Intrepidity from the Start:
The U.S. Navy

What began as just two vessels in the early days of the Revolutionary War would eventually mature into the greatest fighting force to ever sail the seas. On October 13, 1775, the Continental Navy was formed by an act of the Second Continental Congress, at the urging of Commander in Chief General George Washington. This first organized, American naval force was thereby officially armed by the Alfred and soon thereafter by the Columbus. Yet prior to the formal establishment of the Continental Navy, General Washington (at the insistence of two of his officers) had already begun commissioning officers to retrofit fishing vessels for armed interdiction of vessels meant to resupply the British. By September 7, 1775, Captain Nicholson Broughton had made the first American military interdiction of a vessel—under the authority of the Continental Army, aboard the Hannah. In November 5, 1775, Esek Hopkins was named the first Commander in Chief of America's first fleet.

For more on the historic origins of the U.S. Navy, see:

• "Birth of the Navy"—Homecoming 250 Navy Marine Corps

• "The Birth of the American Navy" (Vincent S. Dowdell Jr., Proceedings, U.S. Naval Institute, November 1955, Vol. 81/11/633)

• "The Father of the American Navy" (Lieutenant Commander F. E. Cross, U.S.N.R., Proceedings, U.S. Naval Institute, December 1927, Vol. 53/12/298)

• Article on the reconstitution of the U.S. Navy following the ratification of the U.S. Constitution:

  • "'Act to Provide a Naval Armament'—225th Anniversary of the Creation of the United States Navy" (Margherita M. Desy, The Sextant, March 24, 2022)