Excerpt from The American Battleship in Commission: As Seen by an Enlisted Man Also Many Man-O'-War Yarns The entire contents of this book concern the Navy. I, the author, am an enlisted man. This preface is not to make excuses for my book; the work speaks for itself. Many sailors keep a log in which all important events are recorded. Were it not for the log which I have kept, I would undoubtedly have been unable to write this book, since much of the contents were derived from this record. My main object is to furnish the general 'public with as much information about the Navy as possible, and by having a plain education it has caused me to write the contents in a style of my own, but the book, however, contains the material. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.