death, resignation, dismissal, or from augmentation of number, and is not limited to any period of service. In the past three years, lieutenants have been promoted through the grades of lieutenant-commander and commander to captain; and some who were commanders in 1860 are now, and have been for some time, rear-admirals. The war has occasioned rapid promotion in the line. But no surgeon or other staff officer has been so unreasonable as to complain, or urge this as a reason why advancement in assimilated rank should be pari passu with promotion in the line. No one has suggested that promotion from grade to grade in the staff corps ought to be regulated by the rate of lineal promotion. In this respect, at least, the line and staff are, and may be, independent of each other without detriment to either. It would be simply absurd to make promotion in the staff corps contingent upon promotion in the line; the reverse of the proposition would be no less unreasonable or absurd. The memorialists declare that the scale of promotion given to staff officers "ignores not only length of service, but also its nature" in the line, and "must inevitably be fatal to that feeling of military pride" which, they assert, is the sustaining principle of military organization" and "the vital element of military bodies." "Pride," says Noah Webster, is "an unreasonable conceit of one's own superiority in talents, beauty, wealth, accomplishments, rank, or elevation in office, which manifests itself in lofty airs, distance, reserve, and often in contempt of others." The pride of men who are amenable to military law may be denominated military pride. If Webster's definition of the word be accepted, pride cannot be regarded either as "the sustaining principle of military organization," or as "the vital element of military bodies." On the contrary, it may be reasonably conjectured that the manifestation of "an unreasonable conceit of one's own superiority" by the members of a military organization will be injurious both to its harmony and efficiency, instead of being a "sustaining principle" or a vivifying element. If advancement in assimilated rank without reference to the length or nature of the services of line officers be really fatal to "an unreasonable conceit in one's own superiority," it may be continued without apprehension of bad consequences. A just appreciation of the position and authority of himself as well as of every other man, combined with proper self-respect, by every member of a military organization, will contribute more towards its harmony, brotherhood, and efficiency than pride or irrational conceptions of any kind. The memorialists are pleased to designate officers of the staff as non-combatants. The epithet can be applied to them only in a spirit of disparagement, because there are no non-combatants in the navy. All who participate in a combat are combatants. The commander who gallantly leads is no more a "real" combatant than those who gallantly follow him and obey his commands. The quartermaster at the cun,* the seaman at the wheel, the gunner in the magazine, the carpenter, the surgeon, the paymaster, the engineers at their quarters, participate in the combat as much as the captain, loader, and sponger of a gun. Each in his place is a combatant. Those of the staff are not unreal combatants. Without them, there would be no combat. On board of steamers, in battle, the presence of the engineers is indispensable; they are exposed to as great peril of life as any others. The engine is a special object of the enemy's shot. The contest is not between the persons belonging to the hostile vessels: each ship strives to conquer its opponent. It is notorious that a broadside fairly delivered into the enemy between wind and water determines the issue of a battle. The Cumberland and Congress were not overcome by missiles hurled among the men working the batteries on the upper decks. "During two years of the Carolina blockade, the only commissioned officers killed were medical officers; and, in the action between the Minnesota and Merrimac, the only shell which came below the gundeck tore open the berth-deck into the cockpit, and, by the concussion, knocked down one of the medical officers, wounding in its track more men than were wounded in all the action on the upper decks. It is not so much the officers and men who are the objects of an enemy's missiles as the vital parts of a ship." In a naval fight, the force exerted is the aggregate or common resultant of the exertions of individuals on board the vessel, each laboring in his peculiar vocation, and no one is exempt from danger, be his station where it may. Statesmen, in recognition of this truth, have enacted that all persons, whether of the line or of the staff, are entitled to prize-money. To admit men who can be properly denominated non-combatants to share prizemoney, although they do not assist in winning the prize, would be manifestly unjust. Those who peer into the future of worldly affairs fancy they perceive a period coming when the "line," as at present constituted, will not be needed in the navy. Three hundred years ago, naval battles were fought by soldiers, aided by only a comparatively small number of rowers or sailors. John of Austria commanded the combined Christian forces against the Turks in the famous battle of Lepanto, which resulted in the destruction of the Turkish fleet, October 7, 1571. In those days seamen were on board of ships used in war to navigate and conduct them; soldiers, in fact, constituted the "line," and manipulated the weapons. But in the course of time * Cun, to control, command the helm. the sailors perceived that by making themselves skilled in all that related to the use of artillery, they would bring themselves into favor, and soldiers would be no longer placed on board ships to win all the glory gained in battle on the sea. They learned to manage both the ships and their armaments, and, as a consequence, the number of soldiers on board dwindled down to a marine guard. The seamen became masters, and would have remained in supreme control had it not been for the application of steam to the propulsion of ships. As long as wind alone was the motive power, military seamen were indispensable to constitute the line. But now that such brains as those of Ericsson are busy in devising vessels which dispense with the motive agency of wind, or vessels with hollow iron masts and iron rigging, so arranged as not to require men to go aloft, either to furl or spread sails, naval vessels may come to be conducted exclusively by men skilled to manage steam engines and machinery. The steam engineers, like the sailors of old, have only to acquaint themselves with navigation and the use of ordnance to enable the nation to dispense with the present nautical line. If the gentlemen of the existing line desire to retain their vocation in the coming time, they must consent to fall somewhat from their supreme position, and, in addition to seamanship, learn the mysteries of running marine engines. They must acquiesce in the levelling up or levelling down which seems to be necessary to meet the demands of the progressive intelligence of the day. Those men with inventive brains are fast destroying, by their mechanical contrivances, the illusion in which some of the line. seem to be wrapped, that it alone is the Alpha and Omega of the naval service, and therefore has a right to dictate to the Government the scale of rank to be given to staff officers in the navy. It is conjectured that the permanent supremacy of the line is in more danger from the inventive genius of physicists than from any degree of assimilated rank likely to be conferred upon staff officers in the naval service. Let us hope that, in spite of differences of opinion, all will perceive that the value and respectability of the navy are not due to any one class or grade, but to the common result of their joint and harmonious efforts to serve our country, while conceding to every man what is just. A BATTLE-HYMN. GOD defend thee, land of nations! Stronger grows our love for thee. They who wound thee, best of mothers,- Be the sword of justice lifted,— Comrades! be our motto ever, By the love we bear that mother, Stand we till we crush her foe. Let the hail of bullets rattle,- When the cloud of war is riven, MAY 7, 1864. THE RAPIDS. PER BELLUM AD PACEM. ONWARD ever they pour, the wrestling, far-leaping rapids, With the wild clash of an army, tossing its crests to the battle; Past yon islet of green, that whispereth "Stay" from the fir-tops; E. A. W. LITERARY INTELLIGENCE AND NOTES ON NEW BOOKS. FROM Mr. D. Van Nostrand, the enterprising and discriminating publisher of standard military books, we acknowledge the receipt of several new works of great excellence and timely value. Among these the most notable is a treatise on Military Bridges," by Herman Haupt, Esq., who for a long time conducted the military bridge-building and the construction of military railroads, under a commission as brigadier-general. The present work is, therefore, rich with his experience, and is further valuable because he was well known before the war began as the author of a work on bridges, which was generally used by our constructors. General Haupt has given us in the pages before us a summary of all the new expedients, detailed instructions for building trestle and truss bridges, the manner of using blanket-boats (made by stretching India-rubber blankets over a frame), the modes of constructing, repairing, and destroying military railroads. He presents a clear statement of General Cullum's pontoons, and a view of the European progress in military bridges. Besides the three hundred and ten pages of the book, through which simple illustrations are spread, we have sixty-nine elaborate engraved diagrams at the end, which add greatly to the value of the work. In a word, this is a most thorough and complete exposition of an art which is required to overcome what must be considered as among the greatest practical difficulties of every campaign. The thanks of the army are eminently due to General Haupt. 8vo. Mr. Van Nostrand has also issued, in a 12mo volume of one hundred and ninety-three pages, "A Treatise on Military Surveying," by Captain George H. Mendell, of the Corps of Engineers. This is a successful attempt to apply the ordinary principles of surveying to fields of war. It presents the theory and practice of the art, with a description, in detail, of the theodolite, sextant, pocket-sextant, plane-table, levels, and other surveying instruments. The general principles of geodesy and of topography are laid down; models of plans are given; triangulation is explained. The modes of presenting inequalities by hachures and by horizontal curves are made clear. Specimen memoirs are given, and the use of protractors, scales, &c. illustrated by diagrams. There are also formulas for reference, and a table of natural sines, &c. Such a book, carried in the pocket of an officer charged with a careful, detailed reconnoissance, would be invaluable. General William H. Morris, a graduate of West Point, and formerly an officer of the Second U. S. Infantry, has just issued, through the press of Mr. Van Nostrand, a little 16mo of one hundred and forty-six pages, containing "Field Tactics for Infantry," including instructions for the manœuvre of a battalion or brigade, with certain other evolutions, among which we find the review of an army corps. This little volume, which is in part tabulated after the plan of Le Loutrel, answers many practical questions not clearly explained in the authorized tactics. General Morris has been aided by the suggestions |