The Hero of Manila: Dewey on the Mississippi and the Pacific

by Rossiter Johnson

When Dewey was in the Academy there was a special source of misunderstanding, ill feeling, and quarrels in the heated condition of politics and sectional jealousy; and then, as ever, it was customary for the boys to settle their differences with their natural means of offense and defense. Dewey did not escape the peculiar peril of those days. There is a story to the effect that the leader of the Southern party among the cadets made an occasion to give George an unmistakable statement of his opinion of Yankees in general and George in particular, whereupon he presently found himself provided with a black eye. Then came a challenge to mortal combat, which George promptly accepted. Seconds were chosen, and a meeting would undoubtedly have taken place had not some of the students informed the faculty, who put a stop to the scheme and made the boys give their word of honor to keep the peace.

George participated in the annual practice cruises with his classmates, and after graduation they were sent on a two-years' cruise in European waters in the steam frigate Wabash, commanded by Captain Samuel Barron. The ship attracted a great deal of attention in every port she visited. Steam had been only recently adopted for naval vessels, and the Americans had constructed a type of steam frigate that was superior to anything in the other navies of the world. While the Wabash lay at Malta a fine steam yacht came in from the sea and anchored near her. It was said that she was the property of a distinguished nobleman, and was one of the few first-class steam yachts then in existence. She excited a great deal of curiosity among the officers of the Wabash. A few days later Captain Barron gave out a general invitation, and many visitors from the garrison and from British men-of-war in the harbor came to inspect the new war ship from the West. Dewey and the other midshipmen were on hand to assist in doing the honors, and when a kindly-looking gentleman with a small party came up the gangway and saluted the quarter-deck with a nautical air, George returned the salute and asked if he could be of any service. The gentleman said he would like to see whatever was to be seen, and the self-possessed young midshipman proceeded to show him and his party over the vessel. When they had nearly completed the rounds, Dewey ventured to offer his card by way of introduction. The gentleman took out his own card and gave it in return, and Dewey, as he glanced at it, read one of the highest names in the British peerage. "Yes," said the gentleman, "that is my little teakettle anchored under your quarter. I fear she'll seem rather cramped after we go aboard of her from this." Dewey's conscience now began to trouble him, and he insisted on taking the party to his commanding officer, though, as he anticipated, from that moment his own existence was ignored.

While nothing strictly historical took place in connection with this cruise, there were many pleasant incidents and some that made strong impressions on the young midshipmen in regard to duty and discipline. Several Italian ports were visited, princes and ambassadors were received on board, and courtesies were exchanged with the war vessels of several nations. The Fourth of July and Washington's Birthday were duly observed, and on the former occasion one of the officers read the Declaration of Independence to the ship's company assembled on deck. At Leghorn the Wabash ran aground, and a British merchant steamer assisted in getting her off. At Genoa some of the petty officers and seamen got into a street fight, in which a man was killed; and the captain sent them all ashore next day for the civil authorities to identify the participants. At Spezia, Dewey records in his journal, "five hundred and fifty gallons of beans were surveyed, condemned, and thrown overboard," furnished probably by contract. This is in striking contrast with what afterward he was able to say concerning the supplies of the fleet at Manila. On November 13, 1859, they sailed for home, and on December 16th arrived at the port of New York. A little later Midshipman Dewey was examined at Annapolis for a commission, and he not only passed the examination, but was advanced in his relative standing. He then received leave of absence to visit his home. He was commissioned lieutenant April 19, 1861, and was ordered to the steam sloop Mississippi.

CHAPTER VI.

THE BEGINNING OF WAR.

The United States navy had done little to distinguish itself since its wonderful achievements in the War of 1812 with Great Britain. During the Mexican War it took part in the occupation of California, and performed what service it could in the Gulf, but there was no opportunity for anything remarkable. Wilkes had made his exploring expedition in Pacific and Antarctic waters; Ingraham, in the St. Louis, had demanded and secured the release of Martin Koszta at Smyrna; Tatnall, with his famous "blood is thicker than water," had participated in the bombardment of the Chinese forts at Peiho; Hudson, in the Niagara, had assisted in laying the first Atlantic cable; and several cruisers had pursued pirates in the West Indies. But with the exception of these occurrences the navy had done nothing to attract popular attention for more than forty years. Yet it had quietly accomplished much good work on the Coast Survey; and the Naval Academy at Annapolis, from its establishment in 1845, educated officers who gave character and efficiency to the service, and when the day of battle came showed themselves to be worthy successors of the famous captains who had preceded them.

A great crisis in the nation's history was now approaching, more rapidly than any one suspected. The older statesmen were gone. Adams, Jackson, Clay, Calhoun, and Webster, all had passed away within a period of seven years. Their successors were men of different mold, and the problem that had given them the most serious trouble, while comparatively small in their day, had now grown to monstrous proportions. The difficulty arose from the existence of two exactly opposite systems of labor in the two parts of the country. In the Southern States the laborers were of a different race from the capitalists and ruling class, and were slaves; in the Northern States all (except a very small proportion) were of the white race and all were free. The different ideas and interests that arose from these two different states of society had constantly tended to alienate the people of one section from those of the other, and the frequent clashing of these interests in the halls of legislation had obscured the fact that in a much larger view, and for permanent reasons, the interests and destiny of the whole country were the same. In the summer when young Dewey was graduated at the Naval Academy, Abraham Lincoln, then in the midst of a heated canvass on this question, said in a speech that became famous: "I believe this Government can not endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other." Most of the Southern statesmen, and a few of those at the North, looked to a division of the country as the best, if not the inevitable, solution of the problem. But against this there was a barrier greater and more permanent than any wording of constitution or laws enacted in the last century by a generation that had passed away. This was the geography of our country. Mr. Lincoln did not distinctly name it as the reason for his faith in the perpetuity of the Union, but he probably felt it. History shows unmistakably that the permanent boundaries of a country are the geographical ones. Conquest or diplomacy occasionally establishes others, but they do not endure. Separate tribes or peoples, if living within the same geographical boundaries, ultimately come together and form one nation. Had our country been crossed from east to west by a great river like the Amazon, or a chain of lakes like those that separate us from Canada, or a high mountain range, the northern and southern sections might never have come together, or would have been easily separated into two distinct peoples. But with no such natural line of division, and with the Mississippi running south through the center of the country, and with railroads, telegraphs, and other rapidly multiplying means of communication tying the sections together, the perpetuity of the Union was a foregone conclusion, whatever might be the arguments of the politician or the passions of the people.

Nevertheless, the struggle had to come, whether this great consideration was realized or not, and come it did. The Southern statesmen were in earnest in their threat of disunion, and when Abraham Lincoln was elected to the presidency in 1860 they proceeded to carry it out. South Carolina passed an ordinance of secession in December, and most of the other Southern States followed quickly, and the new government, called the Confederate States of America, was organized at Montgomery, Alabama, in February, 1861. They proceeded to take possession of the United States forts, arsenals, and navy yards within their territory, and soon had them all without firing a gun, except those at Pensacola and Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor. The Confederate forces erected several batteries within reach of Sumter, and on April 12th opened fire on the fort and compelled its surrender. This was the actual beginning of hostilities, and within twenty-four hours the whole country, North and South, was ablaze with the war spirit. The President called for volunteers to suppress the rebellion and restore the national authority, and was offered several times as many as he asked for. The South was already in arms. Many of the military and naval officers who were from the South went with their States, and young men who had been educated together at West Point or Annapolis were now to take part on opposite sides in one of the greatest conflicts the world has ever seen. In some instances brother was against brother, and father against son.

Gideon Welles, of Connecticut, was Secretary of the Navy in President Lincoln's cabinet. Though some of the naval officers resigned their commissions and offered their services to the Confederacy, the vessels of the navy, except a very few that were captured at Norfolk navy yard, remained in the possession of the National Government. There was need of all these and more, for a mighty task was about to be undertaken, and there were large bodies of troops to be transported by sea, cities to be captured, fortifications to be bombarded, and ports to be held under blockade. This last was a most important duty, though little idea of glory was connected with it, and popular reputations could not be made in it; for the Southern States had very few manufactures, and for arms, ammunition, and other necessaries they depended mainly on importation.