Series 8. French E. Chadwick (1883-1918, bulk 1883-1889)

The collection includes 12 volumes of official and private correspondence from Admiral Chadwick between 1883 and 1889. Each volume is indexed by recipient's last name. Volume 11 includes the index to letters from November 12-25, which are included in the official book. Written in pencil on the back board joint of Volume 10 is "Comdr. Chadwick, Naval Attache U.S. Legation." His reprinted essays, addresses, and letters, dated 1896-1918, were numbered from 1 to 20 and had been sent to publisher Thomas Mosher of Portland, Maine, in October, 1918. Correspondence with his wife Cornelia J. Chadwick includes Mosher's estimate for publishing the materials in a collected volume. There is no other information in the collection about a published volume.

Biographical Note

Rear Admiral French Ensor Chadwick (1844-1919) graduated from Annapolis in 1864 and served that year aboard Marblehead. After serving from 1865 to 1872 on various vessels, he taught at the Naval Academy. In 1882 he gathered information in Europe for the Bureau of Navigation and became naval attache of the American legation in London. After commanding gunboat Yorktown for 3 years, in 1892 he was appointed Chief of the Naval Intelligence Service and in 1893 of the Naval Bureau of Equipment. He was among the officers appointed to investigate the destruction of Maine, which action precipitated the Spanish-American War in 1898. As chief of staff of the North Atlantic Fleet he served at the Battle of Santiago. In 1900, Admiral Chadwick was named President of the Naval War College at Newport and in 1903 as Commander in Chief of the South Atlantic Fleet. He retired from active service in 1906.