The writers are responsible only for the contents of their respective articles. CONTENTS. SOME POINTS IN COAST-DEfence brougHT OUT BY The War with Discussion: AN ADDRESS Delivered before the Naval War College, New- 223 247 . 269 291 EXPLANATION OF COURSE AT THE NAVAL War College. By Capt. 301 311 A USEFUL LIttle Change IN THE PELORUS. By Lieut. -Commander 371 373 LETTER FROM REAR-ADMIRAL LOUIS KEMPFF, U. S. N., OUR NEW BATTLESHIPS AND ARMORED CRUISERS. (See No. 96.) PROFESSIONAL NOTES. Prepared by Lieutenant L. S. Van Duzer, Ships of War, Budgets and Personnel.-Ammunition.-Armor.- BOOK NOTICE, BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTES, OFFICERS OF THE INSTITUTE, SPECIAL NOTICE.-Naval Institute Prize Essay, 1901, ADVERTISEMENTS. The Lord Baltimore (Press THE FRIEDENWALD COMPANY BALTIMORE, MD., U. S. A. SOME POINTS IN COAST-DEFENCE BROUGHT OUT BY THE WAR WITH SPAIN.* By CAPTAIN CASPAR F. GOODRICH, United States Navy. The events of our late struggle with Spain have been so completely described and analyzed by experts in naval and military science, by eye-witnesses and active participants, by journalists and historians, that further reference to them or to the lessons. they convey can be made only after ample apologies on the part of the lecturer, and by kind permission of an audience whose patience is, doubtless, already strained to the point of rupture. It is with frank recognition of the disadvantages and embarrassment of my position that I venture to allude to certain aspects of that war which are calculated to yield to our consideration a large measure of confirmation of the stand heretofore assumed in our studies of coast-defence, as well as of encouragement as to our future immunity from attack. It would be a presumptuous labor of supererogation to attempt to deal with the general strategy of that brief campaign, so well *A lecture delivered at the Naval War College, August, 1900. and so thoroughly has this been done by Captain Mahan, whose volume, entitled "Lessons of the War with Spain," should be attentively conned by naval officers. From the reading of this able and pithy work we gather, among other things, a fresh picture of the state of the public mind during hostilities, which is in striking accord with what was predicted in this very lecture-room two years before the war broke out. Captain Mahan says (p. 67): "The preposterous and humiliating terrors of the past months, that a hostile fleet would waste coal and ammunition in shelling villagers and bathers on a beach, we may hope will not recur." Captain Mahan's hope will not be realized. The phenomenon will assuredly reappear whenever war is declared, just as it has invariably appeared in the past, for it is based upon the immutable processes of human nature. Its pernicious influence on the conduct of a campaign may be somewhat lessened through educating the people to a right conception of the ends sought in a military and naval conflict, and may be entirely overcome, if not dispelled, by stout resistance on the part of the administration. Again he writes (p. 89): "Our seacoast,' said a person then in authority to the present writer, was in a condition of unreasoning panic, and fought to have little squadrons scattered along it everywhere, according to the theory of defence always favored by stupid terror.' The 'stupidity,' by all military experience, was absolute, unqualified; but the Navy Department succeeded in withstanding the 'terror'-the moral effect-so far as to compromise in the Flying Squadron; a rational solution, though not unimpeachable." In a lecture on "Naval Raids," delivered at the War College in 1896 and published in the PROCEEDINGS OF THE NAVAL INSTITUTE for June, 1898, the following expressions were employed in reference to the letters and telegrams received by the Navy Department in 1861, 1862 and 1863, containing, urgent if not frantic, appeals for ships to be stationed at various northern ports: "It is impossible," this lecturer states, "in reading the letters and telegrams quoted above, not to admire the wisdom and firmness displayed by the Secretary of the Navy. A weaker man could not have withstood the popular clamor arising in every seaboard town for local protection, but would have divided our too scanty forces and have made the less important points secure at the sacrifice of the larger, the vital interests at stake. Mr. Welles' contention was, in effect, that the harbors of New York and Boston were guarded by the blockading fleet that stretched from Cape Henry to the Rio Grande, a surprisingly broad and sound strategic view, from which he appears never to have wavered. This view, the very essence of correct coast-defence, stood successfully the test of years of war. Given fresh conditions not too unlike the old, it will still prevail. Yet, to-day we have on all sides a noisy demand for harbor-defence vessels and batteries of 16-inch guns on every salient." "Whether, in the event of war in these days, a Secretary of the Navy can possibly be as independent in his action as was Mr. Welles, it is difficult to say. The question is of great importance to us, although it hangs rather upon the sociological development of the country than upon naval policy. Personally, I am disposed to fear that the powers of the press and the politician will, together, overbear the Secretary and force him into abandoning, not the true faith itself, but its practice. It is incumbent upon all who seriously discuss the naval problems of the future to recognize the possibilities for evil which may, and doubtless will, flow from the source so clearly defined in these extracts from the history of the past." Captain Mahan attributes to a lack of coast-defences, meaning, presumably, harbor-defences, a faulty disposition of our naval strength at the outset. This is what he says (p. 53): “The unsatisfactory condition of the coast-defences, whereby the navy lost the support of its complementary factor in the scheme of national sea power, imposed a vicious, though inevitable, change in the initial campaign, which should have been directed in full force against the coast of Cuba." Possibly, Captain Mahan had confidential information on the subject not accessible to the general public, but the open records do not describe so backward a state of affairs. It will be my endeavor in the following remarks to show that our brethren in the army had not been behind hand in their labors, and that our harbor-defences, although not developed to the vast extent recommended by the Endicott Board at a time when we had practically no navy at all, were entirely adequate to the task of deterring the Spaniards from attacking any point |