James Madison Papers
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https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/03-11-02-0157

To James Madison from William Harris Crawford, 2 July 1816

From William Harris Crawford

Department of War, July 2d. 1816.

Dear Sir,

I have the honor to inclose the report of lieut. Gadsden,1 upon the fortifications necessary to be constructed for the defence of Mobile and New-Orleans, which has been approved by general Swift. The maps accompanying Latour’s history of the campaign in Louisiana,2 will be useful in forming a general opinion upon this report, which appears to be sensible and judicious. The alterations and repair of fort St. Phillippe, and of St. John, recommended by this report, I presume, may be commenced as soon as the necessary materials can be obtained; as it will not interfere with the determination to commence no new work of importance, until the foreign Engineer can be obtained. I have the honor to be, Your most obedt. & very humble servant,

Wm H Crawford

RC (DLC); letterbook copy (DNA: RG 107, LSP). RC in a clerk’s hand, signed by Crawford.

1The report has not been found. South Carolinian James Gadsden (1788–1858) had several careers—as an army officer, surveyor, railroad executive, and diplomat. He was commissioned as a lieutenant in 1812 and left the army in 1832. As minister to Mexico in 1853, he negotiated what came to be known as the Gadsden Purchase to finalize the boundary lines between the United States and Mexico following the Mexican War of 1846–48 (Heitman, Historical Register description begins Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army, from Its Organization, September 29, 1789, to March 2, 1903 (2 vols.; 1903; repr., Baltimore, 1994). description ends , 1:441).

2Crawford referred to Arsène Lacarrière Latour, Historical Memoir of the War in West Florida and Louisiana in 1814–15: With an Atlas (Philadelphia, 1816; Shaw and Shoemaker description begins R. R. Shaw and R. H. Shoemaker, comps., American Bibliography: A Preliminary Checklist for 1801–1819 (22 vols.; New York, 1958–66). description ends 38035).

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