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."