It is almost universally conceded that to-day, as in the past, fortifications play the most important rule in the. defense of coasts and harbors. In the United States, submarine mines and other obstructions are officially regarded as auxiliaries...
The rational use of coast-artillery, and the development of a correct system of defence, are based upon a knowledge of the means of defence, of the capability of those means, and of the method of employing them.
These points of support contain all the material necessary for building or equipping ships;they furnish all the men and supplies required by the navy;and must offer for a beaten fleet, or one which at the outbreak of war has not yet completed it...
"The recent development of materiel and the methods of employing it has made it necessary to revise our scheme of national defense, and accordingly the present approved Coast Defense Project calls for a positive defense against enemy landings on...
Course of lectures upon The Defense of the Sea Coast of the United States delivered before the U.S. Naval War College by Bvt. Brig.-Gen. Henry L. Abbot.
"In making the following study of certain attacks upon fortified harbors it was my object to make an analysis of each campaign, and of them all collectively, in order to attempt to derive well grounded conclusions as to future wars."