Among the problems to be solved by an efficient naval administration there is none more difficult or of greater importance than the formation of reserves of seamen. Our late war exposed the nation’s weakness in sailors. At the beginning of hostilities the fleet, on paper, consisted of forty-two ships of all classes, mainly sailing-vessels, with a few paddle-wheel steamers, and less than ten screw-vessels with auxiliary power. Its personnel comprised seven thousand of all grades. And yet, to blockade a coast of over three thousand miles in length, the Secretary of the Navy had at his disposal but three effective vessels, and a reserve of only two hundred seamen on all the receiving-ships and at all the naval stations.
As late as the first of July, 1863, there were not men enough to carry out efficiently the work imposed upon the navy, and of the thirty-four thousand blue-jackets twenty-five thousand were landsmen. Secretary Welles, at the end of the same year, complained that there were no reserve seamen, that the supply for immediate and imperative duties was so inadequate that one of the largest and fastest steamers destined for important foreign service had been detained for months in consequence of the need of a crew, and that many other vessels were very much short of their complements. The cause of this was want of foresight, of prudence, of national common-sense even. We did not lack the material from which crews could have been drawn, for in 1860 over seventy-five thousand men sailed in the American merchant marine, fifty thousand of whom, under any system of enrolment suited to our national instincts and prejudices, would, before the end of 1861, have been available for duty on shipboard.
In peace there had been no organization, so when war came we were almost helpless, and as late as the end of 1863 not twenty per cent. of the men who should have been ready for service were in government ships. Let doctrinaires theorize as they may, this was not the fault of our maritime class, for thousands of sailors and fishermen who had already entered the army were by force of law denied the opportunity either of enlisting in, or of being transferred to, the navy. In addition, the operation of the draft was made detrimental to the naval interests of the country, for it violated the Act of May, 1792, which exempts from military duty all mariners actually employed in the sea service of any citizen or merchant within the United States. Furthermore, the government unjustly discriminated against the seaboard towns, for not only was the seafaring class, which is fostered and cherished by all maritime governments, withdrawn from the element to which it has been accustomed, but in addition sailors actually afloat were taken from their ships and compelled, under the penalty of law, to enter the land service. It was not until 1864 that Congress finally enacted the law which enabled seamen serving as soldiers to be drafted into the navy.
How different would have been the state of affairs had there existed in 1861 some system of government administration as to the creation of naval reserves, or, more far-reaching still, had we been free from that illogical distrust which possessed the whole country! The fear of too much centralization was the stock in trade of professional patriots, and the people, hampered by traditions which had come down to us from our English ancestors, saw in any attempt towards efficient war preparation in times of peace all the dangers they had been taught to believe existed in standing armies.
England acted more wisely, for she had been taught a grim lesson by her adversities, and without fear we might have profited by her example. In the history of the Peninsula war, Napier, after picturing the horrors of the fearful April night when Badajoz was stormed, asked, bitterly,
“And why was all this striving in blood against insurmountable difficulties? Why were men sent thus to slaughter when the application of a just science would have rendered the operations comparatively easy?
“Because the English ministers, so ready to plunge into war, were quite ignorant of its exercises; because the English people are warlike without being military, and, under the pretence of maintaining liberty which they do not possess, oppose in peace all useful martial establishments. In the beginning of each war England had to seek in blood for the knowledge necessary to insure success.”
Equally has this always been the attitude of the American people towards every attempt made in peace to prepare for war. Besides this national distrust, prejudices had to be overcome which have existed both in the navy and the merchant marine. Our naval officers have never made any determined effort to create a reserve, either because they have not fully grasped the correlation and interdependence of the navy and the merchant marine, or because they have doubted the wisdom of spending upon an outside issue appropriations which, given to the navy, would produce a more immediate and tangible result. But from both points of view they are wrong, “for a navy unsupported by a merchant marine is a hot-house plant which may produce great results for a while, but cannot endure the strain of a long protracted campaign.” From the merchant marine the personnel of the navy in war must come, and it is a fallacy to believe that by a small addition to our ordinary naval resources we would be able to cope with the navies of other maritime powers, or that in a long war an efficient and numerous reserve is not of greater importance than a few more seamen permanently maintained in the navy during peace.
To the merchants and ship-owners the question is one of vital importance. The earliest and most disastrous consequence of war will fall upon the shipping interest. Under any system of defence the necessities of the navy must withdraw seamen from the merchant service and raise the rate of wages. If, then, by timely precautions during peace, we can diminish the probability that war can occur at all; if we are ready upon the outbreak of war to show that our homeward-bound ships are safe; if we can abolish or modify the risk that the employment of seamen would be abruptly suspended by embargo or interfered with by impressment or draft; if we can attach the sailor to his country, and prevent him from seeking employment under other flags, surely the owners of our ships and merchants will reap the greatest advantage. Abroad the importance of the subject has been fully recognized. France, under a system which has existed for over two hundred and fifty years, maintains a reserve of 172,000 men, who are between the ages of eighteen and fifty; 65,000 of these are between the ages of twenty and twenty-six, 15,000 are usually kept afloat, and 6000 more are quartered on shore. Germany has 15,000, and England nearly the same number.
Notwithstanding the decadence of our shipping interest we have a large force from which to draw. The maritime population of this country numbers over 350,000, of whom 180,000 are available for the fleet. This number of course includes all those in any way connected with sea industries, and embraces coasters, fishermen, whalers, yachtsmen, boatmen, and all workmen in ship-building yards and equipment shops and stores.