The United States Naval Academy [pp. 389-402]

DINNER FORMATION
THE UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY
I3Y LIEUTENANT WILLIAM F. FULLAM, U. S. N.
liE history of naval education more recently controlled naval legislation;
in the United States affords a for it is the civil war which forms the most
striking illustration of the grewsome chapter in this tale of naval im indifference with which our potency.
people viewed the navy dur- It may be easily demonstrated that a
ing the first half century of navy of very moderate size ill 1561 would
our national existence. It have sufficed to hold the Norfolk navy yard,
forms an introductory chapter to command the James, the Mississippi, and
to the story of a nation's complete failnre the approaches to Charleston, Wilmington,
to appreciate the vital importance of naval and Mobile. The rebellion would have been
forces in offensive and defensive warfare strangled at the start. It breathed through
a story which, though not yet completed, tbese seaports; and the fifteen hundred
may, we have reason to hope, be bronght to guns and the tons of powder captured at
a happy conclusion at the end of the present Norfolk alone enabled the Confederates to
century. It is only fair to say, however, that arm and supply their fortifications from
the founders of this republic and those who Virginia to Texas. With neither powder
followed them in shaping naval policy for mills nor gun foundries; with no facilities
fifty years, were even less culpable in their whatever for the manufacture of arms and
neglect of the navy than those who have munitions of war, and with, its ports ()o~ed
389.