Photo by J.
J. Kelly/Author's Collection
C&O J-3
"Greenbrier" 4-8-4 No. 600 blasts out of the old
Brookville tunnel with train No. 93 in July 1948.
Claudius Crozet
by Robert L.
Barrett
The extraordinary career of Col. Claudius Crozet (1789-1864),
soldier, educator, civil engineer, and railroad builder, extended
from the Napoleonic wars in Russia to the swamps of Louisiana
and to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Benoit Claudius
Crozet was born on December 31, 1789, in Villefranche, a walled
manufacturing town northwest of the City of Lyon, in southeast
France. His father, Francois Crozet, was a wholesale wine
merchant.
He
graduated from the elite Ecole Polytechnique's School of Public
Works, as a sub-lieutenant and entered the Imperial Artillery
School where he studied bridge building. He graduated as a
second lieutenant in 1809, becoming an artillery officer and
bridge builder. He took part in the invasion of Russia in
1812, and was captured at the Battle of Borodino. Lt. Crozet
was a prisoner for two years but, as a prisoner of war, he
went to live with a Russian nobleman who took a liking to
him. He learned Russian and wrote a Russian textbook.
When finally released, Crozet received the Legion of Merit
from Napoleon himself. In the campaign of 1815, he was sent
for artillery ammunition and he and his supply train were
delayed by heavy rain and muddy roads, arriving at Waterloo
after Napoleon's defeat.
He was married to Agathe DeCamp in Paris on June 7, 1816,
and a few days later the couple embarked for the United States.
Crozet became a professor at the U.S. Military Academy at
West Point, N.Y., apparently through the recommendation of
the Marquis de Lafayette.
With his experience in engineering and warfare under Napoleon,
Crozet made a significant contribution at West Point. He taught
cadets how to build fortifications, bridges and buildings.
He pioneered in the U.S. the use of descriptive geometry,
the basic language of engineering. Having no textbook available
in English, he wrote one. (On a more utilitarian note, Crozet
introduced the use of blackboards in American schools.)
