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ROMWELL, BARTLETT JEFFERSON, rear-admiral United States navy, has served his country for a long period with the singleness of purpose, the clearness of perception and the efficiency of action which have made so many of our naval officers examples not merely for the young men who enter this branch of the government service, but for all Americans who aspire to lives of integrity and of honorable and patriotic public service.

He was born near Springplace, Walker county, Georgia, February 9, 1840. His parents were Andrew F. and Sarah (Ragon) Cromwell. His father was a physician, a man of education, accomplishments, and high character, who ranked well in his profession. The first representatives of the family in this country were early settlers in the neighborhood of Abingdon, Virginia.

In his youth he lived in the country. After he was ten years of age he had various tasks to perform, but they did not seriously interfere with his efforts to obtain an education. His health was good and he was fond of all of the common country sports and amusements. The foundations of his education were laid in the public schools, which he attended expecting an appointment to the United States military academy at West Point; but when the papers reached him they contained an assignment to the naval academy at Annapolis, which institution he entered in September, 1857, and from which he was graduated June 1, 1861, in the exciting times of the opening of the Civil war. He left the academy May 9, 1861, upon its occupation by General Butler with the 8th Massachusetts regiment, and was one of ten midshipmen ordered to Washington, who, by invitation of Colonel Vosburg, marched with the staff of the 71st New York regiment.

He was ordered to Philadelphia, where, as senior midshipman, he had charge of a sailing sloop of war and the drilling and instruction of about three hundred recruits. After serving on a steam sloop in the West Indies during the search for the Confederate