LIEUTENANT.
1825-1841.
After the termination of his cruise in the Mosquito fleet, and up to the
beginning of the Civil War, the story of Farragut's life is for the most
part but the record of the routine service of a naval officer in times
of peace--periods of distant foreign cruising succeeding to, and being
again succeeded by, periods of employment on shore in some of the many
duties connected with the administration of the navy. But while in their
superficial aspect there is little to distinguish these monotonous
years, with their occasional breaks of exceptional incident, from the
ordinary experiences of all naval officers, the journal of Farragut
shows an activity of mind, a constant habit of observation, especially
in professional matters, and a painstaking diligence in embracing every
passing opportunity for improvement, which reveal to some extent the
causes of his subsequent great successes. It is not indeed always
possible to trace the precise connection between this or that
observation, this or that course of study, and the later results; it is
rather in the constant habit of doing the best at every moment, and in
the gradual formation of mental character and correct professional
knowledge, that are to be found the fruits of the strenuous exertion
made throughout his life by Admiral Farragut. It is a noteworthy, though
by no means unprecedented, circumstance that these characteristics
obtained little or no recognition during his early and middle career.
Unlike the great British admiral, Nelson, no war occurred to bring his
high qualities into notice; and, when lacking but a year of Nelson's age
when he fell at Trafalgar, Farragut was vainly petitioning the Navy
Department for the command of a sloop-of-war in the war with Mexico,
although he alleged his intimate knowledge of the scene of operations,
the close personal examination he had made of it, and the privilege he
had had of witnessing an attack by a French squadron but a few years
before.
The early age at which he had left his home, the long absences of his
youth, and the death of his father, had all contributed to sever his
associations with New Orleans; so that his marriage in Norfolk, as was
the case with so many officers of his day, fixed that city as his place
of residence when not at sea. It is worthy of remembrance, in connection
with his firm determination at a later day to stand by the Union rather
than by a section of the country, that the only home Farragut had known
out of a ship-of-war was the Southern city where he had twice married,
and where the general sentiment was contrary to the course he took. The
interest of the fact lies not in its bearing upon the rights or wrongs
of the great quarrel that all are now fain to forget, but in showing the
rare strength of character which, sustained only by its own clear
convictions, resisted the social and friendly influences that overcame
so many others.
In August, 1825, Farragut was promoted to be lieutenant, and at the same
time ordered to the frigate Brandywine, chosen to carry back to France
Lafayette, who was just drawing to a close his memorable visit to the
United States. The ship sailed from the capes of the Chesapeake in
September, reaching Havre after a passage of twenty-five days. From
there she went to England, and thence to the Mediterranean, returning to
New York in May, 1826. After his arrival Farragut was detached and went
to New Haven with his wife, who had become a great sufferer from
neuralgia and continued to be an invalid during the remainder of their
married life. While living in New Haven he availed himself of the
opportunity to attend lectures at Yale College. After his wife's
treatment was finished they returned to Norfolk, where he remained until
October, 1828, attached to the receiving ship and living on board with
Mrs. Farragut. Here the interest which he had showed in the improvement
of his own mind was transferred to the ship's boys, most of whom did not
even know their letters. Farragut organized a school for these waifs,
who at that time were little accustomed to receive such care, and was
gratified to find very tangible results in the improvement shown by
them. He next received orders to the sloop-of-war Vandalia, which sailed
from Philadelphia in the last days of 1828 for the Brazil station. On
this cruise, which for him lasted but a year, he for the first time
visited the Rio de la Plata and Buenos Ayres, and came in contact with
the afterward celebrated dictator of that country, Rosas. The different
provinces, whose union is now known by the political name of the
Argentine Republic, had, under the later days of Spanish rule,
constituted with Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay the Viceroyalty of Buenos
Ayres. On the 25th of May, 1810, a declaration of independence was
issued in the city of Buenos Ayres. A long period of disturbance,
internal and external, followed. At the time of this first visit of
Farragut a contest had for some time been going on between two parties,
representing two opposite political ideas, and striving in arms for the
control of the State. The ideal of one was a strong centralized
government supported by a powerful standing army. This naturally found
its most numerous constituents among the wealthy and educated
inhabitants of the principal city, Buenos Ayres. The province of the
same name, however, and the other provinces generally, favored a looser
form of confederation. The former party, known as the Unitarios, held a
brief lease of power; but their opponents found an able leader in Juan
Manuel de Rosas, who personified the best and worst features of the
_gaucho_ of the pampas and obtained unbounded popularity and following
among those wild herdsmen. In 1828 Rosas and his allies forced the
Unitarian president to resign, and installed one of themselves, named
Dorrego, as governor of Buenos Ayres. This success was but one step in
the series of bloody struggles which ended in the establishment of the
dictator; but it marked the point at which Farragut first saw Buenos
Ayres and Rosas himself, with whom he was at a later date thrown in
intimate contact and who at that moment was in the full flush of his
early popularity.
In December, 1829, Farragut's eyes were in such bad condition that it
was found necessary to send him home. He arrived in February, 1830, and
remained in Norfolk for a period of nearly three years, broken only by
occasional absences. During a part of this time he was again attached to
the receiving ship in the port; and, as before, manifested an interest,
unusual in those days, in those under his command. One of these, then a
midshipman, writes to the author that he still recalls, after the lapse
of nearly sixty years, the kindness, consideration and hospitality shown
him by the future admiral, who was then known through the service as the
"Little Luff" Farragut--luff being a naval abbreviation, now obsolete,
for lieutenant. But with all his kindness there was no relaxation in the
enforcement of necessary duty. In December, 1832, he was again ordered
to sea in the sloop-of-war Natchez, as her first lieutenant; or, as the
expression now is, as executive officer. It was the time of the
nullification troubles in South Carolina, and the ship was first sent to
anchor near Charleston, where she would be prepared to support the
authority of the United States Government. Fortunately, no occasion
arose for her to act; and a stay which began with taking precautions
against possible fire-ships from the city, ended in a series of balls
and general exchanges of courtesy between the officers and the citizens.
In April, 1833, the Natchez returned to Hampton Roads; and the following
month sailed, carrying Farragut back again to the Brazils. On the 30th
of July he was again at anchor, in his new ship, off Buenos Ayres. Since
his former visit the country had passed through much trouble. A
confederation had been formed between the principal provinces, in
January, 1831, based upon the loosest ties of union; but the army had
become dissatisfied with the progress of changes which arose largely
from jealousy of the military power, and had risen in revolt under the
leadership of a general named Lavalle, who for a time had sided with
Rosas. He met at first with success, defeated Dorrego and Rosas, and put
the former to death; but Rosas rallied again, defeated Lavalle, and
became in his place head of the army and governor of Buenos Ayres. To
this position he was re-elected in 1832, and by virtue of it he was, at
the time of Farragut's second visit, in chief control of the external
policy and internal affairs of the confederation; the principal and
seaboard province inevitably taking the lead and representing the
country under even the loosest form of combination. Disturbed though the
internal state of affairs was, Rosas's strong hand appears to have so
far preserved the safety of foreigners as to give no cause for the
interference of their ships-of-war. Farragut's stay on the station was,
however, again cut short. The schooner Boxer arrived in Rio Janeiro on
her way home from the East Indies; and it becoming necessary to give her
a new commanding officer, he received orders to take her to the United
States. He sailed in her on the 8th of June, 1834, and on the 25th of
July reached Norfolk, where the vessel was put out of commission and he
again returned to his family. A period of nearly four years of shore
duty followed. During the latter two of these Farragut was a constant
applicant for sea service, which he could not obtain. His wife was at
this time becoming ever weaker and weaker. "I was necessarily confined
very much to the house," he writes, "for my wife was so helpless I was
obliged to lift her and carry her about like a child." His tender and
untiring devotion to the suffering invalid was no less conspicuous than
his careful attention to the other duties of life, and was the constant
remark of those who were witnesses of this sorrowful period.
In April, 1838, Farragut was again ordered to sea in the home squadron,
and in the following August, though still only a lieutenant, took
command, in Pensacola, of the sloop-of-war Erie; a position that could
only be temporary, because belonging naturally to an officer of higher
rank. It fell to him, however, at a period of peculiar interest--when
France became involved with Mexico in one of those brief hostilities by
which alone were broken the long years of peace between Waterloo and the
Crimean War. The quarrel between the two was simply as to the reparation
due to French subjects for injuries received during the long years of
confusion through which Mexico then had been and still was passing. As a
political question it possesses no present interest whatever; but to a
naval officer of Farragut's strong professional feeling and close habits
of observation it offered a peculiar opportunity for noting the silent
progress made during the long peace by the material of war among the
navies of Europe, where the necessity of constant preparation insures an
advance in which the United States then, as now, tended to lag behind.
It supplied also a test, under certain conditions, of the much-vexed
question of the power of ships against forts; for the French squadron,
though few in numbers, deliberately undertook to batter by horizontal
fire, as well as to bombard, in the more correct sense of the word, with
the vertical fire of mortars, the long renowned castle of San Juan de
Ulloa, the chief defense of Vera Cruz. It was still the day of
sailing-ships, both of war and of commerce. But a few years had elapsed
since a man of considerable scientific attainment had pronounced the
crossing of the Atlantic to be impossible to vessels depending upon
steam power alone; and only in the same year as the French attack on
Vera Cruz (1838) had been seen the falsification of the prediction by
the passage of the Sirius and Great Western from England to New York.
As a first means of compulsion, the French Government had in 1837
established a blockade of the Atlantic ports of Mexico. In two months
the Mexican treasury lost two million dollars in duties, which would
have been collected if the ships turned away had been permitted to
enter; but the Government and people seemed little moved by a result
that merely added one more to the many ills with which they were already
afflicted. The question was then raised by the French authorities,
diplomatic and military, whether the possession of the fortress of San
Juan de Ulloa, which commanded the city of Vera Cruz, the most important
of the coast ports, would not also confer control of a great part of the
seaboard, and thus enforce a security not otherwise obtainable for the
persons and property of French subjects. Blockade, though a less extreme
measure, was difficult, protracted, and productive of serious loss. The
violent northerly gales of winter exposed the ships to peril, and the
yellow fever of the summer months was deadly to the crews. Moreover, the
deprivation of commerce, though a bitter evil to a settled community
whose members were accustomed to the wealth, luxury, and quiet life
attendant upon uninterrupted mercantile pursuits, had been proved
ineffective when applied to a people to whom quiet and luxuries were the
unrealized words of a dream. The French Government speedily determined
to abandon the half-measure for one of more certain results; and in
October, 1838, began to arrive the ships of an expedition destined to
proceed to open hostilities, under the command of Admiral Baudin, a
veteran of the Napoleonic wars. Appointed in the navy in 1799,
immediately after the return from Egypt and the establishment of the
Consulate, by the direct intervention of Bonaparte, who was a friend of
his father's, Baudin had served with distinction until the fall of the
empire, losing his right arm in battle; and after Waterloo it was he who
made the proposition, familiar to all readers of Napoleon's life, to
cover the escape of the Emperor from Rochefort by sacrificing the ships
under his command in an heroic resistance to the English cruisers while
the vessel bearing the fallen monarch escaped. "Sixteen years ago," said
he, "my father died of joy upon learning the return from Egypt of
General Bonaparte; and I myself to-day would die of grief to see the
Emperor leave France if I thought that by remaining he could again do
aught for her. But he must leave her only to live honored in a free
country, not to die a prisoner to our rivals." Such was that career,
belonging to an early and singular generation, which here for a moment
crossed and linked with that of the great naval hero of our own days.
Farragut has recorded his impression of him. "Admiral Baudin," he
writes, "would be undoubtedly a _rara avis_ in any navy. He is about
fifty years of age (he was fifty-four), has lost his right arm, looks
like a North of Europe man, has a fine address, and speaks English well.
He has every mark of a polished seaman and officer, with the expression
of great decision, with firmness and activity to execute his
well-digested plans. These were my remarks the first time I saw him, and
his subsequent conduct soon proved I was right." His French biographer
makes a remark, commonplace enough, which yet notes the essential
difference in the lot of the two gallant men who thus casually met. "For
the few who allow occasions to escape them, how many could justly
complain that a chance has never been offered them? Admiral Baudin never
had the opportunity to which his capacities suited him; all his
aptitudes designated him for war on a great scale; a man such as he,
succeeding Latouche-Tréville, would have saved us the sorrows of
Trafalgar." Farragut was fortunate, for in him the opportunity and the
man met in happy combination.
When he reached his station, Admiral Baudin suffered no time to be lost.
The wintry gales were approaching, while, on the other hand, his first
experience showed the miseries of disease on that sickly coast. Of the
two frigates there before he came, which had been blockading during the
summer, one had buried forty-five seamen and five officers out of a
ship's company of four hundred men; the other, at the time of his
arrival, had three hundred and forty-three sick among a crew of five
hundred. With such conditions, trifling is out of place. An ultimatum
was at once sent to the Mexican Government, a brief time only being
allowed for a reply, because the claims of the French cabinet were
already clearly understood. On the 25th of November the last of his
squadron, two bomb-vessels, arrived. On the 21st he had given notice
that he would wait till noon of the 27th for the final decision. On the
28th the attack was made.
The castle of San Juan de Ulloa lies half a mile east and to seaward of
the city of Vera Cruz, which it commands, and from which it is separated
by water averaging from fifteen to twenty feet deep. It is built on the
inner extremity of a reef that extends from it a little over a mile to
the eastward, in the general prolongation of the line connecting the
castle and the town. This shoal being covered by a foot or two of water,
the builders of the fort counted upon it for protection in that
direction against ships, and against attack, either by regular
approaches or by escalade. The work itself was in general outline a
parallelogram, with bastions at the four angles. The longer sides
fronted the east and west; and of these the former, facing the shoal and
the open gulf, contained the gate of the fortress and was covered by a
demi-lune and line of water batteries. There were mounted in the castle
and dependent works, at the time of the French attacks, one hundred and
eighty-six cannon. The strength of the fortifications, the number of the
guns, and the character of the surroundings, had all contributed to
bestow upon San Juan de Ulloa the reputation of being the strongest
position in Spanish America. It was, indeed, considered impregnable to
naval attack, for the best hope of ships under such circumstances is to
approach closely and drive the defenders from their guns by the superior
number and weight of the pieces opposed to them; but in San Juan this
was forbidden by the extent and formation of the reef. Like most coral
banks, this rises sheer from the bottom, making the approach very
dangerous to vessels dependent only upon sail-power; and the ground
about it, though not too deep for anchorage, is rocky and foul.
Admiral Baudin, however, was thoroughly acquainted with the weak points
of the fortress, through information obtained from Madrid; where plans
of the works, dating from the times of the Spanish occupancy, were on
file. He possessed also two steamers, the first to cross the Atlantic
under the French flag, by aid of which, though small and of weak power,
he could count upon placing his sailing frigates exactly where he wished
them. Finally, the wretched condition of the Mexican forces, demoralized
by years of irregular warfare and internal commotion, and miserably
provided with material of war, gave additional chances of success.
On the morning of November 28th the two steamers towed the bomb-vessels
to the eastern extremity of the reef, a little over a mile from the
castle. Next two of the frigates were taken by them and anchored close
to the reef, southeast from the works and distant from them half a mile.
The third frigate, using her sails alone, succeeded in taking position a
little ahead of her consorts. These operations were all completed before
noon and were conducted under the eyes of the Mexicans, who were
restrained from impeding them by the orders of their Government not to
fire the first gun. A delay followed, owing to a flag of truce coming
from the shore; but the proposition brought by it proved unacceptable,
and the squadron opened fire at half-past two. Between that and sundown
the three frigates, aided only by a small corvette which attacked under
way, poured upon the castle 7,771 round shot and 177 shell, the
mortar-vessels at the same time throwing in 302 bombs. At eight the
fire ceased, and negotiations began. The following day, at noon, the
castle was delivered into the hands of the French, who placed a garrison
in it. "It was high time," said Admiral Baudin; "the wind was
freshening, the sea getting up, and the anchors were breaking like glass
upon the bottom, composed of sharp rocks." But the loss among the
defenders had been so great, and the re-enforcements at hand were so
few, that further resistance was impracticable.
The terms of the convention made by the commander of the Mexican forces
had stipulated that only a certain number of troops should constitute
the garrison of Vera Cruz until the affairs between the two nations were
settled; but upon the 4th of December the French admiral learned, to his
great indignation, that the Mexican Government had disavowed the action
of the general, declared war against France, and was throwing
re-enforcements into the city. He immediately took measures to disarm
the works which might threaten his fleet at their anchorage, hoping at
the same time, by surprising the enemy, to gain possession of Santa
Anna, the new commander of the troops and then the most prominent man in
Mexico. While the French were making their preparations in secret,
Farragut went on shore and called upon Santa Anna, who promised to care
for the persons and property of American citizens, adding: "Tell
President Van Buren that we are all one family, and must be united
against Europeans obtaining a foothold on this continent."
The following morning, before daylight, the French embarked fifteen
hundred seamen, accompanied by a few engineer soldiers, in the boats of
the squadron; and, being covered by a thick fog, landed at six o'clock
upon the beach before Vera Cruz. Formed in three divisions and unseen by
the enemy, they blew open the gates of the city and at the same time
stormed the forts which at the north and south terminate the seaward
wall. The Mexicans, taken wholly by surprise, retreated before the
assailants. The center division of the French, which had entered
by the gates, pursued rapidly toward the quarters of Santa Anna.
A short, vigorous resistance by a part of his guard enabled the
commander-in-chief to escape in shirt and trousers; but General Arista
was taken. Meanwhile the two flank divisions, having dismounted the guns
in the forts and chopped the carriages in pieces, moved along the walls
toward the gate. There they united with the center; and the whole body,
having accomplished its object in disarming the sea face of the town,
fell back upon their boats lying along the mole. Most had already
re-embarked when the Mexicans, led by Santa Anna in person, charged from
the gate and down the mole at double-quick. Admiral Baudin himself was
still on shore, waiting to see the last man off. Though scarcely
expecting this gallant return from a force that had been so badly
worsted and was much inferior in numbers, the French were not
unprepared. A six-pound gun on the extremity of the mole, belonging to
the Mexicans, had been turned so as to sweep the approach with grape;
and five of the boats of the squadron, mounting small carronades, were
also disposed to repel attack. The admiral ordered the six-pounder
fired, and entered his barge. The discharge swept away the head of the
Mexican column, and Santa Anna himself fell with three wounds, from one
of which he lost his left leg. Some of the broken column fell back upon
the town, from the loop-holes of whose walls a sharp fire of musketry
began, while others continued down the mole and opened vigorously upon
the retreating French, directing their aim especially upon the admiral's
barge. The admiral himself escaped, but narrowly; his cockswain and a
midshipman standing by him being killed, and another midshipman wounded.
"The Mexicans continued to fight with great gallantry," wrote Farragut;
and it was perhaps well for the assailants that the fog sweeping in
again covered their further retreat.
Of all these incidents Farragut was a close and interested observer.
Upon joining the Erie as her commander, he found that the ship was under
orders to proceed with the utmost dispatch to the Mexican coast, to
afford to American citizens and their property the protection so likely
to be needed in event of active hostilities. On the 26th of August she
was anchored under the island of Sacrificios, off Vera Cruz, which was
then still undergoing the blockade which preceded recourse to stronger
measures. Farragut remained there till the 19th of September, when he
returned to Pensacola; but early in November he was again off the
Mexican coast at Tampico, where a revolution threatened, for Mexico at
the time was not only menaced with foreign attack, but also a prey to
the utmost internal disorder. On the 17th of this month the Erie ran
down again to Vera Cruz; and learning there that the 27th was fixed as
the day for a final conference and settlement of the questions at issue,
her commander of course decided to remain throughout the affair, making
preparations to receive on board Americans and their movable property
in case the city was bombarded.
In his journal, and afterward in a letter to Commodore Barron, then the
senior officer in the United States Navy, Farragut has preserved a very
full and detailed account of the attack, the principal features of which
have already been mentioned; and it is interesting to note, as
testifying to the care and accuracy of his observations, that the
account in his journal corresponds very closely with that given in the
Life of Admiral Baudin, published in France within the last few years.
He was particularly impressed with, and distinguishes as matters of
principal importance, the utility of the small French steamers in towing
the fighting ships into position, and the destructive effects of the
shell upon the soft masonry of the fort. Admiral Baudin, in his reports,
indulged in some of the pardonable grumbling of a seaman of the old
school about the constant ailments of the little steam-vessels; but he
was too capable an officer to ignore their value, "and never," wrote
Farragut in his report, "was the utility of these vessels so apparent.
Everything was done by them. The day was calm, or nearly so, and the
ships had no sails to manage. As soon as the anchor was let go they were
ready for action. The bomb-vessels were next placed (for which the range
had been calculated), and two sloops took position at right angles with
the range, to tell by signal the effect of the bombs. So you see all was
arranged with science and skill and without the slightest interruption,
for the Mexicans had given an order to the commander of the fort not on
any account to fire the first gun." This order was, in Farragut's
opinion, the principal cause of the French sustaining so little loss. A
well directed fire from the fort would, he thought, have destroyed the
steamers and prevented the frigates from gaining the carefully chosen
position, where they were least exposed to the guns of the works.
Immediately after the submission of the castle Farragut went ashore to
examine and note the effects of the fire, and especially of the
horizontal shell fire; which was then so much a novelty in naval warfare
that he speaks of the missiles continuously as shell-shot, apparently to
distinguish them from the vertically thrown bombs. "Now it was seen for
the first time that the material of which Ulloa is built (soft coral)
was the worst substance in the world for protection against the modern
shell. The French threw almost entirely shell-shot, which entered the
wall twelve or eighteen inches and then exploded, tearing out great
masses of stone, and in some instances rending the wall from base to
top. The damage done by these shell-shot was inconceivably greater than
that by the shell from the bomb-vessels, owing to the former striking
horizontally, while the latter fell vertically upon the bomb-proofs,
doing but little damage.... I am satisfied of one fact--viz., that they
might have bombarded with the bomb-vessels for a month without success,
while the frigates would in four hours more, with their shell-shot, have
reduced the fort to a heap of ruins." This opinion as to the inefficacy
of bomb-firing to destroy a work anticipated the experience of the Civil
War, where the conclusion was that it might wear out the endurance of
the garrison by constant harassment, but not directly reduce the works
themselves. It is only just to say that his estimate of the effect of
the horizontal fire upon the walls is more favorable than that of the
French engineers, who did not consider that the damage done necessarily
entailed a capitulation; but seamen and engineers have rarely agreed in
their opinions upon this subject.
The same zeal which led Farragut to this minute inspection of the
battered fortress carried him also on board one of the French ships,
while she still remained cleared for action, to note matters of detail
which differed from those then prevalent in his own service. Of these he
made a very full representation, and one much in disparagement of the
United States Navy; which, since the glories of 1812 and the first
re-organization and development procured for it by the popular favor
consequent upon its victories, had been allowed to drop into a state of
backwardness, as regards the material, similar to that which followed
the Civil War, and from which it is but now beginning to emerge. The
points which he noted, though most important to that rapidity and order
upon which the efficient service of a ship's batteries depends, would
have now no attraction for the unprofessional reader; nor for the
professional, except as matters of antiquarian interest. They showed
that spirit of system, of scientific calculation, of careful adaptation
of means to ends, which have ever distinguished the French material for
naval war, except when the embarrassments of the treasury have prevented
the adoption of expensive improvements--a spirit which for over a
century made the French ships the models which their usually victorious
rivals were fain to copy. "The English and ourselves may affect to
despise the French by sea," wrote Farragut to Barron, "but depend upon
it, sir, they are in science far ahead of us both, and when England
next meets France upon the ocean she will find a different enemy from
that of the last war. Of all this I know you have seen much in theory,
but I have seen it tested in practice."
The substance of Farragut's letter to Barron deals with matters which
the progress of time and the accompanying advances in naval science have
now made obsolete; but the spirit which inspired the letter and
accumulated the materials for it can never become obsolete. It was then,
and it is now, the indication of a man keeping abreast of his time and
awake to its necessities; it held then, as it does now, the promise of
one who, when occasion arose, would have his faculties in readiness, by
constant training, to exert all the powers with which nature had gifted
him. The conditions of 1861 were very different from those of 1838; but
the officer who was found awake to the first in their day would not be
behind the others in theirs. The letter concluded with a pregnant
observation, which deserves to be quoted as thoroughly characteristic of
the writer: "I have already said too much for a letter to any other
person of your rank; but I flatter myself that I know your love of
improvement, and that my intentions will be duly appreciated. If we who
wander about the world do not keep those at home informed of the daily
improvements in other navies, how can we hope to improve, particularly
when we see men impressed with the idea that because they once gained a
victory, they can do it again? So they may, but I can tell them it must
be with the means of 1838, and not those of 1812." This transmission of
information concerning the progress of other navies, upon which
Farragut laid such just stress, is now systematized and perfected under
a particular branch of the Navy Department, known as the Office of Naval
Intelligence. Upon every ship afloat there is an officer whose duty is
to observe and report to that office upon such matters, and upon all the
experiences of foreign navies which are open to the examination of
outsiders.
After the French affair at Vera Cruz the Erie returned to Pensacola, and
there on the 12th of January, 1839, Farragut gave up the command to an
officer of senior rank and went home. Upon his arrival in Norfolk,
finding his wife's health to be very precarious, he remained unemployed
until her death, which occurred on the 27th of December, 1840. "No more
striking illustration of his gentleness of character," says his
biography by his son, "is shown than in Farragut's attention to his
invalid wife. His tenderness in contributing to her every comfort, and
catering to every whim, through sixteen years of suffering, forms one of
the brightest spots in the history of his domestic life. When not at
sea, he was constantly by her side, and proved himself a faithful and
skillful nurse. It was the subject of remark by all who were thrown with
him; and a lady of Norfolk said, 'When Captain Farragut dies, he should
have a monument reaching to the skies, made by every wife in the city
contributing a stone.'"