Civil War Naval Publications: Then and Now

A tough thing about studying the Civil War is that the manuals and publications used by military forces in the 19th century are far different than those in use today. Yes, there are still military manuals today about how to fire artillery, how to organize a camp, and how to march, but the systems are far different today than from the Civil War era. Thus, it is difficult to find many direct correlations between military manuals now and then (though some do exist).

This is not the case however, when it comes to naval documents. True, there were no Civil War era documents on how to fire missiles or operate nuclear reactors. However, there are numerous naval documents with direct predecessors from the Civil War era still in use within the fleet today. Here are several of them.

The first Civil War-era publication worth mentioning is Charles Stuart’s The Naval and Mail Steamers of the United States. Stuart himself was a navy man, serving as the fleet’s engineer-in-chief in the 1850s after being appointed from life as a civilian engineer. Interestingly, after leading the navy, Stuart achieved the rank of colonel in command of the 50th New York Engineer Regiment serving with the Army of the Potomac.

Stuart’s book is self-described in its title. First published in 1853, it listed the commissioned steamers of the United States Navy, as well as the numerous auxiliary civilian mail steamers in operation under the U.S. flag. Besides simply listing the vessels, the book also documented cost of construction and upkeep, engineering equipment, personnel, armament, dimensions, vessel history, and anything else of notoriety related to each steamer.[1] It even included selected schematics of engines and propulsion systems. As the number of steamers increased throughout the 1850s, the book was reprinted to include additions. Sailors possessing a copy of this book held a ready supply of information about the U.S. Navy’s most capable warships as the war began.

Even today, similar publications exist and remain prolifically used by sailors. The most pronounced is the line of Jane’s publications, especially Jane’s Fighting Ships, which documents all known warships globally. Like Stuart’s book, Jane’s Fighting Ships is updated annually and includes vessel nationality, dimensions, armaments, engineering equipment, and ship history. It is an easily accessible resource for any naval officer to quickly identify vessels sighted on the horizon, or to study international naval capabilities. I personally have two copies of Jane’s Fighting Ships, one from 2007 that I used when I was in the navy, and one from 1941. The 1941 edition even includes handwritten notations from the original owner who attempted keeping up with vessels lost during World War Two naval engagements.

A second Civil War-era document with connections to today is the Manual of Internal Rules and Regulations for Men-of-War. Published in 1861 and later reprinted numerous times, this document includes all the day-to-day expectations for all shipboard personnel while either at sea or in port. One element of this includes expectations for a warship’s officer of the deck, who is responsible for each watch of sailors and the safe operations of the ship. Another section of the manual covered rules for maneuvering, dictating what vessels held right of way over others encountered at sea. It was essentially a guide to avoid collisions at sea.[2] Civilian books from the time also covered this principle, and the U.S. government even passed a law in 1864 adopting the European regulations to help institute the first full-scale precursor of what became the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea.[3]

There are two modern publications that match this Civil War naval manual. The first is the Watch Officer’s Guide, which is an essential introduction and guidebook for how a junior naval officer learns how to become an officer of the deck today. The second is the Coast Guard-sponsored Navigation Rules & Regulations Handbook, commonly referred to as the “rules of the road.” This book combines the International Regulations for the Prevention of Collision at Sea, as well as the Inland Navigation Rules of the United States into a package that all sailors, military and civilian, use to safely operate on waters.[4]

The final document we will look at is the golden standard of naval navigation publications, before the Civil War, during the conflict, and even today. It is called The New American Practical Navigator, but American sailors for the last two centuries have simple called it Bowditch. Written by Nathaniel Bowditch, an entrepreneur in science, seafaring, and industrial systems of the early 19th century, The New American Practical Navigator quickly became a staple of U.S. ship training and operation.[5] The book offered step-by-step guidance on basic ship-handling, navigation, vessel maneuvering, and operation of deck systems.

By the Civil War, every American sailor used Bowditch’s book, and his name had become synonymous with the text itself. Copies were found on every warship on both sides of the conflict. For example, records in the National Archives denote that in 1861 the Confederate Navy Department was paying four dollars for each copy of “Bowditch’s Navigation.”[6] There are even older copies of the book from the Civil War that include inscriptions for which ship that particular copy was on, such as one 1861 edition kept on USS Essex, an ironclad operating on the Mississippi River.[7] Modern updated copies of Bowditch’s work are still found on U.S. warships, serving as a fantastic introduction to the principles of navigation and ship-handling that all junior officers study as they learn how to operate their ships.

As a 21st-century sailor, using the same publications, or the modern equivalent of them, help me make a personal connection to the sailors from the Civil War era. It is also interesting that despite advances in tactics and technologies, the same root information is still sought after to provide introductory documentation of the fundamentals of both ship operations and warfare at sea.

Endnotes:

[1] Charles B. Stuart, The Naval and Mail Steamers of the United States (New York: Charles B. Norton, 1853).

[2] U.P. Levy, Manual of Internal Rules and Regulations for Men-of-War (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1862 Edition), 32-39, 71-76.

[3] “Regulations for Preventing Collisions on the Water,” April 29, 1864, Chapter 69, US Statutes at Large, 38th Congress, Vol. 13, 58.

[4] The versions of these publications I used in the Navy were: Department of Homeland Security, United States Coast Guard, Navigation Rules & Regulations Handbook,  (Arcata, CA: Paradise Cay Publications, August 2014 Edition); James Stavridis and Robert Girrier, Watch Officer’s Guide (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2007), Fifteenth Edition.

[5] The most recent biography on Bowditch is Tamara Plankins Thornton, Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers: How a Nineteenth-Century Man of Business, Science, and the Sea Changed American Life (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2016).

[6] Minor to Seawall, December 7, 1861, KH: Hydrography and Topography, Subject File of the Confederate States Navy, 1861-1865, M1091, RG 45, US National Archives (Hereafter CS Subject File).

[7] Nathanial Bowditch, The New American Practical Navigator (New York: E. & G.W. Blunt, 1861), copy available for view at https://archive.org/details/newamericanpract00bowdrich/page/n5/mode/2up.