Early Development and 19th-Century Operations of the United States Navy

Image Credentials: Image Title: Early Development and 19th-Century Operations of the United States Navy Source: (gemini) Date: August 2025  Attribution: Created by AI-generated imagery (gemini), it does not depict a real-world scene.

The United States was without a navy for nearly a decade, a state of affairs that exposed U.S. maritime merchant ships to a series of attacks by the Barbary pirates. The sole armed maritime presence between 1790 and the launching of the U.S. Navy’s first warships in 1797 was the U.S. Revenue-Marine, the primary predecessor of the U.S. Coast Guard. Although the United States Revenue Cutter Service conducted operations against the pirates, the pirates’ depredations far outstripped its abilities, and Congress passed the Naval Act of 1794 that established a permanent standing navy on 27 March 1794. The Naval Act ordered the construction and manning of six frigates and, by October 1797, the first three were brought into service: USS United States, USS Constellation, and USS Constitution. Due to his strong posture on having a strong standing Navy during this period, John Adams is “often called the father of the American Navy”. In 1798–99, the Navy was involved in an undeclared Quasi-War with France. From 1801 to 1805, in the First Barbary War, the U.S. Navy defended U.S. ships from the Barbary pirates, blockaded the Barbary ports, and executed attacks against the Barbary fleets.

The U.S. Navy saw substantial action in the War of 1812, where it fought numerous engagements with the Royal Navy. It emerged victorious in the Battle of Lake Erie and prevented the region from becoming a threat to American operations in the area. The result was a major victory for the U.S. Army at the Niagara Frontier of the war, and the defeat of Tecumseh’s confederacy at the Battle of the Thames. Despite this, the U.S. Navy could not prevent the British from blockading its ports and landing troops. But after the War of 1812 ended in 1815, the U.S. Navy primarily focused its attention on protecting American shipping assets, sending squadrons to the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, where it participated in the Second Barbary War that ended piracy in the region, South America, Africa, and the Pacific. From 1819 to the outbreak of the Civil War, the Africa Squadron operated to suppress the slave trade, seizing 36 slave ships, although its contribution was smaller than that of the much larger Royal Navy. After 1840, several secretaries of the Navy were southerners who advocated for strengthening southern naval defenses, expanding the fleet, and making naval technological improvements.

During the Mexican–American War, the U.S. Navy blockaded Mexican ports, capturing or burning the Mexican fleet in the Gulf of California and capturing all major cities in the Baja California peninsula. In 1846–1848, the Navy successfully used the Pacific Squadron under Commodore Robert F. Stockton and its marines and blue-jackets to facilitate the capture of California with large-scale land operations coordinated with the local militia organized in the California Battalion. The Navy conducted the U.S. military’s first large-scale amphibious joint operation by successfully landing 12,000 army troops with their equipment in one day at Veracruz, Mexico. When larger guns were needed to bombard Veracruz, Navy volunteers landed large guns and manned them in the successful bombardment and capture of the city. This successful landing and capture of Veracruz opened the way for the capture of Mexico City and the end of the war. The U.S. Navy established itself as a player in United States foreign policy through the actions of Commodore Matthew C. Perry in Japan, which resulted in the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854.

Naval power played a significant role during the American Civil War, in which the Union had a distinct advantage over the Confederacy on the seas. A Union blockade on all major ports shut down exports and the coastal trade, but blockade runners provided a thin lifeline. The Brown-water navy components of the U.S. Navy controlled the river systems, making internal travel difficult for Confederates and easy for the Union. The war saw ironclad warships in combat for the first time at the Battle of Hampton Roads in 1862, which pitted USS Monitor against CSS Virginia. For two decades after the war, however, the U.S. Navy’s fleet was neglected and became technologically obsolete.

References

• Naval History and Heritage Command. “The Naval Act of 1794.” U.S. Department of the Navy. Last modified 2024. Accessed August 21, 2025. https://www.history.navy.mil.

• U.S. Coast Guard Historian’s Office. “The United States Revenue Cutter Service: Origins and Early Operations.” U.S. Coast Guard. Last modified 2023. Accessed August 21, 2025. https://www.history.uscg.mil.

• Adams, John. The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1851.

• Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Quasi-War.” Last modified 2023. Accessed August 21, 2025. https://www.britannica.com/event/Quasi-War.

• Naval History and Heritage Command. “The Barbary Wars: 1801–1815.” U.S. Department of the Navy. Last modified 2024. Accessed August 21, 2025. https://www.history.navy.mil.

• Encyclopaedia Britannica. “War of 1812.” Last modified 2023. Accessed August 21, 2025. https://www.britannica.com/event/War-of-1812.

• Naval History and Heritage Command. “Africa Squadron and the Suppression of the Slave Trade.” U.S. Department of the Navy. Last modified 2023. Accessed August 21, 2025. https://www.history.navy.mil.

• Library of Congress. “Mexican-American War and the U.S. Navy.” Last modified 2024. Accessed August 21, 2025. https://www.loc.gov.

• Perry, Matthew C. Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1856.

• Encyclopaedia Britannica. “American Civil War: Naval Operations.” Last modified 2023. Accessed August 21, 2025. https://www.britannica.com/event/American-Civil-War.

• Naval History and Heritage Command. “The Battle of Hampton Roads: USS Monitor vs. CSS Virginia.” Last modified 2023. Accessed August 21, 2025. https://www.history.navy.mil.

• Hagan, Kenneth J. This People’s Navy: The Making of American Sea Power. New York: Free Press, 1991.

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