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150 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS phoms they sailed to Beimt, Syrian and later visited Jem* salem and Alexandria. If he had had trouble learning ge- ography while in school, he was now getting a thorough knowl- edge at least of Mediterranean ports. The Wtibash was in Italian harbors when the war between Austria and Italy and France was in progress and Dewey speaks especially of the friendliness between the officers and crews of the English and American vessels both of which were watching the war as neutrals. The Wahdsh returned to the Brooklyn Navy Yard December 16, 1859. His next cruise was one to Caribbean and Gulf ports, his first experience in tropic waters. On his return to the Naval Academy in January, 1861, he took his final examination, which brought him through the grades of passed midshipman and master to that of lieutenant. In this examination he was third in his class. As he had been the thirty-third at the end of his first year at Annapolis it is quite evident that he had been following his father's advice and was doing ^^the rest quite weU. Lieutenant Dewey's first war experience was in the Civil War. The navy was then at the beginning of the change which was to revolutionize navy building: the wooden frigate was giving way to the ironclad. The navy department of the gov- ernment was being reorganized. Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, and his assistant secretary, Gustavus Fox, found that there was no retiring law for officers of the navy and con- sequently many of them were not fit for active service, yet there was no way of supplanting them with younger, more able men. In December, 1861, a law was passed retiring all officers at the age of sixty-two, or after forty-five years of service. Dewey was first assigned to duty on the side-wheeler Missis- sippiy a steam-frigate which was to blockade the Gulf. This proved to be monotonous work until Farragut was given com- mand with the order to take New Orleans. By this time the lieutenant had risen to the rank next to that of captain and had become the executive officer of the Mississippij though very young for a position of such importance. The preparations for