but above the river at Napoleon an army report mentioned, “few or none had yet been attempted.” Still the promise of levees had at least secured the building of the Marine Hospital. Marine Hospital In 1837 Congress authorized the building of seven Marine Hospitals. Napoleon was one of the locations chosen by Congress on August 29th, 1842. Major Stephen Long of the U.S. Topographical Engineers was instructed to build the first hospital at Louisville, Kentucky. Long was commissioned to build the Marine Hospital at Napoleon in 1849. Long noticed the flooding problems right away in Napoleon writing, “I cannot but regard the site selected for this hospital objectionable.” He had petitioned for the high bluffs at Helena, Arkansas to be the location for the hospital for that area. His objections to the location were ignored. Senator Solon Borland wrote to the Corps of Topographical Engineers that the situation at Napoleon had been discussed before the bill was passed that would create the Marine Hospital at Napoleon. The hospital at Napoleon ordered to begin without delay. In the Spring of 1850 Long requested $10,250 in order to begin construction but it wasn't until August that construction finally started thanks to flooding which had hampered the work on the foundation and cellar. Delays continued to dog the construction and by the Spring of 1851 the supervisor wrote Long suggesting suspension of the work as contracts were expiring due to delays and sickness had been rampant. Work resumed in October 1851 and the slow pace continued over the next three years. By August 1854 the hospital was finally finished but the hospital did not accept its first patients until 1855. Long's observations and objections had been accurate. By March 11, 1868 the river had eroded the land to 52 feet from the hospital's doors. Less than a month later, and nearly four years after Long's death, a corner of the hospital fell into the River. The Weekly Arkansas Gazette of May 19, 1868, wrote: “We learn from Mr. Boyd, who has just returned from Napoleon, that the U. S. Marine Hospital at that place has about one half broken off and caved into the river.” As the hospital gradually fell into the water, its custodian tried to sell what he could rescue from it. The entire town of Napoleon would be swallowed by the river only twenty-five years after Long first objected to