Captain A. S. Crowninshield, the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, bore
the brunt of the brain-work for the men and ships at the front.
His bureau has to do with the ordering of all ships and all men, and
Crowninshield, when he accepted the office, knew that the odds were
against him. He knew that by his own orders he would put forward above
him men who were many years his juniors in the service. He never winced,
but went on perfecting the target-scores of the men behind the guns.
When war was declared, he felt that, gun for gun, our navy could whip
anything afloat. But he did not get out of the office. He could have had
any command in Sampson’s fleet. But he preferred to stay and carry out
the work he had begun, in spite of the fact that each week, as younger
men went over him, he saw the chances of hoisting the pennant of a
fleet-commander grow fainter and fainter.
If you were to ask Secretary Long who did the real brain-work of the war,
he would unhesitatingly answer, “Captain Crowninshield.” Ask the younger
officers in command of gun-divisions who is responsible for the straight
shooting of the gun-captains, and they will say, “Captain Crowninshield.”
Ask any captain of the fleet of victorious battle-ships and cruisers of
Santiago or Cavite who contributed most to the victory of Santiago and
Manila, and they will say, “Captain Crowninshield.”
These are the facts, and no one in the service disputes them for a moment.
If the people are in ignorance, it is because Captain Crowninshield will
never talk of himself or his own affairs under any circumstances.
Captain Crowninshield comes of a distinguished New England family. He is
a grandson of Jacob Crowninshield, an early secretary of the navy, and
a great-nephew of Benjamin Crowninshield, also a secretary of the navy.
Like all the Crowninshields of Salem, he was full of love of the sea. His
father was a graduate of Harvard and a founder of the Porcelain Club.