The Navy--Commodore Kearney.
The request of this veteran Naval chieftain, second on the Active Service List in the Navy of the United States, to be placed on the Reserved List of the Navy, or to be permitted to resign, is an incident of sad and solemn significance. Commodore Kearney is one of the most brilliant officers of a service which has become dear to every American heart. He leaves a position which, at the slow progress of promotion in our service, it requires a long life to attain, but, like a true gentleman and patriot, who has always held his life at the disposal of Duty, he is ready to sacrifice all the glories of life, rather than turn his hand upon any part of that country which, to the true sailor or soldier, is his Mother. Among the innumerable sorrowful things connected with the possible dissolution of this Confederacy, none affects us more deeply than the disintegration and the probable division of that Navy which has been the great warlike pride and boast of our country. Our little army has accomplished wonders, and its officers are among the most intelligent and gallant gentlemen in the world. But, from its infancy, the American Navy surprised and electrified Europe, as well as America, by its superiority in everything except numbers, to all the navies of all the nations of the earth. In ships, seamanship, and naval discipline, it is no exaggeration to say, that there never has been such a service as that of the United States; and that, in the event of another great European war the most amazing exploits of Napoleon on the land would be eclipsed by the magnificent achievements of the United States upon the seas. Alas! alas! instead of this glorious future, the stars that have so often lighted up the battle and the storm, are apparently about to separate into distinct and jarring constellations. Close up the records of the Navy.--Why should it remain, when the farewell counsels of Washington are forgotten? Why should it, or the Army, exist, when the noblest work of our forefathers, the Union, is perishing? Why should we cling to the external glories of our political Temple, when its mystic vell of Devotion and Charity has been rent in twain, and the chosen people are ready to imbrue their hands in each other's blood, and the solemn voices of our National gods — of Washington, Jefferson, Madison Marshall --seem to whisper through the listening midnight air, "Let us depart hence?"Commodore Kearney, whose resignation is probably only "the beginning of the end," is not a Southern man, but having served on the Southern coast in the wars of 1812 and 1815, and having been long intimate with Southern people, he is reluctant to take a hostile position against them. The Northern officers of the Navy, as well as their Southern comrades, are almost universally gentlemen of the most national and catholic spirit, and we are safe in predicting that the resignation of Com. Kearney, in the event of a dissolution of the Union, will be followed by numbers of the best and bravest officers in the American service.
