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| Secretary of the Navy | |
|---|---|
 Seal of the Navy Department | |
| Department of the Navy | |
| Style | Mr. Secretary |
| Member of | the Cabinet |
| Reports to | The President |
| Seat | Richmond, Virginia |
| Appointer | The President with Senate advice and consent |
| Formation | March 4, 1861 |
| Abolished | May 20, 1865 |
The Confederate States secretary of the navy was the head of the Confederate States Department of the Navy. Stephen R. Mallory held this position through the entire duration of the Confederate States of America.
| No. | Portrait | Secretary of the Navy | Took office | Left office | Time in office | Party | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stephen R. Mallory (1812–1873) | March 4, 1861 | May 20, 1865 | 4 years, 77 days | Democratic |
| Vice-President |
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| Secretary of State |
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| Secretary of the Treasury |
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| Secretary of War |
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| Secretary of the Navy |
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| Postmaster-General |
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| Attorney-General |
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The secretary of war was a member of the U.S. president's Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's administration. A similar position, called either "Secretary at War" or "Secretary of War", had been appointed to serve the Congress of the Confederation under the Articles of Confederation between 1781 and 1789. Benjamin Lincoln and later Henry Knox held the position. When Washington was inaugurated as the first President under the Constitution, he appointed Knox to continue serving as Secretary of War.
The secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) is a statutory officer and the head of the Department of the Navy, a military department within the United States Department of Defense.
The Norfolk Naval Shipyard, often called the Norfolk Navy Yard and abbreviated as NNSY, is a U.S. Navy facility in Portsmouth, Virginia, for building, remodeling and repairing the Navy's ships. It is the oldest and largest industrial facility that belongs to the U.S. Navy as well as the most comprehensive. Located on the Elizabeth River, the yard is just a short distance upriver from its mouth at Hampton Roads.
The Confederate States Navy (CSN) was the naval branch of the Confederate States Armed Forces, established by an act of the Confederate States Congress on February 21, 1861. It was responsible for Confederate naval operations during the American Civil War against the United States's Union Navy.
Stephen Russell Mallory was a Democratic senator from Florida from 1851 to the secession of his home state and the outbreak of the American Civil War. For much of that period, he was chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs. It was a time of rapid naval reform, and he insisted that the ships of the U.S. Navy should be as capable as those of Britain and France, the foremost navies in the world at that time. He also wrote a bill and guided it through Congress to provide for compulsory retirement of officers who did not meet the standards of the profession.
The several branches of the United States Armed Forces are represented by flags. Within the U.S. military, various flags fly on various occasions, and on various ships, bases, camps, and military academies.
Franklin Buchanan was an officer in the United States Navy who became the only full admiral in the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War. He also commanded the ironclad CSS Virginia.
William Ballard Preston was an American politician who served as a Confederate States Senator from Virginia from February 18, 1862, until his death in November. He previously served as the 19th United States Secretary of the Navy from 1849 to 1850. He is also the cousin of William Campbell Preston and William Preston.
The Confederate States Marine Corps (CSMC), also referred to as the Confederate States Marines, was a branch of the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War. It was established by an act of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States on March 16, 1861. The Corps' manpower was initially authorized at 45 officers and 944 enlisted men, and was increased on September 24, 1862, to 1,026 enlisted men. The organization of the Corps began at Montgomery, Alabama, and was completed at Richmond, Virginia, when the capital of the Confederate States was moved to that location. The headquarters and main training facilities remained in Richmond throughout the war, located at Camp Beall on Drewry's Bluff and at the Gosport Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia. The last Marine unit surrendered to the Union army on April 9, 1865, with the Confederacy itself capitulating a month later.
Hilary Abner Herbert was Secretary of the Navy in the second administration of President Grover Cleveland. He also served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Alabama.
CSS Jamestown, originally a side-wheel, passenger steamer, was built at New York City in 1853, and seized at Richmond, Virginia in 1861 for the Virginia Navy during the early days of the American Civil War. She was commissioned by the Confederate States Navy (CSN) the following July, and renamed CSS Thomas Jefferson but was generally referred to as Jamestown, after Jamestown, Virginia.
CSS Florida was a sloop-of-war in the service of the Confederate States Navy. She served as a commerce raider during the American Civil War before being sunk in 1864.
Augustus Emmet Maxwell was an American lawyer and politician. Maxwell served in a number of political positions in the State of Florida including as one of Florida's senators to the Confederate States Congress, Florida Secretary of State, and as Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court.
French Forrest was an American naval officer who served first in the United States Navy and later the Confederate States Navy. His combat experience prior to the American Civil War included service in the War of 1812 and the Mexican–American War.
The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies in the War of the Rebellion, commonly known as the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies or Official Records, is the most extensive collection of American Civil War land warfare records available to the general public. It includes selected first-hand accounts, orders, reports, maps, diagrams, and correspondence drawn from official records of both Union and Confederate armies.
Military leadership in the American Civil War was vested in both the political and the military structures of the belligerent powers. The overall military leadership of the United States during the Civil War was ultimately vested in the President of the United States as constitutional commander-in-chief, and in the political heads of the military departments he appointed. Most of the major Union wartime commanders had, however, previous regular army experience. A smaller number of military leaders originated from the United States Volunteers. Some of them derived from nations other than the United States.
New Orleans, Louisiana, was the largest city in the South, providing military supplies and thousands of troops for the Confederate States Army. Its location near the mouth of the Mississippi made it a prime target for the Union, both for controlling the huge waterway and crippling the Confederacy's vital cotton exports.
Michelle Janine Howard is a retired United States Navy four-star admiral who last served as the commander of the United States Naval Forces Europe, United States Naval Forces Africa and Allied Joint Force Command Naples. She previously was the 38th Vice Chief of Naval Operations. She assumed her last assignment on June 7, 2016.
The Confederate privateers were privately owned ships that were authorized by the government of the Confederate States of America to attack the shipping of the United States. Although the appeal was to profit by capturing merchant vessels and seizing their cargoes, the government was most interested in diverting the efforts of the Union Navy away from the blockade of Southern ports, and perhaps to encourage European intervention in the conflict.
During the American Civil War, blockade runners were used to get supplies through the Union blockade of the Confederate States of America that extended some 3,500 miles (5,600 km) along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coastlines and the lower Mississippi River. The Confederacy had little industrial capability and could not indigenously produce the quantity of arms and other supplies needed to fight against the Union. To meet this need, numerous blockade runners were constructed in the British Isles and were used to import the guns, ordnance and other supplies that the Confederacy desperately needed, in exchange for cotton that the British textile industry needed greatly. To penetrate the blockade, these relatively lightweight shallow draft ships, mostly built in British shipyards and specially designed for speed, but not suited for transporting large quantities of cotton, had to cruise undetected, usually at night, through the Union blockade. The typical blockade runners were privately owned vessels often operating with a letter of marque issued by the Confederate government. If spotted, the blockade runners would attempt to outmaneuver or simply outrun any Union Navy warships on blockade patrol, often successfully.
