In 1820 Congress authorized a reconnaissance of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Field work began in 1821 when Captain H. Young, Captain W. Possoin and Lieutenant S. Tuttle led a team of topographical engineers on a reconnaissance mission to map out the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. During the months of October, November and December, the team explored the river from Louisville, Kentucky to the mouth of the Ohio River, and from St. Louis to New Orleans on the Mississippi River. The map that was created identified both islands that could support heavy timber as well as soft willow trees. It also marked dry sandbars, lines of shallow water and lines of the channel of the river. As a follow up to the reconnaissance mission, two Engineer officers were sent to make a thorough investigation of both rivers giving careful observations to both the physical characteristics and identification of snags or other obstructions in the channels. Congress passed legislation in 1824 to remove these snags and obstructions. Further improvements were attempted in 1837 when Congress appropriated funds to survey the passes and bars at the mouth of the Mississippi river by Captain A. Talcott. Talcott recommended a plan to deepen the bars by dredging them, but Congress failed to allocate sufficient funds.
Meanwhile, the mapping of the entire U.S. seacoast that was re-started in 1819 by the Navy department was in the President's mind nearly completed. President Monroe was optimistic that this "survey of the coast for the establishment of fortifications" was nearly completed in 1819, and now again in 1821 he was declaring that the "examination of the whole coast, for the construction of permanent fortifications, from St. Croix to the Sabine" would be completed in the "present year". Unfortunately, the survey of the Mississippi river proved to be a simpler task than the survey of the whole coast. While some surveying of the coast was completed in 1821, it wasn't until 1832 when Congress passed an act to reorganize surveys. For more information on this study, please see visit my post on this survey.
In addition, the Bernard Report outlining a full defense system, prioritizing the fortifications to be built was completed in 1821 under French engineer Simon Bernard. Congress had appropriated $800,000 in 1815 to complete this report and had been eagerly waiting for it's completion. The report highlighted areas where current systems of fortifications were inadequate and called for 50 fortifications to be constructed by 1831. For more information on this report, please see post on the Bernard Report.
Here is the excerpt from President James Monroe's fifth State of the Union Address discussing these three reports.
"The examination of the whole coast, for the construction of permanent fortifications, from St. Croix to the Sabine, with the exception of part of the territory lately acquired, will be completed in the present year, as will be the survey of the Mississippi, under the resolution of the House of Representatives, from the mouth of the Ohio to the ocean, and likewise of the Ohio from Louisville to the Mississippi. A progress corresponding with the sums appropriated has also been made in the construction of these fortifications at the ports designated. As they will form a system of defense for the whole maritime frontier, and in consequence for the interior, and are to last for ages, the greatest care has been taken to fix the position of each work and to form it on such a scale as will be adequate to the purpose intended by it. All the inlets and assailable parts of our Union have been minutely examined, and positions taken with a view to the best effect, observing in every instance a just regard for economy. Doubts, however, being entertained as to the propriety of the position and extent of the work at Dauphine Island, further progress in it was suspended soon after the last session of Congress, and an order given to the Board of Engineers and Naval Commissioners to make a further and more minute examination of it in both respects, and to report the result without delay."
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29463
The Federal Reporter, Volume 142 (West Publishing Company, 1906) pg 793
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/ah-mississippiriver2.html
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Mississippi_watershed_map_1.jpg
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