p13  No Places of Easy Service

Whether the Navy's future officers should be given schooling ashore or should continue to receive their training while serving with the fleet remained an issue between opposing factions both within and outside the service for nearly half a century before the Naval Academy was Italy established at Annapolis. In the early days of the Navy the issue had been mainly between those who believed that the republic should develop as a sea power and those who either feared or saw no necessity for a strong naval force. In later years it was principally between those, chiefly within the service, who put their confidence in marlinespike seaman­ship, and those who were foresighted in their appraisal of developments that were changing naval warfare from an art to a science.

The campaign for more careful preparation of midshipmen for their future responsibilities of command, although a long and often discouraging one, attracted some of the nation's most important figures to its support. No less a person than John Paul Jones, father of the American Navy, whose body lies entombed within the Academy's gates, was one of the first to recognize the importance of well-rounded education and training for naval officers. Although himself a product of the old system, Jones is credited with having said: "It is by no means enough that an  p14 officer of the Navy should be a capable mariner. He must be that, of course, but also a great deal more. He should be, as well, a gentleman of liberal education, refined manners, punctilious courtesy, and the nicest sense of personal honor." Three Presidents of the United States showed sufficient interest in the question to recommend the establishment of naval schools. Three Secretaries of the Navy were untiring in their efforts to gain approval of an academy before the institution was finally established by Secretary Bancroft. Many officers of the Navy, individually and collectively, had also made strong pleas to their government in support of the movement.

Perhaps the most logical plan for a Federal institution in which midshipmen could take the scholastic portion of their training was the one presented to Congress in 1800 by President John Adams. It was based on a report by Secretary of War James McHenry who suggested the establishment of four schools that would comprise a military university for both the Army and the Navy. Young men entering such an institution would first go through a fundamental school, then move on to specialize in a school of engineers and artillerists, a school of cavalry and infantry, or a school of the Navy. With respect to the naval school, the plan proposed that its students be instructed in the application of knowledge acquired in the fundamental school of such subjects as arithmetic, algebra, geometry, statics, and navigation. It went on to say that, having passed examination, "they signal make voyages or cruises, under skillful officers, for certain periods, during which time they ought to be exercised in the maneuvers and observations most useful in service, and be instructed in whatever respects rigging of vessels of war, pilotage, and the management of cannon."

The military university plan failed to attract support, however, and the idea was dropped. Two years later the United States Military Academy was established at West Point, thus giving the  p15 Army an advantage that was not to come to the Navy for 43 years. The principals by President Adams to give both services equal facilities for educating and training their future officers had come at a time when the Navy was not in good standing either with Congress or the people. It had come into existence by a slender vote in Congress and had not yet been able to prove its worth. The popular feeling of the day was that the Navy was a temporary or reserve type of organization, which might be maintained normally as a small force and quickly expanded to meet any emergency. Consequently, it was felt that no special consideration need be given to long-term planning for its future.

The Navy's record in the Barbary Wars and the War of 1812 won for it widespread popularity; but this rush of favor soon wore off again and the advocates of a naval academy found that it had not greatly helped their cause. One of the strongest and most continuous pleas for an academy was made by Secretary of the Navy S. L. Southard between 1824 and 1829. In his annual report of Dec. 1, 1824, Southard revived the argument for equal educational opportunities for the Army and Navy, declaring: "We have now the light of experience on this point in the Army, and its salutary effects are very manifest. Instruction is not less necessary to the Navy than to the Army." At another time he echoed the advice of John Paul Jones when he argued: "The American naval officer is, in fact, the representative of his country in every port to which he goes, and by him is that country in a greater or less degree estimated. With a well-regulated national pride, this consideration alone would insure him ample means of instruction and improvement." All of Southard's efforts, though warmly supported by President John Quincy Adams, were unavailing as various measures introduced in Congress were defeated.

Meanwhile, the Maryland House of Delegates made the first official bid for the honor for which it was destined to wait nearly 20 years. A resolution that it adopted in 1826, when bills for the  p16 establishment of an academy were before Congress, provided that "our Senators and Representatives in Congress be, and they are hereby, requested to call the attention of their respective houses to the superior advantages which the city of Annapolis and its neighborhood possessesº as a situation for a naval academy, and that they use their best exertions in favor of the establishment of such an institution."

Secretary Southard's successor, John Branch, also proved to be a strong naval academy supporter under the administration of President Andrew Jackson. In his first annual report, on Dec. 1, 1829, Secretary Branch renewed the main arguments for an academy, giving emphasis again to the importance of having the nation well represented abroad by its naval officers. "It has been remarked by a naval officer of much experience and observation," he reported, "that no inconvenience in the Navy is more sensibly felt than the general ignorance of the officers of foreign languages . . . The perplexities and disadvantages under which our officers are placed by these circumstances may readily be conceived." In a later report he emphasized the necessity of educating naval officers in the fundamentals of international law and the law of courts-martial and brought in again reference to the Army's military academy and the Navy's lack of educational facilities ashore.

In the face of consistent refusals by Congress to provide an academy for the Navy, the proposal was later made by another Secretary of the Navy that a class of 100 midshipmen be sent to West Point for instruction in scientific subjects, but this idea was also rejected. The government preferred to continue the system of instruction by schoolmasters on shipboard.

The strongest plea for a naval academy from within the service itself was produced in the form of resolutions drawn up and adopted by the officers on board the U. S. S. Constitution and endorsed by the officers of the U. S. S. Vandalia in 1836.

 p17  These resolutions stated, in part:

The resolutions were signed by 55 officers. They were sent on to Congress but failed to produce any results although the Naval Committee of the Senate, of which former Secretary of the Navy Southard was then a member, reported favorably on them.

As the years passed and naval academy advocates continued their fruitless efforts, developments were taking place which in themselves formed one of the best arguments for a new concept of training for naval officers. These were developments that produced the age of steam and, in turn, the age of steel. They marked the beginning of the end of the old Navy.

Steam meant more than a new form of propulsion on naval vessels. It meant that mechanical equipment would be introduced to  p18 perform many operations that had always been done by hand. The old sailing vessels were almost entirely lacking in mechanical devices. Their simple pumps were usually the only form of machinery aboard. Sails were raised and lowered; anchors were hauled aboard; guns were elevated, moved about, and trained; all this was done by human brawn.

The development of the mechanical age also meant that steel hulls would be designed to withstand the pounding of greater caliber, higher powered, more accurately aimed guns. Larger, self-propelled, faster ships with more fire power and heavier armor would evolve new tactics in naval warfare. This would call for larger fleets, greater diversification of equipment, and more specialized, more highly trained personnel.

The first direct appeal to Congress for an academy, based on the demands that technological developments might be expected to place on the Navy, was made by Secretary Abel P. Upshur in 1841. He argued: "The use of steam vessels in war will render necessary a different order of scientific knowledge from that which has heretofore been required. This important object can be best attained by the establishment of naval schools, provided with the necessary means of uniting practice with theory. The advantages which the Army has derived from the Academy at West Point afford a sufficient proof that a similar institution for the Navy would produce like results."

From then on, the tempo of appeals to Congress to establish an academy increased. The public press was full of the discussion. Finally, in 1845, Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft surveyed the situation, then quietly set in motion certain administrative procedures which in nine months accomplished what scores of persons, in high places and low, had been striving to do without success for nearly 50 years.

At the time he became head of the Navy Department in the  p19 Polk administration, Bancroft was in the middle years of a long life and at a turning point in his distinguished career as an endure, diplomat, and historian. He had detached himself for good from the scenes and activity of his New England background and was beginning a period of many years of service to his government as a cabinet officer and ambassador.

Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1800, the son of a clergy­man, Bancroft was graduated from Harvard and continued with theological studies in Germany on a scholar­ship. After his return to the United States, he spent several months teaching at Harvard while occasionally occupying a pulpit and attempting to write poetry. Feeling that he was failing at all three, he decided to establish a preparatory school of his own. In partner­ship with a friend he opened Round Hill School, near Northampton, in 1823. While operating the school, Bancroft became interested in historical writing and, strangely enough, drifted into local politics. These two parallel interests remained paramount with him for the rest of his life.

The success with which the schoolmaster and writer handled himself in politics made him one of the most interesting figures in Massachusetts. He fought many a hard campaign on the side of the Democrats against the Whigs and learned the lessons of both victory and defeat. His experience there not only led him into the national political field but also developed the degree of astuteness and resource­fulness that was so apparent when he later set about to solve the naval academy problem. Having been instrumental in securing the nomination of James K. Polk on the Democratic ticket in 1844 as the first presidential dark horse in the nation's history, he was rewarded with the appointment as Secretary of the Navy.

When he assumed office, Bancroft was faced immediately with the responsibility of preparing the Navy for possible hostilities that might result from the disputes with England over the Oregon  p20 question and with Mexico over the issue of Texas. He realized that one on the morning of important steps in any program for rehabilitation of the service and improvement of its morale was to settle the old question of education and training for midshipmen.

The Secretary knew, in view of the long history of unsuccessful attempts to establish an academy through legislation, that appeals to Congress would probably be unavailing. He reasoned, instead, that he had the authority and the financial resources within his own office to organize a school that would be at least a beginning. At that time the Navy Department had on its payroll 25 teachers for whose slanders an appropriation of $28,272 was provided. Since the teachers were paid only while actively on duty, it was possible to effect savings in the fund by pla­cing any desired number on "waiting orders."

Bancroft seized upon the possibility of such manipulation as the first element in his plan. He placed a large number of the professors on waiting orders and kept on duty only a few of the best. Thus nearly all of the fund, marked simply for "instruction," was saved to defray other expenses connected with the project. The Secretary then addressed a letter to a board of officers who were convened in Philadelphia for the purpose of conducting examinations of midshipmen and asked them to recommend an improved system of instruction. "I desire the assistance of your board," he said in his letter of June 13, 1845, to Commodore George C. Read, president of the Board of Examiners, "in maturing a more efficient system of instruction for the young naval officers. The opportunity which your present arduous and responsible duties as examiners of the school afford you of giving practical and useful advice leads me to solicit your cooperation by as full a communication of your opinion as is consistent with your convenience." He added that Fort Severn (at Annapolis) seemed to offer the best location for the school and asked that the Board  p21 select from its own members a committee of three to assist in carrying the plan into effect.

The Board responded by giving the subject its exhaustive attention and submitting a detailed report embodying recommendations for the establishment of a school and the development of its curriculum. The plan gave due consideration to the advent of steam power and suggested that the subjects to be taught should include constitutional and international law, English, French, mathematics including marine surveying, natural philosophy and chemistry, drawing and mapping. While not thoroughly committing itself to the proposed Fort Severn site, the Board remarked: "Supposing, then, that Fort Severn is selected, and there is ample accommodation within its walls for the officers and students of the establishment, it may be remarked that the Government already possesses all the necessary means for commencing at once a naval school, which may be enlarged and perfected at some future time."

The Examining Board consisted of older officers of the service — men regarded as representing the more conservative viewpoint on the question of naval education. In order to gain the concurrence of the younger element of officers in the service, Bancroft appointed another board of three to review the plan for a naval academy and to give its recommendation as to a site and the personnel of the faculty. This board recommended Annapolis and nominated three professors who were already serving on the staff of the Philadelphia school. Thus it aligned itself with the Board of Examiners on the academy question, providing Bancroft with the endorsement of the project that he desired from both groups in the service.

Transfer of the buildings and grounds of old Fort Severn from the War Department to the Navy Department proved to be a simple matter owing, no doubt, to the fact that Bancroft was at the time serving as Acting Secretary of War as well as Secretary  p22 of the Navy. The one remaining problem was that of providing the new naval school with a student body. Bancroft examined his powers as head of the naval establishment and found that he had authority to order midshipmen to stand by at any designated place while awaiting orders. Accordingly, as vessels of the fleet returned to the United States from cruises in foreign waters, their midshipmen were detached and sent to Annapolis.

The Secretary's choice of a man to head the establishment as superintendent fell upon Commander Franklin Buchanan, an officer of 30 years' service whose reputation for sobriety, strict attention to duty, thorough discipline, and general competence appealed strongly to Bancroft.

The spirit in which the naval academy was conceived and instituted is revealed in the exchange of letters through which Bancroft charged Buchanan with his mission and through which the Commander acknowledged his instructions and transmitted his plan for occupation of the school. The Secretary's letter was as follows:

Commander Buchanan's reply was:

Transfer of the Fort Severn property to the Navy Department was ordered by The Adjutant General on Aug. 15, 1845, and on that date Secretary Bancroft authorized Commander Buchanan  p27 to "make the necessary arrangements and to receive possession of the station." The school was opened in October. When Congress returned to Washington from its summer recess it was informed in the annual report of the Secretary of the Navy that a naval school was in full operation at Annapolis. The forces on Capitol Hill which had stood in the way of the project gave way at last, and an appropriation of $28,200 was voted for continuance of the institution.

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