to determine its state of defense. During the Civil War, Totten’s many duties included active supervision of the defensive works around Washington, keeping the Confederate’s from capturing the nearly surrounded capitol. His name appeared frequently among Lincoln's correspondence. 

As chief engineer of the army, Totten helped plan the defense of Washington, D.C., including construction of Fort Totten, now a D.C. neighborhood. President Andrew Johnson breveted Totten a major general for “long, faithful, and eminent services on April 21, 1864, one day before he died.

In addition to his military achievements, Totten was a regent of the Smithsonian Institution, a Corporator of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Harbor Commissioner of both Boston and New York. Three forts bore his name: Fort Totten in Queens, New York, Washington, D.C., and North Dakota.