The youngsters who are living in these peaceful days cannot possibly realize the state of public feeling in New England at that time. Business was practically suspended, and the sole thought of the people was to avenge the insult to our flag and the murder of our soldier boys. The enrolling officers worked day and night, and companies and regiments were raised, equipped, and hurried to the front with amazing alacrity.
In common with all my friends and neighbors, I, too, was full of patriotic zeal, and should probably have enlisted in one of the numerous regiments forming, had not my attention been directed to an article in the “Boston Transcript” which referred to the great number of resignations of Southern naval officers that were pouring in on the Navy Department, and expressed a fear that our navy would be hopelessly crippled, as the Southern officers predominated so greatly in that branch of the service.
This gave me an idea, and I at once called upon the late Robert Bennett Forbes, the public-spirited merchant and shipowner, whose wise counsels in this exigency had been sought by Mr. Welles, President Lincoln’s newly appointed Secretary of the Navy.
Mr. Forbes was in his private office, deeply immersed in his private correspondence, when I called, but he courteously listened to me when I asked him why the vacancies in the navy could not be filled by the intelligent and experienced officers of the mercantile marine.
“I have already made such a suggestion to the Secretary of the Navy, Captain Kelson,” said he, “and I have also sent him a list of a number of gentlemen whom I consider competent to fill the position of ‘master’ in the navy.”
“Mr. Forbes,” I responded, “will you not include my name in your list? You know something of my qualifications, I think.”
With the promptitude that was a very notable characteristic of the man, he turned to his desk and wrote a brief letter to Mr. Welles, which he handed to me unsealed. “Take that on to Washington, yourself, Captain Kelson, and to supplement it, get half a dozen others from Boston shipowners who know you.”
I did as he suggested, and within twenty-four hours was on my way to Washington. My interview with the Secretary was brief, but to the point. He read all my letters, asked me a half dozen pregnant questions, and then, writing a few words on a slip of paper, rang for a messenger and sent me with him across the corridor to the Bureau of Detail, where Captain Charles Henry Davis—afterward Rear Admiral Davis—prepared my appointment as an Acting Master in the United States Navy.
While the document was sent back to the Secretary for his signature I took the oath of allegiance, and my orders were at once made out to the United States steamer Richmond.
Thus quickly was I transformed into an officer in the navy and assigned to a ship, a fact I could not realize as I walked down the steps of the building, which I had entered less than an hour before as a private citizen. But events, both public and private, moved quickly in those stirring days.