Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/581

 549 CHAPTER XVII. THE NAVAL OPERATIONS OF THE CIVIL WAR. THE outbreak of war between the Northern States and the Confederacy found the Federal Navy ill prepared and ill organised for a great struggle. The material was insufficient in quantity and inferior in quality. Though armoured ships were then under construction both in England and France, the American fleet included no vessels of this type. The total of steam- vessels was only forty ; and of these eight were for various reasons useless. Twenty-four vessels were in commission, scattered over the world, and eight more were in reserve in the dockyards, without crews. At the outset of the war only three steamers were ready for sea, manned, and in Northern ports. The other ships in the navy were sailing vessels, and were of but insignificant value for warfare in an age of steam. Nor was the organisation superior to the material. The direction of the fleet was entrusted to several independent bureaux under a civilian head, with no general staff and no intelligence department. The organisation was devised for peace, not for war ; but, fortunately for the North, a capable Chief of the Staff appeared in the person of Captain G. V. Fox, a retired naval officer, who became Assistant-Secretary of the Navy. On him devolved the strategical direction of the naval operations; and to his efforts the final success of the United States in the conflict was in no small measure due. The personnel of the navy was on the whole good, though the officers of higher rank were much too old and, with a few brilliant exceptions, unenterprising and afraid of responsibility, owing to the long peace, in which the duty of being always prepared for war had been overlooked. The total number of officers, commissioned and non- commissioned, of all departments was 1563, of whom 821 resigned and threw in their lot with the South, while 350 more, although of Southern birth, remained true to their flag. The total of officers and men was 7600. As the country possessed a large merchant marine and great ship- building facilities, the necessary expansion of the navy was only a matter of time. Every serviceable steamer in the merchant marine was pur- chased for the fleet ; and a large number of sloops, gun-boats, and small paddle-steamers were ordered to be constructed. In August, 1861, it CH. XVII.