hips in Callao, assembled with the other two. Within a week later we
all went out together, performed three or four simple evolutions, and
then scattered. This was the only fleet drill we had in the two years,
1883-1885.

In fact, from time immemorial the navy had thought in single ships, as
the army had in company posts. To the several officers their own ship
was everything, the squadron little or nothing. The War of Secession
had broadened the ideas of the army by enlarging its operations in the
field, although peace brought a relapse; but the navy having to fight
only shore batteries, not fleets, was not forced out of the old
tactical and strategic apathy. The huge accumulations of vessels under
a single admiral entailed enlarged administrative duties; but the
tactical methods, as shown in the greater battles, presented simply
the adaptation of means to a particular occasion, and, however
sagacious in the several instances--and they usually were
sagacious--possessed no continuity of system in either theory or
practice. Organic unity did not exist except for administration. There
was an assemblage of vessels, but not a fleet. All this was the
result, or at least the complement, of the theory of commerce
destroying, which prescribed cruisers that act singly; and of war by
defence only, which proscribed battle-ships, that act in unison and so
compel unity.

A further incident of Mr. Chandler's tenure of office was the
establishment of the Naval War College at Newport. This had its origin
in the recognition of a defect in the constitution of the Navy
Department, which was glaringly visible during the War of Secession.
Immense and admirable as was the administrative work done by the
Department during that contest, there did not exist in it then, nor
did there for many years to come, any formal provision for the proper
consideration and expert decision of strictly military questions,
from the point of view of military experience and professional
understanding. The head of the Department, invariably a civilian under
our form of government, and therefore usually unfamiliar with naval
matters, had not assured to him, at instant call, organized
professional assistance, individual or corporate, prepared to advise
him, when asked, as to the military aspect of proposed operations,
what the arguments for or against feasibility, or what the best method
of procedure. In other services, notably in the German army, this
function is