David du Bose Gaillard was born on September 4, 1859 in Fulton, Sumter County, South Carolina, United States. He was the son of Samuel Isaac and Susan Richardson (Du Bose) Gaillard and was descended from distinguished Huguenot ancestors, one of whom was broken on the wheel in 1616 for refusing to recant his Protestant faith. He lived at Clarendon with his grandparents until 1872, when he moved to Winnsboro, Fairfield County.
In Fairfield County, David du Bose Gaillard attended school at the Mount Zion Institute. Out of school hours, he worked as a clerk in a general store.
In 1880, he secured an appointment to West Point through competitive examination and on June 5, 1884, was graduated fifth in a brilliant class of thirty-one members. Immediately following his graduation, he was commissioned second lieutenant of engineers.
During the following three years, he was a student and instructor at the Engineer School of Application, Willets Point, New York, and from 1887 to 1891 was on engineering duty in Florida.
He spent the academic year 1904-05, as a student at the Army War College. Upon graduation, he performed two years of general staff duty in Washington and in Cuba.
At the age of thirty-two, David du Bose Gaillard was appointed a member of the important International Boundary Commission, reestablishing the line between Mexico and the United States, on which work he was engaged for five years. Still a member of the commission, he served a brief period of duty at Fortress Monroe and on the Washington Aqueduct in 1895, then from December 1895 to May 1898, he was in charge of the water supply of the nation’s capital.
Meanwhile, on October 25, 1895, he had reached a captaincy, and in the following year had spent some seven months in a survey of the Portland Channel in Alaska - a mission of some international importance.
War with Spain found Gaillard on duty as chief engineer with the staff of Gen. James F. Wade, but his genius for organization was soon recognized by appointment as colonel of the 3rd Regiment of Volunteer Engineers, which within a few months he had mustered in at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, and had taken to Cuba.
Offensive operations having ceased, his regiment returned to the United States and was mustered out at Fort McPherson, Georgia, May 17, 1899, commanded by Gen. John C. Bates and Gen. James H. Wilson for a soldierly performance of duty.
He then served, from 1899 to 1901, as assistant to the engineer commissioner of the District of Columbia, and subsequently was placed in charge of river and harbor improvements on Lake Superior, with station at Duluth.
Here he remained until 1903, when he was transferred to the Department of the Columbia. This gave him opportunity to publish in 1904, the valuable technical work entitled Wave Action in Relation to Engineering Structures - a standard work on the subject.
In the previous year, he had been selected as a member of the initial General Staff Corps, and after short duty as such at Vancouver Barracks and St. Louis, was promoted major, April 23, 1904.
When President Roosevelt made Gen. Goe- thals chief engineer of the Panama Canal in 1907, the latter immediately placed Gaillard in charge of the department of dredging and excavation. With characteristic energy and ability, Gaillard organized the Chagres division comprising twenty-three miles of excavation from Gamboa to Gatun, and did much toward utilizing discarded French equipment and reducing costs.
On July 1, 1908, under a general reorganization of canal work by Gen. Goethals, Gaillard was given charge of the central division, a distance of thirty-three miles between the Atlantic and the Pacific locks, and including excavation through the continental divide by the so-called Culebra Cut.
His problem was colossal; many eminent engineers deemed the project impossible of fulfilment. As work progressed, difficulties increased, not the least of which were the great slides of earth in Culebra Cut which repeatedly threatened to bring operations to a standstill.
By his indomitable will and resourcefulness, however, Gaillard made steady progress in the face of these discouragements, but on July 26, 1913, when about to witness the triumphal culmination of his arduous labors, he broke under the strain and never recovered.
He was rushed for treatment to Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, where he passed away December 5, 1913.
David du Bose Gaillard surveyed the Portland Channel in Alaska. He published the valuable technical work entitled Wave Action in Relation to Engineering Structures. He was also instrumental in the general reorganization of the Panama Canal.
The press of the entire country extolled his life, character, and services; both houses of Congress on December 6, 1913, passed resolutions of regret and appreciation ; by executive order, President Wilson changed the name of Culebra to Gaillard Cut; and by order of the secretary of war, the army post at Culebra was given the name of Camp Gaillard.
Bronze memorial tablets in his honor were erected by his West Point class in Cullum Hall at the military academy, and by the American Huguenots in the Huguenot Church at Charleston, South Carolina.
On February 4, 1928, an additional tablet, given by the Gaillard family and Gaillard’s old volunteer regiment, was unveiled on a prominent rock-face of Gaillard Cut, where passing ships of all countries and for all time, would be constantly reminded of his monumental achievement and self-sacrifice.
In 1887, David du Bose Gaillard married Katherine Ross Davis of Columbia, South Carolina. They had one son.
