Part 11 (2/2)

said he, ”but that my services may be needed here some day?” ”Ah, Mr

Tucker,” said Earl St Vincent to his secretary when planning an attack upon Brest, ”had Captain Jervis[Z] surveyed Brest when he visited it in 1774, in 1800 Lord St Vincent would not have been in want of his information”

[Footnote Z: Captain Jervis and Earl St Vincent were the same officer under different appellations]

It was not e, commonly so called, that this practice contributed to prepare Farragut for his great mission as a naval commander-in-chief, but also in the discipline of character and in the development of natural capacities admirably suited for that position It should not be overlooked that before the war, and now again in our own day, the idea of professional improve subject upon the development of the material of war, to the comparative exclusion of the study of naval warfare This naturally results from the national policy, which does not propose to put afloat a fleet in the proper sense of the word; and whose ideal is a number, more or less small, of cruisers neither fitted nor intended for combined action Under these circule shi+p usurp in the professional htly constituted navy, ht far better be applied to the study of naval tactics, in the higher sense of that word, and of naval caut could not but feel the influence of this tendency, so strongly ed; the ood tendency when not pushed to an exclusive extent But here the habit of study, and stretching in every direction his interest in ood stead, and prepared him unconsciously for destinies that could not have been foreseen The custoraphy and history of his profession, the school to which the great Napoleon recoh uished authority has said that it may be questioned whether a formulated art of war can be said to exist, except as the ereat captains illustrated in their careat natural aptitudes for war, Farragut quickly assinally illustrated in act and embodied in maxims of his own that have already been quoted He did not eh possibly pedantic in sound, is invaluable for purposes of discussion; but he expressed its leading principles in pithy, horasp of it was ”If once you get in a soldier's rear, he is gone,” was probably in part a bit of good-natured chaff at the sister profession; but it suic i the batteries of the river forts, of Port Hudson and of Mobile, and brings those brilliant actions into strict conformity with the soundest principles of war The phrases, whose frequent repetition sho deep a hold they had taken upon him--”The more you hurt the eneainst the eneuns”--sum up one of the profoundest of all military truths, easily confessed but with difficulty lived up to, and which in these days of ar consideration It is, in fact, a restateotten maxim that offense is the best defense ”I believe in celerity,” said he, when announcing his deterood reason had he to congratulate himself that this faith showed itself in his works belo Orleans, and to lament before Mobile the failure of his Governe ”Five minutes,” said Nelson, ”may make the difference between victory and defeat” ”False (circuitous) routes and lostelens” All admit the value of time; but hat apathetic deliberation is often watched the flight of hours which arethe race between two eneut afforded the firreat military character can be built; for while no toleration should be shown to the absurd belief that rown into the arena, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter--that, unlike every other kind of perfection, it groild and owes nothing to care, to arduous study, to constant preparation--it is still true that it can be developed only upon great natural aptitudes

The distinction conveyed by a phrase of Joreat war minister of the French Revolution, is one that it is well for military and naval officers to bear constantly in h a soldier by profession, ”was rather a enius for war than an accomplished (_instruit_) officer;” and to the lack of that studious preparation which marked Napoleon he attributes the mistakes which characterized soh as a whole his career showed profound intuitions in the conduct of war It is open to many able men to be accomplished and valuable officers; a few only--ho, the annals of the past show--receive the rare natural gifts which in their perfect cohest manifestation of power attainable by human faculties

The acquirements of the acco to be done under given conditions, and yet fail to lift hith of purpose, in the power of rapid decision, of instant action, and, if need be, of strenuous endurance through a period of danger or of responsibility, when the terrifying alternatives of war are vibrating in the balance, that the power of a great captain e under conditions of exceptional danger; not merely to see the true direction for effort to take, but to dare to follow it, accepting all the risks and all the chances inseparable fro all that defeat means in order thereby to secure victory if it may be had It was upon these inborn ut to fame He had a clear eye for the true key of a ht thing to do at a criticalprinciples of war; but he ht have had all these and yet miserably failed He was a man of ht through any obstacles which stood in the path he saw fit to follow Of this a conspicuous instance was given in the firmness hich he withstood the secession clamor of Norfolk, his outspoken defense of the unpopular Government measures, and the pro so many associations at the call of duty; and to this exhibition of strength of purpose, through the iely due his selection for coreatest of naval coh an unusually long and varied career--Earl St

Vincent--has declared that the true test of a ut's fearlessness of responsibility in order to accole shi+p, was the subject of ad his subordinates, who are not usually prone to recognize that quality in their coale of wind,” he wrote, ”as ever a boy did in a feat of skill” The sareater issues in his determination to pass the river forts, in spite of reestions frouous instructions of the Navy Department to justify his action It was not that the objections raised were trivial They were of thetheht which fastened upon the true e which dared to accept on his sole responsibility the immense risks of disaster which had to be taken

The saain, in coth of purpose, when his shi+p was nearly thrown on shore under the batteries of Port Hudson; and yet ree at that supreme moment of his life when, headed off from the path he had himself laid down, he led his fleet across the torpedo line in Mobile Bay To the same quality must also be attributed the resolution to take his shi+ps above Port Hudson, without orders, at the critical period of the caretted in the interest of his renown that the merit of that fine decision, both in its military correctness and in the responsibility assumed, has not been more adequately appreciated For the power to take these ut was indebted to nature He indeed justified theood and sufficient reasons, but the reasons carried instant conviction to hi on one occasion of his gallant and accomplished fleet captain, Percival Drayton, he said: ”Drayton does not know fear, and would fight the devil hi as if the eneing hi the celebrated words of Danton, ”is, 'L'audace, et encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace'”

With all his fearlessness and deterut's characteristics He was easily approachable, entering readily into conversation with all; and addedofficer by his great patience in listening to ht have attended ”His kindness hatto him for duty Another, who as as manner, and was jovial and talkative If any officer or man had not spontaneous enthusiasm, he certainly infused it into hi, once said of hireat if he did not kno to say 'No,' but I see he can; for certainly here is a great man, and he is too kind-hearted to say 'No' in some cases where it should be said”

In person, Adut was not above the ht in carriage, well-proportioned, alert and graceful in his ht than heavy in fraed physical inactivity entailed by the river and blockade service, that he took on flesh Up to that tiht was not over one hundred and fifty pounds He was very expert in all physical exercises, and retained his activity to the verge of old age Even after his fiftieth year it was no unusual thing for him to call up some of the crew of the shi+p under his coreat confidence in his mastery of his sword, which he invariably wore ashore; and when returning to the wharves at night, through low parts of a tohere there was danger of molestation, he relied upon it to defend hiht to be ashamed not to be proficient in its use”

For h certain physical exercises, or, as he worded it to a young officer of the fleet shortly before passing the river forts, to take a handspring; until he failed in doing this he should not, he said, feel that he was growing old This practice he did not discontinue till after he was sixty A junior officer of the Hartford writes: ”When soyly took hold of his left foot, by the toe of the shoe, with his right hand, and hopped his right foot through the bight without letting go” The lightness hich he cla Mobile Bay, and again over the side to see the extent of injury inflicted by the collision with the Lackawanna, sufficiently prove that up to the age of sixty-three he was capable of showing upon occasion the agility of a young y of his ht to dark, and froency, to see for hi done without slackness; illustrating the saying attributed to Wellington, that a general was not too old when he could visit the outposts in person and on horseback

The features of the admiral can best be realized fro man he had the salloarthy complexion usually associated with his Spanish blood His hair at the sa in middle life almost black In his later years he was partially bald--a misfortune attributed by him to the sunstroke from which he suffered in Tunis, and which he to soement of the hair The contour of the face was oval, the cheek-bones rather prominent, until the cheeks filled out as he beca the war; the eyes hazel, nose aquiline, lips small and compressed At no time could he have been called handsoiven by animation of expression and by the ready sympathy which vividly reflected his emotions, easily stirred by whatever excited his as was to him always difficult, and, when deeply moved, i at Mobile Bay told afterward how the adain as the poor felloho had been killed were being laid out on the port side of the quarter-deck ”It was the only tientleman cry,”

he said, ”but the tears came in his eyes like a little child” A casual but close observer, who visited hi-shi+p in New Orleans, wrote thus: ”Hisstriking in his presence, and the nomist would scarcely suspect the heroic qualities that lay concealed beneath so siht chance to see him, as we did shortly afterward, just on receipt of the news froain on the eve of battle at Port Hudson On such occasions the flashi+ng eye and passionate energy of his s”

Throughout his life, from the time that as a lad still in his teens he showed to Mr Folsoent in the work of self-ieneral His eyes eak from youth, but he to so readers in the different shi+ps on board which he sailed; and to the day of his death he always had so an excellent reat deal of inforained from observation and intercourse with the world

Hobart Pasha, a British officer in the Turkish Navy and an accout, hoent naval officers of ood-tempered in it, was tenacious of his own convictions when he thought the facts bore out his way of interpreting their significance When told by a phrenologist that he had an unusual amount of self-esteem, he replied: ”It is true, I have; I have full confidence in h couarded by the openness of mind which results from the effort to improve and to keep abreast of the tiut was naturally conservative, as seaes, and prone to look with some distrust upon new and untried weapons of war, he did not refuse them, nor did they find in him that prejudice which forbids a fair trial and rejects reasonable proof Of ironclads and rifled guns, both which in his day were still in their infancy, he at tily; but his objection appears to have arisen not from a doubt of their efficacy--the one for protection, the other for length of range--but from an opinion as to their effect upon the spirit of the service In this there is an element of truth as well as of prejudice; for the natural tendency of the extreme effort for protection undoubtedly is to obscure the fundamental truth, which he constantly preached, that the best protection is to injure the ene that the rage for , carries with it the countervailing disposition to rely upon perfected material rather than upon accomplished warriors to decide the issue of battle To express a fear such as Farragut's, that a particular development of the material of ould injure the tone of the service, sounds to some as the mere echo of Lever's co-tails would sap themore It was, on the contrary, the accurate intuition of a born , that men are always prone to rely upon instrureater than the ut exhibited in his s was not only a natural trait; it rested also upon a reasonable conviction of hisyears of exclusive and sustained devotion He did not carry the sa into other matters hich he had no faood name, which was the honor of his country as well as of hi it to enterprises whose character he did not understand, or to duties for which he did not feel fitted Accordingly, he refused a request made to him to allow his name to be used as director of a co one hundred thousand dollars had been placed in his name on the books ”I have deter into any business which I have neither the time nor perhaps the ability to attend to” In like manner he refused to allow his name to be proposed for nomination as a presidential candidate ”My entire life has been spent in the navy; by a steady perseverance and devotion to it I have been favored with success ina new career at e, and that career one of which I have little or no knowledge, is ut was essentially and unaffectedly a religious htfulness and care hich he prepared for his greater undertakings, the courage and fixed determination to succeed hich he went into battle, were tehty will Though not obtruded on the public, his home letters evince how constantly the sense of this dependence was present to his thoughts; and he has left on record that, in the er to his career, his spirit turned instinctively to God before gathering up its energies into that sublio by, will lory of theered coluuns and the lost Tecumseh into the harbor of Mobile