Navy Office

“ The office, in fact, grew, as has been commonly the case with our administrative machinery, by adaptations to meet needs. At last, in 1546, in the year before his death, the king formed the first regular Navy Board by letters patent dated April 24. It consisted of a Lieutenant of the Admiralty, a Treasurer, a Comptroller, a Surveyor, a Clerk of the Ships, and two officials who had no special title. ”

“ In a country such as ours, policies must be fixed by those who come into office from civil life, elected by the people. Such vital questions must not be left to the decision of naval or military men; but when policies are once decided, when the die is cast, when war is declared, the details of the execution of the plans of the administration should be left to naval officers. They have been chosen from the people, trained and educated at the expense of the people, and are the experts of the nation for this kind of work. ”

“ Many of the essentials of success are already recognized by the General Board, which, as the central office of a growing staff, is moving steadily toward a proper war efficiency and a proper efficiency of the whole Navy, under the Secretary. This General Board, by fostering the creation of a general staff, is providing for the official and then the general recognition of our altered conditions as a Nation and of the true meaning of a great war fleet, which meaning is, first, the best men, and, second, the best ships. ”

“ In Japan the minister of marine is by law a naval officer, and under him is a chief of staff, also a naval officer. The minister of marine has the direction of the navy as a whole, but the ideas of the chief of staff are supposed to be carried out in matters that are strictly naval. The Japanese naval officer has a higher regard for the office of chief of staff than for that of minister of marine, because it is given for professional excellence only. ”

“ The army is sometimes remodelled, but the Navy goes down from generation to generation almost untouched and unquestioned, as if its code were infallible, and itself a piece of perfection that no statesman could improve. When a Secretary of the Navy ventures to innovate upon its established customs, you hear some of the Navy officers say, “What does this landsman know about our affairs? Did he ever head a watch? He does not know starboard from larboard, girt-line from back-stay.” ”

“ This list is compiled from two lists of naval officers which are now found in the Division of Manuscripts of the Library of Congress. One of these was prepared by the Naval Department in 1781, the other by the Auditor’s Office of the Treasury Department in 1794. A complete roster of the naval officers of the Revolution does not exist. ”

“ This was the system of executive boards, composed jointly of commissioners selected outside the membership of Congress, and of members of Congress. Congress and the Marine Committee probably derived a part of their knowledge of executive boards from the practice of the English government and of the states. “Board of Admiralty” was the name during the Revolution, as now, of the British Naval Office. Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina had early in the Revolution established “Navy Boards.” In October, 1777, Congress had formed a Board of War composed of five commissioners. ”

“ Although we cannot point to any important measure known to be directly due to his initiative, his influence, during at any rate the earlier half of his time of office, must, judging by results, have been always exercised towards the selection of capable men for command, towards the adoption of any promising invention or improvement, and towards the encouragement and welfare of the seamen on whom the stress of work and danger must fall, and for whom he always showed a humane sympathy. ”

“ But the gentleman from New York (Mr. Williams) was afraid, if this office was established, it would be the means of increasing the Navy. This certainly could not be done, contrary to the will of Congress.
He thought there were obvious reasons for the establishment of this department. It was well known that an officer might be well acquainted with the business of the army, without knowing any thing about a navy; and a man employed at the head of such a department ought to have some knowledge of the business committed to his care. Mr. ”

“ The work of the Navy Board consisted of a great variety of details relating to provisioning, arming, equipping, officering, and manning the numerous craft of the navy. Soon after entering into office it reported to the Council that it found the armed boats needing repairs and alterations, and that owing to the better wages paid to the seamen on board privateers there was a shameful deficiency in the armed boats’ complement of men. The Board recommended the laying of an embargo to prevent the sailing of private ships until the navy should be recruited. ”

“ In lat 18° 35′ N., long. 30° 10′ W., sea account, at 8 o’clock in the morning, discovered a strange sail giving chase to us, and fired several guns; she gaining very fast. At half-past 10 o’clock hove to, and was boarded by an officer dressed in an English doctor’s uniform, the vessel also hoisted an English ensign. The officer proceeded to examine my ship’s papers, &c., &c., likewise the letter bags, and took from one of them a letter to the victualling office, London. Finding I had two American officers as passengers, he immediately left the ship, and went on board the sloop-of-war ”

“ The absence of system in the Naval Department was most conspicuous in the appointment of naval officers, from the captain to the coxswain. This work was shared by Congress, the Marine Committee, the Navy Boards, the Continental agents, the Commander-in-chief of the navy, the commanders of vessels, recruiting agents, the Commissioners at Paris, and the commercial agents residing in foreign countries. Appointments were sometimes actually determined by the governors of states, “conspicuous citizens,” and local governmental bodies. ”

“ At the Admiralty the principal naval member of the Board is made responsible not only for the distribution and movements of ships—a definition which includes the whole domain of strategy and tactics —but also for the fighting and sea-going efficiency of the fleet, its organisation and mobilisation, a definition so wide that it includes the greater part of the administration of the navy, especially as the same officer is held responsible for advice on all large questions of naval policy and maritime warfare, as well as for the control of the naval ordnance department. ”

“ The same is true for each re-enlistment. When an enlisted man completes thirty years’ service and is over fifty years of age he may retire on three-fourths pay.
The Marine corps (see Marines) is a wholly separate military body, but it is under the control of the Navy Department.
United States naval vessels are, as a rule, built at private yards under contracts awarded after competition. The government is not committed to any fixed policy or building programme. Each year the secretary recommends certain new construction. ”

“ Vern was his specialist in the care and feeding of Arthur and I was his chief of office routine—and, as such, I delighted his fussy little soul, because by adding what I remembered of Navy protocol to what he was able to teach me of Army routine, we came up with as snarled a mass of red tape as any field-grade officer in the whole history of all armed forces had been able to accumulate. Oh, I tell you, nobody sneezed in New York without a report being made out in triplicate, with eight endorsements.
Of course there wasn’t anybody to send them to, but that didn’t stop the Major. ”

“ Great activity and vigilance have been displayed by all the squadrons, and their movements have been judiciously and efficiently arranged in such manner as would best promote American commerce and protect the rights and interests of our countrymen abroad. The vessels unemployed are undergoing repairs or are laid up until their services may be required. Most of the ironclad fleet is at League Island, in the vicinity of Philadelphia, a place which, until decisive action should be taken by Congress, was selected by the Secretary of the Navy as the most eligible location for that class of vessels. ”

“ It was necessary to begin at once the recruiting and training that would man and officer the new ships. Within two months after we entered the war free navigation and engineering schools had been started, and when hostilities ended more than 6,000 men had been graduated, of whom over 3,000 had received officers’ licenses while many others had entered the navy. And in the dozen or more mammoth Naval Reserve Training Stations established and conducted by the Navy [Pg 197] Department many thousands of young men were trained for service in all capacities in the merchant marine. ”

“ With these improvements, and such others as zealous watchfulness and mature consideration may suggest, there can be little doubt that under an energetic administration of its affairs the Navy may soon be made every thing that the nation wishes it to be. ”

“ Instead of officials who, as in the preceding half-century, owed their posts to court influence, to purchase, or to seniority, the [306] work was in the hands of men chosen for business aptitude and who, in most instances, had given proof of higher qualifications on the field of battle or in parliamentary committees. Of the latter class was the Admiralty Committee; but the Navy Commissioners, and especially those Commissioners in charge of the dockyards, on whom fell most of the duty of organisation, were officers who had been taught by actual warfare. ”

“ While the duty abroad was pretty strenuous at times, yet the average American has the faculty of making friends in every port, which helped to pass the few hours at his disposal when not engaged in coaling ship. How we did envy the boys in the oil-burners!
The chief petty officers and petty officers of the American Navy are exceptionally intelligent and proficient in their duties, and on many occasions helped the average Reserve officer over rough places. ”

“ The work of preparing any Navy Department necessitates the preparation and execution of plans, whereby the department itself and all the rest of the navy will be able to pass instantly from a peace footing to a war footing; will be able to pass instantly from a status of leisurely handling and supplying the existing fleet by means of the offices, bureaus, and naval stations, to the status of handling with the greatest possible despatch a force which will be not only much larger, but also much less disciplined and coherent. ”

“ Whole libraries have been written about fleets and expeditions, but there has never yet been any systematic history of the organisation that rendered action on a large scale possible, or of the naval administration generally, and although its record does not appear to the writer to be a matter for national pride, it has its importance as a corollary of—and if only as a foil to—that of the Navy proper. ”