be possible to find the papers of an individual in the files mentioned above. The following list contains the names of officers and others whose records are deposited in or lent to the Office of Naval Records and Library:

An "area-chronologic file" was set up to take care of part of the records accumulated by the Office of Naval Records and Library. By 1920, when the Office had completed the preparation of copy for its publication on the

Civil War, it had acquired and stored (in cupboards in the attic of the State, War, and Navy Building) a considerable collection of old naval records. Although a large part of this material consisted of bound records of the Secretary's Office, there was much other material in boxes and bundles. The condition of these records was brought forcefully to the attention of the head of the Office when in 1923 they had to be moved to the Navy Department Building on Constitution Avenue. The collection was regarded as poorly arranged and of so diverse a character --including as it did the papers of many naval officers--as to be difficult to use for answering inquiries.

It was decided, therefore, to "archive" the loose papers according to the system already adopted for the records of World War I by the Historical Section, with which the Office of Naval Records and Library had become associated in 1919. The system involved "archiving" the records according to geographical areas and chronologically thereunder, and it was modeled after the system adopted by the British historical section during World War I. Capt. Dudley W. Knox had originally used the system in London in 1919, while he was in charge of the Historical Section of Headquarters U. S. Naval Forces Operating in European Waters, for records relating to the operations of those forces. After he became head of the Office of Naval Records and Library and of the Historical Section in the Navy Department in 1921, he initiated the "archiving" of the records of the Department for the war period according to the same system. He did this after study of the matter and consultation with eminent "archivists" in Washington, including Gaillard Hunt, former Chief of the Division of Manuscripts of the Library of Congress. It was believed that the area-chronologic file was the best arrangement to enable the Historical Section to accomplish its assigned task of preparing a compilation of naval records for World War I and that such a file would also facilitate the research necessary to answer routine inquiries received by the Department. Consequently the mass of what was regarded as "heterogenous" records underwent for several years after 1923 an "archiving" process according to which individual groups of papers were broken down and filed in the area-chronologic file.

Other materials were also added to the area-chronologic file and to the built-up subject file. These include papers removed from the records of the Office of Detail, the Bureau of Navigation, and other bureaus; and other papers from private sources that continued to come into the Office of Naval Records and Library. The research potential of the files was enhanced by the addition of photographs, drawings, maps, broadsides, clippings from newspapers, published articles, copies of documents in print, and crossreference sheets. An examination sometimes discloses the source of particular documents, but in other cases the source is no longer identifiable. The material in these files relates to both the Union and the Confederate Navies.

The area file, 1798-1910, contains documents relating to all parts of the world. The oceans and their tributary seas and rivers are divided into geographical areas, to which are assigned documents concerning operations by U. S. naval vessels. Part of this file (38 boxes or parts of boxes in 12 ft.) relates to the Civil War. In the files for the different areas are records relating to the squadrons' operations. The file for area 7 (North Atlantic Ocean) contains material on the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, but since Cape Lookout rather than the southern boundary of North Carolina is the southern line of the area, other material for the same squadron is in the

file for area 8, which also contains papers concerning the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. For the period of the Civil War there are two subdivisions of area 8: area 5, the Mississippi River and all its tributaries; and area 6, the Gulf of Mexico, limited on the southeast by a line from Key West due south to Cuba and a line from Cape San Antonio, Cuba, to the northeast extremity of the Yucatan Peninsula. Key West itself was in area 6. The file for area 6, therefore, comprises papers relating to the Gulf Blockading Squadron and to the successor East and West Gulf Blockading Squadrons. The eastern part of the North Atlantic Ocean and all the South Atlantic Ocean, including the waters off the coast of South America, make up area 4, in which are documents relating to the operations of Union and Confederate cruisers and of the Union Mediterranean and African Squadrons. A small quantity of papers concerning the Pacific Squadron is in the file for area 9, and just a few papers concerning the East Indian Squadron are in the area 10 file. Area 11 pertains to the Navy Department, other executive departments, and the White House.

The area file constitutes an important body of records for the operations of the squadrons on the Southern coast and inland waters of the United States. Some of the papers in the area file are the actual records of officers who commanded squadrons and of others who captained vessels making up the squadrons. Not all the letters are from naval officers; in the area 4 file, for instance, are communications from William H. Aspinwall and John Murray Forbes, confidential agents of Secretary Welles in London and in Paris in 1863.

Because some of the records accumulated by the Office of Naval Records and Library could not be fitted into the area file, the subject file was set up to accommodate them. For this file an alphabetic classification scheme (in which certain letters were not used) has for its main divisions the following subjects:

P. Bases, Naval

R. Prisoners and Prisons

S. Merchant Ships and Commerce

V. Governmental Relationships--Domestic and Foreign

X. Supplies (including Finance)

Y. Pensions and Pensioners

Z. History

A more complete breakdown of the subject file is in a manual available at the National Archives. The whole file covers the years 1775 to 1910 and comprises 814 boxes (271 ft.). Records relating to both the Union and the Confederate Navies in the Civil War are in many of these boxes, and to estl

heir quantity is impracticable. Much of the material concerns logis

tics. The file classifications containing the most material are those relating to ships and personnel. The largest subdivision, ZB, containing papers relating to naval officers, has been retained by a section of the Division of Naval History quartered in the National Archives Building.

A collection of journals, logs, and diaries acquired from naval officers includes a number of items relating to the Civil War. These are available for the following officers: John C. Beaumont, Henry H. Bell, Richard G. Davenport, Isaac DeGraff, George F. Emmons, David G. Farragut, J. C. Gregg, Charles H. Guider, Edward B. Latch, William W. Low, William M. C. Philbrick, George M. Ransom, George C. Remey, and Stephen D. Trenchard. William B. Cushing presented a volume of reminiscences. There are other items for the following ships: Augusta, Colorado, Cowslip, Genesee, Ino, Lancaster, Lexington, Matagorda, Metacomet, Mississippi, Monitor, Rachel Seaman, Santee, and Tioga. Most of these items relate to squadrons, but since a single ship was at times assigned to different squadrons, it was difficult to put them with any squadron.

Several other series contain a few pertinent items. There are, for instance, a log of the merchant ship Tacony, Oct. 1862-June 1863; account books for brief periods for the Brooklyn and the Metacomet; a signal log for the New Hampshire; and watch, quarter, and station bills for the Canandaigua, Constellation, Miami, Pittsburg, Susquehanna, and Wabash. Two British vessels, the Sophia and the Pevensey, are represented by logs. Other miscellaneous records are indexes to official bonds executed by Navy agents, pursers, naval storekeepers, and paymasters; and a book containing regulations on pay, retirement, sea service, prize money, and pensions. Several catalogs, indexes, and registers prepared by the Office of Naval Records and Library facilitate the use of some of the records. A card catalog of titles and dates of volumes and binders in the Naval Records Collection has both chronological and subject divisions. Some registers of vessels of the U. S. and Confederate States Navies during the Civil War give information and the sources for it. A card index to general courts-martial, 1861-67, continues one for earlier years in the records of the Secretary's Office. An incomplete index to prizes partially covers the years 1861-68. Several registers of papers received from naval officers are also incomplete.

BUREAU OF CONSTRUCTION, EQUIPMENT, AND REPAIRS

As noted earlier, the Bureau of Construction, Equipment, and Repairs, which at the beginning of the war had charge of building, equipping, and repairing all naval vessels, was abolished by an act of July 5, 1862; and its duties were distributed among the Bureau of Construction and Repair, the Bureau of Steam Engineering, and the Bureau of Equipment and Recruiting. The Chief of the Bureau, Nov. 18, 1853-July 23, 1862, was Capt. John Lenthall.

Record Group 19.--Most of the records of the Bureau of Construction, Equipment, and Repairs were transferred to the three successor bureaus in 1862, and information concerning them is given under the entries for those bureaus, below. A few small volumes containing records of the Bureau, however, are in this record group. These include a volume of letters from the Boston Navy Yard, Sept.-Dec. 1861; and contracts and specifications for screw gunboat machinery, July 1861, for screw sloop machinery, Sept.-Dec. 1861, and for steam machinery, 1853-May 1862. Invoices

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of stores shipped to foreign ports extend to 1862. For the sloop Narragansett there is a record of the receipt and issuance of stores, 1859-62. A record of the cost of building and repairing vessels contains data, by bureaus and ships, for 1826-62. A letter to President Lincoln, 1861, offering to sell information about vessels under construction at Toulon, France, is accompanied by a statement of the strength of the French fleet in 1858. A letter from Dr. Benjamin Vallentin, Mar. 16, 1862, describes a plan to capture or destroy the Confederate ironclad Virginia (the Merrimac).

BUREAU OF CONSTRUCTION AND REPAIR

Under the act of July 5, 1862, the Bureau of Construction and Repair took over from the former Bureau of Construction, Equipment, and Repairs the design, construction, and repair of the hulls of naval vessels and of equipment and apparatus. It was also responsible for lumber, plates, and tools used in building vessels. It had charge of vessels not in commission, vessels under repair, and the mooring and docking of vessels.

The principal agent of the Bureau at shore establishments was the naval constructor, who had charge of the construction and repair of all vessels and superintended the workmen employed in such work at navy yards. Other naval constructors helped superintend construction at private shipyards, but inspectors stationed at the yards supervised the actual building.

The use of private shipyards was necessary during the war because the navy yards could not build vessels fast enough, and moreover they were fully occupied for many months in equipping and preparing all available vessels. Between 1861 and 1866, 55 steam vessels were built at the navy yards; 124 were constructed under contract by private firms; 323 steamers were purchased or captured; and a few steam vessels were transferred from other executive departments. The Civil War Navy also included 112 sailing vessels, whose day of usefulness was passing. Under orders issued in May 1861 the construction of eight screw sloops was begun at navy yards at Portsmouth, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. (The navy yard at Brooklyn, N. Y., is referred to in records as either the Brooklyn or the New York Navy Yard, and these terms are used interchangeably in the rest of this section.) Contracts were made in 1861 to build 23 gunboats, lightdraft but heavily armed, for use in the blockade. Twelve double-bowed, paddle-wheeled steamers for shallow inland waters were also contracted for in 1862. Several river gunboats, built by James B. Eads at St. Louis for the War Department, were transferred to the Navy Department late in 1862. In the following year 20 light-draft, single-turreted monitors designed for use on shallow rivers and other inland waters were contracted for, but when completed they had such structural defects that they were useless. The construction of several large wooden frigates and sloops of war was begun in 1863.

The era of the Civil War introduced into the American Navy the ironclad war vessel. The favorable report on the construction of ironclads, submitted by a board of officers headed by Commodore Joseph Smith on Sept. 16, 1861 (see Board on Ironclad Vessels, below), was quickly followed by contracts for building the Galena, the New Ironsides, and the Monitor. The success of the Monitor on Mar. 9, 1862, against the Confederate armored vessel Virginia (Merrimac), led to a contract in the same month with its builder, John Ericsson, for six improved monitors. In the summer of 1863