A REVIEW OF SERVICE OPINIONS.
1841-1901.
No historical retrospect of the views of naval officers in the last century can afford technical instruction to their successors. Method as well as material has been transformed; research and experiment are recognized as the basis of improvement, and tradition is not so apt to be urged as a substitute for exact knowledge. It is admitted that the qualifications of an expert are independent of relative rank, and that nothing can be settled by citing the obsolete views of unqualified persons. Yet an exhibit from the past may demonstrate the necessity of drawing from naval officers a definite and rational opinion concerning service problems; and the record of an officer may include tests to disclose his capacity for performing this essential part of his duty, though this will require earnest co-operation between the educational institutions. of the service and the fleet. Tradition is to be respected in so far as it sustains the morale and discipline of the service; but technical progress must seek elsewhere for its motive force, and accept nothing as a finality.
In his Washington address of January 13, 1913, Captain W. S. Sims, who has rescued our target practice from the trammels of self-complacent conservatism by constructive effort, spoke of "the dangerous self-deception caused by the service's disposition to, resist criticism, to boast of our achievements and to minimize our "defects"; and it may be worth while to show what lame and impotent conclusions have been due to such tendencies in the past. Moreover, Bacon has warned us that "The stubborn retention of customs is a turbulent thing, not less than the introduction of new"; and it will not be found that conservatism, taking that word in its proper sense instead of that bestowed upon it by journalists, is more moderate or prudent than the tendency toward innovation and improvement. The habit of opposing practice to theory in technical discussion, which often means willful blindness to the results of experiment, is characteristic of the sort of conservatism which deserves criticism; and it has not been altogether unknown in any of the world's navies.
The 60 years covered by this paper include a series of mechanical inventions which have transformed every branch of the naval and military service to such an extent that any surviving doctrine relating to these professions has to justify its existence by argument. Strategy may still borrow from the past, but tactics can by no means allow itself to be shaped by obsolete ideas and weapons. Up to 1841 this necessary readjustment was hardly recognized, and it is doubtful whether it would have been admitted by the Board of Navy Commissioners which had to surrender its authority in that year. Steam and shell-guns were ready for use, but their value could hardly be appreciated until a new system of education should have prepared the rising generation of naval officers for their work. Members of the famous class of 1841 were called upon to solve many problems during the Civil War; though part of the material available in 1861 indicated no progress since the days of Nelson or Decatur, the contest did not terminate until the necessity of mounting heavy guns in mastless ironclads had been demonstrated. Yet service opinion halted over the question of rifled ordnance and iron hulls for another generation, and the reasons for this check to progress manifestly deserve consideration.
One distinguished member of the class of midshipmen which entered in 1841 has contributed to the PROCEEDINGS OF THE NAVAL INSTITUTE since 1910; and the Seamanship compiled by Admiral Luce at the middle of his active career was enabled by partial revisions to serve as a text book for tractable midshipmen to the end of the century. Thus we find the name of a surviving officer recorded throughout the annals of the period under discussion and attached to works dealing with several of its problems.
The sources from which a review of service opinion are less numerous and accessible than might be supposed. Naval officers were rarely articulate during periods of stagnation, and the earlier romanticism, as expressed in letters to the newspapers concerning conflicts of authority or questions of personal honor, has no practical significance. Official reports are sometimes controversial, but they rarely deal with technical subjects in a broad, impersonal manner. The pamphlets which followed the drastic sessions of the retiring board of 1855 deal only in personalities, and the service journals have preferred such topics to the more recondite lines of professional research. The Naval Institute, founded after the middle of our period, has done more to advance naval progress than any of the contemporary publishers. Its contributors have belonged, for the most part, to the progressive wing of the service, every contribution testifying to some degree of mental activity; but its writers have not been free to criticize official decrees; and the antiquarian or historical tendency noticeable from the first has been confirmed by the fact that the elder essayists find themselves unable to take part in the discussion of the newer machinery. No modern writer on naval tactics would encumber his pages with a study of the galley period, and the maneuvers of a sailing fleet have also lost their place in professional education.
This inquiry does not undertake to deal with the problems of naval education or administration, and so has to put aside some of the most voluminous Congressional documents, as well as many interesting papers published by the Naval Institute. Still less is there any purpose of dragging in political discussions. These were tolerated in some of the published reports from military and naval officers before the Civil War, but the ablest pleas for the navy in the series of 1851—DuPont and Maury, for example—disclosed no partisan affiliations, though they were less discreet in regard to foreign affairs. Even economic questions of the day can be discussed without partisanship, as appears from the papers printed in the PROCEEDINGS 30 years ago, when the mercantile marine was the subject proposed for the prize-essay competition. A recent prize-essayist has chosen the same topic and developed it on lines of argument supplied by a merchant marine league founded by the late Senator Hanna, and these include the myth of "British gold" and other devices of the votaries of protection. The detached and dispassionate inquirer is fortunately on safer ground.
NATIONAL DEFENSE AND NAVAL PROGRAMMES.
Throughout the last century the champions of naval progress had to meet an effective opposition based on the project of 1816, by which the coast was to be guarded by fortifications alone, without strategic support from any mobile forces, either afloat or ashore. The author of the plan appears to have been General Bernard, an engineer who had served in the campaigns of Napoleon; but it was applied and defended for nearly half a century by General J. G. Totten, an able advocate by no means disposed to welcome progress in any branch of the public service. He did not shrink from high figures: 100 forts would be needed between Maine and the Mississippi, and a proportionate allowance was made in due course for Texas, Oregon, and California when these regions were annexed. The Great Lakes and the northern frontier were likewise to be guarded. Fortifications were relied upon to close all important harbors, to cover navy-yards, to deprive an enemy of bases of operations on our coast, to prevent the blockade of lines of interior communication, and to protect coastwise and interior navigation through bays and inlets. All this was to be accomplished by forts placed and armed to serve as barriers at the entrance of harbors; they were not to be equipped to stand a siege, and their batteries could not command a channel more than a mile in width. According to the estimate of 1851, 12,685 guns were required for the forts of the Atlantic and the Gulf; about half of these were actually mounted, including 4173 32-pounders and io85 24-pounders; and heavier batteries for the new works are not specified, though it was probably intended to increase the number of 10-inch columbiads and mortars already installed. Fort Adams, at Newport, was to mount 464 guns; Fort Warren, at Boston, 334; Fort Schuyler was to guard the East River with 318, and 298 were to be marooned on the Dry Tortugas. The garrisons in war were to furnish about five men to a gun, amounting to 62,3oo in all; but these would replace so many more troops that would be required while the harbors were left unfortified that the cost of fortifications would be balanced during a brief defensive or expectant campaign. This argument against raising an army when invasion was expected was not repeated after 1840, the report of 1851 having to deal with certain pleas put forward by advocates of the navy as an armament for defending the coast. A notable feature of the military doctrine was founded on a comparison between the cost of repairs for the fleet and that of maintaining forts "that will last and be available for centuries." This calculation allowed no armament or design to be accounted obsolete while cast-iron and masonry endured. Thus, Fort Severn at Annapolis was credited with its 14 guns, for which a detail of 60 men was required, and funds were asked for its completion in the report of 1851, which classed it among the efficient batteries.
The first notable critics of the plan of fortifications of 1816 were connected with the military establishment. General Lewis Cass, Secretary of War in 1836, denounced "the project of endeavoring to render our coast impervious to attack" as impracticable, and he urged "the maintenance of a fleet competent to meet any hostile squadrons that might be detached to our seas." He proposed to build floating batteries, propelled by steam and armed with heavy guns; "being transferable defenses, they can be united upon any point, and a few of them be thus enabled to protect various places." Holding that "our first and best fortification is the Navy," the Secretary urged naval preparations limited only by regard to the public revenues and the progress of other maritime nations, and these views were approved by President Jackson, though they were directly opposite to the conclusions of the board of engineers which reported in 1836.
The Navy Commissioners did not engage in the controversy, but they allowed the publication of a report from Lieutenant L. M. Powell, U. S. N., who appended to his remarks on the survey of the coast of Florida an eager plea for naval development as a means of defending the coast. In comparison with the 116 forts in which garrisons were to be distributed to await attack, Powell urged the advantages of a force that could transport men, artillery, and supplies to any scene of action along: the coast. A. fleet, moreover, stood ready to "resent insult and punish aggression" in any part of the world; and "the protection of commerce and the prevention of tedious negotiations" were a part of its natural functions. Against a force which could, as this "blue-water" champion argued, "secure our commerce in the peaceful transit of the sea and resist the restrictions imposed by our commercial rivals," the proposed "system of empty fortifications, inert and lifeless until awakened by the broadsides of an enemy," made a poor showing. Powell carried the quarrel into his military opponents' country by asserting that the system of 1816 had "wasted resources which would have been turned to the support of an efficient army; would have nurtured the military spirit of our people devoted to arms; would have sustained its discipline by keeping it embodied"; and this may have suggested the abandonment of the plea that fortifications made it unnecessary to levy troops to take the field during a war. The "Apalachicola document," as its critics called it without disclosing the name of its author, was uncompromising enough to insist that whatever policy of national defense we may adopt "must and ought to be pretty nearly exclusive in its application," while demanding the increase of the navy.
Such a document could not be altogether ignored, and Lieutenant H. W. Halleck, the strategist whom the War Department detailed as a sort of chief of the staff during the Civil War, undertook to support Totten and the board of engineers by a paper twice as long as that of Powell and by no means as original. Both writers appealed to history; but as they cited secondary historians of slight authority, their contradictions had little practical significance. Colonel Totten signed a further report in 1840 which opened with a serious criticism of the dangerous doctrine set forth by General Cass in 1836. Insisting upon "a complete independence of arrangement at every point" of the coast line to be defended and ignoring the capacities of a "fleet in being," it was shown that defense by gunboats or floating batteries had "the same intrinsic fault that an inactive defense by the navy proper has…the necessity of having an aggregate force as many times larger than that disposable by the enemy as we have important places to guard." All sorts of numerical comparisons were adduced to support this dogma, which, though it dates from 1840, has been employed by at least one officer still in active command in the army, and a force equivalent to 200 ships of the line was said to be the least that could be considered adequate for defending the Atlantic and Gulf coasts; "for it will be hardly contended that these defenses can be transported from one place to another as they may be respectively in danger." Steam would not help the defense, since the assailant could also employ it; and floating batteries would be driven from their positions by mortars mounted in bomb-ketches, with which the enemy was sure to provide him self. The navy was expected to limit its service in war-time to protecting our commerce and raiding unguarded harbors on the enemy's shores.
The Navy Commissioners had little opportunity to reply to these arguments, and it may be doubted whether they had any definite strategic principle to oppose to them. When asked in 1836 to specify the force and expenditure required to make the navy respectable in time of war, they had made the number of seamen available the basis of their reckoning: taking a third of those in the American merchant marine, the navy would have crews numbering 30,000, enough for 15 ships-of-the-line, and 25 or each of the four minor classes of -vessels, frigates, sloops, steamers, and smaller vessels. Timber and guns for 10 more ships-of-the-line and as many frigates should be accumulated. The completed navy would cost $30,315,000, 40 per cent of which was already 'provided. An allowance of $1,300,000 for the increase of the fleet would renovate the navy in 15 years and the estimates for construction and armament show that no tactical or strategical readjustment was contemplated. Steamers were to cost $225,000 each, as against $550,000 for a ship-of-the-line, and the figures for the battery were $45,000 and $3000, respectively. The new type was to be prepared to "defend our great estuaries, to aid in the operations of our other naval force, and in the concentration or movements of the military force." In short, they were to add to the functions of the Jeffersonian gunboats those of the navy-yard tugs of 1870 and those assigned to our torpedo-boats in 1898.
In 1840 the Navy Board had to deal with proposals for floating batteries and, though the decision against these auxiliaries allowed much to the advocates of the plan of fortifying the coast, the rudiments of strategy appear in the record. Recognizing the impracticability of securing all exposed points by this means, the commissioners urged the policy of extending those "movable defenses which can advantageously meet an enemy at the greatest distance from his meditated points of attack, or be soonest concentrated to retard his progress, or to repel him from our shores." This notion of concentrating a cruising fleet and defending a coast instead of a number of harbors was irreconcilable with the localized distribution of ships which Totten had set up as the only system of defense by naval means; and the latter theory should not have survived the partial tests it received during the Civil War. Yet the report of the Endicott Board on Fortifications showed that it still had some hold on the minds of naval officers in 1886—as it had upon the newspapers and the coastwise population in 1898. In spite of their references to "steam and ordinary ships-of-war" and other cautious phrases, the members of the last Board of Navy Commissioners were bold enough to prefer a force that would be "active—aggressive if necessary," to batteries that must be "almost wholly passive and strictly defensive."
In 1851 Congress decided to inquire whether the system of 1816 required to be modified on account of certain modern improvements. Railways had been advocated for strategic reasons in 1836 by General Gaines, who had insisted upon their utility in providing for the concentration of troops at points threatened with invasion. The engineers had reported that his proposed lines would cost over $108,000,000 for 6310 miles, even if the plan were practicable. All the lines had been built, however, by 1851; but Totten still argued that, as his forts were not built to stand sieges, the concentration of troops need not be provided for, and he enumerated many places where no aid could be derived from railways. A question relating to the application of steam to vessels-of-war and recent improvements in projectiles offered no difficulty to the defender of the plan of fortifications; and he disposed of a third query, the terms of which seem to reflect his familiar views, by the same line of argument; shipping of all types was grouped with "other temporary substitutes for permanent defenses," and he was asked what reliance could be placed on them. Totten was sure that his forts were permanent and that all ships were vulnerable—steamers being exposed to ten times as many injuries as sailing-ships; and the use of shells being altogether adverse to the naval claims, he declined to limit the scope of his plan of fortification, which he was now prepared to extend to the Pacific coast. Totten's assurance of "the danger attending every form of defense by naval means, and the intolerable expense of a full provision of these means," grew from his doctrine that "the defensive force at each point deemed worthy of protection must be at least equal in power to the attacking force," and his formula for multiplying ships to meet this demand.
Naval officers were also invited to express an opinion upon the questions formulated by Congress in 1851, though not to comment upon Totten's memorial. Commodore Charles Stewart, whose first commission dated from 1798, adopted the standpoint of the engineers, and argued that the use of steam required more forts, since ships could not be relied upon to guard the coast. Conmander DuPont amplified the plea of the engineers and urged that the navy should make the protection of commerce its principal duty in war. The alternative policy would, he wrote, involve vast expense and the loss of the "skill, daring, and endurance which give to the seaman his power and prestige on the ocean." He thought it fortunate that our progress in building steamers had been slow, though he envied England her screw ships-of-the-line and regretted that Spain's steam navy was larger than ours; but he argued our position might be regained by building heavily armed ships with auxiliary engines. In words which might have been quoted against him in the controversy over the withdrawal of the monitors from the attack on Charleston in 1863, DuPont added that, "compared with a sailing-ship, a steamer has 20 mortal parts to one . . . . No ship or ships can lay under a fort at this day; no American fort at least, with its furnaces for hot shot in addition to these murderous shells."
Strategic principles appear in the answer of Commodore Charles Morris, who declined to recommend any type of vessels as "substitutes for fixed fortifications," but claimed that the fleet might help to defend the country by intercepting or diminishing the enemy's force at sea, or by compelling him to defend his own shores. Commodore M. C. Perry also urged that the navy might be our chief defense if given "strength sufficient to protect our commerce in every sea, and in time of war to assume the offensive." Yet he proposed the distribution of naval vessels, including steamers, rams, and floating-batteries, for harbor defense—a proposal concerning which DuPont had asked, in terms as pertinent in 1898 as in 1851, "And how would a naval force for home defense be partitioned out to the different cities and stations without endless vexation, dissatisfaction, and dispute?" Lieutenant Dahlgren actually offered a diagram showing how IP ships of various types might be placed to oppose the advance of 20 steam frigates. As he allowed the forts an effective range short of 180o yards, such auxiliaries were indispensable. Lieutenant Lanman urged the strategic employment of steamers and armed vessels towed by steamers to prevent invasion. The enemy would not land close to a fort, and our fleet could baffle his attempt to land on unfortified beaches.
The most ardent champion of the navy as a factor in coast defense was Lieutenant Maury, the eminent hydrographer. His literary skill was remarkable, and his imaginative power even more so; he had mapped the telegraphic plateau for the Atlantic cable on the strength of a very few soundings; and his views in regard to the blockade of the Gulf coast were truly prophetic. Railways and telegraphs had made the system of 1816 obsolete for the Atlantic coast, and the completion of a transcontinental line at an early date would secure the Pacific states in the same fashion. The remaining function of the forts was "to protect our seaport towns from the great guns of big ships." The fact that the advocates of fortifications did not propose heavier batteries than 42- pounders was significant; and he denied that enough forts to guard the whole coast could ever be completed, though it was high time to thicken the parapets of existing works. Naval supremacy in our own waters was his maxim; the Gulf of Mexico required the presence of an active squadron to hold the enemy's forces in check. Otherwise the hostile fleet "could string itself at anchor along the coast, in sight of the very works built for defending it, and if our reliance were upon them, it might capture or dam up in stagnant ruin all the commerce of the Mississippi Valley." The hydrographer's hint about anchoring on the blockade may have been of use to his former comrades in later years, when Maury was in Europe trying to procure materials for defending the southern coast by mines and torpedo flotillas. The blockade was effective enough to prevent him from getting the supply of cotton with which payments were to be made and from shipping such gear as he could obtain to the ports where it was required. Even California might be starved into terms by a blockade unless the United States kept a squadron at San Francisco or built a railway to the Pacific, since the state (lid not produce breadstuffs for the population in 1851. Maury was not infallible, and some of his financial comparisons were as fallacious as those of the engineers. He allowed only $5,625,000 as the cost of a coastguard of 25 steamers, capable of discomfiting the fleet of an invader. But his plans for scouting and concentrating our forces, both afloat and ashore, by the aid of lines of telegraph and railways show that he was not lacking in strategic ideas.
Fortifications were not altogether condemned in Maury's report: he would have barrier forts at the entrance of important harbors; and Key West and Dry Tortugas should be fortified to secure the Gulf of Mexico for our navy, upon which Panama, Nicaragua and Tehuantepec would impose new obligations. The existing works should be armed with improved heavy ordnance; and powerful guns should be so mounted that they could be shifted to earthworks for protecting minor harbors and outlying positions—a notably modern suggestion. The notion that none of the forts should be prepared for i siege by land, taken in connection with the proposal to leave forts in the hands of state or local authorities and volunteer garrisons, might be taken as indicating a disloyal foresight; but Maury's confidence in our free institutions as our best defense was sincere. Invasion was impracticable, he declared; "unlike Europe, there are no disaffected people in this country for a foe to tamper with. The government is by the people, for the people, and with the people. It is the people." An American expedition would, however, be welcomed by "the down-trodden millions" of the Old World. Guerrilla warfare would baffle an invader. "An enemy planting his foot upon our soil could at best hold no more of it than that upon which he actually stands and covers with his guns," an opinion which Maury might have remembered before he joined Maximilian in Mexico in 1866. Slavery was ignored in his argument of 1851, though General Gaines had inserted in his plea for railways and floating batteries in 1839 some bitter words about abolitionists, along with a hint of his contempt for General Jackson; these advocates of human freedom were, he fancied, mere spies and pioneers subsidized to support English interests—like the favorers of free ships denounced by the prize-essayist of 1910. Maury's illusions were more generous, and his rhetoric was no warmer than that of the conservative DuPont, who also believed that we could filibuster in Europe and quoted "Her march is o'er the mountain wave," to show what we could do at sea.
During the four years of the Civil War Maury's prophetic view in regard to blockade was confirmed with decisive results. Totten's opinions were less fortunate; of all his barriers forts Sumter alone proved invincible to naval attack. He had written in 1851 that when Forts Jackson and St. Philip, below New Orleans, were completed no squadron, though it included 20 steamers built for war, could force its way up the river; an opinion which Farragut was able to disprove, though the shore batteries had the support of gunboats and obstructions. It was also recognized that neither New York nor Washington had been secured against attack from ironclads like the Merrimac by the existing fortifications. Experience showed that improvised earthworks were stronger than casemated forts; that submarine mines were the best type of obstruction for harbors: and that ironclads could engage forts at close range or run past them without serious injury.
These facts were obvious to the Fortification Board of 1886, the so-called Endicott Board, which included representatives from the navy. Admitting that the existing works were of little value, the board did not renounce the system under which they had been planned, though the number of harbors to be fortified was reduced to 27 and the number of guns in like proportion. The great Lakes were still to be guarded, but there was no hope of closing Long Island Sound or Chesapeake Bay to an enemy, and estimates for batteries at New Haven and Baltimore were prepared accordingly. Localized floating batteries and torpedo-boats were recommended, and these would have withdrawn 7500 men and a large body of officers from the fleet in time of war. The monitors and flotillas were to act against blockading forces, while the regular fleet was to find its field of action on the high seas "in protecting our commerce, in destroying the commerce of the enemy, and in making attacks upon undefended or important positions on his coast (thus forcing him to maintain a fleet at home), or in meeting and destroying his fleet." Though Admiral Sampson drafted this paper, its last clause is the only one indicating any strategic employment for the fleet.
The report of 1886 attracted the attention of Sir G. S. Clarke, now Lord Sydenham, who, in his Fortification (1890), deals roughly with British panic-mongers and their works: "Thus we have seen waves of coast defense which have strewn our shores with derelict fortifications technically bad, even in their own day, and now worthless, while the requirements of the field army have been uniformly ignored." He then refers to the "preposterous proposals" of the Endicott Board as setting up "extravagant standards attainable only by a people disposing of superabundant funds, and, if attained, adding nothing to national security," instancing the estimate for San Francisco as an extreme case. Whatever may be the verdict upon the proposed works on shore, which were not complete enough to prevent panic in 1898, the military problem of the present seems to be to find garrisons for the existing forts and to organize field forces to protect them from siege. It does not appear that harbors which might serve naval strategy as ports de sortie have been extensively fortified, though much attention is now given to the fixed defenses of the Isthmus and the insular possessions of the United States. The influence of the board's report on naval progress, though discounted by Admiral Mahan's demonstration of the futility of commerce-destroying cruises and raids, is embodied in the Minneapolis and the Monterey; types which will hardly be repeated or developed in future. But we no longer hear of groups of vessels for the defense of a single harbor; and it is now generally admitted that, "the primary requirement in war is that we shall be able to take the offensive at sea."
THE CONSTRUCTION AND ARMAMENT OF THE FLEET.
Naval strategy and national defense are still controversial topics, but there is little ground for debate concerning naval materiel as provided in the last century. The inventor of one generation may become the sworn guardian of tradition in the next; therefore, the citation of views which were obsolete before their supporters left the active list implies no censure; and names of note may be found in manifestoes against progress, while many rational innovators who fell short of high rank have been duly forgotten. As far as they relate to concrete weapons or mechanical designs, the notions of progressives and conservatives who flourished before 1901 are now obsolete and archaic. Yet they may still offer material for a chapter of the history of a service and illustrations of the tendency of doctrine to survive its useful applications. It may answer better to quote the average opinion, without much regard to rank, rather than that of the more articulate innovator or reformer. Representative views have more importance than those which may be more plausible and ingenious. Now and then, however, the innovator has been able to impose his views and to ask the service to mark time until his new device was perfected, or at least made practicable.
No close comparison of contemporary opinion in foreign services will be attempted, though the official papers of the British Navy would yield a harvest no less curious than our own. The retired captain or well-placed admiral given to saying that a thing "might be so in theory, but it would not work in practice," has had more to say in the Royal United Service Institution than in our Naval Institute. Yet dreadnoughts have been built, in spite of his warning "not to put all the eggs in one basket"; and our service, in which the education of junior officers was once in advance of the instruments committed to their charge, has outgrown many maxims due to instinctive conservatism. But we have had to contend with that patriotic prejudice which hesitates to adopt the conclusions of foreigners, and is unable or unwilling to repeat their experiments.
Occasionally a foreign writer was credited with authority in matters beyond his competence, or his influence was extended to a period when new conditions required new interpreters. This was notably the case with Sir Howard Douglas '(1776-1861), whose name was long prefixed to our standard work on Seamanship because he fancied that tacks and sheets would outlast coaling whips. This eminent soldier had an inherited interest in .the British Navy; he believed that his father had suggested the movement by which Rodney broke the French line in 1782; and he set forth that opinion in his Naval Evolutions 40 years later. His Naval Gunnery dated from 1820; and his Naval Warfare under Steam was written in the last decade of his long life. All these books demanded reforms, but the last of them also protested against progress in motive power, in construction, and in ordnance; and it was absurd to condemn improvements in any of these lines on an authority which had certainly become obsolete before 1865. Yet Admiral Luce was not the only compiler of text books for the Naval Academy who banned modern methods by citations from Sir Howard Douglas.
Steam versus Sails. Steamers were trading across the Atlantic before 1841, and the Navy Commissioners had been forced to recognize steam as an auxiliary to the extent of asking for 25 steamers along with 100 sailing-vessels required to make our naval forces respectable by 1851. The economic objection had to be reckoned with. Totten's arbitrary comparison between ships and forts made the most of his theory of multiple squadrons for defense. The excessive cost of repairs, under the practice which allowed for no change of type, but gave each ship an indefinite lifetime by patchwork—a system maintained up to 1883—counted against the development of the fleet by the construction of steamers. Moreover, as Totten pointed out, machinery-multiplied vulnerable parts and limited the battery in all steam-vessels. He could even invoke progressive ideas to limit naval increase; steam might soon be replaced by something more potent, so that a new steamer might be an incumbrance in ten years; therefore, he urged, "in relation to the preparation of steam-vessels for warlike purposes generally, that wisdom would seem to direct a very cautious and deliberate progress," though timber might be accumulated under the protection of his forts. Thus steamers could be built "when about to be needed." The opinions of such an expert might be disregarded had they not been echoed, upon different grounds, in the higher ranks of the navy.
Thus in 1851 Commander Cunningham had something to say for floating batteries, but made sailing frigates 240 feet long the vital element of the fleet. Had we ten of these armed with heavy guns, "it would take the combined steam navy of Great Britain to cope with them." He added, with some confusion in his grammar, this appeal to the traditions of the service: "As to the Opinion that is rife among us that steam alone can constitute an efficient navy, and that the nation who can command the greatest number of steamers is to hold supremacy on the ocean, I regard as one of those visionary speculations based entirely upon the opinions of mere theorists." Yet Commodore Perry was already convinced of the absolute necessity of employing steamers "in all naval operations." Even Cunningham would use them for towing and for transporting supplies; but two years of war would bankrupt any European power that armed a large steam navy; and he trusted that " our government will not be drawn into so unwise and expensive a system of national defense." DuPont accepted steam-power as an auxiliary in large frigates of the Princeton type, and this half-way doctrine had a long lease of life.
The Secretary of the Navy stated in 1856 that the Niagara, like the frigates of the Wabash type, had steam as an auxiliary only, thus "preserving unimpaired all the essential elements and capacity of the sailing-vessel." This unattainable standard was renounced by 1859, when the Wyoming class of sloops had "steam as the principal motive power, with sail as an auxiliary"; but most of this type fell to a 6-knot speed by the middle of their interminable career as cruisers. It is notorious that our commerce on the high seas lacked protection during the Civil War, and that the Wabash sisterhood had to be dismantled for service on the blockade. With the help of steamers of less stately types, including the monitors, the southern ports were closed, and the economic pressure dreaded by the conservatives of the navy was thus shifted to the shoulders of that belligerent who was forced to accept fortifications as the principal factor in coast defense. It had been proposed to purchase and arm sailing-vessels to pursue commerce destroyers or assist in the blockade, but the plan was dropped without experiment.
In March, 1869, the Navy Department passed from the hands of Secretary Welles, and his successor was advised and directed during a brief term, by the vice-admiral of the navy. After 40 notable general orders had been issued the wave of reform—or reaction—was checked. Staff officers had lost uniform and rank, which they soon recovered, Indian names, some of which had won honor in battle, had been replaced by classical or scriptural names for ships, which did not outlive the advent of a new Secretary in August. But the attempt to restore the old seamanship and customs of the service had a longer effect. The order to paint spars black and white was soon withdrawn, and the prohibition of shellac on lower decks also lapsed, for sanitary reasons, no doubt. But general order No. 128, prescribing 18 drills or "evolutions" with spars and sails for the routine of vessels in port was enforced for a whole generation. It was rarely found practicable to anchor or leave port under sail, but all hands could send down light yards, or even top-gallant masts, in a few minutes: and the "spirit of emulation" was directed that way. Full sail-power was to be restored to all vessels, including those then rigged as barks or schooners, whether they were at home or abroad; and then they were to do "all their cruising under sail alone, which will not only have the effect to economize coal and save expense, but will also instruct young officers in the most important duties of their profession." Captains might have their pay checked for using steam unnecessarily, but the exercises of a squadron were not so rigorously enforced. Doubtless there are some distinguished officers still alive who regard Admiral Porter's decrees as beneficial to the service, though others hold that the era of stagnation lasted as long as they prevailed.
Their educational theory was generally accepted. Thus in 1872 Captain Jeffers reported that the Constellation, then under his command, represented the only type fit for midshipmen to cruise in: one trained to handle such a ship would never "find himself at fault in handling a steamer; the evolutions are simpler, more accurately and promptly performed"—a remark opposed to the modern preference of teachers for passing from the simple to the complex. All naval steamers, the captain added, were "uncertain" while under sail, and this made officers so timid that steam was used in case of doubt. After all, since bad weather made our screw steamers helpless without the aid of sails, seamanship remained "the first attribute of an officer." Yet it was hard to live up to this doctrine when maneuvers were restricted by fine weather; "no information of value is conveyed by simulating under top-gallant-sails those required under close-reefed topsails." The prescribed routine, however, adhered to that sort of simulation and ignored the exact handling of steamers required for the day of battle.
The Advisory Board of 1881 recommended the construction of cruisers of an advanced and novel type, but added that "all classes of vessels should have full sail-power," the sails to have 25 times the area of the midship section, and the rejection of twin-screws naturally followed. When the "white squadron" vessels were designed Chief Constructor Wilson pointed out that the Chicago fell far below this proportion, and that the Atlanta was in worse case, and he proposed to substitute the design of the Vandalia, built in steel, in order to save coal. Captain Sampson applied- the formula of least resistance to these calculations, thus showing that the supposed economy was impracticable, and his testimony silenced the demand for full sail-power. The educational theory outlived the economical plea, and it had to be met by a new exposition of the nature of seamanship as the art of using the nautical equipment of the day with skill and confidence. Admiral Knight has shown that there was as much to be learned about ropes disdained by the old seamanship as about its favorite tacks and sheets; springs, fasts, and tow-lines, for instance, have replaced nine-tenths of the old running-gear; and, unless seamanship claims to be merely an arbitrary and immutable code, it has to deal with their management. Cruisers used to enter port with all the officers so intent upon shortening sail that such matters as pilotage had to be left to local practitioners; and dubious and timid navigation characterized the sailing period.
In 1931 the PROCEEDINGS contained a notable demand for the continuance of sail-power, at least in ships attached to the training stations. Captain Chadwick, to go back to the titles of that year, had urged nothing more; but some of his supporters went further. There was to be a period of training before transfer to the fleet "in ships fitted with sails only"; but, though several officers connected with the training service endorsed this plan, it was not made effective. Captain C. H. Davis made the proposal a text for an assertion that sails' had "kept the service and the spirit of the service alive when it was an alternative between sails and extinction." It was conservatism, he added, that had "carried us thro-ugh the disastrous years of decadence following the Civil War and fitted us for the changes" resulting from the reconstruction of the fleet. On the other hand, Captain Sigsbee asserted that he had become convinced while serving at the Naval Academy that "training with sail is not only of doubtful benefit to the service, but that it is very harmful." When he had attempted to teach modern—and therefore practical—seamanship he had been discouraged from preparing a text book to replace a certain compilation of "the fragmentary experiences of seamen from the beginning of time," on the ground that the prime necessity was to train midshipmen to work a ship under sail. The discussion was closed by a contribution from the retired list. Commander Rittenhouse declined to hold "skill in the use of sails and spars as the full and exact equivalent of seamanship." "So long as men go to sea, whether in sailing-ships, in mastless steamers, or in submarines, there will be seamen and there will be seamanship."
Iron and Steel in Naval Construction.—Fortified by the verdict of Sir Howard Douglas that there was "no worse material for ships' hulls than iron, except steel," our text books up to 1871, at least, held that iron vessels were "utterly unfit for purposes of war." Even in 1877 the Secretary of the Navy condemned the Ranger and her two consorts because they were "built of iron and uncased, a construction for many years discarded for cogent reasons." These had been stated in 1873 by an ingenious contributor to the Army and Navy Journal, who may have been an officer of rank, and his protest had a considerable body of service opinion behind it. The bottoms of iron ships would be eaten out, he said, by quicksilver from the gauges—he might have added from the absurd combined fog-horn and bilge-pump recently installed; the shattering of plates by a single shot might sink a ship. or grounding on a rock might be equally fatal; the local attraction of the compass would be a constant source of danger; the hull would be "excessively unhealthy, hot in summer, cold in winter, and never dry"; it would have to be cleaned in dock very often, and repairs would begin on launching, "to replace the ribs and rivets caned away in that process." Douglas had pointed out that, though it might be necessary to supply armor, the hull must still be of wood; otherwise, and especially if fitted with compartments, it would be ruptured on grounding by strains "tending to fracture it at the section which divides the filled from the unfilled portion." One of the largest monitors was built of wood at a navy-yard during the Civil War on this reasoning, though Ericsson's design called for iron construction. Douglas warned the Admiralty to accept no auxiliary vessel from the merchant marine if its compartments were enclosed in an iron hull. He also insisted upon the dangerous "compound effects of fragments of an iron ship" mixed with those of a bursting shell; and this warning long held a place in American service manuals.
Nevertheless, the Advisory Board of 1881 recommended the use of steel in all the large cruisers of the new navy; though the stock of timber at the navy-yards was so large and the workmen so well prepared to handle it that gunboats should be built of wood. From this recommendation three constructors and the senior engineer of the board dissented; Americans could manufacture iron plates more readily than steel, the importation of which would send money abroad and give profits to middlemen. Besides, steel had no advantage where rigidity was required, and the total saving of weight elsewhere would be only 3 per cent. "As the mild steel is more corrodible than the iron an additional thickness must be given to it," making the weight the same for "British mild steel or first-class American iron." There may have been a political appeal in this designation of materials, which took little account of experiment or the opinions of experts; but the objections to steel were somehow overruled.
Floating Batteries and Monitors.—In the American discussion of naval forces for coast defense these types held a place out of proportion to their final value. Though experiment was left to private enterprise, and the design of the Stevens battery was never accepted by the navy, a whole series of arguments in favor of floating batteries is extant: General Gaines urged, in 1836, the assignment of two or more such vessels to each of the principal harbors. Hulls from 200 to 300 feet in length and nearly half that beam could mount at least 100 guns, and tugs were to be provided to tow them into action or to force them along when rigged as ploughs to dredge the channels.
Inordinate expense was alleged by military and naval critics, and one of the latter objected to the creation of "a little military navy." General Totten opposed every plea for substitutes for fortifications, but admitted the necessity for floating batteries in certain bays and estuaries. Commander Cunningham, who believed in fighting under sail up to 1851, proposed steam floating batteries built of logs and plated with strips of iron six inches wide—Gaines had proposed "sheet iron of immense thickness" as armor. Cunningham would have the engines kept in store, but batteries of 10-inch guns and mortars were to be mounted. Du Pont had no confidence in such vessels, and he noted that a target of seven boiler plates, equal to the side of the Stevens battery, had been penetrated by a naval gun. Totten condemned all attempts to build shot-proof batteries; sides thick enough to keep out grape but so thin that shells might pass through both sides without bursting were all that were needed for any vessel. Commodore Perry proposed to have floating-batteries fight at such a range that there would be no risk from grape or splinters.
In spite of demonstrations in the Black Sea in 1855, the Civil War began before any armored vessel had been designed for our navy. Nor were officers prepared to make a critical examination of designs submitted by civilian engineers; the board which accepted the Monitor and the Ironsides also authorized the worthless Galena, the Chief Constructor declining to revise the plans because it was no part of his trade, and the rest of the board acting under pressure due to the panic which the Merrimac had begun to create. Crude as Ericsson's plans were—the wheel rotated with the turret in the original sketch and the substituted pilot-house was a dangerous obstruction—the Monitor did her work and sounded the knell of unprotected squadrons, and this success allayed panic in New York and Washington. Unfortunately, the general principle upon which these "shielded floating batteries were constructed was made an article of faith by the Navy Department, and attempts to promote tactical efficiency by meeting the demands of officers who became experts by fighting the monitors at Charleston and elsewhere met with no official or popular encouragement.
The board which approved the construction of the Monitor doubted whether any such vessel could cope with modern forts though they might run past to undertake "ulterior objects"—a view which failed to slow for mines and other obstructions. After a preliminary test under the guns at Fort McAllister, which convinced Admiral DuPont that the monitors were lacking in aggressive power, the defenses of Charleston were assailed on April 7, 1863. The six vessels which lay within moo yards of Fort Sumter were struck oftener than they were able to fire, and their captains discovered that, though the turrets were not penetrated, they were bulged inward or knocked out of the perpendicular by the impact of shot, and that, on the whole, they lacked "offensive power and endurance." The raft by which each vessel was to sweep away the mines also proved unmanageable, and DuPont declined to renew the attack. An officer who was present in the capacity of "general inspector of iron-clad steamers and harbor obstruction submarine shells," protested; the monitors had proved that their laminated plating was stronger than the solid armor of the Ironsides, though the casual observer might not agree with the "unprejudiced engineer" about this; and the attack had not been made in earnest because of prejudice on the part of the admiral and the captains. Chief Engineer Stimers having communicated these notions to the inevitable journalist, DuPont preferred charges, which a court of inquiry saw fit to ignore, after an aggressive plea from the accused, who had, he wrote, said "no more than he was authorized to say." DuPont had tried to justify his inaction "by attacking that system of war vessels which has already, in my opinion, given us a more effective fleet than is possessed by any other nation . . . . An assault upon the system can but recoil upon the assailant." So it proved, and DuPont was dismissed from his command; but his successor, Admiral Dahlgren, did nothing to demonstrate that the monitors were invincible.
Stimers went on to supervise the construction of 20 light draft monitors of 700 tons, oval tanks with flat bottom, and vertical sides enclosed by a raft of timber faced with armor. Such was Ericsson's original idea; but the design was modified without his consent or that of the chiefs of the bureaus of construction and engineering. Some additions in weight were due to the introduction of patented devices by interested draughtsmen, and Stimers was blamed for adding tanks or compartments to the hull. The completed vessels sunk 16 inches below their estimated draft of 6 feet as soon as the turret was put on board; and this made the deck awash. Besides being unseaworthy, these monitors had a speed of only 4 knots, their propellers being enclosed in a box. It was proposed to turn a few of them into torpedo-boats, without their turrets; but the lack of speed and the length of 225 feet made them unfit for that purpose. Stimers tried to defend himself at the expense of his superiors, who met his challenge by writing to the newspapers, of course; but his day was over, and he was ordered to sea. Official support and the suppression of criticism had ruined his career—to say nothing of the wasted millions. He claimed that he had done much to improve the design of other monitors, which, had he not disobeyed orders from Washington, would have been encumbered with spars and sails; but it is evident that the constant criticism of sea-going officers was indispensable if the crudities of the original plan were to be corrected.
The attempt made to show that the larger monitors were fit for long cruises in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans was meant to impose on public opinion rather than upon that of the service; and the repaired monitors which appeared at Key West during the demonstration of 1874 were not regarded as tactical units. Unsytematic patchwork had not made them seaworthy; but five double-turreted monitors were designed to take their place. These were all launched by 1883, though a pair of them were not fit to be commissioned before 1898. The problem of employing monitors in warfare was never settled by practical tests. New York and Philadelphia had demanded such defenses in 1862, and the Navy Department was forced to distribute worn-out specimens to allay local panic in 1898, regardless of their tactical value and strategical principles. John Bright, a friend to the American cause as well as that of peace, hoped in 1863 that the heavier monitors might "be used only for defense, and be unable to cross the ocean"; and the experience of the Spanish war justified his expectations. Neither the monitors which masqueraded as battleships on the Cuban coast nor the pair whose baffling voyage in the Pacific hampered strategy in the Philippines justified the perpetuation of the type; yet four monitors were authorized by Congress in 1898. The opinion of the Endicott Board of 1886 might have been cited in their favor, but the navy had long outgrown the doctrine of 1865, as set forth in the history which Dr. Boynton was made a professor and chaplain to write. It asserted the superiority of our fleet to that of any foreign power and based that claim largely upon the fighting qualities of the early monitors. In 1877, on the other hand, the Secretary of the Navy found, from his experience with that type, that "heavy armor-plated, gun-bearing vessels are not capable of sea-service. They are suited for little else than harbor defense, and may be likened to movable fortifications." Whatever the monitors might deserve, this was too harsh a criticism of existing battleships; but of these the department had only imperfect descriptions accompanied by invidious comments from prejudiced officers.
Rams and Torpedo-Boats.—The tactical function of these weapons, at least in the types known before 1901, was so nearly identical that they may be classed in the same series, provided we allow that the ram could not survive the modern development of the automobile torpedo—a fact which those responsible for the construction and armament of several of our battleships were rather slow in recognizing. Tactical theory also granted too much to the rams, and their overestimate of the value of end-on fire hindered the adoption of that flexible single-column formation which has characterized recent naval engagements. It was natural that advocates of naval progress in 1851 should urge the construction of long, narrow, and deep vessels to be used as projectiles under steam. Commodore Perry thought that they might be built of either wood or iron; Commander Cunningham would use heavy timber with longitudinal strips of iron let into the planking; Admiral L. M. Goldsborough would admit armor, but he felt that a battery would be "of more harm than good in the long run." Admiral Ammen's campaign .for vessels of this type seemed to have the support of the Advisory Board of 1881, which recommended five rams, though unable to insist upon the construction of any armored ships. The Katandin was the sole result of this proposal, and her usefulness began when she was made a target for the broadsides of the fleet.
The Advisory Board also recommended the construction of torpedo-boats of light tonnage, but, like those planned by the Endicott Board in 1886, the flotillas were only fit to be localized for harbor defense. The theory of ramming, which had gained nothing during the Civil War, was revived after the battle of Lissa in 1867, but without practical result. The modern battleship should be able to sink rams by her torpedoes or her guns, and destroyers and submarines could prevent them from intruding upon the line of battle.
Ordnance and Gunnery.—Prior to 1841 the aggregate cost of guns is the main element of the problem of arming forts and ships. Neither the Navy Commissioners nor the Board of Engineers contemplated any change of type or increase in caliber. Of the 10,000 guns to be mounted on shore, the majority were to be 32-pounders, though some 42-pounders were in use; and the 4000 guns of the navy were of even lighter weight. When comparisons were in order caliber was not taken into account; thus a ship-of-the- line costing $500,000 could mount only 80 guns, which must be rated at over $6000 each; but Fort Adams could be armed with 458 cannon at $3000 each for the cost of the masonry. In either case, the expense of casting the guns was slight. For a steamer carrying ten guns the cost of mounting might be reckoned at $60,000 apiece. The demand for columbiads and other heavy shell-guns soon spoiled these estimates, and by 1851 even General Totten had to accept the new armament for his forts, though he insisted that ships would have to use solid shot to batter masonry. Yet he made no estimate for rearming the fortifications, and thus gave Maury and Dahlgren occasion to criticize. He might, however, have quoted Sir Howard Douglas, who was still convinced that the British navy could not afford to employ shells with time fuses, which he called "an atrocious kind of warfare"—an expression reflecting public opinion in England after the destruction of the Turkish squadron at Sinope in 1853 by Russian ships armed with Paixhan guns. No scruples were apparent during the Crimean War; and the American Navy followed its tradition in increasing the armament of steamers built before 1861 to 9-inch guns in broadside and 11-inch mounted on pivoting carriages.
All these were cast-iron smooth-bores; the failure of the Princeton's wrought-iron gun had discouraged experiment, and there was little talk of rifled cannon prior to 1861. The Parrott rifles rendered good service during the Civil War, but their trick of bursting left them in discredit. Thus in 1864 Admiral Dahlgren could tell Congress that all that was needed to provide the fleet with the best ordnance was the purchase of certain deposits of ore from which the best casting could be made. The interested advocates of rearming the navy with cast-iron guns about 1884 could cite plenty of such opinions. Dahlgren disliked Rodman's plan of hollow-casting, and he described his own design—which related only to exterior lines and the distribution of metal—as "an invention and in nowise the result of experiment." There had been no experimental determination of the charge of powder, and the monitors had to fight with reduced charges, which prevented their guns from doing all that they should have accomplished against masonry or armor. For endurance, the test was to fire 1000 rounds from sample guns, and Dahlgren held that it was useless to seek for accuracy and penetration beyond 2000 yards, the maximum range for naval actions. Rifled cannon were therefore condemned, with much stress upon reported failures of British weapons. His successor in the Bureau of Ordnance, Captain H. A. Wise, favored no change, and he thought the bureau should be "the safeguard of the service against the monstrous and visionary schemes of would-be inventors and speculators." There was much talk at the Naval Academy and elsewhere in the later 60's of the advantages of the Dahlgren guns, due in part, it was assumed, to the smashing or racking effect of their shot against armor. As rifled guns lost the chance of hitting by ricochet, Admiral Porter argued in 1869, a battery of 11-inch smooth-bores could beat twice as many rifled guns if the vessels fought in a sea-way.
Dahlgren's final opinion, as stated in 1868, was that, though an experimental station might be useful, we need take little account of the inclination of the French and English for rifled cannon, the experience of battle having largely corrected that tendency in our navy. Yet DuPont was counted among the dissenters from this current opinion. Dahlgren felt that the service would give him credit for his intolerant attitude toward breech-loaders; at any rate, "the plan of loading at the breech is exploded and dismissed." It should be remembered that the failure of the first heavy rifles made by the Armstrongs for the Crimean campaign had produced a reaction in England, and that the British navy was still armed with muzzle-loading rifles in the '80's. American midshipmen were called upon to recite from Cooke's Gunnery (2d edition, 1880), that loading at the breech did not make fire more rapid, since pointing took longer than loading; and that, though breech-loaders might be made longer, it was of no use to make them lighter, since weight was necessary to enable the recoil to be regulated. Self-satisfaction was not universal, however, and Admiral Case, chief of the Bureau of Ordnance—which had been forced to lend money to other bureaus—regretted in 1870 our "virtual abandonment of all effort to solve the great ordnance questions of the day." His successor, Admiral Jeffers, urged in 1874 "the entire rearmament of the navy with breech-loading rifled cannon," adding the curious argument that it could be done cheaply while we had so few vessels to arm. In practice he did not get beyond the Palliser system by which 11-inch smooth-bores became 8-inch rifles with unhandy carriages and doubtful tubular linings. The Advisory Board of 1881 had the data of Krupp's experiments to work on, and it was declared "imperatively necessary that a reliable type of high-powered, rifled, breech-loading guns should be introduced into the service," specifying steel built-up guns 26 calibers long. This put the ordnance question on a sound basis, and the experimental station has furnished the data for further progress. It should not be forgotten, however, that systematic target-practice was not carried out before the Spanish war and that black powder was still in use in 1898. Nor were the observed results of firing at hostile ships of much value for solving the problem of future armaments and their use. They were too often interpreted in favor of the particular type of guns carried by the observer's ship, and there was the inevitable tendency to claim accuracy of fire as a patriotic duty. Whether the evidence favored the advocates of "all-big-gun" battleships is questionable, but that formula did not survive reconsideration, and, though we still talk of super-dreadnoughts, the anti-torpedo guns amount to a formidable battery.
CONCLUSION.
That service opinions should have been discordant at various periods is natural enough; but the survival of obsolete rules of practice as the basis of conservative tradition is a more serious phenomenon. Unanimity would have made matters worse, but there was, in fact, little opportunity for protest or even for discussion. Rank was apt to mean conservatism, and the instinct of subordination, combined with that for belonging to the majority, tended to make criticism frivolous, because it had to be unofficial and without effect. Captious talk can be of no benefit to the service, but a serious statement of definite opinion is urgently required for the solution of pressing questions whenever new forces can be applied to the fleet. The views of mechanical experts are not all that is required; the sea-going officer has to accept and understand the instruments which he alone can render efficient, and the art of forming and expressing opinions relating to technical problems can only be attained by making it a part of his professional education. There is no higher branch of naval training than that which gives promptness and clearness in dealing with critical situations by a definite analysis. Even in these days of specialization every officer is bound to hold a wide range of technical views and to be able to apply them with prompt and fearless discretion. The art of acquiring and formulating such opinions is now taught at the War College and in some of the post-graduate courses of the Naval Academy, but its general cultivation among the officers cruising in the fleet may still require attention.
Thirty years ago an essay by the present writer was honored by publication in the PROCEEDINGS OF THE NAVAL INSTITUTE, and in that appeal from the era of stagnation there was a suggestion in favor of the promotion of intellectual activity in the navy by means of required essays on elective topics. It was proposed to have the papers pass through official channels, each superior noting a serious comment on matters within his competence, and a Special director classifying those which required to be committed to experts. Publication in these PROCEEDINGS or elsewhere might be the lot of the more popular and readable essays. Technical criticisms might require reserved treatment, and personalities would, of course, be returned to their authors. It is possible that the information thus collected might be of considerable value; and it is certain that the habit of expressing one's opinions in a form that would be intelligible to higher authority and not beneath the criticism of experts in the service would be a valuable development of the professional aptitudes of the younger officers of the navy.
NOTE.—The "Report on Permanent Defenses," which has furnished a large part of the citations given above, has not been discovered in any of the official indexes to Congressional public documents. Yet it is a book of 528 pages and includes the paper by Maury and others of historical interest. It is therefore identified as House of Representatives Report, No. 86, 37th Congress, 2d session (1862). Powell's "Apalachicola Report" was not then reprinted, but it had appeared as House Document No. 220, 37th Congress, 2d session (1842).