great lake and a volcano, not extinct, but not immediately active.
They are distant about fifteen miles from the town, a position in
which I see such a sheet of water on the maps of to-day. This was a
long ride in the then state of the roads, after the autumn rains, and
with nightly freeze sufficient continually to fix the moisture, and
then to renew the dampness towards the noonday thaw. Transport was
not by wheel, but by pack-animals; and as these marched in companies
of a half-dozen or so, in single file, haltered one to the other, each
as he stepped put his foot into the prints made, not merely by his
immediate file-leader of the particular gang, but by all others going
and coming for weeks before. The consequence was a succession of
scallops, distributed over long stretches of mud, the consistency of
which just sufficed to hold the shape thus impressed upon it. Japanese
horses are small, and as a class quarrelsome; the one I rode on this
occasion was little larger than a child's pony, and looked as if he
had not been curried for a month. I hesitated to impose upon him my
weight, a scruple which would have been intensified had I known the
character of the pilgrimage through which he was to bear me. With his
feet at the bottom of the scallop, the rounded top rose above his
knee, nearly giving his patient nose the touch which his dejected mood
and drooping head seemed to invite. At the first start he stumbled,
nearly falling on me, but escaped with nostrils and mouth full of
liquid dirt.
A day to go, a day to come, and one intervening to cross the lake and
ascend the volcano, measured our excursion; through the whole of which
we had sunny skies and exhilarating temperature till the last hour of
our return, when a drizzling rain suggested what might have been our
discomfort had the heavens above been as unpropitious as the roads
beneath. Even the crossing of the lake and the ascent were
particularly favored, the sky literally cloudless and water smooth;
whereas the following morning, when we rose to depart, a fog had
settled on the mountain, making movement upon it doubtful and even to
a slight degree dangerous. The lake, some six miles by ten, and
abounding in islets, lay smiling under the bright, wintry sun, its
shores clad with leafless forests mingled with evergreens, save the
barren slopes of the volcano itself; beneath the distant lava stream
of which we were told seventeen hundred people lay, buried by the last
eruption. The scene tempted me more than most to description, for the
brilliant stillness of a clear November day, and the gaunt, bare
trees, were strange to our long experience of verdure in southern
Japan, and smacked strongly of home--Hakodate being in the latitude of
New York; but, as always, the majority have their own vision, their
own memory, of just such conditions and surroundings, more vivid for
them than another's portrayal.
The two nights at the lake we slept in a Japanese tea-house,
scrupulously clean and quite comfortable, but at that early date and
remote region entirety primitive; I should rather say strictly native
in all its arrangements. The kitchen was innocent of European
suggestion; we ate with chopsticks, and fish from the lake were
spitted and cooked around a fire in a sandy hearth, contrived below
the middle of the room. Eggs were in abundance, but coffee was sorely
missed at our chilly rising. At 9 A.M. we started for the volcano,
getting back at 7 P.M. We landed at the foot of the lava stream and
ascended by it through a picture of desolation. From shore to summit
took us three hours, which confirmed to me a rough estimate of the
height as about four thousand feet. The grade was not severe, some
thirty or forty degrees; but by this time we had a brisk northwest
wind blowing down our throats, and the latter part of the way our feet
sank deep in volcanic dust. At the top the air was very cold, keen,
and rare, but somewhat oppressive to the lungs. None of us cared to
smoke, after eating and drinking, but the view afforded us was
perfect; limitless, so far as atmospheric conditions went. In
appearance the crater differed little, I presume, from others in a
state of quiescence. Smoke and steam poured forth continually, in one
spot in large volumes; while from many places issued little jets, such
as puff from the out-door pipes of a factory, suggesting subterranean
workmen. These were especially numerous from a large mound in the
centre, which our guide told us was growing bigger and bigger with his
successive visits, portending an outburst near. If his observation was
accurate, it goes to show the coincident sympathetic movements which
occur in volcanic regions remote from one another; for this year,
1868, followed one of great terrestrial disturbance. In 1867 two of
our naval vessels had been carried ashore by a tidal wave in the West
Indies; and of two others lying off Arica, Peru, one was dashed to
pieces against the cliffs, while the other was carried over low, flat
ground for a mile or so inland, where her dismantled hull was still
lying when I was there in 1884.
Our starting when we did, as soon as possible, three days after
arrival, justified the Nelsonian maxim not to trifle with a fair wind;
for we just culled the three days which were the cream, and only
cream, of our stay. From our return on the 6th, to sailing on the
12th, there was but one fair twenty-four hours--the rest from
blustering to furious; and we went out with the promise of a gale
which did not with evening "in the west sink smilingly forsworn." The
_Iroquois_ ran through Tsugaru Strait under canvas, with a barometer
rather tumbling than falling, and an east wind fast freshening to
heavy. We knew it must end at northwest; but it lasted till afternoon
of the next day, so we got a good offing. The shift of the wind was in
its accompaniments spectacular--and cyclonic. The morning of the 13th
was among the wildest I have seen. Daylight came a half-hour late,
with a lurid sky; the clouds, the confused, heaving water, the sails,
spars, and deck of the ship herself, all as if seen in a Lorraine
glass. It having become nearly calm, she lay thrashing aimlessly in
the swell, unsteadied by the canvas. The barometer still fell slowly
till two in the afternoon, when it stopped, and we began to look out.
"First rise, after very low
Indicates a stronger blow."
At three it rose one one-hundredth of an inch, and almost
simultaneously, looking over the weather rail, was to be seen the
oncoming northwester, never long in debt to a southeaster. First a
gleaming white line of foam beneath the sombre horizon, gradually
spreading to right and left, and visibly widening as it drew near.
Soon its deepening surface broke to view into innumerable separate
wave-crests, which advanced leaping in tumultuous accord, like the
bounding rush of a pack of wolves, whom you may see, and whose howling
you can imagine but do not yet hear. As Kingsley has said, "It looks
so dangerous, and you are so safe"--all the thrill, yet none of the
apprehension. The new gale struck the _Iroquois_ in full force. Within
twenty minutes it had reached its height, and so continued for near
forty-eight hours, during thirty-six of which the hatches were
battened down. For a time the two seas, the old and the new, fought
each other to our discomfort; but the old yielded, and, as the new got
its even, regular swing, the _Iroquois_ agreed with its enemy of the
moment and rode easily.
With our arrival at Shanghai we had left behind whatever in the cruise
of the _Iroquois_ could be considered exceptional as to incident; that
is, while I remained with her. From December, 1868, we entered in
China upon the usual routine of station movement; interesting enough
at the time, but from which my memory retains nothing noteworthy.
Subsequently we visited Formosa and Manila and Hong Kong; whence we
were sent south for ten days to the Gulf of Hainan to search for a
French corvette which had disappeared. We did not find her, nor was
she again seen by mortal eyes. Returning to Hong Kong, we learned of
the first election of General Grant to the presidency, and that a
letter from him had reached the admiral asking that the captain of the
flag-ship, who as a school comrade had once saved Grant's life, should
be ordered home; the intention being to give him charge of an
important bureau in the Navy Department. Under usual circumstances a
relief would have been sent out; but as the request was from the
expectant administration, not from the one still in power and
antagonistic, a private letter was the chosen medium of action.
His departure made a vacancy, to which succeeded the captain of the
_Iroquois_, a great favorite with the commander-in-chief. I was left
in charge of the ship until we went back to Japan in May. There I fell
ill at Nagasaki, and after recovery found myself at Yokohama, in
command of a gunboat ordered to be sold. This consummation was reached
in September, and I then started for home, having the admiral's
permission to proceed by Suez to Europe, instead of by the usual
route to San Francisco. My object was only to visit Europe; but on the
way to Hong Kong a Parsee merchant, a fellow-passenger, suggested
turning aside to India, which I had not contemplated. I shall not go
into my brief India travel from Calcutta to Bombay, beyond mentioning
the singular good-fortune, as it appeared to me, that I visited the
ruined residence at Lucknow, and the remains of the memorable siege of
twelve years before, in the company of an officer who had himself been
a participant. His wife, still a very young and handsome woman, whom I
had the pleasure of meeting, had been one of the children within the
works, sharing the perils, if not the anxieties, of their mothers
during that period of awful suspense.
Nor do I think my six months in Europe, leave for which met me on my
arrival there, worthy of particular note, save in one incident which
has always seemed to me curious. Landing at Marseilles, I found that
intimate friends were then at Nice. I accordingly went there, instead
of to Paris, as I had intended; and, like thoughtless young men
everywhere, abandoned myself to pleasant society instead of to
self-improvement by travel. My purpose, however, continually was to go
directly to Paris when I did leave Nice, for my time was limited; but
a middle-aged friend strongly dissuaded me. "You should by no means
fail to visit Rome now," he said, "for, independently of the immortal
interest of the place, of the treasures of association and of art
which are its imperishable birthright, there is the more transient
spectacle of the Papacy, in the pride, pomp, and circumstance of the
temporal power. This may at any moment pass away, and you therefore
may never have another opportunity to witness it in its glory. There
is a vague traditional prophecy that, as St. Peter held the bishopric
of Rome twenty-five years, any pope whose tenure exceeds his will see
the downfall of the papal sovereignty over Rome. Such prophecies
often insure their own fulfilment, and Pius IX. is now closely
approaching his twenty-fifth year. Go while you can." So I went, in
February, 1870; and before the next winter's snow the temporal power
was a thing of the past.
XI
THE TURNING OF A LONG LANE--HISTORICAL, NAVAL, AND PERSONAL
1870
In narrating the cruise of the _Iroquois_ I have, as it were, laid the
reins on the neck of my memory, letting it freely run away; partly
because our track lay over stretches of sea even now somewhat unbeaten
by travel, partly because the story of routine naval life and
incidental experiences, in a time already far past, might have for the
non-professional reader more novelty than could be premised by me, a
daily participant therein. Moreover, there were in our cruise some
exceptional occurrences which might be counted upon to relieve
monotony. I purpose to observe greater restraint in what follows.
The year 1870, in which I returned home, was one of marked and
decisive influence upon history, and in a way a turning-point in my
own obscure career. As in February I witnessed the splendors of the
papal city under its old regime, so in April and May I saw imperial
Paris brilliant under the emperor. In the one case as in the other I
was unconscious of the approaching _debacle_; a blindness I presume
shared by most contemporaries. Whatever the wiser and more far-seeing
might have prophesied as to the general ultimate issues, few or none
could then have foretold the particular occasion which so soon
afterwards opened the floodgates. As the old passed, with the downfall
of the French Empire and of the temporal kingdom, there arose a new;
not merely the German Empire and the unity of Italy, crowned by the
possession of its historic capital, but, unrecognized for the moment,
then came in that reign of organized and disciplined force, the full
effect and function of which in the future men still only dimly
discern. The successive rapid overthrows of the Austrian and French
empires by military efficiency and skill; the beating in detail two
separate foes who, united, might have been too strong for the victor;
the consequent crumbling of the papal monarchy when French support was
withdrawn, following closely on the Vatican Decree of Infallibility;
these things produced an impression which was transmitted rapidly
throughout the world of European civilization, till in the Farther
East it reached Japan. Into the current thus established the petty
stream of my own fortunes was drawn, little anticipated by myself. To
it was due my special call; for by it was created the predisposition
to recognize the momentous bearing of maritime force upon the course
of history, which insured me a hearing when the fulness of my time was
come.
Until 1870 my life since graduation had been passed afloat almost
without interruption. Soon afterwards I obtained command rank; and
this promotion, combined with the dead apathy which after the War of
Secession settled upon our people with regard to the navy, left me
with relatively little active employment for several years. In
America, the naval stagnation of that period was something now almost
incredible. The echoes of the guns which from Koeniggraetz and a dozen
battle-fields in France had resounded round the globe, awakening the
statesmen of all countries, had apparently ricochetted over the United
States, as fog sound-signals are noticed to rebound overhead, unheard
through long stretches of the sea-level, until they again touch the
water beyond. The nation slumbered peacefully in its "_petit coin_,"
to use the expressive phrase of a French admiral to me. Had even
nothing been done, this inertness might have been less significant;
but somewhere in the early seventies, despite all the progress
elsewhere noticeable, there were built deliberately some half-dozen
corvettes, smaller than the _Iroquois_ class, mostly of wood. That a
period of lethargy in action should steal over a government just
released from strenuous exertion is one thing, and bad enough; but it
is different, and much worse, that there should be a paralysis of
idea, of mental development corresponding to the movement of the
world.
I myself have always considered that the "right about" of policy came
with the administration of President Arthur, when Mr. Chandler was
Secretary of the Navy. It began with a work of destruction, an
exposure of the uselessness of the existing naval material, due purely
to stand-still; to being left hopelessly in the rear by the march of
improvement elsewhere. Upon this followed under the same
administration an attempt at restoration, gingerly enough in its
conceptions. The vessels laid down were cruisers, the primary quality
of which should be speed; but fourteen knots was the highest demanded,
and that of one only, the _Chicago_. Unhappily, wherever the fault
lay, the navy then had the habit of living from day to day on
expedients, on makeshifts. Although deficiencies were manifest and
generally felt, the prevailing sentiment had been that we should wait
until the experiments of other peoples, in the cost of which we would
not share, should have reached workable finalities. This is another
instance of what is commonly called "practical;" as though mental
processes must not necessarily antecede efficient action, and as
though there was not then at hand abundant data for brains to work on,
without any expenditure of money. Finality, indeed, had not been
reached, and never will be in anything save death; but at that time it
had been shown beyond peradventure that radically new conditions had
entered naval warfare, and clearly the first most practical step was a
mature official digestion of these conditions--a decision as to what
types of vessels were needed, and what their respective qualities
should be. In short, the first and perfectly possible thing was to
evolve a systematic policy; a careful look, and then a big leap.
However, things rarely come about in that way. It involves getting rid
of old ideas, which is quite as bad as pulling teeth, and much harder;
and the subsequent adoption of new ones, that are as uneasy as tight
shoes. We had then certain accepted maxims, dating mainly from 1812,
which were as thoroughly current in the country--and I fear in the
navy, too--as the "dollar of the daddies" was not long after. One was
that commerce destroying was the great efficient weapon of naval
warfare. Everybody--the navy as well--believed we had beaten Great
Britain in 1812, brought her to her knees, by the destruction of her
commerce through the system observed by us of single cruisers; naval
or privateers. From that erroneous premise was deduced the conclusion
of a navy of cruisers, and small cruisers at that; no battle-ship nor
fleets.[15] Then we wanted a navy for coast defence only, no
aggressive action in our pious souls; an amusing instance being that
our first battle-ships were styled "coast defence" battle-ships, a
nomenclature which probably facilitated the appropriations. They were
that; but they were capable of better things, as the event has proved.
But the very fact that such talk passed unchallenged as that about
commerce-destroying by scattered cruisers, and war by mere
defence--known to all military students as utterly futile and
ruinous--shows the need then existent of a comprehensive survey of the
contemporary condition of the world, and of the stage which naval
material had reached. One such was made, which a subsequent secretary,
Mr. Tracy, characterized to me as excellent; but the deficiencies and
requirements exposed by it in our naval status frightened Congress,
much as the confronting of his affairs terrify a bankrupt.
During the latter part of Secretary Chandler's term I was abroad in
command of the _Wachusett_, on the Pacific coast. Besides her, the
squadron consisted of the _Hartford_, Farragut's old flag-ship, the
_Lackawanna_, and my former ship, the _Iroquois_. They all dated, guns
as well, from the War of Secession, or earlier. Had they been
exceptional instances, on a station of no great importance, it might
not have mattered greatly; but in fact they still remained
representative components of the United States navy. The squadron
organization, too, was that which had prevailed ever since I entered
the service, and so continued until a very few years ago. The rule was
that the vessels were scattered, one to this port, another to that.
They rarely met, except for interchange of duties; and when in company
almost the only exercises in common were those of yards and sails, in
which the ships worked competitively, to beat one another's time,--a
healthy enough emulation. But this rivalry was no substitute for the
much more necessary practice of working together, in mutual support;
for the acquired habit of handling vessels in rapid movement and close
proximity with fearless judgment, based upon experience of what your
own could do, and what might be confidently expected from your
consorts, especially your next ahead and astern. A new captain for
the _Lackawanna_ accompanied me to the station, where we found our
ships in Callao, assembled with the other two. Within a week later we
all went out together, performed three or four simple evolutions, and
then scattered. This was the only fleet drill we had in the two years,
1883-1885.
In fact, from time immemorial the navy had thought in single ships, as
the army had in company posts. To the several officers their own ship
was everything, the squadron little or nothing. The War of Secession
had broadened the ideas of the army by enlarging its operations in the
field, although peace brought a relapse; but the navy having to fight
only shore batteries, not fleets, was not forced out of the old
tactical and strategic apathy. The huge accumulations of vessels under
a single admiral entailed enlarged administrative duties; but the
tactical methods, as shown in the greater battles, presented simply
the adaptation of means to a particular occasion, and, however
sagacious in the several instances--and they usually were
sagacious--possessed no continuity of system in either theory or
practice. Organic unity did not exist except for administration. There
was an assemblage of vessels, but not a fleet. All this was the
result, or at least the complement, of the theory of commerce
destroying, which prescribed cruisers that act singly; and of war by
defence only, which proscribed battle-ships, that act in unison and so
compel unity.
A further incident of Mr. Chandler's tenure of office was the
establishment of the Naval War College at Newport. This had its origin
in the recognition of a defect in the constitution of the Navy
Department, which was glaringly visible during the War of Secession.
Immense and admirable as was the administrative work done by the
Department during that contest, there did not exist in it then, nor
did there for many years to come, any formal provision for the proper
consideration and expert decision of strictly military questions,
from the point of view of military experience and professional
understanding. The head of the Department, invariably a civilian under
our form of government, and therefore usually unfamiliar with naval
matters, had not assured to him, at instant call, organized
professional assistance, individual or corporate, prepared to advise
him, when asked, as to the military aspect of proposed operations,
what the arguments for or against feasibility, or what the best method
of procedure. In other services, notably in the German army, this
function is discharged by the general staff, nothing correspondent to
which was to be found in our Navy Department. It is evident that the
constitution of a general staff, or of any similar body called into
being for such purpose, will be more broadly based, and sounder, as
knowledge of the subjects in question is more widely distributed among
the officers of the service; and that such knowledge will be imparted
most certainly by the creation of an institution for the systematic
study of military operations, by land or sea, applying the experiences
of history to contemporary conditions, and to the particular theatres
of possible war in which the nation may be interested.
Such studies are the object of the Naval War College, which was
established upon the report of a board of officers, at the head of
which was the present Rear-Admiral Stephen B. Luce, to whose
persistent initiative must be attributed much of the movement which
thus resulted. The other members of the board were the late Admiral
Sampson, and Commander--now Rear-Admiral--Caspar F. Goodrich. Luce
became the first president of the institution, for which the
Department assigned a building, once an almshouse, situated on
Coaster's Harbor Island, in Narragansett Bay, then recently ceded to
the United States government. It remained still to get together a
staff of instructors, and he wrote me to ask if I would undertake the
subjects of naval history and naval tactics. The proposition was to me
very acceptable; for I had found the Pacific station disagreeable,
and, although without proper preparation, I believed on reflection
that I could do the work. During my last tour of shore duty I had read
carefully Napier's _Peninsular War_, and had found myself in a new
world of thought, keenly interested and appreciative, less of the
brilliant narrative--though that few can fail to enjoy--than of the
military sequences of cause and effect. The influence of Sir John
Moore's famous march to Sahagun--less famous than it deserves to
be--upon Napoleon's campaign in Spain, revealed to me by Napier like
the sun breaking through a cloud, aroused an emotion as joyful as the
luminary himself to a navigator doubtful of his position.