William McKean

William Wister McKean
William Wister McKean
Born	September 19, 1800; Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania
Died	April 22, 1865 (aged 64); Binghamton, New York
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	United States Navy
Years of service	1814–1862
Rank	Commodore
Battles/wars	War of 1812 ; American Civil War

Last updated May 05, 2019

William Wister McKean (19 September 1800 – 22 April 1865) was an admiral in the United States Navy during the American Civil War. He was noted for his service in the Union blockade that effectively closed Confederate seaports in the Gulf of Mexico.

Admiral is one of the highest ranks in some navies, and in many navies is the highest rank. It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM". The rank is generally thought to have originated in Sicily from a conflation of Arabic: أمير البحر‎, amīr al-baḥr, "commander of the sea", with Latin admirabilis ("admirable") or admiratus ("admired"), although alternative etymologies derive the word directly from Latin, or from the Turkish military and naval rank miralay. The French version – amiral without the additional d – tends to add evidence for the Arab origin.

The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most capable navy in the world and it has been estimated that in terms of tonnage of its active battle fleet alone, it is larger than the next 13 navies combined, which includes 11 U.S. allies or partner nations. with the highest combined battle fleet tonnage and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, and two new carriers under construction. With 319,421 personnel on active duty and 99,616 in the Ready Reserve, the Navy is the third largest of the service branches. It has 282 deployable combat vessels and more than 3,700 operational aircraft as of March 2018, making it the second-largest air force in the world, after the United States Air Force.

American Civil War Civil war in the United States from 1861 to 1865

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865, between the North and the South. The most studied and written about episode in U.S. history, the Civil War began primarily as a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black people. War broke out in April 1861 when secessionist forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina shortly after Abraham Lincoln had been inaugurated as the President of the United States. The loyalists of the Union in the North proclaimed support for the Constitution. They faced secessionists of the Confederate States in the South, who advocated for states' rights to uphold slavery.

Biography

Born in Pennsylvania, McKean was the grandson of Thomas McKean, the governor of that state.^[1]

Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state located in the northeastern, Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The Appalachian Mountains run through its middle. The Commonwealth is bordered by Delaware to the southeast, Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, Lake Erie and the Canadian province of Ontario to the northwest, New York to the north, and New Jersey to the east.

Thomas McKean was an American lawyer and politician from New Castle, in New Castle County, Delaware and Philadelphia. During the American Revolution he was a delegate to the Continental Congress where he signed the United States Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. McKean served as a President of Congress. He was at various times a member of the Federalist and Democratic-Republican parties. McKean served as President of Delaware, Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, and Governor of Pennsylvania.

William Wister McKean was appointed midshipman on 30 November 1814. He served in the Navy from the War of 1812 to the Civil War, when he rose to the rank of flag officer in command of the Gulf Blockading Squadron and later the East Gulf Blockading Squadron. McKean was relieved from active duty on 4 June 1862.^[2]

A midshipman is an officer of the junior-most rank, in the Royal Navy, United States Navy, and many Commonwealth navies. Commonwealth countries which use the rank include Canada, Australia, Bangladesh, Namibia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Kenya.

The War of 1812 was a conflict fought between the United States, the United Kingdom, and their respective allies from June 1812 to February 1815. Historians in Britain often see it as a minor theater of the Napoleonic Wars; in the United States and Canada, it is seen as a war in its own right.

A flag officer is a commissioned officer in a nation's armed forces senior enough to be entitled to fly a flag to mark the position from which the officer exercises command.

McKean died at Binghamton, New York.,^[2] 22 April 1865.

Binghamton is a city in, and the county seat of, Broome County, New York, United States. It lies in the state's Southern Tier region near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the confluence of the Susquehanna and Chenango Rivers. Binghamton is the principal city and cultural center of the Binghamton metropolitan area, home to a quarter million people. The population of the city itself, according to the 2010 census, is 47,376.

Namesakes

Two ships were named USS McKean in his honor.^[2]

Notes

↑ "Destroyer Photo Index USS McKean (DD-784)". navsource.org. Retrieved 4 September 2010.
1 2 3 "McKean". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships . Navy Department, Naval History and Heritage Command . Retrieved 4 September 2010.

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References

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships .The entry can be found here.

The public domain consists of all the creative works to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable.

<i>Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships</i> book

The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS) is the official reference work for the basic facts about ships used by the United States Navy.

External links

William McKean at Find a Grave

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[1] "Destroyer Photo Index USS McKean (DD-784)". navsource.org. Retrieved 4 September 2010.

[DANFS-2] 1 2 3 "McKean". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships . Navy Department, Naval History and Heritage Command . Retrieved 4 September 2010.

William Wister McKean
Born	(1800-09-19)September 19, 1800 Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania
Died	April 22, 1865(1865-04-22) (aged 64) Binghamton, New York
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	United States Navy
Years of service	1814–1862
Rank	Commodore
Battles/wars	War of 1812 American Civil War