190 HEREDITY AND DEVELOPMENT OF NAVAL OFFICERS. 



lost at sea in 1854; Ann Minerva, who married Colonel John Navarre Macomb 

 (a nephew of Alexander Macomb, general in chief of the United States army, 

 1828-1841), and had two military sons : Augustus F., who became head of the United 

 States Coast Survey party in California, and John Rodgers (born 1812), the 

 most distinguished of the fraternity. He showed the same sort of courage that his 

 father showed. In November 1862 he was ordered to take command of the 

 Weehawken, one of the new monitors. On her first cruise out of New York the 

 Weehawken encountered a severe gale and doubts were entertained of her ability 

 to keep the sea. But Rodgers refused to put into a refuge near at hand, saying 

 that he was there to test the sea-going qualities of the new class of vessels. In 

 an attack on Fort Sumter, April 7, 1863, he headed the line in the Weehawken 

 and remained under fire of the batteries for 2 hours, during which time his vessel 

 was struck 53 times. Two months later the Weehawken encountered the armored 

 Atlanta, carrying 6 and 7 inch rifles. The Weehawken fired 5 shots, 4 of which 

 struck the Atlanta, so injuring her that she surrendered. Rodgers became rear 

 admiral in 1869 (Hall, 1909, pp. 81-91). Frederick, the brother who was drowned, 

 showed great courage in his death. With three companions he was capsized 

 in a sailboat; one was drowned immediately. One of the others could not swim 

 and the other two sought, with the aid of an oar, to bring him to shore, but failed. 

 Rodgers, completely exhausted in the effort, also sank before succor arrived. 

 (Paullin, p. 383.) 



A second marked trait of John Rodgers was orderliness and capacity for organi- 

 zation. From the start he "exacted absolute obedience from his crew." (Paullin, 

 p. 26.) To find out how near his ship might approach the batteries of Tripoli, he 

 sounded systematically at night. As commodore his ships were models of order, 

 neatness, and regularity. He "took much pride in his profession and exacted 

 of his officers an unhesitating obedience and a minute observance of naval cus- 

 toms." (Paullin, p. 163.) Intemperance, because bound to cause disorderliness, 

 he despised. When appointed to his first command, the Maryland, he immedi- 

 ately issued a list of 44 regulations and posted them in plain sight of the officers 

 and crew; these related to the ship's economy, cleanliness, gun-practice, and 

 minute observance of naval customs. When, in 1815, a board of navy com- 

 missioners was established he was appointed president and held the office for 

 19 years. This commission issued the most minute and detailed rules concerning 

 the duties of officers, equipment of ships, and the navy-yard. They prescribed 

 the navy ration. These rules remind one, in then- detail, of Rodgers' 44 regula- 

 tions posted on the Maryland. But he and his fellow commissioners organized 

 larger matters, such as dry docks, naval hospitals, a naval academy, a national 

 gun factory, and ordnance department. They recommended a system of increase 

 of naval vessels. These recommendations were gradually adopted. 



This capacity for organization is found also in his son John, who organized 

 the present Naval Observatory, Washington City. He planned and carried out 

 experiments in acoustics and optics and was one of the founders of the National 

 Academy of Sciences. 



John Rodgers had an innate love of the sea. As a boy, growing up on the 

 broad estuary of the Susquehanna, he hunted on the sea. It is said that books 

 treating of sailors and seafaring life especially fired his imagination and aroused 

 his curiosity. At about 13 years of age he ran away to Baltimore to see big ships 

 (as stated above), where his father found him and could not prevail on him to 



