150 years ago: Beginning the Draw-Down

Mark F. Jenkins

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From the Official Navy Chronology for Feb 24, 1865: The intention of the Navy Department to reduce the size of the operating forces as the end of hostilities neared was indicated in Secretary Welles' instruction to Rear Admiral Thatcher, commanding the West Gulf Squadron, to "send North such purchased vessels as appear by surveys to require very extensive repairs . . . and all those no longer required. These will probably be sold or laid up. You will also send home any stores that are not required. Further requisition must be carefully examined before approval, and the commanders of squadrons are expected to use every possible exertion and care to reduce the expenses of their squadrons."

Secretary Welles similarly directed Rear Admiral Dahlgren to send north vessels under his command that were no longer required, especially the least efficient. "The Department is of opinion that the fall of Fort Fisher and Charleston will enable it to reduce the expenses of the maintenance of the Navy."​

As rapidly as the U.S. Navy had expanded, the reduction began in earnest with the Confederate evacuation of Wilmington NC, as Welles began a round of belt-tightening that would continue into the fall; the number of vessels in Navy service fell from 545 to 165 by mid-September of 1865.

unionshipstrength.jpg

(From my own research, based on data from Silverstone's Warships of the Civil War Navies, ORN, and DANFS)

(Commissioned vessels only; vessels under construction, chartered private vessels, and Army craft other than the Western Gunboat Flotilla and Ram Fleet in 1862 are not included.)
 
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Nothing new,
After the Revolution the remaining few ships were sold, execpt for the Alliance and she was finally sold in 1785. Not too lon after this, no longer protected by the RN, the Betsy (I believe) was capt.

1794- First 6 frigates auth (4-44. 2-36's(at first smaller) ) Construction stopped with peace treaty.

Ca 1797 to 1800- a large navel force built up. All but 13 frigates and the Enterprise 12 discarted. Jefferson never allowed the 8 74 liners be built despite the wood being in the navy Yards and Congress had already auth the money for the construction.

The rest of the in between years was the same.

After the CW the navy rotted away. Grand plans, such as JE's suggesting to replace the Monitors armor with solid armor and storing then on land were forgotten. New type ships were not funded and it got so bad that in 1873, during a war scare with Spain, the secnav was forced to use repair money to get some new monitors built, thus ships needing repairs got into worse condiction. When the money ran out the navy was forced to turn over to the builders other ships and monitors, to be scrapped, so that the new ship construction would continue. Because Congress did not auth new ships to be built, the navy was foced to keep rebuilding the old pre civil war ships, It was said thst it would have cost less to build a new ship with the money spent on these old tubs.
It got so bad that in the early 1880's the us fleet was 12th in size, in the world's navies, even smaller than some South American countries,


GRIZZ
 
Very good post, Mark. I talk a lot about the rapid expansion of the Navy in 1861, but haven't thought much about the other end of the thing.
 
Very good post, Mark. I talk a lot about the rapid expansion of the Navy in 1861, but haven't thought much about the other end of the thing.

Two of the categories that (not surprisingly) expanded most quickly and also reduced most quickly were the "steam gunboat" and "tinclad" groups; almost all of the "soapbox navy" merchant conversions* and captured blockade runners fit into the first category, and riverboats were the second group. It probably wouldn't be a bestseller, but there's probably enough material for a book on the demobilization of the navy and the subsequent careers of a number of the vessels (mostly short, but the lifespan of a merchant ship wasn't all that long on the average to begin with, particularly on the rivers-- but not telling you anything you don't know there).

(Many of the "Miscellaneous" group are there too-- those are mostly tugs, lighters, etc., that basically did the same job in or out of the Navy.)

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* ETA In fact, the only merchant conversion that, in terms of size and armament could really be said to be in the "cruiser" category was the Vanderbilt. Everything else was functionally a gunboat.
 
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Thinking further... one of the standard "sound bites" when talking about Union military expansion is the chestnut that the Union Navy was the "largest in the world" by the end of the war; but this graph should make it pretty obvious that the main strength of the Union fleet in terms of units was in patrol-type vessels and those concerned with logistics and operations, rather than combat forces. Although the U.S. Navy of December 1865 was truly significantly more powerful than it had been in December of 1860 (basically, the two ends of the graph), both in terms of numbers and combat capability, the main part of the wartime expansion was directed towards the kind of war the Navy was fighting: one of interdiction, patrol, and support and supply of land forces.

While perhaps not as jingoistically satisfying as the "biggest-in-the-world" thing, I think it's even more interesting in that it shows how the service rapidly adapted to the kind of war that needed to be fought, and the most effective ways the Navy could exert an influence in it.
 
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Thinking further... one of the standard "sound bites" when talking about Union military expansion is the chestnut that the Union Navy was the "largest in the world" by the end of the war; but this graph should make it pretty obvious that the main strength of the Union fleet in terms of units was in patrol-type vessels and those concerned with logistics and operations, rather than combat forces.

Even before demobilization, when the USN was at its peak of five-hundred-something vessels in commission, it was a highly specialized force, built and tailored to fight a coastal and riverine war in North America. It would be very hard put to do much in the way of "power projection" (to use a later term) and bloody someone's nose on the other side of the ocean. That would take another thirty-plus years.

bermuda.png

The Royal Navy's North Atlantic Squadron at Bermuda, 1862. UK National Maritime Museum.
 
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It was too bad that no one seemed to have the foresight to keep an example of several or more of the classes of ships around so future generations could see them.
 
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