From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life

by A. T. Mahan

As the warrant officers of the ship were of the generation before us, we heard from their lips many racy and entertaining experiences of the former navy, most of which naturally have escaped me, while others I have dropped all along the line of my preceding reminiscences where they seemed to come in aptly. Each of the four had very different characteristics, and I fancy they did not agree very well together. All have long since gone to their rest; peace be with them! Four is an awkwardly small number for a mess-table of equals; friction is emphasized by narrowness of sphere. "I didn't like the man," said the boatswain afterwards to me of the sailmaker, narrating the destruction of the Congress; "but he is brave, brave as can be. Getting the wounded over the side to put them ashore, he was as cool as though nothing was happening. The great guns weren't so bad," he continued—"but the rifle-bullets that came singing along in clouds like mosquitoes! Yah!" he used to snap, each time he told me the tale, slapping his ears right and left, as one does at the hum of those intrusive insects. He did not like the carpenter, either, for reasons of another kind. They were both humorists, but of a different order. Indeed, I don't think that the boatswain, though slightly sardonic in expression, suspected himself of humor; but he really came at times pretty close to wit, if that be a perception of incongruities, as I have heard said. He was telling one day of some mishap that befell a vessel, wherein the officer in charge showed the happy blending of composure and ignorance we sometimes find; a condition concerning which a sufferer once said of himself, "I never open my mouth but I put my foot in it;" a confusion of metaphor, and suggestion of physical contortion, not often so neatly combined in a dozen words. The boatswain commented: "He didn't mind. He didn't know what to do, but there he stood, looking all the time as happy as a duck barefooted." A duck shod, and the consequent expression of its countenance, presents to my mind infinite entertainment. Our first lieutenant, under whom immediately he worked, was a great trial to him. He was an elderly man, as first lieutenants of big ships were then, great with the paint-brush and tar-pot, traces of which were continually surprising one's clothes; mighty also in that lavish swashing of sea-water which is called washing decks, and in the tropics is not so bad; but otherwise, while he was one of the kindliest of men, the go was pretty well out of him. "Yes," the boatswain used to say grimly,—he seldom smiled,—"the first lieutenant is like an old piece of soap—half wore out. Go day, come day, God send Sunday; that's he."

The carpenter, on the other hand, was always on a broad grin—or rather roar. He breathed farce, both in story and feature. Unlike the boatswain, who was middle-sized and very trig, as well as scrupulously neat, the carpenter was over six feet, broad in proportion, with big, round, red, close-shaven face, framed with abundance of white hair. He looked not unlike one's fancies of the typical English yeoman, while withal having a strong Yankee flavor. Wearing always a frock-coat, buttoned up as high as any one then buttoned, he carried with it a bluff heartiness of manner, which gave an impression of solidity not, I fear, wholly sustained on demand. There was no such doubt about the fun, however, or his own huge enjoyment of his own stories, accompanied by a running fire of guffaws, which pointed the appreciation we easily gave. But it was all of the same character, broad farce; accounts of mishaps such as befall in children's pantomimes,—which their seniors enjoy, too,—practical jokes equally ludicrous, and resulting situations to match. Comical as such tales were at the time, and many a pleasant pipeful of Lynchburg tobacco in Powhatan clay though they whiled away, they lacked the catching and fixing power of the boatswain's shrewd sayings. I can remember distinctly only one, of two small midshipmen, shipmates of his in a sloop-of-war of long-gone days, who had a deadly quarrel, calling for blood. A duel ashore might in those times have been arranged, unknown to superiors—they often were; but the necessity for speedy satisfaction was too urgent, and they could not wait for the end of the voyage. Consequently, they determined to fight from the two ends of the spritsail-yard, a horizontal spar which crossed the bowsprit end, and gave, or could admit, the required number of paces. Seconds, I presume, were omitted; they might have attracted unnecessary attention, and on the yard would have been in the way of shot, unless they sat behind their several principals, like damsels on a pillion. So these two mites, procuring each a loaded pistol, crawled out quietly to their respective places, straddled the yard, and were proceeding to business, when the boatswain caught sight of them from his frequent stand-point between the knightheads. He ran out, got between them in the line of fire, and from this position of tactical advantage, having collared first one and then the other, brought them both in on the forecastle, where he knocked their heads together. The last action, I fancy, must be considered an embellishment, necessary to the dramatic completeness of the incident, though it may at least be admitted it would not have been incongruous. In telling this occurrence, which, punctuated by his own laughter, bore frequent repetition, the carpenter used to give the names of the heroes. One I have forgotten. The other I knew in after life and middle-age, still small of stature, with a red face, in outline much like a paroquet's. He was not a bad fellow; but his first lieutenant, a very competent critic, used to say that what he did not know of seamanship would fill a large book.

At first thought it seems somewhat singular that the six lieutenants of the ship presented no such aggregate of idiosyncrasies as did the four warrant officers. It was not by any means because we did not know them well, and mingle among them with comparative frequency. Midshipmen, we travelled from one side to the other; here at home, there guests, but to both admitted freely. But, come to think of it more widely, the distinction I here note must have had a foundation in conditions. My acquaintance with Marryat, who lived the naval life as no other sea author has, is now somewhat remote, but was once intimate as well as extensive; and recollection deceives me if the same remark does not apply to his characters. He has a full gallery of captains and lieutenants, each differing from the other; but his greatest successes in portrayal, those that take hold of the memory, are his warrant officers—boatswains, gunners, and carpenters. The British navy did not give sailmakers this promotion. By-products though they are, rather than leading characters, Boatswain Chucks, whom Marryat takes off the stage midway, as though too much to sustain to the end, Carpenter Muddle, and Gunner Tallboys, with his aspirations towards navigating, sketched but briefly and in bold outline as they are, survive most of their superiors in clear individuality and amusing eccentricity. Peter Simple, and even Jack Easy himself, whose traits are more personal than nautical, are less vivid to memory. Cooper also, who caricatures rather than reproduces life, seeks here his fittest subjects—Boltrope and Trysail—warrant masters, superior in grade indeed to the others, but closely identified with them on board ship, and essentially of the same class. Such coincidence betokens a more pronounced individuality in the subject-matter. There have been particular eccentric commissioned officers, of whom quaint stories have descended; but in early days, originality was the class-mark of those of whom I am speaking, as many an anecdote witnesses. I fancy few will have seen this, which I picked up in my miscellaneous nautical readings. A boatswain, who had been with Cook in his voyages, chanced upon one of those fervent Methodist meetings common in the eighteenth century. The preacher, in illustration of the abundance of the Divine mercy, affirmed that there was hope for the worst, even for the boatswain of a man-of-war; whereupon the boatswain sprang to the platform and administered a drubbing. True or not, offence and punishment testify to public estimate as to character and action; to a natural exaggeration of feature which lends itself readily to reproduction. This was due, probably, to a more contracted sphere in early life, and afterwards less of that social opportunity, in the course of which angular projections are rounded off and personal peculiarities softened by various contact. The same cause would naturally occasion more friction and disagreement among themselves.

Thus the several lieutenants of our frigate call for no special characterization. If egotism, the most amusing of traits where it is not offensive, existed among them to any unusual degree, it was modified and concealed by the acquired exterior of social usage. Their interests also were wider. With them, talk was less of self and personal experience, and more upon subjects of general interest, professional or external; the outlook was wider. But while all this tended to make them more instructive, and in so far more useful companions, it also took from the salt of individuality somewhat of its pungency. It did not fall to them, either, to become afterwards especially conspicuous in the nearing War of Secession. They were good seamen and gallant men; knew their duty and did it; but either opportunity failed them, or they failed opportunity; from my knowledge of them, probably the former. As Nelson once wrote: "A sea officer cannot form plans like those of a land officer; his object is to embrace the happy moment which now and then offers; it may be this day, not for a month, and perhaps never." So also Farragut is reported to have said of a conspicuous shortcoming: "Every man has one chance; he has had his and lost it." Certainly, by failure that man lost promotion with its chances. It is somewhat congruous to this train of thought that Smith, whom I have so often mentioned, said one day to me: "If I had a son (he was unmarried), I would put him in the navy without hesitation. I believe there is a day coming shortly when the opportunities for a naval officer will exceed any that our country has yet known." He did not say what contingencies he had in mind; scarcely those of the War of Secession, large looming though it already was, for, like most of us, he doubtless refused to entertain that sorrowful possibility. As with many a prophecy, his was of wider scope than he thought; and, though in part fulfilled, more yet remains on the laps of the gods. He himself, perhaps the ablest of this group, was cut off too early to contribute more than an heroic memory; but that must live in naval annals, enshrined in his father's phrase, along with Craven's "After you, pilot," when the Tecumseh sank.

VI

MY FIRST CRUISE AFTER GRADUATION—NAUTICAL SCENES AND SCENERY—THE APPROACH OF DISUNION

1859–1861

The absence of the Congress lasted a little over two years, the fateful two years in which the elements of strife in the United States were sifting apart and gathering in new combinations for the tremendous outbreak of 1861. The first battle of Bull Run had been fought before she again saw a home port. The cruise offered little worthy of special note. This story is one of commonplaces; but they are the commonplaces of conditions which have passed away forever, and some details are worthy to be not entirely forgotten, now that the life has disappeared. We were in contact with it in all its forms and phases; being, as midshipmen, utilized for every kind of miscellaneous and nondescript duty. Our captain interfered very little with us directly, and I might almost say washed his hands of us. The regulations required that at the expiry of a cruise the commander of a vessel should give his midshipmen a letter, to be presented to the board of examiners before whom they were shortly to appear. Ours, while certifying to our general correct behavior—personal rather than official—limited himself, on the score of professional accomplishments, which should have been under constant observance, to saying that, as we were soon to appear before a board, the intent of which would be to test them, he forbore an opinion. This was even more non-committal than another captain, whose certificates came under my eye when myself a member of a board. In these, after some very cautious commendation on the score of conduct, he added, "I should have liked the display of a little more zeal." Zeal, the readers of Midshipman Easy will remember, is the naval universal solvent. Although liable at times to be misplaced, as Easy found, it is not so suspicious a quality as Talleyrand considered it to be in diplomacy.

Our captain's zeal for our improvement confined itself to putting us in three watches; that is, every night we had to be on deck and duty through one of the three periods, of four hours each, into which the sea night is divided. Of this he made a principle, and in it doubtless found the satisfaction of a good conscience; he had done all that could be expected, at least by himself. I personally agree with Basil Hall; upon the whole, watch keeping pays, yields more of interest than of disagreeables. It must be conceded that it was unpleasant to be waked at midnight in your warm hammock, told your hour was come, that it was raining and blowing hard, that another reef was about to be taken in the topsails and the topgallant yards sent on deck. Patriotism and glory seemed very poor stimulants at that moment. Still half asleep, you tumbled, somewhat literally, out of the hammock on to a deck probably wet, dressed by a dim, single-wick swinging lantern, which revealed chiefly what you did not want, or by a candle which had to be watched with one eye lest it roll over and, as once in my experience happened, set fire to wood-work. Needless to say, electric lights then were not. Dressed in storm-clothes about as conducive to agility as a suit of mediæval armor, and a sou'wester which caught at every corner you turned, you forced your way up through two successive tarpaulin-covered hatches, by holes just big enough to pass, pushing aside the tarpaulin with one hand while the other steadied yourself. And if there were no moon, how black the outside was, to an eye as yet adjusted only to the darkness visible of the lanterns below! Except a single ray on the little book by which the midshipman mustered the watch, no gleam of artificial light was permitted on the spar—upper—deck; the fitful flashes dazzled more than they helped. You groped your way forward with some certainty, due to familiarity with the ground, and with more certainty of being jostled and trampled by your many watch-mates, quite as blind and much more sleepy than their officers could afford to be. The rain stung your face; the wind howled in your ears and drowned your voice; the men were either intent on going below, or drowsy and ill-reconciled to having to come on deck; in either case inattentive and hard to move for some moments.