Kitabı oku: «From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life», sayfa 20

Besides the maps, there were to be produced some twenty or more battle plans. For these I hit on a device which I can recommend. I cut out a number of cardboard vessels, of different colors for the contending navies, and these I moved about on a sheet of drawing-paper until satisfied that the graphic presentation corresponded with facts and conditions. They were then fastened in place with mucilage. This saved a great deal of drawing in and rubbing out, and by using complementary colors gave vivid impression. In combats of sailing fleets you must look out sharp, or in some arrangement, otherwise plausible, you will have a ship sailing within four points of the wind before you know it. Nor is this the only way truth may be insulted. Times and distances also lay snares for incautious steps. I noticed once in an account of an action two times, with corresponding positions, which made a frigate in the meanwhile run at eighteen knots under topsails.

By such shifts we scrambled along as best we could our first year, content with beef without horseradish, as Sam Weller has it; hitching up with rope when a trace gave way, in the blessed condition of those who are not expecting favors. But worse was to come. Besides the general offence against conservatism by being a new thing, the College specifically had poached its building from another manor. It stood upon the grounds of the Naval Training Station, for apprentices, which considered itself defrauded of property and intruded upon by an alien jurisdiction—an imperium in imperio. The two were not even under the same bureau, so the antagonism existed in Washington as well as locally; and now a Secretary of malevolent neutrality. Truly some one was needed "on deck;" though just what he could do with such a barometer did not appear, unless he bore up under short canvas, like Nelson, who "made it a rule never to fight the northwesters." And such was very much our policy; reefed close down, looking out for squalls at any moment from any quarter, saying nothing to nobody, content to be let alone, if only we might be so let. Small sail; and no weather helm, if you please. One most alleviating circumstance was the commandant of the training station, the local enemy, one of the born saints of the earth, Arthur Yates. Officially, of course he disapproved of us; professional self-respect and precedent, bureau allegiance, and all the rest of it, were outraged; but when it came to deeds, Yates could not have imagined an unkind act, much less done it. Nor did he stop there; good-will with him was not a negative but an active quality. What we wanted he would always do, and then go one better, if he could find a way to add to our convenience; and when we ultimately came to grief, after his departure, he wrote me a letter of condolence. Altogether, while clouds were gathering in Washington, it was perpetual sunshine at home as to official and personal relations. I have no doubt he would have drawn maps for me had I asked it.

None the less, trouble was at hand. In 1886 we had a session which by general consent was very successful in quality, if not in quantity, lasting little over two months. Our own bureau controlled the ordering of officers, so it swept together a sufficient number to form a class. We had several excellent series of lectures: on Gunnery in its higher practical aspects, by Lieutenant Meigs, who has since left the navy for a responsible position in the Bethlehem Iron Works; on International Law, by Professor Soley, who under the next administration became Assistant-Secretary of the Navy; on Naval Hygiene, by a naval surgeon, Dr. Dean; together with others less notable. All these had been contracted for by Luce. Captain Bliss and myself, as yet the only two permanent attachés, of course took our share. So much was new to the officers in attendance, not only in details but in principle, that I am satisfied nine-tenths of them went away friendly; some enthusiastic. The College had steered clear of any appearance of scientific, or so-called post-graduate, instruction, consecutive with that given at Annapolis; and had demonstrated that it meant to deal only with questions pertinent to the successful carrying-on of war, for promoting which no instrumentality existed elsewhere. The want had been proved, and a means of filling it offered. The listeners had been persuaded.

I well remember my own elation when they went away in the latter part of November. Success had surpassed expectation. But in a fortnight Congress met, and it soon became evident that we were to be starved out,—no appropriation. It was a short session, too; scant time for fighting. I went to Washington, and pleaded with the chairman of the House naval committee, Mr. Herbert; but while he was perfectly good-natured, and we have from then been on pleasant terms, whenever he saw me he set his teeth and compressed his lips. His argument was: Once establish an institution, and it grows; more and more every year. There must be economy, and nowhere is economy so effectually applied as to the beginnings. In vain did I try to divert his thoughts to the magnificent endings that would come from the paltry ten thousand the College asked. He stopped his ears, like Ulysses, and kept his eyes fixed on the necessity of strangling vipers in their cradle. In vain were my efforts seconded by General Joe Wheeler, also a representative from Alabama, and strongly sympathetic with military thought. No help could be expected from the Secretary, and we got no funds.

The fiscal year would end June 30, 1887. It was of no use to try saving from the current balance, for by law that must be turned in at the year's end. So we shrugged our shoulders and trusted to luck, which came to our assistance in a comical manner. For summer we were all right, or nearly so; but winter might freeze us out. Still, unless the Secretary saw fit to destroy the College by executive order, it had a right to be warm; so we sent in our requisition for heating the building. It went through the customary channels, was approved, and the coal in the cellars before the Department noticed that there was no appropriation against which to charge it. Upon reference to the Secretary, he decided that the coal had been ordered and supplied in good faith, and should be left and paid for. In fact, however, if the building was used it would have to be heated; the decision practically was to let the College retain the building. It was an excellent occasion to wipe us out by a stroke of the pen, but Mr. Whitney had not yet reached that point. The fuel, I think, was charged to the bureau to which the Training Station belonged, which would not tend to mollify its feelings.

Coal was our prime necessity, but it was not all. The hostile interest now began to cut us short in the various items which contribute to the daily bread of a government institution. We lived the year from hand to mouth. From the repairs put on the building a twelvemonth before there was left a lot of refuse scrap lying about. This we collected and sorted, selling what was available, on the principle of slush-money. Slush, the non-professional may be told, is the grease arising from the cooking of salt provisions. By old custom this was collected, barrelled, and sold for the benefit of the ship. The price remained in the first lieutenant's hands, to be expended for the vessel; usually going for beautifying. What we sold at the College we thus used; not for beautifying, which was far beyond us, but to keep things together. This proceeding was irregular, and for years I preserved with nervous care the memoranda of what became of the money, in case of being questioned; although I do not think the total went much beyond a hundred dollars. It is surprising how much a hundred dollars may be made to do. For our lectures the hydrographer again made for the College two very large and handsome maps.

The session of 1887 was longer and more complete than the year before; but specifically it increased our good report in the service and added to us hosts of friends. Many were now ready to speak in our favor, if asked; and some gave themselves a good deal of trouble to see this or that person of importance. This was a powerful reinforcement for the approaching struggle; but with the Secretary biassed against us, and resolute opposition from the chairman of the committee, the odds were heavy. Mr. Whitney showed me a frowning countenance, quite unlike his usual bonhomie; and yielded only a reluctant, almost surly, "I will not oppose you, but I do not authorize you to express any approval from me." With that we began a still hunt; not from policy, but because no other course was open, and by degrees we converted all the committee but three. This was quite an achievement in its way; for, as one of the members said to me, "It is rather hard to oppose the chairman in a matter of this kind. Still, I am satisfied it is a good thing, and I will vote for it." So we got our appropriation by a big majority. Mr. Herbert was very nice about his discomfiture. That a set of uninfluential naval officers should so unexpectedly have got the better of him, in his position, had a humorous side which he was ready to see; though it is possible we, on whose side the laugh was, enjoyed it more. He afterwards, when Secretary of the Navy, came to think much better of the College, which flourished under him.

I had soon to find that my mouth had more than one side on which to laugh. Confident that we were out of the woods, I proceeded to halloo; for in an address made at the opening of the session of 1888, alluding to the doubt long felt about the appropriation, I said, "That fear has now happily been removed." I reckoned without the Secretary, who issued an order, a bolt out of the blue, depriving the College not only of its building, but of its independent existence; transferring it to the care of the commander of the Torpedo Station, on another island in Narragansett Bay. This ended my official existence as president of the College, and I was sent off to Puget Sound; one of a commission to choose a site for a navy-yard there. I never knew, nor cared, just why Whitney took this course, but I afterwards had an amusing experience with him, showing how men forget; like my old commodore his moment of despondency about the outcome of the war. In later years he and I were members of a dining club in New York. I then had had my success and recognition. One evening I chanced to say to him, apropos of what I do not now recall, "It was at the time, you know, that you sent Sampson to the Naval Academy, and Goodrich to the Torpedo Station." "Yes," he rejoined, complacently; "and I sent you to the War College." It was literally true, doubtless; his act, though not his selection; but in view of the cold comfort and the petard with which he there favored me, for Whitney to fancy himself a patron to me, except on a Johnsonian definition of the word,¹⁶ was as humorous a performance as I have known.

So I went to Puget Sound, a very pleasant as well as interesting experience; for, having a government tender at our disposal, we penetrated by daylight to every corner of that beautiful sheet of water, the intricate windings of which prepare a continual series of surprises; each scene like the last, yet different; the successive resemblances of a family wherein all the members are lovely, yet individual. Then was there not, suburban to the city of Seattle, Lake Washington, a great body of fresh water? Of this, and of its island, blooming with beautiful villas, a delightful summer resort in easy reach of the town by cars, we saw before our arrival alluring advertisements and pictures, which were, perhaps, a little premature and impressionist. How seductive to the imagination was the future battle-ship fleet resting in placid fresh water, bottoms unfouled and little rusted, awaiting peacefully the call to arms; upon which it should issue through the canal yet to be dug between sound and lake, ready for instant action! Great would have been the glory of Seattle, and corresponding the discomfiture of its rival Tacoma, which undeniably had no lake, and, moreover, lay under the stigma of having tried, in such default, to appropriate by misnomer another grand natural feature; giving its own name Tacoma to Mount Rainier, so called by Vancouver for an ancient British admiral. A sharp Seattleite said that a tombstone had thus been secured, to preserve the remembrance of Tacoma when the city itself should be no more. The local nomenclature affixed by Vancouver still remains in many cases. Puget, originally applied to one only of the many branches of the sound, was among his officers. Hood's Inlet was, doubtless, in honor of the great admiral, Lord Hood; while Restoration Point commemorates an anniversary of the restoration of Charles II. As regarded Lake Washington, our commission was a little nervous lest an injury to the canal might interfere at a critical moment with the fleet's freedom of movement, leaving it bottled up, and wired down. We selected, therefore, the site where the yard now stands, in a singularly well-protected inlet on the western side of the main arm, with an anchorage of very moderate depth and easy current for Puget Sound. There, if my recollection is right, it is nearly equidistant from the two cities. Our judgment was challenged and another commission sent out. This confirmed our choice, but very much less land was secured than we had advised.

XII
EXPERIENCES OF AUTHORSHIP

Before my return from Puget Sound a new administration had come in with President Harrison, and the War College was once more in favor. But its organization had been destroyed, and some time must elapse before it could get again on its legs. In the summer of 1889 a course was held at the Torpedo Station, where I lectured with others. The following winter an appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars was made for a College building; the old one being confirmed to the training station, which continued, however, strongly to oppose any use of its grounds for the new venture. In this it was overruled, and in 1892 the College started afresh in what has since been its constant headquarters, two hundred yards from its original position.

In the mean time my first series of lectures had been published in book form, under the title The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783. This was in May, 1890. That it filled a need was speedily evident by favorable reviews, which were much more explicit and hearty in Europe, and especially in Great Britain, than in the United States. The point of view apparently possessed a novelty, which produced upon readers something of the effect of a surprise. The work has since received the further indorsement of translation into French, German, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish; I think into Italian also, but of this I am not certain. The same compliment has, I believe, been paid to its successor, which carried the treatment down to the fall of Napoleon. Notably, it may be said that my theme has brought me into pleasant correspondence with several Japanese officials and translators, than whom none, as far as known to me, have shown closer or more interested attention to the general subject; how fruitfully, has been demonstrated both by their preparation and their accomplishments in the recent war. As far as known to myself, more of my works have been done into Japanese than into any other one tongue.

In 1890 and 1891 there was no session of the College. During this period of suspended animation its activities were limited to my own preparations for continuing the historical course through the wars of the French Revolution and Empire, with a view to the resumption of teaching. I was kept on this duty; and I think no one else was busy in direct connection with the institution, though the former lecturers were for the most part available. It is evident how particularly fortunate such circumstances were to an author. For the two years that they lasted I had no cares beyond writing; was unvexed by either pecuniary anxieties or interference from my superiors. The College slumbered and I worked. My results, after one season's use as lectures, were published in two volumes, under the title The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire.

Of this work it may accurately be said that in order of composition it was begun with its final chapter. The accumulation and digestion of material had been spasmodic and desultory, for I had hesitated much whether to pursue the treatment after 1783. The instability of the College fortunes had irritated as well as harassed me. If the navy did not want what I was doing, why should I persist? Nothing having been given to the world, I had had no outside encouragement; and little from within the profession, save the cordial approval of a very few officers. However, during the two years of doubtful struggle I had read quite widely upon the general history of the particular period, as well as upon the effects of sea power in the Peloponnesian War; together with such details as I could collect from Livy and Polybius of naval occurrences while Hannibal was in Italy. My outlook was thus enlarged; not upon military matters only, but by an appreciation of the strength of Athens, broad based upon an extensive system of maritime commerce. This prepared me to see in the Continental System of Napoleon the direct outcome of Great Britain's maritime supremacy, and the ultimate cause of his own ruin. Thus, while gathering matter, a conception was forming, which became the dominant feature in my scheme by the time I began to write in earnest. Coincidently with these studies, and with my other occupations when at first president of the College, two introductory chapters had been written; one bridging the interval between 1783 and 1793, so as to hitch on to my first book, the other dealing with the state of the navies at the opening of the French Revolution.

There Mr. Whitney's action brought me up with a round turn. When I resumed, late in 1889, I extended my reading by Jomini's Wars of the French Republic, a work instructive from the political as well as military point of view; concurrently testing Howe's naval campaign of 1794 by the principles advanced by the military author, which commended themselves to my judgment. In connection with this study of naval strategy, I reconstructed independently Howe's three engagements of May 28th and 29th, and June 1st, from the details given by James, Troude, and Chevalier, analyzing and discussing the successive tactical measures of the opposing admirals; in the battle of June 1st going so far as to trace even the tracks of the fifty-odd individual ships throughout the action. This, the most complicated presentation I ever attempted, was a needless elaboration, though of absorbing interest to me when once begun. A comparison between it and the bare conventional diagram of Trafalgar in the same volumes, which has been criticised as not reproducing the facts, may serve to show how far multiplicity of minutiæ conduces to clearness of perception. From the Trafalgar plan a reader, lay or professional, can grasp readily the underlying conceptions upon which the battle was fought, and the manner in which they were executed, as commonly received; but who ever has tried to comprehend the movements of the vessels on June 1st, as I elicited them? Assuming their correctness, it was a mere mental diversion, in result rather confusing than illuminative to a student; whereas ships arranged like beads on a string can give an impression fundamentally correct, and to be apprehended at a glance. So far from tending to lucidity, accumulation of detail in pursuit of minute accuracy rather obscures. Nelson himself indicated his intentions sufficiently by straight lines. One merit my June 1st plan may possibly possess; the perplexing optical effect may convey better than words the intricacy of a naval mêlée.

Coincidently with the study of military events, connoted by Howe's campaign and Jomini, I of course did a good deal of reading which here can be described only as miscellaneous; prominent amid which was Thiers's History of the Consulate and Empire, Napoleon's Correspondence and Commentaries, and the orations of Pitt and Fox. From Thiers, confirmed by contemporary memoirs and pamphlets and other incidental mention, I gained my conviction that the Continental System was the determinative factor in Napoleon's fortunes after Tilsit. Pitt's speeches, taken with his life, seemed to me conclusive as to his policy, despite the evil construction placed upon his acts by Frenchmen of his day, which Thiers has perpetuated. I saw clearly and conclusively, as I thought, apparent in his public words and private letters, a strong desire for peace, and a hand forced by a wilful spirit of aggression which momentarily had lost the balance of its reason. Making every allowance for the extravagances of the French rulers, unpractised in government and driven by a burning sense of mission to universal mankind, it was to me evident that their demands upon other nations, and notably upon Great Britain, were subversive of all public order and law, and of international security.

Pitt's proud resolution to withstand to the uttermost this tendency, coupled with his evident passionate clinging to peace as the basis of his life ambition, constituted to my apprehension a tragedy; of lofty personal aim and effort wrestling with, and slowly done to death by, opposing conditions too mighty for man. The dramatic intensity of the situation was increased by the absence of the external dramatic appeal characteristic of his father. It carried the force of emotion suppressed. The bitter inner disappointment is veiled under the reserve of his private life and the reticence of his public utterance, which give to his personality a certain remoteness from usual joys and sorrows; but, the veil once pierced by sympathy, the human side of the younger Pitt stands revealed as of one who, without complaint, bore no common burden, did no common work, and to whom fell no common share of the suffering which arises from disappointment and frustration, in ideals and achievement. The conflict of the two motives in the man's steadfast nature aroused in me an enthusiasm which I did not seek to check; for I believe enthusiasm no bad spirit in which to realize history to yourself or others. It tends to bias; but bias can be controlled. Enthusiasm has its place, not for action only, nor for speaking, but in writing and in appreciation; quite as critical analysis and judicial impartiality have theirs. To deny either is to err. The moment of exaltation gone, the dispassionate intellect may sit in judgment upon the expressions of thought and feeling which have been prompted by the stirring of the mind; but without this there lacks one element of true presentation. The height of full recognition for a great event, or a great personality, has not been reached. The swelling of the breast under strong emotion uplifts understanding. Under such influence a writer is to the extent of his faculties on the level of his theme. As for biography, I would no more attempt to write that of a man for whom I felt no warm admiration, than I would maintain friendship with one for whom I had no affection.

Doubtless there also was in Pitt's manner of speech, in the cast of his sentences,—the style that is the man himself,—something which appealed especially to me. Often, when reading in the Public Library of New York a passage of unusual eloquence, I would be strongly moved to rise on the spot and give three cheers; and I heartily subscribed to a Latin motto on the title-page of the edition I was using: If you could but have heard himself. But it was more than that. The story increasingly impressed itself upon me. I saw him conscious of great capacities for the administration of peace, an inner conviction of far less ability for war; with a vision of Great Britain happy and prosperous beyond all past experience under his enlightened guidance, of which already the plans had been revealed and proof been given, and over against this the palpable reality of a current too powerful to be resisted, sweeping her into a conflict, the end of which, amid such unprecedented conditions, could not be foreseen. Also, despite all his deficiencies for a war ministry, as I read and studied the general features of the situation with which he had to deal, I became convinced that the broad lines of his policy coincided with the military necessities of the case, to an extent that he himself very possibly did not realize. For as the Directory outlined Napoleon's Continental System, so Pitt, unknowingly perhaps, pursued the methods, as he definitely predicted the means—exhaustion—by which his successors brought to a stop the mischievous energies of France under the great emperor.

Thus, before I began to write, my leading ideas for the historical treatment of the influence of sea power during the period 1793–1814 rested upon an approval of the main features of Pitt's war policy, and sympathy with his personal position; upon a clear conviction of the weight of the Continental System as a factor in the general situation, and of its being a direct consequence from British maritime supremacy; and upon a sufficiently comprehensive acquaintance with the operations of the land warfare up to the Peace of Amiens. Having as yet written only the two introductory chapters, and Howe's campaign being strictly episodical, the work as an organic whole was still before me when the summer of 1890 arrived. It was then thought probable that the College would at once resume, and in order to be at hand I settled my family in Newport, there addressing myself to my new lectures. Considering the mass of detail through which my hearers must be carried, I thought advisable to begin with an outline statement of the general political and military conditions, and of their sequences; a rudimentary figure, a skeleton, the nakedness of which should render easy to understand the mutual bearings of the several parts, and their articulations. So most surely could the relation of sea power to the other members be seen, and its influence upon them and upon the ultimate issue be appreciated. Before I began, I remember explaining to a brother officer my conception of the Continental System as the culmination of the maritime struggle, which in a narrowly military sense had ended with Trafalgar. The light thus cast would illuminate afterwards each of the several sections of the history, treated circumstantially in order of time. In short, I here applied to the whole the method of my diagram for Trafalgar, and not of that for June 1st. The result was the chapter last in the work, as it now stands, but the first to be composed.

A few months before book publication this chapter appeared in the Quarterly Review, under the title "Pitt's War Policy," chosen by me to express my recognition that the grand policy was his; that in it he was real as well as titular premier; and that in my judgment, despite the numerous errors of detail which demonstrated his limited military understanding, the economical comprehension of the statesman had developed a political strategy which vindicated his greatness in war as in peace. The article ended, as the chapter then did, with the well-known quotation, particularly apt to my appreciation, "The Pilot had weathered the storm." The few subsequent pages were added later. By an odd coincidence, just as I had offered the paper to the Quarterly, one under the same title, "by a Foxite," came out in another magazine. Somewhat discomposed, I hurried to look this up; but found, as from the nom de plume might be presumed, that it did not take my line of argument, but rather, as I recall, that of Pitt's opponents, which Macaulay has developed with his accustomed brilliancy, although to my mind with profound misconception and superficial criticism. Fox's speeches had made upon me the impression of the mere objector. Indeed, I felt this so strongly that I had written of him as "the great, but factious, leader of the opposition." In proofreading I struck out "factious;" as needless, and as a generalization on insufficient premises.

It was not till the following December—1890—that I began the two chapters next in order of composition, on "The Warfare against Commerce." These occupied me late into the winter, covering as they did the entire period 1793–1814, and embracing a great deal of detail. Taken together, these three chapters, final but first written, contain the main argument of the book. The naval occurrences, brilliant and interesting as they were, are logically but the prelude to the death grapple. Pitt's policy stood justified, because naval supremacy, established by war, secured control of the seas and of maritime commerce, and so exhausted Napoleon. Not till this demonstration had been accomplished to my own satisfaction did I take up the narrative and discussion of warfare, land and sea. Thus the prelude followed the play. My memory retains associations which enable me definitely to fix the progress of the work. Thus the chapter on "The Brest Blockade," from its characteristics, long continuance, and incidents, one of the most interesting of the purely naval operations, was composed in the summer of 1891, at Richfield; while the campaign and battle of Trafalgar, the last done of all, passed through my hands in April, 1892, in Richmond, Virginia, where I then was on court-martial duty.

This second book was written under much more encouraging circumstances than its predecessor, and with much greater deliberation. The first occupied me little over one year; the second, though covering only one-fifth the time, was in hand three. There were long interruptions, it is true; the Puget Sound business, and the writing of a short Life of Farragut. But the chief cause of delay was a much more extensive preparation. This was owing largely to the crowded activities of the brief twenty years treated, and still more to wider outlook. I attempted, indeed, nothing that could be called original research. I still relied wholly upon printed matter, but in that I wandered far. The privilege was accorded me of free access to the alcoves of what was then the Astor Library, now, while keeping its name, incorporated with the New York Public Library; and I rummaged its well-stocked shelves, following up every clue, especially memoirs, pamphlets, and magazines, contemporary with my period. From the estimate I had formed of the effect of commerce upon the outcome of the hostilities, it was necessary to digest the statistics of the times, much of which existed in tabulated form; and, for commercial policy, the State Papers, and debates in Parliament, as well as in the French National Convention. I now had not only interest in my task, but pride; for the favorable criticism upon the first sea-power book not only had surprised me, but had increased my ambition and my self-confidence. It was a distinct help that there was no expectation of pecuniary advantage; no publisher or magazine editor pressing for "copy," on which dollars depended. I now often recall with envy the happiness of those days, when the work was its own reward, and quite sufficient, too, almost as good as a baby; when there were no secondary considerations, however important, to dispute for the first place. I have never knowingly let work leave my hands in shape less good than the best I can turn out; but I have often felt the temptation to do so, and wished—almost, not quite—that there was no money in it. I recast Dr. Johnson's saying: "None but a blockhead would write unless he needed money." None but a blockhead would write for money, unless he had to.