ten and they have not read to any great extent histories; but they were men who with the officers of their corps, helped to make history during the trying times of the Civil war, and their deeds have never been exploited before the public as they deserve to be. The historian who shall take up the subject, with the time and ability to do justice to it, will render an invaluable service to his country. He will not only rescue from the partial forgetfulness into which it has fallen, one of the most brilliant chapters of that memorable war, but he will also set clearly before the public mind the influence of sea power as a factor in the past history of this country. This he will never be able to do without demonstrating at the same time, that we cannot afford to be without a navy in the future.

The situation as it was during the Civil war, may be, to some extent, repeated in the future in a war with a foreign naval power. The seacoast over which the confederacy was annoyed and attacked is still the seacoast of the United States, and added to this is the coast from Maine to Cape Henry, and from Puget Sound to the gulf of California. All this is assailable in the future, and all this is to be defended by the United States. It is not at all likely that any foreign power could, with success, invade the interior of our country, but we are still vulnerable from the sea. Our ports can be blockaded, our commerce can be destroyed, we can be isolated from the world, our flag can be humiliated and insulted, unless we understand and appreciate the value of sea power. We must stand always ready and able to defend and maintain the integrity of our country, its honor and dignity at home and abroad.

Ships and guns, torpedoes and men, are all of little use unless officers know how to fight them. Individual ships, however bravely and skillfully they may be handled and fought, can accomplish but little if the officers do not know when, where and how to dispose them; while at the same time skill in handling, courage in fighting, and knowledge of the proper disposition of ships in battle, will often be of little avail without continual and prompt supplies of everything needed in the exigencies of all of which must be reckoned for beforehand. Successful war means all of these things and more besides. It means, if the exigency requires, the exertion by a nation of its utmost

war,

power, the utilization of all its resources, the tapping of every source of supply, the employment of every manufactory, every ship and every man that can be useful, and all this with the utmost promptitude and despatch. Further than this, plans of attack and defense must be devised, and these cannot be successfully made without the most accurate knowledge of harbors, inlets, safe and unsafe passages, tides and everything else pertaining to the possible theaters of impending war.

THE AMERICAN NAVY OF THE REVOLUTION.

BY CHARLES O. PAULLIN.

[Charles O. Paullin, naval expert, has devoted special attention to the study of the development of naval warfare during the period of history of which the American Revolution was a part, and has delivered addresses on the subject before the Naval Institute at Annapolis, one of which forms the following article which is published with the approval of the Institute.]

American students are more or less familiar with the principal achievements of the continental navy of the American Revolution. Numerous writers have popularized the naval successes of that celebrated sea officer, John Paul Jones. Esek Hopkins, the first and only commander in chief of the American navy, "Commodore" Samuel Tucker, and Captains John Barry, Joshua Barney and Silas Talbot have found their biographers, who have done ample justice to their gallant and praiseworthy conduct. In 1813 Thomas Clark wrote the first narrative history of the continental navy. Clark was not critical of his sources of information, and his statements must be taken with some caution. In 1839 James Fenimore Cooper, the well known novelist, published a readable and entertaining account of the Revolutionary navy, which, upon the whole, has not been improved upon by other writers. This is not to say, however, that Cooper's history is altogether reliable or judicial in its treatment. It is marked by the bias of the period in which it was written. After the manner of our early historians Cooper wrote with a quill plucked from the wing of the American eagle. To the enthusiastic writers who breathed the fresh and invigorating air of the new republic, it seemed unpatriotic, almost traitorous, to write down the seamy side of Revolutionary history. Consequently they touch lightly, or even omit entirely, events disparaging to the Americans. Lieutenant George F. Emmons published in 1853 a list of the vessels and prizes of the continental navy. This is valuable, although not complete. Later histories of the continental navy treat the subject popularly. The most recent narratives are those of Spears and Maclay.

These various authors furnish us with considerable detail

cerning the movements, engagements and tactics of the volutionary vessels. Additional material of similar charer, chiefly in manuscript, is now accessible in our leading aries. Drawing on these sources of information let us pro

to classify the different movements and engagements of e vessels of the continental navy, with reference to the objects which the men who controlled the vessels had in mind. Thus, we will obtain a more general view of the operations of the navy than previous writers had taken. Inasmuch as the information so gained bears upon the subject of naval strategy, may be of some practical value, notwithstanding the great revolution in naval warfare that has occurred in the last fifty years. Captain Mahan has pointed out, that, while naval tactics vary with the improvements in the motive power and armament of the fleets, the basic principles of naval strategy do not. They are as enduring as the order of nature.

it

The operations of the vessels of the continental navy will be divided into primary and secondary operations. A primary operation will be described as one directed against the enemy's naval vessels at sea. Any other operation whatever will be called a secondary operation. Primary operations will be divided into major and minor. In major operations fleets of considerable size and force will be matched against each other, as was the case at the battles of Santiago, Trafalgar, and Martinique. Minor primary operations are engagements between some two or three of the smaller vessels of the combatants. A good example of this is the fight between the Bon Homme Richard and the Serapis. Secondary operations are of various forms, chief of which is commerce destroying.

It scarcely needs to be said that the continental naval department did not engage its vessels in primary naval operations. The royal navy was vastly superior to the continental navy in the number and size of vessels, in the number of guns to a ship, and in the weight of metal. Indeed the very existence of the continental vessels depended upon their ability to keep outside of the range of the larger guns of the royal navy. The continental naval department sometimes gave specific orders to its captains to avoid encountering the British

"two deckers" or engaging their ships of war unless one could be found alone.

In the minor primary operations of the Revolution some thirty to thirty five engagements may be counted. The honors here are upon the whole evenly divided. The Americans captured ten or twelve naval vessels of the enemy. With the exceptions of the frigate Fox, 26 guns, captured by John Manly between New England and Newfoundland; and the sloop Drake, 20 guns, and the ship Serapis, 44 guns; and the Countess of Scarbourough, 20 guns, captured by Captain John Paul Jones in European waters, the prizes of the Americans were minor naval craft averaging ten or twelve 4's and 6's. The British captured or destroyed about the same number as they lost, but their prizes were, on the average, larger and better armed vessels than those of the Americans. Seven of them were frigates. On the other hand the British had no victory so brilliant as that of Jones off Flamborough Head.

The secondary operations of the navy were more important than its primary. They mainly involved the protection of American commerce, the defense of certain Atlantic ports, the striking of the lines of communication of the British military forces, the attaching of the enemy's commerce at sea, and the threatening and assailing of her unprotected ports and coasts, both at home and in her outlying dependencies. Each of these forms of secondary operations will now be briefly considered.

The continental naval department defended American commerce by ordering its vessels to "attack, take, burn or destroy" the enemy's privateers. One illustration of such orders will suffice. In November, 1788, the marine committee of the continental congress wrote to the navy yard at Boston, which had control of naval affairs in New England, that "at present we consider it an object of importance to destroy the infamous Goodrich who has much infested our coast, cruising with a squadron of four, five or six armed vessels, from 16 guns downward, from Egg Harbor to Cape Fear in North Carolina." The infamous Goodrich belonged to a notorious family of Virginia tories, whose privateers during the Revolution struck terror to the inhabitants of the Virginia and Carolina coasts.