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.