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 The American Navy. 
 
 
The American Navy. 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 BY 
 
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 WILLIAM H. LAMBERT. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 CULEERTSON & BaCHE, PkINTEKS, 727 JaYNE St. 
 
200 COPIES PRIVATELY PRINTED. 
 
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The following address was delivered before Post No. 2, G. A. R., 
 Department of Pennsylvania, on the Ninth of October, 1879, and 
 that portion of the address comprised on pages 6, 7 and 8, was 
 repeated at the " Camp Fire " given in honor of General Grant, 
 by the Philadelphia Posts of the Grand Army of the Republic, on 
 the night of the Eighteenth of December, 1879, at the American 
 Academy of Music. 
 
 

 The title of our Order, the military character of its organization, 
 the terms of its ritual, and the preponderance in its ranks of 
 those who served in the Army, have in very great degree obscured 
 the foct that our membership comprises many who served in the 
 Navy. 
 
 Believing that this Post should give outward sign that it cordi- 
 ally welcomes to its ranks all who aided in the suppression of the 
 Rebellion, whether' on sea or on land, the comrades who served in 
 the jSTavy desire to present to the Post an appropriate emblem of 
 that branch of the service, and they have therefore requested me 
 in their name and on their behalf to ask your acceptance of this 
 Union Jack. 
 
 Why thej' should honor me with the pleasant duty, instead of 
 selecting from their own number some one of the many better 
 fitted than myself I cannot imagine, unless it is that the innate 
 modesty of the sailor would prevent any one of them from giving 
 due prominence to the merits of the service ; certainly in selecting 
 one whose knowledge of ships is scarcely greater than was his 
 who sang, 
 
 "And that junior partnership I ween, 
 Was the only ship that I ever had seen," 
 
 these comrades have not rendered themselves liable to the charge 
 of choosing an unduly biased advocate. 
 
The American Navy ! Magnificent theme ! Associated with the 
 glories of the past, its liistory is the record of noble daring and of 
 wondrous achievement. 
 
 In its beginnings, very little among the great powers of the 
 earth, it soon atoned in gallantr}'- and prowess for its lack of guns 
 and tonnage; carrying the flag of the infant republic into Euro- 
 pean waters, it flaunted the Rattlesnake Jack and the saucy 
 defiance, "Don't tread on me," and fought and won its early 
 battles in the very f^ice of the mighty mistress of the seas. 
 
 Looming into larger life and vast importance in the war of 1812, 
 it compelled England to recognize what it had already taught 
 France and the Barbarj' States, the existence, the independence 
 and the power of the Nation, and it divided forever that sovereignty 
 of the seas which so long had been the undisputed boast of its 
 haughty adversary. 
 
 In later and more peaceful years, in the interests of trade, of 
 science, and of humanity, it penetrated to every clime, maintaining 
 alike in Southern Ocean, in ^Egean Sea, on Syrian lake, and mid 
 Arctic ice, its own high fame and the honor of the flag. 
 
 And in our own time, amid flame and storm, it has repeated the 
 deeds of its early history, and proven that though the methods and 
 materiel of war have radically changed since the days of Stewart 
 and Decatur and Hull, the strength of the American Navy is now 
 as it was then, in the matchless skill and the dauntless courage of 
 the American sailor. 
 
 With vision dimmed by the smoke of the great conflict on land, 
 with ears deafened by the storm raging about us, we of the Army 
 were unable to clearly see or to rightly hear the deeds of the Navy. 
 And our people in their homes absorbed in the terrible struggle 
 
upon their borders, with intensest interest in the Armies to which 
 they had contributed the greater number of their loved ones, failed 
 to appreciate the importance of the work wrought upon the far 
 away coast and gulf. 
 
 Now and then, indeed, some thrilling episode at sea — interlude 
 in the tremendous dm ma on the land — electritied the Nation and 
 made the Navy the theme of every tongue, as when on the March 
 Sabbath morning after a long night of anxious suspense, the 
 Monitor interposed its nondescript forni between the Merrimack 
 and its intended victim, and at once revolutionized naval architec- 
 ture, saved a fleet, and perchance changed the issues of the war; 
 or as when on another Sunday morning, in full view of the 
 countries whose countenance alone gave him life^ the pirate went 
 down in the Channel beneath the guns of the Kearsarge. 
 
 But after all, we regarded the Navy more as a mere adjunct to the 
 Army than as an important and co-ordinate branch of the service. 
 It is only since the smoke of battle has lifted, and the din of 
 conflict hushed, the jiageantry of grand review vanished, and 
 the drum beat of returning regiments stilled, that we of the Army, 
 and our friends at home have been able to appreciate how great 
 was the work, how essential the performance of the Navy. 
 
 Blockading a coast greater in extent than the Atlantic shore of 
 Europe, it stood like a wall between the Confederacy and the powers 
 whose professed neutrality would have become open belligerency 
 had not that bulwark of iron and flame interposed, proclaiming 
 from the Potomac to the Rio Grande the purpose and the power 
 to crush domestic insurrection and to repel forei^jn intervention. 
 
 On Western rivers it vied with the Army in securing control of 
 those important highways. Outstripping the troops of Grant the 
 
gunboats of Foote achieved that first great victory which, followiilg 
 the long winter of inaction, imparted new life to the cause. Every- 
 where its presence was presage of victory to friends, and i:)ortent 
 of disaster to foes. 
 
 With no enemy upon the seas, it sought on shore and on inland 
 waters opportunity to do its part in the great work. How well 
 it wrought from the initial triumph at Hatteras to the closing 
 triumph at Mobile the long line of captured forts and sealed 
 harbors attest. 
 
 And nowliere in the annals of war are recorded prouder deeds 
 than those fights on river and bay, when through burning rafts 
 and armored rams, over bursting torpedoes and 'neath the concen- 
 tring fire of a hundred guns, the fleet steamed to victory under 
 command of that grand liero, that noble man, our great first 
 admiral, Farragut. 
 
 But time fails me even to outline the story, to tell how Porter 
 passed the batteries, how Gushing destroyed the Albemarle, 
 how BoGGS fought the Varuna, how Crave.v went to the grave 
 coffined in his monitor, how with the old flag flying at the 
 main, and guns booming defiance until tlie engulfing wave 
 quenched their flame, Morris went down with the Cumberland. 
 
 Worthy compeer of the service on land ; it bore no unequal 
 share in the great struggle. The history of the war is the history 
 of the Army and Navy. 
 
 " May the service united ne'er sever. 
 And each to our colors prove true, 
 The Army and Navy forever. 
 
 Three cheers for the red, white and blue." 
 
We ask you to accept this Union Jack. We ask you to cherish 
 and honor it as you cherish and honor the battle-scarred banners 
 whose tattered folds hallow your hall. Though its bright 
 silken folds bear no trace of shot or of shell, it is no holiday 
 banner. 
 
 It is not the flag of Commodore or Admiral, proud as we would 
 be to tender, proud as you should be to receive the pennant which 
 on Wabash, or Benton, or Hartford streamed in the forefront 
 of battle the signal of victory. 
 
 The flag we tender you is the flag of the gunboat, of the monitor, 
 of the frigate ; the flag that floated in the weary watches of the 
 blockade, and in the storm of battle ; the flag whose stars cheered 
 the sailor in action and whose folds shrouded his hammock in 
 death ; the service flag of the American Navy. 
 
 We commit it to you, confident that the men who, on a hundred 
 fields, braved death for the flag, will preserve unsullied this 
 emblem of the sister service — this Bonnie Blue Flag that has not 
 lost a single star. 
 
 
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