The Pennsylvania Navy (more formally known as the Pennsylvania State Navy or in modern terms the Pennsylvania Naval Militia) served as the naval force of Pennsylvania during the American Revolution and afterward, until the formation of the United States Navy. The navy's vessels served almost exclusively on the Delaware River, and were active (in conjunction with ships of the Continental Navy) in first defending the approaches to the city of Philadelphia during the British campaign that successfully occupied the city in 1777, and then preventing (at least for a time) the Royal Navy from resupplying the occupying army.
The Naval Militia would also be reactivated in the late 19th to early 20th century.
As under 10 U.S. Code §7851[1]naval militias form part of the United States organized militia and therefore are considered as such, the Pennsylvania Navy may be in any point in the future reactivated through either the office of the Governor of Pennsylvania and/or by legislative action committed by the bicameral Pennsylvania General Assembly.
History
When the American Revolutionary War broke out in early 1775, the colony of Pennsylvania's Committee of Safety decided that the colony's capital and seat of the Second Continental Congress, Philadelphia, would need to be protected against the incursions of British naval vessels on the Delaware River. On July 6, 1775, it authorized the purchase and outfitting of ships for that purpose.[2] Two days later it placed its first order for an armed galley. By October thirteen such boats had been built at a cost of £550 each, and outfitted with a single cannon in the bow.[3]Thomas Read was appointed commodore of the fleet.
The first six were launched by July 19, and another six had been launched by the end of August. Their names were: Bulldog, Burke, Camden, Congress, Dickinson, Effingham I, Experiment, Franklin, Hancock, Ranger, and Warren.
Additionally, 10 fire rafts were built in late 1775 and early 1776 and placed under the command of Captain John Hazelwood; the Arnold and the Putnam were built as floating batteries and were manned by Pennsylvania State Marines. In April 1776 the state acquired the Montgomery, which Read served as captain of until he received a Continental Navy commission in October 1776.
By the end of August 1776, the Pennsylvania State Navy consisted of 768 men manning 27 vessels, with 21 more smaller vessels on order. These were armed with a four-pounder gun in the bow and were classed as guard boats.
Administration and command
The navy fell under the broad control of the Committee of Safety, which established subcommittees to manage the navy's operations and acquisitions. When the state established a new constitution, with a Supreme Executive Council as its executive, the navy's administration was assigned to the Council of Safety. In March 1777 the council established a naval board, which had full responsibility for the fleet, with the exception of the issuance of officer commissions, which authority the council retained.
Overall naval command of the fleet was at times contentious. Thomas Read served as its first commodore, but he was replaced on January 13, 1776, by Thomas Caldwell, who only served briefly, resigning due to poor health in March. His replacement, Samuel Davidson, was promoted by the committee ahead of other captains, and almost caused a mutiny.[4] As a result, Davidson was first removed from fleet command, and then eventually dismissed from the navy. Fleet command was then given to Thomas Seymour, but Captain Hazelwood objected to serving under the elderly Seymour. When British operations began to threaten Philadelphia in September 1777, the council dismissed Seymour and gave overall fleet command to Hazelwood.[5]
In September 1778, the state established an admiralty court to adjudicate maritime cases and deal with the distribution of prizes. While no explicit legislation authorizing privateering appears to have been passed, the state did issue more than 400 letters of marque between 1776 and 1782.
Operations
The navy saw action on May 6, 1776, when they engaged the British ships Roebuck and Liverpool, forcing them to withdraw to Newcastle, Delaware. The fleet was also active in keeping British troops away from the river's eastern shore when General George Washington retreated across New Jersey following the loss of New York City. Hazelwood was instrumental in preventing Hessian troops from quartering in Burlington, New Jersey, a town sympathetic to the Loyalist cause, by bombarding it when Hessians were spotted there. This forced their commander, Carl von Donop, to quarter his troops much more widely, and may have contributed to Washington's victory at the battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776.[6]
The Pennsylvania State Navy was responsible for defense of the Delaware river when Philadelphia was occupied by British troops led by General Sir William Howe in 1777, as the Royal Navy wanted to control the river to resupply Howe's army. At first the combined Pennsylvania and Continental fleet was successful, repulsing one attempt by the Royal Navy to pass the defenses of Fort Mercer and Fort Mifflin on October 22 and 23, which resulted the destruction of two British warships, HMS Augusta and HMS Merlin, which were under the command of Admiral Francis Reynolds. The fleet also bombarded von Donop's forces as they attacked Fort Mercer in the Battle of Red Bank, in which the Hessians suffered one of their worst defeats of the war.[7]
In November, the two forts were captured by British troops, and Commodore John Hazelwood's fleet was then forced to withdraw upriver. Unfavorable winds slowed their progress, and four ships (Montgomery, Delaware, Arnold, and Putnam) were burned to prevent their capture.[8] In April 1778 most of the fleet was destroyed in advance of expected British operations against it. However, news that the British were going to withdraw from Philadelphia led to its resurrection, and in July Captain Hazelwood reported that the brig Convention was ready for action. Its existence as a significant force was limited by the arrival of a French fleet on the North American coast, and in August 1778 the state's assembly voted to sell off most of its remaining ships, keeping only the Convention and a few smaller ships.
The smaller ships proved inadequate protection for the trade ships of Pennsylvania's merchants. In response to their petitions, the state authorized the construction of the General Greene in March 1779. Under her captain, James Montgomery, she cruised between New York and the Chesapeake Bay, often in conjunction with Continental Navy ships or privateers, and sent a number of prizes to Philadelphia. According to Montgomery, her crew was virtually unmanageable, and she was sold at the end of the 1779 sailing season. Her unusually low sales price aroused suspicions of collusion in the process.[9]
By 1782 the activities of the Royal Navy and Loyalist privateers again spurred Philadelphia's merchants to petition for better naval defenses. This resulted in the commissioning of the Hyder Ally, which was outfitted by the merchants, and placed under the command of the Continental Navy's Joshua Barney. After the successful capture of HMS General Monk, Barney took over her command, renaming her Washington. After a trip to the West Indies, she was sold to the Continental Navy. The Hyder Ally continued to patrol without significant success. By February 1783, with peace appearing to near, most of the state's ships had been sold and its sailors dismissed. On April 10, 1783, the Supreme Executive Council ordered the remaining armed vessels to be disposed of.
Flags
Pennsylvania Navy Ensign
The flags of the Pennsylvania navy were overseen by the Pennsylvania Navy Board. The board reported to the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly's Committee of Safety. In July 1775, the President of the Committee of Safety was Benjamin Franklin. At that time, the committee ordered the construction of gunboats that would eventually need flags as part of their equipment. As late as October 1776, Captain William Richards was still writing to the Committee of Safety to request the design that he could use to order flags for the fleet.[10]
Betsy Ross was one of those hired to make flags for the Pennsylvanian fleet.[11] An entry dated May 29, 1777, in the records of the Pennsylvania Navy Board, includes an order to pay her for her work.[12] It is worded as follows:
An order on William Webb to Elizabeth Ross for fourteen pounds twelve shillings and two pence for Making Ships Colours [etc.] put into William Richards store……………………………………….£14.12.2[13]
The Pennsylvania navy's ship color included (1) an ensign; (2) a long, narrow pennant; and (3) a short, narrow pennant. The ensign was a blue flag with 13 stripes—seven red stripes and six white stripes in the flag's canton (upper-left-hand corner). It was flown from a pole at the rear of the ship. The long pennant had 13 vertical, red-and-white stripes near the mast; the rest was solid red. It flew from the top of the ship's mainmast, the center pole holding the sails. The short pennant was solid red, and flew from the top of the ship's mizzenmast—the pole holding the ship's sails nearest the stern (rear of the ship).[14]
In April 1889, the Pennsylvania Naval Militia was reconstituted as the Naval Force of Pennsylvania[15] - one of many organized state naval militias which were the predecessors to the modern day Naval Reserve.[16]
↑ Booth, John H. (1979). Naval Militias (Thesis). Kansas: US Army General Staff College.
Related Research Articles
The Continental Navy was the navy of the Thirteen Colonies during the American Revolutionary War. Founded on October 13, 1775, the fleet developed into a substantial force throughout the Revolutionary War, owing partially to the efforts of naval patrons within the Continental Congress. These congressional patrons included the likes of John Adams, who served as the chairman of the Naval Committee until 1776, when Commodore Esek Hopkins received instruction from the Continental Congress to assume command of the force.
The first USS Cabot of the United States was a 14-gun brig, one of the first ships of the Continental Navy, and the first to be captured in the American Revolutionary War in the Battle off Yarmouth (1777).
USS Delaware was a 24-gun sailing frigate of the United States Navy that had a short career in the American Revolutionary War as the British Royal Navy captured her in 1777. The Royal Navy took her in as an "armed ship", and later classed her a sixth rate. The Royal Navy sold her in 1783. British owners named her United States and then French interests purchased her and named her Dauphin. She spent some years as a whaler and then in March 1795 she was converted at Charleston, South Carolina, to French privateer. Her subsequent fate is unclear.
Effingham, a 32-gun frigate of the Continental Navy named after Thomas Howard, 3rd Earl of Effingham. She was built at Philadelphia in 1776 and 1777, and Captain John Barry was ordered to command her. When the British took possession of Philadelphia in September 1777, Barry was ordered to take the uncompleted ship up the Delaware River to a place of safety.
Elizabeth Griscom Ross, also known by her second and third married names, Ashburn and Claypoole, was an American upholsterer who was credited by her relatives in 1870 with making the second official U.S. flag, accordingly known as the Betsy Ross flag. Though most historians dismiss the story, Ross family tradition holds that General George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and two members of a congressional committee—Robert Morris and George Ross—visited Mrs. Ross in 1776. Mrs. Ross convinced George Washington to change the shape of the stars in a sketch of a flag he showed her from six-pointed to five-pointed by demonstrating that it was easier and speedier to cut the latter. However, there is no archival evidence or other recorded verbal tradition to substantiate this story of the first U.S. flag. It appears that the story first surfaced in the writings of her grandson in the 1870s, with no mention or documentation in earlier decades.
The first USS Hornet was a merchant sloop chartered from Captain William Stone in December 1775 to serve under Stone as a unit of Esek Hopkins' Fleet. The voyage would be the first military action for master's mate Joshua Barney. The vessel was damaged while sailing with the fleet and returned to base. Hornet patrolled Delaware Bay until being captured on 27 April 1777 by the Royal Navy. Hornet was taken to Jamaica, where the ship was found to be leaking and was condemned.
Nicholas Biddle was one of the first five captains of the Continental Navy, which was raised by the Continental Congress during the American Revolutionary War. Biddle was born in Philadelphia in 1750. He began sailing at the age of 13 and joined the Royal Navy when he was 20. In 1773, he sailed the Arctic with Constantine Phipps and Horatio Nelson. When the Revolutionary War began in 1775, Biddle joined the Continental Navy and commanded several ships. In 1778 off the coast of Barbados, Biddle confronted HMS Yarmouth, a 64-gun British warship. After a twenty-minute battle, Biddle's ship Randolph suddenly exploded, killing him and most of his men. Four ships of the U.S. Navy have been named in his honor.
John Hazelwood served as a Commodore in the Pennsylvania Navy and Continental Navy and was among the most noted naval officers during the American Revolutionary War. Born in England about 1726, he became a mariner and settled in Philadelphia early in life, became married and had several children. Promoted to Commodore during the Philadelphia campaign, he also became commander of Fort Mifflin while it was under siege by the British. Throughout the campaign Hazelwood and General Washington were in frequent communication with letters. During the weeks spent engaging the British navy on the Delaware River Hazelwood innovated many naval tactics, kept the British navy at bay for weeks and played a major role in the development of riverine warfare for the American navies. Recommended by Washington and his council, Hazelwood was chosen to lead a large fleet of American ships and riverboats up river to safety. For his bravery and distinguished service Congress awarded him with a ceremonial military sword, while the famous presidential artist Charles Peale found Hazelwood worthy enough to paint his portrait. After the Revolution Hazelwood lived out his remaining years in Philadelphia.
Isaiah Robinson was a captain in the Continental Navy during the American Revolutionary War.
A South Carolina Navy has been formed twice by the State of South Carolina. The first time was during the American Revolutionary War, in which the state purchased and outfitted armed vessels independent of the Continental Navy. The second time was during the American Civil War, when its navy was also distinct from the Confederate States Navy.
A Virginia State Navy existed twice. During the American Revolutionary War, the provisional government of the Virginia Colony authorized the purchase, outfitting, and manning of armed vessels to protect the colony's waters from threats posed it by the Royal Navy.
The Battle of Red Bank, also known as the Battle of Fort Mercer, was fought on October 22, 1777, during the American Revolutionary War. A British and Hessian force was sent to take Fort Mercer on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River just south of Philadelphia, but was defeated by a smaller force of Continental Army troops.
The Massachusetts Naval Militia, was a naval militia active during the American Revolutionary War. It was founded December 29, 1775, to defend the interests of Massachusetts during the war.
The siege of Fort Mifflin or the siege of Mud Island Fort, which took place from September 26 to November 16, 1777, saw British land batteries commanded by Captain John Montresor and a British naval squadron under Vice Admiral Lord Richard Howe attempt to capture an American fort in the Delaware River that was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Smith. The operation finally succeeded after Smith was wounded. His successor, Major Simeon Thayer, subsequently evacuated the fort on the night of November 15, enabling British troops to occupy the place the following morning.
American colonial marines were various naval infantry units which served during the Revolutionary War on the Patriot side. After the conflict broke out in 1775, nine of the rebelling Thirteen Colonies established state navies to carry out naval operations. Accordingly, several marine units were raised to serve as an infantry component aboard the ships of these navies. The marines, along with the navies they served in, were intended initially as a stopgap measure to provide the Patriots with naval capabilities before the Continental Navy reached a significant level of strength. After its establishment, state navies, and the marines serving in them, participated in several operations alongside the Continental Navy and its marines.
The Connecticut State Navy was the colonial 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.
The Rhode Island State Navy was the first colonial or state navy established after the American Revolutionary War began in April 1775 with the Battles of Lexington and Concord. On the following June 15, the General Assembly authorized the acquisition of two ships for the purpose of defending the colony's trade. The state's ships were generally used for defensive operations within Narragansett Bay, although some prizes were taken. The state was also one of the first to authorize privateering.
John Barry was an Irish-born American naval officer who served in the Continental Navy during the American Revolutionary War and in the United States Navy during the Quasi-War. He has been credited by some as "The Father of the American Navy", sharing that moniker with John Paul Jones and John Adams, and was appointed as a captain in the Continental Navy on December 7, 1775. Barry was the first captain placed in command of an American warship commissioned for service under the Continental flag. After the Revolutionary War, he became the first commissioned American naval officer, at the rank of commodore, receiving his commission from President George Washington in 1797.
The first USS Mosquito was believed to have been purchased at Philadelphia late in 1775 for the new Continental Navy. She patrolled the Delaware River until destroyed during the British capture of Philadelphia led by the Howe brothers and completed by them in October 1777. The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS) has identified this ship as a sloop, yet records from the period which are believed to refer to the ship have consistently identified her as being a schooner. These records also provide a bit more detail of her fate, indicating she was burned after capture in July 1777 during Royal Navy operations along the Delaware River.
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