THE NAVY DURING THE CIVIL WAR, 1861-1865.
President Lincoln has briefly described the work of the navy during the Civil War in most characteristic words, written on August 26, 1863, in response to an invitation to attend a mass-meeting of "unconditional Union men" to be held at Springfield, Illinois, the President's home town. Having referred to the achievements of the army at Antietam, Murfreesboro and Gettysburg, he paid his respects to its sister-service: "Nor must Uncle Sam's web-feet be forgotten. At all the watery margins they have been present. Not only on the deep sea, the broad bay, and the rapid river, but also up the narrow, muddy bayou, and wherever the ground was a little damp, they have been and made their tracks. Thanks to all."
The principal work of the navy during the war was the blockading of the coast of the Southern states and the patrolling of their sounds, bayous and larger rivers. The length of the coast blockaded, measured from Alexandria, Virginia, to the Rio Grande, was 3549 miles. A large part of the coast presented a double shore. There were 189 harbors, openings to rivers, or indentations to be guarded. On the Mississippi River and its tributaries the gunboats traversed and patrolled 3615 miles; and on the sounds, bayous, rivers and inlets of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, about 2000 miles. For the purposes of blockade and patrol the waters surrounding the Confederate states were divided into six divisions, and a squadron under the command of a flag-officer or rear-admiral was assigned to each. The Potomac flotilla patrolled the waters of the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers. After 1862 it was chiefly employed in suppressing illicit commerce and unauthorized communications with the Confederates. In September, 1862, the original Atlantic and Gulf blockading squadrons were each divided. Two squadrons, the North Atlantic and South Atlantic, blockaded the Atlantic coast. The line of division between them was the boundary between North and South Carolina. The territory of the East Gulf squadron extended from Cape Canaveral to Pensacola; and that of the West Gulf squadron, from Pensacola to the Rio Grande. In 1864 the limits of the East Gulf squadron were extended so as to include the waters of Cuba and the Bahamas. The Mississippi flotilla held open for the Unionists the Mississippi River and its chief tributaries, and prevented the Confederates west of the river from trading or communicating with those east of it. In 1864 the waters traversed by the Mississippi flotilla were divided into ten naval districts, and a naval officer was placed in command of each of them. At the beginning of the war the blockading of the extensive coast of the Confederacy was deemed impossible by many, both at home and abroad. By the fall of 1861, however, it was an accomplished fact and it remained so throughout the war. Still, at no time was it wholly impossible for a Confederate privateer or a neutral adventurer to enter the Southern ports or escape therefrom.
Next in importance to blockade duties, were the operations of the navy, alone or in co-operation with the army, against the batteries, forts and fortified towns on the seacoast and rivers of the Confederacy. The first important operations of this sort were the capture of Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina, by Commodore Silas H. Stringham and General B. F. Butler in August, 1861; the reduction of Forts Walker and Beauregard and the occupation of Port Royal, South Carolina, by Commodore S. F. Dupont and General Thomas W. Sherman in November, 1861; and the taking of Forts Henry and Donelson, in Kentucky, by Commodore A. H. Foote and General U. S. Grant in February, 1862. To the same class belong Farragut's memorable achievements at New Orleans, Vicksburg and Mobile; Porter's at Fort Fisher, Dupont and Dahlgren's at Charleston, and the perilous and daring campaigns of Flusser and other gallant officers on the sounds and rivers of North Carolina. In reducing the fortified places on the Mississippi River and its tributaries, the services of the Mississippi flotilla were exceedingly valuable. Porter said that no vessels of the navy engaged in so many successful battles or made such a record for their commanding officers as did those on the Mississippi. During the first months of the war, the Potomac flotilla found employment in silencing the Confederate batteries which were planted on the banks of the Potomac River.
Many ships were sent in pursuit of the Confederate commerce-destroyers. On one occasion about thirty vessels were searching for a single ship of the Confederates, the Tacony, which is said to have been the only " rover" that attacked our navy at the entrance of our harbors. In the summer of 1862 a flying squadron, under the command of Acting Rear-Admiral Charles Wilkes, was established in the West Indies to capture the enemy's rovers and blockade runners. The Confederate rovers or commerce-destroyers inflicted an enormous damage on American commerce and nearly drove it from the seas. The most destructive ships were the English- built vessels Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Shenandoah. The permitting of these vessels to sail by the British government was regarded by the United States as a breach of the laws of neutrality. The Alabama, Captain Raphael Semmes, destroyed some 6o vessels and $10,000,000 worth of property. She was finally sunk by the U. S. S. Kearsarge, Captain John A. Winslow, off Cherbourg, in June, 1864. The Florida, after having captured 21 vessels, was Seized in the harbor of Bahia, in October, 1864.
During the war the expenditures of the navy were vastly increased, and were at the time wholly unprecedented. The net expenditures rose from $12,000,000 for the fiscal year 1861 to $123,000,000 for 1865. The largest annual appropriations for the navy were for the fiscal year 1863, and amounted to $144,000,000. The total expenditures for the navy during the war were $314,000,000; the average annual expenditures were $73,000,000. The expenditures for the navy, however, were only 9.3 per cent of the total expenditures of the federal government. The total value of the vessels captured and destroyed by the navy was about $31,500,000. Many of these belonged to neutrals and were captured while trying to run the blockade. The value of the captured vessels alone was placed at $24,500,000. The number of vessels captured and sent to the courts for adjudication was 1149; the number destroyed, 355; total, 1504. In 1868 the Navy Pension Fund, which is derived from one-half the proceeds arising from the sale of prizes, amounted to $14,000,000.
The purchase and construction of vessels constituted a large source of expenditure. On March 4, 1861, the number of vessels in the navy, including receiving ships, vessels in ordinary, and ships both in and out of commission, was only 9o. In December, 1864, when the navy was at or near its maximum strength, it contained 671 vessels. Their total tonnage was 510,396 tons, and they were armed with 4610 guns. From 1861 to 1866, 179 vessels were built and launched, and 497 were bought or transferred from some other executive department to the navy. These figures do not include the "stone fleet" of 78 vessels, which were purchased and sunk as obstacles to navigation. Still other ships were placed on the stocks, but they were not completed. The department-purchased 313 steamers, at a cost of $18,000,000. The 179 ships that were constructed and completed during the war were all steam vessels. Fifty-five of them were built by the department at the Northern navy-yards, and 124 were constructed under contract. The cost of most of the vessels built during the war ranged from $75,000 to $650,000. The highest-priced vessel, the Madawaska, however, cost $1,673,000. The cost of the purchased vessels ranged, as a rule, from $10,000 to $60,000. The largest price, $595,000, was paid for the prize-ship Tennessee. The 671 vessels that comprised the fleet in December, 1864, were of the following classes: Screw steamers especially constructed for naval purposes, 113 ; paddle-wheel steamers especially constructed for naval purposes, 52; ironclad vessels, 71; steamers, chiefly purchased or captured, and fitted for naval purposes, 323: sailing vessels of all kinds, 112. Of the 671 vessels, 559 were steam vessels.
The department purchased every available merchant steamer in the Northern ports that could be advantageously converted into a naval vessel and used on the blockade. Great pressure was brought to bear on the department to buy ships that were unfit for blockade duty. The purchased vessels are said to have represented every style of marine architecture "from Captain Noah to Captain Cook." The best market for vessels was at New York and many ships were obtained at that city. In the summer of 1861 Secretary Welles appointed a board, composed of a naval constructor, engineer and ordnance officer, to reside at New York, to visit all ships offered to the department and to determine their fitness and adaptability for naval purposes. The Secretary appointed Mr. George D. Morgan to act as the purchasing agent of the department. Morgan purchased the ships, guarded the interests of the public by investigating and certifying titles, and in general managed the mercantile and legal side of the transactions. He was a brother-in-law of Mrs. Gideon Welles, and was regarded by the Secretary as a man of great integrity, commercial experience and capacity for business.
A steam tug was placed at the disposal of Morgan and the board of inspection, and they proceeded daily for many weeks to inspect the vessels offered to the department in and near New York. By December 4, 186r, Morgan had purchased 90 vessels, at a cost of $3,500,000—a reduction of 25 per cent on the prices first asked by the owners. His commission was 272 per cent of the cost-price, and was paid by the seller. This was the rate and method of levying established by the New York Chamber of Commerce. His income for five months' work amounted to $70,000. Welles was severely criticised for nepotism in employing his brother-in-law; for paying him so large a commission; and for levying it on the seller, who, of course, raised his selling-price accordingly. In January, 1862, the Senate Naval Committee made a report adverse to Morgan's agency, declaring that the practice of levying commissions upon the selling-price of ships was reprehensible. It should be said, however, that the New York Chamber of Commerce had established this custom and had fixed the agent's commission at 272 per cent. That Morgan performed his work skilfully and honestly was not questioned. John Murray Forbes, who regarded Welles as an "honest old Democratic editor who knew but little of business," said in February, 1862, that Morgan's work was, "without being perfect, the best done of any that the government had yet done, always excepting Stanton's slaying of the Satanic."
The method of purchasing vessels followed at some of the other Northern seaports was similar to that at New York. At Boston, during July and August, 1861, a commission composed of Commodore W. L. Hudson, the commandant of the Boston navy-yard; Mr. J. C. Delano, of New Bedford; and Mr. John Murray Forbes, of Boston, purchased merchant ships for the navy, fitted them for sea and selected some of their officers. Forbes, who was a most highly esteemed and successful merchant of Boston, showed great public spirit during the war, and rendered the Navy and War Departments invaluable aid. In April and May, 1861, he procured and fitted out the transports that carried the troops of his state to the relief of Washington, and he merited the title, which he won, of "Secretary of the Navy of Massachusetts." The members of the Boston commission, in sharp contrast to Morgan, made no charges for their services, and Forbes was inclined to believe that they even paid their traveling expenses. After the commission was dissolved, Forbes continued, when called upon, to serve the Navy Department. In January, 1862, he was directed by Secretary Welles to charter a vessel for three months or a longer period to go in pursuit of the Confederate commerce-destroyer Sumter, and to suggest proper men for commander and masters of the chartered vessel.
The first vessels of the Mississippi flotilla were three Ohio River steamers, which were purchased at Cincinnati in May and June, 1861, by Commander John Rodgers, and were converted into gunboats. During 1861 and a part of 1862 the Mississippi flotilla was under the control of the War Department, although its vessels were commanded by naval officers. In September, 1861, Commodore A. H. Foote assumed command of the flotilla. In August Quartermaster-General Meigs of the War Department contracted with James B. Eades, the celebrated civil engineer, to build seven ironclad gunboats. Such were the energy and celerity with which Eades performed his work that two weeks after entering upon his contract he had 4000 men in his employ, and within 100 days he had completed his vessels, their aggregate tonnage being 5000 tons. On October 12, 1861, the first of these gunboats was launched, with her boilers and engines on board. She was named the St. Louis by Commodore Foote, and wag the first completed ironclad in the United States. Before the war ended, more than Too vessels were stationed on the Mississippi River and its tributaries."
Many of the ships purchased for the navy were not adapted for naval purposes, and therefore wore out rapidly and soon needed extensive repairs. Some of the old ships of war could not be used in shallow waters. On the blockade, the navy needed many light-draft, heavily armed vessels; and before Congress met in July, 1861, the Navy Department had contracted for the construction of 23 gunboats, of the Unadilla type. Four months after the date of their contracts, several of these vessels were afloat, and were armed, manned and commissioned in time to participate in the first important naval operation of the war, the capture of Port Royal, in November, 1861. Next, the department built several larger ships, adapted to deep-sea navigation, such as the Ossipee, Kearsarge, and Shenandoah. As the war progressed, the naval service required vessels of various other types, the designing of which fell, in large part, to the Bureaus of Construction and Repair and Steam Engineering. They turreted monitors, after they had been tested in the memorable engagement between the Monitor and the Merrimac in March, 1862, were especially favored by the department, the press and public opinion. Various other kinds of ironclads were constructed. A "double-ender," with a bow and rudder at each end, was devised in order to obviate the necessity of turning the vessels in the narrow channels of the Southern rivers and inlets. Thirty-seven of these were built, some of iron and others of wood. Each year of the war saw produced in foreign shipyards blockade-runners of greater and greater speed. For the purpose of capturing these ships, and English commerce-destroyers in case of a war with the mother-country, the construction of seven fast cruisers of increased steam-power and of decreased armament was commenced in 1863. Two vessels of this type, fitted out with Isherwood's machinery, were completed after the close of the war, the Wampanoag and Ammonoosuc.
In the construction of vessels, both private and public enterprise were drawn upon by the department. All the public navy-yards and many private shipyards were pressed to their utmost capacity. There were but few eminent ship-builders or manufacturers of steam engines that were not in the employ of the government. Not a little rivalry and jealousy arose between public and private builders of ships and engines. The work of the Secretary of the Navy was severely criticised, and malignantly misrepresented. The department was accused of procrastination and needless delays. It was asserted that the hulls of its new vessels were defective, their engines worthless, and their speed far below the requirements of the navy. Isherwood's steam machinery was the subject of incessant attack. He was represented as a mechanical theorist and visionary, who loaded the naval ships with excessive and defective machinery. The critics of the department generally knew little of the magnitude, complexity and difficulties of its work, and were rarely impartial and discriminating in their criticisms. Several vessels were built by private enterprise with the avowed purpose of proving the faults alleged to exist in the practice of the department, but competitive tests between the vessels of private and of public construction showed the superiority of the latter. Mr. E. N. Dickerson, an engineer, and Mr. Paul S. Forbes, a responsible capitalist of New York City, were especially outspoken in their criticisms of the department. They were finally given an opportunity to prove their assertions by being permitted to build the machinery of the steamers Algonquin and Idaho after their own plans. On trial the vessels failed completely to substantiate the claims of Forbes and his engineer. The Idaho fell short of her required speed almost one-half. When Forbes refused to fulfill his contracts, the Secretary of the Navy declined to accept the vessels or to pay for them. Thereupon Forbes appealed to Congress, and that body forced the vessels upon the department.
Another controversy, which caused much ill-feeling, arose over the introduction into the navy of mastless war vessels. The traditions and conservative instincts of the old navy were opposed to these ships. Not a few officers regarded them as "engineers' vessels" and as overloaded with machinery. The most important ships of this type developed by the Civil War were the monitors, or turreted ironclads, whose operations demonstrated the utility and practicability of armored vessels and of the turret system of mounting guns, and revolutionized modern naval warfare. In 1861 wooden screw-propelling steamships were the latest and most improved type of vessels in the American navy. In the European navies a few ironclads had been built and were building, but this type of vessel had hardly passed the experimental stage.
In introducing armored ships, the Confederates showed much enterprise. In May, 1861, S. R. Mallory, the Confederate Secretary of the Navy, wrote that "not only economy, but naval success, dictates the wisdom and expediency of fighting with iron against wood, without regard to first cost. Early in 1862 Mallory had several ironclads nearing completion. The Merrimac was converted into an ironclad battery, and on March 8 made her famous raid upon the. Unionist shipping at Hampton Roads, Virginia, capturing the Congress and sinking the Cumberland.
The Federal government proceeded with deliberation and caution. As early as March, 186i, the attention of the department was directed by a correspondent to the subject of ironclads. On July 4, 1861, Secretary Welles recommended the appointment of a board to report respecting "ironclad steamers or floating batteries." On August 4 Congress authorized the Secretary of the Navy to appoint a board consisting of three skilful naval officers "to investigate the plans and specifications that may be submitted for the construction or completing of iron- or steel-clad steamships or steam-batteries." Should the board report favorably, the Secretary of the Navy was authorized to cause one or more such vessels to be built. For their construction Congress appropriated $1,500,000.
Welles at once appointed the Ironclad Board, choosing as members of it Commodores Joseph Smith and Hiram Paulding and Commander C. H. Davis. On September 16 the board made a conservative report, which, however, was favorable to the construction of ironclads. Its members confessed to having had no experience in this branch of naval architecture and but little knowledge of the subject. For the defense of coasts and harbors it conceived that ironclads would be formidable adjuncts to the fortifications on land, but it doubted whether these ships would prove to be valuable cruising vessels. Of the seventeen plans that were submitted to it, the board recommended that three be accepted, those of Bushnell and Company of New Haven, Merrick and Sons of Philadelphia, and John Ericsson of New York. The contracts were let and work upon the three vessels was commenced in the fall of 186i. Each ironclad was of a different type, and all were completed in 1862. The Galena, owing to deficient armor, was a failure. The New Irons-ides rendered good service until the end of the war. The third vessel was the Monitor, built after the plans of Ericsson.
Externally, the Monitor looked like a long oval raft with a single tower in the center, a "cheese-box on a raft." She had an extraordinary low free-board. Her extreme length was 172 feet; extreme breadth, 41 feet, 6 inches; depth of hold, 11 feet, 4 inches; mean draft, 10 feet, 6 inches; and height of turret, 9 feet. She had five layers of one-inch iron on her hull, and eight layers on her single steam-rotating turret, where were installed two 11-inch Dahlgren guns. She was built under the direction of Joseph Smith, chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks, and president of the Ironclad Board. John Lenthall, chief of the Bureau of Construction and Repair, had no faith in Ericsson's plans, declaring that the Monitor would sink when she was launched. Many other naval officers had strong doubts of her seaworthiness. While she was building, the department was much ridiculed and abused for its novel experiment in naval architecture. She was sometimes referred to as "Ericsson's Folly." Welles, who was early convinced of her merits, gas unmoved by the clamor. Credit for her construction is said to belong largely to the Secretary of the Navy, for appreciating her possibilities and for his action in influencing the board to approve the original plans; to her distinguished inventor, John Ericsson; to Chief Engineer A. C. Stimers, who superintended her construction; and to the Ironclad Board and especially its president, Rear-Admiral Joseph Smith. The opportune appearance of the Monitor at Hampton Roads and her dramatic fight with the Merrimac on March 9, 1862, are familiar to all students of history. The epoch-making character of this engagement in the annals of naval warfare, and the timeliness of her victory to the North, make the Monitor one of the most famous ships of the American navy.
The success of Ericsson's vessel gave a great impetus to the building of ironclads, and especially those of the monitor type. The newspapers which before the fight at Hampton Roads bitterly declaimed against the new ship now became its warmest partisans. A "monitor heresy" (in the view of some of the naval experts) swept over the country. A "monitor-ring" encouraged the craze. Both Welles and Fox were champions of the new type of ship. On March 31, 1862, Welles contracted with its distinguished inventor for six new monitors, to be built on a somewhat improved plan. On March 25 he recommended that $30,000,000 be appropriated for ironclads, ordnance and armor-plate. Already on February 13, Congress, in response to a recommendation in Welles's annual report for 1861, had appropriated $10,000,000 for ironclad steam gunboats. The opinion of many naval officers was by no means favorable to the monitors, although they were rated highly by Porter, Dahlgren and John Rodgers. The awkward appearance of these vessels, their restricted and uncomfortable quarters and the difficulties of navigating them contrasted unfavorably with the trim, capacious and manageable ships of the old types. They were regarded by some of the principal naval officers as deficient in offensive powers. A considerable difference of opinion respecting their merits arose between the Navy Department and Rear-Admiral S. F. Dupont, who in the first years of the war was in command of the South Atlantic blockading squadron. Welles and Fox were inclined to attribute Dupont's failure in his attack on Charleston in April, 1863, to his depreciation of the qualities of the monitors of his fleet, but the verdict of history seems to be that Dupont judged the worth of his vessels more accurately than did the department. The monitors were a transitional type of steamship.
The light-draft monitors are of unsavory memory, for their construction was the principal blunder of the Navy Department during the Civil War. They were to draw but six feet of water and were designed by Ericsson to meet the needs of the navy for armored vessels capable of navigating shallow rivers and other inland waters. The construction of twenty of them was undertaken in 1863. The contracts were distributed among a dozen cities, from Portland, Maine, to St. Louis, Missouri. The department cut the red-tape by placing their construction in the hands of Chief Engineer A. C. Stimers, who was acting chief of the New York Bureau, and who in building the Monitor had convinced the department of his professional skill. While he was expected to advise with Ericsson, he was permitted to construct the vessels according to his own ideas, and to perform his work more or less independently of both Ericsson and the department. The ships began to arrive at completion in 1864 and at once revealed structural defects so serious as to destroy their usefulness. They were especially defective in draft and speed. They would barely float, and could not be risked in high seas. Their speed, which was to have been seven to nine knots an hour, was only three to four knots. Stimers was not alone implicated in their failure, although he was chiefly responsible for it. The department was to blame for exercising too little supervision and for intrusting its work to an incapable agent. The loss to the government may be estimated at $10,000,000."
Since the science of naval architecture was in a transitional state, much experimenting necessarily had to be done during the war, and some failures were inevitable. The department tried various classes and sizes of ironclads, constructed of wood or of iron, propelled by one or by two screws. It thoroughly tested nearly every variety and type of engine, valve-gear, screw-propeller and boiler. It sent a chief engineer to Europe to collect information relating to steam engineering. Steam machinery of various sorts was designed by both the Bureau of Steam Engineering- and by private manufactories. Nearly all the kinds of coal to be found in the seaboard states were made the subject of careful experiment, with a view to ascertaining their comparative value for naval purposes. A board of engineers experimented with petroleum as a substitute for coal on board naval steamers.
The supplying of the navy with ordnance, projectiles and ammunition was a work of considerable magnitude and was performed by the Bureau of Ordnance with great promptness and efficiency. In March, 1861, the navy possessed 2966 heavy guns and howitzers. By November I, 1864, 4333 new guns had been added. The new guns were of a much larger caliber than the old, which were chiefly 8-inch and 10-inch guns and 32-pounders. Many of the new guns were manufactured after the Dahlgren, Fox or Parrott models. The Dahlgrens were 9-inch, 10-inch and 11-inch guns. The Fox 15-inch guns were introduced by Assistant Secretary Fox, and were considered most ponderous and powerful." The Parrott guns were rifled, and fired balls often weighing ioo or 150 pounds. Unfortunately they proved to be weak in the muzzle, and many of them burst with disastrous effect. Some of the Dahlgrens were also rifled, but most of the guns of the Civil War were smooth-bores. In 1863 some seven or eight firms were making guns for the Navy Department. The chief foundries were situated at Boston, South Boston, Providence, West Point, Reading and Pittsburgh. Naval officers were detailed to these private establishments to inspect materials and test the finished guns. Some notion of the difficulties of the department, as well as of its methods of business, may be gained from the following letter of Assistant Secretary Fox, dated November 22, 1862:
There are no big guns to spare. Parties cannot make guns who are not experienced. We have started a half dozen new foundries in New England the last year, and got only one good gun. Any man for a year past, and now, who wishes a contract for big guns can have it. No one has ever been refused. As to ironclads, it is the same. Every one is invited and has been, and no one capable of doing the work has been refused. So with marine engines. We will build a vessel for every party who will take an engine. Washington is reported to have said, "In peace prepare for war." We didn't, and here we are. It is no use to sacrifice anybody; we are caught unprepared, and must pay for it . . . We fired the 15-inch gun at nine inches of iron. It did not penetrate, but it shook the whole affair nearly to pieces. We are in the hands of the contractors, who are doing all they can, but it is far short of public expectation.
The gun carriages were manufactured chiefly in the navy yards. The "ordnance yard" at Washington employed about six hundred men, and performed many important duties. It furnished the standards that governed the manufacture of ordnance at all the yards and foundries. It tested guns at its experimental batteries, and safeguarded the navy against nostrums and would-be inventors and speculators; and it fabricated boat guns, gun carriages, fuses, primers, percussion caps, fireworks and ammunition. The principal ordnance depots were at New York and Boston. Depots were also maintained at the other Northern yards, and at Fortress Monroe, Baltimore and Mound City. Ordnance storeships were stationed at Port Royal, Key West, Pensacola and New Orleans. The Pacific squadron was supplied with ordnance at the Mare Island navy-yard.
The projectiles used in the Civil War were classified as smooth and rifled; and as shells, shot, shrapnel, grape and canister. The smooth projectiles were spherical in shape; and the rifled, elongated and of various forms and kinds. The Dahlgren, Parrott, Hotchkiss and Schenkl projectiles were the best-known types. From March, 1861, to October, 1863, 6,926,000 pounds of shrapnel, grape and canister were cast at the navy-yards, and 2,637,000 pounds of the same were purchased. During the same period the Bureau of Ordnance ordered for its use 2980 tons of gunpowder. This article was manufactured in the loyal states in sufficient quantities to meet the needs of the navy. Early in the war foreign nitre was exclusively used.. Subsequently, however, nitre as good in strength as the imported article was manufactured by the New Haven Chemical Works. In 1864 a nitre depot was established at Malden, Massachusetts. Gunpowder magazines were situated near the Northern navy-yards, and at Baltimore and Fortress Monroe. The magazine at the latter place had a capacity of three thousand barrels. During the last two years of the war much attention was given to the subject of torpedoes.
The ropewalk at the Boston navy-yard ran night and day and supplied the larger sizes of rope required by the navy. The smaller sizes were purchased from private manufacturers. The Washington navy-yard furnished a large part of the supply of anchors and cables. The equipping of ships with these and similar articles, and also with coal, fell to the Bureau of Equipment and Recruiting. It established a line of colliers, connecting with the blockading squadrons, Southern naval' stations and several West Indian ports. Coaling depots were maintained at Havana, Guantanamo, Nicholas Mole, Cape Haytien, San Juan, St. Thomas, Pointe a Pitre and Curacao. Outside of the West Indies the navy had coaling depots at Honolulu, Rio de Janeiro. St. Vincent, Fernando Po, St. Paul de Loando, Lisbon, Halifax, and St. John's in Newfoundland. Three colliers were captured by the Confederates, and during the last two years of the war 21 colliers were otherwise lost. A large' part of the coal used by the navy was purchased by Commodore H. A. Adams, Sr., who was stationed for that purpose at Philadelphia. The naval vessels at no time experienced any serious inconvenience from want of coal. The consumption of this article in 1864 was about 500,000 tons.
The work of purchasing and distributing supplies of food and clothing fell to the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing, whose efficient chief during the war was Paymaster Horatio Bridge. The economical management of this bureau is shown by the fact that the andual "clothing fund," which before the war amounted to about $570,000, was for 1864 less than four times this sum, although the number of men employed in the navy had increased six-fold and the average price of clothing had more than doubled. This bureau experienced many embarrassments in its work, owing to a lack of sufficient storage facilities and wharf accommodations in the several navy-yards. In 1863 Bridge obtained the permission of Congress to inaugurate a new system of supplying the navy with bread. Previously this essential article had been purchased of contractors, and bakers and its quality was often poor. The flour was now purchased by the department, and the bread was baked under naval inspection. Under the new plan the bread cost less and its quality was much improved.
The employment in the navy of regular lines of supply steamers, with refrigerators on board, is said to have been an entirely novel undertaking. The initial step in providing these vessels was an order of Secretary Welles to Bridge, dated July 19, 1861, which read as follows:
You will proceed to New York and take the requisite means for placing on board the Steamer Rhode Island fresh beef, vegetables and other supplies necessary for crews of blockading vessels south of Cape Hatteras. Your arrangements will be made with reference to supplying all the vessels with fresh beef and vegetables on the outward trip of the Rhode Island, and on returning.
This ship was commanded by Lieutenant S. D. Trenchard. When the system was completed, two fast steamers ran regularly between Northern ports and the West Gulf squadron, and carried at each trip 25,000 to 35,000 pounds of fresh beef preserved in "capacious ice-houses," and 600 to 700 barrels of fresh vegetables. One large steamer, each, supplied the East Gulf and South Atlantic squadrons; and a small steamer, the North Atlantic squadron. These vessels obtained their supplies at New York, Boston and Philadelphia, and ran almost with the regularity of steam packets. They also performed many incidental services, such as conveying mail, dispatches and passengers. They carried sutlers who sold various luxuries to the sailors. The supply steamers added greatly to the comfort and health of the officers and seamen of the blockading squadrons, and did much to brighten their monotonous and perilous life. A similar system was in operation on the Mississippi River.
The facilities of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery for caring for the sick and wounded of the navy were greatly increased. Early in the war the naval hospitals at Chelsea (Massachusetts) and New York City, the Naval Asylum at Philadelphia, and certain quarters placed at the service of the bureau in the St. Elizabeth Insane Asylum at Washington, afforded ample accommodations. These, however, soon became inadequate and additional quarters had to be rented. The hospitals at Chelsea and New York were enlarged. In 1863 a naval hospital was founded in Washington. It was located on Pennsylvania Avenue, near the navy-yard, on a site long owned by the government. The plain brick building that was erected here was not, however, ready for occupancy until 1866. In 1864 Congress appropriated $75,000 for an addition to the Naval Asylum at Philadelphia; but owing to the high prices asked for materials, the proposed improvement was not made during the war. A sum of money was also appropriated for a hospital at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Unfortunately, the selection of a location became involved with the purchase of Seavey's Island and with certain political and private interests, and a hospital at this point was not erected. A naval hospital was established at the Mare Island navy-yard.
When the Confederates abandoned the naval hospital at Norfolk in the spring of 1862, they stripped it of its furniture and left it in a filthy condition; but otherwise it was not damaged. It was reoccupied by the Unionists, and by the end of 1862 it contained two hundred and fifty sick and wounded men. The Confederates burned the navy hospital at Pensacola. On the recapture of this place, a temporary building was made ready for naval patients. Temporary hospitals were also provided at Beaufort, Newbern and Port Royal. The marine hospital at Key West, under the control of the Treasury Department, afforded accommodations for the sick sailors of the East Gulf squadron. At New Orleans a hospital of the War Department was placed at the service of the navy. Early in the war the Mississippi flotilla sent its sick and wounded to Mound City, Illinois, where a temporary hospital was established. In March, 1863, this was abandoned, and the hospital for the flotilla was located at Memphis. Ample accommodations were here found in the "Commercial Hotel." A hospital steamer was employed on the Mississippi River.
The number of cases on board the blockading and patrolling vessels treated during the war was 144,038; the number of deaths was 2532. The number of cases treated at hospitals and on board vessels in 1864 was 73,555. The number of naval men wounded in battle was 3266. Seventy-one men were supplied with artificial limbs. Most of the medicines used by the navy were prepared at the Naval Laboratory in New York City.
The five Northern navy-yards were the great depots, manufactories and repair shops of the navy. Of these, the New York yard was by far the most important. Its location in the metropolis, where artisans, laborers and commodities of all sorts abounded, and its comparative nearness to the South, made it indispensable to the work of the navy. Here, in one year, one hundred and fifty-eight vessels were repaired, a much larger number than elsewhere. All the navy-yards were much improved, and their capacity for repairing vessels, storing supplies and performing naval work of various sorts was greatly increased. The artisans and laborers at the navy-yards increased more than fourfold. Toward the end of the war they numbered 16,88o, and about an equal number of men were employed in private yards on work for the navy. The maximum number of men at the Boston yard was 3475. This establishment was enlarged by the purchase of additional ground. The docking facilities of the navy, which were quite inadequate, were improved by the construction of two floating dry docks, one for the New York yard and the other for the Philadelphia yard. Secretary Welles recommended the construction of several stone dry docks.
In 1862 the Norfolk and Pensacola navy-yards were recovered by the Unionists, after the Confederates had destroyed most of their buildings, stores, ordnance and machinery. The two yards were converted by the Unionists into naval depots and repair stations. At Pensacola but few improvements were made. Since the Norfolk yard was more strategically located, considerable progress was made in its restoration. The ruin that was here effected by the retreating Confederates is well depicted in the following account of Secretary of State Seward, who was a member of the party of Secretary Welles that visited Norfolk in May, 1862, shortly after its abandonment by the enemy:
We landed at what was the navy-yard and is now a mass of smoking ruins. Long rows of crumbling walls, and roofless, empty, charred brick buildings, piles of still smoking ashes, docks and wharves torn up by gunpowder, wrecks of vessels burned to the water's edge, cover many acres. A Massachusetts regiment was encamped among the ruins, and one man, with a Yankee readiness, had contrived to establish a blacksmith shop out of the fragments, and was driving a successful business, mending guns and shoeing horses. A huge gun, burst in the middle, was recognized as one which a ball from the Cumberland destroyed on board the Merrimac, and Captain Dahlgren found it one of his own make. The soldier who stood guard over it asked me if I remembered, about eighteen months ago, reading in the newspapers of a Boston shoemaker, cruelly beaten and tarred and feathered in Savannah for supposed "abolitionism." I told him I remembered printing it in the Albany Journal. "I am that shoemaker," said he. " I enlisted in the first Massachusetts regiment I could find; and I have got so far on my way back to Savannah, to see those gentlemen again."
Not quite everything was destroyed. Of the buildings, the officers' quarters alone remained intact. A large number of iron tanks in good condition, considerable mast and ship timber, several old and worthless guns, and some machinery were left by the Confederates. The dry dock, which they attempted to blow up, was not greatly injured. On May 20, 1862, Captain John W. Livingston was made the first commandant of the restored yard, and he at once began to put it in order. Considerable property which had been taken from the yard and concealed was restored to him by citizens of Norfolk. Those shops that were most needed were at once repaired, and in 1863 the dry dock was made ready for use.
Several naval depots and stations were maintained in the Southern states for the convenience of the blockading and patrolling squadrons. Here were to be found machinery for repairing vessels, ordnance of all kinds, provisions, coal and naval stores. Toward the end of the war there were stations or depots at Memphis, New Orleans, Ship Island, Key West, Port Royal, Beaufort and Baltimore. One of the earliest naval operations, made with a view to obtaining a foothold for a naval station on the Atlantic coast of the seceding states, resulted in the capture of Port Royal, South Carolina, which became the chief station of the South Atlantic blockading squadron. At one time more than two hundred vessels were safely sheltered in its harbor. Key West, which during the war presented a very lively appearance, was a rendezvous for all vessels going to and coming from the Gulf. Here they were supplied with coal and provisions, large quantities of which were constantly arriving from the North. This port was also the seat of a prize court, which passed judgment upon all vessels captured in the Gulf.
In the spring of 1862 Commodore Foote established a naval depot at Cairo, Illinois, under the command of Commander A. M. Pennock. Later, Mound City, Illinois, became the most important naval station on the Western waters. Carondelet, near St. Louis, was also an important river port for the navy in that region. During the war the establishment of a permanent navy-yard in the West was much agitated and discussed. Welles recommended it in 1862, and frequently thereafter. Foote believed that the need of a navy-yard on the Mississippi was very great, and the Western members of Congress were naturally much interested in the project. Finally, in pursuance of a joint resolution of Congress of June 30, 1864, Welles appointed a commission, with Rear-Admiral C. H. Davis as senior member, to select a location for the proposed yard. After examining various sites the commission recommended that a navy-yard of construction be located at Carondelet, and that Mound City be continued as a naval station for equipping and repairing vessels. This recommendation was not satisfactory, and when the war came to an end the site for a permanent yard on the Western waters was still undetermined.
The transformation of the wooden sailing navy into an iron steam navy, in the opinion of Secretary Welles, rendered necessary the establishment of a navy-yard adapted to the new vessels. He believed that a yard containing foundries, steam machinery and steam machine shops for the repair and construction of iron ships, ironclads and iron shafting was imperatively needed. The essentials for such an establishment were an abundance of fresh water, sufficient to float heavy ships, security from attack by an enemy and nearness to supplies of iron and coal. In March, and again in June, 1862, Welles invited the attention of Congress to this subject. The city of Philadelphia was greatly interested in the recommendations of the Secretary of the Navy and offered to donate to the government League Island, located in the Delaware River near the mouth of the Schuylkill, and comprising some 900 acres. The citizens of New London, Connecticut, also discovered an eligible site for a navy-yard in the vicinity of their city. On July 15, 1862, Congress passed a joint resolution authorizing the Secretary of the Navy to accept the gift of League Island, provided that he could obtain a good title to it and that a board of officers (which he was directed to appoint) should recommend its acceptance. The resolution assigned to the board the further duty of ascertaining the fitness for a naval depot and a navy-yard of the waters adjacent to New London and of those of Narragansett Bay. Evidently this resolution was a compromise between conflicting interests. A board, consisting of six members, of which Rear-Admiral Silas H. Stringham was president, was appointed by Welles on August 12.
After more than two months' labor, the board in the fall of 1862 made a report in which it considered the respective advantages of League Island, New London and Narragansett Bay. Its members were unanimous in their rejection of Narragansett Bay. Four members gave their preference to New London and the remaining two to League Island. Notwithstanding the opinion ofa majority of the board, Welles, in his annual report for 1862, said that he proposed to accept the gift of League Island, unless Congress should otherwise direct. He argued that an establishment at New London would merely add another navy-yard of the same character as the old ones, while the acceptance of League Island would lead to the abandonment of the Philadelphia yard and the founding of a new establishment adapted to the needs of a steam and iron navy. Among the members of Congress each site found strong supporters, and the wheels of legislation were locked. For several years, the continued recommendations of Welles in behalf of the acceptance of League Island, the reports of Assistant Secretary Fox on the subject and the expressed desire of President Lincoln that League Island be promptly obtained were insufficient to move Congress to action. Welles, in the end, concluded not to accept League Island without Congressional sanction.
In August, 1864, Chief Engineer J. W. King was sent abroad to examine the dock yards, engine factories, rolling mills and ironclads of Great Britain and France, and to collect information on these subjects with a view to aiding the department in establishing a modern navy-yard. King visited many of the public and private establishments of these countries, finding them superior to our own, and made a valuable report on his trip of inspection.
The Civil War effected profound changes in the personnel as well as in the materiel of the navy. The legislation of this period respecting naval officers was the most important since 1798, and it still remains the basis of the organization of the navy. Measures for the amelioration and improvement of the service, which had been agitated for many years, were now passed, and the navy was placed more nearly on a par with the army, which service, since the founding of the government, had been more highly regarded by Congress and the people. The navy now acquired great prestige and popularity, and the names of its chief officers, such as those of Farragut and Porter, became household words.
During the winter of 1860-1861 the naval officers were more or less confused and demoralized by the conflict of their principles, interests and allegiances, by the disaffection towards the Union of many Southern officers, and by the lukewarm policy of the government in failing to defend its naval property. The esprit de corps of the service was greatly weakened and many officers joined the seceding states. The exact number who withdrew from the service has not been determined. Secretary Welles placed the number of naval officers who "traitorously abandoned" the flag at 322. A document in the archives of the Navy Department gives the names of 422 officers of the line, ranking from acting midshipman to captain, who left the service during the three years from December 1, 1860, to December 1, 1863. Several of these officers, however, chiefly of the lower grades, were from the North. The document gives the names of 15 captains, 35 commanders, and 99 lieutenants.
A chief engineer, of the United States navy became the engineer-in-chief of the Confederate navy. The several grades of the Confederate navy, except the very lowest, were filled almost entirely by former officers of the United States navy, who took rank in the new service according to their previous rank in the old. Several of these officers acquired distinction in the Confederate navy. The Southerners of the Union navy at the beginning of the war could, with equal honor, have chosen to serve either their own state or the United States, but those officers who, while wearing the uniform and drawing the pay of the Federal government, played into the hands of the Confederacy and were unwilling to protect the public property, which they had taken an oath to defend, were traitors. That there were such officers at both the Pensacola and the Norfolk navy-yard when they surrendered cannot be doubted. Seventeen officers who were attached to the Norfolk yard were rightly dismissed from the navy. It is noteworthy that but few seamen and non-commissioned officers went with the South. Almost to a man the enlisted personnel remained faithful to the old flag.
Owing to resignations early in the war and to subsequent legislation, the number of officers in the higher grades of the regular navy was not as large in 1865 as in 1861. The Naval Register for January, 1861, contains the names of 514 captains, commanders and lieutenants, on the active list; while the Register for January, 1865, contains but 379 names between the grades of lieutenant and vice-admiral inclusive. A considerable increase was made in the numbers of most of the regular staff corps of the navy. From 1861 to 1865 the engineers increased from 192 to 474, the surgeons from 148 to 208, and the paymasters from 64 to 96. The chaplains, however, decreased from 24 to 21." Many officers on the reserved and retired lists were assigned to duty at naval posts on shore.
The great need for additional officers was met largely by the appointment of volunteers. During the first months of the war considerable pressure was brought to bear upon the government and the department to establish privateering, but it was successfully resisted. Massachusetts was anxious and importunate to organize an auxiliary navy of her own. Her motives were not wholly patriotic, as one of her objects was the obtaining of lucrative employment for her men and capital. Ex-governor G. S. Boutwell, representing Governor John Andrew, came to Washing ton to make the necessary arrangements for a Massachusetts volunteer navy. This plan, as well as several others of a similar character, did not meet with the approval of Secretary Welles and was not adopted. Before Congress met in July, 1861, Welles had commissioned many volunteer officers. An act of July 24, providing for a temporary increase of the navy, legalized Welles's past appointments and established a naval volunteer corps. The total number of volunteer officers employed from 1861 to 1865 was about 7500. Near the close of the war there were in the navy, as volunteers, 2060 line officers, 1805 engineers, 370 paymasters and 245 surgeons. The highest rank attained by volunteer line officers was that of lieutenant-commander.
The volunteers to the naval line came chiefly from the merchant service. A few civilians, who had formerly been in the navy and had resigned, hastened to offer their services to their country in its time of dire need. Of this class was Captain John S. Barnes, who on December 5, 1860, tendered his services to the department in case of a war. Many of the inexperienced officers acquitted themselves with credit, zeal and fidelity, but unfortunately not all of them were fitted for the naval service. This was especially true of the engineer corps. One of the acting engineers, for instance, was a village schoolmaster from the up-country of New Hampshire, whose knowledge of marine engineering had been gained from a picture of a condensing engine in a text-book on natural philosophy common in the schools of New England. He introduced into the service one of his favorite pupils, whose knowledge of engineering was, if possible, even more rudimentary.
Naval officers who are well fitted for the mild duties of peace may fall far short of the sterner requirements of war. In 1861, upon the outbreak of hostilities, the department determined, for the good of the country and the navy, to retire all those officers who were incapacitated by old age, ill health and the enervation incident to service in the old navy. In the upper grades there was much deadwood. The officers at the head of the list of commanders were sixty years old, and some of the lieutenants were between forty-eight and fifty years. The department therefore obtained the passage of the act of August 3, 1861, providing for a naval retired list, according to which incapacitated officers were to be either retired or discharged. Those who were retired were to be ineligible for promotion, and were to receive reduced pay, at rates fixed for the several grades. A naval board of commissioned officers, two-fifths of whose members were to be naval surgeons, was to select the incapacitated officers. The act also provided that officers might retire voluntarily after forty years' service. Secretary Welles at once appointed the retiring board, with Commodore George W. Storer as president, and Commander David G. Farragut as one of its members, which assembled at New York on October 18, 1861. The board found comparatively few officers incapacitated, and its work was not altogether satisfactory to the department. It virtually constituted itself a naval court, and felt itself hound by the rules of evidence governing such courts.
On December 21, 1861, additional legislation respecting retirement was enacted. All officers were now to be retired at the age of sixty-two years, or after having been forty-five years in the naval service. It was also provided that the officers on the retired list might be assigned to shore-duty. After the passage of this law, little additional legislation on the retirement of naval officers was enacted for forty years. In 1863 the number of officers of the line on the retired list was 67, and in 1865, 85. In the latter year there were 45 officers on the reserved list established by the naval efficiency act of 1855. The two lists were kept separate.
From the standpoint of the naval line officer, the most important naval legislation of the Civil War, or indeed the most important since the navy was founded, was the law of July 16, 1862, entitled "An Act to Establish and Equalize the Grade of Line Officers of the United States Navy." Legislation similar to that of this act was recommended by President Lincoln and Secretary Welles in their annual reports for 1861. The first section of the new law brought the navy the boon of higher grades, which it had long sought. For the first time in many years Congress definitely specified the number of naval officers and the number of grades. The active list of line officers was divided into nine grades. In addition to the old ranks of captain, commander, lieutenant, master and midshipman, four new ones were established: the rank of ensign between the ranks of midshipman and master, that of lieutenant-commander between the ranks of lieutenant and commander, and the ranks of commodore and rear-admiral above that of captain. The number of officers established in each grade was as follows: rear-admirals,9 ; commodores, 18; captains, 36; commanders, 72; lieutenant-commanders, masters, lieutenants and ensigns, each, 144. The number of midshipmen was not definitely fixed, but it was made to depend chiefly upon the number of members of the House of Representatives.
The act of July 16, 1862, made due provision for the filling of the new grades. It authorized the appointment of an advisory board of naval officers, which was to scrutinize carefully the active list and report those names that were deemed worthy of promotion. The officers recommended by the board were to be promoted and commissioned according to their seniority until the several grades, with the exception of that of rear-admiral, were full. During war, the nine rear-admirals were to be selected from those officers who had distinguished themselves in their profession by their courage, skill and genius. In peace, the rear-admirals were to be chosen according to the method of promotion obtaining in the other grades. The act further provided that a similar naval advisory board on promotions should be appointed every four years. It also established the relative rank of navy and army officers, and provided the navy with a new pay-table. The latter fixed the annual pay of a rear-admiral at sea at $3000, and of a captain at $3500.
On July 22, 1862, the Secretary of the Navy appointed the first advisory board on promotions, which was composed of five naval captains, of whom Captain William B. Shubrick was the senior officer. It completed its work on August 6, and the officers whom it recommended were at once promoted. Those officers whom it passed over severely criticised its findings. They went to Congress for redress, and that body passed a bill for their relief, but the President refused to sign it.
On April 21, 1864, the law of July 16, 1862, was somewhat modified. An act was then passed providing for an examining board of three naval officers senior in rank to the officers whom it should examine. All naval officers below the grade of commodore were now required to pass both a mental and a physical examination before each promotion, in order to test their professional qualifications. This act further provided that officers might be advanced in their own grade, not exceeding 30 numbers, for distinguished conduct in battle or extraordinary heroism. The present system of naval boards for the retirement and promotion of officers dates from these acts passed during the Civil War.
During the war the rank of rear-admiral was not entirely filled. On December 1, 1862, the President nominated four naval captains to be rear-admirals on the active list—Farragut, Goldsborough, Dupont and Foote—with commissions dating July 16, 1862. Later, Davis, Dahlgren and Porter were promoted to this rank. In December, 1864, Congress established a still higher grade, that of vice-admiral, and provided that one rear-admiral should be promoted to it. The sea-pay of the new office was $7000 a year. The position was created for Farragut, and he was at once nominated and confirmed as vice-admiral.
The Navy Department was conspicuously successful in selecting officers for the higher commands. Its good fortune in this respect, as compared with the bad success of the War Department, was commented upon by President Lincoln. He thought that the qualities of the officers of the navy must run more evenly, and that the task of selecting officers for the higher commands must be less difficult, than in the army. The Navy Department did no experimenting corresponding to that of the War Department with McClellan, Halleck, Hooker and Pope. Before the end of 1862 the naval officers who acquired distinction had already received the highest posts in the gift of the department. Even at this early date the roll of great naval names could have been made out—Farragut, Porter, Dupont, Foote, Davis, Dahlgren and Lee. Secretary Welles had an intimate knowledge of the capabilities of his commanders, and the diary which he kept during the war abounds with his estimates of their qualities. He seems to have closely supervised the naval operations. The planning of the operations was of course a composite work, in which the naval officers largely shared. In the summer of 1861 the Commission of Conference served as a Board of Strategy. Fox was always fertile in suggestions. The honor of originating the New Orleans expedition is claimed by Professor J. R. Soley for Porter, although Secretary Welles, writing after the war, gave Porter a less conspicuous part. In the naval expedition of the fall of 1861, which resulted in the capture of Port Royal, its commander, Commodore Dupont, was permitted to choose the point on the Atlantic coast to be attacked. In all co-operative movements with the army, much consultation took place between the officials and officers of the two services. Sometimes President Lincoln took a hand in the direction of the fleet.
During the war the standard of naval education was somewhat lowered by reason of the exigencies of the service and the poor accommodations of the Naval Academy, which was moved from Annapolis to Newport early in 1861. In July, 1864, Congress recognized the increased importance of steamships in the navy by authorizing the instruction at the Academy of "cadet engineers." The volunteer officers received elementary instruction in gunnery and seamanship at the navy-yards. Before entering the service they had to pass an examination in seamanship, navigation and gunnery. They had also to undergo an examination for promotion. In 1863 Lieutenant S. B. Luce made a report on the English apprentice system, in which he recommended a similar system for our navy; and in the following year Secretary Welles, who was very favorably disposed towards the sailormen of the navy, ordered the enlistment of a number of apprentices and the fitting out of the Sabine as a school-ship for them. The new system was organized by Lieutenant-Commander R. B. Lowry. Welles recommended that one-half of the midshipmen appointed to the Naval Academy should be selected from the apprentices.
At the outbreak of the war numerous recruiting rendezvous were opened on the Atlantic coast and the Great Lakes for the enlistment of seamen, and within three months the number of seamen in the navy was doubled. In order to procure the necessary crews at the earliest moment, and also with a view to inducing the sailors engaged in the fisheries and coastwise trade to enter the navy, the term of enlistment was reduced from three years to one. The effect of this reduction was to call into the naval service at New York a large number of recent immigrants who were not adapted to a seafaring life. Complaints of their inefficiency compelled the curtailment of enlistments of this sort.
Early in the war sailors entered the navy promptly, and the ships were seldom delayed more than three or four days for want of crews. In the spring and summer of 1864 the situation was quite different. In March, 35 vessels were waiting for their complements and the navy was in need of more than 10,00o seamen. In June the Secretary of the Navy wrote that "our squadrons are becoming almost paralyzed for defensive, offensive, or blockading purposes, and calls on the department from all quarters for men are constantly made." Because of her depleted crew the steamer Water Witch had recently been compelled to surrender to the Confederates. The laws discriminated in favor of the enlistment of soldiers, and many sailors entered the army in preference to the navy in order to receive the bounties given to the recruits of the land service. Enlistments in the navy received little local encouragement, since the accounts of communities against the "draft" were not credited by the recruiting of seamen for the navy. When the war came to an end in 1865 the total number of enlisted men in the navy was 51,500, an increase of about 44,00o over the number when the war began. The total number of .men recruited during the war was 118,044.
In 1861 the number of officers and privates in the marine corps was largely increased. Twenty commissioned officers left the corps on account of their sympathy with the South. An act of July 25, 1861, for the better organization of the marine corps, provided for 93 commissioned officers and 3074 non-commissioned officers and privates. At the close of the war the number of enlisted men was about 3650. Two new posts were established, one at Cairo, Illinois, and the other at the Mare Island navy-yard. The barracks at Boston and Portsmouth were rebuilt.
Throughout the war Secretary Welles and his management of the Navy Department were severely criticised and denounced. His critics asserted that he was a friend of red tape, that he was an extravagant administrator and that he was entirely too slow and deliberate for the strenuous duties of war. It may be said briefly in reply that Welles often cut the red tape unmercifully, that no business of the war was more economically conducted than that of the Navy Department, and that, all things considered, he extemporized a navy in a remarkably short time. It is true that the department made at least one egregious blunder, the building of the light-draft monitors. Some frauds were perpetrated upon it, and certain administrative abuses flourished. On February 6, 1863, Rear-Admiral Dahlgren, then chief of the Bureau of Ordnance, wrote that the "pressure of private interests is enormous and rascally"; and again on March 3, 1864, that Washington was "all alive with crowds making money on the war." Politics was still the bane of the navy-yards, and it was often responsible for the selection of negligent and faithless employees. Workmen were assessed for party purposes, and sometimes the chief officers of the yards had imposed upon them the "duty of tax-gatherers for electioneering purposes." In 1865 Welles issued orders to prevent such assessments. Some of the abuses relating to the purchase of naval supplies the Secretary of the Navy ascribed to the law which compelled him to award the naval contracts to the lowest bidder, no matter if they could not be honestly fulfilled. On several occasions he asked Congress to remedy the defective system of making contracts.
In 1864 both the Secretary of the Navy and a committee of the Senate made extensive investigations into alleged abuses and malpractices connected with the navy-yards and naval contracts. Colonel H. S. Olcott, who was employed by Welles as a special commissioner to investigate the navy frauds, discovered in New York City a ring of dishonest contractors who, by collusions with the employees of the navy-yards, were able to supply poor articles in place of good ones and thus make large profits. A contractor by the name of Stover had in one year cleared $117,000 by substituting "horse fat, menhaden and other stinking fish oils" for "best winter-strained sperm oil" called for by his contract. At Philadelphia Olcott caused the arrest of 31 men, most of whom were employees of the Philadelphia yard, and among whom were a naval constructor and a first assistant engineer. He recovered large quantities of stolen copper, pitch, rosin and naval stores. "To say nothing of copper bath-tubs, brass filings, and other small things, the thieves had removed a steam engine bodily and sold it to a junk dealer." Welles's investigation led to the dismissal of the commandant, storekeeper and two masters of the Washington navy-yard. About $60,000 was restored to the government by men who confessed their guilt. Parties were tried and convicted, and were fined to the amount of $75,000. The Smith Brothers, contractors for naval supplies at Boston, were fined $20,000 and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. Their case was carried to President Lincoln by Senator Charles Sumner, who was convinced of the contractors' innocence. Sumner wrote an opinion based upon the evidence produced at their trial, in which he showed that, according to the findings of the court, the government had lost only $100 in transactions amounting to more than $1,200,000. Guided by Sumner's opinion, Lincoln disapproved the judgment and sentence, and directed that the Smith Brothers be released. The loss of the department through frauds, as compared with its total expenditures, was slight. This loss was probably much less than that of certain contractors for building ships, whose bids were too low, and who after the war appealed to Congress for reimbursement.
Welles's own words, which occur in his annual report for 1868, may be taken as a just, concise and accurate statement of the department's achievements during the Civil War, and they may be appropriately quoted here, although they refer also to the later work of the department. Appearing shortly after his retirement at the end of Johnson's administration, they constitute his valedictory:
It has fallen to my lot to sustain a greater responsibility, and to have had a much more eventful and varied, as well as a longer experience in this department than any one of my predecessors. While I claim no exemption from error, it is a gratifying reflection that the duties entrusted to me have been acceptably performed, and that the record which commemorates the services and achievements of our naval heroes, also bears evidence, through a most important period of our country's history, of a not unsuccessful administration of our naval affairs.
On this department, soon after I entered it, devolved the task of creating within a brief period a navy unequaled in some respects, and without a parallel—of enforcing the most extensive blockade which was ever established—of projecting and carrying forward to successful execution immense naval expeditions—of causing our extensive rivers, almost continental in their reach, to be actively patrolled—and finally, after four years of embittered warfare, of retiring the immense naval armament which had been promptly called into existence, of disposing to the commercial marine the vessels procured from that service, and of re-establishing our squadrons abroad in the interest of peace.
The waste of war is always great, but much of the expenditure of the Navy Department, which is but a small per cent of the national war expenses, is invested in navy-yard improvements, which are worth to the government all they cost, and in naval vessels and ordnance, which have at all times an intrinsic value. When the fact of this large amount of property left on hand, of the return of millions to the treasury, of the magnitude of the war, of the vast operations of the navy, and of the depreciation of the currency, and the consequently enhanced prices with which those operations were conducted, are considered, the economical and faithful administration of the Navy Department will be admitted.