When I was on duty in the Office of Naval Intelligence there was a lunch room on the top floor of the old State, War and Navy Department Pudding. One day when I went up there with an office mate, Lieutenant Frederick Singer, we passed a well-dressed, keen-looking, aggressive type of man with a heavy but well- trimmed mustache.
“Good morning, Commodore,” said Singer, putting noticeable emphasis on the “Commodore.”
“That,” he said to me in an undertone, “is Dewey, Chief of Bureau of Equipment. Always add Commodore if you greet him. He only holds it as a bureau chief but is very proud of it.”
“I like his looks,” I said.
“Oh, he’s all right,” said Singer, “but lie’s a hobby rider. Wants us to establish coaling stations wherever we can get them all over the world. Seems to have some sort of expansion bug in his head.”
Dewey was promoted to actual commodore a short time later.
When walking out Pennsylvania Avenue to my domicile in Georgetown after office hours, I frequently saw Commodore Dewey pass me on a handsome horse, meticulously attired as a horseman. I had spent much of my boyhood on horseback and noted his ease in the saddle. On a later occasion in Washington, 1 saw him accompanied by another horseman, wearing the garb of a Western Plainsman, whom I knew to be Theodore Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy. I learned afterwards that they often rode together in Rock Creek Park. No doubt they then discussed the threatening war with Spain. Once before, at the time of the Virginius Affair, such a war had threatened, and Dewey had publicly declared that if it came one of our objectives should be Manila.
In 1897 Rear Admiral F. V. McNair was about to be relieved as Commander in Chief of the Asiatic Squadron and Dewey sought to relieve him, but quickly learned that the Chief of Bureau of Navigation, Rear Admiral Crowninshield, had already selected Commodore J. A. Howell for the billet. Dewey told his riding pal, Roosevelt, that his hopes were dashed.
The Assistant Secretary, however, reminded him that the senior senator from his state, Vermont, probably had more influence with the administration than any other public official, and suggested that Dewey see Senator Redfield Proctor.
Shortly after the Spanish American War I was told by a stenographer transferred from the Bureau of Navigation to the War College, where I was then stationed, that the Chief of Bureau sent for Commodore Dewey, handed him his orders to relieve Admiral McNair and said with evident chagrin:
You should know that you have gotten these orders over our heads. I had selected another officer whom I regarded better qualified. We cannot give you the temporary rank of Acting Rear Admiral, which I presume you expected, as that custom has just been discontinued. You will be junior in rank to all other flag officers on the station.
To this, my informer said Dewey replied:
“I do not want that rank. I prefer my actual rank of Commodore. It is the most illustrious in our Navy.”
I saw no more of Commodore Dewey until I arrived in Hongkong in the Baltimore two days before the war with Spain was declared. The evening after the Baltimore arrived he gave a dinner at the hotel to his captains, his staff, and British officials. A number of us younger officers sat on the balcony in front of the long windows to the banquet room and listened to the talk and the toasts. The British Governor made quite an emotional address in which, as a neutral, he could not wish us success so he dwelt upon the hazard, intrepidity, and courage of the prospective Manila venture. Dewey, in his reply, said he had no doubt of the outcome. With his well-conditioned ships, their well- drilled crews, and especially their able captains he anticipated quick success.
Dewey issued no address to his crews and there was little or no signalling on the run to the Philippines. I asked one of the flagship officers afterward why the landfall was made at Bolinao, 50 miles up the coast, where there was a lighthouse and telegraph station. He said the Commodore wished his approach reported in the hope that the Spanish fleet would come out into the open to meet him.
But the Spanish squadron did not come out. Dewey sent the Baltimore and another vessel to search Subig Bay and learned from a native boat that it had been there and returned to Manila, whereupon he hove his ships to and called a conference on board the Olympia. I heard the story of this conference told several years later by Lieutenant Ben Hodges, at a Manila Day banquet in Washington presided over by Admiral Dewey. Hodges had been in supervisory command of the collier Nanshan with a civilian master. His story was this:
When the signal was made for commanding officers to report on board the flagship off Subig Bay, Hodges felt that he had an hour or more in which to relax and had a chair brought on deck for him. Presently, however, it flooded upon him that he was a commanding officer and could attend the conference. So he had a dinghy gotten out and reported on board the Olympia.
He found the conference over. The Commodore sat alone at the cabin center table gazing at a chart and the captains were standing in a group a little distance away, and Hodges joined them.
Presently Commodore Dewey rapped on the table and said:
Gentlemen, I have weighed all you have said and my mind is made up. 1 was brought up under that grand old man, Flag Officer Farragut, and when he had a task like this to do he went right ahead and did it. We will go into Manila Bay tonight and if there are any torpedoes in our path the Olympia will clear them away for you. You may return to your ships.
One of Dewey’s most marked characteristics was his quickness to allay apprehension. Almost immediately after withdrawing from action, in order to redistribute ammunition after the morning engagement, he seemed to realize there would be a general fear that the Olympia and other vessels were severely damaged, and a corresponding elation on the part of the Spaniards, so he ran up a signal in International Code: “Let the people go to breakfast.” Again, when he ran over to Manila with two of his ships, immediately after Montojo’s surrender, to warn the Governor General that the city would be bombarded if the 10-inch guns on its water front were not inactivated, and as we lay in a state of tension almost under their muzzles for half an hour awaiting the outcome, Dewey signalled, as soon as the Governor’s answer was received:
“Anchor. Spread awnings.”
Even awnings spread, however, did so little to relieve the torrid heat that after a week or so Dewey discarded his uniform cap during the day for a wide rimmed, light pith helmet probably obtained for him by the McCulloch from Hongkong.
When the Governor General refused to let Dewey use the cable, he immediately dragged for it and cut it, thereby severing direct communication with the outside world. One day when I was officer of the deck on the Baltimore, Captain Dyer came out of his cabin with a beaming countenance.
“I’ve found two Marines on board who are cable operators,” he said. “We can pick up the sea end of the cable, establish our own station and by-pass Manila. Call away the gig. I’m going to tell the Commodore. Get a diving party ready.”
Presently he returned looking very crestfallen.
“We are all ready, Sir,” I said.
“It’s no use,” he replied lugubriously. “He won’t do it- says he doesn’t want the Navy Department asking him conundrums.”
Dewey’s masterly handling of the critical situation arising later during what might be termed the “cold war” of the German Vice Admiral Von Diederichs, unhampered by “conundrums” from Washington, well justified his decision.
So far as I know Captain Dyer never again visited the flagship unless summoned officially. On two later occasions, however, Dewey transferred his flag to the Baltimore, once when the Olympia was coaling and again when she was sent to Hongkong for some purpose, the Baltimore being the only other ship in the squadron having flag officers’ quarters. On these occasions Dewey and his staff spent their deck hours on the poop while Dyer took his airing on the quarter-deck.
During these transfers Dewey always had his pet chow dog, Hob, with him. On his first evening on board, Hob discovered the coolest spot to be the upper grating of the starboard accommodation ladder. Not knowing Hob’s selection Captain Dyer stepped out there to smoke and trod in Hob’s midriff. Bob shrieked loudly and Dewey almost slid down the poop ladder, took him in his arms, bawled Captain Dyer out with some high- grade profanity, and took Hob to his cabin, Dyer returning to his.
There did not appear to be any intimate companionship between Dewey and any of his captains although three of them, like himself, were Civil War veterans. He did, however, have the most implicit confidence in them and gave them all high official praise. Captain Lamberton, who relieved Captain Gridley, and Lieutenant Brumby, Dewey’s flag lieutenant, were closest to his personal affection, next to Hob.
But supervising the activities of Aguinaldo, fighting the “cold war” with Von Diederichs, giving amphibious assistance to our arriving troops, rehabilitating the Cavite Arsenal, and planning with the Army for the taking of Manila allowed Dewey no time to get lonesome. Then, after the fall of Manila, the Philippine Insurrection claimed almost undivided attention and demanded the use of his fleet, augmented by many vessels from cruisers to gunboats and monitors, all over the Philippine Archipelago.
In August, 1899, he was ordered home in the Olympia, and his relief, Rear Admiral J. C. Watson, not having arrived when he was ready to sail, he turned the command over to the next senior officer, Captain A. S. Barker. After informing Barker of the disposition and condition of everything afloat, he took him to inspect the Cavite Navy Yard. Being acting Captain of the Yard at that time, I accompanied them. When they returned to the water front and were waiting for the barge to come alongside Barker said:
“Well, Admiral, you are turning over an enormous task.”
“Just unfinished business, Barker,” Dewey replied. “Just unfinished business.”
Soon afterward I was ordered to the War College and Dewey was made President of the General Hoard. A summer or two later, as he was sojourning with his wife at Narragansett Pier, the Hoard met in the library of the War College. As my desk was in the library I heard a good deal of the Hoard’s proceedings and was much impressed by Dewey’s sagacity and tact as presiding officer.
One day I was sent to the chartroom for a chart, and as I passed the front door a de luxe victoria drew up with a youngish man in white flannels and Panama hat lolling in the back seat. A footman brought me a card engraved M0UNTJ0Y-SM1T1I (I use a fictitious name) and said Mr. Montjoy-Smith wished to call on Admiral Dewey. I told him to tell Mr. Montjoy-Smith that Admiral Dewey was presiding in a board meeting and could not be disturbed for an hour or more. Thereupon Mr. Smith sprang from his vehicle, came in and said he was sure the Admiral would see him when lie knew who he was—would I please take his card in. I told him that I had positive orders that the Hoard was not to be disturbed and suggested that he wait in the President’s office. He said he could not possibly wait and gave me an envelope addressed to the Admiral and embossed with a coat of arms, saying:
“Please tell the Admiral that I am entertaining Lord Pauncefote and other distinguished guests at dinner tomorrow night, and give him this invitation.”
When the Board adjourned I handed it to the Admiral. He read it, flipped it against his hand and, turning to Captain Clark, said: “Mountjoy-Smith. Who is this man Smith? I never heard of him.”
Captain Clark explained that he was a millionaire socialite of New York.
“Humph,” said Dewey and turned to me. “Telephone him and say I can’t come.”
I softened the message a bit.
After my next cruise I was assigned to duty in the Navy Department and again met Admiral Dewey. His office as President of the General Board was also in the Navy Department building and he took a daily stroll in Lafayette Square before going to it. 1 could only chat briefly with him as I was due in my office an hour earlier than he in his. Some mornings I would find him sitting on a bench talking to children.
“I like to talk to children,” he said. “Their minds are clear.”
I lost no time in making an afternoon call at his home. Mrs. Dewey was away and he took me into his “den” and talked about Manila days.
“You should write your biography, Admiral,” I said.
He took me to a small safe, opened it and showed me a pile of manuscript.
“I have already done so,” he said. “There it is, but I don’t want it published during my lifetime. Sargent (Commander Nathan Sargent, his aide at that time) has full instructions and the combination to the safe.”
I was in Washington after another cruise, on the Admiral’s seventy-ninth birthday. His office was crowded with well-wishers including, of course, all Manila Bay officers in Washington.
“I am in fine shape; only suffering from Anno Domini,” he remarked.
He looked hale and hearty yet he lived to see only one more Anno Domini. He was stricken early in the new year and died three weeks later, January 16, 1917.
He lay in state in the rotunda of the Capitol. The ceremony was very impressive. The open casket was almost surrounded by a wide semicircle of distinguished people: President Wilson and cabinet members of the Supreme Court; members of Congress; members of foreign embassies and officers of all branches of the armed services. Many went forward including myself to bow over the calm face of Dewey; generals and admirals with medals dangling from their chests as they bent down, but on Dewey’s breast, although he probably had many, there was but one medal, the spontaneous and unanimous gift of Congress which Dewey wore in reverse to show a gunner stripped for action and the inscription: “IN MEMORY OF THE VICTORY OF MANILA BAY.”