Birth and Civil War
Melville was born in New York City on 10 January 1841. After graduating from Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute, he entered the U.S. Navy on 29 July 1861 and became an officer of the Engineer Corps, with the rank of Third Assistant Engineer. His first year afloat was spent on the Great Lakes' gunboat Michigan, during which time he was promoted to Second Assistant Engineer. Melville served in the sloops of war Dacotah and Wachusett from mid-1862 until late in 1864, taking part in the capture of CSS Florida in October 1864. He finished the Civil War in the Hampton Roads, Virginia, area working with torpedo boats and as an engineer on the gunboat Maumee.
In the years after the Civil War's conclusion, First Assistant Engineer Melville served aboard several ships, among them the experimental cruiser Chattanooga, gunboat Tacony, steam sloop Lancaster and Asiatic Squadron flagship Tennessee.
Read more about this topic: George W. Melville
Famous quotes containing the words civil war, birth, civil and/or war:
“He was high and mighty. But the kindest creature to his slaves—and the unfortunate results of his bad ways were not sold, had not to jump over ice blocks. They were kept in full view and provided for handsomely in his will. His wife and daughters in the might of their purity and innocence are supposed never to dream of what is as plain before their eyes as the sunlight, and they play their parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter.”
—Anonymous Antebellum Confederate Women. Previously quoted by Mary Boykin Chesnut in Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, edited by C. Vann Woodward (1981)
“Alas! The time is coming when man will no longer give birth to stars. Alas! The time of the most contemptible man is coming, one who can no longer despise himself. Behold! I show you the last man.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“When civil fury first grew high,
And men fell out, they knew not why;
When hard words, jealousies, and fears,
Set folks together by the ears,
And made them fight, like mad or drunk,
For Dame Religion, as for punk;”
—Samuel Butler (1612–1680)
“Either war is obsolete or men are.”
—R. Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983)