THE DAYS OF WOODEN SHIPS AND IRON MEN

“There was a time before our time,

It will not come again,

When the best ships were the wooden ships

But the men were iron men.”

Clipper Ships and Captains

By
Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benet

Veteran’s Day should be a day when all Americans take time to reflect on and be thankful for the service of so many men and women throughout our 236 years as a nation. I am appreciative not only for those who have served our great country over all these years but particularly for two sons and a son-in-law who are currently serving in the military.

Midshipman Henry G. Taylor

Ours was a Navy family; but it also included men who served in almost all branches of the armed forces. My oldest son graduated from the Naval Academy in 2001, and like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather before him is a naval officer. As a girl I remember my grandfather, a retired Navy Admiral, referring to the good old days of “iron men and wooden ships. His stories of attending the Naval Academy 1903-1907, and sailing with The Great White Fleet fascinated me. I loved exploring the Academy in Annapolis, MD and reading about its history as well as the origins of the U.S. Navy.

Prior the Revolution, there were colonists who served in the British naval campaigns against Spain and France. By 1775 Americans were growing disenchanted with British rule and realized that any conflict with Britain would mean that the Atlantic Ocean would very likely become a theater of war. On October 13, 1775 the Continental Congress authorized two armed vessels to sail and search for munitions ships that were supplying the British Army in America.

It was not Congress’ intent to contest Britain’s control of the seas, only to wage attacks on their merchant shipping with the goal of cutting off their supplies to support their war efforts. The Continental Congress built up its fledgling navy by new construction, purchases and conversion of existing ships to twenty warships during the course of the war. Most of them were later destroyed by the British or by Americans to prevent their capture.

Peale’s portrait
John Paul Jones

It would be Scottish born John Paul Jones, a seafaring man with a history of serving on British ships and some run-ins with the law, a sympathizer with the colonial cause who would provide America with some crucial victories. He was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Continental Navy in December of 1775 and given the command of The Alfred. Over the next six years he had command of several ships and experienced numerous victories. It was while serving at the helm of the Bonhomme Richard in 1779, he captured the HMS Serapis. As his ship sunk beneath him he notably uttered “I have not yet begun to fight!”

After accepting a position in the Russian navy in 1788, he ran afoul of Empress Catherine’s military leaders and returned to Paris. In 1790 he was offered a military commission by George Washington, but his health had already begun to fail. In 1792, President George Washington and Thomas Jefferson signed a commission making John Paul Jones an official citizen of the United States and appointing him American consul to Algeria to clean up the piracy problems along the Barbary Coast. A month later at the age of forty-five the self proclaimed “citizen of the world” died and was buried in a leaden coffin in a cemetery for foreign Protestants in Paris where he would remain for 114 years.

In 1899 American Ambassador to France General Horace Porter began an intensive search through Paris for John Paul Jones grave, finally locating it after nearly six years. President Theodore Roosevelt charged Congress with appropriating the funds needed to exhume the American hero. The arduous task of retrieving the body and the subsequent autopsy validated his identity, made easier because the body had been preserved in brandy.

Annapolis was eventually chosen as John Paul Jones’ final resting place. In 1906 Jones was finally given the military honors he so often sought during his lifetime, first with an elaborate procession through Paris, by train to Cherbourg, then by transatlantic crossing with a fleet of eleven military vessels, and finally with a grand ceremony at Annapolis.

Painted scene of the Great
White Fleet from Silk Banner

The 1906 celebration of the “Father of the American Navy” was part of a larger public relations move on the part of President Roosevelt to promote US Naval sea power. In 1907, the same year my grandfather graduated from the Naval Academy, the President sent The Great White Fleet on a fourteen month circumnavigation of the world. Ensign Taylor was one of the 14,000 naval and marine personnel on twenty-eight ships that embarked from Hampton Roads to see the world.

John Paul Jones’ Crypt at the
U.S. Naval Academy
Photo courtesy of Travelbeat.net

The US Naval Academy Chapel, “The Cathedral of the Navy” was completed in 1912. John Paul Jones was laid to rest below the chapel in a dimly lit crypt watched over by an honor guard, where the ornate marble sarcophagus is supported by four bronze dolphins. Many inlays in the floor and glass cases along the walls display artifacts and facts of his remarkable life. This is a stop you don’t want to miss while touring the Academy yard.