“ A brief history of an existing controversy on the subject of
Assimilated Rank in the Navy of the United States. By W. S.
W. R. Philadelphia, C. Sherman, Printer, 1850.
This pamphlet, as its title imports, is a summary and exposi-
tion of several publications which have lately appeared in this
city and elsewhere, on the question of apportioning rank, so far as
it relates to official etiquette, throughout the naval service ; a sub-
ject, strange to say, hitherto undetermined by Congressional en-
actment.
If the author really considers the pamphlet “brief,” his facility
in the labors of composition and penmanship are greatly to be
envied : but any one who will take the trouble to read it carefully
through, will find that it exposes a degree of monomaniacal jeal-
ousy and distrust, among a large body of naval officers, which it
is not easy to credit, much less explain.
The case stands thus. The Post Captains, Commanders and
Lieutenants of the Navy wish to exclude the Surgeons and Pur-
sers from all the ceremonial honors which {apart from command,
be it understood) define and secure military rank. So entirely hos-
tile is the spirit of this republican government to all such exclu-
sive organizations of mere arbitrary, irrelavent power against
scholastic furniture and financial responsibility, that the time has
arrived when these gentlemen have become doubtful and anxious
about the fairness and stability of these, their ancient usages, and
are endeavoring to perpetuate their absurd claims by narrow and
illogical appeals to the Navy Department and Congress.
Their first argument is based upon what they consider the merits
of inviolate custom, and, with this huge, two-handed sword, they
expect to ward off the ameliorating statutes of a higher civiliza-
tion. Alas for ancient usage I how unceremoniously has the lash
been taken from their grasp, and how significantly has the slum-
bering genius of their better nature been invoked to find some
means of rule less repugnant to their sober selves—less shame-
effacing to their brother sailor !
The further argument of these gentlemen is, that Surgeons and
Pursers wish to command them. How utterly preposterous and
untrue this is, every naval officer, blessed with a mind and un-
scathed by a reckless dissipation, must be brought to admit. It is
assimilated and not executive rank that Surgeons and Pursers ask
for. So far from having a thought of command, they repudiate
the idea in its any and every sense. Their education, their habits,
their occupations are all at variance with such an exercise of their
human faculties. Their aspirations are infinitely above it: it
would be incompatible, uncongenial, irrelavent. The mission of
the one is to the sick and suffering—the ever various duties of the
other demand the closest official fidelity. Where are the qualifi-
cations for command here ? Where is the Surgeon who would
willingly disparage the high honor of his art by the exercise of
mere military authority ? Where the Purser w’ho would care to
confound his calculations by the petty vexations of command ? No;
all that is left where it belongs. Let these combatant gentlemen
carry their shipmates safely into port, and triumphantly through
battle, and they, in return, will confine themselves strictly to their
professions, and, in so doing, practically refute all such imputa-
tions.
This subject invites reference to another pamphlet, recently ad-
dressed to the Hon. Secretary of the Navy, and signed by twenty-
four post captains, forty-two commanders, and seventy-six lieu-
tenants. Is this the great gun of these gentlemen—the Peace
Maker ? Let us examine it. Upon looking over this formidable
party list, we find that some, probably many, put their names to it,
either without being at all aware of the character of the document
they were called on to sign, or else because it was said to them—
“ These doctors and pursers wish to deprive you of command, and
nothing but wide concert and extreme measures can defeat their
ambitious designs.” This is made apparent by the fact that some
of these gentlemen have privately expressed their opinion in favor
of the justice and expediency of assigning assimilated rank to Sur-
geons and Pursers, so that the only question remaining with them
would seem to be regarding the precise definition of that rank.
Then how strangely and mischievously have they contradicted
themselves on the title page of this pamphlet, which aims at the
total defeat, without qualification, of all assimilated rank with their
brother officers! The title runs thus—“Assimilated Rank: its
injurious operation upon the discipline, harmony, and general
good of the naval service.” We beg leave to ask, who is injuring
the “ discipline and harmony of the service,” when these gentle-
men pronounce a regulation of the Hon. Secretary’s illegal, and
refuse to obey it ? Who is impairing the discipline and harmony
of the service, when post captains and others indignantly address
the navy department, and ask permission to lay aside epaulets, be-
cause Surgeons and Pursers have been directed to wear them ?
Who is destroying the discipline and harmony of the service when
officers, commanding on foreign stations, refuse to enforce the
general orders transmitted to them, because they conflict with
usage and prejudice ? The answer is plain : the example of in-
subordination is set by superiors to every stripling in the service.
When an order, issued by the Secretary of the Navy to medical
officers in 1848, directing them to inspect, from time to time, the
provisions, water, spirits, and general condition of the ship in
which they might be serving, with reference to their salubrity,
reached a commander in the Gulf of Mexico, (his name is found
in the list above enumerated,) he said to the first lieutenant, “ If
we are not very careful these doctors will take the command from
us soon.” Are not these the infirm suspicions of derangement ?
Is a commander in such a frame of mind likely to sustain the
<c discipline and harmony of the service ?”
The following paragraph may well be transcribed here for its
pertinence.
“ The last number of the London Medical Times, in an article
on the reappearance of the scurvy, and alluding to its having been
on board the Raritan, Potomac, and Falmouth while operating in
the Gulf, says, ‘ the American nation should demand the dismissal
of the medical staff connected with our naval service.’ ”—New
York Morning Express.
How, it may be asked, is our naval service, but more especially
the medical profession of this country, to escape the odium of such
imputations, when the most ordinary prophylactic measures are de-
feated by the vigilant jealousies of executive officers ?
Are not these gentlemen fighting against an apparition conjured
by themselves? We repeat, It is not executive, but assimilated rank
that Surgeons and Pursers desire, and their opponents know it.
They do not wish to be indebted for the uncertain substitute of
“courtesy” so patronisingly offered to them, a species of alms which is
ever found to be somewhat barometrical in its range. If these com-
batant gentlemen fear innovation, if they fear the weakening of
their long and ably exercised military authority, is language so
meagre that it will be difficult to frame an enactment which shall
preclude all danger of such a consequence ?
A word in regard to a certain pamphlet entitled—“ A few
thoughts upon Rank in the Navy.” There is little reason to doubt
that it was written outside of the service, for, to the honor of the
naval service be it still said, that it were not easy to find an indi-
vidual in it, with sufficient wit and malevolence combined, to pro-
duce such a tirade of sophistry and ill nature. Is it a saving clause,
however, that these gentlemen have obtained and published it for
unjust party purposes ?
We sometimes hear Surgeons and Pursers called non-combatants,
in depreciation of their claims to equal honors with their brother
officers. The annals of the British naval service will show that
they have never failed to distinguish themselves whenever the op-
portunity offered, and any one who cares to enquire, will find that,
in our own naval service, the elder Hamilton and the late Purser
Breese were distinguished and complimented for their personal in-
trepidity on Lake Erie. And, were it possible, how gladly would
the Surgeon turn from his soul-harrowing occupation below, to
avenge the sufferings of his mutilated, dying shipmates.
We have reached the application of this subject. Society gene-
rally makes a correct estimate of the relative value of the services
of its members. Let these gentlemen open their eyes in time.
They have complained, ere now, that Surgeons and Pursers are
overpaid. But Surgeons and Pursers will yet attain to all they
merit, abstractedly and socially; and, after all, the sick pillow can
but be softer for the cordial sympathy of the medical attendant
whose mere prescription is not all that is required on ship-board;
and the heart can only be lighter under many difficulties for the
friendly advances of the paymaster.
Much more might be said, but we refrain. A board composed
of three post captains, who are known to inimical to the estab-
lishment of assimilated rank, has been ordered to convene for
the purpose of determining the merits of this question, and to con-
fer with an army board detailed for a like purpose. We conjure
these gentlemen, then, to act wisely, and to recommend a definite
scale of assimilated rank, based upon just principles; for as surely
as they fail to do so, Congress will mend their work.