was directed to assume the duties of Equipment Officer at the same Yard, which includes the care of the equipment of vessels in ordinary, and the rigging and equipment of all vessels fitting for sea, also charge of the rope-walk in which is manufactured the rope for the entire Navy.

In the special promotions for efficient service in the rebellion, July 16, 1866, his name was not included,* but having passed all the re

* On learning of these promotions, Capt. Preble addressed the Hon. J. W. Grimes, chairman of the Naval Committee of the Senate, on the subject, and received the following reply:

"BURLINGTON, Iowa, Aug. 29, 1866. "My Dear Sir,-Your letter of the 29th inst. has come to hand. It is impossible for me to say why you was not promoted, for I have no information on the subject. It was not because of your name being disagreed to by the Senate, for it was never sent to the Senate for promotion. The Senate accepted the list precisely as sent in, without even reading. I do not believe that any human being, save Admiral Farragut, was consulted in regard to a single promotion. I certainly was not, and I do not believe that any one was.

* * thus it was that the Senate, if there had been time, would probably have been indisposed to undertake to revise the list, for it must have been blindly and very unsatisfactorily. "I was never very much in favor of the law, but the Department in the name of the service insisted upon it, and I finally agreed to it; but it was not passed until every man in the Senate had a full understanding of it in all its bearings, as the Congressional Globe will show. I was surprised at some of their commendations and at some of the omissions, but my own information was not of the character to justify me in advising the Senate to set aside the entire list, which would have been the case had we attempted to interfere with any one nominee in any one of the grades, they all depending on each other.

"I told the people at the Department that I thought mistakes had been made-that they ought to be rectified, and that they still had the power to do it. What may be done, I do not know. I have no intercourse with naval men between sessions, nor with the Department, and can't say what their views are, but I have no doubt there will be a disposition to do full justice to all parties. Certainly that will be my purpose. Opinions will be formed and crystallized on the subject before Congress meets. I am very truly yours, "COMMANDER GEO. HENRY Preble,

Charlestown Navy Yard.

J. W. GRIMES."

The clause of the law approved July 25, 1866, under which these special promotions were made, is this:-"Provided that the increase in the grades authorized by this act shall be made by selection from the grade next below of officers who have rendered the most efficient and faithful service during the recent war, and who possess the highest professional qualifications and attainments. And nothing in this act shall preclude advancement in rank now authorized by law for distinguished conduct in battle, or for extraordinary heroism." Yet it is notorious that officers were promoted who came into active service at the eleventh hour, that had only been on harbor service, that never had a hostile gun fired at them, that were never in any of the great fights of the war, or even little ones, or only in command of Hospital Ships; and that one at least is acknowledged to have been promoted by mistake for another bearing the same name, &c.

The law itself was an injudicious one. No naval or military man will dispute the propriety of promoting for distinguished service in battle-but then the commission should be a permanent record of the fact to him and for his children, and it should be stated on the commission for what special service or act of heroism it was granted. To promote by selection a whole body of officers at the close of a great war, selected at the caprice or prejudices of the Department, where all had been serving faithfully and to the best of their ability, must tend to destroy that esprit de corps which is the life of any service.

The then Secretary of the Navy, Hon. Gideon Welles, entertained the fallacy that as every

quired examinations as to his mental, moral, physical and professional fitness, he was promoted by seniority on the 16th of March, 1867, a Captain in the Navy, and received a commission to take rank from the 29th of January, 1867.

one went up on the list in the grade he was then in, all were benefited, as they would be sooner promoted to the grade next above; but he forgot, or did not see, that these promotions were a special bar to the higher grades for those who were overslaughed. Thus in Capt. Preble's case, had he been selected with the fourteen who were promoted over him, he would have been a Commodore in 1872, and have retired as a Rear Admiral at the age of sixty-two; whereas now, unless there are death vacancies, he will retire in 1878 as a Captain.

After Commodore Preble's attacks upon Tripoli, Congress, in 1805, passed a resolution giving him a gold medal, one month's pay to the petty officers, seamen and marines of the squadron, and directing that a sword should be presented to each of the commissioned officers or midshipmen who distinguished themselves in the several attacks.

In 1812, a resolution was introduced inquiring why these swords had not been presented. The Hon. Paul Hamilton, the Secretary of the Navy, replies:

"With respect to that part of the resolution which 'requests the President to cause a sword to be presented to each of the commissioned officers and midshipmen who distinguished themselves,' it is presumed that the President saw what to his mind appeared difficulties of great delicacy, from the peculiar language of the resolution. By the resolution he was requested to present swords to such only as had distinguished themselves; and all having been represented to him as having acted gloriously, he could not in justice draw with precision a line of discrimination. He felt, it is presumed, a repugnance to the making of a selection which by implication would necessarily have cast a reproach upon all not therein included. A degradation of that kind might have greatly injured the service, and could not possibly have been grateful to the honorable feelings of the favored officers."

It is to be regretted that these remarks of the Hon. Mr. Hamilton were not recollected when the select promotions of 1866 were made, as the result has been precisely as he stated would have been the case had a select few been presented with those swords.

President Grant has remedied the injustice complained of in a few cases, and restored the officers to their former relative positions, and others have been recommended by him. The present Secretary of the Navy, the Hon. Geo. M. Robeson, in his report Dec. 31, 1869, says: "In the year 1865, a board composed of Admirals who had commanded squadrons during the war, with Admiral Farragut as President, was convened by the Secretary of the Navy, to report the names of such officers as they deemed worthy of advancement under the Act of April 21, 1864. The board, after careful consideration, made a report strictly according to the letter of their instructions, and their selections would, it is believed, have been satisfactory to the Navy at large. The recommendations of the Board were, however, not acquiesced in, and the advancement was made quite independently of their action. The result is, that many officers consider themselves as unjustly treated, and a feeling of discontent exists most undesirable in the service. Some of the cases affected by this action have been already acted on by this administration, but it is felt that the real merit of each case can only be properly judged by those who were personally cognizant of all its circumstances, and that too many considerations would be lost sight of in the lapse of time to permit of direct action by the Department without risk of further mistakes.

"It is suggested that the Department be authorized to appoint a board of officers, removed by high rank from all personal interest on this question, to examine the cases complained of, and to report their conclusions for such action by the Executive and Congress as to them may seem proper."

Acting upon this recommendation, it is believed the Senate Naval Committee will soon report a bill ordering such a Board, when it is hoped that where injustice has been done it will be remedied.

After having been nearly three years on duty at the Navy Yard, Capt. Preble was offered an appointment as the Chief of Staff, of Rear Admiral Craven, commanding the North Pacific Squadron, which he accepted. On the 1st of August, 1868, he left his home in Charlestown, and proceeded via New York and the Isthmus of Panama to San Francisco, where he reported for duty on the 25th of the same month.

On the 19th of December, 1868, Commodore Edward Middleton was transferred to the command of the Lackawanna, another ship of the squadron, and Capt. Preble was ordered to take command of the Pensacola (2d rate Flag-Ship), of the Pacific Fleet, which vessel he continues (1870) to command under Rear Admiral Turner, who relieved Rear Admiral Craven in command of the Pacific Fleet, June, 1869.

The record of the official Navy Register shows that Capt. Preble has been thirty-four years and three months in the service: twenty-one years and eight months of that time at sea; seven years and eleven months on shore or other duty, and four years and eight months (in which is included six months before his first orders, and for which he received no pay) unemployed.

Capt. Preble has held no civil offices or appointments, but is a member of several societies and associations, viz. :—

March 6, 1843, he was elected a member of the Naval Library and Institute at the Charlestown Navy Yard, was elected its Librarian and Curator for 1858-59, and Vice President for 1866-67.

He was in 1852 elected an associate member of the Portland Natural History Society-was chosen its Vice President for 1856-57, and elected a Corresponding Member, Jan. 1, 1863.

October 9, 1854. He was elected an Honorary member of the Portland Rifle Corps.

January 21, 1864. He was initiated and admitted to the third degree of Free Masonry, by the Tolerant Lodge of Lisbon, Portugal.

June 6, 1866. He was elected a Resident Member of the New England Historic and Genealogical Society, and became a Life Member July 1, 1869.

August 6, 1866. He was elected a Corresponding Member of the Maine Historical Society.

February, 21, 1868. He was admitted a companion of the First Class of the Military Order of the Loyal League of the United States. April 20, 1869. He was elected a Corresponding Member of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.

The only male descendants of Capt. Enoch Preble, now living (1870), are Geo. Henry Preble and his two sons.

GRANDCHILDREN OF ENOCH AND SALLY (CROSS) PREBLE.

Children of EBEN PREBLE and AGNES DEBORAH TAYLOR ARCHER:

1. Sarah Ellen, b. in Gorham, Me., June 18, 1830; d. of scarlet fever, July 31, 1832.

2. Mary Elizabeth, b. in Gorham, Me., June 24, 1833; unmarried, and residing with her mother in Gorham, 1870.

Children of ADELINE PREBLE and JOHN COX

(All born in Portland, Me.):

1. Frances Ellen, b. Feb. 16, 1837; unmar. and living in Portland. 2. Elizabeth Harrod, b. June 30, 1843; d. of scarlet fever, April 10, 1844.

Elizabeth Harrod, b. August 24, 1845; unm. and living in Portland. Has a fine musical taste and talent, and is a rare vocalist.

Children of Capt. GEO. HENRY PREBLE, U. S. N., and SUSAN Z. (Cox) PREBLE:

1. Henry Oxnard, named for Henry Oxnard of Boston, was b. at Portland, Me., January 4, 1847. The "Hall house," No. 80 Cumberland St., in which he was born, was burnt in the great fire of July, 1866. From April, 1863, to Dec., 1864, during the war of the rebellion, he was a Captain's Clerk on board the U. S. Sloop-of-War St. Louis. On his return home he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then just organized, as a general student, but soon became a special student in chemistry, the favorite branch he chose for a profession, and is now an assistant teacher of chemistry in that Institute. He was admitted by the Henry Price Lodge of Charlestown, Mass., to the third degree of masonry, Feb. 24, 5869.

In 1869 he was elected Superintendent of the Sunday School of the Harvard Chapel, a free church attached to the Unitarian Ministry at Large in Charlestown, and continues acceptably to attend to the duties of that office.

2. Susie Zabiah, named for her mother, b. Sept. 1, 1850, at house No. 62 Danforth Street, on the corner of Tyng St., Portland, Me. 3. Mildred, born and died April 23, 1859, at Portland, Me. 4. George Henry Rittenhouse, named for his father and father's friend, b. July 10, 1859, at the Commander's House, Charlestown Navy Yard, Mass.

APPENDIX TO CAPTAIN ENOCH

PEDIGREE OF THE CHILDREN OF GEO. HENRY PREBLE, AND OF THE CHILDREN OF JOHN COX AND