Honorably Mentioned.
MOTTO
The result of all naval administration and effort finds its expression in good organization and thorough drill on board of suitable ships.
Organization and drill in the Navy depend on the laws for the Navy and the customs of the service. Customs being flexible, we naturally find them conforming to the needs of the service almost as closely as the laws will permit, and, therefore, without legislation we may not hope for any decided improvement.
The production of efficient men-of-war being the sole object of a navy, it is apparent that the Navy Department as headquarters, and its organization, demand the first consideration.
The present system of departmental organization and administration began in 1842, when the Board of Navy Commissioners was abolished. At that date the modern changes in naval science had just begun with the tentative introduction of steam on board the Princeton, but the great revolution in the near future was unforeseen, and the new organization, while good, was only equal to dealing with the existing problems. Since that time our native-born seafaring population has disappeared, and all naval science has made the most wonderful progress. To meet these great and varied changes and the greatly increased duties entailed by them, the bureaus of the Navy Department have been multiplied, and the individual bureaus have added function to function; but they have grown only by accretion: never in these forty years has there been a general survey of the field of naval affairs and a corresponding change in the organization and distribution of duties in the Navy Department. As a result, each bureau has endeavored to become independent of all the others, relying entirely upon its own resources, and caring little for the demands and necessities of the others, while it has gathered to itself the most incongruous duties, and cares only for the fitting out of ships. After ships are commissioned, there is no one in the department who is interested in their efficiency.
If we turn to the reflection of the bureau system on board ship, we find the bureaus each represented there by an officer charged with the duties and stores of the corresponding bureau, and with certain men more or less under his control; he is subject only to the captain and not to the executive officer; so that there is one system of control for the majority of the officers and men, and several systems for the minority.
The direction and supervision of drills and of discipline, as well as other executive functions, are distributed among the various bureaus, instead of being under one; and as bureaus are organized and fitted for office-work, they exercise their control only by means of quarterly returns, so that if commanding officers are careful about red tape, they may carry out drills or obey circular orders very much at their own discretion.
The duties of the Navy Department are twofold. First are the civil duties, including the building and maintenance of ships and navy yards, and the manufacture and purchase of equipments and stores; then there are the military duties, which embrace the recruitment, discipline, instruction, and drill of the officers and men of the Navy, both ashore and afloat, the control of the movements of all vessels, and the direction of fleet operations. These two classes of business have nothing in common, and should be entirely distinct from each other, with a "director of construction" at the head of the first, and a "chief of staff" over the other. The bureaus should be retained as administrative units, but altogether under the authority of the "director" and "chief of staff," and with a redistribution of duties, so that all those of any one bureau would be naturally related. Under the "director of construction" should be the bureaus of supplies, of construction and engineering, of ordnance, and of yards and docks. The first bureau should be charged with the purchase and care of all stores, materials, and supplies for use in navy yards and in the fleet, and should issue them upon requisition. Under the "chief of staff" should be all the military duties before mentioned, and in addition the records of officers and men, details, issue of general orders, circulars and drill manuals, inspection duties of all kinds, and the Office of Naval Intelligence. Inspection duties are among the most important in all well-managed military organizations, and are on a very inefficient footing in our Navy. The officers detailed for inspection should be the eyes and ears of the Department in the service at large. All records and work in the yards, and the entire economy of ships, should always be open to their examination; and besides reporting upon the condition of what they see, they should be expected to suggest improvements wherever called for, thus acting as a spur to the rest of the Navy. These officers should compose all boards for the examination of technical matters. The Secretary would thus be left the general control of the Navy unembarrassed by technical details, retaining as his special province the relations with the President and Congress, and the complete control of all financial matters. The Secretary has recently taken steps to bring the finances more under his own control, and the result will doubtless be most excellent.
As the Secretary is allowed by law to distribute the work of the Department among the bureaus, there would be little difficulty in making any arrangement that he pleases, were it not that the bureaus and the corps of their chiefs are defined by law, and that the annual appropriations are made for each bureau separately. He has, however, very wide discretion and authority in the matter.
The Corps of Officers.
Now to consider the officers of the Navy. In intelligence and natural abilities, they compare very favorably with those of other nations, but they are heavily handicapped in many respects. The young officer upon graduation finds himself at the foot of the long ladder of promotion, with the certainty that no good conduct or professional ability will advance him out of his turn, and with the equal certainty that nothing but the grossest misconduct can retard him. The general opinion of his brother officers is not of importance to him, for they cannot reward or punish him; the examinations that he passes are mere repetitions of those at graduation; and so he goes on to the highest grades of the service, relying more on physical than on professional and moral qualities, and with only the satisfaction of duty well performed as an incentive to faithfulness and zeal. There are many officers in the service who are fully equal to the duties of subordinate grades, yet who have not the ability to fill the higher grades with credit. It is desirable to retain these men in the service, yet there is no reason why the Government should place them in situations whose requirements are beyond them. In every other walk in life a man's success is proportioned to his ability, but in the Navy the rigid system of promotion results in a frequent lack of cheerfulness and exactitude in obeying routine orders and carrying out routine duties; this becomes apparent even to civilians in the careless mode of wearing the uniform.
There was submitted to the last Congress a system of promotion which permitted undesirable officers to be retired on reaching the rank of commander or captain. This plan, combined with a rigid system of progressive examinations, would be of benefit to the service, but the system in practice by foreign nations is preferable. There we find that a large number of promotions take place by seniority, but the government reserves to itself the right to select specially promising officers and promote them out of their turn. Those chosen are usually not advanced very much at a time; must pass rigid examinations, and have certain records of conduct and service, so that none but deserving men are advanced, while those remaining in the lower ranks are retired by age limitations. In this way, as in civil life, a prize is held out for zeal, good conduct, and ability, and the country gets the benefit of capable service.
There are two arguments advanced against this scheme. However the sustainers of the first objection may present it, it amounts to this: "If such a scheme becomes law, A. B. will be promoted over us." In most cases the obvious answer is that such a result would be very desirable. But many officers, while acknowledging the advantages of such a plan, doubt whether it could be put in practice and carried out with substantial justice. The general opinion of the service, together with examinations, would probably be weighty enough to prevent the selection of unworthy or undeserving candidates; this is as far as justice can go, and is all that is desirable in this case. What is necessary is the assurance that officers shall rise in some degree according to their merit, so that men of inferior ability shall retire early in the lower ranks by age limitation, while better men rise proportionately higher. The present system, however, may be called unjust, for now rank is no measure of ability and merit the proposed system tends to make it so in a general and limited way. Much improvement can be accomplished in this direction without legislation. The primary duty of every officer in the Navy is on board a seagoing ship, but this is not recognized in any official way by the Department, and shore stations are naturally preferred. Officers are now sent to sea by the roster, and no matter what their qualities for command may be, they are sure of getting vessels. Before the war the personnel of the Navy was in very much the same condition that it now is, and as a remedy the Department adopted the policy of entrusting ships only to the best men, allowing those who were not fit for sea duty to remain on shore. This was an expensive method of manning the fleet, but it set a premium on professional merit, and procured the best men by giving to officers of all grades higher commands than their rank entitled them to hold.
A reason why incompetent officers so readily pass their examinations is that, although ample data for rejecting them exist in the Department, it is very hard to collect it in any given case; and when officers are questioned regarding candidates for promotion, their good nature sometimes permits them to give official answers very different from their freely expressed real opinions. The remedy is to keep an index in which to enter under each officer's name every article of information and official reference regarding him as it comes into the Department. Moreover, it sometimes happens that newspapers make scandalous charges against officers of which no notice is taken, because it is no one's business to do so. It should be the duty of the Judge Advocate-General to investigate such charges without further notice, and deny them in the name of the Department, for the credit of the service, if they be false, or bring the offenders to trial if they be true.
A postgraduate school, where officers may practice the latest novelties in naval science and perfect themselves in the theory of the various specialties, is an absolute necessity. The study of the higher branches of the profession should be deferred until after several years at sea, when it would be more profitable than under the present system; for it is only from the careful study on shore of the experience gained at sea that improvement is derived. For such a school there can be no place as fit as Annapolis, which already possesses all the advantages of a complete and well-organized educational establishment.
The primary duty of every naval officer is to handle and fight his ship well, and, in the organization of the Navy, combatant efficiency should be the sole consideration. Incidentally we find officers and men performing divers auxiliary duties in time of peace, but this is merely to utilize their abilities, and should be considered as of no weight in influencing the organization of the service. Naval officers are rather arbitrarily divided into two classes, the line and the staff, staff officers being assumed to be non-combatants, and friction arises between the two classes from the false position in which the engineer corps is placed. This corps, of later origin than the other staff corps, has become of great, though not fully recognized, importance, and has received an education beyond the position that it holds; and while chafing under this state of affairs, it has found some support from the other staff corps.
In examining the present status of engineers, we find that they have every official and social recognition except that of military command, when the truth is that they are combatants in every sense of the word, and should be recognized as such. The education of engineers is a most thorough one, embracing designing and building engines, as well as the practical duties of the engine room. But the primary duties of all naval officers are on board their ships, and therefore, when engineers are assigned to designing duties, they are not as efficient as those who do nothing else. At sea, however, our engineers, being conscious of education and attainments above the duties there assigned them, have introduced machinists on board ship. So we have a poor class of machinists, because they are not responsible nor trusted, and the engineers complain that they are unreliable when placed in-charge of the engine-room watch. It is not sufficiently recognized that every man-of-war is one homogeneous machine, and that, therefore, all officers on board should belong to one corps, all finally rising to command and acquainted with all the duties called for on shipboard, but each devoting himself to the study of one of the various specialties of his profession. The present system of special corps leads to the absurd conclusion that if a lieutenant and engineer go out in a torpedo boat and either is disabled, the survivor can do nothing but surrender.
The law of August 5, 1882, was a step towards the solution of this question, in making all cadets follow the same course at Annapolis and choose their corps after two years at sea. To complete the solution, the engineer corps should be abolished by absorbing all the assistant engineers and as many as possible of the passed assistants in the line, leaving the rest to perform their present duties until retired. Such an increase of subordinate officers would be an additional reason for promotion by selection, in order to prevent officers from passing through the upper grades of the service in a very few years. By this plan the engineer division would be placed under one or more combatant officers, who would have charge of the machinery and engineer force. Engine-room watch and the immediate charge of engine-room work would then fall on a trustworthy class of machinists similar to locomotive engineers, who would be attracted by the increased responsibility and by a well-defined position with light work. There is no occasion on board ship for the designing and constructing talents of the engineer corps, because large shops are needed as a field for them, and if a ship is so badly injured as to need anything more than a temporary makeshift, she must always go into port. All this part of the present duties of the engineer corps—namely, engine-building—should be performed by a small corps of constructors, who should never go to sea, but be always employed on shore. This corps should design and build the hulls as well as the machinery, and as naval construction is different from ordinary shipbuilding and requires special training, this corps has every claim to a place on the Navy Register.
As for the paymasters, their duties consist in caring for and issuing the stores of the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing, and in acting as treasurer and accountant for the ship and crew. Here is nothing that any careful, honest man cannot do with the ample time at his disposal on shipboard. Indeed, the Navy Regulations provide that line officers may act as paymasters upon occasion. Additions to the pay corps should therefore be stopped, and all its duties be performed by line officers. The object gained would be the substitution of combatant officers for a corps of non-combatants, who do not add to the fighting efficiency of the service. Chaplains should be commissioned for each cruise, not permanently. With regard to the other corps borne on the Navy Register (surgeons excepted), as they do not go to sea, and may be recruited from civil life in any number and at any time, there is no reason why they should appear as naval officers enjoying privileges which are granted to officers as inducements to sever their relations with civil life. After careful consideration, the plan of having only one corps in the Navy does not seem to ask for too much from individuals, for it does not require officers to be perfect in all branches. It is the system which was adopted by the Indian Army when the conclusion of the Sepoy mutiny called for a complete reorganization. There the cavalry, infantry, and staff officers all belong to one corps called the General Staff, and officers are detailed to various duties for a term of years, any one being liable to serve in diplomatic, civil, military, and engineering capacities, according to his abilities and the needs of the service. In the European armies, too, the best officers are required to serve in other corps than their own.
The chief difficulty in the proposed change would arise from the consolidation of the line and engineers, but it would not prove a substantial one. Line officers now know little about engineers' duties, because they have nothing to do with them until they reach command, but with the proposed change there would soon be a class of young officers giving special attention to the engines and equal to all their duties in that line. Indeed, at the present time, naval cadets only a few months from Annapolis, and ensigns, are frequently trusted with the charge of the engines under way, and perform all their duties both on deck and below with credit. This change would not prevent the development of specialties, for on board ship a man has not great opportunities for study: his duty there is to train and educate his men and obtain a practical knowledge of his profession. The specialist on board ship, who cannot go beyond his specialty, takes the place of a better man. On shore, however, in the various fields of work now occupied by officers of the Navy, there would be abundant opportunity for the study of the profession and the development of specialties, and every one should be encouraged to follow his taste in this matter.
The Corps of Enlisted Men.
The class of enlisted men now serving in the Navy is far from a satisfactory one. There are many foreigners, who ship because they can send money home periodically. The country could not expect their service in time of war; some of them can barely speak English, and most of them care nothing for the flag and take no interest in the efficiency of the ship. Then the term of service is so short that a ship cannot make a three-years' cruise without renewing the greater part of her crew, to the great detriment of efficiency. Finally, such is the anxiety to obtain men that enlistments are permitted and even desired on board seagoing ships, where recruits frequently receive no proper training, but are put at their stations a day or two after shipping, and sometimes learn their duties by natural intelligence, but more frequently at the expense of the other men's drill and efficiency. The enlistments which are made abroad are of a very poor class, for they are usually of foreigners, or of worthless Americans who make use of the Navy as a temporary convenience, with the intention of early desertion. The Marine Corps compares most favorably with the Navy in these respects: the long term of enlistment enables a guard to make a three-years' cruise without many changes and to join the ship in an efficient condition, and the habit of forbidding all enlistments on shipboard raises the standard of recruits. With regard to petty officers, there is no such class in the Navy. To be sure, there are men holding the ratings, but they know nothing but seamanship, and not always that; are without authority, and command no respect.
To supply all deficiencies in our enlisted men, we should adopt the English system of recruiting and manning the Navy. We can draw few hints regarding this matter from other European navies, because they depend on compulsory service; but England relies on voluntary service, and with similar laws, customs, and naval usage to ours, her system is perfectly adapted to this country, and by adopting it we would find ourselves in possession of a practical method which has given England, though with her merchant service largely manned by foreigners, a navy manned by sober, self-respecting, native-born Englishmen, of sufficient intelligence and education to perform their duties well and furnish out of their number a class of reliable petty officers who are thoroughly respected and obeyed by the crew. The English system enlists boys at about sixteen years of age, before they settle down to trades, and, after a preliminary training, they serve twenty years in two enlistments, counting time from the age of eighteen. Those serving out both enlistments have pensions proportional to their latest pay while in active service. It is noticeable that of late years the question of State responsibility for the employment of honorably discharged soldiers and sailors has been much agitated in England. The men have given the best years of their lives to the Government, and in so doing have sacrificed their local connections, making it difficult for them to find employment upon discharge, although their general intelligence and habits of discipline render them particularly well suited for many positions. Under these circumstances, it is urged that the Government owes it to them to make some endeavor either to provide work for them, or by recommendations to obtain them work elsewhere. At the same time it is fully recognized that they cannot be allowed to exclude others from employment, as that would inevitably result in poor work and consequent failure of the plan.
In our service the pecuniary position of enlisted men is a hard one, and keeps away many good men in not allowing them to receive their pay except as the captain permits. There is no reason why men's pay should not be as completely at their disposal as that of officers. The present system of wages also is bad in that the pay of each rate is fixed, with a dollar a month increase for each re-enlistment. As the number of men of each rate is fixed for each ship, this plan does not offer sufficient inducement to good behavior and zeal. A better system would be to offer a small fixed pay of about ten dollars a month, with a series of supplements for proficiency in ship's work and in each of the various drills, with large supplements for good conduct. This would be a direct incentive to effort in any direction. The maximum supplement for any branch should be such as to make the desired number take it up. The lower grades of supplements should be readily obtained, but as a man's proficiency increases he should find it harder to obtain the next greater supplement. The supplement for good conduct should not be affected by petty offenses, but, once reduced, it should be hard to increase it again. Petty officers should receive an additional supplement proportional to the responsibilities they incur and the duties they actually perform.
A few words may be said here of warrant officers. They occupy a somewhat anomalous position in the service, for vessels without them do not feel the lack of them. In fact, it is apparent that the only use of the corps is to afford an opportunity of promoting deserving petty officers, and it is unnecessary to enlarge upon the poor economy of maintaining a body of men who are of no direct service to the country. The proper thing to do for the petty officers is to improve their position as such. At the same time, it must be recognized that promotion can never be closed against real merit, and that there must always be admission to the corps of officers for those seamen who deserve it. They can never be numerous, for the advantages of a fine education are necessary to make good officers, and few enlisted men could ever merit commissions. Even those obtaining them would retire early by age limitations, except in the rarest instances.
Organization of Officers on Board Ship.
We now have to consider organization on board ship; and first, of the officers.
There should be only one officers' mess, as in the Army, where the plan works well. By this means a number of non-combatants as officers' servants would be saved, the mess expenses would be lighter, the larger size of the mess would render it easier to maintain that general good feeling which is sometimes lost towards the end of a long cruise, the younger officers would benefit by association with their elders; finally, it would be easier to perform those social duties which are now frequently neglected. The captain should belong to the wardroom mess, thus saving a cook and steward, but should dine in his cabin.
As was explained before, all the officers of a ship except surgeons should be combatants, ready to perform any service that may be required on board. The captain should assign each officer to his division, consulting his wishes if possible, and no officer should be permitted to change his division during the cruise. In case of a vacancy occurring, the relief officer should take the vacant division without regard to seniority. The authority and responsibility of all divisional officers should be increased. They should keep the accounts of their divisions and prepare all requisitions, clothing and small store bills, thus performing much of the work which now falls on the paymaster. They should be consulted about the rating and assignment of petty officers to their respective divisions, and should have control of their men's privileges, subject to the captain and executive officer. Whenever a man is brought to the mast, his divisional officer should be present as his counsel, to call attention to his previous record, or help him in any other way possible. In general, men should go to their divisional officers where they now go to the executive officer. This would in no way diminish the latter's authority, but, by associating the divisions more closely with their lieutenants, it would increase his control over both the officers and crew to the benefit of the service.
Having considered the generalities of officers' organization on board ship, we must now turn to particulars. The captain must naturally remain, as he always has been, responsible for all, and the soul of the ship in time of action. The executive officer should be responsible to the captain for all; his special charge should be the care of the ship, of all stores for the ship's use, and of the discipline and organization of the crew. His station in action should not be in the fighting tower with the captain, as there would be a great probability of losing both together. If there should be a second fighting tower, the executive officer might occupy that; otherwise, he should be at liberty to go where his services may be required. He should command all expeditions out of the ship.
The navigator should have charge of all navigating, meteorological and surveying instruments and all charts, and should perform those duties of the paymaster which are not assumed by the divisional officers, as well as all navigating and hydrographic duties. In action he should be the captain's aide, navigating the ship when on soundings and attending to signals. He should have charge of all stores for the use of the crew, and should act as (army) quartermaster in all expeditions out of the ship. As his duties would not keep him in touch with the crew, some of the divisional officers should be his seniors, to prevent his replacing the executive officer. The present navigator's division should have a watch officer in command, who should have charge of the machine guns of the upper deck, and the fire from the tops. He should also look out for the torpedo netting and handle the electric lights in action. It is doubtful if one man could efficiently control the entire machine-gun battery even in small ships, but in large vessels it would certainly be necessary to make two divisions of it. The duties of the officers of the gun and powder divisions should not differ materially from the present practice. There should be a torpedo officer in charge of all the torpedoes and mines of the ship. He should command the torpedo division, and his station in action should be with the bow torpedoes. The junior officer of the torpedo division should command the torpedo boat of the ship. The torpedo officer should lay and fire all mines and countermines, and should be in charge of electrical machinery and gear. He should not belong to the landing party. One of the divisional officers should be the gunnery officer charged with the care and maintenance of all arms and ammunition, and he should not be in the landing party. Finally, the engines should be in charge of one or two officers responsible for the efficiency of the engines and that of the engine-room force, but not standing engine-room watch, nor undertaking the immediate supervision of work; these duties should be left to petty officers. Officers should be induced to qualify for the various special duties just enumerated by the offer of a permanent supplement for the mere fact of qualification in any branch. An additional supplement should be granted during the actual performance of the special duty. Officers should stand watch at sea as they now do, but in port the charge of work should be committed as far as possible to petty officers. The divisional officers should stand day's duty, being responsible for work going on, but with time to attend to their special duties.
Organization of Enlisted Men on Shipboard.
The organization of the crews of our men-of-war should begin on shore in the navy yards, which, besides being supply and repairing depots, should be training stations for the men. There should be ample drill grounds and barracks, and here the boys from the training squadron, and the men returning from three months' leave after a cruise, should be sent to await orders to seagoing ships. It is a great mistake to keep receiving-ships. It is impossible to form seamen by merely teaching men to sleep in hammocks, and every other imaginable advantage is on the side of the barracks. The men should be organized on somewhat the same system as that at Annapolis, which affords the most favorable opportunities for division into classes, for instruction, drill and discipline, and renders it comparatively easy to deal even with recruits. There should be a large number of officers at the barracks in charge of the men, and there should be an effort to arrange details so as to send one or more officers from the barracks to the same ship with every detail of men, in order to maintain as far as possible the same method of drill both ashore and afloat.
In considering the position of petty officers, every one agrees that the old class of men is insufficient, and that to obtain desirable men more pay and more privileges must be offered. But pay, privileges, and comforts do not appeal with enough force to the intelligent and self-respecting class that is necessary, and the great inducements of increased trust and responsibility must be added. In fact, it is not too much to say that there is now no class of petty officers in the Navy, and that there can be no good organization without such a class. Those holding the ratings are simply leading seamen, drawing higher pay, but without the superior instruction, the security of tenure, the authority, and the respect for their own positions, which are necessary in every well-organized military body. Improvement in petty officers can only be effected by marking them off as distinct from and superior to their shipmates, as is done with non-commissioned officers in the Marine Corps. The lines necessary to effect this can best be established in barracks, where the men who have served as petty officers should be rated as such and opportunities should be afforded for others to qualify; those under probation being rated as vacancies occur. The petty officers should be given a separate mess and quarters, as many privileges as possible, and should receive special instruction in their various duties. The charge of discipline and police duties and the instruction and drill of the force in barracks should be committed, as far as possible, to petty officers, and although they should be watched by the staff of officers, and instructed and counseled in the way of exercising command, yet they should always be made to feel that they are trusted and responsible for the performance of all work assigned to them. It is scarcely necessary to say that it is impossible to commit all drill and instruction to the petty officers, and that the officers must always make their control and initiative felt, and take direct charge of all bodies of men larger than a small squad. There is at present a class of petty officers—of whom quarter gunners are an example—who perform duties which require intelligence and reliability, but who exercise no military command; such men deserve high pay, but they should not form part of the body of petty officers described above. It is in this way, and with the advantages of a long term of enlistment, that marine officers have succeeded in forming a corps of men which is superior to that of the blue-jackets, and a class of non-commissioned officers who retain their authority and the respect of their subordinates throughout the trying circumstances of a long cruise.
On transferring a body of men to a ship about to be commissioned, it is necessary to organize them according to the bills. There are two classes of station bills: to one belong all the fighting bills, to the other belong all for handling the ship and carrying out routine work. The principle that should govern all the fighting bills is that, no matter how or when the men are brought into action, they should always find themselves under the same officers and petty officers. The working bills should be regarded merely as permanent details from the fighting bills, in order to distribute the work equally among all, and to prevent loss in battle from disturbing the routine of work. To accomplish this, the basis of all organization should be the quarter bill. The records and various qualifications of the men should be carefully examined, after which they should be fairly distributed among the divisions, assigning a good marksman qualified in the gunnery branch to every gun. The qualified torpedo men should go to the torpedo room and the torpedo boats, the qualified mechanics and firemen to the engine room, and marksmen to the tops and other small-arms stations. The rest of the crew, of various degrees of training, should be assigned as necessity requires. The powder division will require great attention to ensure the prompt supply of small-arm ammunition to the tops and the sure delivery of the various calibres of machinegun ammunition. Indeed, it is very probable that constructive changes in the vessels may be found necessary in order to obviate delay and mistakes. Every man should be assigned to the station which he is most capable of filling, and no changes should be made without a real necessity. It is quite wrong to shift men about merely to preserve an ideal symmetry in the station bills. The efforts of the captain and executive officer should be to encourage divisional esprit de corps and cause each officer and his division to feel that they belong to each other and must work together.
As it is proper for the crew to go to quarters upon any emergency, it is evident that the fire bill must be based upon the quarter bill, as it now is.
The next bill to make out should be the watch bill. It should have much the same relation to the quarter bill that it now has, so that losses in one division may be distributed to all parts of the ship; but both watches should be drawn equally from every gun's crew, as is now the case with pivot guns. The ease of handling the new guns will permit this without causing delay in opening fire.
The next bill made out should be the battalion bill. The force of the landing party for each class of ships should be prescribed in the Ordnance Manual, also the mode of armament and equipment and the numbers of pioneers and other auxiliaries. In uniting the forces of several ships, it would usually be advisable to change the equipments of some of the auxiliaries, or the kind of guns, or even to leave part of the artillery behind. Therefore, the proper proportion of guns and auxiliaries for each increase in the total force of an expedition should also be laid down in the Manual, and under each total the proper equipment for the first, second, and third ships participating. Each ship, having received a squadron number, would then know what force to send.
In organizing the battalion, each division should furnish a complete company under an officer of that division. If it should sometimes be necessary to form a company with men of two divisions in order to have it of full size, the two divisions should be represented by the platoons, each with its own officer. With modern guns, the guns' crews are usually large enough to work with half crews, and therefore the second half of all guns' crews should furnish the infantry. Care should be taken to have the best small-arms marksmen and most active men in the landing party. The riflemen belonging to the tops should be men not so good at marching, and should be left on board for the protection of the ship. Some of the machine guns, each with its complete crew, and details from the rest of the machine-gun division, should form the artillery. The pioneers and mechanics should come from the engineer's division, and the special details for the care of stores, for stretchermen and other duties, should come from the powder division. This division might be able to furnish a company of infantry, but if possible it should keep nearly its full strength on board, in order to enable the half crews remaining on board to maintain a brisk fire, in case of an attack during the absence of the battalion.
The boat bills come next. There should be two of them. The first one should be similar to the battalion bill, so that on arming, each company or platoon would remain a unit and form the crew of a boat. Coxswains should all belong to the battalion and to their own boats. The second boat bill should be the "abandon-ship" bill, and should contain the names of all on board; each boat containing its fair proportion of mechanics, seamen, idlers, etc. Some of these men would be permanently excused from boat duty; the rest should form the boat's crew, the coxswain detailing the crew for each day precisely as the captain of a part of the ship now makes his details. There should be no boat officers: coxswains should be held responsible for the conduct of their crews.
In the organization of the engine-room and fire-room force, those men should be assigned there who are in receipt of the supplements for duty in that division. This should not prevent them from obtaining some of the lower supplements for gunnery and target practice; and, vice versa, the men of the deck divisions would be better for some elementary knowledge of steam. We may see this exemplified every day in the steam launches when the coxswain starts the engines or the fireman finds it convenient to bring the boat to the gangway; and, with the isolation attendant on the modern subdivision of ships, the diffusion of such knowledge becomes essential. It also seems as if the present multiplicity of independent engines on shipboard, far from rendering necessary the employment of highly educated scientific engineers to take charge of them, affords precisely the opportunity for such an organization as has been indicated, where the engine-room watch is committed to well-trained petty officers.
The mess bill must always depend on the watch bill; but as long as the present system of messing is retained, it should also depend on the battalion bill, so as to send ashore complete messes without disorganizing those that remain. This could be accomplished by making the second parts of the guns' crews of any one division (which form a company) belong to the same watch, and mess together. It would be equally easy to place the field artillery in one mess. The present system of messing should no longer be retained, for it is little better than barbarous, and of itself is sufficient to forbid the enlistment of a desirable class of men; especially when the training ships are so much better in this respect. It is wasteful of provisions, unfavorable to good cooking, and keeps an encumbered and close-smelling berth deck, besides requiring a large number of mess cooks, who are usually dirty foreigners wanting the extra ration, whom the executive is ashamed to have about the decks, whose time is not half occupied, yet who avail themselves of their mess duties to avoid their deck work. There should be a ship's pantry on every ship, and the ship's cook should have a small number of assistants—enough to do all the cooking and take entire charge of the pantry, with its mess gear, and do all the washing of dishes, etc. The berth-deck sweepers should set the tables and draw and return the mess gear. Some of the cooks should be attached to the landing force, and on landing every man should carry his own mess gear, as at present. The petty officers' mess should be rather better than the others, with china service, and permission to use mess money. The other messes should all be on the same footing, without mess money. The savings in the ration, owing to the decrease of waste, would be very considerable, and the commutation, with the improvement in cooking, would furnish a very good table.
There should be a meal between 7 and 8 P.M., for it seems to be shown that the desire for liquor when on liberty is decreased when the length of the fast between supper and breakfast is habitually shortened.
Discipline.
Discipline, which secures efficiency through obedience, is the strength of every military organization, and is established by the wise bestowal of privileges and rewards, by the infliction of punishments, and by drill, which forms the habit of obedience. But whereas the enforced obedience of the ignorant men of former times produced sufficient results, the recent improvements in all military branches demand a degree of intelligence and alacrity in the performance of duty which must be induced rather than enforced, and this must bring changes in the mode of discipline, some of which have already been indicated in speaking of a mode of payment depending on a system of rewards for proficiency.
There are now two principal privileges—monthly money and liberty. The reservation of pay has been already alluded to as a cause of preventing enlistments, but it is also injurious to discipline; for it lowers a man's self-respect when he is not trusted with his own, and there can be no greater absurdity and injustice than in paying as a privilege the wages which have already been earned. The entire monthly wages should therefore be paid every month as a right. Liberty depends altogether upon conduct, and in this particular, as in many others in the service, there is no recognized custom, every commanding officer following his own ideas on the subject. Drunkenness, the most common offense in the Navy, is closely connected with liberty; and with regard to its punishment, great latitude is allowed to captains. This diversity of treatment is injurious to discipline, and is a frequent cause of desertion, as it is very easy to ship on another vessel without identification. There should be a set of rules governing the privilege of liberty and the punishment of drunkenness, which should be closely adhered to by all the vessels of the Navy. Liberty should be granted to first-class-conduct men whenever their services are not required on board; and frequently to all.
Minor punishments are in the hands of the captain, but for all except the smallest offenses he must convene a summary court-martial. Any three commissioned officers on board the ship may compose one of these courts, which take cognizance of the class of offenses which come before police magistrates and award penalties of about the same degree.
The law seems to say that any three men bearing commissions, no matter how recent the commissions, nor how ignorant of naval law, customs, and necessities the men may be, can execute naval justice better than a captain who has spent his life in the service and is thought fit to be trusted with the honor of the flag, the lives of his crew, and the safety of his ship. But there are many objections to summary courts. There is frequently a member anxious to display his knowledge of law even at the expense of justice: then, when a finding has been made, it is difficult to decide on a sentence, so that if several cases for the same offense come before the same court, there are frequently several different punishments awarded, each representing a compromise, or the views of an individual member of the court. Even when the court has finished its work, the revising officer may wish to show himself a lawyer and quash a well-deserved sentence on some trifling technicality. In a word, the formalities incident to summary courts hinder substantial justice, and powers vested in them should be committed to commanding officers; for if a man is fit to be trusted with command, he is surely fit to enforce the discipline by which he vindicates his trust. General courts-martial are open to the same objections as summary courts, but their duties and powers are too great to be all entrusted to one man. They should never consist of more than five or seven members, in order to increase the sense of individual responsibility and the dispatch of business, and to decrease their cost. The functions of general courts should cease after making the finding, thus assimilating their duties to those of civil juries. The commander-in-chief should have authority to send the proceedings back for revision, and to award sentences equal to those now awarded by summary courts, or else, in more serious cases, to send the offenders to the United States for sentence by the Secretary of the Navy through the Judge Advocate-General. In this way adequate punishments would be more frequently awarded, and the discipline of the Navy would be more completely under the control of the Secretary, who is responsible for the Navy in all its branches.
There are many occasions upon which subordinate officers find it necessary to take notice of trifling offenses scarcely worthy of reporting to the commanding officer. Under these circumstances it is easy to find some way of evading the regulations, punishing the man without avowing it, and this is generally done. Such proceedings cannot be favorable to discipline, for one always feels a sense of injustice at illegal punishment, no matter how well deserved. To provide for such cases, divisional officers should be permitted to inflict certain small punishments in the way of extra duties and the like, which should be entered in a book for the captain's inspection as a check against abuse; but they should be in nowise prejudicial to the record or privileges of delinquents.
There should be a code of punishments carefully drawn up, after the manner of the civil code, prescribing a maximum and minimum punishment for each class of offense. This would do much toward obtaining uniformity of punishment, especially in the minor cases dealt with by commanding officers.
Finally, in the instruction of recruits, officers should pay great attention to the explanation of the principles of military honor and devotion to duty, and thereafter no opportunity should ever be lost of inculcating them both by example and instruction, and by the mode of punishment selected for individual offenses. Our men are intelligent enough to respond to such ideas, which are more conducive to good discipline than anything else.
Drill.
The drill of the Navy is at present unsatisfactory, for it does not realize the full measure of efficiency of which even our poor ships are capable. Drills are in charge of the various bureaus of the Navy Department, but there is no system about them, for one bureau may draw up instructions and manuals, while the returns from the ships are made to another; and, as was said before in this essay, a commanding officer hears quickly of an informality in his quarterly drill returns, although their substance seems to be a matter of indifference, and the Department's solicitude for a ship's efficiency apparently ends when she is commissioned.
On board ship we find the drills prescribed in the Ordnance Manual carried out in a perfunctory way, but the instruction given is inferior to the capabilities of the arms, and target practice amounts to nothing. With regard to all other drills there is absolutely no uniformity. Every squadron changes its sail and spar drills with a change of admirals, and the new flag lieutenant edits a new edition of the little book on routine, seamanship drills, and the signal book. Except by the marines, Upton's Infantry Tactics is scarcely more regarded than Luce's Seamanship; both are acknowledged to be very good authority on their respective subjects. In all drills, officers have no hesitation in departing from the usual or authorized custom, if they think they can improve thereon. This should not be permitted, but manuals for all drills should be published by the Department and enforced by the inspectors, upon whom the efficiency of the Navy would greatly depend.
The objects of drill may be laid down as follows: To maintain discipline and esprit de corps; to instruct in the use of all weapons and in the management of the ship; to maintain a high standard of physical endurance, and to afford occupation and employment.
In former times discipline was simply the habit of obedience, formed by the constant repetition of maneuvers at drill, and enforced by brutal punishments; but general education and the habits of freedom have advanced so far in this country, and the intelligence demanded for the proper use of modern weapons is so great, that the old methods of drill and discipline are no longer suitable: henceforward we must reach efficiency not by attempting to form a habit of blind obedience, but by developing individual intelligence, self-reliance and resource, and by raising the self-respect of every man in the Navy, so that each one may feel that in an emergency he may depend upon his comrades as upon himself. At present, drill should partake very much of the nature of instruction, and the principles underlying every order and maneuver should be carefully and thoroughly explained: duty will be much better executed in consequence. At the same time, this explanation of orders on the drill-ground or in the class-room must never be allowed to conflict with the disciplinary principle of unquestioning and unhesitating obedience.
The second object of drill—instruction in the use of weapons—is of an importance which need not be enlarged upon, yet it is precisely the one in which our Navy is most deficient. The men understand their rifles so little that a great many are rendered useless by careless handling, and they have no idea about shooting. The allowance for small arm target practice is two shots a month, but even this is not always expended. Besides, the target is usually swung from the yardarm or towed astern, where it is impossible to verify hits. In the Army, twenty cartridges a month are allowed, with materials for reloading, so that in some companies every man expends as much as fifty or sixty shots a month at target practice, and there have been companies in which every man had the score of "marksman." The allowance for great-gun target practice is two shots a month a gun's crew. This allowance is nearer what it should be than that for small arms, but the results in time of war of any expenditure in this direction are so great that the allowance should be increased.
The handling of the ship comprises two branches: naval tactics and seamanship. Naval tactics is a drill by which only officers profit, and absolutely nothing of it is known in our Navy; but seamanship belongs quite as much to enlisted men as it does to officers. It is claimed, indeed, that the latter is a thing of the past, belonging to the sailing fleets; and there are those who say that the resource and ingenuity which were eminently characteristic of the seamen of former times no longer exist, or belong only to those who have been brought up in sailing ships. There can be no doubt that the reason thus urged for maintaining a sailing training squadron is quite sound; but as the fleets of the future will be of steamers, the use of a sailing squadron will be like an education in a dead language. A modern squadron, properly exercised, cultivates so many accomplishments in its crews, that we may safely believe the seamen of the future will be as prompt in emergencies and as fertile in resources as their predecessors. Still, as our fleet yet depends in a great degree on sails, and there is no squadron of evolutions, it is quite too early to think of the abolition of the sailing training squadron. A most important object of drill is the maintenance of physical training. It is specially important for officers, because the men are in fair condition from their daily work; but the habits of officers are so sedentary, it is not too much to say that their physical training is not enough to fit them to lead their men in war. Any drill whose object is simply to afford occupation, as is sometimes desirable, should be such as to develop this important end.
Drills may be classified into personal instruction, divisional exercise, ship drill and squadron drill. Upon the thoroughness of the personal instruction given to recruits will depend all success in war. The recent developments of naval and military warfare follow very different lines, yet they have the common result of increasing very greatly the importance of the individual, which necessitates a correspondingly increased proportion of personal instruction in all drill. In the Navy this importance of the individual arises from the accuracy of weapons; from the decrease in the numbers of great-guns, rendering it impossible to depend for results upon an average of shooting where every shot ought to tell; and from the modern subdivision of ships, which requires every man to be self-dependent in order to meet the emergencies which may arise near him. Personal instruction is altogether out of place on board a man-of-war, where the entire organization is for service and not for a school. Cruising vessels, therefore, should never be permitted to recruit.
The barrack system, which was mentioned as favorable to discipline, is equally favorable to drill and to health, and should be adopted for the training school for boys. The general system of such a school should be similar in principle to that adopted at the Naval Academy, differing only in giving the boys a shorter course and a larger proportion of practical instruction and drill. The staff of this school should consist largely of petty officers, who should give instruction in practical work and should have a large degree of authority, thus teaching the boys from the first to respect and look up to them. The course should comprise the completion of a common-school education and practical instruction in gunnery, small-arms, seamanship, steam and signals. The theoretical instruction should be merely such as to enable the boys to understand the principles of their drill.
There should also be great attention paid to fencing and boxing, and every means should be taken to encourage these accomplishments as recreations. It is scarcely possible that we shall ever recur to boarding, but one of the Chinese vessels at Foo-Chow was so captured, and perhaps it may be useful in some exceptional case. In the meantime, broadsword exercise and boxing are manly accomplishments well adapted to shipboard, and developing judgment, temper, self-reliance and physique—precisely the qualities that are needed in a seaman. Every man-of-war should therefore be abundantly supplied with masks, single-sticks, and gloves, and officers should be obliged to exercise with them as well as the men, for they need it more to keep in training, and should always exceed their men in their knowledge of weapons and drill.
But instruction should chiefly be directed towards the management of weapons and machinery. The mechanism and nomenclature of all guns and small-arms should be fully explained; the precautions to be observed with ammunition and torpedoes should be taught, and the methods of connecting electrical wires, the use of switches, and other simple electrical information. With regard to the engines, every one should be taught how to start and stop a boat engine, and something about looking out for the boilers. It should never be forgotten that a good man-of-war's-man, besides knowing his own business well, should know something of everybody else's business.
The greatest pains should be taken with target practice, for good shooting is of vital importance, and the confidence begotten of skill reacts upon the shooting. It is impossible to develop the full capabilities of small-arms with the opportunities afforded for target practice on shipboard, and therefore the importance of thorough instruction on shore is redoubled. Target practice should include the estimation of distances, the allowances for wind and speed, and shooting at every variety of target, such as at moving targets of various colors and with different backgrounds, at disappearing targets at different ranges, etc. Great-gun target practice need not be given at this elementary school, for it is too expensive for all to receive a thorough instruction. A course in it should be reserved for the best marksmen, and they should be instructed in the same thorough manner as in small-arm practice. A thorough basis of practical information having thus been laid, the divisional exercise should follow, to teach the recruits to work in unison and mutually support each other. They should be taught to handle the great-guns, to drill in the company and battalion, and special efforts should be directed towards securing the control of firing by means of sham fights. There should be much exercise in boats and steam launches, with practice in laying mines and searching for the enemy's mines, and in the use of the electric searchlight in sweeping the horizon and estimating distances of torpedo boats and other objects, and in the duties of picket boats. With all this, the instruction in the routine duties of seamanship and the daily work of the ship should not be neglected; but it is unnecessary to enlarge upon these.
Recruits, having thus gone through the course at the training school, would be ready for seagoing ships, and should be transferred to the barracks at the navy yards to wait for a ship. Here they should perform such work in the rigging lofts and in fitting out ships as may be necessary, and should continue their drills.
On joining a ship the recruits would find themselves with a substantial basis of knowledge regarding their duties, and their services would be valuable from the first. They would have opportunities of selecting a specialty, and after three months' leave at the expiration of their cruise, they should return to the training school, there to follow an advanced course in one of the professional branches of steam, gunnery and great-gun target practice, or signals and navigating work; and on the degree of proficiency obtained in these courses should depend the amount of the supplements to the pay.
On board ship no drill should be permitted which does not directly contribute either to the safety and proper management of the ship or to her efficiency in battle. Target practice, signals, and fencing should be continually practiced for the sake of maintaining individual efficiency and physical training, and the divisional exercises would teach the men mutually to support and aid each other. These exercises should always be smartly carried out, and stupid men should never be permitted to interrupt their course, but should be turned over to a petty officer for instruction. It should be the effort of every individual officer to ascertain and develop the full capabilities of his division, and to ensure to himself a proper degree of control of the firing, if in the gun or torpedo divisions. When the officers and crew have become acquainted with the ship and with each other, the captain should proceed to exercise at ship drills. These include clearing for action, general and fire quarters, battalion, boat and seamanship drills. For the enlisted men these drills are little more than repetitions of the divisional exercises, but they are of great importance to officers, and the captain and executive officer should take great care in instructing them and in causing them to bring out the maximum efficiency of their commands. Seamanship drill is diminishing yearly in importance as the use of steam increases and spars become lighter and fewer; but it remains a favorite drill, as it affords an opportunity for active exercise and rivalry between ships. As, however, it no longer contributes to fighting efficiency, its prominence as an exercise drill should be taken by "Clear ship for action." Here we would have a display of seamanship in preparing the military masts and in hoisting out the torpedo boats; and below, the watertight doors and armored hatches call for good organization to secure their efficiency. But the principal work would be with the torpedo netting. This has been proved indispensable for the protection of every ship at anchor, and to get it up, prepare it and rig it out quickly would be an excellent test of seamanship and efficiency. With regard to general quarters, it should be the captain's first effort to ascertain by experiment, and then to maintain by practice, the best means of establishing his control over the divisional officers, and of ensuring to himself the prompt receipt of intelligence from all parts of the ship. Beyond this, general quarters amounts to very little, except when maneuvering in sham fight with other vessels.
Night general quarters should take the form of an attack with torpedo boats, sending out the ship's torpedo boats to attempt a surprise, and at their discovery the ship should clear for action and go to general quarters. The use of the electric search-light and the way to profit by it should be studied by every one.
As for fire quarters, it does not seem as if fire could prove a very threatening thing in iron ships minutely subdivided and with fixed hose-pipes. At all events, it should be dealt with by the people in the compartment with it, and the principal effort at drill should be directed towards securing prompt communication with the pumps, in order to have the water turned on.
Boat drill under oars and sail, and under arms with artillery, musketry and search-lights, with boat-squadron maneuvers, forms an important part of the battalion drill. The landing of the French at Sfax is an example of perfection in this particular and of the advantages to be derived from it. Battalion drill should be carried out with great thoroughness and with perfect uniformity throughout the service. The evolutions taught should be few, comprehending only those practical ones of service in war; but the duties of sentries, patrols and pickets, and of encamping, as well as the mode of landing and embarking, should be much dwelt upon, and every opportunity should be taken of practicing them.
But there is another class of ship drills of benefit to officers only, and this is the maneuvering of the ship. Upon joining a ship, it should be one of the first duties of every officer to make himself acquainted with the particulars of her construction, armament and equipment, and with her nautical, tactical and combatant qualities and peculiarities. She should be constantly maneuvered until all the officers are thoroughly acquainted with the particular action of the screws upon the helm in backing, and until the tactical diameter is known and every one has some proficiency in estimating by the eye the curved course she will describe in trying to ram a passing adversary. To this end there should be much practice in trying to ram moving targets. This exercise is one to which special attention should be given at night, for then the value of the ram is at its maximum. Next, the ship should practice maneuvering in company with her torpedo boats, which should learn to cover themselves behind the ship, and how to keep clear of the ship's torpedoes while securing the efficiency of their own.
We now come to squadron drill. An evolutionary squadron is an absolute necessity for the proper drill and instruction of officers and men, and upon the thoroughness and completeness of the methods of the evolutionary squadron will depend all success in war. The squadron is further necessary as the only means for ascertaining the efficiency of the general system selected for the Navy, and the directions in which improvements are called for in construction, drill or tactics. As examples of this latter use of the evolutionary squadron, the recent maneuvers of the Germans have convinced them of the complete reliability of their present system of coast defense by means of mines and torpedo boats supported by coast fortifications and a fleet. The English maneuvers of last summer taught them the value of the Polyphemus and Hecla types of vessels, and the necessity of altering the type of torpedo boat. Torpedo nettings also proved a complete success, and are henceforward indispensable. The Italian maneuvers of 1885 teach the tactical lesson that a fleet can derive no support from an unfortified harbor, no matter what its natural advantages.
For a squadron of evolutions, the North Atlantic is the most suitable, as it is the "home squadron." On all questions of custom, etiquette and drill not decided by the Regulations or Instructions, the usage of the evolutionary squadron should govern all others. All newly commissioned ships should join this squadron before going abroad, in order to drill and acquire the uniformity of style which is one of the most prominent evidences of discipline and efficiency. In this squadron is afforded the opportunity for the acquirement of nerve and skill in handling vessels, for learning the means of utilizing their armament and qualities to the best advantage and of defending them against attack and surprise.
In short, we make progress in naval science by approaching as closely as possible the conditions of actual warfare. On assembling the fleet, the admiral's first efforts should be directed towards establishing his control over it, through the adoption of a proper organization and grouping and the perfection of the methods of signaling. The imperfect method of the latter seems to offer one of the most formidable obstacles to the prompt and united action of the fleet. Squadron tactics and maneuvers should follow, in order to teach officers to maintain position and give them steadiness and skill in handling the vessels. In carrying out these maneuvers, the opportunity should be taken to develop scouting duties both by large ships and torpedo boats. These vessels should reconnoiter the coasts, examine harbors, and follow suspicious vessels. The electric light should be freely used as an offensive weapon to search the horizon and coasts. Attention should be paid to the estimation of distances both of vessels and landmarks by day and night. Then should come the combats of ship against ship, when the captains should direct their attention towards the peculiarities of their ships, and the best mode of attack and retreat as developed against the various types of their adversaries. In these sham fights powder should be freely used, in order to examine the effects of the smoke and its influence on tactics, for this seems to be a most embarrassing accompaniment of battle. Then should come exercises of one ship against two, to show the pair the best way of supporting each other while the efforts of the single ship would be to separate them. Then the same set of maneuvers should be executed with the vessels supported by their respective torpedo boats. In port the squadron should exercise at establishing its defenses with nettings, booms, lines of torpedo mines and picket boats. The large vessels on scouting duty should learn to hide themselves under the shadow of the coasts, and not to betray themselves by too high a speed. In the recent English maneuvers the enemy was frequently discovered by the line of foam at the bows. The use of the electric light as a defensive weapon should also be studied, and the best way of illuminating the entire horizon when all the lights of the squadron are available. The duties of the torpedo boats as pickets and in reconnaissances are important, and they should also be employed in night attacks. The squadron should land the battalions with complete stores for taking the field, and the vessels should practice covering the landing with the guns, and with torpedo boats armed with machine guns. After landing, the battalion should divide into two parts and exercise in sham fights, and in embarking in the face of the enemy, and in all the duties of picketing and reconnoitering work. The attack of fortifications should be practiced, by which the Army would profit as much as the Navy. This would exercise the squadron in indicating an unbuoyed channel, in removing obstructions by dragging and countermining, and would show the possibilities of forcing a passage through obstructions. The fleet should also divide into two parts, one acting as a support to the fortifications, and in this way most valuable aid could be given to the Army in regard to the fortifications at each port, and the fleet could learn the peculiarities of the principal ports. The torpedo flotilla should maneuver in tactics, as a school for the younger officers; and as flotilla against flotilla there would be developed the peculiar tactics suitable for these small craft in attacking each other. They should learn how to avoid the torpedo chasers, and, as far as possible, should exercise all along the coast, in order that officers may be thoroughly acquainted with the intricacies of the entire coast. Finally, the divided fleet should maneuver as opposing squadrons on the high seas, using the support of torpedo boats, and approaching as nearly as possible the conditions of actual battle; and exercises should frequently take place at night. In all these sham battles every possible stratagem and deception should be used against the enemy, in order to teach constant vigilance and suspicion. A Chilian vessel was blown up in Callao by a seeming fruit boat, and last autumn one of the Italian squadron of evolutions was put out of action by a similar stratagem.
In conclusion, the points of this essay may be summed up as follows:
1st. As a ship, though composed of many parts, is yet one fighting machine, she should be entirely manned by one corps of officers and one corps of enlisted men, whose members should be acquainted with all duties on shipboard in a greater or less degree. But, in recognition of the great field thus opened, each should devote himself more particularly to the study of some specialty when on shore duty, and its practice when at sea. The lines between the specialties would be more deeply marked in the corps of enlisted men, because they would not rise to command, which of itself is a specialty embracing all others.
2d. As far as possible, good conduct, proficiency, and zeal should be obtained by offering a direct pecuniary reward to officers and men, and quicker promotion to able officers.
3d. Officers should be obliged to increase their professional knowledge by following special courses at a post-graduate school.
4th. A body of trustworthy, intelligent and responsible petty officers holding their positions securely is an absolute necessity.
5th. Discipline should be maintained by raising the self-respect and devotion of the men. They should be habitually granted every possible privilege and comfort, and punishments should be entrusted to responsible individuals rather than to courts.
6th. All drills should contribute directly to efficiency in war, either by improving knowledge and proficiency, or by developing physical training both of officers and men. All drill should be directed towards the development of individual intelligence, resource and self-reliance, rather than towards forming an instinctive adherence to routine.
It may be mentioned that there is no feature of this essay which does not find its counterpart or analogy in some other service.