You could choose anyone of a dozen circumstances in the latter quarter of the 19th Century as the one that spurred the United States Navy to change its course. You might select the insults hurled in 1879 by a representative of Chile who stated that if the United States Navy did not keep its nose out of Chilean business, their obsolete ships would be sent to the bottom of the ocean. Despite the observation that “Chile, elated and made overconfident by her easy victory over her neighbors, means to fight even so formidable a power as the United States.” Your money, if you should be so inclined, was best wagered on Chile.

One of the first positive steps in leading the moribund U.S. Navy out of the wilderness was the establishment of the United States Naval Institute in October 1873. Created by a group of officers who gathered to share technological and professional insights, the Institute served as a “sounding board,” for new ideas and concepts. While the ideas and concepts were new to the American navy, the rest of the world had embraced them sometime before. By 1875, papers on navy technology and strategy began to appear (randomly at first, by 1917 on a monthly basis) in the Institute’s journal, Proceedings.

This was a significant attempt to improve the navy through open discussion, criticism, and evaluation of the state of the fleet. Officers of a “new navy” saw no reason to retain sails, masts, and the obsolete guns that their superiors fought so desperately to keep. As late as 1881 a Naval Advisory Board, convened to discuss naval development, argued over whether the ships should be constructed of steel or iron, and if they should be rigged with sail.

It took only two years and a change of administrations for Congress to appropriate $1.3 million for the ABCD ships. Steel hulled and sporting an incongruous combination of funnels and masts, these first ships in the new steel navy were still far removed from the newest ships of other navies. The Atlanta and Boston, protected cruisers, displaced almost 3,200 tons, were 288 feet long, a shade over 42 feet at the beam, with a complement of 284 officers and men. Top speed for these two vessels was 16 knots and they carried two 8”, six 6”, two 6-pounders, two 3-pounders, two-1 pounders, and an array of smaller weapons. In comparison the Chilean Navy’s Esmeralda had an armored deck, a top speed of 18 knots, and carried a battery of 10” guns.

Both vessels were commissioned in 1887 with the Atlanta ending her career in the scrap yard in 1912. Boston made it well into the atomic age.

U.S.S. Dolphin, a dispatch vessel, displaced almost 1,500 tons and served as a gunboat and in ferrying government officials about. A saucy looking ship with canted funnel and thin masts, she looked more like a yacht than a warship.

The U.S.S. Chicago was a heavier protected cruiser than her two sisters, displacing 4,500 tons with masts and rigging spoiling her clean lines. Her armament included four 8” breech-loading guns backed with eight 6” cannons. Cumbersome looking at sea, the Chicago had at least one accomplishment of note; her commanding officer for a short period was Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan.

Mahan was born at West Point, New York in 1840. That, and the fact that his father was an instructor at the Point should have marked Mahan for the United States Army. It was not to be. After two years at Columbia, the young man transferred to the United States Naval Academy, graduating second in his class in 1859.

Mahan served aboard a number of ships during the Civil War and as an instructor at Annapolis. He rose in rank like many officers during the period, slowly and with no guarantee that he wouldn’t end his career as close to the bottom as when he started. Promoted to lieutenant commander in 1865, he was raised in rank to commander in 1872, followed by captain in 1885. As synonymous with the “new navy” as any officer’s name, it is ironic that Mahan apparently did not have a sailor’s basic skills. There were reports of Mahan’s vessels being involved in several collisions. Well, no matter. He had other talents. If the bridge didn’t suit this mild looking officer, than the classroom did.

It was Mahan’s twin publications, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783 (1890) and, The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793-1812 (1892) that proved, at least for this sailor, that the pen was mightier than the sword. These and Mahan’s later writings were received with acclaim throughout the industrial countries of the world including the United States. By the time of their publication the navy’s interests were being guided by a group of officers who were fully committed to technological revolution. In 1885 two new protected cruisers, Newark and Charleston were authorized.

As the navy was changing so was the method of training young officers. The United States Naval Academy was sufficient for its purpose, which was to turn young men into naval officers, but what was needed according to Commodore Stephen B. Luce and others was “a college…for an advanced course of professional study, to be known as the Naval War College.” Luce chose Newport, Rhode Island as the location for the school because of its deep harbor and a desire to get away from the steamy heat of summertime Annapolis.  In 1884 the college was opened on Coaster’s Harbor Island on orders of Secretary of the Navy William E. Chandler. The fact that its first building was a deserted poor house was probably not lost on Luce -- the school had no official source of funding. With no teachers, textbooks, and borrowed tables and chairs, Luce’s only challenge was not poverty. New administrations brought additional challenges to Luce. Secretary of the Navy William C. Whitney considered the idea of such a college preposterous and campaigned against it. Some barnacle-laden admirals thought the notion of teaching naval officers about war was ludicrous, and withheld support. Luce, determined to develop the college’s potential, appointed Mahan lecturer in navy history and tactics. Mahan later succeeded Luce as president of the War College, serving from 1886 to 1889. He returned for a second stint in 1892, presiding over the institution for nearly a year. A young lecturer, Theodore Roosevelt, visited the college in 1887 and fell under the influence of Mahan.

The U.S. Navy had slid into the dark ages after the Civil War and did not emerge until the dawn of a new century. The American fleets that defeated their Spanish counter-parts in Manila, Philippines and Santiago, Cuba were formidable enough for a modest power and made even more so by skillful handling and the fact that the Spanish ships were in decrepit condition and their crew ill-trained. Fortune does not always ally itself with the righteous, but it never abandons the fortunate. 

It was because of Luce, Mahan and other visionaries that the United States navy did not linger in obsolescence but began its slow, halting journey into the era of steel and breech-loaders. There is something to be said about stout wooden ships slicing through green seas under gleaming white clouds of billowing canvas. So it was for centuries and so it must be, some naval officers thought, for many years to come. But evolution is inevitable and the majesty that once belonged to sailing ships was now passed to steel ships that cruised under thick clouds of brown smoke.