The American Navy

When Great Britain attempted to reduce to obedience the rebellious colonies which were to form the United States of America she was dealing with a people who in the North at lea...

In September, 1744, there met at Philadelphia, then our foremost city, representatives of each of the thirteen colonies, called together on account of the increasing difficultie...

The ships put afloat by Congress and which may be taken as the regular navy of the Revolution were, however, strongly supplemented by the navies of the states (except New Jersey...

It was not until February, 1776, that what may be termed a strictly naval event took form in the sailing of the little fleet in command of Commodore Esek Hopkins, under orders w...

Silas Deane had been the first American agent abroad, reaching Europe in July, 1776. Franklin and Arthur Lee arrived in France in December of that year, the former in the brig _...

The new treaty with France was to bring into special prominence one of the most remarkable characters of his time, John Paul Jones. On October 10, 1776, he had been made the eig...

The activity of American privateers as well as Continental ships in British waters during 1777-1779 was very great, that of the _Reprisal_, _Lexington_, _Dolphin_, and _Revenge_...

It was well that Providence had given America Washington who, when all things seemed to fail, held firm and carried us to victory. Without him the nation could not have survived...

Stretching along the southern shore of the Mediterranean some 1,800 miles, in the latitude, roughly speaking, of Cape Hatteras, are the regions known to our forefathers as Barba...

The depredations of the new French Republic had come to give an impetus to our new navy, and on April 27, 1798, $950,000 was appropriated for its increase, and a regular navy de...

The ending of the war with France was but to find, shortly, another on our hands, for which the former, however, was an admirable preparation at a minimum cost; for it had cause...

We now come to the other and vastly more honorable phase of our relations with the Barbary powers and to a series of actions which form one of the most dramatic chapters of Amer...

Preble left for home without having come to terms with the Pacha of Tripoli. He was not willing to rise above $500 for each of the captives, and would offer nothing for peace or...

While we were fighting the Algerines, we were suffering from depredations on our commerce by France and England a hundredfold more serious than all we had undergone from the Afr...

There were three important and epoch-making events in the war: the victory of the _Constitution_ over the _Guerrière_, the battle of Lake Erie, and the battle of Lake Champlain....

The British force on our own coast was now, in 1813, much increased. Particular attention was paid to the approaches of New York and to the Chesapeake, which latter region was d...

Our army efforts on the frontier of Canada had been great failures. In the very beginning of the war General William Hull, Governor of Michigan, had been obliged to surrender hi...

There was to be one other battle on the lakes, that of Lake Champlain, which was to have momentous consequences quite equal to that of Lake Erie, and place the name of young Tho...

The war had no more than begun when the question of peace was being considered. The United States had gone to war for two causes: the “Orders in Council” which bore so heavily u...

Though thirty-one years was to pass before the United States was again to be at war with a foreign power, and then with Mexico--which had no navy--they were far from being years...

Though there were many mutterings of the coming tempest in the decade 1850-1860, the navy, whose duty, unaffected by internal politics, lay abroad, went its even tenor. We had c...

The end of the “Brothers’ War” had made of the United States a nation. Our country took its place in the world, and its fleets again reached into every sea. But the lessons of t...

Naval action now shifts almost entirely to the Caribbean. Until in the last days of the war there was to be in the Pacific no further special naval movement beyond the seizure o...

The losses of the navy in the war with Spain were extraordinarily small. There were but sixteen killed and sixty-eight wounded, of whom two died later. But even more remarkable,...