Early Life and Career
Although born in Wilmington, North Carolina, Winslow was a member of the old New England Winslow family, a descendant of Mayflower passenger Mary Chilton and her husband John Winslow who was a brother of Pilgrim father Edward Winslow. One of his first cousins was Francis Winslow (I) (1818–1862) who also joined the Navy, becoming a Commander, who also fought in the Civil War and who died of Yellow Fever in 1862 while in command of the R. R. Cuyler. He was educated in the North and became an ardent abolitionist.
He entered the navy as a midshipman on 1 February 1827, became a passed midshipman, 10 June 1833, and was commissioned a lieutenant on 9 February 1839. During the Mexican War he took part in the expeditions against Tabasco, Tampico, and Tuxpan, and was present at the fall of Vera Cruz. For his gallantry in action he was allowed to have command of the schooner USS Union, which had been captured at Tampico in November 1846 and was taken into service, but she was poorly equipped and was lost on a reef off Vera Cruz on 16 December 1846. While serving at Tabasco during the Mexican-American War, he was commended for gallantry in action by Commodore Matthew Perry. He shared a shipboard cabin with his later adversary, Raphael Semmes. The two officers served together on Cumberland, Semmes as the ship's flag lieutenant and Winslow as a division officer. The two, however, never mention this fact in their respective autobiographies.
He was executive of the sloop Saratoga in the Gulf of Mexico in 1848-1849, at the Boston Navy Yard in 1849-1850, and in the frigate St. Lawrence of the Pacific Squadron, in 1851-1855. He was promoted to commander, 14 September 1855.
Read more about this topic: John Ancrum Winslow
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life and/or career:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“Betwixt the black fronts long-withdrawn
A light-blue lane of early dawn,”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“What if there are not only two nostrils, two eyes, two lobes, and so forth, but two psyches as well, and they are separately equipped? They go through life like Siamese twins inside one person.... They can be just a little different, like identical twins, or they can be vastly different, like good and evil.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“Work-family conflicts—the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child—would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)