Page 8: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (November 2003)

Leading Off 50 Years Ago

Robert E. Lee was a U.S. Army engineer officer from 1829 to 1855. Born Jan. 19, 1807 in

Stratford Hall, Westmoreland County, Va., Lee's father was Revolutionary War hero Henry "Light-

Horse Harry" Lee. Home-schooled by his parents until he was 13, he then entered an academy in

Alexandria, Va. After a year at a Quaker prep school, he entered the U.S. Military Academy,

West Point, NY July 1, 1825. An excellent stu- dent, Lee graduated number two in the class of 1829 and entered the Corps of Engineers. His first assignment was as assistant engineer of

Cartoon fortification work on Cockspur Island in the

Savannah River. For a time he worked under the command of Lt. Joseph Mansfield, Corps of

Engineers, who would be killed at Antietam lead- ing a Union Army Corps. In 1831 Lee went to

Fort Monroe, Va., as assistant engineer respon- sible for the outworks and approaches to Fort

Monroe and preparatory work for construction of Fort Calhoun, now Fort Wool, Va. (Source: The New York District Times, Summer 2003, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, by Mary

Stavina)

Pictured on the cover of the January 1, 1953 edition of Maritime Reporter is a close up of the rudder and propeller assembly of the Dalzellera, the first harbor tug in the U.S. to be equipped with the new controllable pitch propeller. The 100-ft. pioneering tug was operated in New York harbor by the Dalzell Towing Company.

Workboat Coverage starts p. 24 " YoV SHOULP HtAfi- HIM TOOT, 7Ht iA/HTS co/yte //•' "

Workboat Coverage starts p. 24

Maritime Meanings

Balk

An old term for naval timber imported from the Baltic countries as large, squared beams. From the Anglo-Saxon balca, ridge, and the Old Norse balkr, hedge, boundary.

To balk is to put an obstacle or stumbling block in someone's path, to check another's freedom, in the same way that a timber (a beam, a frame or some such) can be a hin- drance, or act as a boundary to one's sphere of movement. Found, for example, as the "balk line" in the game of billiards.

Source: An Ocean of Words: A Dictionary of Nautical Words and Phrases, by Peter D.

Jeans; Birch Lane Press , 1998

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