A Navy: How to Get It-- and the Work Before It

From the July 22, 1861, Philadelphia Inquirer.

According to the paper at this early date in the war, the country's Navy Department had had: "a commendable show of action.  Measures are under way for the construction or purchase, or both, of a fleet of vessels sufficient in number and force not only to make the blockade effectual and to capture the piratical privateers now infesting our shores, but to throw land forces upon the exposed parts of the Southern coast."

The paper made three observations to Washington:

FIRST-- regarding vessels--  every step to suppress Rebellion involving money expenditure has to be overseen because of the  "opportunity for speculation. This prostitution of a sacred trust to mere personal aggrandizement"  is not acceptable.  It is happening in the Army.

"To the same cause is to be attributed the purchase and charter, at enormous rates, of poor unseaworthy hulks like the Cataline, the suspicious conflagration of which has possibly averted a more serious disaster.

Not a vessel should be brought that is not swift, strong, new, and in every way specially adapted to the service in which she is to be engaged, and then only when she is offered at her fair market value."

So, They Had Those Guys Even Back Then.  More to Come.  --Old B-Runner