Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Deeds of Valor, Vol. 2 of 2: How America's Heroes Won the Medal of Honor; Personal Reminiscences and Records of Officers and Enlisted Men Who Were Awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for Most Conspicuous Acts of Bravery in Battle; Combined With an Abridged History of Our Country
The greater number of these vessels were either abroad, in foreign waters, or in southern ports, and therefore not immediately available for the grave emergency. The personnel of the navy numbered at that time 7, 600 men, of all ranks. While the crews held on faithfully to the cause of the Union, not less than 259 naval officers of the line either resigned or were dismissed, amounting to forty-three per cent. Of the corps.
Under such conditions the task of the Navy Department seemed a desperate and hopeless one; sailors and especially their officers could not be readily recruited, for, under all conditions, they must necessarily have a thorough technical training. Out side of this there was the lack of ships to cover a sea-coast of miles against a foe who had at the time the moral and material support of the two most efficient naval powers in the world, England and France.
If we had had a hundred gunboats the rebellion could have been Smothered at its start. This utterance Of Admiral Porter, U. S. N., pictures the situation concisely.
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