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[234] It cannot be done successfully, according to the demands of modern warfare, by this or that officer picked up on the spur of the moment, or by boards of officers created as the exigency arises. It must be put in the hands of those who have spent much labor and thought in examining and fastening upon the strong and weak points of all possible enemies; who have made their office the repository of all possible information; who have, as Moltke is said to have had, the whole details of campaigns in their pigeon-holes, to be modified, month by month, as new circumstances arise; and finally, who are studying, not gunnery, nor machinery, nor construction, nor fleet-tactics alone, but the science of war, in all its bearings, as an actual, living, and, above all, as a growing science. In short, the direction of naval operations, like that of military operations, should be entrusted to a previously-trained and previously-equipped General Staff.

Now, in 1861, the navy had no general staff. Staff-work was a branch of naval science as uncultivated as the attack and defence by torpedoes; nor did it occur to the authorities at the time that a staff might be created. So they set about to find a substitute. By one of those fortunate accidents, which lead our happy-go-lucky nation to fall on its feet, when it has come unprepared upon a crisis, a man had about this time come forward, in connection with the reliefexpedi-tions to Fort Sumter, who was fitted, as nearly as any one man could be, to take charge of the work. This man was Captain Gustavus V. Fox. It may be said in passing that an accident of this kind cannot be counted on, nor can it justify the absence of preparation, when preparation is so simple and easy —in war nothing must be left to chance. In addition to his natural attainments, which were exceptional, Fox was a man of varied experience, having passed eighteen years in the navy,

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