US Navy Admiral. He was the Commander in Chief of the US Asiatic Fleet from 1917 to 1918. He is probably best remembered for his textbook "Modern Seamanship" (1901), a guide to ship handling and safety which became famous as the sailor's bible for pleasure boaters and professional seamen alike. The textbook was repeatedly updated for over eighty years, publishing its eighteenth edition in 1988, and was a standard reference for over eight decades. His father fought for the Union cause during the American Civil War. He received an appointment to the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland in June 1869, graduating in 1873. After service as a passed midshipman, he was commissioned an ensign in July 1874. Over the next two decades he served in various sea and shore assignments, including tours at the Naval Academy, and on the USS Tuscarora, USS Constellation, USS Chicago, USS Monongahela, and USS Lancaster. During the Spanish-American War, he served as navigator aboard the new monitor USS Puritan, participating in the blockade of Cuba and the conquest of Puerto Rico in 1898 and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant commander the following year. After attending the Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island in 1901, he commanded the armed yacht USS Yankton off the Cuban coast from 1901 to 1903, during which he was promoted to the rank of commander, and the gunboat USS Castine in the Atlantic Ocean from 1903 to 1904. He then returned to shore duty where for the next three years, he presided over a naval ordnance board and a joint Army-Navy board on smokeless powder. He was promoted to the rank of captain in 1907 and given command of the armored cruiser USS Washington in the Pacific Ocean. In 1909 he returned to shore duty and resumed the presidency of the naval ordnance board. In November 1910, the monitor USS Puritan was wrecked by an explosion of four hundred pounds of gelatin during ordnance tests being conducted under his direction. Based on the investigation results, the US Congress blamed him for the accident and for allowing the vessel to sink into the mud, despite its remaining afloat for 24 hours. A court-martial convened at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Virginia, and honorably acquitted him but 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 his acquittal and he was restored to active duty. He was promoted to the rank of rear admiral in May 1911 and assigned to command the Narragansett Bay Naval Station in Massachusetts. He served as Commander in Chief of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet from 1912 to 1913, interrupted by temporary duty to command a special squadron consisting of the USS Tennessee and USS Montana that was dispatched to the Eastern Mediterranean in November 1912 to protect American citizens in Turkey during the Balkan War. In December 1913 he became President of the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, serving until February 1917. He became an advocate, along with other naval reformers, for a navy general staff headed by a strong chief of naval operations with authority to command both the line and the bureaus, which was met with strong opposition from President Woodrow Wilson and Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels. In May 1917, he became Commander in Chief of the Asiatic Fleet and was promoted to the temporary rank of admiral. During this tour, he directed American naval operations during the Allied intervention at Vladivostok, Siberia during the Russian Civil War, and was chairman of the ten-nation council tasked with preserving order in the Russian Far East. In December 1918 he relinquished command and reverted to his permanent rank of rear admiral and retired with 45 years of continuous active military service. In March 1919 he was recalled to active duty to serve as Senior Member of the Board of Awards, Known as the Knight Board. No medals had been awarded for naval service during World War I prior to the armistice, so in March 1919, Navy Secretary Daniels appointed him to head a board to review all recommendations of commanding officers for the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Medal, and Navy Cross, and to submit a uniform list of recommended honors. The board was comprised of him and eight other retired officers, a roster that drew harsh criticism as most of the board members had retired prior to America's entry into World War I and none had any personal familiarity with conditions in the combat war zone. At the end of October 1919, Navy Secretary Daniels suddenly dissolved the Board before its work was finished and he drew up his own list of awards. Daniels' list aroused immediate outrage for its perceived caprice; in particular, every commanding officer of a ship that had been sunk by the enemy received the Distinguished Service Medal, while many commanding officers of ships that sank enemy vessels received no medal. Many officers refused the medals awarded them, most prominently Admiral William Sims. Daniels hastily reconvened the Knight Board, but the second session's recommendations fared little better than the first, as the final decision over which medals to award remained the sole prerogative of the Secretary of the Navy. The awards fiasco led directly to the creation of a largely independent Navy Department Board of Decorations and Medals. Knight left the Navy for the second time in June 1920. He received the Distinguished Service Medal for meritorious service as Commander in Chief of the Asiatic Fleet during Allied naval operations at Vladivostok. Additionally, he was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Rising Sun by the government of Japan. He died in Washington DC at the age of 72. In November 1930 he was posthumously advanced to admiral on the retired list with date of rank February 26, 1927, in recognition of his World War I service. The destroyer USS Knight, launched in September 1941, was named in his honor.