Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1898 — THE WHEEL OF TIME. [ARTICLE]

THE WHEEL OF TIME.

Coincidence in the Lives of Admirals McNair and Cervera. Some years ago a young officer of the United States navy was on the executive staff under Admiral Porter, superintendent of the naval academy at Annapolis. The head of the department of drawing was Lieutenant-Command-er Sampson, Lieutenant-Commander Casey was in the department of ordinance, and Winfield S. Schley, also a lieutenant-commander, was head of the department of gunnery. There were others stationed there whose names have become household words. Lieu-tenant-Commander Dewey was in charge of ships, Lieutenant Phil Cooper, who, as captain, takes command of the Chicago when she goes in commission, was an instructor, and Captain A. S. Crownioshield, now chief of the bureau of navigation, was junior officer on executive duty, with Lieu-tenant-Commander Frederick V. McNair, the one who is spoken of in the first lines of this paragraph, and who has returned to Annapolis as superintendent of the academy. This period was nearly thirty years ago, and in June of one of those years, say 1869 or 1870, there caihe many distinguished guests to Annapolis to attend the ball of the graduating class. Among those guests came General W, T. Sherman, escortlug Jessie Benton Fremont, daughter of Senator Benton, wife of the pathfinder, mother of Lieutenant John C. Fremont, Jr., commanding the torpedo boat Porter in Cuban waters, and had she lived grandmother of John C. Fremont, Jr„ 11., cadet midshipman, also serving in the fleet with his father. Lieutenant Fremont was then a fourthclass man, and had just entered the navy. General Grant, then president, brought his daughter Nellie to her first ball. General Babcock was there. Adolph Borie, the secretary of the navy, escorted thither a host of Philadelphians. General Sheridan, Captain Stephen B. Luce, Lieutenant-Command-er Mahan, now rear admiral, were there, and the Innumerable throng of military and naval people about whom this screed has no concern, but returns to Frederick McNair, who shared the duties of host and entertained in lodgings in bachelor row a young naval attache of the Spanish legation by name and rank Lieutenant Cervera. The young Spaniard danced with Nellie Grant and Mrs. Fremont, and, it being Lieutenant-Commander McNair’s night of duty as officer in charge, his bed was vacant for the use of Cervera, and he occupied it The next day the visitors drifted off to their various places, and McNair, having given his gnest breakfast, bade him good-bye to meet him again thirty years later in the same place, this time, as before, as host the Spaniard, like himself, an admiral, but in the added relation of prisoner. This is a coincidence of meetings that is interesting and curious.—Philadelphia Times.