From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life

The class to which I now found myself admitted was the "'55 Date," and whatever their reputation in the service, then or thereafter, they thought themselves uncommonly fine fellows, distinctly above the average—not perhaps in attainments, which was a subsidiary matter, but in tone and fellowship. One among them, a turn-back from the previous Date, and for two years my room-mate, used to declare enthusiastically that he was glad of his misfortune, finding himself in so much better a crowd. I doubt if I could have gone as far as this, but in the general estimate I agreed fully. We numbered then twenty-eight, having started with forty-nine a twelvemonth before. Three years later we were graduated, twenty. The dwindling numbers testifies rather to the imperfection of educational processes throughout the country than to the severity of the tests, which were very far below those of to-day. I have often heard it said, and believe it true, that the difficulty was less with the knowledge—that is, the nominal acquirements—of the appointees than with the then prevalent methods of study and instruction, which had debauched the powers of application. My father, after a long experience, used to think that upon the whole there was better promise in a youth who came with nothing more than the three R's, which then constituted substantially the demands of the Military Academy, than in one with a more pretentious showing. The first had not to unlearn bad habits. An illustration that the courses were not too severe, for an average man beginning with the very smallest equipment, is afforded by a true story of the time. A lad from one of the Southern States,—Tennessee, I think,—having obtained an appointment, and being too poor to travel otherwise, walked his way to West Point, and then failed of admission. The affecting circumstances becoming known, a number of officers dubbed together and supported him for a year at a neighboring excellent school. He then entered, passed his course successfully, and proved a very respectable officer. There was, I believe, nothing brilliant in his record, except the earnestness and resolution shown; the absence of these, under demands which, though not excessive, were rigid, was the principal cause of failures.

The requirements were certainly moderate, and our healths needed not to suffer from over-application. The marking system of that time gave the numeral 4 as a maximum, with which standard 2.5 was a "passing average." He who reached that figure, as the combined result of his course of recitations and stated examinations, passed the test, and went on, or was graduated. The recitation marks being posted weekly, we had constant knowledge of our chances; and of the necessity of greater effort, if in danger, whether of failure or of being outstripped by a competitor. The latter motive was rarely evidenced, although I have seen the anxious and worried looks of one struggling for pre-eminence over a rival who amused himself by merely prodding where he might have surpassed. It is only fair to add, as I also witnessed, that no congratulations were more warmly received by the victor than those of the man who had so constantly trod on his heels. It is needless to say, to those who know the world in any sphere of life, that a certain proportion were satisfied with merely scraping through. The authorities leaned to mercy's side, where there was reasonable promise of a man's making a good sea officer. In the later period of written examinations an instructor of much experience said to me, "If a man's paper comes near 2.5, I always read it over again with a leaning towards a more favorable judgment on points;" and he accompanied the words with a gesture which dramatically suggested a leaning so pronounced that, it would certainly topple over the right way. Not strictly judicial, I fear, but perhaps practical. There were rare instances who played with 2.5, enticed perhaps by the mysterious charms of danger. Such a case I heard of, a man of unquestioned ability, who it was rumored boasted that he would get just above 2.5, and as near as he could. He was read dispassionately, and in the event came out 2.47. As an effort at approximation, this may be considered a success; but for passing it was inadequate, and his general character did not bias the final appeal in his favor. He was not dropped, indeed, but had to undergo a second examination three weeks later: a circumstance calculated to cloud his summer. A more amusing instance came directly under my observation. He was a candidate for entrance, and I then head of one of the departments of the Academy. Although I had nothing to do with admissions, his father came in to see me immediately after the results were known. He had a marked brogue, and was slightly "elevated," by success and by liquor. Placing his hand confidentially on my arm, he whispered: "He's got in; he's got in." I expressed my sympathy. He drew himself up with a smile of exultation, and said: "He only got a 2.7. I said to him, '–, why didn't you do better than that?—sure you could.' 'Whisht, father,' he replied, 'why should I do better, when all I need's a 2.5?' Just fancy his thinking of that!" cried the proud parent. "The 'cuteness of him?" I forget this lad's further career, if I ever knew it.

One of the distinguishing features of the two academies then, and I believe now, was the division of the classes into small sections, under several instructors. This gave the advantage of very frequent recitations for each student. None was safe in counting upon being overlooked on any day, and the teacher was kept familiar with the progress and promise of every one under his charge. It admitted also of a more extensive course for those who could stick in the higher sections—a kind of elective, in which the election depended on the teacher, not the taught. Thoroughness of acquisition was favored by this steady pressure, the virtue of which lay less in its weight than in its constancy; but it is practicable only where large resources permit many tutors to be employed. The Naval Academy has had frequent difficulty, not chiefly of a money kind, but because the needed naval officers cannot always be spared from general service. A sound policy has continuously favored the employment of sea officers, where possible; not because they can often be equal in acquirement to chosen men from the special fields in question, but because through them the spirit and authority of the profession pervades the class-room as well as the drill-ground, and so forwards the highly specialized product in view. Besides, as I have heard observed with admiration by a very able civilian, head of one of the departments, who had several officers under him, the habit of turning the hand to many different occupations, and of doing in each just what was ordered, following directions explicitly, gives naval officers as a class an adaptability and a facility which become professional characteristics. It may be interesting to note that the same was commonly remarked of the old-time seaman. His specialty was everything—versatility; and he was handy under the least expected circumstances, on shore as well as afloat. Burgoyne used chaffingly to attribute his misfortunes at Saratoga to the aptitude with which a British midshipman and seamen threw a bridge over the upper Hudson. "If it had not been for you," he said to the culprit, "we should never have got as far as this."

In my day the proportion of officers was less than afterwards, when the graduates themselves took up the task of instruction. There were two who taught us mathematics, one of whom remains in my memory as the very best teacher, to the extent of his knowledge, that I ever knew. The professional branches, seamanship and gunnery, fell naturally to the sea officers who conducted the drills. These studies, as pursued, reflected the transition condition of the period which I have before depicted; the grasp on the old still was more tenacious than that on the new. The preparation of text-books for young seamen far antedated the establishment of naval schools. There was one, The Sheet Anchor, by Darcy Lever, a British seaman, published before 1820, which had great vogue among us. Among other virtues, it was illustrated with very taking pictures of ships performing manœuvres in the midst of highly conventional waves. As far as memory serves me, I think we were justified in regarding it as more instructive than the American work assigned to us by the course, The Kedge Anchor, by a master in our navy named Brady. A kedge, the unprofessional must know, is a light anchor, dropped for a momentary stop, or to haul a ship ahead, the title being in so far very consonant to the object of instruction; whereas the sheet-anchor is the great and last stand-by of a vessel, let go as a final resource after the two big "bowers," which constitute the usual reliance. The rareness with which the sheet anchor touched ground (the bottom) gave rise to the proverb, "To go ashore with the sheet anchor," as the ultimate expression of attention to duty; and the story ran of a British captain, a devoted ship-keeper, who, to a lieutenant remonstrating on the little privilege of leave enjoyed by the junior officers, replied: "Sir, when I and the sheet anchor go ashore, you may go with us." By the prescription of our seniors we had to tie to The Kedge Anchor, let us hope in the cause of progress, to haul us ahead; but in a tight place The Sheet Anchor was our recourse, and by it think I may say we—swore. I always mistrusted The Kedge Anchor after my researches into a mysterious sentence—"A celebrated master, now a commander, in the navy never served the bowsprit rigging all over." In the old-time frigates, of the days of Nelson and Hull, the master was at the head of the marling-spike division of the ship's economy, being, in fact, the descendant of the master (captain) of more than a century earlier, who managed the ship while soldiers commanded and fought her. But the masters were not in the line of promotion; in the British navy they rarely rose, in our own much more rarely. Who, then, was this celebrated master, now a commander? Eventually I found the sentence in a British book, and my faith in the pure product of American home industry was suddenly shaken. It is only fair to say that books on seamanship, being essentially an accumulation of facts, must be more or less compilations. Methods were too well established to allow much originality, even of treatment.

There were many other works of like character, the enumeration of which would be tedious. The Young Officer's Assistant was less a specific title than a generic description. Several of them were contemporary; and one, by a Captain Boyd of the British navy, summed up the convictions of us all, teachers as well as pupils, in the sententious aphorism: "It is by no means certain that coal whips will outlive tacks and sheets." It is scarcely kind to resurrect a prophecy, even when so guarded in expression and safely distant in prediction as was this; but I fear that for navies tacks and sheets are dead, and coal whips very much alive. The wish in those days fathered the thought. Who to dumb forgetfulness a prey could voluntarily relinquish all that had been so identified with life and thought, nor cast a longing, lingering look behind? So we plodded on, acquiring laboriously, yet lovingly, knowledge that would have fitted us to pass the examinations of Basil Hall and Peter Simple. To mention the details of cutting and fitting rigging, getting over whole and half tops, and other operations yet more recondite, would be to involve the unprofessional reader in a maze of incomprehensible terms, and the professional—of that period—in familiar recollections. Let me, however, linger lovingly for ten lines on the knotting—"knotting and splicing," as the never-divorced terms ran in the days when rigging a topgallant-yard was a constituent part of our curriculum. The man who has never viewed the realm of a seaman's knots from the outside, and tried to get in, must not flatter himself that he fully appreciates the phrase "knotty problem." I never got in; a few elementary "bends," a square knot, and a bowline, were very near the extent of my manual acquirements. The last I still retain, and use whenever I make up a bundle for the express; but before such mysteries—to me—as a Turk's-head and a double-wall, I merely bowed in reverence. When handsomely turned out, I could recognize the fact; but do them myself, no. I remember with humiliation that in 1862, being then a young lieutenant, I was called without warning to hear a section, one hour, in seamanship. As bad luck would have it, the subject happened to be knotting, and there was one of the midshipmen who had made a cruise in a merchant-ship. The knots I had to ask about—to which that diabolical youngster invariably replied, "I can't describe it, sir, but I will make it for you"—the convolutions through which the strands went in his ready fingers, and my eyes vainly strove to follow, are a poignant subject. There was no room for the time-honored refuge of a puzzled instructor—"We will take up that subject next recitation;" the confounded boy was ready right along, and I had only to be thankful that there were "no questions asked."

There was one professional subject, "Naval Fleet Tactics" under sail, which at the end of my time shone forth with a kind of sunset splendor, the dying dolphin effect curiously characteristic of the passing period in which we were. This had always had a recognition—d'estime, as the French say; but in my final year it fell into the hands of a new instructor, who proceeded to glorify it by amplification. He was a very accomplished man in his profession, a student of it in all its branches, though there was among us a certain understanding that he was not an eminently practical seaman; and he eventually lost his life in what appeared to me a very unpractical manner, being where it did not seem his business to be, and doing work which a junior would probably have done better. We remember William III. at the battle of the Boyne. "Your majesty, the Bishop of Derry has been killed at the ford." "What business had he to be at the ford?" was the unsympathetic answer. The text-book used by our new instructor was by a French lieutenant, written in the thirties of the century, and characterized by something of the peculiar French naval genius. The simpler changes of formation were so simple that complication could not be got into them; but, that happy stage past, we went on to evolutions of huge masses of ships in three columns, in which the changes of dispositions, from one order to another, became subjects of trigonometrical demonstration, quite as troublesome as Euclid. Sines, cosines, and tangents, of fractional angles figured profusely in the processes; and in the result courses to be steered would be laid down to an eighth of a point, when to keep a single vessel, let alone a column, steady within half a point5 was considered good helmsmanship. There being no translation of the book, our text was provided by copying, individually, from a manuscript prepared by our teacher, which increased our labor; but, curiously enough, the effect of the whole procedure was so to magnify the subject as materially to increase the impression upon our minds.

This is really an interesting matter for speculation, as to what in effect is practical. The mastery of conclusions, to which practical effect never could have been given, served to drive home principles which would have come usefully into play, had the sail era continued and the United States maintained fleets of sailing battle-ships to handle. For myself personally, when I came to write naval history, long years after, I derived invaluable aid from the principles and the simpler evolutions, thus assimilated and remembered. But for them I should often have found it difficult to understand what with them was obvious. A singular circumstance thus brought out was the want of exactness and precision in English terminology in this field. The most notable instance that occurs to me was in Nelson's journal on Trafalgar morning, "The enemy wearing in succession," when, in fact, as a matter of manœuvre, the hostile fleet "wore together," though the several vessels wore "in succession;" a paradox only to be understood at a glance by those familiar with fleet tactics under sail. The usual version of the attack at Trafalgar has of late been elaborately disputed by capable critics. I myself have no doubt that they are quite mistaken; but it would be curious to investigate how far their argument derives from inexact phraseology—as, for example, the definition of "column" and "line" applied to ships.

These mathematical demonstrations of naval evolutions might be considered a lapse from practicalness characteristic of the particular officer. They took up a good deal of valuable time, and on any drill-ground manœuvres are less a matter of geometric precision than of professional aptitude and eye judgment. The same mistake could scarcely be addressed at that time to the other parts of the Academy curriculum. Either as foundation, or as a super-structure in which it was sought to develop professional intelligence, to inform and improve professional action, there was little to find fault with in detail, and less still in general principle. The previous reasonable professional prejudice had been in favor of the practical man, the man who can do things—who knows how to do them; the new effort was to give the "why" of the "how," and to save time in the process by giving it systematically. In this sense—that all we learned ministered to professional intelligence—the scholastic part was thoroughly professional in tone; and I think I have shown that the outside professional sentiment was also strongly felt among us. There is always, of course, a disposition latent in educators to deny that practical work may be sufficiently accomplished by cruder processes—by what we call the rule of thumb—and a corresponding inclination to represent that to be absolutely necessary which is only an advantage; to exaggerate the necessity of mastering the "why" in order to put the "how" into execution. An instance in point, already quoted, is that of the professor who maintained that every officer should be able to calculate mathematically the relation between weights and purchases. But between 1855 and 1860, if such a tendency existed in germ, it had no effect in practice. As I look back, the relation between what we were taught and what we were to do was neither remote nor indirect. In its own sphere, in both its merits and its faults, the Academy was in aspiration as professional as the outside service.

This means that the Academy constituted for us an atmosphere perfectly accordant with the life for which we were intended; and an educational institution has no educative function to discharge higher than this. This influence was enhanced by the social customs, in favor of which disciplinary exactions were relaxed to the utmost possible; herein departing from the practice at the Military Academy, as then known to me. Not only on Saturdays and holidays, but every day, and at all hours not positively allotted to study or drills, the midshipmen might visit the houses of officers or professors to which they had the entrance. As a rule, very properly, no one was allowed to be absent from mess; but permission could always be obtained to accept an invitation to the evening meal with any of the families. This freedom of intercourse contributed its share to the formation of professional tone, for the heads of the families were selected professional men, who were thus met on terms of intimacy, precluded elsewhere by the official relations of the parties. More training is imparted by such association than by teaching—the familiar contrast of example and precept. An even greater gain, however—and a strictly professional gain, too—was the social facility thus acquired. In all callings probably, certainly in the navy, social aptitude is professionally valuable. Nelson's dictum that naval officers should know how to dance was only one way of saying that they should be men of affairs, at home in all conditions where men—or women—gather for business or amusement. The phrase "all sorts and conditions of men" never had wider or juster application than to the assembly of green lads, from every variety of parentage and previous surroundings, pitchforked into Annapolis once every year; and, of all the humanizing and harmonizing influences under which they came, none exceeded that of the quiet gentlefolk, of modest means, with whom they mingled thus freely. Indeed, one of the most astute of our superintendents took into account the family of an officer before asking that he be ordered.

An element in our social environment which should not be omitted was the prevalence of a Southern flavor. In our microcosm, this reflected the general sentiment of the world outside, then slowly freeing itself from the spirit of compromise which had dominated the statesmanship of two generations in their efforts to reconcile the incompatible. There were certainly strong Northern men in plenty, as well as strong Southerners; but every Southerner was convinced that the justice was all on their side, that their rights as well as interests were being attacked, whereas the Northerners were divided in feeling. There were some pronounced abolitionists, here and there, prepared to go all party lengths; but in the majority from the North, the devotion to the Union, which rose so instantaneously to the warlike pitch when fairly challenged, for the present counselled concession to the utmost limit, if only thereby the Union might endure. In this the membership of the school reproduced the political character of the House of Representatives, with whom appointment rested; and at our age, of course, we simply re-echoed the tones of our homes. Never in my now long life have I seen so evident the power of conviction as in the Southern men I then knew. They simply had no hesitations; whereas we others were perplexed. Yet I now doubt whether the Southern conviction was not really, if unconsciously, the resolution of despair; of doom felt, though unacknowledged; not before the attacks of the North, but before the resistless progress of the world, of which the North was to be the instrument. So also the patience of the North, if so noble a word can be conceded to our long temporizing, was an unconscious manifestation of latent power. To those who knew what the Union meant to those who exalted it—should I not rather say her?—in passionate adoration, need never have doubted what the response would be, if threat passed into act and hands were lifted against her. Conviction was absolute and deep-rooted on that side as on the other; but it was less on the surface, and sought ever a solution of peace.

The Muse of History of late years has become so analytic, and withal so embarrassed with the accumulations of new material, revealing still more the complication of causes which undoubtedly concur to any general result, that she is prone to overlook the overpowering influence of the simple elemental passions of human nature. "Our country, right or wrong," may be very bad morality, but it is a tremendous force to reckon with. One is wise overmuch who thinks that interest can restrain or statesmen control; wise unto folly who ignores that disinterested emotion, even unreasoning, may be just the one factor which diplomacy cannot master. I was in Rome when our late troubles with Spain came on, and dined with a number of the diplomatic body. "Oh yes," said to me one of these illuminati, "it is all very well to talk about humanity. The truth is, the United States wants Cuba." More profound was the remark of an American politician, who had recently visited the island. "I did not dare to tell all I saw; for, if I had, there would be no holding our people back." Personally, I believed that the interests of the United States made expedient the acquisition of Cuba, if righteously accomplished, and prior to the war I knew little of the conditions on the island; but Cuba would be Spanish now, if interests chiefly had power to move us. So in the War of Secession. Innumerable precedent occurrences had produced a condition, but it was the passion for the Union, the strong loyalty to that sovereign, which dominated the situation, and in truth had been dominating it silently for years; a passion as profound and, though justifiable to reason, as unreasoning as any simple love that ever bound man to woman. Could this have been appreciated, what reams of demonstration might have been spared to foreign pens—demonstration of the folly, the hopelessness, the lust of conquest, the self-interest in myriad forms, which were supposed to be the actuating causes.