For three months Farragut directed the Gulf blockade from Pensacola, where, on the day of his arrival, the twentieth of August, he was the first American to hoist an admiral's flag. The rank of rear-admiral in the United States Navy had been created on the previous sixteenth of July; and Farragut was the senior of the first three officers upon whom it was conferred. Farragut became the ranking admiral just when the United States Navy was having its hardest struggle to do its fivefold duty well. There was commerce protection on the high seas, blockade along the coast, coöperation with the army on salt water and on fresh, and of course the destruction of the nascent Confederate forces afloat. But perhaps a knottier problem than any part of its combatant duty was how to manage, in the very midst of war, that rapid expansion of its own strength for which no government had let it prepare in time of peace. During this year the number of vessels in commission grew from 264 to 427. Yet such a form of expansion was much simpler than that of the enlisted men; and the expansion of even the most highly trained enlisted personnel was very much simpler than the corresponding expansion of the officers. Happily for the United States Navy it started with a long lead over its enemy. More happily still it could expand with the help of greatly superior resources. Most happily of all, the sevenfold expansion that was effected before the war was over could be made under leaders like Farragut: leaders, that is, who, though in mere numbers they were no more, in proportion to their whole service, than the flag as mere material is to a man-of-war, were yet, as is the flag, the living symbol of a people's soul. Commerce protection on the high seas was an exceedingly harassing affair. A few swift raiders, having the initiative, enjoyed great advantages over a far larger number of defending vessels. Every daring raid was trumpeted round the world, bringing down unmeasured, and often unmerited, blame on the defense. The most successful vigilance would, on the other hand, pass by unheeded. The Union navy lacked the means of patrolling the sea lanes of commerce over millions and millions of desolate square miles. Consequently the war-risk insurance rose to a prohibitive height on vessels flying the Stars and Stripes; and, as a further result, enormous transfers were made to other flags. The incessant calls for recruits, afloat and ashore, and to some extent the lure of the western lands, also robbed the merchant service of its men. Thus, one way and another, the glory of the old merchant marine departed with the Civil War.