Existing comment:
Founding the Naval Academy:
Calls for the creation of a naval school, in which midshipmen could be taught skills needed at sea, were heard as early as John Paul Jones. The Military Academy at West Point was founded in 1802, yet most naval officers continued to perfect their skills at sea until 1845. Some temporary schools, on board receiving ships and at the Philadelphia Naval Asylum, did prepare some midshipmen to take the examination for lieutenant, but the increasing application of steam power and other new technologies to the Navy, called for improved training of young officers.
"[The] glamor of a naval education [would] produce degeneracy and corruption of the public morality, and change our simple Republican habits."
-- A Congressman
A New Campus:
At the suggestion of William Chauvenet, a Yale graduate and instructor at the midshipman school at the Philadelphia Navy Asylum, to expand the curriculum to two years. Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft went further, creating a four-year school. Bancroft acquired Fort Severn, in Annapolis, Maryland, from the Army and ordered Cmdr Franklin Buchanan to organize the school and its programs. Bancroft's use of discretionary funds circumvented Congress's resistance to founding a naval school.
The Naval School:
When the Naval School began classes on October 10, 1845, not all midshipmen were available to begin classes; some were at sea as far distance as the Far East squadron. Over a period of months, the first classes arrived in Annapolis.
Until 1850, midshipmen spent three years at sea and final year at the school preparing for their examination. In 1850, the name of the school was changed to the Naval Academy, and the curriculum was changed to a four-year plan similar to that still in use: nine months of academic followed by a summer practice cruise.
George Bancroft -- Secretary of the Navy:
George Bancroft was born in 1800. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard University before earning a doctorate in Gottingen, Germany, in 1820. After a brief career in the ministry, he taught Greek at Harvard then started a progressive school at Round Hill School in Northhampton, Massachusetts. In 1827, he began writing his ten-volumne History of the United States.
He entered local politics, but while unsuccessful in elections, he was appointed Secretary of the Navy by President James Polk. Bancroft established the Naval Academy in Annapolis, and guided the Navy through the first part of the war with Mexico. He later served as ambassador to Great Britain and then minister to Prussia and Germany. George Bancroft died in 1891.
The Mexican War:
With the announcement of war with Mexico in May 1846, Superintendent Franklin Buchanan and 56 midshipmen volunteered for service. Buchanan's request, like that of most of the midshipmen, was turned down by the Secretary of the Navy. In the course of the war, ninety alumni would see service; one alumnus would die of disease. Four midshipmen would be killed in the line of duty. Their colleagues at the Naval Academy took up a collection to erect a monument, the first at the Academy, in their honor. |