It was not long before Dewey had a furious scrimmage with another cadet, whom he soundly whipped.  He challenged Dewey to a duel, and Dewey instantly accepted the challenge.  Seconds were chosen, weapons provided and the ground paced off.  By that time the friends of the two parties, seeing that one of the young men, and possibly both, were certain to be killed, interfered, and, appealing to the authorities of the institution, the deadly meeting was prevented.  These incidents attest the personal daring of Admiral Dewey, of whom it has been said that he never showed fear of any living man.  Often during his stirring career was the attempt made to frighten him, and few have been placed in so many situations of peril and come out of them alive, but in none did he ever display anything that could possibly be mistaken for timidity.  He was a brave man and a patriot in every fibre of his being.

A youth can be combative, personally brave and aggressive, and still be a good student, as was proven by the graduation of Dewey, fifth in a class of fourteen.  As was the custom, he was ordered to a cruise before his final examination.  He was a cadet on the steam frigate Wabash, which cruised in the Mediterranean squadron until 1859, when he returned to Annapolis and, upon examination, took rank as the leader of his class, proof that he had spent his time wisely while on what may be called his trial cruise.  He went to his old home in Montpelier, where he was spending the days with his friends, when the country was startled and electrified by the news that Fort Sumter had been fired on in Charleston harbor and that civil war had begun.  Dewey’s patriotic blood was at the boiling point, and one week later, having been commissioned as lieutenant and assigned to the sloop of war Mississippi, he hurried thither to help in defence of the Union.

The Mississippi was a sidewheel steamer, carrying seventeen guns, and was destined to a thrilling career in the stirring operations of the West Gulf squadron, under the command of Captain David Glasgow Farragut, the greatest naval hero produced by the Civil War, and without a superior in all history.

CHAPTER II.

DEWEY IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION.

No one needs to be reminded that the War for the Union was the greatest struggle of modern times.  The task of bringing back to their allegiance those who had risen against the authority of the National Government was a gigantic one, and taxed the courage and resources of the country to the utmost.  In order to make the war effective, it was necessary to enforce a rigorous blockade over three thousand miles of seacoast, open the Mississippi river, and overcome the large and well-officered armies in the field.  The last was committed to the land forces, and it proved an exhausting and wearying struggle.

Among the most important steps was the second—­that of opening the Mississippi, which being accomplished, the Southwest, from which the Confederacy drew its immense supplies of cattle, would be cut off and a serious blow struck against the armed rebellion.