THE REAL BRAINS OF THE WAR
Captain A. S. Crowninshield, the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, bore the brunt of the brain-work for the men and ships at the front.
His bureau has to do with the ordering of all ships and all men, and Crowninshield, when he accepted the office, knew that the odds were against him. He knew that by his own orders he would put forward above him men who were many years his juniors in the service. He never winced, but went on perfecting the target-scores of the men behind the guns. When war was declared, he felt that, gun for gun, our navy could whip anything afloat. But he did not get out of the office. He could have had any command in Sampson’s fleet. But he preferred to stay and carry out the work he had begun, in spite of the fact that each week, as younger men went over him, he saw the chances of hoisting the pennant of a fleet-commander grow fainter and fainter.
If you were to ask Secretary Long who did the real brain-work of the war, he would unhesitatingly answer, “Captain Crowninshield.” Ask the younger officers in command of gun-divisions who is responsible for the straight shooting of the gun-captains, and they will say, “Captain Crowninshield.” Ask any captain of the fleet of victorious battle-ships and cruisers of Santiago or Cavite who contributed most to the victory of Santiago and Manila, and they will say, “Captain Crowninshield.”
These are the facts, and no one in the service disputes them for a moment. If the people are in ignorance, it is because Captain Crowninshield will never talk of himself or his own affairs under any circumstances.
Captain Crowninshield comes of a distinguished New England family. He is a grandson of Jacob Crowninshield, an early secretary of the navy, and a great-nephew of Benjamin Crowninshield, also a secretary of the navy. Like all the Crowninshields of Salem, he was full of love of the sea. His father was a graduate of Harvard and a founder of the Porcelain Club.
FILLING THE DUKE’S SHOES WITH MUCILAGE
Captain Crowninshield as a lad read and studied all the books he could find about the sea, upon which his ancestors, near and remote, had sailed. From the first he was determined to be a naval officer. To this end he went to a village where lived a member of Congress, who, he thought, might make him his appointee. The young man found the old member of Congress out in his field, ploughing. He liked the looks of the boy and gave him a half-promise of the appointment. Young Crowninshield was forced to wait a month, but at last the letter came, and with trembling fingers he broke the seal of the letter which made him a midshipman (a title which it is to be hoped will be restored ere long to the service).
Some of his classmates were the present Captain Clark, of “Oregon” fame, Captain Harry Taylor, Drayton Cassell, Captain Wadleigh, and Captain Cook, of the “Brooklyn.” His room-mate was Pierre d’Orleans, and many a time did Captain Crowninshield rescue the young foreigner when the jokes became too fast and furious. A favorite amusement with the midshipmen was to fill “Pete” d’Orleans’s shoes with mucilage. This practice, so far from making him feel like sticking to this country, persuaded the young duke to return to his native land, where there were no wild American boys to tamper with his dignity.
When the Academy was removed from Annapolis to Newport, young Crowninshield, of course, went with the school, with Evans and the others. He was told that those who could pass the required examination at the end of three years could go out to the war as officers.