him to accept, and he was
withdrawn from Gilmanton and sent to Concord to prepare for entrance at
Annapolis, under a private tutor. He remained under such pupilage until
the age of fifteen, when the beginning of the academic year, October,
1851, saw him installed in "Middy's" uniform at that institution, and
the business of life for him had begun in earnest.

To a young and restless lad, used to being afield at all times and hours
with horse, dog, and gun, and fresh from a country home where the "pomp
and circumstance" of military life had had no other illustration than
occasional glimpses of the old "training and muster days" so dear to New
Hampshire boys forty years ago, the change to the restraint and
discipline; the inflexible routine and stern command; the bright
uniforms and novel ways; the sight of the ships and the use of a
vocabulary that ever smacks of the sea; the call by drum and trumpet to
every act of the day, from bed-rising, prayers, and breakfast, through
study, recitation, drill, and recreation hours, to tattoo and taps, when
every student is expected to be in bed,--was a transformation wonderful
indeed; but the flow of discipline and routine are so regular and
imperative that their currents are imperceptibly impressed upon the
youthful mind and soon become a part of his nature, as it were,
unawares. So we may conclude that our young aspirant for naval honors
proved no exception to the rule, and soon settled into these new grooves
of life as quietly as his ardent temperament would permit.

The discipline at the Academy, in those days, was harsher and more
exacting, and the officers of the institution of a sterner and more
experienced sea-school, than now; and the three months' practice cruises
across the Atlantic, which the different classes made on alternate
summers, when the "young gentlemen" were trained to do all the work of
seamen, both alow and aloft, and lived on the old navy ration of salt
junk, pork and beans, and hardtack, with no extras, were anything but a
joke. The Academy, too, was in a transition state from the system in
vogue, up to 1850 inclusive, prior to which period the midshipmen went
to sea immediately after appointment, pretty much after the fashion of
Peter Simple and Jack Easy, and after a lapse of five years came to the
school for a year's cramming and coaching before graduating as passed
midshipmen. The last of such appointees was graduated in 1856, and the
sometime hinted