Connecticut State Navy

Last updated March 21, 2019

The Connecticut State Navy was the colonial (and later, state) navy of Connecticut during the American Revolutionary War. Established in 1775, all of its ships were destroyed or captured by 1779. In the remaining years of the war a few smaller ships were commissioned to interdict smuggling between the Connecticut shore and Tory-controlled Long Island.

In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are currently 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory and shares its sovereignty with the federal government. Due to this shared sovereignty, Americans are citizens both of the federal republic and of the state in which they reside. State citizenship and residency are flexible, and no government approval is required to move between states, except for persons restricted by certain types of court orders. Four states use the term commonwealth rather than state in their full official names.

A navy or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It includes anything conducted by surface ships, amphibious ships, submarines, and seaborne aviation, as well as ancillary support, communications, training, and other fields. The strategic offensive role of a navy is projection of force into areas beyond a country's shores. The strategic defensive purpose of a navy is to frustrate seaborne projection-of-force by enemies. The strategic task of the navy also may incorporate nuclear deterrence by use of submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Naval operations can be broadly divided between riverine and littoral applications, open-ocean applications, and something in between, although these distinctions are more about strategic scope than tactical or operational division.

Connecticut is the southernmost state in the New England region of the United States. As of the 2010 Census, it has the highest per-capita income, Human Development Index (0.962), and median household income in the United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capital is Hartford and its most populous city is Bridgeport. It is part of New England, although portions of it are often grouped with New York and New Jersey as the Tri-state area. The state is named for the Connecticut River which approximately bisects the state. The word "Connecticut" is derived from various anglicized spellings of an Algonquian word for "long tidal river".

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term most commonly refers to a large, crewed vessel. It is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely operated vehicles and robots, as well as medium-sized or smaller vessels, such as the midget submarine and the wet sub. The noun submarine evolved as a shortened form of submarine boat; by naval tradition, submarines are usually referred to as "boats" rather than as "ships", regardless of their size.

Submarine warfare naval warfare conducted by submarines

Submarine warfare is one of the four divisions of underwater warfare, the others being anti-submarine warfare, mine warfare and mine countermeasures.

Early acquisitions

After the American Revolutionary War began in April 1775, the Connecticut General Assembly in July authorized the Governor and Council of Safety to procure and outfit two armed vessels. On July 24, Governor Jonathan Trumbull and the Council appointed a committee to identify potentially useful vessels in the colony's harbors. On August 2, the committee filed its report, and noted that there was some opposition in the colony to attempting to match the Royal Navy's might. In spite of this, Governor Trumbull and the council decided to outfit William Griswold's 108-ton ship Minerva, and appointed another committee to acquire a "spy vessel, to run and course from place to place, to discover the enemy, and carry intelligence" of about 25 tons, to be captained by Samuel Niles.^[1] The next day they hired Giles Hall to be the captain of the Minerva, established a pay scale, and authorized Hall to hire 40 sailors and 40 marines. On August 14, they authorized the purchase of the Britannica, a sloop in Stonington, which was to be renamed Spy, with Robert Niles as its captain.

American Revolutionary War 1775–1783 war between Great Britain and the Thirteen Colonies, which won independence as the United States of America

The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), also known as the American War of Independence, was an 18th-century war between Great Britain and its Thirteen Colonies which declared independence as the United States of America.

The Connecticut General Assembly (CGA) is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is a bicameral body composed of the 151-member House of Representatives and the 36-member Senate. It meets in the state capital, Hartford. There are no term limits for either chamber.

Jonathan Trumbull Revolutionary-era Governor of the Colony and State of Connecticut

Jonathan Trumbull Sr. was the only man who served as governor in both an English colony and an American state, and he was the only governor at the start of the American Revolutionary War to take up the Patriot cause. Trumbull College at Yale, the town of Trumbull, Connecticut, and Trumbull County, Ohio are named after him.

The Spy began service early in October, and promptly brought in the navy's first prize, a British supply ship. Minerva began service on October 9, with orders to capture transports bound for Quebec. However, most of the crew refused to obey Hall's orders, and she returned to port. The mutinous crew was dismissed, and in December Hall was ordered to return the ship to its owner.

Prize is a term used in admiralty law to refer to equipment, vehicles, vessels, and cargo captured during armed conflict. The most common use of prize in this sense is the capture of an enemy ship and her cargo as a prize of war. In the past, the capturing force would commonly be allotted a share of the worth of the captured prize. Nations often granted letters of marque that would entitle private parties to capture enemy property, usually ships. Once the ship was secured on friendly territory, she would be made the subject of a prize case, an in rem proceeding in which the court determined the status of the condemned property and the manner in which the property was to be disposed of.

Expansion

In December 1775 the General Assembly authorized the acquisition of more ships, specifically another armed vessel and four row galleys, "for the defence of this and the neighboring colonies."^[2] A brigantine was purchased, named Defence, and Seth Harding was given her command; she entered service in April 1776. The governor and council decided to order the construction of a vessel as the third of the authorized ships. This resulted in the June 1776 launch of the 300-ton Oliver Cromwell, with William Coit as its captain.

A row galley was a term used by the early United States Navy for an armed watercraft that used oars rather than sails as a means of propulsion. During the age of sail row galleys had the advantage of propulsion while ships of sail might be stopped or running at slow speed because of lack of wind for their sails. While called galleys, they were based on different hull type than the Mediterranean galley, the term being used mainly due to the employment of oars.

A brigantine is a two-masted sailing vessel with a fully square rigged foremast and at least two sails on the main mast: a square topsail and a gaff sail mainsail. The main mast is the second and taller of the two masts.

Seth Harding was an officer in the United States Navy during the American Revolutionary War. In 1776, he was the captain of the Defence.

Of the four row galleys, only three were built: Whiting, Shark, and Crane, which were outfitted with sloop riggings, were ready for service in July 1776.

In February 1776, after a presentation by inventor David Bushnell, authorized the payment of £60 so that he could complete the construction of what became the Turtle , a small one-man submarine designed to attach a mine to another ship. She was used in an attempted attack on HMS Eagle in New York harbor in 1776; the attack failed. The Turtle was sunk in 1777, but was supposedly recovered later by Bushnell.

David Bushnell , of Westbrook, Connecticut, was an American inventor, a patriot, a scholar, and a veteran of the Revolutionary War. He invented the first submarine to be used in battle, and a floating mine triggered by contact.

HMS Eagle was a 64-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 2 May 1774 at Rotherhithe.

Additional ships were authorized but had relatively short service lives. The Mifflin and the Schuyler were only in active service in 1777, and Guilford in 1779.

Administration

The assembly had vested in the governor considerable authority in naval matters, including the setting of regulations. As the Continental Navy was also organizationally taking shape, the governor and council assembled a set of regulations that harmonized as much as possible with those of the Continental Navy. They also retained Nathaniel Shaw, a wealthy New London merchant, as the state's agent for outfitting its ships and disposing of its prizes, and also had an agent in Boston to deal with matters when the state's ships or prizes were in Massachusetts ports.

Instead of setting up dedicated admiralty courts, the assembly authorized the state's courts to act as admiralty courts, adjudicating marine disputes and the distribution of prizes, with a right to appeal decisions to the Continental Congress. The state did not issue its own letters of marque; instead, the governor was authorized to issue Congressional letters.

In 1779 the state established a formal naval administrative structure, but by then most of its ships had been lost. The state authorized the commission of up to twelve armed vessels in 1780 for the purpose of interdicting smuggling; it retracted the commissions in 1781 after it was established that they had been completely ineffective at stopping illicit trade.

Operations

Most of the navy's cruising was in Long Island Sound, although some ships, notably Spy and Oliver Cromwell, went further afield, and the three row galleys served in the Hudson River above New York, where the British eventually captured or sank them. Spy served the purpose for which it was purchased, and was one of several ships sent to France in 1778 with news that Congress had ratified the Treaty of Alliance. Of the ships sent, she was the first to arrive; unfortunately the British captured her on the return voyage.

All told, the Connecticut Navy captured about thirty prizes, but all of her ships were captured or destroyed by July 1779. Oliver Cromwell was captured after an engagement off Sandy Hook, New Jersey, and Guilford was captured in July.

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USS Spitfire was a row galley authorized and constructed by Rhode Island during the American Revolution, and was placed in service in 1776. During this age of sail, row galleys were highly maneuverable compared to sailing ships whose movements were dependent on the wind. Spitfire had a reportedly successful career, helping to capture British cargo ships and engaging in the fight against British warships.

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The North Carolina State Navy during the American Revolutionary War consisted of a relatively modest number of ships, and was active from 1776 to 1779. The state and the Continental Congress were concerned about the defense of Pamlico Sound, and the key Ocracoke Inlet, through which a large number of inbound merchant ships traveled, bringing war-related supplies from Europe and the West Indies.

HMS Kingfisher was the second ship in the 14-gun Swan class of ship sloops, to which design 25 vessels were built in the 1760s and 1770s. She was launched on 13 July 1770 at Chatham Dockyard, and completed there on 21 November 1770. She took part in the American Revolutionary War, enforcing the blockade of the Delaware Bay, and served in the Battle of Turtle Gut Inlet, near Cape May, New Jersey. While under the temporary command of Lieutenant Hugh Christian, she was burnt by her own crew to avoid capture on 7 August 1778 in Narragansett Bay during the Battle of Rhode Island.

Oliver Cromwell was the largest ship in the Connecticut State Navy from her launch on 13 Jun, 1776, until the British Royal Navy captured her in a battle off the coast of Sandy Hook, New Jersey, on 6 June 1779. The Royal Navy renamed her HMS Restoration.

References

↑ Paullin, p. 356
↑ Paullin, p. 358

Sources

Paullin, Charles Oscar (1906). The navy of the American Revolution: its administration, its policy and its achievements. The Burrows Brothers Co. This work contains summary information on each of the various state navies.

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[1] Paullin, p. 356

[2] Paullin, p. 358