“The Thirteen Colonies efforts to create an effective seagoing capable of fighting the Royal Navy was plagued by a lack of training/experienced leadership and a chronic shortage of money.”

By Marc Liebman

MUCH HAS been written about the trials and tribulations of the Continental Army during the American Revolution. However, the Continental Navy also played a significant role in the war.

When the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord, the Royal Navy had 350 ships listed as sixth-rate (20 guns) or bigger. The Continental Navy, established on October 13, 1775 had none.

Over the next eight years, the Thirteen Colonies efforts to create an effective seagoing capable of fighting the Royal Navy was plagued by a lack of training/experienced leadership and a chronic shortage of money. The Continental Navy struggled to evolve into an effective fighting force. As a result, it enjoyed mixed success.

What follows are 10 facts about the Continental Navy you probably didn’t know.

The Continental Navy’s first ship was bought by an army general

The first Continental warship was paid for by George Washington. On April 24, 1775, he bought a schooner named Hannah that would be put to work capturing Royal Navy supply ships attempting to reach Boston while it was under siege. On Sept. 7, Hannah captured the enemy barge HMS Hoy. It was the first prize taken by an American warship. The schooner was eventually run aground by the 16-gun British sloop HMS Nautilus and lost.

Money for an American navy was hard to come by

The Articles of Confederation did not allow the Continental Congress to levy and collect taxes. The American Revolution was paid for by loans from France, Spain and the Netherlands and money contributed by its citizens in the form of bonds, cash donations and other financial instruments. As a result, both the Continental Army and Navy were never adequately funded and were always short of everything throughout the war, except courage, determination and faith in their cause.

Congress raced to build a fleet

On Dec. 13, 1775, the Second Continental Congress authorized the construction of 13 frigates defend the colonies from the Royal Navy. These would include the Hancock, Raleigh, Randolph, Warren and Washington, each rated for 32 guns. Five vessels – Effingham, Montgomery, Providence, Trumble and Virginia – would carry 28 guns when built. Three – Boston, Congress and Delaware – were equipped with 24 cannon. It would take months before the first of these vessels would be completed. The Effingham wouldn’t be ready until 1777 and the Washington was never finished. Of the 13 original frigates that were completed, one was lost in combat, four were scuttled or burned by their crews to prevent capture and seven were taken as prizes by the Royal Navy in various actions. Only Hancock, renamed Alliance, survived the war.

The rebels relied heavily on privateers

Although the Continental Navy had no vessels when the war began, colonial authorities issued civilian ship owners with letters of marque. These were effectively licenses to arm private schooners, brigs and merchantmen to attack and capture enemy shipping and sell the prizes and cargoes for profit. In all, 1,697 such permits were issued by Congress, another 942 by various colonial legislatures. By the end of the war, privateers had captured 3,027 British ships – somewhere between 12 and 15 per cent of that country’s merchant fleet.

One future state already had its own navy

Formed in 1775 at the beginning of the American Revolution, the colony of South Carolina funded a small fleet to protect its shoreline. The service operated and hired out an assortment of small sloops and one frigate bought by the Continental Congress. Designed by a French naval architect and built in Amsterdam, it was owned by the Duke of Luxembourg and chartered to the South Carolina Navy. Initially dubbed L’Indien (28 guns) it was later renamed South Carolina.

America’s first major amphibious operation was a raid on the Bahamas

The Continental Navy, along with a group of volunteer marines (the forerunners of the USMC), would carry out America’s first amphibious landing on March 3, 1776. The target was the island of New Providence. The plan saw a five-ship task force sail to the Bahamas to seize gunpowder and shot stored at Nassau. The raid failed because Commodore Esek Hopkins gave the British 24 hours to surrender. He also ignored the advice of John Paul Jones, at the time a junior officer aboard the flagship Alfred, to blockade the port. This mistake enabled the British to load most of the powder on two ships and sail it to St. Augustine, Florida.

The Continentals boasted one of the world’s finest shipbuilders

The conversion of the merchantman Black Prince into Alfred (30-guns) was designed and managed by Joshua Humphreys. Alfred was one of the first frigates in the Continental Navy and Humphreys would later design and build the Constitution. His design was replicated in a class of five more ships – Constellation, Congress, President, Chesapeake and United States – that were ton-for-ton the finest sailing frigates ever built.

The Continental Navy’s last ships were handed over to France

Launched in Boston in 1778 and originally dubbed Hancock, the frigate USS Alliance was renamed in honour of France’s entry into the war. At 36 guns, the ship was designed to go toe-to-toe with the best Royal Navy frigates. Throughout her career, she proved her mettle in battle and in August 1784, she was sold to help pay America’s debts. The Continental Navy had actually called for the construction of three heavy warships capable of taking on British ships-of-the-line. Only the 74-gun America was completed. Launched in 1782, America never served in action and was, upon completion, given to the French navy in recognition of the country’s help during the war. America’s main armament of 18-pounders left her under armed when compared to her French and Royal Navy peers. Within three years the French pulled the vessel from service because she was deteriorating from dry rot.

It disbanded after the Revolution, but would return the following decade

At the end of the American Revolution, the Continental Congress was in a quandary. Under the Articles of Confederation, the it couldn’t levy and collect taxes yet the government needed to repay loans from Spain, France and the Netherlands, as well as private citizens. To reduce expenses in 1784, both the Continental Army and Navy were disbanded. This began a period of over 10 years in which the defence of the country fell to the states themselves, while the coasts of the United States were patrolled by Revenue Cutters, the forerunner to the U.S. Coast Guard. The U.S. Navy, as we know it today, was only established in 1797 in response to attacks on American shipping in the Mediterranean by Barbary pirates.

John Barry picked to lead the new U.S. Navy

In 1794, after Congress voted to create a Navy, John Barry, who distinguished himself in the Continental Navy as the captain of the frigate Alliance was picked by President Washington to lead the U.S. Navy. John Barry has lineal number 1 and was the first flag officer of the U.S. Navy. He began recruiting those officers and men he knew had performed well during the American Revolution. Many of those men – Stephen Decatur, Edward Preble, William Bainbridge, Thomas Macdonough and many more – would soon transform the Navy into an effective fighting force.

Marc Liebman is the author of Raider of The Scottish Coast, a historic novel about the American Revolutionary War at Sea. A retired U.S. Navy captain and naval aviator who is a combat veteran of Vietnam, the tanker wars of the 1980s and Desert Storm, Marc has four other novels in print. Big Mother 40, Render Harmless, Cherubs and Forgotten. He lives in Savannah, Texas with his wife of nearly 50 years and three poodles. They have two children and spend a lot of time visiting his four grand-children when they are not traveling in their RV.