In Medieval days up till the early 1800′s there were no engines and no Snipes. 

Along about 1812 the Navy obtained their first paddle wheel steamer named the 

USS Fulton. To run the boiler and engine, men of steam were also acquired. They 

were not sailors but engineers from early land based steam engines.

From the beginning the sailors did not like or appreciate these landsmen and their 

foul smoky plants. They were treated with contempt and pretty much given the 

short end of the stick.  In spite of all this the steam engine prevailed. There were 

still two crews however. The Engineers and the Deck crew.

Soon an Engineer Officer was appointed to each ship. He was the Engineer Master 

and all the Engineers reported to him. The Deck sailors reported to the ship’s Deck 

Master Curiously, the two masters were on equal footing and neither was over the 

other. The Deck Master though was in the best position. He controlled the quarters 

and rations. The Engineers were still at the mercy of the deck gang. By the height 

of the civil war, as steam was taking over and sails were disappearing the old Admirals 

that controlled the Navy were in a quandary what to do about the situation.

They accomplished a couple of things. First, they managed to make the senior Master a 

Captain. As Captain he was in overall command of the ship and the Engineering officer 

reported to him. Beings as how there were occasions that the Engineer master outranked 

the ship’s master something had to be done to keep the Engineer from becoming 

“Captain”. 

To solve this problem they developed two separate Officer branches. Staff and Line. Only 

Line Officers could succeed to command. Staff Officers would always be subservient to Line 

Officers at sea. Staff Officers consisted of Surgeons, Supply and yes, Engineering officers. To 

this day that is still true. The second change was to make all engineers’ Navy men, however 

they were also made junior to all deck sailors. A petty officer machinist was junior to a deck 

seaman third. All this went to make the life of the engineers even more miserable. They could 

now be flogged and harassed at will by the Deck crew.

Along about this time came an Engineer Officer by the name of John Snipes. I cannot find the 

name of the ship he first appeared on, but he was a different cut from the others. He demanded 

sleeping accommodations, and food equal to the Deck gang. He also declared that there would 

be no more harassment for his gang. When the ship’s Captain laughed at him Snipes simply had 

his men put out the fires in the boiler. To make a long story short, Snipes brought about the 

changes in the system. In time these changes extended to the entire Naval fleet. The Engineers 

became strictly “hands off” for the Deck gang.