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Naval History and Heritage Command

Naval History and Heritage Command

Secretary of the Navy John D. Long to Captain Charles O’Neil, Chief of the Bureau of Ordinance

Navy Department,

Washington, May 18, 1898.

 

MEMORANDUM for Captain O’Neil,1

     President of Board on Construction:

 

     Please consider, as suggested in conversation with you to-day by ex-Secretary Tracy,2 the necessity of increased coal endurance and speed in our battleships. Those already built, having been built with reference to defense rather than distant and extended movements.

John D. Long.

Source Note: Cy, DNA, RG 19, Entry 92. At top center: “(Copy).” Addressed below close: “1st Endorsement/Navy Department,/Board on Construction/May 19, 1898./Respectfully referred to the Chiefs of Bureaus of Con/struction and Repair, Steam Engineering and Equipment for comment in writing upon the points referred to herein by the Honorable/Secretary of the Navy./Charles O’Neil,/Chief of Bureau of Ordnance,/President of Board.”

Footnote 1: Capt. Charles O’Neil, Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance from 1897 to 1904.

Footnote 2: Benjamin F. Tracy was Secretary of the Navy from 1889 to 1893.

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