Discussions, Comments and Notes

End of the Treasure Hunt
(See pages 1235, September, 1934, and 380, March, 1937, Proceedings)

Captain Stanford E. Moses, U. S. Navy (Retired).—The following notes and comment refer to two articles by Lieu­tenant Winston Folk, U. S. Navy: “The Confederate States Naval Academy,” and a sequel to that article, “A Treasure Hunt in Reverse.”

The concluding paragraphs of Lieuten­ant Folk’s first article and the opening paragraphs of his second article deal with the travels of half a million dollars, in gold and silver coin and bullion; a treasure be­lieved to have been virtually all that re­mained of value in the Confederate treas­ury when Jefferson Davis, with his cabi­net and family, fled from Richmond be­fore the victorious advance of the Union Army under General Grant.

Confederate midshipmen, commanded by Captain Parker, superintendent of their naval academy, and assisted by a company of sailors, guarded the treasure and the family of Jefferson Davis, through a month of miraculous escapes, from Confederate marauders as well as from Federal troops.

Leaving Richmond by train the treasure traveled in various kinds of conveyances, across Virginia and the Carolinas, to the small town of Washington, Georgia, where the presidential party and the treasure paused in their flight, in search of security.

Back to Abbeville, South Carolina, went the naval contingent, with the white elephant treasure; and there, at Abbeville, they met Jefferson Davis and some mem­bers of his cabinet. By their orders the treasure was delivered into the care and keeping of the Confederate Army.

Lieutenant Folk says (in italics), . . . “that was the last time the Confederate treas­ure was ever seen or heard of!”

There appears to be some further evi­dence regarding this treasure. The late Raphael J. Moses, of Columbus, Georgia, served in the Civil War as a Major and Commissary in General Robert Toomb’s brigade, then as Chief Commissary of Longstreet’s corps, and finally as Con­federate Commissary for the state of Georgia. He has left a journal, or collection of reminiscences, in which the treasure is mentioned. This journal and Avery’s His­tory of Georgia give the end of the story. Major Moses says in his journal:

Shortly before Johnston’s surrender I was ordered to Washington, Wilkes County, soon after Davis and his cabinet arrived there. ... A train containing gold and silver bullion accom­panied the cabinet. It was brought from the Rich­mond banks.

The journal goes on to state that Major Moses was paid $10,000 in gold and silver bullion, for the purpose of providing ra­tions for returning soldiers. After thrilling experiences, in which disbanded Con­federate troops almost succeeded in con­fiscating the bullion. Major Moses de­livered it to the Federal army officer then in command at Augusta, Georgia.

Avery’s History of Georgia traces the balance of the treasure to the vaults of the United States Treasury, at Washington, D.C. Avery says:

With Mr. Davis was captured the balance of the coin and bullion, which was carried to Wash­ington, D.C. In 1866, certain Virginia and Louisi­ana banks claimed that this was their money and not the property of the Confederate States.

After years of litigation the treasure re­mained in the hands of the Government of the United States. The passage in Avery’s History concludes:

This appears to have ended the episode of the last Confederate finances captured on Georgia soil with the president of the Confederacy in the sunny May of 1865.

A Heeling Error in Radiocompass Bearings

Crawford F. Failey.—Some three years ago, while cruising under sail, a series of direction-finder bearings were taken off Cape Lookout. They failed to agree satisfactorily among themselves, and in discussion the question of a possible heeling error was raised. By the use of an­alytic geometry such an error was shown to exist and to have the value

            sin a’ = sina/ √1-cos²asin²h where

h = angle of heel to port or starboard.

a = acute angle between sending station and bow or stern.

a' = corresponding angle as read on radio di­rection finder.

In accordance with suggestions of Pro­fessor S. L. Quimby this may be put in the more convenient form tan a’ = tana/cosh which comes directly from the solution of a right spherical triangle as follows:

Let us consider the case of a ship heeled to port and the sending station on the starboard bow. The pointer on the radio­compass dial is perpendicular to the plane of the loop. Since the magnetic flux through the loop is null when no sound is heard in the receivers, the plane of the loop contains the magnetic vector. Therefore, a perpendicular in the horizontal plane to a line connecting ship and sending station lies also in the plane of the loop. The pointer on the radiocompass dial then lies in a vertical plane through ship and send­ing station, this plane making with the ship’s head the angle a. The angle measured on the dial is a', the angle between the pointer itself and the ship’s fore-and- aft line. Accordingly we have the right spherical triangle

Let h_c = complement h

a'_c = complement a'.

Then by Napier’s rule

sin h_c = tan a_c tan a

or tan a’ = tana / cosh

There will be a difference between the true and apparent bearing unless the radio sta­tion be directly ahead, astern, or abeam, or unless the ship be on an even keel. The effect is always such as to make the send­ing station appear too nearly abeam.

That the error may become quite sig­nificant is shown by the following table in which values of a'—a are given for certain courses and angles of heel:

The Department of Electrical Engineer­ing at the Naval Academy has read with interest the note, “A Heeling Error in Radiocompass Bearings,” by Crawford F. Failey, which was forwarded to be checked for accuracy.

Mr. Failey has analyzed the heeling error of a shipboard direction finder purely as a problem in geometry. His computa­tions have been checked and appear to be correct. While his conclusions appear to be correct, when considered on this basis only, it is quite probable that other im­portant errors may exist when the vessel is heeled, due to the random inphase and in­quadrature fields of the ship’s own metallic rigging and structure. These are ordinarily unpredictable under heeling conditions, since the angles of incidence of the metallic conductors have been materially changed with respect to the incoming wave. The literature available does not treat this condition analytically.

However, R. Keen in his Wireless Direc­tion Finding (3d edition, p. 447) mentions this problem:

Rolling error.—When a ship is rolling badly, the axis of rotation of a frame will be appreciably out of the vertical at the limit of each roll. Ex­periments with a book and pencil (see p. 194) will indicate that in certain relations of the fore-and- aft line of the ship to the direction of the trans­mitting station, the flux linkage with the loop will vary with the extent of the roll, and can lead to errors in bearings. Various means exist for mak­ing allowance for discrepancies introduced in this way, but rolling error is not an important com­ponent in the residual error and an intelligent operator will soon learn how to take bearings under such conditions.

It is obvious that this advice does not apply to a sailing vessel constantly heeled away from the wind.

It is to be regretted that the time avail­able does not permit a complete investiga­tion of this subject.

The Merchant Officer’s Place in the Naval World
(See page 224, February, 1939, Proceedings)

Lieutenant Commander Thomas W. Sheridan, U. S. Naval Reserve.—In Ensign FitzGerald’s interesting article he points out that “There is pathos and real tragedy in the pall that hangs over the Merchant Marine. Discontent, distrust, and dissatisfaction permeate the atmos­phere of the water front and to all outward appearance the outlook for the future seems bleak indeed.” This is true, but it is to be gravely doubted that the solution proposed by Ensign FitzGerald is the medicine for the ills that beset our Merchant Marine, nor do I think that that medicine would render the Merchant Marine any more useful to the Navy than it is likely to be now.

Lack of discipline and organization are the major ills. If these two things could be cured all others would also be easily remedied.

Ensign FitzGerald seems to think that if merchant marine officers were indoc­trinated in and “actually taught the art of naval administration” that all would be well from a disciplinary standpoint. I quote:

So then, if the Navy can be of assistance by teaching the merchant marine officer how to ad­minister the affairs of a ship in a way that will insure discipline and efficient operation under conditions of war or peace, and if the merchant officer is enabled to put what he learns from the Navy into practice on board his own ship, much will have been accomplished with a minimum of lost motion. The next step is to determine what obstacles lie in the way of adopting such a pro­cedure.

Aye, there’s the rub! Remove the ob­stacles to adopting such a procedure and you would remove the cause of most of the trouble. But, as things are now, those obstacles are so great that all the naval science and art in discipline in the world would have little effect in removing the weights that bear us down. Under the present conditions it would make little difference if the finest specialists in disci­pline that the commissioned ranks of the Navy hold were drafted into the Mer­chant Marine. They would be able to do no better, if they did as well, as the pres­ent merchant marine officers. In fact I think that most naval officers would be candidates for a mad house if they had to suffer the present conditions that the captains and officers in our Merchant Marine have to bear today. The better idea that they had of discipline and order the more likely is it that they would break under the foul conditions. In con­ferences and consultations and on surveys, etc., I meet many master mariners and deck and engineer officers and the tales of insubordination, drunkenness, and deser­tion are harrowing. Incidentally, there is no such thing as “desertion” in the Merchant Marine any more, as a man can legally walk off a ship at any port at any time he likes and no legal process can be used to retrieve him. Only a short time ago there was one of the usual “sit-down strikes” on a transatlantic liner and the indignant crew charged the captain of the ship with trying to shanghai them be­cause he insisted on hoisting the gangway at the time set for sailing. The legal basis for good discipline in the Merchant Ma­rine is now so feeble and the authorities who execute laws regarding discipline so unwilling to be drastic, where drastic action should be taken, that the officers have lost control. Consider what the state of discipline in the Navy would be if there were no Navy Regulations, practically no power of punishment, and that every action of the captain and officers regarding work and regulations was the subject of a debate with a delegate elected from the crew!

With laws and regulations, the Navy has the pick of the youth of the nation for its enlisted personnel and naturally has a high standard of morale and discipline. In addition, the unfit are swiftly removed from the sea scene in the Navy and often gravitate to the Merchant Marine. On the other hand, in the Merchant Marine, in most cases, today the union picks the men and the ships have to take what is sent. Moreover, there is absolutely no way, from the records, that the character and ability of the man sent aboard by the union to fill a job can be determined; in fact the law specifically forbids any nota­tion in a discharge book concerning what kind of an individual is the holder of the book.

Ensign FitzGerald was kind enough to quote from an article, “Safety at Sea,” published in the February, 1936, issue of the Proceedings, which I wrote. The quotation pointed out that there is no strong central authority aboard an Ameri­can merchant ship. That condition still exists and is as dangerous now as it was then. It would be a simple thing to set that right and institute a doctrine of command and chain of command in ac­cordance with correct concepts. It needs no complicated set of rules to lay down the dictum that the master of the ship has the authority that men commanding ships have had, and should have, throughout the ages, and has the power to delegate that authority to the officer acting as his aid (executive). The law, too, should lay down the rules concerning the succession to command in case of the death or dis­ability of the master. Those things are simple and are the essence of good organi­zation and were they done, by proper changes in our navigation laws and the rules and regulations of the Bureau of Navigation and Marine Inspection, practi­cally all the ills that Ensign FitzGerald deprecates would cease to exist.

The deck and engineer officers of the American Merchant Marine compare fa­vorably with those of any organization in the world, from a practical standpoint. I know this from close, concentrated obser­vation of many merchant marine and naval organizations as I have been re­tained as an expert in many matters con­cerning all sorts of nautical occurrences— collisions, fires, strandings, and sinkings, etc. Our training and educational systems are not as good as they should be nor are the methods of selecting prospective of­ficers, but it is astounding how well, in the average, ours compare with others. With a fair chance they could do wonders.

As a matter of fact, we have had a decade—from 1923 to 1933—when the American Merchant Marine seemed to be making extraordinary headway. In that decade things were not perfect by any means but those in charge of administer­ing the laws seemed desirous of maintain­ing law, order, and discipline in the Ameri­can Merchant Marine and the drunks and mutinously inclined were rigorously elimi­nated. In all respects, the service rendered and the reputation of the American Mer­chant Marine during that decade were second to none. I need not go into details concerning what has happened since 1933 as the pages of the press and even the Proceedings have been filled with reports of lamentable events—mutinies, sit-down strikes, riots, and assaults.

Ensign FitzGerald lays great stress upon the necessity of granting commis­sions in the Merchant Marine Naval Reserve to chief stewards, pursers, radio operators, and doctors. Personally, I think that our deck and engine officers are the finest possible naval reserve officer material when trained, and there is no doubt that the doctors should be com­missioned but there is some doubt as to the others. Pursers, chief stewards, and radio operators are rated high in the Merchant Marine but whether their value would be as great under naval war condi­tions is to be greatly doubted, though there ought to be an opportunity for all who perfect themselves in some related branch of naval activity to obtain com­missions in accordance with their useful­ness. In that connection, I remember that a prominent passenger agent of a steam­ship line was quite distressed and an­noyed in the last war because he was only commissioned a lieutenant (junior grade) in the Supply Corps. He was an important man in peace but not a lot of use in war.

In closing there is one general objection that I have to Ensign FitzGerald’s sug­gestion of using the Navy to police the Merchant Marine. It is, I think, dele­terious to the national interest to have the military forces diverted from their fighting and defense missions to purely civilian pursuits such as supervising the Merchant Marine, etc., as it indubitably has a vitiating effect upon the main and only mission of the Navy—National De­fense. All elements in the industrial, finan­cial, transportation, and agricultural ac­tivities of the Nation should contribute to the National Defense instead of weaken­ing it by calling for eccentric services.