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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval
+Life, by Captain A. T. Mahan
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life
+
+Author: Captain A. T. Mahan
+
+Release Date: April 22, 2008 [EBook #25122]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM SAIL TO STEAM, RECOLLECTIONS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bryan Ness, Chris Logan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
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+
+
+
+
+FROM SAIL TO STEAM
+
+RECOLLECTIONS OF NAVAL LIFE
+
+
+BY
+
+CAPT. A. T. MAHAN
+
+U.S.N. (RETIRED)
+
+AUTHOR OF
+"THE INFLUENCE OF SEA-POWER UPON HISTORY" ETC.
+
+
+HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+MCMVII
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1906, 1907, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
+_All rights reserved._
+Published October, 1907.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAP.                                                         PAGE
+
+          PREFACE                                                    v
+
+          INTRODUCING MYSELF                                        ix
+
+    I.    NAVAL CONDITIONS BEFORE THE WAR OF SECESSION--THE
+          OFFICERS AND SEAMEN                                        3
+
+    II.   NAVAL CONDITIONS BEFORE THE WAR OF SECESSION--THE
+          VESSELS                                                   25
+
+    III.  THE NAVAL ACADEMY IN ITS RELATION TO THE NAVY AT
+          LARGE                                                     45
+
+    IV.   THE NAVAL ACADEMY IN ITS INTERIOR WORKINGS--PRACTICE
+          CRUISES                                                   70
+
+    V.    MY FIRST CRUISE AFTER GRADUATION--NAUTICAL CHARACTERS    103
+
+    VI.   MY FIRST CRUISE AFTER GRADUATION--NAUTICAL SCENES
+          AND SCENERY--THE APPROACH OF DISUNION                    127
+
+    VII.  INCIDENTS OF WAR AND BLOCKADE SERVICE                    156
+
+    VIII. INCIDENTS OF WAR AND BLOCKADE SERVICE--CONTINUED         179
+
+    IX.   A ROUNDABOUT ROAD TO CHINA                               196
+
+    X.    CHINA AND JAPAN                                          229
+
+    XI.   THE TURNING OF A LONG LANE--HISTORICAL, NAVAL, AND
+          PERSONAL                                                 266
+
+    XII.  EXPERIENCES OF AUTHORSHIP                                302
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+When I was a boy, some years before I obtained my appointment in the
+navy, I spent many of those happy hours that only childhood knows
+poring over the back numbers of a British service periodical, which
+began its career in 1828, with the title _Colburn's United Service
+Magazine_; under which name, save and except the Colburn, it still
+survives. Besides weightier matters, its early issues abounded in
+reminiscences by naval officers, then yet in the prime of life, who
+had served through the great Napoleonic wars. More delightful still,
+it had numerous nautical stories, based probably on facts, serials
+under such entrancing titles as "Leaves from my Log Book," by Flexible
+Grommet, Passed Midshipman; a pen-name, the nautical felicity of which
+will be best appreciated by one who has had the misfortune to handle a
+grommet[1] which was not flexible. Then there was "The Order Book," by
+Jonathan Oldjunk; an epithet so suggestive of the waste-heap, even to
+a landsman's ears, that one marvels a man ever took it unto himself,
+especially in that decline of life when we are more sensitive on the
+subject of bodily disabilities than once we were. Old junk, however,
+can yet be "worked up," as the sea expression goes, into other uses,
+and that perhaps was what Mr. Oldjunk meant; his early adventures as a
+young "luff" were, for economical reasons, worked up into their
+present literary shape, with the addition of a certain amount of
+extraneous matter--love-making, and the like. Indeed, so far from
+uselessness, that veteran seaman and rigid economist, the Earl of St.
+Vincent, when First Lord of the Admiralty, had given to a specific
+form of old junk--viz., "shakings"--the honors of a special order, for
+the preservation thereof, the which forms the staple of a comical
+anecdote in Basil Hall's _Fragments of Voyages and Travels_; itself a
+superior example of the instructive "recollections," of less literary
+merit, which but for Colburn's would have perished.
+
+Any one who has attempted to write history knows what queer nuggets of
+useful information lie hidden away in such papers; how they often help
+to reconstruct an incident, or determine a mooted point. If the
+Greeks, after the Peloponnesian war, had had a Colburn's, we should
+have a more certain, if not a perfect, clew to the reconstruction of
+the trireme; and probably even could deduce with some accuracy the
+daily routine, the several duties, and hear the professional jokes and
+squabbles, of their officers and crews. The serious people who write
+history can never fill the place of the gossips, who pour out an
+unpremeditated mixture of intimate knowledge and idle trash.
+
+Trash? Upon the whole is not the trash the truest history? perhaps not
+the most valuable, but the most real? If you want contemporary color,
+contemporary atmosphere, you must seek it among the impressions which
+can be obtained only from those who have lived a life amid particular
+surroundings, which they breathe and which colors them--dyes them in
+the wool. However skilless, they cannot help reproducing, any more
+than water poured from an old ink-bottle can help coming out more or
+less black; although, if sufficiently pretentious, they can
+monstrously caricature, especially if they begin with the modest
+time-worn admission that they are more familiar with the marling-spike
+than with the pen. But even the caricature born of pretentiousness
+will not prevent the unpremeditated betrayal of conditions, facts, and
+incidents, which help reconstruct the _milieu_; how much more, then,
+the unaffected simplicity of the born story-teller. I do not know how
+Froissart ranks as an authority with historians. I have not read him
+for years; and my recollections are chiefly those of childhood, with
+all the remoteness and all the vividness which memory preserves from
+early impressions. I think I now might find him wearisome; not so in
+boyhood. He was to me then, and seems to me now, a glorified Flexible
+Grommet or Jonathan Oldjunk; ranking, as to them, as Boswell does
+towards the common people of biography. That there are many solid
+chunks of useful information to be dug out of him I am sure; that his
+stories are all true, I have no desire to question; but what among it
+all is so instructive, so entertaining, as the point of view of
+himself, his heroes, and his colloquists--the particular contemporary
+modification of universal human nature in which he lived, and moved,
+and had his being?
+
+If such a man has the genius of his business, as had Froissart and
+Boswell, he excels in proportion to his unconsciousness of the fact;
+his colors run truer. For lesser gobblers, who have not genius, the
+best way to lose consciousness is just to let themselves go; if they
+endeavor to paint artistically the muddle will be worse. To such the
+proverb of the cobbler and his last is of perennial warning. As a
+barber once sagely remarked to me, "You can't trim a beard well,
+unless you're born to it." It is possible in some degree to imitate
+Froissart and Boswell in that marvellous diligence to accumulate
+material which was common to them both; but, when gathered, how
+impossible it is to work up that old junk into permanent engrossing
+interest let those answer who have grappled with ancient chronicles,
+or with many biographies. So, with a circumlocution which probably
+convicts me in advance of decisive deficiency as a narrator, I let
+myself go. I have no model, unless it be the old man sitting in the
+sun on a summer's day, bringing forth out of his memories things new
+and old--mostly old.
+
+                                                          A. T. MAHAN.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCING MYSELF
+
+
+While extracts from the following pages were appearing in _Harper's
+Magazine_, I received a letter from a reader hoping that I would say
+something about myself before entering the navy. This had been outside
+my purpose, which was chiefly to narrate what had passed around me
+that I thought interesting; but it seems possibly fit to establish in
+a few words my antecedents by heredity and environment.
+
+I was born September 27, 1840, within the boundaries of the State of
+New York, but not upon its territory; the place, West Point on the
+Hudson River, having been ceded to the General Government for the
+purposes of the Military Academy, at which my father, Dennis Hart
+Mahan, was then Professor of Engineering, as well Civil as Military.
+He himself was of pure Irish blood, his father and mother, already
+married, having emigrated together from the old country early in the
+last century; but he was also American by birthright, having been born
+in April, 1802, very soon after the arrival of his parents in the city
+of New York. There also he was baptized into the Roman Catholic
+Church, in the parish of St. Peter's, the church building of which now
+stands far down town, in Barclay Street. It is not, I believe, the
+same that existed in 1802.
+
+Very soon afterwards, before he reached an age to remember, his
+parents removed to Norfolk, Virginia, where he grew up and formed his
+earliest associations. As is usual, these colored his whole life; he
+was always a Virginian in attachment and preference. In the days of
+crisis he remained firm to the Union, by conviction and affection; but
+he broke no friendships, and to the end there continued in him that
+surest positive indication of local fondness, admiration for the women
+of what was to him his native land. In beauty, in manner, and in
+charm, they surpassed. "Your mother is Northern," he once said to me,
+"and very few can approach her; but still, in the general, none
+compare for me with the Southern woman." The same causes, early
+association, gave him a very pronounced dislike to England; for he
+could remember the War of 1812, and had experienced the embittered
+feeling which was probably nowhere fiercer than around the shores of
+the Chesapeake, the scene of the most wide-spread devastation
+inflicted, partly from motives of policy, partly as measures of
+retaliation. Spending afterwards three or four years of early manhood
+in France, he there imbibed a warm liking for the people, among whom
+he contracted several intimacies. He there knew personally Lafayette
+and his family; receiving from them the hospitality which the Marquis'
+service in the War of Independence, and his then recent ovation during
+his tour of the United States in 1825, prompted him to extend to
+Americans. This communication with a man who could tell, and did tell
+him, intimate stories of intercourse with Washington doubtless
+emphasized my father's patriotic prejudices as well as his patriotism.
+When he revisited France, in 1856, he found many former friends still
+alive, and when I myself went there for the first time, in 1870, he
+asked me too to hunt them up; but they had all then disappeared. His
+fondness for the French doubtless accentuated his repugnance to the
+English, at that time still their traditional enemy. The combination
+of Irish and French prepossession could scarcely have resulted
+otherwise; and thus was evolved an atmosphere in which I was brought
+up, not only passively absorbing, but to a certain degree actively
+impressed with love for France and the Southern section of the United
+States, while learning to look askance upon England and abolitionists.
+The experiences of life, together with subsequent reading and
+reflection, modified and in the end entirely overcame these early
+prepossessions.
+
+My father was for over forty years professor at West Point, of which
+he had been a graduate. In short, the Academy was his life, and he
+there earned what I think I am modest in calling a distinguished
+reputation. The best proof of this perhaps is that at even so early a
+date in our national history as his graduation from the Academy, in
+1824, he was thought an officer of such promise as to make it
+expedient to send him to France for the higher military education in
+which the country of Napoleon and his marshals then stood pre-eminent.
+From 1820, when he entered the Academy as a pupil, to his death in
+1871, he was detached from it only these three or four years. Yet this
+determination of his life's work proceeded from a mere accident,
+scarcely more than a boy's fancy. He had begun the study of medicine,
+under Dr. Archer, of Richmond; but he had a very strong wish to learn
+drawing. In those primitive days the opportunity of instruction was
+wanting where he lived; and hearing that it was taught at the Military
+Academy he set to work for an appointment, not from inclination to the
+calling of a soldier, but as a means to this particular end. It is
+rather singular that he should have had no bias towards the profession
+of arms; for although he drifted almost from the first into the civil
+branch, as a teacher and then professor, I have never known a man of
+more strict and lofty military ideas. The spirit of the profession was
+strong in him, though he cared little for its pride, pomp, and
+circumstance. I believe that in this observation others who knew him
+well agreed with me.
+
+The work of a teacher, however important and absorbing in itself, does
+not usually offer much of interest to readers. My father, by the
+personal contact of teacher and taught, knew almost every one of the
+distinguished generals who fought in the War of Secession, on either
+the Union or the Confederate side. With scarcely an exception, they
+had been his pupils; but his own life was uneventful. He married, in
+1839, Mary Helena Okill, of New York City. My mother's father was
+English, her mother an American, but with a strong strain of French
+blood; her maiden name, Mary Jay, being that of a Huguenot family
+which had left France under Louis XIV. By the time of her birth, in
+1786, a good deal of American admixture had doubtless qualified the
+original French; but I remember her well, and though she lived to be
+seventy-three, she had up to the last a vivacity and keen enjoyment of
+life, more French than American, reflected from quick black eyes,
+which fairly danced with animation through her interest in her
+surroundings.
+
+From my derivation, therefore, I am a pretty fair illustration of the
+mix-up of bloods which seems destined to bring forth some new and yet
+undecipherable combination on the North American continent. One-half
+Irish, one-fourth English, and a good deal more than "a trace" of
+French, would appear to be the showing of a quantitative analysis.
+Yet, as far as I understand my personality, I think to see in the
+result the predominance which the English strain has usually asserted
+for itself over others. I have none of the gregariousness of either
+the French or Irish; and while I have no difficulty in entering into
+civil conversation with a stranger who addresses me, I rarely begin,
+having, upon the whole, a preference for an introduction. This is not
+perverseness, but lack of facility; and I believe Froissart noted
+something of the same in the Englishmen of five hundred years ago. I
+have, too, an abhorrence of public speaking, and a desire to slip
+unobserved into a back seat wherever I am, which amount to a mania;
+but I am bound to admit I get both these dispositions from my father,
+whose Irishry was undiluted by foreign admixture.
+
+In my boyhood, till I was nearly ten, West Point was a very
+sequestered place. It was accessible only by steam-boats; and during
+great part of the winter months not by them, the Hudson being frozen
+over most of the season as far as ten to twenty miles lower down. The
+railroad was not running before 1848, and then it followed the east
+bank of the river. One of my early recollections is of begging off
+from school one day, long enough to go to a part of the post distant
+from our house, whence I caught my first sight of a train of cars on
+the opposite shore. Another recollection is of the return of a company
+of engineer soldiers from the War with Mexico. The detachment was
+drawn up for inspection where we boys could see it. One of the men had
+grown a full beard, a sight to me then as novel as the railroad, and I
+announced it at home as a most interesting fact. I had as yet seen
+only clean-shaven faces. Among my other recollections of childhood
+are, as superintendent of the Academy, Colonel Robert E. Lee,
+afterwards the great Confederate leader; and McClellan, then a junior
+engineer officer.
+
+As my boyhood advanced the abolition movement was gaining strength, to
+the great disapprobation and dismay of my father, with his strong
+Southern and Union sympathies. I remember that when _Uncle Tom's
+Cabin_ came out, in my twelfth year, the master of the school I
+attended gave me a copy; being himself, I presume, one of the rising
+party adverse to slavery. My father took it out of my hands, and I
+came to regard it much as I would a bottle labelled "Poison." In
+consequence I never read it in the days of its vogue, and I have to
+admit that since then, in mature years, I have not been able to
+continue it after beginning. The same motives, in great part, led to
+my being sent to a boarding-school in Maryland, near Hagerstown, which
+drew its pupils very largely, though not exclusively, from the South.
+The environment would be upon the whole Southern. I remained there,
+however, only two years, my father becoming dissatisfied with my
+progress in mathematics. In 1854, therefore, I matriculated as a
+freshman at Columbia College in the city of New York, where I remained
+till I went to the Naval Academy.
+
+My entrance into the navy was greatly against my father's wish. I do
+not remember all his arguments, but he told me he thought me much less
+fit for a military than for a civil profession, having watched me
+carefully. I think myself now that he was right; for, though I have no
+cause to complain of unsuccess, I believe I should have done better
+elsewhere. While thus more than dissenting from my choice, he held
+that a child should not be peremptorily thwarted in his scheme of
+life. Consequently, while he would not actively help me in the
+doubtful undertaking of obtaining an appointment, which depended then
+as now upon the representative from the congressional district, he
+gave me the means to go to Washington, and also two or three letters
+to personal friends; among them Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of
+War, and James Watson Webb, a prominent character in New York
+journalism and in politics, both state and national.
+
+Thus equipped, I started for Washington on the first day of 1856,
+being then three months over fifteen. As I think now of my age, and
+more than usual diffidence, and of my mission, to win the favor of a
+politician who had constituents to reward, whereas to all my family
+practical politics were as foreign as Sanskrit, I know not whether the
+situation were more comical or pathetic. On the way I foregathered
+with a Southern lad, some three years my senior, returning home from
+England, where he had been at school. He beguiled the time by stories
+of his experiences, to me passing strange; and I remember, in crossing
+the Susquehanna, which was then by ferry-boat, looking at the fields
+of ice fragments, I said it would be unpleasant to fall in. "I would
+sooner have a knife stuck into me," he replied. I wonder what became
+of him, for I never knew his name. Of course he entered the
+Confederate army; but what besides?
+
+I remember my week's stay in Washington much as I suppose a man
+overboard remembers the incidents of that experience. Memory is an odd
+helpmate; why some circumstances take hold and others not is "one of
+those things no fellow can find out." I saw the member of Congress,
+who I find by reference to have been Ambrose S. Murray, representative
+of the district within which West Point lay. He received me kindly,
+but with the reserve characteristic of most interviews where one party
+desires a favor for which he has nothing in exchange to offer. I
+think, however, that Mr. Webb, with whom and his family I breakfasted
+one day, said some good words for me. Jefferson Davis was a graduate
+of the Military Academy, of 1827; and although his term there had
+overlapped my father's by only one year, his interest in everything
+pertaining to the army had maintained between them an acquaintance
+approaching intimacy. He therefore was very cordial to the boy before
+him, and took me round to the office of the then Secretary of the
+Navy, Mr. James C. Dobbin, of North Carolina; just why I do not
+understand yet, as the Secretary could not influence my immediate
+object. Perhaps he felt the need of a friendly chat; for I remember
+that, after presenting me, the two sat down and discussed the
+President's Message, of which Davis expressed a warm approval. This
+being the time of the protracted contest over the Speakership, which
+ended in the election of Banks, I suppose the colleagues were talking
+about a document which was then ready, and familiar to them, but which
+was not actually sent to Congress until it organized, some weeks after
+this interview. Probably their conversation was the aftermath of a
+cabinet meeting.
+
+I returned home with fairly sanguine hopes, which on the journey
+received a douche of cold water from an old gentleman, a distant
+connection of my family, to visit whom I stopped a few hours in
+Philadelphia. He asked about my chance of the appointment; and being
+told that it seemed good, he rejoined, "Well, I hope you won't get it.
+I have known many naval officers, captains and lieutenants, in
+different parts of the world"--for his time, he was then nearly
+eighty, he had travelled extensively--"I have talked much with them,
+and know that it is a profession with little prospect." Then he quoted
+Dr. Johnson: "No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to
+get himself into jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail with the
+chance of being drowned"; and further to overwhelm me, he clinched the
+saying by a comment of his own. "In a ship of war you run the risk of
+being killed as well as that of being drowned." The interview left me
+a perplexed but not a wiser lad.
+
+Late in the ensuing spring Mr. Murray wrote me that he would nominate
+me for the appointment. Just what determined him in my favor I do not
+certainly know; but, as I remember, Mr. Davis had authorized me to say
+to him that, if the place were given me, he would use his own
+influence with President Pierce to obtain for a nominee from his
+district a presidential appointment to the Military Academy. Mr.
+Murray replied that such a proposition was very acceptable to him,
+because the tendency among his constituents was much more to the army
+than to the navy. At that day, besides one cadet at West Point for
+each congressional district, which was in the gift of the
+representative, the law permitted the President a certain number of
+annual appointments, called "At Large"; the object being to provide
+for sons of military and naval officers, whose lack of political
+influence made it difficult otherwise to enter the school. This
+presidential privilege has since been extended to the Naval Academy,
+but had not then. The proposed interchange in my case, therefore,
+would be practically to give an officer's son an appointment at large
+in the navy. Whether this arrangement was actually carried out, I have
+never known nor inquired; but it has pleased me to believe, as I do,
+that I owed my entrance to the United States navy to the interposition
+of the first and only President of the Southern Confederacy, whose
+influence with Mr. Pierce is a matter of history.
+
+I entered the Naval Academy, as an "acting midshipman," September 30,
+1856.
+
+
+
+
+FROM SAIL TO STEAM
+
+RECOLLECTIONS OF NAVAL LIFE
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+NAVAL CONDITIONS BEFORE THE WAR OF SECESSION
+
+THE OFFICERS AND SEAMEN
+
+
+Naval officers who began their career in the fifties of the past
+century, as I did, and who survive till now, as very many do, have
+been observant, if inconspicuous, witnesses of one of the most rapid
+and revolutionary changes that naval science and warfare have ever
+undergone. It has been aptly said that a naval captain who fought the
+Invincible Armada would have been more at home in the typical war-ship
+of 1840, than the average captain of 1840 would have been in the
+advanced types of the American Civil War.[2] The twenty years here
+chosen for comparison cover the middle period of the century which has
+but recently expired. Since that time progress has gone on in
+accelerating ratio; and if the consequent changes have been less
+radical in kind, they have been more extensive in scope. It is
+interesting to observe that within the same two decades, in 1854,
+occurred the formal visit of Commodore Perry to Japan, and the
+negotiations of the treaty bringing her fairly within the movement of
+Western civilization; starting her upon the path which has resulted in
+the most striking illustration yet given of the powers of modern naval
+instruments, ships and weapons, diligently developed and elaborated
+during the period that has since elapsed.
+
+When I received my appointment to the Naval School at Annapolis, in
+the early part of the year 1856, the United States navy was under the
+influence of one of those spasmodic awakenings which, so far as action
+is concerned, have been the chief characteristic of American
+statesmanship in the matter of naval policy up to twenty years ago.
+Since then there has been a more continuous practical recognition of
+the necessity for a sustained and consistent development of naval
+power. This wholesome change has been coincident with, and doubtless
+largely due to, a change in appreciation of the importance of naval
+power in the realm of international relations, which, within the same
+period, has passed over the world at large. The United States of
+America began its career under the Constitution of 1789 with no navy;
+but in 1794 the intolerable outrages of the Barbary pirates, and the
+humiliation of having to depend upon the armed ships of Portugal for
+the protection of American trade, aroused Congress to vote the
+building of a half-dozen frigates, with the provision, however, that
+the building should stop if an arrangement with Algiers were reached.
+Not till 1798 was the navy separated from the War Department. The
+President at that date, John Adams, was, through his New England
+origin, in profound sympathy with all naval questions; and, while
+minister to Great Britain, in 1785, had had continual opportunity to
+observe the beneficial effect of maritime activity and naval power
+upon that kingdom. He had also bitter experience of the insolence of
+its government towards our interests, based upon its conscious control
+of the sea. He thus came into office strongly biassed towards naval
+development. To the impulse given by him contributed also the
+outrageous course towards our commerce initiated by the French
+Directory, after Bonaparte's astounding campaigns in Italy had struck
+down all opposition to France save that of the mistress of the seas.
+The nation, as represented in Congress, woke up, rubbed, its eyes,
+and built a small number of vessels which did exemplary service in the
+subsequent quasi war with France. Provision was made for a further
+increase; and it is not too much to say that this beginning, if
+maintained, might have averted the War of 1812. But within four years
+revulsion came. Adams gave place to Jefferson and Madison, the leaders
+of a party which frankly and avowedly rejected a navy as an element of
+national strength, and saw in it only a menace to liberty. Save for
+the irrepressible marauding of the Barbary corsairs, and the
+impressment of our seamen by British ships-of-war, the remnant of
+Adams' ships would not improbably have been swept out of existence.
+This result was feared by naval officers of the day; and with what
+good reason is shown by the fact that, within six months of the
+declaration of the War in 1812, and when the party in control was
+determined that war there should be, a proposition to increase the
+navy received but lukewarm support from the administration, and was
+voted down in Congress. The government, awed by the overwhelming
+numbers of the British fleet, proposed to save its vessels by keeping
+them at home; just as a few years before it had undertaken to save its
+commerce by forbidding its merchant-ships to go to sea.
+
+Such policy with regard to a military service means to it not sleep,
+but death. The urgent remonstrances of three or four naval captains
+obtained a change of plan; and at the end of the year the President
+admitted that, for the very reasons advanced by them, the activity of
+a small squadron, skilfully directed, had insured the safe return of
+much the most part of our exposed merchant-shipping. It is not,
+however, such broad general results of sagacious management that bring
+conviction to nations and arouse them to action. Professionally, the
+cruise of Rodgers's squadron, unsuccessful in outward seeming, was a
+much more significant event, and much more productive, than the
+capture of the _Guerrière_ by the _Constitution_; but it was this
+which woke up the people. The other probably would not have turned a
+vote in either House. As a military exploit the frigate victory was
+exaggerated, and not unnaturally; but no words can exaggerate its
+influence upon the future of the American navy. Here was something
+that men could see and understand, even though they might not
+correctly appreciate. Coinciding as the tidings did with the
+mortification of Hull's surrender at Detroit, they came at a moment
+which was truly psychological. Bowed down with shame at reverse where
+only triumph had been anticipated, the exultation over victory where
+disaster had been more naturally awaited produced a wild reaction. The
+effect was decisive. Inefficient and dilatory as was much of the
+subsequent administration of the navy, there was never any further
+question of its continuance. And yet, from the ship which thus played
+the most determining part in the history of her service, it has been
+proposed to take her name, and give it to another, of newer
+construction; as though with the name could go also the association.
+Could any other _Victory_ be Nelson's _Victory_ to Great Britain? Can
+calling a man George Washington help to perpetuate the services of the
+one Washington? The last much-vaunted addition to the British fleet,
+the _Dreadnaught_, bears a family name extending back over two
+centuries, or more. She is one of a series reasonably perpetuated,
+ship after ship, as son after sire; a line of succession honored in
+the traditions of the nation. So there were _Victorys_, before the one
+whose revered hulk still maintains a hallowed association; but her
+individual connection with one event has set her apart. The name might
+be transferred, but with it the association cannot be transmitted. But
+not even the _Victory_, with all her clinging memories, did for the
+British navy what the _Constitution_ did for the American.
+
+There was thenceforward no longer any question about votes for the
+navy. Ships of the line, frigates, and sloops, were ordered to be
+built, and the impulse thus received never wholly died out. Still, as
+with all motives which in origin are emotional rather than reasoned,
+there was lack of staying power. As the enthusiasm of the moment
+languished, there came languor of growth; or, more properly, of
+development. Continuance became routine in character, tending to
+reproduce contentedly the old types consecrated by the War of 1812.
+There was little conscious recognition of national exigencies,
+stimulating a demand that the navy, in types and numbers, should be
+kept abreast of the times. In most pursuits of life American
+intelligence has been persistently apt and quick in search of
+improvement; but, while such characteristics have not been absent from
+the naval service, they have been confined chiefly, and naturally, to
+the men engaged in the profession, and have lacked the outside support
+which immediate felt needs impart to movements in business or
+politics. Few men in civil life could have given an immediate reply to
+the question, Why do we need a navy? Besides, although the American
+people are aggressive, combative, even warlike, they are the reverse
+of military; out of sympathy with military tone and feeling.
+Consequently, the appearance of professional pride, the insistence
+upon the absolute necessity for professional training, which in the
+physician, lawyer, engineer, or other civil occupation is accepted as
+not only becoming, but conducive to uplifting the profession as a
+whole, is felt in the military man to be the obtrusion of an alien
+temperament, easily stigmatized as the arrogance of professional
+conceit and exclusiveness. The wise traditional jealousy of any
+invasion of the civil power by the military has no doubt played some
+part in this; but a healthy vigilance is one thing, and morbid
+distrust another. Morbid distrust and unreasoned prepossession were
+responsible for the feebleness of the navy in 1812, and these feelings
+long survived. An adverse atmosphere was created, with results
+unfortunate to the nation, so far as the navy was important to
+national welfare or national progress.
+
+Indeed, between the day of my entrance into the service, fifty years
+ago, and the present, nowhere is change more notable than in the
+matter of atmosphere; of the national attitude towards the navy and
+comprehension of its office. Then it was accepted without much
+question as part of the necessary lumber that every adequately
+organized maritime state carried, along with the rest of a national
+establishment. Of what use it was, or might be, few cared much to
+inquire. There was not sufficient interest even to dispute the
+necessity of its existence; although, it is true, as late as 1875 an
+old-time Jeffersonian Democrat repeated to me with conviction the
+master's dictum, that the navy was a useless appendage; a statement
+which its work in the War of Secession, as well on the Confederate as
+on the Union side, might seem to have refuted sufficiently and with
+abundant illustration. To such doubters, before the war, there was
+always ready the routine reply that a navy protected commerce; and
+American shipping, then the second in the world, literally whitened
+every sea with its snowy cotton sails, a distinctive mark at that time
+of American merchant shipping. In my first long voyage, in 1859, from
+Philadelphia to Brazil, it was no rare occurrence to be becalmed in
+the doldrums in company with two or three of these beautiful
+semi-clipper vessels, their low black hulls contrasting vividly with
+the tall pyramids of dazzling canvas which rose above them. They
+needed no protection then, and none foresaw that within a decade, by
+the operations of a few small steam-cruisers, they would be swept from
+the seas, never to return. Everything was taken for granted, and not
+least that war was a barbarism of the past. From 1815 to 1850, the
+lifetime of a generation, international peace had prevailed
+substantially unbroken, despite numerous revolutionary movements
+internal to the states concerned; and it had been lightly assumed that
+these conditions would thenceforth continue, crowned as they had been
+by the great sacrament of peace, when the nations for the first time
+gathered under a common roof the fruits of their several industries in
+the World's Exposition of 1851. The shadows of disunion were indeed
+gathering over our own land, but for the most of us they carried with
+them no fear of war. American fight American? Never! Separation there
+might be, and with a common sorrow officers of both sections thought
+of it; but, brother shed the blood of brother? No! By 1859 the Crimean
+War had indeed intervened to shake these fond convictions; but, after
+all, rules have exceptions, and in the succeeding peace the British
+government, consistent with the prepossessions derived from the
+propaganda of Cobden, yielded perfectly gratuitously the principle
+that an enemy's commerce might be freely transported under a neutral
+flag, thereby wrenching away prematurely one of the prongs of
+Neptune's trident. Surely we were on the road to universal peace.
+
+San Francisco before and after its recent earthquake--at this moment
+of writing ten days ago--scarcely presented a greater contrast of
+experience than that my day has known; and the political condition and
+balance of the world now is as different from that of the period of
+which I have been writing as the new city will be from the old one it
+will replace at the Golden Gate. Of this universal change and
+displacement the most significant factor--at least in our Western
+civilization--has been the establishment of the German Empire, with
+its ensuing commercial, maritime, and naval development. To it
+certainly we owe the military impulse which has been transmitted
+everywhere to the forces of sea and land--an impulse for which, in my
+judgment, too great gratitude cannot be felt. It has braced and
+organized Western civilization for an ordeal as yet dimly perceived.
+But between 1850 and 1860 long desuetude of war, and confident
+reliance upon the commercial progress which freedom of trade had
+brought in its train, especially to Great Britain, had induced the
+prevalent feeling that to-morrow would be as to-day, and much more
+abundant. This was too consonant to national temperament not to
+pervade America also; and it was promoted by a distance from Europe
+and her complications much greater than now exists, and by the
+consistent determination not to be implicated in her concerns. All
+these factors went to constitute the atmosphere of indifference to
+military affairs in general; and particularly to those external
+interests of which a navy is the outward and visible sign and
+champion.
+
+I do not think there is error or exaggeration in this picture of the
+"environment" of the navy in popular appreciation at the time I
+entered. Under such conditions, which had obtained substantially since
+soon after the War of 1812, and which long disastrously affected even
+Great Britain, with all her proud naval traditions and maritime and
+colonial interests, a military service cannot thrive. Indifference and
+neglect tell on most individuals, and on all professions. The saving
+clauses were the high sense of duty and of professional integrity,
+which from first to last I have never known wanting in the service;
+while the beauty of the ships themselves, quick as a docile and
+intelligent animal to respond to the master's call, inspired affection
+and intensified professional enthusiasm. The exercises of sails and
+spars, under the varying exigencies of service, bewildering as they
+may have seemed to the uninitiated, to the appreciative possessed
+fascination, and were their own sufficient reward for the care
+lavished upon them. In their mute yet exact response was some
+compensation for external neglect; they were, so to say, the testimony
+of a good conscience; the assurance of professional merit, and of work
+well done, if scantily recognized. Poor and beloved sails and
+spars--_la joie de la manoeuvre_, to use the sympathetic phrase of a
+French officer of that day--gone ye are with that past of which I have
+been speaking, and of which ye were a goodly symbol; but like other
+symptoms of the times, had we listened aright, we should have heard
+the stern rebuke: Up and depart hence; this is not the place of your
+rest.
+
+The result of all this had been a body of officers, and of men-of-war
+seamen, strong in professional sentiment, and admirably qualified in
+the main for the duties of a calling which in many of its leading
+characteristics was rapidly becoming obsolete. There was the spirit of
+youth, but the body of age. As a class, officers and men were well up
+in the use of such instruments as the country gave them; but the
+profession did not wield the corporate influence necessary to extort
+better instruments, and impotence to remedy produced acquiescence in,
+perhaps, more properly, submission to, an arrest of progress, the
+evils of which were clearly seen. Yet the salt was still there, nor
+had it lost its savor. The military professions are discouraged, even
+enjoined, against that combined independent action for the remedy of
+grievances which is the safeguard of civil liberty, but tends to sap
+the unquestioning obedience essential to unity of action under a
+single will--at once the virtue and the menace of a standing army.
+Naval officers had neither the privilege nor the habits which would
+promote united effort for betterment; but when individuals among them
+are found, like Farragut, Dupont, Porter, Dahlgren--to mention only a
+few names that became conspicuous in the War of Secession--there will
+be found also in civil and political life men who will become the
+channels through which the needs of the service will receive
+expression and ultimately obtain relief. The process is overslow for
+perfect adequacy, but it exists. It may be asked, Was not the Navy
+Department constituted for this special purpose? Possibly; but
+experience has shown that sometimes it is effective, and sometimes it
+is not. There is in it no provision for a continuous policy. No
+administrative period of our naval history since 1812 has been more
+disastrously stagnant and inefficient than that which followed closely
+the War of Secession, with its extraordinary, and in the main
+well-directed, administrative energy. The deeds of Farragut, his
+compeers, and their followers, after exciting a moment's enthusiasm,
+were powerless to sustain popular interest. Reaction ruled, as after
+the War of 1812.
+
+To whomsoever due, in the decade immediately preceding the War of
+Secession there were two notable attempts at regeneration which had a
+profound influence upon the fortunes of that contest. Of these, one
+affected the personnel of the navy, the other the material. It had for
+some time been recognized within the service that, owing partly to
+easy-going toleration of offenders, partly to the absence of
+authorized methods for dealing with the disabled, or the merely
+incompetent, partly also, doubtless, to the effect of general
+professional stagnation upon those naturally inclined to
+worthlessness, there had accumulated a very considerable percentage of
+officers who were useless; or, worse, unreliable. In measure, this was
+also due to habits of drinking, much more common in all classes of men
+then than now. Even within the ten years with which I am dealing, an
+officer not much my senior remarked to me on the great improvement in
+this respect in his own experience; and my contemporaries will bear me
+out in saying that since then the advance has been so sustained that
+the evil now is practically non-existent. But then the compassionate
+expression, "A first-rate officer when he is not drinking," was
+ominously frequent; and in the generation before too little attention
+had been paid to the equally significant remark, that with a fool you
+know what to count on, but with one who drank you never knew.
+
+But drink was far from the only cause. There were regular
+examinations, after six years of service, for promotion from the
+warrant of midshipman to a lieutenant's commission; but, that
+successfully passed, there was no further review of an officer's
+qualifications, unless misconduct brought him before a court-martial.
+Nor was there any provision for removing the physically incompetent.
+Before I entered the navy I knew one such, who had been bed-ridden for
+nearly ten years. He had been a midshipman with Farragut under Porter
+in the old _Essex_, when captured by the _Phoebe_ and _Cherub_. A
+gallant boy, specially named in the despatch, he had such aptitude
+that at sixteen, as he told me himself, he wore an epaulette on the
+left shoulder--the uniform of a lieutenant at that time; and a
+contemporary assured me that in handling a ship he was the smartest
+officer of the deck he had ever known. But in early middle life
+disease overtook him, and, though flat on his back, he had been borne
+on the active list because there was nothing else to do with him. In
+that plight he was even promoted. There was another who, as a
+midshipman, had lost a foot in the War of 1812, but had been carried
+on from grade to grade for forty years, until at the time I speak of
+he was a captain, then the highest rank in the navy. Possibly,
+probably, he never saw water bluer than that of the lakes, where he
+was wounded. The undeserving were not treated with quite the same
+indulgence. Those familiar with the _Navy Register_ of those days will
+recall some half-dozen old die-hards, who figured from year to year at
+the head of the lieutenant's list; continuously "overslaughed," never
+promoted, but never dismissed. To deal in the same manner with such
+men as the two veterans first mentioned would have been insulting; the
+distinction of promotion had to be conceded.
+
+But there were those also who, despite habits or inefficiency, slipped
+through even formal examination; commanders whose ships were run by
+their subordinates, lieutenants whose watch on deck kept their
+captains from sleeping, midshipmen whose unfitness made their
+retention unpardonable; for at their age to re-begin life was no
+hardship, much less injustice. Of one such the story ran that his
+captain, giving him the letter required by regulation, wrote, "Mr. So
+and So is a very excellent young gentleman, of perfectly correct
+habits, but nothing will make an officer of him." He answered his
+questions, however; and the board considered that they could not go
+beyond that fact. They passed him in the face of the opinion of a
+superior of tried efficiency who had had his professional conduct
+under prolonged observation. I never knew this particular man
+professionally, but the general estimate of the service confirmed his
+captain's opinion. Twenty or thirty years later, I was myself one of a
+board called to deal with a precisely similar case. The letter of the
+captain was explicitly condemnatory and strong; but the president of
+the board, a man of exemplary rectitude, was vehement even in refusing
+to act upon it, and his opinion prevailed. Some years afterwards the
+individual came under my command, and proved to be of so eccentric
+worthlessness that I thought him on the border-line of insanity. He
+afterwards disappeared, I do not know how.
+
+Talking of examinations, a comical incident came under my notice
+immediately after the War of Secession, when there were still employed
+a large number of those volunteer officers who had honorably and
+usefully filled up the depleted ranks of the regular service--an
+accession of strength imperatively needed. There were among them,
+naturally, inefficients as well as efficients. One had applied for
+promotion, and a board of three, among them myself, was assembled to
+examine. Several commonplace questions in seamanship were put to him,
+of which I now remember only that he had no conception of the
+difference between a ship moored, and one lying at single anchor--a
+subject as pertinent to-day as a hundred years ago. After failing to
+explain this, he expressed his wish not to go further; whereupon one
+of the board asked why, if ignorant of these simple matters, he had
+applied for examination. His answer was, "I did not apply for
+examination, I applied for promotion." Even in this case, when the
+applicant had left the room, the president of the board, then a
+somewhat notorious survival of the unfittest, long since departed this
+life, asked whether we refused to pass him. The third member, himself
+a volunteer officer, and myself, said we did. "Well," he rejoined,
+"you know this man may get a chance at _you_ some day." This prudent
+consideration, however, did not save him.
+
+Such tolerance towards the unfit, the reluctance to strike the
+individual in the interests of the community, was but a special, and
+not very flagrant, instance of the sympathy evoked for much worse
+offenders--murderers, and defrauders--in civil life. In such cases,
+the average man, except when personally affected, sides unreasonably
+with the sufferer and against the public; witness the easily signed
+petitions for pardon which flow in. It can be understood that in a
+public employment, civil or military, there will usually be reluctance
+to punish, and especially to take the bread out of the mouths of a man
+and his family by ejection. Usually only immediate personal interest
+in efficiency can supply the needed hardness of heart. Speaking after
+a very extensive and varied inside experience of courts-martial, I can
+say most positively that their tendency is not towards the excessive
+severity which I have heard charged against them by an eminent
+lawyer. On the contrary, the difficulty is to keep the members up to
+the mark against their natural and professional sympathies. Their
+superiors in the civil government have more often to rebuke undue
+leniency. How much more hard when, instead of an evil-doer, one had
+only to deal with a good-tempered, kindly ignoramus, or one perhaps
+who drew near the border-line of slipshod adequacy; and especially
+when to do so was to initiate action, apparently invidious, and
+probably useless, as in cases I have cited. It was easier for a
+captain or first lieutenant to nurse such a one along through a
+cruise, and then dismiss him to his home, thanking God, like Dogberry,
+that you are rid of a fool, and trusting you may see him no more. But
+this confidence may be misplaced; even his ghost may return to plague
+you, or your conscience. Basil Hall tells an interesting story in
+point. When himself about to pass for lieutenant, in 1808, while in an
+ante-room awaiting his summons, a candidate came out flushed and
+perturbed. Hall was called in, and one of the examining captains said
+to him, "Mr. ----, who has just gone out, could not answer a question
+which we will put to you." He naturally looked for a stunner, and was
+surprised at the extremely commonplace problem proposed to him. From
+the general incident he presumed his predecessor had been rejected,
+but when the list was published saw his name among the passed. Some
+years later he met one of the examiners, who in the conversation
+recalled to him the circumstances. "We hesitated," he said, "whether
+to let him go through: but we did, and I voted for him. A few weeks
+later I saw him gazetted second lieutenant of a sloop-of-war, and a
+twinge of compunction seized me. Not long afterwards I read also the
+loss of that ship, with all on board. I never have known how it
+happened, but I cannot rid myself of an uneasy feeling that it may
+have been in that young man's watch." He added, "Mr. Hall, if ever
+you are employed as I then was, do not take your duties as lightly as
+I did."
+
+Sometimes retribution does not assume this ghastly form, but shows the
+humorous side of her countenance; for she has two faces, like the
+famous ship that was painted a different color on either side and
+always tacked at night, that the enemy might imagine two ships off
+their coast. I recall--many of us recall--a well-known character in
+the service, "Bobby," who was a synonyme for inefficiency. He is long
+since in his grave, where reminiscence cannot disturb him; and the
+Bobby can reveal him only to those who knew him as well and better
+than I, and not to an unsympathetic public. Well, Bobby after much
+indulgence had been retired from active service by that convulsive
+effort at re-establishment known as the Retiring Board of 1854-55, to
+which I am coming if ever I see daylight through this thicket of
+recollections that seems to close round me as I proceed, instead of
+getting clearer. The action of that board was afterwards extensively
+reviewed, and among the data brought before the reviewers was a letter
+from a commander, who presumably should have known better, warmly
+endorsing Bobby. In consequence of this, and perhaps other
+circumstances, Bobby was restored to an admiring service; but the
+Department, probably through some officer who appreciated the
+situation, sent him to his advocate as first lieutenant--that is, as
+general manager and right-hand man. The joke was somewhat grim, and
+grimly resented. It fell to me a little later to see the commander on
+a matter of duty. He received me in his cabin, his feet swathed on a
+chair, his hands gnarled and knotted with gout or rheumatism, from
+which he was a great sufferer. Business despatched, we drifted into
+talk, and got on the subject of Bobby. His face became distorted. "I
+suppose the Department thinks it has done a very funny thing in
+sending me him as first lieutenant; but I tell you, Mr. Mahan, every
+word I wrote was perfectly true. There is nothing about a ship from
+her hold to her trucks that Bobby don't know; but--" here fury took
+possession of him, and he vociferated--"put him on deck, handling men,
+he is the d----dest fool that ever man laid eyes on." How far his
+sense of injury biassed his judgments as to the acquirements of his
+protégé, I cannot say; but a cruise or two before I had happened to
+hear from eye-witnesses of Bobby's appearance in public after his
+restoration as first lieutenant in charge of the deck. On the
+occasion in question he was to exercise the whole crew at some
+particular manoeuvre. Taking his stand on the hawse-block, he
+drew from his pocket a small note-book, cast upon it his eye and
+announced--doubtless through the trumpet--"Man the fore-royal braces!"
+Again a pause, and further reference. "Man the main-royal braces!"
+Again a pause: "Man the mizzen-royal braces--Man _all_ the royal
+braces." It is quite true, however, that there may be plenty of
+knowledge with lack of power to apply it professionally--a fact
+observable in all callings, but one which examination alone will not
+elicit. I knew such a one who said of himself, "Before I take the
+trumpet I know what ought to be said and done, but with the trumpet in
+my hand everything goes away from me." This was doubtless partly
+stage-fright; but stage-fright does not last where there is real
+aptitude. This man, of very marked general ability, esteemed and liked
+by all, finally left the navy; and probably wisely. On the other hand,
+I remember a very excellent seaman--and officer--telling me that the
+poorest officer he had ever known tacked ship the best. So men differ.
+
+Thus it happened, through the operation of a variety of causes, that
+by the early fifties there had accumulated on the lists of the navy,
+in every grade, a number of men who had been tried in the balance of
+professional judgment and found distinctly wanting. Not only was the
+public--the nation--being wronged by the continuance in positions of
+responsibility of men who could not meet an emergency, or even
+discharge common duties, but there was the further harm that they were
+occupying places which, if vacated, could be at once filled by capable
+men waiting behind them. Fortunately, this had come to constitute a
+body of individual grievance among the deserving, which
+counterbalanced the natural sympathy with the individual incompetent.
+The remedy adopted was drastic enough, although in fact only an
+application of the principle of selection in a very guarded form.
+Unhappily, previous neglect to apply selection through a long series
+of years had now occasioned conditions in which it had to be used on a
+huge scale, and in the most invidious manner--the selecting out of the
+unfit. It was therefore easy for cavillers to liken this process to a
+trial at law, in which unfavorable decision was a condemnation without
+the accused being heard; and, of course, once having received this
+coloring, the impression could not be removed, nor the method
+reconciled to a public having Anglo-Saxon traditions concerning the
+administration of justice. A board of fifteen was constituted--five
+captains, five commanders, and five lieutenants. These were then the
+only grades of commissioned officers, and representation from them all
+insured, as far as could be, an adequate acquaintance with the entire
+personnel of the navy. The board sat in secret, reaching its own
+conclusions by its own methods; deciding who were, and who were not,
+fit to be carried longer on the active list. Rejections were of three
+kinds: those wholly removed, and those retired on two different grades
+of pay, called "Retired," and "Furloughed." The report was accepted by
+the government and became operative.
+
+This occurred a year or two before I entered the Naval School: and, as
+I was already expecting to do so, I read with an interest I well
+recall the lists of person unfavorably affected. Of course, neither
+then nor afterwards had I knowledge to form an independent opinion
+upon the merits of the cases; but as far as I could gather in the
+immediately succeeding years, from different officers, the general
+verdict was that in very few instances had injustice been done. Where
+I had the opportunity of verifying the mistakes cited to me, I found
+instead reason rather to corroborate than to impugn the action of the
+board; but, of course, in so large a review as it had to undertake,
+even a jury of fifteen experts can scarcely be expected never to err.
+In the navy it was a first, and doubtless somewhat crude, attempt to
+apply the method of selection which every business man or corporation
+uses in choosing employés; an arbitrary conclusion, based upon
+personal knowledge and observation, or upon adequate information. But
+in private affairs such decisions are not regarded as legal judgment,
+nor rejection as condemnation; and there is no appeal. The private
+interest of the employer is warrant that he will do the best he can
+for his business. This presumption does not lie in the case of public
+affairs, although after the most searching criticism the action of the
+board of fifteen might probably be quoted to prove that selection for
+promotion could safely be trusted at all times to similar means. I
+mean, that such a body would never recommend an unfit man for
+promotion, and in three cases out of five would choose very near the
+best man. But no such system can work unless a government have the
+courage of its findings; for private and public opinion will
+inevitably constitute itself a court of appeal. In Great Britain,
+where the principle of selection has never been abandoned, in the
+application the Admiralty is none the less constrained--browbeaten, I
+fancy, would hardly be too strong a word--by opinion outside. P. has
+been promoted, say the service journals; but why was A. passed over,
+or F., or K.? Choice is difficult, indeed, in peace times; but years
+sap efficiency, and for the good of the nation it is imperative to get
+men along while in the vigor of life, which will never be effected by
+the slow routine in which each second stands heir to the first. P.
+possibly may not be better than A. or K., but the nation will profit
+more, and in a matter vital to it, than if P., whose equality may be
+conceded, has to wait for the whole alphabet to die out of his way.
+The injustice, if so it be, to the individual must not be allowed to
+impede the essential prosperity of the community.
+
+In 1854-55, the results of a contrary system had reached proportions
+at once disheartening and comical. It then required fourteen years
+after entrance to reach a lieutenant's commission, the lowest of all.
+That is, coming in as a midshipman at fifteen, not till twenty-nine,
+after ten to twelve years probably on a sea-going vessel, was a man
+found fit, by official position, to take charge of a ship at sea, or
+to command a division of guns. True, the famous Billy Culmer, of the
+British navy, under a system of selection found himself a midshipman
+still at fifty-six, and then declined a commission on the ground that
+he preferred to continue senior midshipman rather than be the junior
+lieutenant;[3] but the injustice, if so it were, to Billy, and to many
+others, had put the ships into the hands of captains in the prime of
+life. Of the historic admirals of that navy, few had failed to reach a
+captaincy in their twenties. _Per contra_, I was told the following
+anecdote by an officer of our service whose name was--and is, for he
+still lives--a synonyme for personal activity and professional
+seamanship, but who waited his fourteen years for a lieutenancy. On
+one occasion the ship in which he returned to Norfolk from a
+three-years' cruise was ordered from there to Portsmouth, New
+Hampshire, to go out of commission. For some cause almost all the
+lieutenants had been detached, the cruise being thought ended. It
+became necessary, therefore, to intrust the charge of the deck to him
+and other "passed" midshipmen, and great was the shaking of heads
+among old stagers over the danger that ship was to run. If this were
+exceptional, it would not be worth quoting, but it was not. A similar
+routine in the British navy, in a dry-rot period of a hundred years
+before, had induced a like head-wagging and exchange of views when one
+of its greatest admirals, Hawke, was first given charge of a squadron;
+being then already a man of mark, and four years older than Nelson at
+the Nile. But he was younger than the rule, and so distrusted.
+
+The vacancies made by the wholesale action of 1854 remedied this for a
+while. The lieutenants who owed their rank to it became such after
+seven or eight years, or at, twenty-three or four; and this meant
+really passing out of pupilage into manhood. The change being effected
+immediately, anticipated the reaction in public opinion and in
+Congress, which rejected the findings of the board and compelled a
+review of the whole procedure. Many restorations were made; and, as
+these swelled the lists beyond the number then authorized by law,
+there was established a reduced pay for those whose recent promotion
+made them in excess. For them was adopted, in naval colloquialism, the
+inelegant but suggestive term "jackass" lieutenants. It should be
+explained to the outsider, perhaps even many professional readers now
+may not know, that the word was formerly used for a class of so-called
+frigates which intervened between the frigate-class proper and the
+sloop-of-war proper, and like all hybrids, such as the armored
+cruiser, shared more in the defects than in the virtues of either. It
+was therefore not a new coinage, and its uncomplimentary suggestion
+applied rather to the grudging legislation than to the unlucky
+victims. Of course, promotion was stopped till this block was worked
+off; but the immediate gain was retained. Before the trouble came on
+afresh the War of Secession, causing a large number of Southerners to
+leave the service, introduced a very different problem;--namely, how
+to find officers enough to meet the expansion of the navy caused by
+the vast demands of the contest. The men of my time became lieutenants
+between twenty and twenty-three. My own commission was dated a month
+before my twenty-first birthday, and with what good further prospects,
+even under the strict rule of seniority promotion, is evident, for
+before I was twenty-five I was made lieutenant-commander,
+corresponding to major in the army. Those were cheerful days in this
+respect for the men who struck the crest of the wave; but already the
+symptoms of inevitable reaction to old conditions of stagnancy were
+observable to those careful to heed.
+
+It would be difficult to exaggerate the benefit of this measure to the
+nation, through the service, despite the subsequent reactionary
+legislation. By a single act a large number of officers were advanced
+from the most subordinate and irresponsible positions to those which
+called all their faculties into play. "Responsibility," said one of
+the most experienced admirals the world has known, "is the test of a
+man's courage"; and where the native fitness exists nothing so
+educates for responsibility as the having it. The responsibility of
+the lieutenant of the watch differs little from that of the captain in
+degree, and less in kind. To early bearing of responsibility Farragut
+attributed in great part his fearlessness in it, which was well known
+to the service before his hour of strain. It was much that the
+government found ready for the extreme demands of the war a number of
+officers, who, instead of supervising the washing of lower decks and
+stowing of holds during their best years, had been put betimes in
+charge of the ship. From there to the captain's berth was but a small
+step. "Passed midshipman," says one of Cooper's characters, "is a good
+grade to reach, but a bad one to stop in." From a fate little better
+than this a large and promising number of young officers were thus
+rescued for the commands and responsibilities of the War of
+Secession.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+NAVAL CONDITIONS BEFORE THE WAR OF SECESSION
+
+THE VESSELS
+
+
+Less far-reaching, because men are greater than ships, but still of
+immense timeliness as a preparative to the war, was the reconstitution
+of the material of the navy, practically coincident with the
+regeneration of the personnel. The causes which led to this are before
+my time, and beyond my contemporary knowledge. They therefore form no
+part of my theme; but the result, which is more important than the
+process, was strictly contemporary with me. It marked a definite
+parting with sails as the motive reliance of a ship-of-war, but at the
+same time was characterized by an extreme conservatism, which then was
+probably judicious, and certainly represented the naval opinion of the
+day. It must be remembered that the Atlantic was first crossed under
+steam in 1837, a feat shortly before thought impossible on account of
+coal consumption, and that the screw-propeller was not generally
+adopted till several years afterwards. In 1855 the transatlantic
+liners were still paddlers; but the paddle-wheel shaft was far above
+the water, and so, in necessary consequence, was much of the machinery
+which transmitted power from the boilers to the wheel. All battle
+experience avouched the probability of disabling injury under such
+exposure; not more certain, but probably more fatal, than that to
+spars and sails of sailing-ships. Despite this drawback, paddle wheel
+men-of-war were being built between 1840 and 1850. Our own navy had of
+these two large and powerful vessels, sisters, the _Missouri_ and the
+_Mississippi_. Singularly enough, both met the same end, by fire; the
+_Missouri_ being burned in the Bay of Gibraltar in 1843, the
+_Mississippi_ in the river whence she took her name, in the course of
+Farragut's passage of the batteries at Port Hudson in 1863. This
+engagement marked the end of the admiral's achievements in the river,
+throughout which, beginning with the passage of the forts and the
+capture of New Orleans, the _Mississippi_ had done good work. At the
+time of her destruction, the present Admiral Dewey was her first
+lieutenant. Besides these two we had the _Susquehanna_, "paddle-wheel
+steam-frigate," which also served manfully through the war, and was in
+commission after it. It was she that carried General Sherman on his
+mission to Mexico in 1866. As usual, the principal European navies had
+built many more of these vessels; that is, had adopted improvements
+more readily than we did. During my first cruise after graduation, on
+the coast of Brazil, 1859-61, the British squadron there was composed
+chiefly of paddlers; the flag-ship _Leopard_ being one. As I remember,
+there was only one screw-steamer, the sloop-of-war _Curaçao_.
+
+By that time, however, the paddlers were only survivals; but it may be
+noted, in passing, with reference to the cry of obsolescence so
+readily raised in our day, that these survivals did yeoman service in
+the War of Secession. It is possible to be too quick in discarding, as
+well as too slow in adopting. By 1850 the screw had made good its
+position; and the difficulty which had impeded the progress of steam
+in men-of-war disappeared when it became possible to place all
+machinery below water. There were, however, many improvements still to
+come, before it could be frankly and fully accepted as the sole motive
+power. It is not well to let go with one hand till sure of your grip
+with the other. So in the early days of electric lighting prudent
+steamship companies kept their oil-lamps trimmed and filled in the
+brackets alongside of the electric globes. Apart from the problem
+experienced by the average man--and governments are almost always
+averages in adjusting his action to novel conditions, the science of
+steam-enginery was still very backward. Notably, the expenditure of
+coal was excessive; to produce a given result in miles travelled, or
+speed attained, much more had to be burned than now, a condition to
+which contributed also the lack of rigidity in the wooden hulls, which
+still held their ground. Sails were very expensive articles, as I
+heard said by an accomplished officer of the olden days; but they were
+less costly than coal. Steam therefore was accepted at the first only
+as an accessory, for emergencies. It was too evident for question that
+in battle a vessel independent of the wind would have an unqualified
+advantage over one dependent; though an early acquaintance of mine, a
+sailmaker in the navy, a man of unusual intelligence and tried
+courage, used to maintain that steam would never prevail. Small
+steamers, he contended, would accompany sailing fleets, to tow vessels
+becalmed, or disabled in battle; a most entertaining instance of
+professional prepossession. What would be his reflections, had he
+survived till this year of grace, to see only six sailmakers on the
+active list of the navy, the last one appointed in 1888, and not one
+of them afloat. Likewise, in breasting the continuous head-winds which
+mark some ocean districts, or traversing the calms of others, there
+would be gain; but for the most part sailing, it was thought, was
+sufficiently expeditious, decidedly cheaper, and more generally
+reliable; for steamers "broke down." Admiral Baudin; a French veteran
+of the Napoleonic period, was very sarcastic over the uncertainties of
+action of the steamers accompanying his sailing frigates, when he
+attacked Fort San Juan de Ulloa, off Vera Cruz in 1839; and since
+writing these words I have come across the following quotation, of
+several years later, from the London _Guardian_, which is republishing
+some of its older news under the title "'Tis Sixty Years Since."
+
+    "Naval manoeuvres in 1846. The Squadron of Evolution is one of the
+    topics of the present week (June 10, 1846). Its arrival in the
+    Cove of Cork, after a cruise which has tested by every variety of
+    weather the sailing qualities of the vessels, has furnished the
+    world with a few particulars of its doings, and with some
+    materials for speculating on the problems it was sent out to
+    solve. The result, as far as it goes, is certainly unfavorable to
+    the exclusive prevalence of steam agency in naval warfare. Sailing
+    ships, it is seen, can do things which steamers, as at present
+    constructed, cannot accomplish. They can keep the sea when
+    steamers cannot. But the screw-steamer, which is reported to have
+    astonished everybody, is certainly an exception. Perhaps by this
+    contrivance the rapidity and convenience of steam locomotion may
+    be combined with the power and stability of our huge sailing
+    batteries."
+
+Under convictions thus slowly recasting, the first big steam
+ships-of-war carried merely "auxiliary" engines; were in fact sailing
+vessels, of the types in use for over a century, into which machinery
+was introduced to meet occasional emergencies. In some cases, probably
+in many, ships already built as sailers were lengthened and engined.
+As late as 1868 we were station-mates with one such, the _Rodney_, of
+90 guns, then the flag-ship of the British China squadron; and we had
+already met, another, the _Princess Royal_, at the Cape of Good Hope,
+homeward bound. She, however, had been built as a steamer. She was a
+singularly handsome vessel, of her majestic type; and, as she lay
+close by us, I remember commenting on her appearance to one of my
+messmates, poor Stewart, who afterwards went down in the _Oneida_.
+"Yes," he replied, "she possesses several elements of the sublime."
+They were certainly imposing creations, with their double and treble
+tiers of guns, thrusting their black muzzles through the successive
+ports which, to the number of fifteen to twenty, broke through the two
+broad white bands that from bow to stern traversed the blackness of
+their hulls; above which rose spars as tall and broad as ever graced
+the days of Nelson. To make the illusion of the past as complete as
+possible, and the dissemblance from the sailing ship as slight, the
+smoke-stack--or funnel--was telescopic, permitting it to be lowered
+almost out of sight. For those who can recall these predecessors of
+the modern battle-ships, the latter can make slight claim to beauty or
+impressiveness; yet, despite the ugliness of their angular broken
+sky-line, they have a gracefulness all their own, when moving slowly
+in still water. I remember a dozen years ago watching the French
+Mediterranean fleet of six or eight battle-ships leaving the harbor of
+Villefranche, near Nice. There was some manoeuvring to get their
+several stations, during which, here and there, a vessel lying quiet
+waiting her opportunity would glide forward with a dozen slow turns of
+the screws, not agitating the water beyond a light ripple at the bows.
+The bay at the moment was quiet as a mill-pond, and it needed little
+imagination to prompt recognition of the identity of dignified
+movement with that of a swan making its leisurely way by means equally
+unseen; no turbulent display of energy, yet suggestive of mysterious
+power.
+
+Before the War of Secession, and indeed for twenty years after it, the
+United States never inclined to the maintenance of squadrons, properly
+so-called. It is true, a dozen fine ships-of-the-line were built
+during the sail period, but they never sailed together; and the
+essence of the battle-ship, in all eras, is combined action. Our
+squadrons, till long after I entered the navy, were simply
+aggregations of vessels, no two of which were necessarily of the same
+size or class. When a ship-of-the-line went to sea--which never
+happened in my time--she went without mates, a palpable paradox; a
+ship-of-the-line, which to no line belonged. Ours was a navy of
+single, isolated cruisers; and under that condition we had received a
+correct tradition that, whatever the nominal class of an American
+ship-of-war, she should be somewhat stronger than the corresponding
+vessels built by other nations. Each cruiser, therefore, would bring
+superior force to any field of battle at all possible to her. This was
+a perfectly just military conception, to which in great measure we
+owed our successes of 1812. The same rule does not apply to fleets,
+which to achieve the like superiority rely upon united action, and
+upon tactical facility obtained by the homogeneous qualities of the
+several ships, enabling them to combine greater numbers upon a part of
+the enemy. Therefore Great Britain, which so long ruled the world by
+fleets, attached less importance to size in the particular vessel.
+Class for class, her ships were weaker than those of her enemies, but
+in fleet action they usually won. At the period of which I am writing,
+the screw-propeller, having fairly established its position, prompted
+a reconstruction of the navy, with no change of the principles just
+mentioned. The cruiser idea dictated the classes of vessels ordered,
+and the idea of relative size prescribed their dimensions. There were
+to be six steam-frigates of the largest class, six steam-sloops, and
+six smaller vessels, a precise title for which I do not know. I myself
+have usually called them by the French name corvette, which has a
+recognized place in English marine phraseology, and means a
+sloop-of-war of the smaller class. A transfer of terms accompanying a
+change of system is apt to be marked by anomalies.
+
+These eighteen vessels were the nucleus of the fighting force with
+which the government met the war of 1861. In the frigates and sloops
+steam was purely auxiliary; they had every spar and sail of
+the sailing ships to which they corresponded. Four of the
+larger sloops--the _Hartford_, _Richmond_, _Brooklyn_, and
+_Pensacola_--constituted the backbone of Farragut's fleet throughout
+his operations in the Mississippi. The _Lancaster_, one of the finest
+of these five sisters, was already in the Pacific, and there remained
+throughout the contest; while the _San Jacinto_, being of different
+type and size, was employed rather as a cruiser than for the important
+operations of war. It was she that arrested the Confederate
+commissioners, Slidell and Mason, on board the British mail-steamer
+_Trent_, in 1861. The corvettes for the most part were also employed
+as cruisers, being at once less effective in battery, for river work,
+and swifter. They alone of the vessels built in the fifties were
+engined for speed, as speed went in those days; but their sail power
+also was ample, though somewhat reduced. One of them, the _Iroquois_,
+accompanied Farragut to New Orleans, as did a sister ship to her, the
+_Oneida_, which was laid down in 1861, after many Southern Senators
+and Representatives had left their seats in Congress and the secession
+movement became ominous of war; when it began to be admitted that
+perhaps, after all, for sufficient cause, brothers might shed the
+blood of brothers.
+
+The steam-frigates were of too deep draught to be of much use in the
+shoal waters, to which the nature of the hostilities and the character
+of the Southern coast confined naval operations. Being extremely
+expensive in upkeep, with enormous crews, and not having speed under
+steam to make them effective chasers, they were of little avail
+against an enemy who had not, and could not have, any ships at sea
+heavy enough to compete with them. The _Wabash_ of this class bore the
+flag of Admiral Dupont at the capture of Port Royal; and after the
+fight the negroes who had witnessed it on shore reported that when
+"that checker-sided ship," following the elliptical course prescribed
+to the squadron for the engagement, came abreast the enemy's works,
+the gunners, after one experience, took at once to cover. No barbette
+or merely embrasured battery of that day could stand up against the
+twenty or more heavy guns carried on each broadside by the
+steam-frigates, if these could get near enough. At New Orleans, even
+the less numerous pieces of the sloops beat down opposition so long as
+they remained in front of Fort St. Philip and close to; but when they
+passed on, so the first lieutenant of one of them told me, the enemy
+returned to his guns and hammered them severely. This showed that the
+fort was not seriously injured nor its armament decisively crippled,
+but that the personnel was completely dominated by the fire of many
+heavy guns during the critical period required for the smaller as well
+as larger vessels to pass. As most of the river work was of this
+character, the broadsides of the sloops were determinative, and those
+of the frigates would have been more so, could they have been brought
+to the scene; but they could not. Much labor was expended in the
+attempt to drag the _Colorado_, sister ship to the _Wabash_, across
+the bar of the Mississippi, but fruitlessly.
+
+For the reason named, the screw-frigates built in the fifties had
+little active share in the Civil War. Were they then, from a national
+stand-point, uselessly built? Not unless preparation for war is to be
+rejected, and reliance placed upon extemporized means. To this resort
+our people have always been inclined to trust unduly, owing to a false
+or partial reading of history; but to it they were excusably compelled
+by the extensive demands of the War of Secession, which could scarcely
+have been anticipated. At the time these frigates were built, they
+were, by their dimensions and the character of their armaments, much
+the most formidable ships of their class afloat, or as yet designed.
+Though correctly styled frigates--having but one covered deck of
+guns--they were open to the charge, brought against our frigates in
+1812 by the British, of being ships-of-the-line in disguise; and being
+homogeneous in qualities, they would, in acting together, have
+presented a line of battle extorting very serious consideration from
+any probable foreign enemy. It was for such purpose they were built;
+and it was no reproach to their designers that, being intended to meet
+a probable contingency, they were too big for one which very few men
+thought likely. At that moment, when the portentous evolution of naval
+material which my time has witnessed was but just beginning, they were
+thoroughly up-to-date, abreast and rather ahead of the conclusions as
+yet reached by contemporary opinion. The best of compliments was paid
+them by the imitation of other navies; for, when the first one was
+finished, we sent her abroad on exhibition, much like a hen cackling
+over its last performance, with the result that we had not long to
+congratulate ourselves on the newest and best thing. It is this place
+in a long series of development which gives them their historical
+interest.
+
+But if the frigates were unfitted to the particular emergency of a
+civil contest, scarcely to be discerned as imminent in 1855, the
+advantage of preparation for general service is avouched by the
+history of the first year of hostilities, even so exceptional as those
+of 1861 and 1862. Within a year of the first Bull Run, Farragut's
+squadron had fought its way from the mouth of the Mississippi to
+Vicksburg. That the extreme position was not held was not the fault of
+the ships, but of backwardness in other undertakings of the nation.
+All the naval vessels that subdued New Orleans had been launched and
+ready before the war, except the _Oneida_ and the gunboats; and to
+attribute any determinative effect in such operations to the
+gunboats, with their one heavy gun, is to misunderstand the
+conditions. Even a year later, at the very important passage of Port
+Hudson, the fighting work was done by the _Hartford_, _Richmond_,
+_Mississippi_, and _Monongahela_; of which only the last named, and
+least powerful, was built after the war began. It would be difficult
+to overrate the value, material and moral, of the early successes
+which led the way to the opening of the great river, due to having the
+ships and officers ready. So the important advantages obtained by the
+capture of Port Royal in South Carolina, and of Hatteras Inlet in
+North Carolina, within the first six months, were the results of
+readiness, slight and inadequate as that was in reference to anything
+like a great naval war.
+
+A brief analysis of the composition of the navy at the opening of the
+War of Secession, will bring out still more vividly how vitally
+important to the issue were the additions of the decade 1850-60. In
+March, 1861, when Lincoln was inaugurated, the available ships-of-war
+at sea, or in the yards, numbered sixty-one. Of these thirty-four were
+sailing vessels, substantially worthless; although, as the commerce of
+the world was still chiefly carried on by sailing ships, they could be
+of some slight service against these attempting to pass a blockade.
+For the most part, however, they were but scarecrows, if even
+respected as such. Of the twenty-seven steamers, only six dated from
+before 1850; the remainder were being built when I entered the Naval
+Academy in September, 1856. Their construction, with all that it
+meant, constituted a principal part of the environment into which I
+was then brought, of which the recasting of the list of officers was
+the other most important and significant feature. Both were
+revolutionary in character, and prophetic of further changes quite
+beyond the foresight of contemporaries. From this point of view, the
+period in question has the character of an epoch, initiated, made
+possible, by the invention of the screw-propeller; which, in addition
+to the better nautical qualities associated with it, permitted the
+defence of the machinery by submersion, and of the sides of the ship
+by the application of armor. In this lay the germ of the race between
+the armor and the gun, involving almost directly the attempt to reach
+the parts which armor cannot protect, the underwater body, by means of
+the torpedo. The increases of weight induced by the competition of gun
+and armor led necessarily to increase of size, which in turn lent
+itself to increases of speed that have been pushed beyond the strictly
+necessary, and at all events are neither militarily nor logically
+involved in the progress made. It has remained to me always a matter
+of interest and satisfaction that I first knew the navy, was in close
+personal contact and association with it, in this period of
+unconscious transition; and that to the fact of its being yet
+incomplete I have owed the experience of vessels, now wholly extinct,
+of which it would be no more than truth to say that in all essential
+details they were familiar to the men of two hundred years ago. Nay,
+in their predecessors of that date, as transmitted to us by
+contemporary prints, it is easy to trace the development, in form, of
+the ships I have known from the mediæval galley; and this, were the
+records equally complete, would doubtless find its rudimentary
+outlines in the triremes of the ancient world. Of this evolution of
+structure clear evidences remain also in terminology, even now
+current; survivals which, if the facts were unknown, would provoke
+curiosity and inquiry as to their origin, as physiologists seek to
+reconstruct the past of a race from scanty traces still extant.
+
+I have said that the character of the ships then building constituted
+a chief part of my environment in entering the navy. The effect was
+inevitable, and amounted in fact simply to making me a man of my
+period. My most susceptible years were colored by the still lingering
+traditions of the sail period, and of the "marling-spike seaman;" not
+that I, always clumsy with my fingers, had any promise of ever
+distinguishing myself with the marling-spike. This expressive phrase,
+derived from its chief tool, characterized the whole professional
+equipment of the then mechanic of the sea, of the man who, given the
+necessary rope-yarns, and the spars shaped by a carpenter, could take
+a bare hull as she lay for the first time quietly at anchor from the
+impetus of her launch, and equip her for sea without other assistance;
+"parbuckle" on board her spars lying alongside her in the stream, fit
+her rigging, bend her sails, stow her hold, and present her all
+a-taunt-o to the men who were to sail her. The navigation of a ship
+thus equipped was a field of seamanship apart from that of the
+marling-spike; but the men who sailed her to all parts of the earth
+were expected to be able to do all the preliminary work themselves,
+often did do it, and considered it quite as truly a part of their
+business as the handling her at sea. Of course, in equipping ships, as
+in all other business, specialization had come in with progress; there
+were rope-makers, there were riggers who took the ropes ready-made and
+fitted them for the ship, and there were stevedores to stow holds,
+etc.; but the tradition ran that the seaman should be able on a pinch
+to do all this himself, and the tradition kept alive the practice,
+which derived from the days not yet wholly passed away when he might,
+and often did, have to refit his vessel in scenes far distant from any
+help other than his own, and without any resources save those which
+his ready wit could adapt from materials meant for quite different
+uses. How to make a jib-boom do the work of a topsail-yard, or to
+utilize spare spars in rigging a jury-rudder, were specimens of the
+problems then presented to the aspiring seaman. It was somewhere in
+the thirties, not so very long before my time, that a Captain Rous, of
+the British navy, achieved renown--I would say immortal, were I not
+afraid that most people have forgotten--by bringing his frigate home
+from Labrador to England after losing her rudder. It is said that he
+subsequently ran for Parliament, and when on the hustings some doubter
+asked about his political record, he answered, "I am Captain Rous who
+brought the _Pique_ across the Atlantic without a rudder." Of course
+the reply was lustily cheered, and deservedly; for in such seas, with
+a ship dependent upon sails only, it was a splendid, if somewhat
+reckless achievement. Cooper, in his _Homeward Bound_, places the ship
+dismasted on the coast of Africa. Close at hand, but on the beach,
+lies a wrecked vessel with her spar standing; and there is no
+exaggeration in the words he puts into the mouth of Captain Truck, as
+he looked upon these resources: "The seaman who, with sticks, and
+ropes, and blocks enough, cannot rig his ship, might as well stay
+ashore and publish an hebdomadal."
+
+Such was the marling-spike seaman of the days of Cooper and Marryat,
+and such was still the able seaman, the "A.B.," of 1855. It was not
+indeed necessary, nor expected, that most naval officers should do
+such things with their own hands; but it was justly required that they
+should know when a job of marling-spike seamanship was well or ill
+done, and be able to supervise, when necessary. Napoleon is reported
+to have said that he could judge personally whether the shoes
+furnished his soldiers were well or ill made; but he needed not to be
+a shoemaker. Marryat, commenting on one of his characters, says that
+he had seldom known an officer who prided himself on his "practical"
+knowledge who was at the same time a good navigator; and that such too
+often "lower the respect due to them by assuming the Jack Tar." Oddly
+enough, lunching once with an old and distinguished British admiral,
+who had been a midshipman while Marryat still lived, he told me that
+he remembered him well; his reputation, he added, was that of "an
+excellent seaman, but not much of an officer," an expressive phrase,
+current in our own service, and which doubtless has its equivalent in
+all maritime languages.
+
+In my early naval life I came into curious accidental contact with
+just such a person as Marryat described. I was still at the Academy,
+within a year of graduation, and had been granted a few days' leave at
+Christmas. Returning by rail, there seated himself alongside me a
+gentleman who proved to be a lieutenant from the flag-ship of the Home
+Squadron, going to Washington with despatches. Becoming known to each
+other, he began to question me as to what new radicalisms were being
+fostered in Annapolis. "Are they still wasting the young men's time
+over French? I would not permit them to learn any other language than
+their own. And how about seamanship? What do they know about that? As
+far as I have observed they know nothing about marling-spike
+seamanship, strapping blocks, fitting rigging, etc. Now I can sit down
+alongside of any seaman doing a bit of work and show him how it ought
+to be done; yes, and do it myself." It was Marryat's lieutenant,
+Phillott, _ipsissimis verbis_. I listened, over-awed by the weight of
+authority and experience; and I fear somewhat in sympathy, for such
+talk was in the air, part of the environment of an old order slowly
+and reluctantly giving way to a new.
+
+Of course I shared this; how should I not, at eighteen? In giving
+expression to it once, I drew down on my head a ringing buffet from my
+father, in which he embodied an anecdote of Decatur I never saw
+elsewhere, and fancy he owed to his boyhood passed near a navy-yard
+town--Portsmouth, Virginia--while Decatur was in his prime. I had
+written home with reference to some study, in which probably I did not
+shine, "What did Decatur know about such things?" A boy may be
+pardoned for laying himself open to the retort which so many of his
+superiors equally invited: "Depend upon it, if Decatur had been a
+student at the Academy, he would, so far as his abilities permitted,
+have got as far to the front as he always did in fighting. He always
+aimed to be first. It is told of him that he commanded one of two
+ships ordered on a common service, in which the other arrived first at
+a point on the way. Her captain, instead of pushing forward, waited
+for Decatur to come up; on hearing which the latter exclaimed in his
+energetic way, 'The d----d fool!'" Decatur, however, also shared, and
+shared inevitably, the prepossessions of his day. I was told by Mr.
+Charles King, when President of Columbia College, that he had been
+present in company with Decatur at one of the early experiments in
+steam navigation. Crude as the appliances still were, demonstration
+was conclusive; and Decatur, whatever his prejudices, was open to
+conviction. "Yes," he said, gloomily, to King, "it is the end of our
+business; hereafter any man who can boil a tea-kettle will be as good
+as the best of us." It is notable that in my day a tradition ran that
+Decatur himself was not thoroughly a seaman. The captain of the first
+ship in which I served after graduation, a man of much solid
+information, who had known the commodore's contemporaries, speaking
+about some occurrence, said to me, "The trouble with Decatur was, that
+he was not a seaman." I repeated the remark to one of our lieutenants,
+and he ejaculated, with emphasis, "Yes, that is true." I cannot tell
+how far these opinions were the result of prepossession in those from
+whom they derived. There had been hard and factious division in the
+navy of Decatur's day, culminating in the duel in which he fell; and
+the lieutenant, at least, was associated by family ties with Decatur's
+antagonist.
+
+To deny that the methods of the Naval Academy were open to criticism
+would be to claim for them infallibility. Upon the whole, however, in
+my time they erred rather on the side of being over-conservative than
+unduly progressive. Twenty years later, recalling some of our Academy
+experiences to one of my contemporaries, himself more a man of action
+than a student, and who had meanwhile distinguished himself by
+extraordinary courage in the War of Secession--I mean Edward Terry--he
+said, "Oh yes, those were the days before the flood." The hold-back
+element was strong, though not sufficiently so to suit such as my
+friend of the railroad. Objectors laid great stress on the word
+"practical;" than which, with all its most respectable derivation and
+association, I know none more frequently--nor more effectually--used
+as a bludgeon for slaying ideas. Strictly, of course, it means knowing
+how to do things, and doing them; but colloquially it usually means
+doing them before learning how. Leap before you look. The practical
+part is bruising your shins for lack of previous reflection. Of
+course, no one denies the educational value of breaking your shins,
+and everything else your own--a burnt child dreads the fire; but the
+question remains whether an equally good result may not be reached at
+less cost, and so be more really practical. I recall the fine scorn
+with which one of our professors, Chauvenet, a man of great and
+acknowledged ability, practical and other, used to speak of "practical
+men." "Now, young gentlemen, in adjusting your theodolites in the
+field, remember not to bear too hard on the screws. Don't put them
+down with main force, as though the one object was never to unscrew
+them. If you do, you indent the plate, and it will soon be quite
+impossible to level the instrument properly. That," he would continue,
+"is the way with your practical men. There, for instance, is Mr.
+----," naming an assistant in another department, known to the
+midshipmen as Bull-pup, who I suppose had been a practical surveyor;
+"that is what he does." I presume the denunciation was due to B. P.
+having at one time borrowed an instrument from the department, and
+returned it thus maltreated. But "practical," so misapplied--action
+without thought--was Chauvenet's red rag.
+
+An amusing reminiscence, illustrative of the same common tendency, was
+told me by General Howard. I had the pleasure of meeting Howard, then
+in command of one wing of Sherman's army, at Savannah, just after the
+conclusion of the march to the sea, in 1864. He spoke pleasantly of
+his associations with my father, when a cadet at the Military Academy,
+and added, "I remember how he used to say, 'A little common-sense, Mr.
+Howard, a little common-sense.'" Howard did not say what particular
+occasions he then had in mind, but a student reciting, and confronted
+suddenly with some question, or step in a demonstration, which he has
+failed to master, or upon which he has not reflected, is apt to feel
+that the practical thing to do is not to admit ignorance; to trust to
+luck and answer at random. Such a one, explaining a drawing of a
+bridge to my father, was asked by him what was represented by certain
+lines, showing the up-stream part of a pier. Not knowing, he replied,
+"That is a hole to catch the ice in." "Imagine," said my father, in
+telling me the story, "catching all the ice from above in holes in the
+piers." A little common-sense--exercised first, not afterwards--is the
+prescription against leaping before you look, or jamming your screws
+too hard.
+
+To substitute acquired common-sense--knowledge and reflection--for the
+cruder and tardier processes of learning by hard personal experience
+and mistakes, is, of course, the object of all education; and it was
+this which caused the foundation of the Naval Academy, behind which at
+its beginning lay the initiative of some of the most reputed and
+accomplished senior officers of the navy, conscious of the needless
+difficulties they themselves had had to surmount in reaching the
+level they had. It involved no detraction from their professional
+excellence, the excellence of men professionally self-made; but none
+comprehend the advantages of education better than candid men who have
+made their way without it. By the time I entered, however, there had
+been a decided, though not decisive, reaction in professional feeling.
+Ten years had elapsed since the founding of the school, and already
+development had gone so far that suspicion and antagonism were
+aroused. Up to 1850 midshipmen went at once to sea, and, after five
+years there, spent one at Annapolis; whereupon followed the final
+examination for a lieutenancy. This effected, the man became a
+"passed" midshipman. Beginning with 1851, the system was changed. Four
+years at the Academy were required, after which two at sea, and then
+examination. This, being a clean break with the past, outraged
+conservatism; it introduced such abominations as French and extended
+mathematics; much attention was paid to infantry drill--soldiering;
+the scheme was not "practical;" and it was doubtless true that the
+young graduate, despite six months of summer cruising interposed
+between academic terms, came comparatively green to shipboard. In that
+particular respect he could not but compare for the moment unfavorably
+with one who under the old plan would have spent four years on a
+ship's deck. Whether, that brief period of inexperience passed, he
+would not be permanently the better for the prior initiation into the
+_rationale_ of his business, few inquired, and time had not yet had
+opportunity to show.
+
+Perhaps, too, there was among the graduates something of the
+"freshness" which is attributed to the same age in leaving a
+university. I do not think it; the immediate contact with conditions
+but partly familiar to us, yet perfectly familiar to all about us,
+excited rather a wholesome feeling of inferiority or inadequacy. We
+had yet to find ourselves. But there remained undoubtedly some
+antagonism between the old and the new. Not that this ever showed
+itself offensively; nothing could have been kinder or more
+open-hearted than our reception by the lieutenants who had not known
+the Academy, and who probably depreciated it in their hearts. Whatever
+they thought, nothing was ever said that could reflect upon us, the
+outcome of the system. It was not even hinted that we might have been
+turned out in better shape under different conditions. From my
+personal experience, I hope we proved more satisfactory than may have
+been expected. When we returned home in 1861, just after the first
+battle of Bull Run, our third lieutenant said to me that he expected a
+command, and would be glad to have me as his first lieutenant; and
+upon my detachment one of the warrant officers expressed his regret
+that I was not remaining as one of the lieutenants of the ship. Both
+being men of mature years and long service, and with no obligation to
+speak, it is permissible to infer that they thought us fit at least to
+take the deck. As it was, in the uproar of those days, no questions
+were asked. The usual examinations were waived, and my class was
+hurried out of the midshipmen's mess into the first-lieutenant's
+berth. Without exception, I believe, we all had that duty at
+once--second to the captain--missing thereby the very valuable
+experience of the deck officer. In the face of considerable
+opposition, as I was told by Admiral Dupont, the leading officers of
+the day frustrated the attempt to introduce volunteer officers from
+the merchant service over our heads; another proof of confidence in
+us, as at least good raw material. The longer practice of the others
+at sea was alleged as a reason for thus preferring them, which was
+seriously contemplated; but the reply was that acquaintance with the
+organization of a ship-of-war, with her equipment and armament, the
+general military tone so quickly assimilated by the young and so
+hardly by the mature, outweighed completely any mere question of
+attainment in handling a ship. As drill officers, too, the general
+excellence of the graduates was admitted.
+
+Within a fortnight of doing duty on the forecastle, as a midshipman, I
+thus found myself first lieutenant of a very respectable vessel. One
+of my shipmates, less quickly fortunate, was detailed to instruct a
+number of volunteer officers with the great guns and muskets. One of
+them said to him, "Yes, you can teach me this, but I expect I can
+teach you something in seamanship"; a freedom of speech which by
+itself showed imperfect military temper. At the same moment, I myself
+had a somewhat similar encounter, which illustrates why the old
+officers insisted on the superior value of military habit, and the
+necessarily unmilitary attitude, at first, of the volunteers. I had
+been sent momentarily to a paddle-wheel merchant-steamer, now
+purchased for a ship-of-war, the _James Adger_, which had plied
+between Charleston and New York. A day or two after joining, I saw two
+of the engineer force going ashore without my knowledge. I stopped
+them; and a few moments afterwards the chief engineer, who had long
+been in her when she was a packet, came to me with flaming eyes and
+angry voice to know by what right I interfered with his men. It had to
+be explained to him that, unlike the merchant-service, the engine-room
+was but a department of the military whole of the ship, and that other
+consent than his was necessary to their departure. A trivial incident,
+with a whole world of atmosphere behind it.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE NAVAL ACADEMY IN ITS RELATION TO THE NAVY AT LARGE
+
+1850-1860
+
+
+Probably there have been at all periods educational excesses in the
+outlook of some of the Naval Academy authorities; and I personally
+have sympathized in the main with those who would subordinate the
+technological element to the more strictly professional. I remember
+one superintendent--and he, unless rumor was in error, had been one of
+the early opposition--saying to me with marked elation, "I believe we
+carry the calculus farther here than they do at West Point." I myself
+had then long forgotten all the calculus I ever knew, and I fear that
+with him, too, it was a case of _omne ignotum pro magnifico_. A more
+curious extravagancy was uttered to me by a professor of applied
+mathematics. I had happened to say that, while it was well each
+student should have the opportunity to acquire all he could in that
+department, I did not think it necessary that every officer of the
+deck should be able to calculate mathematically the relation between a
+weight he had to hoist on board and the power of the purchase he was
+about to use; which I think a mild proposition, considering the
+centuries during which that knowledge had been dispensed with. "Oh, I
+differ with you," he replied; "I think it of the utmost importance
+they should all be able to do so." Nothing like sails, said my friend
+the sailmaker; nothing like leather, says the shoemaker. I mentioned
+this shortly afterwards to one of my colleagues, himself an officer
+of unusual mathematical and scientific attainment. "No!" he exclaimed;
+"did he _really_ say that?"
+
+This was to claim for this mere head knowledge a falsely "practical"
+value, as distinguished from the educational value of the mental
+training involved, and from the undoubted imperative need of such
+acquisitions in those who have to deal with problems of ship
+construction or other mechanical questions connected with naval
+material. His position was really as little practical as that of the
+men who opposed the Academy plan in general as unpractical; as little
+practical as it would be to maintain that it is essential that every
+naval officer to-day should be skilled to handle a ship under sail,
+because the habit of the sailing-ship educated, brought out, faculties
+and habits of the first value to the military man. Still, there is
+something not only excusable, but laudable, in a man magnifying his
+office; and it was well that my friend the professor should have a
+slightly exaggerated idea of the bearing of the calculus on the daily
+routine or occasional emergencies of a ship. What is needed is a
+counterpoise, to correct undue deflection of the like kind, to which
+an educational institution from its very character and object is
+always liable. That the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the
+Sabbath, is a saying of wide application. The administrator tends to
+think more of his administrative machine than of the object for which
+it exists, and the educator to forget that while the foundation is
+essential, it yet exists only for the building, which is the
+"practical" end in view. The object of naval education is to make a
+naval officer. Too much as well as too little of one ingredient will
+mar the compound; and if exaggeration cannot be wholly avoided, it had
+better rest upon the professional side. This was the function
+discharged by the critical attitude of the outside service, such as my
+friend of the railroad; at times somewhat irrational, but still as a
+check effective after the manner of other public opinion, of which in
+fact it was an instance.
+
+In September, 1856, when I entered, professional influence was perhaps
+in excess. The preceding June had seen the graduation of the last
+class of "oldsters"--of those who, after five years at sea, had spent
+the sixth at the Academy, subjected formally to its discipline and
+methods. I therefore just missed seeing that phase of the Academy's
+history; but I could not thereby escape the traces of its influence.
+However transient, this lasted my time. It may be imagined what an
+influential, yet incongruous, element in a crowd of boys was
+constituted by introducing among them twenty or thirty young men, too
+young for ripeness, yet who for five years had been bearing the not
+slight responsibility of the charge of seamen, often on duty away from
+their superiors, and permitted substantially all the powers and
+privileges conceded to their seniors, men of mature years. How could
+such be brought under the curb of the narrowly ordered life of the
+school, for the short eight months to which they knew the ordeal was
+restricted? Could this have been attempted seriously, there would
+probably have been an explosion; but in truth, as far as my
+observation went, most of the disciplinary officers, the lieutenants,
+rather sympathized with irregularities, within pretty wide limits. A
+midshipman was a being who traditionally had little but the exuberance
+of his spirits to make up for the discomforts of his lot. The
+comprehensive saying that what was nobody's business was a
+midshipman's business epitomized the harrying of his daily life, with
+its narrow quarters, hard fare, and constant hustling for poor pay.
+Like the seaman, above whom in earlier days he stood but little, the
+midshipman had then only his jollity--and his youth--to compensate;
+and also like the seaman a certain recklessness was conceded to his
+moments of enjoyment. The very name carried with it the privilege of
+frolicking.
+
+The old times of license among seafaring men were still of recent
+memory, and, though practice had improved, opinion remained tolerant.
+The gunner of the first ship in which I served after graduation told
+me that in 1832, when he was a young seaman before the mast on board a
+sloop-of-war in the Mediterranean, on Christmas Eve, there being a
+two-knot breeze--that is, substantially, calm--at sundown the ship was
+put under two close-reefed topsails for the night--storm canvas--and
+then the jollity began. How far it was expected to go may be inferred
+from the precautions; and we gain here some inkling of the phrase
+"heavy weather" applied to such conditions. But of the same ship he
+told me that she stood into the harbor of Malta under all sail, royal
+and studding sails, to make a flying moor; which, I must explain to
+the unprofessional, is to drop an anchor under sail, the cable running
+out under the force of the ship's way till the place is reached for
+letting go the second anchor, the ship finally being brought to lie
+midway between the two. An accurate eye, a close judgment as to the
+ship's speed, and absolute promptness of execution are needed; for all
+the sail that is on when the first anchor goes must be off before the
+second. In this case nothing was started before the first. Within
+fifteen minutes all was in, the ship moored, sails furled, and yards
+squared, awaiting doubtless the final touches of the boatswain.
+Whether the flag of the port was saluted within the same quarter-hour,
+I will not undertake to say; it would be quite in keeping to have
+attempted it. System, preparation, and various tricks of the trade go
+far to facilitate such rapidity. Now I dare say that some of my
+brother officers may cavil at this story; but I personally believe it,
+with perhaps two or three minutes' allowance for error in clocks. Much
+may be accepted of seamen who not uncommonly reefed topsails "in
+stays"--that is, while the ship was being tacked. Of the narrator's
+good faith I am certain. It was not with hint one of the stock stories
+told about "the last cruise;" nor was he a romancer. It came naturally
+in course of conversation, as one tells any experience; and he added,
+when the British admiral returned the commander's visit he
+complimented the ship on the smartest performance he had ever seen.
+But it is in the combination of license and smartness that the pith of
+these related stories lies; between them they embody much of the
+spirit of a time which in 1855 was remembered and influential. Midway
+in the War of Secession I met the first lieutenant who held the
+trumpet in that memorable manoeuvre--a man of 1813; now a quiet,
+elderly, slow-spoken old gentleman, retired, with little to suggest
+the smart officer, at the stamp of whose foot the ship's company
+jumped, to use the gunner's expression.
+
+Such performances exemplify the ideals that still obtained--were in
+full force--in the navy as first I knew it. In the ship in which the
+gunner and I were then serving, it was our common performance to "Up
+topgallant-masts and yards, and loose sail to a bowline," in three
+minutes and a half from the time the topmen and the masts started
+aloft together from the deck. For this time I can vouch myself, and we
+did it fairly, too; though I dare say we would have hesitated to carry
+the sails in a stiff breeze without a few minutes more. It was a very
+dramatic and impressive performance. The band, with drum and fife, was
+part of it. When all was reported ready from the three masts--but not
+before--it was permitted to be eight o'clock. The drums gave three
+rolls, the order "Sway across, let fall," was given, the yards swung
+into their places, the sails dropped and were dragged out by their
+bowlines to facilitate their drying, the bell struck eight, the flag
+was hoisted, and close on the drums followed the band playing the
+"Star-Spangled Banner," while the ship's company went to breakfast. It
+was the transformation scene of a theatre; within five minutes the
+metamorphosis was complete. There was doubtless a flavor of the circus
+about it all, but it was a wholesome flavor and tonicked the
+professional appetite. Yes, and the natural appetite, too; your
+breakfast tasted better, especially if some other ship had got into
+trouble with one of her yards or sails. "Did you see what a mess the
+---- made of fore-topgallant-yard this morning?" An old boatswain's
+mate of the ship used to tell me one of his "last-cruise" stories, of
+when he "was in the _Delaware_, seventy-four, up the Mediterranean, in
+1842." Of course, the _Delaware_ had beaten the _Congress's_ time; the
+last ship always did. Then he would add: "I was in the foretop in
+those days, and had the fore-topgallant-yard; and if one of us fellows
+let his yard show on either side of the mast before the order 'Sway
+across,' we could count on a dozen when we got down just as sure as we
+could count on our breakfast." Flogging was not abolished until about
+1849. No wonder men were jolly when they could be, without worrying
+about to-morrow's headache.
+
+Part of the preparation was to let the captain know beforehand that it
+was eight o'clock, and get his authority that it might be so; subject
+always to the yet higher authority that the yards and sails were
+ready. If they were not, so much the worse for eight o'clock. It had
+to wait quite as imperatively as the sun did for Joshua. Sunset, when
+the masts and yards came down, was equally under bonds; it awaited the
+pleasure of the captain or admiral. Indeed, in my time a story ran of
+a court-martial at a much earlier day, sitting in a capital case. By
+law, each day's session must end by sundown. On the occasion in
+question, sundown was reported to the admiral--or, rather, commodore;
+we had no admirals then. He sent to know how soon the court could
+finish. The reply was, in about fifteen minutes. "Tell the officer of
+the deck not to make it sundown until he hears from me;" and, in
+defiance of the earth's movement, the colors were kept flying in
+attestation that the sun was up. One other hour of the twenty-four,
+noon, was brought in like manner to the captain's attention, and
+required his action, but it was treated with more deference;
+recognition rather than authority was meted to it, and it was never
+known to be tampered with. The circumstance of the sun's crossing the
+ship's meridian was unique in the day; and the observation of the
+fact, which drew on deck all the navigating group with their
+instruments, establishing the latitude immediately and precisely, was
+of itself a principal institution of the ship's economy. Such claims
+were not open to trifling; and were there not also certain established
+customs, almost vested interests, such as the seven-bell nip, cocktail
+or otherwise, connected with the half-hour before, when "the sun was
+over the fore-yard"? I admit I never knew whence the latter phrase
+originated, nor just what it meant, but it has associations. Like sign
+language, it can be understood.
+
+I was myself shipmate, as they say, with most of this sort of thing;
+for with its good points and its bad it did not disappear until the
+War of Secession, the exigencies of which drove out alike the sails
+and the sailor. The abolition of the grog ration in 1862 may be looked
+upon as a chronological farewell to a picturesque past. We did not so
+understand it. Contemporaries are apt to be blind to bloodless
+revolutions. Had we seen the full bearing, perhaps there might have
+been observed a professional sundown, in recognition of the fact that
+the topgallant-yards had come down for the last time, ending one
+professional era. A protest was recorded by one eccentric character, a
+survival whom Cooper unfortunately never knew, who hoisted a whiskey
+demijohn at the peak of his gunboat--the ensign's allotted place. To
+the admiral's immediate demand for an explanation, he replied that
+that was the flag he served under; but he was one of those to whom all
+things are forgiven. The seaman remains, and must always remain while
+there are seas to cross and to rule; but the sailor, in his
+accomplishments and in his defects, began then to depart, or to be
+evolutionized into something entirely different. I am bound to admit
+that in the main the better has survived, but, now that such hairs as
+I have are gray, I may be permitted to look back somewhat wistfully
+and affectionately on that which I remember a half-century ago;
+perhaps to sympathize with the seamen of the period, who saw
+themselves swamped out of sight and influence among the vast numbers
+required by the sudden seven or eight fold expansion of the navy for
+that momentous conflict. Occasionally one of these old salts, mournful
+amid his new environment, would meet me, and say, "Ah! Mr. Mahan, the
+navy isn't what it was!" True, in 1823, Lord St. Vincent, then verging
+on ninety, had made the same remark to George IV.; and I am quite
+sure, if the aged admiral had searched his memory, he could have
+recalled it in the mouth of some veteran of 1750. The worst of it is,
+this is perennially true. From period to period the gain exceeds, but
+still there has been loss as well; and to sentiment, ranging over the
+past, the loss stands more conspicuous. "Memory reveals every rose,
+but secreteth its thorn."
+
+This is the more apparent when the change has been sudden, or on such
+a scale as to overwhelm, by mere bulk, that subtle influence for which
+we owe to the French the name of _esprit de corps_. It is the breath
+of the body, the breath of life. Before the War of Secession our old
+friends the marines had a deserved reputation for fidelity, which
+could not survive the big introduction of alien matter into the
+"corps." I remember hearing an officer of long service say that he
+had known but a single instance of a marine deserting; and as to the
+general fact there was no dissent among the by-standers. The same
+could scarcely be said now, nor of seamen then. The sentiment of
+particular faithfulness had been nurtured in the British marines under
+times and conditions which made them at a critical moment the saviors
+of discipline, and thereby the saviors of the state. It is needless to
+philosophize the strength of such a tradition, so established, nor its
+effect on each member of the body; and from thence, not improbably, it
+was transmitted to our younger navy. Whencever coming, there it was.
+One marine private, in the ship to which I belonged, returning from
+liberty on shore, was heard saying to another with drunken
+impressiveness, "Remember, our motto is, 'Patriotism and laziness.'"
+Of course, this went round the ship, greatly delighting on both counts
+our marine officers, and became embodied in the chaff that passed to
+and fro between the two corps; of which one saying, "The two most
+useless things in a ship were the captain of marines and the
+mizzen-royal," deserves for its drollery to be committed to writing,
+now that mizzen-royals have ceased to be. May it be long before the
+like extinction awaits the captains of marines! Our own, however, an
+eccentric man, who had accomplished the then rare feat of working his
+way up from the ranks, used to claim that marines were an absurdity.
+"It is having one army to keep another army in order," he would say.
+This was once true, and might with equal truth be said of a city
+police force--one set of citizens to keep the other citizens orderly.
+In the olden time it had been the application of the sound
+statesmanship dogma, "_Divide et impera_." For this, in the navy,
+happily, the need no longer exists; but I can see no reason to believe
+the time at hand when we can dispense with a corps of seamen, the
+specialty of which is infantry--and shore expedition when necessary.
+Patriotism, as our marine understood it, was sticking by your colors
+and your corps, and doing your duty through thick and thin; no bad
+ideal.
+
+In like mingling of good and evil, the oldsters at the Naval Academy,
+along with some things objectionable, including a liberty that under
+the conditions too often resembled license, brought with them sound
+traditions, which throughout my stay there constituted a real _esprit
+de corps_. In nothing was this more conspicuous than in the attitude
+towards hazing. Owing to circumstances I will mention later, I entered
+at once the class which, as I understand, most usually perpetrated the
+outrageous practices that became a scandal in the country--the class,
+that is, which is entering on its second year at the Academy. My home
+having always been at the Military Academy, I, without much thinking,
+expected to find rife the same proceedings which had prevailed there
+from time to me immemorial. Such anticipations made deeper and more
+lasting the impression produced by the contrary state of things, and
+yet more by the wholly different tone prevalent at Annapolis. Not only
+was hazing not practised, but it scarcely obtained even the
+recognition of mention; it was not so much reprobated as ignored; and,
+if it came under discussion at all, it was dismissed with a turn of
+the nose, as something altogether beneath us. That is not the sort of
+thing we do here. It may be all very well at West Point--much as "what
+would do for a marine could not be thought of for a seaman"--but we
+were "officers and gentlemen," and thought no small beans of ourselves
+as such. There were at times absurd manifestations of this same
+precocious dignity, of which I may speak later; still, as O'Brien said
+of Boatswain Chucks, "You may laugh at such assumptions of gentility,
+but did any one of his shipmates ever know Mr. Chucks to do an
+unhandsome or a mean action?--and why? Because he aspired to be a
+gentleman."
+
+While I can vouch for this general state of feeling, I cannot be sure
+of its derivation; but I have always thought it due to the presence
+during the previous five years of the "oldsters," nominally under the
+same discipline as ourselves, but looked up to with the respect and
+observance which at that age are naturally given to those two or three
+seasons older. And these men were not merely more advanced in years.
+They were matured beyond their age by early habits of responsibility
+and command, and themselves imbued by constant contact with the spirit
+of the phrase "an officer and a gentleman," which constitutes the norm
+of military conduct. Their intercourse with their seniors on board
+ship had been much closer than that which was possible at the school.
+This atmosphere they brought with them to a position from which they
+could not but most powerfully influence us. How far the tradition
+might have been carried on, in smooth seas, I do not know; but along
+with many other things, good and bad, it was shattered by the War of
+Secession. The school was precipitately removed to Newport, where it
+was established in extemporized and temporary surroundings; the older
+undergraduates were hurried to sea, while the new entries were huddled
+together on two sailing frigates moored in the harbor, dissociated
+from the influence of those above them. The whole anatomy and, so to
+say, nervous system of the organization were dislocated. For better or
+for worse, perhaps for better and for worse, the change was more like
+death and resurrection than life and growth. The potent element which
+the oldster had contributed, and the upper classes absorbed and
+perpetuated, was eliminated at once and entirely by the detachment of
+the senior cadets and the segregation of the new-corners. New ideals
+were evolved by a mass of school-boys, severed from those elder
+associates with the influence of whom no professors nor officers can
+vie. How hazing came up I do not know, and am not writing its
+history. I presume it is one of the inevitable weeds that school-boy
+nature brings forth of itself, unless checked by unfavorable
+environment. I merely note its almost total absence in my time; its
+subsequent existence was unhappily notorious.
+
+A general good-humored tolerance, easy-going, and depending upon a
+mutual understanding, none the less clear because informal,
+characterized the relations of the officers and students. Primarily,
+each were in the appreciation of the other officers and gentlemen. So
+far there was implicit equality; and while the ones were in duty bound
+to enforce academic regulations, which the others felt an equal
+obligation to disregard, it was a kind of game in which they did not
+much mind being losers, provided we did not trespass on the standards
+of the gentleman, and of the officer liberally construed. They, I
+think, had an unacknowledged feeling that while under school-boy, or
+collegiate, discipline as to times or manners, some relaxation of
+strict official correctness must be endured. Larking, sometimes
+uproarious, met with personal sympathy, if official condemnation. Nor
+did we resent being detected by what we regarded as fair means; to
+which we perhaps gave a pretty wide interpretation. The exceptional
+man, who inspected at unaccustomed hours, which we considered our own
+prescriptive right--though not by rules--who came upon us unawares,
+was apt to be credited with rather unofficer-like ideas of what was
+becoming, and suspected of the not very gentlemanly practice of
+wearing noiseless rubber shoes. That intimation of his approach was
+conveyed by us from room to room by concerted taps on the gas-pipes
+was fair war; nor did our opponents seem to mind what they could not
+but clearly hear. Indeed, I think most of them were rather glad to
+find evidences of order and propriety prevailing, where possibly but
+for those kindly signals they might have detected matter for report.
+
+There was one lieutenant, however, the memory of whom was still green
+as a bay-tree in my day, though it would have been blasted indeed
+could cursing have blighted it, to whom the game of detective seemed
+to possess the fascination of the chase; and so successful was he that
+his baffled opponents could not view the matter dispassionately, nor
+accept their defeat in sportsman-like spirit. I knew him later; he had
+a saturnine appearance, not calculated to conciliate a victim, but he
+liked a joke, especially of the practical kind, and for the sake of
+one successfully achieved could forgive an offender. Night surprises,
+inroads on the enemy's country, at the hours when we were mistakenly
+supposed to be safe in bed, and regulations so required, were favorite
+stratagems with him. On one occasion, so tradition ran, some
+half-dozen midshipmen had congregated in a room "after taps," and,
+with windows carefully darkened, had contrived an extempore kitchen to
+fry themselves a mess of oysters. The process was slow, owing to the
+number of oysters the pan could take at once and the largeness of the
+expectant appetites; but it had progressed nearly to completion, when
+without premonition the door opened and ---- appeared. He asked no
+questions and offered no comments, but, walking to the platter, seized
+it and threw out of the window the accumulated results of an hour's
+weary work. No further notice of the delinquency followed; the
+discomfiture of the sufferers sufficiently repaid his sense of humor.
+At another midnight hour a midshipman visiting in a room not his,
+lured thither, let us hope, by the charms of intellectual
+conversation, was warned by the gas-pipes that the enemy was on the
+war-path. Retreat being cut off, he took refuge under a bed, but
+unwittingly left a hand visible. ---- caught sight of it, walked to
+the bed, flashed his lantern in the eyes of its occupant, who
+naturally was sleeping as never before, and at the same time trod hard
+on the exposed fingers. A squeal followed this unexpected attention,
+and the culprit had to drag himself out; but the lieutenant was
+satisfied, and let him go at that.
+
+I have said that larking met with more than toleration--with sympathy.
+The once magic word "midshipman" seemed to cloak any outburst of
+frolicking; otherwise some exhibitions I witnessed could scarcely have
+passed unscathed. They were felt to be in character by the older
+officers; and, while obliged to reprehend, I doubt whether some of
+them would not have more enjoyed taking a share. They knew, too, that
+we were just as proud as they of the service, and that under all lay
+an entire readiness to do or to submit to that which we and they alike
+recognized as duty. Sometimes rioting went rather too far, but for the
+most part it was harmless. One rather grave incident, shortly before
+my entry, derived its humor mainly from the way in which it was
+treated by the superintendent. One of the out-buildings of the
+Academy, either because offensive or out of sheer deviltry, was set on
+fire and destroyed. The perpetrator of this startling practical joke
+was Alexander F. Crosman, of the '51 Date, whom many of us yet
+living remember well. Small in stature, with something of the
+"chip-on-the-shoulder" characteristic, often seen in such, he was
+conspicuous for a certain chivalrous gallantry of thought and mien,
+the reflection of a native brilliant courage; a trait which in the end
+caused his death, about 1870, by drowning, in the effort to save an
+imperilled boat's crew. The superintendent, a man of ponderous
+dimensions, and equally ponderous but rapid speech--though it is due
+to say also unusually accomplished, both professionally and
+personally--was greatly outraged and excited at this defiance of
+discipline. The day following he went out to meet the corps, when it
+had just left some formation, and, calling a halt, delivered a speech
+on the basis of the _Articles of War_, a copy of which he brandished
+before his audience. These ancient ordinances, among many other
+denunciations of naval crimes and misdemeanors, pronounced the
+punishment of death, or "such other worse" as a court-martial might
+adjudge, upon "any person in the Navy who shall maliciously set on
+fire, or otherwise destroy, any government property not then in the
+possession of an _enemy, pirate, or rebel_." The gem of oratory
+hereupon erected was paraphrased as follows by the culprit himself,
+aided and abetted in his lyrical flight by his room-mate, John S.
+Barnes, who, after graduating left the service, returned for the War
+of Secession, and subsequently resigned finally. To this survivor of
+the two collaborators I owe the particulars of the affair. How many
+more "traitors" there were I know not. Those who recall the speaker
+will recognize that the parody must have followed closely the real
+words of the address:
+
+   "Young gentlemen assembled!--
+      It makes no matter where--
+    I only want to speak to you,
+      So hear me where you are.
+
+   "Some vile incendiary
+      Last night was prowling round,
+    Who set fire to our round-house
+      And burned it to the ground.
+
+   "I'll read the Naval Law;
+      The man who dares to burn
+    A round-house,--not the Enemy's,--
+      A traitor's fate shall learn.
+
+   "And if a man there be,
+      Who does this traitor know,
+    And keeps it to himself,
+      He shall suffer death also!
+
+   "'Tis well, then, to tell, then,
+      Who did this grievous ill;
+    And, d--n him, I will hang him,
+      So help me God! I will!"
+
+If anything could have added to the gayety of the fire, such an
+outburst would.
+
+In after years I sailed under the command of this speechmaker. At
+monthly musters he reserved to himself the prerogative of reading the
+_Articles_, probably thinking that he did it more effectively than the
+first lieutenant; in which he was quite right. It so happened that,
+owing to doubt whether a certain paragraph applied to the Marine
+Corps, Congress had been pleased to make a special enactment that the
+word "persons" in such and such a clause "should be construed to
+include marines." Coming as this did near the end, some humorist was
+moved to remark that the first Sunday in the month muster was for the
+purpose of informing us authoritatively that a marine was a person. As
+the captain read this interesting announcement, his voice assumed a
+gradual _crescendo_, concluding with a profound emphasis on the word
+"marines," which he accompanied with a half turn and a flourish of the
+book towards that honorable body, drawn up in full uniform, at parade
+rest, its venerable captain, whose sandy hair was fast streaking with
+gray, standing at its head, his hands meekly crossed over his
+sword-hilt, the blade hanging down before him; all doubtless suitably
+impressed with this definition of their status, which for greater
+certainty they heard every month. It was very fine, very fine indeed;
+appealing to more senses than one.
+
+The shore drills--infantry and field artillery--furnished special
+occasions for organized--or disorganized--upheavals of animal spirits.
+For these exercises we then had scant respect. They were "soldiering;"
+and from time immemorial soldier had been an adjective to express
+uselessness, or that which was so easy as to pass no man's ability. A
+soldier's wind, for example, was a wind fair both ways--to go and to
+return; no demands on brains there, much less on seamanship. The
+curious irrelevancy of such applications never strikes persons;
+unless, indeed, a perception of incongruity is the soul of wit, a
+definition which I think I have heard. To depart without the ceremony
+of saying good-bye takes its name from the most elaborately civil of
+people--French leave; while the least perturbable of nations has been
+made to contribute an epithet, Dutch, to the courage derived from the
+whiskey-bottle. In the latter case, however, I fancy that, besides the
+tradition of long-ago national rivalries, there may have been the idea
+that to excite a Dutchman you must, as they say, light a fire under
+him; or as was forcibly remarked by a midshipman of my time of his
+phlegmatic room-mate, he had to kick him in the morning to get him
+started for the day.
+
+To return to the shore drills: these were then committed to one of the
+civil professors of the Academy, a fact which itself spoke for the
+familiarity with them of the sea lieutenants. As these always
+exercised us at ships' guns, the different estimation which the two
+obtained in the outside service was too obvious to escape quick-witted
+young fellows, and it was difficult to overcome the resultant
+disrespect. The professor was not one to effect the impossible. He was
+a graduate of West Point, a man of ability, not lacking in dignity,
+and personally worthy of all respect; but he stuttered badly, and this
+impediment not only received no mercy from youth, but interfered with
+the accuracy of manoeuvres where the word of command needed to be
+timely in utterance. Report ran that on one occasion, advancing by
+column of companies, while the professor was struggling with
+"H-H-H-Halt!" the leading company, composed martyrs to discipline,
+marched over the sea-wall into three feet of water. Had the water
+been deeper, they might have been less literal. Despite his military
+training, his bearing and carriage had not the strong soldierly stamp
+which might redeem his infirmity, and even in the class-room a certain
+whimsical atmosphere seemed borne from the drill-ground. He, I
+believe, was the central figure of one of the most humorous scenes in
+Herman Melville's _White Jacket_, a book which, despite its prejudiced
+tone, has preserved many amusing and interesting inside recollections
+of a ship-of-war of the olden time. The naval instructor on board the
+frigate is using Rodney's battle of 1782 to illustrate on the
+blackboard the principles of naval tactics to the class of midshipmen.
+"Now, young gentlemen, you see this disabled French ship in the
+corner, far to windward of her fleet, between it and the enemy. She
+has lost all three masts, and the greater part of the ship's company
+are killed and wounded; what will you do to save her?" To this knotty
+problem many extemporized "practical" answers are given, of which the
+most plausible is by Mr. Dash, of Virginia--"I should nail my colors
+to the mast and let her sink under me." As this could scarcely be
+called saving her, Mr. Dash is rebuked for irrelevance; but, after the
+gamut of possible solutions has been well guessed over, the instructor
+announces impressively, "That ship, young gentlemen, cannot be saved."
+
+I cannot say that he dealt with us thus tantalizingly; but one of my
+contemporaries used to tell a story of his personal experience which
+was generically allied to the above. At the conclusion of some faulty
+manoeuvre, the instructor remarked aloud: "This all went wrong, owing
+to Mr. P.'s not standing fast in his own person. We will now repeat
+it, for the particular benefit of Mr. P." The repetition ensued, and
+in its course the instructor called out, "Be careful, Mr. P., and
+stand fast where you are." "I am standing fast," replied P.,
+incautiously. "R-R-Report Mr. P. for talking in ranks." At the
+Academy, naval tactics were not within his purview; and of all our
+experiences with him in the class-room, one ludicrous incident alone
+remains with me. One of my class, though in most ways well at head,
+was a little alarmed about his standing in infantry tactics. He
+therefore at a critical occasion attempted to carry the text-book with
+him to the blackboard. This surreptitious deed, being not to get
+advantage over a fellow, but to save himself, was condoned by public
+opinion; but, being unused to such deceits, in his agitation he copied
+his figure upside down and became hopelessly involved in the
+demonstration. The professor next day took occasion to comment
+slightingly on our general performance, but "as to Mr. ----," he
+added, derisively, "he did r-r-r-wretchedly."
+
+I sometimes wonder that we learned anything about "soldiering," but we
+did in a way. The principles and theory were mastered, if performance
+was slovenly; and in execution, as company officers, we got our
+companies "there," although just how we did it might be open to
+criticism. In our last year the adjutant in my class, who graduated at
+its head, on the first occasion of forming the battalion, after some
+moments of visible embarrassment could think of no order more
+appropriate than "Form your companies fore and aft the pavement." Fore
+and aft is "lengthwise" of a ship. No humiliation attended such a
+confession of ignorance--on that subject; but had the same man "missed
+stays" when in charge of the deck, he would have been sorely
+mortified. His successor of to-day probably never will have a chance
+to miss stays. There thus ran through our drills an undercurrent of
+levity, which on provocation would burst out almost spontaneously into
+absurdity. On one occasion the battalion was drawn up in line,
+fronting at some distance the five buildings which then constituted
+the midshipmen's quarters. The intimation was given that we were to
+advance and then charge. Once put in motion, I know not whether
+stuttering lost the opportunity of stopping us, but the pace became
+quicker and quicker till the whole body broke into a run, rushed
+cheering tumultuously through the passages between the houses, and
+reformed, peaceably enough, on the other side. The captains all got a
+wigging for failing to keep us in hand; but they were powerless. The
+whole thing was without preconcertment or warning. It could hardly
+have happened, however, had the instinct of discipline been as strong
+in these drills as in others.
+
+A more deliberate prank was played with the field artillery. These
+light pieces, being of the nature of cannon rather than muskets,
+obtained more deference, being recognized as of the same genus with
+the great guns which then constituted a ship's broadside. On one
+occasion they were incautiously left out overnight on the
+drill-ground. Between tattoo and taps, 9.30 to 10 P.M., was always a
+half-hour of release from quarters. There was mischief ready-made for
+idle hands to do. The guns were taken in possession, rushed violently
+to and fro in mock drill performance, and finally taken to pieces, the
+parts being scattered promiscuously in all directions. Dawn revealed
+an appearance of havoc resembling a popular impressionist
+representation of a battle-field. Here a caisson with its boxes,
+severed from their belongings, stretched its long pole appealingly
+towards heaven; the wheels had been dispersed to distant quarters of
+the ground and lay on their sides; elsewhere were the guns, sometimes
+reversed and solitary, at others not wholly dismounted, canted at an
+angle, with one wheel in place. As there were six of them, complete in
+equipments, the scene was extensive and of most admired confusion;
+ingenuity had exhausted itself in variety, to enhance picturesqueness
+of effect. How the lieutenant in charge accounted for all this
+happening without his interference, I do not know. Certainly there was
+noise enough, but then that half-hour always was noisy. The
+superintendent of that time had, when walking, a trick of grasping the
+lapel of his coat with his right hand, and twitching it when
+preoccupied. The following day, as he surveyed conditions, it seemed
+as if the lapel might come away; but he made us no speech, nor, as far
+as I know, was any notice taken of the affair. No real damage had been
+done, and the man would indeed have been hard-heartedly conscientious
+who would grudge the action which showed him so comical a sight.
+
+I once heard an excellent first lieutenant--Farragut's own through the
+principal actions of the War of Secession--say that where there was
+obvious inattention to uniform there would always be found slackness
+in discipline. It may be, therefore, that our habits as to uniform
+were symptomatic of the same easy tolerance which bore with such
+extravagances as I have mentioned; the like of which, in overt act,
+was not known to me in my later association with the Academy as an
+officer. We had a prescribed uniform, certainly; but regulations, like
+legislative acts, admit of much variety of interpretation and latitude
+in practice, unless there is behind them a strong public sentiment. In
+my earlier days there was no public sentiment of the somewhat martinet
+kind; such as would compel all alike to wear an overcoat because the
+captain felt cold. In practice, there was great laxity in details. I
+remember, in later days and later manners, when we were all compelled
+to be well buttoned up to the throat, a young officer remarked to me
+disparagingly of another, "He's the sort of man, you know, who would
+wear a frock-coat unbuttoned." There's nothing like classification. My
+friend had achieved a feat in natural history; in ten words he had
+defined a species. On another occasion the same man remorselessly
+wiped out of existence another species, consecrated by generations of
+blue-books and _Naval Regulations_. "I know nothing of superior
+officers," he said; "senior officers, if you choose; but superior,
+no!" Whether the _Naval Regulations_ have yet recognized this obvious
+distinction, whether it is no longer "superior officers," but only
+senior officers, who are not to be "treated with contempt," etc., I
+have not inquired. Apart from such amusing criticism of the times
+past, it is undoubtedly true that attention to minutiæ is symptomatic
+of a much more important underlying spirit, one of exactness and
+precision running through all the management of a ship and affecting
+her efficiency. I concede that a thing so trifling as the buttoning of
+a frock-coat may indicate a development and survival of the fittest;
+but in 1855-60 frock-coats had not been disciplined, and in accordance
+with the tone of the general service we midshipmen were tacitly
+indulged in a similar freedom. This tolerance may have been in part a
+reaction from the vexatious and absurd interference of a decade before
+with such natural rights as the cut of the beard--not as matter of
+neatness, but of pattern. Even for some time after I graduated, unless
+I misunderstood my informants, officers in the British navy were not
+permitted to wear a full beard, nor a mustache; and we had out-breaks
+of similar regulative annoyance in our own service, one of which
+furnished Melville with a striking chapter. Discussing the matter in
+my presence once, the captain of a frigate said, "There is one reply
+to objectors; if they do not wish to conform, they can leave the
+service." Clearly, however, a middle-aged man cannot throw up his
+profession thus easily.
+
+Another circumstance that may have contributed to indifference to
+details of dress was the carefulness with which the old-time sea
+officers had constantly to look after the set and trim of the canvas.
+Every variation of the wind, every change of course, every
+considerable manoeuvre, involved corresponding changes in the
+disposition of the sails, which must be effected not only correctly,
+but with a minute exactness extending to half a hundred seemingly
+trivial details, upon precision in which depended--and justly--an
+officer's general reputation for officer-like character. Not only so,
+but the mere weight of rigging and sails, and the stretching resultant
+on such strain, caused recurring derangements, which, permitted,
+became slovenliness. Yards accurately braced, sheets home alike,
+weather leaches and braces taut, with all the other and sundry
+indications which a well-trained eye instinctively sought and noted,
+were less the dandyism than the self-respecting neatness of a
+well-dressed ship, and were no bad substitute, as tests, for buttoned
+frock-coats. The man without fault in the one might well be pardoned,
+by others as well as himself, for neglects which had never occurred to
+him to be such. His attention was centred elsewhere, as a man may
+think more of his wife's dress than his own. After all, one cannot be
+always stretched with four pins, as the French say; there must be some
+give somewhere.
+
+The frock was then the working coat of the navy. There was fuller
+dress for exceptional occasions, in which, at one festive muster early
+in the cruise, we all had to appear, to show that we had it; but
+otherwise it was generally done up in camphor. The jacket, which was
+prescribed to the midshipmen of the Academy, had informal recognition
+in the service, and we took our surviving garments of that order with
+us to sea, to wear them out. But, while here and there some officer
+would sport one, they could scarcely be called popular. One of our
+lieutenants, indeed, took a somewhat sentimental view of the jacket.
+"There was Mr. S.," he said to me, speaking of a brother midshipman,
+"on deck yesterday with a jacket. It looked so tidy and becoming. If
+there had been anything aloft out of the way, I could say to him,
+'Mr. S., just jump up there, will you, and see what is the matter?'"
+War, which soon afterwards followed with its stern preoccupations and
+incidental deprivations, induced inevitably deterioration in matters
+of dress. With it the sack-coat, or pilot-jacket, burrowed its way in,
+the cut and insignia of these showing many variations. The
+undergraduates at the Academy in my day had for all uses a
+double-breasted jacket; but it was worn buttoned, or not, at choice.
+On the rolling collar a gold foul anchor--an anchor with a rope cable
+twined round it--was prescribed; but, while a standard embroidered
+pattern was supplied at the Academy store, those who wished procured
+for themselves metal anchors, and these not only were of many shapes
+and sizes, but for symmetrical pinning in place demanded an accuracy
+of eye and hand which not every one had. The result was variegated and
+fanciful to a degree; but I doubt if any of the officers thought aught
+amiss. So the regulation vest buttoned up to the chin, but very many
+had theirs made with rolling collar, to show the shirt. I had a
+handsome, very dandy, creole classmate, whom an admiring family kept
+always well supplied with fancy shirts; and I am sure, if precisians
+of the present day could have seen him starting out on a Saturday
+afternoon to pay his visits, with everything just so--except in a
+regulation sense--and not a back hair out of place, they must have
+accepted the results as a testimony to the value of the personal
+factor in uniform. Respect for individual tastes was rather a mark of
+that time in the navy. Seamen handy with their needle were permitted,
+if not encouraged, to embroider elaborate patterns, in divers colors,
+on the fronts of their shirts, and turned many honest pennies by doing
+the like for less skillful shipmates. Pride in personal appearance,
+dandyism, is quite consonant with military feeling, as history has
+abundantly shown; and it may be that something has been lost as well
+as gained in the suppression of individual action, now when an
+inspecting officer may almost be said to carry with him a yard-stick
+and micrometer to detect deviations.
+
+A very curious manifestation of this disposition to bedeck the body
+was the prevalence of tattooing. If not universal, it was very nearly
+so among seamen of that day. Elaborate designs covering the chest, or
+back, or arms, were seen everywhere, when the men were stripped on
+deck for washing. There was no possible inducement to this except a
+crude love of ornament, or a mere imitation of a prevailing fashion,
+which is another manifestation of the same propensity. The
+inconvenience of being branded for life should have been felt by men
+prone to desertion; but the descriptive lists which accompany every
+crew were crowded with such remarks as, "Goddess of Liberty, r. f.
+a."--right forearm--the which, if a man ran away, helped the police of
+the port to identify him. My memory does not retain the various
+emblems thus perpetuated in men's skins; they were largely patriotic
+and extremely conventional, each practised tattooer having doubtless
+his own particular style. Many midshipmen of my time acquired these
+embellishments. I wonder if they have not since been sorry.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE NAVAL ACADEMY IN ITS INTERIOR WORKINGS
+
+PRACTICE CRUISES
+
+1855-60
+
+
+In the preceding pages my effort has been to reconstitute for the
+reader the navy, in body and in spirit, as it was when I entered in
+1856 and had been during the period immediately preceding. There was
+no marked change up to 1861, when the War of Secession began. The
+atmosphere and environment which I at first encountered upon my
+entrance to the Naval Academy, in 1856, had nothing strange, or even
+unfamiliar, to a boy who had devoured Cooper and Marryat--not as mere
+tales of adventure, but with some real appreciation and understanding
+of conditions as by them depicted. I had studied, as well as been
+absorbed by them. Cooper is much more of an idealist and romancer than
+is Marryat, who belongs essentially to the realistic school. Some of
+the Englishman's presentations may be exaggerated, though not beyond
+probability--elaborated would perhaps be a juster word--and in one
+passage he expressly abjures all willingness to present a caricature
+of the seaman he had known. Cooper, on the other hand, while his sea
+scenes are well worked up, has given us personalities which, tested by
+Marryat's, are made out of the whole cloth; creations, if you will,
+but not resemblances. Marryat entered the navy earlier than his rival,
+and followed the sea longer; his experience was in every way wider.
+Even in my time could be seen justifications of his portrayal; but
+who ever saw the like of Tom Coffin, Trysail, or Boltrope?
+
+The interested curiosity concerning all things naval which possessed
+me, and held me enthralled by the mere sight of an occasional
+square-rigged vessel, such as at rare intervals passed our home on the
+Hudson, fifty miles from the sea, led me also to pore over a copy of
+the _Academy Regulations_ which the then superintendent, Captain Louis
+Goldsborough, (afterwards Admiral), had sent my father. The two had
+been acquaintances in Paris, in the twenties of the century and of
+their own ages. I have always had a morbid fondness for registers and
+time-tables, and over them have wasted precious hours; but on this
+occasion the practice saved me a year. I discovered that, contrary to
+the established rule at the Military Academy, an appointee to the
+Naval might enter any class for which he could pass the examinations.
+Further inquiry confirmed this, and I set about fitting myself. At
+that date, even more than at present, the standard of admission to the
+two academies had to take into account the very differing facilities
+for education in different parts of the country, as well as the
+strictly democratic method of appointment. This being in the gift of
+the representative of the congressional district, the candidates came
+from every section; and, being selected by the various considerations
+which influence such patronage, the mass of lads who presented
+themselves necessarily differed greatly in acquirements. Hence, to
+enter either Annapolis or West Point only very rudimentary knowledge
+was demanded. Having grown up myself so far amid abundant opportunity,
+and been carefully looked after, I found that I was quite prepared to
+enter the class above the lowest, except in one or two minor matters,
+easily picked up. Thus forewarned, I came forearmed. There were
+probably in every class a dozen who could have done the same, but they
+accepted the prevailing custom without question. I believe I was the
+only one fortunate enough to make this gain. In some instances before,
+and in many after, the academic work was for certain classes
+compressed within three years, but I was singular in entering a class
+already of a twelvemonth's standing.
+
+About my own examination I remember nothing except that it was
+successful; but one incident occurred in my hearing which has stuck by
+me for a half-century. One other youth underwent the same tests. He
+had already once entered, two or three years before, and afterwards
+had failed to pass one of the semi-annual tests. Such cases frequently
+were dropped into the next lower class, but the rule then was that a
+second similar lapse was final. This had befallen my present
+associate; but he had "influence," which obtained for him another
+appointment, conditional upon passing the requirements for the third
+class, fourth being the lowest. Examinations then were oral, not
+written; and, preoccupied though I was with my own difficulties, I
+could not but catch at times sounds of his. He was being questioned in
+grammar and in parsing, which I have heard--I do not know whether
+truly--are now looked upon as archaic methods of teaching; and the
+sentence propounded to him was, "Mahomet was driven from Mecca, but he
+returned in triumph." His rendering of the first words I did not hear,
+my attention not being arrested until "but," which proved to him a
+truly disjunctive conjunction. "But!" he ejaculated--"but!" and
+paused. Then came the "practical" leap into the unknown. "'But' is an
+adverb, qualifying 'he,' showing what he is doing." Poor fellow, it
+was no joke to him, nor probably his fault, but that of circumstances.
+When released from the ordeal, we stood round together, awaiting
+sentence. He was in despair, nor could I honestly encourage him. "Look
+at you," he said, "as quiet as if nothing had happened"--I was by no
+means confident that I had cause for elation. "If I were as sure that
+I had passed as that you have, I should be skipping all over the
+place." I never heard of him again; but suppose from his name, which I
+remember, and his State, of which I am less sure, that he took, and in
+any event would have taken, the Confederate side in the coming
+troubles. His loss by this failure was therefore probably less than it
+then seemed.
+
+An intruder, in breach of well-settled precedent, might have expected
+to be looked on askance by the class which I thus unusually entered.
+Not the faintest indication of discontent was ever shown, nor I
+believe felt, even by those over whom I subsequently passed by such
+standing as I established, although the fact meant promotion over
+them. The spirit of the officer and the gentleman, which disdained
+hazing, disdained discourtesy equally, and thrust aside with the
+generosity of youth the jealousy that mature years more readily
+cherishes towards competitors. The habit in those days was to
+distinguish classes, not by the year of graduation, but by that of
+entry--colloquially, the so-and-so "Date"--a manner derived from an
+earlier period, when there was no other chronological point of
+departure for the career; and in those "days before the flood" nothing
+would have tempted us to depart from a time-honored custom. "Dates"
+frequently established among their contemporaries reputations
+analogous to those of individuals. At that time the "'41 Date," then
+in the prime of life, was obnoxious to those below it; not for its own
+fault, but because of its numbers, which, with promotion strictly by
+seniority, constituted a superincumbent mass that could not but be
+regarded bitterly by those who followed. At present there would be the
+consolation that retirement, though distant, would ultimately sweep
+them all away nearly simultaneously; but there was then no retired
+list. Whatever the motive, the Secretary of the Navy had been moved to
+introduce, in 1841, over two hundred midshipmen,[4] which put an
+almost total stop to appointments for several subsequent years, and
+gave the "Date" the invidious distinction it enjoyed. The well-known
+character in the service whose hoisting a demijohn for a flag I have
+before mentioned, and who found this great overplus above him, was
+credited with saying that those of them who did not drink themselves
+to death would strut themselves to death--a comment which testified
+rather to the warmth of his feelings than to the merits of the case.
+Of course, the greater the total, the more numerous the unworthy; and
+the unfortunate natural bias of mankind notices these more readily
+than it does the capable.
+
+The class to which I now found myself admitted was the "'55 Date," and
+whatever their reputation in the service, then or thereafter, they
+thought themselves uncommonly fine fellows, distinctly above the
+average--not perhaps in attainments, which was a subsidiary matter,
+but in tone and fellowship. One among them, a turn-back from the
+previous Date, and for two years my room-mate, used to declare
+enthusiastically that he was glad of his misfortune, finding himself
+in so much better a crowd. I doubt if I could have gone as far as
+this, but in the general estimate I agreed fully. We numbered then
+twenty-eight, having started with forty-nine a twelvemonth before.
+Three years later we were graduated, twenty. The dwindling numbers
+testifies rather to the imperfection of educational processes
+throughout the country than to the severity of the tests, which were
+very far below those of to-day. I have often heard it said, and
+believe it true, that the difficulty was less with the knowledge--that
+is, the nominal acquirements--of the appointees than with the then
+prevalent methods of study and instruction, which had debauched the
+powers of application. My father, after a long experience, used to
+think that upon the whole there was better promise in a youth who came
+with nothing more than the three R's, which then constituted
+substantially the demands of the Military Academy, than in one with a
+more pretentious showing. The first had not to unlearn bad habits. An
+illustration that the courses were not too severe, for an average man
+beginning with the very smallest equipment, is afforded by a true
+story of the time. A lad from one of the Southern States,--Tennessee,
+I think,--having obtained an appointment, and being too poor to travel
+otherwise, walked his way to West Point, and then failed of admission.
+The affecting circumstances becoming known, a number of officers
+dubbed together and supported him for a year at a neighboring
+excellent school. He then entered, passed his course successfully, and
+proved a very respectable officer. There was, I believe, nothing
+brilliant in his record, except the earnestness and resolution shown;
+the absence of these, under demands which, though not excessive, were
+rigid, was the principal cause of failures.
+
+The requirements were certainly moderate, and our healths needed not
+to suffer from over-application. The marking system of that time gave
+the numeral 4 as a maximum, with which standard 2.5 was a "passing
+average." He who reached that figure, as the combined result of his
+course of recitations and stated examinations, passed the test, and
+went on, or was graduated. The recitation marks being posted weekly,
+we had constant knowledge of our chances; and of the necessity of
+greater effort, if in danger, whether of failure or of being
+outstripped by a competitor. The latter motive was rarely evidenced,
+although I have seen the anxious and worried looks of one struggling
+for pre-eminence over a rival who amused himself by merely prodding
+where he might have surpassed. It is only fair to add, as I also
+witnessed, that no congratulations were more warmly received by the
+victor than those of the man who had so constantly trod on his heels.
+It is needless to say, to those who know the world in any sphere of
+life, that a certain proportion were satisfied with merely scraping
+through. The authorities leaned to mercy's side, where there was
+reasonable promise of a man's making a good sea officer. In the later
+period of written examinations an instructor of much experience said
+to me, "If a man's paper comes near 2.5, I always read it over again
+with a leaning towards a more favorable judgment on points;" and he
+accompanied the words with a gesture which dramatically suggested a
+leaning so pronounced that, it would certainly topple over the right
+way. Not strictly judicial, I fear, but perhaps practical. There were
+rare instances who played with 2.5, enticed perhaps by the mysterious
+charms of danger. Such a case I heard of, a man of unquestioned
+ability, who it was rumored boasted that he would get just above 2.5,
+and as near as he could. He was read dispassionately, and in the event
+came out 2.47. As an effort at approximation, this may be considered a
+success; but for passing it was inadequate, and his general character
+did not bias the final appeal in his favor. He was not dropped,
+indeed, but had to undergo a second examination three weeks later: a
+circumstance calculated to cloud his summer. A more amusing instance
+came directly under my observation. He was a candidate for entrance,
+and I then head of one of the departments of the Academy. Although I
+had nothing to do with admissions, his father came in to see me
+immediately after the results were known. He had a marked brogue, and
+was slightly "elevated," by success and by liquor. Placing his hand
+confidentially on my arm, he whispered: "He's got in; he's got in." I
+expressed my sympathy. He drew himself up with a smile of exultation,
+and said: "He only got a 2.7. I said to him, '----, why didn't you do
+better than that?--sure you could.' 'Whisht, father,' he replied, 'why
+should I do better, when all I need's a 2.5?' Just fancy his thinking
+of that!" cried the proud parent. "The 'cuteness of him?" I forget
+this lad's further career, if I ever knew it.
+
+One of the distinguishing features of the two academies then, and I
+believe now, was the division of the classes into small sections,
+under several instructors. This gave the advantage of very frequent
+recitations for each student. None was safe in counting upon being
+overlooked on any day, and the teacher was kept familiar with the
+progress and promise of every one under his charge. It admitted also
+of a more extensive course for those who could stick in the higher
+sections--a kind of elective, in which the election depended on the
+teacher, not the taught. Thoroughness of acquisition was favored by
+this steady pressure, the virtue of which lay less in its weight than
+in its constancy; but it is practicable only where large resources
+permit many tutors to be employed. The Naval Academy has had frequent
+difficulty, not chiefly of a money kind, but because the needed naval
+officers cannot always be spared from general service. A sound policy
+has continuously favored the employment of sea officers, where
+possible; not because they can often be equal in acquirement to chosen
+men from the special fields in question, but because through them the
+spirit and authority of the profession pervades the class-room as well
+as the drill-ground, and so forwards the highly specialized product in
+view. Besides, as I have heard observed with admiration by a very able
+civilian, head of one of the departments, who had several officers
+under him, the habit of turning the hand to many different
+occupations, and of doing in each just what was ordered, following
+directions explicitly, gives naval officers as a class an adaptability
+and a facility which become professional characteristics. It may be
+interesting to note that the same was commonly remarked of the
+old-time seaman. His specialty was everything--versatility; and he was
+handy under the least expected circumstances, on shore as well as
+afloat. Burgoyne used chaffingly to attribute his misfortunes at
+Saratoga to the aptitude with which a British midshipman and seamen
+threw a bridge over the upper Hudson. "If it had not been for you," he
+said to the culprit, "we should never have got as far as this."
+
+In my day the proportion of officers was less than afterwards, when
+the graduates themselves took up the task of instruction. There were
+two who taught us mathematics, one of whom remains in my memory as the
+very best teacher, to the extent of his knowledge, that I ever knew.
+The professional branches, seamanship and gunnery, fell naturally to
+the sea officers who conducted the drills. These studies, as pursued,
+reflected the transition condition of the period which I have before
+depicted; the grasp on the old still was more tenacious than that on
+the new. The preparation of text-books for young seamen far antedated
+the establishment of naval schools. There was one, _The Sheet Anchor_,
+by Darcy Lever, a British seaman, published before 1820, which had
+great vogue among us. Among other virtues, it was illustrated with
+very taking pictures of ships performing manoeuvres in the midst of
+highly conventional waves. As far as memory serves me, I think we were
+justified in regarding it as more instructive than the American work
+assigned to us by the course, _The Kedge Anchor_, by a master in our
+navy named Brady. A kedge, the unprofessional must know, is a light
+anchor, dropped for a momentary stop, or to haul a ship ahead, the
+title being in so far very consonant to the object of instruction;
+whereas the sheet-anchor is the great and last stand-by of a vessel,
+let go as a final resource after the two big "bowers," which
+constitute the usual reliance. The rareness with which the sheet
+anchor touched ground (the bottom) gave rise to the proverb, "To go
+ashore with the sheet anchor," as the ultimate expression of attention
+to duty; and the story ran of a British captain, a devoted
+ship-keeper, who, to a lieutenant remonstrating on the little
+privilege of leave enjoyed by the junior officers, replied: "Sir, when
+I and the sheet anchor go ashore, you may go with us." By the
+prescription of our seniors we had to tie to _The Kedge Anchor_, let
+us hope in the cause of progress, to haul us ahead; but in a tight
+place _The Sheet Anchor_ was our recourse, and by it think I may say
+we--swore. I always mistrusted _The Kedge Anchor_ after my researches
+into a mysterious sentence--"A celebrated master, now a commander, in
+the navy never served the bowsprit rigging all over." In the old-time
+frigates, of the days of Nelson and Hull, the master was at the head
+of the marling-spike division of the ship's economy, being, in fact,
+the descendant of the master (captain) of more than a century earlier,
+who managed the ship while soldiers commanded and fought her. But the
+masters were not in the line of promotion; in the British navy they
+rarely rose, in our own much more rarely. Who, then, was this
+celebrated master, now a commander? Eventually I found the sentence in
+a British book, and my faith in the pure product of American home
+industry was suddenly shaken. It is only fair to say that books on
+seamanship, being essentially an accumulation of facts, must be more
+or less compilations. Methods were too well established to allow much
+originality, even of treatment.
+
+There were many other works of like character, the enumeration of
+which would be tedious. _The Young Officer's Assistant_ was less a
+specific title than a generic description. Several of them were
+contemporary; and one, by a Captain Boyd of the British navy, summed
+up the convictions of us all, teachers as well as pupils, in the
+sententious aphorism: "It is by no means certain that coal whips will
+outlive tacks and sheets." It is scarcely kind to resurrect a
+prophecy, even when so guarded in expression and safely distant in
+prediction as was this; but I fear that for navies tacks and sheets
+are dead, and coal whips very much alive. The wish in those days
+fathered the thought. Who to dumb forgetfulness a prey could
+voluntarily relinquish all that had been so identified with life and
+thought, nor cast a longing, lingering look behind? So we plodded on,
+acquiring laboriously, yet lovingly, knowledge that would have fitted
+us to pass the examinations of Basil Hall and Peter Simple. To mention
+the details of cutting and fitting rigging, getting over whole and
+half tops, and other operations yet more recondite, would be to
+involve the unprofessional reader in a maze of incomprehensible terms,
+and the professional--of that period--in familiar recollections. Let
+me, however, linger lovingly for ten lines on the knotting--"knotting
+and splicing," as the never-divorced terms ran in the days when
+rigging a topgallant-yard was a constituent part of our curriculum.
+The man who has never viewed the realm of a seaman's knots from the
+outside, and tried to get in, must not flatter himself that he fully
+appreciates the phrase "knotty problem." I never got in; a few
+elementary "bends," a square knot, and a bowline, were very near the
+extent of my manual acquirements. The last I still retain, and use
+whenever I make up a bundle for the express; but before such
+mysteries--to me--as a Turk's-head and a double-wall, I merely bowed
+in reverence. When handsomely turned out, I could recognize the fact;
+but do them myself, no. I remember with humiliation that in 1862,
+being then a young lieutenant, I was called without warning to hear a
+section, one hour, in seamanship. As bad luck would have it, the
+subject happened to be knotting, and there was one of the midshipmen
+who had made a cruise in a merchant-ship. The knots I had to ask
+about--to which that diabolical youngster invariably replied, "I can't
+describe it, sir, but I will make it for you"--the convolutions
+through which the strands went in his ready fingers, and my eyes
+vainly strove to follow, are a poignant subject. There was no room for
+the time-honored refuge of a puzzled instructor--"We will take up that
+subject next recitation;" the confounded boy was ready right along,
+and I had only to be thankful that there were "no questions asked."
+
+There was one professional subject, "Naval Fleet Tactics" under sail,
+which at the end of my time shone forth with a kind of sunset
+splendor, the dying dolphin effect curiously characteristic of
+the passing period in which we were. This had always had a
+recognition--_d'estime_, as the French say; but in my final year it
+fell into the hands of a new instructor, who proceeded to glorify it
+by amplification. He was a very accomplished man in his profession, a
+student of it in all its branches, though there was among us a certain
+understanding that he was not an eminently practical seaman; and he
+eventually lost his life in what appeared to me a very unpractical
+manner, being where it did not seem his business to be, and doing work
+which a junior would probably have done better. We remember William
+III. at the battle of the Boyne. "Your majesty, the Bishop of Derry
+has been killed at the ford." "What business had he to be at the
+ford?" was the unsympathetic answer. The text-book used by our new
+instructor was by a French lieutenant, written in the thirties of the
+century, and characterized by something of the peculiar French naval
+genius. The simpler changes of formation were so simple that
+complication could not be got into them; but, that happy stage past,
+we went on to evolutions of huge masses of ships in three columns, in
+which the changes of dispositions, from one order to another, became
+subjects of trigonometrical demonstration, quite as troublesome as
+Euclid. Sines, cosines, and tangents, of fractional angles figured
+profusely in the processes; and in the result courses to be steered
+would be laid down to an eighth of a point, when to keep a single
+vessel, let alone a column, steady within half a point[5] was
+considered good helmsmanship. There being no translation of the book,
+our text was provided by copying, individually, from a manuscript
+prepared by our teacher, which increased our labor; but, curiously
+enough, the effect of the whole procedure was so to magnify the
+subject as materially to increase the impression upon our minds.
+
+This is really an interesting matter for speculation, as to what in
+effect is practical. The mastery of conclusions, to which practical
+effect never could have been given, served to drive home principles
+which would have come usefully into play, had the sail era continued
+and the United States maintained fleets of sailing battle-ships to
+handle. For myself personally, when I came to write naval history,
+long years after, I derived invaluable aid from the principles and the
+simpler evolutions, thus assimilated and remembered. But for them I
+should often have found it difficult to understand what with them was
+obvious. A singular circumstance thus brought out was the want of
+exactness and precision in English terminology in this field. The most
+notable instance that occurs to me was in Nelson's journal on
+Trafalgar morning, "The enemy wearing in succession," when, in fact,
+as a matter of manoeuvre, the hostile fleet "wore together," though
+the several vessels wore "in succession;" a paradox only to be
+understood at a glance by those familiar with fleet tactics under
+sail. The usual version of the attack at Trafalgar has of late been
+elaborately disputed by capable critics. I myself have no doubt that
+they are quite mistaken; but it would be curious to investigate how
+far their argument derives from inexact phraseology--as, for example,
+the definition of "column" and "line" applied to ships.
+
+These mathematical demonstrations of naval evolutions might be
+considered a lapse from practicalness characteristic of the particular
+officer. They took up a good deal of valuable time, and on any
+drill-ground manoeuvres are less a matter of geometric precision than
+of professional aptitude and eye judgment. The same mistake could
+scarcely be addressed at that time to the other parts of the Academy
+curriculum. Either as foundation, or as a super-structure in which it
+was sought to develop professional intelligence, to inform and improve
+professional action, there was little to find fault with in detail,
+and less still in general principle. The previous reasonable
+professional prejudice had been in favor of the practical man, the man
+who can do things--who knows _how_ to do them; the new effort was to
+give the "why" of the "how," and to save time in the process by giving
+it systematically. In this sense--that all we learned ministered to
+professional intelligence--the scholastic part was thoroughly
+professional in tone; and I think I have shown that the outside
+professional sentiment was also strongly felt among us. There is
+always, of course, a disposition latent in educators to deny that
+practical work may be sufficiently accomplished by cruder
+processes--by what we call the rule of thumb--and a corresponding
+inclination to represent that to be absolutely necessary which is only
+an advantage; to exaggerate the necessity of mastering the "why" in
+order to put the "how" into execution. An instance in point, already
+quoted, is that of the professor who maintained that every officer
+should be able to calculate mathematically the relation between
+weights and purchases. But between 1855 and 1860, if such a tendency
+existed in germ, it had no effect in practice. As I look back, the
+relation between what we were taught and what we were to do was
+neither remote nor indirect. In its own sphere, in both its merits and
+its faults, the Academy was in aspiration as professional as the
+outside service.
+
+This means that the Academy constituted for us an atmosphere perfectly
+accordant with the life for which we were intended; and an educational
+institution has no educative function to discharge higher than this.
+This influence was enhanced by the social customs, in favor of which
+disciplinary exactions were relaxed to the utmost possible; herein
+departing from the practice at the Military Academy, as then known to
+me. Not only on Saturdays and holidays, but every day, and at all
+hours not positively allotted to study or drills, the midshipmen might
+visit the houses of officers or professors to which they had the
+entrance. As a rule, very properly, no one was allowed to be absent
+from mess; but permission could always be obtained to accept an
+invitation to the evening meal with any of the families. This freedom
+of intercourse contributed its share to the formation of professional
+tone, for the heads of the families were selected professional men,
+who were thus met on terms of intimacy, precluded elsewhere by the
+official relations of the parties. More training is imparted by such
+association than by teaching--the familiar contrast of example and
+precept. An even greater gain, however--and a strictly professional
+gain, too--was the social facility thus acquired. In all callings
+probably, certainly in the navy, social aptitude is professionally
+valuable. Nelson's dictum that naval officers should know how to dance
+was only one way of saying that they should be men of affairs, at home
+in all conditions where men--or women--gather for business or
+amusement. The phrase "all sorts and conditions of men" never had
+wider or juster application than to the assembly of green lads, from
+every variety of parentage and previous surroundings, pitchforked into
+Annapolis once every year; and, of all the humanizing and harmonizing
+influences under which they came, none exceeded that of the quiet
+gentlefolk, of modest means, with whom they mingled thus freely.
+Indeed, one of the most astute of our superintendents took into
+account the family of an officer before asking that he be ordered.
+
+An element in our social environment which should not be omitted was
+the prevalence of a Southern flavor. In our microcosm, this reflected
+the general sentiment of the world outside, then slowly freeing itself
+from the spirit of compromise which had dominated the statesmanship of
+two generations in their efforts to reconcile the incompatible. There
+were certainly strong Northern men in plenty, as well as strong
+Southerners; but every Southerner was convinced that the justice was
+all on their side, that their rights as well as interests were being
+attacked, whereas the Northerners were divided in feeling. There were
+some pronounced abolitionists, here and there, prepared to go all
+party lengths; but in the majority from the North, the devotion to the
+Union, which rose so instantaneously to the warlike pitch when fairly
+challenged, for the present counselled concession to the utmost limit,
+if only thereby the Union might endure. In this the membership of the
+school reproduced the political character of the House of
+Representatives, with whom appointment rested; and at our age, of
+course, we simply re-echoed the tones of our homes. Never in my now
+long life have I seen so evident the power of conviction as in the
+Southern men I then knew. They simply had no hesitations; whereas we
+others were perplexed. Yet I now doubt whether the Southern conviction
+was not really, if unconsciously, the resolution of despair; of doom
+felt, though unacknowledged; not before the attacks of the North, but
+before the resistless progress of the world, of which the North was to
+be the instrument. So also the patience of the North, if so noble a
+word can be conceded to our long temporizing, was an unconscious
+manifestation of latent power. To those who knew what the Union meant
+to those who exalted it--should I not rather say her?--in passionate
+adoration, need never have doubted what the response would be, if
+threat passed into act and hands were lifted against her. Conviction
+was absolute and deep-rooted on that side as on the other; but it was
+less on the surface, and sought ever a solution of peace.
+
+The Muse of History of late years has become so analytic, and withal
+so embarrassed with the accumulations of new material, revealing still
+more the complication of causes which undoubtedly concur to any
+general result, that she is prone to overlook the overpowering
+influence of the simple elemental passions of human nature. "Our
+country, right or wrong," may be very bad morality, but it is a
+tremendous force to reckon with. One is wise overmuch who thinks that
+interest can restrain or statesmen control; wise unto folly who
+ignores that disinterested emotion, even unreasoning, may be just the
+one factor which diplomacy cannot master. I was in Rome when our late
+troubles with Spain came on, and dined with a number of the diplomatic
+body. "Oh yes," said to me one of these illuminati, "it is all very
+well to talk about humanity. The truth is, the United States wants
+Cuba." More profound was the remark of an American politician, who had
+recently visited the island. "I did not dare to tell all I saw; for,
+if I had, there would be no holding our people back." Personally, I
+believed that the interests of the United States made expedient the
+acquisition of Cuba, if righteously accomplished, and prior to the war
+I knew little of the conditions on the island; but Cuba would be
+Spanish now, if interests chiefly had power to move us. So in the War
+of Secession. Innumerable precedent occurrences had produced a
+condition, but it was the passion for the Union, the strong loyalty to
+that sovereign, which dominated the situation, and in truth had been
+dominating it silently for years; a passion as profound and, though
+justifiable to reason, as unreasoning as any simple love that ever
+bound man to woman. Could this have been appreciated, what reams of
+demonstration might have been spared to foreign pens--demonstration of
+the folly, the hopelessness, the lust of conquest, the self-interest
+in myriad forms, which were supposed to be the actuating causes.
+
+Effectively, the South had lost this love of the Union. In this
+respect the two sections, I fancy, had parted company, unwittingly,
+soon after the War of 1812; through which, as we all well know, in
+many quarters sectional feeling had still prevailed over national. The
+North had since moved towards national consciousness, the South
+towards sectional, on paths steadily and rapidly diverging. As I
+recall those days, when I first awoke to political observation, I
+should say that the feeling of my Southern associates towards the
+Union was that which men have towards a friend lately buried.
+Affection had not wholly disappeared; but life called. Let the dead
+bury their dead. I remember on my first practice cruise, in 1857,
+standing in the main-top of the ship with a member of the class
+immediately before mine, the son of a North Carolina member of
+Congress. "Yes," he said to me, "Buchanan [inaugurated four months
+before] will be the last President of the United States." He was
+entirely unmoved, simply repeating certitudes to which familiarity had
+reconciled him; I, to whom such talk was new, as much aghast as though
+I had been told my mother would die within the like term. This outlook
+was common to them all. The Union still was, and they continued in
+it; but to them the warning had sounded, they were ready and
+acquiescent in its fall; regretful, but resigned--very much resigned.
+This attitude was more marked among the younger men, those at the
+school. In the service outside I found somewhat the same point of
+view, but repulsion was keener. The navy then, even more than now,
+symbolized the exterior activities of the country, which are committed
+by the Constitution to the Union. Hence, the life of the profession
+naturally nurtured pride in the nation; and while States'-Rights had
+undermined the principle of loyalty to the Union, it had been less
+successful in destroying love for it. But to most the prospect was
+gloomy. That Massachusetts and South Carolina should be put into a pen
+together, and left to fight it out, was the solution expressed to me
+by a lieutenant who afterwards fell nobly, in command, on a Union deck
+in the war; the gallant Joe Smith, concerning whom runs a story that
+cannot be too widely known, even though often repeated. When it was
+reported to his father that the _Congress_ had surrendered, he said,
+simply, "Then Joe's dead." Joe was dead; but it is only fair to the
+survivors to say that ninety out of her crew of four hundred were also
+dead, the ship aground, helpless, and in flames.
+
+In Annapolis, the capital of a border slave state, the general
+sentiment was, as might be expected, a blending of North and South; a
+desire to maintain the Union, but, distinctly superior in motive,
+sympathy with the Southern view of the case. In all my fairly intimate
+acquaintance with the small society of the town outside the Academy
+walls, there was but one family the heads of which were decisively
+Union--not Northern; and of it two sons fought in the Southern armies.
+Between this influence and that of my comrades I remained as I had
+been brought up--the Union first and above all, but with the
+conviction that the great danger to the Union lay in the abolition
+propaganda. My father was by upbringing a Virginian; by life-long
+occupation an officer of the general government, imbued to the marrow
+with the principles of military loyalty. Having married and
+continuously lived in the North, he had escaped all taint of the
+extreme States'-Rights school; but the memories of his youth kept him
+broadly Southern in feeling, less by local attachment than by
+affection for friends. More than twenty years after his death, when I
+was on court-martial duty in Richmond, an old Confederate general,
+whom I had never seen, sought me out in memory of the ties that had
+bound both himself and his wife's family to my father. With these
+clinging sympathies, the abolition agitation was an attack upon his
+friends, and, still worse, a wanton endangering of the Union. To save
+me from being carried away by the swelling tide was one of his chief
+aims.
+
+Regarded by themselves, nothing can well be less important than the
+political opinions of one boy of eighteen to twenty; but few things
+are more important, if they are those of the mass of his generation,
+for then they are the echo from many homes. I believe, from what I saw
+at the Naval Academy, that mine were those of the large majority of
+the Northern youth, and that the very greatness of the concession
+which such were ready to make for the sake of the Union should have
+warned the disunionists that the same love was capable of equally
+great sacrifices in the other direction. They failed so to understand;
+chiefly, perhaps, because they could not appreciate the living force
+of the simple sentiment. Never in their lifetimes, if ever before, had
+the Union held the first place in the hearts of men of their section;
+and such love as had been felt was already moribund, overcome by
+supposed interest and local pride. Thus misled, it was easy to believe
+that in the North, controlled by considerations of advantage,
+yielding would follow yielding, even to permitting a disruption of the
+Union--a miscalculation of forces more fatal even than that of "Cotton
+is King." But forces will often be miscalculated by those who reckon
+interest as more powerful than principle or than sentiment.
+
+Singularly enough, considering the exodus of States'-Rights officers
+from the navy at the outbreak of the War of Secession, my first
+service during it brought me into close relations with two captains,
+both Southerners, whose differing points of view shed interesting
+light upon the varying motives which in times of stress determined men
+into a common path. The first, Percival Drayton, a South-Carolinian,
+had a strength of conviction on the question of slavery, in itself,
+and the wrong-headed course of the slave power, as well as a strong
+devotion to the Union, all which were needed to keep a son of that
+extreme state firm in his allegiance. I question, however, whether any
+other one of the seceding communities furnished as large a proportion
+of officers who stuck to the national flag, chiefly among the older
+men; a result scarcely surprising, for the intensity of affection for
+the Union necessary to withstand nearest relatives and the headlong
+sweep of separatist impulse, where fiercest, naturally throve upon the
+opposition which it met, eliciting a corresponding tenacity of
+adherence to the cause it had embraced. No more than that other
+Southerner, Farragut, did Drayton feel doubt as to where he belonged
+in the coming struggle. "I cannot exactly see the difference between
+my relations fighting against me and I against them, except that their
+cause is as unholy a one as the world has ever seen, and mine just the
+reverse." "Were the sword in the one hand powerful enough, the
+secessionists would carry slavery with the other to the uttermost
+parts of the Union, and I do not think the North has been at all too
+quick in stopping the movement." "I do not think there will ever be
+peace between the two sections until slavery is so completely
+scotched as to make extension a hopeless matter."[6]
+
+Drayton stayed with us but a brief time. His successor, George B.
+Balch, who still survives, now the senior rear-admiral on the retired
+list of the navy, a man beloved by all who have known him for his
+gallantry, benevolence, and piety, was equally pronounced and equally
+firm; but his position illustrated and carried on my experiences at
+the Academy, and afterwards in the service, and for the time confirmed
+my old prepossessions. He was fighting for the Union, assailed without
+just cause; not against slavery, nor for its abolition. Were the
+latter the motive of the war, he would not be in arms. This, of
+course, was then the attitude of the government and of the people at
+large. Abolition, which came not long after, was a war measure simply;
+received with doubt by many, but which a few months of hostilities had
+prepared us all to accept. My own conversion was early and sudden. The
+ship had made an expedition of some fifty miles up a South Carolina
+river, in the course of which numerous negroes fled to her. Unlike
+Drayton, our captain was rather disconcerted, I think, at having
+forced upon him a kind of practical abolition, in carrying off slaves;
+but his duty was clear. As for me, it was my first meeting with
+slavery; except in the house-servants of Maryland, superficially a
+very different condition; and as I looked at the cowed, imbruted faces
+of the field-hands, my early training fell away like a cloak. The
+process was not logical; I was generalizing from a few instances, but
+I was convinced. Knowing how strongly my father had felt, I wondered
+how I should break to him my instability; but when we met I found that
+he, too, had gone over. Youngster as I still was, I should have
+divined the truth, that in assailing the Union his best friend became
+his enemy, to down whom abolition was good and fit as any other club.
+"My son," he said, "I did not think I could ever again be happy should
+our country fall into her present state; but now I am so absorbed in
+seeing those fellows beaten that I lose sight of the rest." Peculiar
+and personal association enhanced his interest; for, having been then
+over thirty years at the Military Academy, there were very few of the
+prominent generals on either side who had not been his pupils. The
+successful leaders were almost all from that school: Grant, Sherman,
+Thomas, Schofield, on the Union side; Lee, Jackson, and the two
+Johnstons on the Confederate, were all graduates, not to mention a
+host of others only less conspicuous.
+
+In last analysis slavery may have been, probably was, the cause of the
+war; but, historically, it was not the motive. Lincoln's words--"I
+will save the Union with slavery, or I will save it without slavery,
+as the case may demand"--voiced the feeling prevalent in the military
+services, and also the will of the great body of the Northern people,
+whom he profoundly understood and in his own mental advance
+illustrated. I cannot but think that such an aim was more
+statesmanlike than would have been the attempt to overturn immediately
+and violently an entire social and economical system, for the
+establishment of which the current generation was not responsible. In
+the long run, to allow the tares of bondage to stand with the wheat of
+freedom was wiser than the wish prematurely to uproot. It had become
+the definite policy of the enemies of slavery to girdle the tree, by
+strict encompassing lines, leaving it to consequent sure process of
+decay. Its friends forced the issue. To the ones and to the others the
+harvest of generations, in the form it took, came unexpected and
+suddenly--a day of judgment, a crisis, like a thief in the night. It
+is a consummate proof of the accuracy of popular instinct, given time
+to work, that the uprising of 1861 rested upon recognition of the
+fact that the cause of the nation and of the world depended more upon
+the preservation of a single authority over all the territory
+involved, upon the consequent avoidance of future permanent
+oppositions, than it did upon the destruction of a particular
+institution, the life of which might be protracted, but under
+conditions of union must wane and ultimately expire. The gradual
+progress of decision by the American people was wiser than the abrupt
+action asked by foreign impatience; and abolition came with less shock
+and more finality as a military measure than it could as a political.
+Its advisability was more evident. If statesmanship is shown in
+bringing popular will to accord with national necessity, Lincoln was
+in this most sagacious; but not the least element in the tribute due
+him is that he was the barometer of popular impulse, measuring
+accurately the invisible force upon which depended the energy of that
+stormy period.
+
+Before taking final leave of my shore experiences at the Naval
+Academy, I will recall, as among them, the superb comet of the autumn
+of 1858, which we at the school witnessed evening after evening in
+October of that year, during the release from quarters following
+supper. After the lapse of so nearly a half-century, the survivors of
+those who saw that magnificent spectacle must be in a minority among
+their contemporaries, whether of that day or this. Since its
+disappearance there has been visible one other notable comet, which I
+remember waking my children after midnight to see; but compared with
+that of 1858, whether in size or in splendor, it was literally as
+moonlight unto sunlight, or, in impression, as water unto wine. As the
+astronomers compute the period of return for the earlier at two
+thousand years, more or less, we of that generation were truly
+singular in our opportunity of viewing this, among the very few "most
+magnificent of modern times." The tail, broadening towards the end,
+with a curve like that of a scimitar, was in length nearly a fourth of
+the span of the heavens, and its brightness that of a full moon. My
+memory retains the image with all the tenacity of eighteen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Corresponding in some measure to the summer encampment at the Military
+Academy, the Naval gave the three months from July to September,
+inclusive, to shipboard and the sea. In both institutions the period
+was one of study interrupted, in favor of out-door work; but at West
+Point it was accompanied by a degree of social entertainment
+impossible to ship conditions. There were two theories as to the
+conduct of the practice cruises. One was that they should be confined
+to home waters, where regular hours and systematized instruction in
+"doing things" would suffer little interference from weather; the
+other was to make long voyages, preferably to Europe, leaving to the
+normal variability of the ocean and the watchful improvement of
+occasions the burden of initiating a youth into practical acquaintance
+with the exigencies of his intended profession. Personally I have
+always favored the latter, being somewhat of the opinion of the old
+practical politician--"Never contrive an opportunity." Naturally an
+opportunist, the experience of life has justified me in rather
+awaiting than contriving occasions. One learns more widely and more
+thoroughly by reefing topsails when it has to be done, than by doing
+it at a routine hour, without the accompaniments of the wind, the wet,
+and the lurching, which give the operation a tone and a tonic--the
+real thing, in short. Doubtless we may wait too long, like Micawber,
+even for a reef-topsail gale to turn up, though the ocean can usually
+be trusted to be nasty often enough; but, on the other hand, one over
+sedulously bent on making opportunity is apt to be too preoccupied to
+see that which makes itself. Truth, doubtless, lies between the
+extremes.
+
+In my day long cruises had unquestioned preference; and, whatever
+their demerits otherwise, they were certainly eye-openers, even to
+those who, like myself, had obtained some intelligent impression of
+ships at sea. As instruction in seamanship was then never attempted,
+neither by work nor book, until after the second year, we went on
+board not knowing one mast from another, so far as teaching went. How
+far initial ignorance could go may be illustrated by an incident, to
+be appreciated, unluckily, only by seamen, which happened in my
+hearing. We had then been nearly two months on board, when one who had
+improved his opportunities was displaying his acquirements by the
+pleasing method of catechising another. He asked: "Do you know what
+the topsail-tie is?" The rejoinder, perfectly serious, was: "Do you
+mean the cross-tie?" The topsail-tie being one of the principal
+"ropes" in a ship, the ignorance was really symptomatic of character;
+and had not the hero of it been long dead, I would not have preserved
+it, even incog. I fear it may be cited against my view of practice
+cruises, as proving that systematic training is better than
+picking-up; to which my reply would be that the picking-up showed
+aptitude--or the reverse--if only some means could be devised of
+making it tell in selection, as it assuredly did in character. But at
+the beginning, despite any little previous inklings, we were all quite
+green. I still recall the innocent astonishment when we anchored in
+Hampton Roads, after the run down the Chesapeake, and the boatswain,
+as by custom, pulled round the ship to see the yards square and
+rigging taut. Semaphore signalling was not then used, as later; and
+his stentorian lungs conveyed to us distinct sounds, bearing meanings
+we felt could never be compassed by us. "Haul taut the main-top
+bowlines!" "Haul taut the starboard fore-topgallant-sheet." "Maintop,
+there! Send a hand up and square the bunt gaskets of the
+topgallant-sail!" "By Jove!" said one of the admiring listeners,
+"there's seamanship for you!" We all silently agreed, and I dare say
+many thought we might as well give it up and go home. Such excellence
+was not for us.
+
+The subsequent process of picking-up was attended sometimes by
+comical, as well as painful, incidents. Peter Simple's experiences, as
+told by Marryat, were not yet quite obsolete in practice. A story ran
+of one, not long before my "date," who, having been sent on two or
+three bootless errands by unauthorized jesters, finally received from
+a person in due authority the absurd-sounding, but legitimate, message
+to have the jackasses put in the hawse-holes.[7] "Oh no," he replied,
+resentfully, "I have been fooled often enough! That I will not do." I
+can better vouch for another, which happened on my first practice
+cruise. In a sailing-ship properly planned, the balance of the sails
+is such that to steer her on her course the rudder need not be kept
+more to one side than the other; the helm is then amidships. But error
+of design, or circumstances, such as a faulty trim of the sails or the
+ship inclining in a strong side-wind, will sometimes so alter the
+influencing forces that the helm has to be carried steadily on one
+side, to correct the ship's disposition to turn to that side. She is
+then said to carry weather helm or lee helm, as the case may be; and
+the knowing ones used to assert noticeable differences of sailing in
+certain conditions. In many ships to carry a little weather helm was
+thought advantageous, and it was told of a certain deck-officer--he
+who repeated the story to me made the late Admiral Porter the
+hero--that the ship being found to sail faster in his watch than in
+any other, the commander sent for him and asked the reason. "Well,
+sir," replied the lieutenant, "I will tell you my secret. As soon as
+the officer I relieve is gone below and out of sight, while the watch
+is mustering, I walk forward, look round at things generally, and say
+casually to the captain of the forecastle: 'Just slack off a little of
+this jib-sheet.' Then about ten minutes before eight bells, after the
+last log of the watch has been hove, while the men are rousing to go
+below, I go forward again and say, 'Come here, half a dozen of us, and
+get a pull of the jib-sheet;' and I turn the deck over to my relief
+with the jib well flattened in." In result, the frigate during his
+watch, and his only, carried a weather helm. My own experience of
+sailing ships was neither prolonged enough nor responsible enough to
+estimate just what weight to attach to these impressions, but they
+existed; and in any case, as the helm varying far from amidships
+showed something wrong, the question was frequent to the helmsman,
+"How does she carry her helm?" varied sometimes to, "What sort of helm
+does she carry?" Now we had among our green midshipmen one from the
+West, tall, angular, swarthy, with a coal-black eye which had a trick
+of cocking up and out, giving a queer, perplexed, yet defiant cast to
+his countenance; moreover, he stuttered a little, not from
+imperfection of organs, but from nervous excitability. We had also a
+lieutenant from far down East, red-haired, sanguine of complexion,
+bony of structure, who had a gesture of tossing his hair and head
+back, and looking tremendously leonine and master of the
+situation--monarch of all he surveyed. The two were naturally
+antagonistic, as was amusingly shown more than once; but on this
+occasion the midshipman was at the "lee wheel," not himself steering,
+but helping the steersman in the manual labor. To him the lieutenant,
+pausing in his stride and tilting his chin in the air, says: "Mr.
+----, what sort of helm does she carry?" ----, who had never heard of
+weather or lee helms, and probably was not yet recovered from the
+effects of the boatswain's seamanship, twisted his eye and his head,
+looking more than ever confounded and saucy, and stammered: "I--I--I'm
+not sure, sir, but I think it's a wooden one." Tableau!--as the French
+say.
+
+In position on board we were midshipmen indeed, in a sense probably
+somewhat different from that which first gave birth to the title. We
+were not seamen; and it could scarcely be claimed that we were in any
+full sense officers, much as we stuck to that designation. We stood
+midway. There was a tradition in the British service that a
+midshipman, though in training for promotion, did not, while in the
+grade, rank with the boatswain or gunner, who had no future prospects,
+and who, with the carpenter, stood in a class by themselves. Marryat,
+who doubtless drew his characters from life, tells us that the gunner
+who sailed with Mr. Midshipman Easy was strong on the necessity for
+the gunner mastering navigation, and had many instances in point where
+all the officers had been killed down to the gunner, who in such case
+would have been sadly handicapped by ignorance of navigation. I fancy
+the doubt seldom needed to be settled in service; the duties of
+midshipman and boatswain could rarely come into collision, if each
+minded his own business. By luck, just after writing these words, I
+for the first time in my life have found a plausible derivation for
+midshipman.[8] It would appear that in the days immediately after the
+flood the vessels were very high at the two ends, between which there
+was a deep "waist," giving no ready means of passing from one to the
+other. To meet this difficulty there were employed a class of men,
+usually young and alert, who from their station were called
+midshipmen, to carry messages which were not subject for the trumpet
+shout. If this holds water, it, like forecastle, and after-guard, and
+knightheads, gives another instance of survival from conditions which
+have long ceased.
+
+Whatever the origin of his title, it well expressed the anomalous and
+undefined position of the midshipman. He belonged, so to say, to both
+ends of the ship, as well as to the middle, and his duties and
+privileges alike fell within the broad saying, already quoted, that
+what was nobody's business was a midshipman's. When appointed as such,
+in later days, he came in "with the hay-seed in his hair," and went
+out fit for a lieutenant's charge; but from first to last, whatever
+his personal progress, he remained, as a midshipman, a handy-billy. He
+might be told, as Basil Hall's first captain did his midshipmen, that
+they might keep watch or not, as they pleased--that is, that the ship
+had no use for them; or he might be sent in charge of a prize, as was
+Farragut, when twelve years old, doubtless with an old seaman as
+nurse, but still in full command. Anywhere from the bottom of the hold
+to the truck--top of the masts--he could be sent, and was sent; every
+boat, that went ashore had a midshipman, who must answer for her
+safety and see that none got away of a dozen men, whose one thought
+was to jump the boat and have a run on shore. Between times he passed
+hours at the mast-head in expiation of faults which he had
+committed--or ought to have committed, to afford a just scapegoat for
+his senior's wrath. As Marryat said, it made little difference: if he
+did not think of something he had not been told, he was asked what his
+head was for; if he did something off his own bat, the question arose
+what business he had to think. In either case he went to the mast-head.
+Of course, at a certain age one "turns to mirth all things of earth,
+as only boyhood can;" and the contemporary records of the steerage
+brim over with unforced jollity, like that notable hero of Marryat's
+"who was never quite happy except when he was d----d miserable."
+
+Such undefined standing and employments taught men their business, but
+provided no remedy for the miscellaneous social origin of midshipmen.
+In the beginning of things they were probably selected from the smart
+young men of the crew; often also from the more middle-aged--in any
+event, from before the mast. Even in much later days men passed
+backward and forward from midshipman to lower ratings; Nelson is an
+instance in point. When a man became a lieutenant, he was something
+fixed and recognized, professionally and socially. He might fall below
+his station, but he had had his chance. In the British navy many most
+distinguished officers came from anywhere--through the hawse-holes, as
+the expression ran; and a proud boast it should have been at a time
+when every Frenchman in his position had to be of noble blood. What
+was all very well for captains and lieutenants, once those ranks were
+reached, was not so easy for midshipmen. We know in every walk of life
+the woes of those whose position is doubtful or challenged; and what
+was said to his crew by Sir Peter Parker, an active frigate captain
+who was killed in Chesapeake Bay in 1814, "I'll have you touch your
+hat to a midshipman's jacket hung up to dry" (curiously reminiscent of
+William Tell and Gessler's cap), not improbably testifies to
+equivocalness even at that late date. The social instinct of seamen is
+singularly observant and tenacious of their officers' manners and
+bearing. I have known one, reproved for a disrespect, say, sullenly:
+"I have always been accustomed to sail with gentlemen." In the
+instance the comment was just, though not permissible. Deference might
+be conceded to the midshipman's jacket, but it could not cover defects
+of a certain order.
+
+The midshipman's berth, as attested by contemporary sketches, was
+peopled by all sorts in age, fitness, and manners. In one of the many
+tales I devoured in youth, a middle-aged shellback of a master's mate,
+come in from before the mast, says with an oath to an aristocratic
+midshipman: "Isn't my blood as red as yours?" Still, even in the
+British navy, with its fine democratic record, the social rank was
+more regarded than the military. His Majesty's ship _So-and-So_ was
+commanded by John Smith, Esquire; and I have heard this point of view
+stated by competent authority as accounting for the address--George
+Washington, Esquire--placed by Howe on the letter which Washington
+refused to accept because not carrying the rank conferred on him by
+Congress. This does not, however, explain away the "etc., etc.," which
+followed on the cover. John Byng, Esquire, Admiral of the Blue, would
+thus be of higher consideration as Esquire than as Admiral. Even in
+our own service I remember an old log, the pages of which were headed,
+"Cruise of the U. S. Ship _Preble_, commanded by J. B. M----,
+Esquire."
+
+In the practice cruises the social question did not arise. Independent
+of the democratic tendency of all boys' schools, where each individual
+finds his level by natural gravitation, the Naval Academy, for reasons
+before alluded to, has been remarkably successful in assimilating its
+heterogeneous raw material and turning out a finished product of a
+good average social quality. Beyond this, social success or failure
+depends everywhere upon personal aptitudes which no training can
+bestow. But as officers we were nondescript. There were too many of
+us; and for the most the object was to acquire a sufficient seaman's
+knowledge, not an officer's. Yet, curiously enough, so at least it
+seemed to me, there was a disposition on the part of some to be
+jealous of any supposed infringement of our prerogative to be treated
+as "a bit of an officer." Ashore or afloat, we made our own beds or
+lashed our own hammocks, swept our rooms, tended our clothes, and
+blacked our boots; our drills were those of the men before the mast,
+at sails and guns; all parts of a seaman's work, except cleaning the
+ship, was required and willingly done; but there was a comical
+rebellion on one occasion when ordered to pull--row--a boat ashore for
+some purpose, and almost a mutiny when one lieutenant directed us to
+go barefooted while decks were being scrubbed, a practice which,
+besides saving your shoe-leather, is both healthy, cleanly, and, in
+warm weather, exceedingly comforting. Some asserted that the
+lieutenant in question, who afterwards commanded one of the
+Confederate commerce-destroyers, and from his initials (Jas. I.) was
+known to us as Jasseye, had done this because he had very pretty feet
+which he liked to show bare, and we must do the same; much as Germans
+are said to train their mustaches with the emperor's. At all events,
+there was great wrath, which I supposed I should have shared had I not
+preferred bare feet--not for as sound reasons as the lieutenant's. It
+stands to reason, however, that that imputation was slanderous, for
+there were no appreciative observers, unless himself. Why waste such
+sweetness on the desert air of a lot of heedless midshipmen? With so
+many details regulated--if not enforced--from the length of our hair
+to the cut of our trousers, it did seem hypercritical to object to
+going shoeless for an hour. But who is consistent? The uncertainty of
+our position kept the chip on the shoulder.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+MY FIRST CRUISE AFTER GRADUATION--NAUTICAL CHARACTERS
+
+1859-1861
+
+
+At the moment of graduation, in the summer of 1859, I had a narrow
+escape from the cutting short of my career, resembling that which a
+man has from a railway accident by missing the train. To a certain
+extent the members of classes were favored in forming groups of
+friends, and choosing the ship to which they would be sent. Myself and
+two intimates applied for the sloop-of-war _Levant_, destined for the
+Pacific by way of Cape Horn; our motive being partly the kind of
+vessel, supposed by us to favor professional opportunity, and partly
+the friendship existing between one of us and the master of the
+_Levant_, a graduate of two or three years before, who had just
+completed his examinations for promotion. Luckily for us, and
+particularly for me, as the only one of the three who in after life
+survived middle age, the frigate _Congress_ was fitting out, and her
+requirements for officers could not be disregarded. The _Levant_
+sailed, reached the Pacific, and disappeared--one of the mysteries of
+the deep. We very young men had the impression that small vessels were
+better calculated to advance us professionally, because, having fewer
+officers, deck duty might be devolved on us, either to ease the
+regular watch officers or in case of a disability. This prepossession
+extended particularly to brigs, of which the navy then had several.
+This was a pretty wild imagining, for I can hardly conceive any one
+in trusting such a vessel to a raw midshipman. It is scarcely an
+exaggeration to say they were all canvas and no hull--beautiful as a
+dream, but dangerous to a degree, except to the skilful. As it was, an
+unusual proportion of them came to grief. Our views were doubtless
+largely, if unconsciously, affected by the pleasing idea of
+prospective early importance as deck officers. The more solid opinion
+of our seniors was that we would do better to pause awhile on the
+bottom step, under closer supervision; while as for vessel, the order,
+dignity, and scale of performance on big ships were more educative,
+more formative of military character, which, and not seamanship, is
+the leading element of professional value. "Keep them at sea," said
+Lord St. Vincent, "and they can't help becoming seamen; but attention
+is needed to make them learn their business with the guns." I have
+already mentioned that, at the outbreak of the War of Secession, it
+was this factor which decided the authorities to give seniority to the
+very young lieutenants over the volunteers from the merchant service,
+most of whom had longer experience and (though by no means all of
+them) consequent ability as seamen.
+
+After graduating, my first cruise was upon what was then known as the
+Brazil Station; by the British called more comprehensively the
+Southeast Coast of America. After the war the name and limits were
+judiciously changed. It became then the South Atlantic Station, to
+embrace the Cape of Good Hope, and, generally, the coasts of South
+America and Africa, with the islands lying between, such as St. Helena
+and the Falklands. From the point of view of healthy activity for the
+ships and their companies, and specifically for the education of
+younger officers, this extension was most desirable. In the earlier
+time long periods were spent in port, because there really was not
+enough that required doing. Our captain once kept the ship at sea for
+a fortnight or more, "cruising;" that is, moving about within certain
+limits back and forth. In war-time this is frequent, if not general;
+but then it is for a specific purpose, conducive to the ends of war.
+In peace, cruising ends in itself; it is like a "constitutional;"
+beneficial, no doubt, but not to most men as healthily beneficial as
+the walk to the office, with its definite object and the incidental
+amusement of the streets. A _terminus ad quem_ is essential to the
+perfection of exercise, bodily or mental. As it was, Montevideo, in
+the river La Plata, and Rio de Janeiro were the two chief ports
+between which we oscillated, with rare and brief stays elsewhere or at
+sea.
+
+The _Congress_ was a magnificent ship of her period. The adjective is
+not too strong. Having been built about 1840, she represented the
+culmination of the sail era, which, judged by her, reached then the
+splendid maturity that in itself, to the prophetic eye, presages decay
+and vanishment. In her just but strong proportions, in her lines, fine
+yet not delicate, she "seemed to dare," and did dare, "the elements to
+strife;" while for "her peopled deck," when her five hundred and odd
+men swarmed up for an evolution, or to get their hammocks for the
+night, it was peopled to the square foot, despite her size. On her
+forecastle, and to the fore and main masts, each, were stationed sixty
+men, full half of them prime seamen, not only in skill, but in age and
+physique--ninety for the starboard watch, and ninety for the port; not
+to count the mizzen-topmen, after-guard, and marines, more than as
+many more. I have always remembered the effect produced upon me by
+this huge mass, when all hands gathered once to wear ship in a heavy
+gale, the height of one of those furious _pamperos_ which issue from
+the prairies (_pampas_) of Buenos Ayres. The ship having only fore and
+main topsails, close reefed, the officers, beyond those of the watch,
+were not summoned; the handling of the yards required only the brute
+force of muscle, under which, even in such conditions, they were as
+toys in the hands of that superb ship's company. I had thus the chance
+to see things from the poop, a kind of bird's-eye view. As the ship
+fell off before the wind, and while the captain was waiting that
+smoother chance which from time to time offers to bring her up to it
+again on the other side with the least shock, she of course gathered
+accelerated way with the gale right aft--scudding, in fact. Unsteadied
+by wind on either side, she rolled deeply, and the sight of those four
+hundred or more faces, all turned up and aft, watching intently the
+officer of the deck for the next order, the braces stretched taut
+along in their hands for instant obedience, was singularly striking.
+Usually a midshipman had to be in the midst of such matters with no
+leisure for impressions--at least, of an "impressionist" character.
+Those were the prerogatives of the idlers--the surgeon, chaplain, and
+marine officers--who obtained thereby not only the benefit of the
+show, but material for discussion as to how well the thing had been
+done, or whether it ought to have been done at all. The midshipman's
+part at "all hands" was to be as much in the way as was necessary to
+see all needed gear manned, no skulkers, and as much out of the way as
+his personal stability required, from the rush of the huge gangs of
+seamen "running away" with a rope.
+
+I never had the opportunity of viewing the ship from outside under way
+at sea; but she was delightful to look at in port. Her spars, both
+masts and yards, lofty and yet square, were as true to proportion, for
+perfection of appearance, as was her hull; and the twenty-five guns
+she showed on each broadside, in two tiers, though they had abundance
+of working-room, were close enough together to suggest two strong rows
+of solid teeth, ready for instant use. Nothing could be more
+splendidly martial. But what old-timers they were, with the swell of
+their black muzzles, like the lips of a full-blooded negro.
+Thirty-two-pounders, all of them; except on either side five
+eight-inch shell guns, a small tribute to progress. The rest threw
+solid shot for the most part. Imposing as they certainly looked, and
+heavier though they were than most of those with which the world's
+famous sea-fights have been fought, they were already antediluvian. A
+few years later I saw a long range of them enjoying their last repose
+on the skids in a navy-yard; and a bystander, with equal truth and
+irreverence, called them pop-guns. One almost felt that the word
+should be uttered in a whisper, out of respect for their feelings. But
+the whole equipment of the ship, though up to date in itself, was so
+far of the past that I recall it with mingled pathos and interest.
+What naval officer who may read these words was ever shipmate with
+rope "trusses" for the lower yards, or with a hemp messenger? A
+"messenger" was a huge rope, of I suppose eighteen to twenty-four
+inches circumference, used for lifting the anchor. At the after end of
+the ship it was passed three times round the capstan, where the men
+walking round merrily to the sound of the fife, under the eyes of the
+officer of the deck, were doing the work of weighing; at the forward
+end it moved round rollers to save friction. Thus one part was taut
+under the strain of the capstan; and to this the cable of the anchor,
+as it was hove in, was made fast by a succession of selvagees, for
+which I will borrow the elaborate description of White Jacket, who
+tells us the name was applied by the seamen of his ship to one of the
+lieutenants: "It is a slender, tapering, unstranded piece of rope,
+prepared with much solicitude; peculiarly flexible; which wreathes and
+serpentines round the cable and messenger like an elegantly modelled
+garter-snake round the stalks of a vine." The messenger thus was
+appropriately named; it went back and forth on its errand of anchor
+raising, the slack side being helped on its way by a row of twelve or
+fifteen men seated, pulling it along forward. This gang, by immemorial
+usage, was composed of the colored servants, and I can see now that
+row of black faces, with grinning ivories, as they yo-ho'd in
+undertones together, "lighting forward the messenger."
+
+Like the ship and her equipment, the officers and crew by training and
+methods were still of the olden time in tone and ideals; a condition,
+of course, fostered at the moment by the style of vessel. Yet they had
+that curious adaptability characteristic of the profession, which
+afterwards enabled them to fall readily into the use of the new
+constructions of every kind evolved by the War of Secession.
+Concerning some of these, a naval professional humorist observed that
+they could be worshipped without idolatry; for they were like nothing
+in heaven, or on earth, or in the waters under the earth. Adored or
+not, they were handled to purpose. By a paradoxical combination, the
+seaman of those days was at once most conservative in temperament and
+versatile in capacity. Among the officers, however, there was an open
+vision towards the future. I well remember "Joe" Smith enlarging to me
+on the merits of Cowper Coles's projected turret ship, much talked
+about in the British press in 1860; a full year or more before
+Ericsson, under the exigency of existing war, obtained from us a
+hearing for the _Monitor_. Coles's turrets, being then a novel
+project, were likened, explanatorily, to a railway turn-table, a very
+illustrative definition; and Smith was already convinced of the value
+of the design, which was proved in Hampton Roads the day after he
+himself fell gloriously on the deck of the _Congress_. There is a
+double tragedy in his missing by this brief space the clear
+demonstration of a system to which he so early gave his adherence; and
+it is another tragedy, which most Americans except naval officers will
+have forgotten, that Coles himself found his grave in the ship--the
+_Captain_--ultimately built through his urgency upon this turret
+principle. This happened in 1870. The tradition of masts and sails, as
+economical, still surviving, she was equipped with them, which we from
+the beginning had discarded in monitors. The _Captain_ was a large
+vessel with low freeboard, her deck only six feet above water. Lying
+to under sail in a moderate gale, in the Bay of Biscay, she heeled
+over in a squall, bringing the lee side of the deck under water; and
+the force of the wind increasing, without meeting the resistance
+offered ordinarily by the pressure of the water against the lee side
+of a ship, she went clean over and sank. The incident made the deeper
+impression upon me because two months before I had visited her, when
+she was lying at Spithead in company with another iron-clad, the
+_Monarch_, which soon after was assigned by the British government to
+bring George Peabody's remains to their final resting-place in
+America. I then met and was courteously received by the captain of the
+_Captain_, Burgoyne, of the same family as the general known to our
+War of Independence. Coles had gone merely as a passenger, to observe
+the practical working of his designs. I do not know how far the
+masting was consonant to his wishes. It may have been forced upon him
+as a concession, necessary to obtain his main end; but nothing could
+be more incongruous than to embarrass the all-round fire of turrets by
+masts and rigging.
+
+In 1859 the United States government was coquetting with the title
+"Admiral," which was supposed to have some insidious connection with
+monarchical institutions. Even so sensible and thoughtful a man as our
+sailmaker, who was a devout disciple and constant reader of Horace
+Greeley, with the advanced political tendencies of the _Tribune_, said
+to me: "Call them admirals! Never! They will be wanting to be dukes
+next." We had hit, therefore, on a compromise, quite accordant with
+the transition decade 1850-1860, and styled them flag-officers;
+concerning which it might be said that all admirals are
+flag-officers, but all flag-officers were not admirals--not American
+flag-officers, at all events. As a further element in the compromise,
+instead of the broad swallow-tailed pendant of a commodore, our
+previous flag-rank, we carried the square flag at the mizzen
+indicative in all navies of a rear-admiral, to which we gave a
+rear-admiral's salute of thirteen guns, and expected the same from
+foreigners; while all the time the recipient stood on our _Navy
+Register_ as a captain, only temporarily brevetted Flag-officer. Well
+do I remember the dismay of our flag-officer when, quitting a British
+ship of war, she fired the customary salute, and stopped at eleven--a
+commodore's perquisite. The hit was harder, because the old gentleman
+was particularly fond of the English, having received from them great
+hospitality incidental to his commanding the ship of war which carried
+part of the American exhibition to the World's Fair of 1851. An "_Et
+tu, Brute_" expression came over his face, as he sank back with a
+sorrowful exclamation in the stern-sheets of the barge, which, as
+nautical convention requires, was lying motionless, oars horizontal, a
+ship's-length away; when, lo and behold, as a kind of appendix to the
+previous proceedings, bang! bang! went two more guns, filling the
+baker's dozen. It was, of course, somewhat limping, but the apology
+was sufficient.
+
+Salutes are as liable to accidents as are other affairs of
+well-regulated households, and a little more so; a gun misses fire, or
+somebody counts wrong, or what not. On the _Congress_ we rarely had
+trouble, for the greatest number of guns is twenty-one--a national
+salute--and on our main deck we had thirty, any part of which could be
+ready. If one missed fire, the gun next abaft stepped in. If near
+enough, you might hear the primer snap, but the error of interval was
+barely appreciable--the effect stood. Laymen may not know that the
+manner of the salute was, and is, for the officer conducting it to
+give the orders, "Starboard, fire!" "Port, fire!" the discharges thus
+ranging from forward, aft, alternately on each side. A man who cannot
+trust his ear times the interval by watch; most, I presume, trust
+their counting. I once underwent an amusing _faux pas_ in this matter
+of counting. Of course, the count is a serious matter; gun for gun is
+diplomatically as important as an eye for an eye. My captain had heard
+that an excellent precaution was to provide one's self with a
+number of dried beans--with which, needless to say, a ship
+abounds--corresponding to the number of guns. The receipt ran: Put
+them all in one pocket, and with each gun shift a bean to the other
+pocket. He proposed this to me, but I demurred; I feared I might get
+mixed on the beans and omit to shift one. He did not press me, but
+when I began to perform on the main deck he stood near the hatch on
+the deck above, duly--or unduly--provided with beans. It was a
+national salute; to the port. When I finished, he called to me: "You
+have only fired twenty guns." "No, sir," I replied; "twenty-one."
+"No," he repeated, "twenty; for I have a bean left." "All right!" I
+returned, and I banged an appendix; after which, upon counting, it was
+found the captain had twenty-two beans and the French twenty-two
+guns--a "tiger" which I hope they appreciated, but am sure they did
+not "return."
+
+Our flag-officer was a veteran of 1812. He had evidently been very
+handsome, to which possibly he owed three successive wives, the last
+one much younger than himself. Now, in his sixties, he was still light
+in his movements. He had a queer way of tripping along on the balls of
+his feet, with a half-shuffling movement, his hands buried in his
+pockets, with the thumbs out. He was, I fear, the sort of man capable
+of wearing a frock-coat unbuttoned. It was amusing to see him walk the
+poop with the captain of the ship, who out topped him by a head, was
+ponderous in dimensions, with wide tread and feet like an elephant's;
+yet, it was said by those who had seen, a beautiful waltzer. His son,
+who was his clerk, used to say: "The old man's feet really aren't so
+big, if he would not wear such shoes." When his shoes were sent up to
+dry in the sun, as all sea-shoes must be at times, the midshipmen knew
+the occasion as a gunboat parade. The flag-officer was styled
+familiarly in the navy by the epithet Buckey; I never saw it spelled,
+but the pronunciation was as given. Report ran that he thus called
+every one, promiscuously; but, although I was his aide for nearly six
+months, I only heard him use it once or twice. Possibly he was
+breaking a bad habit.
+
+Judged by my experience, which I believe was no worse than the
+average, the life of an aide is literally that of a dog; it was
+chiefly following round, or else sitting in a boat at a landing, just
+as a dog waits outside for his master, to all hours of the night, till
+your superior comes down from his dinner or out from the theatre. A
+coachman has a "cinch," to use our present-day slang; for he has only
+his own behavior to look to, while the aide has to see that the dozen
+bargemen also behave, don't skip up the wharf for a drink, and then
+forget the way back to the boat. If one or two do, no matter how good
+his dinner may have been, the remarks of the flag-officer are apt to
+be unpleasant; not to speak of subsequent interviews with the
+first-lieutenant. I trace to those days a horror which has never left
+me of keeping servants waiting. Flag-officers apparently never heard
+that punctuality is the politeness of kings. There are, however,
+occasional compensations; bones, I might say, pursuing the dog
+analogy. One incident very interesting to me occurred. The
+flag-officer had a well-deserved reputation for great bravery, and in
+his early career had fought two or three duels. One of these had been
+at Rio Janeiro, on an island in the harbor, and he had there killed
+his man. On this occasion, the barge being manned and I along, we
+pulled over to the island. In the thirty intervening years it must
+have changed greatly, for many buildings were now on it; but his
+memory evidently was busy and serving him well. He walked round
+meditatively, uttering a low, humming whistle, his hands in his
+pockets, his secretary and myself following. At last he reached a
+point where he stopped and mused for some moments, after which he went
+quietly and silently to the boat. Not a word passed from him to us
+during our stay, nor the subsequent pull to shore; but there can be
+little doubt where his thoughts were. It is right to add that on the
+occasion in question not only was the provocation all on the other
+side, but it was endured by him to the utmost that the standards of
+1830 would permit.
+
+To my aideship also I owed an unusual opportunity to see an incident
+of bygone times--the heaving down of a fair-sized ship of war. One of
+our sloops, of some eight hundred tons' burden, bound to China, had
+put into Rio for repairs: a leak of no special danger, but so near the
+keel as to demand examination. It might get worse. As yet Rio had no
+dry-dock, and so she must be hove down. This operation, probably never
+known in these days, when dry-docks are to be found in all quarters,
+consisted in heeling the ship over, by heavy purchases attached to the
+top of the lower masts, until the keel, or at least so much of the
+side as was necessary, was out of water. As the leverage on the masts
+was extreme, almost everything had to be taken out of the ship, guns
+included, to lighten her to the utmost; and the spars themselves were
+heavily backed to bear the strain. The upper works, usually out of
+water, must on the down side be closed and protected against the
+proposed immersion. In short, preparation was minute as well as
+extensive. In the old days, when docks were rare, and long voyages
+would be made in regions without local resources, a ship would be hove
+down two or three times in a cruise, to clean her uncoppered bottom
+or to see what damage worms might be effecting. When frequently done,
+familiarity doubtless made it comparatively easy; but by 1859 it had
+become very exceptional. I have never seen another instance. She was
+taken to a sheltered cove, in one of those picturesque bights which
+abound in the harbor of Rio, the most beautiful bay in the world, and
+there, in repeated visits by our flag-officer, I saw most stages of
+the process. Technical details I will not inflict upon the reader, but
+there was one amusing anecdote told me by our carpenter, who as a
+senior in his business was much to the fore. Some general overhauling
+was also required, and among other things the sloop's captain pointed
+out that the side-board in the cabin was not well secured. "I have
+sometimes to get up two or three times in the night to see to it," he
+said. He had been one of the restored victims of the Retiring Board of
+1855, and had the reputation of knowing that sideboards exist for
+other purposes than merely being secured; hence, at this pathetic
+remark, the carpenter caught a wink, "on the fly," as it passed from
+the flag-officer to the captain of the _Congress_ and back again. The
+commander invalided soon after, and the sloop went on her way to China
+under the charge of the first lieutenant.
+
+The flag-officer, though not a man of particular distinction,
+possessed strongly that kind of individuality which among seamen of
+the days before steam, when the world was less small and less
+frequented, was more common than it is now, when we so cluster that,
+like shot in a barrel, we are rounded and polished by mere attrition.
+Formerly, characteristics had more chance to emphasize themselves and
+throw out angles, as I believe they still do in long polar seclusions.
+Withal, there came from him from time to time a whiff of the naval
+atmosphere of the past, like that from a drawer where lavender has
+been. Going ashore once with him for a constitutional, he caught
+sight of a necktie which my fond mother had given me. It was black,
+yes; but with variations. "Humph!" he ejaculated; "don't wear a thing
+like that with me. You look like a privateersman." There spoke the
+rivalries of 1812. There had not been a privateersman in the United
+States for near a half-century. A great chum of his was the senior
+surgeon of the frigate, a man near his own years. Leaving the ship
+together for a walk, the surgeon, crossing the deck, smudged his white
+trousers with paint or coal-tar, the free application of which in
+unexpected places is one of the snares attending a well-appearing
+man-of-war. "Never mind, doctor," said the flag-officer, consolingly,
+falling back like Sancho Panza on an ancient proverb; "remember the
+two dirtiest things in the world are a clean ship and a clean
+soldier"--paint and pipe-clay, to wit.
+
+Another trait was an extensive, though somewhat mild, profanity which
+took no account of ladies' presence, although he was almost
+exaggeratedly deferential to them, as well as cordially courteous to
+all. His speech was like his gait, tripping. I remember the arrival of
+the first steamer of a new French line to Rio. Steam mail-service was
+there and then exceptional; most of our home letters still came by
+sailing-vessel; consequently, this was an event, and brought the
+inevitable banquet. He was present; I also, as his aide, seated nearly
+opposite him, with two or three other of our officers. He was called
+to respond to a toast. "Gentlemen and ladies!" he began. "No! Ladies
+and gentlemen--ladies always first, d--n me!" What more he said I do
+not recall, although we all loyally applauded him. Many years
+afterwards, when he was old and feeble, an acquaintance of mine met
+him, and he began to tell of the tombstone of some person in whom he
+was interested. After various particulars, he startled his auditor
+with the general descriptive coruscation, "It was covered with angels
+and cherubs, and the h--l knows what else."
+
+It would be easily possible to overdraw the personal peculiarities of
+the seamen. I remember nothing corresponding at all to the
+extravagances instanced in my early reading of Colburn's; such as a
+frigate's watch--say one hundred and fifty men--on liberty in
+Portsmouth, England, buying up all the gold-laced cocked bats in the
+place, and appearing with them at the theatre. Many, however, who have
+seen a homeward-bound ship leaving port, the lower rigging of her
+three masts crowded with seamen from deck to top, returning roundly
+the cheers given by all the ships-of-war present, foreign as well as
+national, as she passes, have witnessed also the time-honored ceremony
+of her crew throwing their hats overboard with the last cheer. This
+corresponded to the breaking of glasses after a favorite toast, or to
+the bursts of enthusiasm in a Spanish bull-ring, where Andalusian caps
+fly by dozens into the arena. There, however, the bull-fighter returns
+them, with many bows; but those of the homeward-bounders become the
+inheritance of the boatmen of the port. The midshipman of the watch
+being stationed on the forecastle, my intimates among the crew were
+the staid seamen, approaching middle-age; allotted there, where they
+would have least going aloft. The two captains of the forecastle--one,
+I shrewdly think, Dutch, the other English, though both had English
+names--would engage in conversation with me at times, mingling
+deference and conscious superior experience in due proportion. One, I
+remember, just before the War of Secession began, was greatly
+exercised about the oncoming troubles. The causes of the difficulty
+and the political complications disturbed him little; but the probable
+prospect of the heads of the rebellion losing their property engrossed
+his mind. He constantly returned to this; it would be confiscated,
+doubtless; yet the assertion was an evident implied query to me, to
+which I could give no positive answer. As is known, few of the seamen,
+as of private soldiers in the army, sympathized sufficiently with the
+Confederacy to join it. Indeed, the vaunt I have heard attributed to
+Southern officers of the old navy, which, though never uttered in my
+ears, was very consonant to the Southern spirit as I then knew it,
+that Southern officers with Yankee seamen could beat the world,
+testified at least to the probable attitude of the latter in a war of
+sections. Considering the great naval names of the past, Preble, Hull,
+Decatur, Bainbridge, Stewart, Porter, Perry, and Macdonough, the two
+most Southern of whom came from Delaware and Maryland, this
+ante-bellum assurance was, to say the least, self-confident; but
+Farragut was a Southerner. The other captain of the forecastle was
+less communicative, taciturn by nature; but there ran of him a story
+of amusing simplicity. It occurred to him on one occasion that he
+would lay under contribution the resources of the ship's small
+library. Accordingly he went to the chaplain, in whose care it was;
+but as he was wholly in the dark as to what particular book he might
+like, the chaplain, after two or three tries, suggested a _Life of
+Paul Jones_. Yes, he thought he would like that. "You see, I was
+shipmates with him some cruises ago; he was with me in the main-top of
+the ----."
+
+Another forecastle intimate of mine was the boatswain, who, like most
+boatswains of that day, had served his time before the mast. As is the
+case with many self-made men, he, on his small scale, was very
+conscious of the fact, and of general consequent desert. A favorite
+saying with him was, "Thanks to my own industry and my wife's economy,
+I am now well beforehand with the world." Like a distinguished officer
+higher in rank of that day, of whom it was said that he remembered
+nothing later than 1813, my boatswain's memory dwelt much in the
+thirties, though he acknowledged more recent experiences. His attitude
+towards steam, essentially conservative, was strictly and amusingly
+official. He had served on board one steamer, the _San Jacinto_; and
+what had pleased him was that the yards could be squared and rigging
+hauled taut--his own special function--before entering port, so that
+in those respects the job had been done when the anchor dropped. One
+of his pet stories, frequently brought forward, concerned a schooner
+in which he had served in the earlier period, and will appeal to those
+who know how dear a fresh coat of paint is to a seaman's heart. She
+had just been thus decorated within and without, and was standing into
+a West-Indian port to show her fine feathers, when a sudden flaw of
+wind knocked her off, and over, dangerously close to a rocky point.
+The first order given was, "Stand clear of the paint-work!"--an
+instance of the ruling passion strong _in extremis_. He had another
+woesome account of a sloop-of-war in which he had gone through the
+Straits of Magellan. The difficult navigation and balky winds made the
+passage protracted for a sailing-vessel; all were put on short
+rations, and the day before she entered a Chilian port the bread-room
+was swept to the last crumbs. "I often could not sleep for hunger when
+I turned in." In the same ship, the watch-officers falling short,
+through illness or suspension, the captain set a second lieutenant of
+marines to take a day watch. Being, as he supposed, put to do
+something, he naturally wanted to do it, if he only knew what it was,
+and how it was to be done. The master of the ship was named Peter
+Wager, and to him, when taking sights, the marine appealed. "Peter,
+what's the use of being officer of the deck if you don't do anything?
+Tell me something to do." "Well," Peter replied, "you might send all
+the watch aft and take in the mizzen-royal"--the mizzen-royal being
+the smallest of all sails, requiring about two ordinary men, and in
+no wise missed when in. This was practical "tales for the marines."
+
+This boatswain afterwards saw the last of the _Congress_, when the
+_Merrimac_--or rather the _Virginia_, to give her her Confederate
+name--wasted time murdering a ship already dead, aground and on fire.
+He often afterwards spun me the yarn; for I liked the old man, and not
+infrequently went to see him in later days. He had borne
+good-humoredly the testiness with which a youngster is at times prone
+to assert himself against what he fancies interference, and I had
+appreciated the rebuke. The _Congress_ disaster was a very big and
+striking incident in the career of any person, and it both ministered
+to his self-esteem and provided the evening of his life with material
+for talk. Unhappily, I have to confess, as even Boswell at times did,
+I took no notes, and cannot reproduce that which to me is of absorbing
+interest, the individual impressions of a vivid catastrophe.
+
+The boatswain was one of the four who in naval phrase were termed
+"warrant" officers, in distinction from the lieutenants and those
+above, who held their offices by "commission." The three others were
+the gunner, carpenter, and sailmaker, names which sufficiently
+indicate their several functions. In the hierarchical classification
+of the navy, as then established by long tradition, the midshipmen,
+although on their way to a commission, were warrant officers also; and
+in consequence, though they had a separate mess, they had the same
+smoking-place, the effect of which in establishing a community of
+social intercourse every smoker will recognize. I suppose, if there
+had been three sides to a ship, there would have been three
+smoking-rendezvous; but in the crude barbarism of those days--as it
+will now probably be considered--both commissioned and warrant
+officers had no place to smoke except away forward on the
+gun-deck--the "eyes" of the ship, as the spot was appropriately
+named; the superiors on the honor side, which on the gun-deck was the
+port, the midshipmen and warrant officers on the starboard. The
+position was not without advantages, when riding head to wind, in hot
+tropical weather; but under way, close-hauled, with a stiff breeze, a
+good deal of salt water found its way in, especially if the jackasses
+were in the hawse-holes. But under such conditions we sat there
+serenely, the water coursing in a flowing stream under our chairs if
+the ship had a steady heel, or rushing madly from side to side if she
+lurched to windward. The stupidity of it was that we didn't even know
+we were uncomfortable, and by all sound philosophy were so far better
+off than our better accommodated successors. What was more annoying
+was the getting forward at night, when the hammocks were in place; but
+even for that occasional compensations offered. I remember once, when
+making this awkward journey, hearing a colloquy between two young
+seamen just about to swing themselves into bed at nine o'clock. "I
+say, Bill," said one, with voluptuous satisfaction, "too watches
+in,[9] and beans to-morrow." Can any philosophy soar higher than that,
+in contentment with small things? Plain living and high thinking!
+Diogenes wasn't in it.
+
+As the warrant officers of the ship were of the generation before us,
+we heard from their lips many racy and entertaining experiences of the
+former navy, most of which naturally have escaped me, while others I
+have dropped all along the line of my preceding reminiscences where
+they seemed to come in aptly. Each of the four had very different
+characteristics, and I fancy they did not agree very well together.
+All have long since gone to their rest; peace be with them! Four is an
+awkwardly small number for a mess-table of equals; friction is
+emphasized by narrowness of sphere. "I didn't like the man," said the
+boatswain afterwards to me of the sailmaker, narrating the destruction
+of the _Congress_; "but he is brave, brave as can be. Getting the
+wounded over the side to put them ashore, he was as cool as though
+nothing was happening. The great guns weren't so bad," he
+continued--"but the rifle-bullets that came singing along in clouds
+like mosquitoes! Yah!" he used to snap, each time he told me the tale,
+slapping his ears right and left, as one does at the hum of those
+intrusive insects. He did not like the carpenter, either, for reasons
+of another kind. They were both humorists, but of a different order.
+Indeed, I don't think that the boatswain, though slightly sardonic in
+expression, suspected himself of humor; but he really came at times
+pretty close to wit, if that be a perception of incongruities, as I
+have heard said. He was telling one day of some mishap that befell a
+vessel, wherein the officer in charge showed the happy blending of
+composure and ignorance we sometimes find; a condition concerning
+which a sufferer once said of himself, "I never open my mouth but I
+put my foot in it;" a confusion of metaphor, and suggestion of
+physical contortion, not often so neatly combined in a dozen words.
+The boatswain commented: "He didn't mind. He didn't know what to do,
+but there he stood, looking all the time as happy as a duck
+barefooted." A duck shod, and the consequent expression of its
+countenance, presents to my mind infinite entertainment. Our first
+lieutenant, under whom immediately he worked, was a great trial to
+him. He was an elderly man, as first lieutenants of big ships were
+then, great with the paint-brush and tar-pot, traces of which were
+continually surprising one's clothes; mighty also in that lavish
+swashing of sea-water which is called washing decks, and in the
+tropics is not so bad; but otherwise, while he was one of the
+kindliest of men, the go was pretty well out of him. "Yes," the
+boatswain used to say grimly,--he seldom smiled,--"the first
+lieutenant is like an old piece of soap--half wore out. Go day, come
+day, God send Sunday; that's he."
+
+The carpenter, on the other hand, was always on a broad grin--or
+rather roar. He breathed farce, both in story and feature. Unlike the
+boatswain, who was middle-sized and very trig, as well as scrupulously
+neat, the carpenter was over six feet, broad in proportion, with big,
+round, red, close-shaven face, framed with abundance of white hair. He
+looked not unlike one's fancies of the typical English yeoman, while
+withal having a strong Yankee flavor. Wearing always a frock-coat,
+buttoned up as high as any one then buttoned, he carried with it a
+bluff heartiness of manner, which gave an impression of solidity not,
+I fear, wholly sustained on demand. There was no such doubt about the
+fun, however, or his own huge enjoyment of his own stories,
+accompanied by a running fire of guffaws, which pointed the
+appreciation we easily gave. But it was all of the same character,
+broad farce; accounts of mishaps such as befall in children's
+pantomimes,--which their seniors enjoy, too,--practical jokes equally
+ludicrous, and resulting situations to match. Comical as such tales
+were at the time, and many a pleasant pipeful of Lynchburg tobacco in
+Powhatan clay though they whiled away, they lacked the catching and
+fixing power of the boatswain's shrewd sayings. I can remember
+distinctly only one, of two small midshipmen, shipmates of his in a
+sloop-of-war of long-gone days, who had a deadly quarrel, calling for
+blood. A duel ashore might in those times have been arranged, unknown
+to superiors--they often were; but the necessity for speedy
+satisfaction was too urgent, and they could not wait for the end of
+the voyage. Consequently, they determined to fight from the two ends
+of the spritsail-yard, a horizontal spar which crossed the bowsprit
+end, and gave, or could admit, the required number of paces. Seconds,
+I presume, were omitted; they might have attracted unnecessary
+attention, and on the yard would have been in the way of shot, unless
+they sat behind their several principals, like damsels on a pillion.
+So these two mites, procuring each a loaded pistol, crawled out
+quietly to their respective places, straddled the yard, and were
+proceeding to business, when the boatswain caught sight of them from
+his frequent stand-point between the knightheads. He ran out, got
+between them in the line of fire, and from this position of tactical
+advantage, having collared first one and then the other, brought them
+both in on the forecastle, where he knocked their heads together. The
+last action, I fancy, must be considered an embellishment, necessary
+to the dramatic completeness of the incident, though it may at least
+be admitted it would not have been incongruous. In telling this
+occurrence, which, punctuated by his own laughter, bore frequent
+repetition, the carpenter used to give the names of the heroes. One I
+have forgotten. The other I knew in after life and middle-age, still
+small of stature, with a red face, in outline much like a paroquet's.
+He was not a bad fellow; but his first lieutenant, a very competent
+critic, used to say that what he did not know of seamanship would fill
+a large book.
+
+At first thought it seems somewhat singular that the six lieutenants
+of the ship presented no such aggregate of idiosyncrasies as did the
+four warrant officers. It was not by any means because we did not know
+them well, and mingle among them with comparative frequency.
+Midshipmen, we travelled from one side to the other; here at home,
+there guests, but to both admitted freely. But, come to think of it
+more widely, the distinction I here note must have had a foundation in
+conditions. My acquaintance with Marryat, who lived the naval life as
+no other sea author has, is now somewhat remote, but was once intimate
+as well as extensive; and recollection deceives me if the same remark
+does not apply to his characters. He has a full gallery of captains
+and lieutenants, each differing from the other; but his greatest
+successes in portrayal, those that take hold of the memory, are his
+warrant officers--boatswains, gunners, and carpenters. The British
+navy did not give sailmakers this promotion. By-products though they
+are, rather than leading characters, Boatswain Chucks, whom Marryat
+takes off the stage midway, as though too much to sustain to the end,
+Carpenter Muddle, and Gunner Tallboys, with his aspirations towards
+navigating, sketched but briefly and in bold outline as they are,
+survive most of their superiors in clear individuality and amusing
+eccentricity. Peter Simple, and even Jack Easy himself, whose traits
+are more personal than nautical, are less vivid to memory. Cooper
+also, who caricatures rather than reproduces life, seeks here his
+fittest subjects--Boltrope and Trysail--warrant masters, superior in
+grade indeed to the others, but closely identified with them on board
+ship, and essentially of the same class. Such coincidence betokens a
+more pronounced individuality in the subject-matter. There have been
+particular eccentric commissioned officers, of whom quaint stories
+have descended; but in early days, originality was the class-mark of
+those of whom I am speaking, as many an anecdote witnesses. I fancy
+few will have seen this, which I picked up in my miscellaneous
+nautical readings. A boatswain, who had been with Cook in his voyages,
+chanced upon one of those fervent Methodist meetings common in the
+eighteenth century. The preacher, in illustration of the abundance of
+the Divine mercy, affirmed that there was hope for the worst, even for
+the boatswain of a man-of-war; whereupon the boatswain sprang to the
+platform and administered a drubbing. True or not, offence and
+punishment testify to public estimate as to character and action; to a
+natural exaggeration of feature which lends itself readily to
+reproduction. This was due, probably, to a more contracted sphere in
+early life, and afterwards less of that social opportunity, in the
+course of which angular projections are rounded off and personal
+peculiarities softened by various contact. The same cause would
+naturally occasion more friction and disagreement among themselves.
+
+Thus the several lieutenants of our frigate call for no special
+characterization. If egotism, the most amusing of traits where it is
+not offensive, existed among them to any unusual degree, it was
+modified and concealed by the acquired exterior of social usage. Their
+interests also were wider. With them, talk was less of self and
+personal experience, and more upon subjects of general interest,
+professional or external; the outlook was wider. But while all this
+tended to make them more instructive, and in so far more useful
+companions, it also took from the salt of individuality somewhat of
+its pungency. It did not fall to them, either, to become afterwards
+especially conspicuous in the nearing War of Secession. They were good
+seamen and gallant men; knew their duty and did it; but either
+opportunity failed them, or they failed opportunity; from my knowledge
+of them, probably the former. As Nelson once wrote: "A sea officer
+cannot form plans like those of a land officer; his object is to
+embrace the happy moment which now and then offers; it may be this
+day, not for a month, and perhaps never." So also Farragut is reported
+to have said of a conspicuous shortcoming: "Every man has one chance;
+he has had his and lost it." Certainly, by failure that man lost
+promotion with its chances. It is somewhat congruous to this train of
+thought that Smith, whom I have so often mentioned, said one day to
+me: "If I had a son (he was unmarried), I would put him in the navy
+without hesitation. I believe there is a day coming shortly when the
+opportunities for a naval officer will exceed any that our country has
+yet known." He did not say what contingencies he had in mind; scarcely
+those of the War of Secession, large looming though it already was,
+for, like most of us, he doubtless refused to entertain that sorrowful
+possibility. As with many a prophecy, his was of wider scope than he
+thought; and, though in part fulfilled, more yet remains on the laps
+of the gods. He himself, perhaps the ablest of this group, was cut off
+too early to contribute more than an heroic memory; but that must live
+in naval annals, enshrined in his father's phrase, along with Craven's
+"After you, pilot," when the _Tecumseh_ sank.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+MY FIRST CRUISE AFTER GRADUATION--NAUTICAL SCENES AND SCENERY--THE
+APPROACH OF DISUNION
+
+1859-1861
+
+
+The absence of the _Congress_ lasted a little over two years, the
+fateful two years in which the elements of strife in the United States
+were sifting apart and gathering in new combinations for the
+tremendous outbreak of 1861. The first battle of Bull Run had been
+fought before she again saw a home port. The cruise offered little
+worthy of special note. This story is one of commonplaces; but they
+are the commonplaces of conditions which have passed away forever, and
+some details are worthy to be not entirely forgotten, now that the
+life has disappeared. We were in contact with it in all its forms and
+phases; being, as midshipmen, utilized for every kind of miscellaneous
+and nondescript duty. Our captain interfered very little with us
+directly, and I might almost say washed his hands of us. The
+regulations required that at the expiry of a cruise the commander of a
+vessel should give his midshipmen a letter, to be presented to the
+board of examiners before whom they were shortly to appear. Ours,
+while certifying to our general correct behavior--personal rather than
+official--limited himself, on the score of professional
+accomplishments, which should have been under constant observance, to
+saying that, as we were soon to appear before a board, the intent of
+which would be to test them, he forbore an opinion. This was even
+more non-committal than another captain, whose certificates came under
+my eye when myself a member of a board. In these, after some very
+cautious commendation on the score of conduct, he added, "I should
+have liked the display of a little more zeal." Zeal, the readers of
+_Midshipman Easy_ will remember, is the naval universal solvent.
+Although liable at times to be misplaced, as Easy found, it is not so
+suspicious a quality as Talleyrand considered it to be in diplomacy.
+
+Our captain's zeal for our improvement confined itself to putting us
+in three watches; that is, every night we had to be on deck and duty
+through one of the three periods, of four hours each, into which the
+sea night is divided. Of this he made a principle, and in it doubtless
+found the satisfaction of a good conscience; he had done all that
+could be expected, at least by himself. I personally agree with Basil
+Hall; upon the whole, watch keeping pays, yields more of interest than
+of disagreeables. It must be conceded that it was unpleasant to be
+waked at midnight in your warm hammock, told your hour was come, that
+it was raining and blowing hard, that another reef was about to be
+taken in the topsails and the topgallant yards sent on deck.
+Patriotism and glory seemed very poor stimulants at that moment. Still
+half asleep, you tumbled, somewhat literally, out of the hammock on to
+a deck probably wet, dressed by a dim, single-wick swinging lantern,
+which revealed chiefly what you did not want, or by a candle which had
+to be watched with one eye lest it roll over and, as once in my
+experience happened, set fire to wood-work. Needless to say, electric
+lights then were not. Dressed in storm-clothes about as conducive to
+agility as a suit of mediæval armor, and a sou'wester which caught at
+every corner you turned, you forced your way up through two successive
+tarpaulin-covered hatches, by holes just big enough to pass, pushing
+aside the tarpaulin with one hand while the other steadied yourself.
+And if there were no moon, how black the outside was, to an eye as yet
+adjusted only to the darkness visible of the lanterns below! Except a
+single ray on the little book by which the midshipman mustered the
+watch, no gleam of artificial light was permitted on the
+spar--upper--deck; the fitful flashes dazzled more than they helped.
+You groped your way forward with some certainty, due to familiarity
+with the ground, and with more certainty of being jostled and trampled
+by your many watch-mates, quite as blind and much more sleepy than
+their officers could afford to be. The rain stung your face; the wind
+howled in your ears and drowned your voice; the men were either intent
+on going below, or drowsy and ill-reconciled to having to come on
+deck; in either case inattentive and hard to move for some moments.
+
+In truth, the fifteen minutes attending the change of a watch were a
+period not only of inconvenience, but of real danger too rarely
+appreciated. I remember one of the smartest seamen and officers of the
+old navy speaking feelingly to me of the anxiety those instants often
+caused him. The lieutenant of an expiring watch too frequently would
+postpone some necessary step, either from personal indolence or from a
+good-natured indisposition to disturb the men, who when not needed to
+work slept about the decks--except, of course, the lookouts and wheel.
+The other watch will soon be coming up, he would argue; let them do
+it, before they settle down to sleep. There were times, such as a
+slowly increasing gale, which might justify delay; especially if the
+watch had had an unusual amount of work. But tropical squalls, which
+gather quickly and sweep down with hurricane force, are another
+matter; and it was of these the officer quoted spoke, suggesting that
+possibly such an experience had caused the loss of one of our large,
+tall-sparred sloops-of-war, the _Albany_, which in 1854 disappeared in
+the West Indies. The men who have been four hours on deck are
+thinking only of their hammocks; their reliefs are not half awake, and
+do not feel they are on duty until the watch is mustered. All are
+mingled together; the very numbers of a ship of war under such
+circumstances impede themselves and their officers. I remember an
+acquaintance of mine telling me that once on taking the trumpet, the
+outward and visible sign of "the deck being relieved," his
+predecessor, after "turning over the night orders," said, casually,
+"It looks like a pretty big squall coming up there to windward," and
+incontinently dived below. "I jumped on the horse-block," said the
+narrator, "and there it was, sure enough, coming down hand over fist.
+I had no time to shorten sail, but only to put the helm up and get her
+before it;" an instance in point of what an old gray-haired instructor
+of ours used to say, with correct accentuation, "Always the hellum
+first."
+
+But, when you were awake, what a mighty stimulus there was in the salt
+roaring wind and the pelting rain! how infectious the shout of the
+officer of the deck! the answering cry of the topmen aloft--the "Haul
+out to windward! Together! All!" that reached your ear from the yards
+as the men struggled with the wet, swollen, thrashing canvas,
+mastering it with mighty pull, and "lighting to windward" the
+reef-band which was to be the new head of the sail, ready to the hand
+of the man at the post of honor, the weather caring! How eager and
+absorbing the gaze through the darkness, from deck, to see how they
+were getting on; whether the yard was so braced that the sail lay with
+the wind out of it, really slack for handling, though still bellying
+and lifting as the ship rolled, or headed up or off; whether this rope
+or that which controlled the wilful canvas needed another pull. But if
+the yard itself had not been laid right, it was too late to mend it.
+To start a brace with the men on the spar might cause a jerk that
+would spill from it some one whose both hands were in the work,
+contrary to the sound tradition, "One hand for yourself and one for
+the owners." I believe the old English phrase ran, "One for yourself
+and one for the king." Then, when all was over and snug once more, the
+men down from aloft, the rigging coiled up again on its pins, there
+succeeded the delightful relaxation from work well done and finished,
+the easy acceptance of the quieting yet stimulating effect of the
+strong air, enjoyed in indolence; for nothing was more unoccupied than
+the seaman when the last reef was in the topsails and the ship
+lying-to.
+
+Talking of such sensations, and the idle _abandon_ of a whole gale of
+wind after the ship is secured, I wonder how many of my readers will
+have seen the following ancient song. I guard myself from implying the
+full acquiescence of seamen in what is, of course, a caricature; few
+seamen, few who have tried, really enjoy bad weather. Yet there are
+exceptions. That there is no accounting for tastes is extraordinarily
+true. I once met a man, journeying, who told me he liked living in a
+sleeping-car; than which to me a dozen gales, with their abounding
+fresh air, would be preferable. Yet this ditty does grotesquely
+reproduce the lazy satisfaction and security of the old-timers under
+the conditions:
+
+   "One night came on a hurricane,
+      The sea was mountains rolling,
+    When Barney Buntline turned his quid
+      And said to Billy Bowline,
+    'A strong nor'wester's blowing, Bill:
+      Hark! don't you hear it roar now?
+    Lord help them! how I pities all
+      Unlucky folks on shore now.
+
+   "'Foolhardy chaps, that live in towns,
+      What dangers they are all in!
+    And now lie shaking in their beds,
+      For fear the roof should fall in!
+    Poor creatures, how they envies us,
+      And wishes, I've a notion,
+    For our good luck, in such a storm,
+      To be upon the ocean.
+
+   "'And often, Bill, I have been told
+      How folks are killed, and undone,
+    By overturns of carriages,
+      By fogs and fires in London.
+    We know what risks all landsmen run,
+      From noblemen to tailors:
+    Then, Bill, let us thank Providence
+      That you and I are sailors.'"
+
+Tastes differ as to which of the three night watches is preferable.
+Perhaps some one who has tried will reply they are all alike
+detestable, and, if he be Irish, will add that the only decent watch
+on deck is the watch below--an "all night in." But I also have tried;
+and while prepared to admit that perhaps the pleasantest moment of any
+particular watch is that in which your successor touches his cap and
+says, "I'll relieve you," I still maintain there are abundant and
+large compensations. Particularly for a midshipman, for he had no
+responsibilities. The lieutenant of the watch had always before him
+the possibilities of a mischance; and one very good officer said to me
+he did not believe any lieutenant in the navy felt perfectly
+comfortable in charge of the deck in a heavy gale. Freedom from
+anxiety, however, is a matter of temperament; not by any means
+necessarily of courage, although it adds to courage the invaluable
+quality of not wasting nerve force on difficulties of the imagination.
+A weather-brace may go unexpectedly; a topsail-sheet part; an awkward
+wave come on board. Very true; but what is the use of worrying,
+unless you are constitutionally disposed to worry. If you are
+constitutionally so disposed, I admit there is not much use in
+talking. Illustrative of this, the following story has come down of
+two British admirals, both men of proved merit and gallantry. "When
+Howe was in command of the Channel Fleet, after a dark and boisterous
+night, in which the ships had been in some danger of running foul of
+each other, Lord Gardner, then the third in command, the next day went
+on board the _Queen Charlotte_ and inquired of Lord Howe how he had
+slept, for that he himself had not been able to get any rest from
+anxiety of mind. Lord Howe said he had slept perfectly well, for, as
+he had taken every possible precaution he could before dark, he laid
+himself down with a conscious feeling that everything had been done
+which it was in his power to do for the safety of the ships and of the
+lives intrusted to his care, and this conviction set his mind at
+ease." The apprehensiveness with which Gardner was afflicted "is
+further exemplified by an anecdote told by Admiral Sir James Whitshed,
+who commanded the _Alligator_, next him in the line. Such was his
+anxiety, even in ordinary weather, that, though each ship carried
+three poop lanterns, he always kept one burning in his cabin, and when
+he thought the _Alligator_ was approaching too near, he used to run
+out into the stern gallery with the lantern in his hand, waving it so
+as to be noticed." My friend above quoted had only recently quitted a
+brig-of-war, on board which he had passed several night watches with a
+man standing by the lee topsail-sheet, axe in hand, to cut if she went
+over too far, lest she might not come back; and the circumstance had
+left an impression. I do not think he was much troubled in this way on
+board our frigate; yet the _Savannah_, but little smaller than the
+_Congress_, had been laid nearly on her beam-ends by a sudden squall,
+and had to cut, when entering Rio two years before.
+
+Being even at nineteen of a meditative turn, fond of building castles
+in the air, or recalling old acquaintance and _auld lang syne_,--the
+retrospect of youth, though short, seems longer than that of age,--I
+preferred in ordinary weather the mid-watch, from midnight to four.
+There was then less doing; more time and scope to enjoy. The canvas
+had long before been arranged for the night. If the wind shifted, or
+necessity for tacking arose, of course it was done; but otherwise a
+considerate officer would let the men sleep, only rousing them for
+imperative reasons. The hum of the ship, the loitering "idlers,"--men
+who do not keep watch,--last well on to ten, or after, in the
+preceding watch; and the officers of the deck in sailing-ships had not
+the reserve--or preserve--which the isolation of the modern bridge
+affords its occupants. Although the weather side of the quarter-deck
+was kept clear for him and the captain, there was continued going and
+coming, and talking near by. He was on the edge of things, if not in
+the midst; while the midshipman of the forecastle had scarce a foot he
+could call his very own. But when the mid-watch had been mustered, the
+lookouts stationed, and the rest of them had settled themselves down
+for sleep between the guns, out of the way of passing feet, the
+forecastle of the _Congress_ offered a very decent promenade,
+magnificent compared to that proverbial of the poops of small
+vessels--"two steps and overboard." Then began the steady pace to and
+fro, which to me was natural and inherited, easily maintained and
+consistent with thought--indeed, productive of it. Not every officer
+has this habit, but most acquire it. I have been told that, however
+weakly otherwise, the calf muscles of watch-officers were generally
+well developed. There were exceptions. A lieutenant who was something
+of a wag on one occasion handed the midshipman of his watch a small
+instrument, in which the latter did not recognize a pedometer. "Will
+you kindly keep this in your trousers-pocket for me till the watch is
+over?" At eight bells he asked for it, and, after examining, said,
+quizzically, "Mr. ----, I see you have walked just half a mile in the
+last four hours." Of course, walking is not imperative, one may watch
+standing; but movement tends to wakefulness--you can drowse upon your
+feet--while to sit down, besides being forbidden by unwritten law, is
+a treacherous snare to young eyelids.
+
+How much a watch afforded to an eye that loved nature! I have been
+bored so often by descriptions of scenery, that I am warned to put
+here a sharp check on my memory, lest it run away with me, and my
+readers seek escape by jumping off. I will forbear, therefore, any
+attempt at portraiture, and merely mention the superb aurora borealis
+which illuminated several nights of the autumn of 1859, perceptibly
+affecting the brightness of the atmosphere, while we lay becalmed a
+little north of the tropics. But other things I shall have some excuse
+for telling; because what my eyes used to see then few mortal eyes
+will see again. Travel will not reach it; for though here and there a
+rare sailing-ship is kept in a navy, for occasional instruction,
+otherwise they have passed away forever; and the exceptions are but
+curiosities--reality has disappeared. They no longer have life, and
+are now but the specimens of the museum. The beauties of a brilliant
+night at sea, whether starlit or moonlit, the solemn, awe-inspiring
+gloom and silence of a clouded, threatening sky, as the steamer with
+dull thud moves at midnight over the waste of waters, these I need not
+describe; many there are that see them in these rambling days. These
+eternities of the heavens and the deep abide as before, are common to
+the steamer as to the sailing-ship; but what weary strain of words can
+restore to imagination the beautiful living creature which leaped
+under our feet and spread her wings above us? For a sailing-ship was
+more inspiring from within than from without, especially a ship of
+war, which, as usually ordered, permitted no slovenliness; abounded in
+the perpetual seemliness that enhances beauty yet takes naught from
+grace. Viewed from without, undeniably a ship under sail possesses
+attraction; but it is from within that you feel the "very pulse of the
+machine." No canvas looks so lofty, speaks so eloquently, as that seen
+from its own deck, and this chiefly has invested the sailing-vessel
+with its poetry. This the steamer, with its vulgar appeal to physical
+comfort, cannot give. Does any one know any verse of real poetry, any
+strong, thrilling idea, suitably voiced, concerning a steamer? I
+do--one--by Clough, depicting the wrench from home, the stern
+inspiration following the wail of him who goeth away to return no
+more:
+
+              "Come back! come back!
+    Back flies the foam; the hoisted flag streams back;
+    The long smoke wavers on the homeward track.
+    Back fly with winds things which the winds obey,
+    _The strong ship follows its appointed way_."
+
+Oddly enough, two of the most striking sea scenes that I remember,
+very different in character, associate themselves with my favorite
+mid-watch. The first was the night on which we struck the northeast
+trade-winds, outward bound. We had been becalmed for nearly, if not
+quite, two weeks in the "horse latitudes;" which take their name,
+tradition asserts, from the days when the West India sugar islands
+depended for live-stock, and much besides, on the British continental
+colonies. If too long becalmed, and water gave out, the unhappy
+creatures had to be thrown overboard to save human lives. On the other
+side of the northeast trades, between them and the southeast, towards
+the equator, lies another zone of calms, the doldrums, from which also
+the _Congress_ this time suffered. We were sixty seven or eight days
+from the Capes of the Delaware to Bahia, a distance, direct, of little
+more than four thousand miles. Of course, there was some beating
+against head wind, but we could not have averaged a hundred miles to
+the twenty-four hours. During much of this passage the allowance of
+fresh water was reduced to two quarts per man, except sick, for all
+purposes of consumption--drinking and cooking. Under such conditions,
+washing had to be done with salt water.
+
+We had worried our weary way through the horse latitudes, embracing
+every flaw of wind, often accompanied by rain, to get a mile ahead
+here, half a dozen miles there; and, as these spurts come from every
+quarter, this involves a lot of bracing--changing the position of the
+yards; continuous work, very different from the placid restfulness of
+a "whole gale" of wind, with everything snug aloft and no chance of
+let-up during the watch. Between these occasional puffs would come
+long pauses of dead calm, in which the midshipman of the watch would
+enter in the log: "1 A.M., 0 knots; 2 A.M., 6 fathoms (¾ knot); 3
+A.M., 0 knots; 4 A.M., 1 knot, 2 fathoms;" the last representing
+usually a guess of the officer of the deck as to what would make the
+aggregate for the four hours nearly right. It did not matter, for we
+were hundreds of miles from land and the sky always clear for
+observations. Few of the watch got much sleep, because of the
+perpetual bracing; and all the while the ship rolling and sending, in
+the long, glassy ocean swell, unsteadied by the empty sails, which
+swung out with one lurch as though full, and then slapped back all
+together against the masts, with a swing and a jerk and a thud that
+made every spar tremble, and the vessel herself quiver in unison. Nor
+were we alone. Frequently two or three American clippers would be
+hull-up at the same moment within our horizon, bound the same way; and
+it was singular how, despite the apparently unbroken calm, we got away
+from one another and disappeared. Ships lying with their heads "all
+around the compass" flapped themselves along in the direction of their
+bows, the line of least resistance.
+
+I do not know at what hour under such circumstances we had struck the
+trades, but when I came on deck at midnight we had got them steady and
+strong. As there was still a good-deal of casting to make, the ship
+had been brought close to the wind on the port tack; the bowlines
+steadied out, but not dragged, every sail a good rap full, "fast
+asleep," without the tremor of an eyelid, if I may so style a weather
+leach, or of any inch of the canvas, from the royals down to the
+courses. Every condition was as if arranged for a special occasion, or
+to recompense us for the tedium of the horse latitudes. The moon was
+big, and there was a clear sky, save for the narrow band of tiny
+clouds, massed like a flock of sheep, which ever fringes the horizon
+of the trades; always on the horizon, as you progress, yet never
+visible above when the horizon of this hour has become the zenith of
+the next. After the watch was mustered and the lookouts stationed,
+there came perfect silence, save for the slight, but not ominous,
+singing of the wind through the rigging, and the dash of the water
+against the bows, audible forward though not aft. The seamen, not
+romantically inclined, for the most part heeded neither moon nor sky
+nor canvas. The vivid, delicate tracery of the shrouds and ruining
+gear, the broader image of the sails, shadowed on the moonlit deck,
+appealed not to them. Recognizing only that we had a steady wind, no
+more bracing to-night, and that the most that could happen would be to
+furl the royals should it freshen, they hastened to stow themselves
+away for a full due between the cannon, out of the way of passing
+feet, sure that this watch on deck would be little less good than one
+below. Perhaps there were also visions of "beans to-morrow." I trust
+so.
+
+The lieutenant of the watch, Smith, and I had it all to ourselves;
+unbroken, save for the half-hourly call of the lookouts: "Starboard
+cathead!" "Port cathead!" "Starboard gangway!" "Port gangway!" "Life
+buoy!" He came forward from time to time to take it all in, and to
+see how the light spars were standing, for the ship was heeling eight
+or ten degrees, and racing along, however quietly; but the strain was
+steady, no whipping about from uneasy movement of the vessel, and we
+carried on to the end. Each hour I hove the log and reported: one
+o'clock, eleven knots; two o'clock, eleven; three o'clock,
+eleven--famous going for an old sailing-ship close-hauled. Splendid!
+we rubbed our hands; what a record! But, alas! at four o'clock, ten!
+Commonly, ten used to be a kind of standard of excellence; Nelson once
+wrote, as expressive of an utmost of hopefulness, "If we all went ten
+knots, I should not think it fast enough;" but, puffed up as we had
+been, it was now a sad come-down. Smith looked at me. "Are you _sure_,
+Mr. Mahan?" With the old hand-log, its line running out while the sand
+sped its way through the fourteen-seconds glass, the log-beaver might
+sometimes, by judicious "feeding"--hurrying the line under the plea of
+not dragging the log-chip--squeeze a little more record out of the
+log-line than the facts warranted; and Smith seemed to feel I might
+have done a little better for the watch and for the ship. But in
+truth, when a cord is rushing through your hand at the rate of ten
+miles an hour--fifteen feet a second--you cannot get hold enough to
+hasten the pace. He passed through a struggle of conscience. "Well, I
+suppose I must; log her ten-four." A poor tail to our beautiful kite.
+Ten-four meant ten and a half; for in those primitive days knots were
+divided into eight fathoms. Now they are reckoned by tenths; a small
+triumph of the decimal system, which may also carry cheer to the
+constant hearts of the spelling reformers.
+
+A year later, at like dead of night, I witnessed quite another scene.
+We were then off the mouth of the river La Plata, perhaps two hundred
+miles from shore. We had been a fortnight at sea, cruising; and I have
+always thought that the captain, who was interested in meteorology
+and knew the region, kept us out till we should catch a _pampero_. We
+caught it, and quite up to sample. I had been on deck at 9 P.M., and
+the scene then, save for the force of the wind, was nearly the same as
+that I have just described. The same sail, the same cloudless sky and
+large moon; but we were going only five knots, with a quiet, rippling
+sea, on which the moonbeams danced. Such a scene as Byron doubtless
+had in memory:
+
+   "The midnight moon is weaving
+      Her bright chain o'er the deep;
+    Whose breast is gently heaving
+      Like an infant's asleep."
+
+Having to turn out at twelve, I soon started below; but before
+swinging into my hammock I heard the order to furl the royals and send
+the yards on deck. This startled me, for I had not been watching the
+barometer, as the captain had; and I remember, by the same token, that
+I was then enlarging on the beauties of the outlook above, accompanied
+by some disparaging remarks about what steamers could show, whereupon
+one of our senior officers, over-hearing, called me in, and told me
+quite affably, and in delicate terms, not to make a fool of myself.
+
+But "Linden saw another sight," when I returned to the deck at
+midnight; sharp, I am sure, for I held to the somewhat priggish
+saying, first devised, I imagine, by some wag tired of waiting for his
+successor, "A prompt relief is the pride of a young officer." The
+quartermaster, who called me and left the lantern dimly burning, had
+conveyed the comforting assurance that it looked very bad on deck, and
+the second reef was just taking in the topsails. When I got to my
+station, the former watch was still aloft, tying their last
+reef-points, from which they soon straggled down, morosely conscious
+that they had lost ten minutes of their one watch below, and would
+have to be on deck again at four. The moon was still up, but, as it
+were, only to emphasize the darkness of the huge cloud masses which
+scudded across the sky, with a rapid but steady gait, showing that the
+wind meant business. The new watch was given no more time than to wake
+up and shake themselves. They were soon on the yards, taking the third
+and fourth-last--reefs in the fore and main topsails, furling the
+mizzen, and seeing that the lower sails and topgallant-sails were
+securely rolled up against the burst that was to be expected. Before
+1.30 A.M. all things were as ready as care could make them, and not
+too soon. The moon was sinking, or had sunk; the sky darkened
+steadily, though not beyond that natural to a starless night. In the
+southwest faint glimmerings of lightning gave warning of what might be
+looked for; but we had used light well while we had it, and could now
+bear what was to come. At 2 P.M. it came with a roar and a rush,
+"butt-end foremost," as the saying is, preceded by a few huge drops of
+scurrying rain.
+
+   "When the rain before the wind,
+    Topsail sheets and halyards mind;"
+
+but that was for other conditions than ours.
+
+A pampero at its ordinary level is no joke; but this was the charge of
+a wild elephant, which would exhaust itself soon, but for the nonce
+was terrific. Pitch darkness settled down upon the ship. Except in the
+frequent flashes of lightning, literally blue, I could not see the
+forecastle boatswain's mate of the watch, who stood close by my elbow,
+ready pipe in hand. The rain came down in buckets, and in the midst of
+all the wind suddenly shifted, taking the sails flat aback. The
+shrillness of the boatswain's pipes is then their great merit. They
+pierce through the roar of the tempest, by sheer difference of pitch,
+an effect one sometimes hears in an opera; and the officer of the
+deck, our second lieutenant, who bore the name of Andrew Jackson, and
+was said to have received his appointment from him--which shows how
+far back he went--had a voice of somewhat the same quality. I had
+often heard it assert itself, winding in and out through the uproar of
+an ordinary gale, but on this occasion it went clean away--whistled
+down the wind. "I always think bad of it," said Boatswain Chucks,
+"when the elements won't allow my whistle to be heard; and I consider
+it hardly fair play." Such advantage the elements took of us on this
+occasion, but the captain came to the rescue. He had the throat of a
+bull of Bashan, which went the elements one better on their own hand.
+Under his stentorian shouts the weather head-braces were led along
+(probably already had been, as part of the preparation, but that was
+quarter-deck work, outside my knowledge) and manned. All other gear
+being coiled out of the way, on the pins, there was nothing to confuse
+or entangle; the fore topsail was swung round on the opposite tack
+from the main, a-box, to pay the ship's head off and leave her side to
+the wind, steadied by the close-reefed fore and main topsails, which
+would then be filled. She was now, of course, going astern fast; but
+this mattered nothing, for the sea had not yet got up. The evolution,
+common enough itself, an almost invariable accompaniment of getting
+under way, was now exciting even to grandeur, for we could see only
+when the benevolent lightning kindled in the sky a momentary glare of
+noonday. "Now that's a clever old man," said the boatswain's mate next
+day to me, approvingly, of the captain; "boxing her off that way, with
+all that wind and blackness, was handsomely done." After this we
+settled down to a two days' pampero, with a huge but regular sea.
+
+Whether the _Congress's_ helm on this interesting occasion was shifted
+for sternboard I never inquired. Marryat tells us it was a moot point
+in his young days. Our captain was an excellent seaman, but had
+'doxies of his own. Of these, one which ran contrary to current
+standards was in favor of clewing up a course or topsail to leeward,
+in blowing weather. Among the lieutenants was a strong champion of the
+opposite and accepted dogma, and a messmate of mine, in his division
+and shining by reflected light, was always prompt to enforce closure
+of debate by declaiming:
+
+   "He who seeks the tempest to disarm
+    Will never first embrail the lee yard-arm."
+
+Whether Falconer, besides being a poet, was also an expert in
+seamanship, or whether he simply registered the views of his day, may
+be questioned. The two alternatives, I fancy, were the chance of
+splitting the sail, and that of springing the yard; and any one who
+has ever watched a big bag of wind whipping a weather yard-arm up and
+down in its bellying struggles, after clewing up to windward, will
+have experienced as eager a desire to call it down as he has ever felt
+to suppress its congener in an after-dinner oration. Both are much out
+of place and time.
+
+Days of the past! Certainly a watch spent reefing topsails in the rain
+was less tedious than that everlasting bridge of to-day: Tramp! Tramp!
+or stand still, facing the wind blowing the teeth down your throat.
+Nothing to do requiring effort; the engine does all that; but still a
+perpetual strain of attention due to the rapid motion of vessels under
+steam. The very slowness of sailing-ships lightened anxiety. In such a
+gale you might as well be anxious in a wheel-chair. And then, when you
+went below, you went, not bored, but healthfully tired with active
+exertion of mind and body. Yes; the sound was sweet then, at eight
+bells, the pipe, pipe, pipe, pipe of the boatswain's mates, followed
+by their gruff voices drawling out, in loud sing-song: "A-a-a-all the
+starboard watch! Come! turn out there! Tumble out! Tumble out! Show a
+leg! Show a leg! On deck there! all the starboard watch!" When I went
+below that morning with the port watch, at four o'clock, I turned over
+to my relief a forecastle on which he would have nothing to do but
+drink his coffee at daylight.
+
+That daylight coffee of the morning watch, chief of its charms, need
+not be described to the many who have experienced the difference
+between the old man and the new man of before and after coffee. The
+galley (kitchen) fire of ships of war used to be started at seven
+bells of the mid-watch (3.30 A.M.); and the officers, and most of the
+men, who next came on duty, managed to have coffee, the latter
+husbanding their rations to this end. Since those days a benevolent
+regulation has allowed an extra ration of coffee to the crew for this
+purpose, so that no man goes without, or works the morning watch on an
+empty stomach. For the morning watch was very busy. Then, on several
+days of the week, the seamen washed their clothes. Then the upper deck
+was daily scrubbed; sometimes the mere washing off the soap-suds left
+from the clothes, sometimes with brooms and sand, sometimes the solemn
+ceremony of holy-stoning with its monotonous musical sound of
+grinding. Along with these, dovetailed in as opportunity offered, in a
+sailing-ship under way there went on the work of readjusting the yards
+and sails; a pull here and a pull there, like a woman getting herself
+into shape after sitting too long in one position. Yards trimmed to a
+nicety; the two sheets of each sail close home alike; all the canvas
+taut up, from the weather-tacks of the courses to the weather-earings
+of the royals; no slack weather-braces, or weather-leaches, letting a
+bight of loose canvas sag like an incipient double chin. When these
+and a dozen other little details had remedied the disorders of the
+night, due to the invariable slacking of cordage under strain, the
+ship was fit for any eye to light on, like a conscious beauty going
+forth conquering and to conquer. I doubt the crew grumbled and d----d
+a little under their breath, for the process was tedious; yet it was
+not only a fad, but necessary, and the deck-officer who habitually
+neglected it might possibly rise to an emergency, but was scarcely
+otherwise worth his salt. In my humble judgment, he had better have
+worn a frock-coat unbuttoned.
+
+Occupation in plenty was not the only solace of a morning watch; at
+least in the trades. While the men were washing their clothes, the
+midshipman of the watch, amid the exhilaration of his coffee, and with
+the cool sea-water careering over his bare feet, had ample leisure to
+watch the break of day: the gradual lighting up of the zenith, the
+rosy tints gathering and growing upon the tiny, pearly trade-clouds of
+which I have spoken, the blue of the water gradually revealing itself,
+laughing with white-caps, like the Psalmist's valleys of corn; until
+at last the sun appeared, never direct from the sea, but from these
+white cloud banks which extend less than five degrees above it. Such a
+scene presents itself day after day, day after day, monotonous but
+never wearisome, to a vessel running down the trades; that is,
+steering from east to west, with fixed, fair breeze, as I have more
+than once had the happiness to do. Then, as the saying was, a
+fortnight passed without touching brace or tack, because no change of
+wind; a slight exaggeration, for frequent squalls required the canvas
+to be handled, but substantially true in impression. Balmy weather and
+a steady gait, rarely more than seven or eight knots--less than two
+hundred miles a day; but who would be in haste to quit such
+conditions, where the sun rose astern daily with the joy of a giant
+running his course, bringing assurance of prosperity, and sank to rest
+ahead smiling, again behind the dimpling clouds which he tinged like
+mother-of-pearl.
+
+Such was not our lot in the _Congress_, for we were bound south,
+across the trades. This, with some bad luck, brought us close-hauled,
+that we might pass the equator nothing to the westward of thirty
+degrees of west longitude; otherwise we might fall to leeward of Cape
+St. Roque. This ominous phrase meant that we might be so far to the
+westward that the southeast trades, when reached, would not let the
+ship pass clear of this easternmost point of Brazil on one stretch;
+that we would strike the coast north of it and have to beat round,
+which actually happened. Consequently we never had a fair wind, to set
+a studding-sail, till we were within three or four days of Bahia. This
+encouraging incident, the first of the kind since the ship went into
+commission, also befell in one of my mid-watches, and an awful mess
+our unuse made of it. All the gear seemed to be bent with a half-dozen
+round turns; the stun'sail-yards went aloft wrong end uppermost,
+dangling in the most extraordinary and wholly unmanageable attitudes;
+everything had to be done over and over again, till at last the case
+looked desperate. Finally the lieutenant of the watch came forward in
+wrath. He was a Kentuckian, very competent, ordinarily very
+good-tempered; but there was red in his hair. When he got sufficiently
+near he tucked the speaking-trumpet under his arm, where it looked
+uncommonly like a fat cotton umbrella, himself suggesting a farmer
+inspecting an intended purchase, and in this posture delivered to us a
+stump speech on our shortcomings. This, I fear, I will have to leave
+to the reader's imagination. It would require innumerable dashes, and
+even so the emphasis would be lost. My relief had cause to be pleased
+that those stun'sails were set by four o'clock, when he came on deck.
+Ours the labor, his the reward.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few days more saw us in Bahia; and with our arrival on the station
+began a round of duties and enjoyments which made life at twenty
+pleasant enough, both in the passage and in retrospect, but which
+scarcely afford material for narration. Our two chief ports, Rio de
+Janeiro and Montevideo, were then remote and provincial. They have
+become more accessible and modern; but at the time of my last
+visit--already over thirty years ago--they had lost in local color and
+particular attraction as much as they had gained in convenience and
+development. Street-cars, double-ended American ferry-boats, electric
+lights, and all the other things for which these stand, are doubtless
+good; but they make places seem less strange and so less interesting.
+But I suppose there must still be in the business streets that
+pervading odor of rum and sugar which tells that you are in the
+tropics; still there must be the delicious hot calm of the early
+morning, before the sea-breeze sets in, the fruit-laden boats plying
+over the still waters to the ships of war; still that brilliant access
+of life and animation which comes sparkling in with the sea-breeze,
+and which can be seen in the offing, approaching, long before it
+enters the bay. The balance of better and worse will be variously
+estimated by various minds. The magnificent scenery of Rio remains,
+and must remain, short of earthquake; the Sugar Loaf, the distant
+Organ mountains, the near, high, surrounding hills, the numerous
+bights and diversified bluffs, which impart continuous novelty to the
+prospect. It is surprising that in these days of travel more do not go
+just to see that sight, even if they never put foot on shore; though I
+would not commend the omission. I see, too, in the current newspapers,
+that Secretary Root has attributed to the women of Uruguay to-day the
+charm which we youngsters then found in those who are now their
+grand-mothers. As Mr. Secretary cannot be very far from my own age, we
+have here the mature confirmation of an impression which otherwise
+might be attributed to the facility of youth.
+
+An interesting, though not very important, reminiscence of things now
+passed away was the coming and going of numerous vessels, usually
+small, carrying the commercial flags of the Hanse cities, Bremen,
+Hamburg, and Lubeck, now superseded on the ocean by that of the German
+Empire. Scarcely a morning watch which did not see in its earlier
+hours one or more of these stealing out of port with the tail of the
+land breeze. These remnants of the "Easterlings," a term which now
+survives only in "sterling," were mostly small brigs of some two
+hundred tons, noticeable mainly for their want of sheer; that is,
+their rails, and presumably their decks, were level, without rise at
+the extremities such as most vessels show.
+
+Up to the middle of the last century, Rio, thanks probably to its
+remoteness, had escaped the yellow-fever. But the soil and climate
+were propitious; and about 1850 it made good a footing which it never
+relinquished. At the time of our cruise it was endemic, and we
+consequently spent there but two or three months of the cooler season,
+June to September. Even so, visiting the city was permitted to only a
+few selected men of the foremast hands. The habits of the seamen were
+still those of a generation before, and drink, with its consequent
+reckless exposure, was a right-hand man to Yellow Jack. All shore
+indulgence was confined to Montevideo, where we spent near half of the
+year; and being limited to one or two occasions only, of two or three
+days duration each, it was signalized by those excesses which, in
+conjunction with the absence of half the crew at once, put an end to
+all ordinary routine and drill on board. My friend, the captain of the
+forecastle, who apprehended that the Southern leaders would lose their
+property, a self-respecting, admirably behaved man in ordinary times,
+was usually hoisted on board by a tackle when he returned: for
+Montevideo affords only an open roadstead for big ships, and
+frequently a rough sea. The story ran that he secured a room on going
+ashore, provided for the safety of his money, bought a box of gin,
+and went to bed. This I never verified; but I remember a nautical
+philosopher among the crew enlarging, in my hearing, on the folly of
+drink. To its morality he was indifferent; but from sad experience he
+avouched that it incapacitated you for other enjoyments, regular and
+irregular, and that he for one should quit. To-day things are
+changed--revolutionized. There may be ports too sickly to risk lives
+in; but the men to be selected now are the few who cannot be trusted,
+the percentage which every society contains. This result will be
+variously interpreted. Some will attribute it to the abolition of the
+grog ration, the removal of temptation, a change of environment.
+Others will say that the extension of frequent leave, and consequent
+opportunity, has abolished the frenzied inclination to make the
+most--not the best--of a rare chance; has renewed men from within.
+Personally, I believe the last. Together with the gradual rise of tone
+throughout society, rational liberty among seamen has resulted in
+rational indulgence. "Better England free than England sober."
+
+In the end it was from Montevideo that we sailed for home in June,
+1861. During the preceding six months, mail after mail brought us
+increasing ill tidings of the events succeeding the election of
+Lincoln. Somewhere within that period a large American steamboat, of
+the type then used on Long Island Sound, arrived in the La Plata for
+passenger and freight service between Montevideo and Buenos Ayres. Her
+size and comfort, her extensive decoration and expanses of gold and
+white, unknown hitherto, created some sensation, and gave abundant
+supply to local paragraphists. Her captain was a Southerner, and his
+wife also; of male and female types. He commented to me briefly, but
+sadly, "Yes, we have now two governments"; but she was all aglow.
+Never would she lay down arms; M. Ollivier's light heart was "not in
+it" with hers; her countenance shone with joy, except when clouded
+with contempt for the craven action of the _Star of the West_, a
+merchant-steamer with supplies for Fort Sumter which had turned back
+before the fire of the Charleston batteries. Never could she have done
+such a thing. What influence women wield, and how irresponsible! And
+they want votes!
+
+In feeling, most of us stood where this captain did, sorrowful,
+perplexed; but in feeling only, not in purpose. We knew not which
+became us most, grief, or stern satisfaction that at last a doubtful
+matter was to be settled by arms; but, with one or two exceptions,
+there was no hesitancy, I believe, on the part of the officers as to
+the side each should take. There were four pronounced Southerners: two
+of them messmates of mine, from New Orleans. The other two were the
+captain and lieutenant of marines. None of these was extreme, except
+the captain, whom, though well on in middle life, I have seen stamp up
+and down raging with excitement. On one occasion, so violent was his
+language that I said to him he would do well to put ice to his head;
+an impertinence, considering our relative ages, but almost warranted.
+I think that he possibly took over the lieutenant, who was from a
+border State, and, like the midshipmen, rather sobered than
+enthusiastic at the prospects; though these last had no doubts as to
+their own course. There was also a sea lieutenant from the South, who
+said to me that if his State was fool enough to secede, she might go,
+for him; he would not fight against her, but he would not follow her.
+I believe he did escape having to fight in her waters, but he was in
+action on the Union side elsewhere, and, I expect, revised this
+decision. This halting allegiance, thinking to serve two masters, was
+not frequent; but there were instances. Of one such I knew. He told me
+himself that he on a certain occasion had said in company that he
+would not leave the navy, but would try for employment outside the
+country; whereon an officer standing by said to him that that appeared
+a pretty shabby thing, to take pay and dodge duty. The remark sank
+deep; he changed his mind, and served with great gallantry. It seems
+to me now almost an impiety to record, but, knowing my father's warm
+love for the South, I hazarded to the marine captain a doubt as to his
+position. He replied that there could be no doubt whatever. "All your
+father's antecedents are military; there is no military spirit in the
+North; he must come to us." Many Southerners, not by any means most,
+had formed such impressions.
+
+The remainder of the officers were not so much Northern as Union, a
+distinction which meant much in the feeling that underlies action. Our
+second lieutenant, with soberer appreciation of conditions than the
+marine, said to me, "I cannot understand how those others expect to
+win in the face of the overpowering resources of the Northern States."
+The leaders of the Confederacy, too, understood this; and while I am
+sure that expected dissension in the North, and interference from
+Europe, counted for much in their complicated calculations, I imagine
+that the marine's overweighted theory, of incompatibility between the
+mercantile and military temperaments, also entered largely. My
+Kentuckian expressed the characteristic, if somewhat crude, opinion,
+that the two had better fight it out now, till one was well licked;
+after which his head should be punched and he be told to be decent
+hereafter. We had, however, one Northern fire-eater among the
+midshipmen. He was a plucky fellow, but with an odd cast to his eyes
+and a slight malformation, which made his ecstasies of wrath a little
+comical. His denunciations of all half measures, or bounded
+sentiments, quite equalled those of the marine officer on the other
+side. If the two had been put into the same ring, little could have
+been left but a few rags of clothes, so completely did they lose
+their heads; but, as often happens with such champions, their
+harangues descended mostly on quiet men, conveniently known as
+doughfaces.
+
+Doughfaces I suppose we must have been, if the term applied fitly to
+those who, between the alternatives of dissolving the Union and
+fighting one another, were longing to see some third way open out of
+the dilemma. In this sense Lincoln, with his life-long record of
+opposition to the extension of slavery, was a doughface. The marine
+could afford to harden his face, because he believed there would be no
+war--the North would not fight; while the midshipman, rather limited
+intellectually, was happy in a mental constitution which could see but
+one side of a case; an element of force, but not of conciliation. The
+more reflective of my two Southern messmates, a man mature beyond his
+years, said to me sadly, "I suppose there will be bloodshed beyond
+what the world has known for a long time;" but he naturally shared the
+prevalent opinion--so often disproved--that a people resolute as he
+believed his own could not be conquered, especially by a commercial
+community--the proverbial "nation of shopkeepers." Napoleon once had
+believed the same, to his ruin. Commercial considerations undoubtedly
+weigh heavily; but happily sentiment is still stronger than the
+dollar. An amusing instance of the pocket influence, however, came to
+my knowledge at the moment. Our captain's son received notice of his
+appointment as lieutenant of marines, and sailed for home in an
+American merchant-brig shortly before the news came of the firing on
+Fort Sumter. When I next met him in the United States, he told me that
+the brig's captain had been quite warmly Southern in feeling during
+the passage; but when they reached home, and found that Confederate
+privateers had destroyed some merchant-vessels, he went entirely over.
+He had no use for people who would "rob a poor man of his ship and
+cargo."
+
+Our orders home, and tidings of the attack on Fort Sumter, came by the
+same mail, some time in June. There were then no cables. The revulsion
+of feeling was immediate and universal, in that distant community and
+foreign land, as it had been two months before in the Northern States.
+The doughfaces were set at once, like a flint. The grave and reverend
+seigniors, resident merchants, who had checked any belligerent
+utterance among us with reproachful regret that an American should be
+willing to fight Americans, were converted or silenced. Every voice
+but one was hushed, and that voice said, "Fight." I remember a
+tempestuous gathering, an evening or two before we sailed, and one
+middle-aged invalid's excited but despondent wish that he was five
+hundred men. Such ebullitions are common enough in history, for causes
+bad or good. They are to be taken at their true worth; not as a
+dependable pledge of endurance to the end, but as an awakening, which
+differs from that of common times as the blast of the trumpet that
+summoned men at midnight for Waterloo differs from the lazy rubbing of
+the eyes before thrusting one's neck into the collar of a working day.
+The North was roused and united; a result which showed that, wittingly
+or unwittingly, the Union leaders had so played the cards in their
+hands as to score the first trick.
+
+Our passage home was tedious but uneventful. I remember only the
+incident that the flag-officer on one occasion played at old-time
+warfare of his youth, by showing to a passing vessel a Spanish flag
+instead of the American. The common ship life went on as though
+nothing had happened. On an August evening we anchored in Boston lower
+harbor, and Mr. Robert Forbes, then a very prominent character in
+Boston, and in most nautical matters throughout the country, came
+down in a pilot-boat, bringing newspapers to our captain, with whom he
+was intimate. Then we first learned of Bull Run; and properly
+mortified we of the North were, not having yet acquired that
+indifference to a licking which is one of the first steps towards
+success. Some time after the war was over an army officer of the North
+repeated to me the comment on this affair made to him by a Southern
+acquaintance, both being of the aforetime regular army. "I never," he
+said, "saw men as frightened as ours were--except yours." The after
+record of both parties takes all the sting out of these words, without
+lessening the humor.
+
+Immediately upon arrival, the oath of allegiance was tendered, and, of
+course, refused by our four Southerners. They had doubtless sent in
+their resignations; but by that time resignations were no longer
+accepted, and in the following _Navy Register_ they appeared as
+"dismissed." They were arrested on board the ship and taken as
+prisoners to Fort Lafayette. I never again saw any of them; but from
+time to time heard decisively of the deaths of all, save the
+lieutenant of marines. One of the midshipmen drew from my father an
+action which I have delighted to recall as characteristic. He wrote
+from the fort, stating his comradeship with me in the past, and asking
+if he could be furnished with certain military reading, for his
+improvement and to pass time. Though suspicions of loyalty were rife,
+and in those days easily started by the most trivial communication,
+the books were sent. The war had but just ended, when one morning my
+father received a letter expressing thanks, and enclosing money to the
+supposed value of the books. The money was returned; but I, happening
+to be at home, replied on my own account in such manner as a very
+young man would. My father saw the addressed envelope, and
+remonstrated. "Do you think it quite well and prudent to associate
+yourself, at your age and rank, with one so recently in rebellion?
+Will it not injure your standing?" I was not convinced; but I yielded
+to a solicitude which under much more hazardous conditions he had not
+admitted for himself, though known to be a Virginian. Shortly after
+his death, while our sorrow was still fresh, I met a contemporary and
+military intimate of his. "I want," he said, "to tell you an anecdote
+of your father. We were associated on a board, one of the members of
+which had proposed, as his own suggestion, a measure which I thought
+fundamentally and dangerously erroneous. I prepared a paper contesting
+the project and took it to your father. He read it carefully, and
+replied, 'I agree with you entirely; but ---- will never forgive you,
+and he is persistent and unrelenting towards those who thwart him. You
+will make a life-long and powerful enemy. If I were you, I should not
+lay this upon myself.' I gave way to his judgment, and kept back the
+paper; but you may imagine my surprise when at the next meeting he
+took upon himself the burden which he had advised me to shun. He made
+an argument substantially on my lines, and procured the rejection of
+the proposition. The result was a hostility which ceased only with his
+life, but between which and me he had interposed."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+INCIDENTS OF WAR AND BLOCKADE SERVICE
+
+1861-1862
+
+
+The _Congress_, upon her return, was retained in commission, though
+entirely useless, either for fighting or blockade, under modern
+conditions. I suppose there were not yet enough of newer vessels to
+spare her value as a figure-head. She was sent afterwards to Hampton
+Roads, where in the following March she, with another sailing-frigate,
+the _Cumberland_, fell helpless victims to the first Confederate
+iron-clad. The staff of combatant sea officers was much changed; the
+captain, the senior three lieutenants, and the midshipmen being
+detached. Smith, the fourth lieutenant, remained as first; and, in the
+absence of her captain on other duty, commanded and fell at her death
+agony. I was sent first to the _James Adger_, a passenger-steamer then
+being converted in New York for blockade duty, for which she was very
+fit; but in ten days more I was moved on to the _Pocahontas_, a ship
+built for war, a very respectable little steam-corvette, the only one
+of her class--if such a bull as a class of one may be excused. She
+carried one ten-inch gun and four 32-pounders, all smooth-bores. There
+was, besides, one small nondescript rifled piece, upon which we looked
+with more curiosity than confidence. Indeed, unless memory deceive,
+the projectiles from it were quite as apt to go end over end as true.
+It was rarely used.
+
+When I joined, the _Pocahontas_ was lying off the Washington
+Navy-Yard, in the eastern branch of the Potomac, on duty connected
+with the patrol of the river; the Virginia bank of which was occupied
+by the Confederates, who were then erecting batteries to dispute the
+passage of vessels. After one excursion down-stream in this
+employment, the ship was detached to the combined expedition against
+Port Royal, South Carolina, the naval part of which was under the
+command of "Flag-Officer" Dupont. The point of assembly was Hampton
+Roads, whither we shortly proceeded, after filling with stores and
+receiving a new captain, Percival Drayton, a man greatly esteemed in
+the service of the day, and a South-Carolinian. Coincidently with us,
+but independently as to association, the steam-sloop _Seminole_,
+slightly larger, also started. We outstripped her; and as we passed a
+position where the Confederates were believed to be fortifying, our
+captain threw in a half-dozen shells. No reply was made, and we went
+on. Within a half-hour we heard firing behind us, apparently
+two-sided. The ship was turned round and headed up-river. In a few
+minutes we met the _Seminole_, her men still at the guns, a few ropes
+dangling loose, showing that she had, as they say, not been exchanging
+salutes. We had stirred up the hornets, and she had got the benefit;
+quite uselessly, her captain evidently felt, by his glum face and
+short answers to our solicitous hail. He was naturally put out, for no
+good could have come, beyond showing the position of the enemy's guns;
+while an awkward hit might have sent her back to the yard and lost her
+her share in the coming fray, one of the earliest in the war, and at
+that instant the only thing in sight on the naval horizon. As no harm
+resulted, the incident would not be worth mentioning except for a
+second occasion, which I will mention later, in which we gave the
+_Seminole's_ captain cause for grim dissatisfaction.
+
+The gathering of the clans, the ships of war and the transports laden
+with troops, in the lower Chesapeake had of course a strange element
+of excitement; for war, even in its incipiency, was new to almost all
+present, and the enthusiasm aroused by a great cause and approaching
+conflict was not balanced by that solemnizing outlook which experience
+gives. We lived in an atmosphere of blended exaltation and curiosity,
+of present novelty and glowing expectation. But business soon came
+upon us, in its ordinary lines; for we were not two days clear of the
+Capes, in early November, when there came on a gale of exceptional
+violence, the worst of it at midnight. It lasted for forty-eight
+hours, and must have occasioned great anxiety to the heads of the
+expedition; for among the curious conglomerate of heterogeneous
+material constituting both the ships of war and transports there were
+several river steamers, some of them small. Being utterly unpractised
+in such movements, an almost entire dispersal followed; in fact, I
+dare say many of the transport captains asked nothing better than to
+be out of other people's way. The _Pocahontas_ found herself alone
+next morning; but, though small and slow, she was a veritable sea-bird
+for wind and wave. Not so all. One of our extemporized ships of war,
+rejoicing in the belligerent name of _Isaac Smith_, and carrying eight
+fairly heavy guns, which would have told in still water, had to throw
+them all overboard; and her share in the subsequent action was limited
+to a single long piece, rifled I believe, and to towing a
+sailing-corvette in the column.
+
+There were some wrecks and some gallant rescues, the most conspicuous
+of which was that of the battalion of marines, embarked on board the
+_Governor_; a steamer, as I recollect, not strictly of the river
+order, but like those which ply outside on the Boston and Maine coast.
+She went down, but not before her living freight had been removed by
+the sailing-frigate _Sabine_. The first lieutenant of the latter, now
+the senior rear-admiral on the retired list of the navy, soon
+afterwards relieved Drayton in command of the _Pocahontas_; so that I
+then heard at first hand many particulars which I wish I could now
+repeat in his well-deserved honor. His distinguished share in the
+rescue was of common notoriety; the details only we learned from his
+modest but interesting account. The deliverance was facilitated by the
+two vessels being on soundings. The _Governor_ anchored, and then the
+_Sabine_ ahead of her, dropping down close to. The ground-tackle of
+our naval ships, as we abundantly tested during the war, would hold
+through anything, if the bottom let the anchor grip.
+
+With very few exceptions all were saved, officers and privates; but
+their clothes, except those they stood in, were left behind. The
+colonel was a notorious martinet, as well as something of a character;
+and a story ran that one of the subalterns had found himself at the
+start unable to appear in some detail of uniform, his trunks having
+gone astray. "A good soldier never separates from his baggage," said
+the colonel, gruffly, on hearing the excuse. After various adventures,
+common to missing personal effects, the lieutenant's trunks turned up
+at Port Royal. He looked sympathetically at the colonel's shorn plumes
+and meagre array, and said, reproachfully, "Colonel, where are your
+trunks? A good soldier should never separate from his baggage." But,
+doubtless, to follow it to the bottom of the sea would be an excess of
+zeal.
+
+Not long afterwards I was shipmate with an assistant surgeon who had
+been detailed for duty on board the _Governor_, and had passed through
+the scenes of anxiety and confusion preceding the rescue. He told me
+one or two amusing incidents. An order being given to lighten the
+ship, four marines ran into the cabin where he was lying, seized a
+marble-top table, dropped the marble top on deck, and threw the wooden
+legs overboard. There was also on board a very young naval officer,
+barely out of the Academy. He was of Dutch blood and name--from
+central Pennsylvania, I think. Although without much experience, he
+was of the constitutionally self-possessed order, which enabled him to
+be very useful. After a good deal of exertion, he also came into the
+cabin. The surgeon asked him how things looked. "I think she will last
+about half an hour," he replied, and then composedly lay down and went
+to sleep.
+
+There was in the hero of this anecdote a vein of eccentricity even
+then, and he eventually died insane and young. I knew him only
+slightly, but familiarly as to face. He had mild blue eyes and curly
+brown hair, with a constant half-smile in eyes as well as mouth. In
+temperament he was Dutch to the backbone--at least as we imagine
+Dutch. A comical anecdote was told me of him a few years later,
+illustrating his self-possession--cool to impudence. He was serving on
+one of our big steam-sloops, a flag-ship at the time, and had charge
+of working the cables on the gun-deck when anchoring. Going into a
+port where the water was very deep--Rio de Janeiro, I believe--the
+chain cables "got away," as the expression is; control was lost, and
+shackle after shackle tore out of the hawse-holes, leaping and
+thumping, rattling and roaring, stirring a lot of dust besides.
+Indeed, the violent friction of iron against iron in such cases not
+infrequently generates a stream of sparks. The weight of twenty
+fathoms of this linked iron mass hanging outside, aided by the
+momentum already established by the anchor's fall through a hundred
+feet, of course drags after it all that lies unstoppered within. I
+need not tell those who have witnessed such a commotion that the
+orderly silence of a ship of war breaks down somewhat. Every one who
+has any right to speak shouts, and repeats, in rapid succession,
+"Haul-to that chain! Why the something or other don't you haul-to?"
+while the unhappy compressor-men, saving their own wind to help their
+arms, struggle wildly with the situation, under a storm of obloquy.
+The admiral--by this time we had admirals--was a singular man,
+something of a lawyer, acute, thinking he knew just how far he might
+go in any case, and given at times to taking liberties with
+subordinates, which were not to them always as humorous as they seemed
+to him. In this instance he miscalculated somewhat. He was on deck at
+the moment, and when the chain had been at last stopped and secured,
+he said to the captain, "Alfred, send for the young man in charge of
+those chains, and give him a good setting-down. Ask him what he means
+by letting such things happen. Ride him down like a main-tack,
+Alfred--like the main-tack!" The main-tack is the chief rope
+controlling the biggest sail in the ship, and at times, close on the
+wind, it has to be got down into place by the brute force of half a
+hundred men, inch by inch, pull by pull. That is called riding down,
+and is clearly a process the reverse of conciliatory. The Dutchman was
+sent for, and soon his questioning blue eyes appeared over the hatch
+coaming. Alfred--as my own name is Alfred, I may explain that I was
+not that captain--Alfred was a mild person, and clearly did not like
+his job; he could not have come up to the admiral's standard. The
+latter saw it, and intervened: "Perhaps you had better leave it to me.
+I'll settle him." Fixing his eyes on the offender, he said, sternly,
+"What do you mean by this, sir? Why the h--l did you not stop that
+chain?" This exordium was doubtless the prelude to a fit oratorical
+display; but the culprit, looking quietly at him, replied, simply,
+"How the h--l could I?" This was a shift of wind for which the admiral
+was unprepared. He was taken flat back, like a screaming child
+receiving a glass of cold water in his face. After a moment's
+hesitation he turned to the captain, and said meekly, yet with evident
+humorous consciousness of a checkmate, "That's true, Alfred; how the
+h--l could he?"
+
+Still, while the defence implied in the lieutenant's question is
+logically unimpeachable, it does not follow that the method of the
+admiral--as distinct from his manner, which need not be excused--was
+irrational. The impulse of reprimand, applied at the top, where
+ultimate responsibility rests, is transmitted through the intervening
+links down to the actual culprits, and takes effect for future
+occasions. As Marryat in one of his amusing passages says: "The
+master's violence made the boatswain violent, which made the
+boatswain's mate violent, and the captain of the forecastle also; all
+which is practically exemplified by the laws of motion communicated
+from one body to another; and as the master swore, so did the
+boatswain swear, and the boatswain's mate, and the captain of the
+forecastle, and all the men." An entertaining practical use of this
+transmission of energy was made by an acquaintance of mine in China.
+Going to bed one night, he found himself annoyed by a mosquito within
+the net. He got up, provided himself with the necessities for his own
+comfort during the period of discomfort which he projected for others,
+and called the servant whose business it was to have crushed the
+intruder. Him he sent in search of the man next above him, him in turn
+for another, and so on until he reached the head of the domestic
+hierarchy. When the whole body was assembled, he told them that they
+were summoned to receive the information that "one piecee mosquito"
+was inside his net, owing to the neglect of--pointing to the culprit.
+This done, they were dismissed, in calm assurance that in future no
+mosquito would disturb his night's rest, and that the desirable
+castigation of the offender might be intrusted to his outraged
+companions.
+
+After the gale subsided, the _Pocahontas_ proceeded for the
+rendezvous, just before reaching which we fell in with a
+coal-schooner. Though a good fighting-ship, she carried only
+sixty-three tons of coal, anthracite; for that alone we then used to
+burn. The amount seems too absurd for belief, and it constituted a
+very serious embarrassment on such duty as that of the South Carolina
+and Georgia coasts. To economize, so as to remain as long as possible
+away from the base at Port Royal, and yet to have the ship ready for
+speedy movement, was a difficult problem; indeed, insoluble. We used
+to meet it by keeping fires so low, when lying inside the blockaded
+rivers, that we could not move promptly. This was a choice between
+evils, which the event justified, but which might have been awkward
+had the Confederates ever made a determined attempt at boarding with
+largely superior force in several steamers, as happened at Galveston,
+and once even by pulling boats in a Georgia river. Under steam, the
+battery could be handled; anchored, an enemy could avoid it. With this
+poor "coal endurance," as the modern expression has it, the captain
+decided to fill up as he could. We therefore took the schooner in tow,
+and were transferring from her, when the sound of cannonading was
+heard. Evidently the attack had begun, and it was incumbent to get in,
+not only on general principles, but for the captain's own reputation;
+for although in service he was too well known to be doubted, the
+outside world might see only that he was a South Carolinian. It was
+recognition of this, I doubt not, that led Admiral Dupont, when we
+passed the flag-ship after the action, to hail aloud, "Captain
+Drayton, I knew you would be here;" a public expression of official
+confidence. We were late, however, as it was; probably because our
+short coal supply had compelled economical steaming, though as to this
+my memory is uncertain. The _Pocahontas_ passed the batteries after
+the main attack, in column on an elliptical course, had ceased, but
+before the works had been abandoned; and being alone we received
+proportionate attention for the few moments of passage. The enemy's
+fire was "good line, but high;" our main-mast was irreparably
+wounded, but the hull and crew escaped.
+
+After the action there followed the usual scene of jollification. The
+transports had remained outside, and now steamed up; bands playing,
+troops hurrahing, and with the general expenditure of wind from vocal
+organs which seems the necessary concomitant of such occasions. And
+here the _Pocahontas_ again brought the _Seminole_ to grief. She had
+anchored, but we kept under way, steaming about through the throng.
+Drayton had binoculars in hand; and, while himself conning the ship,
+was livelily interested in what was passing around. I believe also
+that, though an unusually accomplished officer professionally, he had
+done a good deal of staff duty; had less than the usual deck habit of
+his period. Besides, men used mostly to sails seemed to think steamers
+could get out of any scrape at any moment. However that be, after a
+glance to see that we were rightly headed for a clear opening, he
+began gazing about through his glasses, to the right hand and to the
+left. He had lost thought of the tide, and in such circumstances as
+ours a very few seconds does the business. When he next looked, we
+were sweeping down on the _Seminole_ without a chance of retreat;
+there was nothing but to go ahead fast, and save the hulls at least
+from collision. Her flying jib-boom came in just behind our main-mast
+(we had only two masts); and as the current of course was setting us
+down steadily, the topping-lifts of our huge main boom caught her
+jib-boom. Down came one of the big blocks from our mast-head, narrowly
+missing the captain's head, while we took out of her all the head
+booms as far as the bowsprit cap, leaving them dragging in helpless
+confusion by her side. Then we anchored.
+
+It is a nuisance to have to clear a wreck and repair damages; and the
+injured party does not immediately recover his equanimity after such a
+mishap, especially coming fresh upon a former instance of trouble
+occasioned barely a fortnight before. But after a victory all things
+are forgiven, and the more so to a man of Drayton's well-deserved
+popularity. A little later in the day he went on board the flag-ship
+to visit the admiral. When I met him at the gangway upon his return, I
+had many questions to ask, and among others, "Have you learned who
+commanded the enemy?" "Yes," he replied, with a half-smile; "it was my
+brother."
+
+Very soon afterwards he left us, before we again quitted port. He was
+dissatisfied with the _Pocahontas_, partly on account of her coal
+supply; and the captain of the _Pawnee_ then going home, he obtained
+command of her. The _Pawnee_ was _sui generis_; in this like the
+_Pocahontas_, only a good deal more so, representing somebody's fad. I
+cannot vouch for the details of her construction; but, as I heard, she
+was not only extremely broad in the beam, giving great battery
+space,--which was plain to see,--but the bilge on each side was
+reported to come lower than the keel, making, as it were, two hulls,
+side by side, so that a sarcastic critic remarked, "One good point
+about her is, that if she takes the ground, her keel at least is
+protected." Like all our vessels at that time, she was of wood. Owing
+to her build, she had for her tonnage very light draught and heavy
+battery, and so was a capital fighting-ship in still, shoal waters;
+but in a seaway she rolled so rapidly as to be a wretched gun
+platform. Her first lieutenant assured me that in heavy weather a
+glass of water could not get off the table. "Before it has begun to
+slide on one roll, she is back on the other, and catches it
+before it can start." This description was perhaps somewhat
+picturesque--impressionist, as we now say; but it successfully
+conveyed the idea, the object of all speech and impressions. However
+satisfactory for glasses--not too full--it may be imagined that under
+such conditions it would be difficult to draw sight on a target
+between rolls. Whatever her defects, the _Pawnee_ was admirably
+adapted for the inland work of which there was much in those parts,
+behind the sea islands; and she continued so employed throughout the
+war. I met her there as late as the last six months of it. But she was
+not reproduced, and remains to memory only; an incident of the
+speculative views and doubting progresses of the decade before the War
+of Secession.
+
+Drayton's successor was one of the senior lieutenants of the fleet,
+George B. Balch, late the first of the _Sabine_ frigate. His services
+in saving the people of the _Governor_ have already been mentioned. He
+still survives in venerable old age; but Drayton, who later on was
+with Farragut at Mobile, being captain of the flag-ship _Hartford_ and
+chief of staff at the time of the passage of the forts, was cut off
+prematurely by a short illness within six months after hostilities
+ended. Balch remained with us till the _Pocahontas_ returned North,
+ten months later. He was an officer of varied service, and like all
+such, some more, some less, abounded in anecdote of his own
+experiences. A great deal that might be instructive, and more still
+that is entertaining, is lost by our slippery memories and the rarity
+of the journal-keeping habit. I remember distinctly only two of his
+stories. One related to a matter which now belongs to naval
+archæology,--"backing and filling in a tideway," by a ship under sail.
+In this, in a winding channel, the ship sets towards her destination
+with the current, up or down, carrying only enough canvas, usually the
+three topsails, to be under control; to move her a little ahead, or a
+little astern, keeping in the strength of the stream, or shifting
+position as conditions of the navigation require. Backing is a term
+which explains itself; filling applies to the sails when so trimmed as
+to move the vessel ahead. Sometimes a reach of the river permits the
+sails to be braced full, and she bowls along merrily under way; anon a
+turn comes where she can only lie across, balanced as to headway by
+the main topsail aback. Then the smallest topsail, the mizzen, has a
+game in its hands. The ship, as she drifts up or down, may need to be
+moved a little astern, more or less, to avoid a shoal or what not; and
+to do this the sail mentioned is braced either to shake, neutralizing
+it, or to bring it also aback, as the occasion demands. This rather
+long preamble is perilously like explaining a joke, but it is
+necessary. Balch had seen a good deal of this work in China, and he
+told us that the Chinese pilot's expression, if he wanted the sail
+shaken, was "Makee sick the mizzen topsail;" but if aback, he added,
+"Kill him dead." I wonder does that give us an insight into the
+nautical idiom of the Chinese, who within the limitations of their
+needs are prime seamen.
+
+By the time I got to China, two years after the War of Secession,
+steam had relieved naval vessels from backing and filling. I once,
+however, saw the principle applied to a steamer in the Paraguay River.
+We were returning from a visit to Asuncion, and had a local pilot, who
+was needed less for the Paraguay, which though winding is fairly
+clear, than for the Paraná, the lower stream, which finally merges in
+the Rio de la Plata and is constantly changing its bed. We had
+anchored for the night just above a bend, head of course up-stream,
+for the tide does not reach so far. The next morning the pilot was
+bothered to turn her round, for she was a long paddle steamer, not
+very handy. He seemed to be in a nautical quandary, similar to that
+which the elder Mr. Weller described as "being on the wrong side of
+the road, backing into the palings, and all manner of unpleasantness."
+The captain watched him fuming for a few minutes, and then said, "Is
+there any particular trouble on either hand, or is it only the
+narrowness?" The pilot said no; the bottom was clear. "Well," said the
+captain, "why not cast her to port, and let her drift till she heads
+fair for the turn below?" This was done easily, and indeed was one of
+those things which would be almost foolishly simple did we not all
+have experience of overlooking expedients that lie immediately under
+our noses.
+
+Balch's other story which I recall was at the moment simply humorous,
+but has since seemed to me charged with homely wisdom of
+wide application. He had made a rather longish voyage in a
+merchant-steamer, and during it used to amuse himself doing navigation
+work in company with her master, or mate. On one occasion a discussion
+arose between them as to some result, and Balch in the course of the
+argument said, "Figures won't lie." "Yes, that's all right," rejoined
+the other, "figures won't lie, if you work them right; but you must
+work them right, Mr. Balch." I was too young then to have noted a
+somewhat similar remark about statistics; and I think now, after a
+pretty long observation of mankind, its records and its statements,
+that I should be inclined to extend that old seaman's comments to
+facts also. Facts won't lie, if you work them right; but if you work
+them wrong, a little disproportion in the emphasis, a slight
+exaggeration of color, a little more or less limelight on this or that
+part of the grouping, and the result is not truth, even though each
+individual fact be as unimpeachable as the multiplication table.
+
+After the capture of Port Royal, and the establishment there of the
+naval base, and until the arrival of monitors a year later, operations
+of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, as it was styled, were
+confined to blockading. This took two principal forms. The
+fortifications of Charleston and Savannah being still in the hands of
+the enemy, and intact, these two chief seaports of that coast were
+unassailable by our fleet. Even after Fort Sumter had been battered to
+a shapeless heap of masonry, and Fort Pulaski had surrendered,
+neither city fell until Sherman's march took it in the rear. But the
+numerous inlets were substantially undefended against naval attack;
+and for them the blockade, that tremendously potent instrument of the
+national pressure, the work of which has been too little commemorated,
+was instituted almost universally within. Even Fort Pulaski, before
+its fall, though it sealed the highway to Savannah, could not prevent
+the Union vessels from occupying the inside anchorage off Tybee
+Island, completely closing the usual access from the sea to the town.
+During the ensuing ten months there were very few of these entrances,
+from Georgetown, the northernmost in South Carolina, down to
+Fernandina, in Florida, into which the _Pocahontas_ did not penetrate,
+alone or in company. I do not know whether people in other parts of
+the country realize that these various inlets are connected by an
+inside navigation, behind the sea islands, as they are called, the
+whole making a system of sheltered intercommunication. The usefulness
+of this was reinforced by the numerous navigable rivers which afford
+water roads to the interior, and gave a vessel, once entered, refuge
+beyond the reach of the blockaders' arm, with ready means for
+distribution. Such a gift of nature to a community, however, has the
+defects of its qualities. Ease of access, and freedom of movement in
+all directions, now existed for foe as it had for friend, and the very
+facility which such surroundings bestow had prevented the timely
+creation of an alternative. Deprival consequently was doubly severe.
+
+It thus came to pass that, by a gradual process of elimination,
+blockade in the usual sense of the word, blockade outside, became
+confined to Charleston and its approaches. It is true that much
+depended on the class of vessel. It was obviously inexpedient to
+expose sailing-ships where they might be attacked by steamers, in
+ground also too contracted for manoeuvring; and two years later I
+found myself again blockading Georgetown, in a paddle steamer from the
+merchant service, the size and unwieldiness of which prevented her
+entering. Moreover, torpedoes had then begun to play a part in the
+war, though still in a very primitive stage of development. But in
+1862 there was little outside work except at Charleston. The very
+reasons which determine the original selection of a port--facility for
+entrance, abundant anchorage, and ease of access to the interior for
+distribution and receipt of the articles of commerce--determine also
+the accumulation of defences, to the exclusion of other less favored
+localities. All these conditions, natural and artificial, combined
+with the Union occupancy of the other inlets to concentrate
+blockade-running upon Charleston. This in turn drew thither the
+blockaders, which had to be the more numerous because the harbor could
+be entered by two or more channels, widely separated. There was thus
+constituted a blockade society, which contrasted agreeably with the
+somewhat hermit-like existence of the smaller stations. The weather
+was usually pleasant enough--many Northerners now know the winter
+climate of South Carolina--so during the daytime the ships would lift
+their anchors and get more or less together; the officers, and to a
+less extent the crews, exchanging visits. Old acquaintanceships were
+renewed, former cruises discussed, "yarns" interchanged; and then
+there was always the war with its happenings. Fort Henry, Fort
+Donelson, Shiloh, the _Monitor_ and _Merrimac_ fight, the capture of
+New Orleans by Farragut, all occurred during the stay of the
+_Pocahontas_ upon the blockade in 1862. Our news was apt to be ten
+days old, but to us it was as good as new; indeed, somewhat better,
+for we heard of the first reverses at Shiloh, and by the hands of the
+_Merrimac_, by the same mail which brought word of the final decided
+victory. Thus we were spared the anxiety of suspense. Even the
+disasters about Richmond were not by us fairly appreciated until the
+ship returned North, when the mortification of defeat was somewhat
+solaced, and the tendency to despondency lessened, by the happiness of
+being again at home; in my case after a continuous absence of more
+than three years, in the _Congress_ and _Pocahontas_.
+
+Talking of despondency, I had an odd experience of the ease with which
+people forget their frames of mind. While Burnside was engaged in the
+movements preceding Fredericksburg, I was in conversation with a
+veteran naval officer at his own house. Speaking of the probable
+outcome of the operations in progress, which then engrossed all
+thoughts, he said to me, "I think, Mr. Mahan, that if we fail this
+time, we may as well strike"; the naval phrase "strike the colors"
+being the equivalent of surrender--give up. I dissented heartily; not
+from any really reasoned appreciation of conditions, but on general
+principles, as understood by a man still very young. More than two
+years later, when the war had just drawn to its triumphant close, I
+again met the same gentleman. Amid our felicitations, he said to me,
+"There is one thing, Mr. Mahan, which I have never allowed myself to
+doubt--the ultimate success of our just cause."
+
+After all, it was very natural. When you are cold, you're cold, and
+when you're hot, you're hot; and if you are indiscreet enough to say
+so to some one who feels differently, he remembers it against you.
+What business have you to feel other than he? If, with the thermometer
+at zero, I chance to say that I wish it were warmer, I am sure of some
+one, a lady usually, bursting in upon me when it is ninety-five, with
+the jeer, "Well! I hope, now, _you_ are satisfied." I recall
+distinctly the long faces we pulled when we reached Philadelphia on
+our return, and realized, by the withdrawal of McClellan's army to
+Washington, the full extent of our disasters on the Peninsula; my old
+commodore might then have found some to say, Amen. But this did not
+keep our hats any lower when we chucked them aloft over Vicksburg and
+Gettysburg, and forgot that we had ever felt otherwise.
+
+Vicksburg and Gettysburg, by the way, and their coincidence with the
+Fourth of July, have furnished me with a reminiscence quite otherwise
+agreeable. The ship in which I then was spent that Fourth at Spithead,
+England. We dressed ship with multicolored signals, red, white, and
+blue, at every yard-arm, big American ensigns at the three mast-heads
+and the peak, presenting a singularly gay and joyful aspect, which
+could profitably be viewed from as many points as Mr. Pecksniff looked
+at Salisbury Cathedral. At noon we fired a national salute, all the
+more severely punctilious and observant, because by the last mail
+things at home seemed to be looking particularly blue. The British
+ships of war, though I fear few of their officers then were other than
+pleased with our presumed discomfiture, dressed likewise, as by naval
+courtesy bound, and also fired a salute. The _Times_ of the day
+arrived from London in due season, and had improved the occasion to
+moralize upon the sad condition to which the Republic of Bunker Hill
+and Yorktown was reduced: Grant held up at Vicksburg,[10] Lee marching
+victoriously into Pennsylvania, no apparent probability of escaping
+disaster in either quarter. The conclusion was couched in that vein of
+Pecksniffian benevolence of which we hear so much in life. "Let us
+_hope_ that so much adversity may be tempered to a nation, afflicted
+with evil as unprecedented as its former prosperity; and this will
+indeed be the case if America ... is led on this day of festivity, now
+converted into a day of humiliation, to review past errors, and to
+consider that, if her present policy has led her so near ruin, in its
+reversal must lie the only path that can conduct her to safety." I
+wonder, if there had been a cable, would that editorial have been
+headed off. It was not.
+
+    "And there it stands unto this day,
+           To witness if I lie."
+
+It was bitter then to my taste; but sweet were the chuckles which I
+later had, when the actual transactions of that anniversary came to
+hand.
+
+Whatever their sympathies, the British naval officers during that stay
+in British waters had no difficulty in paying us all the usual
+personal attentions; but a particular incident showed for our
+susceptibilities a nicety of consideration, which could not have been
+exacted and was very grateful at the time. We were at Plymouth, under
+the breakwater, but some distance from the inner anchorage, when a
+merchant-vessel lying inside hoisted a Confederate flag at her mizzen
+mast-head. We saw it, but of course could do nothing. It was a clear
+case of intended insult, for the ship had no claim to the flag, and
+could only mean to flaunt us. It flew for perhaps an hour, and then
+disappeared. The same day, and not long afterwards, a British
+lieutenant from a vessel in the harbor came on board, and told me that
+he had had it hauled down, acting in place of his captain, who was
+absent. The communication to me, also momentarily in command, was
+purely personal; indeed, there was nothing official in the whole
+transaction, nor do I know by what means or by what authority he could
+insist upon the removal of the flag. However managed, the thing was
+done, and with the purpose of stopping a rudeness which, it is true,
+reflected more upon the port than upon us, for I think the offending
+vessel was British. Very many years afterwards I had occasion to quote
+this, when, during the Boer War, on the visit of a British squadron to
+one of our seaside resorts, a resident there thought to show American
+breeding by hoisting the Four-Color. In the late winter of 1863-64 I
+again met this officer and his ship in New Orleans. In conversation
+then he told me he did not believe the Union cause could succeed; that
+he, with others, looked to see three or four nations formed. In the
+same month of 1863 this anticipation would not have surprised me; but
+in 1864 it did, although Grant had not yet begun his movement upon
+Richmond.
+
+Blockading was desperately tedious work, make the best one could of
+it. The largest reservoir of anecdotes was sure to run dry; the
+deepest vein of original humor to be worked out. I remember hearing of
+two notorious tellers of stories being pitted against each other, for
+an evening's amusement, when one was driven as a last resource to
+recounting that "Mary had a little lamb." We were in about that case.
+Charleston, however, was a blooming garden of social refreshment
+compared with the wilderness of the Texas coast, to which I found
+myself exiled a year or so later; a veritable Siberia, cold only
+excepted. Charleston was not very far from the Chesapeake or Delaware,
+in distance or in time. Supply vessels, which came periodically, and
+at not very long intervals, arrived with papers not very late, and
+with fresh provisions not very long slaughtered; but by the time they
+reached Galveston or Sabine Pass, which was our station, their news
+was stale, and we got the bottom tier of fresh beef. The ship to which
+I there belonged was a small steam-corvette, which with two gunboats
+constituted all the social possibilities. Happily for myself, I did
+not join till midway in the corvette's stay off the port, which lasted
+in all nearly six months, before she was recalled in mercy to New
+Orleans. I have never seen a body of intelligent men reduced so nearly
+to imbecility as my shipmates then were.
+
+One of my captains used to adduce, as his conception of the extreme of
+isolation, to be the keeper of a lightship off Cape Horn; a
+professional conceit rivalling the elder Mr. Weller's equally profound
+recognition of the connection between keeping a pike and misanthropy.
+We off Sabine Pass were banished about equally with the keeper of a
+turnpike or of a remote lightship. We ought, of course, to have
+improved the leisure which weighed so heavily on our hands; but the
+improvement of idle moments is an accomplishment of itself, as many a
+retired business man has found out too late. There is an impression,
+derived from the experience of passengers on board ocean steamers,
+that naval officers have an abundance of spare time. The ship, it
+seems assumed, runs itself; the officers have only to look on and
+enjoy. As a matter of fact, sea officers under normal conditions are
+as busy as the busiest house-keeper, with the care to boot of two,
+three, four, or five hundred children, to be kept continually doing as
+they should; the old woman who lived in the shoe had a good thing in
+comparison. Thus occupied, the leisure habit of self-improvement,
+other than in the practice of the calling, is not formed. At sea, on a
+voyage, the vicissitudes of successive days provide the desultory
+succession of incidents, which vary and fill out the tenor of
+occupations, keeping life full and interesting. In port, besides the
+regular and fairly engrossing routine, there are the resources of the
+shore to fill up the chinks. But the dead monotony of the blockade was
+neither sea nor port. It supplied nothing. The crew, once drilled,
+needed but a few moments each day to keep at the level of proficiency;
+and there was practically nothing to do, because nothing happened that
+required either a doing or an undoing.
+
+Under such conditions even a gale of wind was a not unwelcome change.
+Although little activity was required to meet it, it at least
+presented new surroundings--something different from the daily
+outlook. After a very brief period, it became the rule to ride out the
+storms at anchor; and I remember one of our volunteer officers, who
+had commanded a merchant-ship for some years, saying that he would
+have been spared a good deal of trouble, on occasions, had he had our
+experience of holding on with an anchor instead of keeping under way.
+It was, however, an old if forgotten expedient, where anchorage ground
+was good--bottom sticky and water not too deep. In the ancient days of
+the French wars, the British fleets off Brest and Toulon had to keep
+under way, but that blockading Cadiz, in 1797-98, used to hold its
+position at anchor, and under harder conditions than ours; for there
+the worst gales blew on shore, whereas ours swept chiefly along the
+coast. A standing dispute in the British navy, in those days of hemp
+cables, used to be whether it was safer to ride with three anchors
+down, or with one only, having to it three cables, bent together, so
+as to form one of thrice the usual length. The balance of opinion
+leaned to the latter; the dead weight of so much hemp held the ship
+without transmitting the strain to the anchor itself. She "rode to the
+bight," as the expression was; that is, to the cable, curved by its
+own weight and length, lying even in part on the bottom, which
+prevented its tightening and pulling at the anchor. What was true of
+hemp was yet more true of iron chains. The _Pocahontas_ used to veer
+to a hundred fathoms, and there lie like a duck in fifty or sixty feet
+of water. I remember on one occasion, however, that when we next
+weighed the anchor, it came up with parts polished bright, as in my
+childhood we used sometimes to burnish a copper cent. This seemed to
+show that it had been scoured hard along a sandy bottom. We had had no
+suspicion of the ship's dragging during the gale, and I have since
+supposed that it may have started from its bed as we began to heave,
+and so been scrubbed along towards us.
+
+The problem of maintaining the health of ships' companies condemned to
+long months of salt provisions, and to equally depressing short
+allowance of social salt for the intellect, which reasonable beings
+crave, has to be ever present to those charged with administration.
+Nelson's "cattle and onions" sums up in homely phrase the first
+requirement; while, for the others, his policy during a weary two
+years, in which he himself never left the flag-ship, was to keep the
+vessels in constant movement, changing scene, and thereby maintaining
+expectation of something exciting turning up. "Our men's minds," he
+said, "are always kept up with the daily hopes of meeting the enemy."
+As the Confederacy had practically no navy, this particular
+distraction was debarred our blockaders; but in the matter of food, we
+in the early sixties had not got beyond his prescription for the
+opening years of the century. The primitive methods then still in
+vogue, for preserving meats and vegetables fresh, accomplished chiefly
+the making them perfectly tasteless, and to the eye uninviting; the
+palate, accustomed to the constant stimulant of salt, turned from
+"bully" (bouilli) beef and "desecrated" (dessicated) potatoes, jaded
+before exercise. Like liquor, salt, long used in large measures, at
+last becomes a craving. I have heard old seamen more than once say, "I
+must have my salt;" and I have even known one to express his utter
+weariness of the fresh butter France sends up with its morning coffee
+and rolls. So we on the blockade depended more upon the good offices
+of salt than upon those of tin cans, for giving us acceptable food;
+the consequence being, with us as with our British forebears, a keen
+physical demand for "cattle and onions." In one principal respect our
+supplies differed from theirs--in the profusion of ice afforded by
+our country. Our beef, therefore, came to us already butchered, while
+theirs was received on the hoof. Many of my readers doubtless will
+recall the adventures of Mr. Midshipman Easy, when in charge of the
+transport from Tetuan with bullocks for the fleet off Toulon.
+Onions--blessings on their heads, if they have any--came to both us
+and our predecessors as easily as they were welcome. I have sometimes
+heard the plea, that Nature is the best guide in matters of appetite,
+advanced for indulgences which, so construed, seemed to reflect upon
+her parental character; but there can be no such doubt concerning
+onions to a system well saturated with salt. When you see them you
+know what you want; and a half-dozen raw, with a simple salad
+dressing, were little more than a whetter on the blockade. Would it be
+possible now to manage a single one?
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+INCIDENTS OF WAR AND BLOCKADE SERVICE--CONTINUED
+
+1863-1865
+
+
+The _Pocahontas_ came North for repairs in the late summer of 1862,
+and after a brief leave I was ordered to the Naval Academy. Under the
+stress of the war, this had been broken out from its regular seat at
+Annapolis and transferred for the moment to Newport. All the
+arrangements were temporary and extemporized. The principal
+establishment, housing the three older classes, was in a building in
+the town formerly known as the Atlantic Hotel; while the new entries,
+who were very numerous, were quartered on two sailing-frigates, moored
+head and stern in the inner harbor, off Goat Island. This duplex
+arrangement necessitated a double set of officers, not easy to be had
+with war going on; the more so that the original corps had been
+depleted by the resignations of Southern men. The embarrassment
+arising from the immediate scantness of officers led naturally, if
+perhaps somewhat irreflectively, to a great number of admissions to
+the Naval Academy, disregardful of past experience with the '41 Date,
+and of the future, when room at the top would be lacking to take in
+all these youngsters as captains and admirals. Thus was constituted
+the "hump," as it came to be called, which, like a tumor on the body,
+engaged at a later day the attention of many professional
+practitioners. As it would not absorb, and as the rough-and-ready
+methods by which civil life and the survival of the fittest deal with
+such conditions could not be applied, it had to be dissipated; a
+process ultimately carried out with indifferent success. While it
+lasted it caused many a heartache from postponement. As one of the
+sufferers said, when hearing the matter discussed, "I don't know about
+this or that. All I know is that I have been a lieutenant for twenty
+years." Owing to the slimness of the service in the lower grades they
+became lieutenants young; but there they stuck. Every boom is followed
+by such reaction, and for a military service war is a boom. Expansion
+sets in; and when contraction follows somebody is squeezed. At the end
+of the Napoleonic Wars there were over eight hundred post-captains in
+the British navy. What could peace do for them?
+
+Eight pleasant months I spent on shore at the Academy, and then was
+again whisked off to sea, there to remain for substantially all the
+rest of the war. Although already prominent as a fashionable
+watering-place, Newport then was very far from its present
+development; but in winter it had a settled and pleasant, if small,
+society. At this time I met the widow of Captain Lawrence of the
+_Chesapeake_, who survived until two years later. She was already
+failing, and not prematurely; for it was then, 1862-63, the fiftieth
+year since her husband fell. She lived with a sister, also the widow
+of an officer, and was frequently visited by her granddaughter, the
+child of Lawrence's daughter, a singularly beautiful girl. I remember
+her pointing to me a picture of the defeat of the _Peacock_, by the
+_Hornet_, under her grandfather's command; on which, she laughingly
+said, she had been brought up. This meeting had for me not only the
+usual interest which a link with the distant past supplies, but a
+certain special association; for my grandmother, then recently dead,
+had known several of Lawrence's contemporaries in the navy, and my
+recollection is that she told me she had seen him leaving his wife at
+their doorstep, when departing to take command of the _Chesapeake_.
+
+When the summer of 1863 drew nigh, the question of the usual practice
+cruise came up. I have before stated the two opinions: one favoring a
+regular ocean voyage, with its customary routine and accidents of
+weather; the other more disposed to contracted cruising in our own
+waters, anchoring at night, and by day following a formulated
+programme of varied practical exercises. For this year both plans were
+adopted. There were two practice-ships, one of which was to remain
+between Narragansett and Gardiner's Bay, in Long Island. I was ordered
+as first lieutenant of the other, which was to go to Europe. The
+advisability of this step for a sailing-ship was on this occasion
+doubly questioned, for the _Alabama_ had already begun her career. In
+fact, one of the officers then stationed at the school had been
+recently captured by her, when making a passage to Panama in a
+mail-steamer. I remember his telling me, with glee, that when the
+_Alabama_ fired a shot in the direction of the packet, called, I
+think, the _Ariel_, a number of the passengers took refuge behind the
+bulkheads of the upper-deck saloons, which, being of light pine,
+afforded as much protection as the air, with the additional risk of
+splinters. He hoped to escape observation, but the Confederate
+boarding-officer had been a classmate of his, and spotted him at once.
+Being paroled, he was for the time shut off from war service, and was
+sent to the Academy. He was a singular man, by name Tecumseh Steece,
+and looked with a certain disdain upon the navy as a profession. In
+his opinion, it was for him only a stepping-stone to some great
+future, rather undefined. At bottom a very honest fellow, with a sense
+of duty which while a midshipman had led him to persist defiantly in a
+very unpopular--though very proper--course of action, he yet seemed to
+see no impropriety in utterly neglecting professional acquirement,
+rather boasting of his ignorance. The result was that, having been
+detailed for the European cruise, he was subsequently detached; I
+think from doubt of his fitness for the deck of a sailing-vessel.
+While at the Academy at this time, he took a first step in his
+proposed career by writing a pamphlet, the title and scope of which I
+now forget; but unluckily, by a slip of the pen, he wrote on the first
+page, "We judge the _known_ by the _unknown_." This, being speedily
+detected, raised a laugh, and I fear prevented most from further
+exploration of a somewhat misty thesis. He was rather chummy with me,
+and tried mildly to persuade me that I also should stand poised on the
+navy for a flight into the empyrean; but, if fain to soar, which I do
+not think I was, like Raleigh, I feared a fall. For himself, poor
+fellow, weighted by his aspirations, he said to me, "I don't fear
+death, I fear life;" and death caught him early, in 1864, in the shape
+of yellow-fever. One of his idiosyncrasies was a faith in coffee as a
+panacea; and I heard that while sickening he deluged himself with that
+beverage, to what profit let physicians say.
+
+The decision that one of the practice-ships should go to Europe had, I
+think, been determined by the officer who was to have commanded the
+_Macedonian_, the vessel chosen for that purpose. She was not the one
+of that name captured in 1812 by the _United States_,--the only one of
+our frigate captures brought into port,--but a successor to the title.
+Before she went into commission, the first commander was detached to
+service at the front; but no change was made in her destination, even
+if any misgivings were felt. One of my fellow-officers at the Academy,
+who was not going, remarked to me pleasantly that, if we fell in with
+the _Alabama_, she would work round us like a cooper round a cask; an
+encouraging simile to one who has looked upon that cheerful and much
+one-sided performance. We were all too young--I, the senior
+lieutenant, was but twenty-two--and too light-hearted to be troubled
+with forebodings; and, indeed, there was in reason no adequate
+inducement for the Confederate cruiser to alter her existing plans in
+order to take the _Macedonian_. Had we come fairly in her way, to
+gobble a large percentage of the Naval Academy might have been a
+fairly humorous practical joke; but it could have been no more. I
+remember Mr. Schuyler Colfax, afterwards Vice-President, then I think
+a member of the House, being on board, and mentioning the subject to
+me. "After all," he said, "I suppose it would scarcely do for one of
+our vessels to be deterred from a cruise by regard for a Confederate
+cruiser." Considering the disparity of advantage, due to steam, I
+should say this would scarcely be a working theory, in naval life or
+in private. Our military insignificance was our sufficient protection.
+During my cruise in the _Congress_, a ship much heavier every way than
+the _Macedonian_, the commander of one of our corvettes, substantially
+of the _Alabama_ class, said to our captain, "I suppose, if I fell in
+with you as an enemy, I ought to attack you." "Well," replied the
+other, "if you didn't, you should pray not to have me on your
+court-martial."
+
+The officer originally designated to command the _Macedonian_ had been
+very greatly concerned about the midshipmen's provisions: the quality
+of which they should be, and the room to be kept for their stowage. I
+wonder would his soul have been greatly vexed had he accompanied me
+the first evening out, as I inspected the steerage while they were at
+supper? "What!" shouted one of them to a servant, as I passed. "What!
+No milk?" The mingled consternation, bereavement, and indignation
+which struggled for full expression in the words beggar description. I
+can see his face and hear his tones to this day. Laughable to comedy;
+yet to a philosophizing turn of mind what an epitome of life! Do we
+not at every corner of experience meet the princess who felt the
+three hard peas under the fifty feather-beds? Sydney Smith's friend,
+who had everything else life could give, but realized only the
+disappointing view out of one of his windows? We might dispense with
+Hague Conferences. War is going to cease because people adequately
+civilized will not endure hardness. Whether in the end we shall have
+cause to rejoice in the double event remains to be seen. The Asiatic
+can endure.
+
+Among the _Macedonian's_ lieutenants was the late Admiral Sampson. We
+had also for deck officers two who had but just graduated; one of them
+a young Frenchman belonging to the royal house of Orléans, who had
+been permitted to take the course at our naval school, I presume with
+a view on his part to possible contingencies recalling the monarchy to
+France. Under Louis Philippe, a member of the family had been
+prominent in the French navy, as the Prince de Joinville; and had
+commanded the squadron which brought back the body of Napoleon from
+St. Helena. The representative with us was a very good-tempered,
+amiable, unpresuming man, too young as yet to be formed in character.
+As messmates we were, of course, all on terms of cordial equality, and
+one of our number used frequently to greet him with effusion as "You
+old King." He spoke English easily, though scarcely fluently, and with
+occasional eccentricity of idiom. At the Academy, before graduation,
+he took his turn with others of his class as officer of the day, one
+of whose duties was to keep a journal of happenings. I chanced once to
+inspect this book, and found over his signature an entry which began,
+"The weather was a dirty one."
+
+While at the school, the young duke had been provided with a guide,
+philosopher, and friend, in the person of an accomplished ex-officer
+of the French navy, who had been obliged to quit that service, under
+the Empire, because of his attachment to the exiled monarchy. I knew
+this gentleman very well at Newport, exchanging with him occasional
+visits, though he was much my senior in years. His name was Fauvel,
+which the midshipmen, or other, had promptly Anglicized into Four
+Bells--a nautical hour-stroke. I suppose this propensity to travesty
+foreign or difficult names is not merely maritime; but naturally
+enough my reading has brought me more in contact with it in connection
+with naval matters. Thus the _Ville de Milan_, captured into the
+British service, became to their seamen the "Wheel 'em along;" and the
+_Bellerophon_, originally their own, is historically reported to have
+passed current as the "Bully Ruffian." Captain Fauvel accompanied us
+in the _Macedonian_; but after arriving in England, as we were to go
+to Cherbourg, his charge and he left us, neither being _persona grata_
+at that date in a French harbor. When we reached Cherbourg, Fauvel's
+wife was there, either resident or for the moment, and at our
+captain's invitation visited the ship to see where her husband had
+been living, and would again be when we reached a more friendly port.
+As contrary luck would have it, while she was on board, the French
+admiral and the general commanding the troops came alongside to return
+the official call paid them. The awkwardness, of course, was merely
+that her presence obtruded the fact, otherwise easily and discreetly
+ignored, that when out of French waters we were hospitably
+entertaining persons politically distasteful to the French government,
+the courtesies of which we were now accepting; and there was a
+momentary impulse to keep her out of sight. A better judgment
+prevailed, however, and a very courteous exchange of French politeness
+ensued between the officials and the lady, to whom doubtless political
+significance attached. A more notable circumstance, in the light of
+the then future, was that during our few days in Cherbourg arrived the
+news of the capture of the city of Mexico by the French troops; and
+before our departure took place the official celebration, with flags
+and salutes, of that crowning event in an enterprise which in the end
+proved disastrous to its originator, and fatal to his protégé,
+Maximilian.
+
+The _Macedonian_, for a sailing-vessel, had a quite rapid run across
+from Newport to Plymouth, eighteen days from anchor to anchor, though
+I believe one of our frigates, after the war, made it in twelve. This
+was the only occasion, during my fairly numerous crossings, that. I
+have ever seen icebergs under a brilliant sky. Usually the scoundrels
+come skulking along masked by a fog, as though ashamed of themselves,
+as they ought to be. They are among the most obnoxious of people who
+do not know their place. This time we passed several, quite large,
+having a light breeze and perfectly clear horizon. After that it again
+set in thick, with the usual anxiety which ice, unseen but surely
+near, cannot but cause. Finally we took a very heavy gale of wind,
+which settled to southwest, hauling gradually to northwest and sending
+us rejoicing on our way a thousand miles in four days, much of this
+time under close-reefed topsails.
+
+I am not heedless of the great danger of merely prosing along in the
+telling of the days of youth, so I will shut off my experience of the
+_Macedonian_ with an incident which amused me greatly at the time, and
+still seems to have a moral that one needs not to point. While lying
+at Spithead, a number of the midshipmen were sent ashore to visit the
+dock yard,--professional improvement. When they returned, the
+lieutenants in charge were full of the block-making processes. The
+ingenuity of the machinery, the variety and beauty of the blocks, the
+many excellences, had the changes rung upon them, meal after meal,
+till I could hear the whir of the wheels in my head and see the chips
+fly. Meantime, our captain went to London, having completed his
+official visiting, and an English captain came on board to return a
+call. Declining my invitation to enter the cabin, he walked up and
+down the quarter-deck with me, discussing many things; under his arm
+his sword. Suddenly he stopped short, and pointing with it to a big
+iron-strapped leading-block, he said, "Now that is what I call a
+sensible block; I wonder why it is we cannot get blocks like that in
+our ships." I was not prepared with a reason for their defects, then
+or since; but my unreadiness has not marred my enjoyment of these
+divergent points of view. Perhaps the captain was a professional
+malcontent; for, looking at a Parrott rifled hundred-pounder gun which
+we carried on the quarter-deck, he said, interrogatively, "Not
+breech-loading?" "No," I answered, "breech-loading is not in favor
+with us at present." "And very right you are," he rejoined. I think
+they then (1863) still had the Armstrong breech-loading system. This
+incident may deserve a place in the palæontology of gun-making. There
+are now, I presume, no muzzle-loaders left; unless in museums, as
+specimens.
+
+Very shortly after the _Macedonian's_ return home I was sent to New
+Orleans, for a ship on the Texas blockade; transportation being given
+me on one of the "beef-boats," as the supply-vessels were familiarly
+known. Among fellow-passengers was one of my class; for a while,
+indeed, my room-mate at the Academy. When we reached New Orleans the
+chief of staff said to me, "There is a vacancy on board the
+_Monongahela_," a ship larger and in every way better than the
+_Seminole_ to which I was ordered; moreover, she was lying off Mobile,
+a sociable blockade, instead of at a jumping-off place, the end of
+nowhere, Sabine Pass, where the _Seminole_ was. He advised me to apply
+for her, which I did; but Commodore Bell, acting in Farragut's absence
+in the North, declined. I must go to the ship to which the Department
+had assigned me, and for which it doubtless had its reasons. So my
+classmate was ordered to her instead, and on board her was killed in
+the passage of the Mobile forts the following August. I can scarcely
+claim a miraculous escape, as it does not appear that I should have
+got in the way of the ball which finished him; but for him, poor
+fellow, who had not been long married, the commodore's refusal to me
+was a sentence of death.
+
+I shall not attempt to furbish up any intellectual entertainment for
+readers from the excessively dry bones of my subsequent blockading,
+especially off the mouth of the Sabine. Only a French cook could
+produce a passable dish out of such woful material; and even he would
+require concomitant ingredients, in remembered incidents, wherein, if
+there were any, my memory fails me. Day after day, day after day, we
+lay inactive--roll, roll; not wholly ineffective, I suppose, for our
+presence stopped blockade-running; but even in this respect the Texas
+coast had largely lost importance since the capture of Vicksburg and
+Port Hudson, the previous summer, had cut off the trans-Mississippi
+region from the body of the Confederacy. We used to see the big,
+light-draught steamers coming up the river, or crossing the
+lagoon-like bay, sometimes crowded with people; and the possibility
+was discussed of their carrying troops, and of their coming out to
+attack us, as not long before had been successfully done against our
+vessels _inside_ Galveston Bay. In a norther, possibly, such a thing
+might have been tried, for the sea was then smooth; but in the
+ordinary ground-swell I imagine the soldiers would have been
+incapacitated by sea-sickness. The chances were all against success,
+and no attempt was ever made; but it was something to talk about.
+
+The ensuing twelve or fifteen months to the close of the war were
+equally uneventful. Long before they ended I had got back to the South
+Atlantic coast. To this I was indebted for the opportunity of being
+present when the United States flag was ceremoniously hoisted again
+over what then remained of Fort Sumter, by General Robert Anderson,
+who, as Major Anderson, had been forced to lower it just four years
+before. Henry Ward Beecher delivered the address, of which I remember
+little, except that, citing the repeated question of foreigners, why
+we should wish to re-establish our authority over a land where the one
+desire of the people was to reject it, he replied, "We so wish,
+because it is ours." The sentiment was obvious enough, one would
+think, to any man who had a country to love and objected to seeing it
+dismembered, but to many of our European critics it then seemed
+monstrous in an American; at least they said so. The orator on such an
+occasion has only to swim with the current. The enthusiasm is already
+there; he needs not to elicit it. Here and again a blast of eloquence
+from him may start the fire roaring, but the flame is already kindled.
+The joy of harvest, the rejoicing of men who divide the spoil, the
+boasting of them who can now put off their harness, need not the
+stimulation of words.
+
+The exact coincidence of raising the flag over Sumter on the
+anniversary of its lowering was artificial, but the date of the
+surrender of Charleston, February 18th, was just opportune to complete
+the necessary arrangements and preparations without holding back the
+ceremony, on the night of which--Good Friday--within twelve hours,
+President Lincoln was murdered. Joy and grief were thus brought into
+immediate and startling contrast. A perfectly natural and quite
+impressive coincidence came under my notice in close connection with
+these occurrences. I was at this time on the staff of Admiral
+Dahlgren, commander-in-chief of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron
+during the last two years of the war, and accompanied him when he
+entered Charleston Harbor, which he had so long assailed in vain. The
+following Sunday I attended service at one of the Episcopal churches.
+The appointed first lesson for the day, Quinquagesima, was from the
+first chapter of Lamentations, beginning, "How doth the city sit
+solitary, that was full of people!... She that was great among the
+nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become
+tributary!" Considering the conspicuous, and even leading, part played
+by Charleston in the Southern movement, "the cradle of secession," her
+initiation of hostilities, her long successful resistance, and her
+recent subjugation, the words and their sequence were strikingly and
+painfully applicable to her present condition; for the Confederate
+troops in evacuating had started a large destruction of property, and
+the Union forces on entering found public buildings, stores,
+warehouses, private dwellings, and cotton, on fire--a scene of
+distress to which some of them also further contributed.[11] I myself
+remember streets littered with merchants' correspondence, a mute
+witness to other devastation. My recollection is that the officiating
+clergyman saw and dodged the too evident application, reading some
+other chapter. Many still living may recall how apposite, though to a
+different mood, was the first lesson of the Sunday--the third after
+Easter--which in 1861 followed the surrender of Sumter and the excited
+week that witnessed "the uprising of the North,"--Joel iii., v. 9:
+"Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles: Prepare war, wake up the mighty
+men, let all men of war draw near; let them come up. Beat your
+ploughshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears; let the
+weak say, I am strong." I was not in the country myself at that time,
+and my attention was first drawn to this in 1865 by a clergyman, who
+told me of his startled astonishment upon opening the Book. In the
+then public temper it must have thrilled every nerve among the
+hearers, already strained to the uttermost by events without parallel
+in the history of the nation.
+
+Being on Dahlgren's staff gave me also the opportunity of seeing,
+gathered together in social assembly, all the general officers who had
+shared in the March to the Sea. This was at a reception given by
+Sherman in Savannah, within a week after entering that city, which may
+be considered the particular terminus of one stage in his progress
+through the heart of the Confederacy. The admiral had gone thither in
+a small steamer, which served as flag-ship, to greet the triumphant
+chief. Few, if any, of the more conspicuous of Sherman's subordinates
+were absent from the rooms, thronged with men whose names were then in
+all mouths, and who in honor of the occasion had changed their
+marching clothes for full uniform, rarely seen in campaign. From the
+heads of the two armies, the union of which under him constituted his
+force, down through the brigade commanders, all were there with their
+staffs; and many besides. The tone of this gathering was more subdued
+than at Fort Sumter, if equally exultant. Success, achievement, the
+clear demonstration of victory, such as the occupation of Savannah
+gave, uplifts men's hearts and swells their breasts; but these men had
+worked off some of their heat in doing things. Besides, there yet
+remained for them other and weighty things to do. It could be felt
+sympathetically that with them the pervading sensation was
+relaxation--repose. They had reached their present height by prolonged
+labor and endurance, and were enjoying rather the momentary release
+from strain than the intoxication of triumph.
+
+In expectation of the victorious arrival of the army in Savannah, I
+had been charged with two messages, in pathetic contrast with each
+other. The first was from my father to Sherman himself, who twenty
+years before had been under his teaching as a cadet at the Military
+Academy. I cannot now recall whether I bore with me a letter of
+congratulation which my father wrote him, and to which he pleasantly
+replied that he had from it as much satisfaction as when in far-away
+days he had been dismissed from the blackboard with the commendation,
+"Very well done, Mr. Sherman." My reception by him, however, was in
+the exact spirit of this remark, and characteristic of the man. When I
+mentioned my name he broke into a smile--all over, as they say--shook
+my hand forcibly, and exclaimed, "What, the son of old Dennis?"
+reverting instinctively to the familiar epithet of school-days.
+
+My other errand was to a former school-mate of my mother's, resident
+in Savannah, with whom she had long maintained affectionate relations,
+which the war necessarily suspended. The next day I sought her out.
+When I found the house, she was at the door, in conversation with some
+of the subordinate officials of the invading army, probably with
+reference to the necessity of yielding rooms for quarters. The men
+were perfectly respectful, but the situation was perturbing to a
+middle-aged lady brought for the first time into contact with the
+rough customs of war, and she was very pale, worried in look, and
+harassed in speech; evidently quite doubtful as to what latent
+possibilities of harm such a visit might portend--whether ultimately
+she might not find herself houseless. I made myself known, but she was
+not responsive; courteous, for with her breeding she could not be
+otherwise, but too preoccupied with the harsh present to respond to
+the gentler feelings of the past. It was touchingly apparent that she
+was trying hard to keep a stiff upper lip, and her attempted frame of
+mind finally betrayed itself in the words, uttered tremulously, with
+excitement or mortification, "I don't admit yet that you have beaten
+us." I could scarcely contest the point, but it was very sad. At the
+moment I could almost have wished that we had not.
+
+At the mouths of the Georgia rivers Sherman's soldiers struck
+tide-water, many of them for the first time in their lives; and a
+story was current that two, foraging, lay down to sleep by the edge of
+a stream, and were astounded by waking to find themselves in the
+water. To consider the tide, however, is an acquired habit. Sherman's
+approach to the Atlantic had given rise to a certain amount of naval
+and military activity on the part of the forces already stationed
+there. In connection with this I had been sent on some staff errand
+that caused me to spend a couple of days on board the _Pawnee_, which
+had just been carrying about army officers for reconnoissances. "By
+George!" said her captain, laughing and bringing down his fist on the
+table, "you can't make those fellows understand that a ship has to
+look out for the tide. I would say to them, 'See here, the tide is
+running out, and if we don't move very soon we shall be left aground,
+fast till next high-water.' 'Oh yes, yes,' they would reply, 'all
+right'; and then they would forget all about it, and go on as if they
+had unlimited time." But of course the captain did not forget.
+
+The fall of Richmond and Charleston, and the surrender of Lee's army,
+assuring the early termination of hostilities on any grand scale, the
+admiral had kindly transferred me from his staff back to the ship on
+board which I had joined the squadron a year before, and which was
+soon to return North. War service, nominal at least, was not, however,
+quite over; for after some brief repairs we were sent down to Haïti to
+take up the duty of convoying the Pacific Mail steamers from the
+Windward Passage (between Cuba and Haïti) some distance towards
+Panama. It is perhaps worth recording that such an employment incident
+to the war was maintained for quite a while, consequent upon the
+capture of the _Ariel_, before mentioned. Upon my personal fortunes it
+had the effect of producing a severe tropical fever, engendered
+probably during the years of Southern service, and brought to a head
+by the conditions of Haïti. Whatever its cause, this led to my being
+invalided for six months, at the expiration of which, to my grievous
+disappointment, I was again assigned to duty in the Gulf of Mexico.
+The War of Secession then--December, 1865--was entirely over; but the
+Mexican expedition of Napoleon III., the culminating incident of
+which, the capture of Mexico, we had seen celebrated at Cherbourg in
+1863, was still lingering. Begun in our despite, when our hands were
+tied by intestine troubles, it now engaged our unfriendly interest;
+and part of the attention paid to it was the maintenance of a
+particular squadron in those waters--observant, if quiescent. Here
+again sickness pursued, not me, but my ship; from the mouth of the Rio
+Grande we returned to Pensacola, with near a hundred men, half the
+ship's company, down with fever. It was not malignant--we had but
+three deaths--but one of those was our only doctor, and we were sent
+to the far North, and so out of commission, in September, 1866. The
+particular squadron was continued till the following spring, when,
+under diplomatic pressure, the French expedition was withdrawn; but by
+then I was again in Rio de Janeiro on my way to China.
+
+The headquarters of this temporary squadron was at Pensacola; but
+until her unlucky visit to the Rio Grande my ship, the _Muscoota_, one
+of the iron double-ender paddle steamers which the war had evolved
+among other experiments, lay for some months at Key West, then, as
+always from its position, a naval station of importance. I suppose
+most people know that this word "Key," meaningless in its application
+to the low islands which it designates, is the anglicized form of the
+Spanish "Cayo." Among the valued acquaintances of my life I here met a
+clergyman, whose death at the age of eighty I see as these words pass
+from my pen. As chaplain to the garrison, he had won the esteem and
+praise of many, including General Sherman, for his devotion during an
+epidemic of yellow-fever, and he was now rector of the only Episcopal
+parish. He told me an anecdote of one of his flock. Key West, from its
+situation, had many of the characteristics of an outpost, a frontier
+town, a mingling of peoples, with consequent rough habits, hard
+drinking, and general dissipation. The man in question, a good fellow
+in his way, professed to be a very strong churchman, and constantly so
+avowed himself; but the bottle was too much for him. The rector
+remonstrated. "----, how can you go round boasting yourself a
+churchman when your life is so scandalous? You are doing the Church
+harm, not good, by such talk." "Yes, Mr. Herrick," he replied, "I know
+it's too bad; it is a shame; but, you see, all the same, I _am_ a good
+churchman. I fight for the Church. If I hear a man say anything
+against her, I knock him down." It was at Mr. Herrick's table I heard
+criticised the local inadequacy of the prayer-book petition for rain.
+"What we want," said the speaker, "is not 'moderate rain and showers,
+that we may receive the fruits of the earth,' but a hard down-pour to
+fill our tanks." Key West and its neighbors then depended chiefly, if
+not solely, upon this resource for drinking-water.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+A ROUNDABOUT ROAD TO CHINA
+
+1867
+
+
+With the termination of the War of Secession, which had concentrated
+the entire effort of the navy upon our own coasts and inland waters,
+the policy of the government reverted, irreflectively perhaps, to the
+identical system of distribution in squadrons that had existed before.
+The prolonged tension of mind and effort during four years of
+overwrought activity was followed by a period of reaction, to which,
+as far as the administration of the navy was concerned, the term
+collapse would scarcely be misapplied. Of course, for a few years the
+evil effects of this would not be observable in the military resources
+of the government. Only the ravages of time could deprive us of the
+hundreds of thousands of veterans just released from the active
+practice of war; and the navy found itself in possession of a
+respectable fleet, which, though somewhat over-specialized in order to
+meet the peculiar conditions of the hostilities, was still fairly
+modern. There was a body of officers fully competent in numbers and
+ability, and comparatively young. In the first ship on board which I
+made a long cruise, beginning in 1867, of ten in the ward-room, three
+only, the surgeon, paymaster, and chief engineer, were over thirty;
+and they barely. I myself, next to the captain, was twenty-six; and
+there was not a married man among us. The seamen, though
+professionally more liable to dispersion than the land forces, were
+not yet scattered. Thus provided against immediate alarms, and with
+the laurels of the War of Secession still fresh, the country in
+military matters lay down and went to sleep, like the hare in the
+fable, regardless of the incessant progress on every side, which,
+indeed, was scarcely that of the tortoise. Our ships underwent no
+change in character or armament.
+
+Twenty years later, in the Pacific, I commanded one of these old
+war-horses, not yet turned out to grass or slaughter, ship-rigged to
+royals, and slow-steamed. One day the French admiral came on board to
+return my official visit. As he left, he paused for a moment abreast
+one of our big, and very old, pivot guns. "Capitaine," he said, "les
+vieux canons!" Two or three days later came his chief of staff on some
+errand or other. That discharged, when I was accompanying him to his
+boat at the gangway, he stopped in the same spot as the admiral. His
+gaze was meditative, reminiscent, perhaps even sentimental. "Où
+sont les neiges d'antan?" Whatever their present merits as
+fighting-machines, he saw before him an historical memento, sweeping
+gently, doubtless, the chords of youthful memories. "Oui, oui!" he
+said at last; "l'ancien systême. Nous l'avons eu." It was a summary of
+American naval policy during the twenty years following 1865; we
+"hail" things which other nations "had had," until Secretary Chandler
+started the movement of renovation by the first of all necessary
+steps, the official exposure of the sham to which we had allowed
+ourselves to be committed. There is an expression, "quaker guns,"
+applied to blackened cylinders of wood, intended to simulate cannon,
+and mounted upon ramparts or a ship's broadside to impose upon an
+enemy as to the force before him. We made four such for the
+_Macedonian_, to deceive any merchant-men we spoke as to our battery,
+in case she should report us to an _Alabama_; and, being carried near
+the bows, much trouble they gave us, being usually knocked overboard
+when we tacked ship, or set a lower studding-sail. Well, by 1885 the
+United States had a "quaker" navy; the result being that, not the
+enemy, but our own people were deceived. Like poor Steece's passengers
+on board the _Ariel_, we were blissfully sheltering behind pine
+boards.
+
+In 1867, however, these old ships and ancient systems were but just
+passing their meridian, and for a brief time might continue to live on
+their reputation. They were beautiful vessels in outline, and repaid
+in appearance all the care which the seamen naturally lavishes on his
+home. One could well feel proud of them; the more so that they had
+close behind them a good fighting record. It was to one such, the
+_Iroquois_, which had followed Farragut from New Orleans to Vicksburg,
+that I reported on the second day of that then new year. She was
+destined to China and Japan, the dream of years to me; but, better
+still, there was chalked out for her an extensive trip, "from Dan to
+Beersheba," as a British officer enviously commented in my hearing. We
+were to go by the West Indies to Rio de Janeiro, thence by the Cape of
+Good Hope to Madagascar, to Aden at the mouth of the Red Sea, to
+Muscat at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, and so by India and Siam
+to our first port in Chinese waters, Hong Kong. The time, too, was
+apposite, for Japan had not yet entered upon the path of modernization
+which she has since pursued with such revolutionary progress. Some
+eight or ten years ago there lunched with me a young Japanese naval
+officer, who I understand has occupied a position of distinguished
+responsibility during the recent war with Russia. I chanced to ask him
+if he had ever seen a two-sworded man. He replied, Never. He belonged
+to the samurai class, who once wore them; but in actual life they have
+disappeared. When the _Iroquois_ reached Japan, and throughout her
+stay, two-sworded men were as thick almost as blackberries. To
+European prepossessions it was illuminating to see half a dozen riding
+down a street, hatless, crown of the head shaved, with a short pigtail
+at the back tied tight near the skull and then brought stiffly forward
+close to the scalp; their figures gowned, the handles of the two
+swords projecting closely together from the left side of their
+garments, and the feet resting in stirrups of slipper form, which my
+memory says were of straw-work; but of that I am less sure. This
+equipment was completed by a painted fan stuck in the belt, and at
+times an opened paper umbrella. I have been passenger in the same boat
+with some of these warriors, accoutred as above, and using their fans
+as required, while engaged in animated conversation with the courtesy
+and smiling affability characteristic of all classes in Japan. Such,
+in outward seeming, then was the as yet raw material, out of which
+have been evolved the heroic soldiery who have recently astonished the
+world by the practical development they have given to modern military
+ideas; then as unlike the troops which now are, except in courage, as
+the ancient Japanese war-junk is to the present battle-ship. I was in
+Japan at the arrival of their first iron-clad, purchased in the United
+States, and doubtless long since consigned to the scrap-heap; but of
+her hereafter.
+
+A glance over the list of vessels in the _Navy Register_ of 1907 shows
+me that the once abundant Indian names have disappeared, except where
+associated with some State or city; or, worse, have been degraded to
+tugboats, a treatment which the Indian, with all his faults, scarcely
+deserves. They no longer connote ships of war. _Iroquois_, _Seminole_,
+_Mohican_, _Wyoming_, _Oneida_, _Pawnee_, and some dozens more, are
+gone with the ships, and like the tribes, which bore them. Yet what
+more appropriate to a vessel meant for a scout than the tribal epithet
+of a North American Indian! _Dacotah_, alone survives; while for it
+the march of progress in spelling has changed the _c_ to _k_, and
+phonetically dropped the silent, and therefore supposedly useless,
+_h_. As if silence had no merits! is the interjection, _ah_,
+henceforth to be spelled _a_? Since they with their names have passed
+into the world of ghosts--can there be for them a sea in the happy
+hunting-grounds?--it may be historically expedient to tell what manner
+of craft they were. If only some contemporary had done the same by the
+trireme, what time and disputation might have been saved!
+
+The _Iroquois_ and her sisters, built in the fifties, were vessels of
+the kind to which I have applied the term corvette, then very common
+in all navies; cruisers only; scouts, or commerce-destroyers. Not of
+the line of battle, although good fighting-ships. Ours were of a
+thousand tons, as size was then stated, or about seven hundred tons
+"displacement," as the more modern expression runs; displacement being
+the weight of the water displaced by the hull which rests in and upon
+it. Thus measured, they were from one-third to one-fourth the
+dimensions of the vessels called third-class cruisers, which now
+correspond to them; but their serviceableness in their time was
+sufficiently attested by the Confederate _Alabama_, substantially of
+this general type, as was her conqueror, the _Kearsarge_. For external
+appearance, they were something over two hundred feet long, with from
+one-fifth to one-sixth that width, and sat low in the water. Low and
+long are nautical features, suggestive of grace and speed, which have
+always obtained recognition for beauty; and the rail of these vessels
+ran unbroken, but with a fine sweep, from bow to stern. Along the
+water-line, and extending a few inches above it, shone the burnished
+copper, nearly parallel to the rail, between which and it glistened
+the saucy black hull.
+
+Steam had not yet succeeded in asserting its undivided sway; but the
+_Iroquois_ and her mates marked a stage in the progress, for they
+carried sails really as auxiliary, and were intended primarily to be
+fast steamers, as speed was reckoned in their time. The larger
+vessels of the service were acceptedly slow under steam. They had it
+chiefly to fight with, and to help them across the places where wind
+failed or weakened. These corvettes carried sails with a view to
+saving coal, by utilizing the well-defined wind zones of the ocean
+when fair for their course. Though the practical result for both was
+much the same, the underlying idea was different. In the one, sail
+held the first place; in the other, steam; and it is the idea which
+really denotes and maintains intellectual movement and material
+progress. This was represented accordingly in the rig adopted. Like a
+ship, they had three masts, yes; but only the two forward were
+square-rigged, and on each of them but three sails. The lofty royals
+were discarded. The general result was to emphasize the design of
+speed under steam, and the use of sails with a fresh, fair wind only;
+a distinct, if partial, abandonment of the "auxiliary" steam reliance
+which so far had governed naval development. It may be added that the
+shorter and lighter masts, by a common optical effect, increased the
+impression of the vessel's length and swiftness, as was the case with
+the old-time sailing-frigate when her lofty topgallant-masts were down
+on deck.
+
+Under sail alone the _Iroquois_ could never accomplish anything,
+except with a fair wind. We played with her at times, on the wind and
+tacking, but she simply slid off to leeward--never fetched near where
+she looked. Consonant with the expedient of using sails where the wind
+served, the screw could be disconnected from its shaft and hoisted;
+held in position, clear of the water, by iron pawls. In this way the
+hinderance of its submerged drag upon the speed of the ship was
+obviated. We did this on occasions, when we could reckon on a long
+period of favorable breezes; but it was a troublesome and somewhat
+anxious operation. The chance of a slip was not great, but the
+possibility was unpleasant to contemplate. When I add that for
+armament we carried one 100-pounder rifled gun on a pivot, and four
+9-inch smooth-bore shell guns--these being the naval piece which for
+the most part fought the War of Secession, then just closed--I shall
+have given the principal distinguishing features of a class of vessel
+which did good service in its day, and is now a much of the past as is
+the Spanish Armada. Yet it is only forty years since.
+
+After being frozen up and snowed under, during a very bitter and
+boisterous January, we at last got to sea, and soon ran into warmer
+weather. Our first stop was at the French West India island
+Guadeloupe, and there I had set for me amusingly that key-note of
+travelling experience which most have encountered. I was dining at a
+café, and after dinner got into conversation with an officer of the
+garrison. I asked him some question about the wet weather then
+reigning. "C'est exceptionnel," he replied; and exceptional we found
+it "from Dan to Beersheba." At our next port, Ciará, there was drought
+when every resident said it should have rained constantly--a variation
+a stranger could endure; while at Rio it was otherwise peculiar--"the
+warmest April in years." The currents all ran contrary to the books,
+and the winds which should have been north hung obstinately at south.
+Whether for natural productions, or weather, or society, we were
+commonly three months too late or two months too soon; or, as one of
+"ours" put it, we should have come in the other monsoon. Nevertheless,
+it was impossible for youth and high spirits to follow our schedule
+and not find it spiced to the full with the enjoyment of novelty; if
+not in season, at least well seasoned.
+
+However, every one travels nowadays, and it is time worse than wasted
+to retell what many have seen. But do many of our people yet visit our
+intended second port, that most beautiful bay of Rio de Janeiro? I
+fancy not. It is far out of the ordinary line, and the business
+immigration to South America is much more from Europe than from our
+own continent; but, having since visited many harbors, in many lands,
+I incline to agree with my old captain of the _Congress_, there is
+none that equals Rio, viewed from the anchorage. Like Japan, I was
+happy enough to see Rio before it had been much improved, while the
+sequestered, primitive, tropical aspect still clung to it. I suppose
+the red-tiled roofs still rise as before from among the abundant
+foliage and the orange-trees, in the suburb of Bota Fogo; that the
+same deliciously suggestive smell of the sugar and rum hogsheads hangs
+about the streets; that the long, narrow Rua do Ouvidor is still
+brilliant with its multicolored feather flowers; and that at night the
+innumerable lights dazzle irregularly upward, like the fireflies which
+also there abound, over the hill-sides and promontories that so
+charmingly break the shore line. But already in 1867 the strides since
+1860 were strikingly visible. In the earlier year I used frequently to
+visit a friend living at Nichtherohy, on the opposite shore of the
+bay. The ferriage then was by trig, long, sharp-bowed, black paddle
+steamers, with raking funnels. They were tremendously fussy,
+important, puffing little chaps, with that consequential air which so
+frequently accompanies moderate performance. The making a landing was
+a complicated and tedious job, characterized by the same amount of
+needless action and of shortcoming in accomplishment. We would back
+and stop about twenty feet away from the end of a long, projecting
+pier. Then ropes would be got ashore from each extremity of the
+vessel; which done, she would back again, and the bow line would be
+shortened in. Then she would go ahead, and the like would be done by
+the stern line. This would fetch her, say, ten feet away, when the
+same processes must be repeated. I never timed, for why should one be
+in a hurry in the tropics, where no one else is? but it seemed to me
+that sometimes ten minutes were thus consumed. In 1867 these had
+disappeared, and had been replaced by Yankee double-ended boats, which
+ran into slips such as we have. Much more expeditious and sensible,
+but familiar and ugly to a degree, and not in the least entertaining;
+nor, I may add, congruous. They put you at once on the same absurd
+"jump" that we North Americans practise; whereas in the others we
+placidly puffed our cigars in an atmosphere of serenity. Time and tide
+may be so ridiculous as not to wait; we knew that waiting was
+enjoyment. The boat had time to burn, and so had we. At the later
+date, street-cars also had been introduced, and we were told were
+doing much to democratize the people. The man whose ability to pay for
+a cab had once severed him from the herd now went along with it, and
+saved his coppers. The black coats and tall black silk hats, with
+white trousers and waistcoats, which always struck me as such an odd
+blend, were still in evidence.
+
+The _Iroquois_ did not succeed in making Rio without a stop. The
+northeast trades hung well to the eastward after we left Guadeloupe,
+and blew hard with a big sea; for it was the northern winter. Running
+across them, as we were, the ship was held close to the wind under
+fore and aft canvas. For a small vessel nothing is more uncomfortable.
+Rolling and butting at waves which struck the bow at an angle of
+forty-five degrees made walking, not impossible, indeed, to practised
+sea legs, but still a constant succession of gymnastic balancings that
+took from it all pleasure. For exercise it was not needed. You had but
+to sit at your desk and write, with one leg stretched out to keep your
+position. The varied movements of the muscles of that leg, together
+with those of the rest of the body, in the continued effort "to
+correct the horizontal deviation," as Boatswain Chucks phrased it,
+sent you to bed wearily conscious that you had had constitutional
+enough. The large consumption of coal in proportion to the ground
+covered made a renewal necessary, and we went into Ciará, an open
+roadstead sheltered only by submerged coral reefs, on the northeast
+coast of Brazil. Here the incessant long trade swell sets in upon a
+beach only partly protected; and boating is chiefly by catamarans, or
+_jangadas_, as the Portuguese word is,--three or four long trunks of
+trees, joined together side by side, without keel, but with mast.
+These are often to be seen far outside, and ride safely over the heavy
+breakers.
+
+From Rio to Capetown, being in the month of May, corresponding to our
+northern November, we had a South Atlantic passage which in
+boisterousness might hold its own with that between the United States
+and Europe, now familiar to so many. When clear of the tropics, one
+strikes in both hemispheres the westerly gales which are, so to say,
+the counter-currents of the atmosphere responding to the trade-winds
+of the equatorial belt--almost as prevalent in direction, though much
+more variable in force. The early Spanish navigators characterized
+them as "vientos bravos," an epithet too literally and flatteringly
+rendered into English by our seamen as "the brave west winds;" the
+Spanish "bravo" meaning rude. For a vessel using sail, however,
+"brave" may pass; for, if they hustled her somewhat unceremoniously,
+they at least did speed her on her way. On two successive Thursdays
+their prevalence was interrupted by a tempest, which in each case
+surpassed for suddenness, violence, and shortness anything that I
+remember; for I have never met a tropical hurricane, nor the full
+power of a China typhoon. On the first occasion the sun came up yellow
+and wet, with a sulky expression like that of a child bathed against
+its will; but, as the wind was moderate, sail was made soon after
+daylight. Immediately it began to freshen, and so rapidly that we
+could scarce get the canvas in fast enough. By ten it was blowing
+furiously. To be heard by a person standing at your elbow, you had to
+shout at the top of your voice. The wind shifted rapidly, a cyclone in
+miniature as to dimensions, though not as to strength; but the
+_Iroquois_ had been hove-to on the right tack according to the law of
+storms. That is, the wind hauled aft; and as she followed, close to
+it, she headed to the sea instead of falling into the trough. When
+square sails are set, this gradual movement in the same direction is
+still more important; for, should the wind fly suddenly ahead, the
+sails may be taken aback, a very awkward situation in heavy weather.
+By five o'clock this gradual shifting had passed from east, by north,
+to west, where the gale died out; having lasted only about eight
+hours, yet with such vehemence that it had kicked up a huge sea. By 10
+P.M. the stars were shining serenely, a gentle breeze barely steadying
+the ship, under increased canvas, in the huge billows which for a few
+hours continued to testify that things had been nasty. A spoiled child
+that has carried a point by squalling could scarcely present a more
+beaming expression than did the heavens; but our wet decks and clothes
+assured us that our discomfort had been real and was not yet over.
+
+Throughout the ordeal the little _Iroquois_--for small she was by
+modern standards--though at a stand-still, lay otherwise as
+unconcerned as a duck in a mill-pond; her screw turning slowly, a
+triangular rag of storm-sail showing to steady her, rolling deeply but
+easily, and bowing the waves with gentle movement up or down, an
+occasional tremor alone betraying the shock when an unusually heavy
+comber hit her in the eyes. Then one saw admiringly that the simile
+"like a sea-fowl" was no metaphor, but exact. None were better
+qualified to pronounce than we, for the South Atlantic abounds in
+aquatic birds. We were followed continuously by clouds of them, low
+flying, skirting the water, of varied yet sober plumage. The names of
+these I cannot pretend to give, except the monarch of them all, in
+size and majesty of flight, the albatross, of unsullied white, as its
+name implies--the king of the southern ocean. Several of these
+enormous but graceful creatures were ever sweeping about us in almost
+endless flight, hardly moving their wings, but inclining them
+wide-spread, now this way, now that, like the sails of a windmill, to
+catch the breeze, almost never condescending to the struggle of a
+stroke. By this alone they kept up with us, running eight or nine
+knots. As a quiet demonstration of reserve power it was most
+impressive; while the watching of the intricate manoeuvres of these
+and their humbler companions afforded a sort of circus show, a relief
+always at hand to the monotony of the voyage.
+
+As this has remained my only crossing of the South Atlantic, my
+experience cannot claim to be wide; but, as far as it goes, these
+animating accompaniments of a voyage under sail are there far more
+abundant and varied than in the northern ocean. How far the steamer in
+southern latitudes may still share this privilege, I do not know; but
+certainly I now rarely see the petrel, unfairly called stormy, numbers
+of which hung ever near in the wake of a sailing-ship on her way to
+Europe, keeping company easily with a speed of seven or eight knots,
+and with spare power enough to gyrate continually in their wayward
+flight. What instinct taught them that there was food there for them?
+and, if my observation agree with that of others, why have they
+disappeared from steamers? Is it the greater pace that wearies, or the
+commotion of the screw that daunts them?
+
+Our second Thursday gale, May 16th, exceeded the first in fury and
+duration. Beginning at daybreak, it lasted till after sundown, twelve
+hours in all; and during it the _Iroquois_ took on board the only
+solid sea that crossed her rail during my more than two years' service
+in her. We sprung also our main mast-head, which made us feel
+flatteringly like the ancient mariners, who, as we had read, were
+always "springing" (breaking) some spar or other. Ancient mariners and
+albatrosses are naturally mutually suggestive. Except for the greater
+violence, the conditions were much the same as a week before; with the
+exception, however, that the sun shone brightly most of the time from
+a cloudless sky, between which and us there interposed a milky haze,
+the vapor of the spoon-drift. During the height of the storm the
+pressure of the wind in great degree kept down the sea, which did not
+rise threateningly till towards the end. For the rest, our voyage of
+thirty-three hundred miles, while it afforded us many samples of
+weather, presented as a chief characteristic perpetual westerly gales,
+with gloomy skies and long, high following swell. Although the wind
+was such that close to it we should have been reduced to storm-sails,
+the _Iroquois_ scudded easily before it, carrying considerable canvas.
+"Before it" must not be understood to mean ahead of the waves. These,
+as they raced along continually, swept by the ship, which usually
+lifted cleverly abaft as they came up; though at rare intervals a tiny
+bit of a crest would creep along over the poop and fall on the
+quarter-deck below--nothing to hurt. The onward movement of the
+billows, missing thus the stern, culminated generally about half-way
+forward, abreast the main-mast; and if the ship, in her continual
+steady but easy roll, happened just then to incline to one side, she
+would scoop in a few dozen buckets of water, enough to keep the decks
+always sloppy, as it swashed from side to side.
+
+From Rio to the Cape took us thirty-two days. This bears out the
+remark I find in an old letter that the _Iroquois_ was very slow; but
+it attests also a series of vicissitudes which have passed from my
+mind, leaving predominant those only that I have noted. Among other
+experiences, practically all our mess crockery was smashed; the
+continual rolling seemed to make the servants wilfully reckless. Also,
+having an inefficient caterer, our sea stores were exhausted on the
+way, with the ludicrous exception of about a peck of nutmegs. Another
+singular incident remains in my memory. At dawn of the day before our
+arrival, a mirage presented so exactly, and in the proper quarter, the
+appearance of Table Mountain, the landmark of Cape Town, that our
+captain, who had been there more than once, was sure of it. As by the
+reckoning it must be still over a hundred miles distant, the
+navigating officer was summoned, to his great disconcertment, to be
+eye-witness of his personal error; and the chronometers fell under
+unmerited suspicion. The navigator was an inveterate violinist. He had
+a curious habit of undressing early, and then, having by this symbolic
+act laid aside the cares of the day, as elbow space was lacking in his
+own cabin, he would play in the open ward-room for an hour or more
+before turning in; always standing, and attired in a white night-shirt
+of flowing dimensions. He was a tall, dark, handsome man, the contrast
+of his full black beard emphasizing the oddness of his costume; and so
+rapt was he in his performance that remarks addressed directly to him
+were unheard. I often had to remind him at ten o'clock that music must
+not longer trouble the sleep of the mid-watch officers. On this
+occasion, with appearances so against him, perplexed but not
+convinced, after looking for a few moments he went below and sought
+communion with his beloved instrument; nor did the fading of the
+phantasm interrupt his fiddling. When announced, he listened absently,
+and continued his aria unmoved by such trivialities. Cape Flyaway, as
+counterfeits like this are called, had lasted so long and looked so
+plausible that the order was given to raise steam; and when it
+vanished later, after the manner of its kind, the step was not
+countermanded, for the weather was calm and there were abundant
+reasons in our conditions for hurrying into port.
+
+At the season of our stay, May and June, the anchorage at Cape Town
+itself, being open to the northward, is exposed to heavy gales from
+that quarter, often fatal to shipping. I believe this defect has now
+been remedied by a breakwater, which in 1867 either had not been begun
+or was not far enough advanced to give security. Vessels therefore
+commonly betook themselves to Simon's Bay, on the other side of the
+Cape, where these winds blew off shore. Thither the _Iroquois_ went;
+and as communication with Cape Town, some twenty miles away, was by
+stage, the opportunity for ordinary visiting was indifferent. We went
+up by detachments, each staying several days. The great local natural
+feature of interest, Table Mountain, has since become familiar in
+general outline by the illustrations of the Boer War; from which I
+have inferred that similar formations are common in South Africa, just
+as I remember at the head of Rio Bay, on the road to Petropolis, a
+reproduction in miniature, both in form and color, of the huge
+red-brown Sugar-Loaf Rock that dominates the entrance from the sea.
+Seen as a novelty, Table Mountain was most impressive; but it seems to
+me that Altar Mountain would more correctly convey its appearance.
+With rocky sides, which rose precipitate as the Palisades of the
+Hudson, the sky-line was horizontal, and straight as though drawn by a
+ruler. At times a white cloud descends, covering its top and creeping
+like loose drapery down the sides, resembling a table-cloth; which
+name is given it. I believe that is reckoned a sign of bad weather.
+
+I recall many things connected with our stay there, but chiefly
+trivialities. Most amusing, because so embarrassing to the unprepared,
+was an unlooked-for and startling attention received from the British
+soldiery, whom I now met for the first time: for the war at home had
+hitherto prevented the men of my date from having much foreign
+cruising. I was in uniform in the streets, confining myself severely
+to my own business, when I saw approaching a squad of redcoats under a
+non-commissioned officer. Being used to soldiers, I was observing them
+only casually, but still with the interest of novelty, when wholly
+unexpectedly I heard, "Eyes right!" and the entire group, as one man,
+without moving their heads, slewed their eyes quickly round and
+fastened them steadily on me; the corporal also holding me with his
+glittering eye, while carrying his hand to his cap. Of course, in all
+salutes, from a civilian lifting his hat to a lady, to a military
+passing in review, the person saluting looks at the one saluted; but
+to find one's self without warning the undivided recipient of the
+steady stare of some half-dozen men, transfixed by what Mr. Snodgrass
+called "the mild gaze of intelligence beaming from the eyes of the
+defenders of their country," was, however flattering, somewhat
+disturbing to one not naturally obtrusive. With us the salute would
+have been given, of course; but only by the non-commissioned officer,
+touching his cap. Afterwards I was on the lookout for this, and dodged
+it when I could.
+
+Both in Rio and at the Cape the necessity for repairs occasioned
+delays which militated somewhat against the full development of our
+cruise. Through this, I believe, we missed a stop at Siam, which,
+consequently, I have never visited; and I know that towards the end
+our captain felt pressed to get along. Our next destination was
+Madagascar; to reach which, under sail, it was necessary to run well
+to the eastward, in a latitude farther south than that of Cape Town,
+before heading north. We left somewhat too soon the westerly winds
+there prevailing, and in consequence did not go to Tamatave, the
+principal port, on the east side of the great island, but passed
+instead through the Mozambique Channel. It was in attempting this
+same passage that the British frigate _Aurora_, in which was serving
+the poet Falconer, the author of "The Shipwreck," disappeared with all
+on board; by what nautical fate overtaken has never been known. His
+first shipwreck, which he celebrated in verse, was on the coast of
+Greece, off Cape Colonna; the second in these far southern seas.
+
+The French occupation of Madagascar postdates our visit to it. The
+harbor we entered, St. Augustine's Bay, on the west side, was only
+nominally under control of the native dynasty at Antananarivo, in the
+centre of the island; and the local inhabitants were little, if at
+all, above barbarism. Though dark in color, they had not the flat
+negro features. Wandering with a companion through a jungle, having
+lost our way, we came unexpectedly upon a group of brown people,
+scantily dressed, the most conspicuous member of which was a woman
+carrying a spear a little taller than herself, the head of which was
+burnished till it shone like silver; whether a weapon, or simply a
+badge of rank, I do not know. They rose to meet us in friendly enough
+fashion, and had English sufficient to set us on our way. The place
+was frequented by whalers, who occasionally shipped hands from among
+the natives; one such came on board the _Iroquois_, and within a
+limited range spoke English fluently. Our chief acquaintance was known
+to us as Prince George, and I presume had some personal importance in
+the neighborhood. He was of use in obtaining supplies, hanging about
+the deck all day, obligingly ready at any moment to take a glass of
+wine or a cigar, and seemingly even a little sulky that he was not
+asked to table. The men dressed their hair in peculiar fashion,
+gathered together in little globes about the size of a golf ball,
+distributed somewhat symmetrically over the skull, and plastered with
+a substance which looked like blue mud. As I refrained from close
+inspection, I cannot pronounce certainly what it was.
+
+From St. Augustine's Bay we went on to the Comoro Islands, between the
+north end of Madagascar and the African main-land. I do not know what
+was then the precise political status of this pleasant-looking group,
+except that one of them had for some years been under French control.
+Johanna, at which we stopped, possessed at the least a qualified
+self-government. We had a good sight of its surface, approaching from
+the south and skirting at moderate distance westward, to reach the
+principal anchorage, Johanna Town, on the north. The island is
+lofty--five thousand feet--and of volcanic origin; bearing the family
+likeness which I have found in all such that I have seen. On a bright
+day, which we had, they are very picturesque to look on from the sea,
+with their deep gullies, ragged precipices, and varied hues;
+especially striking from the effects of light and shadow produced by
+the exaggerated inequalities of the ground. It is hard to say which
+are the more attractive, these or the totally different low coral
+islands of the tropics, with their brilliant white sand, encircled by
+which, as by a setting of silver, the deep-green brush glows like an
+emerald. It is hard, however, to make other than a pleasing picture
+with a combination of blue water and land. Like flowers, they may be
+more or less tastefully arranged, but scarcely can be less than
+beautiful.
+
+In the way of landscape effect, Johanna had a special feature of its
+own. Up to a height of about fifteen hundred feet from the sea-level,
+the slopes were of a tawny hue, the color of grass when burned up by
+drought. Except scattered waving cocoanut palms which grew even on
+these hill-sides, no green thing was apparent, save in the ravines,
+where trees seemed to thrive, and so broke the monotony of tint with
+streaks of sombre verdure. Farther up, the peaks were thickly covered
+with a forest, which looked impenetrable. The abrupt contrast of the
+yellow lower land with this cap of tanglewood, itself at times
+covered, at times only dotted, with fleecy clouds, was singularly
+vivid.
+
+The inhabitants of the island were Arabs, mixed with some negro blood,
+and wore the Oriental costume now so familiar to us all in this age of
+illustration. The ship was besieged by them at once, and throughout
+our stay, at all hours that they were permitted to come on board. They
+were cleanly in person, as their religion prescribes, and applied no
+offensive substance to their hair; on the contrary, some pleasant
+perfume was perceptible about their clothing. The coloring generally
+was dark, although some, among whom was the ruler, called the sultan,
+have olive skins; but the features were clear and prominent, the
+stature and form good, the bearing manly; nor did they seem other than
+intelligent. The teeth, too, were fine, when not disfigured by the
+chewing of the betel nut, which, when long continued, stains them a
+displeasing dark red. Like all barbarians, they talked, talked,
+talked, till one was nearly deafened. On one occasion, a group of them
+favored us with a theological exposition, marked by somewhat
+elementary conceptions. The ship was a perfect Babel at meal-times,
+when the intermission of work allowed the freest visiting. Every man
+who came brought at least a half-dozen fowl, with sweet potatoes,
+fruit, and eggs, to match; and as, in addition to our own crew
+bargaining, there were on the deck some fifty or sixty natives, all
+vociferating, bartering, beseeching, or yelling to the fifty others in
+canoes alongside, the tumult and noise may be conceived. The chickens,
+too, both cocks and hens, present by the hundred in basket-work cages,
+made no small contribution to the general uproar. Chickens, indeed,
+numerous though not large, are among the chief food commodities of
+that region; the usual price, as I recollect, being a dollar the
+dozen. When we left Johanna, we must have had on board several hundred
+as sea-stock. Not infrequently one would get out of its cage, and if
+pursued would often end by flapping overboard, so by drowning
+anticipating its appointed doom; but it was a pathetic sight to see
+the poor creature, upborne by its feathers so long as dry, floating on
+the waste of waters in the wake of the ship which seemed almost
+heartlessly to forsake it.
+
+The faith of the island being Mohammedan, we found it safe to give a
+large liberty to the crew. Especially, if I rightly recall, I availed
+myself of the circumstance to let go certain ne'er-do-wells whose
+conduct under temptation was not to be depended on. We had the
+unprecedented experience that they all came back on time and sober;
+thus avouching that the precepts of the Prophet concerning rum were
+obeyed in Johanna. Exemplary in this, it would be difficult to say,
+otherwise, on what precise rung of the ladder stretching from
+barbarism to civilization these people stood. In manner towards us
+they were pleasant and smiling; not averse to the arts of diplomacy,
+but perhaps a little transparent in their approaches to a desired
+object. I went on shore one Friday, their Sunday, which was
+inadvertent on my part, for their religious duties interfered with
+customary routine; one and another excused themselves to me on the
+plea that they must go to pray. I was known, however, to be in
+authority on board, which produced for me some simple hospitality,
+principally not very inviting lemonade--attentions that I soon found
+to be not wholly disinterested. Next day one of my hosts came on board
+and interviewed me with many bows. "The _Iroquois_ very fine ship,
+much better than English ship. Captain English very good man; and
+first lieutenant [myself] he _very good_ man;" and the complimenter
+would like certain articles within the gift of the said very good man,
+together with a note to bearer, permitting him to come aboard at any
+time.
+
+Being by this some weeks away from Cape Town, we sent our wash
+ashore; a resort of desperation. It came back clean enough, but for
+ironing--well; and as to starch, much in the predicament of Boatswain
+Chuck's frilled shirts after the gale, upon which, while flying in the
+breeze, he looked with a degree of professional philosophy that could
+express itself only by thrashing the cooper. Crumpled would be a mild
+expression for our linen. We remonstrated, but were met with a shrug
+of the shoulders and a deprecatory but imperturbable smile--"Yes;
+Johanna wash!" And "Johanna" we found we were expected to receive as a
+sufficient explanation for any deficiencies in any line. If not
+satisfactory to us, it was at least modest in them.
+
+Grave courtesies, ceremonious in conception, if rather rudimentary in
+execution, were exchanged between us and the authorities of Johanna.
+Our captain returned the visit of the official in charge of the place,
+and subsequently called upon the sultan, who came to the town while we
+were there. I went along on the first occasion. Upon reaching the
+beach we found a guard of some forty negro soldiers, whose equipment,
+as to shoes, resembled that of the Barbadian company immortalized in
+Peter Simple; but in this instance there was no attempt at that
+decorous regard for externals which ordered those with both shoes and
+stockings to fall in in the front rank, and those with neither to keep
+in the rear. They were commanded by a young Arab, who seemed very
+anxious to do all in style, rising on tiptoe at the several orders,
+which he jerked out with vim, and to my surprise in English. When duly
+pointed, we marched off to the sound of a drum, accompanied by a
+peculiar monotonous wail on a kind of trumpet; the order of the
+procession being, 1, music; 2, the soldiers, led by an old sergeant in
+a high state of excitement and coat-collar, which held the poor
+fellow's head like a vise; and, 3, our captain and his attendants. The
+visit to the sultan, two days later, was marked by additional
+features, indicative, I presume, of the greater dignity of the event;
+the captain being now carried in a chair with a red silk umbrella over
+his head.
+
+Between three and four years before our visit, the Confederate steamer
+_Alabama_ had stopped at Johanna, and, so at least our friends told
+us, Semmes had promised them a Yankee whaler or two. Whether he found
+the whalers or not I cannot say; but to the Johannese it was a
+Barmecide feast, or like the anticipation of Sisera's ladies--"to
+every man a damsel or two." To use their own quaint English, the next
+thing they heard of the _Alabama_, "he go down."
+
+We left Johanna with the southwest monsoon, which in the Indian Ocean
+and China Sea blows from June to September with the regularity of the
+trade-winds of the Atlantic, both in direction and force. There the
+favorable resemblance ends; for, in the region through which we were
+passing, this monsoon is overcast, usually gloomy, and excessively
+damp. The northeast monsoon, which prevails during the winter months,
+is clear and dry. The consequent struggle with shoe-leather, and the
+deterioration of the same, is disheartening. But, though surcharged
+with moisture, rain does not fall to any great extent in the open sea,
+nor until the atmospheric current impinges on land, when it seems to
+be squeezed, like a sponge by the hand, with resultant precipitation.
+Our conditions were therefore pleasant enough. Being under sail only,
+the wind went faster than we, giving a cooling breeze as it passed
+over; and it was as steady and moderate as it was fair for our next
+destination, Aden, to reach which we were now pointing for Cape
+Guardafui. The _Iroquois_ ran along steadily northward, six to eight
+knots, followed by a big sea, but so regular that she rolled only with
+a slow, steady swing, not disagreeable. The veiled sun showed
+sufficiently for sights, without burning heat, and by the same token
+we passed that luminary on our course; that is, he was north of us
+while at Johanna, and one day on this run we got north of him. This
+must have been after we had crossed the equator; for, being August,
+the sun was still north of the "Line."
+
+This reminds me that, the day we thus passed the sun, our navigator,
+usually very exact, applied his declination wrong at noon, which gave
+us a wrong latitude. For a few minutes the discrepancy between the
+observation and the log caused a shaking of heads; the log doubtless
+fell under an unmerited suspicion, or else we had encountered a
+current not hitherto noted in the books, the usual solvent in such
+perplexities. I may explain for the unlearned in navigation that
+declination of a heavenly body corresponds in the celestial sphere to
+the latitude of an object on the terrestrial. The sun, being a
+leisurely celestial globe-trotter, continually varies his
+latitude--declination--within a zone bounded by the two tropics; and
+the rule runs that when his declination is of the same name (north or
+south) as his direction from the ship at noon, the declination is
+added or subtracted, I now forget which, in the computation that
+ascertains the vessel's precise position. This has to be remembered
+when he is passed overhead, in the zenith; for then the bearing
+changes, while his declination remains of the same name. If the
+resulting error is large, of course the mistake is detected
+immediately; a slight difference might pass unnoted with dangerous
+consequences.
+
+At Johanna, or possibly at St. Augustine's, some of our officers and
+men, moved by that queer propensity of mankind to acquire strange
+objects, however useless, had bought animals of the kind called
+mongoos. There were perhaps a half-dozen of these in all. The result
+was that most of them, one way or another, escaped and took refuge
+aloft in the rigging, where it was as hopeless to attempt recapture
+as for a man to pursue a gray squirrel in a tree. The poor beggars had
+achieved their liberty, however, without the proverbial crust of bread
+or cup of water; and in consequence, after fasting all day, gave
+themselves to predatory nocturnal forays, which were rather startling
+when unexpectedly aroused by them from sleep. The ward-room pantry was
+near my berth, and I remember being awaked by a great commotion and
+scuffling, as one or more utensils were upset and knocked about in the
+unhappy beast's attempt to get at water kept there in a little cask.
+No reconcilement between them and man was effected, and one by one
+they dropped overboard, the victims of accident or suicide, noted or
+unnoted, to their deliverance and our relief. While they lasted it was
+pathetic to watch their furtive movements and unrelaxed vigilance,
+jealously guarding the freedom which was held under such hopeless
+surroundings and must cost them so dear at last.
+
+When the ship had rounded Cape Guardafui and fairly entered the Strait
+of Bab-el-Mandeb, the alteration of weather conditions was immediate
+and startling. The heat became all at once intense and dry. From the
+latter circumstance the relief was great. I remember that many years
+afterwards, having spent a month or more determining a site for a
+navy-yard in Puget Sound, where the temperature is delightful but the
+atmosphere saturated, I experienced a similar sense of bodily comfort,
+when we reached Arizona, returning by the Southern Pacific Railroad.
+One morning I got up from the sleeper and walked out into the rare,
+crisp air of a way station, delighted to find myself literally as dry
+as a bone, and a very old bone, too; tertiary period, let us say. The
+sudden change in the strait proved fatal to one of our officers. He
+had been ailing for a few days, but on the night after we doubled the
+cape woke up from a calm sleep in wild delirium, and in a brief period
+died from the bursting of an aneurism; an effect which the surgeon
+attributed to the abrupt increase of heat. I may add that, though dry,
+the air was felt by us to be debilitating. During the ten days passed
+in the gulf, young as I then was, I was indisposed to any unusual
+bodily or mental effort. What breeze reached us, coming over desert
+from every direction, was like the blast of a furnace, although the
+height of the thermometer was not excessive.
+
+It was scarcely fair to Aden to visit it in midsummer, but our voyage
+had not been timed with reference to seasons or our comfort. I shall
+not weary a reader with any attempt at description of the treeless
+surroundings and barren lava crags that constitute the scenery; which,
+moreover, many may have seen for themselves. What chiefly interested
+me were the Jews and the camels. Like Gibraltar, and in less measure
+Key West, Aden is a place where meet many and divers peoples from
+Asia, from Africa, and from Europe. Furthermore, it has had a long and
+checkered history; and this, at an important centre on a commercial
+route, tends to the gathering of incongruous elements. English, Arabs,
+Parsees from India, Somâlese from Africa,--across the gulf,--sepoy
+soldiers, and Jews, all were to be met; and in varieties of costume
+for which we had not been prepared by our narrow experience of
+Oriental dress in Johanna. The Jews most attracted my attention--an
+attraction of repulsion to the type there exhibited, though I am
+without anti-Semitic feeling. That Jesus Christ was a Jew covers His
+race for me. These were reported to have enjoyed in earlier times a
+period of much prosperity, which had been destroyed in one of the
+dramatic political reverses frequent in Eastern annals. Since then
+they had remained a degraded and abject class. Certainly, they were
+externally a very peculiar and unprepossessing people. The physiognomy
+commonly associated with the name Jew was very evident, though the
+cast of feature had been brutalized by ages of oppression and
+servility. A singular distinctive mark was the wearing on both sides
+of the forehead long curls falling to the shoulders. Cringing and
+subservient in manner, and as traders, there was yet apparent behind
+the Uriah Heap exterior a fierce cruelty of expression which would
+make a mob hideous, if once let loose. A mob, indeed, is ever
+terrible; but these men reconstituted for me, with added vividness,
+the scene and the cry of "Crucify Him!"
+
+Although I was new to the East, camels in their uncouth form and
+shambling gait had been made familiar by menageries; but in Aden I
+first saw them in the circumstances which give the sense of
+appropriateness necessary to the completeness of an impression, and,
+indeed, to its enjoyment. Environment is assuredly more essential to
+appreciation than is commonly recognized. Does beer taste as good in
+America as in England? I think not, unless perhaps in Newport, Rhode
+Island. Climatic, doubtless. I have been told by Englishmen that the
+very best pineapples to be had are raised in England under glass. Very
+good; but where is your tropical heat to supply the appreciative
+palate? I remember, in a railway train in Guatemala, some women came
+along with pineapples. I gave five cents, expecting one fruit; she,
+unwilling to make change, forced upon me three. Small, yes; pygmies
+doubtless to the hot-house aristocrats; but at a dinner-table with
+artificial heat could one possibly want them as much, or enjoy them as
+keenly, as under the burning southern sun, eaten like an apple, the
+juice streaming to the ground? A camel sauntering down Broadway would
+be odd only; a camel in an Eastern street has the additional setting
+needed to fix him accurately in your gallery of mental pictures;
+though, for the matter of that, I suppose a desert would be a still
+more fitting surrounding. Aden has no natural water supply for daily
+use; one of the sights are the great tanks for storing it, constructed
+by some bygone dynasty. When we were there the place relied for
+emergencies upon the more modern expedient of condensers, but for
+ordinary consumption was mainly dependent upon that brought in skins
+from the adjacent country on the backs of camels, which returned
+charged with merchandise. I watched one of these ships of the desert
+being laden for the homeward voyage. He was on his knees, placidly
+chewing the cud of his last meal, but with a watchful eye behind him
+upon his master's movements. Eternal vigilance the price of liberty,
+or at least the safeguard against oppression, was clearly his
+conviction; nor did he believe in that outworn proverb not to yell
+before you are hurt. As each additional package, small or big, was
+laid on the accumulating burden, he stretched out his long neck,
+craned it round to the rear, opening his mouth as though to bite, to
+which he seemed full fain, at the same time emitting a succession of
+cries more wrathful even than dolorous, though this also they were.
+But the wail of the sufferer went unheeded, and deservedly; for when
+the load was complete to the last pound he rose, obedient to signal,
+and stepped off quietly, evidently at ease. He had had his grumble,
+and was satisfied.
+
+An impression which accumulates upon the attentive traveller following
+the main roads of maritime commerce is the continual outcropping of
+the British soldier. It is not that there is so much of him, but that
+he is so manywhere. In our single voyage, at places so apart as Cape
+Town, Aden, Bombay, Singapore, Hong Kong. Although not on our route,
+nevertheless linked to the four last named by the great ocean highway
+between East and West, consecutive even in those distant days before
+the Suez Canal, he was already in force in Gibraltar and Malta; since
+which he is to be found in Cypress also and in Egypt. He is no chance
+phenomenon, but an obvious effect of a noteworthy cause; an incident
+of current history, the exponent, unconsciously to himself, of many
+great events. In our country we have wisely learned to scrutinize with
+distrust arguments for manifest destiny; but it is, nevertheless, well
+to note and ponder a manifest present, which speaks to a manifest
+past.
+
+From Aden the _Iroquois_ ran along the southern coast of Arabia to
+Muscat, within the entrance of the Persian Gulf. Here, after leaving
+the open sea, we met a recurrence of the heat, and, in general
+features, of the scenery we had left at Aden; the whole confirming the
+association of the name Arabia with scorching and desert. The Cove of
+Muscat, though a mere indentation of the shore-line, furnishes an
+excellent harbor, being sheltered by a rocky island which constitutes
+a natural breakwater. There is considerable trade, and the position is
+naturally strong for defence, with encircling cliffs upon which forts
+have been built; but from our experience, told below, it is probable
+that their readiness did not correspond to their formidable aspect.
+From the anchorage of the _Iroquois_ the town was hardly to be
+descried, the gray color of the stone used in construction blending
+with the background of the mountains, from which probably it had been
+quarried; but nearer it is imposing in appearance, there being several
+minarets, and some massive buildings, among which the ruins of a
+Portuguese cathedral bear their mute testimony to a transitory era in
+the long history of the East. During our stay there was some
+disturbance in the place. Our information was that the reigning
+sovereign had killed his father two years before; and that in
+consequence, either through revenge or jealousy, his father's brother
+kept him constantly stirred up by invasion, or threats of invasion,
+from the inner country. Such an alarm postponed for the moment a
+ceremonious visit which our captain was to pay, but it took place next
+day. As it called for full uniform, I begged off. Those who went
+returned with unfavorable reports, both of the town and of the
+sultan.
+
+A rather funny incident here attended our exchange of civilities. In
+ports where there is cause to think that the expenditure of powder may
+be inconvenient to your hosts, or that for any reason they may not
+return a salute, it is customary first to inquire whether the usual
+national honors "to the flag" will be acceptable and duly answered,
+gun for gun. In Aden, being British, of course no questions were
+asked; but in Muscat I presume they were, for failure to give full
+measure creates a diplomatic incident and correspondence. At all
+events, we saluted--twenty-one guns; to which the castle replied. When
+the tale was but half complete there came from one of its cannon a
+huge puff of smoke, but no accompanying report. "Shall I count that?"
+shouted the quartermaster, whose special duty was to keep tally that
+we got our full pound of flesh. A general laugh followed; the
+impression had resembled that produced by an impassioned orator, the
+waving of whose arms you see, without hearing the words which give
+point to his gesticulations, and the quartermaster's query drove home
+the absurdity. It was solemnly decided, however, that that should be
+reckoned a gun. The intention was good, if result was imperfect. We
+had been done out of our noise, but we had had our smoke; and, in
+these days of smokeless powder, it is hopeful to record an instance of
+noiseless.
+
+In those few indolent days which we drowsed away in the heat of
+Muscat, one thing I noticed was the vivid green of the water,
+especially in patches near the shore, and in the crevices of the rocky
+basin. I wonder did Moore have a hint of this, or draw upon his
+imagination? Certainly it was there--a green more brilliant than any I
+have ever seen elsewhere, and of different shade.
+
+    "No pearl ever lay under Oman's green water,
+       More pure in its shell than thy spirit in thee."
+
+After the comparatively sequestered series of St. Augustine's Bay, the
+Comoros, Aden, and Muscat, our next port, Bombay, seemed like
+returning to city hubbub and accustomed ways. True, Indian life was
+strange to most of our officers, if not to all; but there was about
+Bombay that which made you feel you had got back into the world,
+albeit in many particulars as different from that you had hitherto
+known as Rip Van Winkle found after his long slumber. Then, a decade
+only after the great mutiny, travel to India for travel's sake was
+much more rare than now. The railway system, that great promoter of
+journeyings, was not complete. Two years later, when returning from
+China, I found opportunity to go overland from Calcutta to Bombay; but
+in the interior had to make a long stage by carriage between
+Jubbulpore and Nagpore. Since that time many have visited and many
+have written. I shall therefore spare myself and my possible readers
+the poor portrayal of that which has been already and better
+described. Johnson's advice to Boswell, "Tell what you have observed
+yourself," I take to mean something different from those externals the
+sight of which is common to all; unless, as in the Corsica of Boswell,
+few go to see them. What you see is that which you personally have the
+faculty of perceiving; depends upon you as much as upon the object
+itself. It may not be worth reporting, but it is all you have. I do
+not think I remember of Bombay anything thus peculiarly my own. I do
+recall the big snakes we saw lying apparently asleep on the sea, fifty
+or sixty miles from land. Perhaps readers who have not visited the
+East may not know that such modified sea-serpents are to be seen
+there, as is a smaller variety in the Strait of Malacca.
+
+From Bombay we made a long leg to Singapore. We had sailed in early
+February; it was now late September, and our captain, as I have said
+before, began to feel anxious to reach the station. Owing to this
+haste, we omitted Ceylon and Calcutta, which did not correspond to
+the expectation or the wishes of the admiral; and we missed--as I
+think--orders sent us to take in Siam before coming to Hong Kong. It
+is very doubtful whether, had we received them, we should have seen
+more of interest than awaited us shortly after our arrival in Japan.
+At all events, as in duty bound, I shall imitate my captain, and skip
+rapidly over this intervening period. There is in it nothing that
+would justify my formed intention not to enlarge upon that which
+others have seen and told.
+
+We made the run to Singapore at the change of the monsoon, towards the
+end of September; and at that time a quiet passage is likely, unless
+you are so unlucky as to encounter one of the cyclones which
+frequently attend the break-up of the season at this transition
+period. There is a tendency nowadays to discredit the equinox as a
+storm-breeder. As regards the particular day, doubtless recognition of
+a general fact may have lapsed into superstition as to a date; but in
+considering the phenomena of the monsoons, the great fixed currents of
+air blowing alternately to or from the heated or cooled continent of
+Asia, it seems only reasonable, when the two are striving for
+predominance, to expect the uncertain and at times terrific weather
+which as a matter of experience does occur about the period of the
+autumnal equinox in the India and China seas. But after we had made
+our southing from Bombay our course lay nearly due east, with a fresh,
+fair, west wind, within five degrees of the equator, a zone wherein
+cyclonic disturbance seldom intrudes. One of the complaints made by
+residents against the climate of Singapore, so pleasant to a stranger,
+is the wearisome monotony. Close to the equator, it has too much
+sameness of characteristic; _toujours perdrix_. Winter doubtless adds
+to our appreciation of summer. For all that, I personally am ready to
+dispense with snow.
+
+From Singapore, another commercial centre with variety of inhabitants,
+we carried the same smooth water up to Manila, where we stopped a few
+days for coal. This was the first of two visits paid while on the
+station to this port, which not our wildest imagination expected ever
+to see under our flag. Long as American eyes had been fixed upon Cuba,
+in the old days of negro slavery, it had occurred to none, I fancy, to
+connect possession of that island with these distant Spanish
+dependencies. Here our quiet environment was lost. The northeast
+monsoon had set in in full force when we started for Hong Kong, and
+the run across was made under steam and fore-and-aft canvas, which we
+were able to carry close on the wind; a wet passage, throwing a good
+deal of water about, but with a brilliant sky and delightful
+temperature. It would be hard to exaggerate the beauty of the weather
+which this wind brings. In the northern American states we have
+autumnal spells like it; but along the Chinese coast it continues in
+uninterrupted succession of magnificent days, with hardly a break for
+three or four months; an invigorating breeze always blowing, the
+thermometer ranging between 50° and 60°, a cloudless sky, the air
+perfectly dry, so that furniture and wood fittings shrink, and crack
+audibly. As rain does not fall during this favored season, the dust
+becomes objectionable; but that drawback does not extend to shipboard.
+The man must be unreasonable who doubts life being worth living during
+the northeast monsoon. Hong Kong is just within the tropics, and
+experiences probably the coolest weather of any tropical port. Key
+West, in the same latitude, is well enough in a Gulf of Mexico
+norther; that is, if you too are well. The last time I ever saw
+General Winfield Scott, once our national military hero, was there,
+during a norther. I had called, and found him in misery; his gigantic
+frame swathed in heavy clothing, his face pallid with cold. He
+explained that he liked always to be in a gentle perspiration, and
+had come to Key West in search of such conditions. These the place
+usually affords, but the houses are not built to shut out the chill
+Which accompanies a hard norther. The general was then eighty, and
+died within the year.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+CHINA AND JAPAN
+
+1867-1869
+
+
+The _Iroquois_ had been as nearly as possible nine months on her way
+from New York to Hong Kong. A ship of the same class, the _Wachusett_,
+which left the station as we reached it, had taken a year, following
+much the same route. Her first lieutenant, who during the recent
+Spanish War became familiarly known to the public as Jack Philip, told
+me that she was within easy distance of Hong Kong the day before the
+anniversary of leaving home. Her captain refused to get up steam; for,
+he urged, it would be such an interesting coincidence to arrive on the
+very date, month and day, that she sailed the year before. I fear that
+man would have had no scruple about contriving an opportunity.
+
+As the anchor dropped, several Chinese boats clustered alongside,
+eager to obtain their share of the ship's custom. It is the habit in
+ships of war to allow one or more boatmen of a port the privilege of
+bringing off certain articles for private purchase; such as the
+various specialties of the place, and food not embraced in the ship's
+ration. From the number of consumers on board a vessel, even of
+moderate size, this business is profitable to the small traders who
+ply it, and who from time immemorial have been known as bumboatmen. A
+good name for fair dealing, and for never smuggling intoxicants, is
+invaluable to them; and when thus satisfactory they are passed on from
+ship to ship, through long years, by letters of recommendation from
+first lieutenants. Their dealings are chiefly with the crew, the
+officers' messes being provided by their stewards, who market on
+shore; but at times officers, too, will in this way buy something
+momentarily desired. I remember an amusing experience of a messmate of
+mine, who, being discontented with the regular breakfast set before
+him, got some eggs from the bumboat. Already on a growl, he was
+emphatic in directing that these should be cooked very soft, and great
+was his wrath when they came back hard as stones. Upon investigation
+it proved that they were already hard-boiled when bought. The cable
+was not yet secured when these applicants crowded to the gangway,
+brandishing their certificates, and seeking each to be first on deck.
+The captain, who had not left the bridge, leaned over the rail,
+watching the excited and shouting crowd scrambling one over another,
+and clambering from boat to boat, which were bobbing and chafing up
+and down, rubbing sides, and spattering the water that was squeezed
+and squirted between them. The scene was familiar to him, for he was
+an old China cruiser, only renewing his acquaintance. At length,
+turning to me, he commented, "There you have the regular China smell;
+you will find it wherever you go." And I did; but how describe it--and
+why should I?
+
+At this time the Japanese had conceded two more treaty ports, in the
+Inland Sea--Osaka and Kobé; and as the formal opening was fixed for
+the beginning of the new year--1868--most of the squadron had already
+gone north. We therefore found in Hong Kong only a single vessel, the
+_Monocacy_, an iron double-ender; a class which had its beginning in
+the then recent War of Secession, and disappeared with it. Some six
+weeks before she had passed through a furious typhoon, running into
+the centre of it; or, more accurately, I fancy, having the centre pass
+over her. Perhaps it may not be a matter of knowledge to all readers
+that for these hurricanes, as for many other heavy gales, the term
+cyclone is exact; that the wind does actually blow round a circle, but
+one of so great circumference that at each several point it seems to
+follow a straight line. Vessels on opposite sides of the circle thus
+have the wind from opposite directions. In the centre there is usually
+a calm space, of diameter proportioned to that of the general
+disturbance. As the whole storm body has an onward movement, this
+centre, calm or gusty as to wind, but confused and tumultuous as to
+wave, progresses with it; and a vessel which is so unhappy as to be
+overtaken finds herself, after a period of helpless tossing by
+conflicting seas, again subjected to the full fury of the wind, but
+from the quarter opposite to that which has already tried her.
+Although at our arrival the _Monocacy_ had been fully repaired, and
+was about to follow the other vessels, her officers naturally were
+still full of an adventure so exceptional to personal experience. She
+owed her safety mainly to the strength and rigidity of her iron hull.
+A wooden vessel of like construction would probably have gone to
+pieces; for the wooden double-enders had been run up in a hurry for a
+war emergency, and were often weak. As the capable commander of one of
+them said to me, they were "stuck together with spit." Battened down
+close, with the seas coming in deluges over both bows and both
+quarters at the same time, the _Monocacy_ went through it like a
+tight-corked bottle, and came out, not all right, to be sure, but very
+much alive; so much so, indeed, that she was carried on the Navy
+Register for thirty years more. She never returned home, however, but
+remained on the China station, for which she was best suited by her
+particular qualities.
+
+By the time the _Iroquois_, in turn, was ready to leave Hong
+Kong--November 26th--the northeast monsoon had made in full force,
+and dolorous were the prognostications to us by those who had had
+experience of butting against it in a northward passage. It is less
+severe than the "brave" west winds of our own North Atlantic; but to a
+small vessel like the _Iroquois_, with the machinery of the day, the
+monsoon, blowing at times a three-quarters gale, was not an adversary
+to be disregarded, for all the sunshiny, bluff heartiness with which
+it buffeted you, as a big boy at school breezily thrashes a smaller
+for his own good. To-day we have to stop and think, to realize the
+immense progress in size and power of steam-vessels since 1867. We
+forget facts, and judge doings of the past by standards of the
+present; an historical injustice in other realms than that of morals.
+
+In our passage north, however, we escaped the predicted disagreeables
+by keeping close to the coast; for currents, whether of atmosphere or
+of water, for some reason slacken in force as they sweep along the
+land. I do not know why, unless it be the result of friction retarding
+their flow; the fact, however, remains. So, dodging the full brunt of
+the wind, we sneaked along inshore, having rarely more than a
+single-reef topsail breeze, and with little jar save the steady thud
+of the machinery. A constant view of the land was another advantage
+due to this mode of progression, and it was the more complete because
+we commonly anchored at night. Thus, as we slowly dragged north, a
+continuous panorama was unrolled before our eyes.
+
+Another very entertaining feature was the flight of fishing-boats,
+which at each daybreak put out to sea, literally in flocks; so
+numerous were they. As I was every morning on deck at that hour,
+attending the weighing of the anchor, the sight became fixed upon my
+memory. The wind being on their beam, and so fresh, they came lurching
+along in merry mood, leaping livelily from wave to wave, dashing the
+water to either hand. Besides the poetry of motion, their peculiar
+shape, their hulls with the natural color of the wood,--because oiled,
+not painted,--their bamboo mat sails, which set so much flatter than
+our own canvas, were all picturesque, as well as striking by novelty.
+Most characteristic, and strangely diversified in effect, as they
+bowled saucily by, were the successive impressions produced by the
+custom of painting an eye on each side of the bow. An alleged proverb
+is in pigeon English: "No have eye, how can see? no can see, how can
+sail?" When heading towards you, they really convey to an imagination
+of ordinary quickness the semblance of some unknown sea monster, full
+of life and purpose. Now you see a fellow charging along, having the
+vicious look of a horse with his ears back. Anon comes another, the
+quiet gaze of which suggests some meditative fish, lazily gliding,
+enjoying a siesta, with his belly full of good dinner. Yet a third has
+a hungry air, as though his meal was yet to seek, and in passing turns
+on you a voracious side glance, measuring your availability as a
+morsel, should nothing better offer. The boat life of China, indeed,
+is a study by itself. In very many cases in the ports and rivers, the
+family is born, bred, fed, and lives in the boat. In moving her, the
+man and his wife and two of the elder children will handle the oars;
+while a little one, sometimes hardly more than an infant, will take
+the helm, to which his tiny strength and cunning skill are sufficient.
+Going off late one night from Hong Kong to the ship, and having to
+lean over in the stern to get hold of the tiller-lines, I came near
+putting my whole weight on the baby, lying unperceived in the bottom.
+Those sedate Chinese children, with their tiny pigtails and their old
+faces, but who at times assert their common humanity by a wholesome
+cry; how funny two of them looked, lying in the street fighting, fury
+in each face, teeth set and showing, nostrils distended with rage, and
+a hand of each gripping fast the other's pigtail, which he seemed to
+be trying to drag out by the roots; at the moment not "Celestials,"
+unless after the pattern of Virgil's Juno.
+
+The habit of whole families living together in a boat, though
+sufficiently known to me, was on one occasion realized in a manner at
+once mortifying and ludicrous. The eagerness for trade among the
+bumboatmen, actual and expectant, sometimes becomes a nuisance; in
+their efforts to be first they form a mob quite beyond the control of
+the ship, the gangways and channels of which they none the less
+surround and grab, deaf to all remonstrance by words, however
+forcible. This is particularly the case the first day of arrival,
+before the privilege has been determined. In one such instance my
+patience gave way; the din alongside was indescribable, the confusion
+worse confounded, and they could not be moved. There was working at
+the moment one of those small movable hand-pumps significantly named
+"Handy Billy," and I told the nozzle-man to turn the stream on the
+crowd. Of course, nothing could please a seaman more; it was done with
+a will, and the full force of impact struck between the shoulders of a
+portly individual standing up, back towards the ship. A prompt upset
+revealed that it was a middle-aged woman, a fact which the pump-man
+had not taken in, owing to the misleading similarity of dress between
+the two sexes. I was disconcerted and ashamed, but the remedy was for
+the moment complete; the boats scattered as if dynamite had burst
+among them. The mere showing of the nozzle was thereafter enough.
+
+The _Iroquois_ was about a week in the monsoon, a day or so having
+been expended in running into Fuchau for coal. She certainly seemed to
+have lost the speed credited to her in former cruises; the cause for
+which was plausibly thought to be the decreased rigidity of her hull,
+owing to the wear and tear of service. In the days of sailing-ships
+there was a common professional belief that lessened stiffness of
+frame tended to speed; and a chased vessel sometimes resorted to
+sawing her beams and loosening her fastenings to increase the desired
+play. But, however this may have been, the thrust of the screw tells
+best when none of its effect is lost in a structural yielding of the
+ship's body; when this responds as a solid whole to the forward
+impulse. In this respect the _Iroquois_ was already out of date,
+though otherwise serviceable.
+
+On the eleventh day, December 7th, we reached Nagasaki, whence we
+sailed again about the middle of the month for Hiogo, or Kobé, where
+the squadrons of the various nations were to assemble for the formal
+opening. With abundant time before us, we passed in leisurely fashion
+through the Inland Sea, at the eastern end of which lay the newly
+opened ports. Anchoring each night, we missed no part of the scenery,
+with its alternating breadths and narrows, its lofty slopes, terraced
+here and wooded there, the occasional smiling lowlands, the varied and
+vivid greens, contrasting with the neutral tints of the Japanese
+dwellings; all which combine to the general effect of that singular
+and entrancing sheet of water. The Japanese junks added their
+contribution to the novelty with their single huge bellying sail,
+adapted apparently only to sailing with a free wind, the fairer the
+better.
+
+Hiogo and Kobé, as I understood, are separate names of two continuous
+villages; Kobé, the more eastern, being the destined port of entry.
+They are separated by a watercourse, broad but not deep, often dry,
+the which is to memory dear; for following along it one day, and so up
+the hills, I struck at length, well within the outer range, an
+exquisite Japanese valley, profound, semicircular, and terraced, dosed
+at either end by a passage so narrow that it might well be called a
+defile. The suddenness with which it burst upon me, like the South Sea
+upon Balboa, the feeling of remoteness inspired by its isolation, and
+its own intrinsic beauty, struck home so forcible a prepossession that
+it remained a favorite resort, to which I guided several others; for
+it must be borne in mind that up to our coming the hill tracks of Kobé
+knew not the feet of foreigners, and there was still such a thing as
+first discovery. Some time afterwards, when I had long returned home,
+a naval officer told me that the place was known to him and others as
+Mahan's Valley; but I have never heard it has been so entered on the
+maps. Shall I describe it? Certainly not. When description is tried,
+one soon realizes that the general sameness of details is so great as
+quite to defy convincing presentation, in words, of the particular
+combination which constitutes any one bit of scenery. Scenery in this
+resembles a collection of Chinese puzzles, where a few elementary
+pieces, through their varied assemblings, yield most diverging forms.
+Given a river, some mountains, a few clumps of trees, a little sloping
+field under cultivation, an expanse of marsh--in Japan the universal
+terrace--and with them many picturesque effects can be produced; but
+description, mental realization, being a matter of analysis and
+synthesis, is a process which each man performs for himself. The
+writer does his part, and thinks he has done well. Could he see the
+picture which his words call up in the mind of another, the particular
+Chinese figure put together out of the author's data, he might be less
+satisfied. And should the reader rashly become the visitor, he will
+have to meet Wordsworth's disappointment. "And is this--Yarrow? this
+the scene?" "Although 'tis fair, 'twill be another Yarrow." Should any
+reader of mine go hereafter to Kobé, and so wish, let him see for
+himself; he shall go with no preconceptions from me. If the march of
+improvement has changed that valley, Japan deserves to be beaten in
+her next war.
+
+As I recall attending a Christmas service on board the British
+flag-ship _Rodney_ at Kobé, we must have anchored there a few days
+before that fixed for the formal opening; but, unless my memory much
+deceive me, visiting the shore after the usual fashion was permitted
+without awaiting the New Year ceremony. At this time Kobé and Hiogo
+were in high festival; and that, combined with the fact that the
+inhabitants had as yet seen few foreigners, gave unusual animation to
+the conditions. We were followed by curious crowds, to whom we were
+newer even than they to us; for the latest comers among us had seen
+Nagasaki, but strangers from other lands had been rare to these
+villagers. In explanation of the rejoicings, it was told us that slips
+of paper, with the names of Japanese deities written on them, had
+recently fallen in the streets, supposed by the people to come from
+the skies; and that different men had found in their houses pieces of
+gold, also bearing the name of some divinity. These tokens were
+assumed to indicate great good luck about to light upon those places
+or houses. By an easy association of ideas, the approaching opening of
+the port might seem to have some connection with the expected
+benefits, and inclines one to suspect human instrumentality in
+creating impressions which might counteract the long-nurtured jealousy
+of foreign intrusion. Whatever the truth, the external rollicking
+celebrations were as apparent as was the general smiling courtesy so
+noticeable in the Japanese, and which in this case was common to both
+the throng in ordinary dress and the masqueraders. Men and women,
+young and old, in gay, fantastic costumes, faces so heavily painted as
+to have the effect of masks, were running about in groups, sometimes
+as many as forty or fifty together, dancing and mumming. They
+addressed us frequently with a phrase, the frequent repetition of
+which impressed it upon our ears, but, in our ignorance of the
+language, not upon our understandings. At times, if one laughed,
+liberties were taken. These the customs of the occasion probably
+justified, as in the carnivals of other peoples, which this somewhat
+resembled; but there was no general concourse, as in the Corso at
+Rome, which I afterwards saw--merely numerous detachments moving with
+no apparent relation to one another. Once only a companion and myself
+met several married women, known as such by their blackened teeth, who
+bore long poles with feathers at one end, much like dusters, with
+which they tapped us on the head. These seemed quite beside themselves
+with excitement, but all in the best of humor.
+
+Viewed from the distance, the general effect was very pretty, like a
+stage scene. The long main street, forming part of the continuous
+imperial highway known as the Tokaido, was jammed with people; the
+sober, neutral tints of the majority in customary dress lighted up,
+here and there, by the brilliant, diversified colors of the
+performers, as showy uniforms do an assembly of civilians. The
+weather, too, was for the most part in keeping. The monsoon does not
+reach so far north, yet the days were like it; usually sunny, and the
+air exhilarating, with frequent frost at dawn, but towards noon
+genial. Such we found the prevalent character of the winter in that
+part of Japan, though with occasional spells of rain and high winds,
+amounting to gales of two or three days' duration.
+
+Unhappily, these cheerful beginnings were the precursors of some very
+sad events; indeed, tragedies. A week after the New Year ceremonies at
+Kobé, the American squadron moved over some twelve miles to Osaka, the
+other opened port, at which our minister then was. Unlike Kobé, where
+the water permits vessels to lie close to the beach, Osaka is up a
+river, at the mouth of which is a bar; and, owing to the shoalness of
+the adjacent sea, the anchorage is a mile or two out. From it the town
+cannot be seen. The morning after our arrival, a Thursday, it came on
+to blow very hard from the westward, dead on shore, raising a big sea
+which prevented boats crossing the bar. The gale continued over
+Friday, the wind moderating by the following daylight. The swell
+requires more time to subside; but it was now Saturday, the next day
+would be Sunday, and the admiral, I think, was a religious man,
+unwilling to infringe upon the observance of the day, for himself or
+for the men. His service on the station was up, and, indeed, his time
+for retirement, at sixty-two, had arrived; there remained for him only
+to go home, and for this he was anxious to get south. Altogether, he
+decided to wait no longer, and ordered his barge manned. Danger from
+the attempt was apprehended on board the flag-ship by some, but the
+admiral was not one of those who encourage suggestions. Her boatswain
+had once cruised in whalers, which carry to perfection the art of
+managing boats in a heavy sea, and of steering with an oar, the safest
+precaution if a bar must be crossed; and he hung round, in evidence,
+hoping that he might be ordered to steer her, but she shoved off as
+for an ordinary trip. The mishap which followed, however, was
+not that most feared. Just before she entered the breakers, the
+flag-lieutenant, conscious of the risk, was reported to have said to
+the admiral, "If you intend to go in before the sea, as we are now
+running, we had better take off our swords;" and he himself did so,
+anticipating an accident. As she swept along, her bow struck bottom.
+Her way being thus stopped for an instant, the sea threw her stern
+round; she came broadside to and upset. Of the fifteen persons hurled
+thus into the wintry waves, only three escaped with their lives. Both
+the officers perished.
+
+The gale continued to abate, and the bodies being all soon recovered,
+the squadron returned to Kobé to bury its dead. The funeral ceremonies
+were unusually impressive in themselves, as well as because of the
+sorrowful catastrophe which so mournfully signalized the entry of the
+foreigner into his new privilege. The day was fair and cloudless, the
+water perfectly smooth; neither rain nor wave marred the naval
+display, as they frequently do. Thirty-two boats, American and
+British, many of them very large, took part in the procession from the
+ships to the beach. The ensigns of all the war-vessels in port,
+American and other, were at half-mast, as was the admiral's square
+blue flag at the mizzen, which is never lowered while he remains on
+duty on board. As the movement began, a first gun was fired from the
+_Hartford_, which continued at minute intervals until she had
+completed thirteen, a rear-admiral's salute. When she had finished,
+the _Shenandoah_ took up the tale, followed in turn by the _Oneida_
+and _Iroquois_, the mournful cadence thus covering almost the whole
+period up to the customary volleys over the graves. As saluting was
+the first lieutenant's business, I had remained on board to attend to
+it; and consequently, from our closeness to the land, had a more
+comprehensive view of the pageant than was possible to a participant.
+Our ships were nearly stripped of their crews; the rank of the admiral
+and the number of the sufferers, as well as the tragic character of
+the incident, demanding the utmost marks of reverent observance. As
+the march was taken up on shore, the British seamen in blue uniforms
+in the left column, the American in white in the right, to the number
+of several hundred each, presented a striking appearance; but more
+imposing and appealing, the central feature and solemn exponent of the
+occasion, was the long line of twelve coffins, skirting the sandy
+beach against a background of trees, borne in single file on men's
+shoulders in ancient fashion, each covered with the national colors.
+The tokens of mourning, so far as ships' ensigns were concerned,
+continued till sunset, when the ceremonial procedure was closed by a
+simple form, impressive in its significance and appropriateness.
+Following the motions of the American flag-ship, the chief mourner,
+the flags of all the vessels, as by one impulse, were rounded up to
+the peaks, as in the activities of every-day life; that of the dead
+admiral being at the same time mast-headed to its usual place. By this
+mute gesture, vessels and crews stood at attention, as at a review,
+for their last tribute to the departed. The _Hartford_ then fired a
+farewell rear-admiral's salute, at the thirteenth and final gun of
+which his flag came down inch by inch, in measured dignity, to be
+raised no more; all others descending with it in silent haulage.
+
+Admiral Henry Bell, who thus sadly ended his career when on the verge
+of an honored retirement, was in a way an old acquaintance of mine. It
+was he who had refused me a transfer to the _Monongahela_ during the
+war; and he and my father, having been comrades when cadets at the
+Military Academy in the early twenties of the last century, had
+retained a certain interest in each other, shown by mutual inquiries
+through me. Bell had begun life in the army, subsequently quitting it
+for the navy for reasons which I do not know. He had the rigidity and
+precision of a soldier's carriage, to a degree unusual to a naval
+officer of his period. This may have been due partly to early
+training, but still more, I think, in his case, was an outcome and
+evidence of personal character; for, though kindly and just, he was
+essentially a martinet. He had been further presented to me,
+colloquially, by my old friend the boatswain of the _Congress_, some
+of whose shrewd comments I have before quoted, and who had sailed with
+him as a captain. "Oh! what a proud man he was!" he would say. "He
+would walk up and down the poop, looking down on all around,
+thus"--and the boatswain would compress his lips, throw back his
+shoulders, and inflate his chest; the walk he could not imitate
+because he had a stiff knee. Bell's pride, however it may have seemed,
+was rather professional than personal. He was thorough and exact,
+with high standards and too little give. An officer entirely
+respectable and respected, though not brilliant.
+
+Upon the funeral of our wrecked seamen followed a dispersion of the
+squadron. The _Hartford_ and _Shenandoah_, both bound home, departed,
+leaving the _Oneida_ and _Iroquois_ to "hold the fort." Conditions
+soon became such that it seemed probable we might have to carry out
+that precept somewhat literally. This was the period of the overthrow
+of the Tycoon's power by the revolt of the great nobles, among whom
+the most conspicuous in leadership were Chiosiu and Satsuma; names
+then as much in our mouths as those of Grant, Sherman, and Lee had
+been three years before. Hostilities were active in the neighborhood
+of Osaka and Kobé, the Tycoon being steadily worsted. So far as I give
+any account, depending upon some old letters of that date, it will be
+understood to present, not sifted historical truth, but the current
+stories of the day, which to me have always seemed to possess a real
+value of their own, irrespective of their exactness. For example, the
+reports repeated by Nelson at Leghorn of the happenings during
+Bonaparte's campaign of 1796 in upper Italy, though often inaccurate,
+represent correctly an important element of a situation.
+Misapprehension, when it exists, is a factor in any circumstances,
+sometimes of powerful influence. It is part of the data governing the
+men of the time.
+
+While a certain number of foreigners, availing themselves of the
+treaty, were settling for business in Kobé, a large proportion had
+gone to Osaka, a more important commercial centre, of several hundred
+thousand inhabitants. Its superior political consideration at the
+moment was evidenced by the diplomats establishing themselves there,
+our own minister among them. The defeat of the Tycoon's forces in the
+field led to their abandoning the place, carrying off also the guards
+of the legations; a kind of protection absolutely required in those
+days, when the resentment against foreign intrusion was still very
+strong, especially among the warrior class. It was, after all, only
+fourteen years since Perry had extorted a treaty from a none too
+willing government. The fleeing Tycoon wished to get away from Osaka
+by a vessel belonging to him; but in the event of her not being off
+the bar--as proved to be the case--a party of two-sworded men, of whom
+he was rumored to be one, brought a letter from our minister asking
+any American vessel present to give them momentary shelter. It is
+customary for refugees purely political to be thus received by ships
+of war, which afford the protection their nation grants to such
+persons who reach its home territory; of which the ships are a
+privileged extension.
+
+The minister's note spoke of the bearers simply as officers of the
+very highest rank. About three in the morning they came alongside of
+the _Iroquois_, their boatmen making a tremendous racket, awaking
+everybody, the captain getting up to receive them. When I came on deck
+before breakfast the poor fellows presented a moving picture of human
+misery, and certainly were under a heavy accumulation of misfortunes:
+a lost battle, and probably a lost cause; flying for life, and now on
+an element totally new; surrounded by those who could not speak their
+language; hungry, cold, wet, and shivering--a combination of major and
+minor evils under which who would not be depressed? At half-past seven
+they left us, after a brief stay of four hours; and there was much
+trouble in getting so many unpractised landsmen into the boats, which
+were rolling and thumping alongside in the most thoughtless manner,
+there being considerable sea. I do not remember whether the ladders
+were shipped, or whether they had to descend by the cleats; but either
+presented difficulties to a man clad in the loose Japanese garb of the
+day, having withal two swords, one very long, and a revolver. What
+with encumbrances and awkwardness, our seamen had to help them down
+like children. Poor old General Scott shuddering in a Key West
+norther, and these unhappy samurai, remain coupled in my mind; pendant
+pictures of valor in physical extremes, like Cæsar in the Tiber. For
+were not our shaking morning visitors of the same blood, the same
+tradition, and only a generation in time removed from, the soldiers
+and seamen of the late war? whose "fitness to win," to use Mr. Jane's
+phrase, was then established.
+
+Between the departure of the Tycoon's forces and the arrival of the
+insurgent daimios, the native mob took possession of Osaka, becoming
+insolent and aggressive; insomuch that a party of French seamen, being
+stoned, turned and fired, killing several. The disposition and
+purposes of the daimios being uncertain, the diplomatic bodies thought
+best to remove to Kobé, a step which caused the exodus of all the new
+foreign population. Chiosiu and Satsuma, the leaders in what was still
+a rebellion, had not yet arrived, nor was there any assurance felt as
+to their attitude towards the foreign question. The narrow quarters of
+the _Iroquois_ were crowded with refugees and fugitive samurai; while
+from our anchorage huge columns of smoke were seen rising from the
+city, which rumor, of course, magnified into a total destruction.
+Afterwards we were told that the Tycoon had burned Satsuma's palace in
+the place, in retaliation for which the enemy on entry had burned his.
+The Japanese in their haste left behind them their wounded, and one of
+the _Iroquois'_ officers brought off a story of the Italian minister,
+who, indignant at this desertion, went up to a Japanese official,
+shouting excitedly, "I will have you to understand it is not the
+custom in Europe thus to abandon our wounded." This he said in
+English, apparently thinking that a Japanese would be more likely to
+understand it than Italian.
+
+The embarkation was an affair of a short time, and the _Iroquois_ then
+went to Kobé, where we discharged our load of passengers. The
+diplomats had decided that there, under the guns of the shipping, they
+would establish their embassies and remain; reasoning justly enough
+that, if foreigners suffered themselves to be forced out of both the
+ports conceded by treaty, there would be trouble everywhere, in the
+old as well as the new. So the flags were soon flying gayly, and all
+seemed quiet; but for the maintenance of order there was no assurance
+while the interregnum lasted, the Tycoon's authorities having gone,
+and Chiosiu or Satsuma still delaying. Officers on shore were
+therefore ordered to go armed. On February 4, 1868, two days after our
+return, a party of samurai, some five hundred strong, belonging to the
+Prince of Bizen, marched through the town by the Tokaido. As they
+passed the foreign concession, which bordered this high-road, they
+turned and fired upon the Europeans. The noise was heard on board the
+ships, and the commotion on shore was evident, people fleeing in every
+direction. The Japanese troops themselves broke and ran along the
+highway, abandoning luggage, arms, and field-pieces. The American and
+British ships of war, with a French corvette, manned and armed boats,
+landing in hot haste five or six hundred men, who pursued for some
+distance, but failed to overtake the assailants. At the same time the
+vessels sprang their batteries to bear on the town; a move which
+doubtless looked imposing enough, though we could scarcely have dared
+to fire on the mixed multitude, even had the trouble continued.
+
+When our seamen returned, a conference was held, wherein it was
+determined, as a joint international measure, to hold the concession
+in force; and as a further means of protection to close the Tokaido,
+which was done by occupying the angles of a short elbow, of two
+hundred yards, made by it in traversing the town. This step, while
+justifiable from the point of view of safety for the residents, was
+particularly galling to Japanese high-class feeling; for the use of
+the imperial road was associated with certain privileges to the
+daimios, during whose passing the common people were excluded, or
+obliged to kneel, under penalty of being cut down on the spot. Satsuma
+was reported to have remonstrated; but in view of the recent
+occurrence there could be no reply to the foreign retort, "You must
+secure our people." The custom-house, within the concession, was
+garrisoned, making a fortification very tenable against any enemy
+likely to be brought against it; while round it was thrown up a light
+earth-work, to which the seamen and marines dispersed in the
+concession could retire in case of need. But behind all, invulnerable,
+stood the ships, deterred from aggression only by fear for their own
+people, which would cease to operate if these had to be withdrawn.
+
+The action of this body of samurai was probably unpremeditated, unless
+possibly in the mind of the particular officer in charge, who
+afterwards paid with his life for the misconduct of his men. While the
+state of siege continued a complete stop was put to our horseback
+excursions in the country, a deprivation the more felt because
+coinciding with an unusually fine spell of weather; but in a few days
+an envoy arrived from the insurgent daimios, with whom a settlement
+was speedily reached. Chiosiu and Satsuma had by this time succeeded
+in establishing themselves as the real representatives of the Mikado,
+an authority in virtue of which alone the Tycoon had ruled; the true
+headship of the Mikado being admitted by all. They undertook that
+foreigners should be adequately protected, and that the officer
+responsible for the late outrage should be punished with death. By the
+20th of February Kobé was full of Chiosiu and Satsuma samurai, who
+were as courteously civil as those of the Tycoon had been; and after a
+conference with the special envoy of the Mikado the ministers
+returned to Osaka. We, too, resumed our country rides, but still
+weighted with a huge navy revolver.
+
+No doubt on any hand was felt of the sincere purpose of the new
+government to fulfil its pledges; but their troops were still
+ill-organized, and it was impossible to rest assured that they might
+not here and there break bounds, as at Kobé. We were encountering the
+accustomed uncertainties of a period of revolutionary transition,
+intensified by prejudices engendered through centuries of national
+isolation, with all the narrowing and deepening of prepossession which
+accompanies entire absence of intercourse with other people. At this
+very moment, in March, 1868, the decree against the practice of
+Christianity by the natives was reissued: "Hitherto the Christian
+religion has been forbidden, and the order must be strictly kept. The
+corrupt religion is strictly forbidden." Yet I am persuaded that
+already far-seeing Japanese had recognized that the past had drifted
+away irrevocably, and that the only adequate means to meet the
+inevitable was to accept it fully, without grudging, and to develop
+the nation to equality with foreigners in material resources. But such
+anticipation is the privilege of the few in any age or any country.
+
+Very soon after the return of our men from their garrison duty, an
+outbreak of small-pox on board the _Iroquois_ compelled her being sent
+to Yokohama, where, as an old-established port, were hospital
+facilities not to be found in Kobé, though we had succeeded in
+removing the first cases to crude accommodations on shore. The disease
+was then very prevalent in Japan, where vaccination had not yet been
+introduced; and to an unaccustomed eye it was startling to note in the
+streets the number of pitted faces, a visible demonstration of what a
+European city must have presented before inoculation was practised.
+One of our crew had died; and when we started, February 25th, we had
+on board some sick. These were carefully isolated under the airy
+topgallant forecastle, and with a good passage the contagion might not
+have spread; but the second day out the weather came on bad and very
+thick, ending with a gale so violent that to save the lives of the
+patients they had to be taken below, and then, for the safety of the
+ship, which was single-decked, the hatches had to be battened down.
+Conditions more favorable for the spread of the malady could not have
+been devised, and the result was that we were not fairly clear of the
+epidemic for nearly two months, though the cases, of which we had
+fifteen or twenty, were sent ashore as fast as they developed. At that
+period few ships on the station wholly escaped this scourge.
+
+It was after we left Kobé that judicial satisfaction was given for the
+attack upon the foreign concession. My account depends upon the
+reports which reached us; but as the captain of the _Oneida_ was one
+of the official witnesses, on the part of the international interests
+concerned, I presume that what we heard was nearly correct. The final
+scene was in a temple near Hiogo. Being of the class of nobles, the
+condemned had a privilege of the peerage, which insured for him the
+honorable death of the harakiri;[12] a distinction apparently
+analogous to that which our soldiers of European tradition draw
+between hanging and shooting. Having duly performed acts of devotion
+suited to the place and to the occasion, he spoke, justifying his
+action, and saying that, under similar circumstances, he would again
+do the same. He then partly disrobed, assisted by friends, and when
+all was ready stabbed himself; a comrade who had stood by with drawn
+sword at the same instant cutting off his head with a single blow. I
+was tempted by curiosity, once while on the station, to attend the
+execution of some ordinary criminals; and I can testify to the
+deftness and instantaneousness with which one head fell, in the flash
+of a sword or the twinkling of an eye. I did not care to view the
+fates of the three others condemned, but it was clear that no judicial
+death could be more speedy and merciful.
+
+Nearly coincident with this exacted vengeance occurred an incident
+which demonstrated its policy. A boat's crew from a French ship of war
+had gone ashore to survey, unarmed. They were accosted by a
+well-dressed man, wearing two swords, who suggested to them going up
+to a village near the spot where they were at work. They accepted, and
+were led by him into an ambush where eleven of them--all but one--were
+slain. So there was another great funeral at Hiogo, but, one which
+excited emotions far otherwise mournful than the simple sorrow and
+sympathy elicited by the Bell disaster. The graveyard of the place
+had, indeed, a good start. The assassins in this case belonged to the
+troops of the insurgent daimios; and as the French already favored the
+Tycoon--which perhaps may have been one motive for the attack--some
+apprehension was felt that they might, in consequence, espouse his
+cause more actively. Nothing of the sort happened. I presume all the
+legations, and their nations, felt that at the moment the solidarity
+of the foreign interest was more important to be secured than the
+triumph of this or that party. By abstaining from intervention, all
+the embassies could be counted on to back a united demand for
+reparation for injuries to the citizens of any one.
+
+With the arrival of the _Iroquois_ at Yokohama the notable incidents
+of the cruise for the most part came to an end; there following upon
+it the routine life of a ship of war, with its ups and downs of more
+or less pleasant ports, good and bad weather, and the daily
+occupations which make and maintain efficiency. Yokohama itself was
+then the principal and most flourishing foreign settlement in Japan,
+the seat of the legations, and with an agreeable society sufficiently
+large. Among other features we here found again in force the British
+soldier; a battalion of eight hundred being permanently in garrison.
+The country about was thought secure, though for distant excursions,
+requiring a whole day, we carried revolvers; and I remember well the
+scuttling away of several pretty young women when one of these was
+accidentally discharged at a wayside tea-house. But while occasional
+rumors of danger would spread, it was hard to tell whence, I think
+nothing of a serious nature occurred. Nevertheless, albeit resentment
+and hostility were repressed in outward manifestation by the strong
+hand of the government, and by the examples of punishment already
+made, they were still burning beneath the surface. It was during this
+period that the British minister, visiting Kioto, a concession
+jealously resisted by conservative Japanese spirit, was set upon by
+some ronins while on his way to pay an official call. He was guarded
+by British cavalry and marines, and had besides an escort of samurai.
+It was said at the time that these fled, except the officers, who
+fought valiantly, slaying one and beating down the other of the two
+most desperate assailants. Considering the well-established courage of
+the Japanese, and that the attack was by their own people, sympathy
+with the attempt seems the most likely explanation of the
+faithlessness reported. The immediate effect of this was to curtail
+our privileges of riding about the country of Yokohama.
+
+Perhaps the most notable incident, historically, of our stay in
+Yokohama was the arrival of the first iron-clad of the Japanese navy,
+to which it has fallen a generation later to give the most forcible
+lesson yet seen of iron-clads in battle. This vessel had been the
+Confederate ram _Stonewall_, and prior to her acquisition by Japan had
+had a curiously checkered career of ownership. She was built in
+Bordeaux, under the name _Sphinx_, by contract between a French firm
+and the Confederate naval agent in Europe; but some difficulty arose
+between the parties, and in 1864 Denmark, being then at war with
+Austria and Prussia concerning the Schleswig-Holstein duchies, bought
+her under certain conditions. With a view to delivery to the Danish
+government she was taken to a Swedish port, and after a nominal sale
+proceeded under the Swedish flag to Copenhagen, where she remained in
+charge of a banker of that city. Peace having been meanwhile declared,
+Denmark no longer wanted her. The sale was nullified under pretext of
+failure in the conditions, and she passed finally into the hands of
+the Confederacy,[13] sailing from Copenhagen January 7, 1865. Off
+Quiberon, in France, she received a crew from another vessel under
+Confederate direction, and thence attempted to go to the Azores, but
+was forced by bad weather into Ferrol. From there she crossed the
+Atlantic; but by the time of her arrival the War of Secession was
+ended by the surrenders of Lee and Johnston. Her commander took her to
+Havana, and there gave her up to the Spanish authorities. Spain, in
+turn, in due time delivered her to the United States, as the legal
+heir to all spoils of the Confederacy. Several years later, in 1871, I
+had a share in bringing home part of these often useless trophies; the
+ship in which I was having gone to Europe, without guns, loaded with
+provisions to supply the needs of the French poor, presumed to be
+suffering from the then recent war with Germany. Our cargo discharged,
+we were sent to Liverpool, and there took on board some rifled cannon
+and projectiles originally made for the South.
+
+The _Stonewall_ had been lying at the Washington Navy-Yard when I was
+stationed there in 1866. Measured by to-day's standards she was of
+trivial power, small in size, moderate in speed, light in armor and
+armament; but her ram was of formidable dimensions, and at that period
+the tactical value of the ram was estimated much more highly than it
+now is. The disastrous effect of the thrust, if successfully made,
+outweighed in men's minds the difficulty of hitting; an error of
+valuation similar to that which has continuously exaggerated the
+danger from torpedo craft of all kinds. After the sailing of the
+_Iroquois_, a deputation of Japanese officials came to the United
+States on a mission, part of which was to buy ships of war. In reply
+to their inquiries, Commander--now Rear-Admiral--George Brown, then
+ordnance officer of the yard, pointed out the _Stonewall_ to them as a
+vessel suitable for their immediate purposes, and with which our
+government might probably part. He also expressed a favorable opinion
+of her sea-going qualities for reaching Japan. A few days later they
+came to him and said that, as he thought well of her, perhaps he would
+undertake to carry her out; their own seamanship at that early date
+being unequal to the responsibility. This was more than was
+anticipated by Brown, interested in his present duties, but it rather
+put him on his mettle; and so he set forth, a satisfactory pecuniary
+arrangement having been concluded. She went by way of the Strait of
+Magellan and the Hawaiian Islands, reaching Yokohama without other
+incident than constant ducking. As one of her officers said, clothes
+needed not to be scrubbed; a soiled garment could be simply secured on
+the forward deck, and left there to wash in the water that came on
+board until it was clean. I have never known her subsequent fortunes
+in Japanese hands; but as the beginning of their armored navy she has
+a place in history--and here.
+
+From Yokohama the _Iroquois_ returned to Kobé, and there lay during
+July, August, and September; so that in our two visits I passed five
+months in this part of the Inland Sea. The summer, in its way, is
+there as pleasant as the winter in its. The highest thermometer I read
+was 87° Fahrenheit, and there was almost always a pleasant breeze. The
+country was now so far safe that we went everywhere within reasonable
+reach of the concession, and the scenery presented such variety in
+sameness as to be a perpetual source of enjoyment. The most striking
+characteristics are the views of the enclosed sea itself, ample in
+expanse, yet without the monotony attendant upon an unbounded water
+view; and, when that disappears, follows the succession of enclosed
+valleys, alike, yet different; a recurrent feature similar, though on
+another scale, to that presented by the valley of the Inn on the ride
+from Zurich to Innsbruck. How far away those days are is seen from my
+noting on one of them, while visiting what was known to us as the Moon
+Temple, that the ships of war below were dressed in honor of the first
+Napoleon's birthday, August 15th; an observance which ceased with the
+empire.
+
+This time I managed an opportunity of seeing Osaka, which the
+disturbed conditions had prevented my doing during our winter stay.
+Description I shall avoid, as always; enough to say that the flatness
+of the site, in low land, six miles from the mouth of the narrow,
+winding river, makes the city one of canals, like Venice and
+Amsterdam. In visiting the great castle of the Tycoon, a stone
+fortification notable not only for its own size, but for the
+dimensions of the huge single stones of which it is built, we went by
+boat, following a sluggish watercourse, an eighth of a mile wide, and
+so shallow that we poled through it. The pull from the bar to the city
+was very tedious, and Kobé evidently had proved the better commercial
+situation; for even now, half a year after the opening of the port, we
+were looked upon with curiosity; were followed by crowds which stopped
+if we stopped, moved when we moved. To the children we were objects of
+apprehension; they eyed us fearfully, and scuttled away rapidly if we
+made any feint at rushing towards them. Nevertheless, the prevailing
+tone among the common people was now plainly kindly, although six
+months before they would at times spit at foreigners from the bridges
+which in great numbers span the streams. The temper of those who form
+mobs changes lightly. It is true that in our excursions we were
+accompanied by an armed guard, which would seem to indicate
+possibilities of danger; but these samurai themselves were not only
+courteous, but interested and smiling, and I thought gave good promise
+that their class in general was coming round to friendliness.
+
+We left Kobé towards the end of September, in company with a new
+flag-ship which had arrived to take the place of the _Hartford_. This
+vessel rejoiced to call herself _Piscataqua_, which is worth recording
+as a sample of a class of name then much affected by the powers that
+were, presumably on account of their length; "fine flourishers," to
+quote the always illustrative Boatswain Chucks, "as long as their
+homeward-bound pendants, which in a calm drop in the water alongside."
+_Piscataqua_, however uncouth, most Americans can place; but what
+shall we say of _Ammonoosuc_, _Wampanoag_, and such like, then
+adorning our lists, which seem as though extracted by a fine-tooth
+comb drawn through the tangle of Indian nomenclature. Under the
+succeeding administration _Piscataqua_ was changed to _Delaware_. The
+new commander-in-chief was among our most popular officers,
+distinguished alike for seamanship, courage, and courtesy; but he held
+to great secrecy as to his intentions, which caused officers more
+inconvenience than seemed always quite necessary. Questions of
+mess-stores, of correspondence, and other pre-arrangements, depend
+much upon knowledge of future movements, as exact as may not interfere
+with service emergencies. These in peace times rarely require
+concealment. A characteristic story ran that, as the two vessels were
+leaving Kobé, when the flag-ship's anchor was a-weigh, her captain,
+still ignorant of her destination, turned to the admiral and said,
+"Which way shall I lay her head, sir?"
+
+It turned out that we were bound to Nagasaki, on our way to China. The
+approaching northeast monsoon, with its dry, bracing air, dictates the
+period when foreign squadrons usually go south, having during the
+summer in Japan avoided the debilitating damp heat which those months
+entail in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and the Chinese ports generally. The
+_Iroquois_, however, had soon to separate from the flag-ship, owing to
+news received of a singular occurrence, savoring more of two hundred
+years ago, or of to-day's dime novel--"shilling shocker," as our
+British brethren have it--than of the prosaic nineteenth century.
+There had arrived at Hakodate, the northernmost of the then open
+Japanese ports, on the island of Yezo and Strait of Tsugaru, a
+mysterious bark, without name or papers, peopled only by Chinese of
+the coolie class, and bearing evident marks of foul play. From
+indications she was supposed to be American, and our ship, being the
+most immediately available, was ordered up to investigate; leaving
+Nagasaki October 24, 1868. Our course took us over the ground which
+has since become historic by the destruction of Rodjestvensky's fleet,
+as well as by other incidents of the Russo-Japanese war; and the
+weather we had, both going and returning, would justify the anxiety
+said to have been felt by the Japanese naval authorities, that Port
+Arthur should be taken before the winter set in. Like men, ships must
+do their work at whatever cost; but like men also, and perhaps even
+more, they should be spared needless strain, especially if they be
+few. A sick ship needs usually more time for recovery than a sick man.
+
+Our orders directed a stop at a port called Niigata, on the west coast
+of Nippon. We must have communicated, for I thence despatched a
+letter; but at the time of our arrival a furious northwest gale was
+blowing, dead on shore. The ship, therefore, ran under a largish
+island called Sado, which much to our convenience lies a few miles to
+sea-ward of Niigata, and there anchored; quietly enough as to wind,
+though gusty willy-waws descending from the cliffs and swishing the
+water in petty whirlwinds testified to the commotion outside. We had
+quite the same experience returning to Shanghai; but at that time in
+mid-sea, where the _Iroquois_, powerless as to steam, but otherwise as
+much at home as the sea-fowl, rode it out gleefully, though I admit
+not luxuriously to flesh and muscles.
+
+On November 1st we reached Hakodate, where our captain and consul,
+aided by the Japanese authorities, proceeded at once with their
+investigation. The strange vessel was in as distressed condition,
+almost, as that of the Ancient Mariner when he drew near "his own
+countree:" sails gone, rigging flying loose, one of her topgallant
+masts, if I remember right, snapped in two, and the exterior of her
+hull as though neither paint nor soap had known it for years. In her
+cabins were marks of blood not eradicated; and particularly on the
+transom over the stern windows was the print of a bloody hand, the
+fingers spread wide as they rested against the paint, suggesting
+resistance by one being thrust out. The story so far collected from
+the coolies was that they had sailed in her from Macao, a Portuguese
+port near Canton and Hong Kong, and that the captain and crew, after
+taking her far north in the ice, had abandoned her altogether. In
+support of this part of their story they showed furs procured from the
+natives. These gave plausibility to the ice experiences; but the rest
+of the account, unlikely in itself, had been disproved by inquiry in
+Macao, where nothing was known of any vessel answering to the
+descriptions. At last, however, a rumor had come, how conveyed I know
+not, that such a bark, with coolies and twelve thousand dollars in
+gold on board, had sailed from Callao, in Peru, the previous January,
+and had never since been heard from; that she had a Peruvian captain
+and crew, but carried American colors, probably merely as indicating
+American property. To claim full American privilege, ships must be
+American built; but one bought abroad and owned by Americans may carry
+the flag, in proof of nationality, though without the right of
+entering an American port like those to the manner born. They thus
+become entitled to the same national regard as any other possessions
+of American citizens under foreign jurisdiction.
+
+So information stood when the _Iroquois_ arrived--false on one hand,
+and on the other vague. Soon after the captain and consul began their
+investigation they stumbled upon the vessel's papers, concealed in a
+manner which had hitherto baffled careful search. These showed that
+she was the missing _Cayalti_, which on the previous January 18th had
+cleared from Callao for another Peruvian port; that she was American
+in ownership, while the captain and crew were Spanish in name. This
+fixed her identity; but how account for the disappearance of the
+ship's company, and for her presence in Hakodate, on the other side of
+the Pacific, three thousand miles north of Callao. To this inquiry the
+captain and consul addressed themselves in the cabin of the
+_Iroquois_. Two or three Japanese two-sworded officials were in
+attendance, and memory recalls their grave, impassive faces, as seen
+at times when some routine communication called me in to speak to our
+captain.
+
+Contracted though the captain's quarters were, the unaccustomed
+scene, absent from their companions and from the familiar surroundings
+of their probable crime, was calculated to impress the culprits; and
+the methods pursued to instigate admissions savored, I fancy, more of
+the Orient than of modern Anglo-Saxon ideals. But the present
+functions of our officials corresponded to those of the French _juges
+d'instruction_; and, having to elicit the truth from a low class of
+Orientals, they dealt with them after the fashion which alone they
+would recognize as serious. The witnesses began, of course, by lying
+in the most transparent manner, but under judicious--or
+judicial--pressure a story was pieced together which in main outline
+probably corresponded with the truth; for in it three or four of them
+independently agreed. Two days out from Callao the coolies had risen
+against the whites, and after a short fight overpowered them. Of the
+crew, two jumped overboard; the rest submitted. A boat was then
+lowered, and the men in the water were killed; after which the others
+were tied together, made fast to an anchor, and so thrown into the
+sea, the mate, who had fought desperately, having first been mutilated
+by cutting off his ears. The captain and a Chinese steward were saved;
+the former to handle the ship, to which the coolies were unequal, and
+he was bidden to take her to China. I do not find in my contemporary
+letters the impression which remains on my mind, that they estimated
+his general observance of this order by the vague knowledge that China
+lay towards the evening sun. The history of that strange voyage would
+be interesting, but was scarcely recoverable in detail from the class
+of witnesses. It would be by no means certain that the master of a
+coastwise trader could navigate accurately; and, while he would always
+be sure of death if he brought the vessel within reach of China, it is
+not apparent why he should take her to the remote north in which the
+furs showed her to have been. I have never heard whether, as the
+evidence ran, he and the steward escaped alive, abandoning the
+ship.[14] He had disappeared when the Japanese found her drifting
+helplessly under her ignorant occupants.
+
+While in Hakodate, I availed myself of the opportunity to visit a
+great lake and a volcano, not extinct, but not immediately active.
+They are distant about fifteen miles from the town, a position in
+which I see such a sheet of water on the maps of to-day. This was a
+long ride in the then state of the roads, after the autumn rains, and
+with nightly freeze sufficient continually to fix the moisture, and
+then to renew the dampness towards the noonday thaw. Transport was
+not by wheel, but by pack-animals; and as these marched in companies
+of a half-dozen or so, in single file, haltered one to the other, each
+as he stepped put his foot into the prints made, not merely by his
+immediate file-leader of the particular gang, but by all others going
+and coming for weeks before. The consequence was a succession of
+scallops, distributed over long stretches of mud, the consistency of
+which just sufficed to hold the shape thus impressed upon it. Japanese
+horses are small, and as a class quarrelsome; the one I rode on this
+occasion was little larger than a child's pony, and looked as if he
+had not been curried for a month. I hesitated to impose upon him my
+weight, a scruple which would have been intensified had I known the
+character of the pilgrimage through which he was to bear me. With his
+feet at the bottom of the scallop, the rounded top rose above his
+knee, nearly giving his patient nose the touch which his dejected mood
+and drooping head seemed to invite. At the first start he stumbled,
+nearly falling on me, but escaped with nostrils and mouth full of
+liquid dirt.
+
+A day to go, a day to come, and one intervening to cross the lake and
+ascend the volcano, measured our excursion; through the whole of which
+we had sunny skies and exhilarating temperature till the last hour of
+our return, when a drizzling rain suggested what might have been our
+discomfort had the heavens above been as unpropitious as the roads
+beneath. Even the crossing of the lake and the ascent were
+particularly favored, the sky literally cloudless and water smooth;
+whereas the following morning, when we rose to depart, a fog had
+settled on the mountain, making movement upon it doubtful and even to
+a slight degree dangerous. The lake, some six miles by ten, and
+abounding in islets, lay smiling under the bright, wintry sun, its
+shores clad with leafless forests mingled with evergreens, save the
+barren slopes of the volcano itself; beneath the distant lava stream
+of which we were told seventeen hundred people lay, buried by the last
+eruption. The scene tempted me more than most to description, for the
+brilliant stillness of a clear November day, and the gaunt, bare
+trees, were strange to our long experience of verdure in southern
+Japan, and smacked strongly of home--Hakodate being in the latitude of
+New York; but, as always, the majority have their own vision, their
+own memory, of just such conditions and surroundings, more vivid for
+them than another's portrayal.
+
+The two nights at the lake we slept in a Japanese tea-house,
+scrupulously clean and quite comfortable, but at that early date and
+remote region entirety primitive; I should rather say strictly native
+in all its arrangements. The kitchen was innocent of European
+suggestion; we ate with chopsticks, and fish from the lake were
+spitted and cooked around a fire in a sandy hearth, contrived below
+the middle of the room. Eggs were in abundance, but coffee was sorely
+missed at our chilly rising. At 9 A.M. we started for the volcano,
+getting back at 7 P.M. We landed at the foot of the lava stream and
+ascended by it through a picture of desolation. From shore to summit
+took us three hours, which confirmed to me a rough estimate of the
+height as about four thousand feet. The grade was not severe, some
+thirty or forty degrees; but by this time we had a brisk northwest
+wind blowing down our throats, and the latter part of the way our feet
+sank deep in volcanic dust. At the top the air was very cold, keen,
+and rare, but somewhat oppressive to the lungs. None of us cared to
+smoke, after eating and drinking, but the view afforded us was
+perfect; limitless, so far as atmospheric conditions went. In
+appearance the crater differed little, I presume, from others in a
+state of quiescence. Smoke and steam poured forth continually, in one
+spot in large volumes; while from many places issued little jets, such
+as puff from the out-door pipes of a factory, suggesting subterranean
+workmen. These were especially numerous from a large mound in the
+centre, which our guide told us was growing bigger and bigger with his
+successive visits, portending an outburst near. If his observation was
+accurate, it goes to show the coincident sympathetic movements which
+occur in volcanic regions remote from one another; for this year,
+1868, followed one of great terrestrial disturbance. In 1867 two of
+our naval vessels had been carried ashore by a tidal wave in the West
+Indies; and of two others lying off Arica, Peru, one was dashed to
+pieces against the cliffs, while the other was carried over low, flat
+ground for a mile or so inland, where her dismantled hull was still
+lying when I was there in 1884.
+
+Our starting when we did, as soon as possible, three days after
+arrival, justified the Nelsonian maxim not to trifle with a fair wind;
+for we just culled the three days which were the cream, and only
+cream, of our stay. From our return on the 6th, to sailing on the
+12th, there was but one fair twenty-four hours--the rest from
+blustering to furious; and we went out with the promise of a gale
+which did not with evening "in the west sink smilingly forsworn." The
+_Iroquois_ ran through Tsugaru Strait under canvas, with a barometer
+rather tumbling than falling, and an east wind fast freshening to
+heavy. We knew it must end at northwest; but it lasted till afternoon
+of the next day, so we got a good offing. The shift of the wind was in
+its accompaniments spectacular--and cyclonic. The morning of the 13th
+was among the wildest I have seen. Daylight came a half-hour late,
+with a lurid sky; the clouds, the confused, heaving water, the sails,
+spars, and deck of the ship herself, all as if seen in a Lorraine
+glass. It having become nearly calm, she lay thrashing aimlessly in
+the swell, unsteadied by the canvas. The barometer still fell slowly
+till two in the afternoon, when it stopped, and we began to look out.
+
+   "First rise, after very low
+    Indicates a stronger blow."
+
+At three it rose one one-hundredth of an inch, and almost
+simultaneously, looking over the weather rail, was to be seen the
+oncoming northwester, never long in debt to a southeaster. First a
+gleaming white line of foam beneath the sombre horizon, gradually
+spreading to right and left, and visibly widening as it drew near.
+Soon its deepening surface broke to view into innumerable separate
+wave-crests, which advanced leaping in tumultuous accord, like the
+bounding rush of a pack of wolves, whom you may see, and whose howling
+you can imagine but do not yet hear. As Kingsley has said, "It looks
+so dangerous, and you are so safe"--all the thrill, yet none of the
+apprehension. The new gale struck the _Iroquois_ in full force. Within
+twenty minutes it had reached its height, and so continued for near
+forty-eight hours, during thirty-six of which the hatches were
+battened down. For a time the two seas, the old and the new, fought
+each other to our discomfort; but the old yielded, and, as the new got
+its even, regular swing, the _Iroquois_ agreed with its enemy of the
+moment and rode easily.
+
+With our arrival at Shanghai we had left behind whatever in the cruise
+of the _Iroquois_ could be considered exceptional as to incident; that
+is, while I remained with her. From December, 1868, we entered in
+China upon the usual routine of station movement; interesting enough
+at the time, but from which my memory retains nothing noteworthy.
+Subsequently we visited Formosa and Manila and Hong Kong; whence we
+were sent south for ten days to the Gulf of Hainan to search for a
+French corvette which had disappeared. We did not find her, nor was
+she again seen by mortal eyes. Returning to Hong Kong, we learned of
+the first election of General Grant to the presidency, and that a
+letter from him had reached the admiral asking that the captain of the
+flag-ship, who as a school comrade had once saved Grant's life, should
+be ordered home; the intention being to give him charge of an
+important bureau in the Navy Department. Under usual circumstances a
+relief would have been sent out; but as the request was from the
+expectant administration, not from the one still in power and
+antagonistic, a private letter was the chosen medium of action.
+
+His departure made a vacancy, to which succeeded the captain of the
+_Iroquois_, a great favorite with the commander-in-chief. I was left
+in charge of the ship until we went back to Japan in May. There I fell
+ill at Nagasaki, and after recovery found myself at Yokohama, in
+command of a gunboat ordered to be sold. This consummation was reached
+in September, and I then started for home, having the admiral's
+permission to proceed by Suez to Europe, instead of by the usual
+route to San Francisco. My object was only to visit Europe; but on the
+way to Hong Kong a Parsee merchant, a fellow-passenger, suggested
+turning aside to India, which I had not contemplated. I shall not go
+into my brief India travel from Calcutta to Bombay, beyond mentioning
+the singular good-fortune, as it appeared to me, that I visited the
+ruined residence at Lucknow, and the remains of the memorable siege of
+twelve years before, in the company of an officer who had himself been
+a participant. His wife, still a very young and handsome woman, whom I
+had the pleasure of meeting, had been one of the children within the
+works, sharing the perils, if not the anxieties, of their mothers
+during that period of awful suspense.
+
+Nor do I think my six months in Europe, leave for which met me on my
+arrival there, worthy of particular note, save in one incident which
+has always seemed to me curious. Landing at Marseilles, I found that
+intimate friends were then at Nice. I accordingly went there, instead
+of to Paris, as I had intended; and, like thoughtless young men
+everywhere, abandoned myself to pleasant society instead of to
+self-improvement by travel. My purpose, however, continually was to go
+directly to Paris when I did leave Nice, for my time was limited; but
+a middle-aged friend strongly dissuaded me. "You should by no means
+fail to visit Rome now," he said, "for, independently of the immortal
+interest of the place, of the treasures of association and of art
+which are its imperishable birthright, there is the more transient
+spectacle of the Papacy, in the pride, pomp, and circumstance of the
+temporal power. This may at any moment pass away, and you therefore
+may never have another opportunity to witness it in its glory. There
+is a vague traditional prophecy that, as St. Peter held the bishopric
+of Rome twenty-five years, any pope whose tenure exceeds his will see
+the downfall of the papal sovereignty over Rome. Such prophecies
+often insure their own fulfilment, and Pius IX. is now closely
+approaching his twenty-fifth year. Go while you can." So I went, in
+February, 1870; and before the next winter's snow the temporal power
+was a thing of the past.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+THE TURNING OF A LONG LANE--HISTORICAL, NAVAL, AND PERSONAL
+
+1870
+
+
+In narrating the cruise of the _Iroquois_ I have, as it were, laid the
+reins on the neck of my memory, letting it freely run away; partly
+because our track lay over stretches of sea even now somewhat unbeaten
+by travel, partly because the story of routine naval life and
+incidental experiences, in a time already far past, might have for the
+non-professional reader more novelty than could be premised by me, a
+daily participant therein. Moreover, there were in our cruise some
+exceptional occurrences which might be counted upon to relieve
+monotony. I purpose to observe greater restraint in what follows.
+
+The year 1870, in which I returned home, was one of marked and
+decisive influence upon history, and in a way a turning-point in my
+own obscure career. As in February I witnessed the splendors of the
+papal city under its old régime, so in April and May I saw imperial
+Paris brilliant under the emperor. In the one case as in the other I
+was unconscious of the approaching _débâcle_; a blindness I presume
+shared by most contemporaries. Whatever the wiser and more far-seeing
+might have prophesied as to the general ultimate issues, few or none
+could then have foretold the particular occasion which so soon
+afterwards opened the floodgates. As the old passed, with the downfall
+of the French Empire and of the temporal kingdom, there arose a new;
+not merely the German Empire and the unity of Italy, crowned by the
+possession of its historic capital, but, unrecognized for the moment,
+then came in that reign of organized and disciplined force, the full
+effect and function of which in the future men still only dimly
+discern. The successive rapid overthrows of the Austrian and French
+empires by military efficiency and skill; the beating in detail two
+separate foes who, united, might have been too strong for the victor;
+the consequent crumbling of the papal monarchy when French support was
+withdrawn, following closely on the Vatican Decree of Infallibility;
+these things produced an impression which was transmitted rapidly
+throughout the world of European civilization, till in the Farther
+East it reached Japan. Into the current thus established the petty
+stream of my own fortunes was drawn, little anticipated by myself. To
+it was due my special call; for by it was created the predisposition
+to recognize the momentous bearing of maritime force upon the course
+of history, which insured me a hearing when the fulness of my time was
+come.
+
+Until 1870 my life since graduation had been passed afloat almost
+without interruption. Soon afterwards I obtained command rank; and
+this promotion, combined with the dead apathy which after the War of
+Secession settled upon our people with regard to the navy, left me
+with relatively little active employment for several years. In
+America, the naval stagnation of that period was something now almost
+incredible. The echoes of the guns which from Königgrätz and a dozen
+battle-fields in France had resounded round the globe, awakening the
+statesmen of all countries, had apparently ricochetted over the United
+States, as fog sound-signals are noticed to rebound overhead, unheard
+through long stretches of the sea-level, until they again touch the
+water beyond. The nation slumbered peacefully in its "_petit coin_,"
+to use the expressive phrase of a French admiral to me. Had even
+nothing been done, this inertness might have been less significant;
+but somewhere in the early seventies, despite all the progress
+elsewhere noticeable, there were built deliberately some half-dozen
+corvettes, smaller than the _Iroquois_ class, mostly of wood. That a
+period of lethargy in action should steal over a government just
+released from strenuous exertion is one thing, and bad enough; but it
+is different, and much worse, that there should be a paralysis of
+idea, of mental development corresponding to the movement of the
+world.
+
+I myself have always considered that the "right about" of policy came
+with the administration of President Arthur, when Mr. Chandler was
+Secretary of the Navy. It began with a work of destruction, an
+exposure of the uselessness of the existing naval material, due purely
+to stand-still; to being left hopelessly in the rear by the march of
+improvement elsewhere. Upon this followed under the same
+administration an attempt at restoration, gingerly enough in its
+conceptions. The vessels laid down were cruisers, the primary quality
+of which should be speed; but fourteen knots was the highest demanded,
+and that of one only, the _Chicago_. Unhappily, wherever the fault
+lay, the navy then had the habit of living from day to day on
+expedients, on makeshifts. Although deficiencies were manifest and
+generally felt, the prevailing sentiment had been that we should wait
+until the experiments of other peoples, in the cost of which we would
+not share, should have reached workable finalities. This is another
+instance of what is commonly called "practical;" as though mental
+processes must not necessarily antecede efficient action, and as
+though there was not then at hand abundant data for brains to work on,
+without any expenditure of money. Finality, indeed, had not been
+reached, and never will be in anything save death; but at that time it
+had been shown beyond peradventure that radically new conditions had
+entered naval warfare, and clearly the first most practical step was a
+mature official digestion of these conditions--a decision as to what
+types of vessels were needed, and what their respective qualities
+should be. In short, the first and perfectly possible thing was to
+evolve a systematic policy; a careful look, and then a big leap.
+
+However, things rarely come about in that way. It involves getting rid
+of old ideas, which is quite as bad as pulling teeth, and much harder;
+and the subsequent adoption of new ones, that are as uneasy as tight
+shoes. We had then certain accepted maxims, dating mainly from 1812,
+which were as thoroughly current in the country--and I fear in the
+navy, too--as the "dollar of the daddies" was not long after. One was
+that commerce destroying was the great efficient weapon of naval
+warfare. Everybody--the navy as well--believed we had beaten Great
+Britain in 1812, brought her to her knees, by the destruction of her
+commerce through the system observed by us of single cruisers; naval
+or privateers. From that erroneous premise was deduced the conclusion
+of a navy of cruisers, and small cruisers at that; no battle-ship nor
+fleets.[15] Then we wanted a navy for coast defence only, no
+aggressive action in our pious souls; an amusing instance being that
+our first battle-ships were styled "coast defence" battle-ships, a
+nomenclature which probably facilitated the appropriations. They were
+that; but they were capable of better things, as the event has proved.
+But the very fact that such talk passed unchallenged as that about
+commerce-destroying by scattered cruisers, and war by mere
+defence--known to all military students as utterly futile and
+ruinous--shows the need then existent of a comprehensive survey of the
+contemporary condition of the world, and of the stage which naval
+material had reached. One such was made, which a subsequent secretary,
+Mr. Tracy, characterized to me as excellent; but the deficiencies and
+requirements exposed by it in our naval status frightened Congress,
+much as the confronting of his affairs terrify a bankrupt.
+
+During the latter part of Secretary Chandler's term I was abroad in
+command of the _Wachusett_, on the Pacific coast. Besides her, the
+squadron consisted of the _Hartford_, Farragut's old flag-ship, the
+_Lackawanna_, and my former ship, the _Iroquois_. They all dated, guns
+as well, from the War of Secession, or earlier. Had they been
+exceptional instances, on a station of no great importance, it might
+not have mattered greatly; but in fact they still remained
+representative components of the United States navy. The squadron
+organization, too, was that which had prevailed ever since I entered
+the service, and so continued until a very few years ago. The rule was
+that the vessels were scattered, one to this port, another to that.
+They rarely met, except for interchange of duties; and when in company
+almost the only exercises in common were those of yards and sails, in
+which the ships worked competitively, to beat one another's time,--a
+healthy enough emulation. But this rivalry was no substitute for the
+much more necessary practice of working together, in mutual support;
+for the acquired habit of handling vessels in rapid movement and close
+proximity with fearless judgment, based upon experience of what your
+own could do, and what might be confidently expected from your
+consorts, especially your next ahead and astern. A new captain for
+the _Lackawanna_ accompanied me to the station, where we found our
+ships in Callao, assembled with the other two. Within a week later we
+all went out together, performed three or four simple evolutions, and
+then scattered. This was the only fleet drill we had in the two years,
+1883-1885.
+
+In fact, from time immemorial the navy had thought in single ships, as
+the army had in company posts. To the several officers their own ship
+was everything, the squadron little or nothing. The War of Secession
+had broadened the ideas of the army by enlarging its operations in the
+field, although peace brought a relapse; but the navy having to fight
+only shore batteries, not fleets, was not forced out of the old
+tactical and strategic apathy. The huge accumulations of vessels under
+a single admiral entailed enlarged administrative duties; but the
+tactical methods, as shown in the greater battles, presented simply
+the adaptation of means to a particular occasion, and, however
+sagacious in the several instances--and they usually were
+sagacious--possessed no continuity of system in either theory or
+practice. Organic unity did not exist except for administration. There
+was an assemblage of vessels, but not a fleet. All this was the
+result, or at least the complement, of the theory of commerce
+destroying, which prescribed cruisers that act singly; and of war by
+defence only, which proscribed battle-ships, that act in unison and so
+compel unity.
+
+A further incident of Mr. Chandler's tenure of office was the
+establishment of the Naval War College at Newport. This had its origin
+in the recognition of a defect in the constitution of the Navy
+Department, which was glaringly visible during the War of Secession.
+Immense and admirable as was the administrative work done by the
+Department during that contest, there did not exist in it then, nor
+did there for many years to come, any formal provision for the proper
+consideration and expert decision of strictly military questions,
+from the point of view of military experience and professional
+understanding. The head of the Department, invariably a civilian under
+our form of government, and therefore usually unfamiliar with naval
+matters, had not assured to him, at instant call, organized
+professional assistance, individual or corporate, prepared to advise
+him, when asked, as to the military aspect of proposed operations,
+what the arguments for or against feasibility, or what the best method
+of procedure. In other services, notably in the German army, this
+function is discharged by the general staff, nothing correspondent to
+which was to be found in our Navy Department. It is evident that the
+constitution of a general staff, or of any similar body called into
+being for such purpose, will be more broadly based, and sounder, as
+knowledge of the subjects in question is more widely distributed among
+the officers of the service; and that such knowledge will be imparted
+most certainly by the creation of an institution for the systematic
+study of military operations, by land or sea, applying the experiences
+of history to contemporary conditions, and to the particular theatres
+of possible war in which the nation may be interested.
+
+Such studies are the object of the Naval War College, which was
+established upon the report of a board of officers, at the head of
+which was the present Rear-Admiral Stephen B. Luce, to whose
+persistent initiative must be attributed much of the movement which
+thus resulted. The other members of the board were the late Admiral
+Sampson, and Commander--now Rear-Admiral--Caspar F. Goodrich. Luce
+became the first president of the institution, for which the
+Department assigned a building, once an almshouse, situated on
+Coaster's Harbor Island, in Narragansett Bay, then recently ceded to
+the United States government. It remained still to get together a
+staff of instructors, and he wrote me to ask if I would undertake the
+subjects of naval history and naval tactics. The proposition was to me
+very acceptable; for I had found the Pacific station disagreeable,
+and, although without proper preparation, I believed on reflection
+that I could do the work. During my last tour of shore duty I had read
+carefully Napier's _Peninsular War_, and had found myself in a new
+world of thought, keenly interested and appreciative, less of the
+brilliant narrative--though that few can fail to enjoy--than of the
+military sequences of cause and effect. The influence of Sir John
+Moore's famous march to Sahagun--less famous than it deserves to
+be--upon Napoleon's campaign in Spain, revealed to me by Napier like
+the sun breaking through a cloud, aroused an emotion as joyful as the
+luminary himself to a navigator doubtful of his position.
+
+   "Then felt I as some watcher of the skies
+      When a new planet swims into his ken;
+    Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
+      He stared at the Pacific."
+
+Following this I had written by request a volume on the Navy in the
+War of Secession, entitled _The Gulf and Inland Waters_; my first
+appearance as an author. Herein also I had recognized that the same
+class of military ideas took possession of my mind. I felt, therefore,
+that I should bring interest and understanding to my task, and hoped
+that the defects of knowledge, which I clearly realized, would be
+overcome. I recalled also that at the Military Academy my father,
+though professor only of engineering, military and civil, had of his
+own motion introduced a course of strategy and grand tactics, which
+had commended itself to observers. I trusted, therefore, that
+heredity, too, might come to my aid.
+
+As acceptance placed me on the road which led directly to all the
+success I have had in life, I feel impelled to acknowledge my
+indebtedness to Admiral Luce. With little constitutional initiative,
+and having grown up in the atmosphere of the single cruiser, of
+commerce-destroying, defensive warfare, and indifference to
+battle-ships; an anti-imperialist, who for that reason looked upon Mr.
+Blaine as a dangerous man; at forty-five I was drifting on the lines
+of simple respectability as aimlessly as one very well could. My
+environment had been too much for me; my present call changed it.
+Meantime, however, there was delay. A relief would not be sent,
+because the ship was to go home; and the ship did not go home because
+there was, first, a revolution in Panama, and then a war between the
+Central American states, both which required the _Wachusett's_
+presence. Mr. Cleveland was elected at this time; there was a change
+of administration, and with a new Secretary a lapse of Departmental
+interest. The ship did not go to San Francisco till September, 1885,
+nearly a year after the admiral's proposition reached me.
+
+The year had not been unfruitful, however. Naturally predisposed, as I
+have said, my mind ran continually on my subject. I imagined various
+formations for developing to the best effect the powers of steamships,
+and sudden changes to be instituted as the moment of collision
+approached, calculated to disconcert the opponent, or to surprise an
+advantage before he could parry. Spinning cobwebs out of one's
+unassisted brain, without any previous absorption from external
+sources, was doubtless a somewhat crude process; yet it had
+advantages. One of my manoeuvres was to pass a column of ships by an
+unexpected flank movement across the head of an enemy's column. This I
+have since heard called "capping;" if, at least, I correctly
+understand that word. Putting it afterwards before a body of officers
+attending the College course, all men of years and experience, one
+said to me, derisively, "Do you suppose an enemy would let you do
+that?" "It is a question of how quick he is," I replied. "In these
+days of twelve or fifteen knots he will have no time to ponder, and
+scarcely time to act." The query illustrates a habit of mind
+frequently met. It is like discussing the merits of a thrust _en
+carte_. If the other man is quick enough, he will parry; if not, he
+will be run through: sooner or later the more skilful usually will get
+in.
+
+Naval history gave me more anxiety, and I afterwards found it was that
+which Luce particularly desired of me. I shared the prepossession,
+common at that time, that the naval history of the past was wholly
+past; of no use at all to the present. I well recall, during my first
+term at the College, a visit from a reporter of one of the principal
+New York journals. He was a man of rotund presence, florid face,
+thrown-back head, and flowing hair, with all that magisterial
+condescension which the environment of the Fourth Estate nourishes in
+its fortunate members; the Roman citizen was "not in it" for
+birthright. To my bad luck a plan of Trafalgar hung in evidence, as he
+stalked from room to room. "Ah," he said, with superb up-to-date pity,
+"you are still talking about Trafalgar;" and I could see that
+Trafalgar and I were thenceforth on the top shelf of fossils in the
+collections of his memory. This point of view was held by very many.
+"You won't find much to say about history," was the direct
+discouraging comment of an older officer. On the other hand, Sir
+Geoffrey Hornby, less well known in this country than in Great
+Britain, where twenty years ago he was recognized as the head of the
+profession, distinctly commended to me the present value of naval
+history. I myself, as I have just confessed, had had the contrary
+impression--a tradition passively accepted. Thus my mind was troubled
+how to establish relations between yesterday and to-day; so wholly
+ignorant was I of the undying reproduction of conditions in their
+essential bearings--a commonplace of military art.
+
+He who seeks, finds, if he does not lose heart; and to me,
+continuously seeking, came from within the suggestion that control of
+the sea was an historic factor which had never been systematically
+appreciated and expounded. Once formulated consciously, this thought
+became the nucleus of all my writing for twenty years then to come;
+and here I may state at once what I conceive to have been my part in
+popularizing, perhaps in making effective, an argument for which I
+could by no means claim the rights of discovery. Not to mention other
+predecessors, with the full roll of whose names I am even now
+unacquainted, Bacon and Raleigh, three centuries before, had
+epitomized in a few words the theme on which I was to write volumes.
+That they had done so was, indeed, then unknown to me. For me, as for
+them, the light dawned first on my inner consciousness; I owed it to
+no other man. It has since been said by more than one that no claim
+for originality could be allowed me; and that I wholly concede. What
+did fall to me was, that no one since those two great Englishmen had
+undertaken to demonstrate their thesis by an analysis of history,
+attempting to show from current events, through a long series of
+years, precisely what influence the command of the sea had had upon
+definite issues; in brief, a concrete illustration. In the preface to
+my first work on the subject, for the success of which I was quite
+unprepared, I stated this as my aim: "An estimate of the effect of Sea
+Power upon the course of history and the prosperity of nations; ...
+resting upon a collection of special instances, in which the precise
+effect has been made clear by an analysis of the conditions at the
+given moments." This field had been left vacant, yielding me my
+opportunity; and concurrently therewith, untouched from the point of
+view proposed by me, there lay the whole magnificent series of events
+constituting maritime history since the days of Raleigh and Bacon,
+after the voyages of Columbus and De Gama gave the impetus to
+over-sea activities, colonies, and commerce, which distinguishes the
+past three hundred years. Even of this limited period I have occupied
+but a part, though I fear I have skimmed the cream of that which it
+offers; but back behind it lie virgin fields, in the careers of the
+Italian republics, and others yet more remote in time, which can never
+be for me to narrate, although I have examined them attentively.
+
+I cannot now reconstitute from memory the sequence of my mental
+processes; but while my problem was still wrestling with my brain
+there dawned upon me one of those concrete perceptions which turn
+inward darkness into light--give substance to shadow. The _Wachusett_
+was lying at Callao, the seaport of Lima, as dull a coast town as one
+could dread to see. Lima being but an hour distant, we frequently
+spent a day there; the English Club extending to us its hospitality.
+In its library was Mommsen's _History of Rome_, which I gave myself to
+reading, especially the Hannibalic episode. It suddenly struck me,
+whether by some chance phrase of the author I do not know, how
+different things might have been could Hannibal have invaded Italy by
+sea, as the Romans often had Africa, instead of by the long land
+route; or could he, after arrival, have been in free communication
+with Carthage by water. This clew, once laid hold of, I followed up in
+the particular instance. It and the general theory already conceived
+threw on each other reciprocal illustration; and between the two my
+plan was formed by the time I reached home, in September, 1885. I
+would investigate coincidently the general history and naval history
+of the past two centuries, with a view to demonstrating the influence
+of the events of the one upon the other. Original research was not
+within my scope, nor was it necessary to the scheme thus outlined.
+
+Perhaps it is only a subtle form of egotism, but as a condition of my
+life experience I could wish to convey to others an appreciation of my
+profound ignorance of both classes of history when I began, being then
+forty-five; not that I mean to imply that now, or at any time since, I
+have deluded myself with the imagination that I have become an
+historian after the high modern pattern. I tackled my job much as I
+presume an immigrant begins a clearing in the wilderness, not
+troubling greatly which tree he takes first. I laid my hands on
+whatever came along, reading with the profound attention of one who is
+looking for something; and the something was kind enough to
+acknowledge my devotion by shining forth in unexpected ways and
+places. Any line of investigation, however unsystematic in method,
+branches out in many directions, suggests continually new sources of
+information, to one interested in his work; and I have felt constantly
+the force of Johnson's dictum as to the superior profit from time
+spent in reading what is congenial over the drudgery of constrained
+application. Every faculty I possessed was alive and jumping.
+Incidentally, I took up the study of land warfare, using Jomini and
+Hamley. For naval history the first book upon which I chanced--the
+word is exact--was just what I needed at that stage. It was a history
+of the French navy, by a Lieutenant Lapeyrouse-Bonfils, published
+about 1845. As naval history pure and simple, I think little of it;
+but the author had a quiet, philosophical way of summing up causes and
+effects in general history, as connected with maritime affairs, which
+not only corresponded closely with my own purpose, but suggested to me
+new material for thought--novel illustration. Such treatment was with
+him only casual, but it opened to me new prospects.
+
+It would be difficult to define precisely to what degree the art of
+naval warfare had been formulated, or even consciously conceived, in
+1885. There could scarcely be said to exist any systematic treatment,
+or extensive commentary by acknowledged experts, such as for
+generations had illuminated the theory of land warfare. Naval
+histories abounded, but by far the most part were simply narratives.
+Some valuable research, however, had then recently been done; notably
+by Captain Chevalier, of the French navy, who had produced from French
+documents a history of the maritime war connected with the American
+struggle for independence. This he followed with a less exhaustive
+account of the wars of the French Revolution and Empire, which also
+appeared in time for me to use. These were marked by running comment,
+rather than by a studied criticism such as that of Jomini or Napier.
+In Great Britain, James held, and I think still holds, the field for
+exhaustive collection of information, documentary or oral in origin,
+during the period treated by him, 1793-1815; but he has not a military
+idea in his head beyond that of downright hard fighting, punishing and
+being punished. In his pages, to take a tactical advantage seems
+almost a disgrace. The Navy Records Society of Great Britain had not
+then begun the fruitful labors which within the last decade and a half
+has made accessible in print a very large amount of new matter; nor
+had the late Admiral Colomb published his comprehensive book, _Naval
+Warfare_. So far as I was concerned, the old works of Lediard, Entick,
+Campbell, Beatson,--in French, Paul Hoste, Troude, Guérin, and others
+equally remote,--had to be my main reliance; though numerous modern
+scattered monographs, English and French, were existent. In connection
+with these one of my most interesting experiences was lighting upon a
+paper in the _Revue Maritime et Coloniale_, describing in full the
+Four Days' battle between the English and Dutch in 1666. It purported
+to be, and I have no doubt was, from a personal letter recently
+discovered; but I subsequently found it almost word for word in the
+_Mémoires du Comte de Guiche_, also a participant, printed in 1743.
+This _Revue_ contained many able and suggestive articles, historical
+and professional, as did the British _Journal of the United Service
+Institution_; each being in its own country a principal medium for the
+exchange of professional views. Conspicuous in these contributions to
+naval history and thought, in England, were Admiral Colomb and
+Professor Laughton; upon the last named of whom, since these words
+were first written, has been bestowed the honor of knighthood, a
+recognition in the evening of life which will be heartily welcomed by
+his many naval friends on both sides of the Atlantic. In short, apart
+from the first-hand inquiry which I did not yet attempt, the material
+available in 1885 was chiefly histories written long before,
+supplemented by a great many scattered papers of more recent date.
+
+Before leaving this part of my experience I will say a good word for
+Campbell's _Lives of the Admirals_, so far as his own work--down to
+1744--is concerned. Under this title it is really a history of the
+British navy, very well done for enabling a professional man to
+understand the naval operations; but, more than this, maritime
+occurrences of other sorts, commercial movement, and naval policy, are
+presented clearly, and with sufficient fulness to illustrate the
+influence of sea power in its broadest sense upon the general history.
+Bearing, as it does, strong indications of a full use of accessible
+accounts, contemporary with the events narrated, I know no naval work
+superior to it for lucidity and breadth of treatment. Campbell was he
+of whom Dr. Johnson said: "Campbell is a good man, a pious man; I am
+afraid he has not been inside a church for many years; but he never
+passes a church without pulling off his hat. This shows he has good
+principles."
+
+In history other than naval I was for my object as fortunate as I had
+been in Lapeyrouse-Bonfils. An accident first placed in my hands
+Henri Martin's _History of France_. I happened to see the volumes,
+then unknown to me, on the shelves of a friend. The English
+translation of Martin covered only the reigns of Louis XIV. and XV.,
+and of Louis XVI. to 1783, the close of the War of American
+Independence. The scope of my first book, _The Influence of Sea Power
+upon History_, coincides precisely with this period, and may thus have
+been determined. I think, however, that the beginning of the work was
+fixed for me by the essentially new departure in the history of
+England and France, connoted by the almost simultaneous accession of
+Charles II. and Louis XIV.; while the end was dictated by the
+necessity to stop and take breath. Besides, I had to lecture, which
+for the moment interrupted both reading and writing. The particular
+value of Martin to me was the attention paid by him to commercial and
+maritime policy, as shown in those frank methods of national
+regulation which in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
+characterized all governments, but were to be seen in their simplest
+and most efficient executive operation in an absolute monarchy. A more
+advanced age may doubt the wisdom of such manipulation of trade; but
+in the hands of a genius like Colbert it became a very active and
+powerful force, the workings of which were the more impressive for
+their directness. They could be easily followed. Whatever Martin's
+views on political economy, he was in profound sympathy with Colbert
+as an administrator, and enlarged much on his commercial policy as
+conducing to the financial stability upon which that great statesman
+sought to found the primacy of his country. To one as ignorant as I
+was of mercantile movement, the story of Colbert's methods, owing to
+their pure autocracy, was a kind of introductory primer to this
+element of sea power. Thus received, the impression was both sharper
+and deeper. New light was shed upon, and new emphasis given to, the
+commonplace assertion of the relations between commerce and a navy;
+civil and military sea power. While I have no claim to mastery of the
+arguments for and against free trade and protection, Colbert, as
+expounded by Martin, sent me in later days to the study of trade
+statistics; as indicative of naval or political conditions deflecting
+commercial interchange, and influencing national prosperity. The
+strong interest such searches had for me may show a natural bent, and
+certainly conduced to the understanding of sea power in its broadest
+sense. Martin set my feet in the way, though Campbell helped me much
+by incidental mention.
+
+It is now accepted with naval and military men who study their
+profession, that history supplies the raw material from which they are
+to draw their lessons, and reach their working conclusions. Its
+teachings are not, indeed, pedantic precedents; but they are the
+illustrations of living principles. Napoleon is reported to have said
+that on the field of battle the happiest inspiration is often but a
+recollection. The authority of Jomini chiefly set me to study in this
+fashion the many naval histories before me. From him I learned the
+few, very few, leading considerations in military combination; and in
+these I found the key by which, using the record of sailing navies and
+the actions of naval leaders, I could elicit, from the naval history
+upon which I had looked despondingly, instruction still pertinent. The
+actual course of the several campaigns, or of the particular battles,
+I worked out as one does any historical conclusion, by comparison of
+the individual witnesses presented in the several accounts; but the
+result of this constructive process became to me something more than a
+narrative. Both the general outcome and the separate incidents passed
+through tests which formed in me an habitual critical habit of mind.
+My judgments, one or all, might be erroneous; but, right or wrong,
+what I brought before myself was no mere portrayal, accurate as I
+could achieve, but a rational whole, of composite cause and effect,
+with its background and foreground, its centre of interest and
+argument, its greater and smaller details, its decisive culmination;
+for even to a drawn battle or a neutral issue there is something which
+definitely prevented success. It was the same with questions of naval
+policy. Jomini's dictum, that the organized forces of the enemy are
+ever the chief objective, pierces like a two-edged sword to the joints
+and marrow of many specious propositions; to that of the French
+postponement of immediate action to "ulterior objects," or to
+Jefferson's reliance upon raw citizen soldiery, a mob ready
+disorganized to the enemy's hands when he saw fit to lay on. From
+Jomini also I imbibed a fixed disbelief in the thoughtlessly accepted
+maxim that the statesman and general occupy unrelated fields. For this
+misconception I substituted a tenet of my own, that war is simply a
+violent political movement; and from an expression of his, "The
+sterile glory of fighting battles merely to win them," I deduced, what
+military men are prone to overlook, that "War is not fighting, but
+business."
+
+It was with such hasty equipment that I approached my self-assigned
+task, to show how the control of the sea, commercial and military, had
+been an object powerful to influence the policies of nations; and
+equally a mighty factor in the success or failure of those policies.
+This remained my guiding aim; but incidentally thereto I had by this
+determined to prepare a critical analysis of the naval campaigns and
+battles, a decision for which I had to thank Jomini chiefly. This
+would constitute in measure a treatment of the art of naval war; not
+formal, nor systematic, but in the nature of commentary, developing
+and illustrating principles. I may interject, as possibly suggestive
+to professional men, that such current comment on historical events
+will lead them on, as it led me irresistibly, to digest the principles
+thus drawn out; reproducing them in concise definitions, applicable to
+the varying circumstances of naval warfare,--an elementary treatise.
+This I did also, somewhat later, in a series of lectures; which,
+though necessarily rudimentary, I understand still form a groundwork
+of instruction at the War College. For the framework of general
+history, which was to serve as a setting to my particular thesis, I
+relied upon the usual accredited histories of the period, as I did
+upon equally well-known professional histories for the nautical
+details. The subject lay so much on the surface that my handling of it
+could scarcely suffer materially from possible future discoveries.
+What such or such an unknown man had said or done on some back-stairs,
+or written to some unknown correspondent, if it came to light, was not
+likely to affect the received story of the external course of military
+or political events. Did I make a mistake in the detail of some
+battle, as I got one fleet on the wrong tack in Byng's action, or as
+in the much-argued case of Torrington at Beachy Head, it would for my
+leading purpose do little more harm than a minor tactical error does
+to the outcome of a large strategic plan, when accurately conceived.
+As a colleague phrased it to me, speaking of the cautious deliberation
+of some men, "A second-best position to-day is better than a
+first-best to-morrow, when the occasion has passed." Strike while the
+iron is hot! and between reading and thinking my iron was very hot by
+the time I laid it on the anvil. Moreover, I had to meet the emergency
+of lecturing, one of the main reliances of our incipient undertaking.
+
+I had begun my reading with Lapeyrouse-Bonfils, in October, 1885. The
+preceding summer at Panama had so far affected my health as to cause a
+month's severe illness in the winter; and when recovered I
+unguardedly let myself in for another month's work, on naval tactics,
+which might have been postponed. Hence the end of the following May
+had arrived before I began to write; but I was so full of matter,
+absorbed or evolved, that I ran along with steady pace, and by
+September had on paper, in lecture form, all of my first _Sea Power_
+book, except the summary of conclusions which constitutes the final
+chapter. Before publication, in 1890, the whole had been very
+carefully revised; but the changes made were mostly in the details of
+battles, or else verbal in character, to develop discussions in
+amplitude or clearness. Battles had been to me at first a secondary
+consideration; hence for revision I had accumulated many fresh data,
+notably from two somewhat scarce books: _Naval Battles in the West
+Indies_, by Lieutenant Matthews, and _Naval Researches_, by Captain
+Thomas White, British officers contemporary and participant in the
+events which they narrate of the War of American Independence.
+
+A lecturer is little hampered by the exactions of style; indeed, the
+less he ties himself to his manuscript, the more he can talk to his
+audience rather than read, and the more freely his command of his
+subject permits him to digress pertinently, the better he holds
+attention. When I found after my first course that the treatment was
+to my hearers interesting as well as novel, the thought of publishing
+entered my mind; and while I had no expectation or ambition to become
+a stylist, the question of style gradually forced itself on my
+consideration. I intend to state some of my conclusions, because the
+casual remarks of others, authors or critics, have been helpful to me.
+Why should not style as well as war have its history and biography, to
+which each man may contribute an unpretentious mite? Notably, I got
+much comfort from Darwin's complaint of frequent recurrences of
+inability to give adequate expression to thoughts, which he could then
+put down only in such crude, imperfect form as the moment suggested,
+leaving the task of elaboration to a more propitious season. If so
+great a man was thus troubled, no strange thing was happening to me in
+a like experience. Such good cheer in intellectual as well as moral
+effort is one of the best services of biography and history, raising
+to the rank of ministering spirits the men whose struggles and success
+they tell. Was not Washington greater at Valley Forge than at
+Yorktown? and Nelson beating against a head wind than at Trafalgar?
+Johnson has anticipated Darwin's method in advice given in his
+Gargantuan manner: "Do not exact from yourself, at one effort of
+excogitation, propriety of thought and elegance of expression. Invent
+first, and then embellish. The production of something, where nothing
+was before, is an act of greater energy than the expansion or
+decoration of the thing produced. Set down diligently your thoughts as
+they arise in the first words that occur, and, when you have matter,
+you will easily give it form." To Trollope I owed a somewhat different
+practical maxim. His theory Was that a man could turn out manuscript
+as steadily as a shoemaker shoes--his precise simile, if I remember;
+and he prided himself on penning his full tale each day. I could not
+subscribe to this, and think that Trollope's work, of which I am fond,
+shows the bad effect; but I did imbibe contempt for yielding to the
+feeling of incapacity, and put myself steadily to my desk for my
+allotted time, writing what I could. Whether the result were ten words
+or ten hundred I tried to regard With equanimity.
+
+I have never purpose attempted to imitate the style of any writer,
+though I unscrupulously plagiarize an apt expression. But gradually,
+and almost unconsciously, I formed a habit of closely scrutinizing the
+construction of sentences by others; generally a fault-finding habit.
+As I progressed, I worked out a theory for myself, just as I had the
+theory of the influence of sea power. Style, I said, has two sides. It
+is first and above all the expression of a man's personality, as
+characteristic as any other trait; or, as some one has said--was it
+Buffon?--style is the man himself. From this point of view it is
+susceptible of training, of development, or of pruning; but to attempt
+to pattern it on that of another person is a mistake. For one chance
+of success there are a dozen of failure; for you are trying to raise a
+special product from a soil probably uncongenial, or a fruit from an
+alien stem--figs from vines. But beyond this there is to style an
+artificial element, which I conceive to be indicated by the word
+_technique_ as applied to the arts; though it is possible that I
+misapprehend the term, being ignorant of art. In authorship I
+understand by _technique_ mainly the correct construction of periods,
+by the proper collocation of their parts. I subscribe heartily to the
+opinion I have seen attributed to Stevenson, that everything depends
+upon the order of the words; and this, in my judgment, should make the
+sentence as nearly as possible independent of punctuation.
+
+Further, there are many awkwardnesses of expression which proper
+training or subsequent practice can eliminate; and in proportion as a
+writer attains the faculty of instinctively avoiding these, his
+technique improves. Perfected, he would never use them, and his
+sentences would flow untaught from his pen in absolutely clear
+reflection of his thought. As an example of what I mean by
+awkwardnesses, I would cite the use of "whose" as the possessive of
+"which." I know that adequate authority pronounces this correct, so it
+is not on that score I reject it. Moreover, I recognize that in myself
+the repulsion is somewhat of an acquired taste. When I began to write
+I thus employed it myself, but its sound is so inevitably suggestive
+of "who" as to constitute an impertinence of association. I have
+lately been reading a very excellent history of the United States, in
+which the frequent repetition of "whose" in this sense causes me the
+sensation of perpetually "stubbing" my toe; an Americanism, which, I
+will explain to any British reader, means stumbling over roots or on
+an unequal pavement, the irritation of which needs not exposition.
+
+In the matter of natural style I soon discovered that the besetting
+anxiety of my soul was to be exact and lucid. I might not succeed, but
+my wish was indisputable. To be accurate in facts and correct in
+conclusions, both as to appreciation and expression, dominated all
+other motives. This had a weak side. I was nervously susceptible to
+being convicted of a mistake; it upset me, as they say. Even where a
+man writes, this is a defect of a quality; in active life it entails
+slowness of decision and procrastination, failure "to get there." I
+have no doubt that much contemporary writing suffers delay from a like
+morbid dread as to possibility of error. The aim to be thus both
+accurate and clear often encumbered my sentences. My cautious mind
+strove to introduce between the same two periods every qualification,
+whether in abatement or enforcement of the leading idea or statement.
+This in many cases meant an accumulation of clauses, over which I
+exercised my ingenuity and lavished my time so to arrange them that
+the whole should be at once apprehended by the reader. It was not
+enough for me that the qualifications should appear a page or two
+before, or after, and in this I think myself right; but in wanting
+them all in the same period, as I instinctively did,--and do, for
+nature is obstinate,--I have imposed on myself needless labor, and
+have often taxed attention as an author has no right to do. Unless
+under pressing necessity, I myself will not be at pains to read what I
+can with difficulty understand.
+
+It is to this anxiety for full and accurate development of statements
+and ideas that I chiefly attribute a diffuseness with which my
+writing has been reproached; I have no doubt justly. I have not,
+however, tried to check the evil at the root. I am built that way, and
+think that way; all round a subject, as far as I can see it. I am
+uneasy if a presentment err by defect, by excess, or by obscurity
+apparent to myself. I must get the whole in; and for due emphasis am
+very probably redundant. I am not willing to attempt seriously
+modifying my natural style, the reflection of myself, lest, while
+digging up the tares of prolixity I root up also the wheat of
+precision. The difference emphasized by Dr. Johnson, "between notions
+borrowed from without and notions generated within," seems to me to
+apply to the mode of expression as well as to the idea expressed. The
+two spring from the same source, and correspond. You impress more
+forcibly by retaining your native manner of statement; chastened where
+necessary, but not defaced by an imitation, even of a self-erected,
+yet artificial, standard. It does not do to meddle too much with
+yourself. But I do resort to a weeding process in revising; a verb or
+an adjective, an expletive or a superlative, is dragged out and cast
+away. Even so, as often as not, I have to add. The words above, "as
+far as I can see it," have just been put in. Of course, in the
+interest of readers, I resort to breaking up sentences; but to me
+personally the result is usually distasteful. The reader takes hold
+more easily, as a child learns spelling by division into syllables;
+but I am conscious that instead of my thoughts constituting a group
+mutually related, and so reproducing the essential me, they are
+disjointed and must be reassembled by others.
+
+A man untrained in youth, and who has never systematically sought to
+repair the defect, can scarcely hope fully to compass technique in
+style. He will thus lose some part of that which he may gain by being
+more nearly his natural self; for there is a real gain in this. Such
+advance as I have made in technique--and I trust I have made some--I
+have owed to the critical running analysis of the construction of
+sentences, which has been my habit ever since I began to write. That
+this is constant with me, subconsciously, is shown by the frequency
+with which it passes into a conscious logical recasting of what I
+read. To get antecedents and consequents as near one another as
+possible; qualifying words or phrases as close as may be to that which
+they qualify; an object near its verb; to avoid an adjective which
+applies to one of two nouns being so placed as to seem to qualify
+both; such minute details seem to me worthy of the utmost care, and I
+think I can trace advance in these respects. My experiments tend to
+show that the natural order of nominative, verb, object, is usually
+preferable; and as a rule I find that adverbs and adverbial phrases
+fall best between nominative and verb. Still, the desirability of
+tying each period to its predecessor, as does the rhyme of the fourth
+and fifth lines of a sonnet, will modify arrangement. In reading
+another author, where such precaution as I name is neglected, a word
+misplaced in its relation to the others of the sentence runs my mind
+off the track, like an engine on a misplaced switch, and I dislike the
+trouble of backing to get on the right rails. It is the same with my
+own work, if time enough elapses between composition and subsequent
+reading. Generally I make such time, either in manuscript or proofs;
+but I am chagrined when I meet slips in the printed page, as I too
+often do. There is no provision against such fault equal to laying the
+text aside till it has become unfamiliar; but even this is not
+certain, for construction, being consonant to your permanent mode of
+thinking, may not when erroneous jar upon you as upon another.
+
+In acquiring an automatic habit, which technique should become,
+principles tend to crystallize into rules, and a few such I have;
+counsels of perfection many of these, too often unrealized. I do not
+like the same word repeated in the same paragraph, though this lays a
+heavy tax on so-called synonymes. Assonances jar me, even two
+terminations "tion" near together. I will not knowingly use "that" for
+"which," except to avoid two "whiches" between the same two periods.
+The split infinitive I abhor, more as a matter of taste than argument.
+I recognize that it is at times very tempting to snuggle the adverb so
+close to the verb; but I hold fast my integrity. Once, indeed, I took
+it into my head not to split compound tenses, and carried this fad
+somewhat remorselessly through a series of republished articles; but
+the result has not pleased me. Boswell tells us that Johnson would
+have none of "former" and "latter;" that he would rather repeat the
+noun than resort to this subterfuge. I see no good reason for
+rejecting these convenient alternatives; but nevertheless I have
+obsequiously bowed to the autocrat and taken a skunner to the
+words--the only literary snobbishness of which I am conscious. I can
+stand out against Macaulay's proscription of prepositions ending
+sentences. Although I generally twist them round, they often please my
+ear there. It is not exactly in point, but I have always rejoiced over
+"Silver was nothing accounted of" in the days of King Solomon; indeed,
+I was brought to book by a proofreader for concluding a sentence with
+"accounted of." I let it stand, so taking was it to me.
+
+The question doubtless occurs to most authors how far they are under
+bonds to the King's English. As to grammar, I submit; the consequences
+of anarchy dismay me; but I question whether in words coinage is an
+attribute of sovereignty. There is, of course, plenty of false money
+going around, current because accepted; but I think a man is at
+liberty to pass a new word, a word without authority in dictionaries,
+if it be congruous to standard etymology. I once wrote "eventless;"
+but, on looking, found it not. Yet why not? "Homeless," "heartless,"
+"shoeless," etc.; why merely "uneventful," a form only one letter
+longer, it is true, but built up to "eventful" to be pulled down to
+"uneventful"? Besides, "uneventful" does not mean the same as
+"eventless." "Doubtless" and "undoubtedly" differ by more than a shade
+in sense, and we have both. So we have "anywhere," "nowhere,"
+"somewhere," "everywhere;" why not "manywhere," if you need it? Again,
+if "hitherto" be good--and it is--why not "thitherto"? In the case of
+"eccentric" as a military term, I felt forced to frame "ex-centric;"
+the former--I ask Dr. Johnson's pardon--has, in America at least,
+become so exclusively associated with the secondary though cognate
+idea of singularity that it would not convey its restricted military
+significance to a lay reader.
+
+I had been assigned to the War College in October, 1885, Admiral Luce
+being still its president, but I did not go into residence until the
+end of the following August. Luce had then been for some months
+detached, to command the North Atlantic fleet, and I had succeeded him
+by default, without special orders that I can remember. He was anxious
+for me to live on the spot, to be "on deck," as he phrased it, for the
+College had many enemies and few friends; and matters were not helped
+by a sharp official collision that summer between him and Secretary
+Whitney, who from indifference passed into antagonism. I cannot say
+that his change was due to this cause, and for a long time his
+hostility did not take form in act. Now that the College, after twenty
+years, has had the warm encomium of the President of the United States
+in his message to Congress, it is interesting to a veteran recipient
+of its early buffets to recall conditions. In my two years' incumbency
+we got decidedly more kicks than halfpence. Yet in retrospect it
+gains. A prominent New York lawyer once told me of a young man from a
+distant State consulting him with a view to practising in the city.
+In response to some cautious warning as to the difficulties, he said:
+"Do you mean that with my education and capacity I cannot expect rapid
+success?" "I fear not," replied the mentor. A few months later they
+met casually. "Are you getting on as fast as you had hoped?" asked the
+older man. "No," admitted the other, "but it's heaps of fun." He
+doubtless got on, and so did the College. I at the time was less
+appreciative of the fun, but I liked the work, and now I see also the
+comical side.
+
+Between the early favor of the Department and his own energy, Luce had
+given the College a good send-off, like a skiff shoved by hand from
+the wharf into mid-stream. There remained only to keep it moving. We
+had an appropriation, and a building that was ready for lecturing;
+with also two as yet uncompleted suites of quarters, for myself and
+one other officer. We had also a very respectable library, in which,
+among many valuable works, conspicuously selected with an eye to our
+special objects, I recall with amusement certain ancient
+encyclopædias, contributed apparently by well-wishers from stock which
+had begun to encumber their shelves. Howbeit, like Quaker guns, these
+made a brave show if not too closely scrutinized, and spared us the
+semblance of poverty in vacant spaces. Every military man understands
+the value of an imposing front towards the enemy. When I arrived, I
+was the sole occupant of the building; and except an army officer--now
+General Tasker Bliss--was the only _attaché_. As I walked round the
+lonely halls and stairways, I might have parodied Louis XIV., and
+said, "_Le Collège, c'est moi_." I had, indeed, an excellent steward,
+who attended to my meals and made my bed. There was but one lamp
+available, which I had to carry with me when I went from room to room
+by night; and, indeed, except for the roof over my head, I might be
+said to be "camping out." There was yet a month before the class of
+officers was to arrive. This interval was more than occupied preparing
+the necessary maps for my lectures, much of the time by my lonely
+light. Owing to lack of regular assistance, a great part of the map
+work was done by my own hands, often sprawled on the floor as my best
+table; though I was fortunate in receiving much voluntary help from a
+retired lieutenant, now Captain McCarty Little, then and always an
+enthusiastic advocate of the College, who did some of the drafting and
+all the coloring. Thus were put together three of the four maps which
+afterwards appeared in my first book. The fourth, of the North
+Atlantic Ocean, was begged of the hydrographer of the navy; a friendly
+Rhode Island man.
+
+Besides the maps, there were to be produced some twenty or more battle
+plans. For these I hit on a device which I can recommend. I cut out a
+number of cardboard vessels, of different colors for the contending
+navies, and these I moved about on a sheet of drawing-paper until
+satisfied that the graphic presentation corresponded with facts and
+conditions. They were then fastened in place with mucilage. This saved
+a great deal of drawing in and rubbing out, and by using complementary
+colors gave vivid impression. In combats of sailing fleets you must
+look out sharp, or in some arrangement, otherwise plausible, you will
+have a ship sailing within four points of the wind before you know it.
+Nor is this the only way truth may be insulted. Times and distances
+also lay snares for incautious steps. I noticed once in an account of
+an action two times, with corresponding positions, which made a
+frigate in the meanwhile run at eighteen knots under topsails.
+
+By such shifts we scrambled along as best we could our first year,
+content with beef without horseradish, as Sam Weller has it; hitching
+up with rope when a trace gave way, in the blessed condition of those
+who are not expecting favors. But worse was to come. Besides the
+general offence against conservatism by being a new thing, the
+College specifically had poached its building from another manor. It
+stood upon the grounds of the Naval Training Station, for apprentices,
+which considered itself defrauded of property and intruded upon by an
+alien jurisdiction--an _imperium in imperio_. The two were not even
+under the same bureau, so the antagonism existed in Washington as well
+as locally; and now a Secretary of malevolent neutrality. Truly some
+one was needed "on deck;" though just what he could do with such a
+barometer did not appear, unless he bore up under short canvas, like
+Nelson, who "made it a rule never to fight the northwesters." And such
+was very much our policy; reefed close down, looking out for squalls
+at any moment from any quarter, saying nothing to nobody, content to
+be let alone, if only we might be so let. Small sail; and no weather
+helm, if you please. One most alleviating circumstance was the
+commandant of the training station, the local enemy, one of the born
+saints of the earth, Arthur Yates. Officially, of course he
+disapproved of us; professional self-respect and precedent, bureau
+allegiance, and all the rest of it, were outraged; but when it came to
+deeds, Yates could not have imagined an unkind act, much less done it.
+Nor did he stop there; good-will with him was not a negative but an
+active quality. What we wanted he would always do, and then go one
+better, if he could find a way to add to our convenience; and when we
+ultimately came to grief, after his departure, he wrote me a letter of
+condolence. Altogether, while clouds were gathering in Washington, it
+was perpetual sunshine at home as to official and personal relations.
+I have no doubt he would have drawn maps for me had I asked it.
+
+None the less, trouble was at hand. In 1886 we had a session which by
+general consent was very successful in quality, if not in quantity,
+lasting little over two months. Our own bureau controlled the
+ordering of officers, so it swept together a sufficient number to form
+a class. We had several excellent series of lectures: on Gunnery in
+its higher practical aspects, by Lieutenant Meigs, who has since left
+the navy for a responsible position in the Bethlehem Iron Works; on
+International Law, by Professor Soley, who under the next
+administration became Assistant-Secretary of the Navy; on Naval
+Hygiene, by a naval surgeon, Dr. Dean; together with others less
+notable. All these had been contracted for by Luce. Captain Bliss and
+myself, as yet the only two permanent _attachés_, of course took our
+share. So much was new to the officers in attendance, not only in
+details but in principle, that I am satisfied nine-tenths of them went
+away friendly; some enthusiastic. The College had steered clear of any
+appearance of scientific, or so-called post-graduate, instruction,
+consecutive with that given at Annapolis; and had demonstrated that it
+meant to deal only with questions pertinent to the successful
+carrying-on of war, for promoting which no instrumentality existed
+elsewhere. The want had been proved, and a means of filling it
+offered. The listeners had been persuaded.
+
+I well remember my own elation when they went away in the latter part
+of November. Success had surpassed expectation. But in a fortnight
+Congress met, and it soon became evident that we were to be starved
+out,--no appropriation. It was a short session, too; scant time for
+fighting. I went to Washington, and pleaded with the chairman of the
+House naval committee, Mr. Herbert; but while he was perfectly
+good-natured, and we have from then been on pleasant terms, whenever
+he saw me he set his teeth and compressed his lips. His argument was:
+Once establish an institution, and it grows; more and more every year.
+There must be economy, and nowhere is economy so effectually applied
+as to the beginnings. In vain did I try to divert his thoughts to the
+magnificent endings that would come from the paltry ten thousand the
+College asked. He stopped his ears, like Ulysses, and kept his eyes
+fixed on the necessity of strangling vipers in their cradle. In vain
+were my efforts seconded by General Joe Wheeler, also a representative
+from Alabama, and strongly sympathetic with military thought. No help
+could be expected from the Secretary, and we got no funds.
+
+The fiscal year would end June 30, 1887. It was of no use to try
+saving from the current balance, for by law that must be turned in at
+the year's end. So we shrugged our shoulders and trusted to luck,
+which came to our assistance in a comical manner. For summer we were
+all right, or nearly so; but winter might freeze us out. Still, unless
+the Secretary saw fit to destroy the College by executive order, it
+had a right to be warm; so we sent in our requisition for heating the
+building. It went through the customary channels, was approved, and
+the coal in the cellars before the Department noticed that there was
+no appropriation against which to charge it. Upon reference to the
+Secretary, he decided that the coal had been ordered and supplied in
+good faith, and should be left and paid for. In fact, however, if the
+building was used it would have to be heated; the decision practically
+was to let the College retain the building. It was an excellent
+occasion to wipe us out by a stroke of the pen, but Mr. Whitney had
+not yet reached that point. The fuel, I think, was charged to the
+bureau to which the Training Station belonged, which would not tend to
+mollify its feelings.
+
+Coal was our prime necessity, but it was not all. The hostile interest
+now began to cut us short in the various items which contribute to the
+daily bread of a government institution. We lived the year from hand
+to mouth. From the repairs put on the building a twelvemonth before
+there was left a lot of refuse scrap lying about. This we collected
+and sorted, selling what was available, on the principle of
+slush-money. Slush, the non-professional may be told, is the grease
+arising from the cooking of salt provisions. By old custom this was
+collected, barrelled, and sold for the benefit of the ship. The price
+remained in the first lieutenant's hands, to be expended for the
+vessel; usually going for beautifying. What we sold at the College we
+thus used; not for beautifying, which was far beyond us, but to keep
+things together. This proceeding was irregular, and for years I
+preserved with nervous care the memoranda of what became of the money,
+in case of being questioned; although I do not think the total went
+much beyond a hundred dollars. It is surprising how much a hundred
+dollars may be made to do. For our lectures the hydrographer again
+made for the College two very large and handsome maps.
+
+The session of 1887 was longer and more complete than the year before;
+but specifically it increased our good report in the service and added
+to us hosts of friends. Many were now ready to speak in our favor, if
+asked; and some gave themselves a good deal of trouble to see this or
+that person of importance. This was a powerful reinforcement for the
+approaching struggle; but with the Secretary biassed against us, and
+resolute opposition from the chairman of the committee, the odds were
+heavy. Mr. Whitney showed me a frowning countenance, quite unlike his
+usual _bonhomie_; and yielded only a reluctant, almost surly, "I will
+not oppose you, but I do not authorize you to express any approval
+from me." With that we began a still hunt; not from policy, but
+because no other course was open, and by degrees we converted all the
+committee but three. This was quite an achievement in its way; for, as
+one of the members said to me, "It is rather hard to oppose the
+chairman in a matter of this kind. Still, I am satisfied it is a good
+thing, and I will vote for it." So we got our appropriation by a big
+majority. Mr. Herbert was very nice about his discomfiture. That a set
+of uninfluential naval officers should so unexpectedly have got the
+better of him, in his position, had a humorous side which he was ready
+to see; though it is possible we, on whose side the laugh was, enjoyed
+it more. He afterwards, when Secretary of the Navy, came to think much
+better of the College, which flourished under him.
+
+I had soon to find that my mouth had more than one side on which to
+laugh. Confident that we were out of the woods, I proceeded to halloo;
+for in an address made at the opening of the session of 1888, alluding
+to the doubt long felt about the appropriation, I said, "That fear has
+now happily been removed." I reckoned without the Secretary, who
+issued an order, a bolt out of the blue, depriving the College not
+only of its building, but of its independent existence; transferring
+it to the care of the commander of the Torpedo Station, on another
+island in Narragansett Bay. This ended my official existence as
+president of the College, and I was sent off to Puget Sound; one of a
+commission to choose a site for a navy-yard there. I never knew, nor
+cared, just why Whitney took this course, but I afterwards had an
+amusing experience with him, showing how men forget; like my old
+commodore his moment of despondency about the outcome of the war. In
+later years he and I were members of a dining club in New York. I then
+had had my success and recognition. One evening I chanced to say to
+him, apropos of what I do not now recall, "It was at the time, you
+know, that you sent Sampson to the Naval Academy, and Goodrich to the
+Torpedo Station." "Yes," he rejoined, complacently; "and I sent you to
+the War College." It was literally true, doubtless; his act, though
+not his selection; but in view of the cold comfort and the petard with
+which he there favored me, for Whitney to fancy himself a patron to
+me, except on a Johnsonian definition of the word,[16] was as humorous
+a performance as I have known.
+
+So I went to Puget Sound, a very pleasant as well as interesting
+experience; for, having a government tender at our disposal, we
+penetrated by daylight to every corner of that beautiful sheet of
+water, the intricate windings of which prepare a continual series of
+surprises; each scene like the last, yet different; the successive
+resemblances of a family wherein all the members are lovely, yet
+individual. Then was there not, suburban to the city of Seattle, Lake
+Washington, a great body of fresh water? Of this, and of its island,
+blooming with beautiful villas, a delightful summer resort in easy
+reach of the town by cars, we saw before our arrival alluring
+advertisements and pictures, which were, perhaps, a little premature
+and impressionist. How seductive to the imagination was the future
+battle-ship fleet resting in placid fresh water, bottoms unfouled and
+little rusted, awaiting peacefully the call to arms; upon which it
+should issue through the canal yet to be dug between sound and lake,
+ready for instant action! Great would have been the glory of Seattle,
+and corresponding the discomfiture of its rival Tacoma, which
+undeniably had no lake, and, moreover, lay under the stigma of having
+tried, in such default, to appropriate by misnomer another grand
+natural feature; giving its own name Tacoma to Mount Rainier, so
+called by Vancouver for an ancient British admiral. A sharp Seattleite
+said that a tombstone had thus been secured, to preserve the
+remembrance of Tacoma when the city itself should be no more. The
+local nomenclature affixed by Vancouver still remains in many cases.
+Puget, originally applied to one only of the many branches of the
+sound, was among his officers. Hood's Inlet was, doubtless, in honor
+of the great admiral, Lord Hood; while Restoration Point commemorates
+an anniversary of the restoration of Charles II. As regarded Lake
+Washington, our commission was a little nervous lest an injury to the
+canal might interfere at a critical moment with the fleet's freedom of
+movement, leaving it bottled up, and wired down. We selected,
+therefore, the site where the yard now stands, in a singularly
+well-protected inlet on the western side of the main arm, with an
+anchorage of very moderate depth and easy current for Puget Sound.
+There, if my recollection is right, it is nearly equidistant from the
+two cities. Our judgment was challenged and another commission sent
+out. This confirmed our choice, but very much less land was secured
+than we had advised.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+EXPERIENCES OF AUTHORSHIP
+
+
+Before my return from Puget Sound a new administration had come in
+with President Harrison, and the War College was once more in favor.
+But its organization had been destroyed, and some time must elapse
+before it could get again on its legs. In the summer of 1889 a course
+was held at the Torpedo Station, where I lectured with others. The
+following winter an appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars was
+made for a College building; the old one being confirmed to the
+training station, which continued, however, strongly to oppose any use
+of its grounds for the new venture. In this it was overruled, and in
+1892 the College started afresh in what has since been its constant
+headquarters, two hundred yards from its original position.
+
+In the mean time my first series of lectures had been published in
+book form, under the title _The Influence of Sea Power upon History,
+1660-1783_. This was in May, 1890. That it filled a need was speedily
+evident by favorable reviews, which were much more explicit and hearty
+in Europe, and especially in Great Britain, than in the United States.
+The point of view apparently possessed a novelty, which produced upon
+readers something of the effect of a surprise. The work has since
+received the further indorsement of translation into French, German,
+Japanese, Russian, and Spanish; I think into Italian also, but of this
+I am not certain. The same compliment has, I believe, been paid to its
+successor, which carried the treatment down to the fall of Napoleon.
+Notably, it may be said that my theme has brought me into pleasant
+correspondence with several Japanese officials and translators, than
+whom none, as far as known to me, have shown closer or more interested
+attention to the general subject; how fruitfully, has been
+demonstrated both by their preparation and their accomplishments in
+the recent war. As far as known to myself, more of my works have been
+done into Japanese than into any other one tongue.
+
+In 1890 and 1891 there was no session of the College. During this
+period of suspended animation its activities were limited to my own
+preparations for continuing the historical course through the wars of
+the French Revolution and Empire, with a view to the resumption of
+teaching. I was kept on this duty; and I think no one else was busy in
+direct connection with the institution, though the former lecturers
+were for the most part available. It is evident how particularly
+fortunate such circumstances were to an author. For the two years that
+they lasted I had no cares beyond writing; was unvexed by either
+pecuniary anxieties or interference from my superiors. The College
+slumbered and I worked. My results, after one season's use as
+lectures, were published in two volumes, under the title _The
+Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire_.
+
+Of this work it may accurately be said that in order of composition it
+was begun with its final chapter. The accumulation and digestion of
+material had been spasmodic and desultory, for I had hesitated much
+whether to pursue the treatment after 1783. The instability of the
+College fortunes had irritated as well as harassed me. If the navy did
+not want what I was doing, why should I persist? Nothing having been
+given to the world, I had had no outside encouragement; and little
+from within the profession, save the cordial approval of a very few
+officers. However, during the two years of doubtful struggle I had
+read quite widely upon the general history of the particular period,
+as well as upon the effects of sea power in the Peloponnesian War;
+together with such details as I could collect from Livy and Polybius
+of naval occurrences while Hannibal was in Italy. My outlook was thus
+enlarged; not upon military matters only, but by an appreciation of
+the strength of Athens, broad based upon an extensive system of
+maritime commerce. This prepared me to see in the Continental System
+of Napoleon the direct outcome of Great Britain's maritime supremacy,
+and the ultimate cause of his own ruin. Thus, while gathering matter,
+a conception was forming, which became the dominant feature in my
+scheme by the time I began to write in earnest. Coincidently with
+these studies, and with my other occupations when at first president
+of the College, two introductory chapters had been written; one
+bridging the interval between 1783 and 1793, so as to hitch on to my
+first book, the other dealing with the state of the navies at the
+opening of the French Revolution.
+
+There Mr. Whitney's action brought me up with a round turn. When I
+resumed, late in 1889, I extended my reading by Jomini's _Wars of the
+French Republic_, a work instructive from the political as well as
+military point of view; concurrently testing Howe's naval campaign of
+1794 by the principles advanced by the military author, which
+commended themselves to my judgment. In connection with this study of
+naval strategy, I reconstructed independently Howe's three engagements
+of May 28th and 29th, and June 1st, from the details given by James,
+Troude, and Chevalier, analyzing and discussing the successive
+tactical measures of the opposing admirals; in the battle of June 1st
+going so far as to trace even the tracks of the fifty-odd individual
+ships throughout the action. This, the most complicated presentation I
+ever attempted, was a needless elaboration, though of absorbing
+interest to me when once begun. A comparison between it and the bare
+conventional diagram of Trafalgar in the same volumes, which has been
+criticised as not reproducing the facts, may serve to show how far
+multiplicity of minutiæ conduces to clearness of perception. From the
+Trafalgar plan a reader, lay or professional, can grasp readily the
+underlying conceptions upon which the battle was fought, and the
+manner in which they were executed, as commonly received; but who ever
+has tried to comprehend the movements of the vessels on June 1st, as I
+elicited them? Assuming their correctness, it was a mere mental
+diversion, in result rather confusing than illuminative to a student;
+whereas ships arranged like beads on a string can give an impression
+fundamentally correct, and to be apprehended at a glance. So far from
+tending to lucidity, accumulation of detail in pursuit of minute
+accuracy rather obscures. Nelson himself indicated his intentions
+sufficiently by straight lines. One merit my June 1st plan may
+possibly possess; the perplexing optical effect may convey better than
+words the intricacy of a naval _mêlée_.
+
+Coincidently with the study of military events, connoted by Howe's
+campaign and Jomini, I of course did a good deal of reading which here
+can be described only as miscellaneous; prominent amid which was
+Thiers's _History of the Consulate and Empire_, Napoleon's
+_Correspondence and Commentaries_, and the orations of Pitt and Fox.
+From Thiers, confirmed by contemporary memoirs and pamphlets and other
+incidental mention, I gained my conviction that the Continental System
+was the determinative factor in Napoleon's fortunes after Tilsit.
+Pitt's speeches, taken with his life, seemed to me conclusive as to
+his policy, despite the evil construction placed upon his acts by
+Frenchmen of his day, which Thiers has perpetuated. I saw clearly and
+conclusively, as I thought, apparent in his public words and private
+letters, a strong desire for peace, and a hand forced by a wilful
+spirit of aggression which momentarily had lost the balance of its
+reason. Making every allowance for the extravagances of the French
+rulers, unpractised in government and driven by a burning sense of
+mission to universal mankind, it was to me evident that their demands
+upon other nations, and notably upon Great Britain, were subversive of
+all public order and law, and of international security.
+
+Pitt's proud resolution to withstand to the uttermost this tendency,
+coupled with his evident passionate clinging to peace as the basis of
+his life ambition, constituted to my apprehension a tragedy; of lofty
+personal aim and effort wrestling with, and slowly done to death by,
+opposing conditions too mighty for man. The dramatic intensity of the
+situation was increased by the absence of the external dramatic appeal
+characteristic of his father. It carried the force of emotion
+suppressed. The bitter inner disappointment is veiled under the
+reserve of his private life and the reticence of his public utterance,
+which give to his personality a certain remoteness from usual joys and
+sorrows; but, the veil once pierced by sympathy, the human side of the
+younger Pitt stands revealed as of one who, without complaint, bore no
+common burden, did no common work, and to whom fell no common share of
+the suffering which arises from disappointment and frustration, in
+ideals and achievement. The conflict of the two motives in the man's
+steadfast nature aroused in me an enthusiasm which I did not seek to
+check; for I believe enthusiasm no bad spirit in which to realize
+history to yourself or others. It tends to bias; but bias can be
+controlled. Enthusiasm has its place, not for action only, nor for
+speaking, but in writing and in appreciation; quite as critical
+analysis and judicial impartiality have theirs. To deny either is to
+err. The moment of exaltation gone, the dispassionate intellect may
+sit in judgment upon the expressions of thought and feeling which have
+been prompted by the stirring of the mind; but without this there
+lacks one element of true presentation. The height of full recognition
+for a great event, or a great personality, has not been reached. The
+swelling of the breast under strong emotion uplifts understanding.
+Under such influence a writer is to the extent of his faculties on the
+level of his theme. As for biography, I would no more attempt to write
+that of a man for whom I felt no warm admiration, than I would
+maintain friendship with one for whom I had no affection.
+
+Doubtless there also was in Pitt's manner of speech, in the cast of
+his sentences,--the style that is the man himself,--something which
+appealed especially to me. Often, when reading in the Public Library
+of New York a passage of unusual eloquence, I would be strongly moved
+to rise on the spot and give three cheers; and I heartily subscribed
+to a Latin motto on the title-page of the edition I was using: If you
+could but have heard himself. But it was more than that. The story
+increasingly impressed itself upon me. I saw him conscious of great
+capacities for the administration of peace, an inner conviction of far
+less ability for war; with a vision of Great Britain happy and
+prosperous beyond all past experience under his enlightened guidance,
+of which already the plans had been revealed and proof been given, and
+over against this the palpable reality of a current too powerful to be
+resisted, sweeping her into a conflict, the end of which, amid such
+unprecedented conditions, could not be foreseen. Also, despite all his
+deficiencies for a war ministry, as I read and studied the general
+features of the situation with which he had to deal, I became
+convinced that the broad lines of his policy coincided with the
+military necessities of the case, to an extent that he himself very
+possibly did not realize. For as the Directory outlined Napoleon's
+Continental System, so Pitt, unknowingly perhaps, pursued the methods,
+as he definitely predicted the means--exhaustion--by which his
+successors brought to a stop the mischievous energies of France under
+the great emperor.
+
+Thus, before I began to write, my leading ideas for the historical
+treatment of the influence of sea power during the period 1793-1814
+rested upon an approval of the main features of Pitt's war policy, and
+sympathy with his personal position; upon a clear conviction of the
+weight of the Continental System as a factor in the general situation,
+and of its being a direct consequence from British maritime supremacy;
+and upon a sufficiently comprehensive acquaintance with the operations
+of the land warfare up to the Peace of Amiens. Having as yet written
+only the two introductory chapters, and Howe's campaign being strictly
+episodical, the work as an organic whole was still before me when the
+summer of 1890 arrived. It was then thought probable that the College
+would at once resume, and in order to be at hand I settled my family
+in Newport, there addressing myself to my new lectures. Considering
+the mass of detail through which my hearers must be carried, I thought
+advisable to begin with an outline statement of the general political
+and military conditions, and of their sequences; a rudimentary figure,
+a skeleton, the nakedness of which should render easy to understand
+the mutual bearings of the several parts, and their articulations. So
+most surely could the relation of sea power to the other members be
+seen, and its influence upon them and upon the ultimate issue be
+appreciated. Before I began, I remember explaining to a brother
+officer my conception of the Continental System as the culmination of
+the maritime struggle, which in a narrowly military sense had ended
+with Trafalgar. The light thus cast would illuminate afterwards each
+of the several sections of the history, treated circumstantially in
+order of time. In short, I here applied to the whole the method of my
+diagram for Trafalgar, and not of that for June 1st. The result was
+the chapter last in the work, as it now stands, but the first to be
+composed.
+
+A few months before book publication this chapter appeared in the
+_Quarterly Review_, under the title "Pitt's War Policy," chosen by me
+to express my recognition that the grand policy was his; that in it he
+was real as well as titular premier; and that in my judgment, despite
+the numerous errors of detail which demonstrated his limited military
+understanding, the economical comprehension of the statesman had
+developed a political strategy which vindicated his greatness in war
+as in peace. The article ended, as the chapter then did, with the
+well-known quotation, particularly apt to my appreciation, "The Pilot
+had weathered the storm." The few subsequent pages were added later.
+By an odd coincidence, just as I had offered the paper to the
+_Quarterly_, one under the same title, "by a Foxite," came out in
+another magazine. Somewhat discomposed, I hurried to look this up; but
+found, as from the _nom de plume_ might be presumed, that it did not
+take my line of argument, but rather, as I recall, that of Pitt's
+opponents, which Macaulay has developed with his accustomed
+brilliancy, although to my mind with profound misconception and
+superficial criticism. Fox's speeches had made upon me the impression
+of the mere objector. Indeed, I felt this so strongly that I had
+written of him as "the great, but factious, leader of the opposition."
+In proofreading I struck out "factious;" as needless, and as a
+generalization on insufficient premises.
+
+It was not till the following December--1890--that I began the two
+chapters next in order of composition, on "The Warfare against
+Commerce." These occupied me late into the winter, covering as they
+did the entire period 1793-1814, and embracing a great deal of
+detail. Taken together, these three chapters, final but first written,
+contain the main argument of the book. The naval occurrences,
+brilliant and interesting as they were, are logically but the prelude
+to the death grapple. Pitt's policy stood justified, because naval
+supremacy, established by war, secured control of the seas and of
+maritime commerce, and so exhausted Napoleon. Not till this
+demonstration had been accomplished to my own satisfaction did I take
+up the narrative and discussion of warfare, land and sea. Thus the
+prelude followed the play. My memory retains associations which enable
+me definitely to fix the progress of the work. Thus the chapter on
+"The Brest Blockade," from its characteristics, long continuance, and
+incidents, one of the most interesting of the purely naval operations,
+was composed in the summer of 1891, at Richfield; while the campaign
+and battle of Trafalgar, the last done of all, passed through my hands
+in April, 1892, in Richmond, Virginia, where I then was on
+court-martial duty.
+
+This second book was written under much more encouraging circumstances
+than its predecessor, and with much greater deliberation. The first
+occupied me little over one year; the second, though covering only
+one-fifth the time, was in hand three. There were long interruptions,
+it is true; the Puget Sound business, and the writing of a short _Life
+of Farragut_. But the chief cause of delay was a much more extensive
+preparation. This was owing largely to the crowded activities of the
+brief twenty years treated, and still more to wider outlook. I
+attempted, indeed, nothing that could be called original research. I
+still relied wholly upon printed matter, but in that I wandered far.
+The privilege was accorded me of free access to the alcoves of what
+was then the Astor Library, now, while keeping its name, incorporated
+with the New York Public Library; and I rummaged its well-stocked
+shelves, following up every clue, especially memoirs, pamphlets, and
+magazines, contemporary with my period. From the estimate I had formed
+of the effect of commerce upon the outcome of the hostilities, it was
+necessary to digest the statistics of the times, much of which existed
+in tabulated form; and, for commercial policy, the State Papers, and
+debates in Parliament, as well as in the French National Convention. I
+now had not only interest in my task, but pride; for the favorable
+criticism upon the first sea-power book not only had surprised me, but
+had increased my ambition and my self-confidence. It was a distinct
+help that there was no expectation of pecuniary advantage; no
+publisher or magazine editor pressing for "copy," on which dollars
+depended. I now often recall with envy the happiness of those days,
+when the work was its own reward, and quite sufficient, too, almost as
+good as a baby; when there were no secondary considerations, however
+important, to dispute for the first place. I have never knowingly let
+work leave my hands in shape less good than the best I can turn out;
+but I have often felt the temptation to do so, and wished--almost, not
+quite--that there was no money in it. I recast Dr. Johnson's saying:
+"None but a blockhead would write unless he needed money." None but a
+blockhead would write for money, unless he had to.
+
+Though not embarrassed by publishers, I found a more formidable enemy
+on my tracks in 1892. There had been a change in the Bureau of
+Navigation, and the new chief, under whom the College was, thought my
+help to it less necessary than my going to sea. To an advocate of
+allowing me time, he replied, summarily, "It is not the business of a
+naval officer to write books." As an aphorism the remark is doubtless
+unassailable; but, with a policy thus defined, my position, again to
+quote Boatswain Chucks, became "precarious and not at all permanent."
+That my turn for sea service had come was indisputable. I could
+pretend to no grievance, but I did want first to finish that book. Yet
+I have recalled with happiness that I was enabled to work steadfastly
+on, my pulse beating no quicker for fear I should be interrupted and
+my task left unfinished. I remember a Boston publisher telling me of
+the anxiety felt by one of his distinguished clients, lest death
+should overtake him before that which he had planned was completed.
+The feeling is common to man, and one is touched by the apparent
+tragedy when men of promise and achievement are so removed, their aims
+unaccomplished, as were recently Professor Rawson Gardiner and Sir
+William Hunter; but it was given me early to realize that there is no
+such thing as being cut off unbetimes. If I were called at the end of
+a day's stint, or the pen fell from my hand in the midst of it, that
+which was appointed me was done; if well done, what mattered the rest?
+This quietness came to me through a chain of thought. I had been
+experiencing, as many others have, the weariness of a long-winded job,
+the end of which seemed to recede with each day's progress; and there
+came to my mind Long-fellow's "Village Blacksmith:"
+
+   "Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing,
+      Onward through life he goes;
+    Each morning sees some task begin,
+      _Each evening sees it close_."
+
+Would it were so with me! And a voice replied, "Is it not so with you?
+with all?" Since then I have understood; though the flesh is often
+weak, and even the calm of the study cannot always exclude the
+contagious fever of our American pace. In the particular juncture, the
+Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Tracy, took my view of relative
+importances, and time was secured me. The manuscript was complete by
+the late spring of 1892, and the book published in December, having
+meantime been used for lectures in the first session of the College in
+its new building; a renewal of life which has since proved continuous.
+
+During this interval occurred another presidential campaign. Mr.
+Harrison was defeated and Mr. Cleveland elected. I was now ready to go
+to sea, but by this time had decided that authorship had for me
+greater attractions than following up my profession, and promised a
+fuller and more successful old age. I would have retired immediately,
+had I then fulfilled the necessary forty years' service; but of these
+I still lacked four. My purpose was to take up at once the War of
+1812, while the history of the preceding events was fresh in my mind;
+and in this view I asked to be excused from sea duty, undertaking that
+I would retire when my forty years were complete. The request was
+probably inadmissible, for I could have given no guarantees; and the
+precedent might have been bad. At any rate, it was not granted,
+luckily for me; for by a combination of unforeseen circumstances the
+ship to which I was ordered, the _Chicago_, was sent to Europe as
+flag-ship of that station, and on her visit to England, in 1894,
+occasion was taken by naval officers and others to express in public
+manner their recognition of the value they thought my work had been to
+the appreciation of naval questions there. This brought my name
+forward in a way that could not but be flattering, and affected
+favorably the sale of the books; the previous readers of which had
+seemingly been few, though from among those few I had received
+pleasant compliments. Upon this followed the conferring upon me
+honorary degrees by the two universities; D.C.L. by Oxford, and LL.D.
+by Cambridge. After my return, in 1895, LL.D. was extended also by
+Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, in the order named, and by McGill in
+Montreal.
+
+Another very pleasing and interesting experience while in London was
+dining with the Royal Navy Club. This is an ancient institution,
+dating back to the middle of the eighteenth century. Its list of
+members carries many celebrated names, among others Nelson. It has no
+club-house, and exists as an organization only; meeting for dinners on
+or near the dates of some half-dozen famous naval victories, the
+anniversaries of which it thus commemorates yearly. There is by rule
+one guest of the evening, and one only, who is titularly the guest of
+the presiding officer; but on this occasion an exception was made for
+our admiral and myself. Unfortunately, he, who was much the better
+after-dinner speaker, was ill and could not attend. The rule thus
+remained intact, and I have understood that this was the first time in
+the history of the club that the guest had been a foreigner.
+
+The _Chicago_ had left England and was lying at Antwerp when the time
+for conferring degrees arrived. My attendance in person was requisite,
+but only a week could be spared from the ship for the purpose. This
+made it impossible for me to be present in both cases at the high
+ceremonial, where the honors are bestowed upon the full group of
+recipients. Oxford had been first to tender me her distinction, and I
+accordingly arranged my journey with a view to her celebration; two
+days before which I went down to Cambridge, and was there received and
+enrolled at a private audience, before the accustomed officials and
+some few visitors from outside. What the circumstances lacked in the
+pomp of numbers and observance, and in the consequent stimulus to
+interest which a very novel experience arouses, was compensated to me
+by the few hours of easy social intercourse with a few eminent
+persons, whom I had the pleasure of then meeting very informally.
+
+The great occasion at Oxford presents a curious combination of
+impressiveness and horse-play, such as is associated with the Abbot of
+Misrule, in the stories of the Middle Ages. It is this smack and
+suggestion of antiquity, of unnumbered such occasions in the misty
+past, when the student was half-scholar and half-ruffian, which make
+the permitted license of to-day not only tolerable, but in a sense
+even venerable. The good-humor and general acceptance on both sides,
+by chaffers and chaffed, testified to recognized conditions; and there
+is about a hoary institution a saving grace which cannot be
+transferred to _parvenus_. Practised in a modern Cis-Atlantic seat of
+learning, as I have seen it done, without the historical background,
+the same disregard of normal decorum becomes undraped rowdyism--boxing
+without gloves. The scene and its concurrences at Oxford have been
+witnessed by too many, and too often described, for me to attempt
+them. I shall narrate only my particular experiences. I had been
+desired to appear in full uniform--epaulettes, cocked hat, sword, and
+what is suggestively called "brass-bound" coat; swallow-tailed, with a
+high collar stiffened with lining and gold lace, set off by trousers
+with a like broad stripe of lace, not inaptly characterized by some
+humorist as "railroad" trousers. The theory of these last, I believe,
+is that so much decoration on hat and collar, if not balanced by an
+equivalent amount below, is top-heavy in visual effect, if not on
+personal stability. Whatever the reason, it is all there, and I had it
+all at Oxford; all on my head and back, I mean, except the epaulettes.
+For to my concern I found that over all this paraphernalia I must also
+wear the red silk gown of a D.C.L. It became evident, immediately upon
+trial, that the silk and the epaulettes were agreeing like the
+Kilkenny cats, so it was conceded that these naval ornaments should be
+dispensed with; the more readily as they could not have been seen. In
+the blend, and for the occasion, my legal laurels prevailed over my
+professional exterior.
+
+In the matter of dress my life certainly culminated when I walked
+up--or down--High Street in Oxford with cocked hat, red silk gown, and
+sword, the railroad trousers modestly peeping beneath. It must be
+admitted that the townsmen either had more than French politeness, or
+else were used to incongruities. I did not see one crack a smile;
+whether any turned to look or not, I did not turn to see. My
+hospitable escort and myself joined the other expectants before the
+Sheldonian Theatre, where the ceremonies are held. The audience, of
+both sexes, visitors and students, had already crammed the benches and
+galleries of the great circular interior when we marched to our seats,
+in single file, down a narrow aisle. The fun, doubtless, had been
+going on already some time; but for us it was non-existent till we
+entered, when the hose was turned full upon us and our several
+peculiarities. I am bound to say that to encourage us we got quite as
+many cheers as chaff, and the personalities which flew about like
+grape-shot were pretty much hit or miss. I noticed that some one from
+aloft called out, "Why don't you have your hair cut?" which I
+afterwards understood was a delicate allusion to my somewhat
+unparalleled baldness; but it happened that two behind me in the
+procession was a very distinguished Russian scientist, like myself a
+D.C.L. _in ovo_, whose long locks fell over his collar, and I
+innocently supposed that so pertinent a remark was addressed to him on
+an occasion when _im_pertinence was lord of the ascendant. Thus the
+shaft passed me harmless, or fell back blunted from my triple armor of
+dulness.
+
+Although in itself in most ways enjoyable, the cruise of the _Chicago_
+while it lasted necessarily suspended authorship. I heard intimations
+of the common opinion that the leisure of a naval officer's life would
+afford abundant opportunity. Even I myself for a moment imagined that
+time in some measure might be found for accumulating material, for
+which purpose I took along several books; but it was in vain. Neither
+a ship nor a book is patient of a rival, and I soon ceased the effort
+to serve both. Night work was tried, contrary to my habit; but after a
+few weeks I had to recognize that the evening's exertion had dulled my
+head for the next morning's duties.
+
+My orders not only interrupted writing, but changed its direction for
+a long while. I had foreseen that the War of 1812, as a whole, must be
+flat in interest as well as laborious in execution; and, upon the
+provocation of other duty, I readily turned from it in distaste. Nine
+years elapsed before I took it up; and then rather under the
+compulsion of completing my Sea Power series, as first designed, than
+from any inclination to the theme. It occupied three years--usefully,
+I hope--and was published in 1905. Regarded as history, it is by far
+the most thorough work I have done. I went largely to original
+documents in Washington, Ottawa, and London, and I believe I have
+contributed to the particular period something new in both material
+and interpretation. But, whatever value the book may possess to one
+already drawn to the subject, it is impossible to infuse charm where
+from the facts of the case it does not exist. As a Chinese
+portrait-painter is said to have remonstrated with a discontented
+patron, "How can pretty face make, when pretty face no have got?"
+
+Thus my orders to the _Chicago_ led to dropping 1812, and to this my
+_Life of Nelson_ was directly due. The project had already occurred to
+me, for the conspicuous elements of human as well as professional
+interest could not well escape one who had just been following him
+closely in his military career. _Sea Power in the French Revolution_
+having been published less than six months before, the framework of
+external events, into which his actions must be fitted, was fresh in
+my recollection, as was also the analysis of his campaigns and
+battles, available at once for fuller treatment, more directly
+biographical. After consultation with my publishers I decided to
+undertake the work, and with reference to it chiefly I provided myself
+reading-matter. I have already said that the experiment of writing on
+board did not succeed. I composed part of the first chapter and then
+stopped; but the purpose remained, and was resumed very soon after
+leaving the _Chicago_, in May, 1895.
+
+For the writing of biography I had formed a theory of my own, a
+guiding principle, closely akin to the part which sea power had played
+in my treatment of history. This leading idea was not intended to
+exclude other points of view or manners of presentation, but was to
+subordinate them somewhat peremptorily. As defined to myself, my plan
+was to realize personality by living with the man, in as close
+familiarity as was consistent with the fact of his being dead. This
+was to be done first, for myself, as the necessary prelude to
+transmission to my readers. When there remains a huge mass of
+correspondence, by one as frank in utterance and copious in
+self-revelation as was Nelson, the opportunity to get on terms of such
+intimacy is unique, one-sided though the communication is. Besides,
+companions and subordinates have left abundant records of their
+association with him, which constitute, as it were, the other side of
+conversation; relieving the monologue of his own letters. The first
+thing in order is to know the living man; and it seemed to me that,
+with such materials, this could be accomplished most fully by steeping
+one's self in them, creating an environment closely analogous to the
+intercourse of daily life. I believed that passive surrender to these
+impressions, rather than conscious labored effort, would gradually
+produce the perceptions of immediate contact, to the utmost that the
+nature of the case admitted. Johnson doubtless was right in naming
+personal acquaintance as chief among the qualifications of a
+biographer; failing that, one must seek the best substitute. By
+either method the conception of character and temperament is formed;
+its reproduction to readers is a matter of power of expression, and of
+capacity to introduce aptly, here and there, the minute touches by
+which an artist secures likeness and heightens effect.
+
+Whatever the worth of this theory, it was due in large measure to
+revulsion from a form of biography, to me always displeasing and
+essentially crude, which gives a narrative of external life-events,
+disjointed continually by letters. Profuse recourse to letters simply
+turns over to the reader the task which the biographer has undertaken
+to do for him. Perhaps the biographer cannot do it. Then he had better
+not undertake the job. A collection of letters is one thing, a
+biography another; and they do not mix well when a career abounds in
+incident. Letters are material for biography, as original documents
+are material for history; but as documents are not history, so letters
+are not biography. The historian and biographer by publishing
+virtually contract to present their readers with a digested, reasoned
+whole; the best expression, full yet balanced, that they can give of
+the truth concerning a period, or a man. It is a labor of time and
+patience, and should be also of love; one which the reader is to be
+spared, on the principle that a thousand men should not have to do,
+each for himself, the work the one writer professes. It is no fair
+treatment to tumble at their feet a basketful of papers, and virtually
+say, "There! find out the man for yourself."
+
+The interest of lives, of course, varies, and with it the opportunity
+of the biographer. I do not mean in degree, which is trite to remark,
+but in kind, which is less recognized. There are men the value of
+whose memory to their race lies in their thought and words, whose
+career is uneventful. Yet even with them the impression of personality
+is not as vividly produced by masses of correspondence as it may be by
+the petty occurrences of daily life, which for them are the analogues
+of the stirring incidents that mark the course of the man of public
+action, statesman or warrior. The reason is plain; the character of
+few rises to the height of their words, written or spoken. These show
+their wisdom, or power, and are uplifting; but their shortcomings,
+too, have a virtue. We fight the better for appreciating that victors
+have known defeat. The supreme gift of biography to mankind is
+personality; not what the man thought or did, but what he was. Herein
+is inspiration and reproof; motive force, inspiring or deterrent. If
+nothing better, mere recognition, or exultation in an excellence to
+which we do not attain, has a saving grace of its own.
+
+For the purposes of his biographer, Dr. Johnson scarcely left London.
+Beyond a brief visit to Paris, only a tour through the Hebrides; this
+an event so colossal in its elevation above the flat level of his
+outward existence, like the church towers in a Dutch landscape, that
+it is treated as a thing quite apart, has a volume to itself, severed
+from its before and after. Boswell gives letters, certainly, and many;
+yet, in the matter of character portrayal, what are they alongside of
+the talk? And also, more pertinent, what to Boswell was even the talk,
+compared with the intercourse to which the talk was incident? In this
+he immersed himself and his strong receptive powers, absorbing the
+impression which he has so skilfully reproduced. Such apprehension as
+Boswell thus gained for himself is no neutral acquirement; it is a
+working force, instinctively selective from that on which it feeds,
+and intuitive in its power of arrangement. To copy his result is
+futile. Like Nelson, there is but one Boswell; but it may be permitted
+to believe that lesser men will profit to the extent of their
+capacities by adopting his method. This possibly he never formulated,
+in that again proving his genius, the unconscious faculty of a very
+self-conscious man; but I conceive the process to have been, first
+know your subject yourself thoroughly by close contact and sympathy,
+and then so handle your material as to bring out to the reader the
+image revealed to you.
+
+This is, in a measure, a plea for picturesque treatment of biography
+and of history; not by gaudy coloring and violent contrasts, striving
+after rhetorical effect, but in the observance of proportion, of
+grouping, of subordination to a central idea; not content with mere
+narration, however accurate in details. A narrative which fails in
+portrayal, in picturesque impression, is not accurate; and a biography
+which presents a man's thoughts and acts, yet does not over and above
+them fashion his personality to the reader, is a failure. How much
+conscious effort may be necessary to the due handling of materials, I
+certainly cannot undertake to say; but persuaded I am that the utmost
+results possible to any particular man can be attained only by passive
+assimilation, and that so they will be attained to the measure of his
+individual capacity. By such digestion a theme apparently dry may be
+quickened to interest. Though not a lawyer, nor a student of
+constitutions, I found Stubbs's _Constitutional History of England_
+fascinating. I have not analyzed my pleasure, but I believe it to have
+been due to portrayal; to arrangement of data by a man exceptionally
+gifted for vivid presentation, who had so lived with his subject that
+it had realized itself to him as a living whole, which he successfully
+conveyed to his readers. There is no disjointment. The result is a
+great historical picture; or a biography, of law as a benevolent
+developing personality, moving amid the struggles and miseries of the
+human throng, healing and redressing.
+
+To _The Life of Nelson_ I applied the idea of this method, which I
+thought to be helped rather than hindered by my warm admiration for
+him, little short of affection. I had faith in the power of
+attachment to comprehend character and action; and because of mine I
+believed myself safer when necessary to censure. I grieved while I
+condemned. I was sure also that, however far below an absolute best I
+might fall, the best that I could do must thus come out. Amid approval
+sufficient to gratify me, I found most satisfaction in that of a
+friend who said he felt as if he had been living with my hero; and of
+another who told me that after his day's work, which I knew to be
+laborious, he had refreshed his evenings with _Nelson_. In the first
+edition I fell into two mistakes of some importance, as well as others
+in small details, the effect of which was to confirm me in my theory;
+for while they were blemishes, and needed correction, they did not,
+and do not, to my mind affect the portrait--the conveyance of true
+personality.
+
+Of these errors the most serious, regarded as a fault, was an
+inadequate study of Nelson's course at Naples in 1799, so sharply
+challenged at that time and afterwards. I recognized the justice of a
+criticism which alleged that I had not sufficiently examined the other
+side of the case, as presented by Italian authors. This I now did,
+rewriting my account for the second edition. I found no reason to
+change my estimate of Nelson's conduct, but rather to confirm the
+favorable aspects; but what was more instructive to me was that even
+so large an oversight did not when remedied affect the portrait. The
+personality remained as first conceived; Nelson had acted in
+character. The same was substantially true of a more pregnant
+incident, the discovery of a number of his letters to his wife, which
+had escaped the diligent search made by the editor of his
+correspondence, Sir Harris Nicolas. After lying concealed for the
+half-century between Nicolas and myself, they turned up shortly after
+my book was in print. Here was more self-revelation; how might it
+modify my picture? The event was ushered in with a great flourish of
+trumpets, the walls of Jericho were about to fall, and I own I felt
+anxious. Some of the letters were published; permission to see the
+others was refused me. As these have not since been given to the
+world, I fancy that they sustain the opinion expressed by me on those
+that were; that beyond emphasizing somewhat his hardness to Lady
+Nelson during the period of his growing alienation, they add little to
+the impression before formed. A slight touch of the brush, another
+line in the face, that is all.
+
+The question of Nelson's action at Naples was brought forward in a way
+which required from me some controversial writing. To this I have no
+intention of alluding here, beyond stating that up to the present my
+confidence has not been shaken in my defence of the main lines of his
+conduct, clearing him of the deceit and double-dealing alleged against
+him. I say this because there may be some who have thought me silenced
+by argument, in that I have not seen fit to rise to such crude taunts
+as that, "After this Captain Mahan will not undertake," etc. What
+Captain Mahan will or will not do is of no particular importance; but
+when the repute of such an one as Nelson is at stake, burdened by the
+weight of calumny laid upon him by Southey's ill-instructed censures,
+it is right to repeat that nothing I have seen since I last wrote,
+about 1900, has appeared to me to call for further answer.
+
+_The Life of Nelson_, and _The War of 1812_, of which I have already
+spoken, remain my last extensive works. In the interval between them,
+1897-1902, I was engaged mostly in occasional writing, for magazines
+or otherwise. From time to time these papers have been collected and
+published, under titles which seemed appropriate. Concerning them, for
+the most part, there is one general statement to be made. With few
+exceptions, they have been written to order. Partly from indisposition
+to this particular activity, partly from indolence, ultimately from
+conviction that editors best know--or should know--what the public
+want, I have left them to come to me. When expedient, I have taken a
+subject somewhat apart from that suggested, but usually akin. Speaking
+again generally, the field of thought into which I have been thus
+drawn has been that of the external policy of nations, and of their
+mutual--international--relations; not in respect to international law,
+on which I have no claim to teach, but to the examination of extant
+conditions, and the appreciation of their probable and proper effect
+upon future events and present action. In conception, these studies
+are essentially military. The conditions are to my apprehension
+forces, contending, perhaps even conflicting; to be handled by those
+responsible as a government disposes its fleets and armies. This is
+not advocacy of war, but recognition that the providential movement of
+the world proceeds through the pressure of circumstances; and that
+adverse circumstances can be controlled only by organization of means,
+in which armed physical power is one dominant factor.
+
+In direct result from the line of thought into which I was drawn by my
+conception of sea power, and which has inspired my subsequent magazine
+writing, I am frankly an imperialist, in the sense that I believe that
+no nation, certainly no great nation, should henceforth maintain the
+policy of isolation which fitted our early history; above all, should
+not on that outlived plea refuse to intervene in events obviously
+thrust upon its conscience. The world of national activities has
+become crowded, like the world of professions; opportunity,
+consequently, has diminished, and possibilities must be cultivated and
+husbanded. This is the primary duty of a government to its own people
+and to their posterity. But there are other duties which must be
+accepted, even though they entail national sacrifice, because laid at
+the nation's door, like Cuba, or forced upon its decision, like the
+Philippines. I see too clearly in myself the miserable disposition to
+shirk work and care, and responsibility, to condone the same in
+nations. I once heard a preacher thus parody effectively the words of
+the prophet--"Here am I, send _him_!" And I have heard attributed to
+the late Mr. John Hay an equally telling allusion to certain of our
+moralists, who would discard the Philippines on the score of danger to
+the national principles. Said a pious girl, "When I realized that
+personal ornaments were dragging my immortal soul to hell, I gave them
+to my sister." Still less, let us hope, will one of the wealthiest of
+nations, almost alone in the possession of an abundant surplus income,
+desert a charge on the poor plea of economy; or so far distrust its
+fate, as to turn its back upon a duty, because dangerous or
+troublesome. If the political independence of the Philippine Islands
+bid fair to result in the loss, or lessening, of the safeguards of
+personal freedom to the private Philippine islander, the mission of
+the United states is at present clear, nor can it be abandoned without
+national discredit; nay, national crime. Personal liberty is a greater
+need than political independence, the chief value of which is to
+insure the freedom of the individual. Similarly, not only for the sake
+of its own citizens, but for the world at large, each country should
+diligently watch and weigh current external occurrences; not
+necessarily to meddle, still less to forsake its proper sphere, but
+because convinced that failure to act when occasion demands may be as
+injurious as mistaken action, and indicates a more dangerous
+condition, in that moral inadequacy means ultimately material decline.
+When the spirit leaves the body, the body decays.
+
+In these subjects and my way of viewing them, I suppose that ten years
+ago, before our war with Spain, I was ahead of the times, at least in
+my own country, and to some extent helped to turn thought into present
+channels; much as to my exposition of sea power has been credited a
+part of the impulse to naval development which characterizes to-day.
+Immediately after the Spanish War I seemed to some, if I may trust
+their words, to have done a bit of prophecy; while others laid to my
+door a chief share in the mistaken direction they considered the
+country to be taking. Of course, I was pleased by this; I have never
+pretended to be above flattery judiciously administered: but, while
+confident still in the main outlook of my writing, I know too well
+that, when you come to details, prediction is a matter of hit or miss,
+and that I have often missed as well as hit in particulars. "It is all
+a matter of guess," said Nelson, when tied down to a specific
+decision, "but the world attributes wisdom to him who guesses right."
+This is less true of the big questions and broad lines of contemporary
+history. There insight can discern really something of tendencies;
+enough to guide judgment or suggest reflection. But I am now
+sixty-seven, and can recognize in myself a growing conservatism, which
+may probably limit me henceforth to bare keeping up with the
+procession in the future national march. Perhaps I may lag behind.
+With years, speculation as well as action becomes less venturesome,
+and I look increasingly to the changeless past as the quiet field for
+my future labors.
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Worcester, quoting from _Falconer's Marine Dictionary_, defines
+"Grommet" as "a small ring or wreath, formed of the strand of a rope,
+used for various purposes."
+
+[2] J. R. Soley, _The Blockade and the Cruisers_, 1883. Scribner's,
+_Navy in the Civil War_.
+
+[3] This statement when written rested on my childhood's memory only.
+A few months later there came into my hands a volume of the
+publications of the British Navy Records Society, containing the
+Recollections of Commander James Anthony Gardner. 1775-1814. Gardner
+was at one time shipmates with Culmer, who it appears eventually
+received a commission. By Gardner's reckoning he would have been far
+along in the forties in 1790. The following is the description of him.
+"Billy was about five feet eight or nine, and stooped; hard features,
+marked with the small-pox; blind in an eye, and a wen nearly the size
+of an egg under his cheek-bone. His dress on a Sunday was a mate's
+uniform coat, with brown velvet waistcoat and breeches; boots with
+black tops; a gold-laced hat, and a large hanger by his side like the
+sword of John-a-Gaunt. He was proud of being the oldest midshipman in
+the navy, and looked upon young captains and lieutenants with
+contempt."
+
+[4] The _Navy Register_ of 1842 shows the number appointed in 1841 to
+have been two hundred and nineteen.
+
+[5] That is, within a quarter of a point on either side of her course.
+A "point" of the compass is one-eighth of a right angle; e.g., from
+North to East is eight points.
+
+[6] _Naval Letters of Captain Percival Drayton._ Edited by Miss
+Gertrude L. Hoyt. 1906. Pages 10, 3, 4.
+
+[7] The anchoring chains pass from inboard through the hawse-holes to
+the anchor. When left bent on soundings, the sea, if rough, will rush
+through them copiously. To prevent this in part, conical stuffed
+canvas bags were dragged in from outside. These were called
+"jackasses."
+
+[8] Acknowledgment is here due to Mr. Thomas G. Ford, once a professor
+at the Naval Academy, cordially remembered by the midshipmen who knew
+him there in the fifties. His article is in the issue of the _Naval
+Institute Proceedings_ for June, 1906, which has just reached me. He
+attributes his information to the late Admiral Preble, almost the only
+American officer within my time who has had the instincts of an
+archæologist.
+
+[9] Perhaps it is better to explain that there are three watches from
+8 P.M. to 8 A.M.; the two watches into which the crew were divided had
+on alternate nights one watch, or two watches, on deck. This sybarite
+was foretasting two watches below.
+
+[10] On referring to the file of the _Times_, I find that the forecast
+concerning Vicksburg occurred in the issue of July 1st. "It is not
+improbable we may hear that General Grant has been obliged to raise
+the siege of Vicksburg." It is surprising to note of how secondary
+importance the Vicksburg issue appears to have been thought at the
+time.
+
+[11] Rhodes's _History of the United States_, vol. v., p. 99.
+
+[12] I have here used the expression "harakiri," because so commonly
+understood among English--speaking readers. A Japanese correspondent
+has informed me that it is never used among the Japanese, with the
+signification we have attached to it. The proper word is "Seppuku."
+
+[13] _Official Record of the Union and Confederate Navies_, Series I.,
+iii., p. 722.
+
+[14] Since this was written, I have been told by one of the officers
+of the _Iroquois_, Lieutenant--now Rear-Admiral--Nicoll Ludlow, that
+many years afterwards he saw the story of the _Cayalti's_ captain,
+told by himself, in the _Overland Monthly_, of San Francisco. He had
+been allowed to go ashore to get provisions, and of course did not
+return.
+
+[15] This is not the place for a discussion of commerce-destroying as
+a method of war; but having myself given, as I believe, historical
+demonstration that as a sole or principal resource, maintained by
+scattered cruisers only, it is insufficient, I wish to warn public
+opinion against the reaction, the return swing of the pendulum, seen
+by me with dismay, which would make it of no use at all, and under the
+plea of immunity to "private property," so called, would exempt from
+attack the maritime commerce of belligerents.
+
+[16] "Is not patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man
+struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground,
+encumbers him with help?"--Johnson to the Earl of Chesterfield.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of From Sail to Steam, Recollections of
+Naval Life, by Captain A. T. Mahan
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval
+Life, by Captain A. T. Mahan
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life
+
+Author: Captain A. T. Mahan
+
+Release Date: April 22, 2008 [EBook #25122]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM SAIL TO STEAM, RECOLLECTIONS ***
+
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+Produced by Bryan Ness, Chris Logan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
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+</pre>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Page i]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>FROM SAIL TO STEAM</h1>
+
+<h2>RECOLLECTIONS OF NAVAL LIFE<br />&nbsp;</h2>
+
+
+<h3>BY<br />&nbsp;</h3>
+
+<h2>CAPT. A. T. MAHAN</h2>
+
+<h3>U.S.N. (RETIRED)<br />&nbsp;</h3>
+
+<h5>AUTHOR OF<br />
+"THE INFLUENCE OF SEA-POWER UPON HISTORY" ETC.<br />&nbsp;<br />&nbsp;</h5>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 115px;">
+<img src="images/logo.png" width="115" height="150" alt="Publisher Logo" title="Publisher Logo" />
+</div>
+
+<h3>HARPER &amp; BROTHERS PUBLISHERS</h3>
+<h4>NEW YORK AND LONDON<br />
+MCMVII</h4>
+
+
+
+<div class="section_break"></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Page ii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<p class="copyright">Copyright, 1906, 1907, by <span class="publisher">Harper &amp; Brothers</span>.</p>
+<p class="copyright"><em>All rights reserved.</em><br />
+Published October, 1907.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="section_break"></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Page iii]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+<div class="toc">
+
+<table summary="Contents">
+<thead>
+<tr>
+  <th class="table_right">CHAP.</th>
+  <th>&nbsp;</th>
+  <th class="table_left">PAGE</th>
+</tr>
+</thead>
+<tbody>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="table_left">Preface</td>
+  <td class="table_right toc_page"><a href="#Page_v">v</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="table_left">Introducing Myself</td>
+  <td class="table_right toc_page"><a href="#Page_ix">ix</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="table_right">I.</td>
+  <td class="table_left">Naval Conditions Before the War of Secession&mdash;the Officers and Seamen</td>
+  <td class="table_right"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="table_right">II.</td>
+  <td class="table_left">Naval Conditions Before the War of Secession&mdash;the Vessels</td>
+  <td class="table_right"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="table_right">III.</td>
+  <td class="table_left">The Naval Academy in its Relation to the Navy at Large</td>
+  <td class="table_right"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="table_right">IV.</td>
+  <td class="table_left">The Naval Academy in its Interior Workings&mdash;Practice Cruises</td>
+  <td class="table_right"><a href="#Page_70">70</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="table_right">V.</td>
+  <td class="table_left">My First Cruise after Graduation&mdash;Nautical Characters</td>
+  <td class="table_right"><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="table_right">VI.</td>
+  <td class="table_left">My First Cruise After Graduation&mdash;Nautical Scenes and Scenery&mdash;the Approach of Disunion</td>
+  <td class="table_right"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="table_right">VII.</td>
+  <td class="table_left">Incidents of War and Blockade Service</td>
+  <td class="table_right"><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="table_right">VIII.</td>
+  <td class="table_left">Incidents of War and Blockade Service&mdash;Continued</td>
+  <td class="table_right"><a href="#Page_179">179</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="table_right">IX.</td>
+  <td class="table_left">A Roundabout Road to China</td>
+  <td class="table_right"><a href="#Page_196">196</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="table_right">X.</td>
+  <td class="table_left">China and Japan</td>
+  <td class="table_right"><a href="#Page_229">229</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="table_right">XI.</td>
+  <td class="table_left">The Turning of a Long Lane&mdash;Historical, Naval, and Personal</td>
+  <td class="table_right"><a href="#Page_266">266</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="table_right">XII.</td>
+  <td class="table_left">Experiences of Authorship</td>
+  <td class="table_right"><a href="#Page_302">302</a></td>
+</tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Page iv]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<div class="section_break"></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Page v]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2>
+
+
+<p>When I was a boy, some years before I obtained my appointment in the
+navy, I spent many of those happy hours that only childhood knows
+poring over the back numbers of a British service periodical, which
+began its career in 1828, with the title <em>Colburn's United Service
+Magazine</em>; under which name, save and except the Colburn, it still
+survives. Besides weightier matters, its early issues abounded in
+reminiscences by naval officers, then yet in the prime of life, who
+had served through the great Napoleonic wars. More delightful still,
+it had numerous nautical stories, based probably on facts, serials
+under such entrancing titles as "Leaves from my Log Book," by Flexible
+Grommet, Passed Midshipman; a pen-name, the nautical felicity of which
+will be best appreciated by one who has had the misfortune to handle a
+grommet<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> which was not flexible. Then there was "The Order Book," by
+Jonathan Oldjunk; an epithet so suggestive of the waste-heap, even to
+a landsman's ears, that one marvels a man ever took it unto himself,
+especially in that decline of life when we are more sensitive on the
+subject of bodily disabilities than once we were. Old junk, however,
+can yet be "worked up," as the sea expression goes, into other uses,
+and that perhaps was what Mr. Oldjunk meant; his early adventures as a
+young "luff" were, for economical reasons, worked up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Page vi]</a></span> into their
+present literary shape, with the addition of a certain amount of
+extraneous matter&mdash;love-making, and the like. Indeed, so far from
+uselessness, that veteran seaman and rigid economist, the Earl of St.
+Vincent, when First Lord of the Admiralty, had given to a specific
+form of old junk&mdash;viz., "shakings"&mdash;the honors of a special order, for
+the preservation thereof, the which forms the staple of a comical
+anecdote in Basil Hall's <em>Fragments of Voyages and Travels</em>; itself a
+superior example of the instructive "recollections," of less literary
+merit, which but for Colburn's would have perished.</p>
+
+<p>Any one who has attempted to write history knows what queer nuggets of
+useful information lie hidden away in such papers; how they often help
+to reconstruct an incident, or determine a mooted point. If the
+Greeks, after the Peloponnesian war, had had a Colburn's, we should
+have a more certain, if not a perfect, clew to the reconstruction of
+the trireme; and probably even could deduce with some accuracy the
+daily routine, the several duties, and hear the professional jokes and
+squabbles, of their officers and crews. The serious people who write
+history can never fill the place of the gossips, who pour out an
+unpremeditated mixture of intimate knowledge and idle trash.</p>
+
+<p>Trash? Upon the whole is not the trash the truest history? perhaps not
+the most valuable, but the most real? If you want contemporary color,
+contemporary atmosphere, you must seek it among the impressions which
+can be obtained only from those who have lived a life amid particular
+surroundings, which they breathe and which colors them&mdash;dyes them in
+the wool. However skilless, they cannot help reproducing, any more
+than water poured from an old ink-bottle can help coming out more or
+less black; although, if sufficiently pretentious, they can
+monstrously caricature, especially if they begin with the modest
+time-worn admission that they are more familiar with the marling-spike<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Page vii]</a></span>
+than with the pen. But even the caricature born of pretentiousness
+will not prevent the unpremeditated betrayal of conditions, facts, and
+incidents, which help reconstruct the <em>milieu</em>; how much more, then,
+the unaffected simplicity of the born story-teller. I do not know how
+Froissart ranks as an authority with historians. I have not read him
+for years; and my recollections are chiefly those of childhood, with
+all the remoteness and all the vividness which memory preserves from
+early impressions. I think I now might find him wearisome; not so in
+boyhood. He was to me then, and seems to me now, a glorified Flexible
+Grommet or Jonathan Oldjunk; ranking, as to them, as Boswell does
+towards the common people of biography. That there are many solid
+chunks of useful information to be dug out of him I am sure; that his
+stories are all true, I have no desire to question; but what among it
+all is so instructive, so entertaining, as the point of view of
+himself, his heroes, and his colloquists&mdash;the particular contemporary
+modification of universal human nature in which he lived, and moved,
+and had his being?</p>
+
+<p>If such a man has the genius of his business, as had Froissart and
+Boswell, he excels in proportion to his unconsciousness of the fact;
+his colors run truer. For lesser gobblers, who have not genius, the
+best way to lose consciousness is just to let themselves go; if they
+endeavor to paint artistically the muddle will be worse. To such the
+proverb of the cobbler and his last is of perennial warning. As a
+barber once sagely remarked to me, "You can't trim a beard well,
+unless you're born to it." It is possible in some degree to imitate
+Froissart and Boswell in that marvellous diligence to accumulate
+material which was common to them both; but, when gathered, how
+impossible it is to work up that old junk into permanent engrossing
+interest let those answer who have grappled with ancient chronicles,
+or with many biographies. So, with a circumlocution<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Page viii]</a></span> which probably
+convicts me in advance of decisive deficiency as a narrator, I let
+myself go. I have no model, unless it be the old man sitting in the
+sun on a summer's day, bringing forth out of his memories things new
+and old&mdash;mostly old.</p>
+
+<p class="signed">A. T. Mahan.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="section_break"></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Page ix]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="INTRODUCING_MYSELF" id="INTRODUCING_MYSELF"></a>INTRODUCING MYSELF</h2>
+
+
+<p>While extracts from the following pages were appearing in <em>Harper's
+Magazine</em>, I received a letter from a reader hoping that I would say
+something about myself before entering the navy. This had been outside
+my purpose, which was chiefly to narrate what had passed around me
+that I thought interesting; but it seems possibly fit to establish in
+a few words my antecedents by heredity and environment.</p>
+
+<p>I was born September 27, 1840, within the boundaries of the State of
+New York, but not upon its territory; the place, West Point on the
+Hudson River, having been ceded to the General Government for the
+purposes of the Military Academy, at which my father, Dennis Hart
+Mahan, was then Professor of Engineering, as well Civil as Military.
+He himself was of pure Irish blood, his father and mother, already
+married, having emigrated together from the old country early in the
+last century; but he was also American by birthright, having been born
+in April, 1802, very soon after the arrival of his parents in the city
+of New York. There also he was baptized into the Roman Catholic
+Church, in the parish of St. Peter's, the church building of which now
+stands far down town, in Barclay Street. It is not, I believe, the
+same that existed in 1802.</p>
+
+<p>Very soon afterwards, before he reached an age to remember, his
+parents removed to Norfolk, Virginia, where he grew up and formed his
+earliest associations. As is usual, these colored his whole life; he
+was always a Vir<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Page x]</a></span>ginian in attachment and preference. In the days of
+crisis he remained firm to the Union, by conviction and affection; but
+he broke no friendships, and to the end there continued in him that
+surest positive indication of local fondness, admiration for the women
+of what was to him his native land. In beauty, in manner, and in
+charm, they surpassed. "Your mother is Northern," he once said to me,
+"and very few can approach her; but still, in the general, none
+compare for me with the Southern woman." The same causes, early
+association, gave him a very pronounced dislike to England; for he
+could remember the War of 1812, and had experienced the embittered
+feeling which was probably nowhere fiercer than around the shores of
+the Chesapeake, the scene of the most wide-spread devastation
+inflicted, partly from motives of policy, partly as measures of
+retaliation. Spending afterwards three or four years of early manhood
+in France, he there imbibed a warm liking for the people, among whom
+he contracted several intimacies. He there knew personally Lafayette
+and his family; receiving from them the hospitality which the Marquis'
+service in the War of Independence, and his then recent ovation during
+his tour of the United States in 1825, prompted him to extend to
+Americans. This communication with a man who could tell, and did tell
+him, intimate stories of intercourse with Washington doubtless
+emphasized my father's patriotic prejudices as well as his patriotism.
+When he revisited France, in 1856, he found many former friends still
+alive, and when I myself went there for the first time, in 1870, he
+asked me too to hunt them up; but they had all then disappeared. His
+fondness for the French doubtless accentuated his repugnance to the
+English, at that time still their traditional enemy. The combination
+of Irish and French prepossession could scarcely have resulted
+otherwise; and thus was evolved an atmosphere in which I was brought
+up, not only passively<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Page xi]</a></span> absorbing, but to a certain degree actively
+impressed with love for France and the Southern section of the United
+States, while learning to look askance upon England and abolitionists.
+The experiences of life, together with subsequent reading and
+reflection, modified and in the end entirely overcame these early
+prepossessions.</p>
+
+<p>My father was for over forty years professor at West Point, of which
+he had been a graduate. In short, the Academy was his life, and he
+there earned what I think I am modest in calling a distinguished
+reputation. The best proof of this perhaps is that at even so early a
+date in our national history as his graduation from the Academy, in
+1824, he was thought an officer of such promise as to make it
+expedient to send him to France for the higher military education in
+which the country of Napoleon and his marshals then stood pre-eminent.
+From 1820, when he entered the Academy as a pupil, to his death in
+1871, he was detached from it only these three or four years. Yet this
+determination of his life's work proceeded from a mere accident,
+scarcely more than a boy's fancy. He had begun the study of medicine,
+under Dr. Archer, of Richmond; but he had a very strong wish to learn
+drawing. In those primitive days the opportunity of instruction was
+wanting where he lived; and hearing that it was taught at the Military
+Academy he set to work for an appointment, not from inclination to the
+calling of a soldier, but as a means to this particular end. It is
+rather singular that he should have had no bias towards the profession
+of arms; for although he drifted almost from the first into the civil
+branch, as a teacher and then professor, I have never known a man of
+more strict and lofty military ideas. The spirit of the profession was
+strong in him, though he cared little for its pride, pomp, and
+circumstance. I believe that in this observation others who knew him
+well agreed with me.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Page xii]</a></span>The work of a teacher, however important and absorbing in itself, does
+not usually offer much of interest to readers. My father, by the
+personal contact of teacher and taught, knew almost every one of the
+distinguished generals who fought in the War of Secession, on either
+the Union or the Confederate side. With scarcely an exception, they
+had been his pupils; but his own life was uneventful. He married, in
+1839, Mary Helena Okill, of New York City. My mother's father was
+English, her mother an American, but with a strong strain of French
+blood; her maiden name, Mary Jay, being that of a Huguenot family
+which had left France under Louis XIV. By the time of her birth, in
+1786, a good deal of American admixture had doubtless qualified the
+original French; but I remember her well, and though she lived to be
+seventy-three, she had up to the last a vivacity and keen enjoyment of
+life, more French than American, reflected from quick black eyes,
+which fairly danced with animation through her interest in her
+surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>From my derivation, therefore, I am a pretty fair illustration of the
+mix-up of bloods which seems destined to bring forth some new and yet
+undecipherable combination on the North American continent. One-half
+Irish, one-fourth English, and a good deal more than "a trace" of
+French, would appear to be the showing of a quantitative analysis.
+Yet, as far as I understand my personality, I think to see in the
+result the predominance which the English strain has usually asserted
+for itself over others. I have none of the gregariousness of either
+the French or Irish; and while I have no difficulty in entering into
+civil conversation with a stranger who addresses me, I rarely begin,
+having, upon the whole, a preference for an introduction. This is not
+perverseness, but lack of facility; and I believe Froissart noted
+something of the same in the Englishmen of five hundred years ago. I
+have, too,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Page xiii]</a></span> an abhorrence of public speaking, and a desire to slip
+unobserved into a back seat wherever I am, which amount to a mania;
+but I am bound to admit I get both these dispositions from my father,
+whose Irishry was undiluted by foreign admixture.</p>
+
+<p>In my boyhood, till I was nearly ten, West Point was a very
+sequestered place. It was accessible only by steam-boats; and during
+great part of the winter months not by them, the Hudson being frozen
+over most of the season as far as ten to twenty miles lower down. The
+railroad was not running before 1848, and then it followed the east
+bank of the river. One of my early recollections is of begging off
+from school one day, long enough to go to a part of the post distant
+from our house, whence I caught my first sight of a train of cars on
+the opposite shore. Another recollection is of the return of a company
+of engineer soldiers from the War with Mexico. The detachment was
+drawn up for inspection where we boys could see it. One of the men had
+grown a full beard, a sight to me then as novel as the railroad, and I
+announced it at home as a most interesting fact. I had as yet seen
+only clean-shaven faces. Among my other recollections of childhood
+are, as superintendent of the Academy, Colonel Robert E. Lee,
+afterwards the great Confederate leader; and McClellan, then a junior
+engineer officer.</p>
+
+<p>As my boyhood advanced the abolition movement was gaining strength, to
+the great disapprobation and dismay of my father, with his strong
+Southern and Union sympathies. I remember that when <em>Uncle Tom's
+Cabin</em> came out, in my twelfth year, the master of the school I
+attended gave me a copy; being himself, I presume, one of the rising
+party adverse to slavery. My father took it out of my hands, and I
+came to regard it much as I would a bottle labelled "Poison." In
+consequence I never read it in the days of its vogue, and I have to
+admit that since<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Page xiv]</a></span> then, in mature years, I have not been able to
+continue it after beginning. The same motives, in great part, led to
+my being sent to a boarding-school in Maryland, near Hagerstown, which
+drew its pupils very largely, though not exclusively, from the South.
+The environment would be upon the whole Southern. I remained there,
+however, only two years, my father becoming dissatisfied with my
+progress in mathematics. In 1854, therefore, I matriculated as a
+freshman at Columbia College in the city of New York, where I remained
+till I went to the Naval Academy.</p>
+
+<p>My entrance into the navy was greatly against my father's wish. I do
+not remember all his arguments, but he told me he thought me much less
+fit for a military than for a civil profession, having watched me
+carefully. I think myself now that he was right; for, though I have no
+cause to complain of unsuccess, I believe I should have done better
+elsewhere. While thus more than dissenting from my choice, he held
+that a child should not be peremptorily thwarted in his scheme of
+life. Consequently, while he would not actively help me in the
+doubtful undertaking of obtaining an appointment, which depended then
+as now upon the representative from the congressional district, he
+gave me the means to go to Washington, and also two or three letters
+to personal friends; among them Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of
+War, and James Watson Webb, a prominent character in New York
+journalism and in politics, both state and national.</p>
+
+<p>Thus equipped, I started for Washington on the first day of 1856,
+being then three months over fifteen. As I think now of my age, and
+more than usual diffidence, and of my mission, to win the favor of a
+politician who had constituents to reward, whereas to all my family
+practical politics were as foreign as Sanskrit, I know not whether the
+situation were more comical or pathetic. On the way I foregathered
+with a Southern lad, some three years my senior, returning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Page xv]</a></span> home from
+England, where he had been at school. He beguiled the time by stories
+of his experiences, to me passing strange; and I remember, in crossing
+the Susquehanna, which was then by ferry-boat, looking at the fields
+of ice fragments, I said it would be unpleasant to fall in. "I would
+sooner have a knife stuck into me," he replied. I wonder what became
+of him, for I never knew his name. Of course he entered the
+Confederate army; but what besides?</p>
+
+<p>I remember my week's stay in Washington much as I suppose a man
+overboard remembers the incidents of that experience. Memory is an odd
+helpmate; why some circumstances take hold and others not is "one of
+those things no fellow can find out." I saw the member of Congress,
+who I find by reference to have been Ambrose S. Murray, representative
+of the district within which West Point lay. He received me kindly,
+but with the reserve characteristic of most interviews where one party
+desires a favor for which he has nothing in exchange to offer. I
+think, however, that Mr. Webb, with whom and his family I breakfasted
+one day, said some good words for me. Jefferson Davis was a graduate
+of the Military Academy, of 1827; and although his term there had
+overlapped my father's by only one year, his interest in everything
+pertaining to the army had maintained between them an acquaintance
+approaching intimacy. He therefore was very cordial to the boy before
+him, and took me round to the office of the then Secretary of the
+Navy, Mr. James C. Dobbin, of North Carolina; just why I do not
+understand yet, as the Secretary could not influence my immediate
+object. Perhaps he felt the need of a friendly chat; for I remember
+that, after presenting me, the two sat down and discussed the
+President's Message, of which Davis expressed a warm approval. This
+being the time of the protracted contest over the Speakership, which
+ended in the election<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Page xvi]</a></span> of Banks, I suppose the colleagues were talking
+about a document which was then ready, and familiar to them, but which
+was not actually sent to Congress until it organized, some weeks after
+this interview. Probably their conversation was the aftermath of a
+cabinet meeting.</p>
+
+<p>I returned home with fairly sanguine hopes, which on the journey
+received a douche of cold water from an old gentleman, a distant
+connection of my family, to visit whom I stopped a few hours in
+Philadelphia. He asked about my chance of the appointment; and being
+told that it seemed good, he rejoined, "Well, I hope you won't get it.
+I have known many naval officers, captains and lieutenants, in
+different parts of the world"&mdash;for his time, he was then nearly
+eighty, he had travelled extensively&mdash;"I have talked much with them,
+and know that it is a profession with little prospect." Then he quoted
+Dr. Johnson: "No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to
+get himself into jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail with the
+chance of being drowned"; and further to overwhelm me, he clinched the
+saying by a comment of his own. "In a ship of war you run the risk of
+being killed as well as that of being drowned." The interview left me
+a perplexed but not a wiser lad.</p>
+
+<p>Late in the ensuing spring Mr. Murray wrote me that he would nominate
+me for the appointment. Just what determined him in my favor I do not
+certainly know; but, as I remember, Mr. Davis had authorized me to say
+to him that, if the place were given me, he would use his own
+influence with President Pierce to obtain for a nominee from his
+district a presidential appointment to the Military Academy. Mr.
+Murray replied that such a proposition was very acceptable to him,
+because the tendency among his constituents was much more to the army
+than to the navy. At that day, besides one cadet at West Point for
+each congressional district, which was in the gift of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[Page xvii]</a></span>
+representative, the law permitted the President a certain number of
+annual appointments, called "At Large"; the object being to provide
+for sons of military and naval officers, whose lack of political
+influence made it difficult otherwise to enter the school. This
+presidential privilege has since been extended to the Naval Academy,
+but had not then. The proposed interchange in my case, therefore,
+would be practically to give an officer's son an appointment at large
+in the navy. Whether this arrangement was actually carried out, I have
+never known nor inquired; but it has pleased me to believe, as I do,
+that I owed my entrance to the United States navy to the interposition
+of the first and only President of the Southern Confederacy, whose
+influence with Mr. Pierce is a matter of history.</p>
+
+<p>I entered the Naval Academy, as an "acting midshipman," September 30,
+1856.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[Page xviii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="section_break"></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">Page 1</a></span></p>
+
+<h1>FROM SAIL TO STEAM</h1>
+
+<h2>RECOLLECTIONS OF NAVAL LIFE</h2>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">Page 2</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="section_break"></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">Page 3</a></span></p>
+<h2>I</h2>
+
+<h3>NAVAL CONDITIONS BEFORE THE WAR OF SECESSION</h3>
+
+<h4>THE OFFICERS AND SEAMEN</h4>
+
+
+<p>Naval officers who began their career in the fifties of the past
+century, as I did, and who survive till now, as very many do, have
+been observant, if inconspicuous, witnesses of one of the most rapid
+and revolutionary changes that naval science and warfare have ever
+undergone. It has been aptly said that a naval captain who fought the
+Invincible Armada would have been more at home in the typical war-ship
+of 1840, than the average captain of 1840 would have been in the
+advanced types of the American Civil War.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> The twenty years here
+chosen for comparison cover the middle period of the century which has
+but recently expired. Since that time progress has gone on in
+accelerating ratio; and if the consequent changes have been less
+radical in kind, they have been more extensive in scope. It is
+interesting to observe that within the same two decades, in 1854,
+occurred the formal visit of Commodore Perry to Japan, and the
+negotiations of the treaty bringing her fairly within the movement of
+Western civilization; starting her upon the path which has resulted in
+the most striking illustration yet given of the powers of modern naval
+instruments, ships and weapons, diligently developed and elaborated
+during the period that has since elapsed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">Page 4</a></span>When I received my appointment to the Naval School at Annapolis, in
+the early part of the year 1856, the United States navy was under the
+influence of one of those spasmodic awakenings which, so far as action
+is concerned, have been the chief characteristic of American
+statesmanship in the matter of naval policy up to twenty years ago.
+Since then there has been a more continuous practical recognition of
+the necessity for a sustained and consistent development of naval
+power. This wholesome change has been coincident with, and doubtless
+largely due to, a change in appreciation of the importance of naval
+power in the realm of international relations, which, within the same
+period, has passed over the world at large. The United States of
+America began its career under the Constitution of 1789 with no navy;
+but in 1794 the intolerable outrages of the Barbary pirates, and the
+humiliation of having to depend upon the armed ships of Portugal for
+the protection of American trade, aroused Congress to vote the
+building of a half-dozen frigates, with the provision, however, that
+the building should stop if an arrangement with Algiers were reached.
+Not till 1798 was the navy separated from the War Department. The
+President at that date, John Adams, was, through his New England
+origin, in profound sympathy with all naval questions; and, while
+minister to Great Britain, in 1785, had had continual opportunity to
+observe the beneficial effect of maritime activity and naval power
+upon that kingdom. He had also bitter experience of the insolence of
+its government towards our interests, based upon its conscious control
+of the sea. He thus came into office strongly biassed towards naval
+development. To the impulse given by him contributed also the
+outrageous course towards our commerce initiated by the French
+Directory, after Bonaparte's astounding campaigns in Italy had struck
+down all opposition to France save that of the mistress of the seas.
+The nation, as represented in Con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">Page 5</a></span>gress, woke up, rubbed, its eyes,
+and built a small number of vessels which did exemplary service in the
+subsequent quasi war with France. Provision was made for a further
+increase; and it is not too much to say that this beginning, if
+maintained, might have averted the War of 1812. But within four years
+revulsion came. Adams gave place to Jefferson and Madison, the leaders
+of a party which frankly and avowedly rejected a navy as an element of
+national strength, and saw in it only a menace to liberty. Save for
+the irrepressible marauding of the Barbary corsairs, and the
+impressment of our seamen by British ships-of-war, the remnant of
+Adams' ships would not improbably have been swept out of existence.
+This result was feared by naval officers of the day; and with what
+good reason is shown by the fact that, within six months of the
+declaration of the War in 1812, and when the party in control was
+determined that war there should be, a proposition to increase the
+navy received but lukewarm support from the administration, and was
+voted down in Congress. The government, awed by the overwhelming
+numbers of the British fleet, proposed to save its vessels by keeping
+them at home; just as a few years before it had undertaken to save its
+commerce by forbidding its merchant-ships to go to sea.</p>
+
+<p>Such policy with regard to a military service means to it not sleep,
+but death. The urgent remonstrances of three or four naval captains
+obtained a change of plan; and at the end of the year the President
+admitted that, for the very reasons advanced by them, the activity of
+a small squadron, skilfully directed, had insured the safe return of
+much the most part of our exposed merchant-shipping. It is not,
+however, such broad general results of sagacious management that bring
+conviction to nations and arouse them to action. Professionally, the
+cruise of Rodgers's squadron, unsuccessful in outward seeming, was a
+much more significant event, and much more productive, than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">Page 6</a></span> the
+capture of the <em>Guerri&egrave;re</em> by the <em>Constitution</em>; but it was this
+which woke up the people. The other probably would not have turned a
+vote in either House. As a military exploit the frigate victory was
+exaggerated, and not unnaturally; but no words can exaggerate its
+influence upon the future of the American navy. Here was something
+that men could see and understand, even though they might not
+correctly appreciate. Coinciding as the tidings did with the
+mortification of Hull's surrender at Detroit, they came at a moment
+which was truly psychological. Bowed down with shame at reverse where
+only triumph had been anticipated, the exultation over victory where
+disaster had been more naturally awaited produced a wild reaction. The
+effect was decisive. Inefficient and dilatory as was much of the
+subsequent administration of the navy, there was never any further
+question of its continuance. And yet, from the ship which thus played
+the most determining part in the history of her service, it has been
+proposed to take her name, and give it to another, of newer
+construction; as though with the name could go also the association.
+Could any other <em>Victory</em> be Nelson's <em>Victory</em> to Great Britain? Can
+calling a man George Washington help to perpetuate the services of the
+one Washington? The last much-vaunted addition to the British fleet,
+the <em>Dreadnaught</em>, bears a family name extending back over two
+centuries, or more. She is one of a series reasonably perpetuated,
+ship after ship, as son after sire; a line of succession honored in
+the traditions of the nation. So there were <em>Victorys</em>, before the one
+whose revered hulk still maintains a hallowed association; but her
+individual connection with one event has set her apart. The name might
+be transferred, but with it the association cannot be transmitted. But
+not even the <em>Victory</em>, with all her clinging memories, did for the
+British navy what the <em>Constitution</em> did for the American.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">Page 7</a></span>There was thenceforward no longer any question about votes for the
+navy. Ships of the line, frigates, and sloops, were ordered to be
+built, and the impulse thus received never wholly died out. Still, as
+with all motives which in origin are emotional rather than reasoned,
+there was lack of staying power. As the enthusiasm of the moment
+languished, there came languor of growth; or, more properly, of
+development. Continuance became routine in character, tending to
+reproduce contentedly the old types consecrated by the War of 1812.
+There was little conscious recognition of national exigencies,
+stimulating a demand that the navy, in types and numbers, should be
+kept abreast of the times. In most pursuits of life American
+intelligence has been persistently apt and quick in search of
+improvement; but, while such characteristics have not been absent from
+the naval service, they have been confined chiefly, and naturally, to
+the men engaged in the profession, and have lacked the outside support
+which immediate felt needs impart to movements in business or
+politics. Few men in civil life could have given an immediate reply to
+the question, Why do we need a navy? Besides, although the American
+people are aggressive, combative, even warlike, they are the reverse
+of military; out of sympathy with military tone and feeling.
+Consequently, the appearance of professional pride, the insistence
+upon the absolute necessity for professional training, which in the
+physician, lawyer, engineer, or other civil occupation is accepted as
+not only becoming, but conducive to uplifting the profession as a
+whole, is felt in the military man to be the obtrusion of an alien
+temperament, easily stigmatized as the arrogance of professional
+conceit and exclusiveness. The wise traditional jealousy of any
+invasion of the civil power by the military has no doubt played some
+part in this; but a healthy vigilance is one thing, and morbid
+distrust another. Morbid distrust and unreasoned preposses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">Page 8</a></span>sion were
+responsible for the feebleness of the navy in 1812, and these feelings
+long survived. An adverse atmosphere was created, with results
+unfortunate to the nation, so far as the navy was important to
+national welfare or national progress.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, between the day of my entrance into the service, fifty years
+ago, and the present, nowhere is change more notable than in the
+matter of atmosphere; of the national attitude towards the navy and
+comprehension of its office. Then it was accepted without much
+question as part of the necessary lumber that every adequately
+organized maritime state carried, along with the rest of a national
+establishment. Of what use it was, or might be, few cared much to
+inquire. There was not sufficient interest even to dispute the
+necessity of its existence; although, it is true, as late as 1875 an
+old-time Jeffersonian Democrat repeated to me with conviction the
+master's dictum, that the navy was a useless appendage; a statement
+which its work in the War of Secession, as well on the Confederate as
+on the Union side, might seem to have refuted sufficiently and with
+abundant illustration. To such doubters, before the war, there was
+always ready the routine reply that a navy protected commerce; and
+American shipping, then the second in the world, literally whitened
+every sea with its snowy cotton sails, a distinctive mark at that time
+of American merchant shipping. In my first long voyage, in 1859, from
+Philadelphia to Brazil, it was no rare occurrence to be becalmed in
+the doldrums in company with two or three of these beautiful
+semi-clipper vessels, their low black hulls contrasting vividly with
+the tall pyramids of dazzling canvas which rose above them. They
+needed no protection then, and none foresaw that within a decade, by
+the operations of a few small steam-cruisers, they would be swept from
+the seas, never to return. Everything was taken for granted, and not
+least that war was a barbarism<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">Page 9</a></span> of the past. From 1815 to 1850, the
+lifetime of a generation, international peace had prevailed
+substantially unbroken, despite numerous revolutionary movements
+internal to the states concerned; and it had been lightly assumed that
+these conditions would thenceforth continue, crowned as they had been
+by the great sacrament of peace, when the nations for the first time
+gathered under a common roof the fruits of their several industries in
+the World's Exposition of 1851. The shadows of disunion were indeed
+gathering over our own land, but for the most of us they carried with
+them no fear of war. American fight American? Never! Separation there
+might be, and with a common sorrow officers of both sections thought
+of it; but, brother shed the blood of brother? No! By 1859 the Crimean
+War had indeed intervened to shake these fond convictions; but, after
+all, rules have exceptions, and in the succeeding peace the British
+government, consistent with the prepossessions derived from the
+propaganda of Cobden, yielded perfectly gratuitously the principle
+that an enemy's commerce might be freely transported under a neutral
+flag, thereby wrenching away prematurely one of the prongs of
+Neptune's trident. Surely we were on the road to universal peace.</p>
+
+<p>San Francisco before and after its recent earthquake&mdash;at this moment
+of writing ten days ago&mdash;scarcely presented a greater contrast of
+experience than that my day has known; and the political condition and
+balance of the world now is as different from that of the period of
+which I have been writing as the new city will be from the old one it
+will replace at the Golden Gate. Of this universal change and
+displacement the most significant factor&mdash;at least in our Western
+civilization&mdash;has been the establishment of the German Empire, with
+its ensuing commercial, maritime, and naval development. To it
+certainly we owe the military impulse which has been transmitted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">Page 10</a></span>
+everywhere to the forces of sea and land&mdash;an impulse for which, in my
+judgment, too great gratitude cannot be felt. It has braced and
+organized Western civilization for an ordeal as yet dimly perceived.
+But between 1850 and 1860 long desuetude of war, and confident
+reliance upon the commercial progress which freedom of trade had
+brought in its train, especially to Great Britain, had induced the
+prevalent feeling that to-morrow would be as to-day, and much more
+abundant. This was too consonant to national temperament not to
+pervade America also; and it was promoted by a distance from Europe
+and her complications much greater than now exists, and by the
+consistent determination not to be implicated in her concerns. All
+these factors went to constitute the atmosphere of indifference to
+military affairs in general; and particularly to those external
+interests of which a navy is the outward and visible sign and
+champion.</p>
+
+<p>I do not think there is error or exaggeration in this picture of the
+"environment" of the navy in popular appreciation at the time I
+entered. Under such conditions, which had obtained substantially since
+soon after the War of 1812, and which long disastrously affected even
+Great Britain, with all her proud naval traditions and maritime and
+colonial interests, a military service cannot thrive. Indifference and
+neglect tell on most individuals, and on all professions. The saving
+clauses were the high sense of duty and of professional integrity,
+which from first to last I have never known wanting in the service;
+while the beauty of the ships themselves, quick as a docile and
+intelligent animal to respond to the master's call, inspired affection
+and intensified professional enthusiasm. The exercises of sails and
+spars, under the varying exigencies of service, bewildering as they
+may have seemed to the uninitiated, to the appreciative possessed
+fascination, and were their own sufficient reward for the care
+lavished upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">Page 11</a></span> them. In their mute yet exact response was some
+compensation for external neglect; they were, so to say, the testimony
+of a good conscience; the assurance of professional merit, and of work
+well done, if scantily recognized. Poor and beloved sails and
+spars&mdash;<em>la joie de la man&oelig;uvre</em>, to use the sympathetic phrase of a
+French officer of that day&mdash;gone ye are with that past of which I have
+been speaking, and of which ye were a goodly symbol; but like other
+symptoms of the times, had we listened aright, we should have heard
+the stern rebuke: Up and depart hence; this is not the place of your
+rest.</p>
+
+<p>The result of all this had been a body of officers, and of men-of-war
+seamen, strong in professional sentiment, and admirably qualified in
+the main for the duties of a calling which in many of its leading
+characteristics was rapidly becoming obsolete. There was the spirit of
+youth, but the body of age. As a class, officers and men were well up
+in the use of such instruments as the country gave them; but the
+profession did not wield the corporate influence necessary to extort
+better instruments, and impotence to remedy produced acquiescence in,
+perhaps, more properly, submission to, an arrest of progress, the
+evils of which were clearly seen. Yet the salt was still there, nor
+had it lost its savor. The military professions are discouraged, even
+enjoined, against that combined independent action for the remedy of
+grievances which is the safeguard of civil liberty, but tends to sap
+the unquestioning obedience essential to unity of action under a
+single will&mdash;at once the virtue and the menace of a standing army.
+Naval officers had neither the privilege nor the habits which would
+promote united effort for betterment; but when individuals among them
+are found, like Farragut, Dupont, Porter, Dahlgren&mdash;to mention only a
+few names that became conspicuous in the War of Secession&mdash;there will
+be found also in civil and political life men who will become the
+channels through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">Page 12</a></span> which the needs of the service will receive
+expression and ultimately obtain relief. The process is overslow for
+perfect adequacy, but it exists. It may be asked, Was not the Navy
+Department constituted for this special purpose? Possibly; but
+experience has shown that sometimes it is effective, and sometimes it
+is not. There is in it no provision for a continuous policy. No
+administrative period of our naval history since 1812 has been more
+disastrously stagnant and inefficient than that which followed closely
+the War of Secession, with its extraordinary, and in the main
+well-directed, administrative energy. The deeds of Farragut, his
+compeers, and their followers, after exciting a moment's enthusiasm,
+were powerless to sustain popular interest. Reaction ruled, as after
+the War of 1812.</p>
+
+<p>To whomsoever due, in the decade immediately preceding the War of
+Secession there were two notable attempts at regeneration which had a
+profound influence upon the fortunes of that contest. Of these, one
+affected the personnel of the navy, the other the material. It had for
+some time been recognized within the service that, owing partly to
+easy-going toleration of offenders, partly to the absence of
+authorized methods for dealing with the disabled, or the merely
+incompetent, partly also, doubtless, to the effect of general
+professional stagnation upon those naturally inclined to
+worthlessness, there had accumulated a very considerable percentage of
+officers who were useless; or, worse, unreliable. In measure, this was
+also due to habits of drinking, much more common in all classes of men
+then than now. Even within the ten years with which I am dealing, an
+officer not much my senior remarked to me on the great improvement in
+this respect in his own experience; and my contemporaries will bear me
+out in saying that since then the advance has been so sustained that
+the evil now is practically non-existent. But then the compassionate
+expression, "A first-rate officer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">Page 13</a></span> when he is not drinking," was
+ominously frequent; and in the generation before too little attention
+had been paid to the equally significant remark, that with a fool you
+know what to count on, but with one who drank you never knew.</p>
+
+<p>But drink was far from the only cause. There were regular
+examinations, after six years of service, for promotion from the
+warrant of midshipman to a lieutenant's commission; but, that
+successfully passed, there was no further review of an officer's
+qualifications, unless misconduct brought him before a court-martial.
+Nor was there any provision for removing the physically incompetent.
+Before I entered the navy I knew one such, who had been bed-ridden for
+nearly ten years. He had been a midshipman with Farragut under Porter
+in the old <em>Essex</em>, when captured by the <em>Ph&oelig;be</em> and <em>Cherub</em>. A
+gallant boy, specially named in the despatch, he had such aptitude
+that at sixteen, as he told me himself, he wore an epaulette on the
+left shoulder&mdash;the uniform of a lieutenant at that time; and a
+contemporary assured me that in handling a ship he was the smartest
+officer of the deck he had ever known. But in early middle life
+disease overtook him, and, though flat on his back, he had been borne
+on the active list because there was nothing else to do with him. In
+that plight he was even promoted. There was another who, as a
+midshipman, had lost a foot in the War of 1812, but had been carried
+on from grade to grade for forty years, until at the time I speak of
+he was a captain, then the highest rank in the navy. Possibly,
+probably, he never saw water bluer than that of the lakes, where he
+was wounded. The undeserving were not treated with quite the same
+indulgence. Those familiar with the <em>Navy Register</em> of those days will
+recall some half-dozen old die-hards, who figured from year to year at
+the head of the lieutenant's list; continuously "overslaughed," never
+promoted, but never dismissed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">Page 14</a></span> To deal in the same manner with such
+men as the two veterans first mentioned would have been insulting; the
+distinction of promotion had to be conceded.</p>
+
+<p>But there were those also who, despite habits or inefficiency, slipped
+through even formal examination; commanders whose ships were run by
+their subordinates, lieutenants whose watch on deck kept their
+captains from sleeping, midshipmen whose unfitness made their
+retention unpardonable; for at their age to re-begin life was no
+hardship, much less injustice. Of one such the story ran that his
+captain, giving him the letter required by regulation, wrote, "Mr. So
+and So is a very excellent young gentleman, of perfectly correct
+habits, but nothing will make an officer of him." He answered his
+questions, however; and the board considered that they could not go
+beyond that fact. They passed him in the face of the opinion of a
+superior of tried efficiency who had had his professional conduct
+under prolonged observation. I never knew this particular man
+professionally, but the general estimate of the service confirmed his
+captain's opinion. Twenty or thirty years later, I was myself one of a
+board called to deal with a precisely similar case. The letter of the
+captain was explicitly condemnatory and strong; but the president of
+the board, a man of exemplary rectitude, was vehement even in refusing
+to act upon it, and his opinion prevailed. Some years afterwards the
+individual came under my command, and proved to be of so eccentric
+worthlessness that I thought him on the border-line of insanity. He
+afterwards disappeared, I do not know how.</p>
+
+<p>Talking of examinations, a comical incident came under my notice
+immediately after the War of Secession, when there were still employed
+a large number of those volunteer officers who had honorably and
+usefully filled up the depleted ranks of the regular service&mdash;an
+accession of strength imperatively needed. There were among them,
+naturally,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">Page 15</a></span> inefficients as well as efficients. One had applied for
+promotion, and a board of three, among them myself, was assembled to
+examine. Several commonplace questions in seamanship were put to him,
+of which I now remember only that he had no conception of the
+difference between a ship moored, and one lying at single anchor&mdash;a
+subject as pertinent to-day as a hundred years ago. After failing to
+explain this, he expressed his wish not to go further; whereupon one
+of the board asked why, if ignorant of these simple matters, he had
+applied for examination. His answer was, "I did not apply for
+examination, I applied for promotion." Even in this case, when the
+applicant had left the room, the president of the board, then a
+somewhat notorious survival of the unfittest, long since departed this
+life, asked whether we refused to pass him. The third member, himself
+a volunteer officer, and myself, said we did. "Well," he rejoined,
+"you know this man may get a chance at <em>you</em> some day." This prudent
+consideration, however, did not save him.</p>
+
+<p>Such tolerance towards the unfit, the reluctance to strike the
+individual in the interests of the community, was but a special, and
+not very flagrant, instance of the sympathy evoked for much worse
+offenders&mdash;murderers, and defrauders&mdash;in civil life. In such cases,
+the average man, except when personally affected, sides unreasonably
+with the sufferer and against the public; witness the easily signed
+petitions for pardon which flow in. It can be understood that in a
+public employment, civil or military, there will usually be reluctance
+to punish, and especially to take the bread out of the mouths of a man
+and his family by ejection. Usually only immediate personal interest
+in efficiency can supply the needed hardness of heart. Speaking after
+a very extensive and varied inside experience of courts-martial, I can
+say most positively that their tendency is not towards the excessive
+severity which I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">Page 16</a></span> heard charged against them by an eminent
+lawyer. On the contrary, the difficulty is to keep the members up to
+the mark against their natural and professional sympathies. Their
+superiors in the civil government have more often to rebuke undue
+leniency. How much more hard when, instead of an evil-doer, one had
+only to deal with a good-tempered, kindly ignoramus, or one perhaps
+who drew near the border-line of slipshod adequacy; and especially
+when to do so was to initiate action, apparently invidious, and
+probably useless, as in cases I have cited. It was easier for a
+captain or first lieutenant to nurse such a one along through a
+cruise, and then dismiss him to his home, thanking God, like Dogberry,
+that you are rid of a fool, and trusting you may see him no more. But
+this confidence may be misplaced; even his ghost may return to plague
+you, or your conscience. Basil Hall tells an interesting story in
+point. When himself about to pass for lieutenant, in 1808, while in an
+ante-room awaiting his summons, a candidate came out flushed and
+perturbed. Hall was called in, and one of the examining captains said
+to him, "Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, who has just gone out, could not answer a question
+which we will put to you." He naturally looked for a stunner, and was
+surprised at the extremely commonplace problem proposed to him. From
+the general incident he presumed his predecessor had been rejected,
+but when the list was published saw his name among the passed. Some
+years later he met one of the examiners, who in the conversation
+recalled to him the circumstances. "We hesitated," he said, "whether
+to let him go through: but we did, and I voted for him. A few weeks
+later I saw him gazetted second lieutenant of a sloop-of-war, and a
+twinge of compunction seized me. Not long afterwards I read also the
+loss of that ship, with all on board. I never have known how it
+happened, but I cannot rid myself of an uneasy feeling that it may
+have been in that young man's watch." He added, "Mr. Hall,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">Page 17</a></span> if ever
+you are employed as I then was, do not take your duties as lightly as
+I did."</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes retribution does not assume this ghastly form, but shows the
+humorous side of her countenance; for she has two faces, like the
+famous ship that was painted a different color on either side and
+always tacked at night, that the enemy might imagine two ships off
+their coast. I recall&mdash;many of us recall&mdash;a well-known character in
+the service, "Bobby," who was a synonyme for inefficiency. He is long
+since in his grave, where reminiscence cannot disturb him; and the
+Bobby can reveal him only to those who knew him as well and better
+than I, and not to an unsympathetic public. Well, Bobby after much
+indulgence had been retired from active service by that convulsive
+effort at re-establishment known as the Retiring Board of 1854&ndash;55, to
+which I am coming if ever I see daylight through this thicket of
+recollections that seems to close round me as I proceed, instead of
+getting clearer. The action of that board was afterwards extensively
+reviewed, and among the data brought before the reviewers was a letter
+from a commander, who presumably should have known better, warmly
+endorsing Bobby. In consequence of this, and perhaps other
+circumstances, Bobby was restored to an admiring service; but the
+Department, probably through some officer who appreciated the
+situation, sent him to his advocate as first lieutenant&mdash;that is, as
+general manager and right-hand man. The joke was somewhat grim, and
+grimly resented. It fell to me a little later to see the commander on
+a matter of duty. He received me in his cabin, his feet swathed on a
+chair, his hands gnarled and knotted with gout or rheumatism, from
+which he was a great sufferer. Business despatched, we drifted into
+talk, and got on the subject of Bobby. His face became distorted. "I
+suppose the Department thinks it has done a very funny thing in
+sending me him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">Page 18</a></span> as first lieutenant; but I tell you, Mr. Mahan, every
+word I wrote was perfectly true. There is nothing about a ship from
+her hold to her trucks that Bobby don't know; but&mdash;" here fury took
+possession of him, and he vociferated&mdash;"put him on deck, handling men,
+he is the d&mdash;&mdash;dest fool that ever man laid eyes on." How far his
+sense of injury biassed his judgments as to the acquirements of his
+prot&eacute;g&eacute;, I cannot say; but a cruise or two before I had happened to
+hear from eye-witnesses of Bobby's appearance in public after his
+restoration as first lieutenant in charge of the deck. On the occasion
+in question he was to exercise the whole crew at some particular
+man&oelig;uvre. Taking his stand on the hawse-block, he drew from his
+pocket a small note-book, cast upon it his eye and
+announced&mdash;doubtless through the trumpet&mdash;"Man the fore-royal braces!"
+Again a pause, and further reference. "Man the main-royal braces!"
+Again a pause: "Man the mizzen-royal braces&mdash;Man <em>all</em> the royal
+braces." It is quite true, however, that there may be plenty of
+knowledge with lack of power to apply it professionally&mdash;a fact
+observable in all callings, but one which examination alone will not
+elicit. I knew such a one who said of himself, "Before I take the
+trumpet I know what ought to be said and done, but with the trumpet in
+my hand everything goes away from me." This was doubtless partly
+stage-fright; but stage-fright does not last where there is real
+aptitude. This man, of very marked general ability, esteemed and liked
+by all, finally left the navy; and probably wisely. On the other hand,
+I remember a very excellent seaman&mdash;and officer&mdash;telling me that the
+poorest officer he had ever known tacked ship the best. So men differ.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it happened, through the operation of a variety of causes, that
+by the early fifties there had accumulated on the lists of the navy,
+in every grade, a number of men who had been tried in the balance of
+professional judgment and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">Page 19</a></span> found distinctly wanting. Not only was the
+public&mdash;the nation&mdash;being wronged by the continuance in positions of
+responsibility of men who could not meet an emergency, or even
+discharge common duties, but there was the further harm that they were
+occupying places which, if vacated, could be at once filled by capable
+men waiting behind them. Fortunately, this had come to constitute a
+body of individual grievance among the deserving, which
+counterbalanced the natural sympathy with the individual incompetent.
+The remedy adopted was drastic enough, although in fact only an
+application of the principle of selection in a very guarded form.
+Unhappily, previous neglect to apply selection through a long series
+of years had now occasioned conditions in which it had to be used on a
+huge scale, and in the most invidious manner&mdash;the selecting out of the
+unfit. It was therefore easy for cavillers to liken this process to a
+trial at law, in which unfavorable decision was a condemnation without
+the accused being heard; and, of course, once having received this
+coloring, the impression could not be removed, nor the method
+reconciled to a public having Anglo-Saxon traditions concerning the
+administration of justice. A board of fifteen was constituted&mdash;five
+captains, five commanders, and five lieutenants. These were then the
+only grades of commissioned officers, and representation from them all
+insured, as far as could be, an adequate acquaintance with the entire
+personnel of the navy. The board sat in secret, reaching its own
+conclusions by its own methods; deciding who were, and who were not,
+fit to be carried longer on the active list. Rejections were of three
+kinds: those wholly removed, and those retired on two different grades
+of pay, called "Retired," and "Furloughed." The report was accepted by
+the government and became operative.</p>
+
+<p>This occurred a year or two before I entered the Naval School: and, as
+I was already expecting to do so, I read with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">Page 20</a></span> an interest I well
+recall the lists of person unfavorably affected. Of course, neither
+then nor afterwards had I knowledge to form an independent opinion
+upon the merits of the cases; but as far as I could gather in the
+immediately succeeding years, from different officers, the general
+verdict was that in very few instances had injustice been done. Where
+I had the opportunity of verifying the mistakes cited to me, I found
+instead reason rather to corroborate than to impugn the action of the
+board; but, of course, in so large a review as it had to undertake,
+even a jury of fifteen experts can scarcely be expected never to err.
+In the navy it was a first, and doubtless somewhat crude, attempt to
+apply the method of selection which every business man or corporation
+uses in choosing employ&eacute;s; an arbitrary conclusion, based upon
+personal knowledge and observation, or upon adequate information. But
+in private affairs such decisions are not regarded as legal judgment,
+nor rejection as condemnation; and there is no appeal. The private
+interest of the employer is warrant that he will do the best he can
+for his business. This presumption does not lie in the case of public
+affairs, although after the most searching criticism the action of the
+board of fifteen might probably be quoted to prove that selection for
+promotion could safely be trusted at all times to similar means. I
+mean, that such a body would never recommend an unfit man for
+promotion, and in three cases out of five would choose very near the
+best man. But no such system can work unless a government have the
+courage of its findings; for private and public opinion will
+inevitably constitute itself a court of appeal. In Great Britain,
+where the principle of selection has never been abandoned, in the
+application the Admiralty is none the less constrained&mdash;browbeaten, I
+fancy, would hardly be too strong a word&mdash;by opinion outside. P. has
+been promoted, say the service journals; but why was A. passed over,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">Page 21</a></span>
+or F., or K.? Choice is difficult, indeed, in peace times; but years
+sap efficiency, and for the good of the nation it is imperative to get
+men along while in the vigor of life, which will never be effected by
+the slow routine in which each second stands heir to the first. P.
+possibly may not be better than A. or K., but the nation will profit
+more, and in a matter vital to it, than if P., whose equality may be
+conceded, has to wait for the whole alphabet to die out of his way.
+The injustice, if so it be, to the individual must not be allowed to
+impede the essential prosperity of the community.</p>
+
+<p>In 1854&ndash;55, the results of a contrary system had reached proportions
+at once disheartening and comical. It then required fourteen years
+after entrance to reach a lieutenant's commission, the lowest of all.
+That is, coming in as a midshipman at fifteen, not till twenty-nine,
+after ten to twelve years probably on a sea-going vessel, was a man
+found fit, by official position, to take charge of a ship at sea, or
+to command a division of guns. True, the famous Billy Culmer, of the
+British navy, under a system of selection found himself a midshipman
+still at fifty-six, and then declined a commission on the ground that
+he preferred to continue senior midshipman rather than be the junior
+lieutenant;<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> but the injustice, if so it were, to Billy, and to many
+others, had put the ships into the hands of captains<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">Page 22</a></span> in the prime of
+life. Of the historic admirals of that navy, few had failed to reach a
+captaincy in their twenties. <em>Per contra</em>, I was told the following
+anecdote by an officer of our service whose name was&mdash;and is, for he
+still lives&mdash;a synonyme for personal activity and professional
+seamanship, but who waited his fourteen years for a lieutenancy. On
+one occasion the ship in which he returned to Norfolk from a
+three-years' cruise was ordered from there to Portsmouth, New
+Hampshire, to go out of commission. For some cause almost all the
+lieutenants had been detached, the cruise being thought ended. It
+became necessary, therefore, to intrust the charge of the deck to him
+and other "passed" midshipmen, and great was the shaking of heads
+among old stagers over the danger that ship was to run. If this were
+exceptional, it would not be worth quoting, but it was not. A similar
+routine in the British navy, in a dry-rot period of a hundred years
+before, had induced a like head-wagging and exchange of views when one
+of its greatest admirals, Hawke, was first given charge of a squadron;
+being then already a man of mark, and four years older than Nelson at
+the Nile. But he was younger than the rule, and so distrusted.</p>
+
+<p>The vacancies made by the wholesale action of 1854 remedied this for a
+while. The lieutenants who owed their rank to it became such after
+seven or eight years, or at, twenty-three or four; and this meant
+really passing out of pupilage into manhood. The change being effected
+immediately, anticipated the reaction in public opinion and in
+Congress, which rejected the findings of the board and compelled a
+review of the whole procedure. Many restorations were made; and, as
+these swelled the lists beyond the number then authorized by law,
+there was established<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">Page 23</a></span> a reduced pay for those whose recent promotion
+made them in excess. For them was adopted, in naval colloquialism, the
+inelegant but suggestive term "jackass" lieutenants. It should be
+explained to the outsider, perhaps even many professional readers now
+may not know, that the word was formerly used for a class of so-called
+frigates which intervened between the frigate-class proper and the
+sloop-of-war proper, and like all hybrids, such as the armored
+cruiser, shared more in the defects than in the virtues of either. It
+was therefore not a new coinage, and its uncomplimentary suggestion
+applied rather to the grudging legislation than to the unlucky
+victims. Of course, promotion was stopped till this block was worked
+off; but the immediate gain was retained. Before the trouble came on
+afresh the War of Secession, causing a large number of Southerners to
+leave the service, introduced a very different problem;&mdash;namely, how
+to find officers enough to meet the expansion of the navy caused by
+the vast demands of the contest. The men of my time became lieutenants
+between twenty and twenty-three. My own commission was dated a month
+before my twenty-first birthday, and with what good further prospects,
+even under the strict rule of seniority promotion, is evident, for
+before I was twenty-five I was made lieutenant-commander,
+corresponding to major in the army. Those were cheerful days in this
+respect for the men who struck the crest of the wave; but already the
+symptoms of inevitable reaction to old conditions of stagnancy were
+observable to those careful to heed.</p>
+
+<p>It would be difficult to exaggerate the benefit of this measure to the
+nation, through the service, despite the subsequent reactionary
+legislation. By a single act a large number of officers were advanced
+from the most subordinate and irresponsible positions to those which
+called all their faculties into play. "Responsibility," said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">Page 24</a></span> one of
+the most experienced admirals the world has known, "is the test of a
+man's courage"; and where the native fitness exists nothing so
+educates for responsibility as the having it. The responsibility of
+the lieutenant of the watch differs little from that of the captain in
+degree, and less in kind. To early bearing of responsibility Farragut
+attributed in great part his fearlessness in it, which was well known
+to the service before his hour of strain. It was much that the
+government found ready for the extreme demands of the war a number of
+officers, who, instead of supervising the washing of lower decks and
+stowing of holds during their best years, had been put betimes in
+charge of the ship. From there to the captain's berth was but a small
+step. "Passed midshipman," says one of Cooper's characters, "is a good
+grade to reach, but a bad one to stop in." From a fate little better
+than this a large and promising number of young officers were thus
+rescued for the commands and responsibilities of the War of
+Secession.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="section_break"></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">Page 25</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2>
+
+<h3>NAVAL CONDITIONS BEFORE THE WAR OF SECESSION</h3>
+
+<h4>THE VESSELS</h4>
+
+
+<p>Less far-reaching, because men are greater than ships, but still of
+immense timeliness as a preparative to the war, was the reconstitution
+of the material of the navy, practically coincident with the
+regeneration of the personnel. The causes which led to this are before
+my time, and beyond my contemporary knowledge. They therefore form no
+part of my theme; but the result, which is more important than the
+process, was strictly contemporary with me. It marked a definite
+parting with sails as the motive reliance of a ship-of-war, but at the
+same time was characterized by an extreme conservatism, which then was
+probably judicious, and certainly represented the naval opinion of the
+day. It must be remembered that the Atlantic was first crossed under
+steam in 1837, a feat shortly before thought impossible on account of
+coal consumption, and that the screw-propeller was not generally
+adopted till several years afterwards. In 1855 the transatlantic
+liners were still paddlers; but the paddle-wheel shaft was far above
+the water, and so, in necessary consequence, was much of the machinery
+which transmitted power from the boilers to the wheel. All battle
+experience avouched the probability of disabling injury under such
+exposure; not more certain, but probably more fatal, than that to
+spars and sails of sailing-ships. Despite this drawback, paddle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">Page 26</a></span> wheel
+men-of-war were being built between 1840 and 1850. Our own navy had of
+these two large and powerful vessels, sisters, the <em>Missouri</em> and the
+<em>Mississippi</em>. Singularly enough, both met the same end, by fire; the
+<em>Missouri</em> being burned in the Bay of Gibraltar in 1843, the
+<em>Mississippi</em> in the river whence she took her name, in the course of
+Farragut's passage of the batteries at Port Hudson in 1863. This
+engagement marked the end of the admiral's achievements in the river,
+throughout which, beginning with the passage of the forts and the
+capture of New Orleans, the <em>Mississippi</em> had done good work. At the
+time of her destruction, the present Admiral Dewey was her first
+lieutenant. Besides these two we had the <em>Susquehanna</em>, "paddle-wheel
+steam-frigate," which also served manfully through the war, and was in
+commission after it. It was she that carried General Sherman on his
+mission to Mexico in 1866. As usual, the principal European navies had
+built many more of these vessels; that is, had adopted improvements
+more readily than we did. During my first cruise after graduation, on
+the coast of Brazil, 1859&ndash;61, the British squadron there was composed
+chiefly of paddlers; the flag-ship <em>Leopard</em> being one. As I remember,
+there was only one screw-steamer, the sloop-of-war <em>Cura&ccedil;ao</em>.</p>
+
+<p>By that time, however, the paddlers were only survivals; but it may be
+noted, in passing, with reference to the cry of obsolescence so
+readily raised in our day, that these survivals did yeoman service in
+the War of Secession. It is possible to be too quick in discarding, as
+well as too slow in adopting. By 1850 the screw had made good its
+position; and the difficulty which had impeded the progress of steam
+in men-of-war disappeared when it became possible to place all
+machinery below water. There were, however, many improvements still to
+come, before it could be frankly and fully accepted as the sole motive
+power. It is not well to let go with one hand till sure of your grip<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">Page 27</a></span>
+with the other. So in the early days of electric lighting prudent
+steamship companies kept their oil-lamps trimmed and filled in the
+brackets alongside of the electric globes. Apart from the problem
+experienced by the average man&mdash;and governments are almost always
+averages in adjusting his action to novel conditions, the science of
+steam-enginery was still very backward. Notably, the expenditure of
+coal was excessive; to produce a given result in miles travelled, or
+speed attained, much more had to be burned than now, a condition to
+which contributed also the lack of rigidity in the wooden hulls, which
+still held their ground. Sails were very expensive articles, as I
+heard said by an accomplished officer of the olden days; but they were
+less costly than coal. Steam therefore was accepted at the first only
+as an accessory, for emergencies. It was too evident for question that
+in battle a vessel independent of the wind would have an unqualified
+advantage over one dependent; though an early acquaintance of mine, a
+sailmaker in the navy, a man of unusual intelligence and tried
+courage, used to maintain that steam would never prevail. Small
+steamers, he contended, would accompany sailing fleets, to tow vessels
+becalmed, or disabled in battle; a most entertaining instance of
+professional prepossession. What would be his reflections, had he
+survived till this year of grace, to see only six sailmakers on the
+active list of the navy, the last one appointed in 1888, and not one
+of them afloat. Likewise, in breasting the continuous head-winds which
+mark some ocean districts, or traversing the calms of others, there
+would be gain; but for the most part sailing, it was thought, was
+sufficiently expeditious, decidedly cheaper, and more generally
+reliable; for steamers "broke down." Admiral Baudin; a French veteran
+of the Napoleonic period, was very sarcastic over the uncertainties of
+action of the steamers accompanying his sailing frigates, when he
+attacked Fort San Juan de Ulloa, off<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">Page 28</a></span> Vera Cruz in 1839; and since
+writing these words I have come across the following quotation, of
+several years later, from the London <em>Guardian</em>, which is republishing
+some of its older news under the title "'Tis Sixty Years Since."</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Naval man&oelig;uvres in 1846. The Squadron of Evolution is one of
+the topics of the present week (June 10, 1846). Its arrival in the
+Cove of Cork, after a cruise which has tested by every variety of
+weather the sailing qualities of the vessels, has furnished the
+world with a few particulars of its doings, and with some
+materials for speculating on the problems it was sent out to
+solve. The result, as far as it goes, is certainly unfavorable to
+the exclusive prevalence of steam agency in naval warfare. Sailing
+ships, it is seen, can do things which steamers, as at present
+constructed, cannot accomplish. They can keep the sea when
+steamers cannot. But the screw-steamer, which is reported to have
+astonished everybody, is certainly an exception. Perhaps by this
+contrivance the rapidity and convenience of steam locomotion may
+be combined with the power and stability of our huge sailing
+batteries." </p></div>
+
+<p>Under convictions thus slowly recasting, the first big steam
+ships-of-war carried merely "auxiliary" engines; were in fact sailing
+vessels, of the types in use for over a century, into which machinery
+was introduced to meet occasional emergencies. In some cases, probably
+in many, ships already built as sailers were lengthened and engined.
+As late as 1868 we were station-mates with one such, the <em>Rodney</em>, of
+90 guns, then the flag-ship of the British China squadron; and we had
+already met, another, the <em>Princess Royal</em>, at the Cape of Good Hope,
+homeward bound. She, however, had been built as a steamer. She was a
+singularly handsome vessel, of her majestic type; and, as she lay
+close by us, I remember commenting on her appearance to one of my
+messmates, poor Stewart, who afterwards went<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">Page 29</a></span> down in the <em>Oneida</em>.
+"Yes," he replied, "she possesses several elements of the sublime."
+They were certainly imposing creations, with their double and treble
+tiers of guns, thrusting their black muzzles through the successive
+ports which, to the number of fifteen to twenty, broke through the two
+broad white bands that from bow to stern traversed the blackness of
+their hulls; above which rose spars as tall and broad as ever graced
+the days of Nelson. To make the illusion of the past as complete as
+possible, and the dissemblance from the sailing ship as slight, the
+smoke-stack&mdash;or funnel&mdash;was telescopic, permitting it to be lowered
+almost out of sight. For those who can recall these predecessors of
+the modern battle-ships, the latter can make slight claim to beauty or
+impressiveness; yet, despite the ugliness of their angular broken
+sky-line, they have a gracefulness all their own, when moving slowly
+in still water. I remember a dozen years ago watching the French
+Mediterranean fleet of six or eight battle-ships leaving the harbor of
+Villefranche, near Nice. There was some man&oelig;uvring to get their
+several stations, during which, here and there, a vessel lying quiet
+waiting her opportunity would glide forward with a dozen slow turns of
+the screws, not agitating the water beyond a light ripple at the bows.
+The bay at the moment was quiet as a mill-pond, and it needed little
+imagination to prompt recognition of the identity of dignified
+movement with that of a swan making its leisurely way by means equally
+unseen; no turbulent display of energy, yet suggestive of mysterious
+power.</p>
+
+<p>Before the War of Secession, and indeed for twenty years after it, the
+United States never inclined to the maintenance of squadrons, properly
+so-called. It is true, a dozen fine ships-of-the-line were built
+during the sail period, but they never sailed together; and the
+essence of the battle-ship, in all eras, is combined action. Our
+squadrons, till long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">Page 30</a></span> after I entered the navy, were simply
+aggregations of vessels, no two of which were necessarily of the same
+size or class. When a ship-of-the-line went to sea&mdash;which never
+happened in my time&mdash;she went without mates, a palpable paradox; a
+ship-of-the-line, which to no line belonged. Ours was a navy of
+single, isolated cruisers; and under that condition we had received a
+correct tradition that, whatever the nominal class of an American
+ship-of-war, she should be somewhat stronger than the corresponding
+vessels built by other nations. Each cruiser, therefore, would bring
+superior force to any field of battle at all possible to her. This was
+a perfectly just military conception, to which in great measure we
+owed our successes of 1812. The same rule does not apply to fleets,
+which to achieve the like superiority rely upon united action, and
+upon tactical facility obtained by the homogeneous qualities of the
+several ships, enabling them to combine greater numbers upon a part of
+the enemy. Therefore Great Britain, which so long ruled the world by
+fleets, attached less importance to size in the particular vessel.
+Class for class, her ships were weaker than those of her enemies, but
+in fleet action they usually won. At the period of which I am writing,
+the screw-propeller, having fairly established its position, prompted
+a reconstruction of the navy, with no change of the principles just
+mentioned. The cruiser idea dictated the classes of vessels ordered,
+and the idea of relative size prescribed their dimensions. There were
+to be six steam-frigates of the largest class, six steam-sloops, and
+six smaller vessels, a precise title for which I do not know. I myself
+have usually called them by the French name corvette, which has a
+recognized place in English marine phraseology, and means a
+sloop-of-war of the smaller class. A transfer of terms accompanying a
+change of system is apt to be marked by anomalies.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">Page 31</a></span>These eighteen vessels were the nucleus of the fighting force with
+which the government met the war of 1861. In the frigates and sloops
+steam was purely auxiliary; they had every spar and sail of the
+sailing ships to which they corresponded. Four of the larger
+sloops&mdash;the <em>Hartford</em>, <em>Richmond</em>, <em>Brooklyn</em>, and
+<em>Pensacola</em>&mdash;constituted the backbone of Farragut's fleet throughout
+his operations in the Mississippi. The <em>Lancaster</em>, one of the finest
+of these five sisters, was already in the Pacific, and there remained
+throughout the contest; while the <em>San Jacinto</em>, being of different
+type and size, was employed rather as a cruiser than for the important
+operations of war. It was she that arrested the Confederate
+commissioners, Slidell and Mason, on board the British mail-steamer
+<em>Trent</em>, in 1861. The corvettes for the most part were also employed
+as cruisers, being at once less effective in battery, for river work,
+and swifter. They alone of the vessels built in the fifties were
+engined for speed, as speed went in those days; but their sail power
+also was ample, though somewhat reduced. One of them, the <em>Iroquois</em>,
+accompanied Farragut to New Orleans, as did a sister ship to her, the
+<em>Oneida</em>, which was laid down in 1861, after many Southern Senators
+and Representatives had left their seats in Congress and the secession
+movement became ominous of war; when it began to be admitted that
+perhaps, after all, for sufficient cause, brothers might shed the
+blood of brothers.</p>
+
+<p>The steam-frigates were of too deep draught to be of much use in the
+shoal waters, to which the nature of the hostilities and the character
+of the Southern coast confined naval operations. Being extremely
+expensive in upkeep, with enormous crews, and not having speed under
+steam to make them effective chasers, they were of little avail
+against an enemy who had not, and could not have, any ships at sea
+heavy enough to compete with them. The <em>Wabash</em> of this class bore the
+flag of Admiral Dupont<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">Page 32</a></span> at the capture of Port Royal; and after the
+fight the negroes who had witnessed it on shore reported that when
+"that checker-sided ship," following the elliptical course prescribed
+to the squadron for the engagement, came abreast the enemy's works,
+the gunners, after one experience, took at once to cover. No barbette
+or merely embrasured battery of that day could stand up against the
+twenty or more heavy guns carried on each broadside by the
+steam-frigates, if these could get near enough. At New Orleans, even
+the less numerous pieces of the sloops beat down opposition so long as
+they remained in front of Fort St. Philip and close to; but when they
+passed on, so the first lieutenant of one of them told me, the enemy
+returned to his guns and hammered them severely. This showed that the
+fort was not seriously injured nor its armament decisively crippled,
+but that the personnel was completely dominated by the fire of many
+heavy guns during the critical period required for the smaller as well
+as larger vessels to pass. As most of the river work was of this
+character, the broadsides of the sloops were determinative, and those
+of the frigates would have been more so, could they have been brought
+to the scene; but they could not. Much labor was expended in the
+attempt to drag the <em>Colorado</em>, sister ship to the <em>Wabash</em>, across
+the bar of the Mississippi, but fruitlessly.</p>
+
+<p>For the reason named, the screw-frigates built in the fifties had
+little active share in the Civil War. Were they then, from a national
+stand-point, uselessly built? Not unless preparation for war is to be
+rejected, and reliance placed upon extemporized means. To this resort
+our people have always been inclined to trust unduly, owing to a false
+or partial reading of history; but to it they were excusably compelled
+by the extensive demands of the War of Secession, which could scarcely
+have been anticipated. At the time these frigates were built, they
+were,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">Page 33</a></span> by their dimensions and the character of their armaments, much
+the most formidable ships of their class afloat, or as yet designed.
+Though correctly styled frigates&mdash;having but one covered deck of
+guns&mdash;they were open to the charge, brought against our frigates in
+1812 by the British, of being ships-of-the-line in disguise; and being
+homogeneous in qualities, they would, in acting together, have
+presented a line of battle extorting very serious consideration from
+any probable foreign enemy. It was for such purpose they were built;
+and it was no reproach to their designers that, being intended to meet
+a probable contingency, they were too big for one which very few men
+thought likely. At that moment, when the portentous evolution of naval
+material which my time has witnessed was but just beginning, they were
+thoroughly up-to-date, abreast and rather ahead of the conclusions as
+yet reached by contemporary opinion. The best of compliments was paid
+them by the imitation of other navies; for, when the first one was
+finished, we sent her abroad on exhibition, much like a hen cackling
+over its last performance, with the result that we had not long to
+congratulate ourselves on the newest and best thing. It is this place
+in a long series of development which gives them their historical
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>But if the frigates were unfitted to the particular emergency of a
+civil contest, scarcely to be discerned as imminent in 1855, the
+advantage of preparation for general service is avouched by the
+history of the first year of hostilities, even so exceptional as those
+of 1861 and 1862. Within a year of the first Bull Run, Farragut's
+squadron had fought its way from the mouth of the Mississippi to
+Vicksburg. That the extreme position was not held was not the fault of
+the ships, but of backwardness in other undertakings of the nation.
+All the naval vessels that subdued New Orleans had been launched and
+ready before the war, except the <em>Oneida</em> and the gunboats; and to
+at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">Page 34</a></span>tribute any determinative effect in such operations to the
+gunboats, with their one heavy gun, is to misunderstand the
+conditions. Even a year later, at the very important passage of Port
+Hudson, the fighting work was done by the <em>Hartford</em>, <em>Richmond</em>,
+<em>Mississippi</em>, and <em>Monongahela</em>; of which only the last named, and
+least powerful, was built after the war began. It would be difficult
+to overrate the value, material and moral, of the early successes
+which led the way to the opening of the great river, due to having the
+ships and officers ready. So the important advantages obtained by the
+capture of Port Royal in South Carolina, and of Hatteras Inlet in
+North Carolina, within the first six months, were the results of
+readiness, slight and inadequate as that was in reference to anything
+like a great naval war.</p>
+
+<p>A brief analysis of the composition of the navy at the opening of the
+War of Secession, will bring out still more vividly how vitally
+important to the issue were the additions of the decade 1850&ndash;60. In
+March, 1861, when Lincoln was inaugurated, the available ships-of-war
+at sea, or in the yards, numbered sixty-one. Of these thirty-four were
+sailing vessels, substantially worthless; although, as the commerce of
+the world was still chiefly carried on by sailing ships, they could be
+of some slight service against these attempting to pass a blockade.
+For the most part, however, they were but scarecrows, if even
+respected as such. Of the twenty-seven steamers, only six dated from
+before 1850; the remainder were being built when I entered the Naval
+Academy in September, 1856. Their construction, with all that it
+meant, constituted a principal part of the environment into which I
+was then brought, of which the recasting of the list of officers was
+the other most important and significant feature. Both were
+revolutionary in character, and prophetic of further changes quite
+beyond the foresight of contemporaries. From this point of view, the
+period in question has the character of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">Page 35</a></span> an epoch, initiated, made
+possible, by the invention of the screw-propeller; which, in addition
+to the better nautical qualities associated with it, permitted the
+defence of the machinery by submersion, and of the sides of the ship
+by the application of armor. In this lay the germ of the race between
+the armor and the gun, involving almost directly the attempt to reach
+the parts which armor cannot protect, the underwater body, by means of
+the torpedo. The increases of weight induced by the competition of gun
+and armor led necessarily to increase of size, which in turn lent
+itself to increases of speed that have been pushed beyond the strictly
+necessary, and at all events are neither militarily nor logically
+involved in the progress made. It has remained to me always a matter
+of interest and satisfaction that I first knew the navy, was in close
+personal contact and association with it, in this period of
+unconscious transition; and that to the fact of its being yet
+incomplete I have owed the experience of vessels, now wholly extinct,
+of which it would be no more than truth to say that in all essential
+details they were familiar to the men of two hundred years ago. Nay,
+in their predecessors of that date, as transmitted to us by
+contemporary prints, it is easy to trace the development, in form, of
+the ships I have known from the medi&aelig;val galley; and this, were the
+records equally complete, would doubtless find its rudimentary
+outlines in the triremes of the ancient world. Of this evolution of
+structure clear evidences remain also in terminology, even now
+current; survivals which, if the facts were unknown, would provoke
+curiosity and inquiry as to their origin, as physiologists seek to
+reconstruct the past of a race from scanty traces still extant.</p>
+
+<p>I have said that the character of the ships then building constituted
+a chief part of my environment in entering the navy. The effect was
+inevitable, and amounted in fact simply to making me a man of my
+period. My most sus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">Page 36</a></span>ceptible years were colored by the still lingering
+traditions of the sail period, and of the "marling-spike seaman;" not
+that I, always clumsy with my fingers, had any promise of ever
+distinguishing myself with the marling-spike. This expressive phrase,
+derived from its chief tool, characterized the whole professional
+equipment of the then mechanic of the sea, of the man who, given the
+necessary rope-yarns, and the spars shaped by a carpenter, could take
+a bare hull as she lay for the first time quietly at anchor from the
+impetus of her launch, and equip her for sea without other assistance;
+"parbuckle" on board her spars lying alongside her in the stream, fit
+her rigging, bend her sails, stow her hold, and present her all
+a-taunt-o to the men who were to sail her. The navigation of a ship
+thus equipped was a field of seamanship apart from that of the
+marling-spike; but the men who sailed her to all parts of the earth
+were expected to be able to do all the preliminary work themselves,
+often did do it, and considered it quite as truly a part of their
+business as the handling her at sea. Of course, in equipping ships, as
+in all other business, specialization had come in with progress; there
+were rope-makers, there were riggers who took the ropes ready-made and
+fitted them for the ship, and there were stevedores to stow holds,
+etc.; but the tradition ran that the seaman should be able on a pinch
+to do all this himself, and the tradition kept alive the practice,
+which derived from the days not yet wholly passed away when he might,
+and often did, have to refit his vessel in scenes far distant from any
+help other than his own, and without any resources save those which
+his ready wit could adapt from materials meant for quite different
+uses. How to make a jib-boom do the work of a topsail-yard, or to
+utilize spare spars in rigging a jury-rudder, were specimens of the
+problems then presented to the aspiring seaman. It was somewhere in
+the thirties, not so very long before my time, that a Captain Rous, of
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">Page 37</a></span> British navy, achieved renown&mdash;I would say immortal, were I not
+afraid that most people have forgotten&mdash;by bringing his frigate home
+from Labrador to England after losing her rudder. It is said that he
+subsequently ran for Parliament, and when on the hustings some doubter
+asked about his political record, he answered, "I am Captain Rous who
+brought the <em>Pique</em> across the Atlantic without a rudder." Of course
+the reply was lustily cheered, and deservedly; for in such seas, with
+a ship dependent upon sails only, it was a splendid, if somewhat
+reckless achievement. Cooper, in his <em>Homeward Bound</em>, places the ship
+dismasted on the coast of Africa. Close at hand, but on the beach,
+lies a wrecked vessel with her spar standing; and there is no
+exaggeration in the words he puts into the mouth of Captain Truck, as
+he looked upon these resources: "The seaman who, with sticks, and
+ropes, and blocks enough, cannot rig his ship, might as well stay
+ashore and publish an hebdomadal."</p>
+
+<p>Such was the marling-spike seaman of the days of Cooper and Marryat,
+and such was still the able seaman, the "A.B.," of 1855. It was not
+indeed necessary, nor expected, that most naval officers should do
+such things with their own hands; but it was justly required that they
+should know when a job of marling-spike seamanship was well or ill
+done, and be able to supervise, when necessary. Napoleon is reported
+to have said that he could judge personally whether the shoes
+furnished his soldiers were well or ill made; but he needed not to be
+a shoemaker. Marryat, commenting on one of his characters, says that
+he had seldom known an officer who prided himself on his "practical"
+knowledge who was at the same time a good navigator; and that such too
+often "lower the respect due to them by assuming the Jack Tar." Oddly
+enough, lunching once with an old and distinguished British admiral,
+who had been a midshipman while Marryat still lived, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">Page 38</a></span> told me that
+he remembered him well; his reputation, he added, was that of "an
+excellent seaman, but not much of an officer," an expressive phrase,
+current in our own service, and which doubtless has its equivalent in
+all maritime languages.</p>
+
+<p>In my early naval life I came into curious accidental contact with
+just such a person as Marryat described. I was still at the Academy,
+within a year of graduation, and had been granted a few days' leave at
+Christmas. Returning by rail, there seated himself alongside me a
+gentleman who proved to be a lieutenant from the flag-ship of the Home
+Squadron, going to Washington with despatches. Becoming known to each
+other, he began to question me as to what new radicalisms were being
+fostered in Annapolis. "Are they still wasting the young men's time
+over French? I would not permit them to learn any other language than
+their own. And how about seamanship? What do they know about that? As
+far as I have observed they know nothing about marling-spike
+seamanship, strapping blocks, fitting rigging, etc. Now I can sit down
+alongside of any seaman doing a bit of work and show him how it ought
+to be done; yes, and do it myself." It was Marryat's lieutenant,
+Phillott, <em>ipsissimis verbis</em>. I listened, over-awed by the weight of
+authority and experience; and I fear somewhat in sympathy, for such
+talk was in the air, part of the environment of an old order slowly
+and reluctantly giving way to a new.</p>
+
+<p>Of course I shared this; how should I not, at eighteen? In giving
+expression to it once, I drew down on my head a ringing buffet from my
+father, in which he embodied an anecdote of Decatur I never saw
+elsewhere, and fancy he owed to his boyhood passed near a navy-yard
+town&mdash;Portsmouth, Virginia&mdash;while Decatur was in his prime. I had
+written home with reference to some study, in which probably I did not
+shine, "What did Decatur know about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">Page 39</a></span> such things?" A boy may be
+pardoned for laying himself open to the retort which so many of his
+superiors equally invited: "Depend upon it, if Decatur had been a
+student at the Academy, he would, so far as his abilities permitted,
+have got as far to the front as he always did in fighting. He always
+aimed to be first. It is told of him that he commanded one of two
+ships ordered on a common service, in which the other arrived first at
+a point on the way. Her captain, instead of pushing forward, waited
+for Decatur to come up; on hearing which the latter exclaimed in his
+energetic way, 'The d&mdash;&mdash;d fool!'" Decatur, however, also shared, and
+shared inevitably, the prepossessions of his day. I was told by Mr.
+Charles King, when President of Columbia College, that he had been
+present in company with Decatur at one of the early experiments in
+steam navigation. Crude as the appliances still were, demonstration
+was conclusive; and Decatur, whatever his prejudices, was open to
+conviction. "Yes," he said, gloomily, to King, "it is the end of our
+business; hereafter any man who can boil a tea-kettle will be as good
+as the best of us." It is notable that in my day a tradition ran that
+Decatur himself was not thoroughly a seaman. The captain of the first
+ship in which I served after graduation, a man of much solid
+information, who had known the commodore's contemporaries, speaking
+about some occurrence, said to me, "The trouble with Decatur was, that
+he was not a seaman." I repeated the remark to one of our lieutenants,
+and he ejaculated, with emphasis, "Yes, that is true." I cannot tell
+how far these opinions were the result of prepossession in those from
+whom they derived. There had been hard and factious division in the
+navy of Decatur's day, culminating in the duel in which he fell; and
+the lieutenant, at least, was associated by family ties with Decatur's
+antagonist.</p>
+
+<p>To deny that the methods of the Naval Academy were open to criticism
+would be to claim for them infallibility.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">Page 40</a></span> Upon the whole, however, in
+my time they erred rather on the side of being over-conservative than
+unduly progressive. Twenty years later, recalling some of our Academy
+experiences to one of my contemporaries, himself more a man of action
+than a student, and who had meanwhile distinguished himself by
+extraordinary courage in the War of Secession&mdash;I mean Edward Terry&mdash;he
+said, "Oh yes, those were the days before the flood." The hold-back
+element was strong, though not sufficiently so to suit such as my
+friend of the railroad. Objectors laid great stress on the word
+"practical;" than which, with all its most respectable derivation and
+association, I know none more frequently&mdash;nor more effectually&mdash;used
+as a bludgeon for slaying ideas. Strictly, of course, it means knowing
+how to do things, and doing them; but colloquially it usually means
+doing them before learning how. Leap before you look. The practical
+part is bruising your shins for lack of previous reflection. Of
+course, no one denies the educational value of breaking your shins,
+and everything else your own&mdash;a burnt child dreads the fire; but the
+question remains whether an equally good result may not be reached at
+less cost, and so be more really practical. I recall the fine scorn
+with which one of our professors, Chauvenet, a man of great and
+acknowledged ability, practical and other, used to speak of "practical
+men." "Now, young gentlemen, in adjusting your theodolites in the
+field, remember not to bear too hard on the screws. Don't put them
+down with main force, as though the one object was never to unscrew
+them. If you do, you indent the plate, and it will soon be quite
+impossible to level the instrument properly. That," he would continue,
+"is the way with your practical men. There, for instance, is Mr.
+&mdash;&mdash;," naming an assistant in another department, known to the
+midshipmen as Bull-pup, who I suppose had been a practical surveyor;
+"that is what he does." I presume the denunciation was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">Page 41</a></span> due to B. P.
+having at one time borrowed an instrument from the department, and
+returned it thus maltreated. But "practical," so misapplied&mdash;action
+without thought&mdash;was Chauvenet's red rag.</p>
+
+<p>An amusing reminiscence, illustrative of the same common tendency, was
+told me by General Howard. I had the pleasure of meeting Howard, then
+in command of one wing of Sherman's army, at Savannah, just after the
+conclusion of the march to the sea, in 1864. He spoke pleasantly of
+his associations with my father, when a cadet at the Military Academy,
+and added, "I remember how he used to say, 'A little common-sense, Mr.
+Howard, a little common-sense.'" Howard did not say what particular
+occasions he then had in mind, but a student reciting, and confronted
+suddenly with some question, or step in a demonstration, which he has
+failed to master, or upon which he has not reflected, is apt to feel
+that the practical thing to do is not to admit ignorance; to trust to
+luck and answer at random. Such a one, explaining a drawing of a
+bridge to my father, was asked by him what was represented by certain
+lines, showing the up-stream part of a pier. Not knowing, he replied,
+"That is a hole to catch the ice in." "Imagine," said my father, in
+telling me the story, "catching all the ice from above in holes in the
+piers." A little common-sense&mdash;exercised first, not afterwards&mdash;is the
+prescription against leaping before you look, or jamming your screws
+too hard.</p>
+
+<p>To substitute acquired common-sense&mdash;knowledge and reflection&mdash;for the
+cruder and tardier processes of learning by hard personal experience
+and mistakes, is, of course, the object of all education; and it was
+this which caused the foundation of the Naval Academy, behind which at
+its beginning lay the initiative of some of the most reputed and
+accomplished senior officers of the navy, conscious of the needless
+difficulties they themselves had had to sur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">Page 42</a></span>mount in reaching the
+level they had. It involved no detraction from their professional
+excellence, the excellence of men professionally self-made; but none
+comprehend the advantages of education better than candid men who have
+made their way without it. By the time I entered, however, there had
+been a decided, though not decisive, reaction in professional feeling.
+Ten years had elapsed since the founding of the school, and already
+development had gone so far that suspicion and antagonism were
+aroused. Up to 1850 midshipmen went at once to sea, and, after five
+years there, spent one at Annapolis; whereupon followed the final
+examination for a lieutenancy. This effected, the man became a
+"passed" midshipman. Beginning with 1851, the system was changed. Four
+years at the Academy were required, after which two at sea, and then
+examination. This, being a clean break with the past, outraged
+conservatism; it introduced such abominations as French and extended
+mathematics; much attention was paid to infantry drill&mdash;soldiering;
+the scheme was not "practical;" and it was doubtless true that the
+young graduate, despite six months of summer cruising interposed
+between academic terms, came comparatively green to shipboard. In that
+particular respect he could not but compare for the moment unfavorably
+with one who under the old plan would have spent four years on a
+ship's deck. Whether, that brief period of inexperience passed, he
+would not be permanently the better for the prior initiation into the
+<em>rationale</em> of his business, few inquired, and time had not yet had
+opportunity to show.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps, too, there was among the graduates something of the
+"freshness" which is attributed to the same age in leaving a
+university. I do not think it; the immediate contact with conditions
+but partly familiar to us, yet perfectly familiar to all about us,
+excited rather a wholesome feeling of inferiority or inadequacy. We
+had yet to find<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">Page 43</a></span> ourselves. But there remained undoubtedly some
+antagonism between the old and the new. Not that this ever showed
+itself offensively; nothing could have been kinder or more
+open-hearted than our reception by the lieutenants who had not known
+the Academy, and who probably depreciated it in their hearts. Whatever
+they thought, nothing was ever said that could reflect upon us, the
+outcome of the system. It was not even hinted that we might have been
+turned out in better shape under different conditions. From my
+personal experience, I hope we proved more satisfactory than may have
+been expected. When we returned home in 1861, just after the first
+battle of Bull Run, our third lieutenant said to me that he expected a
+command, and would be glad to have me as his first lieutenant; and
+upon my detachment one of the warrant officers expressed his regret
+that I was not remaining as one of the lieutenants of the ship. Both
+being men of mature years and long service, and with no obligation to
+speak, it is permissible to infer that they thought us fit at least to
+take the deck. As it was, in the uproar of those days, no questions
+were asked. The usual examinations were waived, and my class was
+hurried out of the midshipmen's mess into the first-lieutenant's
+berth. Without exception, I believe, we all had that duty at
+once&mdash;second to the captain&mdash;missing thereby the very valuable
+experience of the deck officer. In the face of considerable
+opposition, as I was told by Admiral Dupont, the leading officers of
+the day frustrated the attempt to introduce volunteer officers from
+the merchant service over our heads; another proof of confidence in
+us, as at least good raw material. The longer practice of the others
+at sea was alleged as a reason for thus preferring them, which was
+seriously contemplated; but the reply was that acquaintance with the
+organization of a ship-of-war, with her equipment and armament, the
+general military tone so quickly assimilated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">Page 44</a></span> by the young and so
+hardly by the mature, outweighed completely any mere question of
+attainment in handling a ship. As drill officers, too, the general
+excellence of the graduates was admitted.</p>
+
+<p>Within a fortnight of doing duty on the forecastle, as a midshipman, I
+thus found myself first lieutenant of a very respectable vessel. One
+of my shipmates, less quickly fortunate, was detailed to instruct a
+number of volunteer officers with the great guns and muskets. One of
+them said to him, "Yes, you can teach me this, but I expect I can
+teach you something in seamanship"; a freedom of speech which by
+itself showed imperfect military temper. At the same moment, I myself
+had a somewhat similar encounter, which illustrates why the old
+officers insisted on the superior value of military habit, and the
+necessarily unmilitary attitude, at first, of the volunteers. I had
+been sent momentarily to a paddle-wheel merchant-steamer, now
+purchased for a ship-of-war, the <em>James Adger</em>, which had plied
+between Charleston and New York. A day or two after joining, I saw two
+of the engineer force going ashore without my knowledge. I stopped
+them; and a few moments afterwards the chief engineer, who had long
+been in her when she was a packet, came to me with flaming eyes and
+angry voice to know by what right I interfered with his men. It had to
+be explained to him that, unlike the merchant-service, the engine-room
+was but a department of the military whole of the ship, and that other
+consent than his was necessary to their departure. A trivial incident,
+with a whole world of atmosphere behind it.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="section_break"></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">Page 45</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2>
+
+<h3>THE NAVAL ACADEMY IN ITS RELATION TO THE NAVY AT LARGE</h3>
+
+<h4>1850&ndash;1860</h4>
+
+
+<p>Probably there have been at all periods educational excesses in the
+outlook of some of the Naval Academy authorities; and I personally
+have sympathized in the main with those who would subordinate the
+technological element to the more strictly professional. I remember
+one superintendent&mdash;and he, unless rumor was in error, had been one of
+the early opposition&mdash;saying to me with marked elation, "I believe we
+carry the calculus farther here than they do at West Point." I myself
+had then long forgotten all the calculus I ever knew, and I fear that
+with him, too, it was a case of <em>omne ignotum pro magnifico</em>. A more
+curious extravagancy was uttered to me by a professor of applied
+mathematics. I had happened to say that, while it was well each
+student should have the opportunity to acquire all he could in that
+department, I did not think it necessary that every officer of the
+deck should be able to calculate mathematically the relation between a
+weight he had to hoist on board and the power of the purchase he was
+about to use; which I think a mild proposition, considering the
+centuries during which that knowledge had been dispensed with. "Oh, I
+differ with you," he replied; "I think it of the utmost importance
+they should all be able to do so." Nothing like sails, said my friend
+the sailmaker; nothing like leather, says the shoemaker. I mentioned
+this shortly afterwards to one of my colleagues,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">Page 46</a></span> himself an officer
+of unusual mathematical and scientific attainment. "No!" he exclaimed;
+"did he <em>really</em> say that?"</p>
+
+<p>This was to claim for this mere head knowledge a falsely "practical"
+value, as distinguished from the educational value of the mental
+training involved, and from the undoubted imperative need of such
+acquisitions in those who have to deal with problems of ship
+construction or other mechanical questions connected with naval
+material. His position was really as little practical as that of the
+men who opposed the Academy plan in general as unpractical; as little
+practical as it would be to maintain that it is essential that every
+naval officer to-day should be skilled to handle a ship under sail,
+because the habit of the sailing-ship educated, brought out, faculties
+and habits of the first value to the military man. Still, there is
+something not only excusable, but laudable, in a man magnifying his
+office; and it was well that my friend the professor should have a
+slightly exaggerated idea of the bearing of the calculus on the daily
+routine or occasional emergencies of a ship. What is needed is a
+counterpoise, to correct undue deflection of the like kind, to which
+an educational institution from its very character and object is
+always liable. That the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the
+Sabbath, is a saying of wide application. The administrator tends to
+think more of his administrative machine than of the object for which
+it exists, and the educator to forget that while the foundation is
+essential, it yet exists only for the building, which is the
+"practical" end in view. The object of naval education is to make a
+naval officer. Too much as well as too little of one ingredient will
+mar the compound; and if exaggeration cannot be wholly avoided, it had
+better rest upon the professional side. This was the function
+discharged by the critical attitude of the outside service, such as my
+friend of the railroad; at times<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">Page 47</a></span> somewhat irrational, but still as a
+check effective after the manner of other public opinion, of which in
+fact it was an instance.</p>
+
+<p>In September, 1856, when I entered, professional influence was perhaps
+in excess. The preceding June had seen the graduation of the last
+class of "oldsters"&mdash;of those who, after five years at sea, had spent
+the sixth at the Academy, subjected formally to its discipline and
+methods. I therefore just missed seeing that phase of the Academy's
+history; but I could not thereby escape the traces of its influence.
+However transient, this lasted my time. It may be imagined what an
+influential, yet incongruous, element in a crowd of boys was
+constituted by introducing among them twenty or thirty young men, too
+young for ripeness, yet who for five years had been bearing the not
+slight responsibility of the charge of seamen, often on duty away from
+their superiors, and permitted substantially all the powers and
+privileges conceded to their seniors, men of mature years. How could
+such be brought under the curb of the narrowly ordered life of the
+school, for the short eight months to which they knew the ordeal was
+restricted? Could this have been attempted seriously, there would
+probably have been an explosion; but in truth, as far as my
+observation went, most of the disciplinary officers, the lieutenants,
+rather sympathized with irregularities, within pretty wide limits. A
+midshipman was a being who traditionally had little but the exuberance
+of his spirits to make up for the discomforts of his lot. The
+comprehensive saying that what was nobody's business was a
+midshipman's business epitomized the harrying of his daily life, with
+its narrow quarters, hard fare, and constant hustling for poor pay.
+Like the seaman, above whom in earlier days he stood but little, the
+midshipman had then only his jollity&mdash;and his youth&mdash;to compensate;
+and also like the seaman a certain recklessness was conceded to his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">Page 48</a></span>
+moments of enjoyment. The very name carried with it the privilege of
+frolicking.</p>
+
+<p>The old times of license among seafaring men were still of recent
+memory, and, though practice had improved, opinion remained tolerant.
+The gunner of the first ship in which I served after graduation told
+me that in 1832, when he was a young seaman before the mast on board a
+sloop-of-war in the Mediterranean, on Christmas Eve, there being a
+two-knot breeze&mdash;that is, substantially, calm&mdash;at sundown the ship was
+put under two close-reefed topsails for the night&mdash;storm canvas&mdash;and
+then the jollity began. How far it was expected to go may be inferred
+from the precautions; and we gain here some inkling of the phrase
+"heavy weather" applied to such conditions. But of the same ship he
+told me that she stood into the harbor of Malta under all sail, royal
+and studding sails, to make a flying moor; which, I must explain to
+the unprofessional, is to drop an anchor under sail, the cable running
+out under the force of the ship's way till the place is reached for
+letting go the second anchor, the ship finally being brought to lie
+midway between the two. An accurate eye, a close judgment as to the
+ship's speed, and absolute promptness of execution are needed; for all
+the sail that is on when the first anchor goes must be off before the
+second. In this case nothing was started before the first. Within
+fifteen minutes all was in, the ship moored, sails furled, and yards
+squared, awaiting doubtless the final touches of the boatswain.
+Whether the flag of the port was saluted within the same quarter-hour,
+I will not undertake to say; it would be quite in keeping to have
+attempted it. System, preparation, and various tricks of the trade go
+far to facilitate such rapidity. Now I dare say that some of my
+brother officers may cavil at this story; but I personally believe it,
+with perhaps two or three minutes' allowance for error in clocks. Much
+may be accepted of seamen who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">Page 49</a></span> not uncommonly reefed topsails "in
+stays"&mdash;that is, while the ship was being tacked. Of the narrator's
+good faith I am certain. It was not with hint one of the stock stories
+told about "the last cruise;" nor was he a romancer. It came naturally
+in course of conversation, as one tells any experience; and he added,
+when the British admiral returned the commander's visit he
+complimented the ship on the smartest performance he had ever seen.
+But it is in the combination of license and smartness that the pith of
+these related stories lies; between them they embody much of the
+spirit of a time which in 1855 was remembered and influential. Midway
+in the War of Secession I met the first lieutenant who held the
+trumpet in that memorable man&oelig;uvre&mdash;a man of 1813; now a quiet,
+elderly, slow-spoken old gentleman, retired, with little to suggest
+the smart officer, at the stamp of whose foot the ship's company
+jumped, to use the gunner's expression.</p>
+
+<p>Such performances exemplify the ideals that still obtained&mdash;were in
+full force&mdash;in the navy as first I knew it. In the ship in which the
+gunner and I were then serving, it was our common performance to "Up
+topgallant-masts and yards, and loose sail to a bowline," in three
+minutes and a half from the time the topmen and the masts started
+aloft together from the deck. For this time I can vouch myself, and we
+did it fairly, too; though I dare say we would have hesitated to carry
+the sails in a stiff breeze without a few minutes more. It was a very
+dramatic and impressive performance. The band, with drum and fife, was
+part of it. When all was reported ready from the three masts&mdash;but not
+before&mdash;it was permitted to be eight o'clock. The drums gave three
+rolls, the order "Sway across, let fall," was given, the yards swung
+into their places, the sails dropped and were dragged out by their
+bowlines to facilitate their drying, the bell struck eight, the flag
+was hoisted, and close on the drums followed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">Page 50</a></span> the band playing the
+"Star-Spangled Banner," while the ship's company went to breakfast. It
+was the transformation scene of a theatre; within five minutes the
+metamorphosis was complete. There was doubtless a flavor of the circus
+about it all, but it was a wholesome flavor and tonicked the
+professional appetite. Yes, and the natural appetite, too; your
+breakfast tasted better, especially if some other ship had got into
+trouble with one of her yards or sails. "Did you see what a mess the
+&mdash;&mdash; made of fore-topgallant-yard this morning?" An old boatswain's
+mate of the ship used to tell me one of his "last-cruise" stories, of
+when he "was in the <em>Delaware</em>, seventy-four, up the Mediterranean, in
+1842." Of course, the <em>Delaware</em> had beaten the <em>Congress's</em> time; the
+last ship always did. Then he would add: "I was in the foretop in
+those days, and had the fore-topgallant-yard; and if one of us fellows
+let his yard show on either side of the mast before the order 'Sway
+across,' we could count on a dozen when we got down just as sure as we
+could count on our breakfast." Flogging was not abolished until about
+1849. No wonder men were jolly when they could be, without worrying
+about to-morrow's headache.</p>
+
+<p>Part of the preparation was to let the captain know beforehand that it
+was eight o'clock, and get his authority that it might be so; subject
+always to the yet higher authority that the yards and sails were
+ready. If they were not, so much the worse for eight o'clock. It had
+to wait quite as imperatively as the sun did for Joshua. Sunset, when
+the masts and yards came down, was equally under bonds; it awaited the
+pleasure of the captain or admiral. Indeed, in my time a story ran of
+a court-martial at a much earlier day, sitting in a capital case. By
+law, each day's session must end by sundown. On the occasion in
+question, sundown was reported to the admiral&mdash;or, rather, commodore;
+we had no admirals then. He sent to know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">Page 51</a></span> how soon the court could
+finish. The reply was, in about fifteen minutes. "Tell the officer of
+the deck not to make it sundown until he hears from me;" and, in
+defiance of the earth's movement, the colors were kept flying in
+attestation that the sun was up. One other hour of the twenty-four,
+noon, was brought in like manner to the captain's attention, and
+required his action, but it was treated with more deference;
+recognition rather than authority was meted to it, and it was never
+known to be tampered with. The circumstance of the sun's crossing the
+ship's meridian was unique in the day; and the observation of the
+fact, which drew on deck all the navigating group with their
+instruments, establishing the latitude immediately and precisely, was
+of itself a principal institution of the ship's economy. Such claims
+were not open to trifling; and were there not also certain established
+customs, almost vested interests, such as the seven-bell nip, cocktail
+or otherwise, connected with the half-hour before, when "the sun was
+over the fore-yard"? I admit I never knew whence the latter phrase
+originated, nor just what it meant, but it has associations. Like sign
+language, it can be understood.</p>
+
+<p>I was myself shipmate, as they say, with most of this sort of thing;
+for with its good points and its bad it did not disappear until the
+War of Secession, the exigencies of which drove out alike the sails
+and the sailor. The abolition of the grog ration in 1862 may be looked
+upon as a chronological farewell to a picturesque past. We did not so
+understand it. Contemporaries are apt to be blind to bloodless
+revolutions. Had we seen the full bearing, perhaps there might have
+been observed a professional sundown, in recognition of the fact that
+the topgallant-yards had come down for the last time, ending one
+professional era. A protest was recorded by one eccentric character, a
+survival whom Cooper unfortunately never knew, who hoisted a whiskey
+demijohn at the peak of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">Page 52</a></span> gunboat&mdash;the ensign's allotted place. To
+the admiral's immediate demand for an explanation, he replied that
+that was the flag he served under; but he was one of those to whom all
+things are forgiven. The seaman remains, and must always remain while
+there are seas to cross and to rule; but the sailor, in his
+accomplishments and in his defects, began then to depart, or to be
+evolutionized into something entirely different. I am bound to admit
+that in the main the better has survived, but, now that such hairs as
+I have are gray, I may be permitted to look back somewhat wistfully
+and affectionately on that which I remember a half-century ago;
+perhaps to sympathize with the seamen of the period, who saw
+themselves swamped out of sight and influence among the vast numbers
+required by the sudden seven or eight fold expansion of the navy for
+that momentous conflict. Occasionally one of these old salts, mournful
+amid his new environment, would meet me, and say, "Ah! Mr. Mahan, the
+navy isn't what it was!" True, in 1823, Lord St. Vincent, then verging
+on ninety, had made the same remark to George IV.; and I am quite
+sure, if the aged admiral had searched his memory, he could have
+recalled it in the mouth of some veteran of 1750. The worst of it is,
+this is perennially true. From period to period the gain exceeds, but
+still there has been loss as well; and to sentiment, ranging over the
+past, the loss stands more conspicuous. "Memory reveals every rose,
+but secreteth its thorn."</p>
+
+<p>This is the more apparent when the change has been sudden, or on such
+a scale as to overwhelm, by mere bulk, that subtle influence for which
+we owe to the French the name of <em>esprit de corps</em>. It is the breath
+of the body, the breath of life. Before the War of Secession our old
+friends the marines had a deserved reputation for fidelity, which
+could not survive the big introduction of alien matter into the
+"corps." I remember hearing an officer of long ser<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">Page 53</a></span>vice say that he
+had known but a single instance of a marine deserting; and as to the
+general fact there was no dissent among the by-standers. The same
+could scarcely be said now, nor of seamen then. The sentiment of
+particular faithfulness had been nurtured in the British marines under
+times and conditions which made them at a critical moment the saviors
+of discipline, and thereby the saviors of the state. It is needless to
+philosophize the strength of such a tradition, so established, nor its
+effect on each member of the body; and from thence, not improbably, it
+was transmitted to our younger navy. Whencever coming, there it was.
+One marine private, in the ship to which I belonged, returning from
+liberty on shore, was heard saying to another with drunken
+impressiveness, "Remember, our motto is, 'Patriotism and laziness.'"
+Of course, this went round the ship, greatly delighting on both counts
+our marine officers, and became embodied in the chaff that passed to
+and fro between the two corps; of which one saying, "The two most
+useless things in a ship were the captain of marines and the
+mizzen-royal," deserves for its drollery to be committed to writing,
+now that mizzen-royals have ceased to be. May it be long before the
+like extinction awaits the captains of marines! Our own, however, an
+eccentric man, who had accomplished the then rare feat of working his
+way up from the ranks, used to claim that marines were an absurdity.
+"It is having one army to keep another army in order," he would say.
+This was once true, and might with equal truth be said of a city
+police force&mdash;one set of citizens to keep the other citizens orderly.
+In the olden time it had been the application of the sound
+statesmanship dogma, "<em>Divide et impera</em>." For this, in the navy,
+happily, the need no longer exists; but I can see no reason to believe
+the time at hand when we can dispense with a corps of seamen, the
+specialty of which is infantry&mdash;and shore expedition when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">Page 54</a></span> necessary.
+Patriotism, as our marine understood it, was sticking by your colors
+and your corps, and doing your duty through thick and thin; no bad
+ideal.</p>
+
+<p>In like mingling of good and evil, the oldsters at the Naval Academy,
+along with some things objectionable, including a liberty that under
+the conditions too often resembled license, brought with them sound
+traditions, which throughout my stay there constituted a real <em>esprit
+de corps</em>. In nothing was this more conspicuous than in the attitude
+towards hazing. Owing to circumstances I will mention later, I entered
+at once the class which, as I understand, most usually perpetrated the
+outrageous practices that became a scandal in the country&mdash;the class,
+that is, which is entering on its second year at the Academy. My home
+having always been at the Military Academy, I, without much thinking,
+expected to find rife the same proceedings which had prevailed there
+from time to me immemorial. Such anticipations made deeper and more
+lasting the impression produced by the contrary state of things, and
+yet more by the wholly different tone prevalent at Annapolis. Not only
+was hazing not practised, but it scarcely obtained even the
+recognition of mention; it was not so much reprobated as ignored; and,
+if it came under discussion at all, it was dismissed with a turn of
+the nose, as something altogether beneath us. That is not the sort of
+thing we do here. It may be all very well at West Point&mdash;much as "what
+would do for a marine could not be thought of for a seaman"&mdash;but we
+were "officers and gentlemen," and thought no small beans of ourselves
+as such. There were at times absurd manifestations of this same
+precocious dignity, of which I may speak later; still, as O'Brien said
+of Boatswain Chucks, "You may laugh at such assumptions of gentility,
+but did any one of his shipmates ever know Mr. Chucks to do an
+unhandsome or a mean action?&mdash;and why? Because he aspired to be a
+gentleman."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">Page 55</a></span>While I can vouch for this general state of feeling, I cannot be sure
+of its derivation; but I have always thought it due to the presence
+during the previous five years of the "oldsters," nominally under the
+same discipline as ourselves, but looked up to with the respect and
+observance which at that age are naturally given to those two or three
+seasons older. And these men were not merely more advanced in years.
+They were matured beyond their age by early habits of responsibility
+and command, and themselves imbued by constant contact with the spirit
+of the phrase "an officer and a gentleman," which constitutes the norm
+of military conduct. Their intercourse with their seniors on board
+ship had been much closer than that which was possible at the school.
+This atmosphere they brought with them to a position from which they
+could not but most powerfully influence us. How far the tradition
+might have been carried on, in smooth seas, I do not know; but along
+with many other things, good and bad, it was shattered by the War of
+Secession. The school was precipitately removed to Newport, where it
+was established in extemporized and temporary surroundings; the older
+undergraduates were hurried to sea, while the new entries were huddled
+together on two sailing frigates moored in the harbor, dissociated
+from the influence of those above them. The whole anatomy and, so to
+say, nervous system of the organization were dislocated. For better or
+for worse, perhaps for better and for worse, the change was more like
+death and resurrection than life and growth. The potent element which
+the oldster had contributed, and the upper classes absorbed and
+perpetuated, was eliminated at once and entirely by the detachment of
+the senior cadets and the segregation of the new-corners. New ideals
+were evolved by a mass of school-boys, severed from those elder
+associates with the influence of whom no professors nor officers can
+vie. How hazing came up I do not know,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">Page 56</a></span> and am not writing its
+history. I presume it is one of the inevitable weeds that school-boy
+nature brings forth of itself, unless checked by unfavorable
+environment. I merely note its almost total absence in my time; its
+subsequent existence was unhappily notorious.</p>
+
+<p>A general good-humored tolerance, easy-going, and depending upon a
+mutual understanding, none the less clear because informal,
+characterized the relations of the officers and students. Primarily,
+each were in the appreciation of the other officers and gentlemen. So
+far there was implicit equality; and while the ones were in duty bound
+to enforce academic regulations, which the others felt an equal
+obligation to disregard, it was a kind of game in which they did not
+much mind being losers, provided we did not trespass on the standards
+of the gentleman, and of the officer liberally construed. They, I
+think, had an unacknowledged feeling that while under school-boy, or
+collegiate, discipline as to times or manners, some relaxation of
+strict official correctness must be endured. Larking, sometimes
+uproarious, met with personal sympathy, if official condemnation. Nor
+did we resent being detected by what we regarded as fair means; to
+which we perhaps gave a pretty wide interpretation. The exceptional
+man, who inspected at unaccustomed hours, which we considered our own
+prescriptive right&mdash;though not by rules&mdash;who came upon us unawares,
+was apt to be credited with rather unofficer-like ideas of what was
+becoming, and suspected of the not very gentlemanly practice of
+wearing noiseless rubber shoes. That intimation of his approach was
+conveyed by us from room to room by concerted taps on the gas-pipes
+was fair war; nor did our opponents seem to mind what they could not
+but clearly hear. Indeed, I think most of them were rather glad to
+find evidences of order and propriety prevailing, where possibly but
+for those kindly signals they might have detected matter for report.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">Page 57</a></span>There was one lieutenant, however, the memory of whom was still green
+as a bay-tree in my day, though it would have been blasted indeed
+could cursing have blighted it, to whom the game of detective seemed
+to possess the fascination of the chase; and so successful was he that
+his baffled opponents could not view the matter dispassionately, nor
+accept their defeat in sportsman-like spirit. I knew him later; he had
+a saturnine appearance, not calculated to conciliate a victim, but he
+liked a joke, especially of the practical kind, and for the sake of
+one successfully achieved could forgive an offender. Night surprises,
+inroads on the enemy's country, at the hours when we were mistakenly
+supposed to be safe in bed, and regulations so required, were favorite
+stratagems with him. On one occasion, so tradition ran, some
+half-dozen midshipmen had congregated in a room "after taps," and,
+with windows carefully darkened, had contrived an extempore kitchen to
+fry themselves a mess of oysters. The process was slow, owing to the
+number of oysters the pan could take at once and the largeness of the
+expectant appetites; but it had progressed nearly to completion, when
+without premonition the door opened and &mdash;&mdash; appeared. He asked no
+questions and offered no comments, but, walking to the platter, seized
+it and threw out of the window the accumulated results of an hour's
+weary work. No further notice of the delinquency followed; the
+discomfiture of the sufferers sufficiently repaid his sense of humor.
+At another midnight hour a midshipman visiting in a room not his,
+lured thither, let us hope, by the charms of intellectual
+conversation, was warned by the gas-pipes that the enemy was on the
+war-path. Retreat being cut off, he took refuge under a bed, but
+unwittingly left a hand visible. &mdash;&mdash; caught sight of it, walked to
+the bed, flashed his lantern in the eyes of its occupant, who
+naturally was sleeping as never before, and at the same time trod hard
+on the exposed fingers. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">Page 58</a></span> squeal followed this unexpected attention,
+and the culprit had to drag himself out; but the lieutenant was
+satisfied, and let him go at that.</p>
+
+<p>I have said that larking met with more than toleration&mdash;with sympathy.
+The once magic word "midshipman" seemed to cloak any outburst of
+frolicking; otherwise some exhibitions I witnessed could scarcely have
+passed unscathed. They were felt to be in character by the older
+officers; and, while obliged to reprehend, I doubt whether some of
+them would not have more enjoyed taking a share. They knew, too, that
+we were just as proud as they of the service, and that under all lay
+an entire readiness to do or to submit to that which we and they alike
+recognized as duty. Sometimes rioting went rather too far, but for the
+most part it was harmless. One rather grave incident, shortly before
+my entry, derived its humor mainly from the way in which it was
+treated by the superintendent. One of the out-buildings of the
+Academy, either because offensive or out of sheer deviltry, was set on
+fire and destroyed. The perpetrator of this startling practical joke
+was Alexander F. Crosman, of the '51 Date, whom many of us yet living
+remember well. Small in stature, with something of the
+"chip-on-the-shoulder" characteristic, often seen in such, he was
+conspicuous for a certain chivalrous gallantry of thought and mien,
+the reflection of a native brilliant courage; a trait which in the end
+caused his death, about 1870, by drowning, in the effort to save an
+imperilled boat's crew. The superintendent, a man of ponderous
+dimensions, and equally ponderous but rapid speech&mdash;though it is due
+to say also unusually accomplished, both professionally and
+personally&mdash;was greatly outraged and excited at this defiance of
+discipline. The day following he went out to meet the corps, when it
+had just left some formation, and, calling a halt, delivered a speech
+on the basis of the <em>Articles of War</em>, a copy of which he brandished
+before his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">Page 59</a></span> audience. These ancient ordinances, among many other
+denunciations of naval crimes and misdemeanors, pronounced the
+punishment of death, or "such other worse" as a court-martial might
+adjudge, upon "any person in the Navy who shall maliciously set on
+fire, or otherwise destroy, any government property not then in the
+possession of an <em>enemy, pirate, or rebel</em>." The gem of oratory
+hereupon erected was paraphrased as follows by the culprit himself,
+aided and abetted in his lyrical flight by his room-mate, John S.
+Barnes, who, after graduating left the service, returned for the War
+of Secession, and subsequently resigned finally. To this survivor of
+the two collaborators I owe the particulars of the affair. How many
+more "traitors" there were I know not. Those who recall the speaker
+will recognize that the parody must have followed closely the real
+words of the address:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Young gentlemen assembled!&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">It makes no matter where&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I only want to speak to you,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">So hear me where you are.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Some vile incendiary<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Last night was prowling round,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who set fire to our round-house<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And burned it to the ground.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I'll read the Naval Law;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The man who dares to burn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A round-house,&mdash;not the Enemy's,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A traitor's fate shall learn.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And if a man there be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who does this traitor know,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And keeps it to himself,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He shall suffer death also!<br /></span>
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">Page 60</a></span></p>
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'Tis well, then, to tell, then,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who did this grievous ill;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, d&mdash;n him, I will hang him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">So help me God! I will!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>If anything could have added to the gayety of the fire, such an
+outburst would.</p>
+
+<p>In after years I sailed under the command of this speechmaker. At
+monthly musters he reserved to himself the prerogative of reading the
+<em>Articles</em>, probably thinking that he did it more effectively than the
+first lieutenant; in which he was quite right. It so happened that,
+owing to doubt whether a certain paragraph applied to the Marine
+Corps, Congress had been pleased to make a special enactment that the
+word "persons" in such and such a clause "should be construed to
+include marines." Coming as this did near the end, some humorist was
+moved to remark that the first Sunday in the month muster was for the
+purpose of informing us authoritatively that a marine was a person. As
+the captain read this interesting announcement, his voice assumed a
+gradual <em>crescendo</em>, concluding with a profound emphasis on the word
+"marines," which he accompanied with a half turn and a flourish of the
+book towards that honorable body, drawn up in full uniform, at parade
+rest, its venerable captain, whose sandy hair was fast streaking with
+gray, standing at its head, his hands meekly crossed over his
+sword-hilt, the blade hanging down before him; all doubtless suitably
+impressed with this definition of their status, which for greater
+certainty they heard every month. It was very fine, very fine indeed;
+appealing to more senses than one.</p>
+
+<p>The shore drills&mdash;infantry and field artillery&mdash;furnished special
+occasions for organized&mdash;or disorganized&mdash;upheavals of animal spirits.
+For these exercises we then had scant respect. They were "soldiering;"
+and from time imme<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">Page 61</a></span>morial soldier had been an adjective to express
+uselessness, or that which was so easy as to pass no man's ability. A
+soldier's wind, for example, was a wind fair both ways&mdash;to go and to
+return; no demands on brains there, much less on seamanship. The
+curious irrelevancy of such applications never strikes persons;
+unless, indeed, a perception of incongruity is the soul of wit, a
+definition which I think I have heard. To depart without the ceremony
+of saying good-bye takes its name from the most elaborately civil of
+people&mdash;French leave; while the least perturbable of nations has been
+made to contribute an epithet, Dutch, to the courage derived from the
+whiskey-bottle. In the latter case, however, I fancy that, besides the
+tradition of long-ago national rivalries, there may have been the idea
+that to excite a Dutchman you must, as they say, light a fire under
+him; or as was forcibly remarked by a midshipman of my time of his
+phlegmatic room-mate, he had to kick him in the morning to get him
+started for the day.</p>
+
+<p>To return to the shore drills: these were then committed to one of the
+civil professors of the Academy, a fact which itself spoke for the
+familiarity with them of the sea lieutenants. As these always
+exercised us at ships' guns, the different estimation which the two
+obtained in the outside service was too obvious to escape quick-witted
+young fellows, and it was difficult to overcome the resultant
+disrespect. The professor was not one to effect the impossible. He was
+a graduate of West Point, a man of ability, not lacking in dignity,
+and personally worthy of all respect; but he stuttered badly, and this
+impediment not only received no mercy from youth, but interfered with
+the accuracy of man&oelig;uvres where the word of command needed to be
+timely in utterance. Report ran that on one occasion, advancing by
+column of companies, while the professor was struggling with
+"H-H-H-Halt!" the leading company, composed martyrs to discipline,
+marched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">Page 62</a></span> over the sea-wall into three feet of water. Had the water
+been deeper, they might have been less literal. Despite his military
+training, his bearing and carriage had not the strong soldierly stamp
+which might redeem his infirmity, and even in the class-room a certain
+whimsical atmosphere seemed borne from the drill-ground. He, I
+believe, was the central figure of one of the most humorous scenes in
+Herman Melville's <em>White Jacket</em>, a book which, despite its prejudiced
+tone, has preserved many amusing and interesting inside recollections
+of a ship-of-war of the olden time. The naval instructor on board the
+frigate is using Rodney's battle of 1782 to illustrate on the
+blackboard the principles of naval tactics to the class of midshipmen.
+"Now, young gentlemen, you see this disabled French ship in the
+corner, far to windward of her fleet, between it and the enemy. She
+has lost all three masts, and the greater part of the ship's company
+are killed and wounded; what will you do to save her?" To this knotty
+problem many extemporized "practical" answers are given, of which the
+most plausible is by Mr. Dash, of Virginia&mdash;"I should nail my colors
+to the mast and let her sink under me." As this could scarcely be
+called saving her, Mr. Dash is rebuked for irrelevance; but, after the
+gamut of possible solutions has been well guessed over, the instructor
+announces impressively, "That ship, young gentlemen, cannot be saved."</p>
+
+<p>I cannot say that he dealt with us thus tantalizingly; but one of my
+contemporaries used to tell a story of his personal experience which
+was generically allied to the above. At the conclusion of some faulty
+man&oelig;uvre, the instructor remarked aloud: "This all went wrong,
+owing to Mr. P.'s not standing fast in his own person. We will now
+repeat it, for the particular benefit of Mr. P." The repetition
+ensued, and in its course the instructor called out, "Be careful, Mr.
+P., and stand fast where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">Page 63</a></span> you are." "I am standing fast," replied P.,
+incautiously. "R-R-Report Mr. P. for talking in ranks." At the
+Academy, naval tactics were not within his purview; and of all our
+experiences with him in the class-room, one ludicrous incident alone
+remains with me. One of my class, though in most ways well at head,
+was a little alarmed about his standing in infantry tactics. He
+therefore at a critical occasion attempted to carry the text-book with
+him to the blackboard. This surreptitious deed, being not to get
+advantage over a fellow, but to save himself, was condoned by public
+opinion; but, being unused to such deceits, in his agitation he copied
+his figure upside down and became hopelessly involved in the
+demonstration. The professor next day took occasion to comment
+slightingly on our general performance, but "as to Mr. &mdash;&mdash;," he
+added, derisively, "he did r-r-r-wretchedly."</p>
+
+<p>I sometimes wonder that we learned anything about "soldiering," but we
+did in a way. The principles and theory were mastered, if performance
+was slovenly; and in execution, as company officers, we got our
+companies "there," although just how we did it might be open to
+criticism. In our last year the adjutant in my class, who graduated at
+its head, on the first occasion of forming the battalion, after some
+moments of visible embarrassment could think of no order more
+appropriate than "Form your companies fore and aft the pavement." Fore
+and aft is "lengthwise" of a ship. No humiliation attended such a
+confession of ignorance&mdash;on that subject; but had the same man "missed
+stays" when in charge of the deck, he would have been sorely
+mortified. His successor of to-day probably never will have a chance
+to miss stays. There thus ran through our drills an undercurrent of
+levity, which on provocation would burst out almost spontaneously into
+absurdity. On one occasion the battalion was drawn up in line,
+fronting at some distance the five buildings which then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">Page 64</a></span> constituted
+the midshipmen's quarters. The intimation was given that we were to
+advance and then charge. Once put in motion, I know not whether
+stuttering lost the opportunity of stopping us, but the pace became
+quicker and quicker till the whole body broke into a run, rushed
+cheering tumultuously through the passages between the houses, and
+reformed, peaceably enough, on the other side. The captains all got a
+wigging for failing to keep us in hand; but they were powerless. The
+whole thing was without preconcertment or warning. It could hardly
+have happened, however, had the instinct of discipline been as strong
+in these drills as in others.</p>
+
+<p>A more deliberate prank was played with the field artillery. These
+light pieces, being of the nature of cannon rather than muskets,
+obtained more deference, being recognized as of the same genus with
+the great guns which then constituted a ship's broadside. On one
+occasion they were incautiously left out overnight on the
+drill-ground. Between tattoo and taps, 9.30 to 10 <span class="ampm">P.M.</span>, was always a
+half-hour of release from quarters. There was mischief ready-made for
+idle hands to do. The guns were taken in possession, rushed violently
+to and fro in mock drill performance, and finally taken to pieces, the
+parts being scattered promiscuously in all directions. Dawn revealed
+an appearance of havoc resembling a popular impressionist
+representation of a battle-field. Here a caisson with its boxes,
+severed from their belongings, stretched its long pole appealingly
+towards heaven; the wheels had been dispersed to distant quarters of
+the ground and lay on their sides; elsewhere were the guns, sometimes
+reversed and solitary, at others not wholly dismounted, canted at an
+angle, with one wheel in place. As there were six of them, complete in
+equipments, the scene was extensive and of most admired confusion;
+ingenuity had exhausted itself in variety, to enhance picturesqueness
+of effect. How<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">Page 65</a></span> the lieutenant in charge accounted for all this
+happening without his interference, I do not know. Certainly there was
+noise enough, but then that half-hour always was noisy. The
+superintendent of that time had, when walking, a trick of grasping the
+lapel of his coat with his right hand, and twitching it when
+preoccupied. The following day, as he surveyed conditions, it seemed
+as if the lapel might come away; but he made us no speech, nor, as far
+as I know, was any notice taken of the affair. No real damage had been
+done, and the man would indeed have been hard-heartedly conscientious
+who would grudge the action which showed him so comical a sight.</p>
+
+<p>I once heard an excellent first lieutenant&mdash;Farragut's own through the
+principal actions of the War of Secession&mdash;say that where there was
+obvious inattention to uniform there would always be found slackness
+in discipline. It may be, therefore, that our habits as to uniform
+were symptomatic of the same easy tolerance which bore with such
+extravagances as I have mentioned; the like of which, in overt act,
+was not known to me in my later association with the Academy as an
+officer. We had a prescribed uniform, certainly; but regulations, like
+legislative acts, admit of much variety of interpretation and latitude
+in practice, unless there is behind them a strong public sentiment. In
+my earlier days there was no public sentiment of the somewhat martinet
+kind; such as would compel all alike to wear an overcoat because the
+captain felt cold. In practice, there was great laxity in details. I
+remember, in later days and later manners, when we were all compelled
+to be well buttoned up to the throat, a young officer remarked to me
+disparagingly of another, "He's the sort of man, you know, who would
+wear a frock-coat unbuttoned." There's nothing like classification. My
+friend had achieved a feat in natural history; in ten words he had
+defined a species. On another occasion the same man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">Page 66</a></span> remorselessly
+wiped out of existence another species, consecrated by generations of
+blue-books and <em>Naval Regulations</em>. "I know nothing of superior
+officers," he said; "senior officers, if you choose; but superior,
+no!" Whether the <em>Naval Regulations</em> have yet recognized this obvious
+distinction, whether it is no longer "superior officers," but only
+senior officers, who are not to be "treated with contempt," etc., I
+have not inquired. Apart from such amusing criticism of the times
+past, it is undoubtedly true that attention to minuti&aelig; is symptomatic
+of a much more important underlying spirit, one of exactness and
+precision running through all the management of a ship and affecting
+her efficiency. I concede that a thing so trifling as the buttoning of
+a frock-coat may indicate a development and survival of the fittest;
+but in 1855&ndash;60 frock-coats had not been disciplined, and in accordance
+with the tone of the general service we midshipmen were tacitly
+indulged in a similar freedom. This tolerance may have been in part a
+reaction from the vexatious and absurd interference of a decade before
+with such natural rights as the cut of the beard&mdash;not as matter of
+neatness, but of pattern. Even for some time after I graduated, unless
+I misunderstood my informants, officers in the British navy were not
+permitted to wear a full beard, nor a mustache; and we had out-breaks
+of similar regulative annoyance in our own service, one of which
+furnished Melville with a striking chapter. Discussing the matter in
+my presence once, the captain of a frigate said, "There is one reply
+to objectors; if they do not wish to conform, they can leave the
+service." Clearly, however, a middle-aged man cannot throw up his
+profession thus easily.</p>
+
+<p>Another circumstance that may have contributed to indifference to
+details of dress was the carefulness with which the old-time sea
+officers had constantly to look after the set and trim of the canvas.
+Every variation of the wind, every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">Page 67</a></span> change of course, every
+considerable man&oelig;uvre, involved corresponding changes in the
+disposition of the sails, which must be effected not only correctly,
+but with a minute exactness extending to half a hundred seemingly
+trivial details, upon precision in which depended&mdash;and justly&mdash;an
+officer's general reputation for officer-like character. Not only so,
+but the mere weight of rigging and sails, and the stretching resultant
+on such strain, caused recurring derangements, which, permitted,
+became slovenliness. Yards accurately braced, sheets home alike,
+weather leaches and braces taut, with all the other and sundry
+indications which a well-trained eye instinctively sought and noted,
+were less the dandyism than the self-respecting neatness of a
+well-dressed ship, and were no bad substitute, as tests, for buttoned
+frock-coats. The man without fault in the one might well be pardoned,
+by others as well as himself, for neglects which had never occurred to
+him to be such. His attention was centred elsewhere, as a man may
+think more of his wife's dress than his own. After all, one cannot be
+always stretched with four pins, as the French say; there must be some
+give somewhere.</p>
+
+<p>The frock was then the working coat of the navy. There was fuller
+dress for exceptional occasions, in which, at one festive muster early
+in the cruise, we all had to appear, to show that we had it; but
+otherwise it was generally done up in camphor. The jacket, which was
+prescribed to the midshipmen of the Academy, had informal recognition
+in the service, and we took our surviving garments of that order with
+us to sea, to wear them out. But, while here and there some officer
+would sport one, they could scarcely be called popular. One of our
+lieutenants, indeed, took a somewhat sentimental view of the jacket.
+"There was Mr. S.," he said to me, speaking of a brother midshipman,
+"on deck yesterday with a jacket. It looked so tidy and becoming. If
+there had been anything aloft<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">Page 68</a></span> out of the way, I could say to him,
+'Mr. S., just jump up there, will you, and see what is the matter?'"
+War, which soon afterwards followed with its stern preoccupations and
+incidental deprivations, induced inevitably deterioration in matters
+of dress. With it the sack-coat, or pilot-jacket, burrowed its way in,
+the cut and insignia of these showing many variations. The
+undergraduates at the Academy in my day had for all uses a
+double-breasted jacket; but it was worn buttoned, or not, at choice.
+On the rolling collar a gold foul anchor&mdash;an anchor with a rope cable
+twined round it&mdash;was prescribed; but, while a standard embroidered
+pattern was supplied at the Academy store, those who wished procured
+for themselves metal anchors, and these not only were of many shapes
+and sizes, but for symmetrical pinning in place demanded an accuracy
+of eye and hand which not every one had. The result was variegated and
+fanciful to a degree; but I doubt if any of the officers thought aught
+amiss. So the regulation vest buttoned up to the chin, but very many
+had theirs made with rolling collar, to show the shirt. I had a
+handsome, very dandy, creole classmate, whom an admiring family kept
+always well supplied with fancy shirts; and I am sure, if precisians
+of the present day could have seen him starting out on a Saturday
+afternoon to pay his visits, with everything just so&mdash;except in a
+regulation sense&mdash;and not a back hair out of place, they must have
+accepted the results as a testimony to the value of the personal
+factor in uniform. Respect for individual tastes was rather a mark of
+that time in the navy. Seamen handy with their needle were permitted,
+if not encouraged, to embroider elaborate patterns, in divers colors,
+on the fronts of their shirts, and turned many honest pennies by doing
+the like for less skillful shipmates. Pride in personal appearance,
+dandyism, is quite consonant with military feeling, as history has
+abundantly shown; and it may be that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">Page 69</a></span> something has been lost as well
+as gained in the suppression of individual action, now when an
+inspecting officer may almost be said to carry with him a yard-stick
+and micrometer to detect deviations.</p>
+
+<p>A very curious manifestation of this disposition to bedeck the body
+was the prevalence of tattooing. If not universal, it was very nearly
+so among seamen of that day. Elaborate designs covering the chest, or
+back, or arms, were seen everywhere, when the men were stripped on
+deck for washing. There was no possible inducement to this except a
+crude love of ornament, or a mere imitation of a prevailing fashion,
+which is another manifestation of the same propensity. The
+inconvenience of being branded for life should have been felt by men
+prone to desertion; but the descriptive lists which accompany every
+crew were crowded with such remarks as, "Goddess of Liberty, r. f.
+a."&mdash;right forearm&mdash;the which, if a man ran away, helped the police of
+the port to identify him. My memory does not retain the various
+emblems thus perpetuated in men's skins; they were largely patriotic
+and extremely conventional, each practised tattooer having doubtless
+his own particular style. Many midshipmen of my time acquired these
+embellishments. I wonder if they have not since been sorry.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="section_break"></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">Page 70</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE NAVAL ACADEMY IN ITS INTERIOR WORKINGS</h3>
+
+<h3>PRACTICE CRUISES</h3>
+
+<h4>1855&ndash;60</h4>
+
+
+<p>In the preceding pages my effort has been to reconstitute for the
+reader the navy, in body and in spirit, as it was when I entered in
+1856 and had been during the period immediately preceding. There was
+no marked change up to 1861, when the War of Secession began. The
+atmosphere and environment which I at first encountered upon my
+entrance to the Naval Academy, in 1856, had nothing strange, or even
+unfamiliar, to a boy who had devoured Cooper and Marryat&mdash;not as mere
+tales of adventure, but with some real appreciation and understanding
+of conditions as by them depicted. I had studied, as well as been
+absorbed by them. Cooper is much more of an idealist and romancer than
+is Marryat, who belongs essentially to the realistic school. Some of
+the Englishman's presentations may be exaggerated, though not beyond
+probability&mdash;elaborated would perhaps be a juster word&mdash;and in one
+passage he expressly abjures all willingness to present a caricature
+of the seaman he had known. Cooper, on the other hand, while his sea
+scenes are well worked up, has given us personalities which, tested by
+Marryat's, are made out of the whole cloth; creations, if you will,
+but not resemblances. Marryat entered the navy earlier than his rival,
+and followed the sea longer; his experience was in every way wider.
+Even in my time could be seen justifi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">Page 71</a></span>cations of his portrayal; but
+who ever saw the like of Tom Coffin, Trysail, or Boltrope?</p>
+
+<p>The interested curiosity concerning all things naval which possessed
+me, and held me enthralled by the mere sight of an occasional
+square-rigged vessel, such as at rare intervals passed our home on the
+Hudson, fifty miles from the sea, led me also to pore over a copy of
+the <em>Academy Regulations</em> which the then superintendent, Captain Louis
+Goldsborough, (afterwards Admiral), had sent my father. The two had
+been acquaintances in Paris, in the twenties of the century and of
+their own ages. I have always had a morbid fondness for registers and
+time-tables, and over them have wasted precious hours; but on this
+occasion the practice saved me a year. I discovered that, contrary to
+the established rule at the Military Academy, an appointee to the
+Naval might enter any class for which he could pass the examinations.
+Further inquiry confirmed this, and I set about fitting myself. At
+that date, even more than at present, the standard of admission to the
+two academies had to take into account the very differing facilities
+for education in different parts of the country, as well as the
+strictly democratic method of appointment. This being in the gift of
+the representative of the congressional district, the candidates came
+from every section; and, being selected by the various considerations
+which influence such patronage, the mass of lads who presented
+themselves necessarily differed greatly in acquirements. Hence, to
+enter either Annapolis or West Point only very rudimentary knowledge
+was demanded. Having grown up myself so far amid abundant opportunity,
+and been carefully looked after, I found that I was quite prepared to
+enter the class above the lowest, except in one or two minor matters,
+easily picked up. Thus forewarned, I came forearmed. There were
+probably in every class a dozen who could have done the same, but they
+accepted the prevailing custom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">Page 72</a></span> without question. I believe I was the
+only one fortunate enough to make this gain. In some instances before,
+and in many after, the academic work was for certain classes
+compressed within three years, but I was singular in entering a class
+already of a twelvemonth's standing.</p>
+
+<p>About my own examination I remember nothing except that it was
+successful; but one incident occurred in my hearing which has stuck by
+me for a half-century. One other youth underwent the same tests. He
+had already once entered, two or three years before, and afterwards
+had failed to pass one of the semi-annual tests. Such cases frequently
+were dropped into the next lower class, but the rule then was that a
+second similar lapse was final. This had befallen my present
+associate; but he had "influence," which obtained for him another
+appointment, conditional upon passing the requirements for the third
+class, fourth being the lowest. Examinations then were oral, not
+written; and, preoccupied though I was with my own difficulties, I
+could not but catch at times sounds of his. He was being questioned in
+grammar and in parsing, which I have heard&mdash;I do not know whether
+truly&mdash;are now looked upon as archaic methods of teaching; and the
+sentence propounded to him was, "Mahomet was driven from Mecca, but he
+returned in triumph." His rendering of the first words I did not hear,
+my attention not being arrested until "but," which proved to him a
+truly disjunctive conjunction. "But!" he ejaculated&mdash;"but!" and
+paused. Then came the "practical" leap into the unknown. "'But' is an
+adverb, qualifying 'he,' showing what he is doing." Poor fellow, it
+was no joke to him, nor probably his fault, but that of circumstances.
+When released from the ordeal, we stood round together, awaiting
+sentence. He was in despair, nor could I honestly encourage him. "Look
+at you," he said, "as quiet as if nothing had happened"&mdash;I was by no
+means confident that I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">Page 73</a></span> cause for elation. "If I were as sure that
+I had passed as that you have, I should be skipping all over the
+place." I never heard of him again; but suppose from his name, which I
+remember, and his State, of which I am less sure, that he took, and in
+any event would have taken, the Confederate side in the coming
+troubles. His loss by this failure was therefore probably less than it
+then seemed.</p>
+
+<p>An intruder, in breach of well-settled precedent, might have expected
+to be looked on askance by the class which I thus unusually entered.
+Not the faintest indication of discontent was ever shown, nor I
+believe felt, even by those over whom I subsequently passed by such
+standing as I established, although the fact meant promotion over
+them. The spirit of the officer and the gentleman, which disdained
+hazing, disdained discourtesy equally, and thrust aside with the
+generosity of youth the jealousy that mature years more readily
+cherishes towards competitors. The habit in those days was to
+distinguish classes, not by the year of graduation, but by that of
+entry&mdash;colloquially, the so-and-so "Date"&mdash;a manner derived from an
+earlier period, when there was no other chronological point of
+departure for the career; and in those "days before the flood" nothing
+would have tempted us to depart from a time-honored custom. "Dates"
+frequently established among their contemporaries reputations
+analogous to those of individuals. At that time the "'41 Date," then
+in the prime of life, was obnoxious to those below it; not for its own
+fault, but because of its numbers, which, with promotion strictly by
+seniority, constituted a superincumbent mass that could not but be
+regarded bitterly by those who followed. At present there would be the
+consolation that retirement, though distant, would ultimately sweep
+them all away nearly simultaneously; but there was then no retired
+list. Whatever the motive, the Secretary of the Navy had been moved to
+introduce, in 1841, over two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">Page 74</a></span> hundred midshipmen,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> which put an
+almost total stop to appointments for several subsequent years, and
+gave the "Date" the invidious distinction it enjoyed. The well-known
+character in the service whose hoisting a demijohn for a flag I have
+before mentioned, and who found this great overplus above him, was
+credited with saying that those of them who did not drink themselves
+to death would strut themselves to death&mdash;a comment which testified
+rather to the warmth of his feelings than to the merits of the case.
+Of course, the greater the total, the more numerous the unworthy; and
+the unfortunate natural bias of mankind notices these more readily
+than it does the capable.</p>
+
+<p>The class to which I now found myself admitted was the "'55 Date," and
+whatever their reputation in the service, then or thereafter, they
+thought themselves uncommonly fine fellows, distinctly above the
+average&mdash;not perhaps in attainments, which was a subsidiary matter,
+but in tone and fellowship. One among them, a turn-back from the
+previous Date, and for two years my room-mate, used to declare
+enthusiastically that he was glad of his misfortune, finding himself
+in so much better a crowd. I doubt if I could have gone as far as
+this, but in the general estimate I agreed fully. We numbered then
+twenty-eight, having started with forty-nine a twelvemonth before.
+Three years later we were graduated, twenty. The dwindling numbers
+testifies rather to the imperfection of educational processes
+throughout the country than to the severity of the tests, which were
+very far below those of to-day. I have often heard it said, and
+believe it true, that the difficulty was less with the knowledge&mdash;that
+is, the nominal acquirements&mdash;of the appointees than with the then
+prevalent methods of study and instruction, which had de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">Page 75</a></span>bauched the
+powers of application. My father, after a long experience, used to
+think that upon the whole there was better promise in a youth who came
+with nothing more than the three R's, which then constituted
+substantially the demands of the Military Academy, than in one with a
+more pretentious showing. The first had not to unlearn bad habits. An
+illustration that the courses were not too severe, for an average man
+beginning with the very smallest equipment, is afforded by a true
+story of the time. A lad from one of the Southern States,&mdash;Tennessee,
+I think,&mdash;having obtained an appointment, and being too poor to travel
+otherwise, walked his way to West Point, and then failed of admission.
+The affecting circumstances becoming known, a number of officers
+dubbed together and supported him for a year at a neighboring
+excellent school. He then entered, passed his course successfully, and
+proved a very respectable officer. There was, I believe, nothing
+brilliant in his record, except the earnestness and resolution shown;
+the absence of these, under demands which, though not excessive, were
+rigid, was the principal cause of failures.</p>
+
+<p>The requirements were certainly moderate, and our healths needed not
+to suffer from over-application. The marking system of that time gave
+the numeral 4 as a maximum, with which standard 2.5 was a "passing
+average." He who reached that figure, as the combined result of his
+course of recitations and stated examinations, passed the test, and
+went on, or was graduated. The recitation marks being posted weekly,
+we had constant knowledge of our chances; and of the necessity of
+greater effort, if in danger, whether of failure or of being
+outstripped by a competitor. The latter motive was rarely evidenced,
+although I have seen the anxious and worried looks of one struggling
+for pre-eminence over a rival who amused himself by merely prodding
+where he might have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">Page 76</a></span> surpassed. It is only fair to add, as I also
+witnessed, that no congratulations were more warmly received by the
+victor than those of the man who had so constantly trod on his heels.
+It is needless to say, to those who know the world in any sphere of
+life, that a certain proportion were satisfied with merely scraping
+through. The authorities leaned to mercy's side, where there was
+reasonable promise of a man's making a good sea officer. In the later
+period of written examinations an instructor of much experience said
+to me, "If a man's paper comes near 2.5, I always read it over again
+with a leaning towards a more favorable judgment on points;" and he
+accompanied the words with a gesture which dramatically suggested a
+leaning so pronounced that, it would certainly topple over the right
+way. Not strictly judicial, I fear, but perhaps practical. There were
+rare instances who played with 2.5, enticed perhaps by the mysterious
+charms of danger. Such a case I heard of, a man of unquestioned
+ability, who it was rumored boasted that he would get just above 2.5,
+and as near as he could. He was read dispassionately, and in the event
+came out 2.47. As an effort at approximation, this may be considered a
+success; but for passing it was inadequate, and his general character
+did not bias the final appeal in his favor. He was not dropped,
+indeed, but had to undergo a second examination three weeks later: a
+circumstance calculated to cloud his summer. A more amusing instance
+came directly under my observation. He was a candidate for entrance,
+and I then head of one of the departments of the Academy. Although I
+had nothing to do with admissions, his father came in to see me
+immediately after the results were known. He had a marked brogue, and
+was slightly "elevated," by success and by liquor. Placing his hand
+confidentially on my arm, he whispered: "He's got in; he's got in." I
+expressed my sympathy. He drew himself up with a smile of exultation,
+and said: "He only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">Page 77</a></span> got a 2.7. I said to him, '&mdash;&mdash;, why didn't you do
+better than that?&mdash;sure you could.' 'Whisht, father,' he replied, 'why
+should I do better, when all I need's a 2.5?' Just fancy his thinking
+of that!" cried the proud parent. "The 'cuteness of him?" I forget
+this lad's further career, if I ever knew it.</p>
+
+<p>One of the distinguishing features of the two academies then, and I
+believe now, was the division of the classes into small sections,
+under several instructors. This gave the advantage of very frequent
+recitations for each student. None was safe in counting upon being
+overlooked on any day, and the teacher was kept familiar with the
+progress and promise of every one under his charge. It admitted also
+of a more extensive course for those who could stick in the higher
+sections&mdash;a kind of elective, in which the election depended on the
+teacher, not the taught. Thoroughness of acquisition was favored by
+this steady pressure, the virtue of which lay less in its weight than
+in its constancy; but it is practicable only where large resources
+permit many tutors to be employed. The Naval Academy has had frequent
+difficulty, not chiefly of a money kind, but because the needed naval
+officers cannot always be spared from general service. A sound policy
+has continuously favored the employment of sea officers, where
+possible; not because they can often be equal in acquirement to chosen
+men from the special fields in question, but because through them the
+spirit and authority of the profession pervades the class-room as well
+as the drill-ground, and so forwards the highly specialized product in
+view. Besides, as I have heard observed with admiration by a very able
+civilian, head of one of the departments, who had several officers
+under him, the habit of turning the hand to many different
+occupations, and of doing in each just what was ordered, following
+directions explicitly, gives naval officers as a class an adaptability
+and a facility which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">Page 78</a></span> become professional characteristics. It may be
+interesting to note that the same was commonly remarked of the
+old-time seaman. His specialty was everything&mdash;versatility; and he was
+handy under the least expected circumstances, on shore as well as
+afloat. Burgoyne used chaffingly to attribute his misfortunes at
+Saratoga to the aptitude with which a British midshipman and seamen
+threw a bridge over the upper Hudson. "If it had not been for you," he
+said to the culprit, "we should never have got as far as this."</p>
+
+<p>In my day the proportion of officers was less than afterwards, when
+the graduates themselves took up the task of instruction. There were
+two who taught us mathematics, one of whom remains in my memory as the
+very best teacher, to the extent of his knowledge, that I ever knew.
+The professional branches, seamanship and gunnery, fell naturally to
+the sea officers who conducted the drills. These studies, as pursued,
+reflected the transition condition of the period which I have before
+depicted; the grasp on the old still was more tenacious than that on
+the new. The preparation of text-books for young seamen far antedated
+the establishment of naval schools. There was one, <em>The Sheet Anchor</em>,
+by Darcy Lever, a British seaman, published before 1820, which had
+great vogue among us. Among other virtues, it was illustrated with
+very taking pictures of ships performing man&oelig;uvres in the midst of
+highly conventional waves. As far as memory serves me, I think we were
+justified in regarding it as more instructive than the American work
+assigned to us by the course, <em>The Kedge Anchor</em>, by a master in our
+navy named Brady. A kedge, the unprofessional must know, is a light
+anchor, dropped for a momentary stop, or to haul a ship ahead, the
+title being in so far very consonant to the object of instruction;
+whereas the sheet-anchor is the great and last stand-by of a vessel,
+let go as a final resource after the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">Page 79</a></span> two big "bowers," which
+constitute the usual reliance. The rareness with which the sheet
+anchor touched ground (the bottom) gave rise to the proverb, "To go
+ashore with the sheet anchor," as the ultimate expression of attention
+to duty; and the story ran of a British captain, a devoted
+ship-keeper, who, to a lieutenant remonstrating on the little
+privilege of leave enjoyed by the junior officers, replied: "Sir, when
+I and the sheet anchor go ashore, you may go with us." By the
+prescription of our seniors we had to tie to <em>The Kedge Anchor</em>, let
+us hope in the cause of progress, to haul us ahead; but in a tight
+place <em>The Sheet Anchor</em> was our recourse, and by it think I may say
+we&mdash;swore. I always mistrusted <em>The Kedge Anchor</em> after my researches
+into a mysterious sentence&mdash;"A celebrated master, now a commander, in
+the navy never served the bowsprit rigging all over." In the old-time
+frigates, of the days of Nelson and Hull, the master was at the head
+of the marling-spike division of the ship's economy, being, in fact,
+the descendant of the master (captain) of more than a century earlier,
+who managed the ship while soldiers commanded and fought her. But the
+masters were not in the line of promotion; in the British navy they
+rarely rose, in our own much more rarely. Who, then, was this
+celebrated master, now a commander? Eventually I found the sentence in
+a British book, and my faith in the pure product of American home
+industry was suddenly shaken. It is only fair to say that books on
+seamanship, being essentially an accumulation of facts, must be more
+or less compilations. Methods were too well established to allow much
+originality, even of treatment.</p>
+
+<p>There were many other works of like character, the enumeration of
+which would be tedious. <em>The Young Officer's Assistant</em> was less a
+specific title than a generic description. Several of them were
+contemporary; and one, by a Captain Boyd of the British navy, summed
+up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">Page 80</a></span> the convictions of us all, teachers as well as pupils, in the
+sententious aphorism: "It is by no means certain that coal whips will
+outlive tacks and sheets." It is scarcely kind to resurrect a
+prophecy, even when so guarded in expression and safely distant in
+prediction as was this; but I fear that for navies tacks and sheets
+are dead, and coal whips very much alive. The wish in those days
+fathered the thought. Who to dumb forgetfulness a prey could
+voluntarily relinquish all that had been so identified with life and
+thought, nor cast a longing, lingering look behind? So we plodded on,
+acquiring laboriously, yet lovingly, knowledge that would have fitted
+us to pass the examinations of Basil Hall and Peter Simple. To mention
+the details of cutting and fitting rigging, getting over whole and
+half tops, and other operations yet more recondite, would be to
+involve the unprofessional reader in a maze of incomprehensible terms,
+and the professional&mdash;of that period&mdash;in familiar recollections. Let
+me, however, linger lovingly for ten lines on the knotting&mdash;"knotting
+and splicing," as the never-divorced terms ran in the days when
+rigging a topgallant-yard was a constituent part of our curriculum.
+The man who has never viewed the realm of a seaman's knots from the
+outside, and tried to get in, must not flatter himself that he fully
+appreciates the phrase "knotty problem." I never got in; a few
+elementary "bends," a square knot, and a bowline, were very near the
+extent of my manual acquirements. The last I still retain, and use
+whenever I make up a bundle for the express; but before such
+mysteries&mdash;to me&mdash;as a Turk's-head and a double-wall, I merely bowed
+in reverence. When handsomely turned out, I could recognize the fact;
+but do them myself, no. I remember with humiliation that in 1862,
+being then a young lieutenant, I was called without warning to hear a
+section, one hour, in seamanship. As bad luck would have it, the
+subject happened to be knotting, and there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">Page 81</a></span> was one of the midshipmen
+who had made a cruise in a merchant-ship. The knots I had to ask
+about&mdash;to which that diabolical youngster invariably replied, "I can't
+describe it, sir, but I will make it for you"&mdash;the convolutions
+through which the strands went in his ready fingers, and my eyes
+vainly strove to follow, are a poignant subject. There was no room for
+the time-honored refuge of a puzzled instructor&mdash;"We will take up that
+subject next recitation;" the confounded boy was ready right along,
+and I had only to be thankful that there were "no questions asked."</p>
+
+<p>There was one professional subject, "Naval Fleet Tactics" under sail,
+which at the end of my time shone forth with a kind of sunset
+splendor, the dying dolphin effect curiously characteristic of the
+passing period in which we were. This had always had a
+recognition&mdash;<em>d'estime</em>, as the French say; but in my final year it
+fell into the hands of a new instructor, who proceeded to glorify it
+by amplification. He was a very accomplished man in his profession, a
+student of it in all its branches, though there was among us a certain
+understanding that he was not an eminently practical seaman; and he
+eventually lost his life in what appeared to me a very unpractical
+manner, being where it did not seem his business to be, and doing work
+which a junior would probably have done better. We remember William
+III. at the battle of the Boyne. "Your majesty, the Bishop of Derry
+has been killed at the ford." "What business had he to be at the
+ford?" was the unsympathetic answer. The text-book used by our new
+instructor was by a French lieutenant, written in the thirties of the
+century, and characterized by something of the peculiar French naval
+genius. The simpler changes of formation were so simple that
+complication could not be got into them; but, that happy stage past,
+we went on to evolutions of huge masses of ships in three columns, in
+which the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">Page 82</a></span> changes of dispositions, from one order to another, became
+subjects of trigonometrical demonstration, quite as troublesome as
+Euclid. Sines, cosines, and tangents, of fractional angles figured
+profusely in the processes; and in the result courses to be steered
+would be laid down to an eighth of a point, when to keep a single
+vessel, let alone a column, steady within half a point<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> was
+considered good helmsmanship. There being no translation of the book,
+our text was provided by copying, individually, from a manuscript
+prepared by our teacher, which increased our labor; but, curiously
+enough, the effect of the whole procedure was so to magnify the
+subject as materially to increase the impression upon our minds.</p>
+
+<p>This is really an interesting matter for speculation, as to what in
+effect is practical. The mastery of conclusions, to which practical
+effect never could have been given, served to drive home principles
+which would have come usefully into play, had the sail era continued
+and the United States maintained fleets of sailing battle-ships to
+handle. For myself personally, when I came to write naval history,
+long years after, I derived invaluable aid from the principles and the
+simpler evolutions, thus assimilated and remembered. But for them I
+should often have found it difficult to understand what with them was
+obvious. A singular circumstance thus brought out was the want of
+exactness and precision in English terminology in this field. The most
+notable instance that occurs to me was in Nelson's journal on
+Trafalgar morning, "The enemy wearing in succession," when, in fact,
+as a matter of man&oelig;uvre, the hostile fleet "wore together," though
+the several vessels wore "in succession;" a paradox only to be
+understood at a glance by those familiar with fleet tactics under
+sail.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">Page 83</a></span> The usual version of the attack at Trafalgar has of late been
+elaborately disputed by capable critics. I myself have no doubt that
+they are quite mistaken; but it would be curious to investigate how
+far their argument derives from inexact phraseology&mdash;as, for example,
+the definition of "column" and "line" applied to ships.</p>
+
+<p>These mathematical demonstrations of naval evolutions might be
+considered a lapse from practicalness characteristic of the particular
+officer. They took up a good deal of valuable time, and on any
+drill-ground man&oelig;uvres are less a matter of geometric precision
+than of professional aptitude and eye judgment. The same mistake could
+scarcely be addressed at that time to the other parts of the Academy
+curriculum. Either as foundation, or as a super-structure in which it
+was sought to develop professional intelligence, to inform and improve
+professional action, there was little to find fault with in detail,
+and less still in general principle. The previous reasonable
+professional prejudice had been in favor of the practical man, the man
+who can do things&mdash;who knows <em>how</em> to do them; the new effort was to
+give the "why" of the "how," and to save time in the process by giving
+it systematically. In this sense&mdash;that all we learned ministered to
+professional intelligence&mdash;the scholastic part was thoroughly
+professional in tone; and I think I have shown that the outside
+professional sentiment was also strongly felt among us. There is
+always, of course, a disposition latent in educators to deny that
+practical work may be sufficiently accomplished by cruder
+processes&mdash;by what we call the rule of thumb&mdash;and a corresponding
+inclination to represent that to be absolutely necessary which is only
+an advantage; to exaggerate the necessity of mastering the "why" in
+order to put the "how" into execution. An instance in point, already
+quoted, is that of the professor who maintained that every officer
+should be able to calculate mathemati<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">Page 84</a></span>cally the relation between
+weights and purchases. But between 1855 and 1860, if such a tendency
+existed in germ, it had no effect in practice. As I look back, the
+relation between what we were taught and what we were to do was
+neither remote nor indirect. In its own sphere, in both its merits and
+its faults, the Academy was in aspiration as professional as the
+outside service.</p>
+
+<p>This means that the Academy constituted for us an atmosphere perfectly
+accordant with the life for which we were intended; and an educational
+institution has no educative function to discharge higher than this.
+This influence was enhanced by the social customs, in favor of which
+disciplinary exactions were relaxed to the utmost possible; herein
+departing from the practice at the Military Academy, as then known to
+me. Not only on Saturdays and holidays, but every day, and at all
+hours not positively allotted to study or drills, the midshipmen might
+visit the houses of officers or professors to which they had the
+entrance. As a rule, very properly, no one was allowed to be absent
+from mess; but permission could always be obtained to accept an
+invitation to the evening meal with any of the families. This freedom
+of intercourse contributed its share to the formation of professional
+tone, for the heads of the families were selected professional men,
+who were thus met on terms of intimacy, precluded elsewhere by the
+official relations of the parties. More training is imparted by such
+association than by teaching&mdash;the familiar contrast of example and
+precept. An even greater gain, however&mdash;and a strictly professional
+gain, too&mdash;was the social facility thus acquired. In all callings
+probably, certainly in the navy, social aptitude is professionally
+valuable. Nelson's dictum that naval officers should know how to dance
+was only one way of saying that they should be men of affairs, at home
+in all conditions where men&mdash;or women&mdash;gather for business or
+amusement. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">Page 85</a></span> phrase "all sorts and conditions of men" never had
+wider or juster application than to the assembly of green lads, from
+every variety of parentage and previous surroundings, pitchforked into
+Annapolis once every year; and, of all the humanizing and harmonizing
+influences under which they came, none exceeded that of the quiet
+gentlefolk, of modest means, with whom they mingled thus freely.
+Indeed, one of the most astute of our superintendents took into
+account the family of an officer before asking that he be ordered.</p>
+
+<p>An element in our social environment which should not be omitted was
+the prevalence of a Southern flavor. In our microcosm, this reflected
+the general sentiment of the world outside, then slowly freeing itself
+from the spirit of compromise which had dominated the statesmanship of
+two generations in their efforts to reconcile the incompatible. There
+were certainly strong Northern men in plenty, as well as strong
+Southerners; but every Southerner was convinced that the justice was
+all on their side, that their rights as well as interests were being
+attacked, whereas the Northerners were divided in feeling. There were
+some pronounced abolitionists, here and there, prepared to go all
+party lengths; but in the majority from the North, the devotion to the
+Union, which rose so instantaneously to the warlike pitch when fairly
+challenged, for the present counselled concession to the utmost limit,
+if only thereby the Union might endure. In this the membership of the
+school reproduced the political character of the House of
+Representatives, with whom appointment rested; and at our age, of
+course, we simply re-echoed the tones of our homes. Never in my now
+long life have I seen so evident the power of conviction as in the
+Southern men I then knew. They simply had no hesitations; whereas we
+others were perplexed. Yet I now doubt whether the Southern conviction
+was not really, if unconsciously, the resolution<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">Page 86</a></span> of despair; of doom
+felt, though unacknowledged; not before the attacks of the North, but
+before the resistless progress of the world, of which the North was to
+be the instrument. So also the patience of the North, if so noble a
+word can be conceded to our long temporizing, was an unconscious
+manifestation of latent power. To those who knew what the Union meant
+to those who exalted it&mdash;should I not rather say her?&mdash;in passionate
+adoration, need never have doubted what the response would be, if
+threat passed into act and hands were lifted against her. Conviction
+was absolute and deep-rooted on that side as on the other; but it was
+less on the surface, and sought ever a solution of peace.</p>
+
+<p>The Muse of History of late years has become so analytic, and withal
+so embarrassed with the accumulations of new material, revealing still
+more the complication of causes which undoubtedly concur to any
+general result, that she is prone to overlook the overpowering
+influence of the simple elemental passions of human nature. "Our
+country, right or wrong," may be very bad morality, but it is a
+tremendous force to reckon with. One is wise overmuch who thinks that
+interest can restrain or statesmen control; wise unto folly who
+ignores that disinterested emotion, even unreasoning, may be just the
+one factor which diplomacy cannot master. I was in Rome when our late
+troubles with Spain came on, and dined with a number of the diplomatic
+body. "Oh yes," said to me one of these illuminati, "it is all very
+well to talk about humanity. The truth is, the United States wants
+Cuba." More profound was the remark of an American politician, who had
+recently visited the island. "I did not dare to tell all I saw; for,
+if I had, there would be no holding our people back." Personally, I
+believed that the interests of the United States made expedient the
+acquisition of Cuba, if righteously accomplished, and prior to the war
+I knew little of the conditions on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">Page 87</a></span> island; but Cuba would be
+Spanish now, if interests chiefly had power to move us. So in the War
+of Secession. Innumerable precedent occurrences had produced a
+condition, but it was the passion for the Union, the strong loyalty to
+that sovereign, which dominated the situation, and in truth had been
+dominating it silently for years; a passion as profound and, though
+justifiable to reason, as unreasoning as any simple love that ever
+bound man to woman. Could this have been appreciated, what reams of
+demonstration might have been spared to foreign pens&mdash;demonstration of
+the folly, the hopelessness, the lust of conquest, the self-interest
+in myriad forms, which were supposed to be the actuating causes.</p>
+
+<p>Effectively, the South had lost this love of the Union. In this
+respect the two sections, I fancy, had parted company, unwittingly,
+soon after the War of 1812; through which, as we all well know, in
+many quarters sectional feeling had still prevailed over national. The
+North had since moved towards national consciousness, the South
+towards sectional, on paths steadily and rapidly diverging. As I
+recall those days, when I first awoke to political observation, I
+should say that the feeling of my Southern associates towards the
+Union was that which men have towards a friend lately buried.
+Affection had not wholly disappeared; but life called. Let the dead
+bury their dead. I remember on my first practice cruise, in 1857,
+standing in the main-top of the ship with a member of the class
+immediately before mine, the son of a North Carolina member of
+Congress. "Yes," he said to me, "Buchanan [inaugurated four months
+before] will be the last President of the United States." He was
+entirely unmoved, simply repeating certitudes to which familiarity had
+reconciled him; I, to whom such talk was new, as much aghast as though
+I had been told my mother would die within the like term. This outlook
+was common to them all. The Union still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">Page 88</a></span> was, and they continued in
+it; but to them the warning had sounded, they were ready and
+acquiescent in its fall; regretful, but resigned&mdash;very much resigned.
+This attitude was more marked among the younger men, those at the
+school. In the service outside I found somewhat the same point of
+view, but repulsion was keener. The navy then, even more than now,
+symbolized the exterior activities of the country, which are committed
+by the Constitution to the Union. Hence, the life of the profession
+naturally nurtured pride in the nation; and while States'-Rights had
+undermined the principle of loyalty to the Union, it had been less
+successful in destroying love for it. But to most the prospect was
+gloomy. That Massachusetts and South Carolina should be put into a pen
+together, and left to fight it out, was the solution expressed to me
+by a lieutenant who afterwards fell nobly, in command, on a Union deck
+in the war; the gallant Joe Smith, concerning whom runs a story that
+cannot be too widely known, even though often repeated. When it was
+reported to his father that the <em>Congress</em> had surrendered, he said,
+simply, "Then Joe's dead." Joe was dead; but it is only fair to the
+survivors to say that ninety out of her crew of four hundred were also
+dead, the ship aground, helpless, and in flames.</p>
+
+<p>In Annapolis, the capital of a border slave state, the general
+sentiment was, as might be expected, a blending of North and South; a
+desire to maintain the Union, but, distinctly superior in motive,
+sympathy with the Southern view of the case. In all my fairly intimate
+acquaintance with the small society of the town outside the Academy
+walls, there was but one family the heads of which were decisively
+Union&mdash;not Northern; and of it two sons fought in the Southern armies.
+Between this influence and that of my comrades I remained as I had
+been brought up&mdash;the Union first and above all, but with the
+conviction that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">Page 89</a></span> the great danger to the Union lay in the abolition
+propaganda. My father was by upbringing a Virginian; by life-long
+occupation an officer of the general government, imbued to the marrow
+with the principles of military loyalty. Having married and
+continuously lived in the North, he had escaped all taint of the
+extreme States'-Rights school; but the memories of his youth kept him
+broadly Southern in feeling, less by local attachment than by
+affection for friends. More than twenty years after his death, when I
+was on court-martial duty in Richmond, an old Confederate general,
+whom I had never seen, sought me out in memory of the ties that had
+bound both himself and his wife's family to my father. With these
+clinging sympathies, the abolition agitation was an attack upon his
+friends, and, still worse, a wanton endangering of the Union. To save
+me from being carried away by the swelling tide was one of his chief
+aims.</p>
+
+<p>Regarded by themselves, nothing can well be less important than the
+political opinions of one boy of eighteen to twenty; but few things
+are more important, if they are those of the mass of his generation,
+for then they are the echo from many homes. I believe, from what I saw
+at the Naval Academy, that mine were those of the large majority of
+the Northern youth, and that the very greatness of the concession
+which such were ready to make for the sake of the Union should have
+warned the disunionists that the same love was capable of equally
+great sacrifices in the other direction. They failed so to understand;
+chiefly, perhaps, because they could not appreciate the living force
+of the simple sentiment. Never in their lifetimes, if ever before, had
+the Union held the first place in the hearts of men of their section;
+and such love as had been felt was already moribund, overcome by
+supposed interest and local pride. Thus misled, it was easy to believe
+that in the North, controlled by considerations of advan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">Page 90</a></span>tage,
+yielding would follow yielding, even to permitting a disruption of the
+Union&mdash;a miscalculation of forces more fatal even than that of "Cotton
+is King." But forces will often be miscalculated by those who reckon
+interest as more powerful than principle or than sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>Singularly enough, considering the exodus of States'-Rights officers
+from the navy at the outbreak of the War of Secession, my first
+service during it brought me into close relations with two captains,
+both Southerners, whose differing points of view shed interesting
+light upon the varying motives which in times of stress determined men
+into a common path. The first, Percival Drayton, a South-Carolinian,
+had a strength of conviction on the question of slavery, in itself,
+and the wrong-headed course of the slave power, as well as a strong
+devotion to the Union, all which were needed to keep a son of that
+extreme state firm in his allegiance. I question, however, whether any
+other one of the seceding communities furnished as large a proportion
+of officers who stuck to the national flag, chiefly among the older
+men; a result scarcely surprising, for the intensity of affection for
+the Union necessary to withstand nearest relatives and the headlong
+sweep of separatist impulse, where fiercest, naturally throve upon the
+opposition which it met, eliciting a corresponding tenacity of
+adherence to the cause it had embraced. No more than that other
+Southerner, Farragut, did Drayton feel doubt as to where he belonged
+in the coming struggle. "I cannot exactly see the difference between
+my relations fighting against me and I against them, except that their
+cause is as unholy a one as the world has ever seen, and mine just the
+reverse." "Were the sword in the one hand powerful enough, the
+secessionists would carry slavery with the other to the uttermost
+parts of the Union, and I do not think the North has been at all too
+quick in stopping the movement." "I do not think there will ever be
+peace between the two sections until<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">Page 91</a></span> slavery is so completely
+scotched as to make extension a hopeless matter."<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>
+
+<p>Drayton stayed with us but a brief time. His successor, George B.
+Balch, who still survives, now the senior rear-admiral on the retired
+list of the navy, a man beloved by all who have known him for his
+gallantry, benevolence, and piety, was equally pronounced and equally
+firm; but his position illustrated and carried on my experiences at
+the Academy, and afterwards in the service, and for the time confirmed
+my old prepossessions. He was fighting for the Union, assailed without
+just cause; not against slavery, nor for its abolition. Were the
+latter the motive of the war, he would not be in arms. This, of
+course, was then the attitude of the government and of the people at
+large. Abolition, which came not long after, was a war measure simply;
+received with doubt by many, but which a few months of hostilities had
+prepared us all to accept. My own conversion was early and sudden. The
+ship had made an expedition of some fifty miles up a South Carolina
+river, in the course of which numerous negroes fled to her. Unlike
+Drayton, our captain was rather disconcerted, I think, at having
+forced upon him a kind of practical abolition, in carrying off slaves;
+but his duty was clear. As for me, it was my first meeting with
+slavery; except in the house-servants of Maryland, superficially a
+very different condition; and as I looked at the cowed, imbruted faces
+of the field-hands, my early training fell away like a cloak. The
+process was not logical; I was generalizing from a few instances, but
+I was convinced. Knowing how strongly my father had felt, I wondered
+how I should break to him my instability; but when we met I found that
+he, too, had gone over. Youngster as I still was, I should have
+divined the truth, that in assailing the Union his best friend became<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">Page 92</a></span>
+his enemy, to down whom abolition was good and fit as any other club.
+"My son," he said, "I did not think I could ever again be happy should
+our country fall into her present state; but now I am so absorbed in
+seeing those fellows beaten that I lose sight of the rest." Peculiar
+and personal association enhanced his interest; for, having been then
+over thirty years at the Military Academy, there were very few of the
+prominent generals on either side who had not been his pupils. The
+successful leaders were almost all from that school: Grant, Sherman,
+Thomas, Schofield, on the Union side; Lee, Jackson, and the two
+Johnstons on the Confederate, were all graduates, not to mention a
+host of others only less conspicuous.</p>
+
+<p>In last analysis slavery may have been, probably was, the cause of the
+war; but, historically, it was not the motive. Lincoln's words&mdash;"I
+will save the Union with slavery, or I will save it without slavery,
+as the case may demand"&mdash;voiced the feeling prevalent in the military
+services, and also the will of the great body of the Northern people,
+whom he profoundly understood and in his own mental advance
+illustrated. I cannot but think that such an aim was more
+statesmanlike than would have been the attempt to overturn immediately
+and violently an entire social and economical system, for the
+establishment of which the current generation was not responsible. In
+the long run, to allow the tares of bondage to stand with the wheat of
+freedom was wiser than the wish prematurely to uproot. It had become
+the definite policy of the enemies of slavery to girdle the tree, by
+strict encompassing lines, leaving it to consequent sure process of
+decay. Its friends forced the issue. To the ones and to the others the
+harvest of generations, in the form it took, came unexpected and
+suddenly&mdash;a day of judgment, a crisis, like a thief in the night. It
+is a consummate proof of the accuracy of popular instinct, given time
+to work, that the uprising of 1861<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">Page 93</a></span> rested upon recognition of the
+fact that the cause of the nation and of the world depended more upon
+the preservation of a single authority over all the territory
+involved, upon the consequent avoidance of future permanent
+oppositions, than it did upon the destruction of a particular
+institution, the life of which might be protracted, but under
+conditions of union must wane and ultimately expire. The gradual
+progress of decision by the American people was wiser than the abrupt
+action asked by foreign impatience; and abolition came with less shock
+and more finality as a military measure than it could as a political.
+Its advisability was more evident. If statesmanship is shown in
+bringing popular will to accord with national necessity, Lincoln was
+in this most sagacious; but not the least element in the tribute due
+him is that he was the barometer of popular impulse, measuring
+accurately the invisible force upon which depended the energy of that
+stormy period.</p>
+
+<p>Before taking final leave of my shore experiences at the Naval
+Academy, I will recall, as among them, the superb comet of the autumn
+of 1858, which we at the school witnessed evening after evening in
+October of that year, during the release from quarters following
+supper. After the lapse of so nearly a half-century, the survivors of
+those who saw that magnificent spectacle must be in a minority among
+their contemporaries, whether of that day or this. Since its
+disappearance there has been visible one other notable comet, which I
+remember waking my children after midnight to see; but compared with
+that of 1858, whether in size or in splendor, it was literally as
+moonlight unto sunlight, or, in impression, as water unto wine. As the
+astronomers compute the period of return for the earlier at two
+thousand years, more or less, we of that generation were truly
+singular in our opportunity of viewing this, among the very few "most
+magnificent of modern times."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">Page 94</a></span> The tail, broadening towards the end,
+with a curve like that of a scimitar, was in length nearly a fourth of
+the span of the heavens, and its brightness that of a full moon. My
+memory retains the image with all the tenacity of eighteen.</p>
+
+<div class="thought_break"></div>
+
+<p>Corresponding in some measure to the summer encampment at the Military
+Academy, the Naval gave the three months from July to September,
+inclusive, to shipboard and the sea. In both institutions the period
+was one of study interrupted, in favor of out-door work; but at West
+Point it was accompanied by a degree of social entertainment
+impossible to ship conditions. There were two theories as to the
+conduct of the practice cruises. One was that they should be confined
+to home waters, where regular hours and systematized instruction in
+"doing things" would suffer little interference from weather; the
+other was to make long voyages, preferably to Europe, leaving to the
+normal variability of the ocean and the watchful improvement of
+occasions the burden of initiating a youth into practical acquaintance
+with the exigencies of his intended profession. Personally I have
+always favored the latter, being somewhat of the opinion of the old
+practical politician&mdash;"Never contrive an opportunity." Naturally an
+opportunist, the experience of life has justified me in rather
+awaiting than contriving occasions. One learns more widely and more
+thoroughly by reefing topsails when it has to be done, than by doing
+it at a routine hour, without the accompaniments of the wind, the wet,
+and the lurching, which give the operation a tone and a tonic&mdash;the
+real thing, in short. Doubtless we may wait too long, like Micawber,
+even for a reef-topsail gale to turn up, though the ocean can usually
+be trusted to be nasty often enough; but, on the other hand, one over
+sedulously bent on making opportunity is apt to be too preoccupied to
+see that which makes itself. Truth, doubtless, lies between the
+extremes.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">Page 95</a></span>In my day long cruises had unquestioned preference; and, whatever
+their demerits otherwise, they were certainly eye-openers, even to
+those who, like myself, had obtained some intelligent impression of
+ships at sea. As instruction in seamanship was then never attempted,
+neither by work nor book, until after the second year, we went on
+board not knowing one mast from another, so far as teaching went. How
+far initial ignorance could go may be illustrated by an incident, to
+be appreciated, unluckily, only by seamen, which happened in my
+hearing. We had then been nearly two months on board, when one who had
+improved his opportunities was displaying his acquirements by the
+pleasing method of catechising another. He asked: "Do you know what
+the topsail-tie is?" The rejoinder, perfectly serious, was: "Do you
+mean the cross-tie?" The topsail-tie being one of the principal
+"ropes" in a ship, the ignorance was really symptomatic of character;
+and had not the hero of it been long dead, I would not have preserved
+it, even incog. I fear it may be cited against my view of practice
+cruises, as proving that systematic training is better than
+picking-up; to which my reply would be that the picking-up showed
+aptitude&mdash;or the reverse&mdash;if only some means could be devised of
+making it tell in selection, as it assuredly did in character. But at
+the beginning, despite any little previous inklings, we were all quite
+green. I still recall the innocent astonishment when we anchored in
+Hampton Roads, after the run down the Chesapeake, and the boatswain,
+as by custom, pulled round the ship to see the yards square and
+rigging taut. Semaphore signalling was not then used, as later; and
+his stentorian lungs conveyed to us distinct sounds, bearing meanings
+we felt could never be compassed by us. "Haul taut the main-top
+bowlines!" "Haul taut the starboard fore-topgallant-sheet." "Maintop,
+there! Send a hand up and square the bunt gaskets of the
+topgallant-sail!" "By Jove!" said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">Page 96</a></span> one of the admiring listeners,
+"there's seamanship for you!" We all silently agreed, and I dare say
+many thought we might as well give it up and go home. Such excellence
+was not for us.</p>
+
+<p>The subsequent process of picking-up was attended sometimes by
+comical, as well as painful, incidents. Peter Simple's experiences, as
+told by Marryat, were not yet quite obsolete in practice. A story ran
+of one, not long before my "date," who, having been sent on two or
+three bootless errands by unauthorized jesters, finally received from
+a person in due authority the absurd-sounding, but legitimate, message
+to have the jackasses put in the hawse-holes.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> "Oh no," he replied,
+resentfully, "I have been fooled often enough! That I will not do." I
+can better vouch for another, which happened on my first practice
+cruise. In a sailing-ship properly planned, the balance of the sails
+is such that to steer her on her course the rudder need not be kept
+more to one side than the other; the helm is then amidships. But error
+of design, or circumstances, such as a faulty trim of the sails or the
+ship inclining in a strong side-wind, will sometimes so alter the
+influencing forces that the helm has to be carried steadily on one
+side, to correct the ship's disposition to turn to that side. She is
+then said to carry weather helm or lee helm, as the case may be; and
+the knowing ones used to assert noticeable differences of sailing in
+certain conditions. In many ships to carry a little weather helm was
+thought advantageous, and it was told of a certain deck-officer&mdash;he
+who repeated the story to me made the late Admiral Porter the
+hero&mdash;that the ship being found to sail faster in his watch than in
+any other, the commander sent for him and asked the reason.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">Page 97</a></span> "Well,
+sir," replied the lieutenant, "I will tell you my secret. As soon as
+the officer I relieve is gone below and out of sight, while the watch
+is mustering, I walk forward, look round at things generally, and say
+casually to the captain of the forecastle: 'Just slack off a little of
+this jib-sheet.' Then about ten minutes before eight bells, after the
+last log of the watch has been hove, while the men are rousing to go
+below, I go forward again and say, 'Come here, half a dozen of us, and
+get a pull of the jib-sheet;' and I turn the deck over to my relief
+with the jib well flattened in." In result, the frigate during his
+watch, and his only, carried a weather helm. My own experience of
+sailing ships was neither prolonged enough nor responsible enough to
+estimate just what weight to attach to these impressions, but they
+existed; and in any case, as the helm varying far from amidships
+showed something wrong, the question was frequent to the helmsman,
+"How does she carry her helm?" varied sometimes to, "What sort of helm
+does she carry?" Now we had among our green midshipmen one from the
+West, tall, angular, swarthy, with a coal-black eye which had a trick
+of cocking up and out, giving a queer, perplexed, yet defiant cast to
+his countenance; moreover, he stuttered a little, not from
+imperfection of organs, but from nervous excitability. We had also a
+lieutenant from far down East, red-haired, sanguine of complexion,
+bony of structure, who had a gesture of tossing his hair and head
+back, and looking tremendously leonine and master of the
+situation&mdash;monarch of all he surveyed. The two were naturally
+antagonistic, as was amusingly shown more than once; but on this
+occasion the midshipman was at the "lee wheel," not himself steering,
+but helping the steersman in the manual labor. To him the lieutenant,
+pausing in his stride and tilting his chin in the air, says: "Mr.
+&mdash;&mdash;, what sort of helm does she carry?" &mdash;&mdash;, who had never heard of
+weather or lee helms, and probably<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">Page 98</a></span> was not yet recovered from the
+effects of the boatswain's seamanship, twisted his eye and his head,
+looking more than ever confounded and saucy, and stammered: "I&mdash;I&mdash;I'm
+not sure, sir, but I think it's a wooden one." Tableau!&mdash;as the French
+say.</p>
+
+<p>In position on board we were midshipmen indeed, in a sense probably
+somewhat different from that which first gave birth to the title. We
+were not seamen; and it could scarcely be claimed that we were in any
+full sense officers, much as we stuck to that designation. We stood
+midway. There was a tradition in the British service that a
+midshipman, though in training for promotion, did not, while in the
+grade, rank with the boatswain or gunner, who had no future prospects,
+and who, with the carpenter, stood in a class by themselves. Marryat,
+who doubtless drew his characters from life, tells us that the gunner
+who sailed with Mr. Midshipman Easy was strong on the necessity for
+the gunner mastering navigation, and had many instances in point where
+all the officers had been killed down to the gunner, who in such case
+would have been sadly handicapped by ignorance of navigation. I fancy
+the doubt seldom needed to be settled in service; the duties of
+midshipman and boatswain could rarely come into collision, if each
+minded his own business. By luck, just after writing these words, I
+for the first time in my life have found a plausible derivation for
+midshipman.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> It would appear that in the days immediately after the
+flood the vessels were very high at the two ends, between which there
+was a deep "waist," giving no ready means of passing from one to the
+other.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">Page 99</a></span> To meet this difficulty there were employed a class of men,
+usually young and alert, who from their station were called
+midshipmen, to carry messages which were not subject for the trumpet
+shout. If this holds water, it, like forecastle, and after-guard, and
+knightheads, gives another instance of survival from conditions which
+have long ceased.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the origin of his title, it well expressed the anomalous and
+undefined position of the midshipman. He belonged, so to say, to both
+ends of the ship, as well as to the middle, and his duties and
+privileges alike fell within the broad saying, already quoted, that
+what was nobody's business was a midshipman's. When appointed as such,
+in later days, he came in "with the hay-seed in his hair," and went
+out fit for a lieutenant's charge; but from first to last, whatever
+his personal progress, he remained, as a midshipman, a handy-billy. He
+might be told, as Basil Hall's first captain did his midshipmen, that
+they might keep watch or not, as they pleased&mdash;that is, that the ship
+had no use for them; or he might be sent in charge of a prize, as was
+Farragut, when twelve years old, doubtless with an old seaman as
+nurse, but still in full command. Anywhere from the bottom of the hold
+to the truck&mdash;top of the masts&mdash;he could be sent, and was sent; every
+boat, that went ashore had a midshipman, who must answer for her
+safety and see that none got away of a dozen men, whose one thought
+was to jump the boat and have a run on shore. Between times he passed
+hours at the mast-head in expiation of faults which he had
+committed&mdash;or ought to have committed, to afford a just scapegoat for
+his senior's wrath. As Marryat said, it made little difference: if he
+did not think of something he had not been told, he was asked what his
+head was for; if he did something off his own bat, the question arose
+what business he had to think. In either case he went to the mast-head.
+Of course, at a certain age one "turns to mirth all things of earth,
+as only boyhood can;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">Page 100</a></span> and the contemporary records of the steerage
+brim over with unforced jollity, like that notable hero of Marryat's
+"who was never quite happy except when he was d&mdash;&mdash;d miserable."</p>
+
+<p>Such undefined standing and employments taught men their business, but
+provided no remedy for the miscellaneous social origin of midshipmen.
+In the beginning of things they were probably selected from the smart
+young men of the crew; often also from the more middle-aged&mdash;in any
+event, from before the mast. Even in much later days men passed
+backward and forward from midshipman to lower ratings; Nelson is an
+instance in point. When a man became a lieutenant, he was something
+fixed and recognized, professionally and socially. He might fall below
+his station, but he had had his chance. In the British navy many most
+distinguished officers came from anywhere&mdash;through the hawse-holes, as
+the expression ran; and a proud boast it should have been at a time
+when every Frenchman in his position had to be of noble blood. What
+was all very well for captains and lieutenants, once those ranks were
+reached, was not so easy for midshipmen. We know in every walk of life
+the woes of those whose position is doubtful or challenged; and what
+was said to his crew by Sir Peter Parker, an active frigate captain
+who was killed in Chesapeake Bay in 1814, "I'll have you touch your
+hat to a midshipman's jacket hung up to dry" (curiously reminiscent of
+William Tell and Gessler's cap), not improbably testifies to
+equivocalness even at that late date. The social instinct of seamen is
+singularly observant and tenacious of their officers' manners and
+bearing. I have known one, reproved for a disrespect, say, sullenly:
+"I have always been accustomed to sail with gentlemen." In the
+instance the comment was just, though not permissible. Deference might
+be conceded to the midshipman's jacket, but it could not cover defects
+of a certain order.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">Page 101</a></span>The midshipman's berth, as attested by contemporary sketches, was
+peopled by all sorts in age, fitness, and manners. In one of the many
+tales I devoured in youth, a middle-aged shellback of a master's mate,
+come in from before the mast, says with an oath to an aristocratic
+midshipman: "Isn't my blood as red as yours?" Still, even in the
+British navy, with its fine democratic record, the social rank was
+more regarded than the military. His Majesty's ship <em>So-and-So</em> was
+commanded by John Smith, Esquire; and I have heard this point of view
+stated by competent authority as accounting for the address&mdash;George
+Washington, Esquire&mdash;placed by Howe on the letter which Washington
+refused to accept because not carrying the rank conferred on him by
+Congress. This does not, however, explain away the "etc., etc.," which
+followed on the cover. John Byng, Esquire, Admiral of the Blue, would
+thus be of higher consideration as Esquire than as Admiral. Even in
+our own service I remember an old log, the pages of which were headed,
+"Cruise of the U. S. Ship <em>Preble</em>, commanded by J. B. M&mdash;&mdash;,
+Esquire."</p>
+
+<p>In the practice cruises the social question did not arise. Independent
+of the democratic tendency of all boys' schools, where each individual
+finds his level by natural gravitation, the Naval Academy, for reasons
+before alluded to, has been remarkably successful in assimilating its
+heterogeneous raw material and turning out a finished product of a
+good average social quality. Beyond this, social success or failure
+depends everywhere upon personal aptitudes which no training can
+bestow. But as officers we were nondescript. There were too many of
+us; and for the most the object was to acquire a sufficient seaman's
+knowledge, not an officer's. Yet, curiously enough, so at least it
+seemed to me, there was a disposition on the part of some to be
+jealous of any supposed infringement of our prerogative to be treated
+as "a bit of an officer." Ashore or afloat, we made our own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">Page 102</a></span> beds or
+lashed our own hammocks, swept our rooms, tended our clothes, and
+blacked our boots; our drills were those of the men before the mast,
+at sails and guns; all parts of a seaman's work, except cleaning the
+ship, was required and willingly done; but there was a comical
+rebellion on one occasion when ordered to pull&mdash;row&mdash;a boat ashore for
+some purpose, and almost a mutiny when one lieutenant directed us to
+go barefooted while decks were being scrubbed, a practice which,
+besides saving your shoe-leather, is both healthy, cleanly, and, in
+warm weather, exceedingly comforting. Some asserted that the
+lieutenant in question, who afterwards commanded one of the
+Confederate commerce-destroyers, and from his initials (Jas. I.) was
+known to us as Jasseye, had done this because he had very pretty feet
+which he liked to show bare, and we must do the same; much as Germans
+are said to train their mustaches with the emperor's. At all events,
+there was great wrath, which I supposed I should have shared had I not
+preferred bare feet&mdash;not for as sound reasons as the lieutenant's. It
+stands to reason, however, that that imputation was slanderous, for
+there were no appreciative observers, unless himself. Why waste such
+sweetness on the desert air of a lot of heedless midshipmen? With so
+many details regulated&mdash;if not enforced&mdash;from the length of our hair
+to the cut of our trousers, it did seem hypercritical to object to
+going shoeless for an hour. But who is consistent? The uncertainty of
+our position kept the chip on the shoulder.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="section_break"></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">Page 103</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2>
+
+<h3>MY FIRST CRUISE AFTER GRADUATION&mdash;NAUTICAL CHARACTERS</h3>
+
+<h4>1859&ndash;1861</h4>
+
+
+<p>At the moment of graduation, in the summer of 1859, I had a narrow
+escape from the cutting short of my career, resembling that which a
+man has from a railway accident by missing the train. To a certain
+extent the members of classes were favored in forming groups of
+friends, and choosing the ship to which they would be sent. Myself and
+two intimates applied for the sloop-of-war <em>Levant</em>, destined for the
+Pacific by way of Cape Horn; our motive being partly the kind of
+vessel, supposed by us to favor professional opportunity, and partly
+the friendship existing between one of us and the master of the
+<em>Levant</em>, a graduate of two or three years before, who had just
+completed his examinations for promotion. Luckily for us, and
+particularly for me, as the only one of the three who in after life
+survived middle age, the frigate <em>Congress</em> was fitting out, and her
+requirements for officers could not be disregarded. The <em>Levant</em>
+sailed, reached the Pacific, and disappeared&mdash;one of the mysteries of
+the deep. We very young men had the impression that small vessels were
+better calculated to advance us professionally, because, having fewer
+officers, deck duty might be devolved on us, either to ease the
+regular watch officers or in case of a disability. This prepossession
+extended particularly to brigs, of which the navy then had several.
+This was a pretty wild imagin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">Page 104</a></span>ing, for I can hardly conceive any one
+in trusting such a vessel to a raw midshipman. It is scarcely an
+exaggeration to say they were all canvas and no hull&mdash;beautiful as a
+dream, but dangerous to a degree, except to the skilful. As it was, an
+unusual proportion of them came to grief. Our views were doubtless
+largely, if unconsciously, affected by the pleasing idea of
+prospective early importance as deck officers. The more solid opinion
+of our seniors was that we would do better to pause awhile on the
+bottom step, under closer supervision; while as for vessel, the order,
+dignity, and scale of performance on big ships were more educative,
+more formative of military character, which, and not seamanship, is
+the leading element of professional value. "Keep them at sea," said
+Lord St. Vincent, "and they can't help becoming seamen; but attention
+is needed to make them learn their business with the guns." I have
+already mentioned that, at the outbreak of the War of Secession, it
+was this factor which decided the authorities to give seniority to the
+very young lieutenants over the volunteers from the merchant service,
+most of whom had longer experience and (though by no means all of
+them) consequent ability as seamen.</p>
+
+<p>After graduating, my first cruise was upon what was then known as the
+Brazil Station; by the British called more comprehensively the
+Southeast Coast of America. After the war the name and limits were
+judiciously changed. It became then the South Atlantic Station, to
+embrace the Cape of Good Hope, and, generally, the coasts of South
+America and Africa, with the islands lying between, such as St. Helena
+and the Falklands. From the point of view of healthy activity for the
+ships and their companies, and specifically for the education of
+younger officers, this extension was most desirable. In the earlier
+time long periods were spent in port, because there really was not
+enough that required doing. Our captain once kept the ship at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">Page 105</a></span> sea for
+a fortnight or more, "cruising;" that is, moving about within certain
+limits back and forth. In war-time this is frequent, if not general;
+but then it is for a specific purpose, conducive to the ends of war.
+In peace, cruising ends in itself; it is like a "constitutional;"
+beneficial, no doubt, but not to most men as healthily beneficial as
+the walk to the office, with its definite object and the incidental
+amusement of the streets. A <em>terminus ad quem</em> is essential to the
+perfection of exercise, bodily or mental. As it was, Montevideo, in
+the river La Plata, and Rio de Janeiro were the two chief ports
+between which we oscillated, with rare and brief stays elsewhere or at
+sea.</p>
+
+<p>The <em>Congress</em> was a magnificent ship of her period. The adjective is
+not too strong. Having been built about 1840, she represented the
+culmination of the sail era, which, judged by her, reached then the
+splendid maturity that in itself, to the prophetic eye, presages decay
+and vanishment. In her just but strong proportions, in her lines, fine
+yet not delicate, she "seemed to dare," and did dare, "the elements to
+strife;" while for "her peopled deck," when her five hundred and odd
+men swarmed up for an evolution, or to get their hammocks for the
+night, it was peopled to the square foot, despite her size. On her
+forecastle, and to the fore and main masts, each, were stationed sixty
+men, full half of them prime seamen, not only in skill, but in age and
+physique&mdash;ninety for the starboard watch, and ninety for the port; not
+to count the mizzen-topmen, after-guard, and marines, more than as
+many more. I have always remembered the effect produced upon me by
+this huge mass, when all hands gathered once to wear ship in a heavy
+gale, the height of one of those furious <em>pamperos</em> which issue from
+the prairies (<em>pampas</em>) of Buenos Ayres. The ship having only fore and
+main topsails, close reefed, the officers, beyond those of the watch,
+were not summoned; the handling of the yards required only the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">Page 106</a></span> brute
+force of muscle, under which, even in such conditions, they were as
+toys in the hands of that superb ship's company. I had thus the chance
+to see things from the poop, a kind of bird's-eye view. As the ship
+fell off before the wind, and while the captain was waiting that
+smoother chance which from time to time offers to bring her up to it
+again on the other side with the least shock, she of course gathered
+accelerated way with the gale right aft&mdash;scudding, in fact. Unsteadied
+by wind on either side, she rolled deeply, and the sight of those four
+hundred or more faces, all turned up and aft, watching intently the
+officer of the deck for the next order, the braces stretched taut
+along in their hands for instant obedience, was singularly striking.
+Usually a midshipman had to be in the midst of such matters with no
+leisure for impressions&mdash;at least, of an "impressionist" character.
+Those were the prerogatives of the idlers&mdash;the surgeon, chaplain, and
+marine officers&mdash;who obtained thereby not only the benefit of the
+show, but material for discussion as to how well the thing had been
+done, or whether it ought to have been done at all. The midshipman's
+part at "all hands" was to be as much in the way as was necessary to
+see all needed gear manned, no skulkers, and as much out of the way as
+his personal stability required, from the rush of the huge gangs of
+seamen "running away" with a rope.</p>
+
+<p>I never had the opportunity of viewing the ship from outside under way
+at sea; but she was delightful to look at in port. Her spars, both
+masts and yards, lofty and yet square, were as true to proportion, for
+perfection of appearance, as was her hull; and the twenty-five guns
+she showed on each broadside, in two tiers, though they had abundance
+of working-room, were close enough together to suggest two strong rows
+of solid teeth, ready for instant use. Nothing could be more
+splendidly martial. But what old-timers they were, with the swell of
+their black<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">Page 107</a></span> muzzles, like the lips of a full-blooded negro.
+Thirty-two-pounders, all of them; except on either side five
+eight-inch shell guns, a small tribute to progress. The rest threw
+solid shot for the most part. Imposing as they certainly looked, and
+heavier though they were than most of those with which the world's
+famous sea-fights have been fought, they were already antediluvian. A
+few years later I saw a long range of them enjoying their last repose
+on the skids in a navy-yard; and a bystander, with equal truth and
+irreverence, called them pop-guns. One almost felt that the word
+should be uttered in a whisper, out of respect for their feelings. But
+the whole equipment of the ship, though up to date in itself, was so
+far of the past that I recall it with mingled pathos and interest.
+What naval officer who may read these words was ever shipmate with
+rope "trusses" for the lower yards, or with a hemp messenger? A
+"messenger" was a huge rope, of I suppose eighteen to twenty-four
+inches circumference, used for lifting the anchor. At the after end of
+the ship it was passed three times round the capstan, where the men
+walking round merrily to the sound of the fife, under the eyes of the
+officer of the deck, were doing the work of weighing; at the forward
+end it moved round rollers to save friction. Thus one part was taut
+under the strain of the capstan; and to this the cable of the anchor,
+as it was hove in, was made fast by a succession of selvagees, for
+which I will borrow the elaborate description of White Jacket, who
+tells us the name was applied by the seamen of his ship to one of the
+lieutenants: "It is a slender, tapering, unstranded piece of rope,
+prepared with much solicitude; peculiarly flexible; which wreathes and
+serpentines round the cable and messenger like an elegantly modelled
+garter-snake round the stalks of a vine." The messenger thus was
+appropriately named; it went back and forth on its errand of anchor
+raising, the slack side being helped on its way by a row of twelve or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">Page 108</a></span>
+fifteen men seated, pulling it along forward. This gang, by immemorial
+usage, was composed of the colored servants, and I can see now that
+row of black faces, with grinning ivories, as they yo-ho'd in
+undertones together, "lighting forward the messenger."</p>
+
+<p>Like the ship and her equipment, the officers and crew by training and
+methods were still of the olden time in tone and ideals; a condition,
+of course, fostered at the moment by the style of vessel. Yet they had
+that curious adaptability characteristic of the profession, which
+afterwards enabled them to fall readily into the use of the new
+constructions of every kind evolved by the War of Secession.
+Concerning some of these, a naval professional humorist observed that
+they could be worshipped without idolatry; for they were like nothing
+in heaven, or on earth, or in the waters under the earth. Adored or
+not, they were handled to purpose. By a paradoxical combination, the
+seaman of those days was at once most conservative in temperament and
+versatile in capacity. Among the officers, however, there was an open
+vision towards the future. I well remember "Joe" Smith enlarging to me
+on the merits of Cowper Coles's projected turret ship, much talked
+about in the British press in 1860; a full year or more before
+Ericsson, under the exigency of existing war, obtained from us a
+hearing for the <em>Monitor</em>. Coles's turrets, being then a novel
+project, were likened, explanatorily, to a railway turn-table, a very
+illustrative definition; and Smith was already convinced of the value
+of the design, which was proved in Hampton Roads the day after he
+himself fell gloriously on the deck of the <em>Congress</em>. There is a
+double tragedy in his missing by this brief space the clear
+demonstration of a system to which he so early gave his adherence; and
+it is another tragedy, which most Americans except naval officers will
+have forgotten, that Coles himself found his grave in the ship&mdash;the
+<em>Captain</em>&mdash;ultimately built through his urgency<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">Page 109</a></span> upon this turret
+principle. This happened in 1870. The tradition of masts and sails, as
+economical, still surviving, she was equipped with them, which we from
+the beginning had discarded in monitors. The <em>Captain</em> was a large
+vessel with low freeboard, her deck only six feet above water. Lying
+to under sail in a moderate gale, in the Bay of Biscay, she heeled
+over in a squall, bringing the lee side of the deck under water; and
+the force of the wind increasing, without meeting the resistance
+offered ordinarily by the pressure of the water against the lee side
+of a ship, she went clean over and sank. The incident made the deeper
+impression upon me because two months before I had visited her, when
+she was lying at Spithead in company with another iron-clad, the
+<em>Monarch</em>, which soon after was assigned by the British government to
+bring George Peabody's remains to their final resting-place in
+America. I then met and was courteously received by the captain of the
+<em>Captain</em>, Burgoyne, of the same family as the general known to our
+War of Independence. Coles had gone merely as a passenger, to observe
+the practical working of his designs. I do not know how far the
+masting was consonant to his wishes. It may have been forced upon him
+as a concession, necessary to obtain his main end; but nothing could
+be more incongruous than to embarrass the all-round fire of turrets by
+masts and rigging.</p>
+
+<p>In 1859 the United States government was coquetting with the title
+"Admiral," which was supposed to have some insidious connection with
+monarchical institutions. Even so sensible and thoughtful a man as our
+sailmaker, who was a devout disciple and constant reader of Horace
+Greeley, with the advanced political tendencies of the <em>Tribune</em>, said
+to me: "Call them admirals! Never! They will be wanting to be dukes
+next." We had hit, therefore, on a compromise, quite accordant with
+the transition decade 1850&ndash;1860, and styled them flag-officers;
+concerning which it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">Page 110</a></span> might be said that all admirals are
+flag-officers, but all flag-officers were not admirals&mdash;not American
+flag-officers, at all events. As a further element in the compromise,
+instead of the broad swallow-tailed pendant of a commodore, our
+previous flag-rank, we carried the square flag at the mizzen
+indicative in all navies of a rear-admiral, to which we gave a
+rear-admiral's salute of thirteen guns, and expected the same from
+foreigners; while all the time the recipient stood on our <em>Navy
+Register</em> as a captain, only temporarily brevetted Flag-officer. Well
+do I remember the dismay of our flag-officer when, quitting a British
+ship of war, she fired the customary salute, and stopped at eleven&mdash;a
+commodore's perquisite. The hit was harder, because the old gentleman
+was particularly fond of the English, having received from them great
+hospitality incidental to his commanding the ship of war which carried
+part of the American exhibition to the World's Fair of 1851. An "<em>Et
+tu, Brute</em>" expression came over his face, as he sank back with a
+sorrowful exclamation in the stern-sheets of the barge, which, as
+nautical convention requires, was lying motionless, oars horizontal, a
+ship's-length away; when, lo and behold, as a kind of appendix to the
+previous proceedings, bang! bang! went two more guns, filling the
+baker's dozen. It was, of course, somewhat limping, but the apology
+was sufficient.</p>
+
+<p>Salutes are as liable to accidents as are other affairs of
+well-regulated households, and a little more so; a gun misses fire, or
+somebody counts wrong, or what not. On the <em>Congress</em> we rarely had
+trouble, for the greatest number of guns is twenty-one&mdash;a national
+salute&mdash;and on our main deck we had thirty, any part of which could be
+ready. If one missed fire, the gun next abaft stepped in. If near
+enough, you might hear the primer snap, but the error of interval was
+barely appreciable&mdash;the effect stood. Laymen may not know that the
+manner of the salute was, and is,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">Page 111</a></span> for the officer conducting it to
+give the orders, "Starboard, fire!" "Port, fire!" the discharges thus
+ranging from forward, aft, alternately on each side. A man who cannot
+trust his ear times the interval by watch; most, I presume, trust
+their counting. I once underwent an amusing <em>faux pas</em> in this matter
+of counting. Of course, the count is a serious matter; gun for gun is
+diplomatically as important as an eye for an eye. My captain had heard
+that an excellent precaution was to provide one's self with a number
+of dried beans&mdash;with which, needless to say, a ship
+abounds&mdash;corresponding to the number of guns. The receipt ran: Put
+them all in one pocket, and with each gun shift a bean to the other
+pocket. He proposed this to me, but I demurred; I feared I might get
+mixed on the beans and omit to shift one. He did not press me, but
+when I began to perform on the main deck he stood near the hatch on
+the deck above, duly&mdash;or unduly&mdash;provided with beans. It was a
+national salute; to the port. When I finished, he called to me: "You
+have only fired twenty guns." "No, sir," I replied; "twenty-one."
+"No," he repeated, "twenty; for I have a bean left." "All right!" I
+returned, and I banged an appendix; after which, upon counting, it was
+found the captain had twenty-two beans and the French twenty-two
+guns&mdash;a "tiger" which I hope they appreciated, but am sure they did
+not "return."</p>
+
+<p>Our flag-officer was a veteran of 1812. He had evidently been very
+handsome, to which possibly he owed three successive wives, the last
+one much younger than himself. Now, in his sixties, he was still light
+in his movements. He had a queer way of tripping along on the balls of
+his feet, with a half-shuffling movement, his hands buried in his
+pockets, with the thumbs out. He was, I fear, the sort of man capable
+of wearing a frock-coat unbuttoned. It was amusing to see him walk the
+poop with the captain of the ship, who out topped him by a head, was
+ponderous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">Page 112</a></span> in dimensions, with wide tread and feet like an elephant's;
+yet, it was said by those who had seen, a beautiful waltzer. His son,
+who was his clerk, used to say: "The old man's feet really aren't so
+big, if he would not wear such shoes." When his shoes were sent up to
+dry in the sun, as all sea-shoes must be at times, the midshipmen knew
+the occasion as a gunboat parade. The flag-officer was styled
+familiarly in the navy by the epithet Buckey; I never saw it spelled,
+but the pronunciation was as given. Report ran that he thus called
+every one, promiscuously; but, although I was his aide for nearly six
+months, I only heard him use it once or twice. Possibly he was
+breaking a bad habit.</p>
+
+<p>Judged by my experience, which I believe was no worse than the
+average, the life of an aide is literally that of a dog; it was
+chiefly following round, or else sitting in a boat at a landing, just
+as a dog waits outside for his master, to all hours of the night, till
+your superior comes down from his dinner or out from the theatre. A
+coachman has a "cinch," to use our present-day slang; for he has only
+his own behavior to look to, while the aide has to see that the dozen
+bargemen also behave, don't skip up the wharf for a drink, and then
+forget the way back to the boat. If one or two do, no matter how good
+his dinner may have been, the remarks of the flag-officer are apt to
+be unpleasant; not to speak of subsequent interviews with the
+first-lieutenant. I trace to those days a horror which has never left
+me of keeping servants waiting. Flag-officers apparently never heard
+that punctuality is the politeness of kings. There are, however,
+occasional compensations; bones, I might say, pursuing the dog
+analogy. One incident very interesting to me occurred. The
+flag-officer had a well-deserved reputation for great bravery, and in
+his early career had fought two or three duels. One of these had been
+at Rio Janeiro, on an island in the harbor, and he had there killed
+his man. On this occasion, the barge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">Page 113</a></span> being manned and I along, we
+pulled over to the island. In the thirty intervening years it must
+have changed greatly, for many buildings were now on it; but his
+memory evidently was busy and serving him well. He walked round
+meditatively, uttering a low, humming whistle, his hands in his
+pockets, his secretary and myself following. At last he reached a
+point where he stopped and mused for some moments, after which he went
+quietly and silently to the boat. Not a word passed from him to us
+during our stay, nor the subsequent pull to shore; but there can be
+little doubt where his thoughts were. It is right to add that on the
+occasion in question not only was the provocation all on the other
+side, but it was endured by him to the utmost that the standards of
+1830 would permit.</p>
+
+<p>To my aideship also I owed an unusual opportunity to see an incident
+of bygone times&mdash;the heaving down of a fair-sized ship of war. One of
+our sloops, of some eight hundred tons' burden, bound to China, had
+put into Rio for repairs: a leak of no special danger, but so near the
+keel as to demand examination. It might get worse. As yet Rio had no
+dry-dock, and so she must be hove down. This operation, probably never
+known in these days, when dry-docks are to be found in all quarters,
+consisted in heeling the ship over, by heavy purchases attached to the
+top of the lower masts, until the keel, or at least so much of the
+side as was necessary, was out of water. As the leverage on the masts
+was extreme, almost everything had to be taken out of the ship, guns
+included, to lighten her to the utmost; and the spars themselves were
+heavily backed to bear the strain. The upper works, usually out of
+water, must on the down side be closed and protected against the
+proposed immersion. In short, preparation was minute as well as
+extensive. In the old days, when docks were rare, and long voyages
+would be made in regions without local resources, a ship would be hove
+down two or three<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">Page 114</a></span> times in a cruise, to clean her uncoppered bottom
+or to see what damage worms might be effecting. When frequently done,
+familiarity doubtless made it comparatively easy; but by 1859 it had
+become very exceptional. I have never seen another instance. She was
+taken to a sheltered cove, in one of those picturesque bights which
+abound in the harbor of Rio, the most beautiful bay in the world, and
+there, in repeated visits by our flag-officer, I saw most stages of
+the process. Technical details I will not inflict upon the reader, but
+there was one amusing anecdote told me by our carpenter, who as a
+senior in his business was much to the fore. Some general overhauling
+was also required, and among other things the sloop's captain pointed
+out that the side-board in the cabin was not well secured. "I have
+sometimes to get up two or three times in the night to see to it," he
+said. He had been one of the restored victims of the Retiring Board of
+1855, and had the reputation of knowing that sideboards exist for
+other purposes than merely being secured; hence, at this pathetic
+remark, the carpenter caught a wink, "on the fly," as it passed from
+the flag-officer to the captain of the <em>Congress</em> and back again. The
+commander invalided soon after, and the sloop went on her way to China
+under the charge of the first lieutenant.</p>
+
+<p>The flag-officer, though not a man of particular distinction,
+possessed strongly that kind of individuality which among seamen of
+the days before steam, when the world was less small and less
+frequented, was more common than it is now, when we so cluster that,
+like shot in a barrel, we are rounded and polished by mere attrition.
+Formerly, characteristics had more chance to emphasize themselves and
+throw out angles, as I believe they still do in long polar seclusions.
+Withal, there came from him from time to time a whiff of the naval
+atmosphere of the past, like that from a drawer where lavender has
+been. Going<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">Page 115</a></span> ashore once with him for a constitutional, he caught
+sight of a necktie which my fond mother had given me. It was black,
+yes; but with variations. "Humph!" he ejaculated; "don't wear a thing
+like that with me. You look like a privateersman." There spoke the
+rivalries of 1812. There had not been a privateersman in the United
+States for near a half-century. A great chum of his was the senior
+surgeon of the frigate, a man near his own years. Leaving the ship
+together for a walk, the surgeon, crossing the deck, smudged his white
+trousers with paint or coal-tar, the free application of which in
+unexpected places is one of the snares attending a well-appearing
+man-of-war. "Never mind, doctor," said the flag-officer, consolingly,
+falling back like Sancho Panza on an ancient proverb; "remember the
+two dirtiest things in the world are a clean ship and a clean
+soldier"&mdash;paint and pipe-clay, to wit.</p>
+
+<p>Another trait was an extensive, though somewhat mild, profanity which
+took no account of ladies' presence, although he was almost
+exaggeratedly deferential to them, as well as cordially courteous to
+all. His speech was like his gait, tripping. I remember the arrival of
+the first steamer of a new French line to Rio. Steam mail-service was
+there and then exceptional; most of our home letters still came by
+sailing-vessel; consequently, this was an event, and brought the
+inevitable banquet. He was present; I also, as his aide, seated nearly
+opposite him, with two or three other of our officers. He was called
+to respond to a toast. "Gentlemen and ladies!" he began. "No! Ladies
+and gentlemen&mdash;ladies always first, d&mdash;n me!" What more he said I do
+not recall, although we all loyally applauded him. Many years
+afterwards, when he was old and feeble, an acquaintance of mine met
+him, and he began to tell of the tombstone of some person in whom he
+was interested. After various particulars, he startled his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">Page 116</a></span> auditor
+with the general descriptive coruscation, "It was covered with angels
+and cherubs, and the h&mdash;l knows what else."</p>
+
+<p>It would be easily possible to overdraw the personal peculiarities of
+the seamen. I remember nothing corresponding at all to the
+extravagances instanced in my early reading of Colburn's; such as a
+frigate's watch&mdash;say one hundred and fifty men&mdash;on liberty in
+Portsmouth, England, buying up all the gold-laced cocked bats in the
+place, and appearing with them at the theatre. Many, however, who have
+seen a homeward-bound ship leaving port, the lower rigging of her
+three masts crowded with seamen from deck to top, returning roundly
+the cheers given by all the ships-of-war present, foreign as well as
+national, as she passes, have witnessed also the time-honored ceremony
+of her crew throwing their hats overboard with the last cheer. This
+corresponded to the breaking of glasses after a favorite toast, or to
+the bursts of enthusiasm in a Spanish bull-ring, where Andalusian caps
+fly by dozens into the arena. There, however, the bull-fighter returns
+them, with many bows; but those of the homeward-bounders become the
+inheritance of the boatmen of the port. The midshipman of the watch
+being stationed on the forecastle, my intimates among the crew were
+the staid seamen, approaching middle-age; allotted there, where they
+would have least going aloft. The two captains of the forecastle&mdash;one,
+I shrewdly think, Dutch, the other English, though both had English
+names&mdash;would engage in conversation with me at times, mingling
+deference and conscious superior experience in due proportion. One, I
+remember, just before the War of Secession began, was greatly
+exercised about the oncoming troubles. The causes of the difficulty
+and the political complications disturbed him little; but the probable
+prospect of the heads of the rebellion losing their property engrossed
+his mind. He constantly returned to this; it would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">Page 117</a></span> be confiscated,
+doubtless; yet the assertion was an evident implied query to me, to
+which I could give no positive answer. As is known, few of the seamen,
+as of private soldiers in the army, sympathized sufficiently with the
+Confederacy to join it. Indeed, the vaunt I have heard attributed to
+Southern officers of the old navy, which, though never uttered in my
+ears, was very consonant to the Southern spirit as I then knew it,
+that Southern officers with Yankee seamen could beat the world,
+testified at least to the probable attitude of the latter in a war of
+sections. Considering the great naval names of the past, Preble, Hull,
+Decatur, Bainbridge, Stewart, Porter, Perry, and Macdonough, the two
+most Southern of whom came from Delaware and Maryland, this
+ante-bellum assurance was, to say the least, self-confident; but
+Farragut was a Southerner. The other captain of the forecastle was
+less communicative, taciturn by nature; but there ran of him a story
+of amusing simplicity. It occurred to him on one occasion that he
+would lay under contribution the resources of the ship's small
+library. Accordingly he went to the chaplain, in whose care it was;
+but as he was wholly in the dark as to what particular book he might
+like, the chaplain, after two or three tries, suggested a <em>Life of
+Paul Jones</em>. Yes, he thought he would like that. "You see, I was
+shipmates with him some cruises ago; he was with me in the main-top of
+the &mdash;&mdash;."</p>
+
+<p>Another forecastle intimate of mine was the boatswain, who, like most
+boatswains of that day, had served his time before the mast. As is the
+case with many self-made men, he, on his small scale, was very
+conscious of the fact, and of general consequent desert. A favorite
+saying with him was, "Thanks to my own industry and my wife's economy,
+I am now well beforehand with the world." Like a distinguished officer
+higher in rank of that day, of whom it was said that he remembered
+nothing later than 1813, my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">Page 118</a></span> boatswain's memory dwelt much in the
+thirties, though he acknowledged more recent experiences. His attitude
+towards steam, essentially conservative, was strictly and amusingly
+official. He had served on board one steamer, the <em>San Jacinto</em>; and
+what had pleased him was that the yards could be squared and rigging
+hauled taut&mdash;his own special function&mdash;before entering port, so that
+in those respects the job had been done when the anchor dropped. One
+of his pet stories, frequently brought forward, concerned a schooner
+in which he had served in the earlier period, and will appeal to those
+who know how dear a fresh coat of paint is to a seaman's heart. She
+had just been thus decorated within and without, and was standing into
+a West-Indian port to show her fine feathers, when a sudden flaw of
+wind knocked her off, and over, dangerously close to a rocky point.
+The first order given was, "Stand clear of the paint-work!"&mdash;an
+instance of the ruling passion strong <em>in extremis</em>. He had another
+woesome account of a sloop-of-war in which he had gone through the
+Straits of Magellan. The difficult navigation and balky winds made the
+passage protracted for a sailing-vessel; all were put on short
+rations, and the day before she entered a Chilian port the bread-room
+was swept to the last crumbs. "I often could not sleep for hunger when
+I turned in." In the same ship, the watch-officers falling short,
+through illness or suspension, the captain set a second lieutenant of
+marines to take a day watch. Being, as he supposed, put to do
+something, he naturally wanted to do it, if he only knew what it was,
+and how it was to be done. The master of the ship was named Peter
+Wager, and to him, when taking sights, the marine appealed. "Peter,
+what's the use of being officer of the deck if you don't do anything?
+Tell me something to do." "Well," Peter replied, "you might send all
+the watch aft and take in the mizzen-royal"&mdash;the mizzen-royal being
+the smallest of all sails, requiring about two ordi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">Page 119</a></span>nary men, and in
+no wise missed when in. This was practical "tales for the marines."</p>
+
+<p>This boatswain afterwards saw the last of the <em>Congress</em>, when the
+<em>Merrimac</em>&mdash;or rather the <em>Virginia</em>, to give her her Confederate
+name&mdash;wasted time murdering a ship already dead, aground and on fire.
+He often afterwards spun me the yarn; for I liked the old man, and not
+infrequently went to see him in later days. He had borne
+good-humoredly the testiness with which a youngster is at times prone
+to assert himself against what he fancies interference, and I had
+appreciated the rebuke. The <em>Congress</em> disaster was a very big and
+striking incident in the career of any person, and it both ministered
+to his self-esteem and provided the evening of his life with material
+for talk. Unhappily, I have to confess, as even Boswell at times did,
+I took no notes, and cannot reproduce that which to me is of absorbing
+interest, the individual impressions of a vivid catastrophe.</p>
+
+<p>The boatswain was one of the four who in naval phrase were termed
+"warrant" officers, in distinction from the lieutenants and those
+above, who held their offices by "commission." The three others were
+the gunner, carpenter, and sailmaker, names which sufficiently
+indicate their several functions. In the hierarchical classification
+of the navy, as then established by long tradition, the midshipmen,
+although on their way to a commission, were warrant officers also; and
+in consequence, though they had a separate mess, they had the same
+smoking-place, the effect of which in establishing a community of
+social intercourse every smoker will recognize. I suppose, if there
+had been three sides to a ship, there would have been three
+smoking-rendezvous; but in the crude barbarism of those days&mdash;as it
+will now probably be considered&mdash;both commissioned and warrant
+officers had no place to smoke except away forward on the
+gun-deck&mdash;the "eyes" of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">Page 120</a></span> ship, as the spot was appropriately
+named; the superiors on the honor side, which on the gun-deck was the
+port, the midshipmen and warrant officers on the starboard. The
+position was not without advantages, when riding head to wind, in hot
+tropical weather; but under way, close-hauled, with a stiff breeze, a
+good deal of salt water found its way in, especially if the jackasses
+were in the hawse-holes. But under such conditions we sat there
+serenely, the water coursing in a flowing stream under our chairs if
+the ship had a steady heel, or rushing madly from side to side if she
+lurched to windward. The stupidity of it was that we didn't even know
+we were uncomfortable, and by all sound philosophy were so far better
+off than our better accommodated successors. What was more annoying
+was the getting forward at night, when the hammocks were in place; but
+even for that occasional compensations offered. I remember once, when
+making this awkward journey, hearing a colloquy between two young
+seamen just about to swing themselves into bed at nine o'clock. "I
+say, Bill," said one, with voluptuous satisfaction, "too watches
+in,<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> and beans to-morrow." Can any philosophy soar higher than that,
+in contentment with small things? Plain living and high thinking!
+Diogenes wasn't in it.</p>
+
+<p>As the warrant officers of the ship were of the generation before us,
+we heard from their lips many racy and entertaining experiences of the
+former navy, most of which naturally have escaped me, while others I
+have dropped all along the line of my preceding reminiscences where
+they seemed to come in aptly. Each of the four had very different
+characteristics, and I fancy they did not agree very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">Page 121</a></span> well together.
+All have long since gone to their rest; peace be with them! Four is an
+awkwardly small number for a mess-table of equals; friction is
+emphasized by narrowness of sphere. "I didn't like the man," said the
+boatswain afterwards to me of the sailmaker, narrating the destruction
+of the <em>Congress</em>; "but he is brave, brave as can be. Getting the
+wounded over the side to put them ashore, he was as cool as though
+nothing was happening. The great guns weren't so bad," he
+continued&mdash;"but the rifle-bullets that came singing along in clouds
+like mosquitoes! Yah!" he used to snap, each time he told me the tale,
+slapping his ears right and left, as one does at the hum of those
+intrusive insects. He did not like the carpenter, either, for reasons
+of another kind. They were both humorists, but of a different order.
+Indeed, I don't think that the boatswain, though slightly sardonic in
+expression, suspected himself of humor; but he really came at times
+pretty close to wit, if that be a perception of incongruities, as I
+have heard said. He was telling one day of some mishap that befell a
+vessel, wherein the officer in charge showed the happy blending of
+composure and ignorance we sometimes find; a condition concerning
+which a sufferer once said of himself, "I never open my mouth but I
+put my foot in it;" a confusion of metaphor, and suggestion of
+physical contortion, not often so neatly combined in a dozen words.
+The boatswain commented: "He didn't mind. He didn't know what to do,
+but there he stood, looking all the time as happy as a duck
+barefooted." A duck shod, and the consequent expression of its
+countenance, presents to my mind infinite entertainment. Our first
+lieutenant, under whom immediately he worked, was a great trial to
+him. He was an elderly man, as first lieutenants of big ships were
+then, great with the paint-brush and tar-pot, traces of which were
+continually surprising one's clothes; mighty also in that lavish
+swashing of sea-water which is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">Page 122</a></span> called washing decks, and in the
+tropics is not so bad; but otherwise, while he was one of the
+kindliest of men, the go was pretty well out of him. "Yes," the
+boatswain used to say grimly,&mdash;he seldom smiled,&mdash;"the first
+lieutenant is like an old piece of soap&mdash;half wore out. Go day, come
+day, God send Sunday; that's he."</p>
+
+<p>The carpenter, on the other hand, was always on a broad grin&mdash;or
+rather roar. He breathed farce, both in story and feature. Unlike the
+boatswain, who was middle-sized and very trig, as well as scrupulously
+neat, the carpenter was over six feet, broad in proportion, with big,
+round, red, close-shaven face, framed with abundance of white hair. He
+looked not unlike one's fancies of the typical English yeoman, while
+withal having a strong Yankee flavor. Wearing always a frock-coat,
+buttoned up as high as any one then buttoned, he carried with it a
+bluff heartiness of manner, which gave an impression of solidity not,
+I fear, wholly sustained on demand. There was no such doubt about the
+fun, however, or his own huge enjoyment of his own stories,
+accompanied by a running fire of guffaws, which pointed the
+appreciation we easily gave. But it was all of the same character,
+broad farce; accounts of mishaps such as befall in children's
+pantomimes,&mdash;which their seniors enjoy, too,&mdash;practical jokes equally
+ludicrous, and resulting situations to match. Comical as such tales
+were at the time, and many a pleasant pipeful of Lynchburg tobacco in
+Powhatan clay though they whiled away, they lacked the catching and
+fixing power of the boatswain's shrewd sayings. I can remember
+distinctly only one, of two small midshipmen, shipmates of his in a
+sloop-of-war of long-gone days, who had a deadly quarrel, calling for
+blood. A duel ashore might in those times have been arranged, unknown
+to superiors&mdash;they often were; but the necessity for speedy
+satisfaction was too urgent, and they could not wait for the end of
+the voyage. Consequently, they de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">Page 123</a></span>termined to fight from the two ends
+of the spritsail-yard, a horizontal spar which crossed the bowsprit
+end, and gave, or could admit, the required number of paces. Seconds,
+I presume, were omitted; they might have attracted unnecessary
+attention, and on the yard would have been in the way of shot, unless
+they sat behind their several principals, like damsels on a pillion.
+So these two mites, procuring each a loaded pistol, crawled out
+quietly to their respective places, straddled the yard, and were
+proceeding to business, when the boatswain caught sight of them from
+his frequent stand-point between the knightheads. He ran out, got
+between them in the line of fire, and from this position of tactical
+advantage, having collared first one and then the other, brought them
+both in on the forecastle, where he knocked their heads together. The
+last action, I fancy, must be considered an embellishment, necessary
+to the dramatic completeness of the incident, though it may at least
+be admitted it would not have been incongruous. In telling this
+occurrence, which, punctuated by his own laughter, bore frequent
+repetition, the carpenter used to give the names of the heroes. One I
+have forgotten. The other I knew in after life and middle-age, still
+small of stature, with a red face, in outline much like a paroquet's.
+He was not a bad fellow; but his first lieutenant, a very competent
+critic, used to say that what he did not know of seamanship would fill
+a large book.</p>
+
+<p>At first thought it seems somewhat singular that the six lieutenants
+of the ship presented no such aggregate of idiosyncrasies as did the
+four warrant officers. It was not by any means because we did not know
+them well, and mingle among them with comparative frequency.
+Midshipmen, we travelled from one side to the other; here at home,
+there guests, but to both admitted freely. But, come to think of it
+more widely, the distinction I here note must have had a foundation in
+conditions. My acquaint<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">Page 124</a></span>ance with Marryat, who lived the naval life as
+no other sea author has, is now somewhat remote, but was once intimate
+as well as extensive; and recollection deceives me if the same remark
+does not apply to his characters. He has a full gallery of captains
+and lieutenants, each differing from the other; but his greatest
+successes in portrayal, those that take hold of the memory, are his
+warrant officers&mdash;boatswains, gunners, and carpenters. The British
+navy did not give sailmakers this promotion. By-products though they
+are, rather than leading characters, Boatswain Chucks, whom Marryat
+takes off the stage midway, as though too much to sustain to the end,
+Carpenter Muddle, and Gunner Tallboys, with his aspirations towards
+navigating, sketched but briefly and in bold outline as they are,
+survive most of their superiors in clear individuality and amusing
+eccentricity. Peter Simple, and even Jack Easy himself, whose traits
+are more personal than nautical, are less vivid to memory. Cooper
+also, who caricatures rather than reproduces life, seeks here his
+fittest subjects&mdash;Boltrope and Trysail&mdash;warrant masters, superior in
+grade indeed to the others, but closely identified with them on board
+ship, and essentially of the same class. Such coincidence betokens a
+more pronounced individuality in the subject-matter. There have been
+particular eccentric commissioned officers, of whom quaint stories
+have descended; but in early days, originality was the class-mark of
+those of whom I am speaking, as many an anecdote witnesses. I fancy
+few will have seen this, which I picked up in my miscellaneous
+nautical readings. A boatswain, who had been with Cook in his voyages,
+chanced upon one of those fervent Methodist meetings common in the
+eighteenth century. The preacher, in illustration of the abundance of
+the Divine mercy, affirmed that there was hope for the worst, even for
+the boatswain of a man-of-war; whereupon the boatswain sprang to the
+platform and adminis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">Page 125</a></span>tered a drubbing. True or not, offence and
+punishment testify to public estimate as to character and action; to a
+natural exaggeration of feature which lends itself readily to
+reproduction. This was due, probably, to a more contracted sphere in
+early life, and afterwards less of that social opportunity, in the
+course of which angular projections are rounded off and personal
+peculiarities softened by various contact. The same cause would
+naturally occasion more friction and disagreement among themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the several lieutenants of our frigate call for no special
+characterization. If egotism, the most amusing of traits where it is
+not offensive, existed among them to any unusual degree, it was
+modified and concealed by the acquired exterior of social usage. Their
+interests also were wider. With them, talk was less of self and
+personal experience, and more upon subjects of general interest,
+professional or external; the outlook was wider. But while all this
+tended to make them more instructive, and in so far more useful
+companions, it also took from the salt of individuality somewhat of
+its pungency. It did not fall to them, either, to become afterwards
+especially conspicuous in the nearing War of Secession. They were good
+seamen and gallant men; knew their duty and did it; but either
+opportunity failed them, or they failed opportunity; from my knowledge
+of them, probably the former. As Nelson once wrote: "A sea officer
+cannot form plans like those of a land officer; his object is to
+embrace the happy moment which now and then offers; it may be this
+day, not for a month, and perhaps never." So also Farragut is reported
+to have said of a conspicuous shortcoming: "Every man has one chance;
+he has had his and lost it." Certainly, by failure that man lost
+promotion with its chances. It is somewhat congruous to this train of
+thought that Smith, whom I have so often mentioned, said one day to
+me: "If I had a son (he was unmarried), I would put him in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">Page 126</a></span> navy
+without hesitation. I believe there is a day coming shortly when the
+opportunities for a naval officer will exceed any that our country has
+yet known." He did not say what contingencies he had in mind; scarcely
+those of the War of Secession, large looming though it already was,
+for, like most of us, he doubtless refused to entertain that sorrowful
+possibility. As with many a prophecy, his was of wider scope than he
+thought; and, though in part fulfilled, more yet remains on the laps
+of the gods. He himself, perhaps the ablest of this group, was cut off
+too early to contribute more than an heroic memory; but that must live
+in naval annals, enshrined in his father's phrase, along with Craven's
+"After you, pilot," when the <em>Tecumseh</em> sank.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="section_break"></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">Page 127</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2>
+
+<h3>MY FIRST CRUISE AFTER GRADUATION&mdash;NAUTICAL SCENES AND SCENERY&mdash;THE
+APPROACH OF DISUNION</h3>
+
+<h4>1859&ndash;1861</h4>
+
+
+<p>The absence of the <em>Congress</em> lasted a little over two years, the
+fateful two years in which the elements of strife in the United States
+were sifting apart and gathering in new combinations for the
+tremendous outbreak of 1861. The first battle of Bull Run had been
+fought before she again saw a home port. The cruise offered little
+worthy of special note. This story is one of commonplaces; but they
+are the commonplaces of conditions which have passed away forever, and
+some details are worthy to be not entirely forgotten, now that the
+life has disappeared. We were in contact with it in all its forms and
+phases; being, as midshipmen, utilized for every kind of miscellaneous
+and nondescript duty. Our captain interfered very little with us
+directly, and I might almost say washed his hands of us. The
+regulations required that at the expiry of a cruise the commander of a
+vessel should give his midshipmen a letter, to be presented to the
+board of examiners before whom they were shortly to appear. Ours,
+while certifying to our general correct behavior&mdash;personal rather than
+official&mdash;limited himself, on the score of professional
+accomplishments, which should have been under constant observance, to
+saying that, as we were soon to appear before a board, the intent of
+which would be to test them, he forbore an opinion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">Page 128</a></span> This was even
+more non-committal than another captain, whose certificates came under
+my eye when myself a member of a board. In these, after some very
+cautious commendation on the score of conduct, he added, "I should
+have liked the display of a little more zeal." Zeal, the readers of
+<em>Midshipman Easy</em> will remember, is the naval universal solvent.
+Although liable at times to be misplaced, as Easy found, it is not so
+suspicious a quality as Talleyrand considered it to be in diplomacy.</p>
+
+<p>Our captain's zeal for our improvement confined itself to putting us
+in three watches; that is, every night we had to be on deck and duty
+through one of the three periods, of four hours each, into which the
+sea night is divided. Of this he made a principle, and in it doubtless
+found the satisfaction of a good conscience; he had done all that
+could be expected, at least by himself. I personally agree with Basil
+Hall; upon the whole, watch keeping pays, yields more of interest than
+of disagreeables. It must be conceded that it was unpleasant to be
+waked at midnight in your warm hammock, told your hour was come, that
+it was raining and blowing hard, that another reef was about to be
+taken in the topsails and the topgallant yards sent on deck.
+Patriotism and glory seemed very poor stimulants at that moment. Still
+half asleep, you tumbled, somewhat literally, out of the hammock on to
+a deck probably wet, dressed by a dim, single-wick swinging lantern,
+which revealed chiefly what you did not want, or by a candle which had
+to be watched with one eye lest it roll over and, as once in my
+experience happened, set fire to wood-work. Needless to say, electric
+lights then were not. Dressed in storm-clothes about as conducive to
+agility as a suit of medi&aelig;val armor, and a sou'wester which caught at
+every corner you turned, you forced your way up through two successive
+tarpaulin-covered hatches, by holes just big enough to pass, pushing
+aside the tarpaulin with one hand while the other steadied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">Page 129</a></span> yourself.
+And if there were no moon, how black the outside was, to an eye as yet
+adjusted only to the darkness visible of the lanterns below! Except a
+single ray on the little book by which the midshipman mustered the
+watch, no gleam of artificial light was permitted on the
+spar&mdash;upper&mdash;deck; the fitful flashes dazzled more than they helped.
+You groped your way forward with some certainty, due to familiarity
+with the ground, and with more certainty of being jostled and trampled
+by your many watch-mates, quite as blind and much more sleepy than
+their officers could afford to be. The rain stung your face; the wind
+howled in your ears and drowned your voice; the men were either intent
+on going below, or drowsy and ill-reconciled to having to come on
+deck; in either case inattentive and hard to move for some moments.</p>
+
+<p>In truth, the fifteen minutes attending the change of a watch were a
+period not only of inconvenience, but of real danger too rarely
+appreciated. I remember one of the smartest seamen and officers of the
+old navy speaking feelingly to me of the anxiety those instants often
+caused him. The lieutenant of an expiring watch too frequently would
+postpone some necessary step, either from personal indolence or from a
+good-natured indisposition to disturb the men, who when not needed to
+work slept about the decks&mdash;except, of course, the lookouts and wheel.
+The other watch will soon be coming up, he would argue; let them do
+it, before they settle down to sleep. There were times, such as a
+slowly increasing gale, which might justify delay; especially if the
+watch had had an unusual amount of work. But tropical squalls, which
+gather quickly and sweep down with hurricane force, are another
+matter; and it was of these the officer quoted spoke, suggesting that
+possibly such an experience had caused the loss of one of our large,
+tall-sparred sloops-of-war, the <em>Albany</em>, which in 1854 disappeared in
+the West Indies. The men who have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">Page 130</a></span> been four hours on deck are
+thinking only of their hammocks; their reliefs are not half awake, and
+do not feel they are on duty until the watch is mustered. All are
+mingled together; the very numbers of a ship of war under such
+circumstances impede themselves and their officers. I remember an
+acquaintance of mine telling me that once on taking the trumpet, the
+outward and visible sign of "the deck being relieved," his
+predecessor, after "turning over the night orders," said, casually,
+"It looks like a pretty big squall coming up there to windward," and
+incontinently dived below. "I jumped on the horse-block," said the
+narrator, "and there it was, sure enough, coming down hand over fist.
+I had no time to shorten sail, but only to put the helm up and get her
+before it;" an instance in point of what an old gray-haired instructor
+of ours used to say, with correct accentuation, "Always the hellum
+first."</p>
+
+<p>But, when you were awake, what a mighty stimulus there was in the salt
+roaring wind and the pelting rain! how infectious the shout of the
+officer of the deck! the answering cry of the topmen aloft&mdash;the "Haul
+out to windward! Together! All!" that reached your ear from the yards
+as the men struggled with the wet, swollen, thrashing canvas,
+mastering it with mighty pull, and "lighting to windward" the
+reef-band which was to be the new head of the sail, ready to the hand
+of the man at the post of honor, the weather caring! How eager and
+absorbing the gaze through the darkness, from deck, to see how they
+were getting on; whether the yard was so braced that the sail lay with
+the wind out of it, really slack for handling, though still bellying
+and lifting as the ship rolled, or headed up or off; whether this rope
+or that which controlled the wilful canvas needed another pull. But if
+the yard itself had not been laid right, it was too late to mend it.
+To start a brace with the men on the spar might cause a jerk that
+would spill from it some one whose both hands were in the work,
+contrary to the sound tradi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">Page 131</a></span>tion, "One hand for yourself and one for
+the owners." I believe the old English phrase ran, "One for yourself
+and one for the king." Then, when all was over and snug once more, the
+men down from aloft, the rigging coiled up again on its pins, there
+succeeded the delightful relaxation from work well done and finished,
+the easy acceptance of the quieting yet stimulating effect of the
+strong air, enjoyed in indolence; for nothing was more unoccupied than
+the seaman when the last reef was in the topsails and the ship
+lying-to.</p>
+
+<p>Talking of such sensations, and the idle <em>abandon</em> of a whole gale of
+wind after the ship is secured, I wonder how many of my readers will
+have seen the following ancient song. I guard myself from implying the
+full acquiescence of seamen in what is, of course, a caricature; few
+seamen, few who have tried, really enjoy bad weather. Yet there are
+exceptions. That there is no accounting for tastes is extraordinarily
+true. I once met a man, journeying, who told me he liked living in a
+sleeping-car; than which to me a dozen gales, with their abounding
+fresh air, would be preferable. Yet this ditty does grotesquely
+reproduce the lazy satisfaction and security of the old-timers under
+the conditions:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"One night came on a hurricane,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The sea was mountains rolling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When Barney Buntline turned his quid<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And said to Billy Bowline,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'A strong nor'wester's blowing, Bill:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hark! don't you hear it roar now?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lord help them! how I pities all<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Unlucky folks on shore now.<br /></span>
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">Page 132</a></span></p>
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'Foolhardy chaps, that live in towns,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What dangers they are all in!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And now lie shaking in their beds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For fear the roof should fall in!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Poor creatures, how they envies us,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And wishes, I've a notion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For our good luck, in such a storm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To be upon the ocean.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'And often, Bill, I have been told<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">How folks are killed, and undone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By overturns of carriages,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By fogs and fires in London.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We know what risks all landsmen run,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From noblemen to tailors:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then, Bill, let us thank Providence<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That you and I are sailors.'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Tastes differ as to which of the three night watches is preferable.
+Perhaps some one who has tried will reply they are all alike
+detestable, and, if he be Irish, will add that the only decent watch
+on deck is the watch below&mdash;an "all night in." But I also have tried;
+and while prepared to admit that perhaps the pleasantest moment of any
+particular watch is that in which your successor touches his cap and
+says, "I'll relieve you," I still maintain there are abundant and
+large compensations. Particularly for a midshipman, for he had no
+responsibilities. The lieutenant of the watch had always before him
+the possibilities of a mischance; and one very good officer said to me
+he did not believe any lieutenant in the navy felt perfectly
+comfortable in charge of the deck in a heavy gale. Freedom from
+anxiety, however, is a matter of temperament; not by any means
+necessarily of courage, although it adds to courage the invaluable
+quality of not wasting nerve force on difficulties of the imagination.
+A weather-brace may go unexpectedly; a topsail-sheet part; an awkward
+wave come on board. Very true; but what is the use of worrying, unless
+you are constitutionally disposed to worry. If you are
+constitutionally so disposed, I admit there is not much use in
+talking. Illustrative of this, the following<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">Page 133</a></span> story has come down of
+two British admirals, both men of proved merit and gallantry. "When
+Howe was in command of the Channel Fleet, after a dark and boisterous
+night, in which the ships had been in some danger of running foul of
+each other, Lord Gardner, then the third in command, the next day went
+on board the <em>Queen Charlotte</em> and inquired of Lord Howe how he had
+slept, for that he himself had not been able to get any rest from
+anxiety of mind. Lord Howe said he had slept perfectly well, for, as
+he had taken every possible precaution he could before dark, he laid
+himself down with a conscious feeling that everything had been done
+which it was in his power to do for the safety of the ships and of the
+lives intrusted to his care, and this conviction set his mind at
+ease." The apprehensiveness with which Gardner was afflicted "is
+further exemplified by an anecdote told by Admiral Sir James Whitshed,
+who commanded the <em>Alligator</em>, next him in the line. Such was his
+anxiety, even in ordinary weather, that, though each ship carried
+three poop lanterns, he always kept one burning in his cabin, and when
+he thought the <em>Alligator</em> was approaching too near, he used to run
+out into the stern gallery with the lantern in his hand, waving it so
+as to be noticed." My friend above quoted had only recently quitted a
+brig-of-war, on board which he had passed several night watches with a
+man standing by the lee topsail-sheet, axe in hand, to cut if she went
+over too far, lest she might not come back; and the circumstance had
+left an impression. I do not think he was much troubled in this way on
+board our frigate; yet the <em>Savannah</em>, but little smaller than the
+<em>Congress</em>, had been laid nearly on her beam-ends by a sudden squall,
+and had to cut, when entering Rio two years before.</p>
+
+<p>Being even at nineteen of a meditative turn, fond of building castles
+in the air, or recalling old acquaintance and <em>auld lang syne</em>,&mdash;the
+retrospect of youth, though short, seems<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">Page 134</a></span> longer than that of age,&mdash;I
+preferred in ordinary weather the mid-watch, from midnight to four.
+There was then less doing; more time and scope to enjoy. The canvas
+had long before been arranged for the night. If the wind shifted, or
+necessity for tacking arose, of course it was done; but otherwise a
+considerate officer would let the men sleep, only rousing them for
+imperative reasons. The hum of the ship, the loitering "idlers,"&mdash;men
+who do not keep watch,&mdash;last well on to ten, or after, in the
+preceding watch; and the officers of the deck in sailing-ships had not
+the reserve&mdash;or preserve&mdash;which the isolation of the modern bridge
+affords its occupants. Although the weather side of the quarter-deck
+was kept clear for him and the captain, there was continued going and
+coming, and talking near by. He was on the edge of things, if not in
+the midst; while the midshipman of the forecastle had scarce a foot he
+could call his very own. But when the mid-watch had been mustered, the
+lookouts stationed, and the rest of them had settled themselves down
+for sleep between the guns, out of the way of passing feet, the
+forecastle of the <em>Congress</em> offered a very decent promenade,
+magnificent compared to that proverbial of the poops of small
+vessels&mdash;"two steps and overboard." Then began the steady pace to and
+fro, which to me was natural and inherited, easily maintained and
+consistent with thought&mdash;indeed, productive of it. Not every officer
+has this habit, but most acquire it. I have been told that, however
+weakly otherwise, the calf muscles of watch-officers were generally
+well developed. There were exceptions. A lieutenant who was something
+of a wag on one occasion handed the midshipman of his watch a small
+instrument, in which the latter did not recognize a pedometer. "Will
+you kindly keep this in your trousers-pocket for me till the watch is
+over?" At eight bells he asked for it, and, after examining, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">Page 135</a></span>said,
+quizzically, "Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, I see you have walked just half a mile in the
+last four hours." Of course, walking is not imperative, one may watch
+standing; but movement tends to wakefulness&mdash;you can drowse upon your
+feet&mdash;while to sit down, besides being forbidden by unwritten law, is
+a treacherous snare to young eyelids.</p>
+
+<p>How much a watch afforded to an eye that loved nature! I have been
+bored so often by descriptions of scenery, that I am warned to put
+here a sharp check on my memory, lest it run away with me, and my
+readers seek escape by jumping off. I will forbear, therefore, any
+attempt at portraiture, and merely mention the superb aurora borealis
+which illuminated several nights of the autumn of 1859, perceptibly
+affecting the brightness of the atmosphere, while we lay becalmed a
+little north of the tropics. But other things I shall have some excuse
+for telling; because what my eyes used to see then few mortal eyes
+will see again. Travel will not reach it; for though here and there a
+rare sailing-ship is kept in a navy, for occasional instruction,
+otherwise they have passed away forever; and the exceptions are but
+curiosities&mdash;reality has disappeared. They no longer have life, and
+are now but the specimens of the museum. The beauties of a brilliant
+night at sea, whether starlit or moonlit, the solemn, awe-inspiring
+gloom and silence of a clouded, threatening sky, as the steamer with
+dull thud moves at midnight over the waste of waters, these I need not
+describe; many there are that see them in these rambling days. These
+eternities of the heavens and the deep abide as before, are common to
+the steamer as to the sailing-ship; but what weary strain of words can
+restore to imagination the beautiful living creature which leaped
+under our feet and spread her wings above us? For a sailing-ship was
+more inspiring from within than from without, especially a ship of
+war, which, as usually ordered, permitted no slovenliness; abounded in
+the perpetual seemliness that enhances beauty yet takes naught from
+grace. Viewed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">Page 136</a></span> from without, undeniably a ship under sail possesses
+attraction; but it is from within that you feel the "very pulse of the
+machine." No canvas looks so lofty, speaks so eloquently, as that seen
+from its own deck, and this chiefly has invested the sailing-vessel
+with its poetry. This the steamer, with its vulgar appeal to physical
+comfort, cannot give. Does any one know any verse of real poetry, any
+strong, thrilling idea, suitably voiced, concerning a steamer? I
+do&mdash;one&mdash;by Clough, depicting the wrench from home, the stern
+inspiration following the wail of him who goeth away to return no
+more:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">"Come back! come back!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Back flies the foam; the hoisted flag streams back;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The long smoke wavers on the homeward track.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Back fly with winds things which the winds obey,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><em>The strong ship follows its appointed way</em>."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Oddly enough, two of the most striking sea scenes that I remember,
+very different in character, associate themselves with my favorite
+mid-watch. The first was the night on which we struck the northeast
+trade-winds, outward bound. We had been becalmed for nearly, if not
+quite, two weeks in the "horse latitudes;" which take their name,
+tradition asserts, from the days when the West India sugar islands
+depended for live-stock, and much besides, on the British continental
+colonies. If too long becalmed, and water gave out, the unhappy
+creatures had to be thrown overboard to save human lives. On the other
+side of the northeast trades, between them and the southeast, towards
+the equator, lies another zone of calms, the doldrums, from which also
+the <em>Congress</em> this time suffered. We were sixty seven or eight days
+from the Capes of the Delaware to Bahia, a distance, direct, of little
+more than four thousand miles. Of course, there was some beating
+against head wind, but we could not have averaged a hun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">Page 137</a></span>dred miles to
+the twenty-four hours. During much of this passage the allowance of
+fresh water was reduced to two quarts per man, except sick, for all
+purposes of consumption&mdash;drinking and cooking. Under such conditions,
+washing had to be done with salt water.</p>
+
+<p>We had worried our weary way through the horse latitudes, embracing
+every flaw of wind, often accompanied by rain, to get a mile ahead
+here, half a dozen miles there; and, as these spurts come from every
+quarter, this involves a lot of bracing&mdash;changing the position of the
+yards; continuous work, very different from the placid restfulness of
+a "whole gale" of wind, with everything snug aloft and no chance of
+let-up during the watch. Between these occasional puffs would come
+long pauses of dead calm, in which the midshipman of the watch would
+enter in the log: "1 <span class="ampm">A.M.</span>, 0 knots; 2 <span class="ampm">A.M.</span>, 6 fathoms (&frac34; knot); 3
+<span class="ampm">A.M.</span>, 0 knots; 4 <span class="ampm">A.M.</span>, 1 knot, 2 fathoms;" the last representing
+usually a guess of the officer of the deck as to what would make the
+aggregate for the four hours nearly right. It did not matter, for we
+were hundreds of miles from land and the sky always clear for
+observations. Few of the watch got much sleep, because of the
+perpetual bracing; and all the while the ship rolling and sending, in
+the long, glassy ocean swell, unsteadied by the empty sails, which
+swung out with one lurch as though full, and then slapped back all
+together against the masts, with a swing and a jerk and a thud that
+made every spar tremble, and the vessel herself quiver in unison. Nor
+were we alone. Frequently two or three American clippers would be
+hull-up at the same moment within our horizon, bound the same way; and
+it was singular how, despite the apparently unbroken calm, we got away
+from one another and disappeared. Ships lying with their heads "all
+around the compass" flapped themselves along in the direction of their
+bows, the line of least resistance.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">Page 138</a></span>I do not know at what hour under such circumstances we had struck the
+trades, but when I came on deck at midnight we had got them steady and
+strong. As there was still a good-deal of casting to make, the ship
+had been brought close to the wind on the port tack; the bowlines
+steadied out, but not dragged, every sail a good rap full, "fast
+asleep," without the tremor of an eyelid, if I may so style a weather
+leach, or of any inch of the canvas, from the royals down to the
+courses. Every condition was as if arranged for a special occasion, or
+to recompense us for the tedium of the horse latitudes. The moon was
+big, and there was a clear sky, save for the narrow band of tiny
+clouds, massed like a flock of sheep, which ever fringes the horizon
+of the trades; always on the horizon, as you progress, yet never
+visible above when the horizon of this hour has become the zenith of
+the next. After the watch was mustered and the lookouts stationed,
+there came perfect silence, save for the slight, but not ominous,
+singing of the wind through the rigging, and the dash of the water
+against the bows, audible forward though not aft. The seamen, not
+romantically inclined, for the most part heeded neither moon nor sky
+nor canvas. The vivid, delicate tracery of the shrouds and ruining
+gear, the broader image of the sails, shadowed on the moonlit deck,
+appealed not to them. Recognizing only that we had a steady wind, no
+more bracing to-night, and that the most that could happen would be to
+furl the royals should it freshen, they hastened to stow themselves
+away for a full due between the cannon, out of the way of passing
+feet, sure that this watch on deck would be little less good than one
+below. Perhaps there were also visions of "beans to-morrow." I trust
+so.</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant of the watch, Smith, and I had it all to ourselves;
+unbroken, save for the half-hourly call of the lookouts: "Starboard
+cathead!" "Port cathead!" "Starboard gangway!" "Port gangway!" "Life
+buoy!" He came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">Page 139</a></span> forward from time to time to take it all in, and to
+see how the light spars were standing, for the ship was heeling eight
+or ten degrees, and racing along, however quietly; but the strain was
+steady, no whipping about from uneasy movement of the vessel, and we
+carried on to the end. Each hour I hove the log and reported: one
+o'clock, eleven knots; two o'clock, eleven; three o'clock,
+eleven&mdash;famous going for an old sailing-ship close-hauled. Splendid!
+we rubbed our hands; what a record! But, alas! at four o'clock, ten!
+Commonly, ten used to be a kind of standard of excellence; Nelson once
+wrote, as expressive of an utmost of hopefulness, "If we all went ten
+knots, I should not think it fast enough;" but, puffed up as we had
+been, it was now a sad come-down. Smith looked at me. "Are you <em>sure</em>,
+Mr. Mahan?" With the old hand-log, its line running out while the sand
+sped its way through the fourteen-seconds glass, the log-beaver might
+sometimes, by judicious "feeding"&mdash;hurrying the line under the plea of
+not dragging the log-chip&mdash;squeeze a little more record out of the
+log-line than the facts warranted; and Smith seemed to feel I might
+have done a little better for the watch and for the ship. But in
+truth, when a cord is rushing through your hand at the rate of ten
+miles an hour&mdash;fifteen feet a second&mdash;you cannot get hold enough to
+hasten the pace. He passed through a struggle of conscience. "Well, I
+suppose I must; log her ten-four." A poor tail to our beautiful kite.
+Ten-four meant ten and a half; for in those primitive days knots were
+divided into eight fathoms. Now they are reckoned by tenths; a small
+triumph of the decimal system, which may also carry cheer to the
+constant hearts of the spelling reformers.</p>
+
+<p>A year later, at like dead of night, I witnessed quite another scene.
+We were then off the mouth of the river La Plata, perhaps two hundred
+miles from shore. We had been a fortnight at sea, cruising; and I have
+always thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">Page 140</a></span> that the captain, who was interested in meteorology
+and knew the region, kept us out till we should catch a <em>pampero</em>. We
+caught it, and quite up to sample. I had been on deck at 9 <span class="ampm">P.M.</span>, and
+the scene then, save for the force of the wind, was nearly the same as
+that I have just described. The same sail, the same cloudless sky and
+large moon; but we were going only five knots, with a quiet, rippling
+sea, on which the moonbeams danced. Such a scene as Byron doubtless
+had in memory:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The midnight moon is weaving<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her bright chain o'er the deep;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose breast is gently heaving<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like an infant's asleep."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Having to turn out at twelve, I soon started below; but before
+swinging into my hammock I heard the order to furl the royals and send
+the yards on deck. This startled me, for I had not been watching the
+barometer, as the captain had; and I remember, by the same token, that
+I was then enlarging on the beauties of the outlook above, accompanied
+by some disparaging remarks about what steamers could show, whereupon
+one of our senior officers, over-hearing, called me in, and told me
+quite affably, and in delicate terms, not to make a fool of myself.</p>
+
+<p>But "Linden saw another sight," when I returned to the deck at
+midnight; sharp, I am sure, for I held to the somewhat priggish
+saying, first devised, I imagine, by some wag tired of waiting for his
+successor, "A prompt relief is the pride of a young officer." The
+quartermaster, who called me and left the lantern dimly burning, had
+conveyed the comforting assurance that it looked very bad on deck, and
+the second reef was just taking in the topsails. When I got to my
+station, the former watch was still aloft, tying their last
+reef-points, from which they soon straggled down, morosely conscious
+that they had lost ten minutes of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">Page 141</a></span> one watch below, and would
+have to be on deck again at four. The moon was still up, but, as it
+were, only to emphasize the darkness of the huge cloud masses which
+scudded across the sky, with a rapid but steady gait, showing that the
+wind meant business. The new watch was given no more time than to wake
+up and shake themselves. They were soon on the yards, taking the third
+and fourth-last&mdash;reefs in the fore and main topsails, furling the
+mizzen, and seeing that the lower sails and topgallant-sails were
+securely rolled up against the burst that was to be expected. Before
+1.30 <span class="ampm">A.M.</span> all things were as ready as care could make them, and not
+too soon. The moon was sinking, or had sunk; the sky darkened
+steadily, though not beyond that natural to a starless night. In the
+southwest faint glimmerings of lightning gave warning of what might be
+looked for; but we had used light well while we had it, and could now
+bear what was to come. At 2 <span class="ampm">P.M.</span> it came with a roar and a rush,
+"butt-end foremost," as the saying is, preceded by a few huge drops of
+scurrying rain.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"When the rain before the wind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Topsail sheets and halyards mind;"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>but that was for other conditions than ours.</p>
+
+<p>A pampero at its ordinary level is no joke; but this was the charge of
+a wild elephant, which would exhaust itself soon, but for the nonce
+was terrific. Pitch darkness settled down upon the ship. Except in the
+frequent flashes of lightning, literally blue, I could not see the
+forecastle boatswain's mate of the watch, who stood close by my elbow,
+ready pipe in hand. The rain came down in buckets, and in the midst of
+all the wind suddenly shifted, taking the sails flat aback. The
+shrillness of the boatswain's pipes is then their great merit. They
+pierce through the roar of the tempest, by sheer difference of pitch,
+an effect one sometimes hears in an opera; and the officer of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">Page 142</a></span> the
+deck, our second lieutenant, who bore the name of Andrew Jackson, and
+was said to have received his appointment from him&mdash;which shows how
+far back he went&mdash;had a voice of somewhat the same quality. I had
+often heard it assert itself, winding in and out through the uproar of
+an ordinary gale, but on this occasion it went clean away&mdash;whistled
+down the wind. "I always think bad of it," said Boatswain Chucks,
+"when the elements won't allow my whistle to be heard; and I consider
+it hardly fair play." Such advantage the elements took of us on this
+occasion, but the captain came to the rescue. He had the throat of a
+bull of Bashan, which went the elements one better on their own hand.
+Under his stentorian shouts the weather head-braces were led along
+(probably already had been, as part of the preparation, but that was
+quarter-deck work, outside my knowledge) and manned. All other gear
+being coiled out of the way, on the pins, there was nothing to confuse
+or entangle; the fore topsail was swung round on the opposite tack
+from the main, a-box, to pay the ship's head off and leave her side to
+the wind, steadied by the close-reefed fore and main topsails, which
+would then be filled. She was now, of course, going astern fast; but
+this mattered nothing, for the sea had not yet got up. The evolution,
+common enough itself, an almost invariable accompaniment of getting
+under way, was now exciting even to grandeur, for we could see only
+when the benevolent lightning kindled in the sky a momentary glare of
+noonday. "Now that's a clever old man," said the boatswain's mate next
+day to me, approvingly, of the captain; "boxing her off that way, with
+all that wind and blackness, was handsomely done." After this we
+settled down to a two days' pampero, with a huge but regular sea.</p>
+
+<p>Whether the <em>Congress's</em> helm on this interesting occasion was shifted
+for sternboard I never inquired. Marryat tells us it was a moot point
+in his young days. Our captain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">Page 143</a></span> was an excellent seaman, but had
+'doxies of his own. Of these, one which ran contrary to current
+standards was in favor of clewing up a course or topsail to leeward,
+in blowing weather. Among the lieutenants was a strong champion of the
+opposite and accepted dogma, and a messmate of mine, in his division
+and shining by reflected light, was always prompt to enforce closure
+of debate by declaiming:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"He who seeks the tempest to disarm<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will never first embrail the lee yard-arm."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Whether Falconer, besides being a poet, was also an expert in
+seamanship, or whether he simply registered the views of his day, may
+be questioned. The two alternatives, I fancy, were the chance of
+splitting the sail, and that of springing the yard; and any one who
+has ever watched a big bag of wind whipping a weather yard-arm up and
+down in its bellying struggles, after clewing up to windward, will
+have experienced as eager a desire to call it down as he has ever felt
+to suppress its congener in an after-dinner oration. Both are much out
+of place and time.</p>
+
+<p>Days of the past! Certainly a watch spent reefing topsails in the rain
+was less tedious than that everlasting bridge of to-day: Tramp! Tramp!
+or stand still, facing the wind blowing the teeth down your throat.
+Nothing to do requiring effort; the engine does all that; but still a
+perpetual strain of attention due to the rapid motion of vessels under
+steam. The very slowness of sailing-ships lightened anxiety. In such a
+gale you might as well be anxious in a wheel-chair. And then, when you
+went below, you went, not bored, but healthfully tired with active
+exertion of mind and body. Yes; the sound was sweet then, at eight
+bells, the pipe, pipe, pipe, pipe of the boatswain's mates, followed
+by their gruff voices drawling out, in loud sing-song: "A-a-a-all the
+starboard watch! Come! turn out there! Tumble out! Tumble out! Show a
+leg! Show<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">Page 144</a></span> a leg! On deck there! all the starboard watch!" When I went
+below that morning with the port watch, at four o'clock, I turned over
+to my relief a forecastle on which he would have nothing to do but
+drink his coffee at daylight.</p>
+
+<p>That daylight coffee of the morning watch, chief of its charms, need
+not be described to the many who have experienced the difference
+between the old man and the new man of before and after coffee. The
+galley (kitchen) fire of ships of war used to be started at seven
+bells of the mid-watch (3.30 <span class="ampm">A.M.</span>); and the officers, and most of the
+men, who next came on duty, managed to have coffee, the latter
+husbanding their rations to this end. Since those days a benevolent
+regulation has allowed an extra ration of coffee to the crew for this
+purpose, so that no man goes without, or works the morning watch on an
+empty stomach. For the morning watch was very busy. Then, on several
+days of the week, the seamen washed their clothes. Then the upper deck
+was daily scrubbed; sometimes the mere washing off the soap-suds left
+from the clothes, sometimes with brooms and sand, sometimes the solemn
+ceremony of holy-stoning with its monotonous musical sound of
+grinding. Along with these, dovetailed in as opportunity offered, in a
+sailing-ship under way there went on the work of readjusting the yards
+and sails; a pull here and a pull there, like a woman getting herself
+into shape after sitting too long in one position. Yards trimmed to a
+nicety; the two sheets of each sail close home alike; all the canvas
+taut up, from the weather-tacks of the courses to the weather-earings
+of the royals; no slack weather-braces, or weather-leaches, letting a
+bight of loose canvas sag like an incipient double chin. When these
+and a dozen other little details had remedied the disorders of the
+night, due to the invariable slacking of cordage under strain, the
+ship was fit for any eye to light on, like a conscious beauty going
+forth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">Page 145</a></span> conquering and to conquer. I doubt the crew grumbled and d&mdash;&mdash;d
+a little under their breath, for the process was tedious; yet it was
+not only a fad, but necessary, and the deck-officer who habitually
+neglected it might possibly rise to an emergency, but was scarcely
+otherwise worth his salt. In my humble judgment, he had better have
+worn a frock-coat unbuttoned.</p>
+
+<p>Occupation in plenty was not the only solace of a morning watch; at
+least in the trades. While the men were washing their clothes, the
+midshipman of the watch, amid the exhilaration of his coffee, and with
+the cool sea-water careering over his bare feet, had ample leisure to
+watch the break of day: the gradual lighting up of the zenith, the
+rosy tints gathering and growing upon the tiny, pearly trade-clouds of
+which I have spoken, the blue of the water gradually revealing itself,
+laughing with white-caps, like the Psalmist's valleys of corn; until
+at last the sun appeared, never direct from the sea, but from these
+white cloud banks which extend less than five degrees above it. Such a
+scene presents itself day after day, day after day, monotonous but
+never wearisome, to a vessel running down the trades; that is,
+steering from east to west, with fixed, fair breeze, as I have more
+than once had the happiness to do. Then, as the saying was, a
+fortnight passed without touching brace or tack, because no change of
+wind; a slight exaggeration, for frequent squalls required the canvas
+to be handled, but substantially true in impression. Balmy weather and
+a steady gait, rarely more than seven or eight knots&mdash;less than two
+hundred miles a day; but who would be in haste to quit such
+conditions, where the sun rose astern daily with the joy of a giant
+running his course, bringing assurance of prosperity, and sank to rest
+ahead smiling, again behind the dimpling clouds which he tinged like
+mother-of-pearl.</p>
+
+<p>Such was not our lot in the <em>Congress</em>, for we were bound<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">Page 146</a></span> south,
+across the trades. This, with some bad luck, brought us close-hauled,
+that we might pass the equator nothing to the westward of thirty
+degrees of west longitude; otherwise we might fall to leeward of Cape
+St. Roque. This ominous phrase meant that we might be so far to the
+westward that the southeast trades, when reached, would not let the
+ship pass clear of this easternmost point of Brazil on one stretch;
+that we would strike the coast north of it and have to beat round,
+which actually happened. Consequently we never had a fair wind, to set
+a studding-sail, till we were within three or four days of Bahia. This
+encouraging incident, the first of the kind since the ship went into
+commission, also befell in one of my mid-watches, and an awful mess
+our unuse made of it. All the gear seemed to be bent with a half-dozen
+round turns; the stun'sail-yards went aloft wrong end uppermost,
+dangling in the most extraordinary and wholly unmanageable attitudes;
+everything had to be done over and over again, till at last the case
+looked desperate. Finally the lieutenant of the watch came forward in
+wrath. He was a Kentuckian, very competent, ordinarily very
+good-tempered; but there was red in his hair. When he got sufficiently
+near he tucked the speaking-trumpet under his arm, where it looked
+uncommonly like a fat cotton umbrella, himself suggesting a farmer
+inspecting an intended purchase, and in this posture delivered to us a
+stump speech on our shortcomings. This, I fear, I will have to leave
+to the reader's imagination. It would require innumerable dashes, and
+even so the emphasis would be lost. My relief had cause to be pleased
+that those stun'sails were set by four o'clock, when he came on deck.
+Ours the labor, his the reward.</p>
+
+<div class="thought_break"></div>
+
+<p>A few days more saw us in Bahia; and with our arrival on the station
+began a round of duties and enjoyments which made life at twenty
+pleasant enough, both in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">Page 147</a></span> passage and in retrospect, but which
+scarcely afford material for narration. Our two chief ports, Rio de
+Janeiro and Montevideo, were then remote and provincial. They have
+become more accessible and modern; but at the time of my last
+visit&mdash;already over thirty years ago&mdash;they had lost in local color and
+particular attraction as much as they had gained in convenience and
+development. Street-cars, double-ended American ferry-boats, electric
+lights, and all the other things for which these stand, are doubtless
+good; but they make places seem less strange and so less interesting.
+But I suppose there must still be in the business streets that
+pervading odor of rum and sugar which tells that you are in the
+tropics; still there must be the delicious hot calm of the early
+morning, before the sea-breeze sets in, the fruit-laden boats plying
+over the still waters to the ships of war; still that brilliant access
+of life and animation which comes sparkling in with the sea-breeze,
+and which can be seen in the offing, approaching, long before it
+enters the bay. The balance of better and worse will be variously
+estimated by various minds. The magnificent scenery of Rio remains,
+and must remain, short of earthquake; the Sugar Loaf, the distant
+Organ mountains, the near, high, surrounding hills, the numerous
+bights and diversified bluffs, which impart continuous novelty to the
+prospect. It is surprising that in these days of travel more do not go
+just to see that sight, even if they never put foot on shore; though I
+would not commend the omission. I see, too, in the current newspapers,
+that Secretary Root has attributed to the women of Uruguay to-day the
+charm which we youngsters then found in those who are now their
+grand-mothers. As Mr. Secretary cannot be very far from my own age, we
+have here the mature confirmation of an impression which otherwise
+might be attributed to the facility of youth.</p>
+
+<p>An interesting, though not very important, reminiscence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">Page 148</a></span> of things now
+passed away was the coming and going of numerous vessels, usually
+small, carrying the commercial flags of the Hanse cities, Bremen,
+Hamburg, and Lubeck, now superseded on the ocean by that of the German
+Empire. Scarcely a morning watch which did not see in its earlier
+hours one or more of these stealing out of port with the tail of the
+land breeze. These remnants of the "Easterlings," a term which now
+survives only in "sterling," were mostly small brigs of some two
+hundred tons, noticeable mainly for their want of sheer; that is,
+their rails, and presumably their decks, were level, without rise at
+the extremities such as most vessels show.</p>
+
+<p>Up to the middle of the last century, Rio, thanks probably to its
+remoteness, had escaped the yellow-fever. But the soil and climate
+were propitious; and about 1850 it made good a footing which it never
+relinquished. At the time of our cruise it was endemic, and we
+consequently spent there but two or three months of the cooler season,
+June to September. Even so, visiting the city was permitted to only a
+few selected men of the foremast hands. The habits of the seamen were
+still those of a generation before, and drink, with its consequent
+reckless exposure, was a right-hand man to Yellow Jack. All shore
+indulgence was confined to Montevideo, where we spent near half of the
+year; and being limited to one or two occasions only, of two or three
+days duration each, it was signalized by those excesses which, in
+conjunction with the absence of half the crew at once, put an end to
+all ordinary routine and drill on board. My friend, the captain of the
+forecastle, who apprehended that the Southern leaders would lose their
+property, a self-respecting, admirably behaved man in ordinary times,
+was usually hoisted on board by a tackle when he returned: for
+Montevideo affords only an open roadstead for big ships, and
+frequently a rough sea. The story ran that he secured a room on going
+ashore, provided<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">Page 149</a></span> for the safety of his money, bought a box of gin,
+and went to bed. This I never verified; but I remember a nautical
+philosopher among the crew enlarging, in my hearing, on the folly of
+drink. To its morality he was indifferent; but from sad experience he
+avouched that it incapacitated you for other enjoyments, regular and
+irregular, and that he for one should quit. To-day things are
+changed&mdash;revolutionized. There may be ports too sickly to risk lives
+in; but the men to be selected now are the few who cannot be trusted,
+the percentage which every society contains. This result will be
+variously interpreted. Some will attribute it to the abolition of the
+grog ration, the removal of temptation, a change of environment.
+Others will say that the extension of frequent leave, and consequent
+opportunity, has abolished the frenzied inclination to make the
+most&mdash;not the best&mdash;of a rare chance; has renewed men from within.
+Personally, I believe the last. Together with the gradual rise of tone
+throughout society, rational liberty among seamen has resulted in
+rational indulgence. "Better England free than England sober."</p>
+
+<p>In the end it was from Montevideo that we sailed for home in June,
+1861. During the preceding six months, mail after mail brought us
+increasing ill tidings of the events succeeding the election of
+Lincoln. Somewhere within that period a large American steamboat, of
+the type then used on Long Island Sound, arrived in the La Plata for
+passenger and freight service between Montevideo and Buenos Ayres. Her
+size and comfort, her extensive decoration and expanses of gold and
+white, unknown hitherto, created some sensation, and gave abundant
+supply to local paragraphists. Her captain was a Southerner, and his
+wife also; of male and female types. He commented to me briefly, but
+sadly, "Yes, we have now two governments"; but she was all aglow.
+Never would she lay down arms; M. Ollivier's light heart was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">Page 150</a></span> "not in
+it" with hers; her countenance shone with joy, except when clouded
+with contempt for the craven action of the <em>Star of the West</em>, a
+merchant-steamer with supplies for Fort Sumter which had turned back
+before the fire of the Charleston batteries. Never could she have done
+such a thing. What influence women wield, and how irresponsible! And
+they want votes!</p>
+
+<p>In feeling, most of us stood where this captain did, sorrowful,
+perplexed; but in feeling only, not in purpose. We knew not which
+became us most, grief, or stern satisfaction that at last a doubtful
+matter was to be settled by arms; but, with one or two exceptions,
+there was no hesitancy, I believe, on the part of the officers as to
+the side each should take. There were four pronounced Southerners: two
+of them messmates of mine, from New Orleans. The other two were the
+captain and lieutenant of marines. None of these was extreme, except
+the captain, whom, though well on in middle life, I have seen stamp up
+and down raging with excitement. On one occasion, so violent was his
+language that I said to him he would do well to put ice to his head;
+an impertinence, considering our relative ages, but almost warranted.
+I think that he possibly took over the lieutenant, who was from a
+border State, and, like the midshipmen, rather sobered than
+enthusiastic at the prospects; though these last had no doubts as to
+their own course. There was also a sea lieutenant from the South, who
+said to me that if his State was fool enough to secede, she might go,
+for him; he would not fight against her, but he would not follow her.
+I believe he did escape having to fight in her waters, but he was in
+action on the Union side elsewhere, and, I expect, revised this
+decision. This halting allegiance, thinking to serve two masters, was
+not frequent; but there were instances. Of one such I knew. He told me
+himself that he on a certain occasion had said in company that he
+would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">Page 151</a></span> not leave the navy, but would try for employment outside the
+country; whereon an officer standing by said to him that that appeared
+a pretty shabby thing, to take pay and dodge duty. The remark sank
+deep; he changed his mind, and served with great gallantry. It seems
+to me now almost an impiety to record, but, knowing my father's warm
+love for the South, I hazarded to the marine captain a doubt as to his
+position. He replied that there could be no doubt whatever. "All your
+father's antecedents are military; there is no military spirit in the
+North; he must come to us." Many Southerners, not by any means most,
+had formed such impressions.</p>
+
+<p>The remainder of the officers were not so much Northern as Union, a
+distinction which meant much in the feeling that underlies action. Our
+second lieutenant, with soberer appreciation of conditions than the
+marine, said to me, "I cannot understand how those others expect to
+win in the face of the overpowering resources of the Northern States."
+The leaders of the Confederacy, too, understood this; and while I am
+sure that expected dissension in the North, and interference from
+Europe, counted for much in their complicated calculations, I imagine
+that the marine's overweighted theory, of incompatibility between the
+mercantile and military temperaments, also entered largely. My
+Kentuckian expressed the characteristic, if somewhat crude, opinion,
+that the two had better fight it out now, till one was well licked;
+after which his head should be punched and he be told to be decent
+hereafter. We had, however, one Northern fire-eater among the
+midshipmen. He was a plucky fellow, but with an odd cast to his eyes
+and a slight malformation, which made his ecstasies of wrath a little
+comical. His denunciations of all half measures, or bounded
+sentiments, quite equalled those of the marine officer on the other
+side. If the two had been put into the same ring, little could have
+been left but a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">Page 152</a></span> few rags of clothes, so completely did they lose
+their heads; but, as often happens with such champions, their
+harangues descended mostly on quiet men, conveniently known as
+doughfaces.</p>
+
+<p>Doughfaces I suppose we must have been, if the term applied fitly to
+those who, between the alternatives of dissolving the Union and
+fighting one another, were longing to see some third way open out of
+the dilemma. In this sense Lincoln, with his life-long record of
+opposition to the extension of slavery, was a doughface. The marine
+could afford to harden his face, because he believed there would be no
+war&mdash;the North would not fight; while the midshipman, rather limited
+intellectually, was happy in a mental constitution which could see but
+one side of a case; an element of force, but not of conciliation. The
+more reflective of my two Southern messmates, a man mature beyond his
+years, said to me sadly, "I suppose there will be bloodshed beyond
+what the world has known for a long time;" but he naturally shared the
+prevalent opinion&mdash;so often disproved&mdash;that a people resolute as he
+believed his own could not be conquered, especially by a commercial
+community&mdash;the proverbial "nation of shopkeepers." Napoleon once had
+believed the same, to his ruin. Commercial considerations undoubtedly
+weigh heavily; but happily sentiment is still stronger than the
+dollar. An amusing instance of the pocket influence, however, came to
+my knowledge at the moment. Our captain's son received notice of his
+appointment as lieutenant of marines, and sailed for home in an
+American merchant-brig shortly before the news came of the firing on
+Fort Sumter. When I next met him in the United States, he told me that
+the brig's captain had been quite warmly Southern in feeling during
+the passage; but when they reached home, and found that Confederate
+privateers had destroyed some merchant-vessels, he went entirely over.
+He had no use for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">Page 153</a></span> people who would "rob a poor man of his ship and
+cargo."</p>
+
+<p>Our orders home, and tidings of the attack on Fort Sumter, came by the
+same mail, some time in June. There were then no cables. The revulsion
+of feeling was immediate and universal, in that distant community and
+foreign land, as it had been two months before in the Northern States.
+The doughfaces were set at once, like a flint. The grave and reverend
+seigniors, resident merchants, who had checked any belligerent
+utterance among us with reproachful regret that an American should be
+willing to fight Americans, were converted or silenced. Every voice
+but one was hushed, and that voice said, "Fight." I remember a
+tempestuous gathering, an evening or two before we sailed, and one
+middle-aged invalid's excited but despondent wish that he was five
+hundred men. Such ebullitions are common enough in history, for causes
+bad or good. They are to be taken at their true worth; not as a
+dependable pledge of endurance to the end, but as an awakening, which
+differs from that of common times as the blast of the trumpet that
+summoned men at midnight for Waterloo differs from the lazy rubbing of
+the eyes before thrusting one's neck into the collar of a working day.
+The North was roused and united; a result which showed that, wittingly
+or unwittingly, the Union leaders had so played the cards in their
+hands as to score the first trick.</p>
+
+<p>Our passage home was tedious but uneventful. I remember only the
+incident that the flag-officer on one occasion played at old-time
+warfare of his youth, by showing to a passing vessel a Spanish flag
+instead of the American. The common ship life went on as though
+nothing had happened. On an August evening we anchored in Boston lower
+harbor, and Mr. Robert Forbes, then a very prominent character in
+Boston, and in most nautical matters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">Page 154</a></span> throughout the country, came
+down in a pilot-boat, bringing newspapers to our captain, with whom he
+was intimate. Then we first learned of Bull Run; and properly
+mortified we of the North were, not having yet acquired that
+indifference to a licking which is one of the first steps towards
+success. Some time after the war was over an army officer of the North
+repeated to me the comment on this affair made to him by a Southern
+acquaintance, both being of the aforetime regular army. "I never," he
+said, "saw men as frightened as ours were&mdash;except yours." The after
+record of both parties takes all the sting out of these words, without
+lessening the humor.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately upon arrival, the oath of allegiance was tendered, and, of
+course, refused by our four Southerners. They had doubtless sent in
+their resignations; but by that time resignations were no longer
+accepted, and in the following <em>Navy Register</em> they appeared as
+"dismissed." They were arrested on board the ship and taken as
+prisoners to Fort Lafayette. I never again saw any of them; but from
+time to time heard decisively of the deaths of all, save the
+lieutenant of marines. One of the midshipmen drew from my father an
+action which I have delighted to recall as characteristic. He wrote
+from the fort, stating his comradeship with me in the past, and asking
+if he could be furnished with certain military reading, for his
+improvement and to pass time. Though suspicions of loyalty were rife,
+and in those days easily started by the most trivial communication,
+the books were sent. The war had but just ended, when one morning my
+father received a letter expressing thanks, and enclosing money to the
+supposed value of the books. The money was returned; but I, happening
+to be at home, replied on my own account in such manner as a very
+young man would. My father saw the addressed envelope, and
+remonstrated. "Do you think it quite well and prudent to associate
+yourself, at your age<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">Page 155</a></span> and rank, with one so recently in rebellion?
+Will it not injure your standing?" I was not convinced; but I yielded
+to a solicitude which under much more hazardous conditions he had not
+admitted for himself, though known to be a Virginian. Shortly after
+his death, while our sorrow was still fresh, I met a contemporary and
+military intimate of his. "I want," he said, "to tell you an anecdote
+of your father. We were associated on a board, one of the members of
+which had proposed, as his own suggestion, a measure which I thought
+fundamentally and dangerously erroneous. I prepared a paper contesting
+the project and took it to your father. He read it carefully, and
+replied, 'I agree with you entirely; but &mdash;&mdash; will never forgive you,
+and he is persistent and unrelenting towards those who thwart him. You
+will make a life-long and powerful enemy. If I were you, I should not
+lay this upon myself.' I gave way to his judgment, and kept back the
+paper; but you may imagine my surprise when at the next meeting he
+took upon himself the burden which he had advised me to shun. He made
+an argument substantially on my lines, and procured the rejection of
+the proposition. The result was a hostility which ceased only with his
+life, but between which and me he had interposed."</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="section_break"></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">Page 156</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2>
+
+<h3>INCIDENTS OF WAR AND BLOCKADE SERVICE</h3>
+
+<h4>1861&ndash;1862</h4>
+
+
+<p>The <em>Congress</em>, upon her return, was retained in commission, though
+entirely useless, either for fighting or blockade, under modern
+conditions. I suppose there were not yet enough of newer vessels to
+spare her value as a figure-head. She was sent afterwards to Hampton
+Roads, where in the following March she, with another sailing-frigate,
+the <em>Cumberland</em>, fell helpless victims to the first Confederate
+iron-clad. The staff of combatant sea officers was much changed; the
+captain, the senior three lieutenants, and the midshipmen being
+detached. Smith, the fourth lieutenant, remained as first; and, in the
+absence of her captain on other duty, commanded and fell at her death
+agony. I was sent first to the <em>James Adger</em>, a passenger-steamer then
+being converted in New York for blockade duty, for which she was very
+fit; but in ten days more I was moved on to the <em>Pocahontas</em>, a ship
+built for war, a very respectable little steam-corvette, the only one
+of her class&mdash;if such a bull as a class of one may be excused. She
+carried one ten-inch gun and four 32-pounders, all smooth-bores. There
+was, besides, one small nondescript rifled piece, upon which we looked
+with more curiosity than confidence. Indeed, unless memory deceive,
+the projectiles from it were quite as apt to go end over end as true.
+It was rarely used.</p>
+
+<p>When I joined, the <em>Pocahontas</em> was lying off the Wash<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">Page 157</a></span>ington
+Navy-Yard, in the eastern branch of the Potomac, on duty connected
+with the patrol of the river; the Virginia bank of which was occupied
+by the Confederates, who were then erecting batteries to dispute the
+passage of vessels. After one excursion down-stream in this
+employment, the ship was detached to the combined expedition against
+Port Royal, South Carolina, the naval part of which was under the
+command of "Flag-Officer" Dupont. The point of assembly was Hampton
+Roads, whither we shortly proceeded, after filling with stores and
+receiving a new captain, Percival Drayton, a man greatly esteemed in
+the service of the day, and a South-Carolinian. Coincidently with us,
+but independently as to association, the steam-sloop <em>Seminole</em>,
+slightly larger, also started. We outstripped her; and as we passed a
+position where the Confederates were believed to be fortifying, our
+captain threw in a half-dozen shells. No reply was made, and we went
+on. Within a half-hour we heard firing behind us, apparently
+two-sided. The ship was turned round and headed up-river. In a few
+minutes we met the <em>Seminole</em>, her men still at the guns, a few ropes
+dangling loose, showing that she had, as they say, not been exchanging
+salutes. We had stirred up the hornets, and she had got the benefit;
+quite uselessly, her captain evidently felt, by his glum face and
+short answers to our solicitous hail. He was naturally put out, for no
+good could have come, beyond showing the position of the enemy's guns;
+while an awkward hit might have sent her back to the yard and lost her
+her share in the coming fray, one of the earliest in the war, and at
+that instant the only thing in sight on the naval horizon. As no harm
+resulted, the incident would not be worth mentioning except for a
+second occasion, which I will mention later, in which we gave the
+<em>Seminole's</em> captain cause for grim dissatisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>The gathering of the clans, the ships of war and the trans<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">Page 158</a></span>ports laden
+with troops, in the lower Chesapeake had of course a strange element
+of excitement; for war, even in its incipiency, was new to almost all
+present, and the enthusiasm aroused by a great cause and approaching
+conflict was not balanced by that solemnizing outlook which experience
+gives. We lived in an atmosphere of blended exaltation and curiosity,
+of present novelty and glowing expectation. But business soon came
+upon us, in its ordinary lines; for we were not two days clear of the
+Capes, in early November, when there came on a gale of exceptional
+violence, the worst of it at midnight. It lasted for forty-eight
+hours, and must have occasioned great anxiety to the heads of the
+expedition; for among the curious conglomerate of heterogeneous
+material constituting both the ships of war and transports there were
+several river steamers, some of them small. Being utterly unpractised
+in such movements, an almost entire dispersal followed; in fact, I
+dare say many of the transport captains asked nothing better than to
+be out of other people's way. The <em>Pocahontas</em> found herself alone
+next morning; but, though small and slow, she was a veritable sea-bird
+for wind and wave. Not so all. One of our extemporized ships of war,
+rejoicing in the belligerent name of <em>Isaac Smith</em>, and carrying eight
+fairly heavy guns, which would have told in still water, had to throw
+them all overboard; and her share in the subsequent action was limited
+to a single long piece, rifled I believe, and to towing a
+sailing-corvette in the column.</p>
+
+<p>There were some wrecks and some gallant rescues, the most conspicuous
+of which was that of the battalion of marines, embarked on board the
+<em>Governor</em>; a steamer, as I recollect, not strictly of the river
+order, but like those which ply outside on the Boston and Maine coast.
+She went down, but not before her living freight had been removed by
+the sailing-frigate <em>Sabine</em>. The first lieutenant of the latter, now
+the senior rear-admiral on the retired list<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">Page 159</a></span> of the navy, soon
+afterwards relieved Drayton in command of the <em>Pocahontas</em>; so that I
+then heard at first hand many particulars which I wish I could now
+repeat in his well-deserved honor. His distinguished share in the
+rescue was of common notoriety; the details only we learned from his
+modest but interesting account. The deliverance was facilitated by the
+two vessels being on soundings. The <em>Governor</em> anchored, and then the
+<em>Sabine</em> ahead of her, dropping down close to. The ground-tackle of
+our naval ships, as we abundantly tested during the war, would hold
+through anything, if the bottom let the anchor grip.</p>
+
+<p>With very few exceptions all were saved, officers and privates; but
+their clothes, except those they stood in, were left behind. The
+colonel was a notorious martinet, as well as something of a character;
+and a story ran that one of the subalterns had found himself at the
+start unable to appear in some detail of uniform, his trunks having
+gone astray. "A good soldier never separates from his baggage," said
+the colonel, gruffly, on hearing the excuse. After various adventures,
+common to missing personal effects, the lieutenant's trunks turned up
+at Port Royal. He looked sympathetically at the colonel's shorn plumes
+and meagre array, and said, reproachfully, "Colonel, where are your
+trunks? A good soldier should never separate from his baggage." But,
+doubtless, to follow it to the bottom of the sea would be an excess of
+zeal.</p>
+
+<p>Not long afterwards I was shipmate with an assistant surgeon who had
+been detailed for duty on board the <em>Governor</em>, and had passed through
+the scenes of anxiety and confusion preceding the rescue. He told me
+one or two amusing incidents. An order being given to lighten the
+ship, four marines ran into the cabin where he was lying, seized a
+marble-top table, dropped the marble top on deck, and threw the wooden
+legs overboard. There was also on board a very young naval officer,
+barely out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">Page 160</a></span> the Academy. He was of Dutch blood and name&mdash;from
+central Pennsylvania, I think. Although without much experience, he
+was of the constitutionally self-possessed order, which enabled him to
+be very useful. After a good deal of exertion, he also came into the
+cabin. The surgeon asked him how things looked. "I think she will last
+about half an hour," he replied, and then composedly lay down and went
+to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>There was in the hero of this anecdote a vein of eccentricity even
+then, and he eventually died insane and young. I knew him only
+slightly, but familiarly as to face. He had mild blue eyes and curly
+brown hair, with a constant half-smile in eyes as well as mouth. In
+temperament he was Dutch to the backbone&mdash;at least as we imagine
+Dutch. A comical anecdote was told me of him a few years later,
+illustrating his self-possession&mdash;cool to impudence. He was serving on
+one of our big steam-sloops, a flag-ship at the time, and had charge
+of working the cables on the gun-deck when anchoring. Going into a
+port where the water was very deep&mdash;Rio de Janeiro, I believe&mdash;the
+chain cables "got away," as the expression is; control was lost, and
+shackle after shackle tore out of the hawse-holes, leaping and
+thumping, rattling and roaring, stirring a lot of dust besides.
+Indeed, the violent friction of iron against iron in such cases not
+infrequently generates a stream of sparks. The weight of twenty
+fathoms of this linked iron mass hanging outside, aided by the
+momentum already established by the anchor's fall through a hundred
+feet, of course drags after it all that lies unstoppered within. I
+need not tell those who have witnessed such a commotion that the
+orderly silence of a ship of war breaks down somewhat. Every one who
+has any right to speak shouts, and repeats, in rapid succession,
+"Haul-to that chain! Why the something or other don't you haul-to?"
+while the unhappy compressor-men, saving their own wind to help their
+arms,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">Page 161</a></span> struggle wildly with the situation, under a storm of obloquy.
+The admiral&mdash;by this time we had admirals&mdash;was a singular man,
+something of a lawyer, acute, thinking he knew just how far he might
+go in any case, and given at times to taking liberties with
+subordinates, which were not to them always as humorous as they seemed
+to him. In this instance he miscalculated somewhat. He was on deck at
+the moment, and when the chain had been at last stopped and secured,
+he said to the captain, "Alfred, send for the young man in charge of
+those chains, and give him a good setting-down. Ask him what he means
+by letting such things happen. Ride him down like a main-tack,
+Alfred&mdash;like the main-tack!" The main-tack is the chief rope
+controlling the biggest sail in the ship, and at times, close on the
+wind, it has to be got down into place by the brute force of half a
+hundred men, inch by inch, pull by pull. That is called riding down,
+and is clearly a process the reverse of conciliatory. The Dutchman was
+sent for, and soon his questioning blue eyes appeared over the hatch
+coaming. Alfred&mdash;as my own name is Alfred, I may explain that I was
+not that captain&mdash;Alfred was a mild person, and clearly did not like
+his job; he could not have come up to the admiral's standard. The
+latter saw it, and intervened: "Perhaps you had better leave it to me.
+I'll settle him." Fixing his eyes on the offender, he said, sternly,
+"What do you mean by this, sir? Why the h&mdash;l did you not stop that
+chain?" This exordium was doubtless the prelude to a fit oratorical
+display; but the culprit, looking quietly at him, replied, simply,
+"How the h&mdash;l could I?" This was a shift of wind for which the admiral
+was unprepared. He was taken flat back, like a screaming child
+receiving a glass of cold water in his face. After a moment's
+hesitation he turned to the captain, and said meekly, yet with evident
+humorous consciousness of a checkmate, "That's true, Alfred; how the
+h&mdash;l could he?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">Page 162</a></span>Still, while the defence implied in the lieutenant's question is
+logically unimpeachable, it does not follow that the method of the
+admiral&mdash;as distinct from his manner, which need not be excused&mdash;was
+irrational. The impulse of reprimand, applied at the top, where
+ultimate responsibility rests, is transmitted through the intervening
+links down to the actual culprits, and takes effect for future
+occasions. As Marryat in one of his amusing passages says: "The
+master's violence made the boatswain violent, which made the
+boatswain's mate violent, and the captain of the forecastle also; all
+which is practically exemplified by the laws of motion communicated
+from one body to another; and as the master swore, so did the
+boatswain swear, and the boatswain's mate, and the captain of the
+forecastle, and all the men." An entertaining practical use of this
+transmission of energy was made by an acquaintance of mine in China.
+Going to bed one night, he found himself annoyed by a mosquito within
+the net. He got up, provided himself with the necessities for his own
+comfort during the period of discomfort which he projected for others,
+and called the servant whose business it was to have crushed the
+intruder. Him he sent in search of the man next above him, him in turn
+for another, and so on until he reached the head of the domestic
+hierarchy. When the whole body was assembled, he told them that they
+were summoned to receive the information that "one piecee mosquito"
+was inside his net, owing to the neglect of&mdash;pointing to the culprit.
+This done, they were dismissed, in calm assurance that in future no
+mosquito would disturb his night's rest, and that the desirable
+castigation of the offender might be intrusted to his outraged
+companions.</p>
+
+<p>After the gale subsided, the <em>Pocahontas</em> proceeded for the
+rendezvous, just before reaching which we fell in with a
+coal-schooner. Though a good fighting-ship, she carried only
+sixty-three tons of coal, anthracite; for that alone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">Page 163</a></span> we then used to
+burn. The amount seems too absurd for belief, and it constituted a
+very serious embarrassment on such duty as that of the South Carolina
+and Georgia coasts. To economize, so as to remain as long as possible
+away from the base at Port Royal, and yet to have the ship ready for
+speedy movement, was a difficult problem; indeed, insoluble. We used
+to meet it by keeping fires so low, when lying inside the blockaded
+rivers, that we could not move promptly. This was a choice between
+evils, which the event justified, but which might have been awkward
+had the Confederates ever made a determined attempt at boarding with
+largely superior force in several steamers, as happened at Galveston,
+and once even by pulling boats in a Georgia river. Under steam, the
+battery could be handled; anchored, an enemy could avoid it. With this
+poor "coal endurance," as the modern expression has it, the captain
+decided to fill up as he could. We therefore took the schooner in tow,
+and were transferring from her, when the sound of cannonading was
+heard. Evidently the attack had begun, and it was incumbent to get in,
+not only on general principles, but for the captain's own reputation;
+for although in service he was too well known to be doubted, the
+outside world might see only that he was a South Carolinian. It was
+recognition of this, I doubt not, that led Admiral Dupont, when we
+passed the flag-ship after the action, to hail aloud, "Captain
+Drayton, I knew you would be here;" a public expression of official
+confidence. We were late, however, as it was; probably because our
+short coal supply had compelled economical steaming, though as to this
+my memory is uncertain. The <em>Pocahontas</em> passed the batteries after
+the main attack, in column on an elliptical course, had ceased, but
+before the works had been abandoned; and being alone we received
+proportionate attention for the few moments of passage. The enemy's
+fire was "good line, but high;" our main<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">Page 164</a></span>-mast was irreparably
+wounded, but the hull and crew escaped.</p>
+
+<p>After the action there followed the usual scene of jollification. The
+transports had remained outside, and now steamed up; bands playing,
+troops hurrahing, and with the general expenditure of wind from vocal
+organs which seems the necessary concomitant of such occasions. And
+here the <em>Pocahontas</em> again brought the <em>Seminole</em> to grief. She had
+anchored, but we kept under way, steaming about through the throng.
+Drayton had binoculars in hand; and, while himself conning the ship,
+was livelily interested in what was passing around. I believe also
+that, though an unusually accomplished officer professionally, he had
+done a good deal of staff duty; had less than the usual deck habit of
+his period. Besides, men used mostly to sails seemed to think steamers
+could get out of any scrape at any moment. However that be, after a
+glance to see that we were rightly headed for a clear opening, he
+began gazing about through his glasses, to the right hand and to the
+left. He had lost thought of the tide, and in such circumstances as
+ours a very few seconds does the business. When he next looked, we
+were sweeping down on the <em>Seminole</em> without a chance of retreat;
+there was nothing but to go ahead fast, and save the hulls at least
+from collision. Her flying jib-boom came in just behind our main-mast
+(we had only two masts); and as the current of course was setting us
+down steadily, the topping-lifts of our huge main boom caught her
+jib-boom. Down came one of the big blocks from our mast-head, narrowly
+missing the captain's head, while we took out of her all the head
+booms as far as the bowsprit cap, leaving them dragging in helpless
+confusion by her side. Then we anchored.</p>
+
+<p>It is a nuisance to have to clear a wreck and repair damages; and the
+injured party does not immediately recover his equanimity after such a
+mishap, especially com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">Page 165</a></span>ing fresh upon a former instance of trouble
+occasioned barely a fortnight before. But after a victory all things
+are forgiven, and the more so to a man of Drayton's well-deserved
+popularity. A little later in the day he went on board the flag-ship
+to visit the admiral. When I met him at the gangway upon his return, I
+had many questions to ask, and among others, "Have you learned who
+commanded the enemy?" "Yes," he replied, with a half-smile; "it was my
+brother."</p>
+
+<p>Very soon afterwards he left us, before we again quitted port. He was
+dissatisfied with the <em>Pocahontas</em>, partly on account of her coal
+supply; and the captain of the <em>Pawnee</em> then going home, he obtained
+command of her. The <em>Pawnee</em> was <em>sui generis</em>; in this like the
+<em>Pocahontas</em>, only a good deal more so, representing somebody's fad. I
+cannot vouch for the details of her construction; but, as I heard, she
+was not only extremely broad in the beam, giving great battery
+space,&mdash;which was plain to see,&mdash;but the bilge on each side was
+reported to come lower than the keel, making, as it were, two hulls,
+side by side, so that a sarcastic critic remarked, "One good point
+about her is, that if she takes the ground, her keel at least is
+protected." Like all our vessels at that time, she was of wood. Owing
+to her build, she had for her tonnage very light draught and heavy
+battery, and so was a capital fighting-ship in still, shoal waters;
+but in a seaway she rolled so rapidly as to be a wretched gun
+platform. Her first lieutenant assured me that in heavy weather a
+glass of water could not get off the table. "Before it has begun to
+slide on one roll, she is back on the other, and catches it before it
+can start." This description was perhaps somewhat
+picturesque&mdash;impressionist, as we now say; but it successfully
+conveyed the idea, the object of all speech and impressions. However
+satisfactory for glasses&mdash;not too full&mdash;it may be imagined that under
+such conditions it would be difficult to draw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">Page 166</a></span> sight on a target
+between rolls. Whatever her defects, the <em>Pawnee</em> was admirably
+adapted for the inland work of which there was much in those parts,
+behind the sea islands; and she continued so employed throughout the
+war. I met her there as late as the last six months of it. But she was
+not reproduced, and remains to memory only; an incident of the
+speculative views and doubting progresses of the decade before the War
+of Secession.</p>
+
+<p>Drayton's successor was one of the senior lieutenants of the fleet,
+George B. Balch, late the first of the <em>Sabine</em> frigate. His services
+in saving the people of the <em>Governor</em> have already been mentioned. He
+still survives in venerable old age; but Drayton, who later on was
+with Farragut at Mobile, being captain of the flag-ship <em>Hartford</em> and
+chief of staff at the time of the passage of the forts, was cut off
+prematurely by a short illness within six months after hostilities
+ended. Balch remained with us till the <em>Pocahontas</em> returned North,
+ten months later. He was an officer of varied service, and like all
+such, some more, some less, abounded in anecdote of his own
+experiences. A great deal that might be instructive, and more still
+that is entertaining, is lost by our slippery memories and the rarity
+of the journal-keeping habit. I remember distinctly only two of his
+stories. One related to a matter which now belongs to naval
+arch&aelig;ology,&mdash;"backing and filling in a tideway," by a ship under sail.
+In this, in a winding channel, the ship sets towards her destination
+with the current, up or down, carrying only enough canvas, usually the
+three topsails, to be under control; to move her a little ahead, or a
+little astern, keeping in the strength of the stream, or shifting
+position as conditions of the navigation require. Backing is a term
+which explains itself; filling applies to the sails when so trimmed as
+to move the vessel ahead. Sometimes a reach of the river permits the
+sails to be braced full, and she bowls along merrily under way; anon a
+turn comes where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">Page 167</a></span> she can only lie across, balanced as to headway by
+the main topsail aback. Then the smallest topsail, the mizzen, has a
+game in its hands. The ship, as she drifts up or down, may need to be
+moved a little astern, more or less, to avoid a shoal or what not; and
+to do this the sail mentioned is braced either to shake, neutralizing
+it, or to bring it also aback, as the occasion demands. This rather
+long preamble is perilously like explaining a joke, but it is
+necessary. Balch had seen a good deal of this work in China, and he
+told us that the Chinese pilot's expression, if he wanted the sail
+shaken, was "Makee sick the mizzen topsail;" but if aback, he added,
+"Kill him dead." I wonder does that give us an insight into the
+nautical idiom of the Chinese, who within the limitations of their
+needs are prime seamen.</p>
+
+<p>By the time I got to China, two years after the War of Secession,
+steam had relieved naval vessels from backing and filling. I once,
+however, saw the principle applied to a steamer in the Paraguay River.
+We were returning from a visit to Asuncion, and had a local pilot, who
+was needed less for the Paraguay, which though winding is fairly
+clear, than for the Paran&aacute;, the lower stream, which finally merges in
+the Rio de la Plata and is constantly changing its bed. We had
+anchored for the night just above a bend, head of course up-stream,
+for the tide does not reach so far. The next morning the pilot was
+bothered to turn her round, for she was a long paddle steamer, not
+very handy. He seemed to be in a nautical quandary, similar to that
+which the elder Mr. Weller described as "being on the wrong side of
+the road, backing into the palings, and all manner of unpleasantness."
+The captain watched him fuming for a few minutes, and then said, "Is
+there any particular trouble on either hand, or is it only the
+narrowness?" The pilot said no; the bottom was clear. "Well," said the
+captain, "why not cast her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">Page 168</a></span> to port, and let her drift till she heads
+fair for the turn below?" This was done easily, and indeed was one of
+those things which would be almost foolishly simple did we not all
+have experience of overlooking expedients that lie immediately under
+our noses.</p>
+
+<p>Balch's other story which I recall was at the moment simply humorous,
+but has since seemed to me charged with homely wisdom of wide
+application. He had made a rather longish voyage in a
+merchant-steamer, and during it used to amuse himself doing navigation
+work in company with her master, or mate. On one occasion a discussion
+arose between them as to some result, and Balch in the course of the
+argument said, "Figures won't lie." "Yes, that's all right," rejoined
+the other, "figures won't lie, if you work them right; but you must
+work them right, Mr. Balch." I was too young then to have noted a
+somewhat similar remark about statistics; and I think now, after a
+pretty long observation of mankind, its records and its statements,
+that I should be inclined to extend that old seaman's comments to
+facts also. Facts won't lie, if you work them right; but if you work
+them wrong, a little disproportion in the emphasis, a slight
+exaggeration of color, a little more or less limelight on this or that
+part of the grouping, and the result is not truth, even though each
+individual fact be as unimpeachable as the multiplication table.</p>
+
+<p>After the capture of Port Royal, and the establishment there of the
+naval base, and until the arrival of monitors a year later, operations
+of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, as it was styled, were
+confined to blockading. This took two principal forms. The
+fortifications of Charleston and Savannah being still in the hands of
+the enemy, and intact, these two chief seaports of that coast were
+unassailable by our fleet. Even after Fort Sumter had been battered to
+a shapeless heap of masonry, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">Page 169</a></span> Fort Pulaski had surrendered,
+neither city fell until Sherman's march took it in the rear. But the
+numerous inlets were substantially undefended against naval attack;
+and for them the blockade, that tremendously potent instrument of the
+national pressure, the work of which has been too little commemorated,
+was instituted almost universally within. Even Fort Pulaski, before
+its fall, though it sealed the highway to Savannah, could not prevent
+the Union vessels from occupying the inside anchorage off Tybee
+Island, completely closing the usual access from the sea to the town.
+During the ensuing ten months there were very few of these entrances,
+from Georgetown, the northernmost in South Carolina, down to
+Fernandina, in Florida, into which the <em>Pocahontas</em> did not penetrate,
+alone or in company. I do not know whether people in other parts of
+the country realize that these various inlets are connected by an
+inside navigation, behind the sea islands, as they are called, the
+whole making a system of sheltered intercommunication. The usefulness
+of this was reinforced by the numerous navigable rivers which afford
+water roads to the interior, and gave a vessel, once entered, refuge
+beyond the reach of the blockaders' arm, with ready means for
+distribution. Such a gift of nature to a community, however, has the
+defects of its qualities. Ease of access, and freedom of movement in
+all directions, now existed for foe as it had for friend, and the very
+facility which such surroundings bestow had prevented the timely
+creation of an alternative. Deprival consequently was doubly severe.</p>
+
+<p>It thus came to pass that, by a gradual process of elimination,
+blockade in the usual sense of the word, blockade outside, became
+confined to Charleston and its approaches. It is true that much
+depended on the class of vessel. It was obviously inexpedient to
+expose sailing-ships where they might be attacked by steamers, in
+ground also too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">Page 170</a></span> contracted for man&oelig;uvring; and two years later I
+found myself again blockading Georgetown, in a paddle steamer from the
+merchant service, the size and unwieldiness of which prevented her
+entering. Moreover, torpedoes had then begun to play a part in the
+war, though still in a very primitive stage of development. But in
+1862 there was little outside work except at Charleston. The very
+reasons which determine the original selection of a port&mdash;facility for
+entrance, abundant anchorage, and ease of access to the interior for
+distribution and receipt of the articles of commerce&mdash;determine also
+the accumulation of defences, to the exclusion of other less favored
+localities. All these conditions, natural and artificial, combined
+with the Union occupancy of the other inlets to concentrate
+blockade-running upon Charleston. This in turn drew thither the
+blockaders, which had to be the more numerous because the harbor could
+be entered by two or more channels, widely separated. There was thus
+constituted a blockade society, which contrasted agreeably with the
+somewhat hermit-like existence of the smaller stations. The weather
+was usually pleasant enough&mdash;many Northerners now know the winter
+climate of South Carolina&mdash;so during the daytime the ships would lift
+their anchors and get more or less together; the officers, and to a
+less extent the crews, exchanging visits. Old acquaintanceships were
+renewed, former cruises discussed, "yarns" interchanged; and then
+there was always the war with its happenings. Fort Henry, Fort
+Donelson, Shiloh, the <em>Monitor</em> and <em>Merrimac</em> fight, the capture of
+New Orleans by Farragut, all occurred during the stay of the
+<em>Pocahontas</em> upon the blockade in 1862. Our news was apt to be ten
+days old, but to us it was as good as new; indeed, somewhat better,
+for we heard of the first reverses at Shiloh, and by the hands of the
+<em>Merrimac</em>, by the same mail which brought word of the final decided
+victory. Thus we were spared the anx<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">Page 171</a></span>iety of suspense. Even the
+disasters about Richmond were not by us fairly appreciated until the
+ship returned North, when the mortification of defeat was somewhat
+solaced, and the tendency to despondency lessened, by the happiness of
+being again at home; in my case after a continuous absence of more
+than three years, in the <em>Congress</em> and <em>Pocahontas</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Talking of despondency, I had an odd experience of the ease with which
+people forget their frames of mind. While Burnside was engaged in the
+movements preceding Fredericksburg, I was in conversation with a
+veteran naval officer at his own house. Speaking of the probable
+outcome of the operations in progress, which then engrossed all
+thoughts, he said to me, "I think, Mr. Mahan, that if we fail this
+time, we may as well strike"; the naval phrase "strike the colors"
+being the equivalent of surrender&mdash;give up. I dissented heartily; not
+from any really reasoned appreciation of conditions, but on general
+principles, as understood by a man still very young. More than two
+years later, when the war had just drawn to its triumphant close, I
+again met the same gentleman. Amid our felicitations, he said to me,
+"There is one thing, Mr. Mahan, which I have never allowed myself to
+doubt&mdash;the ultimate success of our just cause."</p>
+
+<p>After all, it was very natural. When you are cold, you're cold, and
+when you're hot, you're hot; and if you are indiscreet enough to say
+so to some one who feels differently, he remembers it against you.
+What business have you to feel other than he? If, with the thermometer
+at zero, I chance to say that I wish it were warmer, I am sure of some
+one, a lady usually, bursting in upon me when it is ninety-five, with
+the jeer, "Well! I hope, now, <em>you</em> are satisfied." I recall
+distinctly the long faces we pulled when we reached Philadelphia on
+our return, and realized, by the withdrawal of McClellan's army to
+Washington, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">Page 172</a></span> full extent of our disasters on the Peninsula; my old
+commodore might then have found some to say, Amen. But this did not
+keep our hats any lower when we chucked them aloft over Vicksburg and
+Gettysburg, and forgot that we had ever felt otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>Vicksburg and Gettysburg, by the way, and their coincidence with the
+Fourth of July, have furnished me with a reminiscence quite otherwise
+agreeable. The ship in which I then was spent that Fourth at Spithead,
+England. We dressed ship with multicolored signals, red, white, and
+blue, at every yard-arm, big American ensigns at the three mast-heads
+and the peak, presenting a singularly gay and joyful aspect, which
+could profitably be viewed from as many points as Mr. Pecksniff looked
+at Salisbury Cathedral. At noon we fired a national salute, all the
+more severely punctilious and observant, because by the last mail
+things at home seemed to be looking particularly blue. The British
+ships of war, though I fear few of their officers then were other than
+pleased with our presumed discomfiture, dressed likewise, as by naval
+courtesy bound, and also fired a salute. The <em>Times</em> of the day
+arrived from London in due season, and had improved the occasion to
+moralize upon the sad condition to which the Republic of Bunker Hill
+and Yorktown was reduced: Grant held up at Vicksburg,<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> Lee marching
+victoriously into Pennsylvania, no apparent probability of escaping
+disaster in either quarter. The conclusion was couched in that vein of
+Pecksniffian benevolence of which we hear so much in life. "Let us
+<em>hope</em> that so much adversity may be tempered to a nation, afflicted
+with evil as unprecedented as its former<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">Page 173</a></span> prosperity; and this will
+indeed be the case if America ... is led on this day of festivity, now
+converted into a day of humiliation, to review past errors, and to
+consider that, if her present policy has led her so near ruin, in its
+reversal must lie the only path that can conduct her to safety." I
+wonder, if there had been a cable, would that editorial have been
+headed off. It was not.</p>
+
+<p class="centered_quote">"And there it stands unto this day,<br />
+To witness if I lie."</p>
+
+<p>It was bitter then to my taste; but sweet were the chuckles which I
+later had, when the actual transactions of that anniversary came to
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever their sympathies, the British naval officers during that stay
+in British waters had no difficulty in paying us all the usual
+personal attentions; but a particular incident showed for our
+susceptibilities a nicety of consideration, which could not have been
+exacted and was very grateful at the time. We were at Plymouth, under
+the breakwater, but some distance from the inner anchorage, when a
+merchant-vessel lying inside hoisted a Confederate flag at her mizzen
+mast-head. We saw it, but of course could do nothing. It was a clear
+case of intended insult, for the ship had no claim to the flag, and
+could only mean to flaunt us. It flew for perhaps an hour, and then
+disappeared. The same day, and not long afterwards, a British
+lieutenant from a vessel in the harbor came on board, and told me that
+he had had it hauled down, acting in place of his captain, who was
+absent. The communication to me, also momentarily in command, was
+purely personal; indeed, there was nothing official in the whole
+transaction, nor do I know by what means or by what authority he could
+insist upon the removal of the flag. However managed, the thing was
+done, and with the purpose of stopping a rudeness which, it is true,
+reflected more upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">Page 174</a></span> the port than upon us, for I think the offending
+vessel was British. Very many years afterwards I had occasion to quote
+this, when, during the Boer War, on the visit of a British squadron to
+one of our seaside resorts, a resident there thought to show American
+breeding by hoisting the Four-Color. In the late winter of 1863&ndash;64 I
+again met this officer and his ship in New Orleans. In conversation
+then he told me he did not believe the Union cause could succeed; that
+he, with others, looked to see three or four nations formed. In the
+same month of 1863 this anticipation would not have surprised me; but
+in 1864 it did, although Grant had not yet begun his movement upon
+Richmond.</p>
+
+<p>Blockading was desperately tedious work, make the best one could of
+it. The largest reservoir of anecdotes was sure to run dry; the
+deepest vein of original humor to be worked out. I remember hearing of
+two notorious tellers of stories being pitted against each other, for
+an evening's amusement, when one was driven as a last resource to
+recounting that "Mary had a little lamb." We were in about that case.
+Charleston, however, was a blooming garden of social refreshment
+compared with the wilderness of the Texas coast, to which I found
+myself exiled a year or so later; a veritable Siberia, cold only
+excepted. Charleston was not very far from the Chesapeake or Delaware,
+in distance or in time. Supply vessels, which came periodically, and
+at not very long intervals, arrived with papers not very late, and
+with fresh provisions not very long slaughtered; but by the time they
+reached Galveston or Sabine Pass, which was our station, their news
+was stale, and we got the bottom tier of fresh beef. The ship to which
+I there belonged was a small steam-corvette, which with two gunboats
+constituted all the social possibilities. Happily for myself, I did
+not join till midway in the corvette's stay off the port, which lasted
+in all nearly six months, before she was re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">Page 175</a></span>called in mercy to New
+Orleans. I have never seen a body of intelligent men reduced so nearly
+to imbecility as my shipmates then were.</p>
+
+<p>One of my captains used to adduce, as his conception of the extreme of
+isolation, to be the keeper of a lightship off Cape Horn; a
+professional conceit rivalling the elder Mr. Weller's equally profound
+recognition of the connection between keeping a pike and misanthropy.
+We off Sabine Pass were banished about equally with the keeper of a
+turnpike or of a remote lightship. We ought, of course, to have
+improved the leisure which weighed so heavily on our hands; but the
+improvement of idle moments is an accomplishment of itself, as many a
+retired business man has found out too late. There is an impression,
+derived from the experience of passengers on board ocean steamers,
+that naval officers have an abundance of spare time. The ship, it
+seems assumed, runs itself; the officers have only to look on and
+enjoy. As a matter of fact, sea officers under normal conditions are
+as busy as the busiest house-keeper, with the care to boot of two,
+three, four, or five hundred children, to be kept continually doing as
+they should; the old woman who lived in the shoe had a good thing in
+comparison. Thus occupied, the leisure habit of self-improvement,
+other than in the practice of the calling, is not formed. At sea, on a
+voyage, the vicissitudes of successive days provide the desultory
+succession of incidents, which vary and fill out the tenor of
+occupations, keeping life full and interesting. In port, besides the
+regular and fairly engrossing routine, there are the resources of the
+shore to fill up the chinks. But the dead monotony of the blockade was
+neither sea nor port. It supplied nothing. The crew, once drilled,
+needed but a few moments each day to keep at the level of proficiency;
+and there was practically nothing to do, because nothing happened that
+required either a doing or an undoing.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">Page 176</a></span>Under such conditions even a gale of wind was a not unwelcome change.
+Although little activity was required to meet it, it at least
+presented new surroundings&mdash;something different from the daily
+outlook. After a very brief period, it became the rule to ride out the
+storms at anchor; and I remember one of our volunteer officers, who
+had commanded a merchant-ship for some years, saying that he would
+have been spared a good deal of trouble, on occasions, had he had our
+experience of holding on with an anchor instead of keeping under way.
+It was, however, an old if forgotten expedient, where anchorage ground
+was good&mdash;bottom sticky and water not too deep. In the ancient days of
+the French wars, the British fleets off Brest and Toulon had to keep
+under way, but that blockading Cadiz, in 1797&ndash;98, used to hold its
+position at anchor, and under harder conditions than ours; for there
+the worst gales blew on shore, whereas ours swept chiefly along the
+coast. A standing dispute in the British navy, in those days of hemp
+cables, used to be whether it was safer to ride with three anchors
+down, or with one only, having to it three cables, bent together, so
+as to form one of thrice the usual length. The balance of opinion
+leaned to the latter; the dead weight of so much hemp held the ship
+without transmitting the strain to the anchor itself. She "rode to the
+bight," as the expression was; that is, to the cable, curved by its
+own weight and length, lying even in part on the bottom, which
+prevented its tightening and pulling at the anchor. What was true of
+hemp was yet more true of iron chains. The <em>Pocahontas</em> used to veer
+to a hundred fathoms, and there lie like a duck in fifty or sixty feet
+of water. I remember on one occasion, however, that when we next
+weighed the anchor, it came up with parts polished bright, as in my
+childhood we used sometimes to burnish a copper cent. This seemed to
+show that it had been scoured hard along a sandy bottom. We had had no
+sus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">Page 177</a></span>picion of the ship's dragging during the gale, and I have since
+supposed that it may have started from its bed as we began to heave,
+and so been scrubbed along towards us.</p>
+
+<p>The problem of maintaining the health of ships' companies condemned to
+long months of salt provisions, and to equally depressing short
+allowance of social salt for the intellect, which reasonable beings
+crave, has to be ever present to those charged with administration.
+Nelson's "cattle and onions" sums up in homely phrase the first
+requirement; while, for the others, his policy during a weary two
+years, in which he himself never left the flag-ship, was to keep the
+vessels in constant movement, changing scene, and thereby maintaining
+expectation of something exciting turning up. "Our men's minds," he
+said, "are always kept up with the daily hopes of meeting the enemy."
+As the Confederacy had practically no navy, this particular
+distraction was debarred our blockaders; but in the matter of food, we
+in the early sixties had not got beyond his prescription for the
+opening years of the century. The primitive methods then still in
+vogue, for preserving meats and vegetables fresh, accomplished chiefly
+the making them perfectly tasteless, and to the eye uninviting; the
+palate, accustomed to the constant stimulant of salt, turned from
+"bully" (bouilli) beef and "desecrated" (dessicated) potatoes, jaded
+before exercise. Like liquor, salt, long used in large measures, at
+last becomes a craving. I have heard old seamen more than once say, "I
+must have my salt;" and I have even known one to express his utter
+weariness of the fresh butter France sends up with its morning coffee
+and rolls. So we on the blockade depended more upon the good offices
+of salt than upon those of tin cans, for giving us acceptable food;
+the consequence being, with us as with our British forebears, a keen
+physical demand for "cattle and onions." In one principal respect our
+supplies differed from theirs&mdash;in the profusion of ice afforded by
+our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">Page 178</a></span> country. Our beef, therefore, came to us already butchered, while
+theirs was received on the hoof. Many of my readers doubtless will
+recall the adventures of Mr. Midshipman Easy, when in charge of the
+transport from Tetuan with bullocks for the fleet off Toulon.
+Onions&mdash;blessings on their heads, if they have any&mdash;came to both us
+and our predecessors as easily as they were welcome. I have sometimes
+heard the plea, that Nature is the best guide in matters of appetite,
+advanced for indulgences which, so construed, seemed to reflect upon
+her parental character; but there can be no such doubt concerning
+onions to a system well saturated with salt. When you see them you
+know what you want; and a half-dozen raw, with a simple salad
+dressing, were little more than a whetter on the blockade. Would it be
+possible now to manage a single one?</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="section_break"></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">Page 179</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>INCIDENTS OF WAR AND BLOCKADE SERVICE&mdash;CONTINUED</h3>
+
+<h4>1863&ndash;1865</h4>
+
+
+<p>The <em>Pocahontas</em> came North for repairs in the late summer of 1862,
+and after a brief leave I was ordered to the Naval Academy. Under the
+stress of the war, this had been broken out from its regular seat at
+Annapolis and transferred for the moment to Newport. All the
+arrangements were temporary and extemporized. The principal
+establishment, housing the three older classes, was in a building in
+the town formerly known as the Atlantic Hotel; while the new entries,
+who were very numerous, were quartered on two sailing-frigates, moored
+head and stern in the inner harbor, off Goat Island. This duplex
+arrangement necessitated a double set of officers, not easy to be had
+with war going on; the more so that the original corps had been
+depleted by the resignations of Southern men. The embarrassment
+arising from the immediate scantness of officers led naturally, if
+perhaps somewhat irreflectively, to a great number of admissions to
+the Naval Academy, disregardful of past experience with the '41 Date,
+and of the future, when room at the top would be lacking to take in
+all these youngsters as captains and admirals. Thus was constituted
+the "hump," as it came to be called, which, like a tumor on the body,
+engaged at a later day the attention of many professional
+practitioners. As it would not absorb, and as the rough-and-ready
+methods by which civil life and the survival of the fittest deal with
+such conditions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">Page 180</a></span> could not be applied, it had to be dissipated; a
+process ultimately carried out with indifferent success. While it
+lasted it caused many a heartache from postponement. As one of the
+sufferers said, when hearing the matter discussed, "I don't know about
+this or that. All I know is that I have been a lieutenant for twenty
+years." Owing to the slimness of the service in the lower grades they
+became lieutenants young; but there they stuck. Every boom is followed
+by such reaction, and for a military service war is a boom. Expansion
+sets in; and when contraction follows somebody is squeezed. At the end
+of the Napoleonic Wars there were over eight hundred post-captains in
+the British navy. What could peace do for them?</p>
+
+<p>Eight pleasant months I spent on shore at the Academy, and then was
+again whisked off to sea, there to remain for substantially all the
+rest of the war. Although already prominent as a fashionable
+watering-place, Newport then was very far from its present
+development; but in winter it had a settled and pleasant, if small,
+society. At this time I met the widow of Captain Lawrence of the
+<em>Chesapeake</em>, who survived until two years later. She was already
+failing, and not prematurely; for it was then, 1862&ndash;63, the fiftieth
+year since her husband fell. She lived with a sister, also the widow
+of an officer, and was frequently visited by her granddaughter, the
+child of Lawrence's daughter, a singularly beautiful girl. I remember
+her pointing to me a picture of the defeat of the <em>Peacock</em>, by the
+<em>Hornet</em>, under her grandfather's command; on which, she laughingly
+said, she had been brought up. This meeting had for me not only the
+usual interest which a link with the distant past supplies, but a
+certain special association; for my grandmother, then recently dead,
+had known several of Lawrence's contemporaries in the navy, and my
+recollection is that she told me she had seen him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">Page 181</a></span> leaving his wife at
+their doorstep, when departing to take command of the <em>Chesapeake</em>.</p>
+
+<p>When the summer of 1863 drew nigh, the question of the usual practice
+cruise came up. I have before stated the two opinions: one favoring a
+regular ocean voyage, with its customary routine and accidents of
+weather; the other more disposed to contracted cruising in our own
+waters, anchoring at night, and by day following a formulated
+programme of varied practical exercises. For this year both plans were
+adopted. There were two practice-ships, one of which was to remain
+between Narragansett and Gardiner's Bay, in Long Island. I was ordered
+as first lieutenant of the other, which was to go to Europe. The
+advisability of this step for a sailing-ship was on this occasion
+doubly questioned, for the <em>Alabama</em> had already begun her career. In
+fact, one of the officers then stationed at the school had been
+recently captured by her, when making a passage to Panama in a
+mail-steamer. I remember his telling me, with glee, that when the
+<em>Alabama</em> fired a shot in the direction of the packet, called, I
+think, the <em>Ariel</em>, a number of the passengers took refuge behind the
+bulkheads of the upper-deck saloons, which, being of light pine,
+afforded as much protection as the air, with the additional risk of
+splinters. He hoped to escape observation, but the Confederate
+boarding-officer had been a classmate of his, and spotted him at once.
+Being paroled, he was for the time shut off from war service, and was
+sent to the Academy. He was a singular man, by name Tecumseh Steece,
+and looked with a certain disdain upon the navy as a profession. In
+his opinion, it was for him only a stepping-stone to some great
+future, rather undefined. At bottom a very honest fellow, with a sense
+of duty which while a midshipman had led him to persist defiantly in a
+very unpopular&mdash;though very proper&mdash;course of action, he yet seemed to
+see no impropriety in utterly neglecting professional ac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">Page 182</a></span>quirement,
+rather boasting of his ignorance. The result was that, having been
+detailed for the European cruise, he was subsequently detached; I
+think from doubt of his fitness for the deck of a sailing-vessel.
+While at the Academy at this time, he took a first step in his
+proposed career by writing a pamphlet, the title and scope of which I
+now forget; but unluckily, by a slip of the pen, he wrote on the first
+page, "We judge the <em>known</em> by the <em>unknown</em>." This, being speedily
+detected, raised a laugh, and I fear prevented most from further
+exploration of a somewhat misty thesis. He was rather chummy with me,
+and tried mildly to persuade me that I also should stand poised on the
+navy for a flight into the empyrean; but, if fain to soar, which I do
+not think I was, like Raleigh, I feared a fall. For himself, poor
+fellow, weighted by his aspirations, he said to me, "I don't fear
+death, I fear life;" and death caught him early, in 1864, in the shape
+of yellow-fever. One of his idiosyncrasies was a faith in coffee as a
+panacea; and I heard that while sickening he deluged himself with that
+beverage, to what profit let physicians say.</p>
+
+<p>The decision that one of the practice-ships should go to Europe had, I
+think, been determined by the officer who was to have commanded the
+<em>Macedonian</em>, the vessel chosen for that purpose. She was not the one
+of that name captured in 1812 by the <em>United States</em>,&mdash;the only one of
+our frigate captures brought into port,&mdash;but a successor to the title.
+Before she went into commission, the first commander was detached to
+service at the front; but no change was made in her destination, even
+if any misgivings were felt. One of my fellow-officers at the Academy,
+who was not going, remarked to me pleasantly that, if we fell in with
+the <em>Alabama</em>, she would work round us like a cooper round a cask; an
+encouraging simile to one who has looked upon that cheerful and much
+one-sided performance. We were all too young&mdash;I, the senior
+lieutenant, was but twenty-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">Page 183</a></span>two&mdash;and too light-hearted to be troubled
+with forebodings; and, indeed, there was in reason no adequate
+inducement for the Confederate cruiser to alter her existing plans in
+order to take the <em>Macedonian</em>. Had we come fairly in her way, to
+gobble a large percentage of the Naval Academy might have been a
+fairly humorous practical joke; but it could have been no more. I
+remember Mr. Schuyler Colfax, afterwards Vice-President, then I think
+a member of the House, being on board, and mentioning the subject to
+me. "After all," he said, "I suppose it would scarcely do for one of
+our vessels to be deterred from a cruise by regard for a Confederate
+cruiser." Considering the disparity of advantage, due to steam, I
+should say this would scarcely be a working theory, in naval life or
+in private. Our military insignificance was our sufficient protection.
+During my cruise in the <em>Congress</em>, a ship much heavier every way than
+the <em>Macedonian</em>, the commander of one of our corvettes, substantially
+of the <em>Alabama</em> class, said to our captain, "I suppose, if I fell in
+with you as an enemy, I ought to attack you." "Well," replied the
+other, "if you didn't, you should pray not to have me on your
+court-martial."</p>
+
+<p>The officer originally designated to command the <em>Macedonian</em> had been
+very greatly concerned about the midshipmen's provisions: the quality
+of which they should be, and the room to be kept for their stowage. I
+wonder would his soul have been greatly vexed had he accompanied me
+the first evening out, as I inspected the steerage while they were at
+supper? "What!" shouted one of them to a servant, as I passed. "What!
+No milk?" The mingled consternation, bereavement, and indignation
+which struggled for full expression in the words beggar description. I
+can see his face and hear his tones to this day. Laughable to comedy;
+yet to a philosophizing turn of mind what an epitome of life! Do we
+not at every corner of experience<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">Page 184</a></span> meet the princess who felt the
+three hard peas under the fifty feather-beds? Sydney Smith's friend,
+who had everything else life could give, but realized only the
+disappointing view out of one of his windows? We might dispense with
+Hague Conferences. War is going to cease because people adequately
+civilized will not endure hardness. Whether in the end we shall have
+cause to rejoice in the double event remains to be seen. The Asiatic
+can endure.</p>
+
+<p>Among the <em>Macedonian's</em> lieutenants was the late Admiral Sampson. We
+had also for deck officers two who had but just graduated; one of them
+a young Frenchman belonging to the royal house of Orl&eacute;ans, who had
+been permitted to take the course at our naval school, I presume with
+a view on his part to possible contingencies recalling the monarchy to
+France. Under Louis Philippe, a member of the family had been
+prominent in the French navy, as the Prince de Joinville; and had
+commanded the squadron which brought back the body of Napoleon from
+St. Helena. The representative with us was a very good-tempered,
+amiable, unpresuming man, too young as yet to be formed in character.
+As messmates we were, of course, all on terms of cordial equality, and
+one of our number used frequently to greet him with effusion as "You
+old King." He spoke English easily, though scarcely fluently, and with
+occasional eccentricity of idiom. At the Academy, before graduation,
+he took his turn with others of his class as officer of the day, one
+of whose duties was to keep a journal of happenings. I chanced once to
+inspect this book, and found over his signature an entry which began,
+"The weather was a dirty one."</p>
+
+<p>While at the school, the young duke had been provided with a guide,
+philosopher, and friend, in the person of an accomplished ex-officer
+of the French navy, who had been obliged to quit that service, under
+the Empire, because of his attachment to the exiled monarchy. I knew
+this gen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">Page 185</a></span>tleman very well at Newport, exchanging with him occasional
+visits, though he was much my senior in years. His name was Fauvel,
+which the midshipmen, or other, had promptly Anglicized into Four
+Bells&mdash;a nautical hour-stroke. I suppose this propensity to travesty
+foreign or difficult names is not merely maritime; but naturally
+enough my reading has brought me more in contact with it in connection
+with naval matters. Thus the <em>Ville de Milan</em>, captured into the
+British service, became to their seamen the "Wheel 'em along;" and the
+<em>Bellerophon</em>, originally their own, is historically reported to have
+passed current as the "Bully Ruffian." Captain Fauvel accompanied us
+in the <em>Macedonian</em>; but after arriving in England, as we were to go
+to Cherbourg, his charge and he left us, neither being <em>persona grata</em>
+at that date in a French harbor. When we reached Cherbourg, Fauvel's
+wife was there, either resident or for the moment, and at our
+captain's invitation visited the ship to see where her husband had
+been living, and would again be when we reached a more friendly port.
+As contrary luck would have it, while she was on board, the French
+admiral and the general commanding the troops came alongside to return
+the official call paid them. The awkwardness, of course, was merely
+that her presence obtruded the fact, otherwise easily and discreetly
+ignored, that when out of French waters we were hospitably
+entertaining persons politically distasteful to the French government,
+the courtesies of which we were now accepting; and there was a
+momentary impulse to keep her out of sight. A better judgment
+prevailed, however, and a very courteous exchange of French politeness
+ensued between the officials and the lady, to whom doubtless political
+significance attached. A more notable circumstance, in the light of
+the then future, was that during our few days in Cherbourg arrived the
+news of the capture of the city of Mexico by the French troops; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">Page 186</a></span>
+before our departure took place the official celebration, with flags
+and salutes, of that crowning event in an enterprise which in the end
+proved disastrous to its originator, and fatal to his prot&eacute;g&eacute;,
+Maximilian.</p>
+
+<p>The <em>Macedonian</em>, for a sailing-vessel, had a quite rapid run across
+from Newport to Plymouth, eighteen days from anchor to anchor, though
+I believe one of our frigates, after the war, made it in twelve. This
+was the only occasion, during my fairly numerous crossings, that. I
+have ever seen icebergs under a brilliant sky. Usually the scoundrels
+come skulking along masked by a fog, as though ashamed of themselves,
+as they ought to be. They are among the most obnoxious of people who
+do not know their place. This time we passed several, quite large,
+having a light breeze and perfectly clear horizon. After that it again
+set in thick, with the usual anxiety which ice, unseen but surely
+near, cannot but cause. Finally we took a very heavy gale of wind,
+which settled to southwest, hauling gradually to northwest and sending
+us rejoicing on our way a thousand miles in four days, much of this
+time under close-reefed topsails.</p>
+
+<p>I am not heedless of the great danger of merely prosing along in the
+telling of the days of youth, so I will shut off my experience of the
+<em>Macedonian</em> with an incident which amused me greatly at the time, and
+still seems to have a moral that one needs not to point. While lying
+at Spithead, a number of the midshipmen were sent ashore to visit the
+dock yard,&mdash;professional improvement. When they returned, the
+lieutenants in charge were full of the block-making processes. The
+ingenuity of the machinery, the variety and beauty of the blocks, the
+many excellences, had the changes rung upon them, meal after meal,
+till I could hear the whir of the wheels in my head and see the chips
+fly. Meantime, our captain went to London, having completed his
+official visiting, and an English captain came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">Page 187</a></span> on board to return a
+call. Declining my invitation to enter the cabin, he walked up and
+down the quarter-deck with me, discussing many things; under his arm
+his sword. Suddenly he stopped short, and pointing with it to a big
+iron-strapped leading-block, he said, "Now that is what I call a
+sensible block; I wonder why it is we cannot get blocks like that in
+our ships." I was not prepared with a reason for their defects, then
+or since; but my unreadiness has not marred my enjoyment of these
+divergent points of view. Perhaps the captain was a professional
+malcontent; for, looking at a Parrott rifled hundred-pounder gun which
+we carried on the quarter-deck, he said, interrogatively, "Not
+breech-loading?" "No," I answered, "breech-loading is not in favor
+with us at present." "And very right you are," he rejoined. I think
+they then (1863) still had the Armstrong breech-loading system. This
+incident may deserve a place in the pal&aelig;ontology of gun-making. There
+are now, I presume, no muzzle-loaders left; unless in museums, as
+specimens.</p>
+
+<p>Very shortly after the <em>Macedonian's</em> return home I was sent to New
+Orleans, for a ship on the Texas blockade; transportation being given
+me on one of the "beef-boats," as the supply-vessels were familiarly
+known. Among fellow-passengers was one of my class; for a while,
+indeed, my room-mate at the Academy. When we reached New Orleans the
+chief of staff said to me, "There is a vacancy on board the
+<em>Monongahela</em>," a ship larger and in every way better than the
+<em>Seminole</em> to which I was ordered; moreover, she was lying off Mobile,
+a sociable blockade, instead of at a jumping-off place, the end of
+nowhere, Sabine Pass, where the <em>Seminole</em> was. He advised me to apply
+for her, which I did; but Commodore Bell, acting in Farragut's absence
+in the North, declined. I must go to the ship to which the Department
+had assigned me, and for which it doubtless had its reasons. So my
+classmate was ordered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">Page 188</a></span> to her instead, and on board her was killed in
+the passage of the Mobile forts the following August. I can scarcely
+claim a miraculous escape, as it does not appear that I should have
+got in the way of the ball which finished him; but for him, poor
+fellow, who had not been long married, the commodore's refusal to me
+was a sentence of death.</p>
+
+<p>I shall not attempt to furbish up any intellectual entertainment for
+readers from the excessively dry bones of my subsequent blockading,
+especially off the mouth of the Sabine. Only a French cook could
+produce a passable dish out of such woful material; and even he would
+require concomitant ingredients, in remembered incidents, wherein, if
+there were any, my memory fails me. Day after day, day after day, we
+lay inactive&mdash;roll, roll; not wholly ineffective, I suppose, for our
+presence stopped blockade-running; but even in this respect the Texas
+coast had largely lost importance since the capture of Vicksburg and
+Port Hudson, the previous summer, had cut off the trans-Mississippi
+region from the body of the Confederacy. We used to see the big,
+light-draught steamers coming up the river, or crossing the
+lagoon-like bay, sometimes crowded with people; and the possibility
+was discussed of their carrying troops, and of their coming out to
+attack us, as not long before had been successfully done against our
+vessels <em>inside</em> Galveston Bay. In a norther, possibly, such a thing
+might have been tried, for the sea was then smooth; but in the
+ordinary ground-swell I imagine the soldiers would have been
+incapacitated by sea-sickness. The chances were all against success,
+and no attempt was ever made; but it was something to talk about.</p>
+
+<p>The ensuing twelve or fifteen months to the close of the war were
+equally uneventful. Long before they ended I had got back to the South
+Atlantic coast. To this I was indebted for the opportunity of being
+present when the United States flag was ceremoniously hoisted again
+over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">Page 189</a></span> what then remained of Fort Sumter, by General Robert Anderson,
+who, as Major Anderson, had been forced to lower it just four years
+before. Henry Ward Beecher delivered the address, of which I remember
+little, except that, citing the repeated question of foreigners, why
+we should wish to re-establish our authority over a land where the one
+desire of the people was to reject it, he replied, "We so wish,
+because it is ours." The sentiment was obvious enough, one would
+think, to any man who had a country to love and objected to seeing it
+dismembered, but to many of our European critics it then seemed
+monstrous in an American; at least they said so. The orator on such an
+occasion has only to swim with the current. The enthusiasm is already
+there; he needs not to elicit it. Here and again a blast of eloquence
+from him may start the fire roaring, but the flame is already kindled.
+The joy of harvest, the rejoicing of men who divide the spoil, the
+boasting of them who can now put off their harness, need not the
+stimulation of words.</p>
+
+<p>The exact coincidence of raising the flag over Sumter on the
+anniversary of its lowering was artificial, but the date of the
+surrender of Charleston, February 18th, was just opportune to complete
+the necessary arrangements and preparations without holding back the
+ceremony, on the night of which&mdash;Good Friday&mdash;within twelve hours,
+President Lincoln was murdered. Joy and grief were thus brought into
+immediate and startling contrast. A perfectly natural and quite
+impressive coincidence came under my notice in close connection with
+these occurrences. I was at this time on the staff of Admiral
+Dahlgren, commander-in-chief of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron
+during the last two years of the war, and accompanied him when he
+entered Charleston Harbor, which he had so long assailed in vain. The
+following Sunday I attended service at one of the Episcopal churches.
+The appointed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">Page 190</a></span> first lesson for the day, Quinquagesima, was from the
+first chapter of Lamentations, beginning, "How doth the city sit
+solitary, that was full of people!... She that was great among the
+nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become
+tributary!" Considering the conspicuous, and even leading, part played
+by Charleston in the Southern movement, "the cradle of secession," her
+initiation of hostilities, her long successful resistance, and her
+recent subjugation, the words and their sequence were strikingly and
+painfully applicable to her present condition; for the Confederate
+troops in evacuating had started a large destruction of property, and
+the Union forces on entering found public buildings, stores,
+warehouses, private dwellings, and cotton, on fire&mdash;a scene of
+distress to which some of them also further contributed.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> I myself
+remember streets littered with merchants' correspondence, a mute
+witness to other devastation. My recollection is that the officiating
+clergyman saw and dodged the too evident application, reading some
+other chapter. Many still living may recall how apposite, though to a
+different mood, was the first lesson of the Sunday&mdash;the third after
+Easter&mdash;which in 1861 followed the surrender of Sumter and the excited
+week that witnessed "the uprising of the North,"&mdash;Joel iii., v. 9:
+"Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles: Prepare war, wake up the mighty
+men, let all men of war draw near; let them come up. Beat your
+ploughshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears; let the
+weak say, I am strong." I was not in the country myself at that time,
+and my attention was first drawn to this in 1865 by a clergyman, who
+told me of his startled astonishment upon opening the Book. In the
+then public temper it must have thrilled every nerve among the
+hearers, already strained to the uttermost by events without parallel
+in the history of the nation.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">Page 191</a></span>Being on Dahlgren's staff gave me also the opportunity of seeing,
+gathered together in social assembly, all the general officers who had
+shared in the March to the Sea. This was at a reception given by
+Sherman in Savannah, within a week after entering that city, which may
+be considered the particular terminus of one stage in his progress
+through the heart of the Confederacy. The admiral had gone thither in
+a small steamer, which served as flag-ship, to greet the triumphant
+chief. Few, if any, of the more conspicuous of Sherman's subordinates
+were absent from the rooms, thronged with men whose names were then in
+all mouths, and who in honor of the occasion had changed their
+marching clothes for full uniform, rarely seen in campaign. From the
+heads of the two armies, the union of which under him constituted his
+force, down through the brigade commanders, all were there with their
+staffs; and many besides. The tone of this gathering was more subdued
+than at Fort Sumter, if equally exultant. Success, achievement, the
+clear demonstration of victory, such as the occupation of Savannah
+gave, uplifts men's hearts and swells their breasts; but these men had
+worked off some of their heat in doing things. Besides, there yet
+remained for them other and weighty things to do. It could be felt
+sympathetically that with them the pervading sensation was
+relaxation&mdash;repose. They had reached their present height by prolonged
+labor and endurance, and were enjoying rather the momentary release
+from strain than the intoxication of triumph.</p>
+
+<p>In expectation of the victorious arrival of the army in Savannah, I
+had been charged with two messages, in pathetic contrast with each
+other. The first was from my father to Sherman himself, who twenty
+years before had been under his teaching as a cadet at the Military
+Academy. I cannot now recall whether I bore with me a letter of
+congratulation which my father wrote him, and to which he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">Page 192</a></span> pleasantly
+replied that he had from it as much satisfaction as when in far-away
+days he had been dismissed from the blackboard with the commendation,
+"Very well done, Mr. Sherman." My reception by him, however, was in
+the exact spirit of this remark, and characteristic of the man. When I
+mentioned my name he broke into a smile&mdash;all over, as they say&mdash;shook
+my hand forcibly, and exclaimed, "What, the son of old Dennis?"
+reverting instinctively to the familiar epithet of school-days.</p>
+
+<p>My other errand was to a former school-mate of my mother's, resident
+in Savannah, with whom she had long maintained affectionate relations,
+which the war necessarily suspended. The next day I sought her out.
+When I found the house, she was at the door, in conversation with some
+of the subordinate officials of the invading army, probably with
+reference to the necessity of yielding rooms for quarters. The men
+were perfectly respectful, but the situation was perturbing to a
+middle-aged lady brought for the first time into contact with the
+rough customs of war, and she was very pale, worried in look, and
+harassed in speech; evidently quite doubtful as to what latent
+possibilities of harm such a visit might portend&mdash;whether ultimately
+she might not find herself houseless. I made myself known, but she was
+not responsive; courteous, for with her breeding she could not be
+otherwise, but too preoccupied with the harsh present to respond to
+the gentler feelings of the past. It was touchingly apparent that she
+was trying hard to keep a stiff upper lip, and her attempted frame of
+mind finally betrayed itself in the words, uttered tremulously, with
+excitement or mortification, "I don't admit yet that you have beaten
+us." I could scarcely contest the point, but it was very sad. At the
+moment I could almost have wished that we had not.</p>
+
+<p>At the mouths of the Georgia rivers Sherman's soldiers struck
+tide-water, many of them for the first time in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">Page 193</a></span> their lives; and a
+story was current that two, foraging, lay down to sleep by the edge of
+a stream, and were astounded by waking to find themselves in the
+water. To consider the tide, however, is an acquired habit. Sherman's
+approach to the Atlantic had given rise to a certain amount of naval
+and military activity on the part of the forces already stationed
+there. In connection with this I had been sent on some staff errand
+that caused me to spend a couple of days on board the <em>Pawnee</em>, which
+had just been carrying about army officers for reconnoissances. "By
+George!" said her captain, laughing and bringing down his fist on the
+table, "you can't make those fellows understand that a ship has to
+look out for the tide. I would say to them, 'See here, the tide is
+running out, and if we don't move very soon we shall be left aground,
+fast till next high-water.' 'Oh yes, yes,' they would reply, 'all
+right'; and then they would forget all about it, and go on as if they
+had unlimited time." But of course the captain did not forget.</p>
+
+<p>The fall of Richmond and Charleston, and the surrender of Lee's army,
+assuring the early termination of hostilities on any grand scale, the
+admiral had kindly transferred me from his staff back to the ship on
+board which I had joined the squadron a year before, and which was
+soon to return North. War service, nominal at least, was not, however,
+quite over; for after some brief repairs we were sent down to Ha&iuml;ti to
+take up the duty of convoying the Pacific Mail steamers from the
+Windward Passage (between Cuba and Ha&iuml;ti) some distance towards
+Panama. It is perhaps worth recording that such an employment incident
+to the war was maintained for quite a while, consequent upon the
+capture of the <em>Ariel</em>, before mentioned. Upon my personal fortunes it
+had the effect of producing a severe tropical fever, engendered
+probably during the years of Southern service, and brought to a head
+by the conditions of Ha&iuml;ti.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">Page 194</a></span> Whatever its cause, this led to my being
+invalided for six months, at the expiration of which, to my grievous
+disappointment, I was again assigned to duty in the Gulf of Mexico.
+The War of Secession then&mdash;December, 1865&mdash;was entirely over; but the
+Mexican expedition of Napoleon III., the culminating incident of
+which, the capture of Mexico, we had seen celebrated at Cherbourg in
+1863, was still lingering. Begun in our despite, when our hands were
+tied by intestine troubles, it now engaged our unfriendly interest;
+and part of the attention paid to it was the maintenance of a
+particular squadron in those waters&mdash;observant, if quiescent. Here
+again sickness pursued, not me, but my ship; from the mouth of the Rio
+Grande we returned to Pensacola, with near a hundred men, half the
+ship's company, down with fever. It was not malignant&mdash;we had but
+three deaths&mdash;but one of those was our only doctor, and we were sent
+to the far North, and so out of commission, in September, 1866. The
+particular squadron was continued till the following spring, when,
+under diplomatic pressure, the French expedition was withdrawn; but by
+then I was again in Rio de Janeiro on my way to China.</p>
+
+<p>The headquarters of this temporary squadron was at Pensacola; but
+until her unlucky visit to the Rio Grande my ship, the <em>Muscoota</em>, one
+of the iron double-ender paddle steamers which the war had evolved
+among other experiments, lay for some months at Key West, then, as
+always from its position, a naval station of importance. I suppose
+most people know that this word "Key," meaningless in its application
+to the low islands which it designates, is the anglicized form of the
+Spanish "Cayo." Among the valued acquaintances of my life I here met a
+clergyman, whose death at the age of eighty I see as these words pass
+from my pen. As chaplain to the garrison, he had won the esteem and
+praise of many, including General Sherman, for his devotion during an
+epidemic of yellow-fever, and he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">Page 195</a></span> was now rector of the only Episcopal
+parish. He told me an anecdote of one of his flock. Key West, from its
+situation, had many of the characteristics of an outpost, a frontier
+town, a mingling of peoples, with consequent rough habits, hard
+drinking, and general dissipation. The man in question, a good fellow
+in his way, professed to be a very strong churchman, and constantly so
+avowed himself; but the bottle was too much for him. The rector
+remonstrated. "&mdash;&mdash;, how can you go round boasting yourself a
+churchman when your life is so scandalous? You are doing the Church
+harm, not good, by such talk." "Yes, Mr. Herrick," he replied, "I know
+it's too bad; it is a shame; but, you see, all the same, I <em>am</em> a good
+churchman. I fight for the Church. If I hear a man say anything
+against her, I knock him down." It was at Mr. Herrick's table I heard
+criticised the local inadequacy of the prayer-book petition for rain.
+"What we want," said the speaker, "is not 'moderate rain and showers,
+that we may receive the fruits of the earth,' but a hard down-pour to
+fill our tanks." Key West and its neighbors then depended chiefly, if
+not solely, upon this resource for drinking-water.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="section_break"></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">Page 196</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2>
+
+<h3>A ROUNDABOUT ROAD TO CHINA</h3>
+
+<h3>1867</h3>
+
+
+<p>With the termination of the War of Secession, which had concentrated
+the entire effort of the navy upon our own coasts and inland waters,
+the policy of the government reverted, irreflectively perhaps, to the
+identical system of distribution in squadrons that had existed before.
+The prolonged tension of mind and effort during four years of
+overwrought activity was followed by a period of reaction, to which,
+as far as the administration of the navy was concerned, the term
+collapse would scarcely be misapplied. Of course, for a few years the
+evil effects of this would not be observable in the military resources
+of the government. Only the ravages of time could deprive us of the
+hundreds of thousands of veterans just released from the active
+practice of war; and the navy found itself in possession of a
+respectable fleet, which, though somewhat over-specialized in order to
+meet the peculiar conditions of the hostilities, was still fairly
+modern. There was a body of officers fully competent in numbers and
+ability, and comparatively young. In the first ship on board which I
+made a long cruise, beginning in 1867, of ten in the ward-room, three
+only, the surgeon, paymaster, and chief engineer, were over thirty;
+and they barely. I myself, next to the captain, was twenty-six; and
+there was not a married man among us. The seamen, though
+professionally more liable to dispersion than the land forces, were
+not yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">Page 197</a></span> scattered. Thus provided against immediate alarms, and with
+the laurels of the War of Secession still fresh, the country in
+military matters lay down and went to sleep, like the hare in the
+fable, regardless of the incessant progress on every side, which,
+indeed, was scarcely that of the tortoise. Our ships underwent no
+change in character or armament.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty years later, in the Pacific, I commanded one of these old
+war-horses, not yet turned out to grass or slaughter, ship-rigged to
+royals, and slow-steamed. One day the French admiral came on board to
+return my official visit. As he left, he paused for a moment abreast
+one of our big, and very old, pivot guns. "Capitaine," he said, "les
+vieux canons!" Two or three days later came his chief of staff on some
+errand or other. That discharged, when I was accompanying him to his
+boat at the gangway, he stopped in the same spot as the admiral. His
+gaze was meditative, reminiscent, perhaps even sentimental. "O&ugrave; sont
+les neiges d'antan?" Whatever their present merits as
+fighting-machines, he saw before him an historical memento, sweeping
+gently, doubtless, the chords of youthful memories. "Oui, oui!" he
+said at last; "l'ancien syst&ecirc;me. Nous l'avons eu." It was a summary of
+American naval policy during the twenty years following 1865; we
+"hail" things which other nations "had had," until Secretary Chandler
+started the movement of renovation by the first of all necessary
+steps, the official exposure of the sham to which we had allowed
+ourselves to be committed. There is an expression, "quaker guns,"
+applied to blackened cylinders of wood, intended to simulate cannon,
+and mounted upon ramparts or a ship's broadside to impose upon an
+enemy as to the force before him. We made four such for the
+<em>Macedonian</em>, to deceive any merchant-men we spoke as to our battery,
+in case she should report us to an <em>Alabama</em>; and, being carried near
+the bows, much trouble they gave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">Page 198</a></span> us, being usually knocked overboard
+when we tacked ship, or set a lower studding-sail. Well, by 1885 the
+United States had a "quaker" navy; the result being that, not the
+enemy, but our own people were deceived. Like poor Steece's passengers
+on board the <em>Ariel</em>, we were blissfully sheltering behind pine
+boards.</p>
+
+<p>In 1867, however, these old ships and ancient systems were but just
+passing their meridian, and for a brief time might continue to live on
+their reputation. They were beautiful vessels in outline, and repaid
+in appearance all the care which the seamen naturally lavishes on his
+home. One could well feel proud of them; the more so that they had
+close behind them a good fighting record. It was to one such, the
+<em>Iroquois</em>, which had followed Farragut from New Orleans to Vicksburg,
+that I reported on the second day of that then new year. She was
+destined to China and Japan, the dream of years to me; but, better
+still, there was chalked out for her an extensive trip, "from Dan to
+Beersheba," as a British officer enviously commented in my hearing. We
+were to go by the West Indies to Rio de Janeiro, thence by the Cape of
+Good Hope to Madagascar, to Aden at the mouth of the Red Sea, to
+Muscat at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, and so by India and Siam
+to our first port in Chinese waters, Hong Kong. The time, too, was
+apposite, for Japan had not yet entered upon the path of modernization
+which she has since pursued with such revolutionary progress. Some
+eight or ten years ago there lunched with me a young Japanese naval
+officer, who I understand has occupied a position of distinguished
+responsibility during the recent war with Russia. I chanced to ask him
+if he had ever seen a two-sworded man. He replied, Never. He belonged
+to the samurai class, who once wore them; but in actual life they have
+disappeared. When the <em>Iroquois</em> reached Japan, and throughout her
+stay, two-sworded men were as thick almost as blackberries. To<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">Page 199</a></span>
+European prepossessions it was illuminating to see half a dozen riding
+down a street, hatless, crown of the head shaved, with a short pigtail
+at the back tied tight near the skull and then brought stiffly forward
+close to the scalp; their figures gowned, the handles of the two
+swords projecting closely together from the left side of their
+garments, and the feet resting in stirrups of slipper form, which my
+memory says were of straw-work; but of that I am less sure. This
+equipment was completed by a painted fan stuck in the belt, and at
+times an opened paper umbrella. I have been passenger in the same boat
+with some of these warriors, accoutred as above, and using their fans
+as required, while engaged in animated conversation with the courtesy
+and smiling affability characteristic of all classes in Japan. Such,
+in outward seeming, then was the as yet raw material, out of which
+have been evolved the heroic soldiery who have recently astonished the
+world by the practical development they have given to modern military
+ideas; then as unlike the troops which now are, except in courage, as
+the ancient Japanese war-junk is to the present battle-ship. I was in
+Japan at the arrival of their first iron-clad, purchased in the United
+States, and doubtless long since consigned to the scrap-heap; but of
+her hereafter.</p>
+
+<p>A glance over the list of vessels in the <em>Navy Register</em> of 1907 shows
+me that the once abundant Indian names have disappeared, except where
+associated with some State or city; or, worse, have been degraded to
+tugboats, a treatment which the Indian, with all his faults, scarcely
+deserves. They no longer connote ships of war. <em>Iroquois</em>, <em>Seminole</em>,
+<em>Mohican</em>, <em>Wyoming</em>, <em>Oneida</em>, <em>Pawnee</em>, and some dozens more, are
+gone with the ships, and like the tribes, which bore them. Yet what
+more appropriate to a vessel meant for a scout than the tribal epithet
+of a North American Indian! <em>Dacotah</em>, alone survives; while for it
+the march of progress in spelling has changed the <em>c</em> to <em>k</em>, and
+phoneti<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">Page 200</a></span>cally dropped the silent, and therefore supposedly useless,
+<em>h</em>. As if silence had no merits! is the interjection, <em>ah</em>,
+henceforth to be spelled <em>a</em>? Since they with their names have passed
+into the world of ghosts&mdash;can there be for them a sea in the happy
+hunting-grounds?&mdash;it may be historically expedient to tell what manner
+of craft they were. If only some contemporary had done the same by the
+trireme, what time and disputation might have been saved!</p>
+
+<p>The <em>Iroquois</em> and her sisters, built in the fifties, were vessels of
+the kind to which I have applied the term corvette, then very common
+in all navies; cruisers only; scouts, or commerce-destroyers. Not of
+the line of battle, although good fighting-ships. Ours were of a
+thousand tons, as size was then stated, or about seven hundred tons
+"displacement," as the more modern expression runs; displacement being
+the weight of the water displaced by the hull which rests in and upon
+it. Thus measured, they were from one-third to one-fourth the
+dimensions of the vessels called third-class cruisers, which now
+correspond to them; but their serviceableness in their time was
+sufficiently attested by the Confederate <em>Alabama</em>, substantially of
+this general type, as was her conqueror, the <em>Kearsarge</em>. For external
+appearance, they were something over two hundred feet long, with from
+one-fifth to one-sixth that width, and sat low in the water. Low and
+long are nautical features, suggestive of grace and speed, which have
+always obtained recognition for beauty; and the rail of these vessels
+ran unbroken, but with a fine sweep, from bow to stern. Along the
+water-line, and extending a few inches above it, shone the burnished
+copper, nearly parallel to the rail, between which and it glistened
+the saucy black hull.</p>
+
+<p>Steam had not yet succeeded in asserting its undivided sway; but the
+<em>Iroquois</em> and her mates marked a stage in the progress, for they
+carried sails really as auxiliary, and were intended primarily to be
+fast steamers, as speed was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">Page 201</a></span> reckoned in their time. The larger
+vessels of the service were acceptedly slow under steam. They had it
+chiefly to fight with, and to help them across the places where wind
+failed or weakened. These corvettes carried sails with a view to
+saving coal, by utilizing the well-defined wind zones of the ocean
+when fair for their course. Though the practical result for both was
+much the same, the underlying idea was different. In the one, sail
+held the first place; in the other, steam; and it is the idea which
+really denotes and maintains intellectual movement and material
+progress. This was represented accordingly in the rig adopted. Like a
+ship, they had three masts, yes; but only the two forward were
+square-rigged, and on each of them but three sails. The lofty royals
+were discarded. The general result was to emphasize the design of
+speed under steam, and the use of sails with a fresh, fair wind only;
+a distinct, if partial, abandonment of the "auxiliary" steam reliance
+which so far had governed naval development. It may be added that the
+shorter and lighter masts, by a common optical effect, increased the
+impression of the vessel's length and swiftness, as was the case with
+the old-time sailing-frigate when her lofty topgallant-masts were down
+on deck.</p>
+
+<p>Under sail alone the <em>Iroquois</em> could never accomplish anything,
+except with a fair wind. We played with her at times, on the wind and
+tacking, but she simply slid off to leeward&mdash;never fetched near where
+she looked. Consonant with the expedient of using sails where the wind
+served, the screw could be disconnected from its shaft and hoisted;
+held in position, clear of the water, by iron pawls. In this way the
+hinderance of its submerged drag upon the speed of the ship was
+obviated. We did this on occasions, when we could reckon on a long
+period of favorable breezes; but it was a troublesome and somewhat
+anxious operation. The chance of a slip was not great, but the
+possibility was unpleasant to contemplate. When I add that for
+arma<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">Page 202</a></span>ment we carried one 100-pounder rifled gun on a pivot, and four
+9-inch smooth-bore shell guns&mdash;these being the naval piece which for
+the most part fought the War of Secession, then just closed&mdash;I shall
+have given the principal distinguishing features of a class of vessel
+which did good service in its day, and is now a much of the past as is
+the Spanish Armada. Yet it is only forty years since.</p>
+
+<p>After being frozen up and snowed under, during a very bitter and
+boisterous January, we at last got to sea, and soon ran into warmer
+weather. Our first stop was at the French West India island
+Guadeloupe, and there I had set for me amusingly that key-note of
+travelling experience which most have encountered. I was dining at a
+caf&eacute;, and after dinner got into conversation with an officer of the
+garrison. I asked him some question about the wet weather then
+reigning. "C'est exceptionnel," he replied; and exceptional we found
+it "from Dan to Beersheba." At our next port, Ciar&aacute;, there was drought
+when every resident said it should have rained constantly&mdash;a variation
+a stranger could endure; while at Rio it was otherwise peculiar&mdash;"the
+warmest April in years." The currents all ran contrary to the books,
+and the winds which should have been north hung obstinately at south.
+Whether for natural productions, or weather, or society, we were
+commonly three months too late or two months too soon; or, as one of
+"ours" put it, we should have come in the other monsoon. Nevertheless,
+it was impossible for youth and high spirits to follow our schedule
+and not find it spiced to the full with the enjoyment of novelty; if
+not in season, at least well seasoned.</p>
+
+<p>However, every one travels nowadays, and it is time worse than wasted
+to retell what many have seen. But do many of our people yet visit our
+intended second port, that most beautiful bay of Rio de Janeiro? I
+fancy not. It is far out of the ordinary line, and the business
+im<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">Page 203</a></span>migration to South America is much more from Europe than from our
+own continent; but, having since visited many harbors, in many lands,
+I incline to agree with my old captain of the <em>Congress</em>, there is
+none that equals Rio, viewed from the anchorage. Like Japan, I was
+happy enough to see Rio before it had been much improved, while the
+sequestered, primitive, tropical aspect still clung to it. I suppose
+the red-tiled roofs still rise as before from among the abundant
+foliage and the orange-trees, in the suburb of Bota Fogo; that the
+same deliciously suggestive smell of the sugar and rum hogsheads hangs
+about the streets; that the long, narrow Rua do Ouvidor is still
+brilliant with its multicolored feather flowers; and that at night the
+innumerable lights dazzle irregularly upward, like the fireflies which
+also there abound, over the hill-sides and promontories that so
+charmingly break the shore line. But already in 1867 the strides since
+1860 were strikingly visible. In the earlier year I used frequently to
+visit a friend living at Nichtherohy, on the opposite shore of the
+bay. The ferriage then was by trig, long, sharp-bowed, black paddle
+steamers, with raking funnels. They were tremendously fussy,
+important, puffing little chaps, with that consequential air which so
+frequently accompanies moderate performance. The making a landing was
+a complicated and tedious job, characterized by the same amount of
+needless action and of shortcoming in accomplishment. We would back
+and stop about twenty feet away from the end of a long, projecting
+pier. Then ropes would be got ashore from each extremity of the
+vessel; which done, she would back again, and the bow line would be
+shortened in. Then she would go ahead, and the like would be done by
+the stern line. This would fetch her, say, ten feet away, when the
+same processes must be repeated. I never timed, for why should one be
+in a hurry in the tropics, where no one else is? but it seemed to me
+that sometimes ten min<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">Page 204</a></span>utes were thus consumed. In 1867 these had
+disappeared, and had been replaced by Yankee double-ended boats, which
+ran into slips such as we have. Much more expeditious and sensible,
+but familiar and ugly to a degree, and not in the least entertaining;
+nor, I may add, congruous. They put you at once on the same absurd
+"jump" that we North Americans practise; whereas in the others we
+placidly puffed our cigars in an atmosphere of serenity. Time and tide
+may be so ridiculous as not to wait; we knew that waiting was
+enjoyment. The boat had time to burn, and so had we. At the later
+date, street-cars also had been introduced, and we were told were
+doing much to democratize the people. The man whose ability to pay for
+a cab had once severed him from the herd now went along with it, and
+saved his coppers. The black coats and tall black silk hats, with
+white trousers and waistcoats, which always struck me as such an odd
+blend, were still in evidence.</p>
+
+<p>The <em>Iroquois</em> did not succeed in making Rio without a stop. The
+northeast trades hung well to the eastward after we left Guadeloupe,
+and blew hard with a big sea; for it was the northern winter. Running
+across them, as we were, the ship was held close to the wind under
+fore and aft canvas. For a small vessel nothing is more uncomfortable.
+Rolling and butting at waves which struck the bow at an angle of
+forty-five degrees made walking, not impossible, indeed, to practised
+sea legs, but still a constant succession of gymnastic balancings that
+took from it all pleasure. For exercise it was not needed. You had but
+to sit at your desk and write, with one leg stretched out to keep your
+position. The varied movements of the muscles of that leg, together
+with those of the rest of the body, in the continued effort "to
+correct the horizontal deviation," as Boatswain Chucks phrased it,
+sent you to bed wearily conscious that you had had constitutional
+enough. The large consumption of coal in proportion to the ground
+covered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">Page 205</a></span> made a renewal necessary, and we went into Ciar&aacute;, an open
+roadstead sheltered only by submerged coral reefs, on the northeast
+coast of Brazil. Here the incessant long trade swell sets in upon a
+beach only partly protected; and boating is chiefly by catamarans, or
+<em>jangadas</em>, as the Portuguese word is,&mdash;three or four long trunks of
+trees, joined together side by side, without keel, but with mast.
+These are often to be seen far outside, and ride safely over the heavy
+breakers.</p>
+
+<p>From Rio to Capetown, being in the month of May, corresponding to our
+northern November, we had a South Atlantic passage which in
+boisterousness might hold its own with that between the United States
+and Europe, now familiar to so many. When clear of the tropics, one
+strikes in both hemispheres the westerly gales which are, so to say,
+the counter-currents of the atmosphere responding to the trade-winds
+of the equatorial belt&mdash;almost as prevalent in direction, though much
+more variable in force. The early Spanish navigators characterized
+them as "vientos bravos," an epithet too literally and flatteringly
+rendered into English by our seamen as "the brave west winds;" the
+Spanish "bravo" meaning rude. For a vessel using sail, however,
+"brave" may pass; for, if they hustled her somewhat unceremoniously,
+they at least did speed her on her way. On two successive Thursdays
+their prevalence was interrupted by a tempest, which in each case
+surpassed for suddenness, violence, and shortness anything that I
+remember; for I have never met a tropical hurricane, nor the full
+power of a China typhoon. On the first occasion the sun came up yellow
+and wet, with a sulky expression like that of a child bathed against
+its will; but, as the wind was moderate, sail was made soon after
+daylight. Immediately it began to freshen, and so rapidly that we
+could scarce get the canvas in fast enough. By ten it was blowing
+furiously. To be heard by a person<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">Page 206</a></span> standing at your elbow, you had to
+shout at the top of your voice. The wind shifted rapidly, a cyclone in
+miniature as to dimensions, though not as to strength; but the
+<em>Iroquois</em> had been hove-to on the right tack according to the law of
+storms. That is, the wind hauled aft; and as she followed, close to
+it, she headed to the sea instead of falling into the trough. When
+square sails are set, this gradual movement in the same direction is
+still more important; for, should the wind fly suddenly ahead, the
+sails may be taken aback, a very awkward situation in heavy weather.
+By five o'clock this gradual shifting had passed from east, by north,
+to west, where the gale died out; having lasted only about eight
+hours, yet with such vehemence that it had kicked up a huge sea. By 10
+<span class="ampm">P.M.</span> the stars were shining serenely, a gentle breeze barely steadying
+the ship, under increased canvas, in the huge billows which for a few
+hours continued to testify that things had been nasty. A spoiled child
+that has carried a point by squalling could scarcely present a more
+beaming expression than did the heavens; but our wet decks and clothes
+assured us that our discomfort had been real and was not yet over.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the ordeal the little <em>Iroquois</em>&mdash;for small she was by
+modern standards&mdash;though at a stand-still, lay otherwise as
+unconcerned as a duck in a mill-pond; her screw turning slowly, a
+triangular rag of storm-sail showing to steady her, rolling deeply but
+easily, and bowing the waves with gentle movement up or down, an
+occasional tremor alone betraying the shock when an unusually heavy
+comber hit her in the eyes. Then one saw admiringly that the simile
+"like a sea-fowl" was no metaphor, but exact. None were better
+qualified to pronounce than we, for the South Atlantic abounds in
+aquatic birds. We were followed continuously by clouds of them, low
+flying, skirting the water, of varied yet sober plumage. The names of
+these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">Page 207</a></span> I cannot pretend to give, except the monarch of them all, in
+size and majesty of flight, the albatross, of unsullied white, as its
+name implies&mdash;the king of the southern ocean. Several of these
+enormous but graceful creatures were ever sweeping about us in almost
+endless flight, hardly moving their wings, but inclining them
+wide-spread, now this way, now that, like the sails of a windmill, to
+catch the breeze, almost never condescending to the struggle of a
+stroke. By this alone they kept up with us, running eight or nine
+knots. As a quiet demonstration of reserve power it was most
+impressive; while the watching of the intricate man&oelig;uvres of these
+and their humbler companions afforded a sort of circus show, a relief
+always at hand to the monotony of the voyage.</p>
+
+<p>As this has remained my only crossing of the South Atlantic, my
+experience cannot claim to be wide; but, as far as it goes, these
+animating accompaniments of a voyage under sail are there far more
+abundant and varied than in the northern ocean. How far the steamer in
+southern latitudes may still share this privilege, I do not know; but
+certainly I now rarely see the petrel, unfairly called stormy, numbers
+of which hung ever near in the wake of a sailing-ship on her way to
+Europe, keeping company easily with a speed of seven or eight knots,
+and with spare power enough to gyrate continually in their wayward
+flight. What instinct taught them that there was food there for them?
+and, if my observation agree with that of others, why have they
+disappeared from steamers? Is it the greater pace that wearies, or the
+commotion of the screw that daunts them?</p>
+
+<p>Our second Thursday gale, May 16th, exceeded the first in fury and
+duration. Beginning at daybreak, it lasted till after sundown, twelve
+hours in all; and during it the <em>Iroquois</em> took on board the only
+solid sea that crossed her rail during my more than two years' service
+in her. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">Page 208</a></span> sprung also our main mast-head, which made us feel
+flatteringly like the ancient mariners, who, as we had read, were
+always "springing" (breaking) some spar or other. Ancient mariners and
+albatrosses are naturally mutually suggestive. Except for the greater
+violence, the conditions were much the same as a week before; with the
+exception, however, that the sun shone brightly most of the time from
+a cloudless sky, between which and us there interposed a milky haze,
+the vapor of the spoon-drift. During the height of the storm the
+pressure of the wind in great degree kept down the sea, which did not
+rise threateningly till towards the end. For the rest, our voyage of
+thirty-three hundred miles, while it afforded us many samples of
+weather, presented as a chief characteristic perpetual westerly gales,
+with gloomy skies and long, high following swell. Although the wind
+was such that close to it we should have been reduced to storm-sails,
+the <em>Iroquois</em> scudded easily before it, carrying considerable canvas.
+"Before it" must not be understood to mean ahead of the waves. These,
+as they raced along continually, swept by the ship, which usually
+lifted cleverly abaft as they came up; though at rare intervals a tiny
+bit of a crest would creep along over the poop and fall on the
+quarter-deck below&mdash;nothing to hurt. The onward movement of the
+billows, missing thus the stern, culminated generally about half-way
+forward, abreast the main-mast; and if the ship, in her continual
+steady but easy roll, happened just then to incline to one side, she
+would scoop in a few dozen buckets of water, enough to keep the decks
+always sloppy, as it swashed from side to side.</p>
+
+<p>From Rio to the Cape took us thirty-two days. This bears out the
+remark I find in an old letter that the <em>Iroquois</em> was very slow; but
+it attests also a series of vicissitudes which have passed from my
+mind, leaving predominant those only that I have noted. Among other
+expe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">Page 209</a></span>riences, practically all our mess crockery was smashed; the
+continual rolling seemed to make the servants wilfully reckless. Also,
+having an inefficient caterer, our sea stores were exhausted on the
+way, with the ludicrous exception of about a peck of nutmegs. Another
+singular incident remains in my memory. At dawn of the day before our
+arrival, a mirage presented so exactly, and in the proper quarter, the
+appearance of Table Mountain, the landmark of Cape Town, that our
+captain, who had been there more than once, was sure of it. As by the
+reckoning it must be still over a hundred miles distant, the
+navigating officer was summoned, to his great disconcertment, to be
+eye-witness of his personal error; and the chronometers fell under
+unmerited suspicion. The navigator was an inveterate violinist. He had
+a curious habit of undressing early, and then, having by this symbolic
+act laid aside the cares of the day, as elbow space was lacking in his
+own cabin, he would play in the open ward-room for an hour or more
+before turning in; always standing, and attired in a white night-shirt
+of flowing dimensions. He was a tall, dark, handsome man, the contrast
+of his full black beard emphasizing the oddness of his costume; and so
+rapt was he in his performance that remarks addressed directly to him
+were unheard. I often had to remind him at ten o'clock that music must
+not longer trouble the sleep of the mid-watch officers. On this
+occasion, with appearances so against him, perplexed but not
+convinced, after looking for a few moments he went below and sought
+communion with his beloved instrument; nor did the fading of the
+phantasm interrupt his fiddling. When announced, he listened absently,
+and continued his aria unmoved by such trivialities. Cape Flyaway, as
+counterfeits like this are called, had lasted so long and looked so
+plausible that the order was given to raise steam; and when it
+vanished later, after the manner of its kind, the step was not
+countermanded, for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">Page 210</a></span> weather was calm and there were abundant
+reasons in our conditions for hurrying into port.</p>
+
+<p>At the season of our stay, May and June, the anchorage at Cape Town
+itself, being open to the northward, is exposed to heavy gales from
+that quarter, often fatal to shipping. I believe this defect has now
+been remedied by a breakwater, which in 1867 either had not been begun
+or was not far enough advanced to give security. Vessels therefore
+commonly betook themselves to Simon's Bay, on the other side of the
+Cape, where these winds blew off shore. Thither the <em>Iroquois</em> went;
+and as communication with Cape Town, some twenty miles away, was by
+stage, the opportunity for ordinary visiting was indifferent. We went
+up by detachments, each staying several days. The great local natural
+feature of interest, Table Mountain, has since become familiar in
+general outline by the illustrations of the Boer War; from which I
+have inferred that similar formations are common in South Africa, just
+as I remember at the head of Rio Bay, on the road to Petropolis, a
+reproduction in miniature, both in form and color, of the huge
+red-brown Sugar-Loaf Rock that dominates the entrance from the sea.
+Seen as a novelty, Table Mountain was most impressive; but it seems to
+me that Altar Mountain would more correctly convey its appearance.
+With rocky sides, which rose precipitate as the Palisades of the
+Hudson, the sky-line was horizontal, and straight as though drawn by a
+ruler. At times a white cloud descends, covering its top and creeping
+like loose drapery down the sides, resembling a table-cloth; which
+name is given it. I believe that is reckoned a sign of bad weather.</p>
+
+<p>I recall many things connected with our stay there, but chiefly
+trivialities. Most amusing, because so embarrassing to the unprepared,
+was an unlooked-for and startling attention received from the British
+soldiery, whom I now met for the first time: for the war at home had
+hitherto<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">Page 211</a></span> prevented the men of my date from having much foreign
+cruising. I was in uniform in the streets, confining myself severely
+to my own business, when I saw approaching a squad of redcoats under a
+non-commissioned officer. Being used to soldiers, I was observing them
+only casually, but still with the interest of novelty, when wholly
+unexpectedly I heard, "Eyes right!" and the entire group, as one man,
+without moving their heads, slewed their eyes quickly round and
+fastened them steadily on me; the corporal also holding me with his
+glittering eye, while carrying his hand to his cap. Of course, in all
+salutes, from a civilian lifting his hat to a lady, to a military
+passing in review, the person saluting looks at the one saluted; but
+to find one's self without warning the undivided recipient of the
+steady stare of some half-dozen men, transfixed by what Mr. Snodgrass
+called "the mild gaze of intelligence beaming from the eyes of the
+defenders of their country," was, however flattering, somewhat
+disturbing to one not naturally obtrusive. With us the salute would
+have been given, of course; but only by the non-commissioned officer,
+touching his cap. Afterwards I was on the lookout for this, and dodged
+it when I could.</p>
+
+<p>Both in Rio and at the Cape the necessity for repairs occasioned
+delays which militated somewhat against the full development of our
+cruise. Through this, I believe, we missed a stop at Siam, which,
+consequently, I have never visited; and I know that towards the end
+our captain felt pressed to get along. Our next destination was
+Madagascar; to reach which, under sail, it was necessary to run well
+to the eastward, in a latitude farther south than that of Cape Town,
+before heading north. We left somewhat too soon the westerly winds
+there prevailing, and in consequence did not go to Tamatave, the
+principal port, on the east side of the great island, but passed
+instead through the Mozambique Channel. It was in attempting this
+same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">Page 212</a></span> passage that the British frigate <em>Aurora</em>, in which was serving
+the poet Falconer, the author of "The Shipwreck," disappeared with all
+on board; by what nautical fate overtaken has never been known. His
+first shipwreck, which he celebrated in verse, was on the coast of
+Greece, off Cape Colonna; the second in these far southern seas.</p>
+
+<p>The French occupation of Madagascar postdates our visit to it. The
+harbor we entered, St. Augustine's Bay, on the west side, was only
+nominally under control of the native dynasty at Antananarivo, in the
+centre of the island; and the local inhabitants were little, if at
+all, above barbarism. Though dark in color, they had not the flat
+negro features. Wandering with a companion through a jungle, having
+lost our way, we came unexpectedly upon a group of brown people,
+scantily dressed, the most conspicuous member of which was a woman
+carrying a spear a little taller than herself, the head of which was
+burnished till it shone like silver; whether a weapon, or simply a
+badge of rank, I do not know. They rose to meet us in friendly enough
+fashion, and had English sufficient to set us on our way. The place
+was frequented by whalers, who occasionally shipped hands from among
+the natives; one such came on board the <em>Iroquois</em>, and within a
+limited range spoke English fluently. Our chief acquaintance was known
+to us as Prince George, and I presume had some personal importance in
+the neighborhood. He was of use in obtaining supplies, hanging about
+the deck all day, obligingly ready at any moment to take a glass of
+wine or a cigar, and seemingly even a little sulky that he was not
+asked to table. The men dressed their hair in peculiar fashion,
+gathered together in little globes about the size of a golf ball,
+distributed somewhat symmetrically over the skull, and plastered with
+a substance which looked like blue mud. As I refrained from close
+inspection, I cannot pronounce certainly what it was.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">Page 213</a></span>From St. Augustine's Bay we went on to the Comoro Islands, between the
+north end of Madagascar and the African main-land. I do not know what
+was then the precise political status of this pleasant-looking group,
+except that one of them had for some years been under French control.
+Johanna, at which we stopped, possessed at the least a qualified
+self-government. We had a good sight of its surface, approaching from
+the south and skirting at moderate distance westward, to reach the
+principal anchorage, Johanna Town, on the north. The island is
+lofty&mdash;five thousand feet&mdash;and of volcanic origin; bearing the family
+likeness which I have found in all such that I have seen. On a bright
+day, which we had, they are very picturesque to look on from the sea,
+with their deep gullies, ragged precipices, and varied hues;
+especially striking from the effects of light and shadow produced by
+the exaggerated inequalities of the ground. It is hard to say which
+are the more attractive, these or the totally different low coral
+islands of the tropics, with their brilliant white sand, encircled by
+which, as by a setting of silver, the deep-green brush glows like an
+emerald. It is hard, however, to make other than a pleasing picture
+with a combination of blue water and land. Like flowers, they may be
+more or less tastefully arranged, but scarcely can be less than
+beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>In the way of landscape effect, Johanna had a special feature of its
+own. Up to a height of about fifteen hundred feet from the sea-level,
+the slopes were of a tawny hue, the color of grass when burned up by
+drought. Except scattered waving cocoanut palms which grew even on
+these hill-sides, no green thing was apparent, save in the ravines,
+where trees seemed to thrive, and so broke the monotony of tint with
+streaks of sombre verdure. Farther up, the peaks were thickly covered
+with a forest, which looked impenetrable. The abrupt contrast of the
+yellow lower land with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">Page 214</a></span> this cap of tanglewood, itself at times
+covered, at times only dotted, with fleecy clouds, was singularly
+vivid.</p>
+
+<p>The inhabitants of the island were Arabs, mixed with some negro blood,
+and wore the Oriental costume now so familiar to us all in this age of
+illustration. The ship was besieged by them at once, and throughout
+our stay, at all hours that they were permitted to come on board. They
+were cleanly in person, as their religion prescribes, and applied no
+offensive substance to their hair; on the contrary, some pleasant
+perfume was perceptible about their clothing. The coloring generally
+was dark, although some, among whom was the ruler, called the sultan,
+have olive skins; but the features were clear and prominent, the
+stature and form good, the bearing manly; nor did they seem other than
+intelligent. The teeth, too, were fine, when not disfigured by the
+chewing of the betel nut, which, when long continued, stains them a
+displeasing dark red. Like all barbarians, they talked, talked,
+talked, till one was nearly deafened. On one occasion, a group of them
+favored us with a theological exposition, marked by somewhat
+elementary conceptions. The ship was a perfect Babel at meal-times,
+when the intermission of work allowed the freest visiting. Every man
+who came brought at least a half-dozen fowl, with sweet potatoes,
+fruit, and eggs, to match; and as, in addition to our own crew
+bargaining, there were on the deck some fifty or sixty natives, all
+vociferating, bartering, beseeching, or yelling to the fifty others in
+canoes alongside, the tumult and noise may be conceived. The chickens,
+too, both cocks and hens, present by the hundred in basket-work cages,
+made no small contribution to the general uproar. Chickens, indeed,
+numerous though not large, are among the chief food commodities of
+that region; the usual price, as I recollect, being a dollar the
+dozen. When we left Johanna, we must have had on board several hundred
+as sea-stock. Not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">Page 215</a></span> infrequently one would get out of its cage, and if
+pursued would often end by flapping overboard, so by drowning
+anticipating its appointed doom; but it was a pathetic sight to see
+the poor creature, upborne by its feathers so long as dry, floating on
+the waste of waters in the wake of the ship which seemed almost
+heartlessly to forsake it.</p>
+
+<p>The faith of the island being Mohammedan, we found it safe to give a
+large liberty to the crew. Especially, if I rightly recall, I availed
+myself of the circumstance to let go certain ne'er-do-wells whose
+conduct under temptation was not to be depended on. We had the
+unprecedented experience that they all came back on time and sober;
+thus avouching that the precepts of the Prophet concerning rum were
+obeyed in Johanna. Exemplary in this, it would be difficult to say,
+otherwise, on what precise rung of the ladder stretching from
+barbarism to civilization these people stood. In manner towards us
+they were pleasant and smiling; not averse to the arts of diplomacy,
+but perhaps a little transparent in their approaches to a desired
+object. I went on shore one Friday, their Sunday, which was
+inadvertent on my part, for their religious duties interfered with
+customary routine; one and another excused themselves to me on the
+plea that they must go to pray. I was known, however, to be in
+authority on board, which produced for me some simple hospitality,
+principally not very inviting lemonade&mdash;attentions that I soon found
+to be not wholly disinterested. Next day one of my hosts came on board
+and interviewed me with many bows. "The <em>Iroquois</em> very fine ship,
+much better than English ship. Captain English very good man; and
+first lieutenant [myself] he <em>very good</em> man;" and the complimenter
+would like certain articles within the gift of the said very good man,
+together with a note to bearer, permitting him to come aboard at any
+time.</p>
+
+<p>Being by this some weeks away from Cape Town, we sent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">Page 216</a></span> our wash
+ashore; a resort of desperation. It came back clean enough, but for
+ironing&mdash;well; and as to starch, much in the predicament of Boatswain
+Chuck's frilled shirts after the gale, upon which, while flying in the
+breeze, he looked with a degree of professional philosophy that could
+express itself only by thrashing the cooper. Crumpled would be a mild
+expression for our linen. We remonstrated, but were met with a shrug
+of the shoulders and a deprecatory but imperturbable smile&mdash;"Yes;
+Johanna wash!" And "Johanna" we found we were expected to receive as a
+sufficient explanation for any deficiencies in any line. If not
+satisfactory to us, it was at least modest in them.</p>
+
+<p>Grave courtesies, ceremonious in conception, if rather rudimentary in
+execution, were exchanged between us and the authorities of Johanna.
+Our captain returned the visit of the official in charge of the place,
+and subsequently called upon the sultan, who came to the town while we
+were there. I went along on the first occasion. Upon reaching the
+beach we found a guard of some forty negro soldiers, whose equipment,
+as to shoes, resembled that of the Barbadian company immortalized in
+Peter Simple; but in this instance there was no attempt at that
+decorous regard for externals which ordered those with both shoes and
+stockings to fall in in the front rank, and those with neither to keep
+in the rear. They were commanded by a young Arab, who seemed very
+anxious to do all in style, rising on tiptoe at the several orders,
+which he jerked out with vim, and to my surprise in English. When duly
+pointed, we marched off to the sound of a drum, accompanied by a
+peculiar monotonous wail on a kind of trumpet; the order of the
+procession being, 1, music; 2, the soldiers, led by an old sergeant in
+a high state of excitement and coat-collar, which held the poor
+fellow's head like a vise; and, 3, our captain and his attendants. The
+visit to the sultan, two days later,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">Page 217</a></span> was marked by additional
+features, indicative, I presume, of the greater dignity of the event;
+the captain being now carried in a chair with a red silk umbrella over
+his head.</p>
+
+<p>Between three and four years before our visit, the Confederate steamer
+<em>Alabama</em> had stopped at Johanna, and, so at least our friends told
+us, Semmes had promised them a Yankee whaler or two. Whether he found
+the whalers or not I cannot say; but to the Johannese it was a
+Barmecide feast, or like the anticipation of Sisera's ladies&mdash;"to
+every man a damsel or two." To use their own quaint English, the next
+thing they heard of the <em>Alabama</em>, "he go down."</p>
+
+<p>We left Johanna with the southwest monsoon, which in the Indian Ocean
+and China Sea blows from June to September with the regularity of the
+trade-winds of the Atlantic, both in direction and force. There the
+favorable resemblance ends; for, in the region through which we were
+passing, this monsoon is overcast, usually gloomy, and excessively
+damp. The northeast monsoon, which prevails during the winter months,
+is clear and dry. The consequent struggle with shoe-leather, and the
+deterioration of the same, is disheartening. But, though surcharged
+with moisture, rain does not fall to any great extent in the open sea,
+nor until the atmospheric current impinges on land, when it seems to
+be squeezed, like a sponge by the hand, with resultant precipitation.
+Our conditions were therefore pleasant enough. Being under sail only,
+the wind went faster than we, giving a cooling breeze as it passed
+over; and it was as steady and moderate as it was fair for our next
+destination, Aden, to reach which we were now pointing for Cape
+Guardafui. The <em>Iroquois</em> ran along steadily northward, six to eight
+knots, followed by a big sea, but so regular that she rolled only with
+a slow, steady swing, not disagreeable. The veiled sun showed
+sufficiently for sights, without burning heat, and by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">Page 218</a></span> same token
+we passed that luminary on our course; that is, he was north of us
+while at Johanna, and one day on this run we got north of him. This
+must have been after we had crossed the equator; for, being August,
+the sun was still north of the "Line."</p>
+
+<p>This reminds me that, the day we thus passed the sun, our navigator,
+usually very exact, applied his declination wrong at noon, which gave
+us a wrong latitude. For a few minutes the discrepancy between the
+observation and the log caused a shaking of heads; the log doubtless
+fell under an unmerited suspicion, or else we had encountered a
+current not hitherto noted in the books, the usual solvent in such
+perplexities. I may explain for the unlearned in navigation that
+declination of a heavenly body corresponds in the celestial sphere to
+the latitude of an object on the terrestrial. The sun, being a
+leisurely celestial globe-trotter, continually varies his
+latitude&mdash;declination&mdash;within a zone bounded by the two tropics; and
+the rule runs that when his declination is of the same name (north or
+south) as his direction from the ship at noon, the declination is
+added or subtracted, I now forget which, in the computation that
+ascertains the vessel's precise position. This has to be remembered
+when he is passed overhead, in the zenith; for then the bearing
+changes, while his declination remains of the same name. If the
+resulting error is large, of course the mistake is detected
+immediately; a slight difference might pass unnoted with dangerous
+consequences.</p>
+
+<p>At Johanna, or possibly at St. Augustine's, some of our officers and
+men, moved by that queer propensity of mankind to acquire strange
+objects, however useless, had bought animals of the kind called
+mongoos. There were perhaps a half-dozen of these in all. The result
+was that most of them, one way or another, escaped and took refuge
+aloft in the rigging, where it was as hopeless to attempt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">Page 219</a></span> recapture
+as for a man to pursue a gray squirrel in a tree. The poor beggars had
+achieved their liberty, however, without the proverbial crust of bread
+or cup of water; and in consequence, after fasting all day, gave
+themselves to predatory nocturnal forays, which were rather startling
+when unexpectedly aroused by them from sleep. The ward-room pantry was
+near my berth, and I remember being awaked by a great commotion and
+scuffling, as one or more utensils were upset and knocked about in the
+unhappy beast's attempt to get at water kept there in a little cask.
+No reconcilement between them and man was effected, and one by one
+they dropped overboard, the victims of accident or suicide, noted or
+unnoted, to their deliverance and our relief. While they lasted it was
+pathetic to watch their furtive movements and unrelaxed vigilance,
+jealously guarding the freedom which was held under such hopeless
+surroundings and must cost them so dear at last.</p>
+
+<p>When the ship had rounded Cape Guardafui and fairly entered the Strait
+of Bab-el-Mandeb, the alteration of weather conditions was immediate
+and startling. The heat became all at once intense and dry. From the
+latter circumstance the relief was great. I remember that many years
+afterwards, having spent a month or more determining a site for a
+navy-yard in Puget Sound, where the temperature is delightful but the
+atmosphere saturated, I experienced a similar sense of bodily comfort,
+when we reached Arizona, returning by the Southern Pacific Railroad.
+One morning I got up from the sleeper and walked out into the rare,
+crisp air of a way station, delighted to find myself literally as dry
+as a bone, and a very old bone, too; tertiary period, let us say. The
+sudden change in the strait proved fatal to one of our officers. He
+had been ailing for a few days, but on the night after we doubled the
+cape woke up from a calm sleep in wild delirium, and in a brief period
+died from the bursting of an aneurism; an effect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">Page 220</a></span> which the surgeon
+attributed to the abrupt increase of heat. I may add that, though dry,
+the air was felt by us to be debilitating. During the ten days passed
+in the gulf, young as I then was, I was indisposed to any unusual
+bodily or mental effort. What breeze reached us, coming over desert
+from every direction, was like the blast of a furnace, although the
+height of the thermometer was not excessive.</p>
+
+<p>It was scarcely fair to Aden to visit it in midsummer, but our voyage
+had not been timed with reference to seasons or our comfort. I shall
+not weary a reader with any attempt at description of the treeless
+surroundings and barren lava crags that constitute the scenery; which,
+moreover, many may have seen for themselves. What chiefly interested
+me were the Jews and the camels. Like Gibraltar, and in less measure
+Key West, Aden is a place where meet many and divers peoples from
+Asia, from Africa, and from Europe. Furthermore, it has had a long and
+checkered history; and this, at an important centre on a commercial
+route, tends to the gathering of incongruous elements. English, Arabs,
+Parsees from India, Som&acirc;lese from Africa,&mdash;across the gulf,&mdash;sepoy
+soldiers, and Jews, all were to be met; and in varieties of costume
+for which we had not been prepared by our narrow experience of
+Oriental dress in Johanna. The Jews most attracted my attention&mdash;an
+attraction of repulsion to the type there exhibited, though I am
+without anti-Semitic feeling. That Jesus Christ was a Jew covers His
+race for me. These were reported to have enjoyed in earlier times a
+period of much prosperity, which had been destroyed in one of the
+dramatic political reverses frequent in Eastern annals. Since then
+they had remained a degraded and abject class. Certainly, they were
+externally a very peculiar and unprepossessing people. The physiognomy
+commonly associated with the name Jew was very evident, though the
+cast of feature had been brutalized by ages of oppression and
+servility. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">Page 221</a></span> singular distinctive mark was the wearing on both sides
+of the forehead long curls falling to the shoulders. Cringing and
+subservient in manner, and as traders, there was yet apparent behind
+the Uriah Heap exterior a fierce cruelty of expression which would
+make a mob hideous, if once let loose. A mob, indeed, is ever
+terrible; but these men reconstituted for me, with added vividness,
+the scene and the cry of "Crucify Him!"</p>
+
+<p>Although I was new to the East, camels in their uncouth form and
+shambling gait had been made familiar by menageries; but in Aden I
+first saw them in the circumstances which give the sense of
+appropriateness necessary to the completeness of an impression, and,
+indeed, to its enjoyment. Environment is assuredly more essential to
+appreciation than is commonly recognized. Does beer taste as good in
+America as in England? I think not, unless perhaps in Newport, Rhode
+Island. Climatic, doubtless. I have been told by Englishmen that the
+very best pineapples to be had are raised in England under glass. Very
+good; but where is your tropical heat to supply the appreciative
+palate? I remember, in a railway train in Guatemala, some women came
+along with pineapples. I gave five cents, expecting one fruit; she,
+unwilling to make change, forced upon me three. Small, yes; pygmies
+doubtless to the hot-house aristocrats; but at a dinner-table with
+artificial heat could one possibly want them as much, or enjoy them as
+keenly, as under the burning southern sun, eaten like an apple, the
+juice streaming to the ground? A camel sauntering down Broadway would
+be odd only; a camel in an Eastern street has the additional setting
+needed to fix him accurately in your gallery of mental pictures;
+though, for the matter of that, I suppose a desert would be a still
+more fitting surrounding. Aden has no natural water supply for daily
+use; one of the sights are the great tanks for storing it, constructed
+by some bygone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">Page 222</a></span> dynasty. When we were there the place relied for
+emergencies upon the more modern expedient of condensers, but for
+ordinary consumption was mainly dependent upon that brought in skins
+from the adjacent country on the backs of camels, which returned
+charged with merchandise. I watched one of these ships of the desert
+being laden for the homeward voyage. He was on his knees, placidly
+chewing the cud of his last meal, but with a watchful eye behind him
+upon his master's movements. Eternal vigilance the price of liberty,
+or at least the safeguard against oppression, was clearly his
+conviction; nor did he believe in that outworn proverb not to yell
+before you are hurt. As each additional package, small or big, was
+laid on the accumulating burden, he stretched out his long neck,
+craned it round to the rear, opening his mouth as though to bite, to
+which he seemed full fain, at the same time emitting a succession of
+cries more wrathful even than dolorous, though this also they were.
+But the wail of the sufferer went unheeded, and deservedly; for when
+the load was complete to the last pound he rose, obedient to signal,
+and stepped off quietly, evidently at ease. He had had his grumble,
+and was satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>An impression which accumulates upon the attentive traveller following
+the main roads of maritime commerce is the continual outcropping of
+the British soldier. It is not that there is so much of him, but that
+he is so manywhere. In our single voyage, at places so apart as Cape
+Town, Aden, Bombay, Singapore, Hong Kong. Although not on our route,
+nevertheless linked to the four last named by the great ocean highway
+between East and West, consecutive even in those distant days before
+the Suez Canal, he was already in force in Gibraltar and Malta; since
+which he is to be found in Cypress also and in Egypt. He is no chance
+phenomenon, but an obvious effect of a noteworthy cause; an incident
+of current history, the exponent, uncon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">Page 223</a></span>sciously to himself, of many
+great events. In our country we have wisely learned to scrutinize with
+distrust arguments for manifest destiny; but it is, nevertheless, well
+to note and ponder a manifest present, which speaks to a manifest
+past.</p>
+
+<p>From Aden the <em>Iroquois</em> ran along the southern coast of Arabia to
+Muscat, within the entrance of the Persian Gulf. Here, after leaving
+the open sea, we met a recurrence of the heat, and, in general
+features, of the scenery we had left at Aden; the whole confirming the
+association of the name Arabia with scorching and desert. The Cove of
+Muscat, though a mere indentation of the shore-line, furnishes an
+excellent harbor, being sheltered by a rocky island which constitutes
+a natural breakwater. There is considerable trade, and the position is
+naturally strong for defence, with encircling cliffs upon which forts
+have been built; but from our experience, told below, it is probable
+that their readiness did not correspond to their formidable aspect.
+From the anchorage of the <em>Iroquois</em> the town was hardly to be
+descried, the gray color of the stone used in construction blending
+with the background of the mountains, from which probably it had been
+quarried; but nearer it is imposing in appearance, there being several
+minarets, and some massive buildings, among which the ruins of a
+Portuguese cathedral bear their mute testimony to a transitory era in
+the long history of the East. During our stay there was some
+disturbance in the place. Our information was that the reigning
+sovereign had killed his father two years before; and that in
+consequence, either through revenge or jealousy, his father's brother
+kept him constantly stirred up by invasion, or threats of invasion,
+from the inner country. Such an alarm postponed for the moment a
+ceremonious visit which our captain was to pay, but it took place next
+day. As it called for full uniform, I begged off. Those who went
+returned with unfavorable reports, both of the town and of the
+sultan.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">Page 224</a></span>A rather funny incident here attended our exchange of civilities. In
+ports where there is cause to think that the expenditure of powder may
+be inconvenient to your hosts, or that for any reason they may not
+return a salute, it is customary first to inquire whether the usual
+national honors "to the flag" will be acceptable and duly answered,
+gun for gun. In Aden, being British, of course no questions were
+asked; but in Muscat I presume they were, for failure to give full
+measure creates a diplomatic incident and correspondence. At all
+events, we saluted&mdash;twenty-one guns; to which the castle replied. When
+the tale was but half complete there came from one of its cannon a
+huge puff of smoke, but no accompanying report. "Shall I count that?"
+shouted the quartermaster, whose special duty was to keep tally that
+we got our full pound of flesh. A general laugh followed; the
+impression had resembled that produced by an impassioned orator, the
+waving of whose arms you see, without hearing the words which give
+point to his gesticulations, and the quartermaster's query drove home
+the absurdity. It was solemnly decided, however, that that should be
+reckoned a gun. The intention was good, if result was imperfect. We
+had been done out of our noise, but we had had our smoke; and, in
+these days of smokeless powder, it is hopeful to record an instance of
+noiseless.</p>
+
+<p>In those few indolent days which we drowsed away in the heat of
+Muscat, one thing I noticed was the vivid green of the water,
+especially in patches near the shore, and in the crevices of the rocky
+basin. I wonder did Moore have a hint of this, or draw upon his
+imagination? Certainly it was there&mdash;a green more brilliant than any I
+have ever seen elsewhere, and of different shade.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"No pearl ever lay under Oman's green water,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">More pure in its shell than thy spirit in thee."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">Page 225</a></span>After the comparatively sequestered series of St. Augustine's Bay, the
+Comoros, Aden, and Muscat, our next port, Bombay, seemed like
+returning to city hubbub and accustomed ways. True, Indian life was
+strange to most of our officers, if not to all; but there was about
+Bombay that which made you feel you had got back into the world,
+albeit in many particulars as different from that you had hitherto
+known as Rip Van Winkle found after his long slumber. Then, a decade
+only after the great mutiny, travel to India for travel's sake was
+much more rare than now. The railway system, that great promoter of
+journeyings, was not complete. Two years later, when returning from
+China, I found opportunity to go overland from Calcutta to Bombay; but
+in the interior had to make a long stage by carriage between
+Jubbulpore and Nagpore. Since that time many have visited and many
+have written. I shall therefore spare myself and my possible readers
+the poor portrayal of that which has been already and better
+described. Johnson's advice to Boswell, "Tell what you have observed
+yourself," I take to mean something different from those externals the
+sight of which is common to all; unless, as in the Corsica of Boswell,
+few go to see them. What you see is that which you personally have the
+faculty of perceiving; depends upon you as much as upon the object
+itself. It may not be worth reporting, but it is all you have. I do
+not think I remember of Bombay anything thus peculiarly my own. I do
+recall the big snakes we saw lying apparently asleep on the sea, fifty
+or sixty miles from land. Perhaps readers who have not visited the
+East may not know that such modified sea-serpents are to be seen
+there, as is a smaller variety in the Strait of Malacca.</p>
+
+<p>From Bombay we made a long leg to Singapore. We had sailed in early
+February; it was now late September, and our captain, as I have said
+before, began to feel anxious to reach the station. Owing to this
+haste, we omitted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">Page 226</a></span> Ceylon and Calcutta, which did not correspond to
+the expectation or the wishes of the admiral; and we missed&mdash;as I
+think&mdash;orders sent us to take in Siam before coming to Hong Kong. It
+is very doubtful whether, had we received them, we should have seen
+more of interest than awaited us shortly after our arrival in Japan.
+At all events, as in duty bound, I shall imitate my captain, and skip
+rapidly over this intervening period. There is in it nothing that
+would justify my formed intention not to enlarge upon that which
+others have seen and told.</p>
+
+<p>We made the run to Singapore at the change of the monsoon, towards the
+end of September; and at that time a quiet passage is likely, unless
+you are so unlucky as to encounter one of the cyclones which
+frequently attend the break-up of the season at this transition
+period. There is a tendency nowadays to discredit the equinox as a
+storm-breeder. As regards the particular day, doubtless recognition of
+a general fact may have lapsed into superstition as to a date; but in
+considering the phenomena of the monsoons, the great fixed currents of
+air blowing alternately to or from the heated or cooled continent of
+Asia, it seems only reasonable, when the two are striving for
+predominance, to expect the uncertain and at times terrific weather
+which as a matter of experience does occur about the period of the
+autumnal equinox in the India and China seas. But after we had made
+our southing from Bombay our course lay nearly due east, with a fresh,
+fair, west wind, within five degrees of the equator, a zone wherein
+cyclonic disturbance seldom intrudes. One of the complaints made by
+residents against the climate of Singapore, so pleasant to a stranger,
+is the wearisome monotony. Close to the equator, it has too much
+sameness of characteristic; <em>toujours perdrix</em>. Winter doubtless adds
+to our appreciation of summer. For all that, I personally am ready to
+dispense with snow.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">Page 227</a></span>From Singapore, another commercial centre with variety of inhabitants,
+we carried the same smooth water up to Manila, where we stopped a few
+days for coal. This was the first of two visits paid while on the
+station to this port, which not our wildest imagination expected ever
+to see under our flag. Long as American eyes had been fixed upon Cuba,
+in the old days of negro slavery, it had occurred to none, I fancy, to
+connect possession of that island with these distant Spanish
+dependencies. Here our quiet environment was lost. The northeast
+monsoon had set in in full force when we started for Hong Kong, and
+the run across was made under steam and fore-and-aft canvas, which we
+were able to carry close on the wind; a wet passage, throwing a good
+deal of water about, but with a brilliant sky and delightful
+temperature. It would be hard to exaggerate the beauty of the weather
+which this wind brings. In the northern American states we have
+autumnal spells like it; but along the Chinese coast it continues in
+uninterrupted succession of magnificent days, with hardly a break for
+three or four months; an invigorating breeze always blowing, the
+thermometer ranging between 50&deg; and 60&deg;, a cloudless sky, the air
+perfectly dry, so that furniture and wood fittings shrink, and crack
+audibly. As rain does not fall during this favored season, the dust
+becomes objectionable; but that drawback does not extend to shipboard.
+The man must be unreasonable who doubts life being worth living during
+the northeast monsoon. Hong Kong is just within the tropics, and
+experiences probably the coolest weather of any tropical port. Key
+West, in the same latitude, is well enough in a Gulf of Mexico
+norther; that is, if you too are well. The last time I ever saw
+General Winfield Scott, once our national military hero, was there,
+during a norther. I had called, and found him in misery; his gigantic
+frame swathed in heavy clothing, his face pallid with cold. He
+explained that he liked always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">Page 228</a></span> to be in a gentle perspiration, and
+had come to Key West in search of such conditions. These the place
+usually affords, but the houses are not built to shut out the chill
+Which accompanies a hard norther. The general was then eighty, and
+died within the year.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="section_break"></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">Page 229</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X</h2>
+
+<h3>CHINA AND JAPAN</h3>
+
+<h4>1867&ndash;1869</h4>
+
+
+<p>The <em>Iroquois</em> had been as nearly as possible nine months on her way
+from New York to Hong Kong. A ship of the same class, the <em>Wachusett</em>,
+which left the station as we reached it, had taken a year, following
+much the same route. Her first lieutenant, who during the recent
+Spanish War became familiarly known to the public as Jack Philip, told
+me that she was within easy distance of Hong Kong the day before the
+anniversary of leaving home. Her captain refused to get up steam; for,
+he urged, it would be such an interesting coincidence to arrive on the
+very date, month and day, that she sailed the year before. I fear that
+man would have had no scruple about contriving an opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>As the anchor dropped, several Chinese boats clustered alongside,
+eager to obtain their share of the ship's custom. It is the habit in
+ships of war to allow one or more boatmen of a port the privilege of
+bringing off certain articles for private purchase; such as the
+various specialties of the place, and food not embraced in the ship's
+ration. From the number of consumers on board a vessel, even of
+moderate size, this business is profitable to the small traders who
+ply it, and who from time immemorial have been known as bumboatmen. A
+good name for fair dealing, and for never smuggling intoxicants, is
+invaluable to them; and when thus satisfactory they are passed on from
+ship<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">Page 230</a></span> to ship, through long years, by letters of recommendation from
+first lieutenants. Their dealings are chiefly with the crew, the
+officers' messes being provided by their stewards, who market on
+shore; but at times officers, too, will in this way buy something
+momentarily desired. I remember an amusing experience of a messmate of
+mine, who, being discontented with the regular breakfast set before
+him, got some eggs from the bumboat. Already on a growl, he was
+emphatic in directing that these should be cooked very soft, and great
+was his wrath when they came back hard as stones. Upon investigation
+it proved that they were already hard-boiled when bought. The cable
+was not yet secured when these applicants crowded to the gangway,
+brandishing their certificates, and seeking each to be first on deck.
+The captain, who had not left the bridge, leaned over the rail,
+watching the excited and shouting crowd scrambling one over another,
+and clambering from boat to boat, which were bobbing and chafing up
+and down, rubbing sides, and spattering the water that was squeezed
+and squirted between them. The scene was familiar to him, for he was
+an old China cruiser, only renewing his acquaintance. At length,
+turning to me, he commented, "There you have the regular China smell;
+you will find it wherever you go." And I did; but how describe it&mdash;and
+why should I?</p>
+
+<p>At this time the Japanese had conceded two more treaty ports, in the
+Inland Sea&mdash;Osaka and Kob&eacute;; and as the formal opening was fixed for
+the beginning of the new year&mdash;1868&mdash;most of the squadron had already
+gone north. We therefore found in Hong Kong only a single vessel, the
+<em>Monocacy</em>, an iron double-ender; a class which had its beginning in
+the then recent War of Secession, and disappeared with it. Some six
+weeks before she had passed through a furious typhoon, running into
+the centre of it; or, more accurately, I fancy, having the centre pass
+over her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">Page 231</a></span> Perhaps it may not be a matter of knowledge to all readers
+that for these hurricanes, as for many other heavy gales, the term
+cyclone is exact; that the wind does actually blow round a circle, but
+one of so great circumference that at each several point it seems to
+follow a straight line. Vessels on opposite sides of the circle thus
+have the wind from opposite directions. In the centre there is usually
+a calm space, of diameter proportioned to that of the general
+disturbance. As the whole storm body has an onward movement, this
+centre, calm or gusty as to wind, but confused and tumultuous as to
+wave, progresses with it; and a vessel which is so unhappy as to be
+overtaken finds herself, after a period of helpless tossing by
+conflicting seas, again subjected to the full fury of the wind, but
+from the quarter opposite to that which has already tried her.
+Although at our arrival the <em>Monocacy</em> had been fully repaired, and
+was about to follow the other vessels, her officers naturally were
+still full of an adventure so exceptional to personal experience. She
+owed her safety mainly to the strength and rigidity of her iron hull.
+A wooden vessel of like construction would probably have gone to
+pieces; for the wooden double-enders had been run up in a hurry for a
+war emergency, and were often weak. As the capable commander of one of
+them said to me, they were "stuck together with spit." Battened down
+close, with the seas coming in deluges over both bows and both
+quarters at the same time, the <em>Monocacy</em> went through it like a
+tight-corked bottle, and came out, not all right, to be sure, but very
+much alive; so much so, indeed, that she was carried on the Navy
+Register for thirty years more. She never returned home, however, but
+remained on the China station, for which she was best suited by her
+particular qualities.</p>
+
+<p>By the time the <em>Iroquois</em>, in turn, was ready to leave Hong
+Kong&mdash;November 26th&mdash;the northeast monsoon had made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">Page 232</a></span> in full force,
+and dolorous were the prognostications to us by those who had had
+experience of butting against it in a northward passage. It is less
+severe than the "brave" west winds of our own North Atlantic; but to a
+small vessel like the <em>Iroquois</em>, with the machinery of the day, the
+monsoon, blowing at times a three-quarters gale, was not an adversary
+to be disregarded, for all the sunshiny, bluff heartiness with which
+it buffeted you, as a big boy at school breezily thrashes a smaller
+for his own good. To-day we have to stop and think, to realize the
+immense progress in size and power of steam-vessels since 1867. We
+forget facts, and judge doings of the past by standards of the
+present; an historical injustice in other realms than that of morals.</p>
+
+<p>In our passage north, however, we escaped the predicted disagreeables
+by keeping close to the coast; for currents, whether of atmosphere or
+of water, for some reason slacken in force as they sweep along the
+land. I do not know why, unless it be the result of friction retarding
+their flow; the fact, however, remains. So, dodging the full brunt of
+the wind, we sneaked along inshore, having rarely more than a
+single-reef topsail breeze, and with little jar save the steady thud
+of the machinery. A constant view of the land was another advantage
+due to this mode of progression, and it was the more complete because
+we commonly anchored at night. Thus, as we slowly dragged north, a
+continuous panorama was unrolled before our eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Another very entertaining feature was the flight of fishing-boats,
+which at each daybreak put out to sea, literally in flocks; so
+numerous were they. As I was every morning on deck at that hour,
+attending the weighing of the anchor, the sight became fixed upon my
+memory. The wind being on their beam, and so fresh, they came lurching
+along in merry mood, leaping livelily from wave to wave,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">Page 233</a></span> dashing the
+water to either hand. Besides the poetry of motion, their peculiar
+shape, their hulls with the natural color of the wood,&mdash;because oiled,
+not painted,&mdash;their bamboo mat sails, which set so much flatter than
+our own canvas, were all picturesque, as well as striking by novelty.
+Most characteristic, and strangely diversified in effect, as they
+bowled saucily by, were the successive impressions produced by the
+custom of painting an eye on each side of the bow. An alleged proverb
+is in pigeon English: "No have eye, how can see? no can see, how can
+sail?" When heading towards you, they really convey to an imagination
+of ordinary quickness the semblance of some unknown sea monster, full
+of life and purpose. Now you see a fellow charging along, having the
+vicious look of a horse with his ears back. Anon comes another, the
+quiet gaze of which suggests some meditative fish, lazily gliding,
+enjoying a siesta, with his belly full of good dinner. Yet a third has
+a hungry air, as though his meal was yet to seek, and in passing turns
+on you a voracious side glance, measuring your availability as a
+morsel, should nothing better offer. The boat life of China, indeed,
+is a study by itself. In very many cases in the ports and rivers, the
+family is born, bred, fed, and lives in the boat. In moving her, the
+man and his wife and two of the elder children will handle the oars;
+while a little one, sometimes hardly more than an infant, will take
+the helm, to which his tiny strength and cunning skill are sufficient.
+Going off late one night from Hong Kong to the ship, and having to
+lean over in the stern to get hold of the tiller-lines, I came near
+putting my whole weight on the baby, lying unperceived in the bottom.
+Those sedate Chinese children, with their tiny pigtails and their old
+faces, but who at times assert their common humanity by a wholesome
+cry; how funny two of them looked, lying in the street fighting, fury
+in each face, teeth set and showing, nostrils distended with rage, and
+a hand of each<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">Page 234</a></span> gripping fast the other's pigtail, which he seemed to
+be trying to drag out by the roots; at the moment not "Celestials,"
+unless after the pattern of Virgil's Juno.</p>
+
+<p>The habit of whole families living together in a boat, though
+sufficiently known to me, was on one occasion realized in a manner at
+once mortifying and ludicrous. The eagerness for trade among the
+bumboatmen, actual and expectant, sometimes becomes a nuisance; in
+their efforts to be first they form a mob quite beyond the control of
+the ship, the gangways and channels of which they none the less
+surround and grab, deaf to all remonstrance by words, however
+forcible. This is particularly the case the first day of arrival,
+before the privilege has been determined. In one such instance my
+patience gave way; the din alongside was indescribable, the confusion
+worse confounded, and they could not be moved. There was working at
+the moment one of those small movable hand-pumps significantly named
+"Handy Billy," and I told the nozzle-man to turn the stream on the
+crowd. Of course, nothing could please a seaman more; it was done with
+a will, and the full force of impact struck between the shoulders of a
+portly individual standing up, back towards the ship. A prompt upset
+revealed that it was a middle-aged woman, a fact which the pump-man
+had not taken in, owing to the misleading similarity of dress between
+the two sexes. I was disconcerted and ashamed, but the remedy was for
+the moment complete; the boats scattered as if dynamite had burst
+among them. The mere showing of the nozzle was thereafter enough.</p>
+
+<p>The <em>Iroquois</em> was about a week in the monsoon, a day or so having
+been expended in running into Fuchau for coal. She certainly seemed to
+have lost the speed credited to her in former cruises; the cause for
+which was plausibly thought to be the decreased rigidity of her hull,
+owing to the wear and tear of service. In the days of sailing-ships<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">Page 235</a></span>
+there was a common professional belief that lessened stiffness of
+frame tended to speed; and a chased vessel sometimes resorted to
+sawing her beams and loosening her fastenings to increase the desired
+play. But, however this may have been, the thrust of the screw tells
+best when none of its effect is lost in a structural yielding of the
+ship's body; when this responds as a solid whole to the forward
+impulse. In this respect the <em>Iroquois</em> was already out of date,
+though otherwise serviceable.</p>
+
+<p>On the eleventh day, December 7th, we reached Nagasaki, whence we
+sailed again about the middle of the month for Hiogo, or Kob&eacute;, where
+the squadrons of the various nations were to assemble for the formal
+opening. With abundant time before us, we passed in leisurely fashion
+through the Inland Sea, at the eastern end of which lay the newly
+opened ports. Anchoring each night, we missed no part of the scenery,
+with its alternating breadths and narrows, its lofty slopes, terraced
+here and wooded there, the occasional smiling lowlands, the varied and
+vivid greens, contrasting with the neutral tints of the Japanese
+dwellings; all which combine to the general effect of that singular
+and entrancing sheet of water. The Japanese junks added their
+contribution to the novelty with their single huge bellying sail,
+adapted apparently only to sailing with a free wind, the fairer the
+better.</p>
+
+<p>Hiogo and Kob&eacute;, as I understood, are separate names of two continuous
+villages; Kob&eacute;, the more eastern, being the destined port of entry.
+They are separated by a watercourse, broad but not deep, often dry,
+the which is to memory dear; for following along it one day, and so up
+the hills, I struck at length, well within the outer range, an
+exquisite Japanese valley, profound, semicircular, and terraced, dosed
+at either end by a passage so narrow that it might well be called a
+defile. The suddenness with which it burst upon me, like the South Sea
+upon Balboa, the feel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">Page 236</a></span>ing of remoteness inspired by its isolation, and
+its own intrinsic beauty, struck home so forcible a prepossession that
+it remained a favorite resort, to which I guided several others; for
+it must be borne in mind that up to our coming the hill tracks of Kob&eacute;
+knew not the feet of foreigners, and there was still such a thing as
+first discovery. Some time afterwards, when I had long returned home,
+a naval officer told me that the place was known to him and others as
+Mahan's Valley; but I have never heard it has been so entered on the
+maps. Shall I describe it? Certainly not. When description is tried,
+one soon realizes that the general sameness of details is so great as
+quite to defy convincing presentation, in words, of the particular
+combination which constitutes any one bit of scenery. Scenery in this
+resembles a collection of Chinese puzzles, where a few elementary
+pieces, through their varied assemblings, yield most diverging forms.
+Given a river, some mountains, a few clumps of trees, a little sloping
+field under cultivation, an expanse of marsh&mdash;in Japan the universal
+terrace&mdash;and with them many picturesque effects can be produced; but
+description, mental realization, being a matter of analysis and
+synthesis, is a process which each man performs for himself. The
+writer does his part, and thinks he has done well. Could he see the
+picture which his words call up in the mind of another, the particular
+Chinese figure put together out of the author's data, he might be less
+satisfied. And should the reader rashly become the visitor, he will
+have to meet Wordsworth's disappointment. "And is this&mdash;Yarrow? this
+the scene?" "Although 'tis fair, 'twill be another Yarrow." Should any
+reader of mine go hereafter to Kob&eacute;, and so wish, let him see for
+himself; he shall go with no preconceptions from me. If the march of
+improvement has changed that valley, Japan deserves to be beaten in
+her next war.</p>
+
+<p>As I recall attending a Christmas service on board the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">Page 237</a></span> British
+flag-ship <em>Rodney</em> at Kob&eacute;, we must have anchored there a few days
+before that fixed for the formal opening; but, unless my memory much
+deceive me, visiting the shore after the usual fashion was permitted
+without awaiting the New Year ceremony. At this time Kob&eacute; and Hiogo
+were in high festival; and that, combined with the fact that the
+inhabitants had as yet seen few foreigners, gave unusual animation to
+the conditions. We were followed by curious crowds, to whom we were
+newer even than they to us; for the latest comers among us had seen
+Nagasaki, but strangers from other lands had been rare to these
+villagers. In explanation of the rejoicings, it was told us that slips
+of paper, with the names of Japanese deities written on them, had
+recently fallen in the streets, supposed by the people to come from
+the skies; and that different men had found in their houses pieces of
+gold, also bearing the name of some divinity. These tokens were
+assumed to indicate great good luck about to light upon those places
+or houses. By an easy association of ideas, the approaching opening of
+the port might seem to have some connection with the expected
+benefits, and inclines one to suspect human instrumentality in
+creating impressions which might counteract the long-nurtured jealousy
+of foreign intrusion. Whatever the truth, the external rollicking
+celebrations were as apparent as was the general smiling courtesy so
+noticeable in the Japanese, and which in this case was common to both
+the throng in ordinary dress and the masqueraders. Men and women,
+young and old, in gay, fantastic costumes, faces so heavily painted as
+to have the effect of masks, were running about in groups, sometimes
+as many as forty or fifty together, dancing and mumming. They
+addressed us frequently with a phrase, the frequent repetition of
+which impressed it upon our ears, but, in our ignorance of the
+language, not upon our understandings. At times, if one laughed,
+liberties were taken. These the customs of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">Page 238</a></span> occasion probably
+justified, as in the carnivals of other peoples, which this somewhat
+resembled; but there was no general concourse, as in the Corso at
+Rome, which I afterwards saw&mdash;merely numerous detachments moving with
+no apparent relation to one another. Once only a companion and myself
+met several married women, known as such by their blackened teeth, who
+bore long poles with feathers at one end, much like dusters, with
+which they tapped us on the head. These seemed quite beside themselves
+with excitement, but all in the best of humor.</p>
+
+<p>Viewed from the distance, the general effect was very pretty, like a
+stage scene. The long main street, forming part of the continuous
+imperial highway known as the Tokaido, was jammed with people; the
+sober, neutral tints of the majority in customary dress lighted up,
+here and there, by the brilliant, diversified colors of the
+performers, as showy uniforms do an assembly of civilians. The
+weather, too, was for the most part in keeping. The monsoon does not
+reach so far north, yet the days were like it; usually sunny, and the
+air exhilarating, with frequent frost at dawn, but towards noon
+genial. Such we found the prevalent character of the winter in that
+part of Japan, though with occasional spells of rain and high winds,
+amounting to gales of two or three days' duration.</p>
+
+<p>Unhappily, these cheerful beginnings were the precursors of some very
+sad events; indeed, tragedies. A week after the New Year ceremonies at
+Kob&eacute;, the American squadron moved over some twelve miles to Osaka, the
+other opened port, at which our minister then was. Unlike Kob&eacute;, where
+the water permits vessels to lie close to the beach, Osaka is up a
+river, at the mouth of which is a bar; and, owing to the shoalness of
+the adjacent sea, the anchorage is a mile or two out. From it the town
+cannot be seen. The morning after our arrival, a Thursday, it came on
+to blow very hard from the westward, dead on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">Page 239</a></span> shore, raising a big sea
+which prevented boats crossing the bar. The gale continued over
+Friday, the wind moderating by the following daylight. The swell
+requires more time to subside; but it was now Saturday, the next day
+would be Sunday, and the admiral, I think, was a religious man,
+unwilling to infringe upon the observance of the day, for himself or
+for the men. His service on the station was up, and, indeed, his time
+for retirement, at sixty-two, had arrived; there remained for him only
+to go home, and for this he was anxious to get south. Altogether, he
+decided to wait no longer, and ordered his barge manned. Danger from
+the attempt was apprehended on board the flag-ship by some, but the
+admiral was not one of those who encourage suggestions. Her boatswain
+had once cruised in whalers, which carry to perfection the art of
+managing boats in a heavy sea, and of steering with an oar, the safest
+precaution if a bar must be crossed; and he hung round, in evidence,
+hoping that he might be ordered to steer her, but she shoved off as
+for an ordinary trip. The mishap which followed, however, was not that
+most feared. Just before she entered the breakers, the
+flag-lieutenant, conscious of the risk, was reported to have said to
+the admiral, "If you intend to go in before the sea, as we are now
+running, we had better take off our swords;" and he himself did so,
+anticipating an accident. As she swept along, her bow struck bottom.
+Her way being thus stopped for an instant, the sea threw her stern
+round; she came broadside to and upset. Of the fifteen persons hurled
+thus into the wintry waves, only three escaped with their lives. Both
+the officers perished.</p>
+
+<p>The gale continued to abate, and the bodies being all soon recovered,
+the squadron returned to Kob&eacute; to bury its dead. The funeral ceremonies
+were unusually impressive in themselves, as well as because of the
+sorrowful catastrophe which so mournfully signalized the entry of the
+foreigner<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">Page 240</a></span> into his new privilege. The day was fair and cloudless, the
+water perfectly smooth; neither rain nor wave marred the naval
+display, as they frequently do. Thirty-two boats, American and
+British, many of them very large, took part in the procession from the
+ships to the beach. The ensigns of all the war-vessels in port,
+American and other, were at half-mast, as was the admiral's square
+blue flag at the mizzen, which is never lowered while he remains on
+duty on board. As the movement began, a first gun was fired from the
+<em>Hartford</em>, which continued at minute intervals until she had
+completed thirteen, a rear-admiral's salute. When she had finished,
+the <em>Shenandoah</em> took up the tale, followed in turn by the <em>Oneida</em>
+and <em>Iroquois</em>, the mournful cadence thus covering almost the whole
+period up to the customary volleys over the graves. As saluting was
+the first lieutenant's business, I had remained on board to attend to
+it; and consequently, from our closeness to the land, had a more
+comprehensive view of the pageant than was possible to a participant.
+Our ships were nearly stripped of their crews; the rank of the admiral
+and the number of the sufferers, as well as the tragic character of
+the incident, demanding the utmost marks of reverent observance. As
+the march was taken up on shore, the British seamen in blue uniforms
+in the left column, the American in white in the right, to the number
+of several hundred each, presented a striking appearance; but more
+imposing and appealing, the central feature and solemn exponent of the
+occasion, was the long line of twelve coffins, skirting the sandy
+beach against a background of trees, borne in single file on men's
+shoulders in ancient fashion, each covered with the national colors.
+The tokens of mourning, so far as ships' ensigns were concerned,
+continued till sunset, when the ceremonial procedure was closed by a
+simple form, impressive in its significance and appropriateness.
+Following the motions of the Amer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">Page 241</a></span>ican flag-ship, the chief mourner,
+the flags of all the vessels, as by one impulse, were rounded up to
+the peaks, as in the activities of every-day life; that of the dead
+admiral being at the same time mast-headed to its usual place. By this
+mute gesture, vessels and crews stood at attention, as at a review,
+for their last tribute to the departed. The <em>Hartford</em> then fired a
+farewell rear-admiral's salute, at the thirteenth and final gun of
+which his flag came down inch by inch, in measured dignity, to be
+raised no more; all others descending with it in silent haulage.</p>
+
+<p>Admiral Henry Bell, who thus sadly ended his career when on the verge
+of an honored retirement, was in a way an old acquaintance of mine. It
+was he who had refused me a transfer to the <em>Monongahela</em> during the
+war; and he and my father, having been comrades when cadets at the
+Military Academy in the early twenties of the last century, had
+retained a certain interest in each other, shown by mutual inquiries
+through me. Bell had begun life in the army, subsequently quitting it
+for the navy for reasons which I do not know. He had the rigidity and
+precision of a soldier's carriage, to a degree unusual to a naval
+officer of his period. This may have been due partly to early
+training, but still more, I think, in his case, was an outcome and
+evidence of personal character; for, though kindly and just, he was
+essentially a martinet. He had been further presented to me,
+colloquially, by my old friend the boatswain of the <em>Congress</em>, some
+of whose shrewd comments I have before quoted, and who had sailed with
+him as a captain. "Oh! what a proud man he was!" he would say. "He
+would walk up and down the poop, looking down on all around,
+thus"&mdash;and the boatswain would compress his lips, throw back his
+shoulders, and inflate his chest; the walk he could not imitate
+because he had a stiff knee. Bell's pride, however it may have seemed,
+was rather professional than personal. He was thorough and exact,
+with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">Page 242</a></span> high standards and too little give. An officer entirely
+respectable and respected, though not brilliant.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the funeral of our wrecked seamen followed a dispersion of the
+squadron. The <em>Hartford</em> and <em>Shenandoah</em>, both bound home, departed,
+leaving the <em>Oneida</em> and <em>Iroquois</em> to "hold the fort." Conditions
+soon became such that it seemed probable we might have to carry out
+that precept somewhat literally. This was the period of the overthrow
+of the Tycoon's power by the revolt of the great nobles, among whom
+the most conspicuous in leadership were Chiosiu and Satsuma; names
+then as much in our mouths as those of Grant, Sherman, and Lee had
+been three years before. Hostilities were active in the neighborhood
+of Osaka and Kob&eacute;, the Tycoon being steadily worsted. So far as I give
+any account, depending upon some old letters of that date, it will be
+understood to present, not sifted historical truth, but the current
+stories of the day, which to me have always seemed to possess a real
+value of their own, irrespective of their exactness. For example, the
+reports repeated by Nelson at Leghorn of the happenings during
+Bonaparte's campaign of 1796 in upper Italy, though often inaccurate,
+represent correctly an important element of a situation.
+Misapprehension, when it exists, is a factor in any circumstances,
+sometimes of powerful influence. It is part of the data governing the
+men of the time.</p>
+
+<p>While a certain number of foreigners, availing themselves of the
+treaty, were settling for business in Kob&eacute;, a large proportion had
+gone to Osaka, a more important commercial centre, of several hundred
+thousand inhabitants. Its superior political consideration at the
+moment was evidenced by the diplomats establishing themselves there,
+our own minister among them. The defeat of the Tycoon's forces in the
+field led to their abandoning the place, carrying off also the guards
+of the legations; a kind of protection<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">Page 243</a></span> absolutely required in those
+days, when the resentment against foreign intrusion was still very
+strong, especially among the warrior class. It was, after all, only
+fourteen years since Perry had extorted a treaty from a none too
+willing government. The fleeing Tycoon wished to get away from Osaka
+by a vessel belonging to him; but in the event of her not being off
+the bar&mdash;as proved to be the case&mdash;a party of two-sworded men, of whom
+he was rumored to be one, brought a letter from our minister asking
+any American vessel present to give them momentary shelter. It is
+customary for refugees purely political to be thus received by ships
+of war, which afford the protection their nation grants to such
+persons who reach its home territory; of which the ships are a
+privileged extension.</p>
+
+<p>The minister's note spoke of the bearers simply as officers of the
+very highest rank. About three in the morning they came alongside of
+the <em>Iroquois</em>, their boatmen making a tremendous racket, awaking
+everybody, the captain getting up to receive them. When I came on deck
+before breakfast the poor fellows presented a moving picture of human
+misery, and certainly were under a heavy accumulation of misfortunes:
+a lost battle, and probably a lost cause; flying for life, and now on
+an element totally new; surrounded by those who could not speak their
+language; hungry, cold, wet, and shivering&mdash;a combination of major and
+minor evils under which who would not be depressed? At half-past seven
+they left us, after a brief stay of four hours; and there was much
+trouble in getting so many unpractised landsmen into the boats, which
+were rolling and thumping alongside in the most thoughtless manner,
+there being considerable sea. I do not remember whether the ladders
+were shipped, or whether they had to descend by the cleats; but either
+presented difficulties to a man clad in the loose Japanese garb of the
+day, having withal two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">Page 244</a></span> swords, one very long, and a revolver. What
+with encumbrances and awkwardness, our seamen had to help them down
+like children. Poor old General Scott shuddering in a Key West
+norther, and these unhappy samurai, remain coupled in my mind; pendant
+pictures of valor in physical extremes, like C&aelig;sar in the Tiber. For
+were not our shaking morning visitors of the same blood, the same
+tradition, and only a generation in time removed from, the soldiers
+and seamen of the late war? whose "fitness to win," to use Mr. Jane's
+phrase, was then established.</p>
+
+<p>Between the departure of the Tycoon's forces and the arrival of the
+insurgent daimios, the native mob took possession of Osaka, becoming
+insolent and aggressive; insomuch that a party of French seamen, being
+stoned, turned and fired, killing several. The disposition and
+purposes of the daimios being uncertain, the diplomatic bodies thought
+best to remove to Kob&eacute;, a step which caused the exodus of all the new
+foreign population. Chiosiu and Satsuma, the leaders in what was still
+a rebellion, had not yet arrived, nor was there any assurance felt as
+to their attitude towards the foreign question. The narrow quarters of
+the <em>Iroquois</em> were crowded with refugees and fugitive samurai; while
+from our anchorage huge columns of smoke were seen rising from the
+city, which rumor, of course, magnified into a total destruction.
+Afterwards we were told that the Tycoon had burned Satsuma's palace in
+the place, in retaliation for which the enemy on entry had burned his.
+The Japanese in their haste left behind them their wounded, and one of
+the <em>Iroquois'</em> officers brought off a story of the Italian minister,
+who, indignant at this desertion, went up to a Japanese official,
+shouting excitedly, "I will have you to understand it is not the
+custom in Europe thus to abandon our wounded." This he said in
+English, apparently thinking that a Japanese would be more likely to
+understand it than Italian.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">Page 245</a></span>The embarkation was an affair of a short time, and the <em>Iroquois</em> then
+went to Kob&eacute;, where we discharged our load of passengers. The
+diplomats had decided that there, under the guns of the shipping, they
+would establish their embassies and remain; reasoning justly enough
+that, if foreigners suffered themselves to be forced out of both the
+ports conceded by treaty, there would be trouble everywhere, in the
+old as well as the new. So the flags were soon flying gayly, and all
+seemed quiet; but for the maintenance of order there was no assurance
+while the interregnum lasted, the Tycoon's authorities having gone,
+and Chiosiu or Satsuma still delaying. Officers on shore were
+therefore ordered to go armed. On February 4, 1868, two days after our
+return, a party of samurai, some five hundred strong, belonging to the
+Prince of Bizen, marched through the town by the Tokaido. As they
+passed the foreign concession, which bordered this high-road, they
+turned and fired upon the Europeans. The noise was heard on board the
+ships, and the commotion on shore was evident, people fleeing in every
+direction. The Japanese troops themselves broke and ran along the
+highway, abandoning luggage, arms, and field-pieces. The American and
+British ships of war, with a French corvette, manned and armed boats,
+landing in hot haste five or six hundred men, who pursued for some
+distance, but failed to overtake the assailants. At the same time the
+vessels sprang their batteries to bear on the town; a move which
+doubtless looked imposing enough, though we could scarcely have dared
+to fire on the mixed multitude, even had the trouble continued.</p>
+
+<p>When our seamen returned, a conference was held, wherein it was
+determined, as a joint international measure, to hold the concession
+in force; and as a further means of protection to close the Tokaido,
+which was done by occupying the angles of a short elbow, of two
+hundred yards, made by it in traversing the town. This step, while
+justifiable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">Page 246</a></span> from the point of view of safety for the residents, was
+particularly galling to Japanese high-class feeling; for the use of
+the imperial road was associated with certain privileges to the
+daimios, during whose passing the common people were excluded, or
+obliged to kneel, under penalty of being cut down on the spot. Satsuma
+was reported to have remonstrated; but in view of the recent
+occurrence there could be no reply to the foreign retort, "You must
+secure our people." The custom-house, within the concession, was
+garrisoned, making a fortification very tenable against any enemy
+likely to be brought against it; while round it was thrown up a light
+earth-work, to which the seamen and marines dispersed in the
+concession could retire in case of need. But behind all, invulnerable,
+stood the ships, deterred from aggression only by fear for their own
+people, which would cease to operate if these had to be withdrawn.</p>
+
+<p>The action of this body of samurai was probably unpremeditated, unless
+possibly in the mind of the particular officer in charge, who
+afterwards paid with his life for the misconduct of his men. While the
+state of siege continued a complete stop was put to our horseback
+excursions in the country, a deprivation the more felt because
+coinciding with an unusually fine spell of weather; but in a few days
+an envoy arrived from the insurgent daimios, with whom a settlement
+was speedily reached. Chiosiu and Satsuma had by this time succeeded
+in establishing themselves as the real representatives of the Mikado,
+an authority in virtue of which alone the Tycoon had ruled; the true
+headship of the Mikado being admitted by all. They undertook that
+foreigners should be adequately protected, and that the officer
+responsible for the late outrage should be punished with death. By the
+20th of February Kob&eacute; was full of Chiosiu and Satsuma samurai, who
+were as courteously civil as those of the Tycoon had been; and after a
+conference with the special envoy of the Mikado the min<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">Page 247</a></span>isters
+returned to Osaka. We, too, resumed our country rides, but still
+weighted with a huge navy revolver.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt on any hand was felt of the sincere purpose of the new
+government to fulfil its pledges; but their troops were still
+ill-organized, and it was impossible to rest assured that they might
+not here and there break bounds, as at Kob&eacute;. We were encountering the
+accustomed uncertainties of a period of revolutionary transition,
+intensified by prejudices engendered through centuries of national
+isolation, with all the narrowing and deepening of prepossession which
+accompanies entire absence of intercourse with other people. At this
+very moment, in March, 1868, the decree against the practice of
+Christianity by the natives was reissued: "Hitherto the Christian
+religion has been forbidden, and the order must be strictly kept. The
+corrupt religion is strictly forbidden." Yet I am persuaded that
+already far-seeing Japanese had recognized that the past had drifted
+away irrevocably, and that the only adequate means to meet the
+inevitable was to accept it fully, without grudging, and to develop
+the nation to equality with foreigners in material resources. But such
+anticipation is the privilege of the few in any age or any country.</p>
+
+<p>Very soon after the return of our men from their garrison duty, an
+outbreak of small-pox on board the <em>Iroquois</em> compelled her being sent
+to Yokohama, where, as an old-established port, were hospital
+facilities not to be found in Kob&eacute;, though we had succeeded in
+removing the first cases to crude accommodations on shore. The disease
+was then very prevalent in Japan, where vaccination had not yet been
+introduced; and to an unaccustomed eye it was startling to note in the
+streets the number of pitted faces, a visible demonstration of what a
+European city must have presented before inoculation was practised.
+One of our crew had died; and when we started, February 25th, we had
+on board some sick. These were carefully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">Page 248</a></span> isolated under the airy
+topgallant forecastle, and with a good passage the contagion might not
+have spread; but the second day out the weather came on bad and very
+thick, ending with a gale so violent that to save the lives of the
+patients they had to be taken below, and then, for the safety of the
+ship, which was single-decked, the hatches had to be battened down.
+Conditions more favorable for the spread of the malady could not have
+been devised, and the result was that we were not fairly clear of the
+epidemic for nearly two months, though the cases, of which we had
+fifteen or twenty, were sent ashore as fast as they developed. At that
+period few ships on the station wholly escaped this scourge.</p>
+
+<p>It was after we left Kob&eacute; that judicial satisfaction was given for the
+attack upon the foreign concession. My account depends upon the
+reports which reached us; but as the captain of the <em>Oneida</em> was one
+of the official witnesses, on the part of the international interests
+concerned, I presume that what we heard was nearly correct. The final
+scene was in a temple near Hiogo. Being of the class of nobles, the
+condemned had a privilege of the peerage, which insured for him the
+honorable death of the harakiri;<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> a distinction apparently
+analogous to that which our soldiers of European tradition draw
+between hanging and shooting. Having duly performed acts of devotion
+suited to the place and to the occasion, he spoke, justifying his
+action, and saying that, under similar circumstances, he would again
+do the same. He then partly disrobed, assisted by friends, and when
+all was ready stabbed himself; a comrade who had stood by with drawn
+sword at the same instant cut<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">Page 249</a></span>ting off his head with a single blow. I
+was tempted by curiosity, once while on the station, to attend the
+execution of some ordinary criminals; and I can testify to the
+deftness and instantaneousness with which one head fell, in the flash
+of a sword or the twinkling of an eye. I did not care to view the
+fates of the three others condemned, but it was clear that no judicial
+death could be more speedy and merciful.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly coincident with this exacted vengeance occurred an incident
+which demonstrated its policy. A boat's crew from a French ship of war
+had gone ashore to survey, unarmed. They were accosted by a
+well-dressed man, wearing two swords, who suggested to them going up
+to a village near the spot where they were at work. They accepted, and
+were led by him into an ambush where eleven of them&mdash;all but one&mdash;were
+slain. So there was another great funeral at Hiogo, but, one which
+excited emotions far otherwise mournful than the simple sorrow and
+sympathy elicited by the Bell disaster. The graveyard of the place
+had, indeed, a good start. The assassins in this case belonged to the
+troops of the insurgent daimios; and as the French already favored the
+Tycoon&mdash;which perhaps may have been one motive for the attack&mdash;some
+apprehension was felt that they might, in consequence, espouse his
+cause more actively. Nothing of the sort happened. I presume all the
+legations, and their nations, felt that at the moment the solidarity
+of the foreign interest was more important to be secured than the
+triumph of this or that party. By abstaining from intervention, all
+the embassies could be counted on to back a united demand for
+reparation for injuries to the citizens of any one.</p>
+
+<p>With the arrival of the <em>Iroquois</em> at Yokohama the notable incidents
+of the cruise for the most part came to an end; there following upon
+it the routine life of a ship of war, with its ups and downs of more
+or less pleasant ports, good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">Page 250</a></span> and bad weather, and the daily
+occupations which make and maintain efficiency. Yokohama itself was
+then the principal and most flourishing foreign settlement in Japan,
+the seat of the legations, and with an agreeable society sufficiently
+large. Among other features we here found again in force the British
+soldier; a battalion of eight hundred being permanently in garrison.
+The country about was thought secure, though for distant excursions,
+requiring a whole day, we carried revolvers; and I remember well the
+scuttling away of several pretty young women when one of these was
+accidentally discharged at a wayside tea-house. But while occasional
+rumors of danger would spread, it was hard to tell whence, I think
+nothing of a serious nature occurred. Nevertheless, albeit resentment
+and hostility were repressed in outward manifestation by the strong
+hand of the government, and by the examples of punishment already
+made, they were still burning beneath the surface. It was during this
+period that the British minister, visiting Kioto, a concession
+jealously resisted by conservative Japanese spirit, was set upon by
+some ronins while on his way to pay an official call. He was guarded
+by British cavalry and marines, and had besides an escort of samurai.
+It was said at the time that these fled, except the officers, who
+fought valiantly, slaying one and beating down the other of the two
+most desperate assailants. Considering the well-established courage of
+the Japanese, and that the attack was by their own people, sympathy
+with the attempt seems the most likely explanation of the
+faithlessness reported. The immediate effect of this was to curtail
+our privileges of riding about the country of Yokohama.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the most notable incident, historically, of our stay in
+Yokohama was the arrival of the first iron-clad of the Japanese navy,
+to which it has fallen a generation later to give the most forcible
+lesson yet seen of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">Page 251</a></span> iron-clads in battle. This vessel had been the
+Confederate ram <em>Stonewall</em>, and prior to her acquisition by Japan had
+had a curiously checkered career of ownership. She was built in
+Bordeaux, under the name <em>Sphinx</em>, by contract between a French firm
+and the Confederate naval agent in Europe; but some difficulty arose
+between the parties, and in 1864 Denmark, being then at war with
+Austria and Prussia concerning the Schleswig-Holstein duchies, bought
+her under certain conditions. With a view to delivery to the Danish
+government she was taken to a Swedish port, and after a nominal sale
+proceeded under the Swedish flag to Copenhagen, where she remained in
+charge of a banker of that city. Peace having been meanwhile declared,
+Denmark no longer wanted her. The sale was nullified under pretext of
+failure in the conditions, and she passed finally into the hands of
+the Confederacy,<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> sailing from Copenhagen January 7, 1865. Off
+Quiberon, in France, she received a crew from another vessel under
+Confederate direction, and thence attempted to go to the Azores, but
+was forced by bad weather into Ferrol. From there she crossed the
+Atlantic; but by the time of her arrival the War of Secession was
+ended by the surrenders of Lee and Johnston. Her commander took her to
+Havana, and there gave her up to the Spanish authorities. Spain, in
+turn, in due time delivered her to the United States, as the legal
+heir to all spoils of the Confederacy. Several years later, in 1871, I
+had a share in bringing home part of these often useless trophies; the
+ship in which I was having gone to Europe, without guns, loaded with
+provisions to supply the needs of the French poor, presumed to be
+suffering from the then recent war with Germany. Our cargo discharged,
+we were sent to Liverpool, and there took on board some rifled cannon
+and projectiles originally made for the South.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">Page 252</a></span>The <em>Stonewall</em> had been lying at the Washington Navy-Yard when I was
+stationed there in 1866. Measured by to-day's standards she was of
+trivial power, small in size, moderate in speed, light in armor and
+armament; but her ram was of formidable dimensions, and at that period
+the tactical value of the ram was estimated much more highly than it
+now is. The disastrous effect of the thrust, if successfully made,
+outweighed in men's minds the difficulty of hitting; an error of
+valuation similar to that which has continuously exaggerated the
+danger from torpedo craft of all kinds. After the sailing of the
+<em>Iroquois</em>, a deputation of Japanese officials came to the United
+States on a mission, part of which was to buy ships of war. In reply
+to their inquiries, Commander&mdash;now Rear-Admiral&mdash;George Brown, then
+ordnance officer of the yard, pointed out the <em>Stonewall</em> to them as a
+vessel suitable for their immediate purposes, and with which our
+government might probably part. He also expressed a favorable opinion
+of her sea-going qualities for reaching Japan. A few days later they
+came to him and said that, as he thought well of her, perhaps he would
+undertake to carry her out; their own seamanship at that early date
+being unequal to the responsibility. This was more than was
+anticipated by Brown, interested in his present duties, but it rather
+put him on his mettle; and so he set forth, a satisfactory pecuniary
+arrangement having been concluded. She went by way of the Strait of
+Magellan and the Hawaiian Islands, reaching Yokohama without other
+incident than constant ducking. As one of her officers said, clothes
+needed not to be scrubbed; a soiled garment could be simply secured on
+the forward deck, and left there to wash in the water that came on
+board until it was clean. I have never known her subsequent fortunes
+in Japanese hands; but as the beginning of their armored navy she has
+a place in history&mdash;and here.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">Page 253</a></span>From Yokohama the <em>Iroquois</em> returned to Kob&eacute;, and there lay during
+July, August, and September; so that in our two visits I passed five
+months in this part of the Inland Sea. The summer, in its way, is
+there as pleasant as the winter in its. The highest thermometer I read
+was 87&deg; Fahrenheit, and there was almost always a pleasant breeze. The
+country was now so far safe that we went everywhere within reasonable
+reach of the concession, and the scenery presented such variety in
+sameness as to be a perpetual source of enjoyment. The most striking
+characteristics are the views of the enclosed sea itself, ample in
+expanse, yet without the monotony attendant upon an unbounded water
+view; and, when that disappears, follows the succession of enclosed
+valleys, alike, yet different; a recurrent feature similar, though on
+another scale, to that presented by the valley of the Inn on the ride
+from Zurich to Innsbruck. How far away those days are is seen from my
+noting on one of them, while visiting what was known to us as the Moon
+Temple, that the ships of war below were dressed in honor of the first
+Napoleon's birthday, August 15th; an observance which ceased with the
+empire.</p>
+
+<p>This time I managed an opportunity of seeing Osaka, which the
+disturbed conditions had prevented my doing during our winter stay.
+Description I shall avoid, as always; enough to say that the flatness
+of the site, in low land, six miles from the mouth of the narrow,
+winding river, makes the city one of canals, like Venice and
+Amsterdam. In visiting the great castle of the Tycoon, a stone
+fortification notable not only for its own size, but for the
+dimensions of the huge single stones of which it is built, we went by
+boat, following a sluggish watercourse, an eighth of a mile wide, and
+so shallow that we poled through it. The pull from the bar to the city
+was very tedious, and Kob&eacute; evidently had proved the better commercial<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">Page 254</a></span>
+situation; for even now, half a year after the opening of the port, we
+were looked upon with curiosity; were followed by crowds which stopped
+if we stopped, moved when we moved. To the children we were objects of
+apprehension; they eyed us fearfully, and scuttled away rapidly if we
+made any feint at rushing towards them. Nevertheless, the prevailing
+tone among the common people was now plainly kindly, although six
+months before they would at times spit at foreigners from the bridges
+which in great numbers span the streams. The temper of those who form
+mobs changes lightly. It is true that in our excursions we were
+accompanied by an armed guard, which would seem to indicate
+possibilities of danger; but these samurai themselves were not only
+courteous, but interested and smiling, and I thought gave good promise
+that their class in general was coming round to friendliness.</p>
+
+<p>We left Kob&eacute; towards the end of September, in company with a new
+flag-ship which had arrived to take the place of the <em>Hartford</em>. This
+vessel rejoiced to call herself <em>Piscataqua</em>, which is worth recording
+as a sample of a class of name then much affected by the powers that
+were, presumably on account of their length; "fine flourishers," to
+quote the always illustrative Boatswain Chucks, "as long as their
+homeward-bound pendants, which in a calm drop in the water alongside."
+<em>Piscataqua</em>, however uncouth, most Americans can place; but what
+shall we say of <em>Ammonoosuc</em>, <em>Wampanoag</em>, and such like, then
+adorning our lists, which seem as though extracted by a fine-tooth
+comb drawn through the tangle of Indian nomenclature. Under the
+succeeding administration <em>Piscataqua</em> was changed to <em>Delaware</em>. The
+new commander-in-chief was among our most popular officers,
+distinguished alike for seamanship, courage, and courtesy; but he held
+to great secrecy as to his intentions, which caused officers more
+inconvenience<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">Page 255</a></span> than seemed always quite necessary. Questions of
+mess-stores, of correspondence, and other pre-arrangements, depend
+much upon knowledge of future movements, as exact as may not interfere
+with service emergencies. These in peace times rarely require
+concealment. A characteristic story ran that, as the two vessels were
+leaving Kob&eacute;, when the flag-ship's anchor was a-weigh, her captain,
+still ignorant of her destination, turned to the admiral and said,
+"Which way shall I lay her head, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>It turned out that we were bound to Nagasaki, on our way to China. The
+approaching northeast monsoon, with its dry, bracing air, dictates the
+period when foreign squadrons usually go south, having during the
+summer in Japan avoided the debilitating damp heat which those months
+entail in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and the Chinese ports generally. The
+<em>Iroquois</em>, however, had soon to separate from the flag-ship, owing to
+news received of a singular occurrence, savoring more of two hundred
+years ago, or of to-day's dime novel&mdash;"shilling shocker," as our
+British brethren have it&mdash;than of the prosaic nineteenth century.
+There had arrived at Hakodate, the northernmost of the then open
+Japanese ports, on the island of Yezo and Strait of Tsugaru, a
+mysterious bark, without name or papers, peopled only by Chinese of
+the coolie class, and bearing evident marks of foul play. From
+indications she was supposed to be American, and our ship, being the
+most immediately available, was ordered up to investigate; leaving
+Nagasaki October 24, 1868. Our course took us over the ground which
+has since become historic by the destruction of Rodjestvensky's fleet,
+as well as by other incidents of the Russo-Japanese war; and the
+weather we had, both going and returning, would justify the anxiety
+said to have been felt by the Japanese naval authorities, that Port
+Arthur should be taken before the winter set in. Like men, ships must
+do their work at whatever cost; but like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">Page 256</a></span> men also, and perhaps even
+more, they should be spared needless strain, especially if they be
+few. A sick ship needs usually more time for recovery than a sick man.</p>
+
+<p>Our orders directed a stop at a port called Niigata, on the west coast
+of Nippon. We must have communicated, for I thence despatched a
+letter; but at the time of our arrival a furious northwest gale was
+blowing, dead on shore. The ship, therefore, ran under a largish
+island called Sado, which much to our convenience lies a few miles to
+sea-ward of Niigata, and there anchored; quietly enough as to wind,
+though gusty willy-waws descending from the cliffs and swishing the
+water in petty whirlwinds testified to the commotion outside. We had
+quite the same experience returning to Shanghai; but at that time in
+mid-sea, where the <em>Iroquois</em>, powerless as to steam, but otherwise as
+much at home as the sea-fowl, rode it out gleefully, though I admit
+not luxuriously to flesh and muscles.</p>
+
+<p>On November 1st we reached Hakodate, where our captain and consul,
+aided by the Japanese authorities, proceeded at once with their
+investigation. The strange vessel was in as distressed condition,
+almost, as that of the Ancient Mariner when he drew near "his own
+countree:" sails gone, rigging flying loose, one of her topgallant
+masts, if I remember right, snapped in two, and the exterior of her
+hull as though neither paint nor soap had known it for years. In her
+cabins were marks of blood not eradicated; and particularly on the
+transom over the stern windows was the print of a bloody hand, the
+fingers spread wide as they rested against the paint, suggesting
+resistance by one being thrust out. The story so far collected from
+the coolies was that they had sailed in her from Macao, a Portuguese
+port near Canton and Hong Kong, and that the captain and crew, after
+taking her far north in the ice, had abandoned her altogether. In
+support of this part of their story they showed furs procured from the
+natives. These<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">Page 257</a></span> gave plausibility to the ice experiences; but the rest
+of the account, unlikely in itself, had been disproved by inquiry in
+Macao, where nothing was known of any vessel answering to the
+descriptions. At last, however, a rumor had come, how conveyed I know
+not, that such a bark, with coolies and twelve thousand dollars in
+gold on board, had sailed from Callao, in Peru, the previous January,
+and had never since been heard from; that she had a Peruvian captain
+and crew, but carried American colors, probably merely as indicating
+American property. To claim full American privilege, ships must be
+American built; but one bought abroad and owned by Americans may carry
+the flag, in proof of nationality, though without the right of
+entering an American port like those to the manner born. They thus
+become entitled to the same national regard as any other possessions
+of American citizens under foreign jurisdiction.</p>
+
+<p>So information stood when the <em>Iroquois</em> arrived&mdash;false on one hand,
+and on the other vague. Soon after the captain and consul began their
+investigation they stumbled upon the vessel's papers, concealed in a
+manner which had hitherto baffled careful search. These showed that
+she was the missing <em>Cayalti</em>, which on the previous January 18th had
+cleared from Callao for another Peruvian port; that she was American
+in ownership, while the captain and crew were Spanish in name. This
+fixed her identity; but how account for the disappearance of the
+ship's company, and for her presence in Hakodate, on the other side of
+the Pacific, three thousand miles north of Callao. To this inquiry the
+captain and consul addressed themselves in the cabin of the
+<em>Iroquois</em>. Two or three Japanese two-sworded officials were in
+attendance, and memory recalls their grave, impassive faces, as seen
+at times when some routine communication called me in to speak to our
+captain.</p>
+
+<p>Contracted though the captain's quarters were, the un<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">Page 258</a></span>accustomed
+scene, absent from their companions and from the familiar surroundings
+of their probable crime, was calculated to impress the culprits; and
+the methods pursued to instigate admissions savored, I fancy, more of
+the Orient than of modern Anglo-Saxon ideals. But the present
+functions of our officials corresponded to those of the French <em>juges
+d'instruction</em>; and, having to elicit the truth from a low class of
+Orientals, they dealt with them after the fashion which alone they
+would recognize as serious. The witnesses began, of course, by lying
+in the most transparent manner, but under judicious&mdash;or
+judicial&mdash;pressure a story was pieced together which in main outline
+probably corresponded with the truth; for in it three or four of them
+independently agreed. Two days out from Callao the coolies had risen
+against the whites, and after a short fight overpowered them. Of the
+crew, two jumped overboard; the rest submitted. A boat was then
+lowered, and the men in the water were killed; after which the others
+were tied together, made fast to an anchor, and so thrown into the
+sea, the mate, who had fought desperately, having first been mutilated
+by cutting off his ears. The captain and a Chinese steward were saved;
+the former to handle the ship, to which the coolies were unequal, and
+he was bidden to take her to China. I do not find in my contemporary
+letters the impression which remains on my mind, that they estimated
+his general observance of this order by the vague knowledge that China
+lay towards the evening sun. The history of that strange voyage would
+be interesting, but was scarcely recoverable in detail from the class
+of witnesses. It would be by no means certain that the master of a
+coastwise trader could navigate accurately; and, while he would always
+be sure of death if he brought the vessel within reach of China, it is
+not apparent why he should take her to the remote north in which the
+furs showed her to have been. I have never heard whether, as the
+evi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">Page 259</a></span>dence ran, he and the steward escaped alive, abandoning the
+ship.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> He had disappeared when the Japanese found her drifting
+helplessly under her ignorant occupants.</p>
+
+<p>While in Hakodate, I availed myself of the opportunity to visit a
+great lake and a volcano, not extinct, but not immediately active.
+They are distant about fifteen miles from the town, a position in
+which I see such a sheet of water on the maps of to-day. This was a
+long ride in the then state of the roads, after the autumn rains, and
+with nightly freeze sufficient continually to fix the moisture, and
+then to renew the dampness towards the noonday thaw. Transport was
+not by wheel, but by pack-animals; and as these marched in companies
+of a half-dozen or so, in single file, haltered one to the other, each
+as he stepped put his foot into the prints made, not merely by his
+immediate file-leader of the particular gang, but by all others going
+and coming for weeks before. The consequence was a succession of
+scallops, distributed over long stretches of mud, the consistency of
+which just sufficed to hold the shape thus impressed upon it. Japanese
+horses are small, and as a class quarrelsome; the one I rode on this
+occasion was little larger than a child's pony, and looked as if he
+had not been curried for a month. I hesitated to impose upon him my
+weight, a scruple which would have been intensified had I known the
+character of the pilgrimage through which he was to bear me. With his
+feet at the bottom of the scallop, the rounded top rose above his
+knee, nearly giving his patient nose the touch which his dejected mood
+and drooping head seemed to invite. At<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">Page 260</a></span> the first start he stumbled,
+nearly falling on me, but escaped with nostrils and mouth full of
+liquid dirt.</p>
+
+<p>A day to go, a day to come, and one intervening to cross the lake and
+ascend the volcano, measured our excursion; through the whole of which
+we had sunny skies and exhilarating temperature till the last hour of
+our return, when a drizzling rain suggested what might have been our
+discomfort had the heavens above been as unpropitious as the roads
+beneath. Even the crossing of the lake and the ascent were
+particularly favored, the sky literally cloudless and water smooth;
+whereas the following morning, when we rose to depart, a fog had
+settled on the mountain, making movement upon it doubtful and even to
+a slight degree dangerous. The lake, some six miles by ten, and
+abounding in islets, lay smiling under the bright, wintry sun, its
+shores clad with leafless forests mingled with evergreens, save the
+barren slopes of the volcano itself; beneath the distant lava stream
+of which we were told seventeen hundred people lay, buried by the last
+eruption. The scene tempted me more than most to description, for the
+brilliant stillness of a clear November day, and the gaunt, bare
+trees, were strange to our long experience of verdure in southern
+Japan, and smacked strongly of home&mdash;Hakodate being in the latitude of
+New York; but, as always, the majority have their own vision, their
+own memory, of just such conditions and surroundings, more vivid for
+them than another's portrayal.</p>
+
+<p>The two nights at the lake we slept in a Japanese tea-house,
+scrupulously clean and quite comfortable, but at that early date and
+remote region entirety primitive; I should rather say strictly native
+in all its arrangements. The kitchen was innocent of European
+suggestion; we ate with chopsticks, and fish from the lake were
+spitted and cooked around a fire in a sandy hearth, contrived below
+the middle of the room. Eggs were in abundance, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">Page 261</a></span> coffee was sorely
+missed at our chilly rising. At 9 <span class="ampm">A.M.</span> we started for the volcano,
+getting back at 7 <span class="ampm">P.M.</span> We landed at the foot of the lava stream and
+ascended by it through a picture of desolation. From shore to summit
+took us three hours, which confirmed to me a rough estimate of the
+height as about four thousand feet. The grade was not severe, some
+thirty or forty degrees; but by this time we had a brisk northwest
+wind blowing down our throats, and the latter part of the way our feet
+sank deep in volcanic dust. At the top the air was very cold, keen,
+and rare, but somewhat oppressive to the lungs. None of us cared to
+smoke, after eating and drinking, but the view afforded us was
+perfect; limitless, so far as atmospheric conditions went. In
+appearance the crater differed little, I presume, from others in a
+state of quiescence. Smoke and steam poured forth continually, in one
+spot in large volumes; while from many places issued little jets, such
+as puff from the out-door pipes of a factory, suggesting subterranean
+workmen. These were especially numerous from a large mound in the
+centre, which our guide told us was growing bigger and bigger with his
+successive visits, portending an outburst near. If his observation was
+accurate, it goes to show the coincident sympathetic movements which
+occur in volcanic regions remote from one another; for this year,
+1868, followed one of great terrestrial disturbance. In 1867 two of
+our naval vessels had been carried ashore by a tidal wave in the West
+Indies; and of two others lying off Arica, Peru, one was dashed to
+pieces against the cliffs, while the other was carried over low, flat
+ground for a mile or so inland, where her dismantled hull was still
+lying when I was there in 1884.</p>
+
+<p>Our starting when we did, as soon as possible, three days after
+arrival, justified the Nelsonian maxim not to trifle with a fair wind;
+for we just culled the three days which were the cream, and only
+cream, of our stay. From our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">Page 262</a></span> return on the 6th, to sailing on the
+12th, there was but one fair twenty-four hours&mdash;the rest from
+blustering to furious; and we went out with the promise of a gale
+which did not with evening "in the west sink smilingly forsworn." The
+<em>Iroquois</em> ran through Tsugaru Strait under canvas, with a barometer
+rather tumbling than falling, and an east wind fast freshening to
+heavy. We knew it must end at northwest; but it lasted till afternoon
+of the next day, so we got a good offing. The shift of the wind was in
+its accompaniments spectacular&mdash;and cyclonic. The morning of the 13th
+was among the wildest I have seen. Daylight came a half-hour late,
+with a lurid sky; the clouds, the confused, heaving water, the sails,
+spars, and deck of the ship herself, all as if seen in a Lorraine
+glass. It having become nearly calm, she lay thrashing aimlessly in
+the swell, unsteadied by the canvas. The barometer still fell slowly
+till two in the afternoon, when it stopped, and we began to look out.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"First rise, after very low<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Indicates a stronger blow."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>At three it rose one one-hundredth of an inch, and almost
+simultaneously, looking over the weather rail, was to be seen the
+oncoming northwester, never long in debt to a southeaster. First a
+gleaming white line of foam beneath the sombre horizon, gradually
+spreading to right and left, and visibly widening as it drew near.
+Soon its deepening surface broke to view into innumerable separate
+wave-crests, which advanced leaping in tumultuous accord, like the
+bounding rush of a pack of wolves, whom you may see, and whose howling
+you can imagine but do not yet hear. As Kingsley has said, "It looks
+so dangerous, and you are so safe"&mdash;all the thrill, yet none of the
+apprehension. The new gale struck the <em>Iroquois</em> in full force. Within
+twenty minutes it had reached its height, and so continued for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">Page 263</a></span> near
+forty-eight hours, during thirty-six of which the hatches were
+battened down. For a time the two seas, the old and the new, fought
+each other to our discomfort; but the old yielded, and, as the new got
+its even, regular swing, the <em>Iroquois</em> agreed with its enemy of the
+moment and rode easily.</p>
+
+<p>With our arrival at Shanghai we had left behind whatever in the cruise
+of the <em>Iroquois</em> could be considered exceptional as to incident; that
+is, while I remained with her. From December, 1868, we entered in
+China upon the usual routine of station movement; interesting enough
+at the time, but from which my memory retains nothing noteworthy.
+Subsequently we visited Formosa and Manila and Hong Kong; whence we
+were sent south for ten days to the Gulf of Hainan to search for a
+French corvette which had disappeared. We did not find her, nor was
+she again seen by mortal eyes. Returning to Hong Kong, we learned of
+the first election of General Grant to the presidency, and that a
+letter from him had reached the admiral asking that the captain of the
+flag-ship, who as a school comrade had once saved Grant's life, should
+be ordered home; the intention being to give him charge of an
+important bureau in the Navy Department. Under usual circumstances a
+relief would have been sent out; but as the request was from the
+expectant administration, not from the one still in power and
+antagonistic, a private letter was the chosen medium of action.</p>
+
+<p>His departure made a vacancy, to which succeeded the captain of the
+<em>Iroquois</em>, a great favorite with the commander-in-chief. I was left
+in charge of the ship until we went back to Japan in May. There I fell
+ill at Nagasaki, and after recovery found myself at Yokohama, in
+command of a gunboat ordered to be sold. This consummation was reached
+in September, and I then started for home, having the admiral's
+permission to proceed by Suez to Europe,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">Page 264</a></span> instead of by the usual
+route to San Francisco. My object was only to visit Europe; but on the
+way to Hong Kong a Parsee merchant, a fellow-passenger, suggested
+turning aside to India, which I had not contemplated. I shall not go
+into my brief India travel from Calcutta to Bombay, beyond mentioning
+the singular good-fortune, as it appeared to me, that I visited the
+ruined residence at Lucknow, and the remains of the memorable siege of
+twelve years before, in the company of an officer who had himself been
+a participant. His wife, still a very young and handsome woman, whom I
+had the pleasure of meeting, had been one of the children within the
+works, sharing the perils, if not the anxieties, of their mothers
+during that period of awful suspense.</p>
+
+<p>Nor do I think my six months in Europe, leave for which met me on my
+arrival there, worthy of particular note, save in one incident which
+has always seemed to me curious. Landing at Marseilles, I found that
+intimate friends were then at Nice. I accordingly went there, instead
+of to Paris, as I had intended; and, like thoughtless young men
+everywhere, abandoned myself to pleasant society instead of to
+self-improvement by travel. My purpose, however, continually was to go
+directly to Paris when I did leave Nice, for my time was limited; but
+a middle-aged friend strongly dissuaded me. "You should by no means
+fail to visit Rome now," he said, "for, independently of the immortal
+interest of the place, of the treasures of association and of art
+which are its imperishable birthright, there is the more transient
+spectacle of the Papacy, in the pride, pomp, and circumstance of the
+temporal power. This may at any moment pass away, and you therefore
+may never have another opportunity to witness it in its glory. There
+is a vague traditional prophecy that, as St. Peter held the bishopric
+of Rome twenty-five years, any pope whose tenure exceeds his will see
+the downfall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">Page 265</a></span> of the papal sovereignty over Rome. Such prophecies
+often insure their own fulfilment, and Pius IX. is now closely
+approaching his twenty-fifth year. Go while you can." So I went, in
+February, 1870; and before the next winter's snow the temporal power
+was a thing of the past.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="section_break"></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">Page 266</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE TURNING OF A LONG LANE&mdash;HISTORICAL, NAVAL, AND PERSONAL</h3>
+
+<h4>1870</h4>
+
+
+<p>In narrating the cruise of the <em>Iroquois</em> I have, as it were, laid the
+reins on the neck of my memory, letting it freely run away; partly
+because our track lay over stretches of sea even now somewhat unbeaten
+by travel, partly because the story of routine naval life and
+incidental experiences, in a time already far past, might have for the
+non-professional reader more novelty than could be premised by me, a
+daily participant therein. Moreover, there were in our cruise some
+exceptional occurrences which might be counted upon to relieve
+monotony. I purpose to observe greater restraint in what follows.</p>
+
+<p>The year 1870, in which I returned home, was one of marked and
+decisive influence upon history, and in a way a turning-point in my
+own obscure career. As in February I witnessed the splendors of the
+papal city under its old r&eacute;gime, so in April and May I saw imperial
+Paris brilliant under the emperor. In the one case as in the other I
+was unconscious of the approaching <em>d&eacute;b&acirc;cle</em>; a blindness I presume
+shared by most contemporaries. Whatever the wiser and more far-seeing
+might have prophesied as to the general ultimate issues, few or none
+could then have foretold the particular occasion which so soon
+afterwards opened the floodgates. As the old passed, with the downfall
+of the French Empire and of the temporal kingdom, there arose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">Page 267</a></span> a new;
+not merely the German Empire and the unity of Italy, crowned by the
+possession of its historic capital, but, unrecognized for the moment,
+then came in that reign of organized and disciplined force, the full
+effect and function of which in the future men still only dimly
+discern. The successive rapid overthrows of the Austrian and French
+empires by military efficiency and skill; the beating in detail two
+separate foes who, united, might have been too strong for the victor;
+the consequent crumbling of the papal monarchy when French support was
+withdrawn, following closely on the Vatican Decree of Infallibility;
+these things produced an impression which was transmitted rapidly
+throughout the world of European civilization, till in the Farther
+East it reached Japan. Into the current thus established the petty
+stream of my own fortunes was drawn, little anticipated by myself. To
+it was due my special call; for by it was created the predisposition
+to recognize the momentous bearing of maritime force upon the course
+of history, which insured me a hearing when the fulness of my time was
+come.</p>
+
+<p>Until 1870 my life since graduation had been passed afloat almost
+without interruption. Soon afterwards I obtained command rank; and
+this promotion, combined with the dead apathy which after the War of
+Secession settled upon our people with regard to the navy, left me
+with relatively little active employment for several years. In
+America, the naval stagnation of that period was something now almost
+incredible. The echoes of the guns which from K&ouml;niggr&auml;tz and a dozen
+battle-fields in France had resounded round the globe, awakening the
+statesmen of all countries, had apparently ricochetted over the United
+States, as fog sound-signals are noticed to rebound overhead, unheard
+through long stretches of the sea-level, until they again touch the
+water beyond. The nation slumbered peacefully in its "<em>petit coin</em>,"
+to use the ex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">Page 268</a></span>pressive phrase of a French admiral to me. Had even
+nothing been done, this inertness might have been less significant;
+but somewhere in the early seventies, despite all the progress
+elsewhere noticeable, there were built deliberately some half-dozen
+corvettes, smaller than the <em>Iroquois</em> class, mostly of wood. That a
+period of lethargy in action should steal over a government just
+released from strenuous exertion is one thing, and bad enough; but it
+is different, and much worse, that there should be a paralysis of
+idea, of mental development corresponding to the movement of the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>I myself have always considered that the "right about" of policy came
+with the administration of President Arthur, when Mr. Chandler was
+Secretary of the Navy. It began with a work of destruction, an
+exposure of the uselessness of the existing naval material, due purely
+to stand-still; to being left hopelessly in the rear by the march of
+improvement elsewhere. Upon this followed under the same
+administration an attempt at restoration, gingerly enough in its
+conceptions. The vessels laid down were cruisers, the primary quality
+of which should be speed; but fourteen knots was the highest demanded,
+and that of one only, the <em>Chicago</em>. Unhappily, wherever the fault
+lay, the navy then had the habit of living from day to day on
+expedients, on makeshifts. Although deficiencies were manifest and
+generally felt, the prevailing sentiment had been that we should wait
+until the experiments of other peoples, in the cost of which we would
+not share, should have reached workable finalities. This is another
+instance of what is commonly called "practical;" as though mental
+processes must not necessarily antecede efficient action, and as
+though there was not then at hand abundant data for brains to work on,
+without any expenditure of money. Finality, indeed, had not been
+reached, and never will be in anything save death; but at that time it
+had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">Page 269</a></span> been shown beyond peradventure that radically new conditions had
+entered naval warfare, and clearly the first most practical step was a
+mature official digestion of these conditions&mdash;a decision as to what
+types of vessels were needed, and what their respective qualities
+should be. In short, the first and perfectly possible thing was to
+evolve a systematic policy; a careful look, and then a big leap.</p>
+
+<p>However, things rarely come about in that way. It involves getting rid
+of old ideas, which is quite as bad as pulling teeth, and much harder;
+and the subsequent adoption of new ones, that are as uneasy as tight
+shoes. We had then certain accepted maxims, dating mainly from 1812,
+which were as thoroughly current in the country&mdash;and I fear in the
+navy, too&mdash;as the "dollar of the daddies" was not long after. One was
+that commerce destroying was the great efficient weapon of naval
+warfare. Everybody&mdash;the navy as well&mdash;believed we had beaten Great
+Britain in 1812, brought her to her knees, by the destruction of her
+commerce through the system observed by us of single cruisers; naval
+or privateers. From that erroneous premise was deduced the conclusion
+of a navy of cruisers, and small cruisers at that; no battle-ship nor
+fleets.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> Then we wanted a navy for coast defence only, no
+aggressive action in our pious souls; an amusing instance being that
+our first battle-ships were styled "coast defence" battle-ships, a
+nomenclature which probably facilitated the appropriations. They were
+that; but they were capable of better things, as the event has proved.
+But the very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">Page 270</a></span> fact that such talk passed unchallenged as that about
+commerce-destroying by scattered cruisers, and war by mere
+defence&mdash;known to all military students as utterly futile and
+ruinous&mdash;shows the need then existent of a comprehensive survey of the
+contemporary condition of the world, and of the stage which naval
+material had reached. One such was made, which a subsequent secretary,
+Mr. Tracy, characterized to me as excellent; but the deficiencies and
+requirements exposed by it in our naval status frightened Congress,
+much as the confronting of his affairs terrify a bankrupt.</p>
+
+<p>During the latter part of Secretary Chandler's term I was abroad in
+command of the <em>Wachusett</em>, on the Pacific coast. Besides her, the
+squadron consisted of the <em>Hartford</em>, Farragut's old flag-ship, the
+<em>Lackawanna</em>, and my former ship, the <em>Iroquois</em>. They all dated, guns
+as well, from the War of Secession, or earlier. Had they been
+exceptional instances, on a station of no great importance, it might
+not have mattered greatly; but in fact they still remained
+representative components of the United States navy. The squadron
+organization, too, was that which had prevailed ever since I entered
+the service, and so continued until a very few years ago. The rule was
+that the vessels were scattered, one to this port, another to that.
+They rarely met, except for interchange of duties; and when in company
+almost the only exercises in common were those of yards and sails, in
+which the ships worked competitively, to beat one another's time,&mdash;a
+healthy enough emulation. But this rivalry was no substitute for the
+much more necessary practice of working together, in mutual support;
+for the acquired habit of handling vessels in rapid movement and close
+proximity with fearless judgment, based upon experience of what your
+own could do, and what might be confidently expected from your
+consorts, especially your next ahead and astern. A new cap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">Page 271</a></span>tain for
+the <em>Lackawanna</em> accompanied me to the station, where we found our
+ships in Callao, assembled with the other two. Within a week later we
+all went out together, performed three or four simple evolutions, and
+then scattered. This was the only fleet drill we had in the two years,
+1883&ndash;1885.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, from time immemorial the navy had thought in single ships, as
+the army had in company posts. To the several officers their own ship
+was everything, the squadron little or nothing. The War of Secession
+had broadened the ideas of the army by enlarging its operations in the
+field, although peace brought a relapse; but the navy having to fight
+only shore batteries, not fleets, was not forced out of the old
+tactical and strategic apathy. The huge accumulations of vessels under
+a single admiral entailed enlarged administrative duties; but the
+tactical methods, as shown in the greater battles, presented simply
+the adaptation of means to a particular occasion, and, however
+sagacious in the several instances&mdash;and they usually were
+sagacious&mdash;possessed no continuity of system in either theory or
+practice. Organic unity did not exist except for administration. There
+was an assemblage of vessels, but not a fleet. All this was the
+result, or at least the complement, of the theory of commerce
+destroying, which prescribed cruisers that act singly; and of war by
+defence only, which proscribed battle-ships, that act in unison and so
+compel unity.</p>
+
+<p>A further incident of Mr. Chandler's tenure of office was the
+establishment of the Naval War College at Newport. This had its origin
+in the recognition of a defect in the constitution of the Navy
+Department, which was glaringly visible during the War of Secession.
+Immense and admirable as was the administrative work done by the
+Department during that contest, there did not exist in it then, nor
+did there for many years to come, any formal provision for the proper
+consideration and expert decision of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">Page 272</a></span> strictly military questions,
+from the point of view of military experience and professional
+understanding. The head of the Department, invariably a civilian under
+our form of government, and therefore usually unfamiliar with naval
+matters, had not assured to him, at instant call, organized
+professional assistance, individual or corporate, prepared to advise
+him, when asked, as to the military aspect of proposed operations,
+what the arguments for or against feasibility, or what the best method
+of procedure. In other services, notably in the German army, this
+function is discharged by the general staff, nothing correspondent to
+which was to be found in our Navy Department. It is evident that the
+constitution of a general staff, or of any similar body called into
+being for such purpose, will be more broadly based, and sounder, as
+knowledge of the subjects in question is more widely distributed among
+the officers of the service; and that such knowledge will be imparted
+most certainly by the creation of an institution for the systematic
+study of military operations, by land or sea, applying the experiences
+of history to contemporary conditions, and to the particular theatres
+of possible war in which the nation may be interested.</p>
+
+<p>Such studies are the object of the Naval War College, which was
+established upon the report of a board of officers, at the head of
+which was the present Rear-Admiral Stephen B. Luce, to whose
+persistent initiative must be attributed much of the movement which
+thus resulted. The other members of the board were the late Admiral
+Sampson, and Commander&mdash;now Rear-Admiral&mdash;Caspar F. Goodrich. Luce
+became the first president of the institution, for which the
+Department assigned a building, once an almshouse, situated on
+Coaster's Harbor Island, in Narragansett Bay, then recently ceded to
+the United States government. It remained still to get together a
+staff of instructors, and he wrote me to ask if I would undertake<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">Page 273</a></span> the
+subjects of naval history and naval tactics. The proposition was to me
+very acceptable; for I had found the Pacific station disagreeable,
+and, although without proper preparation, I believed on reflection
+that I could do the work. During my last tour of shore duty I had read
+carefully Napier's <em>Peninsular War</em>, and had found myself in a new
+world of thought, keenly interested and appreciative, less of the
+brilliant narrative&mdash;though that few can fail to enjoy&mdash;than of the
+military sequences of cause and effect. The influence of Sir John
+Moore's famous march to Sahagun&mdash;less famous than it deserves to
+be&mdash;upon Napoleon's campaign in Spain, revealed to me by Napier like
+the sun breaking through a cloud, aroused an emotion as joyful as the
+luminary himself to a navigator doubtful of his position.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Then felt I as some watcher of the skies<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When a new planet swims into his ken;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He stared at the Pacific."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Following this I had written by request a volume on the Navy in the
+War of Secession, entitled <em>The Gulf and Inland Waters</em>; my first
+appearance as an author. Herein also I had recognized that the same
+class of military ideas took possession of my mind. I felt, therefore,
+that I should bring interest and understanding to my task, and hoped
+that the defects of knowledge, which I clearly realized, would be
+overcome. I recalled also that at the Military Academy my father,
+though professor only of engineering, military and civil, had of his
+own motion introduced a course of strategy and grand tactics, which
+had commended itself to observers. I trusted, therefore, that
+heredity, too, might come to my aid.</p>
+
+<p>As acceptance placed me on the road which led directly to all the
+success I have had in life, I feel impelled to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">Page 274</a></span> acknowledge my
+indebtedness to Admiral Luce. With little constitutional initiative,
+and having grown up in the atmosphere of the single cruiser, of
+commerce-destroying, defensive warfare, and indifference to
+battle-ships; an anti-imperialist, who for that reason looked upon Mr.
+Blaine as a dangerous man; at forty-five I was drifting on the lines
+of simple respectability as aimlessly as one very well could. My
+environment had been too much for me; my present call changed it.
+Meantime, however, there was delay. A relief would not be sent,
+because the ship was to go home; and the ship did not go home because
+there was, first, a revolution in Panama, and then a war between the
+Central American states, both which required the <em>Wachusett's</em>
+presence. Mr. Cleveland was elected at this time; there was a change
+of administration, and with a new Secretary a lapse of Departmental
+interest. The ship did not go to San Francisco till September, 1885,
+nearly a year after the admiral's proposition reached me.</p>
+
+<p>The year had not been unfruitful, however. Naturally predisposed, as I
+have said, my mind ran continually on my subject. I imagined various
+formations for developing to the best effect the powers of steamships,
+and sudden changes to be instituted as the moment of collision
+approached, calculated to disconcert the opponent, or to surprise an
+advantage before he could parry. Spinning cobwebs out of one's
+unassisted brain, without any previous absorption from external
+sources, was doubtless a somewhat crude process; yet it had
+advantages. One of my man&oelig;uvres was to pass a column of ships by an
+unexpected flank movement across the head of an enemy's column. This I
+have since heard called "capping;" if, at least, I correctly
+understand that word. Putting it afterwards before a body of officers
+attending the College course, all men of years and experience, one
+said to me, derisively, "Do you suppose an enemy would let you do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">Page 275</a></span>
+that?" "It is a question of how quick he is," I replied. "In these
+days of twelve or fifteen knots he will have no time to ponder, and
+scarcely time to act." The query illustrates a habit of mind
+frequently met. It is like discussing the merits of a thrust <em>en
+carte</em>. If the other man is quick enough, he will parry; if not, he
+will be run through: sooner or later the more skilful usually will get
+in.</p>
+
+<p>Naval history gave me more anxiety, and I afterwards found it was that
+which Luce particularly desired of me. I shared the prepossession,
+common at that time, that the naval history of the past was wholly
+past; of no use at all to the present. I well recall, during my first
+term at the College, a visit from a reporter of one of the principal
+New York journals. He was a man of rotund presence, florid face,
+thrown-back head, and flowing hair, with all that magisterial
+condescension which the environment of the Fourth Estate nourishes in
+its fortunate members; the Roman citizen was "not in it" for
+birthright. To my bad luck a plan of Trafalgar hung in evidence, as he
+stalked from room to room. "Ah," he said, with superb up-to-date pity,
+"you are still talking about Trafalgar;" and I could see that
+Trafalgar and I were thenceforth on the top shelf of fossils in the
+collections of his memory. This point of view was held by very many.
+"You won't find much to say about history," was the direct
+discouraging comment of an older officer. On the other hand, Sir
+Geoffrey Hornby, less well known in this country than in Great
+Britain, where twenty years ago he was recognized as the head of the
+profession, distinctly commended to me the present value of naval
+history. I myself, as I have just confessed, had had the contrary
+impression&mdash;a tradition passively accepted. Thus my mind was troubled
+how to establish relations between yesterday and to-day; so wholly
+ignorant was I of the undying reproduction of conditions in their
+essential bearings&mdash;a commonplace of military art.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">Page 276</a></span>He who seeks, finds, if he does not lose heart; and to me,
+continuously seeking, came from within the suggestion that control of
+the sea was an historic factor which had never been systematically
+appreciated and expounded. Once formulated consciously, this thought
+became the nucleus of all my writing for twenty years then to come;
+and here I may state at once what I conceive to have been my part in
+popularizing, perhaps in making effective, an argument for which I
+could by no means claim the rights of discovery. Not to mention other
+predecessors, with the full roll of whose names I am even now
+unacquainted, Bacon and Raleigh, three centuries before, had
+epitomized in a few words the theme on which I was to write volumes.
+That they had done so was, indeed, then unknown to me. For me, as for
+them, the light dawned first on my inner consciousness; I owed it to
+no other man. It has since been said by more than one that no claim
+for originality could be allowed me; and that I wholly concede. What
+did fall to me was, that no one since those two great Englishmen had
+undertaken to demonstrate their thesis by an analysis of history,
+attempting to show from current events, through a long series of
+years, precisely what influence the command of the sea had had upon
+definite issues; in brief, a concrete illustration. In the preface to
+my first work on the subject, for the success of which I was quite
+unprepared, I stated this as my aim: "An estimate of the effect of Sea
+Power upon the course of history and the prosperity of nations; ...
+resting upon a collection of special instances, in which the precise
+effect has been made clear by an analysis of the conditions at the
+given moments." This field had been left vacant, yielding me my
+opportunity; and concurrently therewith, untouched from the point of
+view proposed by me, there lay the whole magnificent series of events
+constituting maritime history since the days of Raleigh and Bacon,
+after the voyages of Columbus and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">Page 277</a></span> De Gama gave the impetus to
+over-sea activities, colonies, and commerce, which distinguishes the
+past three hundred years. Even of this limited period I have occupied
+but a part, though I fear I have skimmed the cream of that which it
+offers; but back behind it lie virgin fields, in the careers of the
+Italian republics, and others yet more remote in time, which can never
+be for me to narrate, although I have examined them attentively.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot now reconstitute from memory the sequence of my mental
+processes; but while my problem was still wrestling with my brain
+there dawned upon me one of those concrete perceptions which turn
+inward darkness into light&mdash;give substance to shadow. The <em>Wachusett</em>
+was lying at Callao, the seaport of Lima, as dull a coast town as one
+could dread to see. Lima being but an hour distant, we frequently
+spent a day there; the English Club extending to us its hospitality.
+In its library was Mommsen's <em>History of Rome</em>, which I gave myself to
+reading, especially the Hannibalic episode. It suddenly struck me,
+whether by some chance phrase of the author I do not know, how
+different things might have been could Hannibal have invaded Italy by
+sea, as the Romans often had Africa, instead of by the long land
+route; or could he, after arrival, have been in free communication
+with Carthage by water. This clew, once laid hold of, I followed up in
+the particular instance. It and the general theory already conceived
+threw on each other reciprocal illustration; and between the two my
+plan was formed by the time I reached home, in September, 1885. I
+would investigate coincidently the general history and naval history
+of the past two centuries, with a view to demonstrating the influence
+of the events of the one upon the other. Original research was not
+within my scope, nor was it necessary to the scheme thus outlined.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it is only a subtle form of egotism, but as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">Page 278</a></span> condition of my
+life experience I could wish to convey to others an appreciation of my
+profound ignorance of both classes of history when I began, being then
+forty-five; not that I mean to imply that now, or at any time since, I
+have deluded myself with the imagination that I have become an
+historian after the high modern pattern. I tackled my job much as I
+presume an immigrant begins a clearing in the wilderness, not
+troubling greatly which tree he takes first. I laid my hands on
+whatever came along, reading with the profound attention of one who is
+looking for something; and the something was kind enough to
+acknowledge my devotion by shining forth in unexpected ways and
+places. Any line of investigation, however unsystematic in method,
+branches out in many directions, suggests continually new sources of
+information, to one interested in his work; and I have felt constantly
+the force of Johnson's dictum as to the superior profit from time
+spent in reading what is congenial over the drudgery of constrained
+application. Every faculty I possessed was alive and jumping.
+Incidentally, I took up the study of land warfare, using Jomini and
+Hamley. For naval history the first book upon which I chanced&mdash;the
+word is exact&mdash;was just what I needed at that stage. It was a history
+of the French navy, by a Lieutenant Lapeyrouse-Bonfils, published
+about 1845. As naval history pure and simple, I think little of it;
+but the author had a quiet, philosophical way of summing up causes and
+effects in general history, as connected with maritime affairs, which
+not only corresponded closely with my own purpose, but suggested to me
+new material for thought&mdash;novel illustration. Such treatment was with
+him only casual, but it opened to me new prospects.</p>
+
+<p>It would be difficult to define precisely to what degree the art of
+naval warfare had been formulated, or even consciously conceived, in
+1885. There could scarcely be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">Page 279</a></span> said to exist any systematic treatment,
+or extensive commentary by acknowledged experts, such as for
+generations had illuminated the theory of land warfare. Naval
+histories abounded, but by far the most part were simply narratives.
+Some valuable research, however, had then recently been done; notably
+by Captain Chevalier, of the French navy, who had produced from French
+documents a history of the maritime war connected with the American
+struggle for independence. This he followed with a less exhaustive
+account of the wars of the French Revolution and Empire, which also
+appeared in time for me to use. These were marked by running comment,
+rather than by a studied criticism such as that of Jomini or Napier.
+In Great Britain, James held, and I think still holds, the field for
+exhaustive collection of information, documentary or oral in origin,
+during the period treated by him, 1793&ndash;1815; but he has not a military
+idea in his head beyond that of downright hard fighting, punishing and
+being punished. In his pages, to take a tactical advantage seems
+almost a disgrace. The Navy Records Society of Great Britain had not
+then begun the fruitful labors which within the last decade and a half
+has made accessible in print a very large amount of new matter; nor
+had the late Admiral Colomb published his comprehensive book, <em>Naval
+Warfare</em>. So far as I was concerned, the old works of Lediard, Entick,
+Campbell, Beatson,&mdash;in French, Paul Hoste, Troude, Gu&eacute;rin, and others
+equally remote,&mdash;had to be my main reliance; though numerous modern
+scattered monographs, English and French, were existent. In connection
+with these one of my most interesting experiences was lighting upon a
+paper in the <em>Revue Maritime et Coloniale</em>, describing in full the
+Four Days' battle between the English and Dutch in 1666. It purported
+to be, and I have no doubt was, from a personal letter recently
+discovered; but I subsequently found it almost word for word<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">Page 280</a></span> in the
+<em>M&eacute;moires du Comte de Guiche</em>, also a participant, printed in 1743.
+This <em>Revue</em> contained many able and suggestive articles, historical
+and professional, as did the British <em>Journal of the United Service
+Institution</em>; each being in its own country a principal medium for the
+exchange of professional views. Conspicuous in these contributions to
+naval history and thought, in England, were Admiral Colomb and
+Professor Laughton; upon the last named of whom, since these words
+were first written, has been bestowed the honor of knighthood, a
+recognition in the evening of life which will be heartily welcomed by
+his many naval friends on both sides of the Atlantic. In short, apart
+from the first-hand inquiry which I did not yet attempt, the material
+available in 1885 was chiefly histories written long before,
+supplemented by a great many scattered papers of more recent date.</p>
+
+<p>Before leaving this part of my experience I will say a good word for
+Campbell's <em>Lives of the Admirals</em>, so far as his own work&mdash;down to
+1744&mdash;is concerned. Under this title it is really a history of the
+British navy, very well done for enabling a professional man to
+understand the naval operations; but, more than this, maritime
+occurrences of other sorts, commercial movement, and naval policy, are
+presented clearly, and with sufficient fulness to illustrate the
+influence of sea power in its broadest sense upon the general history.
+Bearing, as it does, strong indications of a full use of accessible
+accounts, contemporary with the events narrated, I know no naval work
+superior to it for lucidity and breadth of treatment. Campbell was he
+of whom Dr. Johnson said: "Campbell is a good man, a pious man; I am
+afraid he has not been inside a church for many years; but he never
+passes a church without pulling off his hat. This shows he has good
+principles."</p>
+
+<p>In history other than naval I was for my object as fortunate as I had
+been in Lapeyrouse-Bonfils. An acci<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">Page 281</a></span>dent first placed in my hands
+Henri Martin's <em>History of France</em>. I happened to see the volumes,
+then unknown to me, on the shelves of a friend. The English
+translation of Martin covered only the reigns of Louis XIV. and XV.,
+and of Louis XVI. to 1783, the close of the War of American
+Independence. The scope of my first book, <em>The Influence of Sea Power
+upon History</em>, coincides precisely with this period, and may thus have
+been determined. I think, however, that the beginning of the work was
+fixed for me by the essentially new departure in the history of
+England and France, connoted by the almost simultaneous accession of
+Charles II. and Louis XIV.; while the end was dictated by the
+necessity to stop and take breath. Besides, I had to lecture, which
+for the moment interrupted both reading and writing. The particular
+value of Martin to me was the attention paid by him to commercial and
+maritime policy, as shown in those frank methods of national
+regulation which in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
+characterized all governments, but were to be seen in their simplest
+and most efficient executive operation in an absolute monarchy. A more
+advanced age may doubt the wisdom of such manipulation of trade; but
+in the hands of a genius like Colbert it became a very active and
+powerful force, the workings of which were the more impressive for
+their directness. They could be easily followed. Whatever Martin's
+views on political economy, he was in profound sympathy with Colbert
+as an administrator, and enlarged much on his commercial policy as
+conducing to the financial stability upon which that great statesman
+sought to found the primacy of his country. To one as ignorant as I
+was of mercantile movement, the story of Colbert's methods, owing to
+their pure autocracy, was a kind of introductory primer to this
+element of sea power. Thus received, the impression was both sharper
+and deeper. New light was shed upon, and new emphasis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">Page 282</a></span> given to, the
+commonplace assertion of the relations between commerce and a navy;
+civil and military sea power. While I have no claim to mastery of the
+arguments for and against free trade and protection, Colbert, as
+expounded by Martin, sent me in later days to the study of trade
+statistics; as indicative of naval or political conditions deflecting
+commercial interchange, and influencing national prosperity. The
+strong interest such searches had for me may show a natural bent, and
+certainly conduced to the understanding of sea power in its broadest
+sense. Martin set my feet in the way, though Campbell helped me much
+by incidental mention.</p>
+
+<p>It is now accepted with naval and military men who study their
+profession, that history supplies the raw material from which they are
+to draw their lessons, and reach their working conclusions. Its
+teachings are not, indeed, pedantic precedents; but they are the
+illustrations of living principles. Napoleon is reported to have said
+that on the field of battle the happiest inspiration is often but a
+recollection. The authority of Jomini chiefly set me to study in this
+fashion the many naval histories before me. From him I learned the
+few, very few, leading considerations in military combination; and in
+these I found the key by which, using the record of sailing navies and
+the actions of naval leaders, I could elicit, from the naval history
+upon which I had looked despondingly, instruction still pertinent. The
+actual course of the several campaigns, or of the particular battles,
+I worked out as one does any historical conclusion, by comparison of
+the individual witnesses presented in the several accounts; but the
+result of this constructive process became to me something more than a
+narrative. Both the general outcome and the separate incidents passed
+through tests which formed in me an habitual critical habit of mind.
+My judgments, one or all, might be erroneous; but, right or wrong,
+what I brought before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">Page 283</a></span> myself was no mere portrayal, accurate as I
+could achieve, but a rational whole, of composite cause and effect,
+with its background and foreground, its centre of interest and
+argument, its greater and smaller details, its decisive culmination;
+for even to a drawn battle or a neutral issue there is something which
+definitely prevented success. It was the same with questions of naval
+policy. Jomini's dictum, that the organized forces of the enemy are
+ever the chief objective, pierces like a two-edged sword to the joints
+and marrow of many specious propositions; to that of the French
+postponement of immediate action to "ulterior objects," or to
+Jefferson's reliance upon raw citizen soldiery, a mob ready
+disorganized to the enemy's hands when he saw fit to lay on. From
+Jomini also I imbibed a fixed disbelief in the thoughtlessly accepted
+maxim that the statesman and general occupy unrelated fields. For this
+misconception I substituted a tenet of my own, that war is simply a
+violent political movement; and from an expression of his, "The
+sterile glory of fighting battles merely to win them," I deduced, what
+military men are prone to overlook, that "War is not fighting, but
+business."</p>
+
+<p>It was with such hasty equipment that I approached my self-assigned
+task, to show how the control of the sea, commercial and military, had
+been an object powerful to influence the policies of nations; and
+equally a mighty factor in the success or failure of those policies.
+This remained my guiding aim; but incidentally thereto I had by this
+determined to prepare a critical analysis of the naval campaigns and
+battles, a decision for which I had to thank Jomini chiefly. This
+would constitute in measure a treatment of the art of naval war; not
+formal, nor systematic, but in the nature of commentary, developing
+and illustrating principles. I may interject, as possibly suggestive
+to professional men, that such current comment on historical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">Page 284</a></span> events
+will lead them on, as it led me irresistibly, to digest the principles
+thus drawn out; reproducing them in concise definitions, applicable to
+the varying circumstances of naval warfare,&mdash;an elementary treatise.
+This I did also, somewhat later, in a series of lectures; which,
+though necessarily rudimentary, I understand still form a groundwork
+of instruction at the War College. For the framework of general
+history, which was to serve as a setting to my particular thesis, I
+relied upon the usual accredited histories of the period, as I did
+upon equally well-known professional histories for the nautical
+details. The subject lay so much on the surface that my handling of it
+could scarcely suffer materially from possible future discoveries.
+What such or such an unknown man had said or done on some back-stairs,
+or written to some unknown correspondent, if it came to light, was not
+likely to affect the received story of the external course of military
+or political events. Did I make a mistake in the detail of some
+battle, as I got one fleet on the wrong tack in Byng's action, or as
+in the much-argued case of Torrington at Beachy Head, it would for my
+leading purpose do little more harm than a minor tactical error does
+to the outcome of a large strategic plan, when accurately conceived.
+As a colleague phrased it to me, speaking of the cautious deliberation
+of some men, "A second-best position to-day is better than a
+first-best to-morrow, when the occasion has passed." Strike while the
+iron is hot! and between reading and thinking my iron was very hot by
+the time I laid it on the anvil. Moreover, I had to meet the emergency
+of lecturing, one of the main reliances of our incipient undertaking.</p>
+
+<p>I had begun my reading with Lapeyrouse-Bonfils, in October, 1885. The
+preceding summer at Panama had so far affected my health as to cause a
+month's severe illness in the winter; and when recovered I
+unguardedly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">Page 285</a></span> let myself in for another month's work, on naval tactics,
+which might have been postponed. Hence the end of the following May
+had arrived before I began to write; but I was so full of matter,
+absorbed or evolved, that I ran along with steady pace, and by
+September had on paper, in lecture form, all of my first <em>Sea Power</em>
+book, except the summary of conclusions which constitutes the final
+chapter. Before publication, in 1890, the whole had been very
+carefully revised; but the changes made were mostly in the details of
+battles, or else verbal in character, to develop discussions in
+amplitude or clearness. Battles had been to me at first a secondary
+consideration; hence for revision I had accumulated many fresh data,
+notably from two somewhat scarce books: <em>Naval Battles in the West
+Indies</em>, by Lieutenant Matthews, and <em>Naval Researches</em>, by Captain
+Thomas White, British officers contemporary and participant in the
+events which they narrate of the War of American Independence.</p>
+
+<p>A lecturer is little hampered by the exactions of style; indeed, the
+less he ties himself to his manuscript, the more he can talk to his
+audience rather than read, and the more freely his command of his
+subject permits him to digress pertinently, the better he holds
+attention. When I found after my first course that the treatment was
+to my hearers interesting as well as novel, the thought of publishing
+entered my mind; and while I had no expectation or ambition to become
+a stylist, the question of style gradually forced itself on my
+consideration. I intend to state some of my conclusions, because the
+casual remarks of others, authors or critics, have been helpful to me.
+Why should not style as well as war have its history and biography, to
+which each man may contribute an unpretentious mite? Notably, I got
+much comfort from Darwin's complaint of frequent recurrences of
+inability to give adequate expression to thoughts, which he could then
+put down only in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">Page 286</a></span> such crude, imperfect form as the moment suggested,
+leaving the task of elaboration to a more propitious season. If so
+great a man was thus troubled, no strange thing was happening to me in
+a like experience. Such good cheer in intellectual as well as moral
+effort is one of the best services of biography and history, raising
+to the rank of ministering spirits the men whose struggles and success
+they tell. Was not Washington greater at Valley Forge than at
+Yorktown? and Nelson beating against a head wind than at Trafalgar?
+Johnson has anticipated Darwin's method in advice given in his
+Gargantuan manner: "Do not exact from yourself, at one effort of
+excogitation, propriety of thought and elegance of expression. Invent
+first, and then embellish. The production of something, where nothing
+was before, is an act of greater energy than the expansion or
+decoration of the thing produced. Set down diligently your thoughts as
+they arise in the first words that occur, and, when you have matter,
+you will easily give it form." To Trollope I owed a somewhat different
+practical maxim. His theory Was that a man could turn out manuscript
+as steadily as a shoemaker shoes&mdash;his precise simile, if I remember;
+and he prided himself on penning his full tale each day. I could not
+subscribe to this, and think that Trollope's work, of which I am fond,
+shows the bad effect; but I did imbibe contempt for yielding to the
+feeling of incapacity, and put myself steadily to my desk for my
+allotted time, writing what I could. Whether the result were ten words
+or ten hundred I tried to regard With equanimity.</p>
+
+<p>I have never purpose attempted to imitate the style of any writer,
+though I unscrupulously plagiarize an apt expression. But gradually,
+and almost unconsciously, I formed a habit of closely scrutinizing the
+construction of sentences by others; generally a fault-finding habit.
+As I progressed, I worked out a theory for myself, just as I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">Page 287</a></span> the
+theory of the influence of sea power. Style, I said, has two sides. It
+is first and above all the expression of a man's personality, as
+characteristic as any other trait; or, as some one has said&mdash;was it
+Buffon?&mdash;style is the man himself. From this point of view it is
+susceptible of training, of development, or of pruning; but to attempt
+to pattern it on that of another person is a mistake. For one chance
+of success there are a dozen of failure; for you are trying to raise a
+special product from a soil probably uncongenial, or a fruit from an
+alien stem&mdash;figs from vines. But beyond this there is to style an
+artificial element, which I conceive to be indicated by the word
+<em>technique</em> as applied to the arts; though it is possible that I
+misapprehend the term, being ignorant of art. In authorship I
+understand by <em>technique</em> mainly the correct construction of periods,
+by the proper collocation of their parts. I subscribe heartily to the
+opinion I have seen attributed to Stevenson, that everything depends
+upon the order of the words; and this, in my judgment, should make the
+sentence as nearly as possible independent of punctuation.</p>
+
+<p>Further, there are many awkwardnesses of expression which proper
+training or subsequent practice can eliminate; and in proportion as a
+writer attains the faculty of instinctively avoiding these, his
+technique improves. Perfected, he would never use them, and his
+sentences would flow untaught from his pen in absolutely clear
+reflection of his thought. As an example of what I mean by
+awkwardnesses, I would cite the use of "whose" as the possessive of
+"which." I know that adequate authority pronounces this correct, so it
+is not on that score I reject it. Moreover, I recognize that in myself
+the repulsion is somewhat of an acquired taste. When I began to write
+I thus employed it myself, but its sound is so inevitably suggestive
+of "who" as to constitute an impertinence of association. I have
+lately been reading a very excellent history of the United<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">Page 288</a></span> States, in
+which the frequent repetition of "whose" in this sense causes me the
+sensation of perpetually "stubbing" my toe; an Americanism, which, I
+will explain to any British reader, means stumbling over roots or on
+an unequal pavement, the irritation of which needs not exposition.</p>
+
+<p>In the matter of natural style I soon discovered that the besetting
+anxiety of my soul was to be exact and lucid. I might not succeed, but
+my wish was indisputable. To be accurate in facts and correct in
+conclusions, both as to appreciation and expression, dominated all
+other motives. This had a weak side. I was nervously susceptible to
+being convicted of a mistake; it upset me, as they say. Even where a
+man writes, this is a defect of a quality; in active life it entails
+slowness of decision and procrastination, failure "to get there." I
+have no doubt that much contemporary writing suffers delay from a like
+morbid dread as to possibility of error. The aim to be thus both
+accurate and clear often encumbered my sentences. My cautious mind
+strove to introduce between the same two periods every qualification,
+whether in abatement or enforcement of the leading idea or statement.
+This in many cases meant an accumulation of clauses, over which I
+exercised my ingenuity and lavished my time so to arrange them that
+the whole should be at once apprehended by the reader. It was not
+enough for me that the qualifications should appear a page or two
+before, or after, and in this I think myself right; but in wanting
+them all in the same period, as I instinctively did,&mdash;and do, for
+nature is obstinate,&mdash;I have imposed on myself needless labor, and
+have often taxed attention as an author has no right to do. Unless
+under pressing necessity, I myself will not be at pains to read what I
+can with difficulty understand.</p>
+
+<p>It is to this anxiety for full and accurate development of statements
+and ideas that I chiefly attribute a diffuse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">Page 289</a></span>ness with which my
+writing has been reproached; I have no doubt justly. I have not,
+however, tried to check the evil at the root. I am built that way, and
+think that way; all round a subject, as far as I can see it. I am
+uneasy if a presentment err by defect, by excess, or by obscurity
+apparent to myself. I must get the whole in; and for due emphasis am
+very probably redundant. I am not willing to attempt seriously
+modifying my natural style, the reflection of myself, lest, while
+digging up the tares of prolixity I root up also the wheat of
+precision. The difference emphasized by Dr. Johnson, "between notions
+borrowed from without and notions generated within," seems to me to
+apply to the mode of expression as well as to the idea expressed. The
+two spring from the same source, and correspond. You impress more
+forcibly by retaining your native manner of statement; chastened where
+necessary, but not defaced by an imitation, even of a self-erected,
+yet artificial, standard. It does not do to meddle too much with
+yourself. But I do resort to a weeding process in revising; a verb or
+an adjective, an expletive or a superlative, is dragged out and cast
+away. Even so, as often as not, I have to add. The words above, "as
+far as I can see it," have just been put in. Of course, in the
+interest of readers, I resort to breaking up sentences; but to me
+personally the result is usually distasteful. The reader takes hold
+more easily, as a child learns spelling by division into syllables;
+but I am conscious that instead of my thoughts constituting a group
+mutually related, and so reproducing the essential me, they are
+disjointed and must be reassembled by others.</p>
+
+<p>A man untrained in youth, and who has never systematically sought to
+repair the defect, can scarcely hope fully to compass technique in
+style. He will thus lose some part of that which he may gain by being
+more nearly his natural self; for there is a real gain in this. Such
+ad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">Page 290</a></span>vance as I have made in technique&mdash;and I trust I have made some&mdash;I
+have owed to the critical running analysis of the construction of
+sentences, which has been my habit ever since I began to write. That
+this is constant with me, subconsciously, is shown by the frequency
+with which it passes into a conscious logical recasting of what I
+read. To get antecedents and consequents as near one another as
+possible; qualifying words or phrases as close as may be to that which
+they qualify; an object near its verb; to avoid an adjective which
+applies to one of two nouns being so placed as to seem to qualify
+both; such minute details seem to me worthy of the utmost care, and I
+think I can trace advance in these respects. My experiments tend to
+show that the natural order of nominative, verb, object, is usually
+preferable; and as a rule I find that adverbs and adverbial phrases
+fall best between nominative and verb. Still, the desirability of
+tying each period to its predecessor, as does the rhyme of the fourth
+and fifth lines of a sonnet, will modify arrangement. In reading
+another author, where such precaution as I name is neglected, a word
+misplaced in its relation to the others of the sentence runs my mind
+off the track, like an engine on a misplaced switch, and I dislike the
+trouble of backing to get on the right rails. It is the same with my
+own work, if time enough elapses between composition and subsequent
+reading. Generally I make such time, either in manuscript or proofs;
+but I am chagrined when I meet slips in the printed page, as I too
+often do. There is no provision against such fault equal to laying the
+text aside till it has become unfamiliar; but even this is not
+certain, for construction, being consonant to your permanent mode of
+thinking, may not when erroneous jar upon you as upon another.</p>
+
+<p>In acquiring an automatic habit, which technique should become,
+principles tend to crystallize into rules, and a few such I have;
+counsels of perfection many of these, too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">Page 291</a></span> often unrealized. I do not
+like the same word repeated in the same paragraph, though this lays a
+heavy tax on so-called synonymes. Assonances jar me, even two
+terminations "tion" near together. I will not knowingly use "that" for
+"which," except to avoid two "whiches" between the same two periods.
+The split infinitive I abhor, more as a matter of taste than argument.
+I recognize that it is at times very tempting to snuggle the adverb so
+close to the verb; but I hold fast my integrity. Once, indeed, I took
+it into my head not to split compound tenses, and carried this fad
+somewhat remorselessly through a series of republished articles; but
+the result has not pleased me. Boswell tells us that Johnson would
+have none of "former" and "latter;" that he would rather repeat the
+noun than resort to this subterfuge. I see no good reason for
+rejecting these convenient alternatives; but nevertheless I have
+obsequiously bowed to the autocrat and taken a skunner to the
+words&mdash;the only literary snobbishness of which I am conscious. I can
+stand out against Macaulay's proscription of prepositions ending
+sentences. Although I generally twist them round, they often please my
+ear there. It is not exactly in point, but I have always rejoiced over
+"Silver was nothing accounted of" in the days of King Solomon; indeed,
+I was brought to book by a proofreader for concluding a sentence with
+"accounted of." I let it stand, so taking was it to me.</p>
+
+<p>The question doubtless occurs to most authors how far they are under
+bonds to the King's English. As to grammar, I submit; the consequences
+of anarchy dismay me; but I question whether in words coinage is an
+attribute of sovereignty. There is, of course, plenty of false money
+going around, current because accepted; but I think a man is at
+liberty to pass a new word, a word without authority in dictionaries,
+if it be congruous to standard etymology. I once wrote "eventless;"
+but, on looking, found it not.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">Page 292</a></span> Yet why not? "Homeless," "heartless,"
+"shoeless," etc.; why merely "uneventful," a form only one letter
+longer, it is true, but built up to "eventful" to be pulled down to
+"uneventful"? Besides, "uneventful" does not mean the same as
+"eventless." "Doubtless" and "undoubtedly" differ by more than a shade
+in sense, and we have both. So we have "anywhere," "nowhere,"
+"somewhere," "everywhere;" why not "manywhere," if you need it? Again,
+if "hitherto" be good&mdash;and it is&mdash;why not "thitherto"? In the case of
+"eccentric" as a military term, I felt forced to frame "ex-centric;"
+the former&mdash;I ask Dr. Johnson's pardon&mdash;has, in America at least,
+become so exclusively associated with the secondary though cognate
+idea of singularity that it would not convey its restricted military
+significance to a lay reader.</p>
+
+<p>I had been assigned to the War College in October, 1885, Admiral Luce
+being still its president, but I did not go into residence until the
+end of the following August. Luce had then been for some months
+detached, to command the North Atlantic fleet, and I had succeeded him
+by default, without special orders that I can remember. He was anxious
+for me to live on the spot, to be "on deck," as he phrased it, for the
+College had many enemies and few friends; and matters were not helped
+by a sharp official collision that summer between him and Secretary
+Whitney, who from indifference passed into antagonism. I cannot say
+that his change was due to this cause, and for a long time his
+hostility did not take form in act. Now that the College, after twenty
+years, has had the warm encomium of the President of the United States
+in his message to Congress, it is interesting to a veteran recipient
+of its early buffets to recall conditions. In my two years' incumbency
+we got decidedly more kicks than halfpence. Yet in retrospect it
+gains. A prominent New York lawyer once told me of a young man from a
+distant State con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">Page 293</a></span>sulting him with a view to practising in the city.
+In response to some cautious warning as to the difficulties, he said:
+"Do you mean that with my education and capacity I cannot expect rapid
+success?" "I fear not," replied the mentor. A few months later they
+met casually. "Are you getting on as fast as you had hoped?" asked the
+older man. "No," admitted the other, "but it's heaps of fun." He
+doubtless got on, and so did the College. I at the time was less
+appreciative of the fun, but I liked the work, and now I see also the
+comical side.</p>
+
+<p>Between the early favor of the Department and his own energy, Luce had
+given the College a good send-off, like a skiff shoved by hand from
+the wharf into mid-stream. There remained only to keep it moving. We
+had an appropriation, and a building that was ready for lecturing;
+with also two as yet uncompleted suites of quarters, for myself and
+one other officer. We had also a very respectable library, in which,
+among many valuable works, conspicuously selected with an eye to our
+special objects, I recall with amusement certain ancient
+encyclop&aelig;dias, contributed apparently by well-wishers from stock which
+had begun to encumber their shelves. Howbeit, like Quaker guns, these
+made a brave show if not too closely scrutinized, and spared us the
+semblance of poverty in vacant spaces. Every military man understands
+the value of an imposing front towards the enemy. When I arrived, I
+was the sole occupant of the building; and except an army officer&mdash;now
+General Tasker Bliss&mdash;was the only <em>attach&eacute;</em>. As I walked round the
+lonely halls and stairways, I might have parodied Louis XIV., and
+said, "<em>Le Coll&egrave;ge, c'est moi</em>." I had, indeed, an excellent steward,
+who attended to my meals and made my bed. There was but one lamp
+available, which I had to carry with me when I went from room to room
+by night; and, indeed, except for the roof over my head, I might be
+said to be "camping out." There was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">Page 294</a></span> yet a month before the class of
+officers was to arrive. This interval was more than occupied preparing
+the necessary maps for my lectures, much of the time by my lonely
+light. Owing to lack of regular assistance, a great part of the map
+work was done by my own hands, often sprawled on the floor as my best
+table; though I was fortunate in receiving much voluntary help from a
+retired lieutenant, now Captain McCarty Little, then and always an
+enthusiastic advocate of the College, who did some of the drafting and
+all the coloring. Thus were put together three of the four maps which
+afterwards appeared in my first book. The fourth, of the North
+Atlantic Ocean, was begged of the hydrographer of the navy; a friendly
+Rhode Island man.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the maps, there were to be produced some twenty or more battle
+plans. For these I hit on a device which I can recommend. I cut out a
+number of cardboard vessels, of different colors for the contending
+navies, and these I moved about on a sheet of drawing-paper until
+satisfied that the graphic presentation corresponded with facts and
+conditions. They were then fastened in place with mucilage. This saved
+a great deal of drawing in and rubbing out, and by using complementary
+colors gave vivid impression. In combats of sailing fleets you must
+look out sharp, or in some arrangement, otherwise plausible, you will
+have a ship sailing within four points of the wind before you know it.
+Nor is this the only way truth may be insulted. Times and distances
+also lay snares for incautious steps. I noticed once in an account of
+an action two times, with corresponding positions, which made a
+frigate in the meanwhile run at eighteen knots under topsails.</p>
+
+<p>By such shifts we scrambled along as best we could our first year,
+content with beef without horseradish, as Sam Weller has it; hitching
+up with rope when a trace gave way, in the blessed condition of those
+who are not expecting favors. But worse was to come. Besides the
+general<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">Page 295</a></span> offence against conservatism by being a new thing, the
+College specifically had poached its building from another manor. It
+stood upon the grounds of the Naval Training Station, for apprentices,
+which considered itself defrauded of property and intruded upon by an
+alien jurisdiction&mdash;an <em>imperium in imperio</em>. The two were not even
+under the same bureau, so the antagonism existed in Washington as well
+as locally; and now a Secretary of malevolent neutrality. Truly some
+one was needed "on deck;" though just what he could do with such a
+barometer did not appear, unless he bore up under short canvas, like
+Nelson, who "made it a rule never to fight the northwesters." And such
+was very much our policy; reefed close down, looking out for squalls
+at any moment from any quarter, saying nothing to nobody, content to
+be let alone, if only we might be so let. Small sail; and no weather
+helm, if you please. One most alleviating circumstance was the
+commandant of the training station, the local enemy, one of the born
+saints of the earth, Arthur Yates. Officially, of course he
+disapproved of us; professional self-respect and precedent, bureau
+allegiance, and all the rest of it, were outraged; but when it came to
+deeds, Yates could not have imagined an unkind act, much less done it.
+Nor did he stop there; good-will with him was not a negative but an
+active quality. What we wanted he would always do, and then go one
+better, if he could find a way to add to our convenience; and when we
+ultimately came to grief, after his departure, he wrote me a letter of
+condolence. Altogether, while clouds were gathering in Washington, it
+was perpetual sunshine at home as to official and personal relations.
+I have no doubt he would have drawn maps for me had I asked it.</p>
+
+<p>None the less, trouble was at hand. In 1886 we had a session which by
+general consent was very successful in quality, if not in quantity,
+lasting little over two months.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">Page 296</a></span> Our own bureau controlled the
+ordering of officers, so it swept together a sufficient number to form
+a class. We had several excellent series of lectures: on Gunnery in
+its higher practical aspects, by Lieutenant Meigs, who has since left
+the navy for a responsible position in the Bethlehem Iron Works; on
+International Law, by Professor Soley, who under the next
+administration became Assistant-Secretary of the Navy; on Naval
+Hygiene, by a naval surgeon, Dr. Dean; together with others less
+notable. All these had been contracted for by Luce. Captain Bliss and
+myself, as yet the only two permanent <em>attach&eacute;s</em>, of course took our
+share. So much was new to the officers in attendance, not only in
+details but in principle, that I am satisfied nine-tenths of them went
+away friendly; some enthusiastic. The College had steered clear of any
+appearance of scientific, or so-called post-graduate, instruction,
+consecutive with that given at Annapolis; and had demonstrated that it
+meant to deal only with questions pertinent to the successful
+carrying-on of war, for promoting which no instrumentality existed
+elsewhere. The want had been proved, and a means of filling it
+offered. The listeners had been persuaded.</p>
+
+<p>I well remember my own elation when they went away in the latter part
+of November. Success had surpassed expectation. But in a fortnight
+Congress met, and it soon became evident that we were to be starved
+out,&mdash;no appropriation. It was a short session, too; scant time for
+fighting. I went to Washington, and pleaded with the chairman of the
+House naval committee, Mr. Herbert; but while he was perfectly
+good-natured, and we have from then been on pleasant terms, whenever
+he saw me he set his teeth and compressed his lips. His argument was:
+Once establish an institution, and it grows; more and more every year.
+There must be economy, and nowhere is economy so effectually applied
+as to the begin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">Page 297</a></span>nings. In vain did I try to divert his thoughts to the
+magnificent endings that would come from the paltry ten thousand the
+College asked. He stopped his ears, like Ulysses, and kept his eyes
+fixed on the necessity of strangling vipers in their cradle. In vain
+were my efforts seconded by General Joe Wheeler, also a representative
+from Alabama, and strongly sympathetic with military thought. No help
+could be expected from the Secretary, and we got no funds.</p>
+
+<p>The fiscal year would end June 30, 1887. It was of no use to try
+saving from the current balance, for by law that must be turned in at
+the year's end. So we shrugged our shoulders and trusted to luck,
+which came to our assistance in a comical manner. For summer we were
+all right, or nearly so; but winter might freeze us out. Still, unless
+the Secretary saw fit to destroy the College by executive order, it
+had a right to be warm; so we sent in our requisition for heating the
+building. It went through the customary channels, was approved, and
+the coal in the cellars before the Department noticed that there was
+no appropriation against which to charge it. Upon reference to the
+Secretary, he decided that the coal had been ordered and supplied in
+good faith, and should be left and paid for. In fact, however, if the
+building was used it would have to be heated; the decision practically
+was to let the College retain the building. It was an excellent
+occasion to wipe us out by a stroke of the pen, but Mr. Whitney had
+not yet reached that point. The fuel, I think, was charged to the
+bureau to which the Training Station belonged, which would not tend to
+mollify its feelings.</p>
+
+<p>Coal was our prime necessity, but it was not all. The hostile interest
+now began to cut us short in the various items which contribute to the
+daily bread of a government institution. We lived the year from hand
+to mouth. From the repairs put on the building a twelvemonth before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">Page 298</a></span>
+there was left a lot of refuse scrap lying about. This we collected
+and sorted, selling what was available, on the principle of
+slush-money. Slush, the non-professional may be told, is the grease
+arising from the cooking of salt provisions. By old custom this was
+collected, barrelled, and sold for the benefit of the ship. The price
+remained in the first lieutenant's hands, to be expended for the
+vessel; usually going for beautifying. What we sold at the College we
+thus used; not for beautifying, which was far beyond us, but to keep
+things together. This proceeding was irregular, and for years I
+preserved with nervous care the memoranda of what became of the money,
+in case of being questioned; although I do not think the total went
+much beyond a hundred dollars. It is surprising how much a hundred
+dollars may be made to do. For our lectures the hydrographer again
+made for the College two very large and handsome maps.</p>
+
+<p>The session of 1887 was longer and more complete than the year before;
+but specifically it increased our good report in the service and added
+to us hosts of friends. Many were now ready to speak in our favor, if
+asked; and some gave themselves a good deal of trouble to see this or
+that person of importance. This was a powerful reinforcement for the
+approaching struggle; but with the Secretary biassed against us, and
+resolute opposition from the chairman of the committee, the odds were
+heavy. Mr. Whitney showed me a frowning countenance, quite unlike his
+usual <em>bonhomie</em>; and yielded only a reluctant, almost surly, "I will
+not oppose you, but I do not authorize you to express any approval
+from me." With that we began a still hunt; not from policy, but
+because no other course was open, and by degrees we converted all the
+committee but three. This was quite an achievement in its way; for, as
+one of the members said to me, "It is rather hard to oppose the
+chairman in a matter of this kind. Still, I am satisfied it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">Page 299</a></span> is a good
+thing, and I will vote for it." So we got our appropriation by a big
+majority. Mr. Herbert was very nice about his discomfiture. That a set
+of uninfluential naval officers should so unexpectedly have got the
+better of him, in his position, had a humorous side which he was ready
+to see; though it is possible we, on whose side the laugh was, enjoyed
+it more. He afterwards, when Secretary of the Navy, came to think much
+better of the College, which flourished under him.</p>
+
+<p>I had soon to find that my mouth had more than one side on which to
+laugh. Confident that we were out of the woods, I proceeded to halloo;
+for in an address made at the opening of the session of 1888, alluding
+to the doubt long felt about the appropriation, I said, "That fear has
+now happily been removed." I reckoned without the Secretary, who
+issued an order, a bolt out of the blue, depriving the College not
+only of its building, but of its independent existence; transferring
+it to the care of the commander of the Torpedo Station, on another
+island in Narragansett Bay. This ended my official existence as
+president of the College, and I was sent off to Puget Sound; one of a
+commission to choose a site for a navy-yard there. I never knew, nor
+cared, just why Whitney took this course, but I afterwards had an
+amusing experience with him, showing how men forget; like my old
+commodore his moment of despondency about the outcome of the war. In
+later years he and I were members of a dining club in New York. I then
+had had my success and recognition. One evening I chanced to say to
+him, apropos of what I do not now recall, "It was at the time, you
+know, that you sent Sampson to the Naval Academy, and Goodrich to the
+Torpedo Station." "Yes," he rejoined, complacently; "and I sent you to
+the War College." It was literally true, doubtless; his act, though
+not his selection; but in view of the cold comfort and the petard with
+which he there favored me,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">Page 300</a></span> for Whitney to fancy himself a patron to
+me, except on a Johnsonian definition of the word,<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> was as humorous
+a performance as I have known.</p>
+
+<p>So I went to Puget Sound, a very pleasant as well as interesting
+experience; for, having a government tender at our disposal, we
+penetrated by daylight to every corner of that beautiful sheet of
+water, the intricate windings of which prepare a continual series of
+surprises; each scene like the last, yet different; the successive
+resemblances of a family wherein all the members are lovely, yet
+individual. Then was there not, suburban to the city of Seattle, Lake
+Washington, a great body of fresh water? Of this, and of its island,
+blooming with beautiful villas, a delightful summer resort in easy
+reach of the town by cars, we saw before our arrival alluring
+advertisements and pictures, which were, perhaps, a little premature
+and impressionist. How seductive to the imagination was the future
+battle-ship fleet resting in placid fresh water, bottoms unfouled and
+little rusted, awaiting peacefully the call to arms; upon which it
+should issue through the canal yet to be dug between sound and lake,
+ready for instant action! Great would have been the glory of Seattle,
+and corresponding the discomfiture of its rival Tacoma, which
+undeniably had no lake, and, moreover, lay under the stigma of having
+tried, in such default, to appropriate by misnomer another grand
+natural feature; giving its own name Tacoma to Mount Rainier, so
+called by Vancouver for an ancient British admiral. A sharp Seattleite
+said that a tombstone had thus been secured, to preserve the
+remembrance of Tacoma when the city itself should be no more. The
+local nomenclature affixed by Vancouver still remains in many cases.
+Puget, originally applied to one only of the many branches<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">Page 301</a></span> of the
+sound, was among his officers. Hood's Inlet was, doubtless, in honor
+of the great admiral, Lord Hood; while Restoration Point commemorates
+an anniversary of the restoration of Charles II. As regarded Lake
+Washington, our commission was a little nervous lest an injury to the
+canal might interfere at a critical moment with the fleet's freedom of
+movement, leaving it bottled up, and wired down. We selected,
+therefore, the site where the yard now stands, in a singularly
+well-protected inlet on the western side of the main arm, with an
+anchorage of very moderate depth and easy current for Puget Sound.
+There, if my recollection is right, it is nearly equidistant from the
+two cities. Our judgment was challenged and another commission sent
+out. This confirmed our choice, but very much less land was secured
+than we had advised.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="section_break"></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">Page 302</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII</h2>
+
+<h3>EXPERIENCES OF AUTHORSHIP</h3>
+
+
+<p>Before my return from Puget Sound a new administration had come in
+with President Harrison, and the War College was once more in favor.
+But its organization had been destroyed, and some time must elapse
+before it could get again on its legs. In the summer of 1889 a course
+was held at the Torpedo Station, where I lectured with others. The
+following winter an appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars was
+made for a College building; the old one being confirmed to the
+training station, which continued, however, strongly to oppose any use
+of its grounds for the new venture. In this it was overruled, and in
+1892 the College started afresh in what has since been its constant
+headquarters, two hundred yards from its original position.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time my first series of lectures had been published in
+book form, under the title <em>The Influence of Sea Power upon History,
+1660&ndash;1783</em>. This was in May, 1890. That it filled a need was speedily
+evident by favorable reviews, which were much more explicit and hearty
+in Europe, and especially in Great Britain, than in the United States.
+The point of view apparently possessed a novelty, which produced upon
+readers something of the effect of a surprise. The work has since
+received the further indorsement of translation into French, German,
+Japanese, Russian, and Spanish; I think into Italian also, but of this
+I am not certain. The same compliment has, I believe, been paid to its
+successor, which carried the treat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">Page 303</a></span>ment down to the fall of Napoleon.
+Notably, it may be said that my theme has brought me into pleasant
+correspondence with several Japanese officials and translators, than
+whom none, as far as known to me, have shown closer or more interested
+attention to the general subject; how fruitfully, has been
+demonstrated both by their preparation and their accomplishments in
+the recent war. As far as known to myself, more of my works have been
+done into Japanese than into any other one tongue.</p>
+
+<p>In 1890 and 1891 there was no session of the College. During this
+period of suspended animation its activities were limited to my own
+preparations for continuing the historical course through the wars of
+the French Revolution and Empire, with a view to the resumption of
+teaching. I was kept on this duty; and I think no one else was busy in
+direct connection with the institution, though the former lecturers
+were for the most part available. It is evident how particularly
+fortunate such circumstances were to an author. For the two years that
+they lasted I had no cares beyond writing; was unvexed by either
+pecuniary anxieties or interference from my superiors. The College
+slumbered and I worked. My results, after one season's use as
+lectures, were published in two volumes, under the title <em>The
+Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Of this work it may accurately be said that in order of composition it
+was begun with its final chapter. The accumulation and digestion of
+material had been spasmodic and desultory, for I had hesitated much
+whether to pursue the treatment after 1783. The instability of the
+College fortunes had irritated as well as harassed me. If the navy did
+not want what I was doing, why should I persist? Nothing having been
+given to the world, I had had no outside encouragement; and little
+from within the profession, save the cordial approval of a very few
+officers. How<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">Page 304</a></span>ever, during the two years of doubtful struggle I had
+read quite widely upon the general history of the particular period,
+as well as upon the effects of sea power in the Peloponnesian War;
+together with such details as I could collect from Livy and Polybius
+of naval occurrences while Hannibal was in Italy. My outlook was thus
+enlarged; not upon military matters only, but by an appreciation of
+the strength of Athens, broad based upon an extensive system of
+maritime commerce. This prepared me to see in the Continental System
+of Napoleon the direct outcome of Great Britain's maritime supremacy,
+and the ultimate cause of his own ruin. Thus, while gathering matter,
+a conception was forming, which became the dominant feature in my
+scheme by the time I began to write in earnest. Coincidently with
+these studies, and with my other occupations when at first president
+of the College, two introductory chapters had been written; one
+bridging the interval between 1783 and 1793, so as to hitch on to my
+first book, the other dealing with the state of the navies at the
+opening of the French Revolution.</p>
+
+<p>There Mr. Whitney's action brought me up with a round turn. When I
+resumed, late in 1889, I extended my reading by Jomini's <em>Wars of the
+French Republic</em>, a work instructive from the political as well as
+military point of view; concurrently testing Howe's naval campaign of
+1794 by the principles advanced by the military author, which
+commended themselves to my judgment. In connection with this study of
+naval strategy, I reconstructed independently Howe's three engagements
+of May 28th and 29th, and June 1st, from the details given by James,
+Troude, and Chevalier, analyzing and discussing the successive
+tactical measures of the opposing admirals; in the battle of June 1st
+going so far as to trace even the tracks of the fifty-odd individual
+ships throughout the action. This, the most complicated presentation I
+ever attempted, was a needless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">Page 305</a></span> elaboration, though of absorbing
+interest to me when once begun. A comparison between it and the bare
+conventional diagram of Trafalgar in the same volumes, which has been
+criticised as not reproducing the facts, may serve to show how far
+multiplicity of minuti&aelig; conduces to clearness of perception. From the
+Trafalgar plan a reader, lay or professional, can grasp readily the
+underlying conceptions upon which the battle was fought, and the
+manner in which they were executed, as commonly received; but who ever
+has tried to comprehend the movements of the vessels on June 1st, as I
+elicited them? Assuming their correctness, it was a mere mental
+diversion, in result rather confusing than illuminative to a student;
+whereas ships arranged like beads on a string can give an impression
+fundamentally correct, and to be apprehended at a glance. So far from
+tending to lucidity, accumulation of detail in pursuit of minute
+accuracy rather obscures. Nelson himself indicated his intentions
+sufficiently by straight lines. One merit my June 1st plan may
+possibly possess; the perplexing optical effect may convey better than
+words the intricacy of a naval <em>m&ecirc;l&eacute;e</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Coincidently with the study of military events, connoted by Howe's
+campaign and Jomini, I of course did a good deal of reading which here
+can be described only as miscellaneous; prominent amid which was
+Thiers's <em>History of the Consulate and Empire</em>, Napoleon's
+<em>Correspondence and Commentaries</em>, and the orations of Pitt and Fox.
+From Thiers, confirmed by contemporary memoirs and pamphlets and other
+incidental mention, I gained my conviction that the Continental System
+was the determinative factor in Napoleon's fortunes after Tilsit.
+Pitt's speeches, taken with his life, seemed to me conclusive as to
+his policy, despite the evil construction placed upon his acts by
+Frenchmen of his day, which Thiers has perpetuated. I saw clearly and
+conclusively, as I thought, apparent in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">Page 306</a></span> public words and private
+letters, a strong desire for peace, and a hand forced by a wilful
+spirit of aggression which momentarily had lost the balance of its
+reason. Making every allowance for the extravagances of the French
+rulers, unpractised in government and driven by a burning sense of
+mission to universal mankind, it was to me evident that their demands
+upon other nations, and notably upon Great Britain, were subversive of
+all public order and law, and of international security.</p>
+
+<p>Pitt's proud resolution to withstand to the uttermost this tendency,
+coupled with his evident passionate clinging to peace as the basis of
+his life ambition, constituted to my apprehension a tragedy; of lofty
+personal aim and effort wrestling with, and slowly done to death by,
+opposing conditions too mighty for man. The dramatic intensity of the
+situation was increased by the absence of the external dramatic appeal
+characteristic of his father. It carried the force of emotion
+suppressed. The bitter inner disappointment is veiled under the
+reserve of his private life and the reticence of his public utterance,
+which give to his personality a certain remoteness from usual joys and
+sorrows; but, the veil once pierced by sympathy, the human side of the
+younger Pitt stands revealed as of one who, without complaint, bore no
+common burden, did no common work, and to whom fell no common share of
+the suffering which arises from disappointment and frustration, in
+ideals and achievement. The conflict of the two motives in the man's
+steadfast nature aroused in me an enthusiasm which I did not seek to
+check; for I believe enthusiasm no bad spirit in which to realize
+history to yourself or others. It tends to bias; but bias can be
+controlled. Enthusiasm has its place, not for action only, nor for
+speaking, but in writing and in appreciation; quite as critical
+analysis and judicial impartiality have theirs. To deny either is to
+err. The moment of exaltation gone, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">Page 307</a></span> dispassionate intellect may
+sit in judgment upon the expressions of thought and feeling which have
+been prompted by the stirring of the mind; but without this there
+lacks one element of true presentation. The height of full recognition
+for a great event, or a great personality, has not been reached. The
+swelling of the breast under strong emotion uplifts understanding.
+Under such influence a writer is to the extent of his faculties on the
+level of his theme. As for biography, I would no more attempt to write
+that of a man for whom I felt no warm admiration, than I would
+maintain friendship with one for whom I had no affection.</p>
+
+<p>Doubtless there also was in Pitt's manner of speech, in the cast of
+his sentences,&mdash;the style that is the man himself,&mdash;something which
+appealed especially to me. Often, when reading in the Public Library
+of New York a passage of unusual eloquence, I would be strongly moved
+to rise on the spot and give three cheers; and I heartily subscribed
+to a Latin motto on the title-page of the edition I was using: If you
+could but have heard himself. But it was more than that. The story
+increasingly impressed itself upon me. I saw him conscious of great
+capacities for the administration of peace, an inner conviction of far
+less ability for war; with a vision of Great Britain happy and
+prosperous beyond all past experience under his enlightened guidance,
+of which already the plans had been revealed and proof been given, and
+over against this the palpable reality of a current too powerful to be
+resisted, sweeping her into a conflict, the end of which, amid such
+unprecedented conditions, could not be foreseen. Also, despite all his
+deficiencies for a war ministry, as I read and studied the general
+features of the situation with which he had to deal, I became
+convinced that the broad lines of his policy coincided with the
+military necessities of the case, to an extent that he himself very
+possibly did not realize. For<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">Page 308</a></span> as the Directory outlined Napoleon's
+Continental System, so Pitt, unknowingly perhaps, pursued the methods,
+as he definitely predicted the means&mdash;exhaustion&mdash;by which his
+successors brought to a stop the mischievous energies of France under
+the great emperor.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, before I began to write, my leading ideas for the historical
+treatment of the influence of sea power during the period 1793&ndash;1814
+rested upon an approval of the main features of Pitt's war policy, and
+sympathy with his personal position; upon a clear conviction of the
+weight of the Continental System as a factor in the general situation,
+and of its being a direct consequence from British maritime supremacy;
+and upon a sufficiently comprehensive acquaintance with the operations
+of the land warfare up to the Peace of Amiens. Having as yet written
+only the two introductory chapters, and Howe's campaign being strictly
+episodical, the work as an organic whole was still before me when the
+summer of 1890 arrived. It was then thought probable that the College
+would at once resume, and in order to be at hand I settled my family
+in Newport, there addressing myself to my new lectures. Considering
+the mass of detail through which my hearers must be carried, I thought
+advisable to begin with an outline statement of the general political
+and military conditions, and of their sequences; a rudimentary figure,
+a skeleton, the nakedness of which should render easy to understand
+the mutual bearings of the several parts, and their articulations. So
+most surely could the relation of sea power to the other members be
+seen, and its influence upon them and upon the ultimate issue be
+appreciated. Before I began, I remember explaining to a brother
+officer my conception of the Continental System as the culmination of
+the maritime struggle, which in a narrowly military sense had ended
+with Trafalgar. The light thus cast would illuminate afterwards each
+of the several sections of the history, treated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">Page 309</a></span> circumstantially in
+order of time. In short, I here applied to the whole the method of my
+diagram for Trafalgar, and not of that for June 1st. The result was
+the chapter last in the work, as it now stands, but the first to be
+composed.</p>
+
+<p>A few months before book publication this chapter appeared in the
+<em>Quarterly Review</em>, under the title "Pitt's War Policy," chosen by me
+to express my recognition that the grand policy was his; that in it he
+was real as well as titular premier; and that in my judgment, despite
+the numerous errors of detail which demonstrated his limited military
+understanding, the economical comprehension of the statesman had
+developed a political strategy which vindicated his greatness in war
+as in peace. The article ended, as the chapter then did, with the
+well-known quotation, particularly apt to my appreciation, "The Pilot
+had weathered the storm." The few subsequent pages were added later.
+By an odd coincidence, just as I had offered the paper to the
+<em>Quarterly</em>, one under the same title, "by a Foxite," came out in
+another magazine. Somewhat discomposed, I hurried to look this up; but
+found, as from the <em>nom de plume</em> might be presumed, that it did not
+take my line of argument, but rather, as I recall, that of Pitt's
+opponents, which Macaulay has developed with his accustomed
+brilliancy, although to my mind with profound misconception and
+superficial criticism. Fox's speeches had made upon me the impression
+of the mere objector. Indeed, I felt this so strongly that I had
+written of him as "the great, but factious, leader of the opposition."
+In proofreading I struck out "factious;" as needless, and as a
+generalization on insufficient premises.</p>
+
+<p>It was not till the following December&mdash;1890&mdash;that I began the two
+chapters next in order of composition, on "The Warfare against
+Commerce." These occupied me late into the winter, covering as they
+did the entire period<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">Page 310</a></span> 1793&ndash;1814, and embracing a great deal of
+detail. Taken together, these three chapters, final but first written,
+contain the main argument of the book. The naval occurrences,
+brilliant and interesting as they were, are logically but the prelude
+to the death grapple. Pitt's policy stood justified, because naval
+supremacy, established by war, secured control of the seas and of
+maritime commerce, and so exhausted Napoleon. Not till this
+demonstration had been accomplished to my own satisfaction did I take
+up the narrative and discussion of warfare, land and sea. Thus the
+prelude followed the play. My memory retains associations which enable
+me definitely to fix the progress of the work. Thus the chapter on
+"The Brest Blockade," from its characteristics, long continuance, and
+incidents, one of the most interesting of the purely naval operations,
+was composed in the summer of 1891, at Richfield; while the campaign
+and battle of Trafalgar, the last done of all, passed through my hands
+in April, 1892, in Richmond, Virginia, where I then was on
+court-martial duty.</p>
+
+<p>This second book was written under much more encouraging circumstances
+than its predecessor, and with much greater deliberation. The first
+occupied me little over one year; the second, though covering only
+one-fifth the time, was in hand three. There were long interruptions,
+it is true; the Puget Sound business, and the writing of a short <em>Life
+of Farragut</em>. But the chief cause of delay was a much more extensive
+preparation. This was owing largely to the crowded activities of the
+brief twenty years treated, and still more to wider outlook. I
+attempted, indeed, nothing that could be called original research. I
+still relied wholly upon printed matter, but in that I wandered far.
+The privilege was accorded me of free access to the alcoves of what
+was then the Astor Library, now, while keeping its name, incorporated
+with the New York Public Library; and I rummaged its well-stocked
+shelves,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">Page 311</a></span> following up every clue, especially memoirs, pamphlets, and
+magazines, contemporary with my period. From the estimate I had formed
+of the effect of commerce upon the outcome of the hostilities, it was
+necessary to digest the statistics of the times, much of which existed
+in tabulated form; and, for commercial policy, the State Papers, and
+debates in Parliament, as well as in the French National Convention. I
+now had not only interest in my task, but pride; for the favorable
+criticism upon the first sea-power book not only had surprised me, but
+had increased my ambition and my self-confidence. It was a distinct
+help that there was no expectation of pecuniary advantage; no
+publisher or magazine editor pressing for "copy," on which dollars
+depended. I now often recall with envy the happiness of those days,
+when the work was its own reward, and quite sufficient, too, almost as
+good as a baby; when there were no secondary considerations, however
+important, to dispute for the first place. I have never knowingly let
+work leave my hands in shape less good than the best I can turn out;
+but I have often felt the temptation to do so, and wished&mdash;almost, not
+quite&mdash;that there was no money in it. I recast Dr. Johnson's saying:
+"None but a blockhead would write unless he needed money." None but a
+blockhead would write for money, unless he had to.</p>
+
+<p>Though not embarrassed by publishers, I found a more formidable enemy
+on my tracks in 1892. There had been a change in the Bureau of
+Navigation, and the new chief, under whom the College was, thought my
+help to it less necessary than my going to sea. To an advocate of
+allowing me time, he replied, summarily, "It is not the business of a
+naval officer to write books." As an aphorism the remark is doubtless
+unassailable; but, with a policy thus defined, my position, again to
+quote Boatswain Chucks, became "precarious and not at all permanent."
+That my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">Page 312</a></span> turn for sea service had come was indisputable. I could
+pretend to no grievance, but I did want first to finish that book. Yet
+I have recalled with happiness that I was enabled to work steadfastly
+on, my pulse beating no quicker for fear I should be interrupted and
+my task left unfinished. I remember a Boston publisher telling me of
+the anxiety felt by one of his distinguished clients, lest death
+should overtake him before that which he had planned was completed.
+The feeling is common to man, and one is touched by the apparent
+tragedy when men of promise and achievement are so removed, their aims
+unaccomplished, as were recently Professor Rawson Gardiner and Sir
+William Hunter; but it was given me early to realize that there is no
+such thing as being cut off unbetimes. If I were called at the end of
+a day's stint, or the pen fell from my hand in the midst of it, that
+which was appointed me was done; if well done, what mattered the rest?
+This quietness came to me through a chain of thought. I had been
+experiencing, as many others have, the weariness of a long-winded job,
+the end of which seemed to recede with each day's progress; and there
+came to my mind Long-fellow's "Village Blacksmith:"</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Onward through life he goes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each morning sees some task begin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><em>Each evening sees it close</em>."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Would it were so with me! And a voice replied, "Is it not so with you?
+with all?" Since then I have understood; though the flesh is often
+weak, and even the calm of the study cannot always exclude the
+contagious fever of our American pace. In the particular juncture, the
+Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Tracy, took my view of relative
+importances, and time was secured me. The manuscript was complete by
+the late spring of 1892, and the book pub<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">Page 313</a></span>lished in December, having
+meantime been used for lectures in the first session of the College in
+its new building; a renewal of life which has since proved continuous.</p>
+
+<p>During this interval occurred another presidential campaign. Mr.
+Harrison was defeated and Mr. Cleveland elected. I was now ready to go
+to sea, but by this time had decided that authorship had for me
+greater attractions than following up my profession, and promised a
+fuller and more successful old age. I would have retired immediately,
+had I then fulfilled the necessary forty years' service; but of these
+I still lacked four. My purpose was to take up at once the War of
+1812, while the history of the preceding events was fresh in my mind;
+and in this view I asked to be excused from sea duty, undertaking that
+I would retire when my forty years were complete. The request was
+probably inadmissible, for I could have given no guarantees; and the
+precedent might have been bad. At any rate, it was not granted,
+luckily for me; for by a combination of unforeseen circumstances the
+ship to which I was ordered, the <em>Chicago</em>, was sent to Europe as
+flag-ship of that station, and on her visit to England, in 1894,
+occasion was taken by naval officers and others to express in public
+manner their recognition of the value they thought my work had been to
+the appreciation of naval questions there. This brought my name
+forward in a way that could not but be flattering, and affected
+favorably the sale of the books; the previous readers of which had
+seemingly been few, though from among those few I had received
+pleasant compliments. Upon this followed the conferring upon me
+honorary degrees by the two universities; D.C.L. by Oxford, and LL.D.
+by Cambridge. After my return, in 1895, LL.D. was extended also by
+Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, in the order named, and by McGill in
+Montreal.</p>
+
+<p>Another very pleasing and interesting experience while in London was
+dining with the Royal Navy Club. This<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">Page 314</a></span> is an ancient institution,
+dating back to the middle of the eighteenth century. Its list of
+members carries many celebrated names, among others Nelson. It has no
+club-house, and exists as an organization only; meeting for dinners on
+or near the dates of some half-dozen famous naval victories, the
+anniversaries of which it thus commemorates yearly. There is by rule
+one guest of the evening, and one only, who is titularly the guest of
+the presiding officer; but on this occasion an exception was made for
+our admiral and myself. Unfortunately, he, who was much the better
+after-dinner speaker, was ill and could not attend. The rule thus
+remained intact, and I have understood that this was the first time in
+the history of the club that the guest had been a foreigner.</p>
+
+<p>The <em>Chicago</em> had left England and was lying at Antwerp when the time
+for conferring degrees arrived. My attendance in person was requisite,
+but only a week could be spared from the ship for the purpose. This
+made it impossible for me to be present in both cases at the high
+ceremonial, where the honors are bestowed upon the full group of
+recipients. Oxford had been first to tender me her distinction, and I
+accordingly arranged my journey with a view to her celebration; two
+days before which I went down to Cambridge, and was there received and
+enrolled at a private audience, before the accustomed officials and
+some few visitors from outside. What the circumstances lacked in the
+pomp of numbers and observance, and in the consequent stimulus to
+interest which a very novel experience arouses, was compensated to me
+by the few hours of easy social intercourse with a few eminent
+persons, whom I had the pleasure of then meeting very informally.</p>
+
+<p>The great occasion at Oxford presents a curious combination of
+impressiveness and horse-play, such as is associated with the Abbot of
+Misrule, in the stories of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">Page 315</a></span> Middle Ages. It is this smack and
+suggestion of antiquity, of unnumbered such occasions in the misty
+past, when the student was half-scholar and half-ruffian, which make
+the permitted license of to-day not only tolerable, but in a sense
+even venerable. The good-humor and general acceptance on both sides,
+by chaffers and chaffed, testified to recognized conditions; and there
+is about a hoary institution a saving grace which cannot be
+transferred to <em>parvenus</em>. Practised in a modern Cis-Atlantic seat of
+learning, as I have seen it done, without the historical background,
+the same disregard of normal decorum becomes undraped rowdyism&mdash;boxing
+without gloves. The scene and its concurrences at Oxford have been
+witnessed by too many, and too often described, for me to attempt
+them. I shall narrate only my particular experiences. I had been
+desired to appear in full uniform&mdash;epaulettes, cocked hat, sword, and
+what is suggestively called "brass-bound" coat; swallow-tailed, with a
+high collar stiffened with lining and gold lace, set off by trousers
+with a like broad stripe of lace, not inaptly characterized by some
+humorist as "railroad" trousers. The theory of these last, I believe,
+is that so much decoration on hat and collar, if not balanced by an
+equivalent amount below, is top-heavy in visual effect, if not on
+personal stability. Whatever the reason, it is all there, and I had it
+all at Oxford; all on my head and back, I mean, except the epaulettes.
+For to my concern I found that over all this paraphernalia I must also
+wear the red silk gown of a D.C.L. It became evident, immediately upon
+trial, that the silk and the epaulettes were agreeing like the
+Kilkenny cats, so it was conceded that these naval ornaments should be
+dispensed with; the more readily as they could not have been seen. In
+the blend, and for the occasion, my legal laurels prevailed over my
+professional exterior.</p>
+
+<p>In the matter of dress my life certainly culminated when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">Page 316</a></span> I walked
+up&mdash;or down&mdash;High Street in Oxford with cocked hat, red silk gown, and
+sword, the railroad trousers modestly peeping beneath. It must be
+admitted that the townsmen either had more than French politeness, or
+else were used to incongruities. I did not see one crack a smile;
+whether any turned to look or not, I did not turn to see. My
+hospitable escort and myself joined the other expectants before the
+Sheldonian Theatre, where the ceremonies are held. The audience, of
+both sexes, visitors and students, had already crammed the benches and
+galleries of the great circular interior when we marched to our seats,
+in single file, down a narrow aisle. The fun, doubtless, had been
+going on already some time; but for us it was non-existent till we
+entered, when the hose was turned full upon us and our several
+peculiarities. I am bound to say that to encourage us we got quite as
+many cheers as chaff, and the personalities which flew about like
+grape-shot were pretty much hit or miss. I noticed that some one from
+aloft called out, "Why don't you have your hair cut?" which I
+afterwards understood was a delicate allusion to my somewhat
+unparalleled baldness; but it happened that two behind me in the
+procession was a very distinguished Russian scientist, like myself a
+D.C.L. <em>in ovo</em>, whose long locks fell over his collar, and I
+innocently supposed that so pertinent a remark was addressed to him on
+an occasion when <em>im</em>pertinence was lord of the ascendant. Thus the
+shaft passed me harmless, or fell back blunted from my triple armor of
+dulness.</p>
+
+<p>Although in itself in most ways enjoyable, the cruise of the <em>Chicago</em>
+while it lasted necessarily suspended authorship. I heard intimations
+of the common opinion that the leisure of a naval officer's life would
+afford abundant opportunity. Even I myself for a moment imagined that
+time in some measure might be found for accumulating material, for
+which purpose I took along several books;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">Page 317</a></span> but it was in vain. Neither
+a ship nor a book is patient of a rival, and I soon ceased the effort
+to serve both. Night work was tried, contrary to my habit; but after a
+few weeks I had to recognize that the evening's exertion had dulled my
+head for the next morning's duties.</p>
+
+<p>My orders not only interrupted writing, but changed its direction for
+a long while. I had foreseen that the War of 1812, as a whole, must be
+flat in interest as well as laborious in execution; and, upon the
+provocation of other duty, I readily turned from it in distaste. Nine
+years elapsed before I took it up; and then rather under the
+compulsion of completing my Sea Power series, as first designed, than
+from any inclination to the theme. It occupied three years&mdash;usefully,
+I hope&mdash;and was published in 1905. Regarded as history, it is by far
+the most thorough work I have done. I went largely to original
+documents in Washington, Ottawa, and London, and I believe I have
+contributed to the particular period something new in both material
+and interpretation. But, whatever value the book may possess to one
+already drawn to the subject, it is impossible to infuse charm where
+from the facts of the case it does not exist. As a Chinese
+portrait-painter is said to have remonstrated with a discontented
+patron, "How can pretty face make, when pretty face no have got?"</p>
+
+<p>Thus my orders to the <em>Chicago</em> led to dropping 1812, and to this my
+<em>Life of Nelson</em> was directly due. The project had already occurred to
+me, for the conspicuous elements of human as well as professional
+interest could not well escape one who had just been following him
+closely in his military career. <em>Sea Power in the French Revolution</em>
+having been published less than six months before, the framework of
+external events, into which his actions must be fitted, was fresh in
+my recollection, as was also the analysis of his campaigns and
+battles, available at once for fuller treatment, more directly
+biographical. After consul<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">Page 318</a></span>tation with my publishers I decided to
+undertake the work, and with reference to it chiefly I provided myself
+reading-matter. I have already said that the experiment of writing on
+board did not succeed. I composed part of the first chapter and then
+stopped; but the purpose remained, and was resumed very soon after
+leaving the <em>Chicago</em>, in May, 1895.</p>
+
+<p>For the writing of biography I had formed a theory of my own, a
+guiding principle, closely akin to the part which sea power had played
+in my treatment of history. This leading idea was not intended to
+exclude other points of view or manners of presentation, but was to
+subordinate them somewhat peremptorily. As defined to myself, my plan
+was to realize personality by living with the man, in as close
+familiarity as was consistent with the fact of his being dead. This
+was to be done first, for myself, as the necessary prelude to
+transmission to my readers. When there remains a huge mass of
+correspondence, by one as frank in utterance and copious in
+self-revelation as was Nelson, the opportunity to get on terms of such
+intimacy is unique, one-sided though the communication is. Besides,
+companions and subordinates have left abundant records of their
+association with him, which constitute, as it were, the other side of
+conversation; relieving the monologue of his own letters. The first
+thing in order is to know the living man; and it seemed to me that,
+with such materials, this could be accomplished most fully by steeping
+one's self in them, creating an environment closely analogous to the
+intercourse of daily life. I believed that passive surrender to these
+impressions, rather than conscious labored effort, would gradually
+produce the perceptions of immediate contact, to the utmost that the
+nature of the case admitted. Johnson doubtless was right in naming
+personal acquaintance as chief among the qualifications of a
+biographer; failing that, one must seek the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">Page 319</a></span> best substitute. By
+either method the conception of character and temperament is formed;
+its reproduction to readers is a matter of power of expression, and of
+capacity to introduce aptly, here and there, the minute touches by
+which an artist secures likeness and heightens effect.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the worth of this theory, it was due in large measure to
+revulsion from a form of biography, to me always displeasing and
+essentially crude, which gives a narrative of external life-events,
+disjointed continually by letters. Profuse recourse to letters simply
+turns over to the reader the task which the biographer has undertaken
+to do for him. Perhaps the biographer cannot do it. Then he had better
+not undertake the job. A collection of letters is one thing, a
+biography another; and they do not mix well when a career abounds in
+incident. Letters are material for biography, as original documents
+are material for history; but as documents are not history, so letters
+are not biography. The historian and biographer by publishing
+virtually contract to present their readers with a digested, reasoned
+whole; the best expression, full yet balanced, that they can give of
+the truth concerning a period, or a man. It is a labor of time and
+patience, and should be also of love; one which the reader is to be
+spared, on the principle that a thousand men should not have to do,
+each for himself, the work the one writer professes. It is no fair
+treatment to tumble at their feet a basketful of papers, and virtually
+say, "There! find out the man for yourself."</p>
+
+<p>The interest of lives, of course, varies, and with it the opportunity
+of the biographer. I do not mean in degree, which is trite to remark,
+but in kind, which is less recognized. There are men the value of
+whose memory to their race lies in their thought and words, whose
+career is uneventful. Yet even with them the impression of personality
+is not as vividly produced by masses of correspondence as it may be by
+the petty occurrences of daily life, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">Page 320</a></span> for them are the analogues
+of the stirring incidents that mark the course of the man of public
+action, statesman or warrior. The reason is plain; the character of
+few rises to the height of their words, written or spoken. These show
+their wisdom, or power, and are uplifting; but their shortcomings,
+too, have a virtue. We fight the better for appreciating that victors
+have known defeat. The supreme gift of biography to mankind is
+personality; not what the man thought or did, but what he was. Herein
+is inspiration and reproof; motive force, inspiring or deterrent. If
+nothing better, mere recognition, or exultation in an excellence to
+which we do not attain, has a saving grace of its own.</p>
+
+<p>For the purposes of his biographer, Dr. Johnson scarcely left London.
+Beyond a brief visit to Paris, only a tour through the Hebrides; this
+an event so colossal in its elevation above the flat level of his
+outward existence, like the church towers in a Dutch landscape, that
+it is treated as a thing quite apart, has a volume to itself, severed
+from its before and after. Boswell gives letters, certainly, and many;
+yet, in the matter of character portrayal, what are they alongside of
+the talk? And also, more pertinent, what to Boswell was even the talk,
+compared with the intercourse to which the talk was incident? In this
+he immersed himself and his strong receptive powers, absorbing the
+impression which he has so skilfully reproduced. Such apprehension as
+Boswell thus gained for himself is no neutral acquirement; it is a
+working force, instinctively selective from that on which it feeds,
+and intuitive in its power of arrangement. To copy his result is
+futile. Like Nelson, there is but one Boswell; but it may be permitted
+to believe that lesser men will profit to the extent of their
+capacities by adopting his method. This possibly he never formulated,
+in that again proving his genius, the unconscious faculty of a very
+self-conscious man; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">Page 321</a></span> I conceive the process to have been, first
+know your subject yourself thoroughly by close contact and sympathy,
+and then so handle your material as to bring out to the reader the
+image revealed to you.</p>
+
+<p>This is, in a measure, a plea for picturesque treatment of biography
+and of history; not by gaudy coloring and violent contrasts, striving
+after rhetorical effect, but in the observance of proportion, of
+grouping, of subordination to a central idea; not content with mere
+narration, however accurate in details. A narrative which fails in
+portrayal, in picturesque impression, is not accurate; and a biography
+which presents a man's thoughts and acts, yet does not over and above
+them fashion his personality to the reader, is a failure. How much
+conscious effort may be necessary to the due handling of materials, I
+certainly cannot undertake to say; but persuaded I am that the utmost
+results possible to any particular man can be attained only by passive
+assimilation, and that so they will be attained to the measure of his
+individual capacity. By such digestion a theme apparently dry may be
+quickened to interest. Though not a lawyer, nor a student of
+constitutions, I found Stubbs's <em>Constitutional History of England</em>
+fascinating. I have not analyzed my pleasure, but I believe it to have
+been due to portrayal; to arrangement of data by a man exceptionally
+gifted for vivid presentation, who had so lived with his subject that
+it had realized itself to him as a living whole, which he successfully
+conveyed to his readers. There is no disjointment. The result is a
+great historical picture; or a biography, of law as a benevolent
+developing personality, moving amid the struggles and miseries of the
+human throng, healing and redressing.</p>
+
+<p>To <em>The Life of Nelson</em> I applied the idea of this method, which I
+thought to be helped rather than hindered by my warm admiration for
+him, little short of affection. I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">Page 322</a></span> faith in the power of
+attachment to comprehend character and action; and because of mine I
+believed myself safer when necessary to censure. I grieved while I
+condemned. I was sure also that, however far below an absolute best I
+might fall, the best that I could do must thus come out. Amid approval
+sufficient to gratify me, I found most satisfaction in that of a
+friend who said he felt as if he had been living with my hero; and of
+another who told me that after his day's work, which I knew to be
+laborious, he had refreshed his evenings with <em>Nelson</em>. In the first
+edition I fell into two mistakes of some importance, as well as others
+in small details, the effect of which was to confirm me in my theory;
+for while they were blemishes, and needed correction, they did not,
+and do not, to my mind affect the portrait&mdash;the conveyance of true
+personality.</p>
+
+<p>Of these errors the most serious, regarded as a fault, was an
+inadequate study of Nelson's course at Naples in 1799, so sharply
+challenged at that time and afterwards. I recognized the justice of a
+criticism which alleged that I had not sufficiently examined the other
+side of the case, as presented by Italian authors. This I now did,
+rewriting my account for the second edition. I found no reason to
+change my estimate of Nelson's conduct, but rather to confirm the
+favorable aspects; but what was more instructive to me was that even
+so large an oversight did not when remedied affect the portrait. The
+personality remained as first conceived; Nelson had acted in
+character. The same was substantially true of a more pregnant
+incident, the discovery of a number of his letters to his wife, which
+had escaped the diligent search made by the editor of his
+correspondence, Sir Harris Nicolas. After lying concealed for the
+half-century between Nicolas and myself, they turned up shortly after
+my book was in print. Here was more self-revelation; how might it
+modify my picture? The event was ushered in with a great flourish of
+trum<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">Page 323</a></span>pets, the walls of Jericho were about to fall, and I own I felt
+anxious. Some of the letters were published; permission to see the
+others was refused me. As these have not since been given to the
+world, I fancy that they sustain the opinion expressed by me on those
+that were; that beyond emphasizing somewhat his hardness to Lady
+Nelson during the period of his growing alienation, they add little to
+the impression before formed. A slight touch of the brush, another
+line in the face, that is all.</p>
+
+<p>The question of Nelson's action at Naples was brought forward in a way
+which required from me some controversial writing. To this I have no
+intention of alluding here, beyond stating that up to the present my
+confidence has not been shaken in my defence of the main lines of his
+conduct, clearing him of the deceit and double-dealing alleged against
+him. I say this because there may be some who have thought me silenced
+by argument, in that I have not seen fit to rise to such crude taunts
+as that, "After this Captain Mahan will not undertake," etc. What
+Captain Mahan will or will not do is of no particular importance; but
+when the repute of such an one as Nelson is at stake, burdened by the
+weight of calumny laid upon him by Southey's ill-instructed censures,
+it is right to repeat that nothing I have seen since I last wrote,
+about 1900, has appeared to me to call for further answer.</p>
+
+<p><em>The Life of Nelson</em>, and <em>The War of 1812</em>, of which I have already
+spoken, remain my last extensive works. In the interval between them,
+1897&ndash;1902, I was engaged mostly in occasional writing, for magazines
+or otherwise. From time to time these papers have been collected and
+published, under titles which seemed appropriate. Concerning them, for
+the most part, there is one general statement to be made. With few
+exceptions, they have been written to order. Partly from indisposition
+to this particular activity, partly from indolence, ultimately from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">Page 324</a></span>
+conviction that editors best know&mdash;or should know&mdash;what the public
+want, I have left them to come to me. When expedient, I have taken a
+subject somewhat apart from that suggested, but usually akin. Speaking
+again generally, the field of thought into which I have been thus
+drawn has been that of the external policy of nations, and of their
+mutual&mdash;international&mdash;relations; not in respect to international law,
+on which I have no claim to teach, but to the examination of extant
+conditions, and the appreciation of their probable and proper effect
+upon future events and present action. In conception, these studies
+are essentially military. The conditions are to my apprehension
+forces, contending, perhaps even conflicting; to be handled by those
+responsible as a government disposes its fleets and armies. This is
+not advocacy of war, but recognition that the providential movement of
+the world proceeds through the pressure of circumstances; and that
+adverse circumstances can be controlled only by organization of means,
+in which armed physical power is one dominant factor.</p>
+
+<p>In direct result from the line of thought into which I was drawn by my
+conception of sea power, and which has inspired my subsequent magazine
+writing, I am frankly an imperialist, in the sense that I believe that
+no nation, certainly no great nation, should henceforth maintain the
+policy of isolation which fitted our early history; above all, should
+not on that outlived plea refuse to intervene in events obviously
+thrust upon its conscience. The world of national activities has
+become crowded, like the world of professions; opportunity,
+consequently, has diminished, and possibilities must be cultivated and
+husbanded. This is the primary duty of a government to its own people
+and to their posterity. But there are other duties which must be
+accepted, even though they entail national sacrifice, because laid at
+the nation's door, like Cuba, or forced upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">Page 325</a></span> its decision, like the
+Philippines. I see too clearly in myself the miserable disposition to
+shirk work and care, and responsibility, to condone the same in
+nations. I once heard a preacher thus parody effectively the words of
+the prophet&mdash;"Here am I, send <em>him</em>!" And I have heard attributed to
+the late Mr. John Hay an equally telling allusion to certain of our
+moralists, who would discard the Philippines on the score of danger to
+the national principles. Said a pious girl, "When I realized that
+personal ornaments were dragging my immortal soul to hell, I gave them
+to my sister." Still less, let us hope, will one of the wealthiest of
+nations, almost alone in the possession of an abundant surplus income,
+desert a charge on the poor plea of economy; or so far distrust its
+fate, as to turn its back upon a duty, because dangerous or
+troublesome. If the political independence of the Philippine Islands
+bid fair to result in the loss, or lessening, of the safeguards of
+personal freedom to the private Philippine islander, the mission of
+the United states is at present clear, nor can it be abandoned without
+national discredit; nay, national crime. Personal liberty is a greater
+need than political independence, the chief value of which is to
+insure the freedom of the individual. Similarly, not only for the sake
+of its own citizens, but for the world at large, each country should
+diligently watch and weigh current external occurrences; not
+necessarily to meddle, still less to forsake its proper sphere, but
+because convinced that failure to act when occasion demands may be as
+injurious as mistaken action, and indicates a more dangerous
+condition, in that moral inadequacy means ultimately material decline.
+When the spirit leaves the body, the body decays.</p>
+
+<p>In these subjects and my way of viewing them, I suppose that ten years
+ago, before our war with Spain, I was ahead of the times, at least in
+my own country, and to some extent helped to turn thought into present
+channels; much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">Page 326</a></span> as to my exposition of sea power has been credited a
+part of the impulse to naval development which characterizes to-day.
+Immediately after the Spanish War I seemed to some, if I may trust
+their words, to have done a bit of prophecy; while others laid to my
+door a chief share in the mistaken direction they considered the
+country to be taking. Of course, I was pleased by this; I have never
+pretended to be above flattery judiciously administered: but, while
+confident still in the main outlook of my writing, I know too well
+that, when you come to details, prediction is a matter of hit or miss,
+and that I have often missed as well as hit in particulars. "It is all
+a matter of guess," said Nelson, when tied down to a specific
+decision, "but the world attributes wisdom to him who guesses right."
+This is less true of the big questions and broad lines of contemporary
+history. There insight can discern really something of tendencies;
+enough to guide judgment or suggest reflection. But I am now
+sixty-seven, and can recognize in myself a growing conservatism, which
+may probably limit me henceforth to bare keeping up with the
+procession in the future national march. Perhaps I may lag behind.
+With years, speculation as well as action becomes less venturesome,
+and I look increasingly to the changeless past as the quiet field for
+my future labors.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4><a name="THE_END" id="THE_END"></a>THE END</h4>
+
+
+
+<div class="section_break"></div>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<h2><a name="FOOTNOTES" id="FOOTNOTES"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h2>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Worcester, quoting from <em>Falconer's Marine Dictionary</em>,
+defines "Grommet" as "a small ring or wreath, formed of the strand of
+a rope, used for various purposes."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> J. R. Soley, <em>The Blockade and the Cruisers</em>, 1883.
+Scribner's, <em>Navy in the Civil War</em>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> This statement when written rested on my childhood's
+memory only. A few months later there came into my hands a volume of
+the publications of the British Navy Records Society, containing the
+Recollections of Commander James Anthony Gardner. 1775&ndash;1814. Gardner
+was at one time shipmates with Culmer, who it appears eventually
+received a commission. By Gardner's reckoning he would have been far
+along in the forties in 1790. The following is the description of him.
+"Billy was about five feet eight or nine, and stooped; hard features,
+marked with the small-pox; blind in an eye, and a wen nearly the size
+of an egg under his cheek-bone. His dress on a Sunday was a mate's
+uniform coat, with brown velvet waistcoat and breeches; boots with
+black tops; a gold-laced hat, and a large hanger by his side like the
+sword of John-a-Gaunt. He was proud of being the oldest midshipman in
+the navy, and looked upon young captains and lieutenants with
+contempt."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> The <em>Navy Register</em> of 1842 shows the number appointed in
+1841 to have been two hundred and nineteen.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> That is, within a quarter of a point on either side of
+her course. A "point" of the compass is one-eighth of a right angle;
+e.g., from North to East is eight points.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <em>Naval Letters of Captain Percival Drayton.</em> Edited by
+Miss Gertrude L. Hoyt. 1906. Pages 10, 3, 4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> The anchoring chains pass from inboard through the
+hawse-holes to the anchor. When left bent on soundings, the sea, if
+rough, will rush through them copiously. To prevent this in part,
+conical stuffed canvas bags were dragged in from outside. These were
+called "jackasses."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Acknowledgment is here due to Mr. Thomas G. Ford, once a
+professor at the Naval Academy, cordially remembered by the midshipmen
+who knew him there in the fifties. His article is in the issue of the
+<em>Naval Institute Proceedings</em> for June, 1906, which has just reached
+me. He attributes his information to the late Admiral Preble, almost
+the only American officer within my time who has had the instincts of
+an arch&aelig;ologist.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Perhaps it is better to explain that there are three
+watches from 8 <span class="ampm">P.M.</span> to 8 <span class="ampm">A.M.</span>; the two watches into which the crew
+were divided had on alternate nights one watch, or two watches, on
+deck. This sybarite was foretasting two watches below.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> On referring to the file of the <em>Times</em>, I find that the
+forecast concerning Vicksburg occurred in the issue of July 1st. "It
+is not improbable we may hear that General Grant has been obliged to
+raise the siege of Vicksburg." It is surprising to note of how
+secondary importance the Vicksburg issue appears to have been thought
+at the time.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Rhodes's <em>History of the United States</em>, vol. v., p.
+99.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> I have here used the expression "harakiri," because so
+commonly understood among English&mdash;speaking readers. A Japanese
+correspondent has informed me that it is never used among the
+Japanese, with the signification we have attached to it. The proper
+word is "Seppuku."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> <em>Official Record of the Union and Confederate Navies</em>,
+Series I., iii., p. 722.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Since this was written, I have been told by one of the
+officers of the <em>Iroquois</em>, Lieutenant&mdash;now Rear-Admiral&mdash;Nicoll
+Ludlow, that many years afterwards he saw the story of the <em>Cayalti's</em>
+captain, told by himself, in the <em>Overland Monthly</em>, of San Francisco.
+He had been allowed to go ashore to get provisions, and of course did
+not return.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> This is not the place for a discussion of
+commerce-destroying as a method of war; but having myself given, as I
+believe, historical demonstration that as a sole or principal
+resource, maintained by scattered cruisers only, it is insufficient, I
+wish to warn public opinion against the reaction, the return swing of
+the pendulum, seen by me with dismay, which would make it of no use at
+all, and under the plea of immunity to "private property," so called,
+would exempt from attack the maritime commerce of belligerents.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> "Is not patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on
+a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached
+ground, encumbers him with help?"&mdash;Johnson to the Earl of
+Chesterfield.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of From Sail to Steam, Recollections of
+Naval Life, by Captain A. T. Mahan
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@@ -0,0 +1,10606 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval
+Life, by Captain A. T. Mahan
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life
+
+Author: Captain A. T. Mahan
+
+Release Date: April 22, 2008 [EBook #25122]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM SAIL TO STEAM, RECOLLECTIONS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bryan Ness, Chris Logan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+FROM SAIL TO STEAM
+
+RECOLLECTIONS OF NAVAL LIFE
+
+
+BY
+
+CAPT. A. T. MAHAN
+
+U.S.N. (RETIRED)
+
+AUTHOR OF
+"THE INFLUENCE OF SEA-POWER UPON HISTORY" ETC.
+
+
+HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+MCMVII
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1906, 1907, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
+_All rights reserved._
+Published October, 1907.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAP.                                                         PAGE
+
+          PREFACE                                                    v
+
+          INTRODUCING MYSELF                                        ix
+
+    I.    NAVAL CONDITIONS BEFORE THE WAR OF SECESSION--THE
+          OFFICERS AND SEAMEN                                        3
+
+    II.   NAVAL CONDITIONS BEFORE THE WAR OF SECESSION--THE
+          VESSELS                                                   25
+
+    III.  THE NAVAL ACADEMY IN ITS RELATION TO THE NAVY AT
+          LARGE                                                     45
+
+    IV.   THE NAVAL ACADEMY IN ITS INTERIOR WORKINGS--PRACTICE
+          CRUISES                                                   70
+
+    V.    MY FIRST CRUISE AFTER GRADUATION--NAUTICAL CHARACTERS    103
+
+    VI.   MY FIRST CRUISE AFTER GRADUATION--NAUTICAL SCENES
+          AND SCENERY--THE APPROACH OF DISUNION                    127
+
+    VII.  INCIDENTS OF WAR AND BLOCKADE SERVICE                    156
+
+    VIII. INCIDENTS OF WAR AND BLOCKADE SERVICE--CONTINUED         179
+
+    IX.   A ROUNDABOUT ROAD TO CHINA                               196
+
+    X.    CHINA AND JAPAN                                          229
+
+    XI.   THE TURNING OF A LONG LANE--HISTORICAL, NAVAL, AND
+          PERSONAL                                                 266
+
+    XII.  EXPERIENCES OF AUTHORSHIP                                302
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+When I was a boy, some years before I obtained my appointment in the
+navy, I spent many of those happy hours that only childhood knows
+poring over the back numbers of a British service periodical, which
+began its career in 1828, with the title _Colburn's United Service
+Magazine_; under which name, save and except the Colburn, it still
+survives. Besides weightier matters, its early issues abounded in
+reminiscences by naval officers, then yet in the prime of life, who
+had served through the great Napoleonic wars. More delightful still,
+it had numerous nautical stories, based probably on facts, serials
+under such entrancing titles as "Leaves from my Log Book," by Flexible
+Grommet, Passed Midshipman; a pen-name, the nautical felicity of which
+will be best appreciated by one who has had the misfortune to handle a
+grommet[1] which was not flexible. Then there was "The Order Book," by
+Jonathan Oldjunk; an epithet so suggestive of the waste-heap, even to
+a landsman's ears, that one marvels a man ever took it unto himself,
+especially in that decline of life when we are more sensitive on the
+subject of bodily disabilities than once we were. Old junk, however,
+can yet be "worked up," as the sea expression goes, into other uses,
+and that perhaps was what Mr. Oldjunk meant; his early adventures as a
+young "luff" were, for economical reasons, worked up into their
+present literary shape, with the addition of a certain amount of
+extraneous matter--love-making, and the like. Indeed, so far from
+uselessness, that veteran seaman and rigid economist, the Earl of St.
+Vincent, when First Lord of the Admiralty, had given to a specific
+form of old junk--viz., "shakings"--the honors of a special order, for
+the preservation thereof, the which forms the staple of a comical
+anecdote in Basil Hall's _Fragments of Voyages and Travels_; itself a
+superior example of the instructive "recollections," of less literary
+merit, which but for Colburn's would have perished.
+
+Any one who has attempted to write history knows what queer nuggets of
+useful information lie hidden away in such papers; how they often help
+to reconstruct an incident, or determine a mooted point. If the
+Greeks, after the Peloponnesian war, had had a Colburn's, we should
+have a more certain, if not a perfect, clew to the reconstruction of
+the trireme; and probably even could deduce with some accuracy the
+daily routine, the several duties, and hear the professional jokes and
+squabbles, of their officers and crews. The serious people who write
+history can never fill the place of the gossips, who pour out an
+unpremeditated mixture of intimate knowledge and idle trash.
+
+Trash? Upon the whole is not the trash the truest history? perhaps not
+the most valuable, but the most real? If you want contemporary color,
+contemporary atmosphere, you must seek it among the impressions which
+can be obtained only from those who have lived a life amid particular
+surroundings, which they breathe and which colors them--dyes them in
+the wool. However skilless, they cannot help reproducing, any more
+than water poured from an old ink-bottle can help coming out more or
+less black; although, if sufficiently pretentious, they can
+monstrously caricature, especially if they begin with the modest
+time-worn admission that they are more familiar with the marling-spike
+than with the pen. But even the caricature born of pretentiousness
+will not prevent the unpremeditated betrayal of conditions, facts, and
+incidents, which help reconstruct the _milieu_; how much more, then,
+the unaffected simplicity of the born story-teller. I do not know how
+Froissart ranks as an authority with historians. I have not read him
+for years; and my recollections are chiefly those of childhood, with
+all the remoteness and all the vividness which memory preserves from
+early impressions. I think I now might find him wearisome; not so in
+boyhood. He was to me then, and seems to me now, a glorified Flexible
+Grommet or Jonathan Oldjunk; ranking, as to them, as Boswell does
+towards the common people of biography. That there are many solid
+chunks of useful information to be dug out of him I am sure; that his
+stories are all true, I have no desire to question; but what among it
+all is so instructive, so entertaining, as the point of view of
+himself, his heroes, and his colloquists--the particular contemporary
+modification of universal human nature in which he lived, and moved,
+and had his being?
+
+If such a man has the genius of his business, as had Froissart and
+Boswell, he excels in proportion to his unconsciousness of the fact;
+his colors run truer. For lesser gobblers, who have not genius, the
+best way to lose consciousness is just to let themselves go; if they
+endeavor to paint artistically the muddle will be worse. To such the
+proverb of the cobbler and his last is of perennial warning. As a
+barber once sagely remarked to me, "You can't trim a beard well,
+unless you're born to it." It is possible in some degree to imitate
+Froissart and Boswell in that marvellous diligence to accumulate
+material which was common to them both; but, when gathered, how
+impossible it is to work up that old junk into permanent engrossing
+interest let those answer who have grappled with ancient chronicles,
+or with many biographies. So, with a circumlocution which probably
+convicts me in advance of decisive deficiency as a narrator, I let
+myself go. I have no model, unless it be the old man sitting in the
+sun on a summer's day, bringing forth out of his memories things new
+and old--mostly old.
+
+                                                          A. T. MAHAN.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCING MYSELF
+
+
+While extracts from the following pages were appearing in _Harper's
+Magazine_, I received a letter from a reader hoping that I would say
+something about myself before entering the navy. This had been outside
+my purpose, which was chiefly to narrate what had passed around me
+that I thought interesting; but it seems possibly fit to establish in
+a few words my antecedents by heredity and environment.
+
+I was born September 27, 1840, within the boundaries of the State of
+New York, but not upon its territory; the place, West Point on the
+Hudson River, having been ceded to the General Government for the
+purposes of the Military Academy, at which my father, Dennis Hart
+Mahan, was then Professor of Engineering, as well Civil as Military.
+He himself was of pure Irish blood, his father and mother, already
+married, having emigrated together from the old country early in the
+last century; but he was also American by birthright, having been born
+in April, 1802, very soon after the arrival of his parents in the city
+of New York. There also he was baptized into the Roman Catholic
+Church, in the parish of St. Peter's, the church building of which now
+stands far down town, in Barclay Street. It is not, I believe, the
+same that existed in 1802.
+
+Very soon afterwards, before he reached an age to remember, his
+parents removed to Norfolk, Virginia, where he grew up and formed his
+earliest associations. As is usual, these colored his whole life; he
+was always a Virginian in attachment and preference. In the days of
+crisis he remained firm to the Union, by conviction and affection; but
+he broke no friendships, and to the end there continued in him that
+surest positive indication of local fondness, admiration for the women
+of what was to him his native land. In beauty, in manner, and in
+charm, they surpassed. "Your mother is Northern," he once said to me,
+"and very few can approach her; but still, in the general, none
+compare for me with the Southern woman." The same causes, early
+association, gave him a very pronounced dislike to England; for he
+could remember the War of 1812, and had experienced the embittered
+feeling which was probably nowhere fiercer than around the shores of
+the Chesapeake, the scene of the most wide-spread devastation
+inflicted, partly from motives of policy, partly as measures of
+retaliation. Spending afterwards three or four years of early manhood
+in France, he there imbibed a warm liking for the people, among whom
+he contracted several intimacies. He there knew personally Lafayette
+and his family; receiving from them the hospitality which the Marquis'
+service in the War of Independence, and his then recent ovation during
+his tour of the United States in 1825, prompted him to extend to
+Americans. This communication with a man who could tell, and did tell
+him, intimate stories of intercourse with Washington doubtless
+emphasized my father's patriotic prejudices as well as his patriotism.
+When he revisited France, in 1856, he found many former friends still
+alive, and when I myself went there for the first time, in 1870, he
+asked me too to hunt them up; but they had all then disappeared. His
+fondness for the French doubtless accentuated his repugnance to the
+English, at that time still their traditional enemy. The combination
+of Irish and French prepossession could scarcely have resulted
+otherwise; and thus was evolved an atmosphere in which I was brought
+up, not only passively absorbing, but to a certain degree actively
+impressed with love for France and the Southern section of the United
+States, while learning to look askance upon England and abolitionists.
+The experiences of life, together with subsequent reading and
+reflection, modified and in the end entirely overcame these early
+prepossessions.
+
+My father was for over forty years professor at West Point, of which
+he had been a graduate. In short, the Academy was his life, and he
+there earned what I think I am modest in calling a distinguished
+reputation. The best proof of this perhaps is that at even so early a
+date in our national history as his graduation from the Academy, in
+1824, he was thought an officer of such promise as to make it
+expedient to send him to France for the higher military education in
+which the country of Napoleon and his marshals then stood pre-eminent.
+From 1820, when he entered the Academy as a pupil, to his death in
+1871, he was detached from it only these three or four years. Yet this
+determination of his life's work proceeded from a mere accident,
+scarcely more than a boy's fancy. He had begun the study of medicine,
+under Dr. Archer, of Richmond; but he had a very strong wish to learn
+drawing. In those primitive days the opportunity of instruction was
+wanting where he lived; and hearing that it was taught at the Military
+Academy he set to work for an appointment, not from inclination to the
+calling of a soldier, but as a means to this particular end. It is
+rather singular that he should have had no bias towards the profession
+of arms; for although he drifted almost from the first into the civil
+branch, as a teacher and then professor, I have never known a man of
+more strict and lofty military ideas. The spirit of the profession was
+strong in him, though he cared little for its pride, pomp, and
+circumstance. I believe that in this observation others who knew him
+well agreed with me.
+
+The work of a teacher, however important and absorbing in itself, does
+not usually offer much of interest to readers. My father, by the
+personal contact of teacher and taught, knew almost every one of the
+distinguished generals who fought in the War of Secession, on either
+the Union or the Confederate side. With scarcely an exception, they
+had been his pupils; but his own life was uneventful. He married, in
+1839, Mary Helena Okill, of New York City. My mother's father was
+English, her mother an American, but with a strong strain of French
+blood; her maiden name, Mary Jay, being that of a Huguenot family
+which had left France under Louis XIV. By the time of her birth, in
+1786, a good deal of American admixture had doubtless qualified the
+original French; but I remember her well, and though she lived to be
+seventy-three, she had up to the last a vivacity and keen enjoyment of
+life, more French than American, reflected from quick black eyes,
+which fairly danced with animation through her interest in her
+surroundings.
+
+From my derivation, therefore, I am a pretty fair illustration of the
+mix-up of bloods which seems destined to bring forth some new and yet
+undecipherable combination on the North American continent. One-half
+Irish, one-fourth English, and a good deal more than "a trace" of
+French, would appear to be the showing of a quantitative analysis.
+Yet, as far as I understand my personality, I think to see in the
+result the predominance which the English strain has usually asserted
+for itself over others. I have none of the gregariousness of either
+the French or Irish; and while I have no difficulty in entering into
+civil conversation with a stranger who addresses me, I rarely begin,
+having, upon the whole, a preference for an introduction. This is not
+perverseness, but lack of facility; and I believe Froissart noted
+something of the same in the Englishmen of five hundred years ago. I
+have, too, an abhorrence of public speaking, and a desire to slip
+unobserved into a back seat wherever I am, which amount to a mania;
+but I am bound to admit I get both these dispositions from my father,
+whose Irishry was undiluted by foreign admixture.
+
+In my boyhood, till I was nearly ten, West Point was a very
+sequestered place. It was accessible only by steam-boats; and during
+great part of the winter months not by them, the Hudson being frozen
+over most of the season as far as ten to twenty miles lower down. The
+railroad was not running before 1848, and then it followed the east
+bank of the river. One of my early recollections is of begging off
+from school one day, long enough to go to a part of the post distant
+from our house, whence I caught my first sight of a train of cars on
+the opposite shore. Another recollection is of the return of a company
+of engineer soldiers from the War with Mexico. The detachment was
+drawn up for inspection where we boys could see it. One of the men had
+grown a full beard, a sight to me then as novel as the railroad, and I
+announced it at home as a most interesting fact. I had as yet seen
+only clean-shaven faces. Among my other recollections of childhood
+are, as superintendent of the Academy, Colonel Robert E. Lee,
+afterwards the great Confederate leader; and McClellan, then a junior
+engineer officer.
+
+As my boyhood advanced the abolition movement was gaining strength, to
+the great disapprobation and dismay of my father, with his strong
+Southern and Union sympathies. I remember that when _Uncle Tom's
+Cabin_ came out, in my twelfth year, the master of the school I
+attended gave me a copy; being himself, I presume, one of the rising
+party adverse to slavery. My father took it out of my hands, and I
+came to regard it much as I would a bottle labelled "Poison." In
+consequence I never read it in the days of its vogue, and I have to
+admit that since then, in mature years, I have not been able to
+continue it after beginning. The same motives, in great part, led to
+my being sent to a boarding-school in Maryland, near Hagerstown, which
+drew its pupils very largely, though not exclusively, from the South.
+The environment would be upon the whole Southern. I remained there,
+however, only two years, my father becoming dissatisfied with my
+progress in mathematics. In 1854, therefore, I matriculated as a
+freshman at Columbia College in the city of New York, where I remained
+till I went to the Naval Academy.
+
+My entrance into the navy was greatly against my father's wish. I do
+not remember all his arguments, but he told me he thought me much less
+fit for a military than for a civil profession, having watched me
+carefully. I think myself now that he was right; for, though I have no
+cause to complain of unsuccess, I believe I should have done better
+elsewhere. While thus more than dissenting from my choice, he held
+that a child should not be peremptorily thwarted in his scheme of
+life. Consequently, while he would not actively help me in the
+doubtful undertaking of obtaining an appointment, which depended then
+as now upon the representative from the congressional district, he
+gave me the means to go to Washington, and also two or three letters
+to personal friends; among them Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of
+War, and James Watson Webb, a prominent character in New York
+journalism and in politics, both state and national.
+
+Thus equipped, I started for Washington on the first day of 1856,
+being then three months over fifteen. As I think now of my age, and
+more than usual diffidence, and of my mission, to win the favor of a
+politician who had constituents to reward, whereas to all my family
+practical politics were as foreign as Sanskrit, I know not whether the
+situation were more comical or pathetic. On the way I foregathered
+with a Southern lad, some three years my senior, returning home from
+England, where he had been at school. He beguiled the time by stories
+of his experiences, to me passing strange; and I remember, in crossing
+the Susquehanna, which was then by ferry-boat, looking at the fields
+of ice fragments, I said it would be unpleasant to fall in. "I would
+sooner have a knife stuck into me," he replied. I wonder what became
+of him, for I never knew his name. Of course he entered the
+Confederate army; but what besides?
+
+I remember my week's stay in Washington much as I suppose a man
+overboard remembers the incidents of that experience. Memory is an odd
+helpmate; why some circumstances take hold and others not is "one of
+those things no fellow can find out." I saw the member of Congress,
+who I find by reference to have been Ambrose S. Murray, representative
+of the district within which West Point lay. He received me kindly,
+but with the reserve characteristic of most interviews where one party
+desires a favor for which he has nothing in exchange to offer. I
+think, however, that Mr. Webb, with whom and his family I breakfasted
+one day, said some good words for me. Jefferson Davis was a graduate
+of the Military Academy, of 1827; and although his term there had
+overlapped my father's by only one year, his interest in everything
+pertaining to the army had maintained between them an acquaintance
+approaching intimacy. He therefore was very cordial to the boy before
+him, and took me round to the office of the then Secretary of the
+Navy, Mr. James C. Dobbin, of North Carolina; just why I do not
+understand yet, as the Secretary could not influence my immediate
+object. Perhaps he felt the need of a friendly chat; for I remember
+that, after presenting me, the two sat down and discussed the
+President's Message, of which Davis expressed a warm approval. This
+being the time of the protracted contest over the Speakership, which
+ended in the election of Banks, I suppose the colleagues were talking
+about a document which was then ready, and familiar to them, but which
+was not actually sent to Congress until it organized, some weeks after
+this interview. Probably their conversation was the aftermath of a
+cabinet meeting.
+
+I returned home with fairly sanguine hopes, which on the journey
+received a douche of cold water from an old gentleman, a distant
+connection of my family, to visit whom I stopped a few hours in
+Philadelphia. He asked about my chance of the appointment; and being
+told that it seemed good, he rejoined, "Well, I hope you won't get it.
+I have known many naval officers, captains and lieutenants, in
+different parts of the world"--for his time, he was then nearly
+eighty, he had travelled extensively--"I have talked much with them,
+and know that it is a profession with little prospect." Then he quoted
+Dr. Johnson: "No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to
+get himself into jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail with the
+chance of being drowned"; and further to overwhelm me, he clinched the
+saying by a comment of his own. "In a ship of war you run the risk of
+being killed as well as that of being drowned." The interview left me
+a perplexed but not a wiser lad.
+
+Late in the ensuing spring Mr. Murray wrote me that he would nominate
+me for the appointment. Just what determined him in my favor I do not
+certainly know; but, as I remember, Mr. Davis had authorized me to say
+to him that, if the place were given me, he would use his own
+influence with President Pierce to obtain for a nominee from his
+district a presidential appointment to the Military Academy. Mr.
+Murray replied that such a proposition was very acceptable to him,
+because the tendency among his constituents was much more to the army
+than to the navy. At that day, besides one cadet at West Point for
+each congressional district, which was in the gift of the
+representative, the law permitted the President a certain number of
+annual appointments, called "At Large"; the object being to provide
+for sons of military and naval officers, whose lack of political
+influence made it difficult otherwise to enter the school. This
+presidential privilege has since been extended to the Naval Academy,
+but had not then. The proposed interchange in my case, therefore,
+would be practically to give an officer's son an appointment at large
+in the navy. Whether this arrangement was actually carried out, I have
+never known nor inquired; but it has pleased me to believe, as I do,
+that I owed my entrance to the United States navy to the interposition
+of the first and only President of the Southern Confederacy, whose
+influence with Mr. Pierce is a matter of history.
+
+I entered the Naval Academy, as an "acting midshipman," September 30,
+1856.
+
+
+
+
+FROM SAIL TO STEAM
+
+RECOLLECTIONS OF NAVAL LIFE
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+NAVAL CONDITIONS BEFORE THE WAR OF SECESSION
+
+THE OFFICERS AND SEAMEN
+
+
+Naval officers who began their career in the fifties of the past
+century, as I did, and who survive till now, as very many do, have
+been observant, if inconspicuous, witnesses of one of the most rapid
+and revolutionary changes that naval science and warfare have ever
+undergone. It has been aptly said that a naval captain who fought the
+Invincible Armada would have been more at home in the typical war-ship
+of 1840, than the average captain of 1840 would have been in the
+advanced types of the American Civil War.[2] The twenty years here
+chosen for comparison cover the middle period of the century which has
+but recently expired. Since that time progress has gone on in
+accelerating ratio; and if the consequent changes have been less
+radical in kind, they have been more extensive in scope. It is
+interesting to observe that within the same two decades, in 1854,
+occurred the formal visit of Commodore Perry to Japan, and the
+negotiations of the treaty bringing her fairly within the movement of
+Western civilization; starting her upon the path which has resulted in
+the most striking illustration yet given of the powers of modern naval
+instruments, ships and weapons, diligently developed and elaborated
+during the period that has since elapsed.
+
+When I received my appointment to the Naval School at Annapolis, in
+the early part of the year 1856, the United States navy was under the
+influence of one of those spasmodic awakenings which, so far as action
+is concerned, have been the chief characteristic of American
+statesmanship in the matter of naval policy up to twenty years ago.
+Since then there has been a more continuous practical recognition of
+the necessity for a sustained and consistent development of naval
+power. This wholesome change has been coincident with, and doubtless
+largely due to, a change in appreciation of the importance of naval
+power in the realm of international relations, which, within the same
+period, has passed over the world at large. The United States of
+America began its career under the Constitution of 1789 with no navy;
+but in 1794 the intolerable outrages of the Barbary pirates, and the
+humiliation of having to depend upon the armed ships of Portugal for
+the protection of American trade, aroused Congress to vote the
+building of a half-dozen frigates, with the provision, however, that
+the building should stop if an arrangement with Algiers were reached.
+Not till 1798 was the navy separated from the War Department. The
+President at that date, John Adams, was, through his New England
+origin, in profound sympathy with all naval questions; and, while
+minister to Great Britain, in 1785, had had continual opportunity to
+observe the beneficial effect of maritime activity and naval power
+upon that kingdom. He had also bitter experience of the insolence of
+its government towards our interests, based upon its conscious control
+of the sea. He thus came into office strongly biassed towards naval
+development. To the impulse given by him contributed also the
+outrageous course towards our commerce initiated by the French
+Directory, after Bonaparte's astounding campaigns in Italy had struck
+down all opposition to France save that of the mistress of the seas.
+The nation, as represented in Congress, woke up, rubbed, its eyes,
+and built a small number of vessels which did exemplary service in the
+subsequent quasi war with France. Provision was made for a further
+increase; and it is not too much to say that this beginning, if
+maintained, might have averted the War of 1812. But within four years
+revulsion came. Adams gave place to Jefferson and Madison, the leaders
+of a party which frankly and avowedly rejected a navy as an element of
+national strength, and saw in it only a menace to liberty. Save for
+the irrepressible marauding of the Barbary corsairs, and the
+impressment of our seamen by British ships-of-war, the remnant of
+Adams' ships would not improbably have been swept out of existence.
+This result was feared by naval officers of the day; and with what
+good reason is shown by the fact that, within six months of the
+declaration of the War in 1812, and when the party in control was
+determined that war there should be, a proposition to increase the
+navy received but lukewarm support from the administration, and was
+voted down in Congress. The government, awed by the overwhelming
+numbers of the British fleet, proposed to save its vessels by keeping
+them at home; just as a few years before it had undertaken to save its
+commerce by forbidding its merchant-ships to go to sea.
+
+Such policy with regard to a military service means to it not sleep,
+but death. The urgent remonstrances of three or four naval captains
+obtained a change of plan; and at the end of the year the President
+admitted that, for the very reasons advanced by them, the activity of
+a small squadron, skilfully directed, had insured the safe return of
+much the most part of our exposed merchant-shipping. It is not,
+however, such broad general results of sagacious management that bring
+conviction to nations and arouse them to action. Professionally, the
+cruise of Rodgers's squadron, unsuccessful in outward seeming, was a
+much more significant event, and much more productive, than the
+capture of the _Guerriere_ by the _Constitution_; but it was this
+which woke up the people. The other probably would not have turned a
+vote in either House. As a military exploit the frigate victory was
+exaggerated, and not unnaturally; but no words can exaggerate its
+influence upon the future of the American navy. Here was something
+that men could see and understand, even though they might not
+correctly appreciate. Coinciding as the tidings did with the
+mortification of Hull's surrender at Detroit, they came at a moment
+which was truly psychological. Bowed down with shame at reverse where
+only triumph had been anticipated, the exultation over victory where
+disaster had been more naturally awaited produced a wild reaction. The
+effect was decisive. Inefficient and dilatory as was much of the
+subsequent administration of the navy, there was never any further
+question of its continuance. And yet, from the ship which thus played
+the most determining part in the history of her service, it has been
+proposed to take her name, and give it to another, of newer
+construction; as though with the name could go also the association.
+Could any other _Victory_ be Nelson's _Victory_ to Great Britain? Can
+calling a man George Washington help to perpetuate the services of the
+one Washington? The last much-vaunted addition to the British fleet,
+the _Dreadnaught_, bears a family name extending back over two
+centuries, or more. She is one of a series reasonably perpetuated,
+ship after ship, as son after sire; a line of succession honored in
+the traditions of the nation. So there were _Victorys_, before the one
+whose revered hulk still maintains a hallowed association; but her
+individual connection with one event has set her apart. The name might
+be transferred, but with it the association cannot be transmitted. But
+not even the _Victory_, with all her clinging memories, did for the
+British navy what the _Constitution_ did for the American.
+
+There was thenceforward no longer any question about votes for the
+navy. Ships of the line, frigates, and sloops, were ordered to be
+built, and the impulse thus received never wholly died out. Still, as
+with all motives which in origin are emotional rather than reasoned,
+there was lack of staying power. As the enthusiasm of the moment
+languished, there came languor of growth; or, more properly, of
+development. Continuance became routine in character, tending to
+reproduce contentedly the old types consecrated by the War of 1812.
+There was little conscious recognition of national exigencies,
+stimulating a demand that the navy, in types and numbers, should be
+kept abreast of the times. In most pursuits of life American
+intelligence has been persistently apt and quick in search of
+improvement; but, while such characteristics have not been absent from
+the naval service, they have been confined chiefly, and naturally, to
+the men engaged in the profession, and have lacked the outside support
+which immediate felt needs impart to movements in business or
+politics. Few men in civil life could have given an immediate reply to
+the question, Why do we need a navy? Besides, although the American
+people are aggressive, combative, even warlike, they are the reverse
+of military; out of sympathy with military tone and feeling.
+Consequently, the appearance of professional pride, the insistence
+upon the absolute necessity for professional training, which in the
+physician, lawyer, engineer, or other civil occupation is accepted as
+not only becoming, but conducive to uplifting the profession as a
+whole, is felt in the military man to be the obtrusion of an alien
+temperament, easily stigmatized as the arrogance of professional
+conceit and exclusiveness. The wise traditional jealousy of any
+invasion of the civil power by the military has no doubt played some
+part in this; but a healthy vigilance is one thing, and morbid
+distrust another. Morbid distrust and unreasoned prepossession were
+responsible for the feebleness of the navy in 1812, and these feelings
+long survived. An adverse atmosphere was created, with results
+unfortunate to the nation, so far as the navy was important to
+national welfare or national progress.
+
+Indeed, between the day of my entrance into the service, fifty years
+ago, and the present, nowhere is change more notable than in the
+matter of atmosphere; of the national attitude towards the navy and
+comprehension of its office. Then it was accepted without much
+question as part of the necessary lumber that every adequately
+organized maritime state carried, along with the rest of a national
+establishment. Of what use it was, or might be, few cared much to
+inquire. There was not sufficient interest even to dispute the
+necessity of its existence; although, it is true, as late as 1875 an
+old-time Jeffersonian Democrat repeated to me with conviction the
+master's dictum, that the navy was a useless appendage; a statement
+which its work in the War of Secession, as well on the Confederate as
+on the Union side, might seem to have refuted sufficiently and with
+abundant illustration. To such doubters, before the war, there was
+always ready the routine reply that a navy protected commerce; and
+American shipping, then the second in the world, literally whitened
+every sea with its snowy cotton sails, a distinctive mark at that time
+of American merchant shipping. In my first long voyage, in 1859, from
+Philadelphia to Brazil, it was no rare occurrence to be becalmed in
+the doldrums in company with two or three of these beautiful
+semi-clipper vessels, their low black hulls contrasting vividly with
+the tall pyramids of dazzling canvas which rose above them. They
+needed no protection then, and none foresaw that within a decade, by
+the operations of a few small steam-cruisers, they would be swept from
+the seas, never to return. Everything was taken for granted, and not
+least that war was a barbarism of the past. From 1815 to 1850, the
+lifetime of a generation, international peace had prevailed
+substantially unbroken, despite numerous revolutionary movements
+internal to the states concerned; and it had been lightly assumed that
+these conditions would thenceforth continue, crowned as they had been
+by the great sacrament of peace, when the nations for the first time
+gathered under a common roof the fruits of their several industries in
+the World's Exposition of 1851. The shadows of disunion were indeed
+gathering over our own land, but for the most of us they carried with
+them no fear of war. American fight American? Never! Separation there
+might be, and with a common sorrow officers of both sections thought
+of it; but, brother shed the blood of brother? No! By 1859 the Crimean
+War had indeed intervened to shake these fond convictions; but, after
+all, rules have exceptions, and in the succeeding peace the British
+government, consistent with the prepossessions derived from the
+propaganda of Cobden, yielded perfectly gratuitously the principle
+that an enemy's commerce might be freely transported under a neutral
+flag, thereby wrenching away prematurely one of the prongs of
+Neptune's trident. Surely we were on the road to universal peace.
+
+San Francisco before and after its recent earthquake--at this moment
+of writing ten days ago--scarcely presented a greater contrast of
+experience than that my day has known; and the political condition and
+balance of the world now is as different from that of the period of
+which I have been writing as the new city will be from the old one it
+will replace at the Golden Gate. Of this universal change and
+displacement the most significant factor--at least in our Western
+civilization--has been the establishment of the German Empire, with
+its ensuing commercial, maritime, and naval development. To it
+certainly we owe the military impulse which has been transmitted
+everywhere to the forces of sea and land--an impulse for which, in my
+judgment, too great gratitude cannot be felt. It has braced and
+organized Western civilization for an ordeal as yet dimly perceived.
+But between 1850 and 1860 long desuetude of war, and confident
+reliance upon the commercial progress which freedom of trade had
+brought in its train, especially to Great Britain, had induced the
+prevalent feeling that to-morrow would be as to-day, and much more
+abundant. This was too consonant to national temperament not to
+pervade America also; and it was promoted by a distance from Europe
+and her complications much greater than now exists, and by the
+consistent determination not to be implicated in her concerns. All
+these factors went to constitute the atmosphere of indifference to
+military affairs in general; and particularly to those external
+interests of which a navy is the outward and visible sign and
+champion.
+
+I do not think there is error or exaggeration in this picture of the
+"environment" of the navy in popular appreciation at the time I
+entered. Under such conditions, which had obtained substantially since
+soon after the War of 1812, and which long disastrously affected even
+Great Britain, with all her proud naval traditions and maritime and
+colonial interests, a military service cannot thrive. Indifference and
+neglect tell on most individuals, and on all professions. The saving
+clauses were the high sense of duty and of professional integrity,
+which from first to last I have never known wanting in the service;
+while the beauty of the ships themselves, quick as a docile and
+intelligent animal to respond to the master's call, inspired affection
+and intensified professional enthusiasm. The exercises of sails and
+spars, under the varying exigencies of service, bewildering as they
+may have seemed to the uninitiated, to the appreciative possessed
+fascination, and were their own sufficient reward for the care
+lavished upon them. In their mute yet exact response was some
+compensation for external neglect; they were, so to say, the testimony
+of a good conscience; the assurance of professional merit, and of work
+well done, if scantily recognized. Poor and beloved sails and
+spars--_la joie de la manoeuvre_, to use the sympathetic phrase of a
+French officer of that day--gone ye are with that past of which I have
+been speaking, and of which ye were a goodly symbol; but like other
+symptoms of the times, had we listened aright, we should have heard
+the stern rebuke: Up and depart hence; this is not the place of your
+rest.
+
+The result of all this had been a body of officers, and of men-of-war
+seamen, strong in professional sentiment, and admirably qualified in
+the main for the duties of a calling which in many of its leading
+characteristics was rapidly becoming obsolete. There was the spirit of
+youth, but the body of age. As a class, officers and men were well up
+in the use of such instruments as the country gave them; but the
+profession did not wield the corporate influence necessary to extort
+better instruments, and impotence to remedy produced acquiescence in,
+perhaps, more properly, submission to, an arrest of progress, the
+evils of which were clearly seen. Yet the salt was still there, nor
+had it lost its savor. The military professions are discouraged, even
+enjoined, against that combined independent action for the remedy of
+grievances which is the safeguard of civil liberty, but tends to sap
+the unquestioning obedience essential to unity of action under a
+single will--at once the virtue and the menace of a standing army.
+Naval officers had neither the privilege nor the habits which would
+promote united effort for betterment; but when individuals among them
+are found, like Farragut, Dupont, Porter, Dahlgren--to mention only a
+few names that became conspicuous in the War of Secession--there will
+be found also in civil and political life men who will become the
+channels through which the needs of the service will receive
+expression and ultimately obtain relief. The process is overslow for
+perfect adequacy, but it exists. It may be asked, Was not the Navy
+Department constituted for this special purpose? Possibly; but
+experience has shown that sometimes it is effective, and sometimes it
+is not. There is in it no provision for a continuous policy. No
+administrative period of our naval history since 1812 has been more
+disastrously stagnant and inefficient than that which followed closely
+the War of Secession, with its extraordinary, and in the main
+well-directed, administrative energy. The deeds of Farragut, his
+compeers, and their followers, after exciting a moment's enthusiasm,
+were powerless to sustain popular interest. Reaction ruled, as after
+the War of 1812.
+
+To whomsoever due, in the decade immediately preceding the War of
+Secession there were two notable attempts at regeneration which had a
+profound influence upon the fortunes of that contest. Of these, one
+affected the personnel of the navy, the other the material. It had for
+some time been recognized within the service that, owing partly to
+easy-going toleration of offenders, partly to the absence of
+authorized methods for dealing with the disabled, or the merely
+incompetent, partly also, doubtless, to the effect of general
+professional stagnation upon those naturally inclined to
+worthlessness, there had accumulated a very considerable percentage of
+officers who were useless; or, worse, unreliable. In measure, this was
+also due to habits of drinking, much more common in all classes of men
+then than now. Even within the ten years with which I am dealing, an
+officer not much my senior remarked to me on the great improvement in
+this respect in his own experience; and my contemporaries will bear me
+out in saying that since then the advance has been so sustained that
+the evil now is practically non-existent. But then the compassionate
+expression, "A first-rate officer when he is not drinking," was
+ominously frequent; and in the generation before too little attention
+had been paid to the equally significant remark, that with a fool you
+know what to count on, but with one who drank you never knew.
+
+But drink was far from the only cause. There were regular
+examinations, after six years of service, for promotion from the
+warrant of midshipman to a lieutenant's commission; but, that
+successfully passed, there was no further review of an officer's
+qualifications, unless misconduct brought him before a court-martial.
+Nor was there any provision for removing the physically incompetent.
+Before I entered the navy I knew one such, who had been bed-ridden for
+nearly ten years. He had been a midshipman with Farragut under Porter
+in the old _Essex_, when captured by the _Phoebe_ and _Cherub_. A
+gallant boy, specially named in the despatch, he had such aptitude
+that at sixteen, as he told me himself, he wore an epaulette on the
+left shoulder--the uniform of a lieutenant at that time; and a
+contemporary assured me that in handling a ship he was the smartest
+officer of the deck he had ever known. But in early middle life
+disease overtook him, and, though flat on his back, he had been borne
+on the active list because there was nothing else to do with him. In
+that plight he was even promoted. There was another who, as a
+midshipman, had lost a foot in the War of 1812, but had been carried
+on from grade to grade for forty years, until at the time I speak of
+he was a captain, then the highest rank in the navy. Possibly,
+probably, he never saw water bluer than that of the lakes, where he
+was wounded. The undeserving were not treated with quite the same
+indulgence. Those familiar with the _Navy Register_ of those days will
+recall some half-dozen old die-hards, who figured from year to year at
+the head of the lieutenant's list; continuously "overslaughed," never
+promoted, but never dismissed. To deal in the same manner with such
+men as the two veterans first mentioned would have been insulting; the
+distinction of promotion had to be conceded.
+
+But there were those also who, despite habits or inefficiency, slipped
+through even formal examination; commanders whose ships were run by
+their subordinates, lieutenants whose watch on deck kept their
+captains from sleeping, midshipmen whose unfitness made their
+retention unpardonable; for at their age to re-begin life was no
+hardship, much less injustice. Of one such the story ran that his
+captain, giving him the letter required by regulation, wrote, "Mr. So
+and So is a very excellent young gentleman, of perfectly correct
+habits, but nothing will make an officer of him." He answered his
+questions, however; and the board considered that they could not go
+beyond that fact. They passed him in the face of the opinion of a
+superior of tried efficiency who had had his professional conduct
+under prolonged observation. I never knew this particular man
+professionally, but the general estimate of the service confirmed his
+captain's opinion. Twenty or thirty years later, I was myself one of a
+board called to deal with a precisely similar case. The letter of the
+captain was explicitly condemnatory and strong; but the president of
+the board, a man of exemplary rectitude, was vehement even in refusing
+to act upon it, and his opinion prevailed. Some years afterwards the
+individual came under my command, and proved to be of so eccentric
+worthlessness that I thought him on the border-line of insanity. He
+afterwards disappeared, I do not know how.
+
+Talking of examinations, a comical incident came under my notice
+immediately after the War of Secession, when there were still employed
+a large number of those volunteer officers who had honorably and
+usefully filled up the depleted ranks of the regular service--an
+accession of strength imperatively needed. There were among them,
+naturally, inefficients as well as efficients. One had applied for
+promotion, and a board of three, among them myself, was assembled to
+examine. Several commonplace questions in seamanship were put to him,
+of which I now remember only that he had no conception of the
+difference between a ship moored, and one lying at single anchor--a
+subject as pertinent to-day as a hundred years ago. After failing to
+explain this, he expressed his wish not to go further; whereupon one
+of the board asked why, if ignorant of these simple matters, he had
+applied for examination. His answer was, "I did not apply for
+examination, I applied for promotion." Even in this case, when the
+applicant had left the room, the president of the board, then a
+somewhat notorious survival of the unfittest, long since departed this
+life, asked whether we refused to pass him. The third member, himself
+a volunteer officer, and myself, said we did. "Well," he rejoined,
+"you know this man may get a chance at _you_ some day." This prudent
+consideration, however, did not save him.
+
+Such tolerance towards the unfit, the reluctance to strike the
+individual in the interests of the community, was but a special, and
+not very flagrant, instance of the sympathy evoked for much worse
+offenders--murderers, and defrauders--in civil life. In such cases,
+the average man, except when personally affected, sides unreasonably
+with the sufferer and against the public; witness the easily signed
+petitions for pardon which flow in. It can be understood that in a
+public employment, civil or military, there will usually be reluctance
+to punish, and especially to take the bread out of the mouths of a man
+and his family by ejection. Usually only immediate personal interest
+in efficiency can supply the needed hardness of heart. Speaking after
+a very extensive and varied inside experience of courts-martial, I can
+say most positively that their tendency is not towards the excessive
+severity which I have heard charged against them by an eminent
+lawyer. On the contrary, the difficulty is to keep the members up to
+the mark against their natural and professional sympathies. Their
+superiors in the civil government have more often to rebuke undue
+leniency. How much more hard when, instead of an evil-doer, one had
+only to deal with a good-tempered, kindly ignoramus, or one perhaps
+who drew near the border-line of slipshod adequacy; and especially
+when to do so was to initiate action, apparently invidious, and
+probably useless, as in cases I have cited. It was easier for a
+captain or first lieutenant to nurse such a one along through a
+cruise, and then dismiss him to his home, thanking God, like Dogberry,
+that you are rid of a fool, and trusting you may see him no more. But
+this confidence may be misplaced; even his ghost may return to plague
+you, or your conscience. Basil Hall tells an interesting story in
+point. When himself about to pass for lieutenant, in 1808, while in an
+ante-room awaiting his summons, a candidate came out flushed and
+perturbed. Hall was called in, and one of the examining captains said
+to him, "Mr. ----, who has just gone out, could not answer a question
+which we will put to you." He naturally looked for a stunner, and was
+surprised at the extremely commonplace problem proposed to him. From
+the general incident he presumed his predecessor had been rejected,
+but when the list was published saw his name among the passed. Some
+years later he met one of the examiners, who in the conversation
+recalled to him the circumstances. "We hesitated," he said, "whether
+to let him go through: but we did, and I voted for him. A few weeks
+later I saw him gazetted second lieutenant of a sloop-of-war, and a
+twinge of compunction seized me. Not long afterwards I read also the
+loss of that ship, with all on board. I never have known how it
+happened, but I cannot rid myself of an uneasy feeling that it may
+have been in that young man's watch." He added, "Mr. Hall, if ever
+you are employed as I then was, do not take your duties as lightly as
+I did."
+
+Sometimes retribution does not assume this ghastly form, but shows the
+humorous side of her countenance; for she has two faces, like the
+famous ship that was painted a different color on either side and
+always tacked at night, that the enemy might imagine two ships off
+their coast. I recall--many of us recall--a well-known character in
+the service, "Bobby," who was a synonyme for inefficiency. He is long
+since in his grave, where reminiscence cannot disturb him; and the
+Bobby can reveal him only to those who knew him as well and better
+than I, and not to an unsympathetic public. Well, Bobby after much
+indulgence had been retired from active service by that convulsive
+effort at re-establishment known as the Retiring Board of 1854-55, to
+which I am coming if ever I see daylight through this thicket of
+recollections that seems to close round me as I proceed, instead of
+getting clearer. The action of that board was afterwards extensively
+reviewed, and among the data brought before the reviewers was a letter
+from a commander, who presumably should have known better, warmly
+endorsing Bobby. In consequence of this, and perhaps other
+circumstances, Bobby was restored to an admiring service; but the
+Department, probably through some officer who appreciated the
+situation, sent him to his advocate as first lieutenant--that is, as
+general manager and right-hand man. The joke was somewhat grim, and
+grimly resented. It fell to me a little later to see the commander on
+a matter of duty. He received me in his cabin, his feet swathed on a
+chair, his hands gnarled and knotted with gout or rheumatism, from
+which he was a great sufferer. Business despatched, we drifted into
+talk, and got on the subject of Bobby. His face became distorted. "I
+suppose the Department thinks it has done a very funny thing in
+sending me him as first lieutenant; but I tell you, Mr. Mahan, every
+word I wrote was perfectly true. There is nothing about a ship from
+her hold to her trucks that Bobby don't know; but--" here fury took
+possession of him, and he vociferated--"put him on deck, handling men,
+he is the d----dest fool that ever man laid eyes on." How far his
+sense of injury biassed his judgments as to the acquirements of his
+protege, I cannot say; but a cruise or two before I had happened to
+hear from eye-witnesses of Bobby's appearance in public after his
+restoration as first lieutenant in charge of the deck. On the
+occasion in question he was to exercise the whole crew at some
+particular manoeuvre. Taking his stand on the hawse-block, he
+drew from his pocket a small note-book, cast upon it his eye and
+announced--doubtless through the trumpet--"Man the fore-royal braces!"
+Again a pause, and further reference. "Man the main-royal braces!"
+Again a pause: "Man the mizzen-royal braces--Man _all_ the royal
+braces." It is quite true, however, that there may be plenty of
+knowledge with lack of power to apply it professionally--a fact
+observable in all callings, but one which examination alone will not
+elicit. I knew such a one who said of himself, "Before I take the
+trumpet I know what ought to be said and done, but with the trumpet in
+my hand everything goes away from me." This was doubtless partly
+stage-fright; but stage-fright does not last where there is real
+aptitude. This man, of very marked general ability, esteemed and liked
+by all, finally left the navy; and probably wisely. On the other hand,
+I remember a very excellent seaman--and officer--telling me that the
+poorest officer he had ever known tacked ship the best. So men differ.
+
+Thus it happened, through the operation of a variety of causes, that
+by the early fifties there had accumulated on the lists of the navy,
+in every grade, a number of men who had been tried in the balance of
+professional judgment and found distinctly wanting. Not only was the
+public--the nation--being wronged by the continuance in positions of
+responsibility of men who could not meet an emergency, or even
+discharge common duties, but there was the further harm that they were
+occupying places which, if vacated, could be at once filled by capable
+men waiting behind them. Fortunately, this had come to constitute a
+body of individual grievance among the deserving, which
+counterbalanced the natural sympathy with the individual incompetent.
+The remedy adopted was drastic enough, although in fact only an
+application of the principle of selection in a very guarded form.
+Unhappily, previous neglect to apply selection through a long series
+of years had now occasioned conditions in which it had to be used on a
+huge scale, and in the most invidious manner--the selecting out of the
+unfit. It was therefore easy for cavillers to liken this process to a
+trial at law, in which unfavorable decision was a condemnation without
+the accused being heard; and, of course, once having received this
+coloring, the impression could not be removed, nor the method
+reconciled to a public having Anglo-Saxon traditions concerning the
+administration of justice. A board of fifteen was constituted--five
+captains, five commanders, and five lieutenants. These were then the
+only grades of commissioned officers, and representation from them all
+insured, as far as could be, an adequate acquaintance with the entire
+personnel of the navy. The board sat in secret, reaching its own
+conclusions by its own methods; deciding who were, and who were not,
+fit to be carried longer on the active list. Rejections were of three
+kinds: those wholly removed, and those retired on two different grades
+of pay, called "Retired," and "Furloughed." The report was accepted by
+the government and became operative.
+
+This occurred a year or two before I entered the Naval School: and, as
+I was already expecting to do so, I read with an interest I well
+recall the lists of person unfavorably affected. Of course, neither
+then nor afterwards had I knowledge to form an independent opinion
+upon the merits of the cases; but as far as I could gather in the
+immediately succeeding years, from different officers, the general
+verdict was that in very few instances had injustice been done. Where
+I had the opportunity of verifying the mistakes cited to me, I found
+instead reason rather to corroborate than to impugn the action of the
+board; but, of course, in so large a review as it had to undertake,
+even a jury of fifteen experts can scarcely be expected never to err.
+In the navy it was a first, and doubtless somewhat crude, attempt to
+apply the method of selection which every business man or corporation
+uses in choosing employes; an arbitrary conclusion, based upon
+personal knowledge and observation, or upon adequate information. But
+in private affairs such decisions are not regarded as legal judgment,
+nor rejection as condemnation; and there is no appeal. The private
+interest of the employer is warrant that he will do the best he can
+for his business. This presumption does not lie in the case of public
+affairs, although after the most searching criticism the action of the
+board of fifteen might probably be quoted to prove that selection for
+promotion could safely be trusted at all times to similar means. I
+mean, that such a body would never recommend an unfit man for
+promotion, and in three cases out of five would choose very near the
+best man. But no such system can work unless a government have the
+courage of its findings; for private and public opinion will
+inevitably constitute itself a court of appeal. In Great Britain,
+where the principle of selection has never been abandoned, in the
+application the Admiralty is none the less constrained--browbeaten, I
+fancy, would hardly be too strong a word--by opinion outside. P. has
+been promoted, say the service journals; but why was A. passed over,
+or F., or K.? Choice is difficult, indeed, in peace times; but years
+sap efficiency, and for the good of the nation it is imperative to get
+men along while in the vigor of life, which will never be effected by
+the slow routine in which each second stands heir to the first. P.
+possibly may not be better than A. or K., but the nation will profit
+more, and in a matter vital to it, than if P., whose equality may be
+conceded, has to wait for the whole alphabet to die out of his way.
+The injustice, if so it be, to the individual must not be allowed to
+impede the essential prosperity of the community.
+
+In 1854-55, the results of a contrary system had reached proportions
+at once disheartening and comical. It then required fourteen years
+after entrance to reach a lieutenant's commission, the lowest of all.
+That is, coming in as a midshipman at fifteen, not till twenty-nine,
+after ten to twelve years probably on a sea-going vessel, was a man
+found fit, by official position, to take charge of a ship at sea, or
+to command a division of guns. True, the famous Billy Culmer, of the
+British navy, under a system of selection found himself a midshipman
+still at fifty-six, and then declined a commission on the ground that
+he preferred to continue senior midshipman rather than be the junior
+lieutenant;[3] but the injustice, if so it were, to Billy, and to many
+others, had put the ships into the hands of captains in the prime of
+life. Of the historic admirals of that navy, few had failed to reach a
+captaincy in their twenties. _Per contra_, I was told the following
+anecdote by an officer of our service whose name was--and is, for he
+still lives--a synonyme for personal activity and professional
+seamanship, but who waited his fourteen years for a lieutenancy. On
+one occasion the ship in which he returned to Norfolk from a
+three-years' cruise was ordered from there to Portsmouth, New
+Hampshire, to go out of commission. For some cause almost all the
+lieutenants had been detached, the cruise being thought ended. It
+became necessary, therefore, to intrust the charge of the deck to him
+and other "passed" midshipmen, and great was the shaking of heads
+among old stagers over the danger that ship was to run. If this were
+exceptional, it would not be worth quoting, but it was not. A similar
+routine in the British navy, in a dry-rot period of a hundred years
+before, had induced a like head-wagging and exchange of views when one
+of its greatest admirals, Hawke, was first given charge of a squadron;
+being then already a man of mark, and four years older than Nelson at
+the Nile. But he was younger than the rule, and so distrusted.
+
+The vacancies made by the wholesale action of 1854 remedied this for a
+while. The lieutenants who owed their rank to it became such after
+seven or eight years, or at, twenty-three or four; and this meant
+really passing out of pupilage into manhood. The change being effected
+immediately, anticipated the reaction in public opinion and in
+Congress, which rejected the findings of the board and compelled a
+review of the whole procedure. Many restorations were made; and, as
+these swelled the lists beyond the number then authorized by law,
+there was established a reduced pay for those whose recent promotion
+made them in excess. For them was adopted, in naval colloquialism, the
+inelegant but suggestive term "jackass" lieutenants. It should be
+explained to the outsider, perhaps even many professional readers now
+may not know, that the word was formerly used for a class of so-called
+frigates which intervened between the frigate-class proper and the
+sloop-of-war proper, and like all hybrids, such as the armored
+cruiser, shared more in the defects than in the virtues of either. It
+was therefore not a new coinage, and its uncomplimentary suggestion
+applied rather to the grudging legislation than to the unlucky
+victims. Of course, promotion was stopped till this block was worked
+off; but the immediate gain was retained. Before the trouble came on
+afresh the War of Secession, causing a large number of Southerners to
+leave the service, introduced a very different problem;--namely, how
+to find officers enough to meet the expansion of the navy caused by
+the vast demands of the contest. The men of my time became lieutenants
+between twenty and twenty-three. My own commission was dated a month
+before my twenty-first birthday, and with what good further prospects,
+even under the strict rule of seniority promotion, is evident, for
+before I was twenty-five I was made lieutenant-commander,
+corresponding to major in the army. Those were cheerful days in this
+respect for the men who struck the crest of the wave; but already the
+symptoms of inevitable reaction to old conditions of stagnancy were
+observable to those careful to heed.
+
+It would be difficult to exaggerate the benefit of this measure to the
+nation, through the service, despite the subsequent reactionary
+legislation. By a single act a large number of officers were advanced
+from the most subordinate and irresponsible positions to those which
+called all their faculties into play. "Responsibility," said one of
+the most experienced admirals the world has known, "is the test of a
+man's courage"; and where the native fitness exists nothing so
+educates for responsibility as the having it. The responsibility of
+the lieutenant of the watch differs little from that of the captain in
+degree, and less in kind. To early bearing of responsibility Farragut
+attributed in great part his fearlessness in it, which was well known
+to the service before his hour of strain. It was much that the
+government found ready for the extreme demands of the war a number of
+officers, who, instead of supervising the washing of lower decks and
+stowing of holds during their best years, had been put betimes in
+charge of the ship. From there to the captain's berth was but a small
+step. "Passed midshipman," says one of Cooper's characters, "is a good
+grade to reach, but a bad one to stop in." From a fate little better
+than this a large and promising number of young officers were thus
+rescued for the commands and responsibilities of the War of
+Secession.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+NAVAL CONDITIONS BEFORE THE WAR OF SECESSION
+
+THE VESSELS
+
+
+Less far-reaching, because men are greater than ships, but still of
+immense timeliness as a preparative to the war, was the reconstitution
+of the material of the navy, practically coincident with the
+regeneration of the personnel. The causes which led to this are before
+my time, and beyond my contemporary knowledge. They therefore form no
+part of my theme; but the result, which is more important than the
+process, was strictly contemporary with me. It marked a definite
+parting with sails as the motive reliance of a ship-of-war, but at the
+same time was characterized by an extreme conservatism, which then was
+probably judicious, and certainly represented the naval opinion of the
+day. It must be remembered that the Atlantic was first crossed under
+steam in 1837, a feat shortly before thought impossible on account of
+coal consumption, and that the screw-propeller was not generally
+adopted till several years afterwards. In 1855 the transatlantic
+liners were still paddlers; but the paddle-wheel shaft was far above
+the water, and so, in necessary consequence, was much of the machinery
+which transmitted power from the boilers to the wheel. All battle
+experience avouched the probability of disabling injury under such
+exposure; not more certain, but probably more fatal, than that to
+spars and sails of sailing-ships. Despite this drawback, paddle wheel
+men-of-war were being built between 1840 and 1850. Our own navy had of
+these two large and powerful vessels, sisters, the _Missouri_ and the
+_Mississippi_. Singularly enough, both met the same end, by fire; the
+_Missouri_ being burned in the Bay of Gibraltar in 1843, the
+_Mississippi_ in the river whence she took her name, in the course of
+Farragut's passage of the batteries at Port Hudson in 1863. This
+engagement marked the end of the admiral's achievements in the river,
+throughout which, beginning with the passage of the forts and the
+capture of New Orleans, the _Mississippi_ had done good work. At the
+time of her destruction, the present Admiral Dewey was her first
+lieutenant. Besides these two we had the _Susquehanna_, "paddle-wheel
+steam-frigate," which also served manfully through the war, and was in
+commission after it. It was she that carried General Sherman on his
+mission to Mexico in 1866. As usual, the principal European navies had
+built many more of these vessels; that is, had adopted improvements
+more readily than we did. During my first cruise after graduation, on
+the coast of Brazil, 1859-61, the British squadron there was composed
+chiefly of paddlers; the flag-ship _Leopard_ being one. As I remember,
+there was only one screw-steamer, the sloop-of-war _Curacao_.
+
+By that time, however, the paddlers were only survivals; but it may be
+noted, in passing, with reference to the cry of obsolescence so
+readily raised in our day, that these survivals did yeoman service in
+the War of Secession. It is possible to be too quick in discarding, as
+well as too slow in adopting. By 1850 the screw had made good its
+position; and the difficulty which had impeded the progress of steam
+in men-of-war disappeared when it became possible to place all
+machinery below water. There were, however, many improvements still to
+come, before it could be frankly and fully accepted as the sole motive
+power. It is not well to let go with one hand till sure of your grip
+with the other. So in the early days of electric lighting prudent
+steamship companies kept their oil-lamps trimmed and filled in the
+brackets alongside of the electric globes. Apart from the problem
+experienced by the average man--and governments are almost always
+averages in adjusting his action to novel conditions, the science of
+steam-enginery was still very backward. Notably, the expenditure of
+coal was excessive; to produce a given result in miles travelled, or
+speed attained, much more had to be burned than now, a condition to
+which contributed also the lack of rigidity in the wooden hulls, which
+still held their ground. Sails were very expensive articles, as I
+heard said by an accomplished officer of the olden days; but they were
+less costly than coal. Steam therefore was accepted at the first only
+as an accessory, for emergencies. It was too evident for question that
+in battle a vessel independent of the wind would have an unqualified
+advantage over one dependent; though an early acquaintance of mine, a
+sailmaker in the navy, a man of unusual intelligence and tried
+courage, used to maintain that steam would never prevail. Small
+steamers, he contended, would accompany sailing fleets, to tow vessels
+becalmed, or disabled in battle; a most entertaining instance of
+professional prepossession. What would be his reflections, had he
+survived till this year of grace, to see only six sailmakers on the
+active list of the navy, the last one appointed in 1888, and not one
+of them afloat. Likewise, in breasting the continuous head-winds which
+mark some ocean districts, or traversing the calms of others, there
+would be gain; but for the most part sailing, it was thought, was
+sufficiently expeditious, decidedly cheaper, and more generally
+reliable; for steamers "broke down." Admiral Baudin; a French veteran
+of the Napoleonic period, was very sarcastic over the uncertainties of
+action of the steamers accompanying his sailing frigates, when he
+attacked Fort San Juan de Ulloa, off Vera Cruz in 1839; and since
+writing these words I have come across the following quotation, of
+several years later, from the London _Guardian_, which is republishing
+some of its older news under the title "'Tis Sixty Years Since."
+
+    "Naval manoeuvres in 1846. The Squadron of Evolution is one of the
+    topics of the present week (June 10, 1846). Its arrival in the
+    Cove of Cork, after a cruise which has tested by every variety of
+    weather the sailing qualities of the vessels, has furnished the
+    world with a few particulars of its doings, and with some
+    materials for speculating on the problems it was sent out to
+    solve. The result, as far as it goes, is certainly unfavorable to
+    the exclusive prevalence of steam agency in naval warfare. Sailing
+    ships, it is seen, can do things which steamers, as at present
+    constructed, cannot accomplish. They can keep the sea when
+    steamers cannot. But the screw-steamer, which is reported to have
+    astonished everybody, is certainly an exception. Perhaps by this
+    contrivance the rapidity and convenience of steam locomotion may
+    be combined with the power and stability of our huge sailing
+    batteries."
+
+Under convictions thus slowly recasting, the first big steam
+ships-of-war carried merely "auxiliary" engines; were in fact sailing
+vessels, of the types in use for over a century, into which machinery
+was introduced to meet occasional emergencies. In some cases, probably
+in many, ships already built as sailers were lengthened and engined.
+As late as 1868 we were station-mates with one such, the _Rodney_, of
+90 guns, then the flag-ship of the British China squadron; and we had
+already met, another, the _Princess Royal_, at the Cape of Good Hope,
+homeward bound. She, however, had been built as a steamer. She was a
+singularly handsome vessel, of her majestic type; and, as she lay
+close by us, I remember commenting on her appearance to one of my
+messmates, poor Stewart, who afterwards went down in the _Oneida_.
+"Yes," he replied, "she possesses several elements of the sublime."
+They were certainly imposing creations, with their double and treble
+tiers of guns, thrusting their black muzzles through the successive
+ports which, to the number of fifteen to twenty, broke through the two
+broad white bands that from bow to stern traversed the blackness of
+their hulls; above which rose spars as tall and broad as ever graced
+the days of Nelson. To make the illusion of the past as complete as
+possible, and the dissemblance from the sailing ship as slight, the
+smoke-stack--or funnel--was telescopic, permitting it to be lowered
+almost out of sight. For those who can recall these predecessors of
+the modern battle-ships, the latter can make slight claim to beauty or
+impressiveness; yet, despite the ugliness of their angular broken
+sky-line, they have a gracefulness all their own, when moving slowly
+in still water. I remember a dozen years ago watching the French
+Mediterranean fleet of six or eight battle-ships leaving the harbor of
+Villefranche, near Nice. There was some manoeuvring to get their
+several stations, during which, here and there, a vessel lying quiet
+waiting her opportunity would glide forward with a dozen slow turns of
+the screws, not agitating the water beyond a light ripple at the bows.
+The bay at the moment was quiet as a mill-pond, and it needed little
+imagination to prompt recognition of the identity of dignified
+movement with that of a swan making its leisurely way by means equally
+unseen; no turbulent display of energy, yet suggestive of mysterious
+power.
+
+Before the War of Secession, and indeed for twenty years after it, the
+United States never inclined to the maintenance of squadrons, properly
+so-called. It is true, a dozen fine ships-of-the-line were built
+during the sail period, but they never sailed together; and the
+essence of the battle-ship, in all eras, is combined action. Our
+squadrons, till long after I entered the navy, were simply
+aggregations of vessels, no two of which were necessarily of the same
+size or class. When a ship-of-the-line went to sea--which never
+happened in my time--she went without mates, a palpable paradox; a
+ship-of-the-line, which to no line belonged. Ours was a navy of
+single, isolated cruisers; and under that condition we had received a
+correct tradition that, whatever the nominal class of an American
+ship-of-war, she should be somewhat stronger than the corresponding
+vessels built by other nations. Each cruiser, therefore, would bring
+superior force to any field of battle at all possible to her. This was
+a perfectly just military conception, to which in great measure we
+owed our successes of 1812. The same rule does not apply to fleets,
+which to achieve the like superiority rely upon united action, and
+upon tactical facility obtained by the homogeneous qualities of the
+several ships, enabling them to combine greater numbers upon a part of
+the enemy. Therefore Great Britain, which so long ruled the world by
+fleets, attached less importance to size in the particular vessel.
+Class for class, her ships were weaker than those of her enemies, but
+in fleet action they usually won. At the period of which I am writing,
+the screw-propeller, having fairly established its position, prompted
+a reconstruction of the navy, with no change of the principles just
+mentioned. The cruiser idea dictated the classes of vessels ordered,
+and the idea of relative size prescribed their dimensions. There were
+to be six steam-frigates of the largest class, six steam-sloops, and
+six smaller vessels, a precise title for which I do not know. I myself
+have usually called them by the French name corvette, which has a
+recognized place in English marine phraseology, and means a
+sloop-of-war of the smaller class. A transfer of terms accompanying a
+change of system is apt to be marked by anomalies.
+
+These eighteen vessels were the nucleus of the fighting force with
+which the government met the war of 1861. In the frigates and sloops
+steam was purely auxiliary; they had every spar and sail of
+the sailing ships to which they corresponded. Four of the
+larger sloops--the _Hartford_, _Richmond_, _Brooklyn_, and
+_Pensacola_--constituted the backbone of Farragut's fleet throughout
+his operations in the Mississippi. The _Lancaster_, one of the finest
+of these five sisters, was already in the Pacific, and there remained
+throughout the contest; while the _San Jacinto_, being of different
+type and size, was employed rather as a cruiser than for the important
+operations of war. It was she that arrested the Confederate
+commissioners, Slidell and Mason, on board the British mail-steamer
+_Trent_, in 1861. The corvettes for the most part were also employed
+as cruisers, being at once less effective in battery, for river work,
+and swifter. They alone of the vessels built in the fifties were
+engined for speed, as speed went in those days; but their sail power
+also was ample, though somewhat reduced. One of them, the _Iroquois_,
+accompanied Farragut to New Orleans, as did a sister ship to her, the
+_Oneida_, which was laid down in 1861, after many Southern Senators
+and Representatives had left their seats in Congress and the secession
+movement became ominous of war; when it began to be admitted that
+perhaps, after all, for sufficient cause, brothers might shed the
+blood of brothers.
+
+The steam-frigates were of too deep draught to be of much use in the
+shoal waters, to which the nature of the hostilities and the character
+of the Southern coast confined naval operations. Being extremely
+expensive in upkeep, with enormous crews, and not having speed under
+steam to make them effective chasers, they were of little avail
+against an enemy who had not, and could not have, any ships at sea
+heavy enough to compete with them. The _Wabash_ of this class bore the
+flag of Admiral Dupont at the capture of Port Royal; and after the
+fight the negroes who had witnessed it on shore reported that when
+"that checker-sided ship," following the elliptical course prescribed
+to the squadron for the engagement, came abreast the enemy's works,
+the gunners, after one experience, took at once to cover. No barbette
+or merely embrasured battery of that day could stand up against the
+twenty or more heavy guns carried on each broadside by the
+steam-frigates, if these could get near enough. At New Orleans, even
+the less numerous pieces of the sloops beat down opposition so long as
+they remained in front of Fort St. Philip and close to; but when they
+passed on, so the first lieutenant of one of them told me, the enemy
+returned to his guns and hammered them severely. This showed that the
+fort was not seriously injured nor its armament decisively crippled,
+but that the personnel was completely dominated by the fire of many
+heavy guns during the critical period required for the smaller as well
+as larger vessels to pass. As most of the river work was of this
+character, the broadsides of the sloops were determinative, and those
+of the frigates would have been more so, could they have been brought
+to the scene; but they could not. Much labor was expended in the
+attempt to drag the _Colorado_, sister ship to the _Wabash_, across
+the bar of the Mississippi, but fruitlessly.
+
+For the reason named, the screw-frigates built in the fifties had
+little active share in the Civil War. Were they then, from a national
+stand-point, uselessly built? Not unless preparation for war is to be
+rejected, and reliance placed upon extemporized means. To this resort
+our people have always been inclined to trust unduly, owing to a false
+or partial reading of history; but to it they were excusably compelled
+by the extensive demands of the War of Secession, which could scarcely
+have been anticipated. At the time these frigates were built, they
+were, by their dimensions and the character of their armaments, much
+the most formidable ships of their class afloat, or as yet designed.
+Though correctly styled frigates--having but one covered deck of
+guns--they were open to the charge, brought against our frigates in
+1812 by the British, of being ships-of-the-line in disguise; and being
+homogeneous in qualities, they would, in acting together, have
+presented a line of battle extorting very serious consideration from
+any probable foreign enemy. It was for such purpose they were built;
+and it was no reproach to their designers that, being intended to meet
+a probable contingency, they were too big for one which very few men
+thought likely. At that moment, when the portentous evolution of naval
+material which my time has witnessed was but just beginning, they were
+thoroughly up-to-date, abreast and rather ahead of the conclusions as
+yet reached by contemporary opinion. The best of compliments was paid
+them by the imitation of other navies; for, when the first one was
+finished, we sent her abroad on exhibition, much like a hen cackling
+over its last performance, with the result that we had not long to
+congratulate ourselves on the newest and best thing. It is this place
+in a long series of development which gives them their historical
+interest.
+
+But if the frigates were unfitted to the particular emergency of a
+civil contest, scarcely to be discerned as imminent in 1855, the
+advantage of preparation for general service is avouched by the
+history of the first year of hostilities, even so exceptional as those
+of 1861 and 1862. Within a year of the first Bull Run, Farragut's
+squadron had fought its way from the mouth of the Mississippi to
+Vicksburg. That the extreme position was not held was not the fault of
+the ships, but of backwardness in other undertakings of the nation.
+All the naval vessels that subdued New Orleans had been launched and
+ready before the war, except the _Oneida_ and the gunboats; and to
+attribute any determinative effect in such operations to the
+gunboats, with their one heavy gun, is to misunderstand the
+conditions. Even a year later, at the very important passage of Port
+Hudson, the fighting work was done by the _Hartford_, _Richmond_,
+_Mississippi_, and _Monongahela_; of which only the last named, and
+least powerful, was built after the war began. It would be difficult
+to overrate the value, material and moral, of the early successes
+which led the way to the opening of the great river, due to having the
+ships and officers ready. So the important advantages obtained by the
+capture of Port Royal in South Carolina, and of Hatteras Inlet in
+North Carolina, within the first six months, were the results of
+readiness, slight and inadequate as that was in reference to anything
+like a great naval war.
+
+A brief analysis of the composition of the navy at the opening of the
+War of Secession, will bring out still more vividly how vitally
+important to the issue were the additions of the decade 1850-60. In
+March, 1861, when Lincoln was inaugurated, the available ships-of-war
+at sea, or in the yards, numbered sixty-one. Of these thirty-four were
+sailing vessels, substantially worthless; although, as the commerce of
+the world was still chiefly carried on by sailing ships, they could be
+of some slight service against these attempting to pass a blockade.
+For the most part, however, they were but scarecrows, if even
+respected as such. Of the twenty-seven steamers, only six dated from
+before 1850; the remainder were being built when I entered the Naval
+Academy in September, 1856. Their construction, with all that it
+meant, constituted a principal part of the environment into which I
+was then brought, of which the recasting of the list of officers was
+the other most important and significant feature. Both were
+revolutionary in character, and prophetic of further changes quite
+beyond the foresight of contemporaries. From this point of view, the
+period in question has the character of an epoch, initiated, made
+possible, by the invention of the screw-propeller; which, in addition
+to the better nautical qualities associated with it, permitted the
+defence of the machinery by submersion, and of the sides of the ship
+by the application of armor. In this lay the germ of the race between
+the armor and the gun, involving almost directly the attempt to reach
+the parts which armor cannot protect, the underwater body, by means of
+the torpedo. The increases of weight induced by the competition of gun
+and armor led necessarily to increase of size, which in turn lent
+itself to increases of speed that have been pushed beyond the strictly
+necessary, and at all events are neither militarily nor logically
+involved in the progress made. It has remained to me always a matter
+of interest and satisfaction that I first knew the navy, was in close
+personal contact and association with it, in this period of
+unconscious transition; and that to the fact of its being yet
+incomplete I have owed the experience of vessels, now wholly extinct,
+of which it would be no more than truth to say that in all essential
+details they were familiar to the men of two hundred years ago. Nay,
+in their predecessors of that date, as transmitted to us by
+contemporary prints, it is easy to trace the development, in form, of
+the ships I have known from the mediaeval galley; and this, were the
+records equally complete, would doubtless find its rudimentary
+outlines in the triremes of the ancient world. Of this evolution of
+structure clear evidences remain also in terminology, even now
+current; survivals which, if the facts were unknown, would provoke
+curiosity and inquiry as to their origin, as physiologists seek to
+reconstruct the past of a race from scanty traces still extant.
+
+I have said that the character of the ships then building constituted
+a chief part of my environment in entering the navy. The effect was
+inevitable, and amounted in fact simply to making me a man of my
+period. My most susceptible years were colored by the still lingering
+traditions of the sail period, and of the "marling-spike seaman;" not
+that I, always clumsy with my fingers, had any promise of ever
+distinguishing myself with the marling-spike. This expressive phrase,
+derived from its chief tool, characterized the whole professional
+equipment of the then mechanic of the sea, of the man who, given the
+necessary rope-yarns, and the spars shaped by a carpenter, could take
+a bare hull as she lay for the first time quietly at anchor from the
+impetus of her launch, and equip her for sea without other assistance;
+"parbuckle" on board her spars lying alongside her in the stream, fit
+her rigging, bend her sails, stow her hold, and present her all
+a-taunt-o to the men who were to sail her. The navigation of a ship
+thus equipped was a field of seamanship apart from that of the
+marling-spike; but the men who sailed her to all parts of the earth
+were expected to be able to do all the preliminary work themselves,
+often did do it, and considered it quite as truly a part of their
+business as the handling her at sea. Of course, in equipping ships, as
+in all other business, specialization had come in with progress; there
+were rope-makers, there were riggers who took the ropes ready-made and
+fitted them for the ship, and there were stevedores to stow holds,
+etc.; but the tradition ran that the seaman should be able on a pinch
+to do all this himself, and the tradition kept alive the practice,
+which derived from the days not yet wholly passed away when he might,
+and often did, have to refit his vessel in scenes far distant from any
+help other than his own, and without any resources save those which
+his ready wit could adapt from materials meant for quite different
+uses. How to make a jib-boom do the work of a topsail-yard, or to
+utilize spare spars in rigging a jury-rudder, were specimens of the
+problems then presented to the aspiring seaman. It was somewhere in
+the thirties, not so very long before my time, that a Captain Rous, of
+the British navy, achieved renown--I would say immortal, were I not
+afraid that most people have forgotten--by bringing his frigate home
+from Labrador to England after losing her rudder. It is said that he
+subsequently ran for Parliament, and when on the hustings some doubter
+asked about his political record, he answered, "I am Captain Rous who
+brought the _Pique_ across the Atlantic without a rudder." Of course
+the reply was lustily cheered, and deservedly; for in such seas, with
+a ship dependent upon sails only, it was a splendid, if somewhat
+reckless achievement. Cooper, in his _Homeward Bound_, places the ship
+dismasted on the coast of Africa. Close at hand, but on the beach,
+lies a wrecked vessel with her spar standing; and there is no
+exaggeration in the words he puts into the mouth of Captain Truck, as
+he looked upon these resources: "The seaman who, with sticks, and
+ropes, and blocks enough, cannot rig his ship, might as well stay
+ashore and publish an hebdomadal."
+
+Such was the marling-spike seaman of the days of Cooper and Marryat,
+and such was still the able seaman, the "A.B.," of 1855. It was not
+indeed necessary, nor expected, that most naval officers should do
+such things with their own hands; but it was justly required that they
+should know when a job of marling-spike seamanship was well or ill
+done, and be able to supervise, when necessary. Napoleon is reported
+to have said that he could judge personally whether the shoes
+furnished his soldiers were well or ill made; but he needed not to be
+a shoemaker. Marryat, commenting on one of his characters, says that
+he had seldom known an officer who prided himself on his "practical"
+knowledge who was at the same time a good navigator; and that such too
+often "lower the respect due to them by assuming the Jack Tar." Oddly
+enough, lunching once with an old and distinguished British admiral,
+who had been a midshipman while Marryat still lived, he told me that
+he remembered him well; his reputation, he added, was that of "an
+excellent seaman, but not much of an officer," an expressive phrase,
+current in our own service, and which doubtless has its equivalent in
+all maritime languages.
+
+In my early naval life I came into curious accidental contact with
+just such a person as Marryat described. I was still at the Academy,
+within a year of graduation, and had been granted a few days' leave at
+Christmas. Returning by rail, there seated himself alongside me a
+gentleman who proved to be a lieutenant from the flag-ship of the Home
+Squadron, going to Washington with despatches. Becoming known to each
+other, he began to question me as to what new radicalisms were being
+fostered in Annapolis. "Are they still wasting the young men's time
+over French? I would not permit them to learn any other language than
+their own. And how about seamanship? What do they know about that? As
+far as I have observed they know nothing about marling-spike
+seamanship, strapping blocks, fitting rigging, etc. Now I can sit down
+alongside of any seaman doing a bit of work and show him how it ought
+to be done; yes, and do it myself." It was Marryat's lieutenant,
+Phillott, _ipsissimis verbis_. I listened, over-awed by the weight of
+authority and experience; and I fear somewhat in sympathy, for such
+talk was in the air, part of the environment of an old order slowly
+and reluctantly giving way to a new.
+
+Of course I shared this; how should I not, at eighteen? In giving
+expression to it once, I drew down on my head a ringing buffet from my
+father, in which he embodied an anecdote of Decatur I never saw
+elsewhere, and fancy he owed to his boyhood passed near a navy-yard
+town--Portsmouth, Virginia--while Decatur was in his prime. I had
+written home with reference to some study, in which probably I did not
+shine, "What did Decatur know about such things?" A boy may be
+pardoned for laying himself open to the retort which so many of his
+superiors equally invited: "Depend upon it, if Decatur had been a
+student at the Academy, he would, so far as his abilities permitted,
+have got as far to the front as he always did in fighting. He always
+aimed to be first. It is told of him that he commanded one of two
+ships ordered on a common service, in which the other arrived first at
+a point on the way. Her captain, instead of pushing forward, waited
+for Decatur to come up; on hearing which the latter exclaimed in his
+energetic way, 'The d----d fool!'" Decatur, however, also shared, and
+shared inevitably, the prepossessions of his day. I was told by Mr.
+Charles King, when President of Columbia College, that he had been
+present in company with Decatur at one of the early experiments in
+steam navigation. Crude as the appliances still were, demonstration
+was conclusive; and Decatur, whatever his prejudices, was open to
+conviction. "Yes," he said, gloomily, to King, "it is the end of our
+business; hereafter any man who can boil a tea-kettle will be as good
+as the best of us." It is notable that in my day a tradition ran that
+Decatur himself was not thoroughly a seaman. The captain of the first
+ship in which I served after graduation, a man of much solid
+information, who had known the commodore's contemporaries, speaking
+about some occurrence, said to me, "The trouble with Decatur was, that
+he was not a seaman." I repeated the remark to one of our lieutenants,
+and he ejaculated, with emphasis, "Yes, that is true." I cannot tell
+how far these opinions were the result of prepossession in those from
+whom they derived. There had been hard and factious division in the
+navy of Decatur's day, culminating in the duel in which he fell; and
+the lieutenant, at least, was associated by family ties with Decatur's
+antagonist.
+
+To deny that the methods of the Naval Academy were open to criticism
+would be to claim for them infallibility. Upon the whole, however, in
+my time they erred rather on the side of being over-conservative than
+unduly progressive. Twenty years later, recalling some of our Academy
+experiences to one of my contemporaries, himself more a man of action
+than a student, and who had meanwhile distinguished himself by
+extraordinary courage in the War of Secession--I mean Edward Terry--he
+said, "Oh yes, those were the days before the flood." The hold-back
+element was strong, though not sufficiently so to suit such as my
+friend of the railroad. Objectors laid great stress on the word
+"practical;" than which, with all its most respectable derivation and
+association, I know none more frequently--nor more effectually--used
+as a bludgeon for slaying ideas. Strictly, of course, it means knowing
+how to do things, and doing them; but colloquially it usually means
+doing them before learning how. Leap before you look. The practical
+part is bruising your shins for lack of previous reflection. Of
+course, no one denies the educational value of breaking your shins,
+and everything else your own--a burnt child dreads the fire; but the
+question remains whether an equally good result may not be reached at
+less cost, and so be more really practical. I recall the fine scorn
+with which one of our professors, Chauvenet, a man of great and
+acknowledged ability, practical and other, used to speak of "practical
+men." "Now, young gentlemen, in adjusting your theodolites in the
+field, remember not to bear too hard on the screws. Don't put them
+down with main force, as though the one object was never to unscrew
+them. If you do, you indent the plate, and it will soon be quite
+impossible to level the instrument properly. That," he would continue,
+"is the way with your practical men. There, for instance, is Mr.
+----," naming an assistant in another department, known to the
+midshipmen as Bull-pup, who I suppose had been a practical surveyor;
+"that is what he does." I presume the denunciation was due to B. P.
+having at one time borrowed an instrument from the department, and
+returned it thus maltreated. But "practical," so misapplied--action
+without thought--was Chauvenet's red rag.
+
+An amusing reminiscence, illustrative of the same common tendency, was
+told me by General Howard. I had the pleasure of meeting Howard, then
+in command of one wing of Sherman's army, at Savannah, just after the
+conclusion of the march to the sea, in 1864. He spoke pleasantly of
+his associations with my father, when a cadet at the Military Academy,
+and added, "I remember how he used to say, 'A little common-sense, Mr.
+Howard, a little common-sense.'" Howard did not say what particular
+occasions he then had in mind, but a student reciting, and confronted
+suddenly with some question, or step in a demonstration, which he has
+failed to master, or upon which he has not reflected, is apt to feel
+that the practical thing to do is not to admit ignorance; to trust to
+luck and answer at random. Such a one, explaining a drawing of a
+bridge to my father, was asked by him what was represented by certain
+lines, showing the up-stream part of a pier. Not knowing, he replied,
+"That is a hole to catch the ice in." "Imagine," said my father, in
+telling me the story, "catching all the ice from above in holes in the
+piers." A little common-sense--exercised first, not afterwards--is the
+prescription against leaping before you look, or jamming your screws
+too hard.
+
+To substitute acquired common-sense--knowledge and reflection--for the
+cruder and tardier processes of learning by hard personal experience
+and mistakes, is, of course, the object of all education; and it was
+this which caused the foundation of the Naval Academy, behind which at
+its beginning lay the initiative of some of the most reputed and
+accomplished senior officers of the navy, conscious of the needless
+difficulties they themselves had had to surmount in reaching the
+level they had. It involved no detraction from their professional
+excellence, the excellence of men professionally self-made; but none
+comprehend the advantages of education better than candid men who have
+made their way without it. By the time I entered, however, there had
+been a decided, though not decisive, reaction in professional feeling.
+Ten years had elapsed since the founding of the school, and already
+development had gone so far that suspicion and antagonism were
+aroused. Up to 1850 midshipmen went at once to sea, and, after five
+years there, spent one at Annapolis; whereupon followed the final
+examination for a lieutenancy. This effected, the man became a
+"passed" midshipman. Beginning with 1851, the system was changed. Four
+years at the Academy were required, after which two at sea, and then
+examination. This, being a clean break with the past, outraged
+conservatism; it introduced such abominations as French and extended
+mathematics; much attention was paid to infantry drill--soldiering;
+the scheme was not "practical;" and it was doubtless true that the
+young graduate, despite six months of summer cruising interposed
+between academic terms, came comparatively green to shipboard. In that
+particular respect he could not but compare for the moment unfavorably
+with one who under the old plan would have spent four years on a
+ship's deck. Whether, that brief period of inexperience passed, he
+would not be permanently the better for the prior initiation into the
+_rationale_ of his business, few inquired, and time had not yet had
+opportunity to show.
+
+Perhaps, too, there was among the graduates something of the
+"freshness" which is attributed to the same age in leaving a
+university. I do not think it; the immediate contact with conditions
+but partly familiar to us, yet perfectly familiar to all about us,
+excited rather a wholesome feeling of inferiority or inadequacy. We
+had yet to find ourselves. But there remained undoubtedly some
+antagonism between the old and the new. Not that this ever showed
+itself offensively; nothing could have been kinder or more
+open-hearted than our reception by the lieutenants who had not known
+the Academy, and who probably depreciated it in their hearts. Whatever
+they thought, nothing was ever said that could reflect upon us, the
+outcome of the system. It was not even hinted that we might have been
+turned out in better shape under different conditions. From my
+personal experience, I hope we proved more satisfactory than may have
+been expected. When we returned home in 1861, just after the first
+battle of Bull Run, our third lieutenant said to me that he expected a
+command, and would be glad to have me as his first lieutenant; and
+upon my detachment one of the warrant officers expressed his regret
+that I was not remaining as one of the lieutenants of the ship. Both
+being men of mature years and long service, and with no obligation to
+speak, it is permissible to infer that they thought us fit at least to
+take the deck. As it was, in the uproar of those days, no questions
+were asked. The usual examinations were waived, and my class was
+hurried out of the midshipmen's mess into the first-lieutenant's
+berth. Without exception, I believe, we all had that duty at
+once--second to the captain--missing thereby the very valuable
+experience of the deck officer. In the face of considerable
+opposition, as I was told by Admiral Dupont, the leading officers of
+the day frustrated the attempt to introduce volunteer officers from
+the merchant service over our heads; another proof of confidence in
+us, as at least good raw material. The longer practice of the others
+at sea was alleged as a reason for thus preferring them, which was
+seriously contemplated; but the reply was that acquaintance with the
+organization of a ship-of-war, with her equipment and armament, the
+general military tone so quickly assimilated by the young and so
+hardly by the mature, outweighed completely any mere question of
+attainment in handling a ship. As drill officers, too, the general
+excellence of the graduates was admitted.
+
+Within a fortnight of doing duty on the forecastle, as a midshipman, I
+thus found myself first lieutenant of a very respectable vessel. One
+of my shipmates, less quickly fortunate, was detailed to instruct a
+number of volunteer officers with the great guns and muskets. One of
+them said to him, "Yes, you can teach me this, but I expect I can
+teach you something in seamanship"; a freedom of speech which by
+itself showed imperfect military temper. At the same moment, I myself
+had a somewhat similar encounter, which illustrates why the old
+officers insisted on the superior value of military habit, and the
+necessarily unmilitary attitude, at first, of the volunteers. I had
+been sent momentarily to a paddle-wheel merchant-steamer, now
+purchased for a ship-of-war, the _James Adger_, which had plied
+between Charleston and New York. A day or two after joining, I saw two
+of the engineer force going ashore without my knowledge. I stopped
+them; and a few moments afterwards the chief engineer, who had long
+been in her when she was a packet, came to me with flaming eyes and
+angry voice to know by what right I interfered with his men. It had to
+be explained to him that, unlike the merchant-service, the engine-room
+was but a department of the military whole of the ship, and that other
+consent than his was necessary to their departure. A trivial incident,
+with a whole world of atmosphere behind it.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE NAVAL ACADEMY IN ITS RELATION TO THE NAVY AT LARGE
+
+1850-1860
+
+
+Probably there have been at all periods educational excesses in the
+outlook of some of the Naval Academy authorities; and I personally
+have sympathized in the main with those who would subordinate the
+technological element to the more strictly professional. I remember
+one superintendent--and he, unless rumor was in error, had been one of
+the early opposition--saying to me with marked elation, "I believe we
+carry the calculus farther here than they do at West Point." I myself
+had then long forgotten all the calculus I ever knew, and I fear that
+with him, too, it was a case of _omne ignotum pro magnifico_. A more
+curious extravagancy was uttered to me by a professor of applied
+mathematics. I had happened to say that, while it was well each
+student should have the opportunity to acquire all he could in that
+department, I did not think it necessary that every officer of the
+deck should be able to calculate mathematically the relation between a
+weight he had to hoist on board and the power of the purchase he was
+about to use; which I think a mild proposition, considering the
+centuries during which that knowledge had been dispensed with. "Oh, I
+differ with you," he replied; "I think it of the utmost importance
+they should all be able to do so." Nothing like sails, said my friend
+the sailmaker; nothing like leather, says the shoemaker. I mentioned
+this shortly afterwards to one of my colleagues, himself an officer
+of unusual mathematical and scientific attainment. "No!" he exclaimed;
+"did he _really_ say that?"
+
+This was to claim for this mere head knowledge a falsely "practical"
+value, as distinguished from the educational value of the mental
+training involved, and from the undoubted imperative need of such
+acquisitions in those who have to deal with problems of ship
+construction or other mechanical questions connected with naval
+material. His position was really as little practical as that of the
+men who opposed the Academy plan in general as unpractical; as little
+practical as it would be to maintain that it is essential that every
+naval officer to-day should be skilled to handle a ship under sail,
+because the habit of the sailing-ship educated, brought out, faculties
+and habits of the first value to the military man. Still, there is
+something not only excusable, but laudable, in a man magnifying his
+office; and it was well that my friend the professor should have a
+slightly exaggerated idea of the bearing of the calculus on the daily
+routine or occasional emergencies of a ship. What is needed is a
+counterpoise, to correct undue deflection of the like kind, to which
+an educational institution from its very character and object is
+always liable. That the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the
+Sabbath, is a saying of wide application. The administrator tends to
+think more of his administrative machine than of the object for which
+it exists, and the educator to forget that while the foundation is
+essential, it yet exists only for the building, which is the
+"practical" end in view. The object of naval education is to make a
+naval officer. Too much as well as too little of one ingredient will
+mar the compound; and if exaggeration cannot be wholly avoided, it had
+better rest upon the professional side. This was the function
+discharged by the critical attitude of the outside service, such as my
+friend of the railroad; at times somewhat irrational, but still as a
+check effective after the manner of other public opinion, of which in
+fact it was an instance.
+
+In September, 1856, when I entered, professional influence was perhaps
+in excess. The preceding June had seen the graduation of the last
+class of "oldsters"--of those who, after five years at sea, had spent
+the sixth at the Academy, subjected formally to its discipline and
+methods. I therefore just missed seeing that phase of the Academy's
+history; but I could not thereby escape the traces of its influence.
+However transient, this lasted my time. It may be imagined what an
+influential, yet incongruous, element in a crowd of boys was
+constituted by introducing among them twenty or thirty young men, too
+young for ripeness, yet who for five years had been bearing the not
+slight responsibility of the charge of seamen, often on duty away from
+their superiors, and permitted substantially all the powers and
+privileges conceded to their seniors, men of mature years. How could
+such be brought under the curb of the narrowly ordered life of the
+school, for the short eight months to which they knew the ordeal was
+restricted? Could this have been attempted seriously, there would
+probably have been an explosion; but in truth, as far as my
+observation went, most of the disciplinary officers, the lieutenants,
+rather sympathized with irregularities, within pretty wide limits. A
+midshipman was a being who traditionally had little but the exuberance
+of his spirits to make up for the discomforts of his lot. The
+comprehensive saying that what was nobody's business was a
+midshipman's business epitomized the harrying of his daily life, with
+its narrow quarters, hard fare, and constant hustling for poor pay.
+Like the seaman, above whom in earlier days he stood but little, the
+midshipman had then only his jollity--and his youth--to compensate;
+and also like the seaman a certain recklessness was conceded to his
+moments of enjoyment. The very name carried with it the privilege of
+frolicking.
+
+The old times of license among seafaring men were still of recent
+memory, and, though practice had improved, opinion remained tolerant.
+The gunner of the first ship in which I served after graduation told
+me that in 1832, when he was a young seaman before the mast on board a
+sloop-of-war in the Mediterranean, on Christmas Eve, there being a
+two-knot breeze--that is, substantially, calm--at sundown the ship was
+put under two close-reefed topsails for the night--storm canvas--and
+then the jollity began. How far it was expected to go may be inferred
+from the precautions; and we gain here some inkling of the phrase
+"heavy weather" applied to such conditions. But of the same ship he
+told me that she stood into the harbor of Malta under all sail, royal
+and studding sails, to make a flying moor; which, I must explain to
+the unprofessional, is to drop an anchor under sail, the cable running
+out under the force of the ship's way till the place is reached for
+letting go the second anchor, the ship finally being brought to lie
+midway between the two. An accurate eye, a close judgment as to the
+ship's speed, and absolute promptness of execution are needed; for all
+the sail that is on when the first anchor goes must be off before the
+second. In this case nothing was started before the first. Within
+fifteen minutes all was in, the ship moored, sails furled, and yards
+squared, awaiting doubtless the final touches of the boatswain.
+Whether the flag of the port was saluted within the same quarter-hour,
+I will not undertake to say; it would be quite in keeping to have
+attempted it. System, preparation, and various tricks of the trade go
+far to facilitate such rapidity. Now I dare say that some of my
+brother officers may cavil at this story; but I personally believe it,
+with perhaps two or three minutes' allowance for error in clocks. Much
+may be accepted of seamen who not uncommonly reefed topsails "in
+stays"--that is, while the ship was being tacked. Of the narrator's
+good faith I am certain. It was not with hint one of the stock stories
+told about "the last cruise;" nor was he a romancer. It came naturally
+in course of conversation, as one tells any experience; and he added,
+when the British admiral returned the commander's visit he
+complimented the ship on the smartest performance he had ever seen.
+But it is in the combination of license and smartness that the pith of
+these related stories lies; between them they embody much of the
+spirit of a time which in 1855 was remembered and influential. Midway
+in the War of Secession I met the first lieutenant who held the
+trumpet in that memorable manoeuvre--a man of 1813; now a quiet,
+elderly, slow-spoken old gentleman, retired, with little to suggest
+the smart officer, at the stamp of whose foot the ship's company
+jumped, to use the gunner's expression.
+
+Such performances exemplify the ideals that still obtained--were in
+full force--in the navy as first I knew it. In the ship in which the
+gunner and I were then serving, it was our common performance to "Up
+topgallant-masts and yards, and loose sail to a bowline," in three
+minutes and a half from the time the topmen and the masts started
+aloft together from the deck. For this time I can vouch myself, and we
+did it fairly, too; though I dare say we would have hesitated to carry
+the sails in a stiff breeze without a few minutes more. It was a very
+dramatic and impressive performance. The band, with drum and fife, was
+part of it. When all was reported ready from the three masts--but not
+before--it was permitted to be eight o'clock. The drums gave three
+rolls, the order "Sway across, let fall," was given, the yards swung
+into their places, the sails dropped and were dragged out by their
+bowlines to facilitate their drying, the bell struck eight, the flag
+was hoisted, and close on the drums followed the band playing the
+"Star-Spangled Banner," while the ship's company went to breakfast. It
+was the transformation scene of a theatre; within five minutes the
+metamorphosis was complete. There was doubtless a flavor of the circus
+about it all, but it was a wholesome flavor and tonicked the
+professional appetite. Yes, and the natural appetite, too; your
+breakfast tasted better, especially if some other ship had got into
+trouble with one of her yards or sails. "Did you see what a mess the
+---- made of fore-topgallant-yard this morning?" An old boatswain's
+mate of the ship used to tell me one of his "last-cruise" stories, of
+when he "was in the _Delaware_, seventy-four, up the Mediterranean, in
+1842." Of course, the _Delaware_ had beaten the _Congress's_ time; the
+last ship always did. Then he would add: "I was in the foretop in
+those days, and had the fore-topgallant-yard; and if one of us fellows
+let his yard show on either side of the mast before the order 'Sway
+across,' we could count on a dozen when we got down just as sure as we
+could count on our breakfast." Flogging was not abolished until about
+1849. No wonder men were jolly when they could be, without worrying
+about to-morrow's headache.
+
+Part of the preparation was to let the captain know beforehand that it
+was eight o'clock, and get his authority that it might be so; subject
+always to the yet higher authority that the yards and sails were
+ready. If they were not, so much the worse for eight o'clock. It had
+to wait quite as imperatively as the sun did for Joshua. Sunset, when
+the masts and yards came down, was equally under bonds; it awaited the
+pleasure of the captain or admiral. Indeed, in my time a story ran of
+a court-martial at a much earlier day, sitting in a capital case. By
+law, each day's session must end by sundown. On the occasion in
+question, sundown was reported to the admiral--or, rather, commodore;
+we had no admirals then. He sent to know how soon the court could
+finish. The reply was, in about fifteen minutes. "Tell the officer of
+the deck not to make it sundown until he hears from me;" and, in
+defiance of the earth's movement, the colors were kept flying in
+attestation that the sun was up. One other hour of the twenty-four,
+noon, was brought in like manner to the captain's attention, and
+required his action, but it was treated with more deference;
+recognition rather than authority was meted to it, and it was never
+known to be tampered with. The circumstance of the sun's crossing the
+ship's meridian was unique in the day; and the observation of the
+fact, which drew on deck all the navigating group with their
+instruments, establishing the latitude immediately and precisely, was
+of itself a principal institution of the ship's economy. Such claims
+were not open to trifling; and were there not also certain established
+customs, almost vested interests, such as the seven-bell nip, cocktail
+or otherwise, connected with the half-hour before, when "the sun was
+over the fore-yard"? I admit I never knew whence the latter phrase
+originated, nor just what it meant, but it has associations. Like sign
+language, it can be understood.
+
+I was myself shipmate, as they say, with most of this sort of thing;
+for with its good points and its bad it did not disappear until the
+War of Secession, the exigencies of which drove out alike the sails
+and the sailor. The abolition of the grog ration in 1862 may be looked
+upon as a chronological farewell to a picturesque past. We did not so
+understand it. Contemporaries are apt to be blind to bloodless
+revolutions. Had we seen the full bearing, perhaps there might have
+been observed a professional sundown, in recognition of the fact that
+the topgallant-yards had come down for the last time, ending one
+professional era. A protest was recorded by one eccentric character, a
+survival whom Cooper unfortunately never knew, who hoisted a whiskey
+demijohn at the peak of his gunboat--the ensign's allotted place. To
+the admiral's immediate demand for an explanation, he replied that
+that was the flag he served under; but he was one of those to whom all
+things are forgiven. The seaman remains, and must always remain while
+there are seas to cross and to rule; but the sailor, in his
+accomplishments and in his defects, began then to depart, or to be
+evolutionized into something entirely different. I am bound to admit
+that in the main the better has survived, but, now that such hairs as
+I have are gray, I may be permitted to look back somewhat wistfully
+and affectionately on that which I remember a half-century ago;
+perhaps to sympathize with the seamen of the period, who saw
+themselves swamped out of sight and influence among the vast numbers
+required by the sudden seven or eight fold expansion of the navy for
+that momentous conflict. Occasionally one of these old salts, mournful
+amid his new environment, would meet me, and say, "Ah! Mr. Mahan, the
+navy isn't what it was!" True, in 1823, Lord St. Vincent, then verging
+on ninety, had made the same remark to George IV.; and I am quite
+sure, if the aged admiral had searched his memory, he could have
+recalled it in the mouth of some veteran of 1750. The worst of it is,
+this is perennially true. From period to period the gain exceeds, but
+still there has been loss as well; and to sentiment, ranging over the
+past, the loss stands more conspicuous. "Memory reveals every rose,
+but secreteth its thorn."
+
+This is the more apparent when the change has been sudden, or on such
+a scale as to overwhelm, by mere bulk, that subtle influence for which
+we owe to the French the name of _esprit de corps_. It is the breath
+of the body, the breath of life. Before the War of Secession our old
+friends the marines had a deserved reputation for fidelity, which
+could not survive the big introduction of alien matter into the
+"corps." I remember hearing an officer of long service say that he
+had known but a single instance of a marine deserting; and as to the
+general fact there was no dissent among the by-standers. The same
+could scarcely be said now, nor of seamen then. The sentiment of
+particular faithfulness had been nurtured in the British marines under
+times and conditions which made them at a critical moment the saviors
+of discipline, and thereby the saviors of the state. It is needless to
+philosophize the strength of such a tradition, so established, nor its
+effect on each member of the body; and from thence, not improbably, it
+was transmitted to our younger navy. Whencever coming, there it was.
+One marine private, in the ship to which I belonged, returning from
+liberty on shore, was heard saying to another with drunken
+impressiveness, "Remember, our motto is, 'Patriotism and laziness.'"
+Of course, this went round the ship, greatly delighting on both counts
+our marine officers, and became embodied in the chaff that passed to
+and fro between the two corps; of which one saying, "The two most
+useless things in a ship were the captain of marines and the
+mizzen-royal," deserves for its drollery to be committed to writing,
+now that mizzen-royals have ceased to be. May it be long before the
+like extinction awaits the captains of marines! Our own, however, an
+eccentric man, who had accomplished the then rare feat of working his
+way up from the ranks, used to claim that marines were an absurdity.
+"It is having one army to keep another army in order," he would say.
+This was once true, and might with equal truth be said of a city
+police force--one set of citizens to keep the other citizens orderly.
+In the olden time it had been the application of the sound
+statesmanship dogma, "_Divide et impera_." For this, in the navy,
+happily, the need no longer exists; but I can see no reason to believe
+the time at hand when we can dispense with a corps of seamen, the
+specialty of which is infantry--and shore expedition when necessary.
+Patriotism, as our marine understood it, was sticking by your colors
+and your corps, and doing your duty through thick and thin; no bad
+ideal.
+
+In like mingling of good and evil, the oldsters at the Naval Academy,
+along with some things objectionable, including a liberty that under
+the conditions too often resembled license, brought with them sound
+traditions, which throughout my stay there constituted a real _esprit
+de corps_. In nothing was this more conspicuous than in the attitude
+towards hazing. Owing to circumstances I will mention later, I entered
+at once the class which, as I understand, most usually perpetrated the
+outrageous practices that became a scandal in the country--the class,
+that is, which is entering on its second year at the Academy. My home
+having always been at the Military Academy, I, without much thinking,
+expected to find rife the same proceedings which had prevailed there
+from time to me immemorial. Such anticipations made deeper and more
+lasting the impression produced by the contrary state of things, and
+yet more by the wholly different tone prevalent at Annapolis. Not only
+was hazing not practised, but it scarcely obtained even the
+recognition of mention; it was not so much reprobated as ignored; and,
+if it came under discussion at all, it was dismissed with a turn of
+the nose, as something altogether beneath us. That is not the sort of
+thing we do here. It may be all very well at West Point--much as "what
+would do for a marine could not be thought of for a seaman"--but we
+were "officers and gentlemen," and thought no small beans of ourselves
+as such. There were at times absurd manifestations of this same
+precocious dignity, of which I may speak later; still, as O'Brien said
+of Boatswain Chucks, "You may laugh at such assumptions of gentility,
+but did any one of his shipmates ever know Mr. Chucks to do an
+unhandsome or a mean action?--and why? Because he aspired to be a
+gentleman."
+
+While I can vouch for this general state of feeling, I cannot be sure
+of its derivation; but I have always thought it due to the presence
+during the previous five years of the "oldsters," nominally under the
+same discipline as ourselves, but looked up to with the respect and
+observance which at that age are naturally given to those two or three
+seasons older. And these men were not merely more advanced in years.
+They were matured beyond their age by early habits of responsibility
+and command, and themselves imbued by constant contact with the spirit
+of the phrase "an officer and a gentleman," which constitutes the norm
+of military conduct. Their intercourse with their seniors on board
+ship had been much closer than that which was possible at the school.
+This atmosphere they brought with them to a position from which they
+could not but most powerfully influence us. How far the tradition
+might have been carried on, in smooth seas, I do not know; but along
+with many other things, good and bad, it was shattered by the War of
+Secession. The school was precipitately removed to Newport, where it
+was established in extemporized and temporary surroundings; the older
+undergraduates were hurried to sea, while the new entries were huddled
+together on two sailing frigates moored in the harbor, dissociated
+from the influence of those above them. The whole anatomy and, so to
+say, nervous system of the organization were dislocated. For better or
+for worse, perhaps for better and for worse, the change was more like
+death and resurrection than life and growth. The potent element which
+the oldster had contributed, and the upper classes absorbed and
+perpetuated, was eliminated at once and entirely by the detachment of
+the senior cadets and the segregation of the new-corners. New ideals
+were evolved by a mass of school-boys, severed from those elder
+associates with the influence of whom no professors nor officers can
+vie. How hazing came up I do not know, and am not writing its
+history. I presume it is one of the inevitable weeds that school-boy
+nature brings forth of itself, unless checked by unfavorable
+environment. I merely note its almost total absence in my time; its
+subsequent existence was unhappily notorious.
+
+A general good-humored tolerance, easy-going, and depending upon a
+mutual understanding, none the less clear because informal,
+characterized the relations of the officers and students. Primarily,
+each were in the appreciation of the other officers and gentlemen. So
+far there was implicit equality; and while the ones were in duty bound
+to enforce academic regulations, which the others felt an equal
+obligation to disregard, it was a kind of game in which they did not
+much mind being losers, provided we did not trespass on the standards
+of the gentleman, and of the officer liberally construed. They, I
+think, had an unacknowledged feeling that while under school-boy, or
+collegiate, discipline as to times or manners, some relaxation of
+strict official correctness must be endured. Larking, sometimes
+uproarious, met with personal sympathy, if official condemnation. Nor
+did we resent being detected by what we regarded as fair means; to
+which we perhaps gave a pretty wide interpretation. The exceptional
+man, who inspected at unaccustomed hours, which we considered our own
+prescriptive right--though not by rules--who came upon us unawares,
+was apt to be credited with rather unofficer-like ideas of what was
+becoming, and suspected of the not very gentlemanly practice of
+wearing noiseless rubber shoes. That intimation of his approach was
+conveyed by us from room to room by concerted taps on the gas-pipes
+was fair war; nor did our opponents seem to mind what they could not
+but clearly hear. Indeed, I think most of them were rather glad to
+find evidences of order and propriety prevailing, where possibly but
+for those kindly signals they might have detected matter for report.
+
+There was one lieutenant, however, the memory of whom was still green
+as a bay-tree in my day, though it would have been blasted indeed
+could cursing have blighted it, to whom the game of detective seemed
+to possess the fascination of the chase; and so successful was he that
+his baffled opponents could not view the matter dispassionately, nor
+accept their defeat in sportsman-like spirit. I knew him later; he had
+a saturnine appearance, not calculated to conciliate a victim, but he
+liked a joke, especially of the practical kind, and for the sake of
+one successfully achieved could forgive an offender. Night surprises,
+inroads on the enemy's country, at the hours when we were mistakenly
+supposed to be safe in bed, and regulations so required, were favorite
+stratagems with him. On one occasion, so tradition ran, some
+half-dozen midshipmen had congregated in a room "after taps," and,
+with windows carefully darkened, had contrived an extempore kitchen to
+fry themselves a mess of oysters. The process was slow, owing to the
+number of oysters the pan could take at once and the largeness of the
+expectant appetites; but it had progressed nearly to completion, when
+without premonition the door opened and ---- appeared. He asked no
+questions and offered no comments, but, walking to the platter, seized
+it and threw out of the window the accumulated results of an hour's
+weary work. No further notice of the delinquency followed; the
+discomfiture of the sufferers sufficiently repaid his sense of humor.
+At another midnight hour a midshipman visiting in a room not his,
+lured thither, let us hope, by the charms of intellectual
+conversation, was warned by the gas-pipes that the enemy was on the
+war-path. Retreat being cut off, he took refuge under a bed, but
+unwittingly left a hand visible. ---- caught sight of it, walked to
+the bed, flashed his lantern in the eyes of its occupant, who
+naturally was sleeping as never before, and at the same time trod hard
+on the exposed fingers. A squeal followed this unexpected attention,
+and the culprit had to drag himself out; but the lieutenant was
+satisfied, and let him go at that.
+
+I have said that larking met with more than toleration--with sympathy.
+The once magic word "midshipman" seemed to cloak any outburst of
+frolicking; otherwise some exhibitions I witnessed could scarcely have
+passed unscathed. They were felt to be in character by the older
+officers; and, while obliged to reprehend, I doubt whether some of
+them would not have more enjoyed taking a share. They knew, too, that
+we were just as proud as they of the service, and that under all lay
+an entire readiness to do or to submit to that which we and they alike
+recognized as duty. Sometimes rioting went rather too far, but for the
+most part it was harmless. One rather grave incident, shortly before
+my entry, derived its humor mainly from the way in which it was
+treated by the superintendent. One of the out-buildings of the
+Academy, either because offensive or out of sheer deviltry, was set on
+fire and destroyed. The perpetrator of this startling practical joke
+was Alexander F. Crosman, of the '51 Date, whom many of us yet
+living remember well. Small in stature, with something of the
+"chip-on-the-shoulder" characteristic, often seen in such, he was
+conspicuous for a certain chivalrous gallantry of thought and mien,
+the reflection of a native brilliant courage; a trait which in the end
+caused his death, about 1870, by drowning, in the effort to save an
+imperilled boat's crew. The superintendent, a man of ponderous
+dimensions, and equally ponderous but rapid speech--though it is due
+to say also unusually accomplished, both professionally and
+personally--was greatly outraged and excited at this defiance of
+discipline. The day following he went out to meet the corps, when it
+had just left some formation, and, calling a halt, delivered a speech
+on the basis of the _Articles of War_, a copy of which he brandished
+before his audience. These ancient ordinances, among many other
+denunciations of naval crimes and misdemeanors, pronounced the
+punishment of death, or "such other worse" as a court-martial might
+adjudge, upon "any person in the Navy who shall maliciously set on
+fire, or otherwise destroy, any government property not then in the
+possession of an _enemy, pirate, or rebel_." The gem of oratory
+hereupon erected was paraphrased as follows by the culprit himself,
+aided and abetted in his lyrical flight by his room-mate, John S.
+Barnes, who, after graduating left the service, returned for the War
+of Secession, and subsequently resigned finally. To this survivor of
+the two collaborators I owe the particulars of the affair. How many
+more "traitors" there were I know not. Those who recall the speaker
+will recognize that the parody must have followed closely the real
+words of the address:
+
+   "Young gentlemen assembled!--
+      It makes no matter where--
+    I only want to speak to you,
+      So hear me where you are.
+
+   "Some vile incendiary
+      Last night was prowling round,
+    Who set fire to our round-house
+      And burned it to the ground.
+
+   "I'll read the Naval Law;
+      The man who dares to burn
+    A round-house,--not the Enemy's,--
+      A traitor's fate shall learn.
+
+   "And if a man there be,
+      Who does this traitor know,
+    And keeps it to himself,
+      He shall suffer death also!
+
+   "'Tis well, then, to tell, then,
+      Who did this grievous ill;
+    And, d--n him, I will hang him,
+      So help me God! I will!"
+
+If anything could have added to the gayety of the fire, such an
+outburst would.
+
+In after years I sailed under the command of this speechmaker. At
+monthly musters he reserved to himself the prerogative of reading the
+_Articles_, probably thinking that he did it more effectively than the
+first lieutenant; in which he was quite right. It so happened that,
+owing to doubt whether a certain paragraph applied to the Marine
+Corps, Congress had been pleased to make a special enactment that the
+word "persons" in such and such a clause "should be construed to
+include marines." Coming as this did near the end, some humorist was
+moved to remark that the first Sunday in the month muster was for the
+purpose of informing us authoritatively that a marine was a person. As
+the captain read this interesting announcement, his voice assumed a
+gradual _crescendo_, concluding with a profound emphasis on the word
+"marines," which he accompanied with a half turn and a flourish of the
+book towards that honorable body, drawn up in full uniform, at parade
+rest, its venerable captain, whose sandy hair was fast streaking with
+gray, standing at its head, his hands meekly crossed over his
+sword-hilt, the blade hanging down before him; all doubtless suitably
+impressed with this definition of their status, which for greater
+certainty they heard every month. It was very fine, very fine indeed;
+appealing to more senses than one.
+
+The shore drills--infantry and field artillery--furnished special
+occasions for organized--or disorganized--upheavals of animal spirits.
+For these exercises we then had scant respect. They were "soldiering;"
+and from time immemorial soldier had been an adjective to express
+uselessness, or that which was so easy as to pass no man's ability. A
+soldier's wind, for example, was a wind fair both ways--to go and to
+return; no demands on brains there, much less on seamanship. The
+curious irrelevancy of such applications never strikes persons;
+unless, indeed, a perception of incongruity is the soul of wit, a
+definition which I think I have heard. To depart without the ceremony
+of saying good-bye takes its name from the most elaborately civil of
+people--French leave; while the least perturbable of nations has been
+made to contribute an epithet, Dutch, to the courage derived from the
+whiskey-bottle. In the latter case, however, I fancy that, besides the
+tradition of long-ago national rivalries, there may have been the idea
+that to excite a Dutchman you must, as they say, light a fire under
+him; or as was forcibly remarked by a midshipman of my time of his
+phlegmatic room-mate, he had to kick him in the morning to get him
+started for the day.
+
+To return to the shore drills: these were then committed to one of the
+civil professors of the Academy, a fact which itself spoke for the
+familiarity with them of the sea lieutenants. As these always
+exercised us at ships' guns, the different estimation which the two
+obtained in the outside service was too obvious to escape quick-witted
+young fellows, and it was difficult to overcome the resultant
+disrespect. The professor was not one to effect the impossible. He was
+a graduate of West Point, a man of ability, not lacking in dignity,
+and personally worthy of all respect; but he stuttered badly, and this
+impediment not only received no mercy from youth, but interfered with
+the accuracy of manoeuvres where the word of command needed to be
+timely in utterance. Report ran that on one occasion, advancing by
+column of companies, while the professor was struggling with
+"H-H-H-Halt!" the leading company, composed martyrs to discipline,
+marched over the sea-wall into three feet of water. Had the water
+been deeper, they might have been less literal. Despite his military
+training, his bearing and carriage had not the strong soldierly stamp
+which might redeem his infirmity, and even in the class-room a certain
+whimsical atmosphere seemed borne from the drill-ground. He, I
+believe, was the central figure of one of the most humorous scenes in
+Herman Melville's _White Jacket_, a book which, despite its prejudiced
+tone, has preserved many amusing and interesting inside recollections
+of a ship-of-war of the olden time. The naval instructor on board the
+frigate is using Rodney's battle of 1782 to illustrate on the
+blackboard the principles of naval tactics to the class of midshipmen.
+"Now, young gentlemen, you see this disabled French ship in the
+corner, far to windward of her fleet, between it and the enemy. She
+has lost all three masts, and the greater part of the ship's company
+are killed and wounded; what will you do to save her?" To this knotty
+problem many extemporized "practical" answers are given, of which the
+most plausible is by Mr. Dash, of Virginia--"I should nail my colors
+to the mast and let her sink under me." As this could scarcely be
+called saving her, Mr. Dash is rebuked for irrelevance; but, after the
+gamut of possible solutions has been well guessed over, the instructor
+announces impressively, "That ship, young gentlemen, cannot be saved."
+
+I cannot say that he dealt with us thus tantalizingly; but one of my
+contemporaries used to tell a story of his personal experience which
+was generically allied to the above. At the conclusion of some faulty
+manoeuvre, the instructor remarked aloud: "This all went wrong, owing
+to Mr. P.'s not standing fast in his own person. We will now repeat
+it, for the particular benefit of Mr. P." The repetition ensued, and
+in its course the instructor called out, "Be careful, Mr. P., and
+stand fast where you are." "I am standing fast," replied P.,
+incautiously. "R-R-Report Mr. P. for talking in ranks." At the
+Academy, naval tactics were not within his purview; and of all our
+experiences with him in the class-room, one ludicrous incident alone
+remains with me. One of my class, though in most ways well at head,
+was a little alarmed about his standing in infantry tactics. He
+therefore at a critical occasion attempted to carry the text-book with
+him to the blackboard. This surreptitious deed, being not to get
+advantage over a fellow, but to save himself, was condoned by public
+opinion; but, being unused to such deceits, in his agitation he copied
+his figure upside down and became hopelessly involved in the
+demonstration. The professor next day took occasion to comment
+slightingly on our general performance, but "as to Mr. ----," he
+added, derisively, "he did r-r-r-wretchedly."
+
+I sometimes wonder that we learned anything about "soldiering," but we
+did in a way. The principles and theory were mastered, if performance
+was slovenly; and in execution, as company officers, we got our
+companies "there," although just how we did it might be open to
+criticism. In our last year the adjutant in my class, who graduated at
+its head, on the first occasion of forming the battalion, after some
+moments of visible embarrassment could think of no order more
+appropriate than "Form your companies fore and aft the pavement." Fore
+and aft is "lengthwise" of a ship. No humiliation attended such a
+confession of ignorance--on that subject; but had the same man "missed
+stays" when in charge of the deck, he would have been sorely
+mortified. His successor of to-day probably never will have a chance
+to miss stays. There thus ran through our drills an undercurrent of
+levity, which on provocation would burst out almost spontaneously into
+absurdity. On one occasion the battalion was drawn up in line,
+fronting at some distance the five buildings which then constituted
+the midshipmen's quarters. The intimation was given that we were to
+advance and then charge. Once put in motion, I know not whether
+stuttering lost the opportunity of stopping us, but the pace became
+quicker and quicker till the whole body broke into a run, rushed
+cheering tumultuously through the passages between the houses, and
+reformed, peaceably enough, on the other side. The captains all got a
+wigging for failing to keep us in hand; but they were powerless. The
+whole thing was without preconcertment or warning. It could hardly
+have happened, however, had the instinct of discipline been as strong
+in these drills as in others.
+
+A more deliberate prank was played with the field artillery. These
+light pieces, being of the nature of cannon rather than muskets,
+obtained more deference, being recognized as of the same genus with
+the great guns which then constituted a ship's broadside. On one
+occasion they were incautiously left out overnight on the
+drill-ground. Between tattoo and taps, 9.30 to 10 P.M., was always a
+half-hour of release from quarters. There was mischief ready-made for
+idle hands to do. The guns were taken in possession, rushed violently
+to and fro in mock drill performance, and finally taken to pieces, the
+parts being scattered promiscuously in all directions. Dawn revealed
+an appearance of havoc resembling a popular impressionist
+representation of a battle-field. Here a caisson with its boxes,
+severed from their belongings, stretched its long pole appealingly
+towards heaven; the wheels had been dispersed to distant quarters of
+the ground and lay on their sides; elsewhere were the guns, sometimes
+reversed and solitary, at others not wholly dismounted, canted at an
+angle, with one wheel in place. As there were six of them, complete in
+equipments, the scene was extensive and of most admired confusion;
+ingenuity had exhausted itself in variety, to enhance picturesqueness
+of effect. How the lieutenant in charge accounted for all this
+happening without his interference, I do not know. Certainly there was
+noise enough, but then that half-hour always was noisy. The
+superintendent of that time had, when walking, a trick of grasping the
+lapel of his coat with his right hand, and twitching it when
+preoccupied. The following day, as he surveyed conditions, it seemed
+as if the lapel might come away; but he made us no speech, nor, as far
+as I know, was any notice taken of the affair. No real damage had been
+done, and the man would indeed have been hard-heartedly conscientious
+who would grudge the action which showed him so comical a sight.
+
+I once heard an excellent first lieutenant--Farragut's own through the
+principal actions of the War of Secession--say that where there was
+obvious inattention to uniform there would always be found slackness
+in discipline. It may be, therefore, that our habits as to uniform
+were symptomatic of the same easy tolerance which bore with such
+extravagances as I have mentioned; the like of which, in overt act,
+was not known to me in my later association with the Academy as an
+officer. We had a prescribed uniform, certainly; but regulations, like
+legislative acts, admit of much variety of interpretation and latitude
+in practice, unless there is behind them a strong public sentiment. In
+my earlier days there was no public sentiment of the somewhat martinet
+kind; such as would compel all alike to wear an overcoat because the
+captain felt cold. In practice, there was great laxity in details. I
+remember, in later days and later manners, when we were all compelled
+to be well buttoned up to the throat, a young officer remarked to me
+disparagingly of another, "He's the sort of man, you know, who would
+wear a frock-coat unbuttoned." There's nothing like classification. My
+friend had achieved a feat in natural history; in ten words he had
+defined a species. On another occasion the same man remorselessly
+wiped out of existence another species, consecrated by generations of
+blue-books and _Naval Regulations_. "I know nothing of superior
+officers," he said; "senior officers, if you choose; but superior,
+no!" Whether the _Naval Regulations_ have yet recognized this obvious
+distinction, whether it is no longer "superior officers," but only
+senior officers, who are not to be "treated with contempt," etc., I
+have not inquired. Apart from such amusing criticism of the times
+past, it is undoubtedly true that attention to minutiae is symptomatic
+of a much more important underlying spirit, one of exactness and
+precision running through all the management of a ship and affecting
+her efficiency. I concede that a thing so trifling as the buttoning of
+a frock-coat may indicate a development and survival of the fittest;
+but in 1855-60 frock-coats had not been disciplined, and in accordance
+with the tone of the general service we midshipmen were tacitly
+indulged in a similar freedom. This tolerance may have been in part a
+reaction from the vexatious and absurd interference of a decade before
+with such natural rights as the cut of the beard--not as matter of
+neatness, but of pattern. Even for some time after I graduated, unless
+I misunderstood my informants, officers in the British navy were not
+permitted to wear a full beard, nor a mustache; and we had out-breaks
+of similar regulative annoyance in our own service, one of which
+furnished Melville with a striking chapter. Discussing the matter in
+my presence once, the captain of a frigate said, "There is one reply
+to objectors; if they do not wish to conform, they can leave the
+service." Clearly, however, a middle-aged man cannot throw up his
+profession thus easily.
+
+Another circumstance that may have contributed to indifference to
+details of dress was the carefulness with which the old-time sea
+officers had constantly to look after the set and trim of the canvas.
+Every variation of the wind, every change of course, every
+considerable manoeuvre, involved corresponding changes in the
+disposition of the sails, which must be effected not only correctly,
+but with a minute exactness extending to half a hundred seemingly
+trivial details, upon precision in which depended--and justly--an
+officer's general reputation for officer-like character. Not only so,
+but the mere weight of rigging and sails, and the stretching resultant
+on such strain, caused recurring derangements, which, permitted,
+became slovenliness. Yards accurately braced, sheets home alike,
+weather leaches and braces taut, with all the other and sundry
+indications which a well-trained eye instinctively sought and noted,
+were less the dandyism than the self-respecting neatness of a
+well-dressed ship, and were no bad substitute, as tests, for buttoned
+frock-coats. The man without fault in the one might well be pardoned,
+by others as well as himself, for neglects which had never occurred to
+him to be such. His attention was centred elsewhere, as a man may
+think more of his wife's dress than his own. After all, one cannot be
+always stretched with four pins, as the French say; there must be some
+give somewhere.
+
+The frock was then the working coat of the navy. There was fuller
+dress for exceptional occasions, in which, at one festive muster early
+in the cruise, we all had to appear, to show that we had it; but
+otherwise it was generally done up in camphor. The jacket, which was
+prescribed to the midshipmen of the Academy, had informal recognition
+in the service, and we took our surviving garments of that order with
+us to sea, to wear them out. But, while here and there some officer
+would sport one, they could scarcely be called popular. One of our
+lieutenants, indeed, took a somewhat sentimental view of the jacket.
+"There was Mr. S.," he said to me, speaking of a brother midshipman,
+"on deck yesterday with a jacket. It looked so tidy and becoming. If
+there had been anything aloft out of the way, I could say to him,
+'Mr. S., just jump up there, will you, and see what is the matter?'"
+War, which soon afterwards followed with its stern preoccupations and
+incidental deprivations, induced inevitably deterioration in matters
+of dress. With it the sack-coat, or pilot-jacket, burrowed its way in,
+the cut and insignia of these showing many variations. The
+undergraduates at the Academy in my day had for all uses a
+double-breasted jacket; but it was worn buttoned, or not, at choice.
+On the rolling collar a gold foul anchor--an anchor with a rope cable
+twined round it--was prescribed; but, while a standard embroidered
+pattern was supplied at the Academy store, those who wished procured
+for themselves metal anchors, and these not only were of many shapes
+and sizes, but for symmetrical pinning in place demanded an accuracy
+of eye and hand which not every one had. The result was variegated and
+fanciful to a degree; but I doubt if any of the officers thought aught
+amiss. So the regulation vest buttoned up to the chin, but very many
+had theirs made with rolling collar, to show the shirt. I had a
+handsome, very dandy, creole classmate, whom an admiring family kept
+always well supplied with fancy shirts; and I am sure, if precisians
+of the present day could have seen him starting out on a Saturday
+afternoon to pay his visits, with everything just so--except in a
+regulation sense--and not a back hair out of place, they must have
+accepted the results as a testimony to the value of the personal
+factor in uniform. Respect for individual tastes was rather a mark of
+that time in the navy. Seamen handy with their needle were permitted,
+if not encouraged, to embroider elaborate patterns, in divers colors,
+on the fronts of their shirts, and turned many honest pennies by doing
+the like for less skillful shipmates. Pride in personal appearance,
+dandyism, is quite consonant with military feeling, as history has
+abundantly shown; and it may be that something has been lost as well
+as gained in the suppression of individual action, now when an
+inspecting officer may almost be said to carry with him a yard-stick
+and micrometer to detect deviations.
+
+A very curious manifestation of this disposition to bedeck the body
+was the prevalence of tattooing. If not universal, it was very nearly
+so among seamen of that day. Elaborate designs covering the chest, or
+back, or arms, were seen everywhere, when the men were stripped on
+deck for washing. There was no possible inducement to this except a
+crude love of ornament, or a mere imitation of a prevailing fashion,
+which is another manifestation of the same propensity. The
+inconvenience of being branded for life should have been felt by men
+prone to desertion; but the descriptive lists which accompany every
+crew were crowded with such remarks as, "Goddess of Liberty, r. f.
+a."--right forearm--the which, if a man ran away, helped the police of
+the port to identify him. My memory does not retain the various
+emblems thus perpetuated in men's skins; they were largely patriotic
+and extremely conventional, each practised tattooer having doubtless
+his own particular style. Many midshipmen of my time acquired these
+embellishments. I wonder if they have not since been sorry.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE NAVAL ACADEMY IN ITS INTERIOR WORKINGS
+
+PRACTICE CRUISES
+
+1855-60
+
+
+In the preceding pages my effort has been to reconstitute for the
+reader the navy, in body and in spirit, as it was when I entered in
+1856 and had been during the period immediately preceding. There was
+no marked change up to 1861, when the War of Secession began. The
+atmosphere and environment which I at first encountered upon my
+entrance to the Naval Academy, in 1856, had nothing strange, or even
+unfamiliar, to a boy who had devoured Cooper and Marryat--not as mere
+tales of adventure, but with some real appreciation and understanding
+of conditions as by them depicted. I had studied, as well as been
+absorbed by them. Cooper is much more of an idealist and romancer than
+is Marryat, who belongs essentially to the realistic school. Some of
+the Englishman's presentations may be exaggerated, though not beyond
+probability--elaborated would perhaps be a juster word--and in one
+passage he expressly abjures all willingness to present a caricature
+of the seaman he had known. Cooper, on the other hand, while his sea
+scenes are well worked up, has given us personalities which, tested by
+Marryat's, are made out of the whole cloth; creations, if you will,
+but not resemblances. Marryat entered the navy earlier than his rival,
+and followed the sea longer; his experience was in every way wider.
+Even in my time could be seen justifications of his portrayal; but
+who ever saw the like of Tom Coffin, Trysail, or Boltrope?
+
+The interested curiosity concerning all things naval which possessed
+me, and held me enthralled by the mere sight of an occasional
+square-rigged vessel, such as at rare intervals passed our home on the
+Hudson, fifty miles from the sea, led me also to pore over a copy of
+the _Academy Regulations_ which the then superintendent, Captain Louis
+Goldsborough, (afterwards Admiral), had sent my father. The two had
+been acquaintances in Paris, in the twenties of the century and of
+their own ages. I have always had a morbid fondness for registers and
+time-tables, and over them have wasted precious hours; but on this
+occasion the practice saved me a year. I discovered that, contrary to
+the established rule at the Military Academy, an appointee to the
+Naval might enter any class for which he could pass the examinations.
+Further inquiry confirmed this, and I set about fitting myself. At
+that date, even more than at present, the standard of admission to the
+two academies had to take into account the very differing facilities
+for education in different parts of the country, as well as the
+strictly democratic method of appointment. This being in the gift of
+the representative of the congressional district, the candidates came
+from every section; and, being selected by the various considerations
+which influence such patronage, the mass of lads who presented
+themselves necessarily differed greatly in acquirements. Hence, to
+enter either Annapolis or West Point only very rudimentary knowledge
+was demanded. Having grown up myself so far amid abundant opportunity,
+and been carefully looked after, I found that I was quite prepared to
+enter the class above the lowest, except in one or two minor matters,
+easily picked up. Thus forewarned, I came forearmed. There were
+probably in every class a dozen who could have done the same, but they
+accepted the prevailing custom without question. I believe I was the
+only one fortunate enough to make this gain. In some instances before,
+and in many after, the academic work was for certain classes
+compressed within three years, but I was singular in entering a class
+already of a twelvemonth's standing.
+
+About my own examination I remember nothing except that it was
+successful; but one incident occurred in my hearing which has stuck by
+me for a half-century. One other youth underwent the same tests. He
+had already once entered, two or three years before, and afterwards
+had failed to pass one of the semi-annual tests. Such cases frequently
+were dropped into the next lower class, but the rule then was that a
+second similar lapse was final. This had befallen my present
+associate; but he had "influence," which obtained for him another
+appointment, conditional upon passing the requirements for the third
+class, fourth being the lowest. Examinations then were oral, not
+written; and, preoccupied though I was with my own difficulties, I
+could not but catch at times sounds of his. He was being questioned in
+grammar and in parsing, which I have heard--I do not know whether
+truly--are now looked upon as archaic methods of teaching; and the
+sentence propounded to him was, "Mahomet was driven from Mecca, but he
+returned in triumph." His rendering of the first words I did not hear,
+my attention not being arrested until "but," which proved to him a
+truly disjunctive conjunction. "But!" he ejaculated--"but!" and
+paused. Then came the "practical" leap into the unknown. "'But' is an
+adverb, qualifying 'he,' showing what he is doing." Poor fellow, it
+was no joke to him, nor probably his fault, but that of circumstances.
+When released from the ordeal, we stood round together, awaiting
+sentence. He was in despair, nor could I honestly encourage him. "Look
+at you," he said, "as quiet as if nothing had happened"--I was by no
+means confident that I had cause for elation. "If I were as sure that
+I had passed as that you have, I should be skipping all over the
+place." I never heard of him again; but suppose from his name, which I
+remember, and his State, of which I am less sure, that he took, and in
+any event would have taken, the Confederate side in the coming
+troubles. His loss by this failure was therefore probably less than it
+then seemed.
+
+An intruder, in breach of well-settled precedent, might have expected
+to be looked on askance by the class which I thus unusually entered.
+Not the faintest indication of discontent was ever shown, nor I
+believe felt, even by those over whom I subsequently passed by such
+standing as I established, although the fact meant promotion over
+them. The spirit of the officer and the gentleman, which disdained
+hazing, disdained discourtesy equally, and thrust aside with the
+generosity of youth the jealousy that mature years more readily
+cherishes towards competitors. The habit in those days was to
+distinguish classes, not by the year of graduation, but by that of
+entry--colloquially, the so-and-so "Date"--a manner derived from an
+earlier period, when there was no other chronological point of
+departure for the career; and in those "days before the flood" nothing
+would have tempted us to depart from a time-honored custom. "Dates"
+frequently established among their contemporaries reputations
+analogous to those of individuals. At that time the "'41 Date," then
+in the prime of life, was obnoxious to those below it; not for its own
+fault, but because of its numbers, which, with promotion strictly by
+seniority, constituted a superincumbent mass that could not but be
+regarded bitterly by those who followed. At present there would be the
+consolation that retirement, though distant, would ultimately sweep
+them all away nearly simultaneously; but there was then no retired
+list. Whatever the motive, the Secretary of the Navy had been moved to
+introduce, in 1841, over two hundred midshipmen,[4] which put an
+almost total stop to appointments for several subsequent years, and
+gave the "Date" the invidious distinction it enjoyed. The well-known
+character in the service whose hoisting a demijohn for a flag I have
+before mentioned, and who found this great overplus above him, was
+credited with saying that those of them who did not drink themselves
+to death would strut themselves to death--a comment which testified
+rather to the warmth of his feelings than to the merits of the case.
+Of course, the greater the total, the more numerous the unworthy; and
+the unfortunate natural bias of mankind notices these more readily
+than it does the capable.
+
+The class to which I now found myself admitted was the "'55 Date," and
+whatever their reputation in the service, then or thereafter, they
+thought themselves uncommonly fine fellows, distinctly above the
+average--not perhaps in attainments, which was a subsidiary matter,
+but in tone and fellowship. One among them, a turn-back from the
+previous Date, and for two years my room-mate, used to declare
+enthusiastically that he was glad of his misfortune, finding himself
+in so much better a crowd. I doubt if I could have gone as far as
+this, but in the general estimate I agreed fully. We numbered then
+twenty-eight, having started with forty-nine a twelvemonth before.
+Three years later we were graduated, twenty. The dwindling numbers
+testifies rather to the imperfection of educational processes
+throughout the country than to the severity of the tests, which were
+very far below those of to-day. I have often heard it said, and
+believe it true, that the difficulty was less with the knowledge--that
+is, the nominal acquirements--of the appointees than with the then
+prevalent methods of study and instruction, which had debauched the
+powers of application. My father, after a long experience, used to
+think that upon the whole there was better promise in a youth who came
+with nothing more than the three R's, which then constituted
+substantially the demands of the Military Academy, than in one with a
+more pretentious showing. The first had not to unlearn bad habits. An
+illustration that the courses were not too severe, for an average man
+beginning with the very smallest equipment, is afforded by a true
+story of the time. A lad from one of the Southern States,--Tennessee,
+I think,--having obtained an appointment, and being too poor to travel
+otherwise, walked his way to West Point, and then failed of admission.
+The affecting circumstances becoming known, a number of officers
+dubbed together and supported him for a year at a neighboring
+excellent school. He then entered, passed his course successfully, and
+proved a very respectable officer. There was, I believe, nothing
+brilliant in his record, except the earnestness and resolution shown;
+the absence of these, under demands which, though not excessive, were
+rigid, was the principal cause of failures.
+
+The requirements were certainly moderate, and our healths needed not
+to suffer from over-application. The marking system of that time gave
+the numeral 4 as a maximum, with which standard 2.5 was a "passing
+average." He who reached that figure, as the combined result of his
+course of recitations and stated examinations, passed the test, and
+went on, or was graduated. The recitation marks being posted weekly,
+we had constant knowledge of our chances; and of the necessity of
+greater effort, if in danger, whether of failure or of being
+outstripped by a competitor. The latter motive was rarely evidenced,
+although I have seen the anxious and worried looks of one struggling
+for pre-eminence over a rival who amused himself by merely prodding
+where he might have surpassed. It is only fair to add, as I also
+witnessed, that no congratulations were more warmly received by the
+victor than those of the man who had so constantly trod on his heels.
+It is needless to say, to those who know the world in any sphere of
+life, that a certain proportion were satisfied with merely scraping
+through. The authorities leaned to mercy's side, where there was
+reasonable promise of a man's making a good sea officer. In the later
+period of written examinations an instructor of much experience said
+to me, "If a man's paper comes near 2.5, I always read it over again
+with a leaning towards a more favorable judgment on points;" and he
+accompanied the words with a gesture which dramatically suggested a
+leaning so pronounced that, it would certainly topple over the right
+way. Not strictly judicial, I fear, but perhaps practical. There were
+rare instances who played with 2.5, enticed perhaps by the mysterious
+charms of danger. Such a case I heard of, a man of unquestioned
+ability, who it was rumored boasted that he would get just above 2.5,
+and as near as he could. He was read dispassionately, and in the event
+came out 2.47. As an effort at approximation, this may be considered a
+success; but for passing it was inadequate, and his general character
+did not bias the final appeal in his favor. He was not dropped,
+indeed, but had to undergo a second examination three weeks later: a
+circumstance calculated to cloud his summer. A more amusing instance
+came directly under my observation. He was a candidate for entrance,
+and I then head of one of the departments of the Academy. Although I
+had nothing to do with admissions, his father came in to see me
+immediately after the results were known. He had a marked brogue, and
+was slightly "elevated," by success and by liquor. Placing his hand
+confidentially on my arm, he whispered: "He's got in; he's got in." I
+expressed my sympathy. He drew himself up with a smile of exultation,
+and said: "He only got a 2.7. I said to him, '----, why didn't you do
+better than that?--sure you could.' 'Whisht, father,' he replied, 'why
+should I do better, when all I need's a 2.5?' Just fancy his thinking
+of that!" cried the proud parent. "The 'cuteness of him?" I forget
+this lad's further career, if I ever knew it.
+
+One of the distinguishing features of the two academies then, and I
+believe now, was the division of the classes into small sections,
+under several instructors. This gave the advantage of very frequent
+recitations for each student. None was safe in counting upon being
+overlooked on any day, and the teacher was kept familiar with the
+progress and promise of every one under his charge. It admitted also
+of a more extensive course for those who could stick in the higher
+sections--a kind of elective, in which the election depended on the
+teacher, not the taught. Thoroughness of acquisition was favored by
+this steady pressure, the virtue of which lay less in its weight than
+in its constancy; but it is practicable only where large resources
+permit many tutors to be employed. The Naval Academy has had frequent
+difficulty, not chiefly of a money kind, but because the needed naval
+officers cannot always be spared from general service. A sound policy
+has continuously favored the employment of sea officers, where
+possible; not because they can often be equal in acquirement to chosen
+men from the special fields in question, but because through them the
+spirit and authority of the profession pervades the class-room as well
+as the drill-ground, and so forwards the highly specialized product in
+view. Besides, as I have heard observed with admiration by a very able
+civilian, head of one of the departments, who had several officers
+under him, the habit of turning the hand to many different
+occupations, and of doing in each just what was ordered, following
+directions explicitly, gives naval officers as a class an adaptability
+and a facility which become professional characteristics. It may be
+interesting to note that the same was commonly remarked of the
+old-time seaman. His specialty was everything--versatility; and he was
+handy under the least expected circumstances, on shore as well as
+afloat. Burgoyne used chaffingly to attribute his misfortunes at
+Saratoga to the aptitude with which a British midshipman and seamen
+threw a bridge over the upper Hudson. "If it had not been for you," he
+said to the culprit, "we should never have got as far as this."
+
+In my day the proportion of officers was less than afterwards, when
+the graduates themselves took up the task of instruction. There were
+two who taught us mathematics, one of whom remains in my memory as the
+very best teacher, to the extent of his knowledge, that I ever knew.
+The professional branches, seamanship and gunnery, fell naturally to
+the sea officers who conducted the drills. These studies, as pursued,
+reflected the transition condition of the period which I have before
+depicted; the grasp on the old still was more tenacious than that on
+the new. The preparation of text-books for young seamen far antedated
+the establishment of naval schools. There was one, _The Sheet Anchor_,
+by Darcy Lever, a British seaman, published before 1820, which had
+great vogue among us. Among other virtues, it was illustrated with
+very taking pictures of ships performing manoeuvres in the midst of
+highly conventional waves. As far as memory serves me, I think we were
+justified in regarding it as more instructive than the American work
+assigned to us by the course, _The Kedge Anchor_, by a master in our
+navy named Brady. A kedge, the unprofessional must know, is a light
+anchor, dropped for a momentary stop, or to haul a ship ahead, the
+title being in so far very consonant to the object of instruction;
+whereas the sheet-anchor is the great and last stand-by of a vessel,
+let go as a final resource after the two big "bowers," which
+constitute the usual reliance. The rareness with which the sheet
+anchor touched ground (the bottom) gave rise to the proverb, "To go
+ashore with the sheet anchor," as the ultimate expression of attention
+to duty; and the story ran of a British captain, a devoted
+ship-keeper, who, to a lieutenant remonstrating on the little
+privilege of leave enjoyed by the junior officers, replied: "Sir, when
+I and the sheet anchor go ashore, you may go with us." By the
+prescription of our seniors we had to tie to _The Kedge Anchor_, let
+us hope in the cause of progress, to haul us ahead; but in a tight
+place _The Sheet Anchor_ was our recourse, and by it think I may say
+we--swore. I always mistrusted _The Kedge Anchor_ after my researches
+into a mysterious sentence--"A celebrated master, now a commander, in
+the navy never served the bowsprit rigging all over." In the old-time
+frigates, of the days of Nelson and Hull, the master was at the head
+of the marling-spike division of the ship's economy, being, in fact,
+the descendant of the master (captain) of more than a century earlier,
+who managed the ship while soldiers commanded and fought her. But the
+masters were not in the line of promotion; in the British navy they
+rarely rose, in our own much more rarely. Who, then, was this
+celebrated master, now a commander? Eventually I found the sentence in
+a British book, and my faith in the pure product of American home
+industry was suddenly shaken. It is only fair to say that books on
+seamanship, being essentially an accumulation of facts, must be more
+or less compilations. Methods were too well established to allow much
+originality, even of treatment.
+
+There were many other works of like character, the enumeration of
+which would be tedious. _The Young Officer's Assistant_ was less a
+specific title than a generic description. Several of them were
+contemporary; and one, by a Captain Boyd of the British navy, summed
+up the convictions of us all, teachers as well as pupils, in the
+sententious aphorism: "It is by no means certain that coal whips will
+outlive tacks and sheets." It is scarcely kind to resurrect a
+prophecy, even when so guarded in expression and safely distant in
+prediction as was this; but I fear that for navies tacks and sheets
+are dead, and coal whips very much alive. The wish in those days
+fathered the thought. Who to dumb forgetfulness a prey could
+voluntarily relinquish all that had been so identified with life and
+thought, nor cast a longing, lingering look behind? So we plodded on,
+acquiring laboriously, yet lovingly, knowledge that would have fitted
+us to pass the examinations of Basil Hall and Peter Simple. To mention
+the details of cutting and fitting rigging, getting over whole and
+half tops, and other operations yet more recondite, would be to
+involve the unprofessional reader in a maze of incomprehensible terms,
+and the professional--of that period--in familiar recollections. Let
+me, however, linger lovingly for ten lines on the knotting--"knotting
+and splicing," as the never-divorced terms ran in the days when
+rigging a topgallant-yard was a constituent part of our curriculum.
+The man who has never viewed the realm of a seaman's knots from the
+outside, and tried to get in, must not flatter himself that he fully
+appreciates the phrase "knotty problem." I never got in; a few
+elementary "bends," a square knot, and a bowline, were very near the
+extent of my manual acquirements. The last I still retain, and use
+whenever I make up a bundle for the express; but before such
+mysteries--to me--as a Turk's-head and a double-wall, I merely bowed
+in reverence. When handsomely turned out, I could recognize the fact;
+but do them myself, no. I remember with humiliation that in 1862,
+being then a young lieutenant, I was called without warning to hear a
+section, one hour, in seamanship. As bad luck would have it, the
+subject happened to be knotting, and there was one of the midshipmen
+who had made a cruise in a merchant-ship. The knots I had to ask
+about--to which that diabolical youngster invariably replied, "I can't
+describe it, sir, but I will make it for you"--the convolutions
+through which the strands went in his ready fingers, and my eyes
+vainly strove to follow, are a poignant subject. There was no room for
+the time-honored refuge of a puzzled instructor--"We will take up that
+subject next recitation;" the confounded boy was ready right along,
+and I had only to be thankful that there were "no questions asked."
+
+There was one professional subject, "Naval Fleet Tactics" under sail,
+which at the end of my time shone forth with a kind of sunset
+splendor, the dying dolphin effect curiously characteristic of
+the passing period in which we were. This had always had a
+recognition--_d'estime_, as the French say; but in my final year it
+fell into the hands of a new instructor, who proceeded to glorify it
+by amplification. He was a very accomplished man in his profession, a
+student of it in all its branches, though there was among us a certain
+understanding that he was not an eminently practical seaman; and he
+eventually lost his life in what appeared to me a very unpractical
+manner, being where it did not seem his business to be, and doing work
+which a junior would probably have done better. We remember William
+III. at the battle of the Boyne. "Your majesty, the Bishop of Derry
+has been killed at the ford." "What business had he to be at the
+ford?" was the unsympathetic answer. The text-book used by our new
+instructor was by a French lieutenant, written in the thirties of the
+century, and characterized by something of the peculiar French naval
+genius. The simpler changes of formation were so simple that
+complication could not be got into them; but, that happy stage past,
+we went on to evolutions of huge masses of ships in three columns, in
+which the changes of dispositions, from one order to another, became
+subjects of trigonometrical demonstration, quite as troublesome as
+Euclid. Sines, cosines, and tangents, of fractional angles figured
+profusely in the processes; and in the result courses to be steered
+would be laid down to an eighth of a point, when to keep a single
+vessel, let alone a column, steady within half a point[5] was
+considered good helmsmanship. There being no translation of the book,
+our text was provided by copying, individually, from a manuscript
+prepared by our teacher, which increased our labor; but, curiously
+enough, the effect of the whole procedure was so to magnify the
+subject as materially to increase the impression upon our minds.
+
+This is really an interesting matter for speculation, as to what in
+effect is practical. The mastery of conclusions, to which practical
+effect never could have been given, served to drive home principles
+which would have come usefully into play, had the sail era continued
+and the United States maintained fleets of sailing battle-ships to
+handle. For myself personally, when I came to write naval history,
+long years after, I derived invaluable aid from the principles and the
+simpler evolutions, thus assimilated and remembered. But for them I
+should often have found it difficult to understand what with them was
+obvious. A singular circumstance thus brought out was the want of
+exactness and precision in English terminology in this field. The most
+notable instance that occurs to me was in Nelson's journal on
+Trafalgar morning, "The enemy wearing in succession," when, in fact,
+as a matter of manoeuvre, the hostile fleet "wore together," though
+the several vessels wore "in succession;" a paradox only to be
+understood at a glance by those familiar with fleet tactics under
+sail. The usual version of the attack at Trafalgar has of late been
+elaborately disputed by capable critics. I myself have no doubt that
+they are quite mistaken; but it would be curious to investigate how
+far their argument derives from inexact phraseology--as, for example,
+the definition of "column" and "line" applied to ships.
+
+These mathematical demonstrations of naval evolutions might be
+considered a lapse from practicalness characteristic of the particular
+officer. They took up a good deal of valuable time, and on any
+drill-ground manoeuvres are less a matter of geometric precision than
+of professional aptitude and eye judgment. The same mistake could
+scarcely be addressed at that time to the other parts of the Academy
+curriculum. Either as foundation, or as a super-structure in which it
+was sought to develop professional intelligence, to inform and improve
+professional action, there was little to find fault with in detail,
+and less still in general principle. The previous reasonable
+professional prejudice had been in favor of the practical man, the man
+who can do things--who knows _how_ to do them; the new effort was to
+give the "why" of the "how," and to save time in the process by giving
+it systematically. In this sense--that all we learned ministered to
+professional intelligence--the scholastic part was thoroughly
+professional in tone; and I think I have shown that the outside
+professional sentiment was also strongly felt among us. There is
+always, of course, a disposition latent in educators to deny that
+practical work may be sufficiently accomplished by cruder
+processes--by what we call the rule of thumb--and a corresponding
+inclination to represent that to be absolutely necessary which is only
+an advantage; to exaggerate the necessity of mastering the "why" in
+order to put the "how" into execution. An instance in point, already
+quoted, is that of the professor who maintained that every officer
+should be able to calculate mathematically the relation between
+weights and purchases. But between 1855 and 1860, if such a tendency
+existed in germ, it had no effect in practice. As I look back, the
+relation between what we were taught and what we were to do was
+neither remote nor indirect. In its own sphere, in both its merits and
+its faults, the Academy was in aspiration as professional as the
+outside service.
+
+This means that the Academy constituted for us an atmosphere perfectly
+accordant with the life for which we were intended; and an educational
+institution has no educative function to discharge higher than this.
+This influence was enhanced by the social customs, in favor of which
+disciplinary exactions were relaxed to the utmost possible; herein
+departing from the practice at the Military Academy, as then known to
+me. Not only on Saturdays and holidays, but every day, and at all
+hours not positively allotted to study or drills, the midshipmen might
+visit the houses of officers or professors to which they had the
+entrance. As a rule, very properly, no one was allowed to be absent
+from mess; but permission could always be obtained to accept an
+invitation to the evening meal with any of the families. This freedom
+of intercourse contributed its share to the formation of professional
+tone, for the heads of the families were selected professional men,
+who were thus met on terms of intimacy, precluded elsewhere by the
+official relations of the parties. More training is imparted by such
+association than by teaching--the familiar contrast of example and
+precept. An even greater gain, however--and a strictly professional
+gain, too--was the social facility thus acquired. In all callings
+probably, certainly in the navy, social aptitude is professionally
+valuable. Nelson's dictum that naval officers should know how to dance
+was only one way of saying that they should be men of affairs, at home
+in all conditions where men--or women--gather for business or
+amusement. The phrase "all sorts and conditions of men" never had
+wider or juster application than to the assembly of green lads, from
+every variety of parentage and previous surroundings, pitchforked into
+Annapolis once every year; and, of all the humanizing and harmonizing
+influences under which they came, none exceeded that of the quiet
+gentlefolk, of modest means, with whom they mingled thus freely.
+Indeed, one of the most astute of our superintendents took into
+account the family of an officer before asking that he be ordered.
+
+An element in our social environment which should not be omitted was
+the prevalence of a Southern flavor. In our microcosm, this reflected
+the general sentiment of the world outside, then slowly freeing itself
+from the spirit of compromise which had dominated the statesmanship of
+two generations in their efforts to reconcile the incompatible. There
+were certainly strong Northern men in plenty, as well as strong
+Southerners; but every Southerner was convinced that the justice was
+all on their side, that their rights as well as interests were being
+attacked, whereas the Northerners were divided in feeling. There were
+some pronounced abolitionists, here and there, prepared to go all
+party lengths; but in the majority from the North, the devotion to the
+Union, which rose so instantaneously to the warlike pitch when fairly
+challenged, for the present counselled concession to the utmost limit,
+if only thereby the Union might endure. In this the membership of the
+school reproduced the political character of the House of
+Representatives, with whom appointment rested; and at our age, of
+course, we simply re-echoed the tones of our homes. Never in my now
+long life have I seen so evident the power of conviction as in the
+Southern men I then knew. They simply had no hesitations; whereas we
+others were perplexed. Yet I now doubt whether the Southern conviction
+was not really, if unconsciously, the resolution of despair; of doom
+felt, though unacknowledged; not before the attacks of the North, but
+before the resistless progress of the world, of which the North was to
+be the instrument. So also the patience of the North, if so noble a
+word can be conceded to our long temporizing, was an unconscious
+manifestation of latent power. To those who knew what the Union meant
+to those who exalted it--should I not rather say her?--in passionate
+adoration, need never have doubted what the response would be, if
+threat passed into act and hands were lifted against her. Conviction
+was absolute and deep-rooted on that side as on the other; but it was
+less on the surface, and sought ever a solution of peace.
+
+The Muse of History of late years has become so analytic, and withal
+so embarrassed with the accumulations of new material, revealing still
+more the complication of causes which undoubtedly concur to any
+general result, that she is prone to overlook the overpowering
+influence of the simple elemental passions of human nature. "Our
+country, right or wrong," may be very bad morality, but it is a
+tremendous force to reckon with. One is wise overmuch who thinks that
+interest can restrain or statesmen control; wise unto folly who
+ignores that disinterested emotion, even unreasoning, may be just the
+one factor which diplomacy cannot master. I was in Rome when our late
+troubles with Spain came on, and dined with a number of the diplomatic
+body. "Oh yes," said to me one of these illuminati, "it is all very
+well to talk about humanity. The truth is, the United States wants
+Cuba." More profound was the remark of an American politician, who had
+recently visited the island. "I did not dare to tell all I saw; for,
+if I had, there would be no holding our people back." Personally, I
+believed that the interests of the United States made expedient the
+acquisition of Cuba, if righteously accomplished, and prior to the war
+I knew little of the conditions on the island; but Cuba would be
+Spanish now, if interests chiefly had power to move us. So in the War
+of Secession. Innumerable precedent occurrences had produced a
+condition, but it was the passion for the Union, the strong loyalty to
+that sovereign, which dominated the situation, and in truth had been
+dominating it silently for years; a passion as profound and, though
+justifiable to reason, as unreasoning as any simple love that ever
+bound man to woman. Could this have been appreciated, what reams of
+demonstration might have been spared to foreign pens--demonstration of
+the folly, the hopelessness, the lust of conquest, the self-interest
+in myriad forms, which were supposed to be the actuating causes.
+
+Effectively, the South had lost this love of the Union. In this
+respect the two sections, I fancy, had parted company, unwittingly,
+soon after the War of 1812; through which, as we all well know, in
+many quarters sectional feeling had still prevailed over national. The
+North had since moved towards national consciousness, the South
+towards sectional, on paths steadily and rapidly diverging. As I
+recall those days, when I first awoke to political observation, I
+should say that the feeling of my Southern associates towards the
+Union was that which men have towards a friend lately buried.
+Affection had not wholly disappeared; but life called. Let the dead
+bury their dead. I remember on my first practice cruise, in 1857,
+standing in the main-top of the ship with a member of the class
+immediately before mine, the son of a North Carolina member of
+Congress. "Yes," he said to me, "Buchanan [inaugurated four months
+before] will be the last President of the United States." He was
+entirely unmoved, simply repeating certitudes to which familiarity had
+reconciled him; I, to whom such talk was new, as much aghast as though
+I had been told my mother would die within the like term. This outlook
+was common to them all. The Union still was, and they continued in
+it; but to them the warning had sounded, they were ready and
+acquiescent in its fall; regretful, but resigned--very much resigned.
+This attitude was more marked among the younger men, those at the
+school. In the service outside I found somewhat the same point of
+view, but repulsion was keener. The navy then, even more than now,
+symbolized the exterior activities of the country, which are committed
+by the Constitution to the Union. Hence, the life of the profession
+naturally nurtured pride in the nation; and while States'-Rights had
+undermined the principle of loyalty to the Union, it had been less
+successful in destroying love for it. But to most the prospect was
+gloomy. That Massachusetts and South Carolina should be put into a pen
+together, and left to fight it out, was the solution expressed to me
+by a lieutenant who afterwards fell nobly, in command, on a Union deck
+in the war; the gallant Joe Smith, concerning whom runs a story that
+cannot be too widely known, even though often repeated. When it was
+reported to his father that the _Congress_ had surrendered, he said,
+simply, "Then Joe's dead." Joe was dead; but it is only fair to the
+survivors to say that ninety out of her crew of four hundred were also
+dead, the ship aground, helpless, and in flames.
+
+In Annapolis, the capital of a border slave state, the general
+sentiment was, as might be expected, a blending of North and South; a
+desire to maintain the Union, but, distinctly superior in motive,
+sympathy with the Southern view of the case. In all my fairly intimate
+acquaintance with the small society of the town outside the Academy
+walls, there was but one family the heads of which were decisively
+Union--not Northern; and of it two sons fought in the Southern armies.
+Between this influence and that of my comrades I remained as I had
+been brought up--the Union first and above all, but with the
+conviction that the great danger to the Union lay in the abolition
+propaganda. My father was by upbringing a Virginian; by life-long
+occupation an officer of the general government, imbued to the marrow
+with the principles of military loyalty. Having married and
+continuously lived in the North, he had escaped all taint of the
+extreme States'-Rights school; but the memories of his youth kept him
+broadly Southern in feeling, less by local attachment than by
+affection for friends. More than twenty years after his death, when I
+was on court-martial duty in Richmond, an old Confederate general,
+whom I had never seen, sought me out in memory of the ties that had
+bound both himself and his wife's family to my father. With these
+clinging sympathies, the abolition agitation was an attack upon his
+friends, and, still worse, a wanton endangering of the Union. To save
+me from being carried away by the swelling tide was one of his chief
+aims.
+
+Regarded by themselves, nothing can well be less important than the
+political opinions of one boy of eighteen to twenty; but few things
+are more important, if they are those of the mass of his generation,
+for then they are the echo from many homes. I believe, from what I saw
+at the Naval Academy, that mine were those of the large majority of
+the Northern youth, and that the very greatness of the concession
+which such were ready to make for the sake of the Union should have
+warned the disunionists that the same love was capable of equally
+great sacrifices in the other direction. They failed so to understand;
+chiefly, perhaps, because they could not appreciate the living force
+of the simple sentiment. Never in their lifetimes, if ever before, had
+the Union held the first place in the hearts of men of their section;
+and such love as had been felt was already moribund, overcome by
+supposed interest and local pride. Thus misled, it was easy to believe
+that in the North, controlled by considerations of advantage,
+yielding would follow yielding, even to permitting a disruption of the
+Union--a miscalculation of forces more fatal even than that of "Cotton
+is King." But forces will often be miscalculated by those who reckon
+interest as more powerful than principle or than sentiment.
+
+Singularly enough, considering the exodus of States'-Rights officers
+from the navy at the outbreak of the War of Secession, my first
+service during it brought me into close relations with two captains,
+both Southerners, whose differing points of view shed interesting
+light upon the varying motives which in times of stress determined men
+into a common path. The first, Percival Drayton, a South-Carolinian,
+had a strength of conviction on the question of slavery, in itself,
+and the wrong-headed course of the slave power, as well as a strong
+devotion to the Union, all which were needed to keep a son of that
+extreme state firm in his allegiance. I question, however, whether any
+other one of the seceding communities furnished as large a proportion
+of officers who stuck to the national flag, chiefly among the older
+men; a result scarcely surprising, for the intensity of affection for
+the Union necessary to withstand nearest relatives and the headlong
+sweep of separatist impulse, where fiercest, naturally throve upon the
+opposition which it met, eliciting a corresponding tenacity of
+adherence to the cause it had embraced. No more than that other
+Southerner, Farragut, did Drayton feel doubt as to where he belonged
+in the coming struggle. "I cannot exactly see the difference between
+my relations fighting against me and I against them, except that their
+cause is as unholy a one as the world has ever seen, and mine just the
+reverse." "Were the sword in the one hand powerful enough, the
+secessionists would carry slavery with the other to the uttermost
+parts of the Union, and I do not think the North has been at all too
+quick in stopping the movement." "I do not think there will ever be
+peace between the two sections until slavery is so completely
+scotched as to make extension a hopeless matter."[6]
+
+Drayton stayed with us but a brief time. His successor, George B.
+Balch, who still survives, now the senior rear-admiral on the retired
+list of the navy, a man beloved by all who have known him for his
+gallantry, benevolence, and piety, was equally pronounced and equally
+firm; but his position illustrated and carried on my experiences at
+the Academy, and afterwards in the service, and for the time confirmed
+my old prepossessions. He was fighting for the Union, assailed without
+just cause; not against slavery, nor for its abolition. Were the
+latter the motive of the war, he would not be in arms. This, of
+course, was then the attitude of the government and of the people at
+large. Abolition, which came not long after, was a war measure simply;
+received with doubt by many, but which a few months of hostilities had
+prepared us all to accept. My own conversion was early and sudden. The
+ship had made an expedition of some fifty miles up a South Carolina
+river, in the course of which numerous negroes fled to her. Unlike
+Drayton, our captain was rather disconcerted, I think, at having
+forced upon him a kind of practical abolition, in carrying off slaves;
+but his duty was clear. As for me, it was my first meeting with
+slavery; except in the house-servants of Maryland, superficially a
+very different condition; and as I looked at the cowed, imbruted faces
+of the field-hands, my early training fell away like a cloak. The
+process was not logical; I was generalizing from a few instances, but
+I was convinced. Knowing how strongly my father had felt, I wondered
+how I should break to him my instability; but when we met I found that
+he, too, had gone over. Youngster as I still was, I should have
+divined the truth, that in assailing the Union his best friend became
+his enemy, to down whom abolition was good and fit as any other club.
+"My son," he said, "I did not think I could ever again be happy should
+our country fall into her present state; but now I am so absorbed in
+seeing those fellows beaten that I lose sight of the rest." Peculiar
+and personal association enhanced his interest; for, having been then
+over thirty years at the Military Academy, there were very few of the
+prominent generals on either side who had not been his pupils. The
+successful leaders were almost all from that school: Grant, Sherman,
+Thomas, Schofield, on the Union side; Lee, Jackson, and the two
+Johnstons on the Confederate, were all graduates, not to mention a
+host of others only less conspicuous.
+
+In last analysis slavery may have been, probably was, the cause of the
+war; but, historically, it was not the motive. Lincoln's words--"I
+will save the Union with slavery, or I will save it without slavery,
+as the case may demand"--voiced the feeling prevalent in the military
+services, and also the will of the great body of the Northern people,
+whom he profoundly understood and in his own mental advance
+illustrated. I cannot but think that such an aim was more
+statesmanlike than would have been the attempt to overturn immediately
+and violently an entire social and economical system, for the
+establishment of which the current generation was not responsible. In
+the long run, to allow the tares of bondage to stand with the wheat of
+freedom was wiser than the wish prematurely to uproot. It had become
+the definite policy of the enemies of slavery to girdle the tree, by
+strict encompassing lines, leaving it to consequent sure process of
+decay. Its friends forced the issue. To the ones and to the others the
+harvest of generations, in the form it took, came unexpected and
+suddenly--a day of judgment, a crisis, like a thief in the night. It
+is a consummate proof of the accuracy of popular instinct, given time
+to work, that the uprising of 1861 rested upon recognition of the
+fact that the cause of the nation and of the world depended more upon
+the preservation of a single authority over all the territory
+involved, upon the consequent avoidance of future permanent
+oppositions, than it did upon the destruction of a particular
+institution, the life of which might be protracted, but under
+conditions of union must wane and ultimately expire. The gradual
+progress of decision by the American people was wiser than the abrupt
+action asked by foreign impatience; and abolition came with less shock
+and more finality as a military measure than it could as a political.
+Its advisability was more evident. If statesmanship is shown in
+bringing popular will to accord with national necessity, Lincoln was
+in this most sagacious; but not the least element in the tribute due
+him is that he was the barometer of popular impulse, measuring
+accurately the invisible force upon which depended the energy of that
+stormy period.
+
+Before taking final leave of my shore experiences at the Naval
+Academy, I will recall, as among them, the superb comet of the autumn
+of 1858, which we at the school witnessed evening after evening in
+October of that year, during the release from quarters following
+supper. After the lapse of so nearly a half-century, the survivors of
+those who saw that magnificent spectacle must be in a minority among
+their contemporaries, whether of that day or this. Since its
+disappearance there has been visible one other notable comet, which I
+remember waking my children after midnight to see; but compared with
+that of 1858, whether in size or in splendor, it was literally as
+moonlight unto sunlight, or, in impression, as water unto wine. As the
+astronomers compute the period of return for the earlier at two
+thousand years, more or less, we of that generation were truly
+singular in our opportunity of viewing this, among the very few "most
+magnificent of modern times." The tail, broadening towards the end,
+with a curve like that of a scimitar, was in length nearly a fourth of
+the span of the heavens, and its brightness that of a full moon. My
+memory retains the image with all the tenacity of eighteen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Corresponding in some measure to the summer encampment at the Military
+Academy, the Naval gave the three months from July to September,
+inclusive, to shipboard and the sea. In both institutions the period
+was one of study interrupted, in favor of out-door work; but at West
+Point it was accompanied by a degree of social entertainment
+impossible to ship conditions. There were two theories as to the
+conduct of the practice cruises. One was that they should be confined
+to home waters, where regular hours and systematized instruction in
+"doing things" would suffer little interference from weather; the
+other was to make long voyages, preferably to Europe, leaving to the
+normal variability of the ocean and the watchful improvement of
+occasions the burden of initiating a youth into practical acquaintance
+with the exigencies of his intended profession. Personally I have
+always favored the latter, being somewhat of the opinion of the old
+practical politician--"Never contrive an opportunity." Naturally an
+opportunist, the experience of life has justified me in rather
+awaiting than contriving occasions. One learns more widely and more
+thoroughly by reefing topsails when it has to be done, than by doing
+it at a routine hour, without the accompaniments of the wind, the wet,
+and the lurching, which give the operation a tone and a tonic--the
+real thing, in short. Doubtless we may wait too long, like Micawber,
+even for a reef-topsail gale to turn up, though the ocean can usually
+be trusted to be nasty often enough; but, on the other hand, one over
+sedulously bent on making opportunity is apt to be too preoccupied to
+see that which makes itself. Truth, doubtless, lies between the
+extremes.
+
+In my day long cruises had unquestioned preference; and, whatever
+their demerits otherwise, they were certainly eye-openers, even to
+those who, like myself, had obtained some intelligent impression of
+ships at sea. As instruction in seamanship was then never attempted,
+neither by work nor book, until after the second year, we went on
+board not knowing one mast from another, so far as teaching went. How
+far initial ignorance could go may be illustrated by an incident, to
+be appreciated, unluckily, only by seamen, which happened in my
+hearing. We had then been nearly two months on board, when one who had
+improved his opportunities was displaying his acquirements by the
+pleasing method of catechising another. He asked: "Do you know what
+the topsail-tie is?" The rejoinder, perfectly serious, was: "Do you
+mean the cross-tie?" The topsail-tie being one of the principal
+"ropes" in a ship, the ignorance was really symptomatic of character;
+and had not the hero of it been long dead, I would not have preserved
+it, even incog. I fear it may be cited against my view of practice
+cruises, as proving that systematic training is better than
+picking-up; to which my reply would be that the picking-up showed
+aptitude--or the reverse--if only some means could be devised of
+making it tell in selection, as it assuredly did in character. But at
+the beginning, despite any little previous inklings, we were all quite
+green. I still recall the innocent astonishment when we anchored in
+Hampton Roads, after the run down the Chesapeake, and the boatswain,
+as by custom, pulled round the ship to see the yards square and
+rigging taut. Semaphore signalling was not then used, as later; and
+his stentorian lungs conveyed to us distinct sounds, bearing meanings
+we felt could never be compassed by us. "Haul taut the main-top
+bowlines!" "Haul taut the starboard fore-topgallant-sheet." "Maintop,
+there! Send a hand up and square the bunt gaskets of the
+topgallant-sail!" "By Jove!" said one of the admiring listeners,
+"there's seamanship for you!" We all silently agreed, and I dare say
+many thought we might as well give it up and go home. Such excellence
+was not for us.
+
+The subsequent process of picking-up was attended sometimes by
+comical, as well as painful, incidents. Peter Simple's experiences, as
+told by Marryat, were not yet quite obsolete in practice. A story ran
+of one, not long before my "date," who, having been sent on two or
+three bootless errands by unauthorized jesters, finally received from
+a person in due authority the absurd-sounding, but legitimate, message
+to have the jackasses put in the hawse-holes.[7] "Oh no," he replied,
+resentfully, "I have been fooled often enough! That I will not do." I
+can better vouch for another, which happened on my first practice
+cruise. In a sailing-ship properly planned, the balance of the sails
+is such that to steer her on her course the rudder need not be kept
+more to one side than the other; the helm is then amidships. But error
+of design, or circumstances, such as a faulty trim of the sails or the
+ship inclining in a strong side-wind, will sometimes so alter the
+influencing forces that the helm has to be carried steadily on one
+side, to correct the ship's disposition to turn to that side. She is
+then said to carry weather helm or lee helm, as the case may be; and
+the knowing ones used to assert noticeable differences of sailing in
+certain conditions. In many ships to carry a little weather helm was
+thought advantageous, and it was told of a certain deck-officer--he
+who repeated the story to me made the late Admiral Porter the
+hero--that the ship being found to sail faster in his watch than in
+any other, the commander sent for him and asked the reason. "Well,
+sir," replied the lieutenant, "I will tell you my secret. As soon as
+the officer I relieve is gone below and out of sight, while the watch
+is mustering, I walk forward, look round at things generally, and say
+casually to the captain of the forecastle: 'Just slack off a little of
+this jib-sheet.' Then about ten minutes before eight bells, after the
+last log of the watch has been hove, while the men are rousing to go
+below, I go forward again and say, 'Come here, half a dozen of us, and
+get a pull of the jib-sheet;' and I turn the deck over to my relief
+with the jib well flattened in." In result, the frigate during his
+watch, and his only, carried a weather helm. My own experience of
+sailing ships was neither prolonged enough nor responsible enough to
+estimate just what weight to attach to these impressions, but they
+existed; and in any case, as the helm varying far from amidships
+showed something wrong, the question was frequent to the helmsman,
+"How does she carry her helm?" varied sometimes to, "What sort of helm
+does she carry?" Now we had among our green midshipmen one from the
+West, tall, angular, swarthy, with a coal-black eye which had a trick
+of cocking up and out, giving a queer, perplexed, yet defiant cast to
+his countenance; moreover, he stuttered a little, not from
+imperfection of organs, but from nervous excitability. We had also a
+lieutenant from far down East, red-haired, sanguine of complexion,
+bony of structure, who had a gesture of tossing his hair and head
+back, and looking tremendously leonine and master of the
+situation--monarch of all he surveyed. The two were naturally
+antagonistic, as was amusingly shown more than once; but on this
+occasion the midshipman was at the "lee wheel," not himself steering,
+but helping the steersman in the manual labor. To him the lieutenant,
+pausing in his stride and tilting his chin in the air, says: "Mr.
+----, what sort of helm does she carry?" ----, who had never heard of
+weather or lee helms, and probably was not yet recovered from the
+effects of the boatswain's seamanship, twisted his eye and his head,
+looking more than ever confounded and saucy, and stammered: "I--I--I'm
+not sure, sir, but I think it's a wooden one." Tableau!--as the French
+say.
+
+In position on board we were midshipmen indeed, in a sense probably
+somewhat different from that which first gave birth to the title. We
+were not seamen; and it could scarcely be claimed that we were in any
+full sense officers, much as we stuck to that designation. We stood
+midway. There was a tradition in the British service that a
+midshipman, though in training for promotion, did not, while in the
+grade, rank with the boatswain or gunner, who had no future prospects,
+and who, with the carpenter, stood in a class by themselves. Marryat,
+who doubtless drew his characters from life, tells us that the gunner
+who sailed with Mr. Midshipman Easy was strong on the necessity for
+the gunner mastering navigation, and had many instances in point where
+all the officers had been killed down to the gunner, who in such case
+would have been sadly handicapped by ignorance of navigation. I fancy
+the doubt seldom needed to be settled in service; the duties of
+midshipman and boatswain could rarely come into collision, if each
+minded his own business. By luck, just after writing these words, I
+for the first time in my life have found a plausible derivation for
+midshipman.[8] It would appear that in the days immediately after the
+flood the vessels were very high at the two ends, between which there
+was a deep "waist," giving no ready means of passing from one to the
+other. To meet this difficulty there were employed a class of men,
+usually young and alert, who from their station were called
+midshipmen, to carry messages which were not subject for the trumpet
+shout. If this holds water, it, like forecastle, and after-guard, and
+knightheads, gives another instance of survival from conditions which
+have long ceased.
+
+Whatever the origin of his title, it well expressed the anomalous and
+undefined position of the midshipman. He belonged, so to say, to both
+ends of the ship, as well as to the middle, and his duties and
+privileges alike fell within the broad saying, already quoted, that
+what was nobody's business was a midshipman's. When appointed as such,
+in later days, he came in "with the hay-seed in his hair," and went
+out fit for a lieutenant's charge; but from first to last, whatever
+his personal progress, he remained, as a midshipman, a handy-billy. He
+might be told, as Basil Hall's first captain did his midshipmen, that
+they might keep watch or not, as they pleased--that is, that the ship
+had no use for them; or he might be sent in charge of a prize, as was
+Farragut, when twelve years old, doubtless with an old seaman as
+nurse, but still in full command. Anywhere from the bottom of the hold
+to the truck--top of the masts--he could be sent, and was sent; every
+boat, that went ashore had a midshipman, who must answer for her
+safety and see that none got away of a dozen men, whose one thought
+was to jump the boat and have a run on shore. Between times he passed
+hours at the mast-head in expiation of faults which he had
+committed--or ought to have committed, to afford a just scapegoat for
+his senior's wrath. As Marryat said, it made little difference: if he
+did not think of something he had not been told, he was asked what his
+head was for; if he did something off his own bat, the question arose
+what business he had to think. In either case he went to the mast-head.
+Of course, at a certain age one "turns to mirth all things of earth,
+as only boyhood can;" and the contemporary records of the steerage
+brim over with unforced jollity, like that notable hero of Marryat's
+"who was never quite happy except when he was d----d miserable."
+
+Such undefined standing and employments taught men their business, but
+provided no remedy for the miscellaneous social origin of midshipmen.
+In the beginning of things they were probably selected from the smart
+young men of the crew; often also from the more middle-aged--in any
+event, from before the mast. Even in much later days men passed
+backward and forward from midshipman to lower ratings; Nelson is an
+instance in point. When a man became a lieutenant, he was something
+fixed and recognized, professionally and socially. He might fall below
+his station, but he had had his chance. In the British navy many most
+distinguished officers came from anywhere--through the hawse-holes, as
+the expression ran; and a proud boast it should have been at a time
+when every Frenchman in his position had to be of noble blood. What
+was all very well for captains and lieutenants, once those ranks were
+reached, was not so easy for midshipmen. We know in every walk of life
+the woes of those whose position is doubtful or challenged; and what
+was said to his crew by Sir Peter Parker, an active frigate captain
+who was killed in Chesapeake Bay in 1814, "I'll have you touch your
+hat to a midshipman's jacket hung up to dry" (curiously reminiscent of
+William Tell and Gessler's cap), not improbably testifies to
+equivocalness even at that late date. The social instinct of seamen is
+singularly observant and tenacious of their officers' manners and
+bearing. I have known one, reproved for a disrespect, say, sullenly:
+"I have always been accustomed to sail with gentlemen." In the
+instance the comment was just, though not permissible. Deference might
+be conceded to the midshipman's jacket, but it could not cover defects
+of a certain order.
+
+The midshipman's berth, as attested by contemporary sketches, was
+peopled by all sorts in age, fitness, and manners. In one of the many
+tales I devoured in youth, a middle-aged shellback of a master's mate,
+come in from before the mast, says with an oath to an aristocratic
+midshipman: "Isn't my blood as red as yours?" Still, even in the
+British navy, with its fine democratic record, the social rank was
+more regarded than the military. His Majesty's ship _So-and-So_ was
+commanded by John Smith, Esquire; and I have heard this point of view
+stated by competent authority as accounting for the address--George
+Washington, Esquire--placed by Howe on the letter which Washington
+refused to accept because not carrying the rank conferred on him by
+Congress. This does not, however, explain away the "etc., etc.," which
+followed on the cover. John Byng, Esquire, Admiral of the Blue, would
+thus be of higher consideration as Esquire than as Admiral. Even in
+our own service I remember an old log, the pages of which were headed,
+"Cruise of the U. S. Ship _Preble_, commanded by J. B. M----,
+Esquire."
+
+In the practice cruises the social question did not arise. Independent
+of the democratic tendency of all boys' schools, where each individual
+finds his level by natural gravitation, the Naval Academy, for reasons
+before alluded to, has been remarkably successful in assimilating its
+heterogeneous raw material and turning out a finished product of a
+good average social quality. Beyond this, social success or failure
+depends everywhere upon personal aptitudes which no training can
+bestow. But as officers we were nondescript. There were too many of
+us; and for the most the object was to acquire a sufficient seaman's
+knowledge, not an officer's. Yet, curiously enough, so at least it
+seemed to me, there was a disposition on the part of some to be
+jealous of any supposed infringement of our prerogative to be treated
+as "a bit of an officer." Ashore or afloat, we made our own beds or
+lashed our own hammocks, swept our rooms, tended our clothes, and
+blacked our boots; our drills were those of the men before the mast,
+at sails and guns; all parts of a seaman's work, except cleaning the
+ship, was required and willingly done; but there was a comical
+rebellion on one occasion when ordered to pull--row--a boat ashore for
+some purpose, and almost a mutiny when one lieutenant directed us to
+go barefooted while decks were being scrubbed, a practice which,
+besides saving your shoe-leather, is both healthy, cleanly, and, in
+warm weather, exceedingly comforting. Some asserted that the
+lieutenant in question, who afterwards commanded one of the
+Confederate commerce-destroyers, and from his initials (Jas. I.) was
+known to us as Jasseye, had done this because he had very pretty feet
+which he liked to show bare, and we must do the same; much as Germans
+are said to train their mustaches with the emperor's. At all events,
+there was great wrath, which I supposed I should have shared had I not
+preferred bare feet--not for as sound reasons as the lieutenant's. It
+stands to reason, however, that that imputation was slanderous, for
+there were no appreciative observers, unless himself. Why waste such
+sweetness on the desert air of a lot of heedless midshipmen? With so
+many details regulated--if not enforced--from the length of our hair
+to the cut of our trousers, it did seem hypercritical to object to
+going shoeless for an hour. But who is consistent? The uncertainty of
+our position kept the chip on the shoulder.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+MY FIRST CRUISE AFTER GRADUATION--NAUTICAL CHARACTERS
+
+1859-1861
+
+
+At the moment of graduation, in the summer of 1859, I had a narrow
+escape from the cutting short of my career, resembling that which a
+man has from a railway accident by missing the train. To a certain
+extent the members of classes were favored in forming groups of
+friends, and choosing the ship to which they would be sent. Myself and
+two intimates applied for the sloop-of-war _Levant_, destined for the
+Pacific by way of Cape Horn; our motive being partly the kind of
+vessel, supposed by us to favor professional opportunity, and partly
+the friendship existing between one of us and the master of the
+_Levant_, a graduate of two or three years before, who had just
+completed his examinations for promotion. Luckily for us, and
+particularly for me, as the only one of the three who in after life
+survived middle age, the frigate _Congress_ was fitting out, and her
+requirements for officers could not be disregarded. The _Levant_
+sailed, reached the Pacific, and disappeared--one of the mysteries of
+the deep. We very young men had the impression that small vessels were
+better calculated to advance us professionally, because, having fewer
+officers, deck duty might be devolved on us, either to ease the
+regular watch officers or in case of a disability. This prepossession
+extended particularly to brigs, of which the navy then had several.
+This was a pretty wild imagining, for I can hardly conceive any one
+in trusting such a vessel to a raw midshipman. It is scarcely an
+exaggeration to say they were all canvas and no hull--beautiful as a
+dream, but dangerous to a degree, except to the skilful. As it was, an
+unusual proportion of them came to grief. Our views were doubtless
+largely, if unconsciously, affected by the pleasing idea of
+prospective early importance as deck officers. The more solid opinion
+of our seniors was that we would do better to pause awhile on the
+bottom step, under closer supervision; while as for vessel, the order,
+dignity, and scale of performance on big ships were more educative,
+more formative of military character, which, and not seamanship, is
+the leading element of professional value. "Keep them at sea," said
+Lord St. Vincent, "and they can't help becoming seamen; but attention
+is needed to make them learn their business with the guns." I have
+already mentioned that, at the outbreak of the War of Secession, it
+was this factor which decided the authorities to give seniority to the
+very young lieutenants over the volunteers from the merchant service,
+most of whom had longer experience and (though by no means all of
+them) consequent ability as seamen.
+
+After graduating, my first cruise was upon what was then known as the
+Brazil Station; by the British called more comprehensively the
+Southeast Coast of America. After the war the name and limits were
+judiciously changed. It became then the South Atlantic Station, to
+embrace the Cape of Good Hope, and, generally, the coasts of South
+America and Africa, with the islands lying between, such as St. Helena
+and the Falklands. From the point of view of healthy activity for the
+ships and their companies, and specifically for the education of
+younger officers, this extension was most desirable. In the earlier
+time long periods were spent in port, because there really was not
+enough that required doing. Our captain once kept the ship at sea for
+a fortnight or more, "cruising;" that is, moving about within certain
+limits back and forth. In war-time this is frequent, if not general;
+but then it is for a specific purpose, conducive to the ends of war.
+In peace, cruising ends in itself; it is like a "constitutional;"
+beneficial, no doubt, but not to most men as healthily beneficial as
+the walk to the office, with its definite object and the incidental
+amusement of the streets. A _terminus ad quem_ is essential to the
+perfection of exercise, bodily or mental. As it was, Montevideo, in
+the river La Plata, and Rio de Janeiro were the two chief ports
+between which we oscillated, with rare and brief stays elsewhere or at
+sea.
+
+The _Congress_ was a magnificent ship of her period. The adjective is
+not too strong. Having been built about 1840, she represented the
+culmination of the sail era, which, judged by her, reached then the
+splendid maturity that in itself, to the prophetic eye, presages decay
+and vanishment. In her just but strong proportions, in her lines, fine
+yet not delicate, she "seemed to dare," and did dare, "the elements to
+strife;" while for "her peopled deck," when her five hundred and odd
+men swarmed up for an evolution, or to get their hammocks for the
+night, it was peopled to the square foot, despite her size. On her
+forecastle, and to the fore and main masts, each, were stationed sixty
+men, full half of them prime seamen, not only in skill, but in age and
+physique--ninety for the starboard watch, and ninety for the port; not
+to count the mizzen-topmen, after-guard, and marines, more than as
+many more. I have always remembered the effect produced upon me by
+this huge mass, when all hands gathered once to wear ship in a heavy
+gale, the height of one of those furious _pamperos_ which issue from
+the prairies (_pampas_) of Buenos Ayres. The ship having only fore and
+main topsails, close reefed, the officers, beyond those of the watch,
+were not summoned; the handling of the yards required only the brute
+force of muscle, under which, even in such conditions, they were as
+toys in the hands of that superb ship's company. I had thus the chance
+to see things from the poop, a kind of bird's-eye view. As the ship
+fell off before the wind, and while the captain was waiting that
+smoother chance which from time to time offers to bring her up to it
+again on the other side with the least shock, she of course gathered
+accelerated way with the gale right aft--scudding, in fact. Unsteadied
+by wind on either side, she rolled deeply, and the sight of those four
+hundred or more faces, all turned up and aft, watching intently the
+officer of the deck for the next order, the braces stretched taut
+along in their hands for instant obedience, was singularly striking.
+Usually a midshipman had to be in the midst of such matters with no
+leisure for impressions--at least, of an "impressionist" character.
+Those were the prerogatives of the idlers--the surgeon, chaplain, and
+marine officers--who obtained thereby not only the benefit of the
+show, but material for discussion as to how well the thing had been
+done, or whether it ought to have been done at all. The midshipman's
+part at "all hands" was to be as much in the way as was necessary to
+see all needed gear manned, no skulkers, and as much out of the way as
+his personal stability required, from the rush of the huge gangs of
+seamen "running away" with a rope.
+
+I never had the opportunity of viewing the ship from outside under way
+at sea; but she was delightful to look at in port. Her spars, both
+masts and yards, lofty and yet square, were as true to proportion, for
+perfection of appearance, as was her hull; and the twenty-five guns
+she showed on each broadside, in two tiers, though they had abundance
+of working-room, were close enough together to suggest two strong rows
+of solid teeth, ready for instant use. Nothing could be more
+splendidly martial. But what old-timers they were, with the swell of
+their black muzzles, like the lips of a full-blooded negro.
+Thirty-two-pounders, all of them; except on either side five
+eight-inch shell guns, a small tribute to progress. The rest threw
+solid shot for the most part. Imposing as they certainly looked, and
+heavier though they were than most of those with which the world's
+famous sea-fights have been fought, they were already antediluvian. A
+few years later I saw a long range of them enjoying their last repose
+on the skids in a navy-yard; and a bystander, with equal truth and
+irreverence, called them pop-guns. One almost felt that the word
+should be uttered in a whisper, out of respect for their feelings. But
+the whole equipment of the ship, though up to date in itself, was so
+far of the past that I recall it with mingled pathos and interest.
+What naval officer who may read these words was ever shipmate with
+rope "trusses" for the lower yards, or with a hemp messenger? A
+"messenger" was a huge rope, of I suppose eighteen to twenty-four
+inches circumference, used for lifting the anchor. At the after end of
+the ship it was passed three times round the capstan, where the men
+walking round merrily to the sound of the fife, under the eyes of the
+officer of the deck, were doing the work of weighing; at the forward
+end it moved round rollers to save friction. Thus one part was taut
+under the strain of the capstan; and to this the cable of the anchor,
+as it was hove in, was made fast by a succession of selvagees, for
+which I will borrow the elaborate description of White Jacket, who
+tells us the name was applied by the seamen of his ship to one of the
+lieutenants: "It is a slender, tapering, unstranded piece of rope,
+prepared with much solicitude; peculiarly flexible; which wreathes and
+serpentines round the cable and messenger like an elegantly modelled
+garter-snake round the stalks of a vine." The messenger thus was
+appropriately named; it went back and forth on its errand of anchor
+raising, the slack side being helped on its way by a row of twelve or
+fifteen men seated, pulling it along forward. This gang, by immemorial
+usage, was composed of the colored servants, and I can see now that
+row of black faces, with grinning ivories, as they yo-ho'd in
+undertones together, "lighting forward the messenger."
+
+Like the ship and her equipment, the officers and crew by training and
+methods were still of the olden time in tone and ideals; a condition,
+of course, fostered at the moment by the style of vessel. Yet they had
+that curious adaptability characteristic of the profession, which
+afterwards enabled them to fall readily into the use of the new
+constructions of every kind evolved by the War of Secession.
+Concerning some of these, a naval professional humorist observed that
+they could be worshipped without idolatry; for they were like nothing
+in heaven, or on earth, or in the waters under the earth. Adored or
+not, they were handled to purpose. By a paradoxical combination, the
+seaman of those days was at once most conservative in temperament and
+versatile in capacity. Among the officers, however, there was an open
+vision towards the future. I well remember "Joe" Smith enlarging to me
+on the merits of Cowper Coles's projected turret ship, much talked
+about in the British press in 1860; a full year or more before
+Ericsson, under the exigency of existing war, obtained from us a
+hearing for the _Monitor_. Coles's turrets, being then a novel
+project, were likened, explanatorily, to a railway turn-table, a very
+illustrative definition; and Smith was already convinced of the value
+of the design, which was proved in Hampton Roads the day after he
+himself fell gloriously on the deck of the _Congress_. There is a
+double tragedy in his missing by this brief space the clear
+demonstration of a system to which he so early gave his adherence; and
+it is another tragedy, which most Americans except naval officers will
+have forgotten, that Coles himself found his grave in the ship--the
+_Captain_--ultimately built through his urgency upon this turret
+principle. This happened in 1870. The tradition of masts and sails, as
+economical, still surviving, she was equipped with them, which we from
+the beginning had discarded in monitors. The _Captain_ was a large
+vessel with low freeboard, her deck only six feet above water. Lying
+to under sail in a moderate gale, in the Bay of Biscay, she heeled
+over in a squall, bringing the lee side of the deck under water; and
+the force of the wind increasing, without meeting the resistance
+offered ordinarily by the pressure of the water against the lee side
+of a ship, she went clean over and sank. The incident made the deeper
+impression upon me because two months before I had visited her, when
+she was lying at Spithead in company with another iron-clad, the
+_Monarch_, which soon after was assigned by the British government to
+bring George Peabody's remains to their final resting-place in
+America. I then met and was courteously received by the captain of the
+_Captain_, Burgoyne, of the same family as the general known to our
+War of Independence. Coles had gone merely as a passenger, to observe
+the practical working of his designs. I do not know how far the
+masting was consonant to his wishes. It may have been forced upon him
+as a concession, necessary to obtain his main end; but nothing could
+be more incongruous than to embarrass the all-round fire of turrets by
+masts and rigging.
+
+In 1859 the United States government was coquetting with the title
+"Admiral," which was supposed to have some insidious connection with
+monarchical institutions. Even so sensible and thoughtful a man as our
+sailmaker, who was a devout disciple and constant reader of Horace
+Greeley, with the advanced political tendencies of the _Tribune_, said
+to me: "Call them admirals! Never! They will be wanting to be dukes
+next." We had hit, therefore, on a compromise, quite accordant with
+the transition decade 1850-1860, and styled them flag-officers;
+concerning which it might be said that all admirals are
+flag-officers, but all flag-officers were not admirals--not American
+flag-officers, at all events. As a further element in the compromise,
+instead of the broad swallow-tailed pendant of a commodore, our
+previous flag-rank, we carried the square flag at the mizzen
+indicative in all navies of a rear-admiral, to which we gave a
+rear-admiral's salute of thirteen guns, and expected the same from
+foreigners; while all the time the recipient stood on our _Navy
+Register_ as a captain, only temporarily brevetted Flag-officer. Well
+do I remember the dismay of our flag-officer when, quitting a British
+ship of war, she fired the customary salute, and stopped at eleven--a
+commodore's perquisite. The hit was harder, because the old gentleman
+was particularly fond of the English, having received from them great
+hospitality incidental to his commanding the ship of war which carried
+part of the American exhibition to the World's Fair of 1851. An "_Et
+tu, Brute_" expression came over his face, as he sank back with a
+sorrowful exclamation in the stern-sheets of the barge, which, as
+nautical convention requires, was lying motionless, oars horizontal, a
+ship's-length away; when, lo and behold, as a kind of appendix to the
+previous proceedings, bang! bang! went two more guns, filling the
+baker's dozen. It was, of course, somewhat limping, but the apology
+was sufficient.
+
+Salutes are as liable to accidents as are other affairs of
+well-regulated households, and a little more so; a gun misses fire, or
+somebody counts wrong, or what not. On the _Congress_ we rarely had
+trouble, for the greatest number of guns is twenty-one--a national
+salute--and on our main deck we had thirty, any part of which could be
+ready. If one missed fire, the gun next abaft stepped in. If near
+enough, you might hear the primer snap, but the error of interval was
+barely appreciable--the effect stood. Laymen may not know that the
+manner of the salute was, and is, for the officer conducting it to
+give the orders, "Starboard, fire!" "Port, fire!" the discharges thus
+ranging from forward, aft, alternately on each side. A man who cannot
+trust his ear times the interval by watch; most, I presume, trust
+their counting. I once underwent an amusing _faux pas_ in this matter
+of counting. Of course, the count is a serious matter; gun for gun is
+diplomatically as important as an eye for an eye. My captain had heard
+that an excellent precaution was to provide one's self with a
+number of dried beans--with which, needless to say, a ship
+abounds--corresponding to the number of guns. The receipt ran: Put
+them all in one pocket, and with each gun shift a bean to the other
+pocket. He proposed this to me, but I demurred; I feared I might get
+mixed on the beans and omit to shift one. He did not press me, but
+when I began to perform on the main deck he stood near the hatch on
+the deck above, duly--or unduly--provided with beans. It was a
+national salute; to the port. When I finished, he called to me: "You
+have only fired twenty guns." "No, sir," I replied; "twenty-one."
+"No," he repeated, "twenty; for I have a bean left." "All right!" I
+returned, and I banged an appendix; after which, upon counting, it was
+found the captain had twenty-two beans and the French twenty-two
+guns--a "tiger" which I hope they appreciated, but am sure they did
+not "return."
+
+Our flag-officer was a veteran of 1812. He had evidently been very
+handsome, to which possibly he owed three successive wives, the last
+one much younger than himself. Now, in his sixties, he was still light
+in his movements. He had a queer way of tripping along on the balls of
+his feet, with a half-shuffling movement, his hands buried in his
+pockets, with the thumbs out. He was, I fear, the sort of man capable
+of wearing a frock-coat unbuttoned. It was amusing to see him walk the
+poop with the captain of the ship, who out topped him by a head, was
+ponderous in dimensions, with wide tread and feet like an elephant's;
+yet, it was said by those who had seen, a beautiful waltzer. His son,
+who was his clerk, used to say: "The old man's feet really aren't so
+big, if he would not wear such shoes." When his shoes were sent up to
+dry in the sun, as all sea-shoes must be at times, the midshipmen knew
+the occasion as a gunboat parade. The flag-officer was styled
+familiarly in the navy by the epithet Buckey; I never saw it spelled,
+but the pronunciation was as given. Report ran that he thus called
+every one, promiscuously; but, although I was his aide for nearly six
+months, I only heard him use it once or twice. Possibly he was
+breaking a bad habit.
+
+Judged by my experience, which I believe was no worse than the
+average, the life of an aide is literally that of a dog; it was
+chiefly following round, or else sitting in a boat at a landing, just
+as a dog waits outside for his master, to all hours of the night, till
+your superior comes down from his dinner or out from the theatre. A
+coachman has a "cinch," to use our present-day slang; for he has only
+his own behavior to look to, while the aide has to see that the dozen
+bargemen also behave, don't skip up the wharf for a drink, and then
+forget the way back to the boat. If one or two do, no matter how good
+his dinner may have been, the remarks of the flag-officer are apt to
+be unpleasant; not to speak of subsequent interviews with the
+first-lieutenant. I trace to those days a horror which has never left
+me of keeping servants waiting. Flag-officers apparently never heard
+that punctuality is the politeness of kings. There are, however,
+occasional compensations; bones, I might say, pursuing the dog
+analogy. One incident very interesting to me occurred. The
+flag-officer had a well-deserved reputation for great bravery, and in
+his early career had fought two or three duels. One of these had been
+at Rio Janeiro, on an island in the harbor, and he had there killed
+his man. On this occasion, the barge being manned and I along, we
+pulled over to the island. In the thirty intervening years it must
+have changed greatly, for many buildings were now on it; but his
+memory evidently was busy and serving him well. He walked round
+meditatively, uttering a low, humming whistle, his hands in his
+pockets, his secretary and myself following. At last he reached a
+point where he stopped and mused for some moments, after which he went
+quietly and silently to the boat. Not a word passed from him to us
+during our stay, nor the subsequent pull to shore; but there can be
+little doubt where his thoughts were. It is right to add that on the
+occasion in question not only was the provocation all on the other
+side, but it was endured by him to the utmost that the standards of
+1830 would permit.
+
+To my aideship also I owed an unusual opportunity to see an incident
+of bygone times--the heaving down of a fair-sized ship of war. One of
+our sloops, of some eight hundred tons' burden, bound to China, had
+put into Rio for repairs: a leak of no special danger, but so near the
+keel as to demand examination. It might get worse. As yet Rio had no
+dry-dock, and so she must be hove down. This operation, probably never
+known in these days, when dry-docks are to be found in all quarters,
+consisted in heeling the ship over, by heavy purchases attached to the
+top of the lower masts, until the keel, or at least so much of the
+side as was necessary, was out of water. As the leverage on the masts
+was extreme, almost everything had to be taken out of the ship, guns
+included, to lighten her to the utmost; and the spars themselves were
+heavily backed to bear the strain. The upper works, usually out of
+water, must on the down side be closed and protected against the
+proposed immersion. In short, preparation was minute as well as
+extensive. In the old days, when docks were rare, and long voyages
+would be made in regions without local resources, a ship would be hove
+down two or three times in a cruise, to clean her uncoppered bottom
+or to see what damage worms might be effecting. When frequently done,
+familiarity doubtless made it comparatively easy; but by 1859 it had
+become very exceptional. I have never seen another instance. She was
+taken to a sheltered cove, in one of those picturesque bights which
+abound in the harbor of Rio, the most beautiful bay in the world, and
+there, in repeated visits by our flag-officer, I saw most stages of
+the process. Technical details I will not inflict upon the reader, but
+there was one amusing anecdote told me by our carpenter, who as a
+senior in his business was much to the fore. Some general overhauling
+was also required, and among other things the sloop's captain pointed
+out that the side-board in the cabin was not well secured. "I have
+sometimes to get up two or three times in the night to see to it," he
+said. He had been one of the restored victims of the Retiring Board of
+1855, and had the reputation of knowing that sideboards exist for
+other purposes than merely being secured; hence, at this pathetic
+remark, the carpenter caught a wink, "on the fly," as it passed from
+the flag-officer to the captain of the _Congress_ and back again. The
+commander invalided soon after, and the sloop went on her way to China
+under the charge of the first lieutenant.
+
+The flag-officer, though not a man of particular distinction,
+possessed strongly that kind of individuality which among seamen of
+the days before steam, when the world was less small and less
+frequented, was more common than it is now, when we so cluster that,
+like shot in a barrel, we are rounded and polished by mere attrition.
+Formerly, characteristics had more chance to emphasize themselves and
+throw out angles, as I believe they still do in long polar seclusions.
+Withal, there came from him from time to time a whiff of the naval
+atmosphere of the past, like that from a drawer where lavender has
+been. Going ashore once with him for a constitutional, he caught
+sight of a necktie which my fond mother had given me. It was black,
+yes; but with variations. "Humph!" he ejaculated; "don't wear a thing
+like that with me. You look like a privateersman." There spoke the
+rivalries of 1812. There had not been a privateersman in the United
+States for near a half-century. A great chum of his was the senior
+surgeon of the frigate, a man near his own years. Leaving the ship
+together for a walk, the surgeon, crossing the deck, smudged his white
+trousers with paint or coal-tar, the free application of which in
+unexpected places is one of the snares attending a well-appearing
+man-of-war. "Never mind, doctor," said the flag-officer, consolingly,
+falling back like Sancho Panza on an ancient proverb; "remember the
+two dirtiest things in the world are a clean ship and a clean
+soldier"--paint and pipe-clay, to wit.
+
+Another trait was an extensive, though somewhat mild, profanity which
+took no account of ladies' presence, although he was almost
+exaggeratedly deferential to them, as well as cordially courteous to
+all. His speech was like his gait, tripping. I remember the arrival of
+the first steamer of a new French line to Rio. Steam mail-service was
+there and then exceptional; most of our home letters still came by
+sailing-vessel; consequently, this was an event, and brought the
+inevitable banquet. He was present; I also, as his aide, seated nearly
+opposite him, with two or three other of our officers. He was called
+to respond to a toast. "Gentlemen and ladies!" he began. "No! Ladies
+and gentlemen--ladies always first, d--n me!" What more he said I do
+not recall, although we all loyally applauded him. Many years
+afterwards, when he was old and feeble, an acquaintance of mine met
+him, and he began to tell of the tombstone of some person in whom he
+was interested. After various particulars, he startled his auditor
+with the general descriptive coruscation, "It was covered with angels
+and cherubs, and the h--l knows what else."
+
+It would be easily possible to overdraw the personal peculiarities of
+the seamen. I remember nothing corresponding at all to the
+extravagances instanced in my early reading of Colburn's; such as a
+frigate's watch--say one hundred and fifty men--on liberty in
+Portsmouth, England, buying up all the gold-laced cocked bats in the
+place, and appearing with them at the theatre. Many, however, who have
+seen a homeward-bound ship leaving port, the lower rigging of her
+three masts crowded with seamen from deck to top, returning roundly
+the cheers given by all the ships-of-war present, foreign as well as
+national, as she passes, have witnessed also the time-honored ceremony
+of her crew throwing their hats overboard with the last cheer. This
+corresponded to the breaking of glasses after a favorite toast, or to
+the bursts of enthusiasm in a Spanish bull-ring, where Andalusian caps
+fly by dozens into the arena. There, however, the bull-fighter returns
+them, with many bows; but those of the homeward-bounders become the
+inheritance of the boatmen of the port. The midshipman of the watch
+being stationed on the forecastle, my intimates among the crew were
+the staid seamen, approaching middle-age; allotted there, where they
+would have least going aloft. The two captains of the forecastle--one,
+I shrewdly think, Dutch, the other English, though both had English
+names--would engage in conversation with me at times, mingling
+deference and conscious superior experience in due proportion. One, I
+remember, just before the War of Secession began, was greatly
+exercised about the oncoming troubles. The causes of the difficulty
+and the political complications disturbed him little; but the probable
+prospect of the heads of the rebellion losing their property engrossed
+his mind. He constantly returned to this; it would be confiscated,
+doubtless; yet the assertion was an evident implied query to me, to
+which I could give no positive answer. As is known, few of the seamen,
+as of private soldiers in the army, sympathized sufficiently with the
+Confederacy to join it. Indeed, the vaunt I have heard attributed to
+Southern officers of the old navy, which, though never uttered in my
+ears, was very consonant to the Southern spirit as I then knew it,
+that Southern officers with Yankee seamen could beat the world,
+testified at least to the probable attitude of the latter in a war of
+sections. Considering the great naval names of the past, Preble, Hull,
+Decatur, Bainbridge, Stewart, Porter, Perry, and Macdonough, the two
+most Southern of whom came from Delaware and Maryland, this
+ante-bellum assurance was, to say the least, self-confident; but
+Farragut was a Southerner. The other captain of the forecastle was
+less communicative, taciturn by nature; but there ran of him a story
+of amusing simplicity. It occurred to him on one occasion that he
+would lay under contribution the resources of the ship's small
+library. Accordingly he went to the chaplain, in whose care it was;
+but as he was wholly in the dark as to what particular book he might
+like, the chaplain, after two or three tries, suggested a _Life of
+Paul Jones_. Yes, he thought he would like that. "You see, I was
+shipmates with him some cruises ago; he was with me in the main-top of
+the ----."
+
+Another forecastle intimate of mine was the boatswain, who, like most
+boatswains of that day, had served his time before the mast. As is the
+case with many self-made men, he, on his small scale, was very
+conscious of the fact, and of general consequent desert. A favorite
+saying with him was, "Thanks to my own industry and my wife's economy,
+I am now well beforehand with the world." Like a distinguished officer
+higher in rank of that day, of whom it was said that he remembered
+nothing later than 1813, my boatswain's memory dwelt much in the
+thirties, though he acknowledged more recent experiences. His attitude
+towards steam, essentially conservative, was strictly and amusingly
+official. He had served on board one steamer, the _San Jacinto_; and
+what had pleased him was that the yards could be squared and rigging
+hauled taut--his own special function--before entering port, so that
+in those respects the job had been done when the anchor dropped. One
+of his pet stories, frequently brought forward, concerned a schooner
+in which he had served in the earlier period, and will appeal to those
+who know how dear a fresh coat of paint is to a seaman's heart. She
+had just been thus decorated within and without, and was standing into
+a West-Indian port to show her fine feathers, when a sudden flaw of
+wind knocked her off, and over, dangerously close to a rocky point.
+The first order given was, "Stand clear of the paint-work!"--an
+instance of the ruling passion strong _in extremis_. He had another
+woesome account of a sloop-of-war in which he had gone through the
+Straits of Magellan. The difficult navigation and balky winds made the
+passage protracted for a sailing-vessel; all were put on short
+rations, and the day before she entered a Chilian port the bread-room
+was swept to the last crumbs. "I often could not sleep for hunger when
+I turned in." In the same ship, the watch-officers falling short,
+through illness or suspension, the captain set a second lieutenant of
+marines to take a day watch. Being, as he supposed, put to do
+something, he naturally wanted to do it, if he only knew what it was,
+and how it was to be done. The master of the ship was named Peter
+Wager, and to him, when taking sights, the marine appealed. "Peter,
+what's the use of being officer of the deck if you don't do anything?
+Tell me something to do." "Well," Peter replied, "you might send all
+the watch aft and take in the mizzen-royal"--the mizzen-royal being
+the smallest of all sails, requiring about two ordinary men, and in
+no wise missed when in. This was practical "tales for the marines."
+
+This boatswain afterwards saw the last of the _Congress_, when the
+_Merrimac_--or rather the _Virginia_, to give her her Confederate
+name--wasted time murdering a ship already dead, aground and on fire.
+He often afterwards spun me the yarn; for I liked the old man, and not
+infrequently went to see him in later days. He had borne
+good-humoredly the testiness with which a youngster is at times prone
+to assert himself against what he fancies interference, and I had
+appreciated the rebuke. The _Congress_ disaster was a very big and
+striking incident in the career of any person, and it both ministered
+to his self-esteem and provided the evening of his life with material
+for talk. Unhappily, I have to confess, as even Boswell at times did,
+I took no notes, and cannot reproduce that which to me is of absorbing
+interest, the individual impressions of a vivid catastrophe.
+
+The boatswain was one of the four who in naval phrase were termed
+"warrant" officers, in distinction from the lieutenants and those
+above, who held their offices by "commission." The three others were
+the gunner, carpenter, and sailmaker, names which sufficiently
+indicate their several functions. In the hierarchical classification
+of the navy, as then established by long tradition, the midshipmen,
+although on their way to a commission, were warrant officers also; and
+in consequence, though they had a separate mess, they had the same
+smoking-place, the effect of which in establishing a community of
+social intercourse every smoker will recognize. I suppose, if there
+had been three sides to a ship, there would have been three
+smoking-rendezvous; but in the crude barbarism of those days--as it
+will now probably be considered--both commissioned and warrant
+officers had no place to smoke except away forward on the
+gun-deck--the "eyes" of the ship, as the spot was appropriately
+named; the superiors on the honor side, which on the gun-deck was the
+port, the midshipmen and warrant officers on the starboard. The
+position was not without advantages, when riding head to wind, in hot
+tropical weather; but under way, close-hauled, with a stiff breeze, a
+good deal of salt water found its way in, especially if the jackasses
+were in the hawse-holes. But under such conditions we sat there
+serenely, the water coursing in a flowing stream under our chairs if
+the ship had a steady heel, or rushing madly from side to side if she
+lurched to windward. The stupidity of it was that we didn't even know
+we were uncomfortable, and by all sound philosophy were so far better
+off than our better accommodated successors. What was more annoying
+was the getting forward at night, when the hammocks were in place; but
+even for that occasional compensations offered. I remember once, when
+making this awkward journey, hearing a colloquy between two young
+seamen just about to swing themselves into bed at nine o'clock. "I
+say, Bill," said one, with voluptuous satisfaction, "too watches
+in,[9] and beans to-morrow." Can any philosophy soar higher than that,
+in contentment with small things? Plain living and high thinking!
+Diogenes wasn't in it.
+
+As the warrant officers of the ship were of the generation before us,
+we heard from their lips many racy and entertaining experiences of the
+former navy, most of which naturally have escaped me, while others I
+have dropped all along the line of my preceding reminiscences where
+they seemed to come in aptly. Each of the four had very different
+characteristics, and I fancy they did not agree very well together.
+All have long since gone to their rest; peace be with them! Four is an
+awkwardly small number for a mess-table of equals; friction is
+emphasized by narrowness of sphere. "I didn't like the man," said the
+boatswain afterwards to me of the sailmaker, narrating the destruction
+of the _Congress_; "but he is brave, brave as can be. Getting the
+wounded over the side to put them ashore, he was as cool as though
+nothing was happening. The great guns weren't so bad," he
+continued--"but the rifle-bullets that came singing along in clouds
+like mosquitoes! Yah!" he used to snap, each time he told me the tale,
+slapping his ears right and left, as one does at the hum of those
+intrusive insects. He did not like the carpenter, either, for reasons
+of another kind. They were both humorists, but of a different order.
+Indeed, I don't think that the boatswain, though slightly sardonic in
+expression, suspected himself of humor; but he really came at times
+pretty close to wit, if that be a perception of incongruities, as I
+have heard said. He was telling one day of some mishap that befell a
+vessel, wherein the officer in charge showed the happy blending of
+composure and ignorance we sometimes find; a condition concerning
+which a sufferer once said of himself, "I never open my mouth but I
+put my foot in it;" a confusion of metaphor, and suggestion of
+physical contortion, not often so neatly combined in a dozen words.
+The boatswain commented: "He didn't mind. He didn't know what to do,
+but there he stood, looking all the time as happy as a duck
+barefooted." A duck shod, and the consequent expression of its
+countenance, presents to my mind infinite entertainment. Our first
+lieutenant, under whom immediately he worked, was a great trial to
+him. He was an elderly man, as first lieutenants of big ships were
+then, great with the paint-brush and tar-pot, traces of which were
+continually surprising one's clothes; mighty also in that lavish
+swashing of sea-water which is called washing decks, and in the
+tropics is not so bad; but otherwise, while he was one of the
+kindliest of men, the go was pretty well out of him. "Yes," the
+boatswain used to say grimly,--he seldom smiled,--"the first
+lieutenant is like an old piece of soap--half wore out. Go day, come
+day, God send Sunday; that's he."
+
+The carpenter, on the other hand, was always on a broad grin--or
+rather roar. He breathed farce, both in story and feature. Unlike the
+boatswain, who was middle-sized and very trig, as well as scrupulously
+neat, the carpenter was over six feet, broad in proportion, with big,
+round, red, close-shaven face, framed with abundance of white hair. He
+looked not unlike one's fancies of the typical English yeoman, while
+withal having a strong Yankee flavor. Wearing always a frock-coat,
+buttoned up as high as any one then buttoned, he carried with it a
+bluff heartiness of manner, which gave an impression of solidity not,
+I fear, wholly sustained on demand. There was no such doubt about the
+fun, however, or his own huge enjoyment of his own stories,
+accompanied by a running fire of guffaws, which pointed the
+appreciation we easily gave. But it was all of the same character,
+broad farce; accounts of mishaps such as befall in children's
+pantomimes,--which their seniors enjoy, too,--practical jokes equally
+ludicrous, and resulting situations to match. Comical as such tales
+were at the time, and many a pleasant pipeful of Lynchburg tobacco in
+Powhatan clay though they whiled away, they lacked the catching and
+fixing power of the boatswain's shrewd sayings. I can remember
+distinctly only one, of two small midshipmen, shipmates of his in a
+sloop-of-war of long-gone days, who had a deadly quarrel, calling for
+blood. A duel ashore might in those times have been arranged, unknown
+to superiors--they often were; but the necessity for speedy
+satisfaction was too urgent, and they could not wait for the end of
+the voyage. Consequently, they determined to fight from the two ends
+of the spritsail-yard, a horizontal spar which crossed the bowsprit
+end, and gave, or could admit, the required number of paces. Seconds,
+I presume, were omitted; they might have attracted unnecessary
+attention, and on the yard would have been in the way of shot, unless
+they sat behind their several principals, like damsels on a pillion.
+So these two mites, procuring each a loaded pistol, crawled out
+quietly to their respective places, straddled the yard, and were
+proceeding to business, when the boatswain caught sight of them from
+his frequent stand-point between the knightheads. He ran out, got
+between them in the line of fire, and from this position of tactical
+advantage, having collared first one and then the other, brought them
+both in on the forecastle, where he knocked their heads together. The
+last action, I fancy, must be considered an embellishment, necessary
+to the dramatic completeness of the incident, though it may at least
+be admitted it would not have been incongruous. In telling this
+occurrence, which, punctuated by his own laughter, bore frequent
+repetition, the carpenter used to give the names of the heroes. One I
+have forgotten. The other I knew in after life and middle-age, still
+small of stature, with a red face, in outline much like a paroquet's.
+He was not a bad fellow; but his first lieutenant, a very competent
+critic, used to say that what he did not know of seamanship would fill
+a large book.
+
+At first thought it seems somewhat singular that the six lieutenants
+of the ship presented no such aggregate of idiosyncrasies as did the
+four warrant officers. It was not by any means because we did not know
+them well, and mingle among them with comparative frequency.
+Midshipmen, we travelled from one side to the other; here at home,
+there guests, but to both admitted freely. But, come to think of it
+more widely, the distinction I here note must have had a foundation in
+conditions. My acquaintance with Marryat, who lived the naval life as
+no other sea author has, is now somewhat remote, but was once intimate
+as well as extensive; and recollection deceives me if the same remark
+does not apply to his characters. He has a full gallery of captains
+and lieutenants, each differing from the other; but his greatest
+successes in portrayal, those that take hold of the memory, are his
+warrant officers--boatswains, gunners, and carpenters. The British
+navy did not give sailmakers this promotion. By-products though they
+are, rather than leading characters, Boatswain Chucks, whom Marryat
+takes off the stage midway, as though too much to sustain to the end,
+Carpenter Muddle, and Gunner Tallboys, with his aspirations towards
+navigating, sketched but briefly and in bold outline as they are,
+survive most of their superiors in clear individuality and amusing
+eccentricity. Peter Simple, and even Jack Easy himself, whose traits
+are more personal than nautical, are less vivid to memory. Cooper
+also, who caricatures rather than reproduces life, seeks here his
+fittest subjects--Boltrope and Trysail--warrant masters, superior in
+grade indeed to the others, but closely identified with them on board
+ship, and essentially of the same class. Such coincidence betokens a
+more pronounced individuality in the subject-matter. There have been
+particular eccentric commissioned officers, of whom quaint stories
+have descended; but in early days, originality was the class-mark of
+those of whom I am speaking, as many an anecdote witnesses. I fancy
+few will have seen this, which I picked up in my miscellaneous
+nautical readings. A boatswain, who had been with Cook in his voyages,
+chanced upon one of those fervent Methodist meetings common in the
+eighteenth century. The preacher, in illustration of the abundance of
+the Divine mercy, affirmed that there was hope for the worst, even for
+the boatswain of a man-of-war; whereupon the boatswain sprang to the
+platform and administered a drubbing. True or not, offence and
+punishment testify to public estimate as to character and action; to a
+natural exaggeration of feature which lends itself readily to
+reproduction. This was due, probably, to a more contracted sphere in
+early life, and afterwards less of that social opportunity, in the
+course of which angular projections are rounded off and personal
+peculiarities softened by various contact. The same cause would
+naturally occasion more friction and disagreement among themselves.
+
+Thus the several lieutenants of our frigate call for no special
+characterization. If egotism, the most amusing of traits where it is
+not offensive, existed among them to any unusual degree, it was
+modified and concealed by the acquired exterior of social usage. Their
+interests also were wider. With them, talk was less of self and
+personal experience, and more upon subjects of general interest,
+professional or external; the outlook was wider. But while all this
+tended to make them more instructive, and in so far more useful
+companions, it also took from the salt of individuality somewhat of
+its pungency. It did not fall to them, either, to become afterwards
+especially conspicuous in the nearing War of Secession. They were good
+seamen and gallant men; knew their duty and did it; but either
+opportunity failed them, or they failed opportunity; from my knowledge
+of them, probably the former. As Nelson once wrote: "A sea officer
+cannot form plans like those of a land officer; his object is to
+embrace the happy moment which now and then offers; it may be this
+day, not for a month, and perhaps never." So also Farragut is reported
+to have said of a conspicuous shortcoming: "Every man has one chance;
+he has had his and lost it." Certainly, by failure that man lost
+promotion with its chances. It is somewhat congruous to this train of
+thought that Smith, whom I have so often mentioned, said one day to
+me: "If I had a son (he was unmarried), I would put him in the navy
+without hesitation. I believe there is a day coming shortly when the
+opportunities for a naval officer will exceed any that our country has
+yet known." He did not say what contingencies he had in mind; scarcely
+those of the War of Secession, large looming though it already was,
+for, like most of us, he doubtless refused to entertain that sorrowful
+possibility. As with many a prophecy, his was of wider scope than he
+thought; and, though in part fulfilled, more yet remains on the laps
+of the gods. He himself, perhaps the ablest of this group, was cut off
+too early to contribute more than an heroic memory; but that must live
+in naval annals, enshrined in his father's phrase, along with Craven's
+"After you, pilot," when the _Tecumseh_ sank.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+MY FIRST CRUISE AFTER GRADUATION--NAUTICAL SCENES AND SCENERY--THE
+APPROACH OF DISUNION
+
+1859-1861
+
+
+The absence of the _Congress_ lasted a little over two years, the
+fateful two years in which the elements of strife in the United States
+were sifting apart and gathering in new combinations for the
+tremendous outbreak of 1861. The first battle of Bull Run had been
+fought before she again saw a home port. The cruise offered little
+worthy of special note. This story is one of commonplaces; but they
+are the commonplaces of conditions which have passed away forever, and
+some details are worthy to be not entirely forgotten, now that the
+life has disappeared. We were in contact with it in all its forms and
+phases; being, as midshipmen, utilized for every kind of miscellaneous
+and nondescript duty. Our captain interfered very little with us
+directly, and I might almost say washed his hands of us. The
+regulations required that at the expiry of a cruise the commander of a
+vessel should give his midshipmen a letter, to be presented to the
+board of examiners before whom they were shortly to appear. Ours,
+while certifying to our general correct behavior--personal rather than
+official--limited himself, on the score of professional
+accomplishments, which should have been under constant observance, to
+saying that, as we were soon to appear before a board, the intent of
+which would be to test them, he forbore an opinion. This was even
+more non-committal than another captain, whose certificates came under
+my eye when myself a member of a board. In these, after some very
+cautious commendation on the score of conduct, he added, "I should
+have liked the display of a little more zeal." Zeal, the readers of
+_Midshipman Easy_ will remember, is the naval universal solvent.
+Although liable at times to be misplaced, as Easy found, it is not so
+suspicious a quality as Talleyrand considered it to be in diplomacy.
+
+Our captain's zeal for our improvement confined itself to putting us
+in three watches; that is, every night we had to be on deck and duty
+through one of the three periods, of four hours each, into which the
+sea night is divided. Of this he made a principle, and in it doubtless
+found the satisfaction of a good conscience; he had done all that
+could be expected, at least by himself. I personally agree with Basil
+Hall; upon the whole, watch keeping pays, yields more of interest than
+of disagreeables. It must be conceded that it was unpleasant to be
+waked at midnight in your warm hammock, told your hour was come, that
+it was raining and blowing hard, that another reef was about to be
+taken in the topsails and the topgallant yards sent on deck.
+Patriotism and glory seemed very poor stimulants at that moment. Still
+half asleep, you tumbled, somewhat literally, out of the hammock on to
+a deck probably wet, dressed by a dim, single-wick swinging lantern,
+which revealed chiefly what you did not want, or by a candle which had
+to be watched with one eye lest it roll over and, as once in my
+experience happened, set fire to wood-work. Needless to say, electric
+lights then were not. Dressed in storm-clothes about as conducive to
+agility as a suit of mediaeval armor, and a sou'wester which caught at
+every corner you turned, you forced your way up through two successive
+tarpaulin-covered hatches, by holes just big enough to pass, pushing
+aside the tarpaulin with one hand while the other steadied yourself.
+And if there were no moon, how black the outside was, to an eye as yet
+adjusted only to the darkness visible of the lanterns below! Except a
+single ray on the little book by which the midshipman mustered the
+watch, no gleam of artificial light was permitted on the
+spar--upper--deck; the fitful flashes dazzled more than they helped.
+You groped your way forward with some certainty, due to familiarity
+with the ground, and with more certainty of being jostled and trampled
+by your many watch-mates, quite as blind and much more sleepy than
+their officers could afford to be. The rain stung your face; the wind
+howled in your ears and drowned your voice; the men were either intent
+on going below, or drowsy and ill-reconciled to having to come on
+deck; in either case inattentive and hard to move for some moments.
+
+In truth, the fifteen minutes attending the change of a watch were a
+period not only of inconvenience, but of real danger too rarely
+appreciated. I remember one of the smartest seamen and officers of the
+old navy speaking feelingly to me of the anxiety those instants often
+caused him. The lieutenant of an expiring watch too frequently would
+postpone some necessary step, either from personal indolence or from a
+good-natured indisposition to disturb the men, who when not needed to
+work slept about the decks--except, of course, the lookouts and wheel.
+The other watch will soon be coming up, he would argue; let them do
+it, before they settle down to sleep. There were times, such as a
+slowly increasing gale, which might justify delay; especially if the
+watch had had an unusual amount of work. But tropical squalls, which
+gather quickly and sweep down with hurricane force, are another
+matter; and it was of these the officer quoted spoke, suggesting that
+possibly such an experience had caused the loss of one of our large,
+tall-sparred sloops-of-war, the _Albany_, which in 1854 disappeared in
+the West Indies. The men who have been four hours on deck are
+thinking only of their hammocks; their reliefs are not half awake, and
+do not feel they are on duty until the watch is mustered. All are
+mingled together; the very numbers of a ship of war under such
+circumstances impede themselves and their officers. I remember an
+acquaintance of mine telling me that once on taking the trumpet, the
+outward and visible sign of "the deck being relieved," his
+predecessor, after "turning over the night orders," said, casually,
+"It looks like a pretty big squall coming up there to windward," and
+incontinently dived below. "I jumped on the horse-block," said the
+narrator, "and there it was, sure enough, coming down hand over fist.
+I had no time to shorten sail, but only to put the helm up and get her
+before it;" an instance in point of what an old gray-haired instructor
+of ours used to say, with correct accentuation, "Always the hellum
+first."
+
+But, when you were awake, what a mighty stimulus there was in the salt
+roaring wind and the pelting rain! how infectious the shout of the
+officer of the deck! the answering cry of the topmen aloft--the "Haul
+out to windward! Together! All!" that reached your ear from the yards
+as the men struggled with the wet, swollen, thrashing canvas,
+mastering it with mighty pull, and "lighting to windward" the
+reef-band which was to be the new head of the sail, ready to the hand
+of the man at the post of honor, the weather caring! How eager and
+absorbing the gaze through the darkness, from deck, to see how they
+were getting on; whether the yard was so braced that the sail lay with
+the wind out of it, really slack for handling, though still bellying
+and lifting as the ship rolled, or headed up or off; whether this rope
+or that which controlled the wilful canvas needed another pull. But if
+the yard itself had not been laid right, it was too late to mend it.
+To start a brace with the men on the spar might cause a jerk that
+would spill from it some one whose both hands were in the work,
+contrary to the sound tradition, "One hand for yourself and one for
+the owners." I believe the old English phrase ran, "One for yourself
+and one for the king." Then, when all was over and snug once more, the
+men down from aloft, the rigging coiled up again on its pins, there
+succeeded the delightful relaxation from work well done and finished,
+the easy acceptance of the quieting yet stimulating effect of the
+strong air, enjoyed in indolence; for nothing was more unoccupied than
+the seaman when the last reef was in the topsails and the ship
+lying-to.
+
+Talking of such sensations, and the idle _abandon_ of a whole gale of
+wind after the ship is secured, I wonder how many of my readers will
+have seen the following ancient song. I guard myself from implying the
+full acquiescence of seamen in what is, of course, a caricature; few
+seamen, few who have tried, really enjoy bad weather. Yet there are
+exceptions. That there is no accounting for tastes is extraordinarily
+true. I once met a man, journeying, who told me he liked living in a
+sleeping-car; than which to me a dozen gales, with their abounding
+fresh air, would be preferable. Yet this ditty does grotesquely
+reproduce the lazy satisfaction and security of the old-timers under
+the conditions:
+
+   "One night came on a hurricane,
+      The sea was mountains rolling,
+    When Barney Buntline turned his quid
+      And said to Billy Bowline,
+    'A strong nor'wester's blowing, Bill:
+      Hark! don't you hear it roar now?
+    Lord help them! how I pities all
+      Unlucky folks on shore now.
+
+   "'Foolhardy chaps, that live in towns,
+      What dangers they are all in!
+    And now lie shaking in their beds,
+      For fear the roof should fall in!
+    Poor creatures, how they envies us,
+      And wishes, I've a notion,
+    For our good luck, in such a storm,
+      To be upon the ocean.
+
+   "'And often, Bill, I have been told
+      How folks are killed, and undone,
+    By overturns of carriages,
+      By fogs and fires in London.
+    We know what risks all landsmen run,
+      From noblemen to tailors:
+    Then, Bill, let us thank Providence
+      That you and I are sailors.'"
+
+Tastes differ as to which of the three night watches is preferable.
+Perhaps some one who has tried will reply they are all alike
+detestable, and, if he be Irish, will add that the only decent watch
+on deck is the watch below--an "all night in." But I also have tried;
+and while prepared to admit that perhaps the pleasantest moment of any
+particular watch is that in which your successor touches his cap and
+says, "I'll relieve you," I still maintain there are abundant and
+large compensations. Particularly for a midshipman, for he had no
+responsibilities. The lieutenant of the watch had always before him
+the possibilities of a mischance; and one very good officer said to me
+he did not believe any lieutenant in the navy felt perfectly
+comfortable in charge of the deck in a heavy gale. Freedom from
+anxiety, however, is a matter of temperament; not by any means
+necessarily of courage, although it adds to courage the invaluable
+quality of not wasting nerve force on difficulties of the imagination.
+A weather-brace may go unexpectedly; a topsail-sheet part; an awkward
+wave come on board. Very true; but what is the use of worrying,
+unless you are constitutionally disposed to worry. If you are
+constitutionally so disposed, I admit there is not much use in
+talking. Illustrative of this, the following story has come down of
+two British admirals, both men of proved merit and gallantry. "When
+Howe was in command of the Channel Fleet, after a dark and boisterous
+night, in which the ships had been in some danger of running foul of
+each other, Lord Gardner, then the third in command, the next day went
+on board the _Queen Charlotte_ and inquired of Lord Howe how he had
+slept, for that he himself had not been able to get any rest from
+anxiety of mind. Lord Howe said he had slept perfectly well, for, as
+he had taken every possible precaution he could before dark, he laid
+himself down with a conscious feeling that everything had been done
+which it was in his power to do for the safety of the ships and of the
+lives intrusted to his care, and this conviction set his mind at
+ease." The apprehensiveness with which Gardner was afflicted "is
+further exemplified by an anecdote told by Admiral Sir James Whitshed,
+who commanded the _Alligator_, next him in the line. Such was his
+anxiety, even in ordinary weather, that, though each ship carried
+three poop lanterns, he always kept one burning in his cabin, and when
+he thought the _Alligator_ was approaching too near, he used to run
+out into the stern gallery with the lantern in his hand, waving it so
+as to be noticed." My friend above quoted had only recently quitted a
+brig-of-war, on board which he had passed several night watches with a
+man standing by the lee topsail-sheet, axe in hand, to cut if she went
+over too far, lest she might not come back; and the circumstance had
+left an impression. I do not think he was much troubled in this way on
+board our frigate; yet the _Savannah_, but little smaller than the
+_Congress_, had been laid nearly on her beam-ends by a sudden squall,
+and had to cut, when entering Rio two years before.
+
+Being even at nineteen of a meditative turn, fond of building castles
+in the air, or recalling old acquaintance and _auld lang syne_,--the
+retrospect of youth, though short, seems longer than that of age,--I
+preferred in ordinary weather the mid-watch, from midnight to four.
+There was then less doing; more time and scope to enjoy. The canvas
+had long before been arranged for the night. If the wind shifted, or
+necessity for tacking arose, of course it was done; but otherwise a
+considerate officer would let the men sleep, only rousing them for
+imperative reasons. The hum of the ship, the loitering "idlers,"--men
+who do not keep watch,--last well on to ten, or after, in the
+preceding watch; and the officers of the deck in sailing-ships had not
+the reserve--or preserve--which the isolation of the modern bridge
+affords its occupants. Although the weather side of the quarter-deck
+was kept clear for him and the captain, there was continued going and
+coming, and talking near by. He was on the edge of things, if not in
+the midst; while the midshipman of the forecastle had scarce a foot he
+could call his very own. But when the mid-watch had been mustered, the
+lookouts stationed, and the rest of them had settled themselves down
+for sleep between the guns, out of the way of passing feet, the
+forecastle of the _Congress_ offered a very decent promenade,
+magnificent compared to that proverbial of the poops of small
+vessels--"two steps and overboard." Then began the steady pace to and
+fro, which to me was natural and inherited, easily maintained and
+consistent with thought--indeed, productive of it. Not every officer
+has this habit, but most acquire it. I have been told that, however
+weakly otherwise, the calf muscles of watch-officers were generally
+well developed. There were exceptions. A lieutenant who was something
+of a wag on one occasion handed the midshipman of his watch a small
+instrument, in which the latter did not recognize a pedometer. "Will
+you kindly keep this in your trousers-pocket for me till the watch is
+over?" At eight bells he asked for it, and, after examining, said,
+quizzically, "Mr. ----, I see you have walked just half a mile in the
+last four hours." Of course, walking is not imperative, one may watch
+standing; but movement tends to wakefulness--you can drowse upon your
+feet--while to sit down, besides being forbidden by unwritten law, is
+a treacherous snare to young eyelids.
+
+How much a watch afforded to an eye that loved nature! I have been
+bored so often by descriptions of scenery, that I am warned to put
+here a sharp check on my memory, lest it run away with me, and my
+readers seek escape by jumping off. I will forbear, therefore, any
+attempt at portraiture, and merely mention the superb aurora borealis
+which illuminated several nights of the autumn of 1859, perceptibly
+affecting the brightness of the atmosphere, while we lay becalmed a
+little north of the tropics. But other things I shall have some excuse
+for telling; because what my eyes used to see then few mortal eyes
+will see again. Travel will not reach it; for though here and there a
+rare sailing-ship is kept in a navy, for occasional instruction,
+otherwise they have passed away forever; and the exceptions are but
+curiosities--reality has disappeared. They no longer have life, and
+are now but the specimens of the museum. The beauties of a brilliant
+night at sea, whether starlit or moonlit, the solemn, awe-inspiring
+gloom and silence of a clouded, threatening sky, as the steamer with
+dull thud moves at midnight over the waste of waters, these I need not
+describe; many there are that see them in these rambling days. These
+eternities of the heavens and the deep abide as before, are common to
+the steamer as to the sailing-ship; but what weary strain of words can
+restore to imagination the beautiful living creature which leaped
+under our feet and spread her wings above us? For a sailing-ship was
+more inspiring from within than from without, especially a ship of
+war, which, as usually ordered, permitted no slovenliness; abounded in
+the perpetual seemliness that enhances beauty yet takes naught from
+grace. Viewed from without, undeniably a ship under sail possesses
+attraction; but it is from within that you feel the "very pulse of the
+machine." No canvas looks so lofty, speaks so eloquently, as that seen
+from its own deck, and this chiefly has invested the sailing-vessel
+with its poetry. This the steamer, with its vulgar appeal to physical
+comfort, cannot give. Does any one know any verse of real poetry, any
+strong, thrilling idea, suitably voiced, concerning a steamer? I
+do--one--by Clough, depicting the wrench from home, the stern
+inspiration following the wail of him who goeth away to return no
+more:
+
+              "Come back! come back!
+    Back flies the foam; the hoisted flag streams back;
+    The long smoke wavers on the homeward track.
+    Back fly with winds things which the winds obey,
+    _The strong ship follows its appointed way_."
+
+Oddly enough, two of the most striking sea scenes that I remember,
+very different in character, associate themselves with my favorite
+mid-watch. The first was the night on which we struck the northeast
+trade-winds, outward bound. We had been becalmed for nearly, if not
+quite, two weeks in the "horse latitudes;" which take their name,
+tradition asserts, from the days when the West India sugar islands
+depended for live-stock, and much besides, on the British continental
+colonies. If too long becalmed, and water gave out, the unhappy
+creatures had to be thrown overboard to save human lives. On the other
+side of the northeast trades, between them and the southeast, towards
+the equator, lies another zone of calms, the doldrums, from which also
+the _Congress_ this time suffered. We were sixty seven or eight days
+from the Capes of the Delaware to Bahia, a distance, direct, of little
+more than four thousand miles. Of course, there was some beating
+against head wind, but we could not have averaged a hundred miles to
+the twenty-four hours. During much of this passage the allowance of
+fresh water was reduced to two quarts per man, except sick, for all
+purposes of consumption--drinking and cooking. Under such conditions,
+washing had to be done with salt water.
+
+We had worried our weary way through the horse latitudes, embracing
+every flaw of wind, often accompanied by rain, to get a mile ahead
+here, half a dozen miles there; and, as these spurts come from every
+quarter, this involves a lot of bracing--changing the position of the
+yards; continuous work, very different from the placid restfulness of
+a "whole gale" of wind, with everything snug aloft and no chance of
+let-up during the watch. Between these occasional puffs would come
+long pauses of dead calm, in which the midshipman of the watch would
+enter in the log: "1 A.M., 0 knots; 2 A.M., 6 fathoms (3/4 knot); 3
+A.M., 0 knots; 4 A.M., 1 knot, 2 fathoms;" the last representing
+usually a guess of the officer of the deck as to what would make the
+aggregate for the four hours nearly right. It did not matter, for we
+were hundreds of miles from land and the sky always clear for
+observations. Few of the watch got much sleep, because of the
+perpetual bracing; and all the while the ship rolling and sending, in
+the long, glassy ocean swell, unsteadied by the empty sails, which
+swung out with one lurch as though full, and then slapped back all
+together against the masts, with a swing and a jerk and a thud that
+made every spar tremble, and the vessel herself quiver in unison. Nor
+were we alone. Frequently two or three American clippers would be
+hull-up at the same moment within our horizon, bound the same way; and
+it was singular how, despite the apparently unbroken calm, we got away
+from one another and disappeared. Ships lying with their heads "all
+around the compass" flapped themselves along in the direction of their
+bows, the line of least resistance.
+
+I do not know at what hour under such circumstances we had struck the
+trades, but when I came on deck at midnight we had got them steady and
+strong. As there was still a good-deal of casting to make, the ship
+had been brought close to the wind on the port tack; the bowlines
+steadied out, but not dragged, every sail a good rap full, "fast
+asleep," without the tremor of an eyelid, if I may so style a weather
+leach, or of any inch of the canvas, from the royals down to the
+courses. Every condition was as if arranged for a special occasion, or
+to recompense us for the tedium of the horse latitudes. The moon was
+big, and there was a clear sky, save for the narrow band of tiny
+clouds, massed like a flock of sheep, which ever fringes the horizon
+of the trades; always on the horizon, as you progress, yet never
+visible above when the horizon of this hour has become the zenith of
+the next. After the watch was mustered and the lookouts stationed,
+there came perfect silence, save for the slight, but not ominous,
+singing of the wind through the rigging, and the dash of the water
+against the bows, audible forward though not aft. The seamen, not
+romantically inclined, for the most part heeded neither moon nor sky
+nor canvas. The vivid, delicate tracery of the shrouds and ruining
+gear, the broader image of the sails, shadowed on the moonlit deck,
+appealed not to them. Recognizing only that we had a steady wind, no
+more bracing to-night, and that the most that could happen would be to
+furl the royals should it freshen, they hastened to stow themselves
+away for a full due between the cannon, out of the way of passing
+feet, sure that this watch on deck would be little less good than one
+below. Perhaps there were also visions of "beans to-morrow." I trust
+so.
+
+The lieutenant of the watch, Smith, and I had it all to ourselves;
+unbroken, save for the half-hourly call of the lookouts: "Starboard
+cathead!" "Port cathead!" "Starboard gangway!" "Port gangway!" "Life
+buoy!" He came forward from time to time to take it all in, and to
+see how the light spars were standing, for the ship was heeling eight
+or ten degrees, and racing along, however quietly; but the strain was
+steady, no whipping about from uneasy movement of the vessel, and we
+carried on to the end. Each hour I hove the log and reported: one
+o'clock, eleven knots; two o'clock, eleven; three o'clock,
+eleven--famous going for an old sailing-ship close-hauled. Splendid!
+we rubbed our hands; what a record! But, alas! at four o'clock, ten!
+Commonly, ten used to be a kind of standard of excellence; Nelson once
+wrote, as expressive of an utmost of hopefulness, "If we all went ten
+knots, I should not think it fast enough;" but, puffed up as we had
+been, it was now a sad come-down. Smith looked at me. "Are you _sure_,
+Mr. Mahan?" With the old hand-log, its line running out while the sand
+sped its way through the fourteen-seconds glass, the log-beaver might
+sometimes, by judicious "feeding"--hurrying the line under the plea of
+not dragging the log-chip--squeeze a little more record out of the
+log-line than the facts warranted; and Smith seemed to feel I might
+have done a little better for the watch and for the ship. But in
+truth, when a cord is rushing through your hand at the rate of ten
+miles an hour--fifteen feet a second--you cannot get hold enough to
+hasten the pace. He passed through a struggle of conscience. "Well, I
+suppose I must; log her ten-four." A poor tail to our beautiful kite.
+Ten-four meant ten and a half; for in those primitive days knots were
+divided into eight fathoms. Now they are reckoned by tenths; a small
+triumph of the decimal system, which may also carry cheer to the
+constant hearts of the spelling reformers.
+
+A year later, at like dead of night, I witnessed quite another scene.
+We were then off the mouth of the river La Plata, perhaps two hundred
+miles from shore. We had been a fortnight at sea, cruising; and I have
+always thought that the captain, who was interested in meteorology
+and knew the region, kept us out till we should catch a _pampero_. We
+caught it, and quite up to sample. I had been on deck at 9 P.M., and
+the scene then, save for the force of the wind, was nearly the same as
+that I have just described. The same sail, the same cloudless sky and
+large moon; but we were going only five knots, with a quiet, rippling
+sea, on which the moonbeams danced. Such a scene as Byron doubtless
+had in memory:
+
+   "The midnight moon is weaving
+      Her bright chain o'er the deep;
+    Whose breast is gently heaving
+      Like an infant's asleep."
+
+Having to turn out at twelve, I soon started below; but before
+swinging into my hammock I heard the order to furl the royals and send
+the yards on deck. This startled me, for I had not been watching the
+barometer, as the captain had; and I remember, by the same token, that
+I was then enlarging on the beauties of the outlook above, accompanied
+by some disparaging remarks about what steamers could show, whereupon
+one of our senior officers, over-hearing, called me in, and told me
+quite affably, and in delicate terms, not to make a fool of myself.
+
+But "Linden saw another sight," when I returned to the deck at
+midnight; sharp, I am sure, for I held to the somewhat priggish
+saying, first devised, I imagine, by some wag tired of waiting for his
+successor, "A prompt relief is the pride of a young officer." The
+quartermaster, who called me and left the lantern dimly burning, had
+conveyed the comforting assurance that it looked very bad on deck, and
+the second reef was just taking in the topsails. When I got to my
+station, the former watch was still aloft, tying their last
+reef-points, from which they soon straggled down, morosely conscious
+that they had lost ten minutes of their one watch below, and would
+have to be on deck again at four. The moon was still up, but, as it
+were, only to emphasize the darkness of the huge cloud masses which
+scudded across the sky, with a rapid but steady gait, showing that the
+wind meant business. The new watch was given no more time than to wake
+up and shake themselves. They were soon on the yards, taking the third
+and fourth-last--reefs in the fore and main topsails, furling the
+mizzen, and seeing that the lower sails and topgallant-sails were
+securely rolled up against the burst that was to be expected. Before
+1.30 A.M. all things were as ready as care could make them, and not
+too soon. The moon was sinking, or had sunk; the sky darkened
+steadily, though not beyond that natural to a starless night. In the
+southwest faint glimmerings of lightning gave warning of what might be
+looked for; but we had used light well while we had it, and could now
+bear what was to come. At 2 P.M. it came with a roar and a rush,
+"butt-end foremost," as the saying is, preceded by a few huge drops of
+scurrying rain.
+
+   "When the rain before the wind,
+    Topsail sheets and halyards mind;"
+
+but that was for other conditions than ours.
+
+A pampero at its ordinary level is no joke; but this was the charge of
+a wild elephant, which would exhaust itself soon, but for the nonce
+was terrific. Pitch darkness settled down upon the ship. Except in the
+frequent flashes of lightning, literally blue, I could not see the
+forecastle boatswain's mate of the watch, who stood close by my elbow,
+ready pipe in hand. The rain came down in buckets, and in the midst of
+all the wind suddenly shifted, taking the sails flat aback. The
+shrillness of the boatswain's pipes is then their great merit. They
+pierce through the roar of the tempest, by sheer difference of pitch,
+an effect one sometimes hears in an opera; and the officer of the
+deck, our second lieutenant, who bore the name of Andrew Jackson, and
+was said to have received his appointment from him--which shows how
+far back he went--had a voice of somewhat the same quality. I had
+often heard it assert itself, winding in and out through the uproar of
+an ordinary gale, but on this occasion it went clean away--whistled
+down the wind. "I always think bad of it," said Boatswain Chucks,
+"when the elements won't allow my whistle to be heard; and I consider
+it hardly fair play." Such advantage the elements took of us on this
+occasion, but the captain came to the rescue. He had the throat of a
+bull of Bashan, which went the elements one better on their own hand.
+Under his stentorian shouts the weather head-braces were led along
+(probably already had been, as part of the preparation, but that was
+quarter-deck work, outside my knowledge) and manned. All other gear
+being coiled out of the way, on the pins, there was nothing to confuse
+or entangle; the fore topsail was swung round on the opposite tack
+from the main, a-box, to pay the ship's head off and leave her side to
+the wind, steadied by the close-reefed fore and main topsails, which
+would then be filled. She was now, of course, going astern fast; but
+this mattered nothing, for the sea had not yet got up. The evolution,
+common enough itself, an almost invariable accompaniment of getting
+under way, was now exciting even to grandeur, for we could see only
+when the benevolent lightning kindled in the sky a momentary glare of
+noonday. "Now that's a clever old man," said the boatswain's mate next
+day to me, approvingly, of the captain; "boxing her off that way, with
+all that wind and blackness, was handsomely done." After this we
+settled down to a two days' pampero, with a huge but regular sea.
+
+Whether the _Congress's_ helm on this interesting occasion was shifted
+for sternboard I never inquired. Marryat tells us it was a moot point
+in his young days. Our captain was an excellent seaman, but had
+'doxies of his own. Of these, one which ran contrary to current
+standards was in favor of clewing up a course or topsail to leeward,
+in blowing weather. Among the lieutenants was a strong champion of the
+opposite and accepted dogma, and a messmate of mine, in his division
+and shining by reflected light, was always prompt to enforce closure
+of debate by declaiming:
+
+   "He who seeks the tempest to disarm
+    Will never first embrail the lee yard-arm."
+
+Whether Falconer, besides being a poet, was also an expert in
+seamanship, or whether he simply registered the views of his day, may
+be questioned. The two alternatives, I fancy, were the chance of
+splitting the sail, and that of springing the yard; and any one who
+has ever watched a big bag of wind whipping a weather yard-arm up and
+down in its bellying struggles, after clewing up to windward, will
+have experienced as eager a desire to call it down as he has ever felt
+to suppress its congener in an after-dinner oration. Both are much out
+of place and time.
+
+Days of the past! Certainly a watch spent reefing topsails in the rain
+was less tedious than that everlasting bridge of to-day: Tramp! Tramp!
+or stand still, facing the wind blowing the teeth down your throat.
+Nothing to do requiring effort; the engine does all that; but still a
+perpetual strain of attention due to the rapid motion of vessels under
+steam. The very slowness of sailing-ships lightened anxiety. In such a
+gale you might as well be anxious in a wheel-chair. And then, when you
+went below, you went, not bored, but healthfully tired with active
+exertion of mind and body. Yes; the sound was sweet then, at eight
+bells, the pipe, pipe, pipe, pipe of the boatswain's mates, followed
+by their gruff voices drawling out, in loud sing-song: "A-a-a-all the
+starboard watch! Come! turn out there! Tumble out! Tumble out! Show a
+leg! Show a leg! On deck there! all the starboard watch!" When I went
+below that morning with the port watch, at four o'clock, I turned over
+to my relief a forecastle on which he would have nothing to do but
+drink his coffee at daylight.
+
+That daylight coffee of the morning watch, chief of its charms, need
+not be described to the many who have experienced the difference
+between the old man and the new man of before and after coffee. The
+galley (kitchen) fire of ships of war used to be started at seven
+bells of the mid-watch (3.30 A.M.); and the officers, and most of the
+men, who next came on duty, managed to have coffee, the latter
+husbanding their rations to this end. Since those days a benevolent
+regulation has allowed an extra ration of coffee to the crew for this
+purpose, so that no man goes without, or works the morning watch on an
+empty stomach. For the morning watch was very busy. Then, on several
+days of the week, the seamen washed their clothes. Then the upper deck
+was daily scrubbed; sometimes the mere washing off the soap-suds left
+from the clothes, sometimes with brooms and sand, sometimes the solemn
+ceremony of holy-stoning with its monotonous musical sound of
+grinding. Along with these, dovetailed in as opportunity offered, in a
+sailing-ship under way there went on the work of readjusting the yards
+and sails; a pull here and a pull there, like a woman getting herself
+into shape after sitting too long in one position. Yards trimmed to a
+nicety; the two sheets of each sail close home alike; all the canvas
+taut up, from the weather-tacks of the courses to the weather-earings
+of the royals; no slack weather-braces, or weather-leaches, letting a
+bight of loose canvas sag like an incipient double chin. When these
+and a dozen other little details had remedied the disorders of the
+night, due to the invariable slacking of cordage under strain, the
+ship was fit for any eye to light on, like a conscious beauty going
+forth conquering and to conquer. I doubt the crew grumbled and d----d
+a little under their breath, for the process was tedious; yet it was
+not only a fad, but necessary, and the deck-officer who habitually
+neglected it might possibly rise to an emergency, but was scarcely
+otherwise worth his salt. In my humble judgment, he had better have
+worn a frock-coat unbuttoned.
+
+Occupation in plenty was not the only solace of a morning watch; at
+least in the trades. While the men were washing their clothes, the
+midshipman of the watch, amid the exhilaration of his coffee, and with
+the cool sea-water careering over his bare feet, had ample leisure to
+watch the break of day: the gradual lighting up of the zenith, the
+rosy tints gathering and growing upon the tiny, pearly trade-clouds of
+which I have spoken, the blue of the water gradually revealing itself,
+laughing with white-caps, like the Psalmist's valleys of corn; until
+at last the sun appeared, never direct from the sea, but from these
+white cloud banks which extend less than five degrees above it. Such a
+scene presents itself day after day, day after day, monotonous but
+never wearisome, to a vessel running down the trades; that is,
+steering from east to west, with fixed, fair breeze, as I have more
+than once had the happiness to do. Then, as the saying was, a
+fortnight passed without touching brace or tack, because no change of
+wind; a slight exaggeration, for frequent squalls required the canvas
+to be handled, but substantially true in impression. Balmy weather and
+a steady gait, rarely more than seven or eight knots--less than two
+hundred miles a day; but who would be in haste to quit such
+conditions, where the sun rose astern daily with the joy of a giant
+running his course, bringing assurance of prosperity, and sank to rest
+ahead smiling, again behind the dimpling clouds which he tinged like
+mother-of-pearl.
+
+Such was not our lot in the _Congress_, for we were bound south,
+across the trades. This, with some bad luck, brought us close-hauled,
+that we might pass the equator nothing to the westward of thirty
+degrees of west longitude; otherwise we might fall to leeward of Cape
+St. Roque. This ominous phrase meant that we might be so far to the
+westward that the southeast trades, when reached, would not let the
+ship pass clear of this easternmost point of Brazil on one stretch;
+that we would strike the coast north of it and have to beat round,
+which actually happened. Consequently we never had a fair wind, to set
+a studding-sail, till we were within three or four days of Bahia. This
+encouraging incident, the first of the kind since the ship went into
+commission, also befell in one of my mid-watches, and an awful mess
+our unuse made of it. All the gear seemed to be bent with a half-dozen
+round turns; the stun'sail-yards went aloft wrong end uppermost,
+dangling in the most extraordinary and wholly unmanageable attitudes;
+everything had to be done over and over again, till at last the case
+looked desperate. Finally the lieutenant of the watch came forward in
+wrath. He was a Kentuckian, very competent, ordinarily very
+good-tempered; but there was red in his hair. When he got sufficiently
+near he tucked the speaking-trumpet under his arm, where it looked
+uncommonly like a fat cotton umbrella, himself suggesting a farmer
+inspecting an intended purchase, and in this posture delivered to us a
+stump speech on our shortcomings. This, I fear, I will have to leave
+to the reader's imagination. It would require innumerable dashes, and
+even so the emphasis would be lost. My relief had cause to be pleased
+that those stun'sails were set by four o'clock, when he came on deck.
+Ours the labor, his the reward.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few days more saw us in Bahia; and with our arrival on the station
+began a round of duties and enjoyments which made life at twenty
+pleasant enough, both in the passage and in retrospect, but which
+scarcely afford material for narration. Our two chief ports, Rio de
+Janeiro and Montevideo, were then remote and provincial. They have
+become more accessible and modern; but at the time of my last
+visit--already over thirty years ago--they had lost in local color and
+particular attraction as much as they had gained in convenience and
+development. Street-cars, double-ended American ferry-boats, electric
+lights, and all the other things for which these stand, are doubtless
+good; but they make places seem less strange and so less interesting.
+But I suppose there must still be in the business streets that
+pervading odor of rum and sugar which tells that you are in the
+tropics; still there must be the delicious hot calm of the early
+morning, before the sea-breeze sets in, the fruit-laden boats plying
+over the still waters to the ships of war; still that brilliant access
+of life and animation which comes sparkling in with the sea-breeze,
+and which can be seen in the offing, approaching, long before it
+enters the bay. The balance of better and worse will be variously
+estimated by various minds. The magnificent scenery of Rio remains,
+and must remain, short of earthquake; the Sugar Loaf, the distant
+Organ mountains, the near, high, surrounding hills, the numerous
+bights and diversified bluffs, which impart continuous novelty to the
+prospect. It is surprising that in these days of travel more do not go
+just to see that sight, even if they never put foot on shore; though I
+would not commend the omission. I see, too, in the current newspapers,
+that Secretary Root has attributed to the women of Uruguay to-day the
+charm which we youngsters then found in those who are now their
+grand-mothers. As Mr. Secretary cannot be very far from my own age, we
+have here the mature confirmation of an impression which otherwise
+might be attributed to the facility of youth.
+
+An interesting, though not very important, reminiscence of things now
+passed away was the coming and going of numerous vessels, usually
+small, carrying the commercial flags of the Hanse cities, Bremen,
+Hamburg, and Lubeck, now superseded on the ocean by that of the German
+Empire. Scarcely a morning watch which did not see in its earlier
+hours one or more of these stealing out of port with the tail of the
+land breeze. These remnants of the "Easterlings," a term which now
+survives only in "sterling," were mostly small brigs of some two
+hundred tons, noticeable mainly for their want of sheer; that is,
+their rails, and presumably their decks, were level, without rise at
+the extremities such as most vessels show.
+
+Up to the middle of the last century, Rio, thanks probably to its
+remoteness, had escaped the yellow-fever. But the soil and climate
+were propitious; and about 1850 it made good a footing which it never
+relinquished. At the time of our cruise it was endemic, and we
+consequently spent there but two or three months of the cooler season,
+June to September. Even so, visiting the city was permitted to only a
+few selected men of the foremast hands. The habits of the seamen were
+still those of a generation before, and drink, with its consequent
+reckless exposure, was a right-hand man to Yellow Jack. All shore
+indulgence was confined to Montevideo, where we spent near half of the
+year; and being limited to one or two occasions only, of two or three
+days duration each, it was signalized by those excesses which, in
+conjunction with the absence of half the crew at once, put an end to
+all ordinary routine and drill on board. My friend, the captain of the
+forecastle, who apprehended that the Southern leaders would lose their
+property, a self-respecting, admirably behaved man in ordinary times,
+was usually hoisted on board by a tackle when he returned: for
+Montevideo affords only an open roadstead for big ships, and
+frequently a rough sea. The story ran that he secured a room on going
+ashore, provided for the safety of his money, bought a box of gin,
+and went to bed. This I never verified; but I remember a nautical
+philosopher among the crew enlarging, in my hearing, on the folly of
+drink. To its morality he was indifferent; but from sad experience he
+avouched that it incapacitated you for other enjoyments, regular and
+irregular, and that he for one should quit. To-day things are
+changed--revolutionized. There may be ports too sickly to risk lives
+in; but the men to be selected now are the few who cannot be trusted,
+the percentage which every society contains. This result will be
+variously interpreted. Some will attribute it to the abolition of the
+grog ration, the removal of temptation, a change of environment.
+Others will say that the extension of frequent leave, and consequent
+opportunity, has abolished the frenzied inclination to make the
+most--not the best--of a rare chance; has renewed men from within.
+Personally, I believe the last. Together with the gradual rise of tone
+throughout society, rational liberty among seamen has resulted in
+rational indulgence. "Better England free than England sober."
+
+In the end it was from Montevideo that we sailed for home in June,
+1861. During the preceding six months, mail after mail brought us
+increasing ill tidings of the events succeeding the election of
+Lincoln. Somewhere within that period a large American steamboat, of
+the type then used on Long Island Sound, arrived in the La Plata for
+passenger and freight service between Montevideo and Buenos Ayres. Her
+size and comfort, her extensive decoration and expanses of gold and
+white, unknown hitherto, created some sensation, and gave abundant
+supply to local paragraphists. Her captain was a Southerner, and his
+wife also; of male and female types. He commented to me briefly, but
+sadly, "Yes, we have now two governments"; but she was all aglow.
+Never would she lay down arms; M. Ollivier's light heart was "not in
+it" with hers; her countenance shone with joy, except when clouded
+with contempt for the craven action of the _Star of the West_, a
+merchant-steamer with supplies for Fort Sumter which had turned back
+before the fire of the Charleston batteries. Never could she have done
+such a thing. What influence women wield, and how irresponsible! And
+they want votes!
+
+In feeling, most of us stood where this captain did, sorrowful,
+perplexed; but in feeling only, not in purpose. We knew not which
+became us most, grief, or stern satisfaction that at last a doubtful
+matter was to be settled by arms; but, with one or two exceptions,
+there was no hesitancy, I believe, on the part of the officers as to
+the side each should take. There were four pronounced Southerners: two
+of them messmates of mine, from New Orleans. The other two were the
+captain and lieutenant of marines. None of these was extreme, except
+the captain, whom, though well on in middle life, I have seen stamp up
+and down raging with excitement. On one occasion, so violent was his
+language that I said to him he would do well to put ice to his head;
+an impertinence, considering our relative ages, but almost warranted.
+I think that he possibly took over the lieutenant, who was from a
+border State, and, like the midshipmen, rather sobered than
+enthusiastic at the prospects; though these last had no doubts as to
+their own course. There was also a sea lieutenant from the South, who
+said to me that if his State was fool enough to secede, she might go,
+for him; he would not fight against her, but he would not follow her.
+I believe he did escape having to fight in her waters, but he was in
+action on the Union side elsewhere, and, I expect, revised this
+decision. This halting allegiance, thinking to serve two masters, was
+not frequent; but there were instances. Of one such I knew. He told me
+himself that he on a certain occasion had said in company that he
+would not leave the navy, but would try for employment outside the
+country; whereon an officer standing by said to him that that appeared
+a pretty shabby thing, to take pay and dodge duty. The remark sank
+deep; he changed his mind, and served with great gallantry. It seems
+to me now almost an impiety to record, but, knowing my father's warm
+love for the South, I hazarded to the marine captain a doubt as to his
+position. He replied that there could be no doubt whatever. "All your
+father's antecedents are military; there is no military spirit in the
+North; he must come to us." Many Southerners, not by any means most,
+had formed such impressions.
+
+The remainder of the officers were not so much Northern as Union, a
+distinction which meant much in the feeling that underlies action. Our
+second lieutenant, with soberer appreciation of conditions than the
+marine, said to me, "I cannot understand how those others expect to
+win in the face of the overpowering resources of the Northern States."
+The leaders of the Confederacy, too, understood this; and while I am
+sure that expected dissension in the North, and interference from
+Europe, counted for much in their complicated calculations, I imagine
+that the marine's overweighted theory, of incompatibility between the
+mercantile and military temperaments, also entered largely. My
+Kentuckian expressed the characteristic, if somewhat crude, opinion,
+that the two had better fight it out now, till one was well licked;
+after which his head should be punched and he be told to be decent
+hereafter. We had, however, one Northern fire-eater among the
+midshipmen. He was a plucky fellow, but with an odd cast to his eyes
+and a slight malformation, which made his ecstasies of wrath a little
+comical. His denunciations of all half measures, or bounded
+sentiments, quite equalled those of the marine officer on the other
+side. If the two had been put into the same ring, little could have
+been left but a few rags of clothes, so completely did they lose
+their heads; but, as often happens with such champions, their
+harangues descended mostly on quiet men, conveniently known as
+doughfaces.
+
+Doughfaces I suppose we must have been, if the term applied fitly to
+those who, between the alternatives of dissolving the Union and
+fighting one another, were longing to see some third way open out of
+the dilemma. In this sense Lincoln, with his life-long record of
+opposition to the extension of slavery, was a doughface. The marine
+could afford to harden his face, because he believed there would be no
+war--the North would not fight; while the midshipman, rather limited
+intellectually, was happy in a mental constitution which could see but
+one side of a case; an element of force, but not of conciliation. The
+more reflective of my two Southern messmates, a man mature beyond his
+years, said to me sadly, "I suppose there will be bloodshed beyond
+what the world has known for a long time;" but he naturally shared the
+prevalent opinion--so often disproved--that a people resolute as he
+believed his own could not be conquered, especially by a commercial
+community--the proverbial "nation of shopkeepers." Napoleon once had
+believed the same, to his ruin. Commercial considerations undoubtedly
+weigh heavily; but happily sentiment is still stronger than the
+dollar. An amusing instance of the pocket influence, however, came to
+my knowledge at the moment. Our captain's son received notice of his
+appointment as lieutenant of marines, and sailed for home in an
+American merchant-brig shortly before the news came of the firing on
+Fort Sumter. When I next met him in the United States, he told me that
+the brig's captain had been quite warmly Southern in feeling during
+the passage; but when they reached home, and found that Confederate
+privateers had destroyed some merchant-vessels, he went entirely over.
+He had no use for people who would "rob a poor man of his ship and
+cargo."
+
+Our orders home, and tidings of the attack on Fort Sumter, came by the
+same mail, some time in June. There were then no cables. The revulsion
+of feeling was immediate and universal, in that distant community and
+foreign land, as it had been two months before in the Northern States.
+The doughfaces were set at once, like a flint. The grave and reverend
+seigniors, resident merchants, who had checked any belligerent
+utterance among us with reproachful regret that an American should be
+willing to fight Americans, were converted or silenced. Every voice
+but one was hushed, and that voice said, "Fight." I remember a
+tempestuous gathering, an evening or two before we sailed, and one
+middle-aged invalid's excited but despondent wish that he was five
+hundred men. Such ebullitions are common enough in history, for causes
+bad or good. They are to be taken at their true worth; not as a
+dependable pledge of endurance to the end, but as an awakening, which
+differs from that of common times as the blast of the trumpet that
+summoned men at midnight for Waterloo differs from the lazy rubbing of
+the eyes before thrusting one's neck into the collar of a working day.
+The North was roused and united; a result which showed that, wittingly
+or unwittingly, the Union leaders had so played the cards in their
+hands as to score the first trick.
+
+Our passage home was tedious but uneventful. I remember only the
+incident that the flag-officer on one occasion played at old-time
+warfare of his youth, by showing to a passing vessel a Spanish flag
+instead of the American. The common ship life went on as though
+nothing had happened. On an August evening we anchored in Boston lower
+harbor, and Mr. Robert Forbes, then a very prominent character in
+Boston, and in most nautical matters throughout the country, came
+down in a pilot-boat, bringing newspapers to our captain, with whom he
+was intimate. Then we first learned of Bull Run; and properly
+mortified we of the North were, not having yet acquired that
+indifference to a licking which is one of the first steps towards
+success. Some time after the war was over an army officer of the North
+repeated to me the comment on this affair made to him by a Southern
+acquaintance, both being of the aforetime regular army. "I never," he
+said, "saw men as frightened as ours were--except yours." The after
+record of both parties takes all the sting out of these words, without
+lessening the humor.
+
+Immediately upon arrival, the oath of allegiance was tendered, and, of
+course, refused by our four Southerners. They had doubtless sent in
+their resignations; but by that time resignations were no longer
+accepted, and in the following _Navy Register_ they appeared as
+"dismissed." They were arrested on board the ship and taken as
+prisoners to Fort Lafayette. I never again saw any of them; but from
+time to time heard decisively of the deaths of all, save the
+lieutenant of marines. One of the midshipmen drew from my father an
+action which I have delighted to recall as characteristic. He wrote
+from the fort, stating his comradeship with me in the past, and asking
+if he could be furnished with certain military reading, for his
+improvement and to pass time. Though suspicions of loyalty were rife,
+and in those days easily started by the most trivial communication,
+the books were sent. The war had but just ended, when one morning my
+father received a letter expressing thanks, and enclosing money to the
+supposed value of the books. The money was returned; but I, happening
+to be at home, replied on my own account in such manner as a very
+young man would. My father saw the addressed envelope, and
+remonstrated. "Do you think it quite well and prudent to associate
+yourself, at your age and rank, with one so recently in rebellion?
+Will it not injure your standing?" I was not convinced; but I yielded
+to a solicitude which under much more hazardous conditions he had not
+admitted for himself, though known to be a Virginian. Shortly after
+his death, while our sorrow was still fresh, I met a contemporary and
+military intimate of his. "I want," he said, "to tell you an anecdote
+of your father. We were associated on a board, one of the members of
+which had proposed, as his own suggestion, a measure which I thought
+fundamentally and dangerously erroneous. I prepared a paper contesting
+the project and took it to your father. He read it carefully, and
+replied, 'I agree with you entirely; but ---- will never forgive you,
+and he is persistent and unrelenting towards those who thwart him. You
+will make a life-long and powerful enemy. If I were you, I should not
+lay this upon myself.' I gave way to his judgment, and kept back the
+paper; but you may imagine my surprise when at the next meeting he
+took upon himself the burden which he had advised me to shun. He made
+an argument substantially on my lines, and procured the rejection of
+the proposition. The result was a hostility which ceased only with his
+life, but between which and me he had interposed."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+INCIDENTS OF WAR AND BLOCKADE SERVICE
+
+1861-1862
+
+
+The _Congress_, upon her return, was retained in commission, though
+entirely useless, either for fighting or blockade, under modern
+conditions. I suppose there were not yet enough of newer vessels to
+spare her value as a figure-head. She was sent afterwards to Hampton
+Roads, where in the following March she, with another sailing-frigate,
+the _Cumberland_, fell helpless victims to the first Confederate
+iron-clad. The staff of combatant sea officers was much changed; the
+captain, the senior three lieutenants, and the midshipmen being
+detached. Smith, the fourth lieutenant, remained as first; and, in the
+absence of her captain on other duty, commanded and fell at her death
+agony. I was sent first to the _James Adger_, a passenger-steamer then
+being converted in New York for blockade duty, for which she was very
+fit; but in ten days more I was moved on to the _Pocahontas_, a ship
+built for war, a very respectable little steam-corvette, the only one
+of her class--if such a bull as a class of one may be excused. She
+carried one ten-inch gun and four 32-pounders, all smooth-bores. There
+was, besides, one small nondescript rifled piece, upon which we looked
+with more curiosity than confidence. Indeed, unless memory deceive,
+the projectiles from it were quite as apt to go end over end as true.
+It was rarely used.
+
+When I joined, the _Pocahontas_ was lying off the Washington
+Navy-Yard, in the eastern branch of the Potomac, on duty connected
+with the patrol of the river; the Virginia bank of which was occupied
+by the Confederates, who were then erecting batteries to dispute the
+passage of vessels. After one excursion down-stream in this
+employment, the ship was detached to the combined expedition against
+Port Royal, South Carolina, the naval part of which was under the
+command of "Flag-Officer" Dupont. The point of assembly was Hampton
+Roads, whither we shortly proceeded, after filling with stores and
+receiving a new captain, Percival Drayton, a man greatly esteemed in
+the service of the day, and a South-Carolinian. Coincidently with us,
+but independently as to association, the steam-sloop _Seminole_,
+slightly larger, also started. We outstripped her; and as we passed a
+position where the Confederates were believed to be fortifying, our
+captain threw in a half-dozen shells. No reply was made, and we went
+on. Within a half-hour we heard firing behind us, apparently
+two-sided. The ship was turned round and headed up-river. In a few
+minutes we met the _Seminole_, her men still at the guns, a few ropes
+dangling loose, showing that she had, as they say, not been exchanging
+salutes. We had stirred up the hornets, and she had got the benefit;
+quite uselessly, her captain evidently felt, by his glum face and
+short answers to our solicitous hail. He was naturally put out, for no
+good could have come, beyond showing the position of the enemy's guns;
+while an awkward hit might have sent her back to the yard and lost her
+her share in the coming fray, one of the earliest in the war, and at
+that instant the only thing in sight on the naval horizon. As no harm
+resulted, the incident would not be worth mentioning except for a
+second occasion, which I will mention later, in which we gave the
+_Seminole's_ captain cause for grim dissatisfaction.
+
+The gathering of the clans, the ships of war and the transports laden
+with troops, in the lower Chesapeake had of course a strange element
+of excitement; for war, even in its incipiency, was new to almost all
+present, and the enthusiasm aroused by a great cause and approaching
+conflict was not balanced by that solemnizing outlook which experience
+gives. We lived in an atmosphere of blended exaltation and curiosity,
+of present novelty and glowing expectation. But business soon came
+upon us, in its ordinary lines; for we were not two days clear of the
+Capes, in early November, when there came on a gale of exceptional
+violence, the worst of it at midnight. It lasted for forty-eight
+hours, and must have occasioned great anxiety to the heads of the
+expedition; for among the curious conglomerate of heterogeneous
+material constituting both the ships of war and transports there were
+several river steamers, some of them small. Being utterly unpractised
+in such movements, an almost entire dispersal followed; in fact, I
+dare say many of the transport captains asked nothing better than to
+be out of other people's way. The _Pocahontas_ found herself alone
+next morning; but, though small and slow, she was a veritable sea-bird
+for wind and wave. Not so all. One of our extemporized ships of war,
+rejoicing in the belligerent name of _Isaac Smith_, and carrying eight
+fairly heavy guns, which would have told in still water, had to throw
+them all overboard; and her share in the subsequent action was limited
+to a single long piece, rifled I believe, and to towing a
+sailing-corvette in the column.
+
+There were some wrecks and some gallant rescues, the most conspicuous
+of which was that of the battalion of marines, embarked on board the
+_Governor_; a steamer, as I recollect, not strictly of the river
+order, but like those which ply outside on the Boston and Maine coast.
+She went down, but not before her living freight had been removed by
+the sailing-frigate _Sabine_. The first lieutenant of the latter, now
+the senior rear-admiral on the retired list of the navy, soon
+afterwards relieved Drayton in command of the _Pocahontas_; so that I
+then heard at first hand many particulars which I wish I could now
+repeat in his well-deserved honor. His distinguished share in the
+rescue was of common notoriety; the details only we learned from his
+modest but interesting account. The deliverance was facilitated by the
+two vessels being on soundings. The _Governor_ anchored, and then the
+_Sabine_ ahead of her, dropping down close to. The ground-tackle of
+our naval ships, as we abundantly tested during the war, would hold
+through anything, if the bottom let the anchor grip.
+
+With very few exceptions all were saved, officers and privates; but
+their clothes, except those they stood in, were left behind. The
+colonel was a notorious martinet, as well as something of a character;
+and a story ran that one of the subalterns had found himself at the
+start unable to appear in some detail of uniform, his trunks having
+gone astray. "A good soldier never separates from his baggage," said
+the colonel, gruffly, on hearing the excuse. After various adventures,
+common to missing personal effects, the lieutenant's trunks turned up
+at Port Royal. He looked sympathetically at the colonel's shorn plumes
+and meagre array, and said, reproachfully, "Colonel, where are your
+trunks? A good soldier should never separate from his baggage." But,
+doubtless, to follow it to the bottom of the sea would be an excess of
+zeal.
+
+Not long afterwards I was shipmate with an assistant surgeon who had
+been detailed for duty on board the _Governor_, and had passed through
+the scenes of anxiety and confusion preceding the rescue. He told me
+one or two amusing incidents. An order being given to lighten the
+ship, four marines ran into the cabin where he was lying, seized a
+marble-top table, dropped the marble top on deck, and threw the wooden
+legs overboard. There was also on board a very young naval officer,
+barely out of the Academy. He was of Dutch blood and name--from
+central Pennsylvania, I think. Although without much experience, he
+was of the constitutionally self-possessed order, which enabled him to
+be very useful. After a good deal of exertion, he also came into the
+cabin. The surgeon asked him how things looked. "I think she will last
+about half an hour," he replied, and then composedly lay down and went
+to sleep.
+
+There was in the hero of this anecdote a vein of eccentricity even
+then, and he eventually died insane and young. I knew him only
+slightly, but familiarly as to face. He had mild blue eyes and curly
+brown hair, with a constant half-smile in eyes as well as mouth. In
+temperament he was Dutch to the backbone--at least as we imagine
+Dutch. A comical anecdote was told me of him a few years later,
+illustrating his self-possession--cool to impudence. He was serving on
+one of our big steam-sloops, a flag-ship at the time, and had charge
+of working the cables on the gun-deck when anchoring. Going into a
+port where the water was very deep--Rio de Janeiro, I believe--the
+chain cables "got away," as the expression is; control was lost, and
+shackle after shackle tore out of the hawse-holes, leaping and
+thumping, rattling and roaring, stirring a lot of dust besides.
+Indeed, the violent friction of iron against iron in such cases not
+infrequently generates a stream of sparks. The weight of twenty
+fathoms of this linked iron mass hanging outside, aided by the
+momentum already established by the anchor's fall through a hundred
+feet, of course drags after it all that lies unstoppered within. I
+need not tell those who have witnessed such a commotion that the
+orderly silence of a ship of war breaks down somewhat. Every one who
+has any right to speak shouts, and repeats, in rapid succession,
+"Haul-to that chain! Why the something or other don't you haul-to?"
+while the unhappy compressor-men, saving their own wind to help their
+arms, struggle wildly with the situation, under a storm of obloquy.
+The admiral--by this time we had admirals--was a singular man,
+something of a lawyer, acute, thinking he knew just how far he might
+go in any case, and given at times to taking liberties with
+subordinates, which were not to them always as humorous as they seemed
+to him. In this instance he miscalculated somewhat. He was on deck at
+the moment, and when the chain had been at last stopped and secured,
+he said to the captain, "Alfred, send for the young man in charge of
+those chains, and give him a good setting-down. Ask him what he means
+by letting such things happen. Ride him down like a main-tack,
+Alfred--like the main-tack!" The main-tack is the chief rope
+controlling the biggest sail in the ship, and at times, close on the
+wind, it has to be got down into place by the brute force of half a
+hundred men, inch by inch, pull by pull. That is called riding down,
+and is clearly a process the reverse of conciliatory. The Dutchman was
+sent for, and soon his questioning blue eyes appeared over the hatch
+coaming. Alfred--as my own name is Alfred, I may explain that I was
+not that captain--Alfred was a mild person, and clearly did not like
+his job; he could not have come up to the admiral's standard. The
+latter saw it, and intervened: "Perhaps you had better leave it to me.
+I'll settle him." Fixing his eyes on the offender, he said, sternly,
+"What do you mean by this, sir? Why the h--l did you not stop that
+chain?" This exordium was doubtless the prelude to a fit oratorical
+display; but the culprit, looking quietly at him, replied, simply,
+"How the h--l could I?" This was a shift of wind for which the admiral
+was unprepared. He was taken flat back, like a screaming child
+receiving a glass of cold water in his face. After a moment's
+hesitation he turned to the captain, and said meekly, yet with evident
+humorous consciousness of a checkmate, "That's true, Alfred; how the
+h--l could he?"
+
+Still, while the defence implied in the lieutenant's question is
+logically unimpeachable, it does not follow that the method of the
+admiral--as distinct from his manner, which need not be excused--was
+irrational. The impulse of reprimand, applied at the top, where
+ultimate responsibility rests, is transmitted through the intervening
+links down to the actual culprits, and takes effect for future
+occasions. As Marryat in one of his amusing passages says: "The
+master's violence made the boatswain violent, which made the
+boatswain's mate violent, and the captain of the forecastle also; all
+which is practically exemplified by the laws of motion communicated
+from one body to another; and as the master swore, so did the
+boatswain swear, and the boatswain's mate, and the captain of the
+forecastle, and all the men." An entertaining practical use of this
+transmission of energy was made by an acquaintance of mine in China.
+Going to bed one night, he found himself annoyed by a mosquito within
+the net. He got up, provided himself with the necessities for his own
+comfort during the period of discomfort which he projected for others,
+and called the servant whose business it was to have crushed the
+intruder. Him he sent in search of the man next above him, him in turn
+for another, and so on until he reached the head of the domestic
+hierarchy. When the whole body was assembled, he told them that they
+were summoned to receive the information that "one piecee mosquito"
+was inside his net, owing to the neglect of--pointing to the culprit.
+This done, they were dismissed, in calm assurance that in future no
+mosquito would disturb his night's rest, and that the desirable
+castigation of the offender might be intrusted to his outraged
+companions.
+
+After the gale subsided, the _Pocahontas_ proceeded for the
+rendezvous, just before reaching which we fell in with a
+coal-schooner. Though a good fighting-ship, she carried only
+sixty-three tons of coal, anthracite; for that alone we then used to
+burn. The amount seems too absurd for belief, and it constituted a
+very serious embarrassment on such duty as that of the South Carolina
+and Georgia coasts. To economize, so as to remain as long as possible
+away from the base at Port Royal, and yet to have the ship ready for
+speedy movement, was a difficult problem; indeed, insoluble. We used
+to meet it by keeping fires so low, when lying inside the blockaded
+rivers, that we could not move promptly. This was a choice between
+evils, which the event justified, but which might have been awkward
+had the Confederates ever made a determined attempt at boarding with
+largely superior force in several steamers, as happened at Galveston,
+and once even by pulling boats in a Georgia river. Under steam, the
+battery could be handled; anchored, an enemy could avoid it. With this
+poor "coal endurance," as the modern expression has it, the captain
+decided to fill up as he could. We therefore took the schooner in tow,
+and were transferring from her, when the sound of cannonading was
+heard. Evidently the attack had begun, and it was incumbent to get in,
+not only on general principles, but for the captain's own reputation;
+for although in service he was too well known to be doubted, the
+outside world might see only that he was a South Carolinian. It was
+recognition of this, I doubt not, that led Admiral Dupont, when we
+passed the flag-ship after the action, to hail aloud, "Captain
+Drayton, I knew you would be here;" a public expression of official
+confidence. We were late, however, as it was; probably because our
+short coal supply had compelled economical steaming, though as to this
+my memory is uncertain. The _Pocahontas_ passed the batteries after
+the main attack, in column on an elliptical course, had ceased, but
+before the works had been abandoned; and being alone we received
+proportionate attention for the few moments of passage. The enemy's
+fire was "good line, but high;" our main-mast was irreparably
+wounded, but the hull and crew escaped.
+
+After the action there followed the usual scene of jollification. The
+transports had remained outside, and now steamed up; bands playing,
+troops hurrahing, and with the general expenditure of wind from vocal
+organs which seems the necessary concomitant of such occasions. And
+here the _Pocahontas_ again brought the _Seminole_ to grief. She had
+anchored, but we kept under way, steaming about through the throng.
+Drayton had binoculars in hand; and, while himself conning the ship,
+was livelily interested in what was passing around. I believe also
+that, though an unusually accomplished officer professionally, he had
+done a good deal of staff duty; had less than the usual deck habit of
+his period. Besides, men used mostly to sails seemed to think steamers
+could get out of any scrape at any moment. However that be, after a
+glance to see that we were rightly headed for a clear opening, he
+began gazing about through his glasses, to the right hand and to the
+left. He had lost thought of the tide, and in such circumstances as
+ours a very few seconds does the business. When he next looked, we
+were sweeping down on the _Seminole_ without a chance of retreat;
+there was nothing but to go ahead fast, and save the hulls at least
+from collision. Her flying jib-boom came in just behind our main-mast
+(we had only two masts); and as the current of course was setting us
+down steadily, the topping-lifts of our huge main boom caught her
+jib-boom. Down came one of the big blocks from our mast-head, narrowly
+missing the captain's head, while we took out of her all the head
+booms as far as the bowsprit cap, leaving them dragging in helpless
+confusion by her side. Then we anchored.
+
+It is a nuisance to have to clear a wreck and repair damages; and the
+injured party does not immediately recover his equanimity after such a
+mishap, especially coming fresh upon a former instance of trouble
+occasioned barely a fortnight before. But after a victory all things
+are forgiven, and the more so to a man of Drayton's well-deserved
+popularity. A little later in the day he went on board the flag-ship
+to visit the admiral. When I met him at the gangway upon his return, I
+had many questions to ask, and among others, "Have you learned who
+commanded the enemy?" "Yes," he replied, with a half-smile; "it was my
+brother."
+
+Very soon afterwards he left us, before we again quitted port. He was
+dissatisfied with the _Pocahontas_, partly on account of her coal
+supply; and the captain of the _Pawnee_ then going home, he obtained
+command of her. The _Pawnee_ was _sui generis_; in this like the
+_Pocahontas_, only a good deal more so, representing somebody's fad. I
+cannot vouch for the details of her construction; but, as I heard, she
+was not only extremely broad in the beam, giving great battery
+space,--which was plain to see,--but the bilge on each side was
+reported to come lower than the keel, making, as it were, two hulls,
+side by side, so that a sarcastic critic remarked, "One good point
+about her is, that if she takes the ground, her keel at least is
+protected." Like all our vessels at that time, she was of wood. Owing
+to her build, she had for her tonnage very light draught and heavy
+battery, and so was a capital fighting-ship in still, shoal waters;
+but in a seaway she rolled so rapidly as to be a wretched gun
+platform. Her first lieutenant assured me that in heavy weather a
+glass of water could not get off the table. "Before it has begun to
+slide on one roll, she is back on the other, and catches it
+before it can start." This description was perhaps somewhat
+picturesque--impressionist, as we now say; but it successfully
+conveyed the idea, the object of all speech and impressions. However
+satisfactory for glasses--not too full--it may be imagined that under
+such conditions it would be difficult to draw sight on a target
+between rolls. Whatever her defects, the _Pawnee_ was admirably
+adapted for the inland work of which there was much in those parts,
+behind the sea islands; and she continued so employed throughout the
+war. I met her there as late as the last six months of it. But she was
+not reproduced, and remains to memory only; an incident of the
+speculative views and doubting progresses of the decade before the War
+of Secession.
+
+Drayton's successor was one of the senior lieutenants of the fleet,
+George B. Balch, late the first of the _Sabine_ frigate. His services
+in saving the people of the _Governor_ have already been mentioned. He
+still survives in venerable old age; but Drayton, who later on was
+with Farragut at Mobile, being captain of the flag-ship _Hartford_ and
+chief of staff at the time of the passage of the forts, was cut off
+prematurely by a short illness within six months after hostilities
+ended. Balch remained with us till the _Pocahontas_ returned North,
+ten months later. He was an officer of varied service, and like all
+such, some more, some less, abounded in anecdote of his own
+experiences. A great deal that might be instructive, and more still
+that is entertaining, is lost by our slippery memories and the rarity
+of the journal-keeping habit. I remember distinctly only two of his
+stories. One related to a matter which now belongs to naval
+archaeology,--"backing and filling in a tideway," by a ship under sail.
+In this, in a winding channel, the ship sets towards her destination
+with the current, up or down, carrying only enough canvas, usually the
+three topsails, to be under control; to move her a little ahead, or a
+little astern, keeping in the strength of the stream, or shifting
+position as conditions of the navigation require. Backing is a term
+which explains itself; filling applies to the sails when so trimmed as
+to move the vessel ahead. Sometimes a reach of the river permits the
+sails to be braced full, and she bowls along merrily under way; anon a
+turn comes where she can only lie across, balanced as to headway by
+the main topsail aback. Then the smallest topsail, the mizzen, has a
+game in its hands. The ship, as she drifts up or down, may need to be
+moved a little astern, more or less, to avoid a shoal or what not; and
+to do this the sail mentioned is braced either to shake, neutralizing
+it, or to bring it also aback, as the occasion demands. This rather
+long preamble is perilously like explaining a joke, but it is
+necessary. Balch had seen a good deal of this work in China, and he
+told us that the Chinese pilot's expression, if he wanted the sail
+shaken, was "Makee sick the mizzen topsail;" but if aback, he added,
+"Kill him dead." I wonder does that give us an insight into the
+nautical idiom of the Chinese, who within the limitations of their
+needs are prime seamen.
+
+By the time I got to China, two years after the War of Secession,
+steam had relieved naval vessels from backing and filling. I once,
+however, saw the principle applied to a steamer in the Paraguay River.
+We were returning from a visit to Asuncion, and had a local pilot, who
+was needed less for the Paraguay, which though winding is fairly
+clear, than for the Parana, the lower stream, which finally merges in
+the Rio de la Plata and is constantly changing its bed. We had
+anchored for the night just above a bend, head of course up-stream,
+for the tide does not reach so far. The next morning the pilot was
+bothered to turn her round, for she was a long paddle steamer, not
+very handy. He seemed to be in a nautical quandary, similar to that
+which the elder Mr. Weller described as "being on the wrong side of
+the road, backing into the palings, and all manner of unpleasantness."
+The captain watched him fuming for a few minutes, and then said, "Is
+there any particular trouble on either hand, or is it only the
+narrowness?" The pilot said no; the bottom was clear. "Well," said the
+captain, "why not cast her to port, and let her drift till she heads
+fair for the turn below?" This was done easily, and indeed was one of
+those things which would be almost foolishly simple did we not all
+have experience of overlooking expedients that lie immediately under
+our noses.
+
+Balch's other story which I recall was at the moment simply humorous,
+but has since seemed to me charged with homely wisdom of
+wide application. He had made a rather longish voyage in a
+merchant-steamer, and during it used to amuse himself doing navigation
+work in company with her master, or mate. On one occasion a discussion
+arose between them as to some result, and Balch in the course of the
+argument said, "Figures won't lie." "Yes, that's all right," rejoined
+the other, "figures won't lie, if you work them right; but you must
+work them right, Mr. Balch." I was too young then to have noted a
+somewhat similar remark about statistics; and I think now, after a
+pretty long observation of mankind, its records and its statements,
+that I should be inclined to extend that old seaman's comments to
+facts also. Facts won't lie, if you work them right; but if you work
+them wrong, a little disproportion in the emphasis, a slight
+exaggeration of color, a little more or less limelight on this or that
+part of the grouping, and the result is not truth, even though each
+individual fact be as unimpeachable as the multiplication table.
+
+After the capture of Port Royal, and the establishment there of the
+naval base, and until the arrival of monitors a year later, operations
+of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, as it was styled, were
+confined to blockading. This took two principal forms. The
+fortifications of Charleston and Savannah being still in the hands of
+the enemy, and intact, these two chief seaports of that coast were
+unassailable by our fleet. Even after Fort Sumter had been battered to
+a shapeless heap of masonry, and Fort Pulaski had surrendered,
+neither city fell until Sherman's march took it in the rear. But the
+numerous inlets were substantially undefended against naval attack;
+and for them the blockade, that tremendously potent instrument of the
+national pressure, the work of which has been too little commemorated,
+was instituted almost universally within. Even Fort Pulaski, before
+its fall, though it sealed the highway to Savannah, could not prevent
+the Union vessels from occupying the inside anchorage off Tybee
+Island, completely closing the usual access from the sea to the town.
+During the ensuing ten months there were very few of these entrances,
+from Georgetown, the northernmost in South Carolina, down to
+Fernandina, in Florida, into which the _Pocahontas_ did not penetrate,
+alone or in company. I do not know whether people in other parts of
+the country realize that these various inlets are connected by an
+inside navigation, behind the sea islands, as they are called, the
+whole making a system of sheltered intercommunication. The usefulness
+of this was reinforced by the numerous navigable rivers which afford
+water roads to the interior, and gave a vessel, once entered, refuge
+beyond the reach of the blockaders' arm, with ready means for
+distribution. Such a gift of nature to a community, however, has the
+defects of its qualities. Ease of access, and freedom of movement in
+all directions, now existed for foe as it had for friend, and the very
+facility which such surroundings bestow had prevented the timely
+creation of an alternative. Deprival consequently was doubly severe.
+
+It thus came to pass that, by a gradual process of elimination,
+blockade in the usual sense of the word, blockade outside, became
+confined to Charleston and its approaches. It is true that much
+depended on the class of vessel. It was obviously inexpedient to
+expose sailing-ships where they might be attacked by steamers, in
+ground also too contracted for manoeuvring; and two years later I
+found myself again blockading Georgetown, in a paddle steamer from the
+merchant service, the size and unwieldiness of which prevented her
+entering. Moreover, torpedoes had then begun to play a part in the
+war, though still in a very primitive stage of development. But in
+1862 there was little outside work except at Charleston. The very
+reasons which determine the original selection of a port--facility for
+entrance, abundant anchorage, and ease of access to the interior for
+distribution and receipt of the articles of commerce--determine also
+the accumulation of defences, to the exclusion of other less favored
+localities. All these conditions, natural and artificial, combined
+with the Union occupancy of the other inlets to concentrate
+blockade-running upon Charleston. This in turn drew thither the
+blockaders, which had to be the more numerous because the harbor could
+be entered by two or more channels, widely separated. There was thus
+constituted a blockade society, which contrasted agreeably with the
+somewhat hermit-like existence of the smaller stations. The weather
+was usually pleasant enough--many Northerners now know the winter
+climate of South Carolina--so during the daytime the ships would lift
+their anchors and get more or less together; the officers, and to a
+less extent the crews, exchanging visits. Old acquaintanceships were
+renewed, former cruises discussed, "yarns" interchanged; and then
+there was always the war with its happenings. Fort Henry, Fort
+Donelson, Shiloh, the _Monitor_ and _Merrimac_ fight, the capture of
+New Orleans by Farragut, all occurred during the stay of the
+_Pocahontas_ upon the blockade in 1862. Our news was apt to be ten
+days old, but to us it was as good as new; indeed, somewhat better,
+for we heard of the first reverses at Shiloh, and by the hands of the
+_Merrimac_, by the same mail which brought word of the final decided
+victory. Thus we were spared the anxiety of suspense. Even the
+disasters about Richmond were not by us fairly appreciated until the
+ship returned North, when the mortification of defeat was somewhat
+solaced, and the tendency to despondency lessened, by the happiness of
+being again at home; in my case after a continuous absence of more
+than three years, in the _Congress_ and _Pocahontas_.
+
+Talking of despondency, I had an odd experience of the ease with which
+people forget their frames of mind. While Burnside was engaged in the
+movements preceding Fredericksburg, I was in conversation with a
+veteran naval officer at his own house. Speaking of the probable
+outcome of the operations in progress, which then engrossed all
+thoughts, he said to me, "I think, Mr. Mahan, that if we fail this
+time, we may as well strike"; the naval phrase "strike the colors"
+being the equivalent of surrender--give up. I dissented heartily; not
+from any really reasoned appreciation of conditions, but on general
+principles, as understood by a man still very young. More than two
+years later, when the war had just drawn to its triumphant close, I
+again met the same gentleman. Amid our felicitations, he said to me,
+"There is one thing, Mr. Mahan, which I have never allowed myself to
+doubt--the ultimate success of our just cause."
+
+After all, it was very natural. When you are cold, you're cold, and
+when you're hot, you're hot; and if you are indiscreet enough to say
+so to some one who feels differently, he remembers it against you.
+What business have you to feel other than he? If, with the thermometer
+at zero, I chance to say that I wish it were warmer, I am sure of some
+one, a lady usually, bursting in upon me when it is ninety-five, with
+the jeer, "Well! I hope, now, _you_ are satisfied." I recall
+distinctly the long faces we pulled when we reached Philadelphia on
+our return, and realized, by the withdrawal of McClellan's army to
+Washington, the full extent of our disasters on the Peninsula; my old
+commodore might then have found some to say, Amen. But this did not
+keep our hats any lower when we chucked them aloft over Vicksburg and
+Gettysburg, and forgot that we had ever felt otherwise.
+
+Vicksburg and Gettysburg, by the way, and their coincidence with the
+Fourth of July, have furnished me with a reminiscence quite otherwise
+agreeable. The ship in which I then was spent that Fourth at Spithead,
+England. We dressed ship with multicolored signals, red, white, and
+blue, at every yard-arm, big American ensigns at the three mast-heads
+and the peak, presenting a singularly gay and joyful aspect, which
+could profitably be viewed from as many points as Mr. Pecksniff looked
+at Salisbury Cathedral. At noon we fired a national salute, all the
+more severely punctilious and observant, because by the last mail
+things at home seemed to be looking particularly blue. The British
+ships of war, though I fear few of their officers then were other than
+pleased with our presumed discomfiture, dressed likewise, as by naval
+courtesy bound, and also fired a salute. The _Times_ of the day
+arrived from London in due season, and had improved the occasion to
+moralize upon the sad condition to which the Republic of Bunker Hill
+and Yorktown was reduced: Grant held up at Vicksburg,[10] Lee marching
+victoriously into Pennsylvania, no apparent probability of escaping
+disaster in either quarter. The conclusion was couched in that vein of
+Pecksniffian benevolence of which we hear so much in life. "Let us
+_hope_ that so much adversity may be tempered to a nation, afflicted
+with evil as unprecedented as its former prosperity; and this will
+indeed be the case if America ... is led on this day of festivity, now
+converted into a day of humiliation, to review past errors, and to
+consider that, if her present policy has led her so near ruin, in its
+reversal must lie the only path that can conduct her to safety." I
+wonder, if there had been a cable, would that editorial have been
+headed off. It was not.
+
+    "And there it stands unto this day,
+           To witness if I lie."
+
+It was bitter then to my taste; but sweet were the chuckles which I
+later had, when the actual transactions of that anniversary came to
+hand.
+
+Whatever their sympathies, the British naval officers during that stay
+in British waters had no difficulty in paying us all the usual
+personal attentions; but a particular incident showed for our
+susceptibilities a nicety of consideration, which could not have been
+exacted and was very grateful at the time. We were at Plymouth, under
+the breakwater, but some distance from the inner anchorage, when a
+merchant-vessel lying inside hoisted a Confederate flag at her mizzen
+mast-head. We saw it, but of course could do nothing. It was a clear
+case of intended insult, for the ship had no claim to the flag, and
+could only mean to flaunt us. It flew for perhaps an hour, and then
+disappeared. The same day, and not long afterwards, a British
+lieutenant from a vessel in the harbor came on board, and told me that
+he had had it hauled down, acting in place of his captain, who was
+absent. The communication to me, also momentarily in command, was
+purely personal; indeed, there was nothing official in the whole
+transaction, nor do I know by what means or by what authority he could
+insist upon the removal of the flag. However managed, the thing was
+done, and with the purpose of stopping a rudeness which, it is true,
+reflected more upon the port than upon us, for I think the offending
+vessel was British. Very many years afterwards I had occasion to quote
+this, when, during the Boer War, on the visit of a British squadron to
+one of our seaside resorts, a resident there thought to show American
+breeding by hoisting the Four-Color. In the late winter of 1863-64 I
+again met this officer and his ship in New Orleans. In conversation
+then he told me he did not believe the Union cause could succeed; that
+he, with others, looked to see three or four nations formed. In the
+same month of 1863 this anticipation would not have surprised me; but
+in 1864 it did, although Grant had not yet begun his movement upon
+Richmond.
+
+Blockading was desperately tedious work, make the best one could of
+it. The largest reservoir of anecdotes was sure to run dry; the
+deepest vein of original humor to be worked out. I remember hearing of
+two notorious tellers of stories being pitted against each other, for
+an evening's amusement, when one was driven as a last resource to
+recounting that "Mary had a little lamb." We were in about that case.
+Charleston, however, was a blooming garden of social refreshment
+compared with the wilderness of the Texas coast, to which I found
+myself exiled a year or so later; a veritable Siberia, cold only
+excepted. Charleston was not very far from the Chesapeake or Delaware,
+in distance or in time. Supply vessels, which came periodically, and
+at not very long intervals, arrived with papers not very late, and
+with fresh provisions not very long slaughtered; but by the time they
+reached Galveston or Sabine Pass, which was our station, their news
+was stale, and we got the bottom tier of fresh beef. The ship to which
+I there belonged was a small steam-corvette, which with two gunboats
+constituted all the social possibilities. Happily for myself, I did
+not join till midway in the corvette's stay off the port, which lasted
+in all nearly six months, before she was recalled in mercy to New
+Orleans. I have never seen a body of intelligent men reduced so nearly
+to imbecility as my shipmates then were.
+
+One of my captains used to adduce, as his conception of the extreme of
+isolation, to be the keeper of a lightship off Cape Horn; a
+professional conceit rivalling the elder Mr. Weller's equally profound
+recognition of the connection between keeping a pike and misanthropy.
+We off Sabine Pass were banished about equally with the keeper of a
+turnpike or of a remote lightship. We ought, of course, to have
+improved the leisure which weighed so heavily on our hands; but the
+improvement of idle moments is an accomplishment of itself, as many a
+retired business man has found out too late. There is an impression,
+derived from the experience of passengers on board ocean steamers,
+that naval officers have an abundance of spare time. The ship, it
+seems assumed, runs itself; the officers have only to look on and
+enjoy. As a matter of fact, sea officers under normal conditions are
+as busy as the busiest house-keeper, with the care to boot of two,
+three, four, or five hundred children, to be kept continually doing as
+they should; the old woman who lived in the shoe had a good thing in
+comparison. Thus occupied, the leisure habit of self-improvement,
+other than in the practice of the calling, is not formed. At sea, on a
+voyage, the vicissitudes of successive days provide the desultory
+succession of incidents, which vary and fill out the tenor of
+occupations, keeping life full and interesting. In port, besides the
+regular and fairly engrossing routine, there are the resources of the
+shore to fill up the chinks. But the dead monotony of the blockade was
+neither sea nor port. It supplied nothing. The crew, once drilled,
+needed but a few moments each day to keep at the level of proficiency;
+and there was practically nothing to do, because nothing happened that
+required either a doing or an undoing.
+
+Under such conditions even a gale of wind was a not unwelcome change.
+Although little activity was required to meet it, it at least
+presented new surroundings--something different from the daily
+outlook. After a very brief period, it became the rule to ride out the
+storms at anchor; and I remember one of our volunteer officers, who
+had commanded a merchant-ship for some years, saying that he would
+have been spared a good deal of trouble, on occasions, had he had our
+experience of holding on with an anchor instead of keeping under way.
+It was, however, an old if forgotten expedient, where anchorage ground
+was good--bottom sticky and water not too deep. In the ancient days of
+the French wars, the British fleets off Brest and Toulon had to keep
+under way, but that blockading Cadiz, in 1797-98, used to hold its
+position at anchor, and under harder conditions than ours; for there
+the worst gales blew on shore, whereas ours swept chiefly along the
+coast. A standing dispute in the British navy, in those days of hemp
+cables, used to be whether it was safer to ride with three anchors
+down, or with one only, having to it three cables, bent together, so
+as to form one of thrice the usual length. The balance of opinion
+leaned to the latter; the dead weight of so much hemp held the ship
+without transmitting the strain to the anchor itself. She "rode to the
+bight," as the expression was; that is, to the cable, curved by its
+own weight and length, lying even in part on the bottom, which
+prevented its tightening and pulling at the anchor. What was true of
+hemp was yet more true of iron chains. The _Pocahontas_ used to veer
+to a hundred fathoms, and there lie like a duck in fifty or sixty feet
+of water. I remember on one occasion, however, that when we next
+weighed the anchor, it came up with parts polished bright, as in my
+childhood we used sometimes to burnish a copper cent. This seemed to
+show that it had been scoured hard along a sandy bottom. We had had no
+suspicion of the ship's dragging during the gale, and I have since
+supposed that it may have started from its bed as we began to heave,
+and so been scrubbed along towards us.
+
+The problem of maintaining the health of ships' companies condemned to
+long months of salt provisions, and to equally depressing short
+allowance of social salt for the intellect, which reasonable beings
+crave, has to be ever present to those charged with administration.
+Nelson's "cattle and onions" sums up in homely phrase the first
+requirement; while, for the others, his policy during a weary two
+years, in which he himself never left the flag-ship, was to keep the
+vessels in constant movement, changing scene, and thereby maintaining
+expectation of something exciting turning up. "Our men's minds," he
+said, "are always kept up with the daily hopes of meeting the enemy."
+As the Confederacy had practically no navy, this particular
+distraction was debarred our blockaders; but in the matter of food, we
+in the early sixties had not got beyond his prescription for the
+opening years of the century. The primitive methods then still in
+vogue, for preserving meats and vegetables fresh, accomplished chiefly
+the making them perfectly tasteless, and to the eye uninviting; the
+palate, accustomed to the constant stimulant of salt, turned from
+"bully" (bouilli) beef and "desecrated" (dessicated) potatoes, jaded
+before exercise. Like liquor, salt, long used in large measures, at
+last becomes a craving. I have heard old seamen more than once say, "I
+must have my salt;" and I have even known one to express his utter
+weariness of the fresh butter France sends up with its morning coffee
+and rolls. So we on the blockade depended more upon the good offices
+of salt than upon those of tin cans, for giving us acceptable food;
+the consequence being, with us as with our British forebears, a keen
+physical demand for "cattle and onions." In one principal respect our
+supplies differed from theirs--in the profusion of ice afforded by
+our country. Our beef, therefore, came to us already butchered, while
+theirs was received on the hoof. Many of my readers doubtless will
+recall the adventures of Mr. Midshipman Easy, when in charge of the
+transport from Tetuan with bullocks for the fleet off Toulon.
+Onions--blessings on their heads, if they have any--came to both us
+and our predecessors as easily as they were welcome. I have sometimes
+heard the plea, that Nature is the best guide in matters of appetite,
+advanced for indulgences which, so construed, seemed to reflect upon
+her parental character; but there can be no such doubt concerning
+onions to a system well saturated with salt. When you see them you
+know what you want; and a half-dozen raw, with a simple salad
+dressing, were little more than a whetter on the blockade. Would it be
+possible now to manage a single one?
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+INCIDENTS OF WAR AND BLOCKADE SERVICE--CONTINUED
+
+1863-1865
+
+
+The _Pocahontas_ came North for repairs in the late summer of 1862,
+and after a brief leave I was ordered to the Naval Academy. Under the
+stress of the war, this had been broken out from its regular seat at
+Annapolis and transferred for the moment to Newport. All the
+arrangements were temporary and extemporized. The principal
+establishment, housing the three older classes, was in a building in
+the town formerly known as the Atlantic Hotel; while the new entries,
+who were very numerous, were quartered on two sailing-frigates, moored
+head and stern in the inner harbor, off Goat Island. This duplex
+arrangement necessitated a double set of officers, not easy to be had
+with war going on; the more so that the original corps had been
+depleted by the resignations of Southern men. The embarrassment
+arising from the immediate scantness of officers led naturally, if
+perhaps somewhat irreflectively, to a great number of admissions to
+the Naval Academy, disregardful of past experience with the '41 Date,
+and of the future, when room at the top would be lacking to take in
+all these youngsters as captains and admirals. Thus was constituted
+the "hump," as it came to be called, which, like a tumor on the body,
+engaged at a later day the attention of many professional
+practitioners. As it would not absorb, and as the rough-and-ready
+methods by which civil life and the survival of the fittest deal with
+such conditions could not be applied, it had to be dissipated; a
+process ultimately carried out with indifferent success. While it
+lasted it caused many a heartache from postponement. As one of the
+sufferers said, when hearing the matter discussed, "I don't know about
+this or that. All I know is that I have been a lieutenant for twenty
+years." Owing to the slimness of the service in the lower grades they
+became lieutenants young; but there they stuck. Every boom is followed
+by such reaction, and for a military service war is a boom. Expansion
+sets in; and when contraction follows somebody is squeezed. At the end
+of the Napoleonic Wars there were over eight hundred post-captains in
+the British navy. What could peace do for them?
+
+Eight pleasant months I spent on shore at the Academy, and then was
+again whisked off to sea, there to remain for substantially all the
+rest of the war. Although already prominent as a fashionable
+watering-place, Newport then was very far from its present
+development; but in winter it had a settled and pleasant, if small,
+society. At this time I met the widow of Captain Lawrence of the
+_Chesapeake_, who survived until two years later. She was already
+failing, and not prematurely; for it was then, 1862-63, the fiftieth
+year since her husband fell. She lived with a sister, also the widow
+of an officer, and was frequently visited by her granddaughter, the
+child of Lawrence's daughter, a singularly beautiful girl. I remember
+her pointing to me a picture of the defeat of the _Peacock_, by the
+_Hornet_, under her grandfather's command; on which, she laughingly
+said, she had been brought up. This meeting had for me not only the
+usual interest which a link with the distant past supplies, but a
+certain special association; for my grandmother, then recently dead,
+had known several of Lawrence's contemporaries in the navy, and my
+recollection is that she told me she had seen him leaving his wife at
+their doorstep, when departing to take command of the _Chesapeake_.
+
+When the summer of 1863 drew nigh, the question of the usual practice
+cruise came up. I have before stated the two opinions: one favoring a
+regular ocean voyage, with its customary routine and accidents of
+weather; the other more disposed to contracted cruising in our own
+waters, anchoring at night, and by day following a formulated
+programme of varied practical exercises. For this year both plans were
+adopted. There were two practice-ships, one of which was to remain
+between Narragansett and Gardiner's Bay, in Long Island. I was ordered
+as first lieutenant of the other, which was to go to Europe. The
+advisability of this step for a sailing-ship was on this occasion
+doubly questioned, for the _Alabama_ had already begun her career. In
+fact, one of the officers then stationed at the school had been
+recently captured by her, when making a passage to Panama in a
+mail-steamer. I remember his telling me, with glee, that when the
+_Alabama_ fired a shot in the direction of the packet, called, I
+think, the _Ariel_, a number of the passengers took refuge behind the
+bulkheads of the upper-deck saloons, which, being of light pine,
+afforded as much protection as the air, with the additional risk of
+splinters. He hoped to escape observation, but the Confederate
+boarding-officer had been a classmate of his, and spotted him at once.
+Being paroled, he was for the time shut off from war service, and was
+sent to the Academy. He was a singular man, by name Tecumseh Steece,
+and looked with a certain disdain upon the navy as a profession. In
+his opinion, it was for him only a stepping-stone to some great
+future, rather undefined. At bottom a very honest fellow, with a sense
+of duty which while a midshipman had led him to persist defiantly in a
+very unpopular--though very proper--course of action, he yet seemed to
+see no impropriety in utterly neglecting professional acquirement,
+rather boasting of his ignorance. The result was that, having been
+detailed for the European cruise, he was subsequently detached; I
+think from doubt of his fitness for the deck of a sailing-vessel.
+While at the Academy at this time, he took a first step in his
+proposed career by writing a pamphlet, the title and scope of which I
+now forget; but unluckily, by a slip of the pen, he wrote on the first
+page, "We judge the _known_ by the _unknown_." This, being speedily
+detected, raised a laugh, and I fear prevented most from further
+exploration of a somewhat misty thesis. He was rather chummy with me,
+and tried mildly to persuade me that I also should stand poised on the
+navy for a flight into the empyrean; but, if fain to soar, which I do
+not think I was, like Raleigh, I feared a fall. For himself, poor
+fellow, weighted by his aspirations, he said to me, "I don't fear
+death, I fear life;" and death caught him early, in 1864, in the shape
+of yellow-fever. One of his idiosyncrasies was a faith in coffee as a
+panacea; and I heard that while sickening he deluged himself with that
+beverage, to what profit let physicians say.
+
+The decision that one of the practice-ships should go to Europe had, I
+think, been determined by the officer who was to have commanded the
+_Macedonian_, the vessel chosen for that purpose. She was not the one
+of that name captured in 1812 by the _United States_,--the only one of
+our frigate captures brought into port,--but a successor to the title.
+Before she went into commission, the first commander was detached to
+service at the front; but no change was made in her destination, even
+if any misgivings were felt. One of my fellow-officers at the Academy,
+who was not going, remarked to me pleasantly that, if we fell in with
+the _Alabama_, she would work round us like a cooper round a cask; an
+encouraging simile to one who has looked upon that cheerful and much
+one-sided performance. We were all too young--I, the senior
+lieutenant, was but twenty-two--and too light-hearted to be troubled
+with forebodings; and, indeed, there was in reason no adequate
+inducement for the Confederate cruiser to alter her existing plans in
+order to take the _Macedonian_. Had we come fairly in her way, to
+gobble a large percentage of the Naval Academy might have been a
+fairly humorous practical joke; but it could have been no more. I
+remember Mr. Schuyler Colfax, afterwards Vice-President, then I think
+a member of the House, being on board, and mentioning the subject to
+me. "After all," he said, "I suppose it would scarcely do for one of
+our vessels to be deterred from a cruise by regard for a Confederate
+cruiser." Considering the disparity of advantage, due to steam, I
+should say this would scarcely be a working theory, in naval life or
+in private. Our military insignificance was our sufficient protection.
+During my cruise in the _Congress_, a ship much heavier every way than
+the _Macedonian_, the commander of one of our corvettes, substantially
+of the _Alabama_ class, said to our captain, "I suppose, if I fell in
+with you as an enemy, I ought to attack you." "Well," replied the
+other, "if you didn't, you should pray not to have me on your
+court-martial."
+
+The officer originally designated to command the _Macedonian_ had been
+very greatly concerned about the midshipmen's provisions: the quality
+of which they should be, and the room to be kept for their stowage. I
+wonder would his soul have been greatly vexed had he accompanied me
+the first evening out, as I inspected the steerage while they were at
+supper? "What!" shouted one of them to a servant, as I passed. "What!
+No milk?" The mingled consternation, bereavement, and indignation
+which struggled for full expression in the words beggar description. I
+can see his face and hear his tones to this day. Laughable to comedy;
+yet to a philosophizing turn of mind what an epitome of life! Do we
+not at every corner of experience meet the princess who felt the
+three hard peas under the fifty feather-beds? Sydney Smith's friend,
+who had everything else life could give, but realized only the
+disappointing view out of one of his windows? We might dispense with
+Hague Conferences. War is going to cease because people adequately
+civilized will not endure hardness. Whether in the end we shall have
+cause to rejoice in the double event remains to be seen. The Asiatic
+can endure.
+
+Among the _Macedonian's_ lieutenants was the late Admiral Sampson. We
+had also for deck officers two who had but just graduated; one of them
+a young Frenchman belonging to the royal house of Orleans, who had
+been permitted to take the course at our naval school, I presume with
+a view on his part to possible contingencies recalling the monarchy to
+France. Under Louis Philippe, a member of the family had been
+prominent in the French navy, as the Prince de Joinville; and had
+commanded the squadron which brought back the body of Napoleon from
+St. Helena. The representative with us was a very good-tempered,
+amiable, unpresuming man, too young as yet to be formed in character.
+As messmates we were, of course, all on terms of cordial equality, and
+one of our number used frequently to greet him with effusion as "You
+old King." He spoke English easily, though scarcely fluently, and with
+occasional eccentricity of idiom. At the Academy, before graduation,
+he took his turn with others of his class as officer of the day, one
+of whose duties was to keep a journal of happenings. I chanced once to
+inspect this book, and found over his signature an entry which began,
+"The weather was a dirty one."
+
+While at the school, the young duke had been provided with a guide,
+philosopher, and friend, in the person of an accomplished ex-officer
+of the French navy, who had been obliged to quit that service, under
+the Empire, because of his attachment to the exiled monarchy. I knew
+this gentleman very well at Newport, exchanging with him occasional
+visits, though he was much my senior in years. His name was Fauvel,
+which the midshipmen, or other, had promptly Anglicized into Four
+Bells--a nautical hour-stroke. I suppose this propensity to travesty
+foreign or difficult names is not merely maritime; but naturally
+enough my reading has brought me more in contact with it in connection
+with naval matters. Thus the _Ville de Milan_, captured into the
+British service, became to their seamen the "Wheel 'em along;" and the
+_Bellerophon_, originally their own, is historically reported to have
+passed current as the "Bully Ruffian." Captain Fauvel accompanied us
+in the _Macedonian_; but after arriving in England, as we were to go
+to Cherbourg, his charge and he left us, neither being _persona grata_
+at that date in a French harbor. When we reached Cherbourg, Fauvel's
+wife was there, either resident or for the moment, and at our
+captain's invitation visited the ship to see where her husband had
+been living, and would again be when we reached a more friendly port.
+As contrary luck would have it, while she was on board, the French
+admiral and the general commanding the troops came alongside to return
+the official call paid them. The awkwardness, of course, was merely
+that her presence obtruded the fact, otherwise easily and discreetly
+ignored, that when out of French waters we were hospitably
+entertaining persons politically distasteful to the French government,
+the courtesies of which we were now accepting; and there was a
+momentary impulse to keep her out of sight. A better judgment
+prevailed, however, and a very courteous exchange of French politeness
+ensued between the officials and the lady, to whom doubtless political
+significance attached. A more notable circumstance, in the light of
+the then future, was that during our few days in Cherbourg arrived the
+news of the capture of the city of Mexico by the French troops; and
+before our departure took place the official celebration, with flags
+and salutes, of that crowning event in an enterprise which in the end
+proved disastrous to its originator, and fatal to his protege,
+Maximilian.
+
+The _Macedonian_, for a sailing-vessel, had a quite rapid run across
+from Newport to Plymouth, eighteen days from anchor to anchor, though
+I believe one of our frigates, after the war, made it in twelve. This
+was the only occasion, during my fairly numerous crossings, that. I
+have ever seen icebergs under a brilliant sky. Usually the scoundrels
+come skulking along masked by a fog, as though ashamed of themselves,
+as they ought to be. They are among the most obnoxious of people who
+do not know their place. This time we passed several, quite large,
+having a light breeze and perfectly clear horizon. After that it again
+set in thick, with the usual anxiety which ice, unseen but surely
+near, cannot but cause. Finally we took a very heavy gale of wind,
+which settled to southwest, hauling gradually to northwest and sending
+us rejoicing on our way a thousand miles in four days, much of this
+time under close-reefed topsails.
+
+I am not heedless of the great danger of merely prosing along in the
+telling of the days of youth, so I will shut off my experience of the
+_Macedonian_ with an incident which amused me greatly at the time, and
+still seems to have a moral that one needs not to point. While lying
+at Spithead, a number of the midshipmen were sent ashore to visit the
+dock yard,--professional improvement. When they returned, the
+lieutenants in charge were full of the block-making processes. The
+ingenuity of the machinery, the variety and beauty of the blocks, the
+many excellences, had the changes rung upon them, meal after meal,
+till I could hear the whir of the wheels in my head and see the chips
+fly. Meantime, our captain went to London, having completed his
+official visiting, and an English captain came on board to return a
+call. Declining my invitation to enter the cabin, he walked up and
+down the quarter-deck with me, discussing many things; under his arm
+his sword. Suddenly he stopped short, and pointing with it to a big
+iron-strapped leading-block, he said, "Now that is what I call a
+sensible block; I wonder why it is we cannot get blocks like that in
+our ships." I was not prepared with a reason for their defects, then
+or since; but my unreadiness has not marred my enjoyment of these
+divergent points of view. Perhaps the captain was a professional
+malcontent; for, looking at a Parrott rifled hundred-pounder gun which
+we carried on the quarter-deck, he said, interrogatively, "Not
+breech-loading?" "No," I answered, "breech-loading is not in favor
+with us at present." "And very right you are," he rejoined. I think
+they then (1863) still had the Armstrong breech-loading system. This
+incident may deserve a place in the palaeontology of gun-making. There
+are now, I presume, no muzzle-loaders left; unless in museums, as
+specimens.
+
+Very shortly after the _Macedonian's_ return home I was sent to New
+Orleans, for a ship on the Texas blockade; transportation being given
+me on one of the "beef-boats," as the supply-vessels were familiarly
+known. Among fellow-passengers was one of my class; for a while,
+indeed, my room-mate at the Academy. When we reached New Orleans the
+chief of staff said to me, "There is a vacancy on board the
+_Monongahela_," a ship larger and in every way better than the
+_Seminole_ to which I was ordered; moreover, she was lying off Mobile,
+a sociable blockade, instead of at a jumping-off place, the end of
+nowhere, Sabine Pass, where the _Seminole_ was. He advised me to apply
+for her, which I did; but Commodore Bell, acting in Farragut's absence
+in the North, declined. I must go to the ship to which the Department
+had assigned me, and for which it doubtless had its reasons. So my
+classmate was ordered to her instead, and on board her was killed in
+the passage of the Mobile forts the following August. I can scarcely
+claim a miraculous escape, as it does not appear that I should have
+got in the way of the ball which finished him; but for him, poor
+fellow, who had not been long married, the commodore's refusal to me
+was a sentence of death.
+
+I shall not attempt to furbish up any intellectual entertainment for
+readers from the excessively dry bones of my subsequent blockading,
+especially off the mouth of the Sabine. Only a French cook could
+produce a passable dish out of such woful material; and even he would
+require concomitant ingredients, in remembered incidents, wherein, if
+there were any, my memory fails me. Day after day, day after day, we
+lay inactive--roll, roll; not wholly ineffective, I suppose, for our
+presence stopped blockade-running; but even in this respect the Texas
+coast had largely lost importance since the capture of Vicksburg and
+Port Hudson, the previous summer, had cut off the trans-Mississippi
+region from the body of the Confederacy. We used to see the big,
+light-draught steamers coming up the river, or crossing the
+lagoon-like bay, sometimes crowded with people; and the possibility
+was discussed of their carrying troops, and of their coming out to
+attack us, as not long before had been successfully done against our
+vessels _inside_ Galveston Bay. In a norther, possibly, such a thing
+might have been tried, for the sea was then smooth; but in the
+ordinary ground-swell I imagine the soldiers would have been
+incapacitated by sea-sickness. The chances were all against success,
+and no attempt was ever made; but it was something to talk about.
+
+The ensuing twelve or fifteen months to the close of the war were
+equally uneventful. Long before they ended I had got back to the South
+Atlantic coast. To this I was indebted for the opportunity of being
+present when the United States flag was ceremoniously hoisted again
+over what then remained of Fort Sumter, by General Robert Anderson,
+who, as Major Anderson, had been forced to lower it just four years
+before. Henry Ward Beecher delivered the address, of which I remember
+little, except that, citing the repeated question of foreigners, why
+we should wish to re-establish our authority over a land where the one
+desire of the people was to reject it, he replied, "We so wish,
+because it is ours." The sentiment was obvious enough, one would
+think, to any man who had a country to love and objected to seeing it
+dismembered, but to many of our European critics it then seemed
+monstrous in an American; at least they said so. The orator on such an
+occasion has only to swim with the current. The enthusiasm is already
+there; he needs not to elicit it. Here and again a blast of eloquence
+from him may start the fire roaring, but the flame is already kindled.
+The joy of harvest, the rejoicing of men who divide the spoil, the
+boasting of them who can now put off their harness, need not the
+stimulation of words.
+
+The exact coincidence of raising the flag over Sumter on the
+anniversary of its lowering was artificial, but the date of the
+surrender of Charleston, February 18th, was just opportune to complete
+the necessary arrangements and preparations without holding back the
+ceremony, on the night of which--Good Friday--within twelve hours,
+President Lincoln was murdered. Joy and grief were thus brought into
+immediate and startling contrast. A perfectly natural and quite
+impressive coincidence came under my notice in close connection with
+these occurrences. I was at this time on the staff of Admiral
+Dahlgren, commander-in-chief of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron
+during the last two years of the war, and accompanied him when he
+entered Charleston Harbor, which he had so long assailed in vain. The
+following Sunday I attended service at one of the Episcopal churches.
+The appointed first lesson for the day, Quinquagesima, was from the
+first chapter of Lamentations, beginning, "How doth the city sit
+solitary, that was full of people!... She that was great among the
+nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become
+tributary!" Considering the conspicuous, and even leading, part played
+by Charleston in the Southern movement, "the cradle of secession," her
+initiation of hostilities, her long successful resistance, and her
+recent subjugation, the words and their sequence were strikingly and
+painfully applicable to her present condition; for the Confederate
+troops in evacuating had started a large destruction of property, and
+the Union forces on entering found public buildings, stores,
+warehouses, private dwellings, and cotton, on fire--a scene of
+distress to which some of them also further contributed.[11] I myself
+remember streets littered with merchants' correspondence, a mute
+witness to other devastation. My recollection is that the officiating
+clergyman saw and dodged the too evident application, reading some
+other chapter. Many still living may recall how apposite, though to a
+different mood, was the first lesson of the Sunday--the third after
+Easter--which in 1861 followed the surrender of Sumter and the excited
+week that witnessed "the uprising of the North,"--Joel iii., v. 9:
+"Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles: Prepare war, wake up the mighty
+men, let all men of war draw near; let them come up. Beat your
+ploughshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears; let the
+weak say, I am strong." I was not in the country myself at that time,
+and my attention was first drawn to this in 1865 by a clergyman, who
+told me of his startled astonishment upon opening the Book. In the
+then public temper it must have thrilled every nerve among the
+hearers, already strained to the uttermost by events without parallel
+in the history of the nation.
+
+Being on Dahlgren's staff gave me also the opportunity of seeing,
+gathered together in social assembly, all the general officers who had
+shared in the March to the Sea. This was at a reception given by
+Sherman in Savannah, within a week after entering that city, which may
+be considered the particular terminus of one stage in his progress
+through the heart of the Confederacy. The admiral had gone thither in
+a small steamer, which served as flag-ship, to greet the triumphant
+chief. Few, if any, of the more conspicuous of Sherman's subordinates
+were absent from the rooms, thronged with men whose names were then in
+all mouths, and who in honor of the occasion had changed their
+marching clothes for full uniform, rarely seen in campaign. From the
+heads of the two armies, the union of which under him constituted his
+force, down through the brigade commanders, all were there with their
+staffs; and many besides. The tone of this gathering was more subdued
+than at Fort Sumter, if equally exultant. Success, achievement, the
+clear demonstration of victory, such as the occupation of Savannah
+gave, uplifts men's hearts and swells their breasts; but these men had
+worked off some of their heat in doing things. Besides, there yet
+remained for them other and weighty things to do. It could be felt
+sympathetically that with them the pervading sensation was
+relaxation--repose. They had reached their present height by prolonged
+labor and endurance, and were enjoying rather the momentary release
+from strain than the intoxication of triumph.
+
+In expectation of the victorious arrival of the army in Savannah, I
+had been charged with two messages, in pathetic contrast with each
+other. The first was from my father to Sherman himself, who twenty
+years before had been under his teaching as a cadet at the Military
+Academy. I cannot now recall whether I bore with me a letter of
+congratulation which my father wrote him, and to which he pleasantly
+replied that he had from it as much satisfaction as when in far-away
+days he had been dismissed from the blackboard with the commendation,
+"Very well done, Mr. Sherman." My reception by him, however, was in
+the exact spirit of this remark, and characteristic of the man. When I
+mentioned my name he broke into a smile--all over, as they say--shook
+my hand forcibly, and exclaimed, "What, the son of old Dennis?"
+reverting instinctively to the familiar epithet of school-days.
+
+My other errand was to a former school-mate of my mother's, resident
+in Savannah, with whom she had long maintained affectionate relations,
+which the war necessarily suspended. The next day I sought her out.
+When I found the house, she was at the door, in conversation with some
+of the subordinate officials of the invading army, probably with
+reference to the necessity of yielding rooms for quarters. The men
+were perfectly respectful, but the situation was perturbing to a
+middle-aged lady brought for the first time into contact with the
+rough customs of war, and she was very pale, worried in look, and
+harassed in speech; evidently quite doubtful as to what latent
+possibilities of harm such a visit might portend--whether ultimately
+she might not find herself houseless. I made myself known, but she was
+not responsive; courteous, for with her breeding she could not be
+otherwise, but too preoccupied with the harsh present to respond to
+the gentler feelings of the past. It was touchingly apparent that she
+was trying hard to keep a stiff upper lip, and her attempted frame of
+mind finally betrayed itself in the words, uttered tremulously, with
+excitement or mortification, "I don't admit yet that you have beaten
+us." I could scarcely contest the point, but it was very sad. At the
+moment I could almost have wished that we had not.
+
+At the mouths of the Georgia rivers Sherman's soldiers struck
+tide-water, many of them for the first time in their lives; and a
+story was current that two, foraging, lay down to sleep by the edge of
+a stream, and were astounded by waking to find themselves in the
+water. To consider the tide, however, is an acquired habit. Sherman's
+approach to the Atlantic had given rise to a certain amount of naval
+and military activity on the part of the forces already stationed
+there. In connection with this I had been sent on some staff errand
+that caused me to spend a couple of days on board the _Pawnee_, which
+had just been carrying about army officers for reconnoissances. "By
+George!" said her captain, laughing and bringing down his fist on the
+table, "you can't make those fellows understand that a ship has to
+look out for the tide. I would say to them, 'See here, the tide is
+running out, and if we don't move very soon we shall be left aground,
+fast till next high-water.' 'Oh yes, yes,' they would reply, 'all
+right'; and then they would forget all about it, and go on as if they
+had unlimited time." But of course the captain did not forget.
+
+The fall of Richmond and Charleston, and the surrender of Lee's army,
+assuring the early termination of hostilities on any grand scale, the
+admiral had kindly transferred me from his staff back to the ship on
+board which I had joined the squadron a year before, and which was
+soon to return North. War service, nominal at least, was not, however,
+quite over; for after some brief repairs we were sent down to Haiti to
+take up the duty of convoying the Pacific Mail steamers from the
+Windward Passage (between Cuba and Haiti) some distance towards
+Panama. It is perhaps worth recording that such an employment incident
+to the war was maintained for quite a while, consequent upon the
+capture of the _Ariel_, before mentioned. Upon my personal fortunes it
+had the effect of producing a severe tropical fever, engendered
+probably during the years of Southern service, and brought to a head
+by the conditions of Haiti. Whatever its cause, this led to my being
+invalided for six months, at the expiration of which, to my grievous
+disappointment, I was again assigned to duty in the Gulf of Mexico.
+The War of Secession then--December, 1865--was entirely over; but the
+Mexican expedition of Napoleon III., the culminating incident of
+which, the capture of Mexico, we had seen celebrated at Cherbourg in
+1863, was still lingering. Begun in our despite, when our hands were
+tied by intestine troubles, it now engaged our unfriendly interest;
+and part of the attention paid to it was the maintenance of a
+particular squadron in those waters--observant, if quiescent. Here
+again sickness pursued, not me, but my ship; from the mouth of the Rio
+Grande we returned to Pensacola, with near a hundred men, half the
+ship's company, down with fever. It was not malignant--we had but
+three deaths--but one of those was our only doctor, and we were sent
+to the far North, and so out of commission, in September, 1866. The
+particular squadron was continued till the following spring, when,
+under diplomatic pressure, the French expedition was withdrawn; but by
+then I was again in Rio de Janeiro on my way to China.
+
+The headquarters of this temporary squadron was at Pensacola; but
+until her unlucky visit to the Rio Grande my ship, the _Muscoota_, one
+of the iron double-ender paddle steamers which the war had evolved
+among other experiments, lay for some months at Key West, then, as
+always from its position, a naval station of importance. I suppose
+most people know that this word "Key," meaningless in its application
+to the low islands which it designates, is the anglicized form of the
+Spanish "Cayo." Among the valued acquaintances of my life I here met a
+clergyman, whose death at the age of eighty I see as these words pass
+from my pen. As chaplain to the garrison, he had won the esteem and
+praise of many, including General Sherman, for his devotion during an
+epidemic of yellow-fever, and he was now rector of the only Episcopal
+parish. He told me an anecdote of one of his flock. Key West, from its
+situation, had many of the characteristics of an outpost, a frontier
+town, a mingling of peoples, with consequent rough habits, hard
+drinking, and general dissipation. The man in question, a good fellow
+in his way, professed to be a very strong churchman, and constantly so
+avowed himself; but the bottle was too much for him. The rector
+remonstrated. "----, how can you go round boasting yourself a
+churchman when your life is so scandalous? You are doing the Church
+harm, not good, by such talk." "Yes, Mr. Herrick," he replied, "I know
+it's too bad; it is a shame; but, you see, all the same, I _am_ a good
+churchman. I fight for the Church. If I hear a man say anything
+against her, I knock him down." It was at Mr. Herrick's table I heard
+criticised the local inadequacy of the prayer-book petition for rain.
+"What we want," said the speaker, "is not 'moderate rain and showers,
+that we may receive the fruits of the earth,' but a hard down-pour to
+fill our tanks." Key West and its neighbors then depended chiefly, if
+not solely, upon this resource for drinking-water.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+A ROUNDABOUT ROAD TO CHINA
+
+1867
+
+
+With the termination of the War of Secession, which had concentrated
+the entire effort of the navy upon our own coasts and inland waters,
+the policy of the government reverted, irreflectively perhaps, to the
+identical system of distribution in squadrons that had existed before.
+The prolonged tension of mind and effort during four years of
+overwrought activity was followed by a period of reaction, to which,
+as far as the administration of the navy was concerned, the term
+collapse would scarcely be misapplied. Of course, for a few years the
+evil effects of this would not be observable in the military resources
+of the government. Only the ravages of time could deprive us of the
+hundreds of thousands of veterans just released from the active
+practice of war; and the navy found itself in possession of a
+respectable fleet, which, though somewhat over-specialized in order to
+meet the peculiar conditions of the hostilities, was still fairly
+modern. There was a body of officers fully competent in numbers and
+ability, and comparatively young. In the first ship on board which I
+made a long cruise, beginning in 1867, of ten in the ward-room, three
+only, the surgeon, paymaster, and chief engineer, were over thirty;
+and they barely. I myself, next to the captain, was twenty-six; and
+there was not a married man among us. The seamen, though
+professionally more liable to dispersion than the land forces, were
+not yet scattered. Thus provided against immediate alarms, and with
+the laurels of the War of Secession still fresh, the country in
+military matters lay down and went to sleep, like the hare in the
+fable, regardless of the incessant progress on every side, which,
+indeed, was scarcely that of the tortoise. Our ships underwent no
+change in character or armament.
+
+Twenty years later, in the Pacific, I commanded one of these old
+war-horses, not yet turned out to grass or slaughter, ship-rigged to
+royals, and slow-steamed. One day the French admiral came on board to
+return my official visit. As he left, he paused for a moment abreast
+one of our big, and very old, pivot guns. "Capitaine," he said, "les
+vieux canons!" Two or three days later came his chief of staff on some
+errand or other. That discharged, when I was accompanying him to his
+boat at the gangway, he stopped in the same spot as the admiral. His
+gaze was meditative, reminiscent, perhaps even sentimental. "Ou
+sont les neiges d'antan?" Whatever their present merits as
+fighting-machines, he saw before him an historical memento, sweeping
+gently, doubtless, the chords of youthful memories. "Oui, oui!" he
+said at last; "l'ancien systeme. Nous l'avons eu." It was a summary of
+American naval policy during the twenty years following 1865; we
+"hail" things which other nations "had had," until Secretary Chandler
+started the movement of renovation by the first of all necessary
+steps, the official exposure of the sham to which we had allowed
+ourselves to be committed. There is an expression, "quaker guns,"
+applied to blackened cylinders of wood, intended to simulate cannon,
+and mounted upon ramparts or a ship's broadside to impose upon an
+enemy as to the force before him. We made four such for the
+_Macedonian_, to deceive any merchant-men we spoke as to our battery,
+in case she should report us to an _Alabama_; and, being carried near
+the bows, much trouble they gave us, being usually knocked overboard
+when we tacked ship, or set a lower studding-sail. Well, by 1885 the
+United States had a "quaker" navy; the result being that, not the
+enemy, but our own people were deceived. Like poor Steece's passengers
+on board the _Ariel_, we were blissfully sheltering behind pine
+boards.
+
+In 1867, however, these old ships and ancient systems were but just
+passing their meridian, and for a brief time might continue to live on
+their reputation. They were beautiful vessels in outline, and repaid
+in appearance all the care which the seamen naturally lavishes on his
+home. One could well feel proud of them; the more so that they had
+close behind them a good fighting record. It was to one such, the
+_Iroquois_, which had followed Farragut from New Orleans to Vicksburg,
+that I reported on the second day of that then new year. She was
+destined to China and Japan, the dream of years to me; but, better
+still, there was chalked out for her an extensive trip, "from Dan to
+Beersheba," as a British officer enviously commented in my hearing. We
+were to go by the West Indies to Rio de Janeiro, thence by the Cape of
+Good Hope to Madagascar, to Aden at the mouth of the Red Sea, to
+Muscat at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, and so by India and Siam
+to our first port in Chinese waters, Hong Kong. The time, too, was
+apposite, for Japan had not yet entered upon the path of modernization
+which she has since pursued with such revolutionary progress. Some
+eight or ten years ago there lunched with me a young Japanese naval
+officer, who I understand has occupied a position of distinguished
+responsibility during the recent war with Russia. I chanced to ask him
+if he had ever seen a two-sworded man. He replied, Never. He belonged
+to the samurai class, who once wore them; but in actual life they have
+disappeared. When the _Iroquois_ reached Japan, and throughout her
+stay, two-sworded men were as thick almost as blackberries. To
+European prepossessions it was illuminating to see half a dozen riding
+down a street, hatless, crown of the head shaved, with a short pigtail
+at the back tied tight near the skull and then brought stiffly forward
+close to the scalp; their figures gowned, the handles of the two
+swords projecting closely together from the left side of their
+garments, and the feet resting in stirrups of slipper form, which my
+memory says were of straw-work; but of that I am less sure. This
+equipment was completed by a painted fan stuck in the belt, and at
+times an opened paper umbrella. I have been passenger in the same boat
+with some of these warriors, accoutred as above, and using their fans
+as required, while engaged in animated conversation with the courtesy
+and smiling affability characteristic of all classes in Japan. Such,
+in outward seeming, then was the as yet raw material, out of which
+have been evolved the heroic soldiery who have recently astonished the
+world by the practical development they have given to modern military
+ideas; then as unlike the troops which now are, except in courage, as
+the ancient Japanese war-junk is to the present battle-ship. I was in
+Japan at the arrival of their first iron-clad, purchased in the United
+States, and doubtless long since consigned to the scrap-heap; but of
+her hereafter.
+
+A glance over the list of vessels in the _Navy Register_ of 1907 shows
+me that the once abundant Indian names have disappeared, except where
+associated with some State or city; or, worse, have been degraded to
+tugboats, a treatment which the Indian, with all his faults, scarcely
+deserves. They no longer connote ships of war. _Iroquois_, _Seminole_,
+_Mohican_, _Wyoming_, _Oneida_, _Pawnee_, and some dozens more, are
+gone with the ships, and like the tribes, which bore them. Yet what
+more appropriate to a vessel meant for a scout than the tribal epithet
+of a North American Indian! _Dacotah_, alone survives; while for it
+the march of progress in spelling has changed the _c_ to _k_, and
+phonetically dropped the silent, and therefore supposedly useless,
+_h_. As if silence had no merits! is the interjection, _ah_,
+henceforth to be spelled _a_? Since they with their names have passed
+into the world of ghosts--can there be for them a sea in the happy
+hunting-grounds?--it may be historically expedient to tell what manner
+of craft they were. If only some contemporary had done the same by the
+trireme, what time and disputation might have been saved!
+
+The _Iroquois_ and her sisters, built in the fifties, were vessels of
+the kind to which I have applied the term corvette, then very common
+in all navies; cruisers only; scouts, or commerce-destroyers. Not of
+the line of battle, although good fighting-ships. Ours were of a
+thousand tons, as size was then stated, or about seven hundred tons
+"displacement," as the more modern expression runs; displacement being
+the weight of the water displaced by the hull which rests in and upon
+it. Thus measured, they were from one-third to one-fourth the
+dimensions of the vessels called third-class cruisers, which now
+correspond to them; but their serviceableness in their time was
+sufficiently attested by the Confederate _Alabama_, substantially of
+this general type, as was her conqueror, the _Kearsarge_. For external
+appearance, they were something over two hundred feet long, with from
+one-fifth to one-sixth that width, and sat low in the water. Low and
+long are nautical features, suggestive of grace and speed, which have
+always obtained recognition for beauty; and the rail of these vessels
+ran unbroken, but with a fine sweep, from bow to stern. Along the
+water-line, and extending a few inches above it, shone the burnished
+copper, nearly parallel to the rail, between which and it glistened
+the saucy black hull.
+
+Steam had not yet succeeded in asserting its undivided sway; but the
+_Iroquois_ and her mates marked a stage in the progress, for they
+carried sails really as auxiliary, and were intended primarily to be
+fast steamers, as speed was reckoned in their time. The larger
+vessels of the service were acceptedly slow under steam. They had it
+chiefly to fight with, and to help them across the places where wind
+failed or weakened. These corvettes carried sails with a view to
+saving coal, by utilizing the well-defined wind zones of the ocean
+when fair for their course. Though the practical result for both was
+much the same, the underlying idea was different. In the one, sail
+held the first place; in the other, steam; and it is the idea which
+really denotes and maintains intellectual movement and material
+progress. This was represented accordingly in the rig adopted. Like a
+ship, they had three masts, yes; but only the two forward were
+square-rigged, and on each of them but three sails. The lofty royals
+were discarded. The general result was to emphasize the design of
+speed under steam, and the use of sails with a fresh, fair wind only;
+a distinct, if partial, abandonment of the "auxiliary" steam reliance
+which so far had governed naval development. It may be added that the
+shorter and lighter masts, by a common optical effect, increased the
+impression of the vessel's length and swiftness, as was the case with
+the old-time sailing-frigate when her lofty topgallant-masts were down
+on deck.
+
+Under sail alone the _Iroquois_ could never accomplish anything,
+except with a fair wind. We played with her at times, on the wind and
+tacking, but she simply slid off to leeward--never fetched near where
+she looked. Consonant with the expedient of using sails where the wind
+served, the screw could be disconnected from its shaft and hoisted;
+held in position, clear of the water, by iron pawls. In this way the
+hinderance of its submerged drag upon the speed of the ship was
+obviated. We did this on occasions, when we could reckon on a long
+period of favorable breezes; but it was a troublesome and somewhat
+anxious operation. The chance of a slip was not great, but the
+possibility was unpleasant to contemplate. When I add that for
+armament we carried one 100-pounder rifled gun on a pivot, and four
+9-inch smooth-bore shell guns--these being the naval piece which for
+the most part fought the War of Secession, then just closed--I shall
+have given the principal distinguishing features of a class of vessel
+which did good service in its day, and is now a much of the past as is
+the Spanish Armada. Yet it is only forty years since.
+
+After being frozen up and snowed under, during a very bitter and
+boisterous January, we at last got to sea, and soon ran into warmer
+weather. Our first stop was at the French West India island
+Guadeloupe, and there I had set for me amusingly that key-note of
+travelling experience which most have encountered. I was dining at a
+cafe, and after dinner got into conversation with an officer of the
+garrison. I asked him some question about the wet weather then
+reigning. "C'est exceptionnel," he replied; and exceptional we found
+it "from Dan to Beersheba." At our next port, Ciara, there was drought
+when every resident said it should have rained constantly--a variation
+a stranger could endure; while at Rio it was otherwise peculiar--"the
+warmest April in years." The currents all ran contrary to the books,
+and the winds which should have been north hung obstinately at south.
+Whether for natural productions, or weather, or society, we were
+commonly three months too late or two months too soon; or, as one of
+"ours" put it, we should have come in the other monsoon. Nevertheless,
+it was impossible for youth and high spirits to follow our schedule
+and not find it spiced to the full with the enjoyment of novelty; if
+not in season, at least well seasoned.
+
+However, every one travels nowadays, and it is time worse than wasted
+to retell what many have seen. But do many of our people yet visit our
+intended second port, that most beautiful bay of Rio de Janeiro? I
+fancy not. It is far out of the ordinary line, and the business
+immigration to South America is much more from Europe than from our
+own continent; but, having since visited many harbors, in many lands,
+I incline to agree with my old captain of the _Congress_, there is
+none that equals Rio, viewed from the anchorage. Like Japan, I was
+happy enough to see Rio before it had been much improved, while the
+sequestered, primitive, tropical aspect still clung to it. I suppose
+the red-tiled roofs still rise as before from among the abundant
+foliage and the orange-trees, in the suburb of Bota Fogo; that the
+same deliciously suggestive smell of the sugar and rum hogsheads hangs
+about the streets; that the long, narrow Rua do Ouvidor is still
+brilliant with its multicolored feather flowers; and that at night the
+innumerable lights dazzle irregularly upward, like the fireflies which
+also there abound, over the hill-sides and promontories that so
+charmingly break the shore line. But already in 1867 the strides since
+1860 were strikingly visible. In the earlier year I used frequently to
+visit a friend living at Nichtherohy, on the opposite shore of the
+bay. The ferriage then was by trig, long, sharp-bowed, black paddle
+steamers, with raking funnels. They were tremendously fussy,
+important, puffing little chaps, with that consequential air which so
+frequently accompanies moderate performance. The making a landing was
+a complicated and tedious job, characterized by the same amount of
+needless action and of shortcoming in accomplishment. We would back
+and stop about twenty feet away from the end of a long, projecting
+pier. Then ropes would be got ashore from each extremity of the
+vessel; which done, she would back again, and the bow line would be
+shortened in. Then she would go ahead, and the like would be done by
+the stern line. This would fetch her, say, ten feet away, when the
+same processes must be repeated. I never timed, for why should one be
+in a hurry in the tropics, where no one else is? but it seemed to me
+that sometimes ten minutes were thus consumed. In 1867 these had
+disappeared, and had been replaced by Yankee double-ended boats, which
+ran into slips such as we have. Much more expeditious and sensible,
+but familiar and ugly to a degree, and not in the least entertaining;
+nor, I may add, congruous. They put you at once on the same absurd
+"jump" that we North Americans practise; whereas in the others we
+placidly puffed our cigars in an atmosphere of serenity. Time and tide
+may be so ridiculous as not to wait; we knew that waiting was
+enjoyment. The boat had time to burn, and so had we. At the later
+date, street-cars also had been introduced, and we were told were
+doing much to democratize the people. The man whose ability to pay for
+a cab had once severed him from the herd now went along with it, and
+saved his coppers. The black coats and tall black silk hats, with
+white trousers and waistcoats, which always struck me as such an odd
+blend, were still in evidence.
+
+The _Iroquois_ did not succeed in making Rio without a stop. The
+northeast trades hung well to the eastward after we left Guadeloupe,
+and blew hard with a big sea; for it was the northern winter. Running
+across them, as we were, the ship was held close to the wind under
+fore and aft canvas. For a small vessel nothing is more uncomfortable.
+Rolling and butting at waves which struck the bow at an angle of
+forty-five degrees made walking, not impossible, indeed, to practised
+sea legs, but still a constant succession of gymnastic balancings that
+took from it all pleasure. For exercise it was not needed. You had but
+to sit at your desk and write, with one leg stretched out to keep your
+position. The varied movements of the muscles of that leg, together
+with those of the rest of the body, in the continued effort "to
+correct the horizontal deviation," as Boatswain Chucks phrased it,
+sent you to bed wearily conscious that you had had constitutional
+enough. The large consumption of coal in proportion to the ground
+covered made a renewal necessary, and we went into Ciara, an open
+roadstead sheltered only by submerged coral reefs, on the northeast
+coast of Brazil. Here the incessant long trade swell sets in upon a
+beach only partly protected; and boating is chiefly by catamarans, or
+_jangadas_, as the Portuguese word is,--three or four long trunks of
+trees, joined together side by side, without keel, but with mast.
+These are often to be seen far outside, and ride safely over the heavy
+breakers.
+
+From Rio to Capetown, being in the month of May, corresponding to our
+northern November, we had a South Atlantic passage which in
+boisterousness might hold its own with that between the United States
+and Europe, now familiar to so many. When clear of the tropics, one
+strikes in both hemispheres the westerly gales which are, so to say,
+the counter-currents of the atmosphere responding to the trade-winds
+of the equatorial belt--almost as prevalent in direction, though much
+more variable in force. The early Spanish navigators characterized
+them as "vientos bravos," an epithet too literally and flatteringly
+rendered into English by our seamen as "the brave west winds;" the
+Spanish "bravo" meaning rude. For a vessel using sail, however,
+"brave" may pass; for, if they hustled her somewhat unceremoniously,
+they at least did speed her on her way. On two successive Thursdays
+their prevalence was interrupted by a tempest, which in each case
+surpassed for suddenness, violence, and shortness anything that I
+remember; for I have never met a tropical hurricane, nor the full
+power of a China typhoon. On the first occasion the sun came up yellow
+and wet, with a sulky expression like that of a child bathed against
+its will; but, as the wind was moderate, sail was made soon after
+daylight. Immediately it began to freshen, and so rapidly that we
+could scarce get the canvas in fast enough. By ten it was blowing
+furiously. To be heard by a person standing at your elbow, you had to
+shout at the top of your voice. The wind shifted rapidly, a cyclone in
+miniature as to dimensions, though not as to strength; but the
+_Iroquois_ had been hove-to on the right tack according to the law of
+storms. That is, the wind hauled aft; and as she followed, close to
+it, she headed to the sea instead of falling into the trough. When
+square sails are set, this gradual movement in the same direction is
+still more important; for, should the wind fly suddenly ahead, the
+sails may be taken aback, a very awkward situation in heavy weather.
+By five o'clock this gradual shifting had passed from east, by north,
+to west, where the gale died out; having lasted only about eight
+hours, yet with such vehemence that it had kicked up a huge sea. By 10
+P.M. the stars were shining serenely, a gentle breeze barely steadying
+the ship, under increased canvas, in the huge billows which for a few
+hours continued to testify that things had been nasty. A spoiled child
+that has carried a point by squalling could scarcely present a more
+beaming expression than did the heavens; but our wet decks and clothes
+assured us that our discomfort had been real and was not yet over.
+
+Throughout the ordeal the little _Iroquois_--for small she was by
+modern standards--though at a stand-still, lay otherwise as
+unconcerned as a duck in a mill-pond; her screw turning slowly, a
+triangular rag of storm-sail showing to steady her, rolling deeply but
+easily, and bowing the waves with gentle movement up or down, an
+occasional tremor alone betraying the shock when an unusually heavy
+comber hit her in the eyes. Then one saw admiringly that the simile
+"like a sea-fowl" was no metaphor, but exact. None were better
+qualified to pronounce than we, for the South Atlantic abounds in
+aquatic birds. We were followed continuously by clouds of them, low
+flying, skirting the water, of varied yet sober plumage. The names of
+these I cannot pretend to give, except the monarch of them all, in
+size and majesty of flight, the albatross, of unsullied white, as its
+name implies--the king of the southern ocean. Several of these
+enormous but graceful creatures were ever sweeping about us in almost
+endless flight, hardly moving their wings, but inclining them
+wide-spread, now this way, now that, like the sails of a windmill, to
+catch the breeze, almost never condescending to the struggle of a
+stroke. By this alone they kept up with us, running eight or nine
+knots. As a quiet demonstration of reserve power it was most
+impressive; while the watching of the intricate manoeuvres of these
+and their humbler companions afforded a sort of circus show, a relief
+always at hand to the monotony of the voyage.
+
+As this has remained my only crossing of the South Atlantic, my
+experience cannot claim to be wide; but, as far as it goes, these
+animating accompaniments of a voyage under sail are there far more
+abundant and varied than in the northern ocean. How far the steamer in
+southern latitudes may still share this privilege, I do not know; but
+certainly I now rarely see the petrel, unfairly called stormy, numbers
+of which hung ever near in the wake of a sailing-ship on her way to
+Europe, keeping company easily with a speed of seven or eight knots,
+and with spare power enough to gyrate continually in their wayward
+flight. What instinct taught them that there was food there for them?
+and, if my observation agree with that of others, why have they
+disappeared from steamers? Is it the greater pace that wearies, or the
+commotion of the screw that daunts them?
+
+Our second Thursday gale, May 16th, exceeded the first in fury and
+duration. Beginning at daybreak, it lasted till after sundown, twelve
+hours in all; and during it the _Iroquois_ took on board the only
+solid sea that crossed her rail during my more than two years' service
+in her. We sprung also our main mast-head, which made us feel
+flatteringly like the ancient mariners, who, as we had read, were
+always "springing" (breaking) some spar or other. Ancient mariners and
+albatrosses are naturally mutually suggestive. Except for the greater
+violence, the conditions were much the same as a week before; with the
+exception, however, that the sun shone brightly most of the time from
+a cloudless sky, between which and us there interposed a milky haze,
+the vapor of the spoon-drift. During the height of the storm the
+pressure of the wind in great degree kept down the sea, which did not
+rise threateningly till towards the end. For the rest, our voyage of
+thirty-three hundred miles, while it afforded us many samples of
+weather, presented as a chief characteristic perpetual westerly gales,
+with gloomy skies and long, high following swell. Although the wind
+was such that close to it we should have been reduced to storm-sails,
+the _Iroquois_ scudded easily before it, carrying considerable canvas.
+"Before it" must not be understood to mean ahead of the waves. These,
+as they raced along continually, swept by the ship, which usually
+lifted cleverly abaft as they came up; though at rare intervals a tiny
+bit of a crest would creep along over the poop and fall on the
+quarter-deck below--nothing to hurt. The onward movement of the
+billows, missing thus the stern, culminated generally about half-way
+forward, abreast the main-mast; and if the ship, in her continual
+steady but easy roll, happened just then to incline to one side, she
+would scoop in a few dozen buckets of water, enough to keep the decks
+always sloppy, as it swashed from side to side.
+
+From Rio to the Cape took us thirty-two days. This bears out the
+remark I find in an old letter that the _Iroquois_ was very slow; but
+it attests also a series of vicissitudes which have passed from my
+mind, leaving predominant those only that I have noted. Among other
+experiences, practically all our mess crockery was smashed; the
+continual rolling seemed to make the servants wilfully reckless. Also,
+having an inefficient caterer, our sea stores were exhausted on the
+way, with the ludicrous exception of about a peck of nutmegs. Another
+singular incident remains in my memory. At dawn of the day before our
+arrival, a mirage presented so exactly, and in the proper quarter, the
+appearance of Table Mountain, the landmark of Cape Town, that our
+captain, who had been there more than once, was sure of it. As by the
+reckoning it must be still over a hundred miles distant, the
+navigating officer was summoned, to his great disconcertment, to be
+eye-witness of his personal error; and the chronometers fell under
+unmerited suspicion. The navigator was an inveterate violinist. He had
+a curious habit of undressing early, and then, having by this symbolic
+act laid aside the cares of the day, as elbow space was lacking in his
+own cabin, he would play in the open ward-room for an hour or more
+before turning in; always standing, and attired in a white night-shirt
+of flowing dimensions. He was a tall, dark, handsome man, the contrast
+of his full black beard emphasizing the oddness of his costume; and so
+rapt was he in his performance that remarks addressed directly to him
+were unheard. I often had to remind him at ten o'clock that music must
+not longer trouble the sleep of the mid-watch officers. On this
+occasion, with appearances so against him, perplexed but not
+convinced, after looking for a few moments he went below and sought
+communion with his beloved instrument; nor did the fading of the
+phantasm interrupt his fiddling. When announced, he listened absently,
+and continued his aria unmoved by such trivialities. Cape Flyaway, as
+counterfeits like this are called, had lasted so long and looked so
+plausible that the order was given to raise steam; and when it
+vanished later, after the manner of its kind, the step was not
+countermanded, for the weather was calm and there were abundant
+reasons in our conditions for hurrying into port.
+
+At the season of our stay, May and June, the anchorage at Cape Town
+itself, being open to the northward, is exposed to heavy gales from
+that quarter, often fatal to shipping. I believe this defect has now
+been remedied by a breakwater, which in 1867 either had not been begun
+or was not far enough advanced to give security. Vessels therefore
+commonly betook themselves to Simon's Bay, on the other side of the
+Cape, where these winds blew off shore. Thither the _Iroquois_ went;
+and as communication with Cape Town, some twenty miles away, was by
+stage, the opportunity for ordinary visiting was indifferent. We went
+up by detachments, each staying several days. The great local natural
+feature of interest, Table Mountain, has since become familiar in
+general outline by the illustrations of the Boer War; from which I
+have inferred that similar formations are common in South Africa, just
+as I remember at the head of Rio Bay, on the road to Petropolis, a
+reproduction in miniature, both in form and color, of the huge
+red-brown Sugar-Loaf Rock that dominates the entrance from the sea.
+Seen as a novelty, Table Mountain was most impressive; but it seems to
+me that Altar Mountain would more correctly convey its appearance.
+With rocky sides, which rose precipitate as the Palisades of the
+Hudson, the sky-line was horizontal, and straight as though drawn by a
+ruler. At times a white cloud descends, covering its top and creeping
+like loose drapery down the sides, resembling a table-cloth; which
+name is given it. I believe that is reckoned a sign of bad weather.
+
+I recall many things connected with our stay there, but chiefly
+trivialities. Most amusing, because so embarrassing to the unprepared,
+was an unlooked-for and startling attention received from the British
+soldiery, whom I now met for the first time: for the war at home had
+hitherto prevented the men of my date from having much foreign
+cruising. I was in uniform in the streets, confining myself severely
+to my own business, when I saw approaching a squad of redcoats under a
+non-commissioned officer. Being used to soldiers, I was observing them
+only casually, but still with the interest of novelty, when wholly
+unexpectedly I heard, "Eyes right!" and the entire group, as one man,
+without moving their heads, slewed their eyes quickly round and
+fastened them steadily on me; the corporal also holding me with his
+glittering eye, while carrying his hand to his cap. Of course, in all
+salutes, from a civilian lifting his hat to a lady, to a military
+passing in review, the person saluting looks at the one saluted; but
+to find one's self without warning the undivided recipient of the
+steady stare of some half-dozen men, transfixed by what Mr. Snodgrass
+called "the mild gaze of intelligence beaming from the eyes of the
+defenders of their country," was, however flattering, somewhat
+disturbing to one not naturally obtrusive. With us the salute would
+have been given, of course; but only by the non-commissioned officer,
+touching his cap. Afterwards I was on the lookout for this, and dodged
+it when I could.
+
+Both in Rio and at the Cape the necessity for repairs occasioned
+delays which militated somewhat against the full development of our
+cruise. Through this, I believe, we missed a stop at Siam, which,
+consequently, I have never visited; and I know that towards the end
+our captain felt pressed to get along. Our next destination was
+Madagascar; to reach which, under sail, it was necessary to run well
+to the eastward, in a latitude farther south than that of Cape Town,
+before heading north. We left somewhat too soon the westerly winds
+there prevailing, and in consequence did not go to Tamatave, the
+principal port, on the east side of the great island, but passed
+instead through the Mozambique Channel. It was in attempting this
+same passage that the British frigate _Aurora_, in which was serving
+the poet Falconer, the author of "The Shipwreck," disappeared with all
+on board; by what nautical fate overtaken has never been known. His
+first shipwreck, which he celebrated in verse, was on the coast of
+Greece, off Cape Colonna; the second in these far southern seas.
+
+The French occupation of Madagascar postdates our visit to it. The
+harbor we entered, St. Augustine's Bay, on the west side, was only
+nominally under control of the native dynasty at Antananarivo, in the
+centre of the island; and the local inhabitants were little, if at
+all, above barbarism. Though dark in color, they had not the flat
+negro features. Wandering with a companion through a jungle, having
+lost our way, we came unexpectedly upon a group of brown people,
+scantily dressed, the most conspicuous member of which was a woman
+carrying a spear a little taller than herself, the head of which was
+burnished till it shone like silver; whether a weapon, or simply a
+badge of rank, I do not know. They rose to meet us in friendly enough
+fashion, and had English sufficient to set us on our way. The place
+was frequented by whalers, who occasionally shipped hands from among
+the natives; one such came on board the _Iroquois_, and within a
+limited range spoke English fluently. Our chief acquaintance was known
+to us as Prince George, and I presume had some personal importance in
+the neighborhood. He was of use in obtaining supplies, hanging about
+the deck all day, obligingly ready at any moment to take a glass of
+wine or a cigar, and seemingly even a little sulky that he was not
+asked to table. The men dressed their hair in peculiar fashion,
+gathered together in little globes about the size of a golf ball,
+distributed somewhat symmetrically over the skull, and plastered with
+a substance which looked like blue mud. As I refrained from close
+inspection, I cannot pronounce certainly what it was.
+
+From St. Augustine's Bay we went on to the Comoro Islands, between the
+north end of Madagascar and the African main-land. I do not know what
+was then the precise political status of this pleasant-looking group,
+except that one of them had for some years been under French control.
+Johanna, at which we stopped, possessed at the least a qualified
+self-government. We had a good sight of its surface, approaching from
+the south and skirting at moderate distance westward, to reach the
+principal anchorage, Johanna Town, on the north. The island is
+lofty--five thousand feet--and of volcanic origin; bearing the family
+likeness which I have found in all such that I have seen. On a bright
+day, which we had, they are very picturesque to look on from the sea,
+with their deep gullies, ragged precipices, and varied hues;
+especially striking from the effects of light and shadow produced by
+the exaggerated inequalities of the ground. It is hard to say which
+are the more attractive, these or the totally different low coral
+islands of the tropics, with their brilliant white sand, encircled by
+which, as by a setting of silver, the deep-green brush glows like an
+emerald. It is hard, however, to make other than a pleasing picture
+with a combination of blue water and land. Like flowers, they may be
+more or less tastefully arranged, but scarcely can be less than
+beautiful.
+
+In the way of landscape effect, Johanna had a special feature of its
+own. Up to a height of about fifteen hundred feet from the sea-level,
+the slopes were of a tawny hue, the color of grass when burned up by
+drought. Except scattered waving cocoanut palms which grew even on
+these hill-sides, no green thing was apparent, save in the ravines,
+where trees seemed to thrive, and so broke the monotony of tint with
+streaks of sombre verdure. Farther up, the peaks were thickly covered
+with a forest, which looked impenetrable. The abrupt contrast of the
+yellow lower land with this cap of tanglewood, itself at times
+covered, at times only dotted, with fleecy clouds, was singularly
+vivid.
+
+The inhabitants of the island were Arabs, mixed with some negro blood,
+and wore the Oriental costume now so familiar to us all in this age of
+illustration. The ship was besieged by them at once, and throughout
+our stay, at all hours that they were permitted to come on board. They
+were cleanly in person, as their religion prescribes, and applied no
+offensive substance to their hair; on the contrary, some pleasant
+perfume was perceptible about their clothing. The coloring generally
+was dark, although some, among whom was the ruler, called the sultan,
+have olive skins; but the features were clear and prominent, the
+stature and form good, the bearing manly; nor did they seem other than
+intelligent. The teeth, too, were fine, when not disfigured by the
+chewing of the betel nut, which, when long continued, stains them a
+displeasing dark red. Like all barbarians, they talked, talked,
+talked, till one was nearly deafened. On one occasion, a group of them
+favored us with a theological exposition, marked by somewhat
+elementary conceptions. The ship was a perfect Babel at meal-times,
+when the intermission of work allowed the freest visiting. Every man
+who came brought at least a half-dozen fowl, with sweet potatoes,
+fruit, and eggs, to match; and as, in addition to our own crew
+bargaining, there were on the deck some fifty or sixty natives, all
+vociferating, bartering, beseeching, or yelling to the fifty others in
+canoes alongside, the tumult and noise may be conceived. The chickens,
+too, both cocks and hens, present by the hundred in basket-work cages,
+made no small contribution to the general uproar. Chickens, indeed,
+numerous though not large, are among the chief food commodities of
+that region; the usual price, as I recollect, being a dollar the
+dozen. When we left Johanna, we must have had on board several hundred
+as sea-stock. Not infrequently one would get out of its cage, and if
+pursued would often end by flapping overboard, so by drowning
+anticipating its appointed doom; but it was a pathetic sight to see
+the poor creature, upborne by its feathers so long as dry, floating on
+the waste of waters in the wake of the ship which seemed almost
+heartlessly to forsake it.
+
+The faith of the island being Mohammedan, we found it safe to give a
+large liberty to the crew. Especially, if I rightly recall, I availed
+myself of the circumstance to let go certain ne'er-do-wells whose
+conduct under temptation was not to be depended on. We had the
+unprecedented experience that they all came back on time and sober;
+thus avouching that the precepts of the Prophet concerning rum were
+obeyed in Johanna. Exemplary in this, it would be difficult to say,
+otherwise, on what precise rung of the ladder stretching from
+barbarism to civilization these people stood. In manner towards us
+they were pleasant and smiling; not averse to the arts of diplomacy,
+but perhaps a little transparent in their approaches to a desired
+object. I went on shore one Friday, their Sunday, which was
+inadvertent on my part, for their religious duties interfered with
+customary routine; one and another excused themselves to me on the
+plea that they must go to pray. I was known, however, to be in
+authority on board, which produced for me some simple hospitality,
+principally not very inviting lemonade--attentions that I soon found
+to be not wholly disinterested. Next day one of my hosts came on board
+and interviewed me with many bows. "The _Iroquois_ very fine ship,
+much better than English ship. Captain English very good man; and
+first lieutenant [myself] he _very good_ man;" and the complimenter
+would like certain articles within the gift of the said very good man,
+together with a note to bearer, permitting him to come aboard at any
+time.
+
+Being by this some weeks away from Cape Town, we sent our wash
+ashore; a resort of desperation. It came back clean enough, but for
+ironing--well; and as to starch, much in the predicament of Boatswain
+Chuck's frilled shirts after the gale, upon which, while flying in the
+breeze, he looked with a degree of professional philosophy that could
+express itself only by thrashing the cooper. Crumpled would be a mild
+expression for our linen. We remonstrated, but were met with a shrug
+of the shoulders and a deprecatory but imperturbable smile--"Yes;
+Johanna wash!" And "Johanna" we found we were expected to receive as a
+sufficient explanation for any deficiencies in any line. If not
+satisfactory to us, it was at least modest in them.
+
+Grave courtesies, ceremonious in conception, if rather rudimentary in
+execution, were exchanged between us and the authorities of Johanna.
+Our captain returned the visit of the official in charge of the place,
+and subsequently called upon the sultan, who came to the town while we
+were there. I went along on the first occasion. Upon reaching the
+beach we found a guard of some forty negro soldiers, whose equipment,
+as to shoes, resembled that of the Barbadian company immortalized in
+Peter Simple; but in this instance there was no attempt at that
+decorous regard for externals which ordered those with both shoes and
+stockings to fall in in the front rank, and those with neither to keep
+in the rear. They were commanded by a young Arab, who seemed very
+anxious to do all in style, rising on tiptoe at the several orders,
+which he jerked out with vim, and to my surprise in English. When duly
+pointed, we marched off to the sound of a drum, accompanied by a
+peculiar monotonous wail on a kind of trumpet; the order of the
+procession being, 1, music; 2, the soldiers, led by an old sergeant in
+a high state of excitement and coat-collar, which held the poor
+fellow's head like a vise; and, 3, our captain and his attendants. The
+visit to the sultan, two days later, was marked by additional
+features, indicative, I presume, of the greater dignity of the event;
+the captain being now carried in a chair with a red silk umbrella over
+his head.
+
+Between three and four years before our visit, the Confederate steamer
+_Alabama_ had stopped at Johanna, and, so at least our friends told
+us, Semmes had promised them a Yankee whaler or two. Whether he found
+the whalers or not I cannot say; but to the Johannese it was a
+Barmecide feast, or like the anticipation of Sisera's ladies--"to
+every man a damsel or two." To use their own quaint English, the next
+thing they heard of the _Alabama_, "he go down."
+
+We left Johanna with the southwest monsoon, which in the Indian Ocean
+and China Sea blows from June to September with the regularity of the
+trade-winds of the Atlantic, both in direction and force. There the
+favorable resemblance ends; for, in the region through which we were
+passing, this monsoon is overcast, usually gloomy, and excessively
+damp. The northeast monsoon, which prevails during the winter months,
+is clear and dry. The consequent struggle with shoe-leather, and the
+deterioration of the same, is disheartening. But, though surcharged
+with moisture, rain does not fall to any great extent in the open sea,
+nor until the atmospheric current impinges on land, when it seems to
+be squeezed, like a sponge by the hand, with resultant precipitation.
+Our conditions were therefore pleasant enough. Being under sail only,
+the wind went faster than we, giving a cooling breeze as it passed
+over; and it was as steady and moderate as it was fair for our next
+destination, Aden, to reach which we were now pointing for Cape
+Guardafui. The _Iroquois_ ran along steadily northward, six to eight
+knots, followed by a big sea, but so regular that she rolled only with
+a slow, steady swing, not disagreeable. The veiled sun showed
+sufficiently for sights, without burning heat, and by the same token
+we passed that luminary on our course; that is, he was north of us
+while at Johanna, and one day on this run we got north of him. This
+must have been after we had crossed the equator; for, being August,
+the sun was still north of the "Line."
+
+This reminds me that, the day we thus passed the sun, our navigator,
+usually very exact, applied his declination wrong at noon, which gave
+us a wrong latitude. For a few minutes the discrepancy between the
+observation and the log caused a shaking of heads; the log doubtless
+fell under an unmerited suspicion, or else we had encountered a
+current not hitherto noted in the books, the usual solvent in such
+perplexities. I may explain for the unlearned in navigation that
+declination of a heavenly body corresponds in the celestial sphere to
+the latitude of an object on the terrestrial. The sun, being a
+leisurely celestial globe-trotter, continually varies his
+latitude--declination--within a zone bounded by the two tropics; and
+the rule runs that when his declination is of the same name (north or
+south) as his direction from the ship at noon, the declination is
+added or subtracted, I now forget which, in the computation that
+ascertains the vessel's precise position. This has to be remembered
+when he is passed overhead, in the zenith; for then the bearing
+changes, while his declination remains of the same name. If the
+resulting error is large, of course the mistake is detected
+immediately; a slight difference might pass unnoted with dangerous
+consequences.
+
+At Johanna, or possibly at St. Augustine's, some of our officers and
+men, moved by that queer propensity of mankind to acquire strange
+objects, however useless, had bought animals of the kind called
+mongoos. There were perhaps a half-dozen of these in all. The result
+was that most of them, one way or another, escaped and took refuge
+aloft in the rigging, where it was as hopeless to attempt recapture
+as for a man to pursue a gray squirrel in a tree. The poor beggars had
+achieved their liberty, however, without the proverbial crust of bread
+or cup of water; and in consequence, after fasting all day, gave
+themselves to predatory nocturnal forays, which were rather startling
+when unexpectedly aroused by them from sleep. The ward-room pantry was
+near my berth, and I remember being awaked by a great commotion and
+scuffling, as one or more utensils were upset and knocked about in the
+unhappy beast's attempt to get at water kept there in a little cask.
+No reconcilement between them and man was effected, and one by one
+they dropped overboard, the victims of accident or suicide, noted or
+unnoted, to their deliverance and our relief. While they lasted it was
+pathetic to watch their furtive movements and unrelaxed vigilance,
+jealously guarding the freedom which was held under such hopeless
+surroundings and must cost them so dear at last.
+
+When the ship had rounded Cape Guardafui and fairly entered the Strait
+of Bab-el-Mandeb, the alteration of weather conditions was immediate
+and startling. The heat became all at once intense and dry. From the
+latter circumstance the relief was great. I remember that many years
+afterwards, having spent a month or more determining a site for a
+navy-yard in Puget Sound, where the temperature is delightful but the
+atmosphere saturated, I experienced a similar sense of bodily comfort,
+when we reached Arizona, returning by the Southern Pacific Railroad.
+One morning I got up from the sleeper and walked out into the rare,
+crisp air of a way station, delighted to find myself literally as dry
+as a bone, and a very old bone, too; tertiary period, let us say. The
+sudden change in the strait proved fatal to one of our officers. He
+had been ailing for a few days, but on the night after we doubled the
+cape woke up from a calm sleep in wild delirium, and in a brief period
+died from the bursting of an aneurism; an effect which the surgeon
+attributed to the abrupt increase of heat. I may add that, though dry,
+the air was felt by us to be debilitating. During the ten days passed
+in the gulf, young as I then was, I was indisposed to any unusual
+bodily or mental effort. What breeze reached us, coming over desert
+from every direction, was like the blast of a furnace, although the
+height of the thermometer was not excessive.
+
+It was scarcely fair to Aden to visit it in midsummer, but our voyage
+had not been timed with reference to seasons or our comfort. I shall
+not weary a reader with any attempt at description of the treeless
+surroundings and barren lava crags that constitute the scenery; which,
+moreover, many may have seen for themselves. What chiefly interested
+me were the Jews and the camels. Like Gibraltar, and in less measure
+Key West, Aden is a place where meet many and divers peoples from
+Asia, from Africa, and from Europe. Furthermore, it has had a long and
+checkered history; and this, at an important centre on a commercial
+route, tends to the gathering of incongruous elements. English, Arabs,
+Parsees from India, Somalese from Africa,--across the gulf,--sepoy
+soldiers, and Jews, all were to be met; and in varieties of costume
+for which we had not been prepared by our narrow experience of
+Oriental dress in Johanna. The Jews most attracted my attention--an
+attraction of repulsion to the type there exhibited, though I am
+without anti-Semitic feeling. That Jesus Christ was a Jew covers His
+race for me. These were reported to have enjoyed in earlier times a
+period of much prosperity, which had been destroyed in one of the
+dramatic political reverses frequent in Eastern annals. Since then
+they had remained a degraded and abject class. Certainly, they were
+externally a very peculiar and unprepossessing people. The physiognomy
+commonly associated with the name Jew was very evident, though the
+cast of feature had been brutalized by ages of oppression and
+servility. A singular distinctive mark was the wearing on both sides
+of the forehead long curls falling to the shoulders. Cringing and
+subservient in manner, and as traders, there was yet apparent behind
+the Uriah Heap exterior a fierce cruelty of expression which would
+make a mob hideous, if once let loose. A mob, indeed, is ever
+terrible; but these men reconstituted for me, with added vividness,
+the scene and the cry of "Crucify Him!"
+
+Although I was new to the East, camels in their uncouth form and
+shambling gait had been made familiar by menageries; but in Aden I
+first saw them in the circumstances which give the sense of
+appropriateness necessary to the completeness of an impression, and,
+indeed, to its enjoyment. Environment is assuredly more essential to
+appreciation than is commonly recognized. Does beer taste as good in
+America as in England? I think not, unless perhaps in Newport, Rhode
+Island. Climatic, doubtless. I have been told by Englishmen that the
+very best pineapples to be had are raised in England under glass. Very
+good; but where is your tropical heat to supply the appreciative
+palate? I remember, in a railway train in Guatemala, some women came
+along with pineapples. I gave five cents, expecting one fruit; she,
+unwilling to make change, forced upon me three. Small, yes; pygmies
+doubtless to the hot-house aristocrats; but at a dinner-table with
+artificial heat could one possibly want them as much, or enjoy them as
+keenly, as under the burning southern sun, eaten like an apple, the
+juice streaming to the ground? A camel sauntering down Broadway would
+be odd only; a camel in an Eastern street has the additional setting
+needed to fix him accurately in your gallery of mental pictures;
+though, for the matter of that, I suppose a desert would be a still
+more fitting surrounding. Aden has no natural water supply for daily
+use; one of the sights are the great tanks for storing it, constructed
+by some bygone dynasty. When we were there the place relied for
+emergencies upon the more modern expedient of condensers, but for
+ordinary consumption was mainly dependent upon that brought in skins
+from the adjacent country on the backs of camels, which returned
+charged with merchandise. I watched one of these ships of the desert
+being laden for the homeward voyage. He was on his knees, placidly
+chewing the cud of his last meal, but with a watchful eye behind him
+upon his master's movements. Eternal vigilance the price of liberty,
+or at least the safeguard against oppression, was clearly his
+conviction; nor did he believe in that outworn proverb not to yell
+before you are hurt. As each additional package, small or big, was
+laid on the accumulating burden, he stretched out his long neck,
+craned it round to the rear, opening his mouth as though to bite, to
+which he seemed full fain, at the same time emitting a succession of
+cries more wrathful even than dolorous, though this also they were.
+But the wail of the sufferer went unheeded, and deservedly; for when
+the load was complete to the last pound he rose, obedient to signal,
+and stepped off quietly, evidently at ease. He had had his grumble,
+and was satisfied.
+
+An impression which accumulates upon the attentive traveller following
+the main roads of maritime commerce is the continual outcropping of
+the British soldier. It is not that there is so much of him, but that
+he is so manywhere. In our single voyage, at places so apart as Cape
+Town, Aden, Bombay, Singapore, Hong Kong. Although not on our route,
+nevertheless linked to the four last named by the great ocean highway
+between East and West, consecutive even in those distant days before
+the Suez Canal, he was already in force in Gibraltar and Malta; since
+which he is to be found in Cypress also and in Egypt. He is no chance
+phenomenon, but an obvious effect of a noteworthy cause; an incident
+of current history, the exponent, unconsciously to himself, of many
+great events. In our country we have wisely learned to scrutinize with
+distrust arguments for manifest destiny; but it is, nevertheless, well
+to note and ponder a manifest present, which speaks to a manifest
+past.
+
+From Aden the _Iroquois_ ran along the southern coast of Arabia to
+Muscat, within the entrance of the Persian Gulf. Here, after leaving
+the open sea, we met a recurrence of the heat, and, in general
+features, of the scenery we had left at Aden; the whole confirming the
+association of the name Arabia with scorching and desert. The Cove of
+Muscat, though a mere indentation of the shore-line, furnishes an
+excellent harbor, being sheltered by a rocky island which constitutes
+a natural breakwater. There is considerable trade, and the position is
+naturally strong for defence, with encircling cliffs upon which forts
+have been built; but from our experience, told below, it is probable
+that their readiness did not correspond to their formidable aspect.
+From the anchorage of the _Iroquois_ the town was hardly to be
+descried, the gray color of the stone used in construction blending
+with the background of the mountains, from which probably it had been
+quarried; but nearer it is imposing in appearance, there being several
+minarets, and some massive buildings, among which the ruins of a
+Portuguese cathedral bear their mute testimony to a transitory era in
+the long history of the East. During our stay there was some
+disturbance in the place. Our information was that the reigning
+sovereign had killed his father two years before; and that in
+consequence, either through revenge or jealousy, his father's brother
+kept him constantly stirred up by invasion, or threats of invasion,
+from the inner country. Such an alarm postponed for the moment a
+ceremonious visit which our captain was to pay, but it took place next
+day. As it called for full uniform, I begged off. Those who went
+returned with unfavorable reports, both of the town and of the
+sultan.
+
+A rather funny incident here attended our exchange of civilities. In
+ports where there is cause to think that the expenditure of powder may
+be inconvenient to your hosts, or that for any reason they may not
+return a salute, it is customary first to inquire whether the usual
+national honors "to the flag" will be acceptable and duly answered,
+gun for gun. In Aden, being British, of course no questions were
+asked; but in Muscat I presume they were, for failure to give full
+measure creates a diplomatic incident and correspondence. At all
+events, we saluted--twenty-one guns; to which the castle replied. When
+the tale was but half complete there came from one of its cannon a
+huge puff of smoke, but no accompanying report. "Shall I count that?"
+shouted the quartermaster, whose special duty was to keep tally that
+we got our full pound of flesh. A general laugh followed; the
+impression had resembled that produced by an impassioned orator, the
+waving of whose arms you see, without hearing the words which give
+point to his gesticulations, and the quartermaster's query drove home
+the absurdity. It was solemnly decided, however, that that should be
+reckoned a gun. The intention was good, if result was imperfect. We
+had been done out of our noise, but we had had our smoke; and, in
+these days of smokeless powder, it is hopeful to record an instance of
+noiseless.
+
+In those few indolent days which we drowsed away in the heat of
+Muscat, one thing I noticed was the vivid green of the water,
+especially in patches near the shore, and in the crevices of the rocky
+basin. I wonder did Moore have a hint of this, or draw upon his
+imagination? Certainly it was there--a green more brilliant than any I
+have ever seen elsewhere, and of different shade.
+
+    "No pearl ever lay under Oman's green water,
+       More pure in its shell than thy spirit in thee."
+
+After the comparatively sequestered series of St. Augustine's Bay, the
+Comoros, Aden, and Muscat, our next port, Bombay, seemed like
+returning to city hubbub and accustomed ways. True, Indian life was
+strange to most of our officers, if not to all; but there was about
+Bombay that which made you feel you had got back into the world,
+albeit in many particulars as different from that you had hitherto
+known as Rip Van Winkle found after his long slumber. Then, a decade
+only after the great mutiny, travel to India for travel's sake was
+much more rare than now. The railway system, that great promoter of
+journeyings, was not complete. Two years later, when returning from
+China, I found opportunity to go overland from Calcutta to Bombay; but
+in the interior had to make a long stage by carriage between
+Jubbulpore and Nagpore. Since that time many have visited and many
+have written. I shall therefore spare myself and my possible readers
+the poor portrayal of that which has been already and better
+described. Johnson's advice to Boswell, "Tell what you have observed
+yourself," I take to mean something different from those externals the
+sight of which is common to all; unless, as in the Corsica of Boswell,
+few go to see them. What you see is that which you personally have the
+faculty of perceiving; depends upon you as much as upon the object
+itself. It may not be worth reporting, but it is all you have. I do
+not think I remember of Bombay anything thus peculiarly my own. I do
+recall the big snakes we saw lying apparently asleep on the sea, fifty
+or sixty miles from land. Perhaps readers who have not visited the
+East may not know that such modified sea-serpents are to be seen
+there, as is a smaller variety in the Strait of Malacca.
+
+From Bombay we made a long leg to Singapore. We had sailed in early
+February; it was now late September, and our captain, as I have said
+before, began to feel anxious to reach the station. Owing to this
+haste, we omitted Ceylon and Calcutta, which did not correspond to
+the expectation or the wishes of the admiral; and we missed--as I
+think--orders sent us to take in Siam before coming to Hong Kong. It
+is very doubtful whether, had we received them, we should have seen
+more of interest than awaited us shortly after our arrival in Japan.
+At all events, as in duty bound, I shall imitate my captain, and skip
+rapidly over this intervening period. There is in it nothing that
+would justify my formed intention not to enlarge upon that which
+others have seen and told.
+
+We made the run to Singapore at the change of the monsoon, towards the
+end of September; and at that time a quiet passage is likely, unless
+you are so unlucky as to encounter one of the cyclones which
+frequently attend the break-up of the season at this transition
+period. There is a tendency nowadays to discredit the equinox as a
+storm-breeder. As regards the particular day, doubtless recognition of
+a general fact may have lapsed into superstition as to a date; but in
+considering the phenomena of the monsoons, the great fixed currents of
+air blowing alternately to or from the heated or cooled continent of
+Asia, it seems only reasonable, when the two are striving for
+predominance, to expect the uncertain and at times terrific weather
+which as a matter of experience does occur about the period of the
+autumnal equinox in the India and China seas. But after we had made
+our southing from Bombay our course lay nearly due east, with a fresh,
+fair, west wind, within five degrees of the equator, a zone wherein
+cyclonic disturbance seldom intrudes. One of the complaints made by
+residents against the climate of Singapore, so pleasant to a stranger,
+is the wearisome monotony. Close to the equator, it has too much
+sameness of characteristic; _toujours perdrix_. Winter doubtless adds
+to our appreciation of summer. For all that, I personally am ready to
+dispense with snow.
+
+From Singapore, another commercial centre with variety of inhabitants,
+we carried the same smooth water up to Manila, where we stopped a few
+days for coal. This was the first of two visits paid while on the
+station to this port, which not our wildest imagination expected ever
+to see under our flag. Long as American eyes had been fixed upon Cuba,
+in the old days of negro slavery, it had occurred to none, I fancy, to
+connect possession of that island with these distant Spanish
+dependencies. Here our quiet environment was lost. The northeast
+monsoon had set in in full force when we started for Hong Kong, and
+the run across was made under steam and fore-and-aft canvas, which we
+were able to carry close on the wind; a wet passage, throwing a good
+deal of water about, but with a brilliant sky and delightful
+temperature. It would be hard to exaggerate the beauty of the weather
+which this wind brings. In the northern American states we have
+autumnal spells like it; but along the Chinese coast it continues in
+uninterrupted succession of magnificent days, with hardly a break for
+three or four months; an invigorating breeze always blowing, the
+thermometer ranging between 50 deg. and 60 deg., a cloudless sky, the air
+perfectly dry, so that furniture and wood fittings shrink, and crack
+audibly. As rain does not fall during this favored season, the dust
+becomes objectionable; but that drawback does not extend to shipboard.
+The man must be unreasonable who doubts life being worth living during
+the northeast monsoon. Hong Kong is just within the tropics, and
+experiences probably the coolest weather of any tropical port. Key
+West, in the same latitude, is well enough in a Gulf of Mexico
+norther; that is, if you too are well. The last time I ever saw
+General Winfield Scott, once our national military hero, was there,
+during a norther. I had called, and found him in misery; his gigantic
+frame swathed in heavy clothing, his face pallid with cold. He
+explained that he liked always to be in a gentle perspiration, and
+had come to Key West in search of such conditions. These the place
+usually affords, but the houses are not built to shut out the chill
+Which accompanies a hard norther. The general was then eighty, and
+died within the year.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+CHINA AND JAPAN
+
+1867-1869
+
+
+The _Iroquois_ had been as nearly as possible nine months on her way
+from New York to Hong Kong. A ship of the same class, the _Wachusett_,
+which left the station as we reached it, had taken a year, following
+much the same route. Her first lieutenant, who during the recent
+Spanish War became familiarly known to the public as Jack Philip, told
+me that she was within easy distance of Hong Kong the day before the
+anniversary of leaving home. Her captain refused to get up steam; for,
+he urged, it would be such an interesting coincidence to arrive on the
+very date, month and day, that she sailed the year before. I fear that
+man would have had no scruple about contriving an opportunity.
+
+As the anchor dropped, several Chinese boats clustered alongside,
+eager to obtain their share of the ship's custom. It is the habit in
+ships of war to allow one or more boatmen of a port the privilege of
+bringing off certain articles for private purchase; such as the
+various specialties of the place, and food not embraced in the ship's
+ration. From the number of consumers on board a vessel, even of
+moderate size, this business is profitable to the small traders who
+ply it, and who from time immemorial have been known as bumboatmen. A
+good name for fair dealing, and for never smuggling intoxicants, is
+invaluable to them; and when thus satisfactory they are passed on from
+ship to ship, through long years, by letters of recommendation from
+first lieutenants. Their dealings are chiefly with the crew, the
+officers' messes being provided by their stewards, who market on
+shore; but at times officers, too, will in this way buy something
+momentarily desired. I remember an amusing experience of a messmate of
+mine, who, being discontented with the regular breakfast set before
+him, got some eggs from the bumboat. Already on a growl, he was
+emphatic in directing that these should be cooked very soft, and great
+was his wrath when they came back hard as stones. Upon investigation
+it proved that they were already hard-boiled when bought. The cable
+was not yet secured when these applicants crowded to the gangway,
+brandishing their certificates, and seeking each to be first on deck.
+The captain, who had not left the bridge, leaned over the rail,
+watching the excited and shouting crowd scrambling one over another,
+and clambering from boat to boat, which were bobbing and chafing up
+and down, rubbing sides, and spattering the water that was squeezed
+and squirted between them. The scene was familiar to him, for he was
+an old China cruiser, only renewing his acquaintance. At length,
+turning to me, he commented, "There you have the regular China smell;
+you will find it wherever you go." And I did; but how describe it--and
+why should I?
+
+At this time the Japanese had conceded two more treaty ports, in the
+Inland Sea--Osaka and Kobe; and as the formal opening was fixed for
+the beginning of the new year--1868--most of the squadron had already
+gone north. We therefore found in Hong Kong only a single vessel, the
+_Monocacy_, an iron double-ender; a class which had its beginning in
+the then recent War of Secession, and disappeared with it. Some six
+weeks before she had passed through a furious typhoon, running into
+the centre of it; or, more accurately, I fancy, having the centre pass
+over her. Perhaps it may not be a matter of knowledge to all readers
+that for these hurricanes, as for many other heavy gales, the term
+cyclone is exact; that the wind does actually blow round a circle, but
+one of so great circumference that at each several point it seems to
+follow a straight line. Vessels on opposite sides of the circle thus
+have the wind from opposite directions. In the centre there is usually
+a calm space, of diameter proportioned to that of the general
+disturbance. As the whole storm body has an onward movement, this
+centre, calm or gusty as to wind, but confused and tumultuous as to
+wave, progresses with it; and a vessel which is so unhappy as to be
+overtaken finds herself, after a period of helpless tossing by
+conflicting seas, again subjected to the full fury of the wind, but
+from the quarter opposite to that which has already tried her.
+Although at our arrival the _Monocacy_ had been fully repaired, and
+was about to follow the other vessels, her officers naturally were
+still full of an adventure so exceptional to personal experience. She
+owed her safety mainly to the strength and rigidity of her iron hull.
+A wooden vessel of like construction would probably have gone to
+pieces; for the wooden double-enders had been run up in a hurry for a
+war emergency, and were often weak. As the capable commander of one of
+them said to me, they were "stuck together with spit." Battened down
+close, with the seas coming in deluges over both bows and both
+quarters at the same time, the _Monocacy_ went through it like a
+tight-corked bottle, and came out, not all right, to be sure, but very
+much alive; so much so, indeed, that she was carried on the Navy
+Register for thirty years more. She never returned home, however, but
+remained on the China station, for which she was best suited by her
+particular qualities.
+
+By the time the _Iroquois_, in turn, was ready to leave Hong
+Kong--November 26th--the northeast monsoon had made in full force,
+and dolorous were the prognostications to us by those who had had
+experience of butting against it in a northward passage. It is less
+severe than the "brave" west winds of our own North Atlantic; but to a
+small vessel like the _Iroquois_, with the machinery of the day, the
+monsoon, blowing at times a three-quarters gale, was not an adversary
+to be disregarded, for all the sunshiny, bluff heartiness with which
+it buffeted you, as a big boy at school breezily thrashes a smaller
+for his own good. To-day we have to stop and think, to realize the
+immense progress in size and power of steam-vessels since 1867. We
+forget facts, and judge doings of the past by standards of the
+present; an historical injustice in other realms than that of morals.
+
+In our passage north, however, we escaped the predicted disagreeables
+by keeping close to the coast; for currents, whether of atmosphere or
+of water, for some reason slacken in force as they sweep along the
+land. I do not know why, unless it be the result of friction retarding
+their flow; the fact, however, remains. So, dodging the full brunt of
+the wind, we sneaked along inshore, having rarely more than a
+single-reef topsail breeze, and with little jar save the steady thud
+of the machinery. A constant view of the land was another advantage
+due to this mode of progression, and it was the more complete because
+we commonly anchored at night. Thus, as we slowly dragged north, a
+continuous panorama was unrolled before our eyes.
+
+Another very entertaining feature was the flight of fishing-boats,
+which at each daybreak put out to sea, literally in flocks; so
+numerous were they. As I was every morning on deck at that hour,
+attending the weighing of the anchor, the sight became fixed upon my
+memory. The wind being on their beam, and so fresh, they came lurching
+along in merry mood, leaping livelily from wave to wave, dashing the
+water to either hand. Besides the poetry of motion, their peculiar
+shape, their hulls with the natural color of the wood,--because oiled,
+not painted,--their bamboo mat sails, which set so much flatter than
+our own canvas, were all picturesque, as well as striking by novelty.
+Most characteristic, and strangely diversified in effect, as they
+bowled saucily by, were the successive impressions produced by the
+custom of painting an eye on each side of the bow. An alleged proverb
+is in pigeon English: "No have eye, how can see? no can see, how can
+sail?" When heading towards you, they really convey to an imagination
+of ordinary quickness the semblance of some unknown sea monster, full
+of life and purpose. Now you see a fellow charging along, having the
+vicious look of a horse with his ears back. Anon comes another, the
+quiet gaze of which suggests some meditative fish, lazily gliding,
+enjoying a siesta, with his belly full of good dinner. Yet a third has
+a hungry air, as though his meal was yet to seek, and in passing turns
+on you a voracious side glance, measuring your availability as a
+morsel, should nothing better offer. The boat life of China, indeed,
+is a study by itself. In very many cases in the ports and rivers, the
+family is born, bred, fed, and lives in the boat. In moving her, the
+man and his wife and two of the elder children will handle the oars;
+while a little one, sometimes hardly more than an infant, will take
+the helm, to which his tiny strength and cunning skill are sufficient.
+Going off late one night from Hong Kong to the ship, and having to
+lean over in the stern to get hold of the tiller-lines, I came near
+putting my whole weight on the baby, lying unperceived in the bottom.
+Those sedate Chinese children, with their tiny pigtails and their old
+faces, but who at times assert their common humanity by a wholesome
+cry; how funny two of them looked, lying in the street fighting, fury
+in each face, teeth set and showing, nostrils distended with rage, and
+a hand of each gripping fast the other's pigtail, which he seemed to
+be trying to drag out by the roots; at the moment not "Celestials,"
+unless after the pattern of Virgil's Juno.
+
+The habit of whole families living together in a boat, though
+sufficiently known to me, was on one occasion realized in a manner at
+once mortifying and ludicrous. The eagerness for trade among the
+bumboatmen, actual and expectant, sometimes becomes a nuisance; in
+their efforts to be first they form a mob quite beyond the control of
+the ship, the gangways and channels of which they none the less
+surround and grab, deaf to all remonstrance by words, however
+forcible. This is particularly the case the first day of arrival,
+before the privilege has been determined. In one such instance my
+patience gave way; the din alongside was indescribable, the confusion
+worse confounded, and they could not be moved. There was working at
+the moment one of those small movable hand-pumps significantly named
+"Handy Billy," and I told the nozzle-man to turn the stream on the
+crowd. Of course, nothing could please a seaman more; it was done with
+a will, and the full force of impact struck between the shoulders of a
+portly individual standing up, back towards the ship. A prompt upset
+revealed that it was a middle-aged woman, a fact which the pump-man
+had not taken in, owing to the misleading similarity of dress between
+the two sexes. I was disconcerted and ashamed, but the remedy was for
+the moment complete; the boats scattered as if dynamite had burst
+among them. The mere showing of the nozzle was thereafter enough.
+
+The _Iroquois_ was about a week in the monsoon, a day or so having
+been expended in running into Fuchau for coal. She certainly seemed to
+have lost the speed credited to her in former cruises; the cause for
+which was plausibly thought to be the decreased rigidity of her hull,
+owing to the wear and tear of service. In the days of sailing-ships
+there was a common professional belief that lessened stiffness of
+frame tended to speed; and a chased vessel sometimes resorted to
+sawing her beams and loosening her fastenings to increase the desired
+play. But, however this may have been, the thrust of the screw tells
+best when none of its effect is lost in a structural yielding of the
+ship's body; when this responds as a solid whole to the forward
+impulse. In this respect the _Iroquois_ was already out of date,
+though otherwise serviceable.
+
+On the eleventh day, December 7th, we reached Nagasaki, whence we
+sailed again about the middle of the month for Hiogo, or Kobe, where
+the squadrons of the various nations were to assemble for the formal
+opening. With abundant time before us, we passed in leisurely fashion
+through the Inland Sea, at the eastern end of which lay the newly
+opened ports. Anchoring each night, we missed no part of the scenery,
+with its alternating breadths and narrows, its lofty slopes, terraced
+here and wooded there, the occasional smiling lowlands, the varied and
+vivid greens, contrasting with the neutral tints of the Japanese
+dwellings; all which combine to the general effect of that singular
+and entrancing sheet of water. The Japanese junks added their
+contribution to the novelty with their single huge bellying sail,
+adapted apparently only to sailing with a free wind, the fairer the
+better.
+
+Hiogo and Kobe, as I understood, are separate names of two continuous
+villages; Kobe, the more eastern, being the destined port of entry.
+They are separated by a watercourse, broad but not deep, often dry,
+the which is to memory dear; for following along it one day, and so up
+the hills, I struck at length, well within the outer range, an
+exquisite Japanese valley, profound, semicircular, and terraced, dosed
+at either end by a passage so narrow that it might well be called a
+defile. The suddenness with which it burst upon me, like the South Sea
+upon Balboa, the feeling of remoteness inspired by its isolation, and
+its own intrinsic beauty, struck home so forcible a prepossession that
+it remained a favorite resort, to which I guided several others; for
+it must be borne in mind that up to our coming the hill tracks of Kobe
+knew not the feet of foreigners, and there was still such a thing as
+first discovery. Some time afterwards, when I had long returned home,
+a naval officer told me that the place was known to him and others as
+Mahan's Valley; but I have never heard it has been so entered on the
+maps. Shall I describe it? Certainly not. When description is tried,
+one soon realizes that the general sameness of details is so great as
+quite to defy convincing presentation, in words, of the particular
+combination which constitutes any one bit of scenery. Scenery in this
+resembles a collection of Chinese puzzles, where a few elementary
+pieces, through their varied assemblings, yield most diverging forms.
+Given a river, some mountains, a few clumps of trees, a little sloping
+field under cultivation, an expanse of marsh--in Japan the universal
+terrace--and with them many picturesque effects can be produced; but
+description, mental realization, being a matter of analysis and
+synthesis, is a process which each man performs for himself. The
+writer does his part, and thinks he has done well. Could he see the
+picture which his words call up in the mind of another, the particular
+Chinese figure put together out of the author's data, he might be less
+satisfied. And should the reader rashly become the visitor, he will
+have to meet Wordsworth's disappointment. "And is this--Yarrow? this
+the scene?" "Although 'tis fair, 'twill be another Yarrow." Should any
+reader of mine go hereafter to Kobe, and so wish, let him see for
+himself; he shall go with no preconceptions from me. If the march of
+improvement has changed that valley, Japan deserves to be beaten in
+her next war.
+
+As I recall attending a Christmas service on board the British
+flag-ship _Rodney_ at Kobe, we must have anchored there a few days
+before that fixed for the formal opening; but, unless my memory much
+deceive me, visiting the shore after the usual fashion was permitted
+without awaiting the New Year ceremony. At this time Kobe and Hiogo
+were in high festival; and that, combined with the fact that the
+inhabitants had as yet seen few foreigners, gave unusual animation to
+the conditions. We were followed by curious crowds, to whom we were
+newer even than they to us; for the latest comers among us had seen
+Nagasaki, but strangers from other lands had been rare to these
+villagers. In explanation of the rejoicings, it was told us that slips
+of paper, with the names of Japanese deities written on them, had
+recently fallen in the streets, supposed by the people to come from
+the skies; and that different men had found in their houses pieces of
+gold, also bearing the name of some divinity. These tokens were
+assumed to indicate great good luck about to light upon those places
+or houses. By an easy association of ideas, the approaching opening of
+the port might seem to have some connection with the expected
+benefits, and inclines one to suspect human instrumentality in
+creating impressions which might counteract the long-nurtured jealousy
+of foreign intrusion. Whatever the truth, the external rollicking
+celebrations were as apparent as was the general smiling courtesy so
+noticeable in the Japanese, and which in this case was common to both
+the throng in ordinary dress and the masqueraders. Men and women,
+young and old, in gay, fantastic costumes, faces so heavily painted as
+to have the effect of masks, were running about in groups, sometimes
+as many as forty or fifty together, dancing and mumming. They
+addressed us frequently with a phrase, the frequent repetition of
+which impressed it upon our ears, but, in our ignorance of the
+language, not upon our understandings. At times, if one laughed,
+liberties were taken. These the customs of the occasion probably
+justified, as in the carnivals of other peoples, which this somewhat
+resembled; but there was no general concourse, as in the Corso at
+Rome, which I afterwards saw--merely numerous detachments moving with
+no apparent relation to one another. Once only a companion and myself
+met several married women, known as such by their blackened teeth, who
+bore long poles with feathers at one end, much like dusters, with
+which they tapped us on the head. These seemed quite beside themselves
+with excitement, but all in the best of humor.
+
+Viewed from the distance, the general effect was very pretty, like a
+stage scene. The long main street, forming part of the continuous
+imperial highway known as the Tokaido, was jammed with people; the
+sober, neutral tints of the majority in customary dress lighted up,
+here and there, by the brilliant, diversified colors of the
+performers, as showy uniforms do an assembly of civilians. The
+weather, too, was for the most part in keeping. The monsoon does not
+reach so far north, yet the days were like it; usually sunny, and the
+air exhilarating, with frequent frost at dawn, but towards noon
+genial. Such we found the prevalent character of the winter in that
+part of Japan, though with occasional spells of rain and high winds,
+amounting to gales of two or three days' duration.
+
+Unhappily, these cheerful beginnings were the precursors of some very
+sad events; indeed, tragedies. A week after the New Year ceremonies at
+Kobe, the American squadron moved over some twelve miles to Osaka, the
+other opened port, at which our minister then was. Unlike Kobe, where
+the water permits vessels to lie close to the beach, Osaka is up a
+river, at the mouth of which is a bar; and, owing to the shoalness of
+the adjacent sea, the anchorage is a mile or two out. From it the town
+cannot be seen. The morning after our arrival, a Thursday, it came on
+to blow very hard from the westward, dead on shore, raising a big sea
+which prevented boats crossing the bar. The gale continued over
+Friday, the wind moderating by the following daylight. The swell
+requires more time to subside; but it was now Saturday, the next day
+would be Sunday, and the admiral, I think, was a religious man,
+unwilling to infringe upon the observance of the day, for himself or
+for the men. His service on the station was up, and, indeed, his time
+for retirement, at sixty-two, had arrived; there remained for him only
+to go home, and for this he was anxious to get south. Altogether, he
+decided to wait no longer, and ordered his barge manned. Danger from
+the attempt was apprehended on board the flag-ship by some, but the
+admiral was not one of those who encourage suggestions. Her boatswain
+had once cruised in whalers, which carry to perfection the art of
+managing boats in a heavy sea, and of steering with an oar, the safest
+precaution if a bar must be crossed; and he hung round, in evidence,
+hoping that he might be ordered to steer her, but she shoved off as
+for an ordinary trip. The mishap which followed, however, was
+not that most feared. Just before she entered the breakers, the
+flag-lieutenant, conscious of the risk, was reported to have said to
+the admiral, "If you intend to go in before the sea, as we are now
+running, we had better take off our swords;" and he himself did so,
+anticipating an accident. As she swept along, her bow struck bottom.
+Her way being thus stopped for an instant, the sea threw her stern
+round; she came broadside to and upset. Of the fifteen persons hurled
+thus into the wintry waves, only three escaped with their lives. Both
+the officers perished.
+
+The gale continued to abate, and the bodies being all soon recovered,
+the squadron returned to Kobe to bury its dead. The funeral ceremonies
+were unusually impressive in themselves, as well as because of the
+sorrowful catastrophe which so mournfully signalized the entry of the
+foreigner into his new privilege. The day was fair and cloudless, the
+water perfectly smooth; neither rain nor wave marred the naval
+display, as they frequently do. Thirty-two boats, American and
+British, many of them very large, took part in the procession from the
+ships to the beach. The ensigns of all the war-vessels in port,
+American and other, were at half-mast, as was the admiral's square
+blue flag at the mizzen, which is never lowered while he remains on
+duty on board. As the movement began, a first gun was fired from the
+_Hartford_, which continued at minute intervals until she had
+completed thirteen, a rear-admiral's salute. When she had finished,
+the _Shenandoah_ took up the tale, followed in turn by the _Oneida_
+and _Iroquois_, the mournful cadence thus covering almost the whole
+period up to the customary volleys over the graves. As saluting was
+the first lieutenant's business, I had remained on board to attend to
+it; and consequently, from our closeness to the land, had a more
+comprehensive view of the pageant than was possible to a participant.
+Our ships were nearly stripped of their crews; the rank of the admiral
+and the number of the sufferers, as well as the tragic character of
+the incident, demanding the utmost marks of reverent observance. As
+the march was taken up on shore, the British seamen in blue uniforms
+in the left column, the American in white in the right, to the number
+of several hundred each, presented a striking appearance; but more
+imposing and appealing, the central feature and solemn exponent of the
+occasion, was the long line of twelve coffins, skirting the sandy
+beach against a background of trees, borne in single file on men's
+shoulders in ancient fashion, each covered with the national colors.
+The tokens of mourning, so far as ships' ensigns were concerned,
+continued till sunset, when the ceremonial procedure was closed by a
+simple form, impressive in its significance and appropriateness.
+Following the motions of the American flag-ship, the chief mourner,
+the flags of all the vessels, as by one impulse, were rounded up to
+the peaks, as in the activities of every-day life; that of the dead
+admiral being at the same time mast-headed to its usual place. By this
+mute gesture, vessels and crews stood at attention, as at a review,
+for their last tribute to the departed. The _Hartford_ then fired a
+farewell rear-admiral's salute, at the thirteenth and final gun of
+which his flag came down inch by inch, in measured dignity, to be
+raised no more; all others descending with it in silent haulage.
+
+Admiral Henry Bell, who thus sadly ended his career when on the verge
+of an honored retirement, was in a way an old acquaintance of mine. It
+was he who had refused me a transfer to the _Monongahela_ during the
+war; and he and my father, having been comrades when cadets at the
+Military Academy in the early twenties of the last century, had
+retained a certain interest in each other, shown by mutual inquiries
+through me. Bell had begun life in the army, subsequently quitting it
+for the navy for reasons which I do not know. He had the rigidity and
+precision of a soldier's carriage, to a degree unusual to a naval
+officer of his period. This may have been due partly to early
+training, but still more, I think, in his case, was an outcome and
+evidence of personal character; for, though kindly and just, he was
+essentially a martinet. He had been further presented to me,
+colloquially, by my old friend the boatswain of the _Congress_, some
+of whose shrewd comments I have before quoted, and who had sailed with
+him as a captain. "Oh! what a proud man he was!" he would say. "He
+would walk up and down the poop, looking down on all around,
+thus"--and the boatswain would compress his lips, throw back his
+shoulders, and inflate his chest; the walk he could not imitate
+because he had a stiff knee. Bell's pride, however it may have seemed,
+was rather professional than personal. He was thorough and exact,
+with high standards and too little give. An officer entirely
+respectable and respected, though not brilliant.
+
+Upon the funeral of our wrecked seamen followed a dispersion of the
+squadron. The _Hartford_ and _Shenandoah_, both bound home, departed,
+leaving the _Oneida_ and _Iroquois_ to "hold the fort." Conditions
+soon became such that it seemed probable we might have to carry out
+that precept somewhat literally. This was the period of the overthrow
+of the Tycoon's power by the revolt of the great nobles, among whom
+the most conspicuous in leadership were Chiosiu and Satsuma; names
+then as much in our mouths as those of Grant, Sherman, and Lee had
+been three years before. Hostilities were active in the neighborhood
+of Osaka and Kobe, the Tycoon being steadily worsted. So far as I give
+any account, depending upon some old letters of that date, it will be
+understood to present, not sifted historical truth, but the current
+stories of the day, which to me have always seemed to possess a real
+value of their own, irrespective of their exactness. For example, the
+reports repeated by Nelson at Leghorn of the happenings during
+Bonaparte's campaign of 1796 in upper Italy, though often inaccurate,
+represent correctly an important element of a situation.
+Misapprehension, when it exists, is a factor in any circumstances,
+sometimes of powerful influence. It is part of the data governing the
+men of the time.
+
+While a certain number of foreigners, availing themselves of the
+treaty, were settling for business in Kobe, a large proportion had
+gone to Osaka, a more important commercial centre, of several hundred
+thousand inhabitants. Its superior political consideration at the
+moment was evidenced by the diplomats establishing themselves there,
+our own minister among them. The defeat of the Tycoon's forces in the
+field led to their abandoning the place, carrying off also the guards
+of the legations; a kind of protection absolutely required in those
+days, when the resentment against foreign intrusion was still very
+strong, especially among the warrior class. It was, after all, only
+fourteen years since Perry had extorted a treaty from a none too
+willing government. The fleeing Tycoon wished to get away from Osaka
+by a vessel belonging to him; but in the event of her not being off
+the bar--as proved to be the case--a party of two-sworded men, of whom
+he was rumored to be one, brought a letter from our minister asking
+any American vessel present to give them momentary shelter. It is
+customary for refugees purely political to be thus received by ships
+of war, which afford the protection their nation grants to such
+persons who reach its home territory; of which the ships are a
+privileged extension.
+
+The minister's note spoke of the bearers simply as officers of the
+very highest rank. About three in the morning they came alongside of
+the _Iroquois_, their boatmen making a tremendous racket, awaking
+everybody, the captain getting up to receive them. When I came on deck
+before breakfast the poor fellows presented a moving picture of human
+misery, and certainly were under a heavy accumulation of misfortunes:
+a lost battle, and probably a lost cause; flying for life, and now on
+an element totally new; surrounded by those who could not speak their
+language; hungry, cold, wet, and shivering--a combination of major and
+minor evils under which who would not be depressed? At half-past seven
+they left us, after a brief stay of four hours; and there was much
+trouble in getting so many unpractised landsmen into the boats, which
+were rolling and thumping alongside in the most thoughtless manner,
+there being considerable sea. I do not remember whether the ladders
+were shipped, or whether they had to descend by the cleats; but either
+presented difficulties to a man clad in the loose Japanese garb of the
+day, having withal two swords, one very long, and a revolver. What
+with encumbrances and awkwardness, our seamen had to help them down
+like children. Poor old General Scott shuddering in a Key West
+norther, and these unhappy samurai, remain coupled in my mind; pendant
+pictures of valor in physical extremes, like Caesar in the Tiber. For
+were not our shaking morning visitors of the same blood, the same
+tradition, and only a generation in time removed from, the soldiers
+and seamen of the late war? whose "fitness to win," to use Mr. Jane's
+phrase, was then established.
+
+Between the departure of the Tycoon's forces and the arrival of the
+insurgent daimios, the native mob took possession of Osaka, becoming
+insolent and aggressive; insomuch that a party of French seamen, being
+stoned, turned and fired, killing several. The disposition and
+purposes of the daimios being uncertain, the diplomatic bodies thought
+best to remove to Kobe, a step which caused the exodus of all the new
+foreign population. Chiosiu and Satsuma, the leaders in what was still
+a rebellion, had not yet arrived, nor was there any assurance felt as
+to their attitude towards the foreign question. The narrow quarters of
+the _Iroquois_ were crowded with refugees and fugitive samurai; while
+from our anchorage huge columns of smoke were seen rising from the
+city, which rumor, of course, magnified into a total destruction.
+Afterwards we were told that the Tycoon had burned Satsuma's palace in
+the place, in retaliation for which the enemy on entry had burned his.
+The Japanese in their haste left behind them their wounded, and one of
+the _Iroquois'_ officers brought off a story of the Italian minister,
+who, indignant at this desertion, went up to a Japanese official,
+shouting excitedly, "I will have you to understand it is not the
+custom in Europe thus to abandon our wounded." This he said in
+English, apparently thinking that a Japanese would be more likely to
+understand it than Italian.
+
+The embarkation was an affair of a short time, and the _Iroquois_ then
+went to Kobe, where we discharged our load of passengers. The
+diplomats had decided that there, under the guns of the shipping, they
+would establish their embassies and remain; reasoning justly enough
+that, if foreigners suffered themselves to be forced out of both the
+ports conceded by treaty, there would be trouble everywhere, in the
+old as well as the new. So the flags were soon flying gayly, and all
+seemed quiet; but for the maintenance of order there was no assurance
+while the interregnum lasted, the Tycoon's authorities having gone,
+and Chiosiu or Satsuma still delaying. Officers on shore were
+therefore ordered to go armed. On February 4, 1868, two days after our
+return, a party of samurai, some five hundred strong, belonging to the
+Prince of Bizen, marched through the town by the Tokaido. As they
+passed the foreign concession, which bordered this high-road, they
+turned and fired upon the Europeans. The noise was heard on board the
+ships, and the commotion on shore was evident, people fleeing in every
+direction. The Japanese troops themselves broke and ran along the
+highway, abandoning luggage, arms, and field-pieces. The American and
+British ships of war, with a French corvette, manned and armed boats,
+landing in hot haste five or six hundred men, who pursued for some
+distance, but failed to overtake the assailants. At the same time the
+vessels sprang their batteries to bear on the town; a move which
+doubtless looked imposing enough, though we could scarcely have dared
+to fire on the mixed multitude, even had the trouble continued.
+
+When our seamen returned, a conference was held, wherein it was
+determined, as a joint international measure, to hold the concession
+in force; and as a further means of protection to close the Tokaido,
+which was done by occupying the angles of a short elbow, of two
+hundred yards, made by it in traversing the town. This step, while
+justifiable from the point of view of safety for the residents, was
+particularly galling to Japanese high-class feeling; for the use of
+the imperial road was associated with certain privileges to the
+daimios, during whose passing the common people were excluded, or
+obliged to kneel, under penalty of being cut down on the spot. Satsuma
+was reported to have remonstrated; but in view of the recent
+occurrence there could be no reply to the foreign retort, "You must
+secure our people." The custom-house, within the concession, was
+garrisoned, making a fortification very tenable against any enemy
+likely to be brought against it; while round it was thrown up a light
+earth-work, to which the seamen and marines dispersed in the
+concession could retire in case of need. But behind all, invulnerable,
+stood the ships, deterred from aggression only by fear for their own
+people, which would cease to operate if these had to be withdrawn.
+
+The action of this body of samurai was probably unpremeditated, unless
+possibly in the mind of the particular officer in charge, who
+afterwards paid with his life for the misconduct of his men. While the
+state of siege continued a complete stop was put to our horseback
+excursions in the country, a deprivation the more felt because
+coinciding with an unusually fine spell of weather; but in a few days
+an envoy arrived from the insurgent daimios, with whom a settlement
+was speedily reached. Chiosiu and Satsuma had by this time succeeded
+in establishing themselves as the real representatives of the Mikado,
+an authority in virtue of which alone the Tycoon had ruled; the true
+headship of the Mikado being admitted by all. They undertook that
+foreigners should be adequately protected, and that the officer
+responsible for the late outrage should be punished with death. By the
+20th of February Kobe was full of Chiosiu and Satsuma samurai, who
+were as courteously civil as those of the Tycoon had been; and after a
+conference with the special envoy of the Mikado the ministers
+returned to Osaka. We, too, resumed our country rides, but still
+weighted with a huge navy revolver.
+
+No doubt on any hand was felt of the sincere purpose of the new
+government to fulfil its pledges; but their troops were still
+ill-organized, and it was impossible to rest assured that they might
+not here and there break bounds, as at Kobe. We were encountering the
+accustomed uncertainties of a period of revolutionary transition,
+intensified by prejudices engendered through centuries of national
+isolation, with all the narrowing and deepening of prepossession which
+accompanies entire absence of intercourse with other people. At this
+very moment, in March, 1868, the decree against the practice of
+Christianity by the natives was reissued: "Hitherto the Christian
+religion has been forbidden, and the order must be strictly kept. The
+corrupt religion is strictly forbidden." Yet I am persuaded that
+already far-seeing Japanese had recognized that the past had drifted
+away irrevocably, and that the only adequate means to meet the
+inevitable was to accept it fully, without grudging, and to develop
+the nation to equality with foreigners in material resources. But such
+anticipation is the privilege of the few in any age or any country.
+
+Very soon after the return of our men from their garrison duty, an
+outbreak of small-pox on board the _Iroquois_ compelled her being sent
+to Yokohama, where, as an old-established port, were hospital
+facilities not to be found in Kobe, though we had succeeded in
+removing the first cases to crude accommodations on shore. The disease
+was then very prevalent in Japan, where vaccination had not yet been
+introduced; and to an unaccustomed eye it was startling to note in the
+streets the number of pitted faces, a visible demonstration of what a
+European city must have presented before inoculation was practised.
+One of our crew had died; and when we started, February 25th, we had
+on board some sick. These were carefully isolated under the airy
+topgallant forecastle, and with a good passage the contagion might not
+have spread; but the second day out the weather came on bad and very
+thick, ending with a gale so violent that to save the lives of the
+patients they had to be taken below, and then, for the safety of the
+ship, which was single-decked, the hatches had to be battened down.
+Conditions more favorable for the spread of the malady could not have
+been devised, and the result was that we were not fairly clear of the
+epidemic for nearly two months, though the cases, of which we had
+fifteen or twenty, were sent ashore as fast as they developed. At that
+period few ships on the station wholly escaped this scourge.
+
+It was after we left Kobe that judicial satisfaction was given for the
+attack upon the foreign concession. My account depends upon the
+reports which reached us; but as the captain of the _Oneida_ was one
+of the official witnesses, on the part of the international interests
+concerned, I presume that what we heard was nearly correct. The final
+scene was in a temple near Hiogo. Being of the class of nobles, the
+condemned had a privilege of the peerage, which insured for him the
+honorable death of the harakiri;[12] a distinction apparently
+analogous to that which our soldiers of European tradition draw
+between hanging and shooting. Having duly performed acts of devotion
+suited to the place and to the occasion, he spoke, justifying his
+action, and saying that, under similar circumstances, he would again
+do the same. He then partly disrobed, assisted by friends, and when
+all was ready stabbed himself; a comrade who had stood by with drawn
+sword at the same instant cutting off his head with a single blow. I
+was tempted by curiosity, once while on the station, to attend the
+execution of some ordinary criminals; and I can testify to the
+deftness and instantaneousness with which one head fell, in the flash
+of a sword or the twinkling of an eye. I did not care to view the
+fates of the three others condemned, but it was clear that no judicial
+death could be more speedy and merciful.
+
+Nearly coincident with this exacted vengeance occurred an incident
+which demonstrated its policy. A boat's crew from a French ship of war
+had gone ashore to survey, unarmed. They were accosted by a
+well-dressed man, wearing two swords, who suggested to them going up
+to a village near the spot where they were at work. They accepted, and
+were led by him into an ambush where eleven of them--all but one--were
+slain. So there was another great funeral at Hiogo, but, one which
+excited emotions far otherwise mournful than the simple sorrow and
+sympathy elicited by the Bell disaster. The graveyard of the place
+had, indeed, a good start. The assassins in this case belonged to the
+troops of the insurgent daimios; and as the French already favored the
+Tycoon--which perhaps may have been one motive for the attack--some
+apprehension was felt that they might, in consequence, espouse his
+cause more actively. Nothing of the sort happened. I presume all the
+legations, and their nations, felt that at the moment the solidarity
+of the foreign interest was more important to be secured than the
+triumph of this or that party. By abstaining from intervention, all
+the embassies could be counted on to back a united demand for
+reparation for injuries to the citizens of any one.
+
+With the arrival of the _Iroquois_ at Yokohama the notable incidents
+of the cruise for the most part came to an end; there following upon
+it the routine life of a ship of war, with its ups and downs of more
+or less pleasant ports, good and bad weather, and the daily
+occupations which make and maintain efficiency. Yokohama itself was
+then the principal and most flourishing foreign settlement in Japan,
+the seat of the legations, and with an agreeable society sufficiently
+large. Among other features we here found again in force the British
+soldier; a battalion of eight hundred being permanently in garrison.
+The country about was thought secure, though for distant excursions,
+requiring a whole day, we carried revolvers; and I remember well the
+scuttling away of several pretty young women when one of these was
+accidentally discharged at a wayside tea-house. But while occasional
+rumors of danger would spread, it was hard to tell whence, I think
+nothing of a serious nature occurred. Nevertheless, albeit resentment
+and hostility were repressed in outward manifestation by the strong
+hand of the government, and by the examples of punishment already
+made, they were still burning beneath the surface. It was during this
+period that the British minister, visiting Kioto, a concession
+jealously resisted by conservative Japanese spirit, was set upon by
+some ronins while on his way to pay an official call. He was guarded
+by British cavalry and marines, and had besides an escort of samurai.
+It was said at the time that these fled, except the officers, who
+fought valiantly, slaying one and beating down the other of the two
+most desperate assailants. Considering the well-established courage of
+the Japanese, and that the attack was by their own people, sympathy
+with the attempt seems the most likely explanation of the
+faithlessness reported. The immediate effect of this was to curtail
+our privileges of riding about the country of Yokohama.
+
+Perhaps the most notable incident, historically, of our stay in
+Yokohama was the arrival of the first iron-clad of the Japanese navy,
+to which it has fallen a generation later to give the most forcible
+lesson yet seen of iron-clads in battle. This vessel had been the
+Confederate ram _Stonewall_, and prior to her acquisition by Japan had
+had a curiously checkered career of ownership. She was built in
+Bordeaux, under the name _Sphinx_, by contract between a French firm
+and the Confederate naval agent in Europe; but some difficulty arose
+between the parties, and in 1864 Denmark, being then at war with
+Austria and Prussia concerning the Schleswig-Holstein duchies, bought
+her under certain conditions. With a view to delivery to the Danish
+government she was taken to a Swedish port, and after a nominal sale
+proceeded under the Swedish flag to Copenhagen, where she remained in
+charge of a banker of that city. Peace having been meanwhile declared,
+Denmark no longer wanted her. The sale was nullified under pretext of
+failure in the conditions, and she passed finally into the hands of
+the Confederacy,[13] sailing from Copenhagen January 7, 1865. Off
+Quiberon, in France, she received a crew from another vessel under
+Confederate direction, and thence attempted to go to the Azores, but
+was forced by bad weather into Ferrol. From there she crossed the
+Atlantic; but by the time of her arrival the War of Secession was
+ended by the surrenders of Lee and Johnston. Her commander took her to
+Havana, and there gave her up to the Spanish authorities. Spain, in
+turn, in due time delivered her to the United States, as the legal
+heir to all spoils of the Confederacy. Several years later, in 1871, I
+had a share in bringing home part of these often useless trophies; the
+ship in which I was having gone to Europe, without guns, loaded with
+provisions to supply the needs of the French poor, presumed to be
+suffering from the then recent war with Germany. Our cargo discharged,
+we were sent to Liverpool, and there took on board some rifled cannon
+and projectiles originally made for the South.
+
+The _Stonewall_ had been lying at the Washington Navy-Yard when I was
+stationed there in 1866. Measured by to-day's standards she was of
+trivial power, small in size, moderate in speed, light in armor and
+armament; but her ram was of formidable dimensions, and at that period
+the tactical value of the ram was estimated much more highly than it
+now is. The disastrous effect of the thrust, if successfully made,
+outweighed in men's minds the difficulty of hitting; an error of
+valuation similar to that which has continuously exaggerated the
+danger from torpedo craft of all kinds. After the sailing of the
+_Iroquois_, a deputation of Japanese officials came to the United
+States on a mission, part of which was to buy ships of war. In reply
+to their inquiries, Commander--now Rear-Admiral--George Brown, then
+ordnance officer of the yard, pointed out the _Stonewall_ to them as a
+vessel suitable for their immediate purposes, and with which our
+government might probably part. He also expressed a favorable opinion
+of her sea-going qualities for reaching Japan. A few days later they
+came to him and said that, as he thought well of her, perhaps he would
+undertake to carry her out; their own seamanship at that early date
+being unequal to the responsibility. This was more than was
+anticipated by Brown, interested in his present duties, but it rather
+put him on his mettle; and so he set forth, a satisfactory pecuniary
+arrangement having been concluded. She went by way of the Strait of
+Magellan and the Hawaiian Islands, reaching Yokohama without other
+incident than constant ducking. As one of her officers said, clothes
+needed not to be scrubbed; a soiled garment could be simply secured on
+the forward deck, and left there to wash in the water that came on
+board until it was clean. I have never known her subsequent fortunes
+in Japanese hands; but as the beginning of their armored navy she has
+a place in history--and here.
+
+From Yokohama the _Iroquois_ returned to Kobe, and there lay during
+July, August, and September; so that in our two visits I passed five
+months in this part of the Inland Sea. The summer, in its way, is
+there as pleasant as the winter in its. The highest thermometer I read
+was 87 deg. Fahrenheit, and there was almost always a pleasant breeze. The
+country was now so far safe that we went everywhere within reasonable
+reach of the concession, and the scenery presented such variety in
+sameness as to be a perpetual source of enjoyment. The most striking
+characteristics are the views of the enclosed sea itself, ample in
+expanse, yet without the monotony attendant upon an unbounded water
+view; and, when that disappears, follows the succession of enclosed
+valleys, alike, yet different; a recurrent feature similar, though on
+another scale, to that presented by the valley of the Inn on the ride
+from Zurich to Innsbruck. How far away those days are is seen from my
+noting on one of them, while visiting what was known to us as the Moon
+Temple, that the ships of war below were dressed in honor of the first
+Napoleon's birthday, August 15th; an observance which ceased with the
+empire.
+
+This time I managed an opportunity of seeing Osaka, which the
+disturbed conditions had prevented my doing during our winter stay.
+Description I shall avoid, as always; enough to say that the flatness
+of the site, in low land, six miles from the mouth of the narrow,
+winding river, makes the city one of canals, like Venice and
+Amsterdam. In visiting the great castle of the Tycoon, a stone
+fortification notable not only for its own size, but for the
+dimensions of the huge single stones of which it is built, we went by
+boat, following a sluggish watercourse, an eighth of a mile wide, and
+so shallow that we poled through it. The pull from the bar to the city
+was very tedious, and Kobe evidently had proved the better commercial
+situation; for even now, half a year after the opening of the port, we
+were looked upon with curiosity; were followed by crowds which stopped
+if we stopped, moved when we moved. To the children we were objects of
+apprehension; they eyed us fearfully, and scuttled away rapidly if we
+made any feint at rushing towards them. Nevertheless, the prevailing
+tone among the common people was now plainly kindly, although six
+months before they would at times spit at foreigners from the bridges
+which in great numbers span the streams. The temper of those who form
+mobs changes lightly. It is true that in our excursions we were
+accompanied by an armed guard, which would seem to indicate
+possibilities of danger; but these samurai themselves were not only
+courteous, but interested and smiling, and I thought gave good promise
+that their class in general was coming round to friendliness.
+
+We left Kobe towards the end of September, in company with a new
+flag-ship which had arrived to take the place of the _Hartford_. This
+vessel rejoiced to call herself _Piscataqua_, which is worth recording
+as a sample of a class of name then much affected by the powers that
+were, presumably on account of their length; "fine flourishers," to
+quote the always illustrative Boatswain Chucks, "as long as their
+homeward-bound pendants, which in a calm drop in the water alongside."
+_Piscataqua_, however uncouth, most Americans can place; but what
+shall we say of _Ammonoosuc_, _Wampanoag_, and such like, then
+adorning our lists, which seem as though extracted by a fine-tooth
+comb drawn through the tangle of Indian nomenclature. Under the
+succeeding administration _Piscataqua_ was changed to _Delaware_. The
+new commander-in-chief was among our most popular officers,
+distinguished alike for seamanship, courage, and courtesy; but he held
+to great secrecy as to his intentions, which caused officers more
+inconvenience than seemed always quite necessary. Questions of
+mess-stores, of correspondence, and other pre-arrangements, depend
+much upon knowledge of future movements, as exact as may not interfere
+with service emergencies. These in peace times rarely require
+concealment. A characteristic story ran that, as the two vessels were
+leaving Kobe, when the flag-ship's anchor was a-weigh, her captain,
+still ignorant of her destination, turned to the admiral and said,
+"Which way shall I lay her head, sir?"
+
+It turned out that we were bound to Nagasaki, on our way to China. The
+approaching northeast monsoon, with its dry, bracing air, dictates the
+period when foreign squadrons usually go south, having during the
+summer in Japan avoided the debilitating damp heat which those months
+entail in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and the Chinese ports generally. The
+_Iroquois_, however, had soon to separate from the flag-ship, owing to
+news received of a singular occurrence, savoring more of two hundred
+years ago, or of to-day's dime novel--"shilling shocker," as our
+British brethren have it--than of the prosaic nineteenth century.
+There had arrived at Hakodate, the northernmost of the then open
+Japanese ports, on the island of Yezo and Strait of Tsugaru, a
+mysterious bark, without name or papers, peopled only by Chinese of
+the coolie class, and bearing evident marks of foul play. From
+indications she was supposed to be American, and our ship, being the
+most immediately available, was ordered up to investigate; leaving
+Nagasaki October 24, 1868. Our course took us over the ground which
+has since become historic by the destruction of Rodjestvensky's fleet,
+as well as by other incidents of the Russo-Japanese war; and the
+weather we had, both going and returning, would justify the anxiety
+said to have been felt by the Japanese naval authorities, that Port
+Arthur should be taken before the winter set in. Like men, ships must
+do their work at whatever cost; but like men also, and perhaps even
+more, they should be spared needless strain, especially if they be
+few. A sick ship needs usually more time for recovery than a sick man.
+
+Our orders directed a stop at a port called Niigata, on the west coast
+of Nippon. We must have communicated, for I thence despatched a
+letter; but at the time of our arrival a furious northwest gale was
+blowing, dead on shore. The ship, therefore, ran under a largish
+island called Sado, which much to our convenience lies a few miles to
+sea-ward of Niigata, and there anchored; quietly enough as to wind,
+though gusty willy-waws descending from the cliffs and swishing the
+water in petty whirlwinds testified to the commotion outside. We had
+quite the same experience returning to Shanghai; but at that time in
+mid-sea, where the _Iroquois_, powerless as to steam, but otherwise as
+much at home as the sea-fowl, rode it out gleefully, though I admit
+not luxuriously to flesh and muscles.
+
+On November 1st we reached Hakodate, where our captain and consul,
+aided by the Japanese authorities, proceeded at once with their
+investigation. The strange vessel was in as distressed condition,
+almost, as that of the Ancient Mariner when he drew near "his own
+countree:" sails gone, rigging flying loose, one of her topgallant
+masts, if I remember right, snapped in two, and the exterior of her
+hull as though neither paint nor soap had known it for years. In her
+cabins were marks of blood not eradicated; and particularly on the
+transom over the stern windows was the print of a bloody hand, the
+fingers spread wide as they rested against the paint, suggesting
+resistance by one being thrust out. The story so far collected from
+the coolies was that they had sailed in her from Macao, a Portuguese
+port near Canton and Hong Kong, and that the captain and crew, after
+taking her far north in the ice, had abandoned her altogether. In
+support of this part of their story they showed furs procured from the
+natives. These gave plausibility to the ice experiences; but the rest
+of the account, unlikely in itself, had been disproved by inquiry in
+Macao, where nothing was known of any vessel answering to the
+descriptions. At last, however, a rumor had come, how conveyed I know
+not, that such a bark, with coolies and twelve thousand dollars in
+gold on board, had sailed from Callao, in Peru, the previous January,
+and had never since been heard from; that she had a Peruvian captain
+and crew, but carried American colors, probably merely as indicating
+American property. To claim full American privilege, ships must be
+American built; but one bought abroad and owned by Americans may carry
+the flag, in proof of nationality, though without the right of
+entering an American port like those to the manner born. They thus
+become entitled to the same national regard as any other possessions
+of American citizens under foreign jurisdiction.
+
+So information stood when the _Iroquois_ arrived--false on one hand,
+and on the other vague. Soon after the captain and consul began their
+investigation they stumbled upon the vessel's papers, concealed in a
+manner which had hitherto baffled careful search. These showed that
+she was the missing _Cayalti_, which on the previous January 18th had
+cleared from Callao for another Peruvian port; that she was American
+in ownership, while the captain and crew were Spanish in name. This
+fixed her identity; but how account for the disappearance of the
+ship's company, and for her presence in Hakodate, on the other side of
+the Pacific, three thousand miles north of Callao. To this inquiry the
+captain and consul addressed themselves in the cabin of the
+_Iroquois_. Two or three Japanese two-sworded officials were in
+attendance, and memory recalls their grave, impassive faces, as seen
+at times when some routine communication called me in to speak to our
+captain.
+
+Contracted though the captain's quarters were, the unaccustomed
+scene, absent from their companions and from the familiar surroundings
+of their probable crime, was calculated to impress the culprits; and
+the methods pursued to instigate admissions savored, I fancy, more of
+the Orient than of modern Anglo-Saxon ideals. But the present
+functions of our officials corresponded to those of the French _juges
+d'instruction_; and, having to elicit the truth from a low class of
+Orientals, they dealt with them after the fashion which alone they
+would recognize as serious. The witnesses began, of course, by lying
+in the most transparent manner, but under judicious--or
+judicial--pressure a story was pieced together which in main outline
+probably corresponded with the truth; for in it three or four of them
+independently agreed. Two days out from Callao the coolies had risen
+against the whites, and after a short fight overpowered them. Of the
+crew, two jumped overboard; the rest submitted. A boat was then
+lowered, and the men in the water were killed; after which the others
+were tied together, made fast to an anchor, and so thrown into the
+sea, the mate, who had fought desperately, having first been mutilated
+by cutting off his ears. The captain and a Chinese steward were saved;
+the former to handle the ship, to which the coolies were unequal, and
+he was bidden to take her to China. I do not find in my contemporary
+letters the impression which remains on my mind, that they estimated
+his general observance of this order by the vague knowledge that China
+lay towards the evening sun. The history of that strange voyage would
+be interesting, but was scarcely recoverable in detail from the class
+of witnesses. It would be by no means certain that the master of a
+coastwise trader could navigate accurately; and, while he would always
+be sure of death if he brought the vessel within reach of China, it is
+not apparent why he should take her to the remote north in which the
+furs showed her to have been. I have never heard whether, as the
+evidence ran, he and the steward escaped alive, abandoning the
+ship.[14] He had disappeared when the Japanese found her drifting
+helplessly under her ignorant occupants.
+
+While in Hakodate, I availed myself of the opportunity to visit a
+great lake and a volcano, not extinct, but not immediately active.
+They are distant about fifteen miles from the town, a position in
+which I see such a sheet of water on the maps of to-day. This was a
+long ride in the then state of the roads, after the autumn rains, and
+with nightly freeze sufficient continually to fix the moisture, and
+then to renew the dampness towards the noonday thaw. Transport was
+not by wheel, but by pack-animals; and as these marched in companies
+of a half-dozen or so, in single file, haltered one to the other, each
+as he stepped put his foot into the prints made, not merely by his
+immediate file-leader of the particular gang, but by all others going
+and coming for weeks before. The consequence was a succession of
+scallops, distributed over long stretches of mud, the consistency of
+which just sufficed to hold the shape thus impressed upon it. Japanese
+horses are small, and as a class quarrelsome; the one I rode on this
+occasion was little larger than a child's pony, and looked as if he
+had not been curried for a month. I hesitated to impose upon him my
+weight, a scruple which would have been intensified had I known the
+character of the pilgrimage through which he was to bear me. With his
+feet at the bottom of the scallop, the rounded top rose above his
+knee, nearly giving his patient nose the touch which his dejected mood
+and drooping head seemed to invite. At the first start he stumbled,
+nearly falling on me, but escaped with nostrils and mouth full of
+liquid dirt.
+
+A day to go, a day to come, and one intervening to cross the lake and
+ascend the volcano, measured our excursion; through the whole of which
+we had sunny skies and exhilarating temperature till the last hour of
+our return, when a drizzling rain suggested what might have been our
+discomfort had the heavens above been as unpropitious as the roads
+beneath. Even the crossing of the lake and the ascent were
+particularly favored, the sky literally cloudless and water smooth;
+whereas the following morning, when we rose to depart, a fog had
+settled on the mountain, making movement upon it doubtful and even to
+a slight degree dangerous. The lake, some six miles by ten, and
+abounding in islets, lay smiling under the bright, wintry sun, its
+shores clad with leafless forests mingled with evergreens, save the
+barren slopes of the volcano itself; beneath the distant lava stream
+of which we were told seventeen hundred people lay, buried by the last
+eruption. The scene tempted me more than most to description, for the
+brilliant stillness of a clear November day, and the gaunt, bare
+trees, were strange to our long experience of verdure in southern
+Japan, and smacked strongly of home--Hakodate being in the latitude of
+New York; but, as always, the majority have their own vision, their
+own memory, of just such conditions and surroundings, more vivid for
+them than another's portrayal.
+
+The two nights at the lake we slept in a Japanese tea-house,
+scrupulously clean and quite comfortable, but at that early date and
+remote region entirety primitive; I should rather say strictly native
+in all its arrangements. The kitchen was innocent of European
+suggestion; we ate with chopsticks, and fish from the lake were
+spitted and cooked around a fire in a sandy hearth, contrived below
+the middle of the room. Eggs were in abundance, but coffee was sorely
+missed at our chilly rising. At 9 A.M. we started for the volcano,
+getting back at 7 P.M. We landed at the foot of the lava stream and
+ascended by it through a picture of desolation. From shore to summit
+took us three hours, which confirmed to me a rough estimate of the
+height as about four thousand feet. The grade was not severe, some
+thirty or forty degrees; but by this time we had a brisk northwest
+wind blowing down our throats, and the latter part of the way our feet
+sank deep in volcanic dust. At the top the air was very cold, keen,
+and rare, but somewhat oppressive to the lungs. None of us cared to
+smoke, after eating and drinking, but the view afforded us was
+perfect; limitless, so far as atmospheric conditions went. In
+appearance the crater differed little, I presume, from others in a
+state of quiescence. Smoke and steam poured forth continually, in one
+spot in large volumes; while from many places issued little jets, such
+as puff from the out-door pipes of a factory, suggesting subterranean
+workmen. These were especially numerous from a large mound in the
+centre, which our guide told us was growing bigger and bigger with his
+successive visits, portending an outburst near. If his observation was
+accurate, it goes to show the coincident sympathetic movements which
+occur in volcanic regions remote from one another; for this year,
+1868, followed one of great terrestrial disturbance. In 1867 two of
+our naval vessels had been carried ashore by a tidal wave in the West
+Indies; and of two others lying off Arica, Peru, one was dashed to
+pieces against the cliffs, while the other was carried over low, flat
+ground for a mile or so inland, where her dismantled hull was still
+lying when I was there in 1884.
+
+Our starting when we did, as soon as possible, three days after
+arrival, justified the Nelsonian maxim not to trifle with a fair wind;
+for we just culled the three days which were the cream, and only
+cream, of our stay. From our return on the 6th, to sailing on the
+12th, there was but one fair twenty-four hours--the rest from
+blustering to furious; and we went out with the promise of a gale
+which did not with evening "in the west sink smilingly forsworn." The
+_Iroquois_ ran through Tsugaru Strait under canvas, with a barometer
+rather tumbling than falling, and an east wind fast freshening to
+heavy. We knew it must end at northwest; but it lasted till afternoon
+of the next day, so we got a good offing. The shift of the wind was in
+its accompaniments spectacular--and cyclonic. The morning of the 13th
+was among the wildest I have seen. Daylight came a half-hour late,
+with a lurid sky; the clouds, the confused, heaving water, the sails,
+spars, and deck of the ship herself, all as if seen in a Lorraine
+glass. It having become nearly calm, she lay thrashing aimlessly in
+the swell, unsteadied by the canvas. The barometer still fell slowly
+till two in the afternoon, when it stopped, and we began to look out.
+
+   "First rise, after very low
+    Indicates a stronger blow."
+
+At three it rose one one-hundredth of an inch, and almost
+simultaneously, looking over the weather rail, was to be seen the
+oncoming northwester, never long in debt to a southeaster. First a
+gleaming white line of foam beneath the sombre horizon, gradually
+spreading to right and left, and visibly widening as it drew near.
+Soon its deepening surface broke to view into innumerable separate
+wave-crests, which advanced leaping in tumultuous accord, like the
+bounding rush of a pack of wolves, whom you may see, and whose howling
+you can imagine but do not yet hear. As Kingsley has said, "It looks
+so dangerous, and you are so safe"--all the thrill, yet none of the
+apprehension. The new gale struck the _Iroquois_ in full force. Within
+twenty minutes it had reached its height, and so continued for near
+forty-eight hours, during thirty-six of which the hatches were
+battened down. For a time the two seas, the old and the new, fought
+each other to our discomfort; but the old yielded, and, as the new got
+its even, regular swing, the _Iroquois_ agreed with its enemy of the
+moment and rode easily.
+
+With our arrival at Shanghai we had left behind whatever in the cruise
+of the _Iroquois_ could be considered exceptional as to incident; that
+is, while I remained with her. From December, 1868, we entered in
+China upon the usual routine of station movement; interesting enough
+at the time, but from which my memory retains nothing noteworthy.
+Subsequently we visited Formosa and Manila and Hong Kong; whence we
+were sent south for ten days to the Gulf of Hainan to search for a
+French corvette which had disappeared. We did not find her, nor was
+she again seen by mortal eyes. Returning to Hong Kong, we learned of
+the first election of General Grant to the presidency, and that a
+letter from him had reached the admiral asking that the captain of the
+flag-ship, who as a school comrade had once saved Grant's life, should
+be ordered home; the intention being to give him charge of an
+important bureau in the Navy Department. Under usual circumstances a
+relief would have been sent out; but as the request was from the
+expectant administration, not from the one still in power and
+antagonistic, a private letter was the chosen medium of action.
+
+His departure made a vacancy, to which succeeded the captain of the
+_Iroquois_, a great favorite with the commander-in-chief. I was left
+in charge of the ship until we went back to Japan in May. There I fell
+ill at Nagasaki, and after recovery found myself at Yokohama, in
+command of a gunboat ordered to be sold. This consummation was reached
+in September, and I then started for home, having the admiral's
+permission to proceed by Suez to Europe, instead of by the usual
+route to San Francisco. My object was only to visit Europe; but on the
+way to Hong Kong a Parsee merchant, a fellow-passenger, suggested
+turning aside to India, which I had not contemplated. I shall not go
+into my brief India travel from Calcutta to Bombay, beyond mentioning
+the singular good-fortune, as it appeared to me, that I visited the
+ruined residence at Lucknow, and the remains of the memorable siege of
+twelve years before, in the company of an officer who had himself been
+a participant. His wife, still a very young and handsome woman, whom I
+had the pleasure of meeting, had been one of the children within the
+works, sharing the perils, if not the anxieties, of their mothers
+during that period of awful suspense.
+
+Nor do I think my six months in Europe, leave for which met me on my
+arrival there, worthy of particular note, save in one incident which
+has always seemed to me curious. Landing at Marseilles, I found that
+intimate friends were then at Nice. I accordingly went there, instead
+of to Paris, as I had intended; and, like thoughtless young men
+everywhere, abandoned myself to pleasant society instead of to
+self-improvement by travel. My purpose, however, continually was to go
+directly to Paris when I did leave Nice, for my time was limited; but
+a middle-aged friend strongly dissuaded me. "You should by no means
+fail to visit Rome now," he said, "for, independently of the immortal
+interest of the place, of the treasures of association and of art
+which are its imperishable birthright, there is the more transient
+spectacle of the Papacy, in the pride, pomp, and circumstance of the
+temporal power. This may at any moment pass away, and you therefore
+may never have another opportunity to witness it in its glory. There
+is a vague traditional prophecy that, as St. Peter held the bishopric
+of Rome twenty-five years, any pope whose tenure exceeds his will see
+the downfall of the papal sovereignty over Rome. Such prophecies
+often insure their own fulfilment, and Pius IX. is now closely
+approaching his twenty-fifth year. Go while you can." So I went, in
+February, 1870; and before the next winter's snow the temporal power
+was a thing of the past.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+THE TURNING OF A LONG LANE--HISTORICAL, NAVAL, AND PERSONAL
+
+1870
+
+
+In narrating the cruise of the _Iroquois_ I have, as it were, laid the
+reins on the neck of my memory, letting it freely run away; partly
+because our track lay over stretches of sea even now somewhat unbeaten
+by travel, partly because the story of routine naval life and
+incidental experiences, in a time already far past, might have for the
+non-professional reader more novelty than could be premised by me, a
+daily participant therein. Moreover, there were in our cruise some
+exceptional occurrences which might be counted upon to relieve
+monotony. I purpose to observe greater restraint in what follows.
+
+The year 1870, in which I returned home, was one of marked and
+decisive influence upon history, and in a way a turning-point in my
+own obscure career. As in February I witnessed the splendors of the
+papal city under its old regime, so in April and May I saw imperial
+Paris brilliant under the emperor. In the one case as in the other I
+was unconscious of the approaching _debacle_; a blindness I presume
+shared by most contemporaries. Whatever the wiser and more far-seeing
+might have prophesied as to the general ultimate issues, few or none
+could then have foretold the particular occasion which so soon
+afterwards opened the floodgates. As the old passed, with the downfall
+of the French Empire and of the temporal kingdom, there arose a new;
+not merely the German Empire and the unity of Italy, crowned by the
+possession of its historic capital, but, unrecognized for the moment,
+then came in that reign of organized and disciplined force, the full
+effect and function of which in the future men still only dimly
+discern. The successive rapid overthrows of the Austrian and French
+empires by military efficiency and skill; the beating in detail two
+separate foes who, united, might have been too strong for the victor;
+the consequent crumbling of the papal monarchy when French support was
+withdrawn, following closely on the Vatican Decree of Infallibility;
+these things produced an impression which was transmitted rapidly
+throughout the world of European civilization, till in the Farther
+East it reached Japan. Into the current thus established the petty
+stream of my own fortunes was drawn, little anticipated by myself. To
+it was due my special call; for by it was created the predisposition
+to recognize the momentous bearing of maritime force upon the course
+of history, which insured me a hearing when the fulness of my time was
+come.
+
+Until 1870 my life since graduation had been passed afloat almost
+without interruption. Soon afterwards I obtained command rank; and
+this promotion, combined with the dead apathy which after the War of
+Secession settled upon our people with regard to the navy, left me
+with relatively little active employment for several years. In
+America, the naval stagnation of that period was something now almost
+incredible. The echoes of the guns which from Koeniggraetz and a dozen
+battle-fields in France had resounded round the globe, awakening the
+statesmen of all countries, had apparently ricochetted over the United
+States, as fog sound-signals are noticed to rebound overhead, unheard
+through long stretches of the sea-level, until they again touch the
+water beyond. The nation slumbered peacefully in its "_petit coin_,"
+to use the expressive phrase of a French admiral to me. Had even
+nothing been done, this inertness might have been less significant;
+but somewhere in the early seventies, despite all the progress
+elsewhere noticeable, there were built deliberately some half-dozen
+corvettes, smaller than the _Iroquois_ class, mostly of wood. That a
+period of lethargy in action should steal over a government just
+released from strenuous exertion is one thing, and bad enough; but it
+is different, and much worse, that there should be a paralysis of
+idea, of mental development corresponding to the movement of the
+world.
+
+I myself have always considered that the "right about" of policy came
+with the administration of President Arthur, when Mr. Chandler was
+Secretary of the Navy. It began with a work of destruction, an
+exposure of the uselessness of the existing naval material, due purely
+to stand-still; to being left hopelessly in the rear by the march of
+improvement elsewhere. Upon this followed under the same
+administration an attempt at restoration, gingerly enough in its
+conceptions. The vessels laid down were cruisers, the primary quality
+of which should be speed; but fourteen knots was the highest demanded,
+and that of one only, the _Chicago_. Unhappily, wherever the fault
+lay, the navy then had the habit of living from day to day on
+expedients, on makeshifts. Although deficiencies were manifest and
+generally felt, the prevailing sentiment had been that we should wait
+until the experiments of other peoples, in the cost of which we would
+not share, should have reached workable finalities. This is another
+instance of what is commonly called "practical;" as though mental
+processes must not necessarily antecede efficient action, and as
+though there was not then at hand abundant data for brains to work on,
+without any expenditure of money. Finality, indeed, had not been
+reached, and never will be in anything save death; but at that time it
+had been shown beyond peradventure that radically new conditions had
+entered naval warfare, and clearly the first most practical step was a
+mature official digestion of these conditions--a decision as to what
+types of vessels were needed, and what their respective qualities
+should be. In short, the first and perfectly possible thing was to
+evolve a systematic policy; a careful look, and then a big leap.
+
+However, things rarely come about in that way. It involves getting rid
+of old ideas, which is quite as bad as pulling teeth, and much harder;
+and the subsequent adoption of new ones, that are as uneasy as tight
+shoes. We had then certain accepted maxims, dating mainly from 1812,
+which were as thoroughly current in the country--and I fear in the
+navy, too--as the "dollar of the daddies" was not long after. One was
+that commerce destroying was the great efficient weapon of naval
+warfare. Everybody--the navy as well--believed we had beaten Great
+Britain in 1812, brought her to her knees, by the destruction of her
+commerce through the system observed by us of single cruisers; naval
+or privateers. From that erroneous premise was deduced the conclusion
+of a navy of cruisers, and small cruisers at that; no battle-ship nor
+fleets.[15] Then we wanted a navy for coast defence only, no
+aggressive action in our pious souls; an amusing instance being that
+our first battle-ships were styled "coast defence" battle-ships, a
+nomenclature which probably facilitated the appropriations. They were
+that; but they were capable of better things, as the event has proved.
+But the very fact that such talk passed unchallenged as that about
+commerce-destroying by scattered cruisers, and war by mere
+defence--known to all military students as utterly futile and
+ruinous--shows the need then existent of a comprehensive survey of the
+contemporary condition of the world, and of the stage which naval
+material had reached. One such was made, which a subsequent secretary,
+Mr. Tracy, characterized to me as excellent; but the deficiencies and
+requirements exposed by it in our naval status frightened Congress,
+much as the confronting of his affairs terrify a bankrupt.
+
+During the latter part of Secretary Chandler's term I was abroad in
+command of the _Wachusett_, on the Pacific coast. Besides her, the
+squadron consisted of the _Hartford_, Farragut's old flag-ship, the
+_Lackawanna_, and my former ship, the _Iroquois_. They all dated, guns
+as well, from the War of Secession, or earlier. Had they been
+exceptional instances, on a station of no great importance, it might
+not have mattered greatly; but in fact they still remained
+representative components of the United States navy. The squadron
+organization, too, was that which had prevailed ever since I entered
+the service, and so continued until a very few years ago. The rule was
+that the vessels were scattered, one to this port, another to that.
+They rarely met, except for interchange of duties; and when in company
+almost the only exercises in common were those of yards and sails, in
+which the ships worked competitively, to beat one another's time,--a
+healthy enough emulation. But this rivalry was no substitute for the
+much more necessary practice of working together, in mutual support;
+for the acquired habit of handling vessels in rapid movement and close
+proximity with fearless judgment, based upon experience of what your
+own could do, and what might be confidently expected from your
+consorts, especially your next ahead and astern. A new captain for
+the _Lackawanna_ accompanied me to the station, where we found our
+ships in Callao, assembled with the other two. Within a week later we
+all went out together, performed three or four simple evolutions, and
+then scattered. This was the only fleet drill we had in the two years,
+1883-1885.
+
+In fact, from time immemorial the navy had thought in single ships, as
+the army had in company posts. To the several officers their own ship
+was everything, the squadron little or nothing. The War of Secession
+had broadened the ideas of the army by enlarging its operations in the
+field, although peace brought a relapse; but the navy having to fight
+only shore batteries, not fleets, was not forced out of the old
+tactical and strategic apathy. The huge accumulations of vessels under
+a single admiral entailed enlarged administrative duties; but the
+tactical methods, as shown in the greater battles, presented simply
+the adaptation of means to a particular occasion, and, however
+sagacious in the several instances--and they usually were
+sagacious--possessed no continuity of system in either theory or
+practice. Organic unity did not exist except for administration. There
+was an assemblage of vessels, but not a fleet. All this was the
+result, or at least the complement, of the theory of commerce
+destroying, which prescribed cruisers that act singly; and of war by
+defence only, which proscribed battle-ships, that act in unison and so
+compel unity.
+
+A further incident of Mr. Chandler's tenure of office was the
+establishment of the Naval War College at Newport. This had its origin
+in the recognition of a defect in the constitution of the Navy
+Department, which was glaringly visible during the War of Secession.
+Immense and admirable as was the administrative work done by the
+Department during that contest, there did not exist in it then, nor
+did there for many years to come, any formal provision for the proper
+consideration and expert decision of strictly military questions,
+from the point of view of military experience and professional
+understanding. The head of the Department, invariably a civilian under
+our form of government, and therefore usually unfamiliar with naval
+matters, had not assured to him, at instant call, organized
+professional assistance, individual or corporate, prepared to advise
+him, when asked, as to the military aspect of proposed operations,
+what the arguments for or against feasibility, or what the best method
+of procedure. In other services, notably in the German army, this
+function is discharged by the general staff, nothing correspondent to
+which was to be found in our Navy Department. It is evident that the
+constitution of a general staff, or of any similar body called into
+being for such purpose, will be more broadly based, and sounder, as
+knowledge of the subjects in question is more widely distributed among
+the officers of the service; and that such knowledge will be imparted
+most certainly by the creation of an institution for the systematic
+study of military operations, by land or sea, applying the experiences
+of history to contemporary conditions, and to the particular theatres
+of possible war in which the nation may be interested.
+
+Such studies are the object of the Naval War College, which was
+established upon the report of a board of officers, at the head of
+which was the present Rear-Admiral Stephen B. Luce, to whose
+persistent initiative must be attributed much of the movement which
+thus resulted. The other members of the board were the late Admiral
+Sampson, and Commander--now Rear-Admiral--Caspar F. Goodrich. Luce
+became the first president of the institution, for which the
+Department assigned a building, once an almshouse, situated on
+Coaster's Harbor Island, in Narragansett Bay, then recently ceded to
+the United States government. It remained still to get together a
+staff of instructors, and he wrote me to ask if I would undertake the
+subjects of naval history and naval tactics. The proposition was to me
+very acceptable; for I had found the Pacific station disagreeable,
+and, although without proper preparation, I believed on reflection
+that I could do the work. During my last tour of shore duty I had read
+carefully Napier's _Peninsular War_, and had found myself in a new
+world of thought, keenly interested and appreciative, less of the
+brilliant narrative--though that few can fail to enjoy--than of the
+military sequences of cause and effect. The influence of Sir John
+Moore's famous march to Sahagun--less famous than it deserves to
+be--upon Napoleon's campaign in Spain, revealed to me by Napier like
+the sun breaking through a cloud, aroused an emotion as joyful as the
+luminary himself to a navigator doubtful of his position.
+
+   "Then felt I as some watcher of the skies
+      When a new planet swims into his ken;
+    Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
+      He stared at the Pacific."
+
+Following this I had written by request a volume on the Navy in the
+War of Secession, entitled _The Gulf and Inland Waters_; my first
+appearance as an author. Herein also I had recognized that the same
+class of military ideas took possession of my mind. I felt, therefore,
+that I should bring interest and understanding to my task, and hoped
+that the defects of knowledge, which I clearly realized, would be
+overcome. I recalled also that at the Military Academy my father,
+though professor only of engineering, military and civil, had of his
+own motion introduced a course of strategy and grand tactics, which
+had commended itself to observers. I trusted, therefore, that
+heredity, too, might come to my aid.
+
+As acceptance placed me on the road which led directly to all the
+success I have had in life, I feel impelled to acknowledge my
+indebtedness to Admiral Luce. With little constitutional initiative,
+and having grown up in the atmosphere of the single cruiser, of
+commerce-destroying, defensive warfare, and indifference to
+battle-ships; an anti-imperialist, who for that reason looked upon Mr.
+Blaine as a dangerous man; at forty-five I was drifting on the lines
+of simple respectability as aimlessly as one very well could. My
+environment had been too much for me; my present call changed it.
+Meantime, however, there was delay. A relief would not be sent,
+because the ship was to go home; and the ship did not go home because
+there was, first, a revolution in Panama, and then a war between the
+Central American states, both which required the _Wachusett's_
+presence. Mr. Cleveland was elected at this time; there was a change
+of administration, and with a new Secretary a lapse of Departmental
+interest. The ship did not go to San Francisco till September, 1885,
+nearly a year after the admiral's proposition reached me.
+
+The year had not been unfruitful, however. Naturally predisposed, as I
+have said, my mind ran continually on my subject. I imagined various
+formations for developing to the best effect the powers of steamships,
+and sudden changes to be instituted as the moment of collision
+approached, calculated to disconcert the opponent, or to surprise an
+advantage before he could parry. Spinning cobwebs out of one's
+unassisted brain, without any previous absorption from external
+sources, was doubtless a somewhat crude process; yet it had
+advantages. One of my manoeuvres was to pass a column of ships by an
+unexpected flank movement across the head of an enemy's column. This I
+have since heard called "capping;" if, at least, I correctly
+understand that word. Putting it afterwards before a body of officers
+attending the College course, all men of years and experience, one
+said to me, derisively, "Do you suppose an enemy would let you do
+that?" "It is a question of how quick he is," I replied. "In these
+days of twelve or fifteen knots he will have no time to ponder, and
+scarcely time to act." The query illustrates a habit of mind
+frequently met. It is like discussing the merits of a thrust _en
+carte_. If the other man is quick enough, he will parry; if not, he
+will be run through: sooner or later the more skilful usually will get
+in.
+
+Naval history gave me more anxiety, and I afterwards found it was that
+which Luce particularly desired of me. I shared the prepossession,
+common at that time, that the naval history of the past was wholly
+past; of no use at all to the present. I well recall, during my first
+term at the College, a visit from a reporter of one of the principal
+New York journals. He was a man of rotund presence, florid face,
+thrown-back head, and flowing hair, with all that magisterial
+condescension which the environment of the Fourth Estate nourishes in
+its fortunate members; the Roman citizen was "not in it" for
+birthright. To my bad luck a plan of Trafalgar hung in evidence, as he
+stalked from room to room. "Ah," he said, with superb up-to-date pity,
+"you are still talking about Trafalgar;" and I could see that
+Trafalgar and I were thenceforth on the top shelf of fossils in the
+collections of his memory. This point of view was held by very many.
+"You won't find much to say about history," was the direct
+discouraging comment of an older officer. On the other hand, Sir
+Geoffrey Hornby, less well known in this country than in Great
+Britain, where twenty years ago he was recognized as the head of the
+profession, distinctly commended to me the present value of naval
+history. I myself, as I have just confessed, had had the contrary
+impression--a tradition passively accepted. Thus my mind was troubled
+how to establish relations between yesterday and to-day; so wholly
+ignorant was I of the undying reproduction of conditions in their
+essential bearings--a commonplace of military art.
+
+He who seeks, finds, if he does not lose heart; and to me,
+continuously seeking, came from within the suggestion that control of
+the sea was an historic factor which had never been systematically
+appreciated and expounded. Once formulated consciously, this thought
+became the nucleus of all my writing for twenty years then to come;
+and here I may state at once what I conceive to have been my part in
+popularizing, perhaps in making effective, an argument for which I
+could by no means claim the rights of discovery. Not to mention other
+predecessors, with the full roll of whose names I am even now
+unacquainted, Bacon and Raleigh, three centuries before, had
+epitomized in a few words the theme on which I was to write volumes.
+That they had done so was, indeed, then unknown to me. For me, as for
+them, the light dawned first on my inner consciousness; I owed it to
+no other man. It has since been said by more than one that no claim
+for originality could be allowed me; and that I wholly concede. What
+did fall to me was, that no one since those two great Englishmen had
+undertaken to demonstrate their thesis by an analysis of history,
+attempting to show from current events, through a long series of
+years, precisely what influence the command of the sea had had upon
+definite issues; in brief, a concrete illustration. In the preface to
+my first work on the subject, for the success of which I was quite
+unprepared, I stated this as my aim: "An estimate of the effect of Sea
+Power upon the course of history and the prosperity of nations; ...
+resting upon a collection of special instances, in which the precise
+effect has been made clear by an analysis of the conditions at the
+given moments." This field had been left vacant, yielding me my
+opportunity; and concurrently therewith, untouched from the point of
+view proposed by me, there lay the whole magnificent series of events
+constituting maritime history since the days of Raleigh and Bacon,
+after the voyages of Columbus and De Gama gave the impetus to
+over-sea activities, colonies, and commerce, which distinguishes the
+past three hundred years. Even of this limited period I have occupied
+but a part, though I fear I have skimmed the cream of that which it
+offers; but back behind it lie virgin fields, in the careers of the
+Italian republics, and others yet more remote in time, which can never
+be for me to narrate, although I have examined them attentively.
+
+I cannot now reconstitute from memory the sequence of my mental
+processes; but while my problem was still wrestling with my brain
+there dawned upon me one of those concrete perceptions which turn
+inward darkness into light--give substance to shadow. The _Wachusett_
+was lying at Callao, the seaport of Lima, as dull a coast town as one
+could dread to see. Lima being but an hour distant, we frequently
+spent a day there; the English Club extending to us its hospitality.
+In its library was Mommsen's _History of Rome_, which I gave myself to
+reading, especially the Hannibalic episode. It suddenly struck me,
+whether by some chance phrase of the author I do not know, how
+different things might have been could Hannibal have invaded Italy by
+sea, as the Romans often had Africa, instead of by the long land
+route; or could he, after arrival, have been in free communication
+with Carthage by water. This clew, once laid hold of, I followed up in
+the particular instance. It and the general theory already conceived
+threw on each other reciprocal illustration; and between the two my
+plan was formed by the time I reached home, in September, 1885. I
+would investigate coincidently the general history and naval history
+of the past two centuries, with a view to demonstrating the influence
+of the events of the one upon the other. Original research was not
+within my scope, nor was it necessary to the scheme thus outlined.
+
+Perhaps it is only a subtle form of egotism, but as a condition of my
+life experience I could wish to convey to others an appreciation of my
+profound ignorance of both classes of history when I began, being then
+forty-five; not that I mean to imply that now, or at any time since, I
+have deluded myself with the imagination that I have become an
+historian after the high modern pattern. I tackled my job much as I
+presume an immigrant begins a clearing in the wilderness, not
+troubling greatly which tree he takes first. I laid my hands on
+whatever came along, reading with the profound attention of one who is
+looking for something; and the something was kind enough to
+acknowledge my devotion by shining forth in unexpected ways and
+places. Any line of investigation, however unsystematic in method,
+branches out in many directions, suggests continually new sources of
+information, to one interested in his work; and I have felt constantly
+the force of Johnson's dictum as to the superior profit from time
+spent in reading what is congenial over the drudgery of constrained
+application. Every faculty I possessed was alive and jumping.
+Incidentally, I took up the study of land warfare, using Jomini and
+Hamley. For naval history the first book upon which I chanced--the
+word is exact--was just what I needed at that stage. It was a history
+of the French navy, by a Lieutenant Lapeyrouse-Bonfils, published
+about 1845. As naval history pure and simple, I think little of it;
+but the author had a quiet, philosophical way of summing up causes and
+effects in general history, as connected with maritime affairs, which
+not only corresponded closely with my own purpose, but suggested to me
+new material for thought--novel illustration. Such treatment was with
+him only casual, but it opened to me new prospects.
+
+It would be difficult to define precisely to what degree the art of
+naval warfare had been formulated, or even consciously conceived, in
+1885. There could scarcely be said to exist any systematic treatment,
+or extensive commentary by acknowledged experts, such as for
+generations had illuminated the theory of land warfare. Naval
+histories abounded, but by far the most part were simply narratives.
+Some valuable research, however, had then recently been done; notably
+by Captain Chevalier, of the French navy, who had produced from French
+documents a history of the maritime war connected with the American
+struggle for independence. This he followed with a less exhaustive
+account of the wars of the French Revolution and Empire, which also
+appeared in time for me to use. These were marked by running comment,
+rather than by a studied criticism such as that of Jomini or Napier.
+In Great Britain, James held, and I think still holds, the field for
+exhaustive collection of information, documentary or oral in origin,
+during the period treated by him, 1793-1815; but he has not a military
+idea in his head beyond that of downright hard fighting, punishing and
+being punished. In his pages, to take a tactical advantage seems
+almost a disgrace. The Navy Records Society of Great Britain had not
+then begun the fruitful labors which within the last decade and a half
+has made accessible in print a very large amount of new matter; nor
+had the late Admiral Colomb published his comprehensive book, _Naval
+Warfare_. So far as I was concerned, the old works of Lediard, Entick,
+Campbell, Beatson,--in French, Paul Hoste, Troude, Guerin, and others
+equally remote,--had to be my main reliance; though numerous modern
+scattered monographs, English and French, were existent. In connection
+with these one of my most interesting experiences was lighting upon a
+paper in the _Revue Maritime et Coloniale_, describing in full the
+Four Days' battle between the English and Dutch in 1666. It purported
+to be, and I have no doubt was, from a personal letter recently
+discovered; but I subsequently found it almost word for word in the
+_Memoires du Comte de Guiche_, also a participant, printed in 1743.
+This _Revue_ contained many able and suggestive articles, historical
+and professional, as did the British _Journal of the United Service
+Institution_; each being in its own country a principal medium for the
+exchange of professional views. Conspicuous in these contributions to
+naval history and thought, in England, were Admiral Colomb and
+Professor Laughton; upon the last named of whom, since these words
+were first written, has been bestowed the honor of knighthood, a
+recognition in the evening of life which will be heartily welcomed by
+his many naval friends on both sides of the Atlantic. In short, apart
+from the first-hand inquiry which I did not yet attempt, the material
+available in 1885 was chiefly histories written long before,
+supplemented by a great many scattered papers of more recent date.
+
+Before leaving this part of my experience I will say a good word for
+Campbell's _Lives of the Admirals_, so far as his own work--down to
+1744--is concerned. Under this title it is really a history of the
+British navy, very well done for enabling a professional man to
+understand the naval operations; but, more than this, maritime
+occurrences of other sorts, commercial movement, and naval policy, are
+presented clearly, and with sufficient fulness to illustrate the
+influence of sea power in its broadest sense upon the general history.
+Bearing, as it does, strong indications of a full use of accessible
+accounts, contemporary with the events narrated, I know no naval work
+superior to it for lucidity and breadth of treatment. Campbell was he
+of whom Dr. Johnson said: "Campbell is a good man, a pious man; I am
+afraid he has not been inside a church for many years; but he never
+passes a church without pulling off his hat. This shows he has good
+principles."
+
+In history other than naval I was for my object as fortunate as I had
+been in Lapeyrouse-Bonfils. An accident first placed in my hands
+Henri Martin's _History of France_. I happened to see the volumes,
+then unknown to me, on the shelves of a friend. The English
+translation of Martin covered only the reigns of Louis XIV. and XV.,
+and of Louis XVI. to 1783, the close of the War of American
+Independence. The scope of my first book, _The Influence of Sea Power
+upon History_, coincides precisely with this period, and may thus have
+been determined. I think, however, that the beginning of the work was
+fixed for me by the essentially new departure in the history of
+England and France, connoted by the almost simultaneous accession of
+Charles II. and Louis XIV.; while the end was dictated by the
+necessity to stop and take breath. Besides, I had to lecture, which
+for the moment interrupted both reading and writing. The particular
+value of Martin to me was the attention paid by him to commercial and
+maritime policy, as shown in those frank methods of national
+regulation which in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
+characterized all governments, but were to be seen in their simplest
+and most efficient executive operation in an absolute monarchy. A more
+advanced age may doubt the wisdom of such manipulation of trade; but
+in the hands of a genius like Colbert it became a very active and
+powerful force, the workings of which were the more impressive for
+their directness. They could be easily followed. Whatever Martin's
+views on political economy, he was in profound sympathy with Colbert
+as an administrator, and enlarged much on his commercial policy as
+conducing to the financial stability upon which that great statesman
+sought to found the primacy of his country. To one as ignorant as I
+was of mercantile movement, the story of Colbert's methods, owing to
+their pure autocracy, was a kind of introductory primer to this
+element of sea power. Thus received, the impression was both sharper
+and deeper. New light was shed upon, and new emphasis given to, the
+commonplace assertion of the relations between commerce and a navy;
+civil and military sea power. While I have no claim to mastery of the
+arguments for and against free trade and protection, Colbert, as
+expounded by Martin, sent me in later days to the study of trade
+statistics; as indicative of naval or political conditions deflecting
+commercial interchange, and influencing national prosperity. The
+strong interest such searches had for me may show a natural bent, and
+certainly conduced to the understanding of sea power in its broadest
+sense. Martin set my feet in the way, though Campbell helped me much
+by incidental mention.
+
+It is now accepted with naval and military men who study their
+profession, that history supplies the raw material from which they are
+to draw their lessons, and reach their working conclusions. Its
+teachings are not, indeed, pedantic precedents; but they are the
+illustrations of living principles. Napoleon is reported to have said
+that on the field of battle the happiest inspiration is often but a
+recollection. The authority of Jomini chiefly set me to study in this
+fashion the many naval histories before me. From him I learned the
+few, very few, leading considerations in military combination; and in
+these I found the key by which, using the record of sailing navies and
+the actions of naval leaders, I could elicit, from the naval history
+upon which I had looked despondingly, instruction still pertinent. The
+actual course of the several campaigns, or of the particular battles,
+I worked out as one does any historical conclusion, by comparison of
+the individual witnesses presented in the several accounts; but the
+result of this constructive process became to me something more than a
+narrative. Both the general outcome and the separate incidents passed
+through tests which formed in me an habitual critical habit of mind.
+My judgments, one or all, might be erroneous; but, right or wrong,
+what I brought before myself was no mere portrayal, accurate as I
+could achieve, but a rational whole, of composite cause and effect,
+with its background and foreground, its centre of interest and
+argument, its greater and smaller details, its decisive culmination;
+for even to a drawn battle or a neutral issue there is something which
+definitely prevented success. It was the same with questions of naval
+policy. Jomini's dictum, that the organized forces of the enemy are
+ever the chief objective, pierces like a two-edged sword to the joints
+and marrow of many specious propositions; to that of the French
+postponement of immediate action to "ulterior objects," or to
+Jefferson's reliance upon raw citizen soldiery, a mob ready
+disorganized to the enemy's hands when he saw fit to lay on. From
+Jomini also I imbibed a fixed disbelief in the thoughtlessly accepted
+maxim that the statesman and general occupy unrelated fields. For this
+misconception I substituted a tenet of my own, that war is simply a
+violent political movement; and from an expression of his, "The
+sterile glory of fighting battles merely to win them," I deduced, what
+military men are prone to overlook, that "War is not fighting, but
+business."
+
+It was with such hasty equipment that I approached my self-assigned
+task, to show how the control of the sea, commercial and military, had
+been an object powerful to influence the policies of nations; and
+equally a mighty factor in the success or failure of those policies.
+This remained my guiding aim; but incidentally thereto I had by this
+determined to prepare a critical analysis of the naval campaigns and
+battles, a decision for which I had to thank Jomini chiefly. This
+would constitute in measure a treatment of the art of naval war; not
+formal, nor systematic, but in the nature of commentary, developing
+and illustrating principles. I may interject, as possibly suggestive
+to professional men, that such current comment on historical events
+will lead them on, as it led me irresistibly, to digest the principles
+thus drawn out; reproducing them in concise definitions, applicable to
+the varying circumstances of naval warfare,--an elementary treatise.
+This I did also, somewhat later, in a series of lectures; which,
+though necessarily rudimentary, I understand still form a groundwork
+of instruction at the War College. For the framework of general
+history, which was to serve as a setting to my particular thesis, I
+relied upon the usual accredited histories of the period, as I did
+upon equally well-known professional histories for the nautical
+details. The subject lay so much on the surface that my handling of it
+could scarcely suffer materially from possible future discoveries.
+What such or such an unknown man had said or done on some back-stairs,
+or written to some unknown correspondent, if it came to light, was not
+likely to affect the received story of the external course of military
+or political events. Did I make a mistake in the detail of some
+battle, as I got one fleet on the wrong tack in Byng's action, or as
+in the much-argued case of Torrington at Beachy Head, it would for my
+leading purpose do little more harm than a minor tactical error does
+to the outcome of a large strategic plan, when accurately conceived.
+As a colleague phrased it to me, speaking of the cautious deliberation
+of some men, "A second-best position to-day is better than a
+first-best to-morrow, when the occasion has passed." Strike while the
+iron is hot! and between reading and thinking my iron was very hot by
+the time I laid it on the anvil. Moreover, I had to meet the emergency
+of lecturing, one of the main reliances of our incipient undertaking.
+
+I had begun my reading with Lapeyrouse-Bonfils, in October, 1885. The
+preceding summer at Panama had so far affected my health as to cause a
+month's severe illness in the winter; and when recovered I
+unguardedly let myself in for another month's work, on naval tactics,
+which might have been postponed. Hence the end of the following May
+had arrived before I began to write; but I was so full of matter,
+absorbed or evolved, that I ran along with steady pace, and by
+September had on paper, in lecture form, all of my first _Sea Power_
+book, except the summary of conclusions which constitutes the final
+chapter. Before publication, in 1890, the whole had been very
+carefully revised; but the changes made were mostly in the details of
+battles, or else verbal in character, to develop discussions in
+amplitude or clearness. Battles had been to me at first a secondary
+consideration; hence for revision I had accumulated many fresh data,
+notably from two somewhat scarce books: _Naval Battles in the West
+Indies_, by Lieutenant Matthews, and _Naval Researches_, by Captain
+Thomas White, British officers contemporary and participant in the
+events which they narrate of the War of American Independence.
+
+A lecturer is little hampered by the exactions of style; indeed, the
+less he ties himself to his manuscript, the more he can talk to his
+audience rather than read, and the more freely his command of his
+subject permits him to digress pertinently, the better he holds
+attention. When I found after my first course that the treatment was
+to my hearers interesting as well as novel, the thought of publishing
+entered my mind; and while I had no expectation or ambition to become
+a stylist, the question of style gradually forced itself on my
+consideration. I intend to state some of my conclusions, because the
+casual remarks of others, authors or critics, have been helpful to me.
+Why should not style as well as war have its history and biography, to
+which each man may contribute an unpretentious mite? Notably, I got
+much comfort from Darwin's complaint of frequent recurrences of
+inability to give adequate expression to thoughts, which he could then
+put down only in such crude, imperfect form as the moment suggested,
+leaving the task of elaboration to a more propitious season. If so
+great a man was thus troubled, no strange thing was happening to me in
+a like experience. Such good cheer in intellectual as well as moral
+effort is one of the best services of biography and history, raising
+to the rank of ministering spirits the men whose struggles and success
+they tell. Was not Washington greater at Valley Forge than at
+Yorktown? and Nelson beating against a head wind than at Trafalgar?
+Johnson has anticipated Darwin's method in advice given in his
+Gargantuan manner: "Do not exact from yourself, at one effort of
+excogitation, propriety of thought and elegance of expression. Invent
+first, and then embellish. The production of something, where nothing
+was before, is an act of greater energy than the expansion or
+decoration of the thing produced. Set down diligently your thoughts as
+they arise in the first words that occur, and, when you have matter,
+you will easily give it form." To Trollope I owed a somewhat different
+practical maxim. His theory Was that a man could turn out manuscript
+as steadily as a shoemaker shoes--his precise simile, if I remember;
+and he prided himself on penning his full tale each day. I could not
+subscribe to this, and think that Trollope's work, of which I am fond,
+shows the bad effect; but I did imbibe contempt for yielding to the
+feeling of incapacity, and put myself steadily to my desk for my
+allotted time, writing what I could. Whether the result were ten words
+or ten hundred I tried to regard With equanimity.
+
+I have never purpose attempted to imitate the style of any writer,
+though I unscrupulously plagiarize an apt expression. But gradually,
+and almost unconsciously, I formed a habit of closely scrutinizing the
+construction of sentences by others; generally a fault-finding habit.
+As I progressed, I worked out a theory for myself, just as I had the
+theory of the influence of sea power. Style, I said, has two sides. It
+is first and above all the expression of a man's personality, as
+characteristic as any other trait; or, as some one has said--was it
+Buffon?--style is the man himself. From this point of view it is
+susceptible of training, of development, or of pruning; but to attempt
+to pattern it on that of another person is a mistake. For one chance
+of success there are a dozen of failure; for you are trying to raise a
+special product from a soil probably uncongenial, or a fruit from an
+alien stem--figs from vines. But beyond this there is to style an
+artificial element, which I conceive to be indicated by the word
+_technique_ as applied to the arts; though it is possible that I
+misapprehend the term, being ignorant of art. In authorship I
+understand by _technique_ mainly the correct construction of periods,
+by the proper collocation of their parts. I subscribe heartily to the
+opinion I have seen attributed to Stevenson, that everything depends
+upon the order of the words; and this, in my judgment, should make the
+sentence as nearly as possible independent of punctuation.
+
+Further, there are many awkwardnesses of expression which proper
+training or subsequent practice can eliminate; and in proportion as a
+writer attains the faculty of instinctively avoiding these, his
+technique improves. Perfected, he would never use them, and his
+sentences would flow untaught from his pen in absolutely clear
+reflection of his thought. As an example of what I mean by
+awkwardnesses, I would cite the use of "whose" as the possessive of
+"which." I know that adequate authority pronounces this correct, so it
+is not on that score I reject it. Moreover, I recognize that in myself
+the repulsion is somewhat of an acquired taste. When I began to write
+I thus employed it myself, but its sound is so inevitably suggestive
+of "who" as to constitute an impertinence of association. I have
+lately been reading a very excellent history of the United States, in
+which the frequent repetition of "whose" in this sense causes me the
+sensation of perpetually "stubbing" my toe; an Americanism, which, I
+will explain to any British reader, means stumbling over roots or on
+an unequal pavement, the irritation of which needs not exposition.
+
+In the matter of natural style I soon discovered that the besetting
+anxiety of my soul was to be exact and lucid. I might not succeed, but
+my wish was indisputable. To be accurate in facts and correct in
+conclusions, both as to appreciation and expression, dominated all
+other motives. This had a weak side. I was nervously susceptible to
+being convicted of a mistake; it upset me, as they say. Even where a
+man writes, this is a defect of a quality; in active life it entails
+slowness of decision and procrastination, failure "to get there." I
+have no doubt that much contemporary writing suffers delay from a like
+morbid dread as to possibility of error. The aim to be thus both
+accurate and clear often encumbered my sentences. My cautious mind
+strove to introduce between the same two periods every qualification,
+whether in abatement or enforcement of the leading idea or statement.
+This in many cases meant an accumulation of clauses, over which I
+exercised my ingenuity and lavished my time so to arrange them that
+the whole should be at once apprehended by the reader. It was not
+enough for me that the qualifications should appear a page or two
+before, or after, and in this I think myself right; but in wanting
+them all in the same period, as I instinctively did,--and do, for
+nature is obstinate,--I have imposed on myself needless labor, and
+have often taxed attention as an author has no right to do. Unless
+under pressing necessity, I myself will not be at pains to read what I
+can with difficulty understand.
+
+It is to this anxiety for full and accurate development of statements
+and ideas that I chiefly attribute a diffuseness with which my
+writing has been reproached; I have no doubt justly. I have not,
+however, tried to check the evil at the root. I am built that way, and
+think that way; all round a subject, as far as I can see it. I am
+uneasy if a presentment err by defect, by excess, or by obscurity
+apparent to myself. I must get the whole in; and for due emphasis am
+very probably redundant. I am not willing to attempt seriously
+modifying my natural style, the reflection of myself, lest, while
+digging up the tares of prolixity I root up also the wheat of
+precision. The difference emphasized by Dr. Johnson, "between notions
+borrowed from without and notions generated within," seems to me to
+apply to the mode of expression as well as to the idea expressed. The
+two spring from the same source, and correspond. You impress more
+forcibly by retaining your native manner of statement; chastened where
+necessary, but not defaced by an imitation, even of a self-erected,
+yet artificial, standard. It does not do to meddle too much with
+yourself. But I do resort to a weeding process in revising; a verb or
+an adjective, an expletive or a superlative, is dragged out and cast
+away. Even so, as often as not, I have to add. The words above, "as
+far as I can see it," have just been put in. Of course, in the
+interest of readers, I resort to breaking up sentences; but to me
+personally the result is usually distasteful. The reader takes hold
+more easily, as a child learns spelling by division into syllables;
+but I am conscious that instead of my thoughts constituting a group
+mutually related, and so reproducing the essential me, they are
+disjointed and must be reassembled by others.
+
+A man untrained in youth, and who has never systematically sought to
+repair the defect, can scarcely hope fully to compass technique in
+style. He will thus lose some part of that which he may gain by being
+more nearly his natural self; for there is a real gain in this. Such
+advance as I have made in technique--and I trust I have made some--I
+have owed to the critical running analysis of the construction of
+sentences, which has been my habit ever since I began to write. That
+this is constant with me, subconsciously, is shown by the frequency
+with which it passes into a conscious logical recasting of what I
+read. To get antecedents and consequents as near one another as
+possible; qualifying words or phrases as close as may be to that which
+they qualify; an object near its verb; to avoid an adjective which
+applies to one of two nouns being so placed as to seem to qualify
+both; such minute details seem to me worthy of the utmost care, and I
+think I can trace advance in these respects. My experiments tend to
+show that the natural order of nominative, verb, object, is usually
+preferable; and as a rule I find that adverbs and adverbial phrases
+fall best between nominative and verb. Still, the desirability of
+tying each period to its predecessor, as does the rhyme of the fourth
+and fifth lines of a sonnet, will modify arrangement. In reading
+another author, where such precaution as I name is neglected, a word
+misplaced in its relation to the others of the sentence runs my mind
+off the track, like an engine on a misplaced switch, and I dislike the
+trouble of backing to get on the right rails. It is the same with my
+own work, if time enough elapses between composition and subsequent
+reading. Generally I make such time, either in manuscript or proofs;
+but I am chagrined when I meet slips in the printed page, as I too
+often do. There is no provision against such fault equal to laying the
+text aside till it has become unfamiliar; but even this is not
+certain, for construction, being consonant to your permanent mode of
+thinking, may not when erroneous jar upon you as upon another.
+
+In acquiring an automatic habit, which technique should become,
+principles tend to crystallize into rules, and a few such I have;
+counsels of perfection many of these, too often unrealized. I do not
+like the same word repeated in the same paragraph, though this lays a
+heavy tax on so-called synonymes. Assonances jar me, even two
+terminations "tion" near together. I will not knowingly use "that" for
+"which," except to avoid two "whiches" between the same two periods.
+The split infinitive I abhor, more as a matter of taste than argument.
+I recognize that it is at times very tempting to snuggle the adverb so
+close to the verb; but I hold fast my integrity. Once, indeed, I took
+it into my head not to split compound tenses, and carried this fad
+somewhat remorselessly through a series of republished articles; but
+the result has not pleased me. Boswell tells us that Johnson would
+have none of "former" and "latter;" that he would rather repeat the
+noun than resort to this subterfuge. I see no good reason for
+rejecting these convenient alternatives; but nevertheless I have
+obsequiously bowed to the autocrat and taken a skunner to the
+words--the only literary snobbishness of which I am conscious. I can
+stand out against Macaulay's proscription of prepositions ending
+sentences. Although I generally twist them round, they often please my
+ear there. It is not exactly in point, but I have always rejoiced over
+"Silver was nothing accounted of" in the days of King Solomon; indeed,
+I was brought to book by a proofreader for concluding a sentence with
+"accounted of." I let it stand, so taking was it to me.
+
+The question doubtless occurs to most authors how far they are under
+bonds to the King's English. As to grammar, I submit; the consequences
+of anarchy dismay me; but I question whether in words coinage is an
+attribute of sovereignty. There is, of course, plenty of false money
+going around, current because accepted; but I think a man is at
+liberty to pass a new word, a word without authority in dictionaries,
+if it be congruous to standard etymology. I once wrote "eventless;"
+but, on looking, found it not. Yet why not? "Homeless," "heartless,"
+"shoeless," etc.; why merely "uneventful," a form only one letter
+longer, it is true, but built up to "eventful" to be pulled down to
+"uneventful"? Besides, "uneventful" does not mean the same as
+"eventless." "Doubtless" and "undoubtedly" differ by more than a shade
+in sense, and we have both. So we have "anywhere," "nowhere,"
+"somewhere," "everywhere;" why not "manywhere," if you need it? Again,
+if "hitherto" be good--and it is--why not "thitherto"? In the case of
+"eccentric" as a military term, I felt forced to frame "ex-centric;"
+the former--I ask Dr. Johnson's pardon--has, in America at least,
+become so exclusively associated with the secondary though cognate
+idea of singularity that it would not convey its restricted military
+significance to a lay reader.
+
+I had been assigned to the War College in October, 1885, Admiral Luce
+being still its president, but I did not go into residence until the
+end of the following August. Luce had then been for some months
+detached, to command the North Atlantic fleet, and I had succeeded him
+by default, without special orders that I can remember. He was anxious
+for me to live on the spot, to be "on deck," as he phrased it, for the
+College had many enemies and few friends; and matters were not helped
+by a sharp official collision that summer between him and Secretary
+Whitney, who from indifference passed into antagonism. I cannot say
+that his change was due to this cause, and for a long time his
+hostility did not take form in act. Now that the College, after twenty
+years, has had the warm encomium of the President of the United States
+in his message to Congress, it is interesting to a veteran recipient
+of its early buffets to recall conditions. In my two years' incumbency
+we got decidedly more kicks than halfpence. Yet in retrospect it
+gains. A prominent New York lawyer once told me of a young man from a
+distant State consulting him with a view to practising in the city.
+In response to some cautious warning as to the difficulties, he said:
+"Do you mean that with my education and capacity I cannot expect rapid
+success?" "I fear not," replied the mentor. A few months later they
+met casually. "Are you getting on as fast as you had hoped?" asked the
+older man. "No," admitted the other, "but it's heaps of fun." He
+doubtless got on, and so did the College. I at the time was less
+appreciative of the fun, but I liked the work, and now I see also the
+comical side.
+
+Between the early favor of the Department and his own energy, Luce had
+given the College a good send-off, like a skiff shoved by hand from
+the wharf into mid-stream. There remained only to keep it moving. We
+had an appropriation, and a building that was ready for lecturing;
+with also two as yet uncompleted suites of quarters, for myself and
+one other officer. We had also a very respectable library, in which,
+among many valuable works, conspicuously selected with an eye to our
+special objects, I recall with amusement certain ancient
+encyclopaedias, contributed apparently by well-wishers from stock which
+had begun to encumber their shelves. Howbeit, like Quaker guns, these
+made a brave show if not too closely scrutinized, and spared us the
+semblance of poverty in vacant spaces. Every military man understands
+the value of an imposing front towards the enemy. When I arrived, I
+was the sole occupant of the building; and except an army officer--now
+General Tasker Bliss--was the only _attache_. As I walked round the
+lonely halls and stairways, I might have parodied Louis XIV., and
+said, "_Le College, c'est moi_." I had, indeed, an excellent steward,
+who attended to my meals and made my bed. There was but one lamp
+available, which I had to carry with me when I went from room to room
+by night; and, indeed, except for the roof over my head, I might be
+said to be "camping out." There was yet a month before the class of
+officers was to arrive. This interval was more than occupied preparing
+the necessary maps for my lectures, much of the time by my lonely
+light. Owing to lack of regular assistance, a great part of the map
+work was done by my own hands, often sprawled on the floor as my best
+table; though I was fortunate in receiving much voluntary help from a
+retired lieutenant, now Captain McCarty Little, then and always an
+enthusiastic advocate of the College, who did some of the drafting and
+all the coloring. Thus were put together three of the four maps which
+afterwards appeared in my first book. The fourth, of the North
+Atlantic Ocean, was begged of the hydrographer of the navy; a friendly
+Rhode Island man.
+
+Besides the maps, there were to be produced some twenty or more battle
+plans. For these I hit on a device which I can recommend. I cut out a
+number of cardboard vessels, of different colors for the contending
+navies, and these I moved about on a sheet of drawing-paper until
+satisfied that the graphic presentation corresponded with facts and
+conditions. They were then fastened in place with mucilage. This saved
+a great deal of drawing in and rubbing out, and by using complementary
+colors gave vivid impression. In combats of sailing fleets you must
+look out sharp, or in some arrangement, otherwise plausible, you will
+have a ship sailing within four points of the wind before you know it.
+Nor is this the only way truth may be insulted. Times and distances
+also lay snares for incautious steps. I noticed once in an account of
+an action two times, with corresponding positions, which made a
+frigate in the meanwhile run at eighteen knots under topsails.
+
+By such shifts we scrambled along as best we could our first year,
+content with beef without horseradish, as Sam Weller has it; hitching
+up with rope when a trace gave way, in the blessed condition of those
+who are not expecting favors. But worse was to come. Besides the
+general offence against conservatism by being a new thing, the
+College specifically had poached its building from another manor. It
+stood upon the grounds of the Naval Training Station, for apprentices,
+which considered itself defrauded of property and intruded upon by an
+alien jurisdiction--an _imperium in imperio_. The two were not even
+under the same bureau, so the antagonism existed in Washington as well
+as locally; and now a Secretary of malevolent neutrality. Truly some
+one was needed "on deck;" though just what he could do with such a
+barometer did not appear, unless he bore up under short canvas, like
+Nelson, who "made it a rule never to fight the northwesters." And such
+was very much our policy; reefed close down, looking out for squalls
+at any moment from any quarter, saying nothing to nobody, content to
+be let alone, if only we might be so let. Small sail; and no weather
+helm, if you please. One most alleviating circumstance was the
+commandant of the training station, the local enemy, one of the born
+saints of the earth, Arthur Yates. Officially, of course he
+disapproved of us; professional self-respect and precedent, bureau
+allegiance, and all the rest of it, were outraged; but when it came to
+deeds, Yates could not have imagined an unkind act, much less done it.
+Nor did he stop there; good-will with him was not a negative but an
+active quality. What we wanted he would always do, and then go one
+better, if he could find a way to add to our convenience; and when we
+ultimately came to grief, after his departure, he wrote me a letter of
+condolence. Altogether, while clouds were gathering in Washington, it
+was perpetual sunshine at home as to official and personal relations.
+I have no doubt he would have drawn maps for me had I asked it.
+
+None the less, trouble was at hand. In 1886 we had a session which by
+general consent was very successful in quality, if not in quantity,
+lasting little over two months. Our own bureau controlled the
+ordering of officers, so it swept together a sufficient number to form
+a class. We had several excellent series of lectures: on Gunnery in
+its higher practical aspects, by Lieutenant Meigs, who has since left
+the navy for a responsible position in the Bethlehem Iron Works; on
+International Law, by Professor Soley, who under the next
+administration became Assistant-Secretary of the Navy; on Naval
+Hygiene, by a naval surgeon, Dr. Dean; together with others less
+notable. All these had been contracted for by Luce. Captain Bliss and
+myself, as yet the only two permanent _attaches_, of course took our
+share. So much was new to the officers in attendance, not only in
+details but in principle, that I am satisfied nine-tenths of them went
+away friendly; some enthusiastic. The College had steered clear of any
+appearance of scientific, or so-called post-graduate, instruction,
+consecutive with that given at Annapolis; and had demonstrated that it
+meant to deal only with questions pertinent to the successful
+carrying-on of war, for promoting which no instrumentality existed
+elsewhere. The want had been proved, and a means of filling it
+offered. The listeners had been persuaded.
+
+I well remember my own elation when they went away in the latter part
+of November. Success had surpassed expectation. But in a fortnight
+Congress met, and it soon became evident that we were to be starved
+out,--no appropriation. It was a short session, too; scant time for
+fighting. I went to Washington, and pleaded with the chairman of the
+House naval committee, Mr. Herbert; but while he was perfectly
+good-natured, and we have from then been on pleasant terms, whenever
+he saw me he set his teeth and compressed his lips. His argument was:
+Once establish an institution, and it grows; more and more every year.
+There must be economy, and nowhere is economy so effectually applied
+as to the beginnings. In vain did I try to divert his thoughts to the
+magnificent endings that would come from the paltry ten thousand the
+College asked. He stopped his ears, like Ulysses, and kept his eyes
+fixed on the necessity of strangling vipers in their cradle. In vain
+were my efforts seconded by General Joe Wheeler, also a representative
+from Alabama, and strongly sympathetic with military thought. No help
+could be expected from the Secretary, and we got no funds.
+
+The fiscal year would end June 30, 1887. It was of no use to try
+saving from the current balance, for by law that must be turned in at
+the year's end. So we shrugged our shoulders and trusted to luck,
+which came to our assistance in a comical manner. For summer we were
+all right, or nearly so; but winter might freeze us out. Still, unless
+the Secretary saw fit to destroy the College by executive order, it
+had a right to be warm; so we sent in our requisition for heating the
+building. It went through the customary channels, was approved, and
+the coal in the cellars before the Department noticed that there was
+no appropriation against which to charge it. Upon reference to the
+Secretary, he decided that the coal had been ordered and supplied in
+good faith, and should be left and paid for. In fact, however, if the
+building was used it would have to be heated; the decision practically
+was to let the College retain the building. It was an excellent
+occasion to wipe us out by a stroke of the pen, but Mr. Whitney had
+not yet reached that point. The fuel, I think, was charged to the
+bureau to which the Training Station belonged, which would not tend to
+mollify its feelings.
+
+Coal was our prime necessity, but it was not all. The hostile interest
+now began to cut us short in the various items which contribute to the
+daily bread of a government institution. We lived the year from hand
+to mouth. From the repairs put on the building a twelvemonth before
+there was left a lot of refuse scrap lying about. This we collected
+and sorted, selling what was available, on the principle of
+slush-money. Slush, the non-professional may be told, is the grease
+arising from the cooking of salt provisions. By old custom this was
+collected, barrelled, and sold for the benefit of the ship. The price
+remained in the first lieutenant's hands, to be expended for the
+vessel; usually going for beautifying. What we sold at the College we
+thus used; not for beautifying, which was far beyond us, but to keep
+things together. This proceeding was irregular, and for years I
+preserved with nervous care the memoranda of what became of the money,
+in case of being questioned; although I do not think the total went
+much beyond a hundred dollars. It is surprising how much a hundred
+dollars may be made to do. For our lectures the hydrographer again
+made for the College two very large and handsome maps.
+
+The session of 1887 was longer and more complete than the year before;
+but specifically it increased our good report in the service and added
+to us hosts of friends. Many were now ready to speak in our favor, if
+asked; and some gave themselves a good deal of trouble to see this or
+that person of importance. This was a powerful reinforcement for the
+approaching struggle; but with the Secretary biassed against us, and
+resolute opposition from the chairman of the committee, the odds were
+heavy. Mr. Whitney showed me a frowning countenance, quite unlike his
+usual _bonhomie_; and yielded only a reluctant, almost surly, "I will
+not oppose you, but I do not authorize you to express any approval
+from me." With that we began a still hunt; not from policy, but
+because no other course was open, and by degrees we converted all the
+committee but three. This was quite an achievement in its way; for, as
+one of the members said to me, "It is rather hard to oppose the
+chairman in a matter of this kind. Still, I am satisfied it is a good
+thing, and I will vote for it." So we got our appropriation by a big
+majority. Mr. Herbert was very nice about his discomfiture. That a set
+of uninfluential naval officers should so unexpectedly have got the
+better of him, in his position, had a humorous side which he was ready
+to see; though it is possible we, on whose side the laugh was, enjoyed
+it more. He afterwards, when Secretary of the Navy, came to think much
+better of the College, which flourished under him.
+
+I had soon to find that my mouth had more than one side on which to
+laugh. Confident that we were out of the woods, I proceeded to halloo;
+for in an address made at the opening of the session of 1888, alluding
+to the doubt long felt about the appropriation, I said, "That fear has
+now happily been removed." I reckoned without the Secretary, who
+issued an order, a bolt out of the blue, depriving the College not
+only of its building, but of its independent existence; transferring
+it to the care of the commander of the Torpedo Station, on another
+island in Narragansett Bay. This ended my official existence as
+president of the College, and I was sent off to Puget Sound; one of a
+commission to choose a site for a navy-yard there. I never knew, nor
+cared, just why Whitney took this course, but I afterwards had an
+amusing experience with him, showing how men forget; like my old
+commodore his moment of despondency about the outcome of the war. In
+later years he and I were members of a dining club in New York. I then
+had had my success and recognition. One evening I chanced to say to
+him, apropos of what I do not now recall, "It was at the time, you
+know, that you sent Sampson to the Naval Academy, and Goodrich to the
+Torpedo Station." "Yes," he rejoined, complacently; "and I sent you to
+the War College." It was literally true, doubtless; his act, though
+not his selection; but in view of the cold comfort and the petard with
+which he there favored me, for Whitney to fancy himself a patron to
+me, except on a Johnsonian definition of the word,[16] was as humorous
+a performance as I have known.
+
+So I went to Puget Sound, a very pleasant as well as interesting
+experience; for, having a government tender at our disposal, we
+penetrated by daylight to every corner of that beautiful sheet of
+water, the intricate windings of which prepare a continual series of
+surprises; each scene like the last, yet different; the successive
+resemblances of a family wherein all the members are lovely, yet
+individual. Then was there not, suburban to the city of Seattle, Lake
+Washington, a great body of fresh water? Of this, and of its island,
+blooming with beautiful villas, a delightful summer resort in easy
+reach of the town by cars, we saw before our arrival alluring
+advertisements and pictures, which were, perhaps, a little premature
+and impressionist. How seductive to the imagination was the future
+battle-ship fleet resting in placid fresh water, bottoms unfouled and
+little rusted, awaiting peacefully the call to arms; upon which it
+should issue through the canal yet to be dug between sound and lake,
+ready for instant action! Great would have been the glory of Seattle,
+and corresponding the discomfiture of its rival Tacoma, which
+undeniably had no lake, and, moreover, lay under the stigma of having
+tried, in such default, to appropriate by misnomer another grand
+natural feature; giving its own name Tacoma to Mount Rainier, so
+called by Vancouver for an ancient British admiral. A sharp Seattleite
+said that a tombstone had thus been secured, to preserve the
+remembrance of Tacoma when the city itself should be no more. The
+local nomenclature affixed by Vancouver still remains in many cases.
+Puget, originally applied to one only of the many branches of the
+sound, was among his officers. Hood's Inlet was, doubtless, in honor
+of the great admiral, Lord Hood; while Restoration Point commemorates
+an anniversary of the restoration of Charles II. As regarded Lake
+Washington, our commission was a little nervous lest an injury to the
+canal might interfere at a critical moment with the fleet's freedom of
+movement, leaving it bottled up, and wired down. We selected,
+therefore, the site where the yard now stands, in a singularly
+well-protected inlet on the western side of the main arm, with an
+anchorage of very moderate depth and easy current for Puget Sound.
+There, if my recollection is right, it is nearly equidistant from the
+two cities. Our judgment was challenged and another commission sent
+out. This confirmed our choice, but very much less land was secured
+than we had advised.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+EXPERIENCES OF AUTHORSHIP
+
+
+Before my return from Puget Sound a new administration had come in
+with President Harrison, and the War College was once more in favor.
+But its organization had been destroyed, and some time must elapse
+before it could get again on its legs. In the summer of 1889 a course
+was held at the Torpedo Station, where I lectured with others. The
+following winter an appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars was
+made for a College building; the old one being confirmed to the
+training station, which continued, however, strongly to oppose any use
+of its grounds for the new venture. In this it was overruled, and in
+1892 the College started afresh in what has since been its constant
+headquarters, two hundred yards from its original position.
+
+In the mean time my first series of lectures had been published in
+book form, under the title _The Influence of Sea Power upon History,
+1660-1783_. This was in May, 1890. That it filled a need was speedily
+evident by favorable reviews, which were much more explicit and hearty
+in Europe, and especially in Great Britain, than in the United States.
+The point of view apparently possessed a novelty, which produced upon
+readers something of the effect of a surprise. The work has since
+received the further indorsement of translation into French, German,
+Japanese, Russian, and Spanish; I think into Italian also, but of this
+I am not certain. The same compliment has, I believe, been paid to its
+successor, which carried the treatment down to the fall of Napoleon.
+Notably, it may be said that my theme has brought me into pleasant
+correspondence with several Japanese officials and translators, than
+whom none, as far as known to me, have shown closer or more interested
+attention to the general subject; how fruitfully, has been
+demonstrated both by their preparation and their accomplishments in
+the recent war. As far as known to myself, more of my works have been
+done into Japanese than into any other one tongue.
+
+In 1890 and 1891 there was no session of the College. During this
+period of suspended animation its activities were limited to my own
+preparations for continuing the historical course through the wars of
+the French Revolution and Empire, with a view to the resumption of
+teaching. I was kept on this duty; and I think no one else was busy in
+direct connection with the institution, though the former lecturers
+were for the most part available. It is evident how particularly
+fortunate such circumstances were to an author. For the two years that
+they lasted I had no cares beyond writing; was unvexed by either
+pecuniary anxieties or interference from my superiors. The College
+slumbered and I worked. My results, after one season's use as
+lectures, were published in two volumes, under the title _The
+Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire_.
+
+Of this work it may accurately be said that in order of composition it
+was begun with its final chapter. The accumulation and digestion of
+material had been spasmodic and desultory, for I had hesitated much
+whether to pursue the treatment after 1783. The instability of the
+College fortunes had irritated as well as harassed me. If the navy did
+not want what I was doing, why should I persist? Nothing having been
+given to the world, I had had no outside encouragement; and little
+from within the profession, save the cordial approval of a very few
+officers. However, during the two years of doubtful struggle I had
+read quite widely upon the general history of the particular period,
+as well as upon the effects of sea power in the Peloponnesian War;
+together with such details as I could collect from Livy and Polybius
+of naval occurrences while Hannibal was in Italy. My outlook was thus
+enlarged; not upon military matters only, but by an appreciation of
+the strength of Athens, broad based upon an extensive system of
+maritime commerce. This prepared me to see in the Continental System
+of Napoleon the direct outcome of Great Britain's maritime supremacy,
+and the ultimate cause of his own ruin. Thus, while gathering matter,
+a conception was forming, which became the dominant feature in my
+scheme by the time I began to write in earnest. Coincidently with
+these studies, and with my other occupations when at first president
+of the College, two introductory chapters had been written; one
+bridging the interval between 1783 and 1793, so as to hitch on to my
+first book, the other dealing with the state of the navies at the
+opening of the French Revolution.
+
+There Mr. Whitney's action brought me up with a round turn. When I
+resumed, late in 1889, I extended my reading by Jomini's _Wars of the
+French Republic_, a work instructive from the political as well as
+military point of view; concurrently testing Howe's naval campaign of
+1794 by the principles advanced by the military author, which
+commended themselves to my judgment. In connection with this study of
+naval strategy, I reconstructed independently Howe's three engagements
+of May 28th and 29th, and June 1st, from the details given by James,
+Troude, and Chevalier, analyzing and discussing the successive
+tactical measures of the opposing admirals; in the battle of June 1st
+going so far as to trace even the tracks of the fifty-odd individual
+ships throughout the action. This, the most complicated presentation I
+ever attempted, was a needless elaboration, though of absorbing
+interest to me when once begun. A comparison between it and the bare
+conventional diagram of Trafalgar in the same volumes, which has been
+criticised as not reproducing the facts, may serve to show how far
+multiplicity of minutiae conduces to clearness of perception. From the
+Trafalgar plan a reader, lay or professional, can grasp readily the
+underlying conceptions upon which the battle was fought, and the
+manner in which they were executed, as commonly received; but who ever
+has tried to comprehend the movements of the vessels on June 1st, as I
+elicited them? Assuming their correctness, it was a mere mental
+diversion, in result rather confusing than illuminative to a student;
+whereas ships arranged like beads on a string can give an impression
+fundamentally correct, and to be apprehended at a glance. So far from
+tending to lucidity, accumulation of detail in pursuit of minute
+accuracy rather obscures. Nelson himself indicated his intentions
+sufficiently by straight lines. One merit my June 1st plan may
+possibly possess; the perplexing optical effect may convey better than
+words the intricacy of a naval _melee_.
+
+Coincidently with the study of military events, connoted by Howe's
+campaign and Jomini, I of course did a good deal of reading which here
+can be described only as miscellaneous; prominent amid which was
+Thiers's _History of the Consulate and Empire_, Napoleon's
+_Correspondence and Commentaries_, and the orations of Pitt and Fox.
+From Thiers, confirmed by contemporary memoirs and pamphlets and other
+incidental mention, I gained my conviction that the Continental System
+was the determinative factor in Napoleon's fortunes after Tilsit.
+Pitt's speeches, taken with his life, seemed to me conclusive as to
+his policy, despite the evil construction placed upon his acts by
+Frenchmen of his day, which Thiers has perpetuated. I saw clearly and
+conclusively, as I thought, apparent in his public words and private
+letters, a strong desire for peace, and a hand forced by a wilful
+spirit of aggression which momentarily had lost the balance of its
+reason. Making every allowance for the extravagances of the French
+rulers, unpractised in government and driven by a burning sense of
+mission to universal mankind, it was to me evident that their demands
+upon other nations, and notably upon Great Britain, were subversive of
+all public order and law, and of international security.
+
+Pitt's proud resolution to withstand to the uttermost this tendency,
+coupled with his evident passionate clinging to peace as the basis of
+his life ambition, constituted to my apprehension a tragedy; of lofty
+personal aim and effort wrestling with, and slowly done to death by,
+opposing conditions too mighty for man. The dramatic intensity of the
+situation was increased by the absence of the external dramatic appeal
+characteristic of his father. It carried the force of emotion
+suppressed. The bitter inner disappointment is veiled under the
+reserve of his private life and the reticence of his public utterance,
+which give to his personality a certain remoteness from usual joys and
+sorrows; but, the veil once pierced by sympathy, the human side of the
+younger Pitt stands revealed as of one who, without complaint, bore no
+common burden, did no common work, and to whom fell no common share of
+the suffering which arises from disappointment and frustration, in
+ideals and achievement. The conflict of the two motives in the man's
+steadfast nature aroused in me an enthusiasm which I did not seek to
+check; for I believe enthusiasm no bad spirit in which to realize
+history to yourself or others. It tends to bias; but bias can be
+controlled. Enthusiasm has its place, not for action only, nor for
+speaking, but in writing and in appreciation; quite as critical
+analysis and judicial impartiality have theirs. To deny either is to
+err. The moment of exaltation gone, the dispassionate intellect may
+sit in judgment upon the expressions of thought and feeling which have
+been prompted by the stirring of the mind; but without this there
+lacks one element of true presentation. The height of full recognition
+for a great event, or a great personality, has not been reached. The
+swelling of the breast under strong emotion uplifts understanding.
+Under such influence a writer is to the extent of his faculties on the
+level of his theme. As for biography, I would no more attempt to write
+that of a man for whom I felt no warm admiration, than I would
+maintain friendship with one for whom I had no affection.
+
+Doubtless there also was in Pitt's manner of speech, in the cast of
+his sentences,--the style that is the man himself,--something which
+appealed especially to me. Often, when reading in the Public Library
+of New York a passage of unusual eloquence, I would be strongly moved
+to rise on the spot and give three cheers; and I heartily subscribed
+to a Latin motto on the title-page of the edition I was using: If you
+could but have heard himself. But it was more than that. The story
+increasingly impressed itself upon me. I saw him conscious of great
+capacities for the administration of peace, an inner conviction of far
+less ability for war; with a vision of Great Britain happy and
+prosperous beyond all past experience under his enlightened guidance,
+of which already the plans had been revealed and proof been given, and
+over against this the palpable reality of a current too powerful to be
+resisted, sweeping her into a conflict, the end of which, amid such
+unprecedented conditions, could not be foreseen. Also, despite all his
+deficiencies for a war ministry, as I read and studied the general
+features of the situation with which he had to deal, I became
+convinced that the broad lines of his policy coincided with the
+military necessities of the case, to an extent that he himself very
+possibly did not realize. For as the Directory outlined Napoleon's
+Continental System, so Pitt, unknowingly perhaps, pursued the methods,
+as he definitely predicted the means--exhaustion--by which his
+successors brought to a stop the mischievous energies of France under
+the great emperor.
+
+Thus, before I began to write, my leading ideas for the historical
+treatment of the influence of sea power during the period 1793-1814
+rested upon an approval of the main features of Pitt's war policy, and
+sympathy with his personal position; upon a clear conviction of the
+weight of the Continental System as a factor in the general situation,
+and of its being a direct consequence from British maritime supremacy;
+and upon a sufficiently comprehensive acquaintance with the operations
+of the land warfare up to the Peace of Amiens. Having as yet written
+only the two introductory chapters, and Howe's campaign being strictly
+episodical, the work as an organic whole was still before me when the
+summer of 1890 arrived. It was then thought probable that the College
+would at once resume, and in order to be at hand I settled my family
+in Newport, there addressing myself to my new lectures. Considering
+the mass of detail through which my hearers must be carried, I thought
+advisable to begin with an outline statement of the general political
+and military conditions, and of their sequences; a rudimentary figure,
+a skeleton, the nakedness of which should render easy to understand
+the mutual bearings of the several parts, and their articulations. So
+most surely could the relation of sea power to the other members be
+seen, and its influence upon them and upon the ultimate issue be
+appreciated. Before I began, I remember explaining to a brother
+officer my conception of the Continental System as the culmination of
+the maritime struggle, which in a narrowly military sense had ended
+with Trafalgar. The light thus cast would illuminate afterwards each
+of the several sections of the history, treated circumstantially in
+order of time. In short, I here applied to the whole the method of my
+diagram for Trafalgar, and not of that for June 1st. The result was
+the chapter last in the work, as it now stands, but the first to be
+composed.
+
+A few months before book publication this chapter appeared in the
+_Quarterly Review_, under the title "Pitt's War Policy," chosen by me
+to express my recognition that the grand policy was his; that in it he
+was real as well as titular premier; and that in my judgment, despite
+the numerous errors of detail which demonstrated his limited military
+understanding, the economical comprehension of the statesman had
+developed a political strategy which vindicated his greatness in war
+as in peace. The article ended, as the chapter then did, with the
+well-known quotation, particularly apt to my appreciation, "The Pilot
+had weathered the storm." The few subsequent pages were added later.
+By an odd coincidence, just as I had offered the paper to the
+_Quarterly_, one under the same title, "by a Foxite," came out in
+another magazine. Somewhat discomposed, I hurried to look this up; but
+found, as from the _nom de plume_ might be presumed, that it did not
+take my line of argument, but rather, as I recall, that of Pitt's
+opponents, which Macaulay has developed with his accustomed
+brilliancy, although to my mind with profound misconception and
+superficial criticism. Fox's speeches had made upon me the impression
+of the mere objector. Indeed, I felt this so strongly that I had
+written of him as "the great, but factious, leader of the opposition."
+In proofreading I struck out "factious;" as needless, and as a
+generalization on insufficient premises.
+
+It was not till the following December--1890--that I began the two
+chapters next in order of composition, on "The Warfare against
+Commerce." These occupied me late into the winter, covering as they
+did the entire period 1793-1814, and embracing a great deal of
+detail. Taken together, these three chapters, final but first written,
+contain the main argument of the book. The naval occurrences,
+brilliant and interesting as they were, are logically but the prelude
+to the death grapple. Pitt's policy stood justified, because naval
+supremacy, established by war, secured control of the seas and of
+maritime commerce, and so exhausted Napoleon. Not till this
+demonstration had been accomplished to my own satisfaction did I take
+up the narrative and discussion of warfare, land and sea. Thus the
+prelude followed the play. My memory retains associations which enable
+me definitely to fix the progress of the work. Thus the chapter on
+"The Brest Blockade," from its characteristics, long continuance, and
+incidents, one of the most interesting of the purely naval operations,
+was composed in the summer of 1891, at Richfield; while the campaign
+and battle of Trafalgar, the last done of all, passed through my hands
+in April, 1892, in Richmond, Virginia, where I then was on
+court-martial duty.
+
+This second book was written under much more encouraging circumstances
+than its predecessor, and with much greater deliberation. The first
+occupied me little over one year; the second, though covering only
+one-fifth the time, was in hand three. There were long interruptions,
+it is true; the Puget Sound business, and the writing of a short _Life
+of Farragut_. But the chief cause of delay was a much more extensive
+preparation. This was owing largely to the crowded activities of the
+brief twenty years treated, and still more to wider outlook. I
+attempted, indeed, nothing that could be called original research. I
+still relied wholly upon printed matter, but in that I wandered far.
+The privilege was accorded me of free access to the alcoves of what
+was then the Astor Library, now, while keeping its name, incorporated
+with the New York Public Library; and I rummaged its well-stocked
+shelves, following up every clue, especially memoirs, pamphlets, and
+magazines, contemporary with my period. From the estimate I had formed
+of the effect of commerce upon the outcome of the hostilities, it was
+necessary to digest the statistics of the times, much of which existed
+in tabulated form; and, for commercial policy, the State Papers, and
+debates in Parliament, as well as in the French National Convention. I
+now had not only interest in my task, but pride; for the favorable
+criticism upon the first sea-power book not only had surprised me, but
+had increased my ambition and my self-confidence. It was a distinct
+help that there was no expectation of pecuniary advantage; no
+publisher or magazine editor pressing for "copy," on which dollars
+depended. I now often recall with envy the happiness of those days,
+when the work was its own reward, and quite sufficient, too, almost as
+good as a baby; when there were no secondary considerations, however
+important, to dispute for the first place. I have never knowingly let
+work leave my hands in shape less good than the best I can turn out;
+but I have often felt the temptation to do so, and wished--almost, not
+quite--that there was no money in it. I recast Dr. Johnson's saying:
+"None but a blockhead would write unless he needed money." None but a
+blockhead would write for money, unless he had to.
+
+Though not embarrassed by publishers, I found a more formidable enemy
+on my tracks in 1892. There had been a change in the Bureau of
+Navigation, and the new chief, under whom the College was, thought my
+help to it less necessary than my going to sea. To an advocate of
+allowing me time, he replied, summarily, "It is not the business of a
+naval officer to write books." As an aphorism the remark is doubtless
+unassailable; but, with a policy thus defined, my position, again to
+quote Boatswain Chucks, became "precarious and not at all permanent."
+That my turn for sea service had come was indisputable. I could
+pretend to no grievance, but I did want first to finish that book. Yet
+I have recalled with happiness that I was enabled to work steadfastly
+on, my pulse beating no quicker for fear I should be interrupted and
+my task left unfinished. I remember a Boston publisher telling me of
+the anxiety felt by one of his distinguished clients, lest death
+should overtake him before that which he had planned was completed.
+The feeling is common to man, and one is touched by the apparent
+tragedy when men of promise and achievement are so removed, their aims
+unaccomplished, as were recently Professor Rawson Gardiner and Sir
+William Hunter; but it was given me early to realize that there is no
+such thing as being cut off unbetimes. If I were called at the end of
+a day's stint, or the pen fell from my hand in the midst of it, that
+which was appointed me was done; if well done, what mattered the rest?
+This quietness came to me through a chain of thought. I had been
+experiencing, as many others have, the weariness of a long-winded job,
+the end of which seemed to recede with each day's progress; and there
+came to my mind Long-fellow's "Village Blacksmith:"
+
+   "Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing,
+      Onward through life he goes;
+    Each morning sees some task begin,
+      _Each evening sees it close_."
+
+Would it were so with me! And a voice replied, "Is it not so with you?
+with all?" Since then I have understood; though the flesh is often
+weak, and even the calm of the study cannot always exclude the
+contagious fever of our American pace. In the particular juncture, the
+Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Tracy, took my view of relative
+importances, and time was secured me. The manuscript was complete by
+the late spring of 1892, and the book published in December, having
+meantime been used for lectures in the first session of the College in
+its new building; a renewal of life which has since proved continuous.
+
+During this interval occurred another presidential campaign. Mr.
+Harrison was defeated and Mr. Cleveland elected. I was now ready to go
+to sea, but by this time had decided that authorship had for me
+greater attractions than following up my profession, and promised a
+fuller and more successful old age. I would have retired immediately,
+had I then fulfilled the necessary forty years' service; but of these
+I still lacked four. My purpose was to take up at once the War of
+1812, while the history of the preceding events was fresh in my mind;
+and in this view I asked to be excused from sea duty, undertaking that
+I would retire when my forty years were complete. The request was
+probably inadmissible, for I could have given no guarantees; and the
+precedent might have been bad. At any rate, it was not granted,
+luckily for me; for by a combination of unforeseen circumstances the
+ship to which I was ordered, the _Chicago_, was sent to Europe as
+flag-ship of that station, and on her visit to England, in 1894,
+occasion was taken by naval officers and others to express in public
+manner their recognition of the value they thought my work had been to
+the appreciation of naval questions there. This brought my name
+forward in a way that could not but be flattering, and affected
+favorably the sale of the books; the previous readers of which had
+seemingly been few, though from among those few I had received
+pleasant compliments. Upon this followed the conferring upon me
+honorary degrees by the two universities; D.C.L. by Oxford, and LL.D.
+by Cambridge. After my return, in 1895, LL.D. was extended also by
+Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, in the order named, and by McGill in
+Montreal.
+
+Another very pleasing and interesting experience while in London was
+dining with the Royal Navy Club. This is an ancient institution,
+dating back to the middle of the eighteenth century. Its list of
+members carries many celebrated names, among others Nelson. It has no
+club-house, and exists as an organization only; meeting for dinners on
+or near the dates of some half-dozen famous naval victories, the
+anniversaries of which it thus commemorates yearly. There is by rule
+one guest of the evening, and one only, who is titularly the guest of
+the presiding officer; but on this occasion an exception was made for
+our admiral and myself. Unfortunately, he, who was much the better
+after-dinner speaker, was ill and could not attend. The rule thus
+remained intact, and I have understood that this was the first time in
+the history of the club that the guest had been a foreigner.
+
+The _Chicago_ had left England and was lying at Antwerp when the time
+for conferring degrees arrived. My attendance in person was requisite,
+but only a week could be spared from the ship for the purpose. This
+made it impossible for me to be present in both cases at the high
+ceremonial, where the honors are bestowed upon the full group of
+recipients. Oxford had been first to tender me her distinction, and I
+accordingly arranged my journey with a view to her celebration; two
+days before which I went down to Cambridge, and was there received and
+enrolled at a private audience, before the accustomed officials and
+some few visitors from outside. What the circumstances lacked in the
+pomp of numbers and observance, and in the consequent stimulus to
+interest which a very novel experience arouses, was compensated to me
+by the few hours of easy social intercourse with a few eminent
+persons, whom I had the pleasure of then meeting very informally.
+
+The great occasion at Oxford presents a curious combination of
+impressiveness and horse-play, such as is associated with the Abbot of
+Misrule, in the stories of the Middle Ages. It is this smack and
+suggestion of antiquity, of unnumbered such occasions in the misty
+past, when the student was half-scholar and half-ruffian, which make
+the permitted license of to-day not only tolerable, but in a sense
+even venerable. The good-humor and general acceptance on both sides,
+by chaffers and chaffed, testified to recognized conditions; and there
+is about a hoary institution a saving grace which cannot be
+transferred to _parvenus_. Practised in a modern Cis-Atlantic seat of
+learning, as I have seen it done, without the historical background,
+the same disregard of normal decorum becomes undraped rowdyism--boxing
+without gloves. The scene and its concurrences at Oxford have been
+witnessed by too many, and too often described, for me to attempt
+them. I shall narrate only my particular experiences. I had been
+desired to appear in full uniform--epaulettes, cocked hat, sword, and
+what is suggestively called "brass-bound" coat; swallow-tailed, with a
+high collar stiffened with lining and gold lace, set off by trousers
+with a like broad stripe of lace, not inaptly characterized by some
+humorist as "railroad" trousers. The theory of these last, I believe,
+is that so much decoration on hat and collar, if not balanced by an
+equivalent amount below, is top-heavy in visual effect, if not on
+personal stability. Whatever the reason, it is all there, and I had it
+all at Oxford; all on my head and back, I mean, except the epaulettes.
+For to my concern I found that over all this paraphernalia I must also
+wear the red silk gown of a D.C.L. It became evident, immediately upon
+trial, that the silk and the epaulettes were agreeing like the
+Kilkenny cats, so it was conceded that these naval ornaments should be
+dispensed with; the more readily as they could not have been seen. In
+the blend, and for the occasion, my legal laurels prevailed over my
+professional exterior.
+
+In the matter of dress my life certainly culminated when I walked
+up--or down--High Street in Oxford with cocked hat, red silk gown, and
+sword, the railroad trousers modestly peeping beneath. It must be
+admitted that the townsmen either had more than French politeness, or
+else were used to incongruities. I did not see one crack a smile;
+whether any turned to look or not, I did not turn to see. My
+hospitable escort and myself joined the other expectants before the
+Sheldonian Theatre, where the ceremonies are held. The audience, of
+both sexes, visitors and students, had already crammed the benches and
+galleries of the great circular interior when we marched to our seats,
+in single file, down a narrow aisle. The fun, doubtless, had been
+going on already some time; but for us it was non-existent till we
+entered, when the hose was turned full upon us and our several
+peculiarities. I am bound to say that to encourage us we got quite as
+many cheers as chaff, and the personalities which flew about like
+grape-shot were pretty much hit or miss. I noticed that some one from
+aloft called out, "Why don't you have your hair cut?" which I
+afterwards understood was a delicate allusion to my somewhat
+unparalleled baldness; but it happened that two behind me in the
+procession was a very distinguished Russian scientist, like myself a
+D.C.L. _in ovo_, whose long locks fell over his collar, and I
+innocently supposed that so pertinent a remark was addressed to him on
+an occasion when _im_pertinence was lord of the ascendant. Thus the
+shaft passed me harmless, or fell back blunted from my triple armor of
+dulness.
+
+Although in itself in most ways enjoyable, the cruise of the _Chicago_
+while it lasted necessarily suspended authorship. I heard intimations
+of the common opinion that the leisure of a naval officer's life would
+afford abundant opportunity. Even I myself for a moment imagined that
+time in some measure might be found for accumulating material, for
+which purpose I took along several books; but it was in vain. Neither
+a ship nor a book is patient of a rival, and I soon ceased the effort
+to serve both. Night work was tried, contrary to my habit; but after a
+few weeks I had to recognize that the evening's exertion had dulled my
+head for the next morning's duties.
+
+My orders not only interrupted writing, but changed its direction for
+a long while. I had foreseen that the War of 1812, as a whole, must be
+flat in interest as well as laborious in execution; and, upon the
+provocation of other duty, I readily turned from it in distaste. Nine
+years elapsed before I took it up; and then rather under the
+compulsion of completing my Sea Power series, as first designed, than
+from any inclination to the theme. It occupied three years--usefully,
+I hope--and was published in 1905. Regarded as history, it is by far
+the most thorough work I have done. I went largely to original
+documents in Washington, Ottawa, and London, and I believe I have
+contributed to the particular period something new in both material
+and interpretation. But, whatever value the book may possess to one
+already drawn to the subject, it is impossible to infuse charm where
+from the facts of the case it does not exist. As a Chinese
+portrait-painter is said to have remonstrated with a discontented
+patron, "How can pretty face make, when pretty face no have got?"
+
+Thus my orders to the _Chicago_ led to dropping 1812, and to this my
+_Life of Nelson_ was directly due. The project had already occurred to
+me, for the conspicuous elements of human as well as professional
+interest could not well escape one who had just been following him
+closely in his military career. _Sea Power in the French Revolution_
+having been published less than six months before, the framework of
+external events, into which his actions must be fitted, was fresh in
+my recollection, as was also the analysis of his campaigns and
+battles, available at once for fuller treatment, more directly
+biographical. After consultation with my publishers I decided to
+undertake the work, and with reference to it chiefly I provided myself
+reading-matter. I have already said that the experiment of writing on
+board did not succeed. I composed part of the first chapter and then
+stopped; but the purpose remained, and was resumed very soon after
+leaving the _Chicago_, in May, 1895.
+
+For the writing of biography I had formed a theory of my own, a
+guiding principle, closely akin to the part which sea power had played
+in my treatment of history. This leading idea was not intended to
+exclude other points of view or manners of presentation, but was to
+subordinate them somewhat peremptorily. As defined to myself, my plan
+was to realize personality by living with the man, in as close
+familiarity as was consistent with the fact of his being dead. This
+was to be done first, for myself, as the necessary prelude to
+transmission to my readers. When there remains a huge mass of
+correspondence, by one as frank in utterance and copious in
+self-revelation as was Nelson, the opportunity to get on terms of such
+intimacy is unique, one-sided though the communication is. Besides,
+companions and subordinates have left abundant records of their
+association with him, which constitute, as it were, the other side of
+conversation; relieving the monologue of his own letters. The first
+thing in order is to know the living man; and it seemed to me that,
+with such materials, this could be accomplished most fully by steeping
+one's self in them, creating an environment closely analogous to the
+intercourse of daily life. I believed that passive surrender to these
+impressions, rather than conscious labored effort, would gradually
+produce the perceptions of immediate contact, to the utmost that the
+nature of the case admitted. Johnson doubtless was right in naming
+personal acquaintance as chief among the qualifications of a
+biographer; failing that, one must seek the best substitute. By
+either method the conception of character and temperament is formed;
+its reproduction to readers is a matter of power of expression, and of
+capacity to introduce aptly, here and there, the minute touches by
+which an artist secures likeness and heightens effect.
+
+Whatever the worth of this theory, it was due in large measure to
+revulsion from a form of biography, to me always displeasing and
+essentially crude, which gives a narrative of external life-events,
+disjointed continually by letters. Profuse recourse to letters simply
+turns over to the reader the task which the biographer has undertaken
+to do for him. Perhaps the biographer cannot do it. Then he had better
+not undertake the job. A collection of letters is one thing, a
+biography another; and they do not mix well when a career abounds in
+incident. Letters are material for biography, as original documents
+are material for history; but as documents are not history, so letters
+are not biography. The historian and biographer by publishing
+virtually contract to present their readers with a digested, reasoned
+whole; the best expression, full yet balanced, that they can give of
+the truth concerning a period, or a man. It is a labor of time and
+patience, and should be also of love; one which the reader is to be
+spared, on the principle that a thousand men should not have to do,
+each for himself, the work the one writer professes. It is no fair
+treatment to tumble at their feet a basketful of papers, and virtually
+say, "There! find out the man for yourself."
+
+The interest of lives, of course, varies, and with it the opportunity
+of the biographer. I do not mean in degree, which is trite to remark,
+but in kind, which is less recognized. There are men the value of
+whose memory to their race lies in their thought and words, whose
+career is uneventful. Yet even with them the impression of personality
+is not as vividly produced by masses of correspondence as it may be by
+the petty occurrences of daily life, which for them are the analogues
+of the stirring incidents that mark the course of the man of public
+action, statesman or warrior. The reason is plain; the character of
+few rises to the height of their words, written or spoken. These show
+their wisdom, or power, and are uplifting; but their shortcomings,
+too, have a virtue. We fight the better for appreciating that victors
+have known defeat. The supreme gift of biography to mankind is
+personality; not what the man thought or did, but what he was. Herein
+is inspiration and reproof; motive force, inspiring or deterrent. If
+nothing better, mere recognition, or exultation in an excellence to
+which we do not attain, has a saving grace of its own.
+
+For the purposes of his biographer, Dr. Johnson scarcely left London.
+Beyond a brief visit to Paris, only a tour through the Hebrides; this
+an event so colossal in its elevation above the flat level of his
+outward existence, like the church towers in a Dutch landscape, that
+it is treated as a thing quite apart, has a volume to itself, severed
+from its before and after. Boswell gives letters, certainly, and many;
+yet, in the matter of character portrayal, what are they alongside of
+the talk? And also, more pertinent, what to Boswell was even the talk,
+compared with the intercourse to which the talk was incident? In this
+he immersed himself and his strong receptive powers, absorbing the
+impression which he has so skilfully reproduced. Such apprehension as
+Boswell thus gained for himself is no neutral acquirement; it is a
+working force, instinctively selective from that on which it feeds,
+and intuitive in its power of arrangement. To copy his result is
+futile. Like Nelson, there is but one Boswell; but it may be permitted
+to believe that lesser men will profit to the extent of their
+capacities by adopting his method. This possibly he never formulated,
+in that again proving his genius, the unconscious faculty of a very
+self-conscious man; but I conceive the process to have been, first
+know your subject yourself thoroughly by close contact and sympathy,
+and then so handle your material as to bring out to the reader the
+image revealed to you.
+
+This is, in a measure, a plea for picturesque treatment of biography
+and of history; not by gaudy coloring and violent contrasts, striving
+after rhetorical effect, but in the observance of proportion, of
+grouping, of subordination to a central idea; not content with mere
+narration, however accurate in details. A narrative which fails in
+portrayal, in picturesque impression, is not accurate; and a biography
+which presents a man's thoughts and acts, yet does not over and above
+them fashion his personality to the reader, is a failure. How much
+conscious effort may be necessary to the due handling of materials, I
+certainly cannot undertake to say; but persuaded I am that the utmost
+results possible to any particular man can be attained only by passive
+assimilation, and that so they will be attained to the measure of his
+individual capacity. By such digestion a theme apparently dry may be
+quickened to interest. Though not a lawyer, nor a student of
+constitutions, I found Stubbs's _Constitutional History of England_
+fascinating. I have not analyzed my pleasure, but I believe it to have
+been due to portrayal; to arrangement of data by a man exceptionally
+gifted for vivid presentation, who had so lived with his subject that
+it had realized itself to him as a living whole, which he successfully
+conveyed to his readers. There is no disjointment. The result is a
+great historical picture; or a biography, of law as a benevolent
+developing personality, moving amid the struggles and miseries of the
+human throng, healing and redressing.
+
+To _The Life of Nelson_ I applied the idea of this method, which I
+thought to be helped rather than hindered by my warm admiration for
+him, little short of affection. I had faith in the power of
+attachment to comprehend character and action; and because of mine I
+believed myself safer when necessary to censure. I grieved while I
+condemned. I was sure also that, however far below an absolute best I
+might fall, the best that I could do must thus come out. Amid approval
+sufficient to gratify me, I found most satisfaction in that of a
+friend who said he felt as if he had been living with my hero; and of
+another who told me that after his day's work, which I knew to be
+laborious, he had refreshed his evenings with _Nelson_. In the first
+edition I fell into two mistakes of some importance, as well as others
+in small details, the effect of which was to confirm me in my theory;
+for while they were blemishes, and needed correction, they did not,
+and do not, to my mind affect the portrait--the conveyance of true
+personality.
+
+Of these errors the most serious, regarded as a fault, was an
+inadequate study of Nelson's course at Naples in 1799, so sharply
+challenged at that time and afterwards. I recognized the justice of a
+criticism which alleged that I had not sufficiently examined the other
+side of the case, as presented by Italian authors. This I now did,
+rewriting my account for the second edition. I found no reason to
+change my estimate of Nelson's conduct, but rather to confirm the
+favorable aspects; but what was more instructive to me was that even
+so large an oversight did not when remedied affect the portrait. The
+personality remained as first conceived; Nelson had acted in
+character. The same was substantially true of a more pregnant
+incident, the discovery of a number of his letters to his wife, which
+had escaped the diligent search made by the editor of his
+correspondence, Sir Harris Nicolas. After lying concealed for the
+half-century between Nicolas and myself, they turned up shortly after
+my book was in print. Here was more self-revelation; how might it
+modify my picture? The event was ushered in with a great flourish of
+trumpets, the walls of Jericho were about to fall, and I own I felt
+anxious. Some of the letters were published; permission to see the
+others was refused me. As these have not since been given to the
+world, I fancy that they sustain the opinion expressed by me on those
+that were; that beyond emphasizing somewhat his hardness to Lady
+Nelson during the period of his growing alienation, they add little to
+the impression before formed. A slight touch of the brush, another
+line in the face, that is all.
+
+The question of Nelson's action at Naples was brought forward in a way
+which required from me some controversial writing. To this I have no
+intention of alluding here, beyond stating that up to the present my
+confidence has not been shaken in my defence of the main lines of his
+conduct, clearing him of the deceit and double-dealing alleged against
+him. I say this because there may be some who have thought me silenced
+by argument, in that I have not seen fit to rise to such crude taunts
+as that, "After this Captain Mahan will not undertake," etc. What
+Captain Mahan will or will not do is of no particular importance; but
+when the repute of such an one as Nelson is at stake, burdened by the
+weight of calumny laid upon him by Southey's ill-instructed censures,
+it is right to repeat that nothing I have seen since I last wrote,
+about 1900, has appeared to me to call for further answer.
+
+_The Life of Nelson_, and _The War of 1812_, of which I have already
+spoken, remain my last extensive works. In the interval between them,
+1897-1902, I was engaged mostly in occasional writing, for magazines
+or otherwise. From time to time these papers have been collected and
+published, under titles which seemed appropriate. Concerning them, for
+the most part, there is one general statement to be made. With few
+exceptions, they have been written to order. Partly from indisposition
+to this particular activity, partly from indolence, ultimately from
+conviction that editors best know--or should know--what the public
+want, I have left them to come to me. When expedient, I have taken a
+subject somewhat apart from that suggested, but usually akin. Speaking
+again generally, the field of thought into which I have been thus
+drawn has been that of the external policy of nations, and of their
+mutual--international--relations; not in respect to international law,
+on which I have no claim to teach, but to the examination of extant
+conditions, and the appreciation of their probable and proper effect
+upon future events and present action. In conception, these studies
+are essentially military. The conditions are to my apprehension
+forces, contending, perhaps even conflicting; to be handled by those
+responsible as a government disposes its fleets and armies. This is
+not advocacy of war, but recognition that the providential movement of
+the world proceeds through the pressure of circumstances; and that
+adverse circumstances can be controlled only by organization of means,
+in which armed physical power is one dominant factor.
+
+In direct result from the line of thought into which I was drawn by my
+conception of sea power, and which has inspired my subsequent magazine
+writing, I am frankly an imperialist, in the sense that I believe that
+no nation, certainly no great nation, should henceforth maintain the
+policy of isolation which fitted our early history; above all, should
+not on that outlived plea refuse to intervene in events obviously
+thrust upon its conscience. The world of national activities has
+become crowded, like the world of professions; opportunity,
+consequently, has diminished, and possibilities must be cultivated and
+husbanded. This is the primary duty of a government to its own people
+and to their posterity. But there are other duties which must be
+accepted, even though they entail national sacrifice, because laid at
+the nation's door, like Cuba, or forced upon its decision, like the
+Philippines. I see too clearly in myself the miserable disposition to
+shirk work and care, and responsibility, to condone the same in
+nations. I once heard a preacher thus parody effectively the words of
+the prophet--"Here am I, send _him_!" And I have heard attributed to
+the late Mr. John Hay an equally telling allusion to certain of our
+moralists, who would discard the Philippines on the score of danger to
+the national principles. Said a pious girl, "When I realized that
+personal ornaments were dragging my immortal soul to hell, I gave them
+to my sister." Still less, let us hope, will one of the wealthiest of
+nations, almost alone in the possession of an abundant surplus income,
+desert a charge on the poor plea of economy; or so far distrust its
+fate, as to turn its back upon a duty, because dangerous or
+troublesome. If the political independence of the Philippine Islands
+bid fair to result in the loss, or lessening, of the safeguards of
+personal freedom to the private Philippine islander, the mission of
+the United states is at present clear, nor can it be abandoned without
+national discredit; nay, national crime. Personal liberty is a greater
+need than political independence, the chief value of which is to
+insure the freedom of the individual. Similarly, not only for the sake
+of its own citizens, but for the world at large, each country should
+diligently watch and weigh current external occurrences; not
+necessarily to meddle, still less to forsake its proper sphere, but
+because convinced that failure to act when occasion demands may be as
+injurious as mistaken action, and indicates a more dangerous
+condition, in that moral inadequacy means ultimately material decline.
+When the spirit leaves the body, the body decays.
+
+In these subjects and my way of viewing them, I suppose that ten years
+ago, before our war with Spain, I was ahead of the times, at least in
+my own country, and to some extent helped to turn thought into present
+channels; much as to my exposition of sea power has been credited a
+part of the impulse to naval development which characterizes to-day.
+Immediately after the Spanish War I seemed to some, if I may trust
+their words, to have done a bit of prophecy; while others laid to my
+door a chief share in the mistaken direction they considered the
+country to be taking. Of course, I was pleased by this; I have never
+pretended to be above flattery judiciously administered: but, while
+confident still in the main outlook of my writing, I know too well
+that, when you come to details, prediction is a matter of hit or miss,
+and that I have often missed as well as hit in particulars. "It is all
+a matter of guess," said Nelson, when tied down to a specific
+decision, "but the world attributes wisdom to him who guesses right."
+This is less true of the big questions and broad lines of contemporary
+history. There insight can discern really something of tendencies;
+enough to guide judgment or suggest reflection. But I am now
+sixty-seven, and can recognize in myself a growing conservatism, which
+may probably limit me henceforth to bare keeping up with the
+procession in the future national march. Perhaps I may lag behind.
+With years, speculation as well as action becomes less venturesome,
+and I look increasingly to the changeless past as the quiet field for
+my future labors.
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Worcester, quoting from _Falconer's Marine Dictionary_, defines
+"Grommet" as "a small ring or wreath, formed of the strand of a rope,
+used for various purposes."
+
+[2] J. R. Soley, _The Blockade and the Cruisers_, 1883. Scribner's,
+_Navy in the Civil War_.
+
+[3] This statement when written rested on my childhood's memory only.
+A few months later there came into my hands a volume of the
+publications of the British Navy Records Society, containing the
+Recollections of Commander James Anthony Gardner. 1775-1814. Gardner
+was at one time shipmates with Culmer, who it appears eventually
+received a commission. By Gardner's reckoning he would have been far
+along in the forties in 1790. The following is the description of him.
+"Billy was about five feet eight or nine, and stooped; hard features,
+marked with the small-pox; blind in an eye, and a wen nearly the size
+of an egg under his cheek-bone. His dress on a Sunday was a mate's
+uniform coat, with brown velvet waistcoat and breeches; boots with
+black tops; a gold-laced hat, and a large hanger by his side like the
+sword of John-a-Gaunt. He was proud of being the oldest midshipman in
+the navy, and looked upon young captains and lieutenants with
+contempt."
+
+[4] The _Navy Register_ of 1842 shows the number appointed in 1841 to
+have been two hundred and nineteen.
+
+[5] That is, within a quarter of a point on either side of her course.
+A "point" of the compass is one-eighth of a right angle; e.g., from
+North to East is eight points.
+
+[6] _Naval Letters of Captain Percival Drayton._ Edited by Miss
+Gertrude L. Hoyt. 1906. Pages 10, 3, 4.
+
+[7] The anchoring chains pass from inboard through the hawse-holes to
+the anchor. When left bent on soundings, the sea, if rough, will rush
+through them copiously. To prevent this in part, conical stuffed
+canvas bags were dragged in from outside. These were called
+"jackasses."
+
+[8] Acknowledgment is here due to Mr. Thomas G. Ford, once a professor
+at the Naval Academy, cordially remembered by the midshipmen who knew
+him there in the fifties. His article is in the issue of the _Naval
+Institute Proceedings_ for June, 1906, which has just reached me. He
+attributes his information to the late Admiral Preble, almost the only
+American officer within my time who has had the instincts of an
+archaeologist.
+
+[9] Perhaps it is better to explain that there are three watches from
+8 P.M. to 8 A.M.; the two watches into which the crew were divided had
+on alternate nights one watch, or two watches, on deck. This sybarite
+was foretasting two watches below.
+
+[10] On referring to the file of the _Times_, I find that the forecast
+concerning Vicksburg occurred in the issue of July 1st. "It is not
+improbable we may hear that General Grant has been obliged to raise
+the siege of Vicksburg." It is surprising to note of how secondary
+importance the Vicksburg issue appears to have been thought at the
+time.
+
+[11] Rhodes's _History of the United States_, vol. v., p. 99.
+
+[12] I have here used the expression "harakiri," because so commonly
+understood among English--speaking readers. A Japanese correspondent
+has informed me that it is never used among the Japanese, with the
+signification we have attached to it. The proper word is "Seppuku."
+
+[13] _Official Record of the Union and Confederate Navies_, Series I.,
+iii., p. 722.
+
+[14] Since this was written, I have been told by one of the officers
+of the _Iroquois_, Lieutenant--now Rear-Admiral--Nicoll Ludlow, that
+many years afterwards he saw the story of the _Cayalti's_ captain,
+told by himself, in the _Overland Monthly_, of San Francisco. He had
+been allowed to go ashore to get provisions, and of course did not
+return.
+
+[15] This is not the place for a discussion of commerce-destroying as
+a method of war; but having myself given, as I believe, historical
+demonstration that as a sole or principal resource, maintained by
+scattered cruisers only, it is insufficient, I wish to warn public
+opinion against the reaction, the return swing of the pendulum, seen
+by me with dismay, which would make it of no use at all, and under the
+plea of immunity to "private property," so called, would exempt from
+attack the maritime commerce of belligerents.
+
+[16] "Is not patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man
+struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground,
+encumbers him with help?"--Johnson to the Earl of Chesterfield.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of From Sail to Steam, Recollections of
+Naval Life, by Captain A. T. Mahan
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