The Old Navy

by Daniel P. Mannix

  The Monongahela, the sailing ship on which Mannix served as a midshipman.

  Besides the cadets on the Monongahela, there was a crew of regular seamen, a type of men now as extinct as the archers of England. The present enlisted men in the Navy are all very young, except for the chief petty officers, and are more like college boys. When I took command of my first destroyer at the advanced age of thirty-two, I was not only the “old man” figuratively (the officer in command of a ship is always referred to as the “Old Man”) but I actually was the oldest man on board.

  The sailing ship seamen averaged twice the age of the modern twenty-year-olders. They were much more primitive and caused more trouble ashore than do the modern crews. They were simpler minded and not nearly as well educated as the modern men. Many of them signed the payroll by making a cross, but in physique they were vastly superior.

  As an example, the “captain of the maintop” was a petty officer of many years’ service; he was probably forty years old and weighed at least a hundred and eighty. I have seen him go hand over hand up the main topsail sheet (a vertical rope, perhaps two inches in diameter, running from the fife rail on deck up to the main yard) and, when he was high above the deck, let go with his left hand and “chin” himself three times with his right. Mind you, he wasn’t holding on to anything horizontal like a bar in a gym, but to a thin vertical rope. Think of the grip necessary!

  I have always been interested in gymnastics and am a pretty fair gymnast myself. I was on the Academy gym team (if you’re ever in the gymnasium at Annapolis, you will see my name on a shield hung on the wall, gym team of 1900). I enjoyed going to circuses and fairs that featured acrobats and then trying to duplicate their feats in the gym. My muscular development was something of a joke at the Academy. In our class Lucky Bag (the book each class puts out on graduation) one gag was about my roommate rushing out of our room and when asked what was the matter replied, “Oh, Pratt Mannix is expanding his chest and I came out to catch my breath.” (A less complimentary tribute appeared under my picture and went “Pratt Mannix is a great admirer of all things Washingtonian — especially himself.” I hasten to add that all members of the class received some such scathing tribute. Afterwards, we threw the Lucky Bag staff into the Severn River to show what we thought of them.) My other favorite form of exercise is swimming which I have been able to keep up long after my gymnastic days were over. I did feel that I was in good physical shape but compared to those seamen, I was a complete slob.

  On one of our cruises to Madeira a member of the crew fell overboard in mid-ocean. He had been furling the flying jib and hit the water with a tremendous splash. The cry “Man overboard!” came from forward, the officer of the watch grabbed the speaking trumpet and shouted out the preliminary orders for heaving to, at the same time casting a life buoy over the side. On a steam vessel, if somebody falls overboard, the officer on duty, besides letting go a life buoy, has two courses of action open to him. He may either stop the engines and back full speed or else put the rudder hard over, one way or the other, and swing the ship around. Of course, the object in either case is to get the ship back to the place where the man went overboard and to reduce her speed sufficiently so a lifeboat may safely be lowered.

  On a sailing ship affairs aren’t so simple. In order to stop the motion of the ship through the water it is necessary to “heave to”; the braces must be manned and certain of the yards swung around until the sails attached to them are “aback”. On a square-rigger the big main topsail especially is used for this purpose.

  In this case, the weather topsail brace was manned by a long double line of men and hands were stationed at the lee brace to tend it as the heavy yard swung around. Meanwhile the quartermaster and signalmen searched the water directly astern of the ship to locate the man. There wasn’t a sign of him. The lifeboat was manned and lowered to the water’s edge and, as the topsail yard swung ponderously around, the ship’s speed rapidly diminished.

  The dropped life buoy could be seen bobbing up and down astern but not a sign of the lost man. Just as the watch officer was about to order the lifeboat lowered for what was evidently a hopeless search, he became aware of a queer squelching sound in his immediate vicinity. Looking down, from his vantage point on the bridge, he located the sound; it came from one of the men manning the topsail brace. The officer observed furthermore that every time this man took a step he left a puddle of water on the deck. This phenomenon required investigation so he hailed the moist one and demanded, “How did you get so wet?” The man sheepishly replied, “I fell overboard, sir.”

  Further questioning disclosed the amazing fact that the victim of the accident had rescued himself. Like most sailing ships the Monongahela had two Jacob’s ladders hanging over her stern. To an eyesplice in the bottom of each ladder was attached a grab rope the end of which was only a few inches above the water. The man who fell overboard came to the surface just as the stern of the ship was passing him; he caught hold of one of the grab ropes, was towed along for a few seconds and then succeeded in climbing the swinging rope ladder to the poop.

  As his head came level with the rail he realized, from the feverish activity of all hands, that a general maneuver was in progress. With commendable discipline he ran to his station, the main topsail brace, and began hauling away with the rest of his shipmates. The advisability of reporting his presence on board never entered his head, nor did he realize that he, personally, was the cause of all this commotion.

  He may have been a little slow mentally but the strength and agility shown in his self-rescue, fully clothed and wearing shoes, was really extraordinary.

  Compare this man with a Navy paymaster I saw lose his life during a Samoan hurricane. A wave washed him overboard and, drifting aft along the ship’s side, he came against a boat secured to one of the stern pennants. He tried to hoist himself into the boat but, being fat and in bad condition, he couldn’t do it and was swept out to sea and drowned.

  Through hard work and considerable danger we learned our duties. In laying aloft there were two cardinal rules. (1) Always use the weather rigging, never the lee. That ensured the wind’s blowing you against the rigging instead of away from it. (2) Always grip the shrouds (the up and down rigging) and never the ratlines (the horizontal “rungs” of the rope ladder you were ascending). If you put your hands on the ratlines the man ahead of you might step on them. There really should have been a third rule. Never go aloft in your bare feet. I did it once or twice and it was like walking on swords. Then, when we were out on the yard, “holding on with our stomachs” while we worked with both hands reefing sail, the man next to me, who was wearing shoes, slid down the footrope and landed on my bare feet.

  One of the infernos on that ship was the gundeck capstan. In a steam vessel there is an anchor engine which does the heavy work of “breaking” the anchor out of the bottom mud and weighing it, but on the Monongahela this back-breaking toil was done by manpower. Long bars would be fitted in the capstan and manned. Here again the poor plebes would suffer as they would invariably be at the outer end of the bars making the widest circuit while the upperclassmen, next to the capstan would occasionally lift their feet and “ride” around. The upperdeck capstan was bad enough but the hapless souls manning the capstan on the deck below (they were on the same vertical shaft) in making the circuit were obliged to jump over the anchor chain as it came through the hawse pipe; failure to do this was penalized by a whack over the shins and it isn’t the pleasantest sensation to be “whacked” by a heavy steel cable.

  Those sailing ship days of so long ago made such an impression on me that even today when I see anyone waste ice or fresh water it makes me uncomfortable; I feel that there is something “wicked” about it. The ice on the Monongahela lasted about twenty-four hours and for the remainder of the long sea passages we had canned food. Fresh water was so precious that it was limited to “For Drinking Only” and
even that was rationed and a guard put over the scuttlebut (water barrel). As for the quality of this drinking water it became so bad, especially when we were delayed by contrary winds or calms, that we were obliged to hold our noses while drinking it, the odor was so terrible.

  Water for washing and brushing our teeth came up from the ocean in a bucket. That wasn’t so bad as it is excellent for the teeth to brush them with salt water. The main drawback was that it made us thirsty when our drinking water was limited. When we finally got to Funchal, we all invested in “monkey jugs”, jars of porous material like those found in Egyptian excavations. Filled with water and hung where there was a circulation of air these would keep their contents pleasantly cool. Like all things, however, this had its drawbacks, as the men having night watches weren’t above emptying some other fellow’s monkey jug instead of drinking out of their own.

  During these cruises we slept in canvas hammocks. This was very difficult for a newcomer, as they were hung about the level of a man’s shoulders and if you took hold of the hammock itself in an attempt to climb in, it would promptly capsize and deposit you on the deck with the mattress and pillow on top of you. The only way to get on board one of those hammocks was to grip the deck beams overhead, lift yourself carefully, deposit yourself still more carefully in the hammock and then let go of the beams hoping for the best.

  There was a vicious form of practical joking, not very common, fortunately. It consisted in waiting until a man was asleep and then cutting his hammock lashing. If the foot lashing was cut it wasn’t so bad as you, the mattress, and the pillow would slide down to the deck feet first, but if the head lashing was cut, you landed on your head.

  During the night, at four-hour intervals, the boatswains mate would pace up and down the deck intoning, “All the starboard watch, turn out now, starboard watch.” The next time it would be the port watch, as we stood “Watch and watch” (four hours on, four hours off) while at sea. There used to be a story illustrating the slow Navy promotion of those days. The midshipman of the watch shakes the hammock of his relief and says, “Turn out, Father, it’s your watch.” His relief turns over and replies, “No, it isn’t. It’s your grandfather’s.”

  At Reveille the call would be, “All hands, turn out! Lash and carry!” We would slip out of our hammocks frequently landing in a foot of cold seawater (the decks were scrubbed in the morning watch), lash our hammocks and carry them up to the spar deck where they were inspected before being stowed in the hammock nettings. If the lashing had not been properly done we had to do it all over again, seven turns of the hammock lashing, clews neatly turned in, etc. Our instructor in this was a fine old boatswains mate named O’Connor.* On a February night three years later he died with two hundred and sixty of his shipmates in Havana Harbor. He was on the Maine.

  * Enlisted men and noncommissioned officers were referred to by last names.

  We got so we could perform our drills literally in our sleep. One night Juggy Nelson was the officer of the watch and as the wind was fair and all going well, he decided to get some sleep. An hour or so later our captain came on deck and, observing storm clouds to windward and being unable to locate the officer on duty, seized the speaking trumpet and shouted, “Topgallant and royal clewlines!” From the depths of the hammock nettings came a voice giving the correct following order, “Flying jib downhaul!” The captain walked over to the nettings and there lay Juggy, still fast asleep. I forget now what punishment he got, but it was enough to keep him awake for a long, long time.

  About the only thing I remember of Funchal were the boys who used to come out to the ship and dive for money (“Heave I dive; ten cents I pass the ship”) and the snowless coasting ashore. The streets were very steep and were paved with small stones that were slippery as ice. We would proceed to the high land behind the city and then coast back in heavy sledges. They would dash through the narrow streets and around sharp corners at tremendous speed barely missing the children and dogs who always occupied the middle of the road, the coxswains of the sleds howling warnings like steam whistles in a fog.

  There was a big cathedral on the heights back of the city. The day we visited it a group of very pretty Portuguese girls were kneeling in the middle of the vast floor vigorously saying their prayers at the rate of about a hundred and twenty words a minute. As we entered they all looked over their shoulders at us and as we walked around pretending to admire the murals, they followed us with their eyes meanwhile praying as energetically as ever.

  I suppose I must be one of the few men alive who can remember what life was like in the American Navy of sailing ships. All those fine old ships have sailed away into the Land of Dreams, mounting the swells like great birds. No smoke, no vibration, no noise except the occasional slatting of a reef point against its sail. They vanished as did one of their number attacked in World War I by that epitome of the modern, a submarine. Her captain reported, “The torpedo struck her forward and she started going down by the head. She disappeared slowly, gracefully, like the lady she was.”

  When I became a second classman (equivalent to a junior in college) the battleship Maine blew up in Havana Harbor on the night of February 15,1898. People are still disputing whether her magazine exploded by accident or whether the Spaniards with whom our government was at loggerheads over their treatment of the Cubans, deliberately blew her up. My guess is that the Spaniards had Havana Harbor mined and the Maine by accident anchored over one of those mines. Some red-hot young Spaniard couldn’t resist the temptation and pressed a button that set off the mine. When the news of that disaster reached Annapolis there was wild excitement. For three months we were kept in a constant state of anticipation which culminated when war was declared between the United States and Spain on April 25th. The first or senior class was ordered to sea and the other three classes granted four months’ leave of absence to visit their homes.

  After three years in the Navy, I couldn’t see myself spending the war at home, especially as boys no older than I (I was nineteen) were enlisting. The empire, established by Pizarro and Cortez that had endured through three hundred years of aggression and strife, had at last been challenged. I sent an urgently worded official application for orders to any ship in the Navy and waited breathlessly for nearly a month for a reply. At last it came. I still have it framed on my wall. Here it is:

  Navy Department Washington,

  May 26, 1898

  Sir:

  You are hereby detached from the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md., will proceed, immediately, to Key West, Fla., or to such other port as the USS Indiana may be, and report to the Senior Officer present for duty on board that vessel temporarily.

  You will regard yourself detached from duty on board the USS Indiana at such time as the Commander in Chief may designate, in order that you may return to Annapolis by September 30th next, and you will so return and report to the Superintendent of the Naval Academy not later than the date specified.

  Report to the Commandant at Key West for the necessary transportation beyond that port.

  Respectfully

  John D. Long, Secretary

  USS Indiana

  Off Key West, June 2nd.

  I packed my sea chest and bought a ticket for Tampa. I was off to my first war.

  His appointment as a Naval Cadet, signed by Theodore Roosevelt.

  Four generations of Mannix swords. From left to right: Rear Admiral Daniel Pratt Mannix 3rd’s sword, First World War; Capt. Daniel Pratt Mannix Jr.’s USMC sword worn at Lincoln’s funeral, when he was in command of the honor guard; Rear Admiral Daniel Pratt Mannix 3rd’s sword worn when he was a midshipman, during the Spanish-American War; Marine Capt. Daniel Pratt Mannix Jr.’s sword worn at the court of the Empress Dowager in China; Col. John Armstrong Wright’s (maternal grandfather’s) sword worn during the Civil War; Lt. Daniel Pratt Mannix 4th’s sword worn during World
War II.

  Chapter 3

  The Spanish-American War 1898

  Hello Dolly, we won’t leave you

  Something tells us not to go

  Something tells us we’re not needed

  As a target for the Foe.

  — Weber-Fields version of “Dolly Gray”

  My experiences in the Spanish-American War are largely copied from the diary that I kept at the time and portions are reproduced here. Later observations are in brackets.

  TAMPA. JUNE 4, 1898

  Here I am at last in Tampa, en route to Key West. It was a terrible trip by train. We stopped every mile so the conductor could chop wood to keep the engine going. I am staying at the Arno Hotel where the accommodations are good. The Tampa Bay Hotel is said to be one of the best in the South but it costs $5 a day; too much for a midshipman.

  Tampa is filled with soldiers going around in their shirt sleeves, with sidearms on, and they are a tough-looking crowd; all last night I was kept awake by shouts and howls, while rifles and pistols were going off all over the place. This place is like a Western mining camp in the days of Jesse James. There are also some of the famous Rough Riders wandering around brandishing loaded revolvers. As the Duke of Wellington said about some newly arrived troops, “I don’t know what effect they will have on the enemy but by God they frighten me.” The streets here are about three feet deep in sand and every vacant lot is crowded with tents, mostly “pup tents”. The camp is supposedly under the command of General William Shatter but there seems to be no discipline whatsoever. I caught a glimpse of the general. He is an enormous man and must weigh over 300 pounds. I can’t imagine him leading troops in the tropical jungles of Cuba.