The Navy of the American Revolution

by Charles Oscar Paullin

The General Assembly in the May session of 1779, as an inducement to enlistment, granted seamen and marines additional bounties and pensions. Recruits entering for the rest of the war were now to receive $750 and one hundred acres of land. They were to be furnished upon enlistment, and once a year thereafterwards, with a complete suit of clothes. Naval officers were entitled to a “grant of the like quantity of lands as is allowed to officers of the same rank in the Virginia regiments on continental establishment.” Disabled sailors and the widows of the slain were entitled to immediate relief, and an annual pension. At the October session of this year, moved by the need for money and the impossibility of fitting out the whole fleet, the General Assembly ordered the governor to sell nine of the armed vessels, and to equip and man the remaining six with all diligence. For some reason the governor did not carry out the order. There was probably little market for the vessels.[530]

The years 1780 and 1781 were marked by a renewed naval activity in Virginia. It is recalled that the theater of war had now shifted to the Southern states. Savannah was in the hands of the enemy. Charleston surrendered in May, 1780. By the fall of that year the lowlands of the states to the south of Virginia were generally in the possession of the British. Apparently Virginia would be the next to feel the rough hand of the conquering enemy. British privateers and naval craft lay off the mouths of the Virginia rivers, and captured all her vessels that ventured towards the Bay or the sea. Early in 1780 it was apprehended that the enemy meditated an invasion of the coasts of the state.

When the General Assembly came together in May, 1780, it at once took measures for the protection of the coasts. It passed “an act for putting the eastern frontier of this commonwealth into a posture of defence.” This act, after providing for calling out the militia in the seaport counties, ordered the Governor and Council to direct the Commissioner of the Navy to immediately make ready for service in the Bay and on the seacoast the ships “Thetis,” “Tempest,” and “Dragon,” the brig “Jefferson,” and the galleys “Henry,” “Accomac,” and “Diligence.” Three hundred marines, to be commanded by five captains and fifteen lieutenants, were to be recruited. Marines and sailors who enlisted for three years were to receive a bounty of $1,000. Naval officers were put upon the same footing in regard to pay, rations, and privileges as officers of the same rank in the land service.[531]

When the Legislature came together in October, since the situation was still more critical, it was moved to pass an additional act for the defence of the seacoast. This act shows that the navy was in sore need for seamen and money. It provided drastic measures to obtain both. Naval officers were now authorized, under certain restrictions and limitations, to impress seamen. The eastern counties of the state were directed to bind to the sea, “under the most prudent captains that can be procured to take them,” one-half of all orphans of certain descriptions living below the falls of the Virginia rivers. A hospital for seamen was established at Hampton, to be maintained by a tax of nine pence a month on the salaries of all mariners and seamen in either the navy or the merchant service of the state. Officers and seamen were given the whole of their captures; and still other inducements to enlistment by way of pay and clothing were held out.

Two new galleys, of the same construction as those built by Congress in 1776, carrying two 32’s at the bow and at the stern, and 6’s at the sides, were ordered for the defence of the Chesapeake. Five vessels of the state fleet were to be immediately made ready for service; and all the other naval vessels were to be sold and the proceeds devoted to naval purposes. For the use of the navy import duties were laid upon rum, gin, brandy, and other spirits; on wine, molasses and sugar; and on all imported dry goods, except salt, munitions of war, and iron from Maryland. Tonnage was laid upon merchant vessels. Despite these efforts few seamen and little money were raised, and the fleet during 1780 accomplished almost nothing.[532]

The salient event in the history of the Virginia navy in 1781 was the invasion of Arnold and Phillips during the first half of the year. Arnold was first reported on the coast of Virginia on December 29, 1780, when his fleet consisting of twenty-seven sail was seen at Willoughby Point.[533] Governor Jefferson began at once to make strenuous efforts to get the Virginia fleet in condition to oppose Arnold. The role of admiral was an odd one for Jefferson. In February he sent Benjamin Harrison, speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, to Philadelphia to request of the French minister the aid of the French fleet.[534] A half-dozen or more privateers were taken into the service of the state. Twelve vessels of the state fleet of 1776-1779 still remained. Most if not all of these vessels were either at the Chickahominy shipyard and near by on the James, or else at the mouth of the James. Few of them were sufficiently manned to render much service. On April 26 Maxwell reported 78 men on board seven vessels, whose complement was 520 men. Other ships had neither arms nor men.[535]

In April, 1781, Arnold and Phillips made their raid up the James, penetrating as far as Richmond. On April 21 and 22, a detachment under Lieutenant-Colonel Abercrombie destroyed the shipyard on the Chickahominy, including a number of naval craft and the warehouses. On April 27, at Osbornes on the James a few miles below Richmond, the Virginia fleet, supported by two or three hundred militia upon the shore opposite the British army, drew up to oppose the enemy. It consisted of six ships, eight brigs, five sloops, two schooners, and several smaller craft. Its chief vessels were the “Tempest,” 16, “Renown,” 16, and “Jefferson,” 14. The British sent a flag of truce to the Commodore of the Virginia fleet, proposing to treat with him for its surrender. He sent back the spirited reply that “he was determined to defend it to the last extremity.” A few cannon planted on the shore soon gave the enemy a command of the situation. After a short engagement, the Virginians scuttled or set fire to several of their vessels and fled to the opposite shore. None of the fleet escaped. The British captured twelve vessels, which the Virginians were unable to destroy. On this expedition the British burnt the state rope-walk at Warwick. After the raid of Arnold and Phillips, but one vessel remained in the Virginia navy, the armed boat “Liberty.”[536]

The officers and seamen of the Virginia navy, thrown out of employment by the destruction of the fleet, aided the allied forces at the siege of Yorktown in collecting supplies and transporting troops. The boat “Liberty” was used as a transport; and also the ships “Cormorant,” “Loyalist,” and “Oliver Cromwell,” which three vessels, it is believed, Virginia purchased for this purpose. Soon after the surrender of Cornwallis the Virginia General Assembly, recognizing that “during the continuance of the present expensive war it is necessary to husband the resources of the state with the utmost oeconomy,” dismissed almost all the officers and seamen, the Commissioner of the Navy, the chaplains, surgeons, pay masters, and all others on the naval staff.[537]

A number of times during the Revolution, and now for the last time in 1782, Virginia and Maryland undertook to concert a naval defence of their trade on the Chesapeake. The General Assembly of Virginia which met in May, 1782, appointed three commissioners to superintend the work of protecting; the Bay. The “Cormorant” and “Liberty” were to be immediately prepared for this service. Two galleys and two barges or whale boats were to be built. For this work the state appropriated £1,000, the proceeds arising from the sale of the “Loyalist,” and certain tonnage and import duties. The commissioners were to fix the pay and subsistence of the seamen; the fleet was not to be sent outside of the Capes.[538]

The commissioners managed a small naval force during 1782 and 1783 until the war came to an end. Commodore Barron, stationed at Hampton, was chiefly occupied at this time with the exchanging of prisoners. Beyond the building of a few naval craft, it does not appear that this final naval enterprise of Virginia was attended with fruitful results. When peace was declared in the spring of 1783, the commissioners had in different stages of construction the schooners “Harrison,” “Fly,” and “Patriot,” and the barges “York” and “Richmond.” Virginia now disposed of all her fleet except the “Liberty” and “Patriot,” which she retained as revenue cutters.[539] In order to keep these two armed vessels in time of peace, Virginia, in accordance with a provision in the Articles of Confederation, obtained the permission of Congress.[540] These two boats were still in the employ of the state in 1787. The “Liberty” saw more service than any other state or Continental vessel of the Revolution. She was in the employ of Virginia from 1775 until 1787.