Officers, Gentlemen, "Man-Talk," and Group Sex in the "Old Navy," 1870-1873

MODERN SCHOLARS WHO have written on the history of the United States Navy in the late nineteenth century have almost without exception viewed the service narrowly, examining its missions, strategies, technology, political impact, and similar topics. These approaches have revealed much about ships, training, planning, operations, and personnel, but they have neglected at least one essential aspect of the navy, the subculture of its officers that in numbers, power distribution, and social influences was entirely male. ¹ Without some conception of how officers defined themselves, established professional boundaries, and responded to others within their ranks, no accurate conception of U.S. naval life in the opening decades of the age of steam is possible.

An essential element for understanding members of the officer corps in the post-Civil War era is the knowledge both of what they sought to be and of how closely they approximated their own ideal. Within the masculine milieu in which they lived and worked, officers strove mightily to establish for themselves and their calling a reputation for far more than mere seafaring competence. To be sure, mastering the intricacies of naval warfare formed the basic element of their qualifications, but to be considered a true professional, officers were required to exhibit far more than the techniques necessary for managing ships, guns, and sailors. The complete officer must be the complete man, they believed, and to measure up each had to possess an amalgam of qualities that included patriotism, courage, honor, loyalty, absolute honesty, and elevated standards of morality. In addition to unimpeachable character, officers knew that the United States Navy expected them to demonstrate a high level of social attainments. Without impeccable manners, worldliness, and sophistication no one could fit comfortably in the environment described by Rear Adm. Samuel Franklin in his memoirs. He wrote extensively of the convivial activities around the world in which he and his officers engaged. They attended diplomatic functions and "recherché" gatherings, he wrote, along with balls, banquets, "petits soupers," picnics, and garden parties. They ate pastries, squab, flying fish, beefsteak, and a host of additional delicacies, most of which were washed down with fine Madeira, whiskey, brandy, and cases of champagne. Wherever they went they sought out and enjoyed the good life. In exotic locales like Yokohama they frequented the Grand Hotel, where the chef, "Fussy little Lewis," scoured the markets for delicacies. In Manila, after the claret flowed "ad libitum," officers retired to the English club for cigars. In the British Isles they joined enthusiastically in rounds of golf with their counterparts in the Royal Navy.

Intellectual and cultural components were at least as vital as social graces and gastronomic sensibility in the image of their profession that officers labored to create. They attended operas, ballets, and the theater, studied foreign languages, and read widely not only to improve their professional competence but to enhance their intellectual and spiritual qualities. Those with a literary bent produced poetry, short stories, novels, and travel accounts emphasizing things of interest to educated, affluent readers. In short, they labored to emulate a polished and meticulously cultivated ideal of well-educated, cultured, and self-restrained Victorian manliness. ²

American officers had little difficulty measuring up to the image, at least according to their own surviving accounts. They were, explained those of them who wrote of their lives in the service, the quintessence of all that military gentlemen should be. The level of culture and accomplishment they demonstrated to all and sundry ashore, these same authors added, was not a facade. It was similarly elevated and gracious when they were among themselves on board their ships.

Surviving descriptions from books, articles, diaries, and letters written by officers testify to the decorous character of their society afloat. Their social center at sea was the wardroom, and it was in many respects...