The reader will observe that I am addressed as a ‘commander,’ the rank which I held in the old service. The Navy Department, in consultation with the President, had adopted the rule of accepting all the officers who chose to come to us from the old Navy—as the Federal Navy began now to be called —without increase of rank; and in arranging them on the Navy-list, their old relative rank was also preserved. This rule had two good effects; it did not tempt any officer to come to us, moved by the hope of immediate promotion, and it put us all on an equal footing, in the future race for honors. I had been living in Montgomery as a bachelor, at the house
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make her answer the purpose.’
My request was at once acceded to, the Secretary telegraphed to the Board, to receive the ship, and the clerks of the Department were set at work, to hunt up the necessary officers, to accompany me, and make out the proper orders.
And this is the way in which the Confederate States' steamer Sumter, which was to have the honor of being the first ship of war to throw the new Confederate flag to the breeze, was commissioned.
I had accepted a stone which had been rejected of the builders, and which, though, it did not afterward become the ‘chief corner-stone of the temple,’ I endeavored to work into the building which the Confederates were then rearing, to remind their posterity that they had struggled, as Patrick Henry and his contemporaries had struggled before them, ‘in defence of their liberties.’
The next day, the chief clerk of the Navy Department handed me the following order:
Baltimore, MD. Kelly Piet & Co. 1868.
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