Stephen F. Blanding’s book Recollections of a Sailor Boy: or Cruise of the Gunboat Louisiana (click title to download book) recounts his experiences as Ship’s Boy, and later Carpenter’s Mate. It is an excellent source to learn how newly enlisted Union sailors spent their initial days of training and acclimation to naval life.
Blanding, a teenager from Providence, Rhode Island, enlisted in the navy without his parents’ knowledge in June 1862. His vivid recounting of his initial naval experiences is a worthy read. Among the highlights are his initial physical exam to ensure he could hear and read, where the physician simply handed Blanding a book and asked him to read the cover. “I see your hearing is good,” the doctor told him, adding after Blanding easily read the title, “that is all.” With medical approval as such, Blanding entered the Union Navy as a Ship’s Boy. He spent some time on the receiving ship Ohio in Boston before being sent by rail to New York City to the receiving ship North Carolina. Blanding spends the first four chapters of the book recounting daily life as a sailor in training, recalling the food, sleeping conditions, and the abolishment of the navy’s grog ration. Most of all, he documents the boredom of daily life on these training ships and how very little actual training occurred on each. Sailors spent most of the day cleaning the receiving ships, which thanks to overcrowding and transient crews, were constantly filthy. Finally, he received orders to the warship Louisiana, south in North Carolina waters, barely trained, but anxious to serve.
The minimal to nonexistent training Blanding and other seamen and boys experienced was a major reason that the U.S. Navy reintroduced the apprentice system in May 1864. With the reestablished apprentice system, teenagers enlisting in the navy received specialized training on USS Sabine, providing a more regulated and organized system of instruction that ensured Ship’s Boys could perform tasks at sea competently. To learn more about the Navy’s apprentice system, read Ron Field’s article ‘The Navy Apprentice System, 1837-1875’ in the Spring 2020 issue of Civil War Navy—The Magazine.
See Resources tab, including Downloads, on the website for a variety of information and publications related to the Navies of the North and South.
USS North Carolina, at the New York Navy Yard, circa 1860s. Donated by Martin Holbrook. NH 85965 courtesy of Naval History and Heritage Command.
