JOHN D. LONG
(John Davis Long)
The U. S. Navy had Black sailors even before the Civil War. Blacks had shipped out on Northern merchant vessels and whaling ships starting in colonial times. Many Blacks had nautical experience and were welcomed by the Northern Navy and treated very well. The Union Army in contrast was much more ambivalent about Blacks serving. Ironically the Navy was disbanded to save money and when it was reconstituted it was on a racially segregated basis completely foreign to American Naval history. It was the last of the American armed services to integrate and its officer corps has not desecrated as much as the other services.
John Davis Long was an American lawyer, politician, and writer from Massachusetts. He was the 32nd Governor of Massachusetts, serving from 1880 to 1883. He later served as the Secretary of the Navy from 1897 to 1902, a period that included the primarily naval Spanish–American War.
