The time frame was the period after the War of 1812, during which the British
burned the White House. The US Army Corps of Engineers was charged with
designing a system of coastal forts to prevent another such attack on the
homeland, so to speak. Each year, the next evolution of masonry fortress
embrasure design was built at West Point, and the following year, after
waiting out the minimum recommended cure time for the masonry mortar, they
blew it up with cannon fire.

This sounds as bad as the (Soviet?)  Russians testing railroad bridges by having the bridge designers'  families stand underneath the bridge as the locomotive passed over for the first time.  One HOPES the US Army stopped this sort of testing before the Russians started it.

 

Ralph