e for the first five months, called
Gustavus V. Fox to his assistance. Fox had been a naval officer of
exceptional promise, who had left the service to go into business,
who had a natural turn for administration, and who now made an
almost ideal Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He was, indeed, far
more than this; for, in most essentials, he acted throughout the
war as a regular Chief of Staff.

One of the greatest troubles was the glut of senior officers who
were too old and the alarming dearth of juniors fit for immediate
work afloat. It was only after the disaster at Bull Run that Congress
authorized the formation of a Promotion Board to see what could be
done to clear the active list and make it really a list of officers
fit for active service. Up to this time there had been no system
of retiring men for inefficiency or age. An officer who did not
retire of his own accord simply went on rising automatically till
he died. The president of this board had himself turned sixty.
But he was the thoroughly efficient David Glasgow Farragut, a man
who was to do greater things afloat than even Fox could do ashore.
How badly active officers were wanted may be inferred from the
fact that before the appointment of Farragut's promotion board
the total number of regular officers remaining in the navy was
only 1457. Intensive training was tried at the Naval Academy. Yet
7500 volunteer officers had to be used before the war was over.
These came mostly from the merchant service and were generally
brave, capable, first-rate men. But a nautical is not the same as
a naval training; and the dearth of good professional naval officers
was felt to the end. The number of enlisted seamen authorized by
Congress rose from 7600 to 51,500. But the very greatest difficulty
was found in "keeping up to strength," even with the most lavish
use of bounties.

The number of vessels in the navy kept on growing all through.
Of course not nearly all of them were regular men-of-war or even
fighting craft "fit to go foreign." At the end of the first year
there were 264 in commission; at the end of the second, 427; at
the end of the third, 588; and at the end of the fourth, 671.

Bearing this in mind, and remembering the many other Northern odds,
one might easily imagine that the Southern armies fought only with
the courage of despair. Yet such was not the case. This was no
ordinary war, to be ended by a treaty in which compromise would
play its part. The