Cornelius Baldwin had served as a surgeon for the patriot cause throughout the conflict. The Ellets' son, Alfred W. Ellet served as a brigadier general in the Union Army during the Civil War. Their son Charles Rivers Ellet also served as a colonel in the Union Army and commander of the United States Ram Fleet. Their daughter Mary Virginia Ellet Cabell (1839–1930) would become the second wife of William Daniel Cabell in 1867 and became a founding member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Engineering career After returning from Europe, Ellet worked on the Utica and Schenectady Railroad and was appointed to conduct a survey of the Western New York section of the New York and Erie Railroad. In 1832 he submitted a proposal to Congress for a suspension bridge across the Potomac River but it was rejected. In 1842, he designed and built the first major wire-cable suspension bridge in the United States, spanning 358 feet over the Schuylkill River at Fairmount, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1843. Ellet supervised construction of the James River and Kanawha Canal in Virginia. From 1846 to 1847, he worked as president of the Schuylkill Navigation Company in Pennsylvania and led improvements to the canal used for transporting anthracite coal. He also constructed railroads in those states. Ellet developed theories for improving flood control and navigation of mid-western rivers. In 1848, Ellet built the record-breaking Wheeling suspension bridge over the Ohio River at Wheeling, West Virginia, with a span over 1,000 feet. In the same year, he erected the Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge, the first ever railway suspension bridge over the Niagara Gorge with a 770-foot span. In 1850, the Secretary of War, conforming to an Act of Congress, directed Ellet to make surveys and reports on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers with a view to the preparation of adequate plans for flood prevention and navigation improvement. His detailed report had considerable influence on later engineering thought and navigation improvements. His Report of the Overflows of the Delta of the Mississippi River helped to reshape the New Orleans waterfront. George Perkins Marsh published Man and Nature fourteen years later, but it was Ellet who first noted in writing that the artificial embankments created an overflowing delta. However, only decades later would his assertions be taken seriously and used in flood control decisions. United