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thorough familiarity with our own coasts and harbors, but for future ap plication of the knowledge thus attained, in the survey of foreign coasts and harbors and in the discovery of dangers to sea-going vessels such as were hitherto unknown and not suspected. D espite having served on the Survey almost a half-century after Sands, Rear Admiral Hugh Rodman reinforced this view when he w rote: It was formerly the custom to order naval officers on a variety of duties in other departments of the government, some of which, like the Coast Survey and Lighthouse Service, were instructive and personally beneficial. In the form er a yo ung officer had far more responsibility in h andling ships and in navigation than in the regular navy, and it was an excellent school. For these reasons, m any officers served multiple or extended tours on the Survey, including such Civil War luminaries as Admiral David Dixon Porter (7 years), Commander John Maffitt, CSN (15 years), Rear Admiral Charles Henry Davis (7 years) , Rear Admiral Thornton Jenkins (11 years), and Rear Admiral Samuel P. Lee (7 years). Spanish-American War and World War I leaders who served on the Survey for a significant period included Admiral Henry T. Mayo (10 years), Rear Admiral Charles D. Sigsbee (7 years), and Rear Admiral John Elliott Pillsbury (9 years). For each of these officers, the Coast Survey, and as it was later known, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, was part of their formative years in which they honed seam anship and leadership skills as well as developing a heightened sense of awareness of how to wo rk with and use the marine environm ent to their advantage. All told, the navy acquired approximately 2,000 man-years of experience in the Coast Survey between 1834 and 1898, when naval officers were detached from the Survey never to return. (There was a brief hiatus during the C ivil War years in which naval officers were withdrawn from the Survey and civilian Coast Surveyo rs took over the hydrographic duties .) Of the 800 or so naval officers assigned SEA HISTORY 120, AUTUMN 2007
Sounding party ojfUSCS Brig Fauntleroy, 1857, Strawberry Harbor, Rosario Straits, WA. Earliest picture of Coast Survey sounding operations. Watercolor by James M adison Alden. to the Survey at various times, three becam e Admirals, four Vice Admirals, over nin ety rose to the rank of Rear Admiral, eight rose to the rank of Commodore, one becam e chief of the Medical Service and one becam e C hief Engineer of the Navy. During the C ivil War, forty were selected as Union ironclad commanders and thirteen as Confederate ironclad commanders. Three of the South's most illustrious blockade runners served on the Coast Survey. Of those who served after the Civil War, Admiral William Shepherd Benson became the first Chief of Naval Operations, seven were battleship commanders of the Great White Fleet, one was commander of the North Atlantic Fleet before World War I, one was commander of Battleship Force 2, No rth Atlantic Fleet during the war, and six became chiefs of Naval Intelligence. If the Coast Survey had been a formal school, it certainly would have had an illustrious alumni association. John M affitt deserves special m ention, as he performed double-duty as commander of the commerce raider CSS Florida and as a blockade runner during the Civil War. M affi tt had served on the Coast Survey for fifteen years and Alexander Dallas Bache, then Superintendent of the Survey, considered him their premier hydrographer. Maffitt also engaged in various oceanographic proj ects, including Gulf Stream studies that the Survey had started in 1845. His party discovered what is known today as the "Charlesto n Bump," while running a transect across the Gulf Stream in 1853. Maffitt, alrhough consid-
ered the best Coast Survey hydrographer and ship's captain, was subj ected to the Navy Efficiency Board, which was assembled as the result of ''An Act to Promote the Efficiency of the Navy" passed by Congress on 2 March 1855 . Composed of fifteen naval officers, the Board was directed to report to the Secretary of the Navy all officers who, in their collective opinion, were found inefficient or incapable of performing their duty. Maffitt first learn ed that he had been
john Maffitt was the Surveys most skilled hydrographer when the Navy placed him on furlough in 1857 after fifteen years of service. In the Civil War, Maffitt was among the best of the Confederate raiders.
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