p1  The Captain Kicked Mr. Fanning

The United States Naval Academy at Annapolis was established in 1845, toward the close of the great, romantic age of wooden ships. The gallant frigates and sloops of war that had served the nation so well in the colorful period of John Paul Jones, Truxtun, and Decatur were soon to disappear from the seas. Steam had been introduced in the Navy in 1839. Ironclads were already in the minds of ship designers.

The American Navy, however, had its beginning at the height of that era, and our midshipmen took their training under the rugged system that had been introduced on British vessels a hundred years before. The first American midshipmen had, in fact, served in the British Navy prior to the Revolution, when such appointments were so highly prized by colonial families that ship captains were often asked to register small boys for service later when they became of age.

Midshipmen, who today are rated by the U. S. Navy as "officers in a qualified sense," derived their rank and station from early British usage. The great triple-deck warships that were introduced by Britain around the middle of the seventeenth century were built with a high bow and stern and a low middle section called the "waist." Because of the trouble of moving from one end of the vessel to the other — up and down ladders — commands  p2 were passed forward and aft through the quartermasters who were stationed in the middle section. This function of relaying orders later was given to specially designated seamen of experience who, because of their position amid­ships, became known as "midshipmen."

Given a little authority over other members of the crew, midshipmen gradually came to be regarded as junior officers rather than senior enlisted men. It later became customary to appoint nimble youths as midshipmen rather than the older experienced enlisted men. In 1676 the King himself began appointing "young gentlemen" as "volunteers by order" in the naval service to serve as midshipmen while learning to be officers. By 1729 England had established her Royal Naval Academy at Portsmouth.

The first midshipmen of the United States Navy were regularly appointed under the Marine Committee that administered our naval affairs from 1775 to 1779. The first steps toward organizing a naval force among the colonies were taken in the former year as the result of an act by the British, precipitated by New England privateers who had taken to raiding British shipping. In June, 1775, a group of Maine woodsmen, sailing a lumber sloop, captured an armed British schooner and took her on a cruise that netted several prizes. Other American colonies along the Atlantic coast, notably Massachusetts, followed suit and sent armed privateers out after British shipping. This annoyance so greatly angered Admiral Graves, commander of the British fleet on the coast, that he burned the town of Falmouth (now Portland, Maine) to ashes.

Indignantly, General Washington reported to the Continental Congress this action by the British that had left the inhabits of Falmouth without homes at the beginning of a New England winter. The result was an appropriation of $100,000 and the appointment of a committee, on Oct. 13, 1775, to buy ships. A few weeks later the Congress adopted the report of a second committee  p3 which suggested that a fleet of 13 vessels, ranging from 32 to 24 guns, be made ready by March, 1776.

The first midshipmen of the regular Navy came under the command and influence of men who were products of the hardest kind of experience the sea could offer. Their officers had come up through service in the British Navy, in colonial naval vessels, in privateers, and the merchant marine. They were men, toughened by years before the mast, who did not hesitate to enforce their orders with their fists or to have a man's back laid raw by the cat‑o'‑nine‑tails. Even a midshipman, at whose nod the boatswain's mate would snatch a colt from his cap and lay its lash on a seaman for lagging, was not safe from physical violence at the hands of his superiors. The life was rugged, the duty was hard, and the chances for learning enough to win a commission depended almost wholly on the individual midshipman's determination to make the most of his opportunities.

During the difficult years of the Revolutionary War there was little attention paid to the action instruction of midshipmen. They came to the notice of their superiors principally through their misdeeds. They were given "no special duties" but plenty to. When John Paul Jones was in command of the Bonhomme Richard in 1779, he disposed of his midshipmen by a "standing order" that said simply, "Two midshipmen in their turns shall be always present on the quarter-deck or poop; the rest in the waist and on the forecastle; getting aloft, however, when necessary." A certain midshipman came into personal association with the great naval hero, however, when Jones commanded the Ariel as evidenced by an entry in the ship's log: "The Captain kicked Mr. Fanning, midshipmen, and ordered him below."

Nevertheless, many of these youngsters gave good accounts of themselves in battle. A Virginia midshipman, Alexander Moore, was in command of a brig, the Mosquito, that captured two prizes in the West Indies before she was herself captured by the frigate  p4 Ariadne. Moore was sent to England as a prisoner but managed to escape. Another midshipman, Samuel Barron, in command of a small schooner attacked an enemy vessel at the mouth of Hampton Creek and killed more of the British crew than there were in the entire crew of his own ship.

United States naval activity was at a low state at the close of the Revolution, and public opinion deserted the Navy in the belief that sea power was detrimental to republican institutions and might lead to the establishment of a monarchy. This lack of belief in the importance of a Navy was demonstrated by the attitude in Congress when the Bey of Algiers began to attack American commerce on the seas and enslave American citizens. It was argued then that it would be cheaper either to purchase Algerian friendship or to subsidize a European power to protect our shipping than to rebuild the United States fleet. By a scant majority of two votes a naval force was finally authorized, and the construction of six frigates was begun in 1794. This law authorized the appointment of new officers for the Navy and 48 midshipmen.

Four years later, when we were at war with France, the service received as midshipmen a number of men who were destined to become heroes in the War of 1812, including Stephen Decatur, Charles Morris, James Lawrence, Oliver Hazard Perry, David Porter, and Thomas Macdonough. Some of their number never became great officers because they died as midshipmen heroes. A resolution of Congress said of one of them: "The conduct of James Jarvis, a midshipman of the Constellation, who gloriously preferred certain death to the abandonment of his post deserves the highest praise; and the loss of so promising an officer is a subject of national regret." To merit this notice Jarvis had clung to his station in the maintop of his ship during its fight with the Vengeance, even though the rigging had been destroyed and the mast was left unsupported. He was warned by an old seaman that  p5 his position was dangerous, but replied, "If the mast goes, we go with it." As it fell, Jarvis and his men went overboard.

Up to that time nothing had been done about providing formal schooling for midshipmen to fit them for the high positions of command for which they were being prepared. If a boy was in earnest about getting ahead he could, like Stephen Decatur, Jr., prepare himself by studying navigation prior to joining his ship and apply himself diligently to the all‑important subject of seaman­ship. When he entered the Navy at the age of twenty, Decatur knew so little about the handling of a ship that he had to write the name of each rope on the rail with a pencil, much to the consternation of the first lieutenant. Decatur was a lieutenant himself in a year, and at twenty-five he was in command of the Constitution.

Regulations for the government of the Navy issued in 1802 made reference to "schoolmasters" who were charged with instructing midshipmen "in those sciences appertaining to their department." Actually, no schoolmasters were assigned at that time to the vessels of the fleet. The regulation was therefore interpreted as pla­cing the responsibility of teaching on the chaplains. It was a task for which many chaplains were not particularly well fitted, although they strove manfully to drive into the heads of their pupils subjects in which they themselves were not well versed.

During the Barbary Wars, many commanding officers of ships were helpful in giving their midshipmen thorough drilling in the art of seaman­ship, the handling of ordnance and small arms, hand-to‑hand fighting, and naval tactics. Notable among these were Commodore Truxtun, Stephen Decatur, James Lawrence, and Richard Somers. One captain saw to it that the instruction of his officers was continued even while they were being held as prisoners of war. When the Philadelphia and her crew were captured after thereupon aground off Tripoli, Captain Bainbridge took ashore the professional books from the ship's library and organized a  p6 school for midshipmen with his executive officer, Lieutenant David Porter, in charge. Studying went right on during the 20 months of their captivity, even to the sound of bombardment from our own ships attacking offshore.

The public apathy under which the Navy had suffered since the close of the Revolution was removed by the manner in which it protected and promoted the interests of the young republic against the French, the pirates of the Mediterranean, and the British. The victory of the Constitution over the Guerrière on Aug. 19, 1812, brought forth such hearty appreciation of the Navy that Congress, in 1813, authorized the construction of four 74‑gun ships of the line. Part of this authorization was a provision that each of the vessels be supplied with a schoolmaster whose salary was to be $25 a month. As additional ships were authorized, the same provision for schoolmasters was continued.

Thus the first steps were taken to provide professional instruction for midshipmen afloat. Efforts to provide some kind of instruction ashore had been made as early as 1803 when Chaplain Robert Thompson set up a school in mathematics and navigation at the Washington Navy Yard. Although most of the commanders who had come up through the hard school of the merchant marine or early naval apprentice­ship were of the firm opinion that the deck of a ship was the only place to learn to be a naval officer, the classroom on shore was slowly gaining favor. The principal difficulty was to attract pupils to the class. In those days a midshipman was without duties between cruises; and, after a long period of confinement aboard ship, he was usually anxious to relax and seek amusement.

Since midshipmen could not be given very long leaves and were consequently kept close to the navy yards, these periods ashore offered a good opportunity for instruction. A number of private schools were established for this purpose early in the nineteenth century. In 1821 the Navy Department organized one on board  p7 the Guerrière at Norfolk, with Chaplain David P. Adams in charge. Later the government opened similar schools at New York and Boston. Both officers and midshipmen of the Navy also sought instruction at such recognized institutions as Yale College and in 1829 there was a midshipman studying at West Point.⁠a

Whether or not the time spent in study ashore was worth while from the standpoint of advancement in the service must have seemed a serious question to some midshipmen as they came up for promotion. The examinations in those days were given by a board of naval officers who, because they had had little or no formal schooling themselves, usually confined their questions to the general subject of practical seaman­ship. The story is told of one midshipman who decided to exhibit his knowledge of mathematics by solving a problem through spherical trigonometry, demonstrated on the blackboard, instead of using the familiar forms provided in Bowditch's "Navigator." He was gruffly told that his answer was wrong and advised to go to sea and learn navigation. In contrast, another midshipman was asked by a commodore what he would do as captain of a ship if he were off a lee shore, all sail carried away, and the ship scudding rapidly toward the breakers. "I'd let the infernal tub go to the devil," he replied, and was enthusiastically passed by the board.

Not until 1839 was a school established where midshipmen could spend as much as an academic year of eight months in preparation for their examinations for promotion. Organized at the Naval Asylum, a home for aged seamen near Philadelphia, this school was the germ of the present institution at Annapolis.

The establishment of an academy for the education and training of future naval officers was actually part of a movement for rehabilitation and improvement of the whole naval service, instigated by Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft. For three decades following the War of 1812, certain officers had earned  p8 rather bad reputations by their conduct at home and abroad, both on and off duty. While not representative of the service as a whole, stories about their activities were getting into the news­papers and were coloring public opinion. Moreover, a craze developed among commanding officers, in the years of peace and leisure after the War of 1812, to operate a "smart ship." With some captains the swabbing and holystoning of decks, the lacquering of guns and the polishing of brass amounted to a mania. With others the all important thing was to reef and furl sails, trim the rigging, and make the ship presentable in port within a matter of minutes after dropping anchor. To maintain their records and reputations in these respects, some commanding officers were free with the lash and inflicted other severe punishments on unfortunates who might fumble a line or become responsible in some way for spoiling a particular show of speed and efficiency.

In contrast with the strict regulations of today that protect men in the Navy from unjust or unusual punishment, the flogging of sailors for a great variety of reasons was common practice in that early period. Although many officers representing the most progressive element in the service were decidedly opposed to it, flogging was nevertheless continued for years. The practice undoubtedly was never as extensive in the American Navy, however, as in the merchant service or in foreign navies. But there were instances in which midshipmen and commissioned officers were struck by their superiors and formal protests against such treatment were often unavailing. Cases are on record of court-martial proceedings brought against captains who were completely exonerated on the most flimsy excuses, for knocking down and injuring their officers. One of these, in fact, was olive Hazard Perry, who was accused of insulting and assaulting his marine officer and was let off with a private reprimand.

Some captains were also reputed to be downright unscrupulous  p9 not only in their personal affairs but in official business of the government. Their misdeeds ranged from stealing a government payroll to snatching the "pot" from a gambling table and running off with it. Among midshipmen themselves there were brawls and duels in every port where American warships called.

It was under such conditions as these that the Navy was attempting to prepare its midshipmen for their future responsibilities of command. Naturally, the youths drank from the cup that was offered them. Some went out of their way to imitate the worst examples of leader­ship that the service had to offer. Later they were in turn to influence other boys following in their footsteps.

Equally serious at the time was the problem of handling youths of poor promise who were being given appointments as midshipmen by politicians who exercised no discretion in their willingness to use this method of paying off political debts. Thus the service received as midshipmen some boys who should have been in reform school, and others who showed no aptitude whatever for the calling in which they found themselves.

The result of one such appointment was the mutiny on the Somers, an incident that resulted in the deaths of three men, jeopardized the career of one of the Navy's finest officers, and influenced public acknowledgment of the need for a naval academy.

The brig Somers, 10 guns, was a trim little vessel of 266 tons — about the size of a private yacht. In the early winter of 1842, she was returning to New York from the African coast where she had been sent with dispatches for Commodore Perry's squadron. On No. 26 she was still •more than 500 miles off St. Thomas, where a stop was scheduled on the way to New York, when the purser's steward sent word to the captain, Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, that a mutiny was being organized.

The instigator of the plot was found to be Acting Midshipman Philip Spencer, son of Secretary of War John C. Spencer, and  p10 nephew of Captain William A. Spencer of the Navy. Having earned a bad reputation at Union College, Schenectady, young Spencer had been placed in the Navy under the special care of his uncle. He soon demonstrated his unruly character, a weakness for liquor, and that he would not hesitate to bring political pressure on those who tried to discipline him.

Aboard the Somers, it developed, Spencer had planned to take the ship from her officers and turn pirate. Commander Mackenzie was at first inclined to regard the matter as a boyish prank, but other officers considered it as serious and urged their captain to make an investigation. Spencer was arrested and placed in irons, and his personal effects were searched. They were found to contain a paper bearing writing in Greek. Another midshipman who understood Greek interpreted the writing as a list of the crew, separated into two categories as "certain" and "doubtful," and some notes on how the remainder of the crew might be dealt with.

The suspicions of the other officers were confirmed in Commander Mackenzie's mind by the attitude of the crew after the arrest of Spencer. Besides the 12 officers, there were 9 seamen, 6 landsmen, and 100 apprentice boys aboard. The afternoon of the arrest, the main-topmast of the ship suddenly fell from some mysterious cause and the crew stumbled about in seemingly unnecessary confusion in clearing it away. Later they gathered about the deck in whispering groups. Spencer, who sat on the quarter-deck because there was no other place to put him in the small vessel, was seen making signals to some of the men.

The evidence given by the purser's steward also resulted in the arrest of six other members of the crew. With two midshipmen, Commander Mackenzie took over management of the ship and convened his officers as a court of inquiry. They deliberated for a day and a half and returned a report that Spencer and two other members of the crew, a boatswain and a seaman, were guilty of  p11 "a determined intention to commit a mutiny on board this vessel of a most atrocious nature."

The court went further to recommend that, because of the uncertainty of the extent to which the ringleaders might be leagued with others "still at large," and the impossibility of "guarding against the contingencies which a day or an hour may bring forth," the three conspirators should be put to death. Realizing that, in view of the feeling among the crew, an attempt to carry the prisoners the rest of the way to the United States might seriously endanger the lives of his men and the safety of the ship, Commander Mackenzie concurred in the report. On Dec. 1, Spencer and his companions in planning the mutiny were hanged from the yardarm. Before dying, Spencer admitted his guilt. After the executions, the crew "cheered ship" and the vessel proceeded on her voyage.

Disclosure of the mutiny plot and the execution of its authors caused the greatest possible sensation when the Somers reached New York. Commander Mackenzie immediately called for a court of inquiry, which acquitted him. Before its findings were officially reported, however, the Secretary of the Navy ordered Mackenzie to trial by court-martial. That court also acquitted him. Not satisfied with this, Spencer's father continued for a long time in his efforts to have Mackenzie indicted in civil courts for murder. The naval officer's personal fortune was virtually depleted in defending himself. More than that, he suffered the onslaughts of a vituperative press which, mindful of the bad reputation given the Navy by some of its officers, focused upon him and the Somes executions in their attacks on the service.

For all its color and dash, for all its famous and infamous personalities and events, the great age of "wood ships and iron men" was nearing its end. The kind of a Navy that the future was to bring would demand not only better officers but also uniformly trained officers. The candidates would have to be, on the whole,  p12 serious young men who conscientiously desired to embrace the naval service as a career. The best place for them to get well started on such a career was not in the steerage of a ship of the line, associating with reckless characters under brutal officers, but in the classroom of a college where, under proper discipline and leader­ship, they might apply themselves to their studies. Thus with the conception of the Naval Academy was also conceived the great Navy of today.

---

Thayer's Note:

a John S. Stoddard, who graduated with the Class of 1830, but declined his appointment as a brevet second lieutenant in the Army and served in the Navy in which he had already been appointed a midshipman.

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