GENERAL ORDERS, 
No. 179. 
WAR DEPARTMENT, 
Adjutant General’s Office, 
Washington, April 23, 1864. 
Another, and among the last of the heroes of our “Second War of 
Independence,” is gone. Brevet Major General Joseph Gilbert 
Totten, Chief of Engineers of the U. S. Army, departed this life on 
the 22d instant, in this city, in his seventy-sixth year. 
General Totten was bom August 23, 1788, in New Haven, Con- 
necticut, and graduated at the Military Academy in 1805, from which 
he was promoted to the Corps of Engineers, and, with a brief internal 
from 1806 to 1808, continued in that arm of service, passing honorably 
through every grade until he became, in 1838, Chief Engineer of the 
Army. The Senate, before his death, unanimously confirmed his 
nomination by the President, to be “ Major General by brevet, for long, 
faithful, and eminent services.” 
General Totten’s military career, of more than half a century, has 
been one of continued usefulness and distinguished services. In 1812,- 
he was called to the field to assume the arduous and responsible position 
of Chief Engineer of the Army, on the Niagara frontier, where he took 
a conspicuous part in the attack on Queenstown Heights; and the 
following year, in the capture of Fort George, Upper Canada, and 
repulse of the British flotilla on Lake Ontario. In 1813-T4. he became 
Chief Engineer of the forces successively commanded by Generals 
Wilkinson, Izard, and Macomb; was in the attack on La Cole Mill, 
Lower Canada, and the battle of Plattsburg. In this brief war, General 
Totten won the respect and admiration of his brother officers, and the 
marked approbation of the Government, which conferred upon him two 
brevets for his meritorious and distinguished services. On the return of 
peace, his high professional abilities were called into activity on the 
Board of Engineers, which projected our extended line of lake defenses 
and sea-coast fortifications. These works, most of which were planned 
by himself, are the enduring monuments to his memory. In the war 
with Mexico, General Scott summoned his early companion-in-arms to aid 
him in the siege of Vera Cruz, where, for his “gallant and meritorious 
conduct,” General Totten was breveted a Brigadier General. For the 
past twenty-six years he has been at the head of the Engineer Depart- 
ment, administering with untiring devotion, spotless integrity, and 
signal ability, the varied duties, the financial responsibilities, and the 
professional labors of that arm of service so essential to our national 
defense. 2 
Id addition to General Totten’s multiplied military avocations, he 
was an active member of the Light-House Board, from its organization 
in 1852; a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution, from its establish- 
ment by Congress, in 1846; a Corporator of the National Academy of 
Sciences, created in 1863; one of the Harbor Commissioners for the 
cities of New York and Boston, and a member of many scientific 
associations. 
Distinguished for urbanity of manner, genial social qualities, and that 
great moral excellence which adorns the Christian soldier and gentleman, 
he has left behind an exalted reputation worthy the emulation of his 
brother officers, and which his surviving children may well regard as a 
priceless legacy. 
As a tribute to his memory, the officers of the Corps of Engineers 
and Military Academy will wear the prescribed badge of mourning for 
thirty days ; and the day after the reception of this order at the Military 
Academy, half-hour guns will be fired there from sunrise to sunset, and 
the national flag be displayed at half-mast. 
By ORDER OF THE SECRETARY OF WAR : 
E. D. TOWNSEND, 
Assistant Adjutant General. 
Official: 
Assistant Adjutant General.