Charles H. Stockton: The Admiral of International Law

Rear Adm. Charles Stockton emphasized the importance of a more structured training for the U.S. Navy. Public Domain

Born in Philadelphia, Charles Stockton (1845–1924) came from a religiously devout lineage and a long line of excellent writers. Conscience, law, and writing talent coalesced into one of the most important American naval officers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Stockton was the second of 13 children. His father William was a businessman, who later became a rector for the Episcopal Church in Pennsylvania around 1859. Stockton was educated at the Germantown Academy and enjoyed playing cricket and “town-ball,” an early precursor to baseball.

When the Civil War began, Stockton wished to join the Union cavalry. His father, hoping to secure his son a better, and probably safer, position, consulted a relative, Rev. Thomas Stockton. Thomas Stockton was the chaplain of the House of Representatives, and, hoping to spare the young Stockton the shock of war, suggested he be sent to seminary.

Joining the Naval Academy

William wrote his congressman, William Morris Davis, about securing his son an appointment at West Point Academy. Davis suggested the Naval Academy in Annapolis, as there was an opening. On Nov. 14, 1861, the young Stockton entered the Naval Academy, spending his first year of his naval education aboard one of America’s most famous ships: the USS Constitution.

Visit of Adm. Charles Stockton (C). Public Domain

Lt. Cmdr. Stephen B. Luce, who founded the U.S. Naval War College, was his first seamanship instructor. Their relationship would prove mutually beneficial. During his time at the Naval Academy, Stockton struggled with math, but excelled in the subjects of ethics, English, and international law. His strong ethical background, grasp of the English language and writing, as well as his insatiable interest in international law guided him to ask and address questions regarding international and maritime issues. Stockton graduated without seeing action during the Civil War.

Early Career and Tragedy

Several events during his early naval career caused him to ponder the greater questions of how the U.S. Navy, and naval powers in general, should lawfully comport themselves. One event took place while aboard the steam sloop USS Mohican, along the northern coast of Brazil. When several sailors jumped ship and headed into a small town for unapproved recreation, midshipman George Talcott, who was officially awaiting orders, gave chase and even opened fire on the sailors in a crowded street. Brazilian officials arrested Talcott. When Cmdr. Edward Simpson heard of Talcott’s arrest, he threatened to bombard the city if his midshipman was not immediately released.

The snafu garnered the attention of the U.S. Ambassador’s office in Brazil, who was embarrassed by Simpson’s behavior, and requested the Navy remove Simpson from command. Eventually cooler heads prevailed and the issue was resolved. Stockton took the instance as a teaching moment, and his thoughts on how to address problems would soon become uniform for the Navy. Before that, however, he was relegated to climbing the ranks.

During a year’s leave (1875–76), Stockton married Cornelia Carter. She soon became pregnant, and the two had a daughter. Tragically, though, Cornelia died during childbirth. The surviving child was named Cornelia. Grief-stricken, Stockton returned to his naval duties. He would marry again in 1880 to Pauline King, and they would have two children together.

In the early 1880s, Stockton served aboard several vessels, and sailed throughout the Pacific. In 1885, he became executive officer aboard the USS Iroquois, and helped the Colombians quell a revolution when rebels blocked the isthmus, an act that directly impacted American interests. Stockton took this as another teaching moment of how to best delineate the legal methods of protecting commercial interests, and, more specifically, American citizens living abroad.

Writing and Lecturing

Shortly after this event, Stockton became interested in the history of the Philadelphia Naval Asylum, which assisted navy veterans. He wrote a 37-page pamphlet on the Asylum’s history, as well as an article for the Naval Institute’s publication “Proceedings.” The Naval Institute was impressed and requested he help judge the Naval Institute’s Prize Essays.

Now connected with fellow thought leaders and writers, Stockton began suggesting ways to educate sailors on more than how to sail, but how to think about big picture items, like law and the proper steps for protecting American interests domestically and abroad.

When Alfred T. Mahan, one of the leading thinkers of the U.S. Navy, issued a request for a lecturer who could speak on the subject of “Commerce and Commercial Routes Between Europe and the Pacific,” Stockton was sent. The success of his lecture reached his former teacher Luce, who was now a rear admiral. Luce directed Stockton to keep his lecture notes and to prepare to issue the same lecture the following year. Stockton was able to update and revise his lecture as Luce provided him new naval reports from the Caribbean and the Gulf.

His lecture became famous and was entitled, rather lengthily, “The Present Condition of Commerce and Commercial Routes Between Europe and the Pacific, with an Estimate of the Effect Produced on Them by a Trans-Isthmian Canal Including a View of the Military and Political Conditions of the Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea.”

First Command and a Lecture Series

In 1889, he was sent back to the seas, but this time in command of his own ship, the steamer and former whaling vessel Thetis. From San Francisco, he sailed to Alaska, surveyed the waters, and helped ensure the protection of American interests throughout the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean. Under his command, the Thetis was the first American government vessel to reach Mackenzie Bay.

Adm. Stockton on the steps of a town hall. Public Domain

Stockton also met the Inuit, where he informed them of the necessity of protecting and helping shipwrecked whalers. He also noticed the Inuits’ poor condition, noting that nothing was being done to help them. Based on his report, the Navy directed him to establish a local “house of refuge.”

Stockton was promoted to commander in 1892, and, the following year, he was installed as president of the Naval War College (a position he would hold twice). He focused his attention on teaching naval history, strategy, and tactics.

The year 1894 proved to be pivotal for Stockton’s career. The Navy Department had hired Harvard professor Freeman Snow, to give 22 lectures on international law. Shortly before he completed the lectures, Snow unexpectedly died. The War College asked Stockton to finish the lectures but to also assemble Snow’s lectures into a textbook. When he completed the book, three-fourths of it could be attributed directly to Stockton, but the naval commander gave the credit to Snow. In his preface, he thanked professor Silas MacVane, of Harvard, for his help in writing the book. MacVane wrote Stockton, “You overstate my share in the matter. … I wish I had a small corner, somewhere between the covers, to tell how completely the book is your own work.”

Creating the Naval Code

Despite having written this textbook, Stockton was concerned naval officers and sailors were sailing without the proverbial rudder. Just as the U.S. Army had a code—created during the Civil War by Francis Lieber—the U.S. Navy needed one.

“If officers are trained to rely upon the text of concise and crystallized rules, without reference to the spirit and principles behind them,” he wrote, “I believe they will be worse off than if they relied upon the principles and precedents alone and their native intelligence.”

On Nov. 2, 1899, Secretary of the Navy John Long directed Stockton to draft a code. He immediately began, basing it on his previous work and on the 1899 Hague Convention. He solicited comments from naval officers, including Capt. Asa Walker, Capt. Mahan, and Admiral of the Navy George Dewey. He also consulted academics Thomas Woolsey, of Yale, and George Wilson, of Brown. Stockton submitted his draft to Long in May 1900. On June 27, the Code, approved by President William McKinley in General Order 551, was issued to the U.S. Navy as a 27-page pamphlet.

The Blue Book and London

By 1901, Stockton had completed his International Law Studies, known as the “Blue Book” series, which remains the “journal for international law published by the U.S. Naval War College.” It laid out scenarios naval officers might face and how to address them based on international law.

In March 1901, Stockton was given command of the Navy’s best ship, the new battleship USS Kentucky. Shortly after taking command, he was also made chief of staff for the Asiatic Fleet.

After relief of command, he was sent to the American Embassy in London, where he lived with his family from May 1903 to December 1905 as the U.S. naval attaché. A month after leaving London and returning to America, he was promoted to rear admiral. It was a fitting end to his official career in the U.S. Navy, as he retired in October 1907.

Professorship and Legacy

Charles Stockton served as president of George Washington University. Public Domain

His work, however, was not finished. He was appointed by the United States as the country’s first delegate to the London Naval Conference of 1908–09. The purpose of the conference was to establish a code of laws to be recognized by all nations and to establish an International Prize Court (a court that would determine what countries should do with contraband). Stockton proved a formidable voice during the conference.

When he returned home, having recently moved to Washington, he became a professor of international law and diplomacy at George Washington University, and taught there from 1909 to 1921. He became president of the university from 1910 to 1918.

Soon, publisher Charles Scribner and Sons requested Stockton write a new volume on international law. Toward the end of 1914, Stockton’s “Outlines of International Law” was published.

For the next 10 years and the final decade of his life, Stockton remained a powerful voice for the U.S. Navy and a proponent of international law and the necessity of properly securing American interests around the globe.

According to John Hattendorf, the Ernest J. King professor emeritus of maritime history at the U.S. Naval War College, “From the 1880s to the early decades of the twentieth century, Charles Stockton was certainly the most important figure for the development of international law in the U.S. Navy.”

On Oct. 6, 1967, the Charles H. Stockton Chair of International Law was established at the Naval War College. The College also established the Stockton Center for International Law within the Center for Naval Warfare Studies.

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