JAMES W. COWIE, ENS, USN
James Cowie '67
James Walker Cowie was admitted to the Naval Academy from Iowa on February 25, 1863 at age 14 years 11 months.
Prior to the publication of the Lucky Bag in 1894, most portraits of officers and midshipmen of the Naval Academy were captured in yearly photo albums. The album for 1867 is available in the collections of the Naval Academy's Digital Collections.
Special thank you to historian Kathy Franz for identifying this resource and then extracting several dozen photographs for this site.
Prior to the publication of the Lucky Bag in 1894, most portraits of officers and midshipmen of the Naval Academy were captured in yearly photo albums. The album for 1867 is available in the collections of the Naval Academy's Digital Collections.
Special thank you to historian Kathy Franz for identifying this resource and then extracting several dozen photographs for this site.
Loss
James was lost on January 24, 1870 when USS Oneida was sunk following a collision with a British merchant steamer while departing Yokohama harbor, Japan. One hundred twenty-four other officers and men were also lost.
A detailed account of the event is available here.
He has a memory marker in Washington, D.C.
Career
From the Naval History and Heritage Command:
Acting Midshipman, 25 February, 1863. Graduated 6 June, 1867. Ensign, 18 December, 1868. Lost on board the Oneida, 24 January, 1870.
Remembrances
From the Marysville Daily Appeal, 24 March 1870, via the records of the US Naval Academy Alumni Association:
The Officers of the Oneida. Below we give sketches of some of the officers who perished in the ill-fated Oneida:
ENSIGN JAMES W. COWIE was born in Scotland, and was appointed to the position of midshipman at the Naval Academy, then at Newport, in February, 1863. The class of which he was a member shortly after became merged in the date of 1863, and there he was widely known and respected. Mr. Cowie was a fine seaman, excelled in professional duties and all his aspirations were allied to the service. He was a young man of genuine wit, kindly in bit nature and decisive in action. His course at the Naval Academy was highly commendable, and his dry drollery served to relieve the monotony of tedious and unwholesome hours. No one who knew him will forget his inimitable power of the ridiculous or his character as an impersonator of curious traits. Mr. Cowie was justly beloved and had an auspicious future. Latterly he resided in Washington. Mr. Cowie, like Mr. Brown, was connected with the most prominent events of his time at the Academy, and there every one will appreciate the serious character of hit lots to the service of the country.
Related Articles
Edward Williams '53, William Stewart '61, John Phelan '66, Charles Brown '67, Charles Copp '68, James Hull '68, William Uhler '68, George Bower '68, and George Adams '68 were also lost aboard Oneida.
The "Register of Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps" was published annually from 1815 through at least the 1970s; it provided rank, command or station, and occasionally billet until the beginning of World War II when command/station was no longer included. Scanned copies were reviewed and data entered from the mid-1840s through 1922, when more-frequent Navy Directories were available.
The Navy Directory was a publication that provided information on the command, billet, and rank of every active and retired naval officer. Single editions have been found online from January 1915 and March 1918, and then from three to six editions per year from 1923 through 1940; the final edition is from April 1941.
The entries in both series of documents are sometimes cryptic and confusing. They are often inconsistent, even within an edition, with the name of commands; this is especially true for aviation squadrons in the 1920s and early 1930s.
Alumni listed at the same command may or may not have had significant interactions; they could have shared a stateroom or workspace, stood many hours of watch together… or, especially at the larger commands, they might not have known each other at all. The information provides the opportunity to draw connections that are otherwise invisible, though, and gives a fuller view of the professional experiences of these alumni in Memorial Hall.
January 1864
January 1866
July 1867
July 1868
January 1869
Class of 1867 Etching Book
Midshipman Benjamin Park '67 created a book, "Shahings", that was a collection of etchings he created for his classmates. It is an interesting and entertaining collection. It is available at the University of California, and a copy is provided here.
The "category" links below lead to lists of related Honorees; use them to explore further the service and sacrifice of alumni in Memorial Hall.
