Marc Liebman's Blog, page 13

Frocking

No, this post is not about the garment worn by religious orders to show membership. Back in the Medieval era, once an initiate passed a series of tests, he would be given a “frock” which was the garment worn by the “accepted” members of the order.

The archaic dictionary definition of “to frock” is “invest someone in a priestly order.” Over time, it came to mean one dressed in more spectacular clothing.

Back in 15th Century navies, one’s rank wasn’t always denoted by a collar device, a shoulder board, or a patch on one’s sleeve. It was often the quality or color or type of the coat one wore.

In the Continental Navy and the early years of the U.S. Navy, midshipmen wore a blue coat that came down to their hips over a white vest. Lieutenants and above wore frock coats that came down the back of their thighs. When a midshipman made lieutenant, he changed coats. Hence, one could say he was “frocked.”

To earn the lieutenant’s frock coat, the midshipman had to “sit for the lieutenant’s exam.” This meant that the young officer would sit in front of at least three captains who would grill him for two to three hours about seamanship, tactics, leadership, the articles of war, ship maintenance, and whatever else came to their minds.

At the end of the exam, the captains would vote on the fitness of the midshipman to become a lieutenant. If he passed, he would be given a lieutenant’s coat. Hence, moving from midshipman to lieutenant was a “big deal.”

Frocking was also part of the promotion process for higher ranks. As one rose in rank, there was more gold braid and color so with each promotion, the officer needed a new coat. Tradition called for the newly promoted to pass down his coats to those who have not yet been advanced.

There’s more to the story than just a change in coats. If the midshipmen who passed the lieutenant’s exam were deployed, the captain would note the board results in his log and send a letter to the Navy Department. For the letter to go to Washington and then back to the officer’s ship often took months, maybe even years.

As early as 1802, Navy regulations allowed for frocking, i.e., allowing officers to wear the insignia of the next higher rank after selection while the paperwork caught up with reality. Over time, the tradition has continued and evolved. Even the Bureau of Naval Personnel refers to the process as “frocking.”

Today, if one is a U.S. Navy officer, once the selection board has released its results, commanding officers are authorized to frock new selectees. Like everything else, there are rules on how it is done and some restrictions.

While the newly frocked individual wears the rank and can sign official documents using his new rank, he or she does not receive the pay for the new rank until a date of rank is issued. Nor does the frocked service member accrue time in grade for the new rank. And, if the frocked officer killed or injured, his survivor benefits are based on his actual rank.

Bottom line is that “frocking” is one of the many traditions of the Naval Service. Some of our sister services have adopted this practice, and to them, welcome aboard!

Continental Navy uniforms 1775 – 1783 courtesy of U.S. Navy Heritage and History Command.

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Pickney’s Treaty With Spain Sets Florida’s Northern Border

At the end of the Seven Years War, Spain ceded Florida to Great Britain who established two colonies – East and West Florida. The boundaries were set as the Atlantic Coast on the east and the Mississippi River on the west. The northern boundary was set at 320 22′ North latitude.

This became an issue after the 1783 Treaty of Paris was signed. In it, Great Britain ceded the new United States the land east of the Mississippi to the Atlantic Coast south of the Canadian border and north of Florida. As part of the, both East and West Florida were returned to Spain.

At the time, Florida’s western border was the Mississippi River. However, the northern border of East and West Florida was not well surveyed, nor was the colony well settled. Complicating the issue was that most of the colonies (now states) assumed their western borders were the Mississippi. One of those was Georgia.

The 320 22′ line was well north of Georgia’s claimed southern border. To resolve the issue, George Washington sent Thomas Pickney to Madrid to negotiate a settlement. The U.S. claim assumed the land north of 310 North was British territory that was given to the U.S. by the Treaty of Paris.

Pickney got the Spanish to agree to a document that goes by three names – The Treaty of San Lorenzo, the Madrid Treaty or Pickney’s Treaty. Signed on October 27th, 1795, it became effective on August 3rd, 1796. It is the first territorial acquisition by the U.S.

Article I of the document sets the northern border of Florida as the 31st parallel. The treaty adjusted the boundaries for rivers in the east that account for Georgia’s unique geography at its southeastern end.

Article II guaranteed the U.S. would have access to the Mississippi River. At the time, Spain controlled the mouth of the river and Pickney’s Treaty put the U.S. in compliance with the 1783 Treaty of Paris that guaranteed the British access to the Mississippi River.

In the third article, the U.S. and the Spanish agreed to jointly survey the land. Article IV of the treaty set the western border of U.S. Territory as the middle of the Mississippi River. At the time Pickney’s Treaty was signed, Spain still had title to the land that became the Louisiana Purchase and did provide title to the French until just before the U.S./French deal to purchase the land closed. (See 8/11/21 post –What Did Jefferson Really Buy – https://marcliebman.com/what-did-jefferson-really-buy/ ).

Article IV was interesting, given the experience the U.S. was already having with the British. Through this clause, Spain agreed not to supply weapons or incite any of the Native American tribes living in the land given to the U.S.

In Articles VI and VII, the two countries agreed not to embargo citizens, ships, or cargo of the other nation and to protect and defend the other’s vessels within their territorial waters.

Pickney’s Treaty gave the U.S. a chunk of land that ultimately became parts of Alabama and Mississippi. Florida’s boundaries and land again became the subject of the U.S.’s next major land acquisition, known as the Louisiana Purchase.

Map of the territory acquired via Pickney’s Treaty.

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The Brilliance of General Nathaniel Greene

This blog is posted 242 years and three days after Cornwallis surrendered his army at Yorktown. While this battle did not end the American Revolution, it caused the British government under Lord North to be replaced with one willing to negotiate a peace treaty. Washington’s victory at Yorktown was the culmination of a brilliant campaign in North and South Carolina by General Nathaniel Greene. Beginning in October 1780, Greene forced Cornwallis to chase his army and only engaged in set-piece battles at a time and place of his choosing.

So how did it unfold>The British commander in North American, General Sir Henry Clinton was based in New York where, a short distance away, the Continental Army under Washington was camped. Any movement by land would force him to confront Washington and the French Army supporting the Americans.

When Lord Cornwallis set out from Charleston, S.C., in the spring of 1781 he believed he was following General Sir Henry Clinton’s orders to finish what he started at the Battle of Camden in August 1780. There, Gate’s Continentals outnumbered Cornwallis’ redcoats two to one. Despite the advantage, Gate mismanaged the battle, and the Continental Army was routed.

In the middle of the fight at Camden, Gates left the battlefield and fled 120 miles north leaving Colonel Charles Armand Tuffin, marquis de la Rouërie to pick up the pieces. Armand was a French cavalry officer who emigrated to the U.S. in 1777 (before the French officially joined the war) to help fight the British.

To replace the discredited Gates, Washington sent Generals Nathaniel Greene and Daniel Morgan to take command of the Continental Army in the south. Greene took command in October 1780, and his subordinates included Daniel Morgan, Wilhelm von Steuben, Francis Marion, and Henry Lee.

At the battle of Kings Mountain in early October 1780, right after he took command, General Greene decimated a British Army regiment of Loyalists, killing almost 300 and capturing or capturing nearly 670. Three months later, at Cowpens, General Morgan soundly defeated the British Legion under Banestre Tarleton when over 100 Redcoats were killed and 600+ were captured.

While the battle at Guilford Courthouse could be considered a draw and Greene pulled the Continental Army away from the battlefield, the Continental Army left a badly battered and bruised British Army that suffered more casualties than the Americans. Low on supplies, with almost half of his army either killed, wounded, or captured, Cornwallis started marching toward Wilmington, N.C. to be re-supplied and reinforced.

Once Greene was sure Cornwallis was headed to Wilmington, he assigned local militia units to harass the British column while he and Morgan took on British General Rawdon and his 2,000 Redcoats. Morgan’s orders from Washington were to capture the British forts in South Carolina and bottle up Rawdon in Charleston.

Lord Cornwallis arrived in Wilmington with 1,500 men, where he was re-supplied and reinforced with 2,000 more soldiers. His new orders from General Clinton were to march north toward Richmond, VA and take command of the 2,500 men under Major General William Philips and the 1,500 men commanded by Brigadier General Benedict Arnold. Once he met with Philips and Arnold, Cornwallis’ orders were to find a location where the combined force could be reinforced or evacuated. He chose Yorktown, and the rest is history.

Image is the 1937 1 cent stamp commemorating the relationship between Generals Washington and Greene.

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New Coins of the U.S. Realm

At the end of the American Revolution, the Continental Dollar was worthless, along with all the other currencies issued by the states. Non-barter transactions used the English pound, the Spanish dollar, the Dutch guilder, French francs or livres.

To remedy this, on April 1st, 1792, the Second U.S. Congress passed what is known as the Coinage Act, also known as The Mint Act. Since then, there have been seven Coinage Acts – 1834, 1849, 1853, 1857, 1864, 1873 and 1965. Looking back, the first Coinage Act had far reaching effects.

First, the 1792 bill established the U.S. dollar and pegged its value to the Spanish silver dollar. Next, it established U.S. currency denominations based on the decimal system. The bill signed by George Washington created three gold coins, $10 Eagles, $5 half Eagles, $2.50 quarter Eagles. Dollars and below were in silver except for pennies and half-pennies which were to be minted in copper. The coins were half dollars, quarter dollars, dismes (dimes), half-dismes (nickels) were all to be silver.

FYI, for those who remember the English pound, one had to deal with a system based on 10 pence to a shilling and 20 shillings to a pound. Pricing was often in guineas (one pound, 1 shilling, or crowns (10 shillings) or half crowns (5 shillings), so going to a decimal system made perfect sense.

When The Coinage Act was passed, national currencies were backed by bullion. To collect enough gold and silver to support a national monetary system, citizens of the U.S. were encouraged to sell their gold and silver bullion to the Federal government without penalty or tax. Shortly after this Coinage Act was passed, Congress authorized a bulk purchase of copper (An Act to Provide for a Copper Coinage passed on May 8th, 1792), “not to exceed 150 tons” to be used in the new currency.

The Coinage Act of 1792 established the first U.S. Mint, which would be in Philadelphia. It gave the organization its “chain of command” and specific instructions on what was to be on each coin and its precious metal content.

For example, minted U.S. dollars had to contain 11 parts gold and one part a gold and silver alloy. This made U.S. dollars equal to one-fifth of the precious metal content of four British shillings. The act also stipulated that each coin must contain the words “United States of America,” Liberty,” an eagle along with the year the coin was minted and the value of the coin.

When The Coinage Act of 1792 was passed, the custom in Europe was to put the head of the reigning monarch on coins. Washington and the Founding Fathers had just fought a revolution, so the Thirteen Colonies were not ruled by a king and specified a symbol of Liberty on U.S. coins. On the 100th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth, Congress authorized the first U.S. coin – the Lincoln penny – in 1909. It was the first U.S. coin created with the image of an individual.

Congress also mandated that all Federal accounts be in the new currency and that debasing and/or counterfeiting U.S. currency could be punishable by death!

Picture of a 1798 U.S. silver dollar.

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Chain of Command

In the U.S. and most militaries, the chain of command is well-defined from the most senior man down to the most junior private. In the U.S. Government, the line of succession is now laid out from the President, Vice President, Speaker of the House, President, Pro Tem of the Senate down to the most junior cabinet member.

But it wasn’t always this clear. The framers of the Constitution wrote the document that was ratified, Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 states In the case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of said office, the same shall devolve to the Vice President, and the Congress, may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation or inability of both the President and Vice President, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed or a President shall be elected.

Essentially, this very long sentence gives Congress the power to create the chain of command for the U.S. government. In the spring of 1792, the Second U.S. Congress took up this matter and, the House and Senate agreed that the order of succession was to be President, Vice President, President Pro-Tem of the Senate followed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

The Presidential Succession Act of Marc 1st, 1792 also stipulated that if a President was removed from office, died, resigned, or could not function as the country’s leader, the Vice President would only serve as President until a new presidential election was held. The election would be in November of the year following the President’s departure from office.

If the President left office in the last year of his term, then the regular election would be held. Only if both the President and Vice President somehow were no longer in office, would an election be held to replace them on the first Tuesday in October.

The new law was not without its detractors. None other than James Madison, the man credited with writing most of the original document, protested the new law, saying it was against his intent and that of the Constitutional Convention. Madison wanted the Secretary of State added to the line of succession. At the time, that would have Thomas Jefferson,  the country’s Secretary of State in the chain-of-command.

Having Jefferson in the chain of command was an anathema to Washington, Adams, and the Federalists who controlled Congress. They ensured that the Secretary of State was not included in the chain of command.

Another suggestion that was not approved was adding in the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. This idea was rejected because both the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans agreed that it would violate the separation of powers concepts embedded in the Constitution.

The Presidential Succession Act of 1792 has been modified only three times. The first change came in 1886 when Congress established a new order of precedence of cabinet positions, with the Secretary of State at the top of the list. This law removed the Speaker of the House and President Pro Tem of the Senate from the line of succession. This law also dropped the requirement to hold a new election if both the President and Vice President were removed from office.

In 1947, the law was modified a second time when the Speaker of the House came after the Vice President, followed by the President Pro Tem of the Senate, then the cabinet positions in order of precedence. The third modification came in 2006 when the Secretary for Homeland Security was added to the list of Cabinet members as its most junior in terms of the order of precedence in the line of succession.

Robert Knudsen photo of Gerald Ford being sworn in as President by Chief Justice Warren Burger

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Prepping for War on Both Sides of the Border

Leading up to the War of 1812, the American strategy focused on two major pieces. One, the U.S. Army would invade and conquer Canada, and two, the U.S. Navy would harass British shipping. Bolstering this strategy, Madison’s War Department (now the Department of the Army) and, to some degree, the Navy Department thought that the British would be focused on Napoleon and would be unable to reinforce and support the British Army in Canada.

Madison wanted the U.S. Army to invade Canada by the best route from the northern tip of Lake Champlain down the Richelieu River to the St. Lawrence. From here, the American Army could take either Montreal or Trois Rivières or both. This would cut British Canada in two and prevent the British Army from reinforcing its units in the Great Lakes.

While this strategy looked sound in Washington, D.C., the reality was quite different. First, the 7,000 men in the U.S. Army were scattered throughout the Northwest Territories, attempting to protect U.S. settlers who had moved there with the encouragement of the Federal government. Redeploying the Army to Vermont would take about a year and was not practical. Second, the Federalists’ political base was still in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. Even though they had been out of power since 1800, the Federalists opposed the war on economic grounds.

New England merchants depended heavily on trade with the United Kingdom and Europe. Despite English policies that attempted to restrict trade by U.S. businesses with other countries in Europe and the Royal Navy’s continued impressment of U.S. seamen, the Napoleonic Wars were good for them and the whole U.S. economy.

War in Europe created a demand for food, lumber, and other raw materials which the U.S. had in abundance and was a source of new citizens. U.S. Census data showed that the U.S. population grew by almost 27%, from 5.3 million in 1800 to 7.2 million in 1810.

The Madison administration realized there would be little support for a call-up of the New England state militias for an invasion of Canada. As a result, Madison, allowed the invasion strategy to change based on the advice of General Henry Dearborn.

Instead of one thrust toward Montreal, Dearborn would have the U.S. Army attack via three different routes. From the west, the U.S. Army would take on British Army units in the Upper Great Lakes. The central offensive would advance from modern-day Buffalo into Ontario. And the eastern invasion would take Montreal.

The British suspected their policies might provoke a war with the U.S. The Governor of Canada General Lieutenant General Sir George Provost, and Major General Isaac Brock had been preparing for a fight with the Americans since 1810.

Provost’s strategy concentrated on ensuring that the British maintained control of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River to enable him to move men, equipment, and supplies at will. To facilitate this, he built ships designed to operate in the waterways he controlled.

When Brock arrived in 1802, he found a poorly equipped army that suffered from low morale. Over the next 10 years, Brock re-invigorated the British Army in Canada and the local militia forces. In the process, he became thoroughly familiar with the people and the terrain. When the war began, the British Army under Brock had 10,000 well-trained and equipped men under his command. It could count on several more thousand from the local militia.

The British were also allied with the Shawnee Indians and a confederacy of other Indian nations in the Northwest Territories. If the Americans were defeated, the British promised they would create an independent state for the confederacy that would stop any additional American settlers from moving into the Northwest Territory.

When Congress gave President Madison his declaration of war on June 18th, 1812, the U.S. was, 29 years after gaining independence, again going to fight the most powerful and wealthiest nation in the world.

Chart shows the per capita growth of U.S. GDP from 1810 – 1815.

 

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Who Won the War of 1812?

The title poses an interesting question. Conventional history says that on land, the war was, at best a draw. The U.S. Navy gave the Royal Navy a bloody nose at sea, and the U.S. maintained its independence. This last result makes the war a strategic win for the U.S. Research suggests that the perspective of victory depends on whether one sits in London, Ottawa, or Washington, D.C.

James Madison asked for a declaration of war as a means to forcibly eject the British from the forts they maintained on U.S. soil. It was also about stopping British interference with U.S. trade with European countries, some of whom were allied with the French. And last, end the practice of stopping U.S. merchant ships and kidnapping (the more common word is impressing) U.S. citizens and forcing them to serve on Royal Navy ships.

From Washington’s perspective, the war was all about sovereignty. Madison wanted the U.S. to be able to conduct foreign policy without interference from other nations. In the Treaty of Ghent (signed on February 17th,1815), the British agreed to leave their forts, stop inciting Native Americans against American settlers, and return all U.S. territory seized by the British Army. With Napoleon defeated and negotiations underway that would ultimately send him to exile on Elba, the British no longer needed men for the Royal Navy, thus ending impressment. England also agreed to remove all restrictions on U.S. trade.

In both the British Parliament and the Foreign Office, many influential MPs and diplomats were still smarting from the loss of the Thirteen Colonies in 1783. They viewed the United States as a rebellious child that had run amok and needed to be taught a lesson. Eventually, English politicians thought the U.S. would come to its senses and rejoin the Empire. As a result, the British Parliament passed laws knowing they would anger U.S. citizens. Yet, despite the animosity caused by the British Parliament’s high-handed actions, the United Kingdom remained the U.S.’s largest trading partner.

From a military perspective, the British Army defeated the U.S. Army when it invaded Canada, landed in Maryland and burned our capital. At sea, the small U.S. Navy defeated Royal Navy ships. But to be fair, the bulk of the British Army and the Royal Navy were occupied fighting the French and their Allies, and the fighting in North America was a sideshow.

Little did any of the diplomats negotiating the Treaty of Ghent in the fall of 1814 know that Napoleon would escape from Elba on March 20th, 1815. Ultimately, Napoleon would be defeated at Waterloo and sent to St. Helena in October 1815 in the South Atlantic, where he died in 1821.

When Canadians discuss the War of 1812, they see it as a Canadian victory. The U.S. invasion united the French Canadians with those who immigrated from England and other countries to Canada to seek a new life and the 50,000 Loyalists who left during and right after the American Revolution. The immigrants joined the British Army to help stop the invaders.

The Canadian perspective is that the War of 1812 gave the country a sense of national identity that it never had before the war began. Over the next century, Canadian leaders found ways to slowly loosen the bonds of British Colonial rule without resorting to an armed rebellion.

Amédée Forestier painting of the signing of the Treaty of Ghent with John Quincy Adams shaking hands with Baron Gambier wearing the uniform of a Royal Navy admiral.

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Doomed to Failure and Disgrace

When James Madison received his declaration of war against Great Britain from the U.S. Congress, it was the first time the United States took such an act. We had been a nation for less than 29 years, and again, we were at war with Britain.

After the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, England/United Kingdom/Great Britain had taken a very arrogant stance against its former colony, and by 1812, the country had enough. The U.S. war aims were quite straightforward – restore the territorial integrity of the United States and harass the Royal Navy and His Majesty’s merchant marine. This, U.S. leaders believed, would force the British to remove the restrictions against U.S. merchants trading with countries in Europe.

On June 18th, 1812, when Congress declared war, the U.S. Army had roughly 7,000 soldiers on active duty, and the U.S. Navy had 20 vessels, most of which were small and unsuited for war at sea. (see post 9/10/2023 – The Navy’s Unpreparedness for War – https://marcliebman.com/the-navys-unprep…-for-war-in-1812/ ).

Madison and his secretary of war, William Eustis, now had a war on their hands. When they took office, they inherited an Army and Navy that had been horribly underfunded since the end of the war against the Barbary Pirates in 1805.

According to the Center for U.S. Military History at West Point, the U.S. Army had 7,500 men at arms. They were allocated in seven infantry regiments (each with an authorized strength of 800 men), a regiment of riflemen, dragoons (cavalry), and one each of light and heavy artillery. In 1808, the artillery regiments were forced to sell their horses as a cost-saving measure.

In a separate act, Congress increased the authorized strength of the U.S. Army to 35,000 men for 25 infantry, four artillery, and two cavalry regiments plus other units. While it looked good on paper, the expanded army would take time to become a reality.

State militias, which had over 35,000 members in their muster roles in 1812, were also underfunded and rarely trained as units. Militia leadership positions were filled through patronage, not professional military skills.

One of Congress’ first measures was to raise the pay for soldiers and sailors as a recruiting tool. Monthly pay went from $1/month (about $23 in 2023) to $8. A bonus of $16 (~$368 in 2023 dollars) for a five-year enlistment was also offered.

To say the U.S. Army was unprepared for war in 1812 is not hyperbole. Most of its ammunition was left over from the American Revolution. Many of its muskets were found to be rusty and unserviceable. Its regiments hadn’t trained together.

In the first few months of the war, the U.S. garrison of 2,000 men in Detroit surrendered without a fight to 900 soldiers of the British Army. Fort Dearborn, near modern Chicago, surrendered a few weeks later with the loss of more men and another strategic fort.

These defeats were the result of Jefferson’s policy of not properly funding a standing Army and Navy with professional leaders or creating an administrative structure that could support its operations and training.

Benjamin Tallmadge served in the Continental Army with distinction as a cavalry officer during the War for Independence. In 1813, he was a Congressman from Connecticut when he wrote to his friend James McHenry, who had served under Washington and then John Adams as their Secretary of War. Tallmadge was commenting on Congress’ attempt to expand the poor performance of the U.S. Army in 1812. Tallmadge wrote, “… Our Northern & Western Armies seem to be doomed to misfortune and Disgrace.”

1777 John Trumbull Portrait of Benjamin Tallmadge as a major in the 2nd Continental Dragoons.

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The Navy’s Unpreparedness for War in 1812

Some historians will argue that the War of 1812 was inevitable since the interests of the United States and the United Kingdom were at odds in Europe and North America. The U.S. was determined to remain neutral in the conflict raging in Europe. The Brits wanted us to join them in their life-and-death struggle against Napoleon.

The British refused despite several diplomatic efforts to leave their forts in the Northwest Territories. England claimed they were only there to trade. Still, the British Army’s actions at the direction of Parliament to incite the Native Americans against U.S. settlers moving westward suggested otherwise.

The Royal Navy, desperate for seamen, stopped U.S.-flagged ships and impressed U.S. citizens. Jefferson and his Democratic-Republicans responded with laws and policies that harmed the U.S. economy and did not dissuade the British. Jefferson ignored the storm warnings and severely limited funds for the U.S. Army and Navy. Jefferson even tried to turn the U.S. Navy into a coastal defense force. See 3/22/22 Blog Post – Jefferson’s Foreign Policy Mess – https://marcliebman.com/jeffersons-foreign-policy-mess/. In the post, it has links to other posts that provide insight into what Jefferson left Madison in 1808.)

By 1812, the small but tactically and operationally sound Navy that gave the French a bloody nose in the Quasi-War and conducted expeditionary warfare in its win against the Barbary Pirates was no more.

When James Madison asked for a declaration of war in June 1812, the U.S. Navy only had 14 ships capable of operating outside coastal waters. Once again, the U.S. Navy would face the well-trained and equipped battle-tested Royal Navy.

No new warships were being built, and of the famous frigates – Congress, Constitution, Constellation, President, and United States, only two were available for deployment. The other three were floating in a condition the Royal Navy called “in ordinary.” The modern U.S. Navy term is mothballed.

These ships were stripped of their sails, much of their rigging, and armament, which was stored in nearby warehouses. The ships were anchored out in a harbor and subject to the elements.

To prepare them for sea, each ship had to be pulled ashore to have their hulls cleaned, repainted, and re-varnished. Rigging needed to be replaced, the cannon brought on board, and the sails inspected and, where required, replaced. All this takes time, money, and an organization that could manage the process.

Two officers, Stephen Decatur and John Rodgers, both veterans from the Barbary Pirates War, the Navy had been executing a plan that would facilitate expansion. These men knew that the United States was a maritime nation. Back then, exports and imports that traveled by sea fueled our economy.

The core of the Navy’s plan to reconstitute itself quickly into a fighting force was built around two core elements. One, it would rotate the ships in an out of “ordinary.”

The second was its focus on men to man the ships. To maintain a core cadre of crews, the U.S. Navy would recruit officers and sailors, train them, and send them to sea for a year or two on one of the few operational ships. When they returned, they were paid off, and another group was sent to sea.

This is why when you read about men in the U.S. Navy from 1800 – 1812, you’ll find gaps in their service when they were put on “half pay.” By accepting the government’s money, it committed the men to be recalled. In other words, the Navy Department created a group of trained men it could bring back on active duty to man ships.

Now, with the balloon going up, the U.S. Navy could call on men who had experience, were trained, and were familiar with the ships. The result was that relatively quickly, the Navy regained its moxie. During the War of 1812, the U.S. Navy never was as large as the Royal Navy. However, thanks to the foresight of Rogers and Decatur, the quality of the U.S. Navy crews and ships were an ugly surprise to His Majesty’s Navy.

Ever since then, the U.S. Navy has been a standing force. Yes, it varied in size over the years, but never again did Congress allow the U.S. Navy to be made so small that it was irrelevant.

Next week, the U.S. Army’s story.

1813 Painting of the U.S.S. United States defeating H.M.S. Macedonian by Thomas Birch

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First Bank of the United States

The First Bank of the United States was not the first national bank in the U.S. That honor goes to the Bank of North America, authorized by the Continental Congress in 1781.

These two banks, with significantly different charters, have three things in common. First, they were chartered under two governing bodies operating under two different sets of rules, i.e., the Continental Congress was governed by the Articles of Confederation, and the U.S. Congress was created by the U.S. Constitution.

Second, the man who proposed, created, and ushered them through the legislative body was Alexander Hamilton. And three, in both instances, Hamilton managed to do it over the objections of two future presidents, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

Establishing the First Bank of the United States was only one of three innovations Hamilton made a reality. The other two were the assumption of all Revolutionary War debt and the establishment of a U.S. mint to print money backed by reserves of gold and silver.

Hamilton was convinced that unless the U.S. got its monetary house in order, it would fail as a country. Goal one was to bring financial order to the U.S. economy. After the War for Independence ended, each state was chartering banks, and there were no standardized rules for their charters, reserves, or how they operated. Hamilton wanted the Federal bank at the top of the financial pyramid with the state banks one level down.

Once the U.S. had a standard currency used in all the states, the U.S. could achieve goal two by establishing credit domestically and internationally. This would allow the Federal government to, when needed, borrow money.

Standardizing the nation’s currency was goal three. Under the Articles of Confederation, each state was allowed to issue its own currency creating what was, to be polite, a financial mess. Hamilton wanted only one currency based on the U.S. dollar.

Hamilton achieved all these goals when the First Bank of the United States was formed in 1791 under the Bank Act of 1791. To get it past the objections of Jefferson and Madison, he acquiesced to a 20-year charter.

Jefferson and Madison felt that the bank was unconstitutional and opposed a national mint. They wanted each state to be allowed to issue its own currency as a “right of the state.” Ultimately, they were overruled, and Washington signed the bill on February 25th, 1791, which gave the First Bank of the United States a 20-year charter. A few weeks later, on March 19th, he appointed its three directors.

The First Bank of the United States did not function as a traditional nation’s central bank because it did not set monetary policy. Instead, it was a separate stock corporation owned by the shareholders, not the U.S. government. It did serve as a lender to the U.S. government as well as to private corporations.

The Bank Act of 1791 forbade the First Bank of the United States to buy U.S. government bonds. The new law ordered the bank to have a separate, independent, rotating board of directors. And last, it was not allowed to issue currency.

The bank’s reserves were provided by selling $10,000,000 in shares. The Federal government bought $2,000,000. Since the Federal government didn’t have the money, Hamilton’s solution was that the Federal government borrow the money from the bank and then pay it back in 10 equal installments plus interest. The remaining $8,000,000 was offered to the public and overseas investors. However, any investor in the bank had to pay 25% of his share price in gold or silver bars or coins while the balance could be in a recognized paper currency.

One of the interesting footnotes is that the bank’s headquarters building in Philadelphia was the first government building authorized to be built by the U.S. Government.

Image, courtesy of the National Museum of American History, is a First Bank of the United States check written by John Jacob Astor in 1792.

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