THE POLICE OF THE COAST
The revenue cutter, though perhaps the least known, is one of the most
useful branches of the Federal service. Its creation antedates by
several years that of the navy, and it boasts a glorious history. It
polices the coast as the navy polices the ocean, and its duties are as
varied as they are weighty and important. It cruises constantly from the
fever infected regions of the Gulf to the icebound shores of the Arctic
Sea. It is the terror and constant menace of the smuggler and poacher.
It sees to it that the quarantine is strictly maintained, and that the
neutrality laws are not violated by the greedy and lawless of our own
and other lands. It is prompt in the prevention of piracy, and
suppresses mutiny with a heavy hand. It looks after emigrant ships and
enforces the license and registry statutes. Last, but not least, it
gives timely succor to the shipwrecked and annually preserves hundreds
of lives and millions of dollars' worth of property. And so, wherever
one familiar with its history falls in with its trim white cutters,
whether in the sunny courses of the Gulf, or on the borders of the great
Atlantic highway, off the bleak New England coast, in the crowded
harbors of our lake ports, or in the still waters of the Pacific, he is
sure to give them glad, respectful greeting, as modest, graceful emblems
not alone of our country's greatness, but better still, of duty bravely
and nobly done.
The Revenue Cutter Service celebrated the centennial anniversary of its
existence sixteen years ago, having been organized in 1790. The credit
for its creation belongs to Alexander Hamilton, that great first
Secretary of the Treasury, to whom we owe so much, and whose memory in
these days of self-vaunting mediocrity we too often neglect to honor.
His was a vision that saw clearly all the needs of the future, and as
early as 1789 he earnestly advised the employment of "boats for the
security of the revenue against contraband." A little later he submitted
to Congress a bill providing for a fleet of ten boats, to be thus
distributed along the seaboard: Two for the Massachusetts and New
Hampshire coast, one for Long Island Sound, one for New York, one for
the waters of the Delaware Bay, two for the Chesapeake and its environs
and one each for North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Congress
accepted the Secretary's recommendations, and in a few months ten swift
cutters were built, armed and equipped, each vessel being manned by a
crew of ten men.
Thus was born the Revenue Cutter Service, a modest fleet of small,
speedy vessels only a little larger than the yawls of the present time.
In addition to their pay, the officers and crews received a part of the
amounts derived from fines, penalties and forfeitures collected in case
of seizures and for breaches of the navigation and customs laws, but
later the officers were given larger salaries and the payment of prize
money abolished. At first only a small force was required to adequately
protect the commerce of an extensive yet thinly populated coast, but our
foreign trade grew so rapidly, and the importance of our shipping
interests increased so steadily, that it soon became clear that a strong
cordon of well equipped and speedy cruisers would be necessary for their
effective protection. For this reason, Congress, in 1799, gave the
President authority to equip and maintain as many revenue cutters as he
should deem necessary for the proper policing of our coast-line.
And thus the Revenue Cutter Service grew in size and became more
efficient with each passing year. During the first quarter century of
its existence, it was almost constantly in the eyes of the public, and
its daring deeds frequently afforded welcome material to the novelists
of the period. Among its duties it was charged with the suppression of
piracy, even so late as the opening of the last century, a serious
menace to commerce; and it also waged a constant and relentless war
against smugglers and smuggling. Those were the palmy days of the
smuggler, who often made reckless hazard of his life in the illegal race
for gain. Steam vessels had not yet come into use, and speed and safety
then lay in trim lines and mighty spreads of canvas. Smugglers'
schooners, sharp built, light of draught, and with enormous sails, were
constantly hovering in the offing, biding some favorable opportunity to
discharge cargoes upon which no duty had been paid.
It was the business of the Revenue Cutter Service to keep watch upon
these vultures of the sea, spoiling them of their quarry, and in this
way sprang up hand-to-hand encounters both by sea and land, sudden,
sharp and terrible, in which many a gallant life was lost and fame and
honor won. Now, however, the pirate and the smuggler, at least of the
bold life-risking sort, have passed to the limbo of forgotten things,
and the officers and men of the Revenue Cutter Service no longer win
glory and a reputation for bullet-chasing courage in their suppression.
The new field which they have built up for themselves, is daring and
full of danger, but it has not the same interest for the general public,
and so their deeds of heroism are now performed in out-of-the-way
corners, with no herald present to trumpet them to the world, and with
the pleasant consciousness of duty well done as their only reward.
The Revenue Cutter Service in time of war has always co-operated
promptly and effectively with the navy against the foe. Indeed, the
cutters belonging to the Revenue Cutter Service have taken a gallant and
active part in all the wars of the United States save one. In 1797, when
war with France threatened, the Revenue Cutter Service was placed on a
war footing, and by its promptness and vigilance, did much to uphold the
dignity and prestige of the Federal Government. In the following year a
number of cutters cruised with diligence and daring in West Indian
waters, and the record of the Revenue Cutter Service in guarding the
seaboard and preventing the departure of unauthorized merchant ships,
while the embargo act of 1807 was in force, was also a fine one.
Its services during the War of 1812 were as varied as they were
brilliant. Not only did its vessels successfully essay perilous
missions, but they also took a gallant part in many of the most hotly
contested naval actions of the war. In fact, to the cutter Jefferson and
its gallant crew belong the credit for the first marine capture of that
contest, for within a week of the proclamation of war the Jefferson fell
in with and captured the British schooner Patriot, with a valuable
cargo, while on her way from Guadeloupe to Halifax. And this proved only
a fitting prelude to a hundred illustrious deeds performed by the
officers and crews of the Revenue Cutter Service during the following
three years. In the second year of the war the revenue cutter Vigilance
overhauled and after a sharp engagement captured the British privateer
Dart, off Newport, while the cutters Madison and Gallatin carried many
rich prizes into the ports of Charleston and Savannah.
When in 1832 South Carolina threatened to secede from the Union, several
cutters cruised off the Carolina coast, ready to assert by force the
supremacy of the Federal Government. During the Seminole War revenue
cutters were not only actively engaged in transporting troops and
munitions, but were also of great service in protecting the settlements
along the Florida coast. During the Mexican War eight revenue cutters
formed a part of the naval squadron operating against the southern
republic and participated gallantly in the assault on Alvarado and
Tobasco, while the revenue cutters McLane and Forward contributed
materially to the success of Commodore Perry's expedition against
Tobasco and Frontera in October, 1846.
[Illustration: AN OFFICER IN THE REVENUE CUTTER SERVICE]
Finally, a volume would be required to adequately record the work of the
Revenue Cutter Service during the Civil War. Its cutters were employed
as despatch boats, joined in the pursuit of blockade runners, did guard
and scouting duty, and often shared in engagements with Confederate
batteries and vessels. In truth, it was a revenue cutter, the Harriet
Lane, which, in Charleston Harbor, in April, 1861, fired on the Union
side, the first shot of the Civil War. The Harriet Lane was long the
pride of the Revenue Cutter Service, and had a notable career. Named
after the beautiful and gracious niece of President Buchanan, she
participated in the naval expedition to Paraguay, and during the Civil
War was often under fire. Again, during the war with Spain, the Revenue
Cutter Service achieved an enviable and heroic record.
The proper patrol of our long coast line requires a large number of
vessels, and the Revenue Cutter Service at the present time has a
complement of thirty-seven vessels, all splendidly adapted to the work
in hand. During the last sixty years steamers have slowly but steadily
replaced the top-sail schooners of the old days, and the vessels now
employed by the Revenue Cutter Service are, with one or two exceptions,
small, compact, well-built steamers, which, save for the guns they
carry, might easily be mistaken for swift steam yachts. In size they
range from 130 to 500 tons burden. The majority of them have been built
under the direct supervision of officers of the service and are
perfectly adapted to the varying wants of the several stations. Nearly
all of them are armed with from two to four breech-loading rifled cannon
and carry small arms for the use of their crews. Most of the vessels
bear the names of former secretaries and assistant secretaries of the
Treasury, but the Andrew Johnson, the William H. Seward and U. S. Grant
are also among the names to be found on the list. The U. S. Grant, which
does duty at Port Townsend, is a bark-rigged steam propeller, and a
model of its size and type. Strange to say, it is the only ship of the
United States that bears the name of the greatest captain of his age.
The vessels of the Revenue Cutter Service are always ready for instant
duty in the most distant quarters. When, in 1867, Alaska became a part
of the United States, within a week after the ratification of the
treaty, the revenue cutter Lincoln was steaming northward, and was the
first to obtain accurate information regarding the geography, resources
and climate of our new possession. Three or more revenue cutters now
cruise every year in Alaskan waters, guarding the seal fisheries and
often giving much needed relief to the whaling fleet that yearly sails
from San Francisco for a cruise in the waters above the Behring Sea.
Officers and crews of the cutters doing service in the waters of Alaska
have remarkable stories to tell, and the log-books of the cutters Corwin
and Bear have been filled during the last twenty-five years with a
record all too brief, of many thrilling adventures in the frozen North.
The Corwin left San Francisco for the Polar Sea in May, 1881, charged
with ascertaining, if possible, the fate of two missing whalers, and to
establish communication with the exploring steamer Jeanette. Five times
during the previous year the Corwin had attempted to reach Herald
Island, and failed each time. On this voyage better success attended,
and after braving the perils of the drift ice, a landing was made, while
at the same time the bleak coast of Wrangel Land was sighted to the
westward. On August 12, 1881, the Corwin having pushed its way through
great masses of floating and grounded ice, into an open space near the
island, effected a landing on Wrangel Land, this being the first time
that white men had ever succeeded in reaching that remote corner of the
Arctic waste.
The cruises of the Corwin in 1880 and 1881 covered over 12,000 miles,
and the officers and crew, while carefully preventing illegal raids upon
the sealing interests, also found time to prosecute important surveys
and soundings, to make a careful study of the natives of Alaska, and to
collect a great mass of important data relative to the natural features
and mineral wealth of the country. The cruises of the Corwin in the
succeeding years of 1882, 1883, 1884 and 1885, were of scarcely less
importance. One of these cruises was to St. Lawrence Bay, Siberia, where
timely succor was given to the officers and crew of the burned naval
relief steamer Rogers, which had gone north in the spring of 1881 in
search of the Jeanette. During the Corwin's cruise in 1883 a
considerable portion of the interior of Alaska was carefully explored
and an outbreak among the natives on the mainland promptly quelled.
During its two succeeding cruises the Corwin saved from death nearly 100
shipwrecked whalers and destitute miners.
Since 1885 the cutter Bear has patrolled the Alaskan waters, making a
record equal to that of its predecessor. Its work in protecting the
sealing fisheries is well known, and it has also suppressed in large
measure the illegal sale to the natives of firearms and spirits. Its
record as a life saver is also a long one, and some of its experiences
have been more thrilling than those to be found in the pages of any
romance.
When the Bear reached Alaskan waters in 1887 the captain of the whaling
ship Hunter handed its commander a most remarkable message, which had
been delivered to him a few days before by the natives of Cape Behring.
This message consisted of a piece of wood, on one side of which was
rudely carved: "1887 J. B. V. Bk. Nap. Tobacco give," and on the other
"S. W. C. Nav. M 10 help come."
The riddle offered by the message was speedily solved by the officers of
the Bear. The bark Napoleon had been wrecked in 1885 off Cape Navarin,
and only fourteen of the crew of thirty-six men had been rescued. Of the
unlucky twenty-two a few reached the Siberian shore, but nothing had
been heard of their subsequent fate. The officers of the Bear reasoned
that the sender of the message was a member of the Napoleon's crew who
had found refuge with the natives to the southwest of Cape Navarin and
was now anxiously awaiting rescue. This reasoning proved correct, and a
few weeks later the weary two years' exile of James B. Vincent, of
Edgartown, Mass., boatswain of the Napoleon, had a happy termination.
The story Vincent told his rescuers, was of tragic and absorbing
interest. The Napoleon, caught in a storm, had been wedged in the ice
and its crew compelled to take to the boats. The boats, four in number,
were soon separated, and thirty-six days of fearful suffering passed
before the one containing Vincent and his companions reached shore. In
the meantime nine of the eighteen men in the boat had died and several
others had been driven insane by their sufferings. Vincent was the only
one who could walk when they reached land. Five more soon died and three
of the survivors were helpless from frost bites and exhaustion when they
fell in with a party of natives. A portion of the latter lived inland,
and these took Vincent with them when they returned to their homes. The
following Spring when the natives visited the shore to fish, Vincent
found his three shipmates barely alive, and they died soon after.
When the fishing was over Vincent went back to the mountains with his
new-found friends, and during the following winter carved and entrusted
to wandering natives from Cape Behring the message which later brought
about his rescue. When spring of the second year opened Vincent, with
the natives, again started for the seashore to fish. Great was his joy a
few weeks later when he was attracted by the shouting of the natives and
looked up to see a white man and to find himself rescued at last. The
Bear conveyed him to San Francisco, whence he made his way to his home
in Massachusetts.
While among the Eskimo, Vincent was kindly cared for by an old native,
whose wife received him as her son. After a year the husband died, but
his last instructions to his wife were to care for and keep their guest
until he was rescued. When relief at last came the old woman with tears
in her eyes, said that she was ready to die, for she had done as her
husband wished. Warm and tender hearts can be found even in Siberian
wastes.
The Revenue Cutter Service is part of the Treasury Department, and comes
under the direct jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Treasury.
Subordinate to him are a chief and assistant chief of division. Each
vessel of the service patrols the district to which it is assigned, and
forms a picket line at the outer edge of government jurisdiction, which
extends four leagues from the coast. Every vessel arriving in United
States waters is boarded and examined, and its papers certified. If a
vessel liable to seizure or examination does not bring to when requested
to do so, the commander of a cutter, after discharging a warning gun,
has authority to fire into such a vessel, and all acting under his
orders are indemnified from any penalties or action from damages. On
each cutter there are a captain, three lieutenants, a cadet, an engineer
and two assistants, and a crew of a dozen or more men.
The service includes in its several grades about one thousand men.
Strict discipline is maintained, and its crews receive constant
instruction and exercise in the use of great guns, rifles, carbines,
pistols, cutlasses and the like. An officer of the Revenue Cutter
Service must not only possess considerable executive ability, but must
also be a man of varied and accurate information, having a knowledge of
gunnery and military drills, and be thoroughly familiar with the customs
and navigation laws of the country.
Rank is obtained by promotion, the latter being governed by written
competitive examinations, from three to five of the senior officers of a
lower grade being selected for any vacancy occurring in the higher
grade. A young man wishing to join the service as an officer undergoes a
rigid examination held annually at Washington, and then serves for
several years aboard the revenue schoolship, where he learns sea
mathematics, sea law and seamanship. His period of apprenticeship ended,
he joins a regular cutter as a junior officer and waits for promotion
at a salary of $85 per month.
Life on board a revenue cutter during the months of summer is usually an
easy and pleasant one, but in the winter there is another and different
story to tell. From December to April of each year the cutters cruise
constantly on their stations to give aid to vessels in distress, and
are, in most cases, forbidden to put into port unless under stress of
weather or other unforeseen conditions arise.
Few stormy winter days pass without the revenue cutter seeing a signal
from some vessel in distress, and aid is never sought in vain. The
cutter steers straight for the signal as soon as it is sighted, and when
a quarter of a mile distant lowers a boat. Often a boat is launched into
a sea where death seems certain, but officers and men never shrink from
their duty. When the boat gains the side of the vessel seeking aid, the
master whom misfortune has overtaken, requests, as a rule, to be towed
into port. When such a request is made, a line must be got to the
distressed vessel and from the boat to the cutter, a task often
performed with infinite difficulty and at the risk of life and limb.
When a vessel is found drifting helplessly and about to dash itself upon
rocks, the peril is even greater. Then the cutter must stand further
away, and its boat is in constant danger of being dashed upon the rocks.
But, thanks to the skill, experience and coolness of the officers and
crew of the cutter, a line is generally got into the boat and to the
steamer, and the imperilled vessel hauled away to safety.
One of the finest feats of life-saving ever performed by the Revenue
Cutter Service was that credited to the cutter Dexter, some years ago.
On January 17, 1884, the iron-built steamer City of Columbus left Boston
for the port of Savannah, carrying eighty-one passengers and a ship's
company of forty-five persons. Her commander was a capable and
experienced seaman, and though by nightfall the wind, which had been
blowing all day, had increased to a hurricane, and a heavy sea was
running, he had no serious apprehension of danger. The vessel, following
her usual course through Vineyard Sound, had left behind nearly all the
dangerous points which thickly bestrew those waters, and would soon be
safely in the open ocean. It was at that luckless moment that the
captain left the bridge and went below, first directing the helmsman how
to steer.
Within an hour the steamer struck on Devil's Bridge, and an awful fate
was upon the hapless passengers and crew, who were sleeping soundly, all
unconscious of danger. The weather was bitter cold, the darkness
intense, the wind blowing a hurricane and the waves rolling mountain
high. In the twinkling of an eye a hundred poor creatures were swept to
their death in the icy waters. A few of the stronger ones took refuge in
the rigging, but many of these, benumbed by the cold, dropped one by one
from their supports and disappeared in the sea, while such boats as
were cleared away were either dashed to pieces or instantly swamped.
The wreck occurred about four o'clock in the morning, and soon after
daylight the Dexter reached the scene of the disaster. Her commander at
once dispatched two boats to the rescue of those still clinging to the
rigging of the Columbus, and thirteen men, jumping from their refuge
into the sea, were picked up as they came to the surface, and conveyed
to the Dexter. To reach the wreck in small boats through an angry sea
was an undertaking so perilous as to make even the boldest pause, and
called for courage of the highest order. However, the Dexter's crew
proved equal to the test, and Lieutenant John U. Rhodes made himself
famous by an act of the noblest heroism. Two men, rendered helpless by
cold and exposure, still clung to the rigging of the Columbus after all
their companions had been taken off. To board the ill-fated vessel was
impossible; Rhodes essayed to reach it by swimming. He gained the side
of the vessel after a gallant battle with the waves, but was struck by
a piece of floating timber, and had to abandon the attempt. Bruised and
half fainting, he insisted upon making another trial, reached the vessel
and brought away the two men, both of whom died a few hours later. The
Legislature of Connecticut, Rhodes' native State, passed a resolution
thanking him for his gallant conduct, and he received many medals and
testimonials.
Rhodes has since died, but the Revenue Cutter Service still numbers
among its officers scores of men endowed with the flawless bravery of
which he gave such shining proof at the wreck of the City of Columbus.
One of these is Lieutenant James H. Scott. This brilliant young
officer--I cite his case as a typical one--was born in Pennsylvania
thirty-seven years ago, and while still in his teens shipped as a boy on
a merchant vessel in commerce between Philadelphia and Antwerp. Tiring
of this trade, he sailed as an able seaman from New York to Bombay and
other East Indian ports, making the last voyage as boatswain of the
good ship Ridgeway, after which, declining proffer of a second mate's
berth, he entered the Revenue Cutter Service as a cadet.
Graduated in 1890, and made acting third lieutenant on the cutter
Woodbury, it was then that young Scott, who while attached to the
revenue schoolship had jumped overboard in Lisbon harbor and rescued the
quartermaster of his vessel, again gave proof of the sterling stuff that
was in him. On a cold, clear day in January, 1891, the Woodbury, which
is stationed at Portland, Me., was cruising to the eastward of that
port, the thermometer below zero, and the rigging covered with ice. The
Woodbury was about half-way over her cruising ground when the officer of
the deck discovered a large three-masted schooner hard aground on a
ledge of rocks which stood well out from the shore. A high sea was
running at the time, though the cutter rose and fell to every wave with
apparent unconcern, and breaking clean over the schooner, the crew of
which had taken refuge on the rocks and were now frantically signalling
for help. It was clear that unless help reached them they would quickly
perish from the cold.
Captain Fengar, commanding the Woodbury, ran in as close as he could
without peril to his vessel, and carefully surveyed the ground before
giving an order. His practiced eye told him in a moment that to send in
a boat of the cutter type would mean its certain destruction against the
rocks, even if it could live in the sea then running. However, the
captain suddenly recalled that a fisherman's village was only a few
miles distant, and that there he could obtain a couple of dories
admirably adapted to the task in hand. Shouting to the men on the rocks
to hold on and not lose hope, the cutter, at a word from its commander,
headed about, and went plunging and rolling at top speed in the
direction of the village. Two hours later the Woodbury was again on the
scene, with a good-sized dory on one of her davits.
Closing in on the wreck, Captain Fengar called for volunteers. Almost
to a man the crew responded, but among the foremost were Cadets Scott
and W. S. Van Cott. Captain Fengar allowed the two young men to go, but
not without some misgivings. Both insisted on pulling oars, the dory
being in charge of Lieutenant W. L. Howland, an experienced and capable
officer. As the dory left the ship it was observed that a life-saving
crew from a station well down the coast was approaching. It would never
do to let the Woodbury be beaten, and her dory crew pulled with all the
vim they could command. The race was to be a close one, but at the
outset the Woodbury's boat gained the lead, and such a run, in such a
sea, was never perhaps pulled by opposing boats.
Lieutenant Howland in getting close in, dared not run up too close to
the rocks, and after a couple of ineffectual attempts to heave a line
was about to despair of success, when suddenly Cadet (now Lieutenant)
Scott, securing the line around his waist, sprang overboard, before any
one in the boat knew what he was about. Shouting to Lieutenant Howland
to pay the line out, young Scott was dashed upon the rocks and seized by
the imprisoned sailors. The brave young fellow was badly stunned, but he
had gained his point by getting the line to the rocks. Communication was
now effected with the dory, which all this time was riding the seas at a
safe distance. Another line was hauled up from the boat, and one by one
the sailors jumped clear of the rocks and were hauled to the dory,
whence they were conveyed without delay to the deck of the cutter. When
rescued they had been fourteen hours on the rock. Since the incident
just related, Lieutenant Scott, though still one of its youngest
officers, has held every position in the Revenue Cutter Service.
The present chief of the Revenue Cutter Service is Captain C. F.
Shoemaker. He has climbed to this position from the lowest rung of the
ladder, and is a man whose success would have been notable in almost any
calling. Many of the other captains of the service are men of mark and
achievement, for the Government has no nobler, better, braver servants
than those who officer and man its revenue cutters.