Biography of George Dewey

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Recommended: Spanish american war: cause and effect

George Dewey, born 1837 in Montpelier Vermont a high spirited boy growing up with his father, a local physician, and his 2 brothers charles and edward following their father's career. Inspired by Carthaginian Commander Hannibal considered to be one of the greatest military commanders of all time Dewey at the young age of 15 was enrolled at Norwich University in New Hampshire where he remained for 2 years until moving on to Indianapolis Naval Academy for 4 years. At Indianapolis Naval Academy only half of students if even went on to finish the 4 years and of the 60 men who started he and 14 other boys were the only ones to finish the 4 year commision. Throughout his life Dewey led many expeditions, Blockades, and attacks going through a multitude of ships and shooting up the ranks, but none of his adventures are more well known than the spanish american war.
It was never very clear whether George Dewey was for the spanish american war or pro-war at all.
The first real battle of the war was in 1898 May 1st,The Battle of Manila Bay had one sole purpose,to clear out Montojo’s fleet and make a clear entrance to the city. Dewey and his men bravely sailed through a hail of shells as the first Manila Bay batteries opened fire, and sailed on to the main harbor which was completely guarded by Montojo’s men. Both Dewey and Montojo held fire save for detonating 2 torpedos and a mine floating by, almost an hour had passed before dewey gave the command to open fire.
Around 1 hour had passed before the battle was over and only another hour later dewey found that there were no casualties among his men. From this battle dewey showed that he was committed to winning this war, taking precautions with safety and waiting until the right time to stri...

... middle of paper ...

... protecting his country and the greater good. Whether Dewey supported the war could be put under much speculation but from how i see it, if he had the option to solve the problem without conflict I believe that he would take a peaceful option but given the circumstances he also thought the war was a necessary sacrifice and use of resources. Personally I feel the war was completely unnecessary and a waste of human life and resources. Seeing as how no one really knows how the USS MAINE exploded

Works Cited

http://www.history.navy.mil/bios/dewey_george.htm

http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/dewey.html

http://www.spanamwar.com/dewey.htm

http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/naval/p/dewey.htm

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq84-1.htm http://www.wtj.com/archives/dewey2.htm http://www.archive.org/stream/conciselifeofadm02lawr/conciselifeofadm02lawr_djvu.txt

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