Washington's Attitude Toward A Navy
Rear-Admiral Caspar F. Goodrich (1907)

From the beginning of the war in 1775, when he fitted out the first privateers from Massachusetts ports to prey on British supply ships to his “end game” insistence that a strong French fleet would be critical to the final victory, Washington displayed an insight and instincts for naval strategy matched on the British side only by Admiral Rodney. “Whatever efforts are made by the land armies, the Navy must have the casting vote in this contest,” Washington writes to the de Grasse, the French admiral, in appreciation after Cornwallis was forced to surrender at Yorktown because of de Grasse’s victory over the British fleet.

Mr. Chairman, members of the Washington Association of New Jersey, in the name of the Naval Service, I thank you for the cordial way in which you have received an insignificant representative; and for the kind words in which your chairman has referred to past achievements of the Navy of the United States. Of the Navy as it is toady, and of the Navy as it is to be, I think little need be said; you are all acquainted with what has recently been done. I can only say that for the future the navy hopes that it will not fail in responding to your most ardent expectations (Applause).

This afternoon I shall have the pleasure of taking you back in history to the foundation of the navy: to illustrate briefly how much was done to keep ships afloat; and to indicate how much might have been done under better management.
There is a special fitness in linking the name of Washington with the Navy of the United States, of which few Americans are aware or which, if knowing, they appreciate to its full extent. It has, therefore, seemed altogether appropriate, in endeavoring to do honor to your courteous invitation to join with you in celebrating this memorable day, that I should, as a naval officer, point out some of the obligations under which we lie to the great mind that so unerringly grasped the essential strategic features of the campaign of the American Revolution, and to the ready hand that created the first cruisers to sail and to act in the name of the revolted colonies.

It is easy for us, enjoying as we do the advantages of remoteness in time and complete acquaintance with the succession of events, to look back upon the unfolding of that mighty drama and to award praise or blame as our judgment or fancy prompts, but it was quite a different matter to stand on Dorchester Heights during the autumn of 1775, gazing into futurity, and to ask, “What is to be the outcome of this struggle! In what manner shall I justify the confidence reposed in me by my fellow countrymen?”

I am far from holding that Washington foresaw in its entirety the influence which naval superiority would infallibly exercise upon military developments. But as an apt pupil in the art of war, he was quick to learn the lesson and to draw there from, when the opportunity presented itself, results of momentous value to his country and to the world at large.

We are today more fortunate in this respect than he was then, for we can assert with little fear of contradiction that the war was inevitably bound to be swayed by naval considerations to an extraordinary degree. If we glance over its salient features, the fact becomes manifest that Great Britain, in carrying on hostilities in a theatre of operations 3,000 miles distant from home, was absolutely dependent for her communications upon her command of the sea. She could, therefore, work out her military plans at her own time and in her own way so long as that command was unchallenged, those communications uninterrupted. The incidents of her campaign in America were a faithful reflection of this one dominating condition. Boston was evacuated by General Gage in the spring of 1776 largely because of the difficulty of supplying his troops in a fiercely hostile neighborhood and over waters that were harried by armed craft which captured his transports and ammunition carriers when almost in sight of their destination. The retreat of Sir Henry Clinton from Philadelphia in 1778 was due, not to the military pressure of our feeble army at Valley Forge, but to the appearance off the Capes of the Delaware of a French fleet under D'Estaing. I need hardly remind you that Burgoyne would have succeeded in 1776, where he failed in 1777. had it not been for Arnold's improvised flotilla on Lake Champlain; or that D'Estaing's mere return to our coast in 1779 caused the precipitate abandonment of Rhode Island by the British. Of the part a navy had at Yorktown you shall hear in Washington's own words.

If I venture to refresh your memories as to these typical episodes, it is only to place you in the same mental attitude occupied by him during those years of stress and storm and to enable you the better to comprehend his anxieties and his intentions.

Let us briefly recall some of the more striking instances of his activity in maritime affairs. A recent student of our history says:

The first armed vessels that sailed under Continental pay and control were those that composed the little fleet fitted out by Washington in the ports of Massachusetts in the fall of 1775. As these vessels were manned by soldiers and were commanded by army officers, and were designed to weaken the army of the enemy by capturing his transports carrying supplies and troops, Washington was able to derive his authority for procuring and fitting out the fleet from his commission as Commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. The first vessel employed in this service was the schooner “Hannah,” commanded by Nicholas Broughton, a captain in the army. According to his instructions, issued September 2, 1775, and signed by Washington, Broughton was directed to proceed “immediately on a cruise against such vessels as may be found on the high seas, or elsewhere, bound inwards and outwards, to or from Boston, in the service of the Ministerial Army, and to take and seize all such vessels, laden with soldiers, arms, ammunition, or provisions, for or from said army, or which you shall have good reason to suspect are in such service.

A month after the fitting out of the “Hannah” Washington began to add to his naval force. On October 4 he appointed Colonel John Glover and Stephen Moylan agents to equip two vessels at Salem, Marblehead, or Newburyport.

Washington's action was much in advance of the earliest federal legislation, so that he was able to write to the President of Congress on the 12th of October, 1775:

"Before I was honored with your favor of the 5th instant, I had given orders for the equipment of some armed vessels, to intercept the enemy's supplies of provisions and ammunition. One of them was on a cruise between Cape Ann and Cape Cod when the express arrived. The others will be fit for sea in a few days under the command of officers of the Continental Army, who are well recommended as persons acquainted with the sea and capable of such a service. Two of these will be immediately despatched on this duty.

Washington referred to the desire of Congress that he should send some vessels to intercept one or more transports that were known to have sailed from England for the St. Lawrence River, and as they were laden with munitions of war which were sorely needed at Boston, Congress was very anxious that Washington should pick them up on the way. It seems that Washington had acted before Congress had an opportunity of giving him instructions.

By the end of October, 1775, six vessels of a small size had been armed and manned and sent out to cruise within the Capes. They were commanded by Captains Broughton, Selman, Manly, Martin Dale, Coit and Adams. Among these craft were the Hannah, Harrison, Lee, Washington, and Lynch.

Manly was fortunate enough to make the first capture. At that time Washington and his forces about Boston were in the depths of despair. Practically everything was lacking and how to prosecute the siege was less a question than whether it would not be necessary to raise it altogether. It was when hope seemed vain that, as Irving describes the scene, “a long lumbering train of wagons, laden with ordnance and military stores came wheeling into the camp escorted by continental troops and country militia.” They were part of the cargo of a large brigantine laden with munitions of war, captured and sent in to Cape Ann by the schooner Lee under Captain Manly, one of the cruisers sent out by Washington.

“ Such universal joy ran through the camp,” writes an officer, “as if each one grasped: a victory in his own hands.”
Besides the ordnance, there were 2,000 stand of arms, 100,000 flints, 30,000 round shot and 32 tons of musket balls.
“ Surely nothing,” writes Washington, “ever came more 'apropos.”

In the correspondence of Washington. may be found numberless indications of his absorbing concern in naval affairs. That his expressions should have been, as a rule, so courteous in view of the sad and feeble management which characterized the administration of the American Navy during the Revolution demonstrates a self-contained mind and a splendid charity towards the shortcomings of others.

But he could be tart on occasion if he chose, and tart he certainly was when he wrote:

Middlebrook. 23 April, 1779. To the President of Congress:
I beg leave to ask what are the reasons for keeping the Continental frigates in port! If it is because hands cannot be obtained to man them, on the present encouragement, some other plan ought to be adopted to make them useful.

Had not Congress better lend them to commanders of known bravery and capacity for a limited term, at the expiration of which the vessels, if not taken or lost, may revert to the States; they and their crews enjoying the exclusive benefit of all captures they make, but acting singly or conjointly under the direction of Congress, If this or a similar plan could be fallen upon, comprehending the whole number under some common head, and a man of ability and authority be commissioned as commodore or admiral, I think great advantage would result from it. I am not sure but at this moment, by such a collection of our naval forces, all the British armed vessels and transports in Georgia might be taken or destroyed, and their troops ruined. Upon the present system, our ships are not only very expensive and totally useless in port, but sometimes require a land force to protect them, as happened at New London.

A year later, writing from this very spot, he is at some pains to preach the doctrine of which he alone, on our side, and Rodney alone, on the British, had grasped the full significance. He says:

Morristown, 17 April, 1780. `'To the President of Congress:

I have attentively considered the application from the State of Massachusetts, on the subject of an expedition against the enemy at Penobscot. It appears to be of great importance in several points of view, that they should be dislodged, but, circumstanced as we are, I do not see how the attempt can be made with any prospect of success. A naval co-operation seems to be absolutely necessary, and for this we do not possess the means.

We have no fleet and the enemy have a respectable one on the coast, which they can any time employ to frustrate our measures.

Now here is the crux of the matter:

Indeed, considering the position of these States, a fleet is essential to our system of defense; and that we have not suffered more than we have for want of it, is to be ascribed to the feeble and injudicious manner in which the enemy have applied the means in their hands during this war.

If you read the history of that war and carefully examine the naval operations of the British, you see they are entirely open to the criticism of Washington. Our enemies should have done infinitely more; they should have hammered us and harried us from start to finish, but they had not the same grasp of naval strategy that Washington had and the result was that they wasted their efforts. Washington goes on:

The plan they are now preparing, of attacking points remote from each other, will make us feel the disadvantage in a striking manner, and may be fatal if our allies are not able to afford us naval succor. In all respects, it is more necessary now than it ever was.

For a time within our own memory it seemed as if we had forgotten his wise injunction that “A fleet is essential to our system of defense.”

Washington's foresight was but too amply justified by the event. The phrase “a fleet in being” had not then been exploited, but he fully appreciated the menace to the proposed expedition contained in the presence of a strong hostile force afloat in the neighborhood. The story may be briefly touched upon as illustrating the sagacity of our great captain.

The British possessed, near what is now known as Castine, a local base for operations in Massachusetts Bay. This post was fairly well fortified and garrisoned. The State of Massachusetts, determining to break it up, organized in 1779 a land force of some 1,500 men under General Lovell, also a fleet of three colony cruisers and thirteen privateers. To these were added three United States vessels under Captain Dudley Saltonstall. Allen, in his Battles of the British Navy, gives the following as the list of American vessels present at Castine: Eleven ships, viz: one 32-gun frigate, one ship, 22 guns, six of 20 guns, three of 18 guns, seven brigs, one of 18 guns, one of sixteen, four of 14, and one of 12, together with nineteen transports. After much delay the works were assaulted, but not taken. Reinforcements were sent for. Pending their arrival Sir George Collier appeared in the offing with the Rainbow, 44, Raisonnable, 64, Blonde, 32, Virginia, 32, Grayhound, 20, Camille, 20, Galatea, 20, and Otter, 10. A precipitate fight on our side ensued up the river. The Warren, 32, Diligent, 14, and Providence, 12, were run ashore and burned to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy. The colonial cruisers and privateers either shared the same fate or were captured. The sailors and soldiers that escaped made their toilsome way back to the settlements through the wilderness of Maine after prolonged and severe suffering.

So Washington, you perceive, had foreseen what would be the outcome of an attempt, when the means at the disposal of the colonists were not adequate.

A most instructive episode may be here referred to as showing the close relation between the succession of military events and the command of the sea during this war.

On the 12th of July, 1780, the Chevalier de Ternay anchored in Narragansett Bay with seven line-of-battleships and two frigates. Accompanying him were thirty transports carrying six thousand French troops under the Comte de Rochambeau. This squadron became but a passive menace to the English, for it played no part in active operations during many months, being either closely blockaded or contained by Arbuthnot at Gardiner’s Bay. Admiral Rodney, though in command in the West Indies, left his own post to bring a powerful fleet to North America. Here are his reasons in his own words, which deserve quotation if only for the lesson they convey:

Having received certain intelligence by my several correspondents of the arrival of M. de Guichen at Cape Francois with the French fleet in very bad condition. … with a certainty of a convoy … destined to sail from San Domingo to France under the protection of the French Fleet, I had not a doubt but that part of that fleet was intended to reinforce the squadron under M. de Ternay, of whose arrival and taking possession of Rhode Island I had been assured by a captain of an American vessel. As it plainly appeared to me that his Majesty's territories, fleet and army in America were in imminent danger of being overpowered by the superior force of the public enemy, I deemed it a duty incumbent upon me to forego any emoluments that might have accrued to myself by the enterprise intended by General Vaughan and myself … therefore, without a moment's hesitation, I flew with all despatch possible to prevent the enemy's making any impression upon the continent before my arrival there.

(That, by the way, is the kind of man to have]. For this readiness to go without orders to a place where he knew he was needed he receivd the encomiums of the Admiralty. The First Lord, Sandwich, wrote him: “It is impossible for us to have a superior fleet in every part; and unless our commanders-in-chief will take the great line [that is a fine expression] as you do, and consider the King's whole dominions as under their care, our enemies must find us unprepared somewhere and carry their point against us.” In Marshall's Life of Washington, we read: “This reinforcement not only disconcerted all the plans of the Allies and terminated the sanguine hopes which had been formed at the opening of the campaign, but placed it in the power of the British to project in security further expeditions to the South.” Mundy, in his Life of Rodney, states that “it appears from a private letter addressed by Washington to a friend at this period that he was in despair at Rodney's appearance on the American coast and at the non-arrival of de Guichen, the co-operation of whose fleet he had long been most anxiously expecting.”

You see there the two men brought face to face. Washington wanted naval superiority; Rodney had it, or secured it to the King's armies, by leaving his own station and going where he was needed. I think his action is a splendid thing and worthy of remembrance.

In January 1781, his young friend and aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens, was about to start for France on a special mission. In a long memorandum for Laurens' guide and information while abroad Washington stated: “That, next to a loan of money, a constant naval superiority on these coasts is the object most interesting. This would instantly reduce the enemy to a difficult defensive, and, by removing all prospects of extending their acquisitions, would take away the motives for prosecuting the war. Indeed it is not to be conceived how they would subsist a large force in this country if we had the command of the seas.”

Writing to Benjamin Franklin the same day he remarks: “Nothing appears more evident, than that the period of our opposition will very shortly arrive, if our allies cannot afford us that effectual aid, particularly in money and in a naval superiority, which we now solicit.”

The final campaign of the war seems to have been dictated by this same consideration, for he addresses the President of Congress on February 26, 1781: “In obedience to the orders of Congress, I have imparted their wishes to the Count de Rochambeau informing him that the proposal [to transfer the war to the south] was made on the assumption of a naval superiority.”

It should be mentioned here as explaining the situation that a severe storm had recently dismasted two British ships in Gardiner’s Bay, thus leaving the French squadron in Newport, for the moment, with the preponderance. Washington continues:

On the first notice of the storm and its ill effects, I intimated to the French General the possibility and importance of improving the opportunity in an attempt on Arnold [then ravaging Virginia]. When I received a more distinct account of the damage sustained by the British Fleet, which was a long time coming to me, I immediately put in motion as large a part of my small force, as I could with prudence detach to proceed under the command of the Marquis de Lafayette to the Head of Elk, and make with all expedition a proposal for a co-operation in the Chesapeake Bay with the whole of the fleet of our allies and a part of their land force. Before my proposition arrived, the Chevalier Destouches, in consequence of an application through the Chevalier de la Luzerne, had sent the force I have already mentioned to the Chesapeake Bay. This separation and the return of the “America” (a British 64-gun ship) prevented the execution of my plan; but the Marquis de Lafayette still continues his march to attempt whatever circumstances will permit.

It appeared subsequently that Washington started Lafayette in the right direction.

How happy Washington would have been could he have looked into the future by only a few months, and have perceived that the very help he so longed for was to come to him in full measure and when most sorely needed. As we read his expressions at this time we realize how completely he believed our speedy (possibly our ultimate) success to depend upon sea power.

In a letter to Colonel Laurens. dated New Windsor, April 9, 1781, he uses these terms:

If France delays a timely and powerful aid in the critical posture of our affairs it will avail us nothing, should she attempt it hereafter, … it may be declared in a word that we are at the end of our tether, and that now or never our deliverance must come. While, indeed, how easy it would be to retort the enemy's own game upon them, if it could be made to comport with the general plan of the war to keep a superior fleet always in these seas. … The ruin of the enemy's schemes would then be certain; the bold game they are now playing would be the means of effecting it; for they would be reduced to the necessity of concentrating their force at Capital points, thereby giving up all the advantage they had gained in the Southern states, or be vulnerable everywhere.

With the arrival of de Grasse's fleet in I,ynn Haven Bay, six months later, the curtain rose on the last act of the drama. It is unnecessary to describe in detail the gradual hemming in of Cornwallis, the severing by the French frigates of his sea communications, the bombardment and the capitulation of Yorktown. With magnificent appreciation Washington writes to de Grasse on October 20, 1781: “The surrender of York, from which so great glory and advantage have derived to the allies, and the honor of which belongs to your Excellency has greatly anticipated our most sanguine expectations.”

After making the utmost allowance for a possibly exaggerated courtesy of expression, the fact still remains that the French fleet was the determining factor in this triumph over British arms.

Even Washington did not then realize that the war had practically ended. Anxious to utilize to the fullest his temporary maritime preponderance he proposes a week later that de Grasse join in operations to the southward; adding, in proof of his reliance upon the fleet: “You will have observed that, whatever efforts are made by the land armies, the Navy must have the casting vote in this contest.”

Again on January 4, 1782, he laments his naval weakness in these words: “A naval superiority would compel the enemy to draw their whole force to a point, which would not only disgrace their arms by the relinquishment of posts and the states which they affect to have conquered, but might eventually be fatal to their army.”

After this, his apprehensions of defeat are gradually allayed, the larger measures of war become unnecessary, and little is left beyond patient waiting for the inevitable end of hostilities. The imperative demand for ships and sailors passed away with the sailing of de Grasse to the West Indies.

I am sure I need make no apology for having, during the last half hour, allowed the “many sided Washington” to speak largely for himself, since no feeble words of mine can so accurately describe his feelings as his own expressions, wrung, as they sometimes were, from the very depth of his soul by the agonizing consciousness of his naval inferiority. My own part has been the humble one of chorus in the Greek play.

It is a great privilege to lay before you the reasons why I believe our Washington should fairly take rank among the masters of naval strategy, a place which: I fancy few would have thought of according him. I have no fear that this claim will ever be denied or even seriously questioned.

As we study Washington's character, his genius and his achievements, the conviction grows stronger and stronger that, viewed from any and every standpoint, they leave nothing to be desired; they satisfy the most exacting requirements. How fortunate our forefathers were to possess so wise and able a guide through those perilous times and how thankful we should be in the enjoyment of the blessings which his skill and foresight and courage have secured to us. Surely of him, if of any mortal, it may be truly said: “Nature lo fece e poi ruppe la stampa.

“ Nature made him and then broke the mould.”