FRENCH ENSOR CHADWICK: Scholarly Warrior Paolo E. -Coletta university P~~-leJ] of America Copyright 1980 by University Press of America, Inc. 4720 Boston Way. Lanham. MD 20~01 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 0-K 191-115:\-8 (Ca>c) 0-R 191-1154-6 (Perfect) Bayerlsche Staatsblbllothek Miinchen Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: R0-67240 French Ensor Chadwick in 1898. JV.:::KN•)WLEDGMENTS Many have helped with this study. A great debt is ow d to Mrs. Doris D. Maguire, upon whose research most of this work is based, who edited the entire manuscript, and permitted me to read her study of the Perd1cairis affair. Dr . Paul T. Heffron, acting ch~of, Manuscript Divi sion, Library of Congress , steered me into the letter coll ections of the imp·,·.- tant political and naval men of French Ensor Chad wick's time . Dr . Dean c. Allard, head, Operational Archives, Naval Historical Center, Washington, D.C . . and such friendly helpers as William Heimdahl, Bernard Cavalcante, Mrs . Katherine M. Lloyd, Miss Geraldine K. Gidlund, and Miss Nina F. Statum provided the records of the General Board of the Navy and various letter collections. Professor Richard A. Evans , librarian, U.S. Naval Academy Library, and his refer ence and special collections staffs proved i ndefati gable in providing or acquiring needed references. At the modern military branch of the National Archives, special Lhanks are due Dr. Robert Krauskopf and Dr. Gibson Smith; at the U.S. Naval War College, Lhe curator of the Naval Historical Coll ction, Anthony S. Nicolosi; at the West Virginia Department of Archives and Hislory, Charleston, Mrs . Dori s Hunt; at the New port Historical Society, Mrs . Pe er E. Bolhous ; al Lhe N wport tax assessor's office, Mr. R. s. Wise; in Morgantown, Mrs. Mansel Herron and Dr . Earl L. Core; al Harvard University, Elizabeth H. Keul, administra tive assistant to th President. Constructive criti- i m on chapter 3 was offered by Dr. K. Jack Bauer and on chapt r 9 by Mr . Ni olosi. The sam function (or chapters 6 and 7 was performed by Dr. David F. Trask, Historian, D partment of State . I have had the moral support and constructive critici sms also of Dr . G rald E. Wheeler, Dean, School of Social Sci nces, San Jose State University. Mrs. Patty M. Maddocks . Di r ctor, Library and PhoLoQra~lic Services , U.S. Naval Institute , kindly provid('d a n\llnbeJ or pholo qraphs . Last but nol least I nrusl U1ank my wife Marla, son Bernarr, and d ughler Paula Maria for t heir palienc wh nat times it seemed that I lived more Jor Chadwick than for them. Paolo E. Coletta U.S. Naval Academy 1\nnapolis, Md. v CONTENTS Acknowledgments v Abbreviations used in the footnotes 190 1. From the Mountains to the Sea, 1844-1864 1 2. Junior Officer, 1864-1882 13 3. Naval Attache in the World's Workshop, 1882-1889 21 4. The Squadron of Evolution, 1889-1891 39 5. /,dministrator, 1891-1897 53 6. The Spanish-American War: Seeking Cervera, 1897-1898 69 7. The Spanish-American War: Death Lo the Dons, 1898-1900 8~ 8. The Naval War College, the General Board, and the Schley Inquiry, 1899-1904 109 9. From an Admiral of the Sea to History: Causes of the Civil War and The Relations of the United States and Spain, 1904-1911 127 10. Causes of the Great War 151 11. Scholarly Warrior 173 Notes 191 The Writings of French Ensor Chadwick 225 Essay on Sources 22'1 Index 2t. . ·.j vii CHAPTER 1 FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA, 1844-1864 French Ensor Chadwick may have been counseled to accept an offer of appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy by his widowed mother, relatives, and friends. He wished to emulate the men especially on his mother's side, all well educated and with a heritage of military service. His prime motivations, however, stemmed from the readinq of the gistory of the Navy of the United States of America (1839), written by a former naval officer named James Fenimore Cooper,l a ~esire to see the world, and a wish to serve the Union. Born in Morgantown, Virginia, on 29 February 1844, Chadwick was mature enough to sense the significance of the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, John Brown's raid upon nearby Harper's Ferry in 1859 and the por tentous elections of 1860, and to see how the issues of slavery and secession divided the transmontane from the eastern counties of Virginia. His people, en gaged in subsistence farming and small industrial enterprise, were oriented toward the west and freedom rather than toward the east and slavery. On 26 Novem ber 1860, the men of Monongalia County resolved "that the election of the candidates of the Republican party docs not justify secession, and the union of the States is the best guarantee for the present and future welfare of the people."2 W'.ten the Virginia legislature called for a convention to meet on 15 February 1861 at Richmond, two pro-Union delegates were elected from Monongalia County by a vote of 2,270 to 13. The convention having decided that Virginia should secede, these delegates and others from the western counties not only refused to support secession but bolted. On 17 April, with more than two thousand of the county's approximately forty thousand people in Morgantown, Union flags flying, and cheers for pro Union speeches, the separation of West Virginia from Virginia was foretold. Indicative of popular feeling, five men from the western counties fought for the Federal cause for every one who fought for the South.3 In letters he wrote as a midshipman, and in histories he subsequently wrote, Chadwick revealed himself to be a thoroughgoing nationalist much adverse to slavery even though his family owned slaves.4 In 1760, Chadwick's paternal great-grandfather, John Evans, of Welsh descent, crossed the mountains 1 from Alexandria, Virginia, to the small settlement at Morgantown. John served as the lieutenant and countY clerk of Monongalia (a variant of Monongahela) county, formed in 1776, and gained fame as a colonel in the Revolutionary War.5 One of his eight children, named ~ohn (b. 1768), also a captain in the militia, i~hcr­ lted the estate. "Captain Jack" and his wife, G1.lleY Coleman Strother, had six sons and four daughters. T~e sons were well educated, helped defend the fron- t_: er, and not only held local office but often served as representatives in the House of Delegates.6 one of ~he daughters, Margaret Eliza (b. 1821), marr~ed t D".nlel Clark Chadwick, a grocery merchant operat1.ng a the_corner of High and Fayette Streets. They called the1.r first child French Ensor, French being the name of his maternal grandfather, the Ensor remaining a mystery. Little is known about Daniel Chadwick except that he was born in Virginia, earned his living as a grocer, frequently hailed debtors into court, owned real es tate valued at $5 400 when he died at the age of t~irty-one years ~n 27 September 1851, and left his Wlfe Margaret the entire charge of four children, one having died. At the time of his death, French Ensor was seven years old and his youngest brother only one year of age.7 Morgantown, seventy-five miles south of Pittsburgh, nestles in a narrow valley where Deckers Creek joins the Monongahela River, and is surrounded by hills to t~e north, east, and south. At the turn to the e1.?hteenth century it served as a highway transfer p··-1.nt Where travelers from the East could reach navi gable Western waters, the river being more than two hundred yards wide and seven to eight feet deep at Morgantown, a depth sufficient for steamboating. High Street is the "white way" of the town, while the main c~m~us of West Virginia University occupies terraces n.s1.ng from the river to the top of Observatory Hill. To t~e West, along the river, are the tracks of the Balt1.more and Ohio Railroad and the warehouses and glass and iron factories that employ most of the P·~ople of the region. Others work in coal mines nearby. . ~mphasis upon education being an Evans character ~Stlc, the original Colonel John Evans not only had ta~yers and ministers among his sons but also con- rlbuted to the public subscription by which the P·-ople of Morgantown established Monongalia Academy ..,; "' C() ~ ) ""'' " ~ 3 " "' "' .....:::. 0 ::.< 0 "' 0. "0 1;< "> ~ cO 0> "' t;:; The Chadwick store stood at the corner of High and Fayette Streets. From Earl L. Core, The Monongalia Story: A Bicentennial History. Parsons, wv: McClain Printing Co., 1976, 2:495. Used by permission of Dr. core. ~~---------------- {1814). There Chadwick, who began the study of Latin at the age of eight years and of Greek at ten, fol lowed a strictly classical curriculum.8 Southeast of Morgantown lies Kingwood, home of William G. Brown, who was elected from the Tenth Vir ginia District to the Thirty-seventh Congress in 1860 and in 1863 was largely responsible for the legisla tion admitting West Virginia to the Union as a sepa rate state. That Brown sought out Chadwick as a Naval Academy candidate is revealed in one of the rare autobiographical statements Chadwick made, during a visit to Morgantown in October 1899: I entered the Navy in the stormy period of 1861. I was suddenly offered the appointment as a midshipman by our then member of Congress, Wm. G. Brown. . I well remember the going to Kingwood to discuss the subject of his offer. I hired a horse. . I stopped at a house midway between here and Kingwood, got a dinner and my horse fed. • I visited Mr. Brown that evening, and sitting on a stool at the side of the fire place was a little fellow of fourteen whom Mr. Brown said he intend8d sending to the Naval Academy did I not accept.9 Academy regulations stated that No candidate will be admitted into the Naval Academy until he shall have passed a satis factory examination before the Academic Board, and is found in the opinion of a medical board physically sound, well formed, and of robust constitution, and qualified to endure the arduous labors of an officer of the Navy. The candidate must be between 14 and 17 years of age, be of good moral character, and be able to pass examinations in reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, geography, and English grammar.lO Chadwick received from the Secretary of the Navy, GidE~on Welles, via Commander George Smith Blake, s'·.perintendent of the Naval Academy, a form letter directing him to proceed to Newport, Rhode Island, to be examined. When he was admitted to the Academy on 28 September 1861 and given a physical examination by a board of three physicians, he was seventeen years 3