Quarterdeck and Bridge

by Vernon L. Williams

U.S. NAVAL INTITUTE COLLECTION

HE HAD COMPILED A GOOD RECORD, BUT ONE THAT LACKED DISTINCtion. He had spent very little time at sea during the previous twenty years, played only a minor role in the development of the New Navy, and was not considered a member of that brash new group of scientific officers determined to modernize the navy; nor was he a contributor to the school of naval theorists led by Stephen B. Luce and Alfred Thayer Mahan. There was little in George Dewey’s record to suggest that he had much hope for further promotion and leadership opportunities in the emerging navy of the twentieth century.¹

His prospects changed markedly in the early morning hours of 1 May 1898, however, when Dewey turned to the captain of the Olympia in Manila Bay and said quietly, “You may fire when ready, Gridley.” From that fateful moment on, Dewey’s star ascended dramatically as the nation sought to recognize this new hero of America’s war of manifest destiny. Some might debate the degree of Dewey’s contribution to the modernization of the U.S. Navy, but no one can ignore Dewey’s administrative presence in that modernization process from the turn of the century until his death in 1917.

George Dewey was born in Montpelier, Vermont, on 26 December 1837. His father, Julius Y. Dewey, was a well-to-do physician whose entrepreneurial pursuits led him to found a successful insurance venture that later would give Dewey a more than comfortable lifestyle in the Navy. Dewey spent his childhood with two older brothers and a younger sister, as his mother, Mary Perrin Dewey, had died early in his life. According to Dewey, his relationship with his father was close and remained so throughout the rest of the elder Dewey’s life. Much in the character of George Dewey seems to have been drawn from his father: “He was one of those natural leaders to whom men turn for unbiased advice. His ideas of right and wrong were very fixed.”2

Of the years before he attended the U.S. Naval Academy, Dewey left little behind to indicate what kind of boyhood he had enjoyed. After his fame was won at Manila Bay, all kinds of wonderful stories were published in the newspapers and in popular histories that exploded on the scene in 1898 and 1899. As Dewey biographer Ronald Spector suggests, “Old residents of Montpelier, at the urging of eager newspapermen, found little difficulty in ‘remembering’ many colorful and prophetic incidents from Dewey’s early years.”³ Earlier biographers noted that “it is curious how the wording of many passages in the autobiography follows so closely the phrases of eulogistic volumes on Dewey published in 1899.”⁴ From all indications, it appears that Dewey was no shy, withdrawn boy, but one who was active and, at times, difficult to control. Later, as a young cadet at the Naval Academy, Dewey would be hard-pressed to refrain from mischievous pranks.

Dewey entered the Naval Academy in 1854 despite his desire to go to West Point. No appointments were available to either West Point or Annapolis, but a last-minute change of heart by a Naval Academy appointee gave Julius Dewey the opportunity to use his influence with Senator Solomon Foote to name George as the substitute.⁵ During the next four years, Dewey compiled a solid academic record while leaving behind a handsome list of demerits. He graduated fifth in a class of fourteen.⁶

Emerging from four years of “hell and discipline,”⁷ Dewey was assigned to the USS Wabash, flagship of the Mediterranean Squadron. With no opportunity for leave, he sailed with the Wabash on 22 July 1858 en route to her station in the Mediterranean. Despite bouts of homesickness, Dewey came to appreciate the Mediterranean and the opportunity to observe European politics at each port of call. Impressionable and idealistic, Dewey spent the next three years in the region, developing his maritime skills and attending to his naval and diplomatic duties as he successively served in the Wabash, Powhatan, and Pawnee. In 1861, he was ordered back to the academy to take the examination for lieutenant.⁸

Dewey stood third in his class on the examination and would be commissioned lieutenant in April 1862. Immediately after taking the examination, however, he went home to Montpelier on leave. When word reached Dewey that hostilities had begun at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, he proceeded to a new assignment, the steam frigate Mississippi. The ship had had a distinguished career, having fought in the Mexican War and having accompanied Matthew C. Perry to Japan in 1853; but the introduction of screw propulsion had rendered her obsolete, and she was not expected to play an important role in the impending conflict. In the middle of May 1861, the Mississippi, with Lieutenant Dewey on board, left Boston and steamed down the Atlantic coast to Key West, Florida. During the rest of 1861, Dewey participated in blockading activities and support of the Union Army along the southern Gulf Coast.9

Following the indecisive battle at Bull Run and a series of naval successes at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and Port Royal, South Carolina, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus Fox convinced President Abraham Lincoln that the Union must secure control of the mouth of the Mississippi River and that David Glasgow Farragut was the man to command the naval forces sent there.¹⁰ Years later, Dewey considered the New Orleans campaign to have been the most important training he received as a young officer. “Valuable as the training at Annapolis was, it was poor schooling beside that of serving under Farragut in time of war.”¹¹

Shortly before beginning operations against New Orleans, the Mississippi received a new commander, Captain Melancthon Smith. Because of transfers and a lack of trained officers, the Mississippi had on board only four line officers, including the captain, and, by a process of elimination, Dewey was the second ranking officer. Farragut informed Smith “that there was complaint on the part of some officers on the Navy list” that Dewey, who was very low on the list, held a “position higher than theirs.” Although Smith had the reputation of being a difficult captain to serve under, Dewey apparently worked well with him and had won his trust. Persuading Farragut to let Dewey remain as his executive officer, Smith said: “Dewey is doing all right. I don’t want a stranger here.”¹²

Formidable obstacles stood between Flag Officer Farragut and his objective, the most important being two forts, Jackson and Saint Philip. The forts were located midway between New Orleans, Louisiana, and the mouth of the Mississippi, and the Confederates had built a boom of cypress logs and chain at Fort Jackson to block passage upriver. Ordered to use his gunboats to bombard the forts into submission before attacking New Orleans, Farragut doubted that he had the ammunition or the manpower to capture them. In spite of repeated warnings from his commanders that attacking New Orleans without control of the forts would bring disaster, Farragut proposed to bypass the forts and move against New Orleans.¹³

The first problem facing Farragut was getting all his vessels—including the Mississippi, to which Dewey was still assigned—across the bars at the entrance to the river. On 18 March 1862, using shallow-draft mortar boats, Farragut began towing his ships across the bar at the deepest point in the streams leading into the Mississippi River. For eight laborious hours the Mississippi was pulled through mud until she finally cleared the bar on the other side. A month later, on 17 April, the mortar boats opened fire on Forts Jackson and Saint Philip; on the twentieth, two gunboats forced an opening through the boom that was wide enough for Farragut’s ships to pass through, one at a time.¹⁴

On board the Mississippi on 24 April, Smith received orders to begin an early morning cruise past the two Confederate forts. His ship was assigned to the first division, behind the Cayuga and the Pensacola. Farragut was hoping to get as many ships as possible past the two forts before the rebel gunners noticed his intention to bypass the gun positions and attack New Orleans. Explaining that his night vision was poor, Smith ordered young Lieutenant Dewey to take the helm while he supervised fire control.

According to Dewey, the Pensacola stopped as she came abreast of each fort to fire a broadside, each time causing Dewey, just behind with the Mississippi, to reverse engines to prevent a collision. Dewey later remarked that “for a man of twenty-four I was having my share of responsibility.” All during this time, the Mississippi was “under fire and returning it.” To complicate matters, the Confederate ram Manassas appeared, and Dewey, seeing an opportunity to run down the ironclad, quickly maneuvered the ship toward the ram. The rebel commander reacted in time to avoid the crush of the Mississippi, and at the last minute, “sheering in, he [the captain of the ram] managed to strike us a glancing blow just abaft the port paddlewheel.” The damage to the Mississippi proved not to be fatal, and Dewey continued on past the forts out of range of the Confederate guns.15

As dawn was breaking, the Manassas was spotted astern of the fleet as she bore down on Farragut’s ships in a second attempt to disrupt the Union attack. Smith was back in command on the bridge of the Mississippi and reacted swiftly to the sudden appearance of the ram. He was in the act of requesting permission to attack when Farragut appeared on the scene; hanging out of the rigging of the Hartford, he cried out to Smith to “run down the ram.”

Turning to Dewey, Smith asked if he could turn the ship around. Dewey replied that he could but later admitted, “I did not know whether I could turn her or not, but I knew that either I was going to do so or else run her aground.” On the first try, the Mississippi came around and faced the ram. Realizing that the cruiser bearing down on his ship would inflict a fatal blow, the Confederate captain evaded the collision and ran aground on the riverbank. The Mississippi “so riddled her [the stationary target Manassas] with shot that she was dislodged from the bank and drifted below the forts, [where] she blew up and sank.” In his report to Farragut, Smith praised Dewey for his “efficient service,” which “kept the vessel in her station during the engagement, a task exceedingly difficult from the darkness and thick smoke” that crowded the scene.¹⁶

Dewey’s initial battle experience indelibly influenced him. The unforgettable image of Farragut hanging onto the rigging of the Hartford with blood in his eyes and screaming for attack remained with Dewey the rest of his life. Dewey confided later that when hard-pressed for a difficult decision, he often thought of Farragut and what he would do in the same situation. “. . . I confess that I was thinking of him the night that we entered [Manila] Bay. . . .” In those early morning hours of 1 May 1898, Dewey was confident that he was doing exactly what Farragut would have done, striking boldly and aggressively at the enemy.17

During the spring of 1863, two events occurred that almost cut short Dewey’s naval career. At 2200 on 13 March, the Mississippi began the approach to Port Hudson with Farragut in order to cooperate with Farragut’s plan to cut the Confederate naval support of Vicksburg, Mississippi. As the Union fleet attempted to pass Port Hudson, Confederate guns opened fire. Because of a critical mistake by her civilian pilot, the Mississippi grounded near the ninety-degree turn in the river at the base of the rebel fortifications. Despite repeated efforts to back off the sandbar, heavy fire concentrated on the disabled vessel forced Smith to order his crew to abandon ship. Using the few undamaged boats still able to float, Dewey, brandishing his pistol, made a reluctant boat crew return to the burning ship to rescue the remaining ship’s crew and the captain. Although under fire since the grounding, Dewey was not one of the sixty-four casualties. In his report after the action, Smith wrote the Secretary of the Navy that “I should be neglecting a most important duty should I omit to mention the coolness of my executive officer, Mr. Dewey. . . .” In describing the event to his father, Dewey wrote that “such scenes make people Christians.”¹⁸

If fortune was smiling on him that day, Dewey got a special dispensation a few weeks later. With the loss of the Mississippi, he briefly served as prize commissioner at New Orleans before being transferred to the Monongahela to continue the river campaign. While he was serving as executive officer in the steam sloop, a rebel shell “came through the bulwarks on the port quarter” and mortally wounded her captain, who was standing next to Dewey on the bridge. Dewey emerged from the incident unscathed and in command of the ship.¹⁹

On 10 July, Dewey received orders for the Monongahela to proceed with the Essex to White Hall Point to assist the New London, which had been disabled by shell damage to her boilers. On the trip upriver, enemy batteries shelled the vessels without effect. At White Hall Point, Dewey was able to pull the New London off the bank, “took her in tow on the port side,” and moved her out into the river. He then attached tow lines from the Monongahela to the port side of the Essex so that the New London could be kept to the starboard of the two ships and, “thus sheltered,” towed downriver past the enemy batteries. According to Commander Robert Townsend, captain of the Essex, Dewey “displayed coolness, skill, and judgment” in rescuing the New London, and he used his guns effectively on enemy batteries.

A few days later, Dewey was transferred to blockade duty on board the Brooklyn off Charleston, South Carolina, then was sent to the Agawam in the James River Squadron, and finally reported to the Colorado, in which he took part in the capture of Fort Fisher in North Carolina. During this period, Dewey had an opportunity to return to the Gulf, but he wrote to his father of his reluctance to accept such an assignment, saying, “if I go to the Gulf I shall have fighting and I have had quite enough of that.”20 He ended the war as a lieutenant commander on board the Kearsarge.

During the decade following the Civil War, Dewey took advantage of friendships to obtain such preferred assignments as serving as flag lieutenant to Admiral L. M. Goldsborough while he commanded the European Squadron, and teaching at the Naval Academy. Dewey also courted his future wife, Susan Boardman Goodwin, daughter of the governor of New Hampshire.²¹

The postwar era left much to be desired for naval officers eager for a career of promotions and leadership. Dewey was doomed, as were others, to endure service in an increasingly obsolete fleet with an overcrowded officer corps. Dewey’s service during these long years of stagnation was somewhat moderated, however, by his rank at the end of the war and his financial position. His war experience gained Dewey promotion to lieutenant commander in 1865, which gave him a jump on other officers his age. Many of his classmates were still lieutenants and lieutenant commanders in the 1890s when Dewey had reached flag rank. Dewey was also fortunate to have a good income from his share of his father’s insurance business. This insulated Dewey from the financial problems that plagued many officers, and it allowed him to take advantage of the social life of Washington, D.C., during his several tours of duty there.

In the years before the Battle of Manila Bay, Dewey slowly ascended the career ladder as he took advantage of his friendships in and out of the Navy. In 1875, he moved to Washington to serve as a member of the Lighthouse Board. For seven years he enjoyed the social seasons and developed his contacts within the Navy Department. “I found myself in Washington social life, with its round of dinners and receptions, which were a new and enjoyable experience to me, if exhausting physically.”²²

Dewey returned to sea in 1882 as commander of the sloop Juniata, bound for the Asiatic Station. As he traveled to the East, his health took a turn for the worse. He was hospitalized at Malta, where it was feared that he might not survive. His full recovery took almost two years. In 1884, Dewey was assigned command of the Dolphin, one of the U.S. Navy’s first steel ships, still under construction. Growing frustrated at delays in the commissioning of the new ship, Dewey accepted transfer to command of the old steam sloop Pensacola, flagship of the European Squadron, the following March. He remained with the ship throughout her four-year cruise before returning to Washington for service at Navy Department headquarters.²³

In 1889, Dewey succeeded Winfield Scott Schley as chief of the Bureau of Equipment. In his autobiography, Dewey took great pains to convince his readers that before his attempt to capture the flag of the Asiatic Squadron in 1897, he had never used political influence to further his career. Obviously this was not true. Dewey had used his father’s influence to gain acceptance to Annapolis, continued to use the good offices of friends for choice assignments in the postwar years, made use of Vermont political clout through his brothers to obtain the equipment post, and eventually would employ every means available to obtain the flag of the Asiatic Station in 1898.24

Dewey’s service in the Bureau of Equipment coincided with the emerging new steel-hulled, steam-powered Navy. The United States was beginning to retire the outdated ships of the Civil War in favor of ships equipped with the new, modern technology. It was Dewey’s responsibility to ensure that the fleet could steam at will wherever American foreign policy dictated. Perhaps here, Dewey’s administrative abilities began to mature and to presage his later contributions to the Navy in the post-Philippines era.

Under Dewey, the bureau fitted the new ships with many of the inventions that the scientific officers were designing for the New Navy. Although not a producing member of that group, Dewey was not only receptive to progressive change but also enthusiastically endorsed many improvements. Spector assesses Dewey positively, saying that he had “done a creditable job in a rather routine assignment [and] had established a reputation as an energetic administrator and a friend of innovation.” But Spector rejects the thesis that Dewey’s three years as head of the bureau “marked” him for later advancement. Certainly Dewey’s performance reflected the role that he would later play as Admiral of the Navy. As a facilitator of creativity, Dewey acted as a buffer to the more reluctant traditionalists who found new ideas difficult to accept.²⁵

After his term in the Bureau of Equipment expired, Dewey remained in Washington as president of the Board of Inspection and Survey from 1895 ^to 1897. During this time he won promotion to commodore, a rank that “entitled [him] to the command of a squadron as soon as there was a vacancy.” The first such vacancy occurred in the Asiatic Squadron. By the fall of 1897, Dewey had learned of the impending vacancy and knew that he and Commodore John A. Howell were the two contenders for the position. The appointment became more important in the context of American foreign policy decisions arising out of concern for Spanish depredations in Cuba. In any war with Spain, the Philippines would figure prominently with American success or failure. President William McKinley and Secretary of the Navy John D. Long wanted a reliable commander on the Asiatic who could supply the aggressive action necessary to prevent the Spanish fleet in the Philippines from reinforcing Spanish forces in the Caribbean region. It was up to Dewey to persuade them that he was their man.²⁶

Dewey again turned to his political contacts for support. To one he complained that Arendt S. Crowninshield, the influential head of the Bureau of Navigation, disliked him and would “hardly recommend me to any command; and his advice had great weight with . . . the secretary of the navy.” Dewey turned to his friend Theodore Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, who supported Dewey for the command. Roosevelt informed him of a political letter already on file in support of Howell and urged that Dewey use all the political leverage he had to combat Howell’s apparent advantage. Dewey next turned to Vermont Senator Redfield Proctor, a close family friend, and with his support obtained the assignment.27

Before leaving Washington to assume his command, Dewey studied everything he could find on the Philippines. He reached Japan and broke his flag on the Olympia in early January 1898, a time of increasingly strained relations between the United States and Spain. Knowing that any war with Spain would mean instant action for his small squadron, Dewey began preparing for operations against the Spanish Philippines. His first move was to shift his base of operations to Hong Kong because “it was evident that in case of emergency Hong Kong was the most advantageous position from which to move to the attack.” By the time Dewey established his headquarters at Hong Kong, the Maine had been sunk in Havana harbor, and war appeared imminent. Theodore Roosevelt, briefly acting as Secretary of the Navy, sent him orders to “keep full of coal. In the event . . . of war . . . , your duty will be to see that the Spanish squadron does not leave the Asiatic coast, and then offensive operations in Philippine Islands.”²⁸

No such instructions were necessary. Dewey understood the strategic setting and was already preparing his fleet for hostilities. He knew that a state of war with Spain would cut him off from supply by the neutral British at Hong Kong. To ensure that he had enough coal and provisions, Dewey had purchased the Zafiro and the Nanshan to serve the fleet as supply ships. By April, he had his warships, four protected cruisers, two gunboats, and a small revenue cutter prepared for battle, their hulls cleaned and their white peacetime paint covered with gray. Crews drilled daily under Dewey’s personal inspection; and, leaving as little to chance as possible, Dewey sent a spy to Manila to report on the Spanish fleet and fortifications and another into Hong Kong to obtain what information he could from travelers recently arrived from the Philippines.²⁹

On 23 April 1898, the British at Hong Kong ordered Dewey to remove the American fleet from their waters, according to the rules of neutrality. This was Dewey’s first notice that a state of war existed between the United States and Spain, but he had anticipated the order to leave and had arranged for a temporary anchorage in Chinese waters at Mirs Bay. Dewey ordered his squadron to move there the next day; a day later, on 25 April, he received a cable from Long stating that war had been declared. Dewey was ordered to “proceed at once to the Philippine Islands. Commence operations at once, particularly against Spanish fleet. You must capture vessels or destroy. Use utmost endeavors.”30

Dewey immediately cabled the American consul at Manila, Oscar F. Williams, and asked for the location of the Spanish fleet and the general situation in the archipelago. Williams quickly left for Mirs Bay with intelligence that the Spanish commander, Rear Admiral Patricio Montojo, planned to oppose Dewey at Subic Bay, north of Manila on the west coast of Luzon. On 27 April, Dewey set a course for Luzon, exercising his men en route in day and night battle drills, fire fighting, and damage control. All unnecessary woodwork was stowed below or thrown overboard to reduce the fire hazard.³¹

Arriving off the coast of Bataan and Corregidor on 30 April, Dewey ordered the Boston and Concord to reconnoiter Subic Bay to locate the enemy’s fleet. When they returned without seeing any Spanish ships, Dewey concluded that Montojo had elected to position his ships near the city of Manila. Dewey was correct; the Spanish commander knew that his ships were no match for the Americans in a battle involving maneuvering, and had deployed his ships in an east-west line across Canacao Bay near Cavite, the Spanish naval base opposite the city of Manila. Montojo wanted to fight at anchor and use the shore batteries to support his ships while not putting the city of Manila in the line of fire.³²

Manila was regarded by many as the “Gibraltar of the Far East,” and mining of the passages into the bay was rumored to make it impregnable. Dewey was undeterred. Reasoning that the Spanish lacked the expertise to properly mine the deep channel into the bay, Dewey ordered his ships to enter Boca Grande Passage at 2330 on 30 April. Slipping past the gun emplacements on Corregidor, the fleet steamed into Manila Bay in column on a course for Manila. Before reaching the city, Dewey sent the two supply ships and the revenue cutter “into an unfrequented part of the bay in order that they should sustain no injury and that they might not hamper the movements of the fightingships.”³³

Once he was safely through the mouth of the bay, Dewey slowed the fleet down to four knots, to delay its arrival at Manila until he had daylight to assist him in determining the location of the Spanish fleet and identifying gun positions along the shore. At daybreak, Dewey’s ship came into range of the shore guns. As he steamed in a slow arc across the Manila waterfront, it was apparent that no warships were at anchor there; so Dewey adjusted his course farther to the south and west and soon found the Spanish line of battle. At 0540 he came within five thousand yards of the enemy and told the commander of his flagship to open fire. The little American fleet steamed across the line of Spanish ships, firing first from the port side and then, reversing its course, from the starboard. Dewey pressed his attack on the beleaguered defenders in a series of five passes in all, three to the west and two to the east, pouring a rapid fire into the hapless Spanish ships. Throughout the early morning hours the Spanish fire was inaccurate, while the Americans laid in a “continuous and precise fire at ranges varying from [five- to two-thousand] yards, countermarching in a line approximately parallel to that of the Spanish fleet.”34

At 0730, Dewey received a report that his gunners were low on ammunition; he quickly moved the fleet beyond the range of the Spanish guns at Cavite. The artillery from Manila continued to fire from emplacements along the shoreline near the city. Dewey sent word that unless the firing stopped, he would order his captains to shell the city. The guns soon fell silent. The atmosphere was tense in the Olympia. Smoke engulfed the Spanish ships, but the Americans did not know the extent of the damage.³⁵ Dewey sent the men to breakfast while he investigated the problem of ammunition and considered what to do next. At 0840, he called a meeting of his captains and was much relieved to learn that none of his ships had been seriously damaged, and the report of an ammunition shortage was erroneous. Luckily, he also had sufficient coal to continue the battle; otherwise, there would have been serious complications. With neutral Hong Kong closed to American warships, the nearest fuel stocks were thousands of miles away, but, fortunately, the supply of coal on board would prove to be adequate.

As soon as the men finished eating, Dewey once again moved in for the attack, at 1116. Just over an hour later, his victory was complete. Several days later Dewey was to recall that “by this time the flagship and almost the entire Spanish fleet were in flames, and at [1230], the squadron ceased firing, the batteries being silenced and the ships sunk, burnt and deserted.”³⁶ Spanish casualties numbered seven warships and 370 men killed. Dewey was able to report that no American ships were lost, no sailors had been killed in the action, and only eight were wounded.³⁷ The battle was a resounding success—a success secured by careful preparation, daring, and no small measure of luck. Whenever moved to reminisce, from that day on, Dewey often remarked that the Battle of Manila Bay was won in Hong Kong harbor where he prepared his squadron for battle.³⁸ Perhaps therein lies the best explanation for his master stroke.

For the time being, Dewey had accomplished his mission. No Spanish fleet from the Philippines could threaten the American coast or reinforce Cuba. He waited for the U.S. Army to bring sufficient troops to take and hold Manila and for the Navy Department to transfer additional ships and supplies to his small fleet off the coast. During the interim, Dewey used his guns to maintain control of the Manila region. One Hong Kong correspondent reported that “Commodore Dewey has exercised consummate judgement and rare ability in maintaining a distance at once safe for his fleet and deadly to the Spaniards.”39

During the summer, as the American presence began to increase, Dewey established a blockade patrol to bottle up the Spaniards, dealt with problems arising out of a German plan to outmaneuver the Americans for the islands, and organized a system of supply for his meager force.⁴⁰ He maintained a limited line of communications with Washington. Some critics suggest that Dewey failed his superiors by not supplying adequate intelligence on the mood of the Filipinos regarding independence or acceptance of the United States as a colonial control.

This failure was not one of communication, but of analysis; he could not discriminate between information sources and simply did not recognize accurate information regarding the Filipinos’ position on independence. Although he was on the scene, Dewey relied on unsubstantiated reports and the advice of many individuals who were not privy to Filipino attitudes and plans. Further, he ignored available documents that clearly stated the Filipino position on the American role in the post-Spanish period and the question of independence; and he failed to provide Washington with assessments of these documents. Thus, Dewey contributed little to the formulation of a viable policy for the islands.⁴¹ His greatest failure in the Philippines was not his failure to communicate information but his inability to correctly identify and to rely on sources of intelligence that certainly were available to him.

By August 1898, just four months after Dewey’s destruction of Montojo’s fleet, American military power had increased enough to pressure the Spanish into surrendering Manila.⁴² By the end of the year, the war with Spain was won, and the Treaty of Paris transferred ownership of the islands to the United States.

By that time, the Americans had new opponents to subdue. During the fall of 1898, following the surrender of Manila, tensions between the Americans and the Filipinos led to open conflict. Dewey suggested later that the insurrection occurred because long-term tension had been allowed to develop that altered the Filipinos’ earlier acceptance of some kind of American government for the islands. Whatever the error of earlier intelligence, Dewey received a report in November 1898 that began to change his original assessment of Filipino attitudes. Two naval officers, Paymaster W. B. Wilcox and Naval Cadet Leonard R. Sargent, traveled into the interior of Luzon on a fact-finding mission. They found firm resistance to the idea of American control, and military preparations were under way for an insurrection should the United States attempt to establish a colonial government for the islands. Dewey dutifully reported this intelligence to Washington, but it was too late then to change the minds of President McKinley and leaders in the War Department. They were convinced of the rightness of the acquisition of the Philippines.⁴³

On 4 February 1899, shots were fired and the Philippine Insurrection began. Shortly thereafter, Dewey’s service in the Philippines ended. When he sailed for the United States on 20 May, he was grateful to leave behind the problems of dealing with the insurrection. “It is the responsibility that kills,” he wrote. “A year is long enough in this climate for an old man, and I am glad to be permitted to rest.”44

Dewey left the Philippines as Admiral of the Navy, a new rank created for him by Congress a week after the Battle of Manila Bay. His meteoric rise from commodore was due primarily to the wave of Deweymania that swept the United States following his success at Manila. Awaiting him at home were celebrations and the adulation of an adoring public, and even the opportunity to run for President in 1900.

Long before Dewey’s departure from the islands there were Dewey-for-President “booms,” led by men such as Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World and others who sought to transform Dewey’s sudden fame into political leverage. Dewey would have none of it, saying he was “unfitted for it [the presidency], having neither the education nor the training.” Even during the triumphal voyage from Manila he refused to consider the possibility, but public curiosity began to build as the Olympia sailed closer to home.⁴⁵

When Dewey arrived in New York in October 1899, public celebrations began, and the interest in his political future intensified. During the next six months, Dewey refused to discuss politics, to commit himself as a candidate, or to take advantage of the political opportunities presented him. Instead, he watched as the crowds began to dwindle and his popularity waned, never fully understanding what was happening. His refusal to accept many of the invitations to local Dewey celebrations dampened the enthusiasm of many of his fans. Dewey committed the ultimate example of “ingratitude and ill-taste” when he gave his wife the house that public subscription had purchased for him in Washington. What once had been effusive and adoring oratory began to degenerate into disparagement and amusement.⁴⁶ In April 1900, Dewey’s resolve to avoid politics wavered, and he issued an ill-timed statement indicating his willingness to become a candidate:

If the American people want me for this high office, I shall be only too willing to serve them.

It is the highest honor in the gift of this nation; what citizen would refuse it?

Since studying this subject, I am convinced that the office of the President is not such a very difficult one to fill, his duties being mainly to execute the laws of the Congress. Should I be chosen for this exalted position I would execute the laws of Congress as faithfully as I have always executed the orders of my superiors.⁴⁷

The response from the press was to attack and ridicule the admiral’s candidacy and his view of the presidency. In May, the attacks were becoming more personal and biting. On 18 May 1900, Dewey announced that he was no longer a candidate and added, “I don’t understand how I got the idea in the first place.”48 The brevity of the people’s infatuation with him and the failure of his tentative move to enter politics left Dewey bewildered. His venture outside the confines of the U.S. Navy illustrated a certain naiveté that was ridiculed by some but admired by others, and it did not retard his naval career.

Plans to reorganize the Navy had been hotly debated for more than a decade. The most popular plan, advanced by Captain Henry C. Taylor, championed the establishment of a general staff that would control naval planning. The proposal met with opposition from Secretary of the Navy Hilary A. Herbert, a Democrat, and some hesitation from his Republican successor, John D. Long; both feared a shift of authority from civilian to military leaders.⁴⁹ Dewey distanced himself from the debate, but he could not avoid direct involvement in it when, in March 1900, Long established the General Board as an in-house advisory mechanism for the Secretary. The board, established by executive order, had no basis in law and was always controversial. Most civilians believed that it fulfilled the need for a body of serving officers to advise the Secretary on policy and coordinate the work of the Navy’s bureaus, but many officers considered it only the first step in the establishment of a true general staff that could determine policy and direct operations. As senior ranking officer in the Navy, Dewey was appointed president of the board. In that position, he could exercise great influence on the membership of the board and its staff. Careful to include the brightest of the new young officers on the staff, Dewey brought together the best minds that the Navy had to offer.⁵⁰

During the early years, Dewey and the board focused on the new empire so recently won from Spain. In a detailed communication to Dewey on 30 March 1900, Long ordered the General Board to make plans for all possible contingencies of war for the United States.⁵¹ With Long’s instructions in mind, Dewey and the board established a series of operational strategies and plans designed to protect the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and other American possessions and bases. At the heart of these plans was Germany. Dewey’s distrust of Germans, at least partially because of his experiences with them in the Philippines, reflected the mood of many in the Navy. The United States was emerging as a major naval power at the turn of the century and encountering stiff competition from Germany. It was natural for both German and American naval planners to anticipate war between the two countries. Much has been made of Dewey’s personal dislike of all things German, and certainly his influence on the board carried great weight. The settlement of most Anglo-American disputes and the aggressive actions of Germany, however, would have made Germany the primary target of the U.S. Navy’s war plans even had Dewey not served on the board.52

Soon after Dewey’s appointment to the General Board, the death of McKinley brought Theodore Roosevelt, a friend of the Navy, to the White House. His presidency changed Dewey’s professional and personal life. In 1902, Secretary of the Navy Long was forced into retirement and replaced with William H. Moody, a strong proponent of the “Big Navy” and a logical selection by Roosevelt. As a capable and respected ex-congressman from Massachusetts, Moody performed a variety of political duties for the President while managing “to stay on top of his work [in the Navy Department].” Moody played an important role in pushing for “additional naval and coaling stations, more ships, and an increase of officers and men.”⁵³ Unlike Long, Dewey’s new superior was receptive to his counsel, and during the two years that Moody served in the top naval post, a “harmonious” spirit of cooperation existed between civilian and naval leadership.

Contributing to Dewey’s increased influence was the departure of his longstanding nemesis Arendt S. Crowninshield, who left the Bureau of Navigation and was replaced with Henry C. Taylor, now a rear admiral. Compared with their predecessors, Dewey was perhaps more comfortable with Moody and Taylor, who shared his ideas regarding deficiencies in the Navy and what was required to establish the United States as a naval power second only to Great Britain.⁵⁴

Facing Dewey and the General Board in the immediate future were important questions related to developing the American empire and the evolving Navy assigned to protect it. Naval construction, personnel expansion, naval bases and a strategy for the Pacific, and the role of naval power in American foreign policy were all on the agenda for Roosevelt’s General Board.

In 1902, the board was forced to deal with its first important crisis when Britain, Italy, and Germany sent naval forces to blockade the coast of Venezuela and force that country to pay some long-standing debts. Roosevelt responded by shifting the site of previously scheduled naval maneuvers in the Caribbean to demonstrate his concern and to pressure the Europeans into negotiating a peaceful solution to the crisis. To further impress the blockaders with the gravity of the situation, he ordered Dewey to take personal command of the American forces.

Dewey’s reputation for unilateral action and his success in the Philippines had the desired effect. His well-known dislike for Germany was designed to place additional pressure on the nation that Roosevelt considered most responsible for the crisis. Tempers eventually cooled, and a settlement was reached in which Germany gained no territory. Dewey’s contribution to the resolution is difficult to pinpoint. His presence in the general area caused some concern for the Germans, but it is doubtful that Roosevelt used Dewey as anything more than a veiled threat. Through it all, the U.S. Navy received some favorable publicity, the public’s perception of Dewey’s reputation in battle was revived, and Roosevelt’s role as a policeman in the hemisphere was more clearly defined.55

Much more came from the naval exercises than a resolution to foreign policy problems. The maneuvers brought home the alarming fact that the Atlantic, European, and South Atlantic squadrons were unable to perform acceptably when brought together to form a single fleet. The exercises pointed to “defects in fundamental organization of the squadrons, such as the want of homogeneity among vessels on the same station.” Before fleet maneuvers could begin at Culebra, near Puerto Rico, the three squadrons had to be broken into groups of similarly classed vessels. The squadrons’ organization prevented them from drilling as a unit during fleet-level maneuvers, to the detriment of their efficiency and achievement of battle objectives. The lessons learned at Culebra led to the reorganization of the U.S. fleet. In peacetime, cruisers would make up the squadrons in the Caribbean, Europe, and other distant stations, with the battleships divided between the Asiatic and North Atlantic Fleets. In time of war, the cruisers would be reassigned from their squadrons to act as “auxiliaries to the battleships.”⁵⁶

Stationing similar ships together allowed the commanding officers to conduct maneuvers and coordinate gunnery practice. The Spanish-American War had demonstrated the need to keep the battle fleet together, but the Bureau of Navigation, which controlled the assignment of ships, refused to do so. Instead, it argued that the “specific” requirements of the various squadrons dictated the dispersal of ships to widely separated stations. The effect of this policy was to reduce the ability of the ships to function as a single unit and thus to reduce their power. The Venezuelan crisis did not end the debate, but it did force a compromise on the General Board between those who wanted all the battleships assigned to a single “strategic” location and those who wanted them dispersed. The solution also represented a compromise between those factions on the General Board that saw the greatest danger in the growing Japanese navy and German imperialism in the Far East, and those that believed the greatest threat to American interests was in the Caribbean. This division of opinion continued until after World War I, and the argument over the stationing of battleships was not solved until the United States developed a two-battle-fleet navy.⁵⁷

Both sides on the battleship deployment debate agreed that the future required a battleship construction program that would enable the United States to field a full battleship fleet in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. Although there was some difference of opinion as to the number of battleships needed, the General Board submitted a request to Secretary Moody in February 1903 that called for construction of one battleship for each of the forty-eight states, one armored cruiser for every two battleships, and one scout cruiser and one large, seagoing, quick-turning torpedo destroyer for each battleship added to the fleet. In addition, the board recommended increases in the auxiliary fleet and naval personnel as needed for each year’s appropriation.58

Congress, in the midst of enormous appropriations for domestic reforms, refused to accept the ambitious naval building program. In 1904, Congress authorized only one new battleship, and in 1905, only two—in contrast to the Navy’s plan of four per year until all forty-eight had been funded. Even Roosevelt seemed to waver by 1905, when he suggested that the twenty-eight battleships and twelve armored cruisers currently in the fleet or under construction placed the United States “second only to France and Great Britain.” Dewey and the General Board did not agree with his estimation on two grounds: (1) Roosevelt’s assessment did not take into account Germany’s plan for future construction, and (2) the President’s estimate included seven ships completed before the Spanish-American War whose combat effectiveness was at best “debatable.”⁵⁹

In July 1904, the death of Admiral Taylor deprived Dewey of a close ally in his program of orderly change within the Navy. Taylor had continued to push for a general staff after the formation of the General Board; with his death, leadership in the movement was assumed by a group of more radical officers who clashed with the traditional leadership in the bureaus.⁶⁰ These young officers considered the Navy’s poor administrative organization and its lack of a general staff to be the cause of all of its problems. As the “insurgents” grew more vocal and aggressive, and the gap between the reformers and their conservative opponents widened, Dewey found it increasingly difficult to effect compromise and, in his caution, edged closer to the conservative officers and their allies in the Navy’s bureaus.

His first clash with the insurgents came when the young officers presented their plan for a general staff to the General Board without first discussing the plan with Dewey. As chairman of the board, Dewey thought that he should have been consulted; he considered their action a personal attack on his reputation and position. Even though the plan was similar to Taylor’s of 1902, Dewey refused to support the proposal or even to attend meetings of the board, and some of his closest associates feared that he would resign. With Dewey so strongly against them, the insurgents backed down, and the plan died.⁶¹

Later, in 1909, plans for Navy Department reorganization were advanced from a different direction. As Roosevelt’s attempts to get changes through Congress had failed, George von Lengerke Meyer, Secretary of the Navy in the new Taft administration, decided to act on his own authority. He ordered the department divided into four divisions, each to be headed by a senior naval officer answerable only to the Secretary. Although this reorganization did not fully satisfy the insurgents, it did reduce the power of the bureau chiefs and brought more centralized control to the service. When congressional critics began to question Meyer’s authority to make such major changes within the department, Dewey lent his support to the reorganization, and it was put into effect.62

Another issue facing Dewey during his tenure as president of the General Board was the placement of a major naval base in the Pacific. Since the acquisition of the Philippines, the location of such a base had been an integral part of naval war planning. In 1900, the board “unanimously recommended” the establishment of the base at Iloilo in the Central Philippines, but Dewey must have had second thoughts because he later urged the formation of a commission to study both Iloilo and Subic Bay.

At the same time, Dewey pushed the government to secure another base somewhere on the Chinese coast, even though this violated the American Open Door policy. No consideration was given to his proposal for a Chinese base, however, and Dewey soon took the lead in supporting the Navy’s choice of Subic Bay, rather than Manila Bay, which the Army demanded in order to concentrate all military and naval bases at Manila “to facilitate their defense.” The Navy countered that the channels in the approach to Manila were too wide and deep to “be defended securely by either guns, mines or torpedoes or all of them,” whereas the Army placed great emphasis on the ability of its Coast Artillery Corps to use Corregidor to defend Manila against any enemy approach. Dewey responded to this argument by suggesting that any such plan would leave “all the outworks and the natural base of the fleet, Subig, for the comfort and security of the enemy operating against Manila.”⁶³

The debate continued for more than three years; ultimately, neither group won. Little building was done anywhere because Congress refused to appropriate funds. Thus, Dewey failed to obtain for the Navy a base that he considered crucial to its fulfillment of its role in American defense.

During the same period, plans were being developed to defend American interests against Japan and Germany. Code named War Plan Orange, the plan for war with Japan predicted possible defeat for the United States if Japan struck in the Pacific while the fleet was in the Atlantic. The plan for war with Germany (War Plan Black) predicted similar results if the fleet were in the Pacific when Germany struck. There were only two solutions to the problem; either a two-ocean navy had to be built, an unlikely event in the near future, or a mechanism had to be developed to accurately predict the location of a war far enough in advance to allow the concentration of the fleet in the area. Dewey rejected a Naval War College proposal that called for a council made up of civilian heads of the services, members of Congress, and military leaders because he doubted its ability to make an accurate assessment of the possibility of war. Instead, he continued to stress the Navy’s ability to meet any enemy if it were given proper resources.64

Preparedness was the best guard against a future war, and Dewey was convinced that Germany, which he believed posed the greatest threat, would not dare strike if the battle fleet were stationed in the Atlantic. This remained his view until the California legislature precipitated a war scare with Japan by debating a bill that would prohibit Oriental aliens from owning land in that state. The year was 1913, the eve of World War I, but even such a Germanophobe as Dewey admitted that “it looks as if the Japanese are determined to find a reason for declaring war on us, perhaps they want the Philippines and Hawaii.”⁶⁵ In time, the crisis passed, but from that point on Dewey saw Japan in a different light and took the threat of Japanese aggression more seriously.⁶⁶

The timing was ironic. Only a year later, World War I engulfed Europe. Beset by health problems and weakened by old age, Dewey realized that his influence was beginning to decline, but he remained a defender of the Navy against outside detractors as well as against those reformers within the service who he believed did the Navy a disservice by publicizing its shortcomings in order to gain support for changes that they deemed necessary.

In a 1916 interview published in the New York World, Dewey refuted charges that the U.S. Navy was inefficient, demoralized, in need of a general staff, and wholly inadequate. In a statement reflecting his pride, he told reporter George Creel: “The attacks that have been made upon the Navy are as false as many of them are shameful. . . . There is no demoralization. Both in material and personnel we are more efficient today than ever before. Our ships are as good as any, our officers are as good as any, and our enlisted men are the finest in the world.”⁶⁷

This was Dewey’s last broadside at what he perceived to be the enemies of the Navy. On 11 January 1917, five months almost to the day after the interview, the Admiral of the Navy lost his final battle. Nearly two decades had passed since his victory at Manila Bay, a victory made certain by his thorough preparations and aggressive leadership. As a result, the United States had gained an empire, and its Navy immense new responsibility. Dewey remained firmly in control of what could be described as a moderate course of change, using traditional avenues to accomplish modernization and improvements in the Navy. He was often seen as an obstacle to progress by more radical and impatient officers, but more often than not, he supported their aims and goals. Dewey, who perhaps lacked the vision of other more capable men, allowed himself to be persuaded by personal bias along the way, and stretched the limits of his talents. He had done his duty as he understood it and served his nation and his service well.

NOTES

1. This assessment of Dewey’s career before the War with Spain reflects the view of Ronald Spector, whose opening chapter in his biography of Dewey is titled “Obscurity.” Ronald Spector, Admiral of the New Empire: The Life and Career of George Dewey (Baton Rouge, La., 1974), 1–39, especially 39.

2. George Dewey, Autobiography of George Dewey: Admiral of the Navy (New York, 1913), 4.

3. Spector, Admiral of New Empire, 4.

4. Laurin Hall Healy and Luis Kutner, The Admiral (Chicago, 1944), 23. Dewey’s Autobiography, ghosted by the noted journalist Frederick Palmer, relies on many questionable anecdotes found in the immediate post-Manila Bay press.

5. Dewey, Autobiography, 12–13.

6. Ibid., 14–15.

7. Healy and Kutner, The Admiral, 39.

8. Dewey, Autobiography, 23–36; and George Dewey to Julius Y. Dewey, 13 June, 19 June, 8 July, and 11 August 1858. Dewey Papers, Vermont Historical Society (hereafter cited as VHS).

9. Dewey, Autobiography, 477–4.79; and Navy Department Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, ser. 1, vol. 16, 519–22, 525–26, 530–33, 540–51, 560–66, 574–75, 646–49, 676–77 (hereafter cited as ORN).

10. John Niven, “Gideon Welles, 5 March 1861–4 March 1869,” in American Secretaries of the Navy, edited by Paolo E. Coletta, et al., 2 vols. (Annapolis, Md., 1980), 1:336–37.

11. ORN, ser. 1, 18:57; and Dewey, Autobiography, 50.

12. Dewey, Autobiography, 50–51.

13. ORN, ser. 1, 18:35, 139, 159–60.

14. William N. Still, Jr., “David Glasgow Farragut: The Union’s Nelson,” in Captains of the Old Steam Navy, edited by James C. Bradford (Annapolis, Md., 1986), 169; Dewey, Autobiography, 54; and ORN, ser. 1, 18:361.

15. Dewey, Autobiography, 60–64; and ORN, ser. 1, 18:151, 156, 171–72.

16. Dewey, Autobiography, 68–71; and ORN, ser. 1, 18:142, 154, 157, 206.

17. Dewey, Autobiography, 50.

18. ORN, ser. 1, 19:681, 684, 692; and George Dewey to Julius Y. Dewey, 29 November 1864, VHS.

19. Dewey, Autobiography, 106–12; and ORN, ser. 1, 20:33, 145, 360–61. Ronald Spector lists four officers killed in his account of the Monongahela firefight on 7 July. Dewey mentions only one death, that of Commander Abner Read. In a casualty report three weeks later, Navy Surgeon David Kindleberger listed one officer killed, one officer wounded, one enlisted killed, and three enlisted wounded. The log of the Monongahela confirms Kindleberger’s report. Spector, Admiral of the New Empire, 18; Dewey, Autobiography, 111–12; and ORN, ser. 1, 20:335, 360.

20. ORN, ser. 1, 20:339, 361; and George Dewey to Julius Y. Dewey, 18 January 1865, VHS.

21. Dewey, Autobiography, 113–49.

22. Ibid., 150–51.

23. Ibid., 153–60, 163–64.

24. Ibid., 164, 167; George Edmunds to Charles Dewey (this letter was forwarded to George Dewey with a brief note from his brother Charles), 9 March, Dewey Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (hereafter cited as DPLC); Charles Dewey to George Dewey, 23 March 1889, DPLC; Redfield Proctor to Edward Dewey (this letter was forwarded to George Dewey with a brief note from his brother Edward), 18 March 1889, DPLC; and George Edmunds to George Dewey, 4 April 1889, DPLC. Senator Edmunds offered little assistance other than to “vouch” for Dewey if asked by the Navy Department. Edmunds explained that “in the last 12 years,” he had found that offering references only when requested by the appropriate agency had been beneficial to the “public interest.” He suggested that Dewey or “his friends” use his name as a reference. Edmunds concluded his letter by stating that “Vermont is handicapped by having been given the Secretaryship of War which . . . should close our expectations [for Dewey’s appointment].” William E. Chandler to George Dewey, 18 March 1889, DPLC; and Eugene Hale to George Dewey, 19 March 1889, DPLC.

25. Dewey, Autobiography, 164–66; and Spector, Admiral of the New Empire, 30.

26. Dewey, Autobiography, 166–67.

27. Ibid., 167–69. Again, Proctor was called on (see note 24) to bring political pressure to bear for Dewey. Proctor’s letter of support as senator contained none of the hesitancy exhibited by George Edmunds eight years earlier. Proctor to George Dewey, 16 October 1897, DPLC. It appears that Theodore Roosevelt was aware of Dewey as early as 1889, but their friendship did not develop until Roosevelt’s appointment as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. Dewey and other Army and naval officers became a part of Roosevelt’s circle at the Metropolitan Club in Washington, where Dewey had enjoyed membership for some years. Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography (New York, 1913), 210–11; Leonard Wood, “Introduction,” in Theodore Roosevelt, The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, 20 vols. (New York, 1926), 11:xiii.

28. Dewey, Autobiography, 169–72, 174, 178–79; Annual Report of the Secretary of the Navy for the Year 1898, 4–5 (hereafter cited as Annual Report, 1898); and Roosevelt, Autobiography, 214.

29. Dewey, Autobiography, 180, 186–95; and E. B. Potter, Sea Power: A Naval History (Annapolis, Md., 1981), 178.

30. Dewey, Autobiography, 193–96; and Annual Report, 1898, 6.

31. George Dewey to John Long, 4 May 1898, Record Group (RG) 45; Naval Records Collection of the Office of Naval Records and Library, Area 10 File, National Archives (hereafter cited as RG 45: Area 10 File).

32. Ibid.

33. Dewey, Autobiography, 211–12.

34. Dewey to Long, 4 May 1898, RG 45; Area 10 File. “Precise fire” was an overstatement. American fire was woefully inaccurate, registering fewer than two hundred hits out of almost six thousand fired. Luckily, the Spanish were even poorer, registering only fifteen hits.

35. Ibid. Joseph L. Stickney, “With Dewey at Manila,” Harper’s New Monthly 98 (February 1899): 476, said that “as we hauled off into the bay, the gloom on the bridge of the Olympia was thicker than a London fog in November.”

36. Dewey to Long, 4 May 1898, RG 45: Area 10 File.

37. Annual Report, 1898, 6. Dewey lost one man to heatstroke during the earlier passage into Manila Bay. Philip Y. Nicholson, “George Dewey and the Transformation of American Foreign Policy,” Ph.D. diss., University of New Mexico, 1971, 90.

38. Nathan Sargent, comp., Admiral Dewey and the Manila Campaign (Washington, D.C., 1947), 48.

39. New York Times, 9 May 1898.

40. For a description of naval operations in the Philippines following the battle, see Vernon L. Williams, “The U.S. Navy in the Philippine Insurrection and Subsequent Native Unrest, 1898–1906,” Ph.D. diss., Texas A&M University, 1985, 94–131. For Dewey’s encounter with the Germans in the Philippines, see ibid., 17–24; Lester B. Shippee, “Germany and the Spanish-American War,” American Historical Review 30 (1925): 754–77, 764; Thomas A. Bailey, “Dewey and the Germans at Manila Bay,” American Historical Review 45 (1939): 61; T. F. Brumby, “Synopsis of Interview with Vice Admiral Von Diederichs on board the Kaiser at Manila,” 7 July 1898, RG 45: Area 10 File; and Henry V. Butler, “Memorandum,” 16 November 1930, ibid. For a discussion of the affairs of the Navy’s occupation in the Philippines under Dewey’s leadership, see Williams, “U.S. Navy,” 24–35, 65–95.

41. Examples of Filipino statements forwarded by Dewey without comment include Emilio Aguinaldo, “Amados Paisanos Mios,” 24 May 1898; “Filipinos,” 24 May 1898, both in RG 45: Subject File VD, Box 2, National Archives.

42. For a discussion of the events surrounding the surrender of Manila, see Williams, “U.S. Navy,” 39–43.

43. Ibid., 50–54; W. B. Wilcox and Leonard R. Sargent to George Dewey, 23 November 1898, RG 45: Subject File OH, Box 2, National Archives.

44. Quoted in Murat Halstead, Life and Achievements of Admiral Dewey: From Montpelier to Manila (Chicago, 1899), 446.

45. Healy and Kutner, The Admiral, 263; Adelbert Milton Dewey, The Life and Letters of Admiral Dewey from Montpelier to Manila (New York, 1899), 426.

46. Dewey later explained that he transferred ownership of the house to his wife for legal reasons. He wanted to ensure that his son would inherit the property. Dewey’s explanation did not appease the disaffected public. Frederick Palmer, With My Own Eyes (Indianapolis, 1932), 127.

47. New York World, 4 April 1900. As quoted in Healy and Kutner, The Admiral, 266.

48. New York Times, 18 May 1900.

49. The General Board did not abolish the authority of the bureaus or establish a centralized authority within the Navy Department. Taylor saw the board as a start toward a general staff similar to that of the German navy. Taylor and Dewey continued to push for such a general staff until Taylor’s death in 1904. For an account of the history of the General Board, see Daniel J. Costello, “Planning for War: A History of the General Board of the Navy, 1900–1914,” Ph.D. diss., Tufts University, 1968.

50. Charles O. Paullin, “A Half Century of Naval Administration,” pt. 10, U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 40 (January–February 1914): 111, 116.

51. John D. Long to George Dewey, 30 March 1900, RG 80: Records of the General Board, 1900–1902, National Archives (hereafter cited as RG 80: General Board).

52. See Spector, Admiral of the New Empire, chap. 6, for a good analysis of the anti-German perspective of many officers in the U.S. Navy at the turn of the century.

53. Paul T. Heffron, “William H. Moody, 1 May 1902–30 June 1904,” in Paolo E. Coletta, ed., American Secretaries of the Navy, 2 vols. (Annapolis, Md., 1980), 1:461–62.

54. Ibid., 462.

55. Seward W. Livermore, “Theodore Roosevelt, the American Navy, and the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902–1903,” American Historical Review 51 (1946): 425–71, 453–56, 470–71.

56. Annual Report of the Secretary of the Navy for the Year 1903, 58th Cong., 2d sess., 1903, H. Doc. 3, 478, 648–49.

57. Harold Sprout and Margaret Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power, 1776–1918 (Princeton, N.J., 1939), 246; and Robert Albion, Makers of Naval Policy, 1798–1917, edited by Rowena Reed (Annapolis, Md., 1979), 327–28.

58. General Board Minutes, 31 January 1903, RG 80: General Records of the Department of the Navy, General Board, 1:237–38. Also, see Dewey to Secretary of the Navy William H. Moody, 9 February 1903, and Frank Marble to the Chief Clerk, Navy Department, 2 March 1903, ibid.

59. Sprout and Sprout, Rise of American Naval Power, 260–61.

60. The young naval reformers included such officers as Bradley A. Fiske, Albert L. Key, William Sims, and Philip Andrews. Other more senior officers taking the radical position were such men as Stephen B. Luce, William J. Barnette, and William Swift. Spector, Admiral of the New Empire, 156.

61. Mildred Dewey Diary, 27 January 1906, Box 86, DPLC.

62. Meyer’s term as Secretary of the Navy is briefly discussed in Paolo E. Coletta, “George von Lengerke Meyer, 6 March 1909–4 March 1913,” in Coletta, American Secretaries of Navy, 1:496–98; M. A. De Wolfe Howe, George von Lengerke Meyer (New York, 1920), 466–70; and George Dewey to George A. Loud, 31 January 1910, DPLC.

63. Secretary of the Navy Long to William McKinley, 12 July 1900, General Board No. 25, RG 80: General Board. It was probably the prohibitive cost and certain geographical disadvantages of Iloilo that caused Dewey to shift his support for Subic early in the debate. For a discussion of the investigation of the Iloilo site and the General Board’s early approval, see Williams, “U.S. Navy,” 236–43; Dewey to Long, 27 June 1900, General Board No. 25, RG 80: General Board; Dewey to Long 10 October 1900, ibid.; and William R. Braisted, “The Philippine Naval Base Problem, 1898–1909,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 41 (1954): 24.

64. Dewey to Theodore Roosevelt, 4 August 1904, RG 80: General Board. Although this letter was written in 1904, Dewey stated in the letter that Subic Bay had been the desired site of the General Board (and his) for several years, and he outlined in concise terms the Navy’s objections to Manila.

65. George Dewey to George Goodwin Dewey, 19 April 1913, George Goodwin Dewey Papers, Naval Historical Center.

66. George Dewey to President, Naval War College, 19 June 1913, RG 80: General Board.

67. New York World, 20 August 1916.

FURTHER READING

NOTES