loaded and fired. Although these acts are in all respects the analogues of those performed on board the public ship, the actors in the one instance are not military men, while they are in the other. On board the public ship the officers and privates are military men, because they are amenable to military law; but on board the private ship they are amenable to the civil laws, administered by marine or admiralty courts. The commands issued on board the public ship are military commands, because they can be enforced through the processes of military law; but the same commands issued on board the merchantman are not military, but civil. Now, if this definition is correct, all persons engaged in the naval service, whether classed in the line or in the staff, are military men, because all are alike amenable to military law, without regard to vocation. There are, however, some officers, whose functions are exclusively naval, who belong neither to the line nor to the staff, and are properly termed civil officers. The Secretary of the Navy, and all those who assist in the administration of naval affairs in the Navy Department, including the chiefs of bureaus, navy agents, naval storekeepers, inspectors of timber, certain clerks in navy-yards, and some others, are civil officers of the navy. They are not amenable to military law. As stated above, the line of the navy consists of several grades; but the administration of military authority does not allow an absolute equality among the officers of the same grade. It is necessary that the junior captain, for example, shall be subordinate to his senior. In technical language, no two captains are of the same rank, but one ranks the other according to the date of his commission; the senior has precedence and right to command all captains who are junior to himself, as well as all officers of inferior grades when associated with him on duty by the order of a common superior. The terms "rank" and "grade, although very frequently used synonymously, have distinct meanings. From the time of the formation of the navy of the United States, the principle just alluded to has been scrupulously observed among line officers, even when they were pleased to designate themselves "sea-officers," or "officers proper" of the navy, and termed those of the staff "civil officers" and "non-combatants." In those early days, nothing was considered of greater individual importance than to assert and defend all the privileges of their rank; officers of the line were heard to declare-with emphatic additions, sometimes-that they would rather die than yield their rank: they were, however, very young men. But, while they entertained some vague notion that the word "rank" really meant something more than relative position in a grade, and this undefined something imparted to them an essential quality of pre-eminence which could not suffer comparison with any not of the line without risk of pollution, they would not perceive that the "relative position," or rank of staff officers in military organization, is to them very essential, although not estimated quite so extravagantly as to be worth preserving at the hazard of life. Nearly half a century ago (1816), medical officers of the navy asked to have a definite rank assigned to them. Their petition to Congress was endorsed by the Secretary of the Navy, the navy commissioners, and nine captains; and subsequently a memorial in its favor was signed by sixteen of the thirty captains. then in the navy.* But, either because their memorial was received with indifference or met with opposition, of which there is no record, the petition of the medical officers and their friends was not successful. It may be inferred from a record in the "American State Papers" (volume for naval affairs) that some few fancied themselves to be so hedged round by rank that the perpetration of even flagrant acts of tyranny might pass unheeded. One who had won a battle and a famous place in the annals of our navy so far forgot what was due to his subordinates that in his own cabin he dealt a blow to a captain of marines. Briareus himself could scarcely have struck more persons at once: the officers of the squadron resented the blow, and forty-one of them, namely, twenty-one lieutenants and one master of the line, ten officers of the marine corps, six surgeons, and three paymasters of the staff,―of the whole number eight are still living,―addressed a memorial to the Senate of the United States, in which they say, "The undersigned have now no guarantee for the safety of their persons, but the use of those arms which the laws of their country have placed in their hands, and that personal strength with which nature has blessed them," &c. &c. In those days, medical officers had no defined position in the The signers were John Rodgers, Stephen Decatur, Isaac Hull, David Porter, Samuel Evans, Joseph Bainbridge, S. Angus, James Renshaw, Geo. W. Rogers, James T. Leonard, Edward Trenchard, James Jones, L. Warrington, Wm. Bainbridge, D. Deacon, Alexander S. Wadsworth. Those gentlemen said, among other things, "We consider the medical department of such great importance to the navy of our country, that no reasonable measures ought to be omitted which could have a tendency to retain in the service the professional ability of those gentlemen who, by their experience, knowledge, zeal, and humanity, have procured the esteem and confidence of those with whom they have been associated; and we also beg leave to express our belief that no reasonable inducements would be objected to by Congress to procure for those who are engaged in a perilous service, and who are constantly exposed to the diseases of all climates, the best medical aid which the country affords. To effect this, it must be obvious that the rank and pecuniary emolument ought to bear some proportion what to gentlemen of professional eminence would be entitled to in private life." American State Papers,-Naval Affairs,-1816-17. VOL. I.-40 organization of the navy. No written law or regulation indicated whether they were above or below lieutenants or others; but practically they were considered to be below every grade of officers of the line. A notion prevailed widely, if not universally, in the service, that the line alone constituted the navy, and that the staff was a kind of necessary parasite, appointed and paid, not for their services to the nation, but for the convenience of "sea-officers." The then existing notions about the nature of naval organization were vague and less settled than they are now. Few officers admitted that the naval organization was military, a word which, it was imagined, belonged or related exclusively to soldiers. The terms "line" and "staff" were not in use to designate classes in the navy. An erroneous appreciation of their own importance in comparison with that of persons of other vocations led very many, especially the younger and least thoughtful "sea-officers," to imagine that a post-captain was worthy of more profound respect than any other man in the nation. Then midshipmen, and even young lieutenants, were so much awe-struck by the supposed grandeur of captains, that they avoided taking up quarters at the same hotel; and the writer has heard more than one, in recounting anecdotes of his early days in service, state that his sense of almost reverential respect was so great while a midshipman that he could not pass a post-captain in the street with perfect composure. In those days sailors wore queues and low, long-quartered pumps when on liberty ashore, and were more distinguished by a reckless prodigality than they are now. There were intimate friendships existing between officers of the line and staff; but somehow the "sea-officers" seemed to believe that staff officers belonged to an inferior caste, and that it was condescendingly meritorious to treat them as friends. And when it happened, as it did sometimes, that medical officers claimed to be the equals of "sea-officers" on certain official occasions, they were resisted, on the ground that there was no regulation to sustain their pretension. Whenever line and staff officers were associated to examine a question jointly, as a board, the line officer, no matter what might be his grade or rank, claimed a right of precedence, and to command the staff officers, without considering either the official or natural age of the latter. Seniority was not regarded by "sea-officers" as an element of respectability in staff officers; but it was always jealously respected in the line. Even when medical and line officers were associated, as a "board of survey," to examine the condition of invalids, the line officers claimed to be the superiors and to direct the proceedings of the board. Little more than thirty years ago, an elderly and very respectable line officer of the highest grade expressed his opinion that a post-captain ought to preside when a board of surgeons was assembled to examine candidates for admission or promotion in the medical corps, for the purpose, he said, of giving respectability to the proceedings! During the thirty years which followed the first recorded application of the medical officers for a definite rank, their position remained uncertain, being always subject to the discretion, caprice, or disposition of the line officer placed over them in command. At last, in the year 1846, the Honorable George Bancroft, then Secretary of the Navy, heard their representations, and issued a general order, as follows: "Surgeons of the fleet, and surgeons of more than twelve years, will rank with commanders; "Surgeons of less than twelve years, with lieutenants; "Commanding and executive officers, of whatever grade, when on duty, will take precedence over all medical officers. "This order confers no authority to exercise military command, and no additional right to quarters. "NAVY DEPARTMENT, August 31, 1846." GEORGE BANCROFT. The observance of this order was generally, though not universally, evaded or resisted, on various pretexts. The subject has been in controversy ever since the order was issued. A new order was promulgated, bearing date March 13, 1863, as follows: "Assistant surgeons to rank with masters; "Passed assistant surgeons to rank with lieutenants; "Surgeons to rank with lieutenant-commanders for the first five years after promotion; after the first five years, with commanders; and after fifteen years from date of commission, with captains. "Surgeon of the fleet to rank with captain." Whether the rank given by this order is too much or too little, or whether it has been judiciously arranged, or what will be its effect in attracting to and retaining in the naval service welleducated and thoroughly efficient physicians and surgeons, are questions not now to be considered. Its effect upon the line, or some members of it, is to be briefly noticed. It appears that some officers of the line-not a very considerable number of considerable men, it is supposed, but chiefly those soured already by being postponed in promotion or by being pronounced by their peers to be not qualified to be raised higher in the profession-addressed a memorial to the Secretary of the Navy, which was published at New York, October 17, 1863, in the "Army and Navy Journal," page 116, in which they ask that all the regulations and laws on the subject may be revoked or annulled, and that hereafter the assistant surgeon shall rise in nominal rank pari passu, as the ensign appointed on the same day advances from grade to grade in the line. The term ensign is the appellative recently employed to designate the graduates of the Naval Academy, who have been known heretofore as passed midshipmen. If this proposition be accepted, the effect will be to elevate the diploma of the Naval Academy above all other diplomas, whether scholastic or professional, or both: the Master of Arts from Harvard or Yale, bearing with him also the diploma of Doctor of Medicine from the University of Pennsylvania or the University of New York, will be required to meekly stand behind the graduate of the Naval Academy and follow him in his naval career. It may be doubted whether the trustees, professors, and alumni of those ancient seats of learning will silently acquiesce in this very indecorous pretension of an inferior and junior institution. Whether the alumni will be allured to the naval service by such an arrangement is well worth considering before it be finally established; for, aside from the consideration which the war gives it, the navy was never less attractive to cultivated men than it is at this moment, for reasons which it would be impolitic, as well as useless, to specify. There are now say four hundred ensigns and six hundred masters in the navy; but only thirty are graduates of the Academy.: the others are brave, patriotic sea-faring men, whose native good sense has never been very much influenced by scholarly training, although sufficiently educated for all practical purposes of their vocation in the commercial marine. They render most valuable service in the navy. But there are among them some whose vanity has betrayed them into unreasonable exhibitions of the military authority which their appointments give over staff officers. The memorialists above referred to declare that the regulation of March 13, 1863, is injurious and disparaging to them, for reasons some of which it is now proposed to examine. They assume, first, that advancement in assimilated rank, in virtue of fixed periods of service, is equivalent to lineal promotion; and, second, that to permit assimilated promotion of staff officers to proceed more rapidly than actual promotion in the line, is unfair. Technically, "promotion" implies advancement from a lower to a higher grade. The advancement in assimilated rank objected to, is without actual progress or change of grade; it is not promotion in the military sense of the word. On receiving his commission, a surgeon assimilatively ranks in the grade of lieutenant-commander; after the expiration of five years, in the grade of commander; and after the expiration of fifteen years, in the grade of captain in the line; but in fact he is not "promoted:" he always remains in the grade of surgeon, and is always in the staff. His advancement in assimilated rank through the merit flowing from fixed periods of service neither retards nor accelerates lineal promotion, which is contingent upon the occurrence of vacancies in the higher grades, arising either from |