Austin Melvin Knight

Austin Melvin Knight (December 16, 1854 – February 26, 1927) was an admiral in the United States Navy. He was commander in chief of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet from 1917 to 1918. His 1901 textbook Modern Seamanship was a standard reference for over eight decades. Early career Born in Ware, Massachusetts, to future American Civil War veteran Charles Sanford Knight and Cordelia Cutter Knight, Austin Melvin Knight was appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy from Florida on June 30, 1869, graduating in 1873. After service as a passed midshipman, he was commissioned ensign on July 16, 1874. He served in various sea and shore assignments over the next two decades, including tours at the Naval Academy, and in , , , , and . During the Spanish–American War Knight served as navigator aboard the new monitor , participating in the blockade of Cuba and the taking of Puerto Rico in 1898. After attending the Naval War College at Newport in 1901, he commanded the armed yacht off the Cuban coast from 1901 to 1903, and the gunboat in the Atlantic from 1903 to 1904. During the next three years, he presided over a naval ordnance board and a joint Army-Navy board on smokeless powder. Knight was promoted to captain in 1907 and given command of the armored cruiser in the Pacific. He resumed the presidency of the naval ordnance board in 1909. Court martial In November 1910, the monitor was wrecked by an explosion of four hundred pounds of gelatin during ordnance tests being conducted under Knight's direction. The board of inquiry reported that the monitor had been allowed to sink into the mud despite having remained afloat for twenty-two hours, subsequently requiring the services of a wrecking company to raise. Congress blamed Knight for this perceived lapse and ordered that he be prosecuted for "culpable negligence and inefficiency in the performance of duty". A court-martial of seven rear admirals convened at the Norfolk Navy Yard, and honorably acquitted Knight. Secretary of the Navy George von Lengerke Meyer disapproved the finding and referred the case back to the court for reconsideration, but the court reaffirmed Knight's acquittal and he was restored to active duty.