- Joined
- Mar 31, 2012
- Location
- Central Ohio
Mallory, as I've said, had much better preparation to be CS Navy Secretary than Welles had to be Union Navy Secretary, but that was no guarantee of good decision-making... One item I read on the Confederate Naval Academy made the interesting observation that the Academy really made no sense in the context of the immediate conflict, but was a forward-looking arrangement, based on the assumption that the Confederacy would survive long enough to have a need of an Academy-trained officer corps. In the event, it became a bit of a diversion of already-scarce resources.
The Confederate Navy absolutely could not afford any mistakes or diversions. They weren't fools, and they made many good moves, but their record was far from perfect, in a situation where only perfection would serve. The U.S. Navy could afford mistakes, because it had the depth and infrastructure to recover from them.
The Confederate Navy absolutely could not afford any mistakes or diversions. They weren't fools, and they made many good moves, but their record was far from perfect, in a situation where only perfection would serve. The U.S. Navy could afford mistakes, because it had the depth and infrastructure to recover from them.