propriety, was himself involved that very fall in a case wherein the president of the United States accused him of disloyal conduct. The story need only be sketched.12 President Roosevelt had let it be known that he intended to put medical officers in command of naval hospital ships. Brownson protested directly and indirectly that this was illegal, unwise, and prejudicial to the best interests of the service. What did doctors know about ships or, for that matter, about anything to do with the navy other than the insides of sailors? When Roosevelt persisted and made it clear that he was going to put his wishes in the form of an order, Brownson requested relief from the bureau. Roosevelt wrote a long official letter in which he said he considered this conduct childish, something done out of pique, and a “gross impropriety.” Brownson said nothing in public. He considered his position regarding the medical officers the only one he could take with honor. As far as TR’s outburst was concerned, the admiral confided to his diary: “I could not bandy words with the President.” Had he, he would have reminded the president that “he had no right to administer a public reprimand to me except by sentence of a Court Martial.” In Brownson’s mind, and clearly that was the only thing that mattered to him, “My action in resigning . . . was due entirely to a sense of duty to the service to which I had been so devoted for forty-six years.” The case, which got considerable public attention, was a striking example of insubordination based on principle. It made Hart’s incident pale by comparison; that must have been clear to both the admiral and the lieutenant. But what self-sacrifice it must have been by the father of the woman he loved.
After his retirement the Brownsons left Washington in the spring of 1908, but they returned in the fall. Out of the navy, the admiral had time to pursue his other interests, such as hunting, fishing, shooting, and serving on a variety of boards both public and private. Tommy Hart again took up his own chase. The admiral remained dubious about the relationship, but by the spring of 1909 he could see that further protests were useless. In March, as Hart was preparing to go back to sea, Brownson relented and the engagement was announced.
Firmly established now as an ordnance specialist, Hart was assigned as a gunnery officer in the battleship Virginia. The commanding officer of the ship was his old mentor from Spanish-American War days, Alex Sharp, and the two took up their association where it had left off. As gunnery officer, Hart was charged with preparing the gun crews for the competitions, which were extremely heated, between the various battleships. His primary competitor was his classmate Luther M. Overstreet. For the year 1909 Overstreet’s ship came in first and Hart’s second, but Sharp described Hart as a “fine” even “splendid” officer. In recognition of these qualities Hart was promoted to lieutenant commander in August and a few months later he and Overstreet were reassigned from their old ships and ordered to two of the first U.S. dreadnoughts, the North Dakota for Hart and the Delaware for Overstreet. Hart continued to come in second, but his new commanding officer shared Sharp’s high opinion of him, remarking specifically about his “great zeal” in working up the new ship’s guns.
In March 1910 Hart returned to Washington for a day that he ever after considered the luckiest in his life. On the 30th of March, at the Brownsons’ sizable new home, Caroline Robinson Brownson was married to Thomas Charles Hart by Chaplain H.D. Clark, who was Naval Academy chaplain during Brownson’s and Hart’s duty at Annapolis. The best man was Lieutenant Commander Leigh C. Palmer (class of 1896), and the groomsmen were Lieutenant Hugo W. Osterhaus (class of 1900), Lieutenant Commander Robert “Jock” Crank (class of 1892), and Lieutenant Commander Luther Overstreet (class of 1897) of battleship gunnery competition. It was a simple, but elegant, noon affair with some one hundred guests present. Navy predominated, but enough government officials and “cave dwellers” were sprinkled in to make it quite “social.”13
The bride, who wore a gown of white satin trimmed with old lace, deserves our careful attention. Caroline Hart was five feet six and one-half inches tall, very slender, and portraits reveal dark brown eyes and an abundance of brown hair. She was not beautiful but was quite striking in the strength and character she exuded. Although not vivacious, neither was she shy, perhaps “reserved” would be a better word. In some ways she was the typical, upper-class, well-mannered, protected lady of the day. Her father did not believe in formal higher education for women but she had the gentlewoman’s knowledge of music, foreign languages, literature and, departing from the norm, history. She was a good dancer, a good horsewoman, a fair ice skater, and for that era, played a good game of tennis; the tennis champion, Bill Larned, was one of her best friends. Her familiarity with sports such as salmon-fishing was the result of her father’s interest in the vigorous life. To say that she was better-rounded than the typical lady would be no exaggeration, nor would it be stretching the point to suggest that she was a person of exceptional strength, intelligence, and determination. She was a distinct asset as a naval wife. Caroline Hart knew the territory, so to speak, and was just the person to polish off any rough edges that might remain on her husband’s exterior. There would seem to be little question that she and Tommy were beginning a marriage, love affair, and partnership in which they were willing to invest everything they had.
Lieutenant Commander Thomas C. Hart, photographed, at the request of his future mother-in-law, before his marriage to Caroline Brownson in 1910. Courtesy of Mrs. T. C. Hart
In Tommy’s case there was not much other than his career and himself that he could contribute to the bargain, but of himself he was willing to invest without measure. The career, insofar as possible, would stay at the office and take care of itself. What Tommy was looking for, and found in Caroline, was a wife who would devote herself fully to him, who would provide stability and guidance to their children when they came, who would maintain a gracious home and haven to which he could return, who could hold her own with him in outdoor activities and at dinner parties, who had grace and style. In Caroline he had found someone who came closer to that ideal than he could really know in 1910. He was, as he later said so often, truly lucky in his choice of a mate.
While admitting the significant role that luck or fate played in the union, it is intriguing to speculate on what attracted Tommy to Caroline. Leaving aside all the important, but in the final analysis, superficial things like physical beauty, one comes down to several speculative, but rather safe factors that probably explain why he was drawn to her. For one thing, winning her must have seemed quite a challenge. As already mentioned, Caroline’s world was far different from Tommy’s and, at least in her father’s view, which he made rather generally known, Hart was marrying out of his class. That naturally posed another challenge, that of proving her father wrong, at least regarding his promise within his chosen profession. Another factor influencing his attraction to Caroline must have been his respect for her good sense and stability. A man capable of violent outbursts of temper, or at least of invective, he generally held himself in rigid self-control. He wanted a woman with self-control and strength because he knew he would not be able to continue to love someone he could walk over. But in fact he had no interest in walking over her—he wanted an ideal love in which competition did not play a role. And, while everyone to a greater or lesser degree wants ideal love, Tommy was absolutely determined to be successful in his quest. It was the one big thing missing in his life and, when he thought back, he realized that it had always been missing. In Caroline he saw a chance to have the things he had never really had: a home, a family, and the warm, emotional glow that comes from knowing that you have created something permanent in the midst of a changing world. Caroline looked to Tommy like his kind of fellow architect.
After a short honeymoon at The Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia, it was back to sea for the bridegroom. It may not have been luck but it was surely welcome when the chance arose to cut short his cruise. The navy was establishing a torpedo factory at what had been a small experimental plant in Newport, Rhode Island. Harry Yarnell, whom Hart highly esteemed, had done the initial work at Newport and had been asked to pick his successor. Apparently the regard was mutual, for Yarnell picked Hart to replace him as head of the Division of Maintenance and Repair. This meant returning to shore a year early, picking up where Yarnell left off; in
