James Russell Soley, Professor U. S. Navy, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 7.1, The blockade and the cruisers
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

[9] officers would have been wholly insufficient to meet the demands of the war. Volunteers were called for, and great numbers entered the service. There were appointed altogether about 7,500. The regular officers formed only one-seventh of the whole service; but in general they filled the most important positions. The additions to the line of the navy were composed of a great variety of material. Some were merchant captains and mates of experience; others had never been at sea. Those employed on the Mississippi were chiefly steamboat men and pilots. Many of them were capable and gallant men, who, though unused to the handling of guns and the discipline of a military service, conducted themselves honorably and acquitted themselves with credit. As a class, the volunteers were an indispensable addition to the naval force, and rendered valuable service. Without the least reflection upon their good qualities, it may be said that their efficiency would have been increased by a previous military training. But no attempt had ever been made to form a reserve for the navy; and the administration was fortunate when it secured any nautical experience, although military training might be wholly wanting.

Great as was the want of officers, the want of trained seamen was equally great. The complement of the navy had been fixed at 7,600. Of these there were on March 10, 1861, only 207 in all the ports and receiving-ships on the Atlantic coast. It was a striking illustration of the improvidence of naval legislation and administration, that in a country of thirty millions of people only a couple of hundred were at the disposal of the Navy Department. Seamen could not be had either to man the slips that might be commissioned, or to protect the exposed stations at Annapolis and Norfolk. Prompt measures were taken during the first year to increase