appears to lie in incompetence, in the absence of any resolute, determining will, in the reference of vital decisions to councilsof-war, which notoriously "do not fight."

As early as May 7 Secretary of the Navy Mallory was urging upon the Confederate War Department the need of haste in opening a passage through the old Confederate obstructions at Drewry's Bluff. It was hoped that an advance of the three ironclads down the river would put an end to the mine-sweeping operations of the wooden gunboats and compel the monitors to come forward, where, with good fortune, they might be torpedoed. But the removal of the obstructions was attended with great delay. It was not until May 24 that the Richmond and Virginia were able to pass the opening, and before that time, as we have seen, the Union flotilla had completed its advance and covered Butler's flank on Trent's Reach.

Flag-Officer John K. Mitchell, commanding the Confederate flotilla, now proposed an immediate attack upon the Union forces below. Fire rafts were to be sent ahead to throw the enemy into confusion; then the ironclads and gunboats, all equipped with torpedoes, were to make their attack in the darkness or semidarkness of early dawn. Secretary Mallory approved the plan; there seemed some chance of success. But the attack was postponed from day to day. At one time the Fredericksburg had engine trouble. At another the shore batteries were unable to cooperate, General Beauregard showing a disinclination to work harmoniously with the naval forces. Lack of torpedoes occasioned further delay. The date of attack was postponed until the thirtieth. On that date Mitchell submitted his plan of attack to his officers, who disapproved it. Finally, on June 8, he submitted the entire question of offensive action to a council-of-war. The council held an attack to be inadvisable because of the strength and disposition of the opposing force, low water, and narrow channels. This report Mitchell submitted to the Secretary on June 13. Two days later the sinking of the obstructions in Trent's Reach rendered all offensive plans for the time being futile. The Confederate navy had lost whatever chance it may have possessed of blocking or hampering Grant's southward

movement.

This movement, "the greatest feat of his military career," Grant accomplished with incredible rapidity and secrecy. On

June 14 the advance of his army reached the James. On the seventeenth he was able to report to General Halleck: "Our forces drew out from within fifty yards of the enemy's intrenchments at Cold Harbor, made a flank movement of an average of about fifty miles march, crossing the Chickahominy and James rivers, the latter 2000 feet wide and 84 feet deep at point of crossing, and surprised the enemy's rear at Petersburg. This was done without the loss of a wagon or piece of artillery and with the loss of only about 150 stragglers, picked up by the enemy."

The passage of the James opened the Petersburg campaign, which was to result in the fall of Richmond and the end of the war. The part played by the navy was neither brilliant nor spectacular, but upon it depended absolutely the success of the campaign. Without the naval control of the river, Grant's army could never have crossed in the first place; nor, without that control, could a mile of the long line of water communications between City Point and Hampton Roads have been kept open. The army before Petersburg would have been in an impossible position. Its safety and its hope of success rested with the river squadron, whose quiet work guarded bases and transport lines from the formidable ironclads up the river. That the danger from these ships was no chimera of the imagination was shown when, in January, 1865, they made their last attempt to attack the Union forces. On this occasion they succeeded in breaking through Butler's obstructions at Trent's Reach, and only the presence of the powerful monitor Onondaga prevented the inflicting of great damage upon the Union forces.

To the importance of this naval activity on the James we have the testimony of no less an authority than General Grant himself. In answer to an inquiry whether a part of the ironclad force on the James might safely be withdrawn, Grant wrote, in July, 1864: "Whilst I believe we will never require the armored vessels to meet those of the enemy, I think it would be imprudent to withdraw them. . There is no disguising the fact, that if the enemy should take the offensive on the water-although we probably would destroy his whole James river navy-such damage would be done our shipping and stores, all accumulated on the water near where the conflict would begin, that our victory would be dearly bought."

But even such testimony is very far from an adequate statement of the navy's case. The strength of that case is apparent at once if we but ask the question: What if the South instead of the North had possessed the preponderant strength on these inland waters? The answer, of course, is this: Not only would such campaigns as McClellan's and Grant's have been altogether impossible with respect to both the movements of the armies and the maintenance of their communications, but the whole character of the war would have been altered-the South would have possessed the offensive, and Washington instead of Richmond would have sought protection behind obstructions and inferior fleets. It is, of course, a truism that without its fleets the North could never have won the war; but it is high time that the control of the Virginia rivers was recognized as one of the great phases of the navy's work, worthy a place scarcely below the Mississippi operations and the blockade.

[COPYRIGHTED]

U. S. NAVAL INSTITUTE, ANNAPOLIS, MD.

THE UNITED STATES NAVAL INSTITUTE By REAR ADMIRAL BRADLEY A. FISKE, U. S. Navy (Retired)

It is an old story of the navy that a captain of the forecastle once brought a captain of the head to the mast to make a report against him; and that when the officer of the deck inquired what was the nature of the offence, the captain of the forecastle answered, "Why, sir, he don't take no pleasure in his work."

The story is supposed to be amusing, from the fact that the duties of the delinquent were not such as would be expected to give a man much pleasure; but it is instructive, because it shows. that the experience of the captain of the forecastle had taught him that men do not usually do their work well, unless they take pleasure in it.

There are, of course, many kinds of pleasure; but it is the experience of most men past middle life that there is no pleasure more lasting, or more certain to be realized, than the pleasure of doing work, if one does it well. Other pleasures may be keener; but, on the general principle that one always has to pay for what he gets, pleasures that are pleasures merely, especially pleasures that are keen, are usually expensive in some way; whereas, the pleasure of doing work well is automatically paid. for by the doing of the work.

Now, one of the functions of the Naval Institute is to present the problems of the navy in such a way as to make officers see how much variety and interest they possess, and how much pleasure can be secured by working on them. Without some such stimulus as the Institute, the navy would be less like a profession and more like a trade; we would be less like artists, and more like artisans; we would become too practical and narrow; we would have no broad vision of the navy as a whole, each one