



Produced by Ron Swanson





[Frontispiece: Midshipman Dewey.]




THE HERO OF MANILA

DEWEY ON THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE PACIFIC




BY ROSSITER JOHNSON

AUTHOR OF PHAETON ROGERS, A HISTORY OF THE WAR OF SECESSION, ETC.




WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY B. WEST CLINEDINST AND OTHERS




NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1899




COPYRIGHT, 1899,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.




PREFACE.


If this little book does not show for itself why it was written, how it
was written, and for whom it was written, not only a preface but the
entire text would be useless. The author believes that in every life
that is greatly useful to mankind there is a plan and a purpose from
the beginning, whether the immediate owner of that life is aware of it
or not; and that the art of the biographer--whether he is dealing with
facts exclusively or is mingling fact and fiction--should make it
discernible by the reader.

The authorities that have been consulted include the Life of David
Glasgow Farragut, by his son; Admiral Ammen's Atlantic Coast; Greene's
The Mississippi; Battles and Leaders of the Civil War; The Rebellion
Record; Marshall's History of the Naval Academy, and especially
Adelbert M. Dewey's Life and Letters of Admiral Dewey.

R. J.

AMAGANSETT, _September 8, 1899_.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER

   I.--THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIGHTING

  II.--ON THE RIVER BANK

 III.--BATTLE ROYAL

  IV.--EDUCATION AT NORWICH

   V.--LIFE AT ANNAPOLIS

  VI.--THE BEGINNING OF WAR

 VII.--THE FIGHT FOR NEW ORLEANS

VIII.--THE BATTLE AT PORT HUDSON

  IX.--THE CAPTURE OF FORT FISHER

   X.--IN TIME OF PEACE

  XI.--THE BATTLE OF MANILA

 XII.--AFTER THE BATTLE

XIII.--THE PROBLEM ON LAND

 XIV.--HONORS

  XV.--LETTERS




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


Midshipman Dewey
  By B. West Clinedinst

An early battle
  By B. West Clinedinst

A schoolroom episode
  By B. West Clinedinst

Scene of naval operations in Western rivers

Farragut and Dewey
  By B. West Clinedinst

Whitewashing the decks
  By B. West Clinedinst

Order of attack on Forts Jackson and St. Philip

Farragut's fleet passing the forts

Order of attack on Port Hudson

Passage of the batteries of Port Hudson

Removing the wounded
  By B. West Clinedinst

Diagram of Manila Bay

U.S. Cruiser Olympia, Admiral Dewey's Flagship

The battle of Manila

Admiral Dewey on the bridge of the Olympia

Medal presented by Congress

Sword presented by Congress

Shield presented to the Olympia

Dewey Triumphal Arch, New York
  Charles R. Lamb, Architect




[Illustration: The house in which Admiral Dewey was born in Montpelier,
Vermont.]




THE HERO OF MANILA.




CHAPTER I.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIGHTING.


It is not necessary to visit the Bay of Naples in order to witness a
beautiful sunset. Our own atmosphere and our own waters produce those
that are quite as gorgeous, while our own mountains and woodlands give
them as worthy a setting as any in the world.

Half a century ago a little boy sat at his chamber window in Vermont
looking at a summer sunset. He was so absorbed in the scene before him
and in his own thoughts that he did not notice the entrance of his
father until he spoke.

"What are you thinking about, George?" said the father.

"About ships," the boy answered, without turning his head.

"What kind of ships?"

"I can see nearly every kind," said George.

"See them--where?" said his father, looking over his shoulder.

"Right there in the sunset clouds," said the boy.

"Oh!" said his father; and then, after looking a while, added, "Suppose
you point out a few of them."

"Do you see that small cloud, at some distance from the others--the one
that is rather long and narrow, with a narrower one alongside?"

"Yes, I see that."

"Well, that," said the boy, "is a Brazilian catamaran, and those little
knobs at the top are the heads of the men that are paddling it."

"Just so," said his father. "What else can you see?"

"The catamaran," said George, "is pulling out to that clipper ship
which has just come to anchor off the port. The clipper is the large
one, with her sails furled. Probably the Indians have some fruit on
board, which they hope to sell to the sailors."

"Quite natural," said the father.

"And that smaller one, under full sail, fore-and-aft rigged, is a
schooner in the coasting trade."

"That one appears to be changing shape rapidly," said the father.

"Yes," said the boy. "She is tacking, and you see her at a different
angle."

"I might have suspected as much," said the father, "but I never was a
good sailor."

"That very large one," continued the boy, "with a big spread of canvas
and holes in her hull, where the red sunlight pours through, is an
old-fashioned seventy-four, with all her battle-lanterns lit."

"A pretty fancy," said the father, who evidently was becoming more
interested and better able to see the pictures that were so vivid to
his son.

"Do you see that dark one over at the right, with one near it that is
very red and very ragged?" said the boy.

"I do."

"Those are the Constitution and the Java. They had their famous battle
yesterday, and the Java was so badly cut up that to-day Bainbridge has
removed her crew and set her on fire. She will blow up pretty soon."

"I should like to see it," said the father.

"And if you look over there to the left," said the boy, "you see quite
a collection of rather small ones, most of them very red, some half red
and half black. It looks a little confused at first, but when you know
what it is you can see plainly enough that it is the battle of Lake
Erie. In the very center there is a small boat, and on it something
that looks black and blue and red, with a little white. The black is
cannon smoke. The blue and red and white is the American flag, which
Perry is taking over to the Niagara, because the Lawrence is so badly
damaged that he has had to leave her. That one with only one mast
standing is the Lawrence."

"Yes, my son, I think you have accounted beautifully for everything
there except one. What is that dark one, with rounded ends and no mast,
just beyond the clipper?"

"Oh, that," said the boy, taking a moment for reflection. "I think that
must be a bullhead boat on the Delaware and Hudson Canal."

"It is a good representation of one," said his father, smiling. "But,
George, how came you to know so much about ships and boats and naval
history?"

"By reading all I could find about them, sir."

"Well, George, I am really pleased," said Dr. Dewey; "pleased and
encouraged to know that you have taken to reading instead of fighting.
I was afraid you never would love books; but now that you have begun,
you shall have all the good ones you will read."

"Thank you, father, I shall be glad of them."

"But come now, my son, supper is ready, and your sister is waiting for
us."

"I will come pretty soon," said George, and his father descended the
stairs.

A little later the boy went slowly down, and quietly slipped into his
place at the table.

In a few minutes Dr. Dewey looked up, then started as if surprised, and
dropped his hands to the edge of the table. He took a sharp look at
George, and then said:

"What does that mean? How came you by that black eye?"

"There is only one way to get a black eye that I know of," said the
boy.

"Fighting?"

"Yes, sir."

The doctor was silent for several minutes, and then said:

"I don't know what to say to you or do to you, my son. You know what I
have said to you about your fighting habit, and you know that I mean
it, for I have not only talked to you, but punished you. When I found
you had been reading history I took new hope, for I thought you must
have got past the fighting age and given your mind to better things.
But here you are again with the marks of a pugilist."

"I don't fight when I can help it, and I'm afraid I never shall get
past the fighting age," said George.

"Don't fight when you can help it?" said his father. "Can't you always
help it?"

"I might by running away. Do you want me to do that?" the boy answered
quietly.

"Of course I don't," said the doctor quickly. "But can't you _keep_
away?"

"I have to go to school," said George, "and I have to be with the boys;
and some of them are quarrelsome, and some are full of conceit, and
some need a good licking now and then."

"And you consider it your duty to administer it," said the doctor.
"Conceit is a crime that can not be too severely punished."

The boy felt the irony of his father's remark, and saw that he did not
quite understand that use of the word "conceit," so he proceeded to
explain:

"When a boy goes about bragging how many boys he has licked, and how
many others he can lick, and how he will do this, that, and the other
thing, if everybody doesn't look out, we say he is too conceited and he
ought to have the conceit taken out of him; and the first good chance
we get we take it out."

"Suppose you left it in him and paid no attention to it--what would
happen in that case