Naval Order of the U.S.

John C. Rice

Description

The origins and history of the Naval Order of the U.S.

Sujets

• Armada de los Estados Unidos
• Biography
• Military history of the United States
• Autobiography
• United States Navy

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2003
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781681621593
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Naval Order of the United States

Past - Present - Future
T URNER P UBLISHING C OMPANY Paducah, Kentucky
T URNER P UBLISHING C OMPANY Publishers of America s History 412 Broadway P.O. Box 3101 Paducah, KY 42002-3101 270-443-0121
NOUS Editor: Capt. John C. Rice, Jr. Publishing Consultant: Douglas W. Sikes Book Designer: Elizabeth Sikes
Copyright 2003 Naval Order of the US All rights reserved. Publishing Rights: Turner Publishing Company
Library of Congress Catalog No.: 2003101755 ISBN: 1563118734 Printed in the United States of America Limited Edition, First Printing 2003 A.D. Additional copies may be purchased from Turner Publishing Company This book or any part thereof may not be reproduced by any means, mechanical or electronic, without the prior written consent of the Naval Order of the US and Turner Publishing Company. This publication was produced using available information. The Publisher regrets it cannot assume responsibility for errors or omissions.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Naval Commandery
Membership Application
The Naval Order Mission
General Commandery-Governance
Initiatives
Insignia Protocol
Recognition/Awards
Local Commandery-Governance
Initiatives
Recognition/Awards
Future Initiatives
Register of Companions 1890 - 2002
Significant Civil War Engagements
Special Stories
Biographies
Index
Introduction
My Fellow Companions,
As the title suggests, this volume will take you back in time to 4 July 1890, the day the idea of organizing our Naval Order first surfaced as the Naval Commandery of the US. You will read in their own words what our three Founders said and did. What is presented here is taken directly from their Minutes. As you read it, you will see the care which they took to define why they were organizing, what the membership would be made up of, and what they expected to accomplish. The objects of the society they established are the bases of our Mission to this day. Reference will be made to it throughout.
The various categories of Membership are described followed by an overview of the Application process.
Next in sequence is the General Commandery . the national body consisting of the General Congress and the General Council. The Congress, made up of representatives of all local units, is the final authority.
Following the General Commandery Governance structure, are two sections: one dealing with Initiatives conducted on a national scale and a second describing the Order s National Recognition and Awards programs. Space constraints pose limitations, so both these sections should be viewed as representative and not all-inclusive.
Next you read about the Local Commandery . Three sections discuss Governance. Local Initiatives and Local Awards Programs. It is said that one picture is worth a thousand words, so the narrative purposely has been curtailed to permit more photos of the Local Commanderies in action. Here again they are not all-inclusive (see photos illustrated in the Register section).
Next there is a separate section entitled Significant Civil War Engagements . As you will have learned by the time you read this section, the Civil War and its aftermath were the catalysts leading the Founders to act.
This is followed by a Future Initiative Section . Its focus is our Mission. It suggests what are appropriate endeavors for the General Commandery and the Local Commanderies. You will read the word you many times here, for it is an invitation to you to become an active contributor in the work.
Special Interests contributed by your fellow Companions are next followed by Biographies provided by Companions.
I would be remiss if I failed to identify those who have labored in our research over these many years. They are my Historian Predecessors CAPT Emile Bonnot and LCDR Russ Miller, the indefatigable Recorder LCDR Lee Douglas, RADM Win Weese who helped on selections and choices, the Lupo Foundation for secretarial support and many others whose ears I bent and whose counsel I sought including past Recorder General CAPT Jan Armstrong and our incumbent Mr. Timothy Chris Cummings. Two others deserve special mention. They are Companion Craig Cheramie, who volunteered in excess of 200 hours verifying the Register data; and Mrs. Patricia Catania of the Lupo Foundation staff who labored through the heavily annotated worksheets to assemble the complete Register of Companions . Insignia numbers 0001 through 8155.
Lastly, the book differs from many descriptive ones of organizations in that every effort was made to keep the presentation light and flowing and still be informative. Enjoy - especially our Register of all Companions and the illustrations included within it!
John C. Rice Jr.
Captain, USNR (Ret)
Historian General Emeritus
The Russian Admiral
Exemplifying the informative, read the item from the Naval Order Newsletter Scuttlebutt issued by then Recorder A. Fred Kempe, 23 July 1970:
Quick, now! What Russian admiral was dug up in Paris and reburied at Annapolis? You ll think I m funning when I say John Paul Jones, but facts are facts, unless in a political speech, and our naval hero, John Paul Jones, was a Russian admiral.
This week, on the 18th, we mark the anniversary of his death in 1792. He was born John Paul, the son of a Scotch gardener. His career began as third mate on a slave ship. At 22 he was captain of a West Indies merchantman. Then in 1771 he fatally flogged a carpenter for neglect of duty. In England he was tried for murder.
Unlike Capt. Kidd who was hanged for killing one of his men, Paul (as he was then known) was acquitted. Then in 1773 he killed another man, an alleged mutineer. This time the captain took no chances on jail or worse, but fled the West Indies to Virginia and added Jones to his name to hide his trail.
He was an out-of-work sea captain when the new American Navy commissioned him a lieutenant in 1775. This was his cup of tax-free tea. No English lover, he! For two years he lambasted English shipping on our coast, then began sailing out of France.
His fight with the Serapis was his most famous. Louis XVI of France, our ally, had put him in command of the Bonhomme Richard and a squadron of French ships under jealous and near-mutinous French captains (an American-mon Dieu!). In the Serapis fight, the Richard s guns blew up at the first broadside.
Then the Serapis drifted close enough for Jones to lash the two ships together. With the Richard on fire, Jones bawled his famous I have not yet begun to fight! defiance to a demand for surrender. Finally it was the Serapis that gave up, even though the Richard sank with the help of two broadsides fired into her by one of the jealous French captains.
After the war we gave Jones a medal, but Russia hired him as a rear admiral in its Black Sea fleet where he served from 1788 to 1790. Even then the Russians were difficult, and he quit to live in Paris, where he died and was buried. Then, 113 years later, in 1905, the once-lost body of the former Russian admiral was returned to the United States for burial with honors at Annapolis.
Naval Order of the U. S. An Overview
The Naval Commandery
4 July 1890 - 4 July 1893
Every organization is founded to address an unmet need. The Naval Order of the United States is no exception. On July 4, 1890 in Boston the first meeting of our Founders was held. It included three persons, namely Charles Calhoun Philbrook, Charles Frederick Bacon Philbrook, and Franklin Senter Frisbie. They are identified in the Record Book of the Massachusetts Commandery of the Naval Order of the United States Volume I as interested in the naval arm of the service, and while citizens of Massachusetts were descended in the paternal line from New Hampshire families who had, since 1636, been identified with their occupation as mariners.
Hereditary societies were already in vogue and a mark of distinction. In the ensuing discussion, Charles F.B. Philbrook observed:
I have many times been at a loss to understand why a Naval society hereditary in character and confined to the survivors and descendants of those who performed Naval service in wars or battles in which the United States Navy has participated, has never been organized.
I believe that such an organization if correctly formed, would be a success as the Navy has many supporters, who would be interested in and eligible to such a society and would be glad to become members of it. Such a society composed of men who were survivors or descendants of those who, from 1775 to 1865 in times of war maintained the dignity of this government on the high seas, would have a great and commendable work in seeking to perpetuate the glorious achievements of the Navy and could demand the full justice and recognition due the same which has unquestionably been denied to a deplorable extent on many occasions.
Mr. Philbrook continued:
There should be just a good field to work in though not so extensive perhaps, as there is for societies composed of descendants of soldiers of the Colonial and Revolutionary Wars and descendants of soldiers of the War of 1812, the Mexican and Civil War.
Thus it was that the following Agreement was drafted and signed by the three aforementioned gentlemen.
We the undersigned, believing there to be strong reasons for the existence of a society composed of survivors and descendants of those who as officers, sailors, or marines performed service in any of the wars or in any battle in which the United States Navy has participated, hereby associate ourselves by the following articles of agreement as a temporary society (pending permanent establishment) (sic) to be known as the Naval Commandery of the United States of America.
The Articles are brief and speak for themselves:
1. The name of this society shall be as above stated.
2. The objects of the society shall be to perpetuate the glorious names and memories of the great Naval Commanders and their companion o