Every occasion finds a man to meet the exigencies of the hour, every conflict brings forth its hero, and every war educates soldiers for a war to come. War begets the warrior. Washington came out of the French and Indian wars, Jackson from the Creek wars; Scott and Taylor both emerged from Chippewa and Lundy's Lane, Grant and Lee from Mexico. So, George Dewey came out of the fierce internecine strife of our Civil War. He came, too, from one of the great sources of the best elements of our American population. The Puritans of New England and the Cavaliers of Virginia sprung from the same soil and a common ancestry, worked side by side, in a widely different manner, but to the same end; and from these two classes have sprung nearly all our great soldiers, statesmen, and authors. From the former came the great naval hero of the Spanish-American War.
Admiral Dewey at Manila Bay.
George Dewey was born in Montpelier, Vermont, on December 26, 1837, of direct descent, in the ninth generation, from Thomas Dewey, who came from Sandwich, England, to Dorchester, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1633.
His father, Dr. Julius Dewey, was a physician, eminent in his profession, and loved and respected, not only for his ability but for his innate nobility of character; and his mother was Mary Perrin. His ancestors on both sides were patriots in the days that tried men's souls, the hard and bitter days of the Colonial and Revolutionary Wars. He was the third of four children, and even in his boyhood he was a leader among his fellows. His breaches of discipline culminated in his heading an insurrection against the village school-master; but the pedagogue came off victorious, and administered a severe flogging to the young rebel, which punishment his father is said to have reinforced with some home-brewed medicine. The lesson was well learned, for we hear of no more insurrections.
George Dewey entered the Naval Academy September 23, 1854, and was graduated fifth in a class of fourteen. He was attached to the frigate Wabash of the Mediterranean Squadron, and after his two years' cruise as a midshipman passed his final examination, in which he stood number one, gaining a final rating of three in his class. War was already imminent, and rapidly passing through the next grades he was on April 19th attached as lieutenant to the Mississippi, belonging to the West Gulf Squadron. Early in 1862 Commodores Farragut and Porter prepared to capture New Orleans. Throughout this campaign Lieutenant Dewey distinguished himself by his cool courage, quick perception, and ready skill, winning the praise of Commodore Farragut. In running by the forts, he stood upon the bridge of the Mississippi, unmoved amid a storm of shot and shell, and unerringly guided her up the river, although he knew not a foot of the channel. The next year he was attached to one of Farragut's gunboats, and later to the Monongahela, which he commanded temporarily. In 1864, attached to the Colorado, he again distinguished himself in the attack on Fort Fisher, by a display not only of great courage, but of marked tactical skill, and by the fighting of his ship, which, though a junior, he really directed, and won the enthusiastic congratulations of his superior officers. Made lieutenant-commander March 3, 1865, Dewey emerged from the Civil War a matured naval officer at the age of twenty-seven, ripe in experience and ready for any service or sacrifice for the welfare of his country.
His career from this time until the close of the year 1897, although important in his development and replete with valuable services in all directions, must be summed up in a few words.