boatswains of that day, had served his time before the mast. As is the
case with many self-made men, he, on his small scale, was very
conscious of the fact, and of general consequent desert. A favorite
saying with him was, "Thanks to my own industry and my wife's economy,
I am now well beforehand with the world." Like a distinguished officer
higher in rank of that day, of whom it was said that he remembered
nothing later than 1813, my boatswain's memory dwelt much in the
thirties, though he acknowledged more recent experiences. His attitude
towards steam, essentially conservative, was strictly and amusingly
official. He had served on board one steamer, the _San Jacinto_; and
what had pleased him was that the yards could be squared and rigging
hauled taut--his own special function--before entering port, so that
in those respects the job had been done when the anchor dropped. One
of his pet stories, frequently brought forward, concerned a schooner
in which he had served in the earlier period, and will appeal to those
who know how dear a fresh coat of paint is to a seaman's heart. She
had just been thus decorated within and without, and was standing into
a West-Indian port to show her fine feathers, when a sudden flaw of
wind knocked her off, and over, dangerously close to a rocky point.
The first order given was, "Stand clear of the paint-work!"--an
instance of the ruling passion strong _in extremis_. He had another
woesome account of a sloop-of-war in which he had gone through the
Straits of Magellan. The difficult navigation and balky winds made the
passage protracted for a sailing-vessel; all were put on short
rations, and the day before she entered a Chilian port the bread-room
was swept to the last crumbs. "I often could not sleep for hunger when
I turned in." In the same ship, the watch-officers falling short,
through illness or suspension, the captain set a second lieutenant of
marines to take a day watch. Being, as he supposed, put to do
something, he naturally wanted to do it, if he only knew what it was,
and how it was to be done. The master of the ship was named Peter
Wager, and to him, when taking sights, the marine appealed. "Peter,
what's the use of being officer of the deck if you don't do anything?
Tell me something to do." "Well," Peter replied, "you might send all
the watch aft and take in the mizzen-royal"--the mizzen-royal being
the smallest of all sails, requiring about two ordinary men, and in
no wise missed when in. This was practical "tales for the marines."
This boatswain afterwards saw the last of the _Congress_, when the
_Merrimac_--or rather the _Virginia_, to give her her Confederate
name--wasted time murdering a ship already dead, aground and on fire.
He often afterwards spun me the yarn; for I liked the old man, and not
infrequently went to see him in later days. He had borne
good-humoredly the testiness with which a youngster is at times prone
to assert himself against what he fancies interference, and I had
appreciated the rebuke. The _Congress_ disaster was a very big and
striking incident in the career of any person, and it both ministered
to his self-esteem and provided the evening of his life with material
for talk. Unhappily, I have to confess, as even Boswell at times did,
I took no notes, and cannot reproduce that which to me is of absorbing
interest, the individual impressions of a vivid catastrophe.
The boatswain was one of the four who in naval phrase were termed
"warrant" officers, in distinction from the lieutenants and those
above, who held their offices by "commission." The three others were
the gunner, carpenter, and sailmaker, names which sufficiently
indicate their several functions. In the hierarchical classification
of the navy, as then established by long tradition, the midshipmen,
although on their way to a commission, were warrant officers also; and
in consequence, though they had a separate mess, they had the same
smoking-place, the effect of which in establishing a community of
social intercourse every smoker will recognize. I suppose, if there
had been three sides to a ship, there would have been three
smoking-rendezvous; but in the crude barbarism of those days--as it
will now probably be considered--both commissioned and warrant
officers had no place to smoke except away forward on the
gun-deck--the "eyes" of the ship, as the spot was appropriately
named; the superiors on the honor side, which on the gun-deck was the
port, the midshipmen and warrant officers on the starboard. The
position was not without advantages, when riding head to wind, in hot
tropical weather; but under way, close-hauled, with a stiff breeze, a
good deal of salt water found its way in, especially if the jackasses
were in the hawse-holes. But under such conditions we sat there
serenely, the water coursing in a flowing stream under our chairs if
the ship had a steady heel, or rushing madly from side to side if she
lurched to windward. The stupidity of it was that we didn't even know
we were uncomfortable, and by all sound philosophy were so far better
off than our better accommodated successors. What was more annoying
was the getting forward at night, when the hammocks were in place; but
even for that occasional compensations offered. I remember once, when
making this awkward journey, hearing a colloquy between two young
seamen just about to swing themselves into bed at nine o'clock. "I
say, Bill," said one, with voluptuous satisfaction, "too watches
in,[9] and beans to-morrow." Can any philosophy soar higher than that,
in contentment with small things? Plain living and high thinking!
Diogenes wasn't in it.
As the warrant officers of the ship were of the generation before us,
we heard from their lips many racy and entertaining experiences of the
former navy, most of which naturally have escaped me, while others I
have dropped all along the line of my preceding reminiscences where
they seemed to come in aptly. Each of the four had very different
characteristics, and I fancy they did not agree very well together.
All have long since gone to their rest; peace be with them! Four is an
awkwardly small number for a mess-table of equals; friction is
emphasized by narrowness of sphere. "I didn't like the man," said the
boatswain afterwards to me of the sailmaker, narrating the destruction
of the _Congress_; "but he is brave, brave as can be. Getting the
wounded over the side to put them ashore, he was as cool as though
nothing was happening. The great guns weren't so bad," he
continued--"but the rifle-bullets that came singing along in clouds
like mosquitoes! Yah!" he used to snap, each time he told me the tale,
slapping his ears right and left, as one does at the hum of those
intrusive insects. He did not like the carpenter, either, for reasons
of another kind. They were both humorists, but of a different order.
Indeed, I don't think that the boatswain, though slightly sardonic in
expression, suspected himself of humor; but he really came at times
pretty close to wit, if that be a perception of incongruities, as I
have heard said. He was telling one day of some mishap that befell a
vessel, wherein the officer in charge showed the happy blending of
composure and ignorance we sometimes find; a condition concerning
which a sufferer once said of himself, "I never open my mouth but I
put my foot in it;" a confusion of metaphor, and suggestion of
physical contortion, not often so neatly combined in a dozen words.
The boatswain commented: "He didn't mind. He didn't know what to do,
but there he stood, looking all the time as happy as a duck
barefooted." A duck shod, and the consequent expression of its
countenance, presents to my mind infinite entertainment. Our first
lieutenant, under whom immediately he worked, was a great trial to
him. He was an elderly man, as first lieutenants of big ships were
then, great with the paint-brush and tar-pot, traces of which were
continually surprising one's clothes; mighty also in that lavish
swashing of sea-water which is called washing decks, and in the
tropics is not so bad; but otherwise, while he was one of the
kindliest of men, the go was pretty well out of him. "Yes," the
boatswain used to say grimly,--he seldom smiled,--"the first
lieutenant is like an old piece of soap--half wore out. Go day, come
day, God send Sunday; that's he."
The carpenter, on the other hand, was always on a broad grin--or
rather roar. He breathed farce, both in story and feature. Unlike the
boatswain, who was middle-sized and very trig, as well as scrupulously
neat, the carpenter was over six feet, broad in proportion, with big,
round, red, close-shaven face, framed with abundance of white hair. He
looked not unlike one's fancies of the typical English yeoman, while
withal having a strong Yankee flavor. Wearing always a frock-coat,
buttoned up as high as any one then buttoned, he carried with it a
bluff heartiness of manner, which gave an impression of solidity not,
I fear, wholly sustained on demand. There was no such doubt about the
fun, however, or his own huge enjoyment of his own stories,
accompanied by a running fire of guffaws, which pointed the
appreciation we easily gave. But it was all of the same character,
broad farce; accounts of mishaps such as befall in children's
pantomimes,--which their seniors enjoy, too,--practical jokes equally
ludicrous, and resulting situations to match. Comical as such tales
were at the time, and many a pleasant pipeful of Lynchburg tobacco in
Powhatan clay though they whiled away, they lacked the catching and
fixing power of the boatswain's shrewd sayings. I can remember
distinctly only one, of two small midshipmen, shipmates of his in a
sloop-of-war of long-gone days, who had a deadly quarrel, calling for
blood. A duel ashore might in those times have been arranged, unknown
to superiors--they often were; but the necessity for speedy
satisfaction was too urgent, and they could not wait for the end of
the voyage. Consequently, they determined to fight from the two ends
of the spritsail-yard, a horizontal spar which crossed the bowsprit
end, and gave, or could admit, the required number of paces. Seconds,
I presume, were omitted; they might have attracted unnecessary
attention, and on the yard would have been in the way of shot, unless
they sat behind their several principals, like damsels on a pillion.
So these two mites, procuring each a loaded pistol, crawled out
quietly to their respective places, straddled the yard, and were
proceeding to business, when the boatswain caught sight of them from
his frequent stand-point between the knightheads. He ran out, got
between them in the line of fire, and from this position of tactical
advantage, having collared first one and then the other, brought them
both in on the forecastle, where he knocked their heads together. The
last action, I fancy, must be considered an embellishment, necessary
to the dramatic completeness of the incident, though it may at least
be admitted it would not have been incongruous. In telling this
occurrence, which, punctuated by his own laughter, bore frequent
repetition, the carpenter used to give the names of the heroes. One I
have forgotten. The other I knew in after life and middle-age, still
small of stature, with a red face, in outline much like a paroquet's.
He was not a bad fellow; but his first lieutenant, a very competent
critic, used to say that what he did not know of seamanship would fill
a large book.
At first thought it seems somewhat singular that the six lieutenants
of the ship presented no such aggregate of idiosyncrasies as did the
four warrant officers. It was not by any means because we did not know
them well, and mingle among them with comparative frequency.
Midshipmen, we travelled from one side to the other; here at home,
there guests, but to both admitted freely. But, come to think of it
more widely, the distinction I here note must have had a foundation in
conditions. My acquaintance with Marryat, who lived the naval life as
no other sea author has, is now somewhat remote, but was once intimate
as well as extensive; and recollection deceives me if the same remark
does not apply to his characters. He has a full gallery of captains
and lieutenants, each differing from the other; but his greatest
successes in portrayal, those that take hold of the memory, are his
warrant officers--boatswains, gunners, and carpenters. The British
navy did not give sailmakers this promotion. By-products though they
are, rather than leading characters, Boatswain Chucks, whom Marryat
takes off the stage midway, as though too much to sustain to the end,
Carpenter Muddle, and Gunner Tallboys, with his aspirations towards
navigating, sketched but briefly and in bold outline as they are,
survive most of their superiors in clear individuality and amusing
eccentricity. Peter Simple, and even Jack Easy himself, whose traits
are more personal than nautical, are less vivid to memory. Cooper
also, who caricatures rather than reproduces life, seeks here his
fittest subjects--Boltrope and Trysail--warrant masters, superior in
grade indeed to the others, but closely identified with them on board
ship, and essentially of the same class. Such coincidence betokens a
more pronounced individuality in the subject-matter. There have been
particular eccentric commissioned officers, of whom quaint stories
have descended; but in early days, originality was the class-mark of
those of whom I am speaking, as many an anecdote witnesses. I fancy
few will have seen this, which I picked up in my miscellaneous
nautical readings. A boatswain, who had been with Cook in his voyages,
chanced upon one of those fervent Methodist meetings common in the
eighteenth century. The preacher, in illustration of the abundance of
the Divine mercy, affirmed that there was hope for the worst, even for
the boatswain of a man-of-war; whereupon the boatswain sprang to the
platform and administered a drubbing. True or not, offence and
punishment testify to public estimate as to character and action; to a
natural exaggeration of feature which lends itself readily to
reproduction. This was due, probably, to a more contracted sphere in
early life, and afterwards less of that social opportunity, in the
course of which angular projections are rounded off and personal
peculiarities softened by various contact. The same cause would
naturally occasion more friction and disagreement among themselves.
Thus the several lieutenants of our frigate call for no special
characterization. If egotism, the most amusing of traits where it is
not offensive, existed among them to any unusual degree, it was
modified and concealed by the acquired exterior of social usage. Their
interests also were wider. With them, talk was less of self and
personal experience, and more upon subjects of general interest,
professional or external; the outlook was wider. But while all this
tended to make them more instructive, and in so far more useful
companions, it also took from the salt of individuality somewhat of
its pungency. It did not fall to them, either, to become afterwards
especially conspicuous in the nearing War of Secession. They were good
seamen and gallant men; knew their duty and did it; but either
opportunity failed them, or they failed opportunity; from my knowledge
of them, probably the former. As Nelson once wrote: "A sea officer
cannot form plans like those of a land officer; his object is to
embrace the happy moment which now and then offers; it may be this
day, not for a month, and perhaps never." So also Farragut is reported
to have said of a conspicuous shortcoming: "Every man has one chance;
he has had his and lost it." Certainly, by failure that man lost
promotion with its chances. It is somewhat congruous to this train of
thought that Smith, whom I have so often mentioned, said one day to
me: "If I had a son (he was unmarried), I would put him in the navy
without hesitation. I believe there is a day coming shortly when the
opportunities for a naval officer will exceed any that our country has
yet known." He did not say what contingencies he had in mind; scarcely
those of the War of Secession, large looming though it already was,
for, like most of us, he doubtless refused to entertain that sorrowful
possibility. As with many a prophecy, his was of wider scope than he
thought; and, though in part fulfilled, more yet remains on the laps
of the gods. He himself, perhaps the ablest of this group, was cut off
too early to contribute more than an heroic memory; but that must live
in naval annals, enshrined in his father's phrase, along with Craven's
"After you, pilot," when the _Tecumseh_ sank.
VI
MY FIRST CRUISE AFTER GRADUATION--NAUTICAL SCENES AND SCENERY--THE
APPROACH OF DISUNION
1859-1861
The absence of the _Congress_ lasted a little over two years, the
fateful two years in which the elements of strife in the United States
were sifting apart and gathering in new combinations for the
tremendous outbreak of 1861. The first battle of Bull Run had been
fought before she again saw a home port. The cruise offered little
worthy of special note. This story is one of commonplaces; but they
are the commonplaces of conditions which have passed away forever, and
some details are worthy to be not entirely forgotten, now that the
life has disappeared. We were in contact with it in all its forms and
phases; being, as midshipmen, utilized for every kind of miscellaneous
and nondescript duty. Our captain interfered very little with us
directly, and I might almost say washed his hands of us. The
regulations required that at the expiry of a cruise the commander of a
vessel should give his midshipmen a letter, to be presented to the
board of examiners before whom they were shortly to appear. Ours,
while certifying to our general correct behavior--personal rather than
official--limited himself, on the score of professional
accomplishments, which should have been under constant observance, to
saying that, as we were soon to appear before a board, the intent of
which would be to test them, he forbore an opinion. This was even
more non-committal than another captain, whose certificates came under
my eye when myself a member of a board. In these, after some very
cautious commendation on the score of conduct, he added, "I should
have liked the display of a little more zeal." Zeal, the readers of
_Midshipman Easy_ will remember, is the naval universal solvent.
Although liable at times to be misplaced, as Easy found, it is not so
suspicious a quality as Talleyrand considered it to be in diplomacy.
Our captain's zeal for our improvement confined itself to putting us
in three watches; that is, every night we had to be on deck and duty
through one of the three periods, of four hours each, into which the
sea night is divided. Of this he made a principle, and in it doubtless
found the satisfaction of a good conscience; he had done all that
could be expected, at least by himself. I personally agree with Basil
Hall; upon the whole, watch keeping pays, yields more of interest than
of disagreeables. It must be conceded that it was unpleasant to be
waked at midnight in your warm hammock, told your hour was come, that
it was raining and blowing hard, that another reef was about to be
taken in the topsails and the topgallant yards sent on deck.
Patriotism and glory seemed very poor stimulants at that moment. Still
half asleep, you tumbled, somewhat literally, out of the hammock on to
a deck probably wet, dressed by a dim, single-wick swinging lantern,
which revealed chiefly what you did not want, or by a candle which had
to be watched with one eye lest it roll over and, as once in my
experience happened, set fire to wood-work. Needless to say, electric
lights then were not. Dressed in storm-clothes about as conducive to
agility as a suit of mediaeval armor, and a sou'wester which caught at
every corner you turned, you forced your way up through two successive
tarpaulin-covered hatches, by holes just big enough to pass, pushing
aside the tarpaulin with one hand while the other steadied yourself.
And if there were no moon, how black the outside was, to an eye as yet
adjusted only to the darkness visible of the lanterns below! Except a
single ray on the little book by which the midshipman mustered the
watch, no gleam of artificial light was permitted on the
spar--upper--deck; the fitful flashes dazzled more than they helped.
You groped your way forward with some certainty, due to familiarity
with the ground, and with more certainty of being jostled and trampled
by your many watch-mates, quite as blind and much more sleepy than
their officers could afford to be. The rain stung your face; the wind
howled in your ears and drowned your voice; the men were either intent
on going below, or drowsy and ill-reconciled to having to come on
deck; in either case inattentive and hard to move for some moments.
In truth, the fifteen minutes attending the change of a watch were a
period not only of inconvenience, but of real danger too rarely
appreciated. I remember one of the smartest seamen and officers of the
old navy speaking feelingly to me of the anxiety those instants often
caused him. The lieutenant of an expiring watch too frequently would
postpone some necessary step, either from personal indolence or from a
good-natured indisposition to disturb the men, who when not needed to
work slept about the decks--except, of course, the lookouts and wheel.
The other watch will soon be coming up, he would argue; let them do
it, before they settle down to sleep. There were times, such as a
slowly increasing gale, which might justify delay; especially if the
watch had had an unusual amount of work. But tropical squalls, which
gather quickly and sweep down with hurricane force, are another
matter; and it was of these the officer quoted spoke, suggesting that
possibly such an experience had caused the loss of one of our large,
tall-sparred sloops-of-war, the _Albany_, which in 1854 disappeared in
the West Indies. The men who have been four hours on deck are
thinking only of their hammocks; their reliefs are not half awake, and
do not feel they are on duty until the watch is mustered. All are
mingled together; the very numbers of a ship of war under such
circumstances impede themselves and their officers. I remember an
acquaintance of mine telling me that once on taking the trumpet, the
outward and visible sign of "the deck being relieved," his
predecessor, after "turning over the night orders," said, casually,
"It looks like a pretty big squall coming up there to windward," and
incontinently dived below. "I jumped on the horse-block," said the
narrator, "and there it was, sure enough, coming down hand over fist.
I had no time to shorten sail, but only to put the helm up and get her
before it;" an instance in point of what an old gray-haired instructor
of ours used to say, with correct accentuation, "Always the hellum
first."
But, when you were awake, what a mighty stimulus there was in the salt
roaring wind and the pelting rain! how infectious the shout of the
officer of the deck! the answering cry of the topmen aloft--the "Haul
out to windward! Together! All!" that reached your ear from the yards
as the men struggled with the wet, swollen, thrashing canvas,
mastering it with mighty pull, and "lighting to windward" the
reef-band which was to be the new head of the sail, ready to the hand
of the man at the post of honor, the weather caring! How eager and
absorbing the gaze through the darkness, from deck, to see how they
were getting on; whether the yard was so braced that the sail lay with
the wind out of it, really slack for handling, though still bellying
and lifting as the ship rolled, or headed up or off; whether this rope
or that which controlled the wilful canvas needed another pull. But if
the yard itself had not been laid right, it was too late to mend it.
To start a brace with the men on the spar might cause a jerk that
would spill from it some one whose both hands were in the work,
contrary to the sound tradition, "One hand for yourself and one for
the owners." I believe the old English phrase ran, "One for yourself
and one for the king." Then, when all was over and snug once more, the
men down from aloft, the rigging coiled up again on its pins, there
succeeded the delightful relaxation from work well done and finished,
the easy acceptance of the quieting yet stimulating effect of the
strong air, enjoyed in indolence; for nothing was more unoccupied than
the seaman when the last reef was in the topsails and the ship
lying-to.