The academy had borne fruit, and at the outbreak of the war, the navy was filled with young officers carefully trained in the duties of their profession, intelligent in affairs, and with an _esprit de corps_ not surpassed in the service of any other country.

Their efficiency was supplemented by that of volunteer officers in large numbers who came from the American merchant marine, and who in all the duties of seamanship, in courage, capacity, and patriotism, were the peers of any men who ever trod a deck.
Congress now realized that a re-organization of the naval service was necessary, that the stimulus of promotion should be more liberally used, the pride of rank more generously indulged.

An Act was therefore passed on the 16th of July greatly enlarging the scope of the naval organization and advancing the rank of its officers.

Farragut had won his magnificent triumph at New Orleans while holding the rank of captain,--the highest then known to our service,--and Worden had achieved his great fame at Hampton Roads with the commission of a lieutenant.

David D.Porter, with no higher rank, had been exercising commands which in any European government would have been assigned to an admiral.