ashington for instructions. It is unnecessary to enter into any
examination of Farragut's course during this period, although the
affairs with which he had to deal became at times both critical and
delicate. It will be sufficient to say that the Navy Department, after
receiving his reports, approved his conduct as having been prudent and
yet marked by a proper spirit.

In July, 1858, Farragut returned to the East by the only route then
available, the Isthmus of Panama. During his absence, on the 14th of
September, 1855, he had been promoted to the rank of captain, which,
prior to the Civil War, was the highest grade in the United States Navy;
the title commodore, then so frequently applied to the older officers of
the service, being simply one of courtesy given to a captain who had
commanded a squadron of several vessels, but who did not thereby cease
to be borne as a captain upon the Navy Register. Soon after his arrival
Farragut was ordered to command the Brooklyn, one of six steam
sloops-of-war just being completed. She belonged to that new navy of
thirty years ago which the United States Government, most luckily for
itself, had determined to build, and which became fairly available just
in time for the exigencies of the Civil War.

It has been said, and that on the floors of Congress by a politician
conspicuous in his party, that past history teaches that preparation for
war is unnecessary to the United States, and the conditions precedent to
the wars of 1812 and 1861 have been cited in support of the assertion.
Certainly no one cognizant of the facts will deny that the United States
was most miserably unprepared for either war as regards the size of her
navy; but it so happened on both occasions, more by good luck than good
management, that what navy it did have was of remarkably fine quality,
and, to the extent to which its numbers permitted it to be employed, was
generally perfectly adequate to the work it had to do. It could not,
however, begin to touch the full amount of service it ought to have
done. In 1812 it could not protect the Chesapeake nor the Mississippi;
it was blockaded in its own ports, escaping only by evasion; it could
not protect American commerce, which suffered more than did that of
Great Britain. In 1861, had its numbers been at all adequate, it could
by prompt action have forestalled the preparations of the enemy, and by
prevention secured immediate advantages which were afterward achieved