Mr. Lincoln's Navy (review)

Book Reviews EDITED BY CHARLES T. MILLER B-Il University Hall Iowa City, Iowa Mr. Lincoln's Navy. By Richard S. West, Jr. (New York: Longmans, Green and Company. l&ff. Pp. vii, 32?. $6.50.) although the Popular conception op the CiVTL War runs in terms of land actions, such as Gettysburg, Richmond, and Sherman's March to the Sea, historians have long recognized that there was an important naval side to the conflict . Recently a number of excellent books dealing with various naval aspects of thatgreatwarhave appeared, many ofthem real contributions to ourknowledge, butnone ofthem authoritatively surveying the total naval side of hostilities. This gap has bow been filled by the book I am reviewing. Drawing on all sources, both primary and secondary, prepared for this survey job by his earlier biographical works oh Admiral Porter and Gideon Welles, Mr. West is preeminendy qualified to write about "Mr. Lincoln's Navy." I must say I thought the title of this book a little presumptuous—that is, before I read it. One would hardly call the American Navy in the second World War "Mr. Roosevelt's Navy" despite FDR's enthusiasm for naval affairs. However, President Lincoln began the war with an able Secretary of the Navy and very little else, so that the title comes close to describing the facts of the matter. Difficulties faced by Secretary Welles and the President at the outbreak of war were enormous. To begin with, there were less than fifty naval vessels of all types then in commission; there was also a lack of naval ordnance. The North had the shipyards, but it did not yet have the ships. At least as Serious was the problem of manpower. The Navy Department was filled with Southern sympathizers , and many ships Were manned by Southerners. There was very little chance under such circumstances for security measures as we now, perhaps to our regret, know them. As if manpower and materiel shortages were not sufficient , there were other impediments. For instance, while the U.S. Navy was 201 202CIVIL WAR HISTORY familiar with the Barbary Coast and Mexico, it knew very little about the coast from the Virginia Capes to the Rio Grande; after all, our military preoccupations had not been with home waters. Suffice it to say that Mr. Lincoln and Secretary Welles, ably assisted by Gustavus Fox, that energetic and ebullient man whose qualities complemented Welles', had their hands full to overflowing. That they recognized their problems and speedily solved them is a tribute to Lincoln, Welles, and Fox. Obviously the South had to be blockaded; equally obviously the 42 United States naval vessels available, many of them commanded by superannuated timeservers, could not do the job. Ships had to be built and manned. Speed was essential. Lincoln's team was equal to the job. Ships were built under contractual situations so informal when judged by current practices as to seem unworkable. Personal oral agreements sufficed to start the shipbuilding program without regard to staff work and reams of paper. In the meantime the officer retirement program, long urged by those interested in our navy, went into high gear. The blockade, so effective in strangling the South, had begun. It was aided by amphibious operations such as the capture of Confederate forts at Cape Harteras. Veterans or students of the second World War will note with sympathy that the usual hazards of amphibious operations generally prevailed . Stores were loaded in reverse order to priority of need. Delay generally allowed bad weather to attend the operations. The usual number of vessels did not get the word and sailed off on mysterious independent missions of their own. But in spite of all this trouble the South Carolina coast was fairly well bottled up by diese amphibious operations, with bad effects upon Southern commerce. In the meantime the wave of the future was rolling toward America. The Confederacy had captured the U.S.S. "Merrimack" at Norfolk Navy Yard, whose fall, not unattributable to the presence on the yard commander's staff of many southern sympathizers, was a heavy blow to Union hopes. After raising the "Merrimack," farsighted Confederate Navy Secretary Mallory, in a classic example of ingenuity...