October Y) Cents Ccirs Magazine //?e WSrl rr Jf B I sk New Sen a fc##* ti 1 Caine f "The Crowning Attribute of Lovely Women is Cleanliness" A woman's personal satisfaction in looking charming and dainty is doubled when she knows everything about her is exquisitely clean. Naiad Dress Shields Arc thoroughly hygienic and healthful to the most delicate skin; are absolutely free from rubber, with its disagreeable odor; can be easily and quickly STERILIZED by immersing in boiling water for a few seconds only. They are preferred by well-gowned women of refined taste. ^r stores or sample pair on receipt of 25 cents. Every pair guaranteed. A handsome colored reproduction of this beautiful Coles Philips drawing on heavy paper, 10 X 12, sent for 10c. No advertisinf The C. E. CONOVER CO., MIrs. 101 Franklin St., NEW YORK vograp/uf or vfdmiral Dewey This part of Admiral Dewey's narrative carries us through Hie final years of the Civil War. It is a record of his varied and useful service aboard the "Monongahcla," the "Brooklyn," the " Agawaim," A FTER the battle of l\ Port Hudson I / \ had a radica / \ change of occu- JL jL. pation and scene. My new duties called for the abilities of a judge and a merchant rather than those associated with my profession. As Prize Com- missioner at New Orleans I had to adjudicate con- troversies concerning cargo captured on the blockade, and, when I had declared it legitimate prize, to sell it for the government. As most of the contraband was cot- ton, I became quite an expert in the fluct- uations of the cotton mar- ket. the "Colorado" and a word pic- lure of the momentous battle of Fort Fisher. The close of the war finds Dewey a Lieutenant Commander at the age of twenty-eight The auctioneer who acted as salesman for me, though born in Kentucky, was a pro- nounced Union man. When he first came to New Orleans he had sold a great many negroes as a matter of course in his business. Though this was not exactly agreeable work, he had not developed any keen sensitiveness about it. Slavery was an ac- cepted institution to which every- body had become accustomed. However, a single re- volting and Dewey as Lieutenant Commander at the age of twenty-eight, was executive officer of the Kearsarge when the war ended 4i 4 2 Hearst's Magazine illuminating experience made him an abo- litionist. One day he was asked to go to a hotel to look at some human "property" with a view to its sale to the highest bidder. The man who owned the "property" took him into a room where three girls were seated sewing. The girls, being octoroons and hav- ing the peculiarly white complexion of many octoroons, were, as the auctioneer declared, whiter than his own daughter. "I told that fellow that he would have to get somebody else to sell those girls, "he said. He made up his mind that an institution that permitted such a thing ought to be wiped out. He was not against the South, but against slavery. As I lived ashore rather than on shipboard I came to see a great deal more of New Orleans than I had while I was serving on a ship alongside the wharves. The life of the city had now adapted itself to the Union occupation. Business went on quite as usual. Except for the absence of many of the men in the Confederate army, you would hardly have realized that a state of war existed. ENJOYING THE NEW ORLEANS COOKING With the appetite of youth, after navy rations and that stiff fight at Port Hudson, I was able to do justice to New Orleans cookery, which I found was worthy of its reputation. Never before had I known such good food and so cheap. We had not only the pompano and other delicious fish, but also that delectable upland plover, the "papabote." My service as Prize Commissioner was relatively brief. Summer found me back on the river as executive officer of the sloop Monongahela, which was stationed below Port Hudson, under my old Captain Mel- ancthon Smith, for a short time until he was ordered North, and Captain Abner Read took command. As the Hartford was above Port Hudson, Farragut made the Monongahela his flagship when he was look- ing after operations on the lower reaches of the river. He lived mostly on deck and naturally at such close quarters that I saw a great deal of him. He was not given to "paper work" or red tape, by which I mean lengthy written de- tail in his conduct of operations. I remem- ber the simplicity of his methods particu- larly in contrast with those of another admiral with less responsibility, who could not get along without a force of clerks. There was a saying that his princi- pal place for filing papers was his own coat pocket. His was the supreme gift of directness and simplicity in great affairs, so valuable in time of war. Generally he wrote his orders himself, perhaps with his knee or the ship's rail as a rest. I recall that one day when he was writing he looked up and said: "Now, how in the devil do you spell Apa- lachicola? Some of these educated young fellows from Annapolis must know!" FARRAGUT, SIMPLE AND DEMOCRATIC A man who had such an important com- mand could hardly have been more demo- cratic. One night I had given orders for a thorough cleaning of the ship on the next morning. I was awake very early, for it was stiflingly hot. Five o'clock came and I heard no sound of the holystones on the deck. So I went above to find out why my orders were not obeyed, and my frame of mind for the moment was entirely that of the disciplinarian. There was no activity at all on deck. I looked around for the officer of the deck. He was an old New Eng- land whaler, brown as a buccaneer, who had enlisted for the war from the merchant service. I recollect that he wore small gold rings in his ears, a custom with some of the old-fashioned merchant sailors who had traveled the world over. I found him seated up in the hammock netting where it was cool, with Farragut at his side. "Why aren't you cleaning ship? " I asked. "I think I am to blame," said Farragut, with his pleasant smile. "We two veterans have been swapping yarns about sailing- ship days." As a rule, no captain or executive officer likes having his ship the flagship of a com- mander-in-chief. But Farragut was so sim- ple in his manners and so free from the exac- tions due to official rank, that he was most wel- come, crowded as our quarters were. Being a companionable man he liked company, even when he was under fire. I recall a cer- tain afternoon when he announced that he was going in his little steam tender to have a look at the Port Hudson batteries. First he asked Captain Thornton A. Jenkins, his chief of staff, if he would not like to come along. The captain begged to be excused. Then he asked Captain Smith, who also begged to be excused. Neither saw any The Autobiography of Admiral Dewey 43 purpose in an interruption of his duties to make a trip in the heat in order to be shot at. But Farragut was not going alone. He clapped me on the shoulder and said, " Come along, youngster ! " which was equivalent to a command to one of my rank. As I went over the side Captain Jenkins said to me: "Did you ever know a man before who always had a bee buzzing in- his ear?" We went up into the range of the batteries and drew their fire. in a zigzag course we gut seemed to be No doubt, he he wanted. the Mononga- call in my ca- ing up the river escorting a small gunboat with ammunition The wooden ship Brooklyn was unable to cope with the ironsides and was sent to the navy yard. allowed a brief holiday Dewey was then 44 Hearst's Magazine for Banks's army. As I have previously mentioned, all that a field battery had to do in order to have a little practice against a Union man-of-war was to cut embrasures for their guns in the levee and let drive. The levee furnished both an excellent screen and excellent protection. In fact, the gunners used these embrasures with much the effect of the modern dis- appearing gun. They ran the muzzle through the opening when they wanted to fire and then drew it back out of sight for loading, with neither themselves nor the gun at all exposed, while our shots would either be buried in the levee walls or ■ whistle harmlessly overhead. But a man-of-war was a big target, and a single shot striking in a vital part might do great damage. When a field bat- tery, hidden in the fashion I have de- scribed, unexpect- edly opened on the Monongahela at close range in the vicinity of Donel- sonville, Captain Jenkins, Farragut's At Charleston Dewey got his first view of the Monitor type of man-of-war, the successful The Monitor with its revolving turret was 11 THE MK.EKVK I'OU.dTIO* 01 1MKI1H The Autobiography of Admiral Dewey 45 chief of staff, who was aboard, thought that the only thing to do was to get out of range at full speed. This did seem the part of wisdom. Certainly our experience proved that it was for poor Read. He paid the penalty for taking a contrary view. "I have never run from any rebel yet," Read declared, "and I'm not going to run now." So he slowed the Monongahda down to engage the battery. He and Captain Jenkins and myself were standing near one an- other on the quarter deck and we had fired only a few shots when there was a blinding flash in my eyes. I felt the stunning effect of the concussion of an ex- ploding shell, — which always raises the ques- tion of whether you will be alive or dead the next second. I However, I realized that I was unhurt and as the air cleared and I was once more stand- ing solidly on my conflict with the Mcrrimac having stimulated the construction of these effective little vessels, the forerunner of the modern battleship 4 6 Hearst's Magazine feet, with full possession of my faculties, I saw Read prostrate on the deck, his clothing badly torn and blood pouring from several places. Captain Jenkins was also down. It was clear that the command of the ship had devolved upon me, so I gave the ori;r, "Full speed ahead!" The Monongahela being very fast for a ship of her time, was soon out of range of the batteries. Captain Read had been mortally wounded and died the next day, while Cap- tain Jenkins had been wounded slightly, but in a curious way. The shell had exploded at a point in the ship's side where a rack of cutlasses was lo- cated, and had hurled fragments of cutlass in all directions. Al- though our station on the quarter deck was some distance from the point of explo- sion, a cutlass blade (about half length) had struck Captain Jenkins's leg with such force as to knock him Commodore Thatcher, Dewey's commanding officer on the Colorado down. That nothing worse than a bruise resulted was due to the fact that the blade struck fairly with its flat surface. Had the edge been turned, a serious injury wculd have been inflicted. When we ex- amined the spread of the shell by the places where the fragments had struck, it was inexplicable how I had ever escaped without a scratch. It almost made me believe in luck. For that matter, anyone who had seen much fighting becomes a sort of fatalist. Evi- dently my time had not yet come. With the taking of Vicksburg in July, Port Hudson fell in consequence. At last President Lincoln had his wish. The Mis- sissippi "flowed unvexed to the sea." There was no longer the need of any large naval force on the river. I was transferred to the Brooklyn, Captain Emmons, w h i c h had been or- dered North The Agawam, a third-rate wooden side-wheel steamer which was Dewey': berth for one year The Autobiography of Admiral Dewey 47 to report to Rear-Admiral Dahlgren, who was in charge of the blockade off Charles- ton, South Carolina. On the James River AFTER eighteen months of service on sea- ■ going ships navigating a river, it was a pleasure to be back in a seagoing ship's natural element; and I- thoroughly en- joyed our cruise across the Gulf of Mexico with our sails spread. Captain Emmons, who had his nickname as every officer of the navy had, was known as " Pop." He would never get my name right, always calling me "Mr. Dewar." We stopped in at Port Royal, and I recall, as we entered the harbor, that I was standing between him and the pilot when we sighted a vessel coming out. "Starboard the helm!" said the pilot. "Port the helm!" said Captain Emmons. "Steady!" I said. '■' Captain Emmons turned on me. "What do you mean, Mr. Dewar, by countermanding my orders?" he demanded. "Well, sir, the pilot said starboard and you said port, so I wanted to avoid having the helmsman try to do both at once," I responded. " Steady, then ! " returned the captain. It transpired that this compromise in author- ity saved us from any danger of collision. FIRST VIEW OF THE MONITORS Upon our arrival at Charleston, while Captain Emmons went on board Dahlgren 's flagship to report, we had time to look over his vessels and to realize how suicidal it would be for us to join in any attack on the defenses of the harbor. We had an exam- ple in the monitors, which we saw for the first time, of how rapidly both the offensive and the defensive features of men-of-war had improved under the impulse of war con- ditions. Besides the division of monitors with their revolving turrets — modeled on that first experiment which had driven the Confederate Merrimac {Virginia) to cover — was the New Ironsides that foUowed con- ventional ship construction and had ar- mored sides. The combination of the two principles, an armored ship with revolving turrets, forms the principle of the battle- ship of to-day. Having been executive officer of one ship that had been lost, I did not care to repeat the experience. We were all pleased when Captain Emmons came off to report that it was not the Brooklyn that Dahlgren wanted, but Captain Emmons to serve on his staff. So the Brooklyn proceeded to the New York Na\y Yard to be overhauled before returning to Farragut's command in the Gulf, where she was to participate in the battle of Mobile Bay. Meanwhile, I had my first holiday from duty since the war had begun, which I spent at my home in Vermont. GOOD SEAMANSHIP ON A DOTJBLE-ENDER My next ship was hardly of the impor- tance of the Mississippi, the Monongahela, or the Brooklyn. I was to put the Agawam, a third rate, wooden, sidewheel steamer, into commission at Portsmouth. My friends explained to me that I had been given this task in organization and disci- pline because I had made a reputation as an executive officer equal to any emergency. However that may be, there can be no doubt that both the crew of the Agawam and the nature of the vessel and of the service expected of her, gave me quite enough to do from the moment that I re- ported on board her in November, 1863, until I was detached from her a year later. She was built particularly for river service and being a double-ender, with two rudders of the ferryboat type, she was as difficult in handling as in keeping ship- shape. During the spring and summer of 1S64 I saw some pretty active and trying service on the James River, where we were operating in support of General Butler's abortive expedition toward Richmond, while Grant was fighting the Wilderness cam- paign. For about a month the Agawam was the flagship of Rear-Admiral S. P. Lee, com- manding the North Atlantic Squadron. Lee was another one of the captains who, at the outbreak of the Civil War, was still in the prime of his powers. He was off the Cape of Good Hope in command of a ship bound for China, when he heard that Sumter had been fired on. Without waiting on an order from Washington he started home on his own responsibility, in the conviction that the sendees of his ship would be needed. He was a man of prodigious and conscien- tious industry. The Agawam' s most important action occupied her off and on for six days in 4 8 Hearst's Magazine pounding the Confederate batteries at Four Mile Creek to aid General Butler's attack- On the first day we engaged one battery of rifled guns which we could locate and two batteries of mortars and heavy guns which we could not locate; and we kept up a con- tinuous fire for four hours, until our ammu- nition was exhausted. But we had pretty well silenced the enemy before we drew off and on succeeding days we did not have to endure so heavy a fire. The Agawam was little damaged, though hit a number of times, and our only loss was by an exploding shell on the quarter deck killing two men and wounding six. In one sense the fighting was the easiest part of the work. The hard part was the life aboard the stuffy double-ender in the midst of heat and mosquitoes, striving all the while to develop a kind of efficiency suited to the tasks for which such a clumsy craft was adapted. ON BOARD THE "COLORADO" When Rear- Admiral David D. Porter succeeded Rear-Admiral Lee in command of the North Atlantic Squadron in Septem- ber, 1864, he sent for me to become execu- tive officer of the Minnesota, one of the big steam frigates of the same class as the Wabash in which I had made my midship- man cruise on the Mediterranean. But I was on board the Minnesota less than one day. Her captain voiced the old complaint about my youth, and Porter not being of the mind to assign him an executive whom he did not want, I returned to the Agawam. But Porter had kept me in mind, and later he wrote to Assistant Secretary of the Navy Fox asking him to assign me to be executive officer of the Colorado, of the same class as the Wabash. From the out- set of the war, Fox had had great confidence in Porter's judgment; and so, in spite of my youth — twenty-seven — I was to have a position which is equivalent in these days to being executive of a first-class battleship. Instead of vegetating on the Agawam on river blockade duty, I was to be in both actions against Fort Fisher, for which Porter was now making his preparations. The Battle of Fort Fisher WE were now coining to the final act of the terrific drama of civil conflict. With the length of the Mississippi in our possession, with every port on the Gulf of Mexico flying the national flag, our forces were closing in on the last remnants of the Confederacy, which had only two ports remaining that would admit of the ap- proach of a vessel of over twelve feet draught, Charleston in South Carolina and Wilmington in North Carolina. Charleston was not so difficult to block- ade as Wilmington. While we had some twenty vessels on the blockade off Charles- ton, more than thirty had usually been watching off the two entrances to Wilming- ton. Even then the runners would fre- quently slip by under cover of fog or when a gale was blowing. The Confederates fully realized the strategic importance of the position, and commanding New Inlet, at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, was Fort Fisher, which they had sought to make im- pregnable with all the resources at their command. Once both Charleston and Wil- mington were effectually closed, then, with Sherman's army swinging in northward and Grant's approaching Richmond, the enemy was literally sealed up and must face the spring of 1865 without hope of supplies. The plan was to silence Fort Fisher by the fire of the fleet and then to take it by assault with troops, which were brought by sea under General Butler. For the purpose Porter had the largest naval force yet as- sembled. Including every available fight- ing ship, it was even more heterogeneous than that of Farragut at New Orleans. Big frigates of the Colorado type, ironclads and monitors, double-enders, gunboats and merchant vessels transformed into ships of war, and every one, according to the American custom, bristling with all the armament that it could possibly carry. The Colorado, which had an armament of forty smooth-bore guns before the war, now had one rifled 150-pounder, one eleven-inch shell gun and forty-six nine-inch shell guns. AN EXPERIMENT IN DISCIPLINE Commodore H. K. Thatcher, in com- mand of the Colorado, welcomed me on board heartily, notwithstanding my youth. He said that the ship was in a bad state and gave me full authority in the government of the crew of seven hundred men. My prede- cessor as executive officer had had a pretty wearing and unhappy time of it and was retired shortly after leaving the ship. There had been as many as a hundred men The Autobiography of Admiral Dewey 49 in irons chained between the guns along the gun deck at one time. As officers passed along the men would call out: "Look at the brass bound ," "brass bound" refer- ring to the offi- cer's gold braid. My predecessor Major-General Terry, effi cient commander of the land forces in the at tack on Fort Fisher was what is known as a rather erratic mar- tinet. He was harsh, yet he did not secure discipline. I was told that one of his fa- vorite questions to a culprit had been: "How would you like to walk through hell barefoot?" One seaman was reported to have answered: "A dozen times to get out of this!" I did not mean on a ship where I was responsible for discipline to have a -u_ hundred men in chains on the gun deck or to have them calling out abusive epithets to their superiors. If the state of insub- ordination on board had been responsible for Porter's de- sire to have me become executive of the Colora- do, then I felt myself bound to live up to his expectations. It had been my experi- ence that only a minority of any crew were trouble- makers. A larger proportion was all Fort Fisher at the mouth of the Caoe Fear River, was silenced after a ter- rific bombardment. Its capture was the turning point in the naval campaign 50 Hearst's Magazine on the side of discipline and decency. But one professional tough is capable of corrupting at "least two other men who are easily led. It was a case of my being master, or the rough element being master. Gradually I was able to identify the worst characters. They were the ones I had to tame, and then those who were in- subordinate out of a spirit of emulation, would easily fall into line. The ringleader was a giant, red-headed Englishman by the name of Webster. Many of his mates were in bodily fear of this great brute. The prison being full, I had him put down in the hold in irons. AN UNSUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT One day I heard a breaking of glass and the orderly reported to me that Webster had broken free of his irons, had driven the sentry out of the hold and in a blind rage was breaking up stone bottles of soda and ale which were stored there. I sent the master at arms to arrest him and the master at arms came back to report that Webster had sworn that he would kill the first man who tried to come down the ladder into the hold. Such a situation was not to be endured. I took my revolver and started for the hold. When I came to the ladder Webster yelled up the threat which had made the others hesitate in view of his known ferocity. Of course, anyone going down the ladder would expose his whole body to an attack before his head was below the deck level and he could see the adversary. But any temporizing with the fellow meant a bad effect on the whole ship's company. "Webster, this is the executive officer, Mr. Dewey," I called to him. "I am com- ing down and, Webster, you may be sure of this, if you raise a finger against me I shall kill you."' I stepped down the ladder quickly, to see Webster standing with a stone ale bottle in his hand ready to throw. But he did not throw it and submitted to arrest peaceably. This incident and a few others, while the junior officers were developing a new spirit under Commodore Thatcher's wise support and firm direction, soon brought a change over the ship. The ruffians were cowed and we were free of the obnoxious spectacle of men in irons on the gun deck and of abuse in answer to an officer's commands. The Confederates had counted much on the weather to delay any bombardment on Fort Fisher. December and January are the season of the heaviest blows off the coast. While preparing for the attack the ships must lie exposed to the seas sweeping in from the open ocean. A gale rose just as the fleet was mobilizing. It dragged many anchors and pretty well dispersed the ves- sels, increasing the discomforts of the sol- diers aboard the transports by seasickness. An act of gallantry of the same order as that of Lieutenants Crosby and Caldwell in cutting through the obstructions above Forts Jackson and St. Philip was to prepare the way for the actual bombardment and assault. An old vessel, the Louisiana, was filled with powder and disguised as a block- ade runner, with a view to running her in close to Fort Fisher in the night and desert- ing her after laying time fuses to the powder. It was thought that the force of the ex- plosion of such an enormous amount of powder would damage the fort and dis- mount the guns. Commander Rhind, my old captain of the Agawam, was in charge of the undertaking. He carried it out with- out being discovered by the enemy. The effect of the enormous charge, which was necessarily at some distance from the fort, was negligible for our purposes. This experiment belonged in the category of the novelist rather than in practical warfare. It was magnificent and spectacular but not helpful, as both Porter and Butler were soon to learn. At daylight our ill-assorted fleet stood in for New Inlet which the forts commanded. We were attempting something in the way of formation which this fleet had never tried, but which would have been child's play to a fleet of the present time. An officer who may have been with our squadron entering Manila Bay, with the ships keeping their intervals precisely, or who is used to the manoeuvres of the North Atlantic fleet at the time of writing, can hardly realize the difficulty of securing anything like precision with the utterly inharmonious elements that Porter had under his command. THE ATTACK UPON THE FORT Shortly before i P.M., the New Ironsides, which was at the head of the first division, opened fire; and at 1.30 the Colorado, sec- ond in the column of the heavy ships, or the second division, was engaged. Each vessel dropped anchor from bow and stern. The Autobiography of Admiral Dewey 5i Each one practically became a floating bat- tery pouring shells into the fort. For over three hours the cannonade continued, that of the fort gradually weakening. When the flagship signaled at 5.30, "Prepare to ./retire for the night," it seemed to us that we had pretty effectually silenced Fisher. The Colorado had been struck a number of times, but not seriously. All the casualties in the fleet that day, with the exception of a boiler explosion on the Mackinaw, were due to the bursting of the 100-pounder Parrot rifled guns. These proved to be about as danger- ous to us as to the enemy and were not used again. Meanwhile, the transports had been de- layed in getting up. But that night all ar- rived and the land attack was planned for the following day. Having found that the depth of water permitted, the Colorado, Minnesota and Wabash, heavy draught ships, were the next morning able to ap- proach closer to the fort. We fired at slow intervals, as if we were at target practice, and we could see shell after shell taking effect. It seemed as if our fire must reduce these earthworks to so many sand dunes. With such a long line of ships firing and at such a long face of works ; with the air in a continual thunder and screech, there was no time to observe anything except the work of your own ship and the signals from the flagship. DRIVEN BACK The Minnesota and the Colorado re- mained anchored before the forts while the rest of the fleet was passing out of range. Suddenly the batteries concentrated on us. Our capstan was shot away; a ten-inch solid shot penetrated the starboard side, carrying away the lock and screw of No. 4 gun, killing one man and wounding five men and carrying away the axle and star- board truck of No. 5 gun on the port side. It was a time for quick thinking on the bridge. We had been told to discontinue action, but not to withdraw; and it was out of the question to endure that grilling fire in which we were being repeatedly hit. For an instant the alternative of slipping anchors and steaming away was considered by Commodore Thatcher, but that meant retreat without orders and possibly having our decision misconstrued, while we should be heavily pounded in the very act of retir- ing. We had silenced those guns that were barking at us once and we could do it again, the commodore concluded. As senior offi- cer present he signaled the Minnesota to fire for her own protection and repeated to the flagship the reason why we. were opening fire contrary to orders. I ran along the gun deck, where I found the men chafing in their inaction or astounded and apprehensive over the damage that was being wrought, and I kept calling: "Fire! Fire as fast as you can! That is the way to stop their fire!" Our gun crews obeyed with the avidity of desperation. Occupation with their work gave them no time to consider the effect of the enemy's shells, to which our guns blazed in answer with telling accuracy. The batteries found out that we were anything but disabled, and they were silent when the signal from the flagship came, this time not to discontinue but to retire from action. These few minutes of splendid and effec- tive gunnery developed a fine spirit in the whole ship. We steamed out of range with the satisfaction of the victor amid the cheers of the fleet. All day we had been watching in vain for signs of the approach of the army's assault- ing force over the sand dunes. When we received orders that night to proceed to our base at Beaufort we knew that Fort Fisher was not to be ours this time. Butler had decided that the fire of the fleet had not done the fort enough damage to make the assault practicable ; and after all the powder we had burned he returned with his troops on board his transports. BUTLER IS SUPERSEDED It is not for me to go into the details of an old controversy; but the fact remains that three weeks later another assault did suc- ceed after the defenses of Fort Fisher had been considerably strengthened. The up- shot was not an altogether felicitous ending of Butler's military career, and its lesson would seem to be that the thing to do when your country expects you to attack is to attack. While Porter was continuing the blockade he sent any vessels not needed for this pur- pose to Beaufort for ammunition, and asked for further instructions. Their char- acter at that stage of the war was inevitable. Gentle and patient as President Lincoln was, he had indomitable firmness on occa- sion. Only four days after Butler had with- drawn with his transports, Porter had a mes- 52 Hearst's Magazine sage from the secretary of the navy that Lieutenant-General Grant would send im- mediately "a competent force, properly commanded," to undertake the assault in which Butler had failed. "Properly commanded" meant the choice of Major-General A. H. Terry. While we mobilized at Beaufort and waited for his coming we labored in heavy weather getting coal and ammunition on board and a second time going through the details of prepara- tions for bombardment. THE FALL OF FORT FISHER The fact that the Confederates had boasted of a victory after Butler's with- drawal — though they had not sunk a single vessel and had inflicted but few casualties and little damage, while our troops had not attempted an assault — aroused in both our army and navy the determination to wipe out such an impression promptly. On the 1 2 th of January we sailed from our base at Beaufort, forty-eight men-of-war in all, escorting the numerous army transports. That night we anchored within twelve miles of the fort. The next day we pro- ceeded to take up our old positions. As the smaller ships were ahead, they received a vigorous fire until the heavier ships came up, when their powerful armament soon drove the Confederate gunners into their bombproofs. Meanwhile, Terry's troops had been put ashore. This time there was no question of discretion on the part of the army commander. Fort Fisher was to be taken at any cost. As darkness fell the fleet was pouring out ammunition without stint. A breeze rising lifted the pall of smoke, revealing the fort clearly, lighted by the flashes of our shells. At 9 a.m. the next morning, the 14th, the signal came from the flagship, which meant that all was ready to carry out the plan that had been arranged between Porter and Terry. While the troops assaulted on the land side, a force of sixteen hundred sailors and marines were to assault the sea face of the fort. Every ship sent its quota. As executive officer I should have been in command of the Colorado's force, but, de- spite my plea, Commodore Thatcher would not let me go. Being the senior officer pres- ent after Porter, if anything should happen to Porter the command of the fleet would fall to him and, in consequence, the com- mand of the ship to me. In view of such an (The next instalment of Admiral Deivey s eventuality I was ordered to remain on board, much to my disgust. The Colorado's part during the day was the same as that at the previous bombard- ment. We joined the other ships in pound- ing the batteries as hard as we could with all our guns. How terrific that bombardment was may be realized when I say that in the two days Porter's fleet discharged at Fort Fisher over eighteen thousand shells. We had glimpses of the blue figures of the soldiers as they progressed in taking the outer defenses, finally storming their way into the works themselves with a gallantry and precision in the face of heavy losses which would not be gainsaid. Soon after nightfall the last shot in resistance was fired from the fort. The fleet sent up rockets cele- brating the victory won by an attack which must stand high in history, both for its skill and its courage. Indeed, the manner in which Major-General Terry had conducted the whole operation was significant of the efficiency of the officers and men of the veteran army which was the instrument with which Grant won peace at last. AT THE CLOSE OF THE WAR What Appomattox was for the Federal army, Fort Fisher was for the Federal navy. Professionally the war had meant nearly four years' training for me as an executive officer. Had I had my choice of experience it could not have been better in its training for command. I knew the business of being the responsible executive of a large crew on a big ship, with my work subject to the direction of an older head. Soon after Fort Fisher, Commodore Thatcher was relieved from the Colorado and promoted to acting rear-admiral to relieve Farragut in command of the Gulf Squadron. He wished me to go with him as his chief of staff, but I was only about to receive my promotion as lieutenant-com- mander and the Navy Department again found my youth an obstacle. And my youth in the eyes of Captain R. H. Wyman, who took Thatcher's place, also made me unacceptable to him as executive. In six months after I left the Colorado, however, she had lost a hundred men, by desertion. A sort of left-handed promotion took me to the Kearsage, the victor over the Alabama, as executive, and I was aboard her on that happy day for the Union cause when we dressed ship in honor of Lee's surrender. Autobiography will appear in November) Srf*