United States Navy
- Date:
- 1798 - present
- Areas Of Involvement:
- naval warfare
- defense
- sea power
- Related People:
- Husband Edward Kimmel
- John Connally
- Tim Sheehy
- James Stockdale
- Mildred Helen McAfee
- Related Facts And Data:
- Pearl Harbor attack - Facts
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United States Navy (USN), major branch of the United States armed forces charged with the defense of the country at sea, the seaborne support of the other U.S. military services, and the maintenance of security on the seas wherever the interests of the United States extend.
The Navy in the Revolutionary era
The earliest sea battles of the American Revolution took place after the Battle of Lexington, when 9 of the 13 colonies armed small vessels for the protection of local waterborne commerce. When George Washington took command of the Continental Army in July 1775, he found his troops without ammunition and arranged for a ship of the Rhode Island navy to sail to Bermuda for powder. Soon afterward Washington fitted out seven small vessels, part of a rudimentary navy that was gradually forming, and manned them with seagoing troops in order to interfere with British supply ships. Commodore John Manly directed this force and commanded the most successful of the vessels, capturing in one British ship a quantity of munitions equivalent to the manufacturing capacity of the colonies for about 18 months.
Significant, too, during these embryonic years of a national maritime force, was naval officer John Barry, who won significant victories at sea during the revolution. Because he had trained so many young officers who later became celebrated in the nation’s history, he was often called the “Father of the Navy.”
On October 13, 1775, the Continental Congress voted to fit out ships, and the Marine Committee, later appointed, sent the first Continental squadron to sea, under the command of Esek Hopkins, for the purpose of capturing munitions. In fact, Congress had declared all British vessels subject to capture and even authorized privateering. In the aggregate, this new Continental Navy comprised about 60 ships and made an impressive showing. John Paul Jones had spectacular successes in British home waters. In addition to cruising against enemy merchantmen and British blockaders, the Continental vessels were required to make many voyages carrying diplomatic representatives and essential cargo. Arrangements for the administration of the Continental vessels were not efficient, and the shortage of money imposed severe handicaps. Privateering offered much better financial inducements and made recruiting for naval vessels difficult. Together, the Continental Navy and the privateers touched the pocketbook nerve of British merchants, and each one of the many petitions to the king importuning for an end to the war stressed the severe losses which the English mercantile community was suffering.
The Royal Navy enabled the British army to force the surrender of Savannah, Georgia; Charleston, South Carolina; and Wilmington, North Carolina. It ravaged the coast of Connecticut and burned Norfolk, Virginia, and Falmouth, Maine, and other coastal towns while enabling the British army to strike at will along the seaboard. By 1778 Washington realized that he needed the help of a superior French fleet to enable him to inflict a truly decisive defeat on the British. Thereafter he constantly urged Benjamin Franklin—who was in Paris representing American government—on the need for French ships rather than French troops. In the Battle of the Chesapeake (Battle of Virginia Capes), on September 5, 1781, a powerful British fleet was defeated by the French armada commanded by François-Joseph-Paul, comte de Grasse. The presence of the French fleet prevented the Royal Navy from rescuing the British from the Yorktown Peninsula, and Washington forced the surrender of the British army under Lord Cornwallis on October 19, 1781.
After the Revolution the Continental Navy was disbanded and its vessels sold. The first Congress under the new Constitution provided for an army but decided that a navy was not necessary. Destruction of U.S. commerce by Barbary pirates caused Congress to authorize the building of six frigates in 1794 and to establish the navy department on April 30, 1798. Successes in the quasi-war with France in 1798 (sparked by the XYZ Affair) and in the Tripolitan War gave the naval commanders Thomas Truxtun, Edward Preble, and Stephen Decatur national reputations and provided the young navy with experience and self-confidence.
The U.S. Navy in the 19th century
The War of 1812 grew out of British impressment of U.S. seamen and other grievances. The overwhelming size of the British navy made possible a damaging blockade of all principal U.S. ports. It also enabled the British to capture and burn Washington, D.C., and to attack Baltimore, Maryland, and New Orleans, Louisiana, and various coastal towns, while driving U.S. shipping from the seas. American victories in a number of frigate actions were helpful in keeping up the national spirit and added to the prestige of the navy. Among the most-notable engagements was Isaac Hull’s victory over the British frigate Guerriere on August 19, 1812. Hull’s ship, the Constitution, earned the nickname “Old Ironsides” in the engagement and went on to become the oldest commissioned warship still afloat. Oliver Hazard Perry’s decisive victory at the Battle of Lake Erie (September 10, 1813) secured American control of the Northwest and forced the British to abandon Detroit.
Between 1815 and 1861 the U.S. Navy appeared in seaports all over the world, assisted commerce, made treaties in the Near East and Far East, explored and surveyed unfamiliar areas, conducted many scientific expeditions, and played a major role in ending piracy. The Naval Academy was established at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1845 by George Bancroft, then secretary of the navy. During the Mexican-American War (1846–48), the navy took over California and administered the government. It also escorted and landed troops at Veracruz as part of the campaign against Mexico City. On July 8, 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay, effectively ending centuries of Japanese isolation from the West and paving the way for the Treaty of Kanagawa, which Perry concluded the following year.
When the American Civil War began in 1861, the U.S. Navy had about 10,000 officers and men and 90 ships. Only 42 of those ships were in commission, and only 12 were in the home squadron. Many able and experienced officers “went South” and built the Confederate Navy, with the assistance of about 2,000 guns and 11 ships captured with the Norfolk navy yard. On April 19, 1861, Pres. Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of all Southern ports. To many it seemed difficult if not futile to try to blockade Southern seaports with a small navy, but by the end of the year more than 150 ships had been captured in attempting to evade the blockade. The blockade isolated the Confederate States and curtailed their overseas supplies of munitions. The Confederacy responded by outfitting its own fleet of foreign-built commerce raiders, and the actions of the British-built CSS Alabama would lead to a diplomatic crisis between the U.S. and Britain.
There were relatively few significant confrontations between the Union and Confederate navies, but the Civil War would see the practical debut of several technologies that would forever change naval warfare. The indecisive clash of the Merrimack and the Monitor (March 9, 1862) ushered in the era of the ironclad and signaled the end of the era of wooden navies. The sinking of the Union sloop Housatonic by the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley (February 17, 1864) demonstrated the viability of a submersible as a naval weapon.
The most strategically significant naval actions of the war took place along the Mississippi River. There, David Farragut and his foster brother David Dixon Porter, working with Union ground commanders, effectively split the Confederacy in two. Farragut breached the defenses of the port of New Orleans, and the city fell into Union hands on April 25, 1862. Vicksburg, Mississippi, a strategic rail hub halfway between Memphis, Tennessee, and New Orleans, became the key Confederate strongpoint on the river, resisting several attempts at capture. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant devised a bold strategy to take the city, and Porter’s fleet staged an audacious run past Vicksburg’s formidable shore batteries to ferry Grant’s forces across the Mississippi. The maneuver allowed Grant to take the city from the rear. After a two-month siege, the city surrendered and the Vicksburg Campaign was brought to a successful conclusion. The fall of Vicksburg cut off the eastern Confederacy from vital agricultural resources in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas and marked a turning point in the war.
