Of the numerous men who have held the highest civilian position in the United States Navy probably no other one offers so much that is both contradictory and highly interesting as Secretary Abel Upshur.
Upshur’s background was usual enough for the American politician of the first half of the nineteenth century. Born in the Old Dominion in 1790 of well-to-do parents, he was educated at Yale and Princeton, later practiced law with considerable success, served in the Virginia Legislature for several terms, and held a judgeship. At an 1829 constitutional convention in Virginia he was an outstanding leader in an assemblage that included, among others, James Madison, James Monroe, John Marshall, John Tyler, and John Randolph. His political views and abilities were typical of his time and environment. They were essentially those of a conservative. Upshur opposed government regulation of banking, tendencies in the direction of increased power by the Federal government, or increased control of the government by the common people. The South with its institution of slavery, its dependence upon agriculture, and its conservatism in the social and political spheres seemed to him the perfect balance wheel of a nation otherwise too radical and too much inclined toward industrialism. Prior to 1841 he had received recognition as an able lawyer, a forceful writer, and a logical and persuasive speaker. If background had any meaning, President Tyler in choosing Judge Upshur had insured the United States Navy of sound and conservative but unimaginative leadership. Support of naval and territorial expansion might be expected, but not much else.
Strangely the new Secretary of Navy did not fulfill such reasonable expectations. In the new field of naval leadership Abel Upshur abandoned his political conservatism and almost overnight became an ardent reformer. After less than a year in office he wrote in his 1841 Annual Report:
That reform is necessary, in every part of our naval establishment, is on all hands admitted; and it is a subject of general regret that it has been so long delayed. The delay has been in the highest degree injurious to the service, and is daily rendering reform more and more difficult as it becomes more and more indispensable.
The conditions which caused this overnight shift in viewpoint were serious enough to attract national attention. Following its splendid achievements in the War of 1812 the Navy had gotten rusty. Of some seventy vessels only about twenty were kept in commission and these were scattered about the globe on the Mediterranean, African, North Atlantic, Brazil, Pacific, and East Indies stations. Half of the ships-of-line the Navy boasted had been on the stocks since about 1816 (some remained there until the Civil War) and had rotted without ever having been launched. While its relative strength had been somewhat augmented since the Napoleonic Wars, the British Navy had approximately eight times as many ships, and the French Navy five, while at least four other navies were superior in number of ships.
The human side of the Navy, too, was deficient in many ways. Promotion was slow and mechanical, and the lack of any system of demotion brought rum blossoms and dullards to high rank as regularly and rapidly as high grade officers. Many of the former were stationed ashore “awaiting orders” on full pay, sometimes for years, while their abler and more diligent comrades carried on in active and arduous service. There were then only three recognized ranks: lieutenant, commander, and captain. No remotely adequate system of naval education existed, either for commissioned or enlisted personnel. The latter, in fact, occupied a somewhat degraded status. The better paying Merchant Marine skimmed the cream from the supply of the country’s sailors and left to the Navy a motley aggregation of foreigners, incorrigible boys, and regular sailors. Ashore the Navy was less efficient than at sea. Its organization had drawn criticism for years. Procurement was wasteful and unsystematic. Sometimes it was also graft ridden. Mr. Meriwether of Georgia had but recently protested in Congress that out of moneys appropriated for medicine no less than $4,000 was spent on frock coats, whiskey, stationery, etc., bought from favored suppliers at approximately twice the market price.
For these unfortunate conditions no one individual was especially responsible. The United States Navy had simply not been subjected to any pressures, either military or civilian, strong enough to make it progress with the times. Meanwhile steam had been introduced into shipbuilding, more powerful artillery was being developed, and iron armor, torpedoes, mines, and the first submarines lay just ahead. The Navy was, in short, on the verge of a technological revolution which would shortly make the ships of the 1830’s as obsolete as the-galleys of the ancient Greeks.
As soon as he became Secretary, Upshur started a fight for more and better naval power. At that time the United States was having one of its periodic war crises with Great Britain and he made the most of the political situation to obtain larger appropriations, new ships, more old ships in commission, and a larger personnel. In special pleas to Congress, as well as in the strongest and best-written annual reports to come from any American Secretary of Navy, he proceeded to make a strong case for immediate and marked expansion.
The arguments used for more ships were based partly on the territorial expansion that he hoped would shortly take place, and partly upon the possible threat of other nations. American interests in the Pacific were rapidly growing. In view of their distance from the United States these interests could only be safeguarded by sea power. In commerce the United States had three times the stake of France and more than half of that of England. Yet the American Navy was insignificant in comparison with either. With considerable penetration he observed, “Wars often result from rivalry in trade and from the conflict of interests which belong to it.” In such conflicts he contended that the Navy necessarily played the decisive role, and moreover, by its power to redress injuries, made their occurrence highly unlikely. Should war come, it was far preferable to meet the enemy at sea rather than to rely on either coast defenses or the regular army.
Like many a later big navy man, Upshur felt that the question of what was an adequate navy could only be answered with relation to the force of enemy navies. In this regard he was far in advance of the professional Board of Navy Commissioners, which had in previous years requested as large a navy as could be quickly manned in the event of an emergency—a highly indefinite standard. As European fleets were expanded, the position of the United States Navy became less secure. He reckoned that a foe would necessarily have to leave a portion of his fleet at home, and the remainder would be weakened to some extent by distance from bases. Therefore, the United States by maintaining a fleet half as large as that of any likely opponent (i.e., England) would be able to retain command of the sea in her own waters. It followed that the existing navy should rapidly be augmented.
But what form was war likely to take?
In answering this question the Secretary of Navy saw well ahead of his time. He reasoned that actual-invasion of the United States was hardly likely. However, the United States was composed of many, diverse, and in some instances mutually hostile elements. What then was more likely than that an enemy would seek by ideological means to array these potentially hostile elements against each other?
A war between the United States and any considerable maritime power . . . would be a war of incursions aiming at revolution. The first blow would be struck at us through our own institutions. No nation, it is to be presumed, would expect to be successful over us in a fair contest of arms upon our own soil, and no wise nation would attempt it. A more promising expedient would be sought in arraying what are supposed to be the hostile elements of our social system against each other.
But this was not the only way he envisaged a future war. At this day many Americans argued that the shallowness of American harbors and coastal waters offered a great deal of protection as enemy ships-of- the-line had too great a draught to permit close approach. Upshur denied that shallow waters would offer protection in the future. Steam power plus improved naval artillery had destroyed such fancied security.
Steamboats of light draught. . . may invade us at almost any point of our extended coast, may penetrate the interior through our shallow rivers, and thus expose half our country to hostile attack.
He also prophesied that these comparatively small vessels might be carried to their scene of activity in mother ships—a prophecy realized with midget submarines exactly 100 years later!
But Upshur was prophetic from another standpoint. The ships of the Navy were in 1841 scattered singly or in two’s and three’s at various points throughout the world. In case of war the United States would be highly vulnerable to a sudden attack which might come before the outlying squadrons could be recalled. He therefore took advantage of Congressional fears of war with Britain to secure a special appropriation for the commissioning of a permanent Home Fleet which included some of the Navy’s strongest vessels. This fleet, representing the important military principle of concentration of force, was—as the Sprouts have pointed out in their excellent Rise of American Naval Power—the direct ancestor of the North Atlantic Fleet of the 1890’s, the Atlantic Fleet of the early 1900’s and the United States Fleet of today.
The few quotations given reveal that Upshur was prophetic to an amazing degree. “Steamboats of light draught” in the form of gunboats and monitors, though not then built or even conceived, operated in the South during the Civil War in exactly the way that Upshur foretold. In stressing the economic nature of war he was foreshadowing a host of later students, including Karl Marx. In noting the true role of sea power and the importance of concentration of force he was, perhaps almost accidentally, anticipating Mahan. In observing a supposed weakness of the United States to civil war, revolution, and opposition between social classes he might almost have been foreseeing the views of Adolf Hitler.
Upshur’s expansionist policies for the Navy also took another turn. Merchant Marine and Navy in his view went together. Therefore the government might profitably subsidize the building of large passenger steamers to operate on strategically important though not necessarily financially profitable runs. These steamers would be constructed according to naval specifications and made available to the fleet in the event of war.
Strongly “big navy” as he was in his thinking, the Secretary was even more interested in the improvement of the existing fleet than he was in its increase. His orderly legal soul was completely outraged by the status, or rather lack of status, of naval law. At that time the Navy was governed by some very sketchy and general rules and regulations which had been adopted by Congress in 1800. In 1815 the Board of Navy Commissioners had compiled “Rules, Regulations, and Instructions for the Naval Service of the United States.” This was known as the Blue Book and had been in force for 23 years but had never been formally adopted or accepted by Congress. The legal status of the Blue Book hence rested on custom alone.
The lack of system in departmental organization likewise exasperated the new Secretary. In that day the Navy ashore was a comparatively small but complicated and badly run piece of machinery. The Secretary ran the Navy with the aid of a five-officer Board of Navy Commissioners and a handful of civilian clerks. The arrangement of duties was confused, contradictory, and meaningless. Administrators found it difficult to get direct information regarding any branch of the service.
Upshur’s urging proved effective, and Congress early in his administration passed an act creating the bureau system. The Secretary was not altogether pleased with the results, as the House of Representatives had insisted on amendments which in many instances placed unrelated subjects under the same bureau. Ordnance and hydro- graphic surveys, for instance, were grouped together under the new system.
Despite numerous limitations the bureau system was a definite and marked improvement in naval administration. Under the new system the Secretary found it easier to effect reforms by personal action. The Hydrographic Survey and National Observatory were placed under the brilliant Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maury. Procurement was greatly improved by such routine reforms as buying directly from producers of goods and carefully inspecting everything purchased. Previously dealers had often palmed off on the Navy the worst goods they possessed. Copper for ship’s bottoms which should have lasted for twenty years was found useless after seven. When removed, it was characterized by a honeycombed appearance caused by impurities which had corroded and fallen out.
Realization of the necessity of testing goods offered by sellers led to a further reform. In order to analyze the copper offered it by dealers, the Navy necessarily had to call in experts. It therefore hired Professor Walter R. Johnson of Philadelphia. This scientist tested iron and copper offered, and greatly improved chain cables by use of the thermotension process. Tests were also made to determine the qualities of various kinds of coal.
In such activities Abel Upshur was blazing a new trail by being the first Secretary of Navy to employ expert civilian aid in the solution of naval problems. In his Annual Report for 1842 he warmly defended this departure from precedent. Contending that it was less costly to learn from experimentation than experience, he concluded by urging additional money for the widespread extension of such activities. As a starter he wanted to build a laboratory and employ in constant research one chemist and one pyrotechnist. He felt the latter might be useful in preparing fuses and in manufacturing new types of rockets.
The experiments which have already been made under the direction of this Department, have imparted to it a degree of information which could not have been derived from any other source, and which will more than repay their cost, in the building of a single ship. These experiments, however, are but the beginning of what might be accomplished in the same way.
It is hardly necessary to state that it required the emergency of World War II to bring about the mobilization of civilian scientific minds urged by Abel Upshur a hundred years earlier.
Any man with Upshur’s keen appreciation of science could scarcely help being a critic of many of the ships then in the Navy. The splendid workmanship that produced frigates like the Constitution and the United States had degenerated in later years with the result that the Navy had gotten some very bad vessels. In a special report to Congress just after coming into office Upshur noted, “Many of our recently constructed men-of- war have been defective and some of them monsters of deformity.” He suggested as a remedy the thorough trial and testing of existing ships and reproduction of the best ones.
By the end of the year his views had altered and grown more modern. He came to realize that naval architecture was in a state of flux with steam rapidly coming into the picture. In 1841 the Navy had only one experimental steam vessel with two others, the side-wheel steamers Missouri and Mississippi, under construction. These two, intended to displace 3,220 tons, were for their day large ships. Their construction had been opposed by Secretary Paulding and the vast majority of naval officers who disliked steam ships because they were dirty and noisy. However, Congress—in this instance more farsighted than either naval officers or the Executive Department—had authorized them together with a third steam vessel. After being commissioned, the Mississippi and Missouri suffered from one vital defect. Their paddle wheels amidships forced the placing of their machinery above the water line—an obvious feature of vulnerability, as the foes of steam were quick to point out.
At this early date only the more farseeing and courageous officers dared support steam warships. This small group was afforded strong support by the Secretary of Navy. To design the Princeton, third of the steam warships, Upshur selected Captain Robert F. Stockton. The latter had been much impressed with the inventions of John Ericsson, and for the Princeton accepted a submerged screw propeller at the stern. This innovation made the Princeton the first screw warship in any navy, completely answered the strongest argument of the enemies of steam, and temporarily gave the United States Navy an advantage over all others in design. The Princeton also incorporated certain marked improvements in her ordnance.
But Upshur’s desires for innovation went further. In 1841 he recommended an experimental vessel to be built entirely of iron. This ship should be of moderate size “sufficiently large to afford a fair test, without exposing too much to the hazard of failure.” With a canny eye to local politics and to help pave the way for so radical an innovation, he suggested that the building of such a ship would give encouragement to needed branches of home industry. The result was an appropriation of $250,000 for a small coast defense ship, the Stevens Battery. Unfortunately, she was premature and never completed. Later naval leaders, lacking Upshur’s vision, failed to push construction of ironclads with the result that the United States entered the Civil War with an all-wooden navy.
Despite willingness to experiment with new kinds of ships, Upshur proved unable to think clearly regarding the entire naval problem of the United States so far as it related to ships. His official papers reveal that he grasped, at least dimly, the importance of command of the sea and envisaged an American fleet preventing invasion by defeating the enemy at sea. Yet he was unable to realize that the battleship or its 1840 equivalent was the craft best suited to meet and defeat this hypothetical enemy. Thus in his 1841 Annual Report he urged, besides experimental vessels, the building of more frigates, brigs, and sloops, which could be constructed more cheaply than line-of- battleships. If Upshur’s strategic ideas were far in advance of his time, the same thing could not be said of his tactical concepts. The result was a kind of hybrid naval policy which on one hand anticipated Mahan, on the other borrowed from Jefferson and his defense by cheap gunboats.
In the field of personnel administration, Upshur dealt with numerous and complicated problems, many of long standing. By 1840 numerous issues connected with naval education, promotion, and retirement had been agitated for years. In seeking solutions he was in some cases original. In others he merely helped along progressive movements already under way.
An instance of the latter kind concerns Annapolis. Upshur in 1841 urged the establishment of a naval academy for the education of midshipmen. In so doing he was merely repeating—though with greater cogency and force—recommendations made at intervals since 1814 by other secretaries. Until an academy was established he urged that the itinerant professors of mathematics, who then constituted the only educators in the Navy, be given higher rank and pay. In an extremely eloquent passage in his 1842 Report he set forth the case for education:
The cadet from West Point enters the army well founded in the principles of solid and useful learning and fully prepared to engage, with advantage, in any pursuit, whether of civil or military life. The candidate for the navy, on the contrary, is deemed well enough qualified, if he be able to read and write, to answer a few simple questions in English grammar, and to solve plain problems in the elementary rules of arithmetic. Why should this difference be made? Important as a proper preparatory education may be to an army officer, it is even more important to an officer of the navy ... he is the most frequent representative of his country abroad—the standard by which foreign nations will be most apt to judge her moral and intellectual character. He is, also, frequently intrusted with important and delicate negotiations, involving the rights of our citizens, and the peace and honor of our country. The function of the naval commander is much more useful, important, and dignified than is generally supposed. To his skill and vigilance are intrusted . . . the safety of the ship, and the lives of her crew. The honor of his country’s flag, and in a great degree, her harmonious relations in peace and her protection in war, are among the awful trusts with which he is clothed. Very few men can be found, qualified in every respect, for so high and imposing an office; and unhappily, there are too few among them who duly feel its importance and dignity. I humbly think that it is a high duty of Government to adopt every means calculated, in any degree, to elevate the standard of character in the naval commander, and to fit him in knowledge, in professional skill, and in personal character to discharge the high and solemn duties of his office. This can be best done by giving him a suitable preparatory education, and by providing proper and ready means of removing him from the ranks of his profession whenever he may be found unworthy to occupy a place in them.
This far many of the better naval officers of the day were ready to go. But Upshur went beyond both his professional advisers and the lay public. In 1841 he correctly pointed out that:
The use of steam vessels of war will render necessary a different order of scientific knowledge from that which has hitherto been required. . . . Engineers will form an important class of naval officers. It will be necessary to assign to them an appropriate rank, and to subject them to all the laws of the service. Great care should be used in the selection of them, because a great deal will depend upon their skill and confidence; hence it is necessary that they should pass through a prescribed course of instruction, and that the Government should have the proof of their competence which an examination would afford. This important object can best be obtained by the establishment of naval schools, provided with all necessary means of uniting theory with practice.
In making this recommendation in 1841 Secretary Upshur was approximately two generations in advance of practice in the United States Navy. As recently as the early years of the twentieth century the status of engineers in the Navy aroused intense controversy. The abler Annapolis graduates sought to avoid engineering, and for several years very few men were trained in the field. As a natural result there was a series of disasters which cost many lives. After the worst of these, the loss of fifty men on the gunboat Bennington, a young engineer officer facing court-martial told his defender: “I know very little about engineering. I never stood a watch in an engine room before I was made chief engineer of this ship.”
In dealing with other problems affecting personnel, Upshur was fated to change his position sharply and within a short time. Two problems faced by any military organization proved especially troublesome. Briefly stated they were: (1) how to assure the rapid advancement into positions of responsibility of the Navy’s best personnel; (2) how to eliminate undesirables.
These problems Upshur approached from a viewpoint very friendly to the officers of the Navy. In his Annual Report for 1941 he noted that many officers were inactive, and he urged the commissioning of more ships to keep these men busy as well as to increase the Navy’s striking power. He also argued forcefully for the creation of more grades, stating that the three regular grades of lieutenant, commander, and captain were altogether inadequate, and comparing them unfavorably with the nine ranks in the Army. The lack of any grade higher than captain worked to the disadvantage of the United States in international intercourse.
A year later Upshur saw personnel problems through somewhat different eyes. While not retreating from his recommendations for more and higher grades in the Navy, he had become mainly interested in removing from the service the “relatively small number of officers who do no credit to-their commissions.”
The reason for this metamorphosis is not hard to find. In 1842 the United States Navy passed through one of its greatest scandals. The small brig Somers, passing through the West Indies en route to the African station, contained two officers fated to become very well known. The first was the captain, Commander Alexander S. Mackenzie, a hardbitten martinet of thirty years’ service. The other was a young midshipman, Philip Spencer, wayward son of the Secretary of War. Aided by gifts of liquor, tobacco, and money young Spencer made friends with several members of the crew to whom he gradually unfolded a plan for seizing control of the ship, murdering the officers and part of the crew, and embarking on a life of piracy. Eventually Spencer confided in the purser’s mate, James W. Wales. With some difficulty Wales got word to Commander Mackenzie. Though at first incredulous, the latter arrested Spencer and some associates and found documentary proof of their guilt. He then became fearful because he did not know how far the plot extended. A council of his officers was called and advised the hanging of Spencer and two confederates. Wisely or unwisely, Mackenzie took this action.
When the Somers arrived in New York with the news, a thrill of horror swept the entire country. Both Navy and public quickly divided into pro- and anti-Mackenzie camps, and pamphleteers did a big business. A Court of Inquiry composed of Commodores Stewart, Dallas, and Jones upheld Mackenzie. However, Secretary Upshur, shocked by the lack of legal procedure, brought charges of murder against Mackenzie. At the resultant court-martial James Fenimore Cooper, naval historian, aided the prosecution. The court-martial, nevertheless, exonerated Commander Mackenzie after considering all evidence.
The Somers case provided a forcible illustration of two of the Navy’s serious personnel weaknesses. One lay in the lack of care to see that the Navy’s midshipmen were well educated and indoctrinated and of good type. The remedy to this situation was a preliminary period of theoretical and practical study during which the would-be midshipman must clearly prove his good conduct, capacity, fitness, and physical ability. Out of this group Congress could then appoint acting midshipmen whose commissions would be made permanent following a successful year at sea.
The second problem was that of getting rid of older officers who had become incompetent. To accomplish this Upshur suggested a retirement or furlough system on reduced pay. The Secretary of Navy, either acting directly or through a board of naval officers, should have the power to nominate officers for retirement, giving the reason in each case. To serve as a check against abuse of power the Senate might have the power of reviewing such cases.
These two suggestions are intensely interesting because each was later, and with modifications, carried into effect. Annapolis operated as precisely the type of check on new midshipmen that Upshur had wanted. The suggestion for getting rid of incompetent officers, though fiercely resisted and debated for several years, finally resulted in the creation of the Retirement Board. This body, better known as the “Plucking Board,” was later accused of cutting into good material. Nevertheless, in its earlier days it terminated the naval careers of some officers who added nothing to the good name of the service. Furthermore, as Upshur foretold in 1842, it tended to give a higher tone to the service:
The belief, hitherto prevailing, that an officer of any standing (in the Navy), could not be driven out of it . . . has had a strong influence in ruining its discipline and corrupting its morals and manners. The furlough system, firmly administered, will serve to remove this impression; and with the assistance of an unsparing and impartial administration of the law, through courts-martial, will soon purify the service and keep it pure. . . . The necessity of some mode of proceeding, by which the Navy may be rid of the incompetent as well as of the guilty is universally admitted.
Upshur was also interested in the enlisted personnel, whose state he felt was greatly in need of improvement and could be improved only by making conditions aboard ship more endurable. However, his thoughts on this subject were slow in taking tangible form, and his responsibility for the abolition of flogging, improvement of the mess and naval hospital facilities, and other reforms is no more marked than that of certain other secretaries.
On the subject of naval bases Upshur presents a contradiction, with views that were in some ways broadly prophetic, in others very limited. Pointing out the increasing interests of the United States in the Pacific in whaling, trading, and settlement, he urged that the Gulf of California be thoroughly surveyed, that American forces in the Pacific be doubled, that a naval base be established on the Pacific coast and a naval station at Hawaii.
In another naval base venture Upshur was less far-sighted. In a laudable effort to make the Navy a more truly national institution he extended recruiting to the Middle West— with good results. He also recommended a naval base in the lower Mississippi Valley, partly to provide a government market for some of the products of the region. Such action was, of course, merely a continuation of the prevalent but unsound practice of establishing bases for political reasons. The base was built—at Memphis—and provided the needed market. However, it was so poorly situated and generally useless for naval purposes that Secretary Bancroft a few years later put an end to it as a valueless expenditure of national funds.
Upshur’s naval career was terminated in the fall of 1843 when he was promoted to the position of Secretary of State. However, his interest in the Navy continued, and he gladly accepted an invitation for February 28, 1844, to be present at the trial of the new Princeton, whose main gun, the “Peacemaker,” could fire a 225-pound shell. As part of a gala party he witnessed the behavior of the ship and its artillery, then retired to an official banquet. As the meal was finished, word was sent to the notables that the “Peacemaker” was to be fired once more. Upshur rose and, indicating the empty champagne bottles with a cheery “Let them remove the dead men,” climbed to the main deck to watch the firing.
Once more the “Peacemaker” spoke— with tragic results. The huge cannon burst. Seldom has such a calamity claimed more eminent victims. Killed instantly were Secretary of State Upshur, Secretary of Navy Gilmer, -Commander Kennon of the Princeton, President Tyler’s father-in-law, the American minister to Holland, and two seamen. Many others, including Commodore Stockton, were wounded but recovered.
Among our Secretaries of Navy it is not altogether easy to assign Abel Upshur’s rank. He served for only two years in time of peace, died suddenly and tragically, and was soon forgotten. Moreover the American Navy, in the forty years which preceded the Civil War, had other able civilian leaders, some of whom bore more responsibility for certain reforms than did he. Yet even in the face of strong competition Upshur is still a secretary of great stature. In his dealings with Congress he was able to get greatly increased appropriations for the Navy in spite of able and well-entrenched opposition. Moreover, he evolved a definite philosophy of seapower and a sensible and definite naval policy based on the realities of international politics and America’s strategic position. As an administrator he proved himself to be an excellent judge of men and a powerful foe of both Congressional inertia and service conservatism. In naval law and naval organization, both ashore and afloat, his contributions have lasted—with changes—to the present day. He fathered the first successful steam vessel in the United States Navy and secured the authorization of the first iron warship. Upshur also aided greatly in the evolution of a system for ridding the Navy of its commissioned deadwood. He also gave an impetus to naval education. Naval procurement he made more efficient and honest. To a greater extent than any of his immediate predecessors or successors, he employed scientific research to help the Navy in solving its problems. And he did all of these things within a two-year period.
But even these immense contributions do not fully measure Upshur’s greatness as a Secretary of Navy. In the type of vision, which lifted Department organization out of chaos, for forced retirement of the unfit among commissioned personnel, for seeing that goods procured by the Navy were of high grade and reasonable price, the country is indebted in large measure to Upshur. The more forward-looking officers of his day could thank him for supporting every movement looking toward reform and improvement. But this was only a partial and inadequate measure of his greatness. In the type of vision that foresees the future to the extent of twenty, sixty, even a hundred years, and seeks to guide development accordingly, Upshur was far ahead of any other man of his day, either in or out of the Navy—one of the most brilliant and far-seeing civilian chiefs that the United States Navy has ever had.