00:09 - Tim McGrath is the author of

00:11 - Give Me a Fast Ship the Continental Navy and the American Revolution at Sea.

00:15 - Tim. In October 1775, Congress established the Continental Navy.

00:19 - What was going on

00:20 - just before that that would lead to the establishment of the Navy?

00:24 - Well, that's a good question, Phil, and thanks again for having me on PCN

00:27 - once again.

00:28 - October 75th finds the 13 colonies,

00:33 - with their second Continental Congress debating an awful lot of issues.

00:37 - There's been a lot going on.

00:38 - You've had Lexington and Concord.

00:41 - You're having a pretty much,

00:44 - siege and some battles in Virginia between the,

00:48 - well, Governor Dunmore and American patriots down there,

00:52 - and you're also having a host of deprivations up and down the New England

00:56 - coast by the Royal Navy and general and a Captain James Wallace in particular.

01:01 - And that is certainly an issue to the,

01:06 - New England members of Congress, especially John Adams,

01:09 - who had never been further out to sea than 15 miles on a fishing trip.

01:13 - But he really is the, midwife of the Continental Navy.

01:17 - And he starts that fall.

01:19 - Was there opposition to establishing a Navy?

01:23 - Yeah, I feel there was surprisingly,

01:26 - it was a bit stronger coming from the southern states.

01:29 - And their champion was a Maryland lawyer, congressman named Samuel Chase,

01:33 - who was, Big John Wayne built kind of figure. And,

01:38 - he had a various tongue, and he didn't mind using it during the debates.

01:43 - He called the idea of an American Navy the maddest idea in the world,

01:48 - and it took some convincing for him,

01:52 - and the rest of the southern congressmen to realize

01:55 - that this was not just going to be a Navy to protect the New England colonies,

01:59 - but all of the colonies, as they saw these deprivations coming further south.

02:04 - Now, at this

02:05 - time, the Royal Navy was the premier navy in the world.

02:08 - And was there any sense of trepidation among these 13 rebellious colonies

02:12 - that that it was just an impossible

02:14 - task to even build a navy that could go up against the Royal Navy?

02:18 - That's a good question as well.

02:20 - And it isn't the fact that it was the most impressive Navy in the world.

02:23 - It was the most impressive military force ever up to that time.

02:28 - Rule Britannia was,

02:30 - the song of the hour, but it also was true.

02:34 - But I think they weren't looking for the Continental Navy

02:36 - so much as to go toe to toe against British fleets, but almost as an escort

02:41 - service for the merchant men that were still trying to do business

02:46 - down into the Caribbean and, and to get to France and to Holland.

02:51 - So finally they got

02:52 - the Navy pass in October 75th.

02:56 - John, Adams drew up the articles of war, which were based on

03:00 - the British articles of war, but a lot more lenient.

03:03 - You were not flogged.

03:05 - 50 stripes of 20 would do or 12 would do.

03:09 - And in the meantime, Stephen Hopkins, congressman from,

03:14 - Rhode Island with a huge, background in the maritime industry,

03:19 - sort of cherry picked almost all the captains for the five ships

03:22 - that they were refitting in Philadelphia to become the Continental Navy

03:26 - and putting his brother Isaac, as the first and only commander

03:29 - in chief of an American Navy.

03:33 - So as they were starting to build a Navy from scratch,

03:35 - obviously it takes time to build ships,

03:37 - where they also trying to convert existing ships to warship purposes.

03:41 - Yeah, the first Squadron was converted ships, and, it fell to three,

03:46 - Philadelphia and experts to get that done, one of whom was Captain John Barry,

03:51 - who, was the most successful captain in the colonies

03:56 - up until that, up to that time,

03:58 - he had just, assumed command that year,

04:02 - before of Robert Morris, his ship, the Black Prince,

04:05 - which was up until then the finest Americans, you know, ship

04:09 - built in the Western Hemisphere and had taken her on her maiden voyage.

04:13 - He returns in April of 75, right when they get news about Lexington and Concord.

04:20 - But Mars sends him out on one more trip to England.

04:23 - They wanted to get the merchants, wanted to get one more voyage across and back

04:28 - with business wise,

04:29 - and make a killing in the British marketplace

04:31 - before the real killing came to Philadelphia.

04:34 - So I felt a barrier to help refit the ships, you know, setting up

04:37 - the strengthening the bulwarks and, punching holes so that they had,

04:43 - you know, entries for the cannons and so forth.

04:47 - Now, one of the early, operations

04:49 - of the Continental Navy was the raid on New Providence in the Bahamas.

04:52 - What was the purpose of that mission?

04:55 - The sources had informed Congress that there was a vast store

05:01 - of gunpowder and supplies at, forts down in Nassau in the Bahamas.

05:05 - So this was where the first Squadron went

05:08 - again, as I said, it was mostly all New England merchant minor

05:11 - relatives of Isaac Hopkins, except for one Philadelphia Nicholas Biddle,

05:16 - who ironically, had earlier before had been a midshipman in the British Navy

05:21 - and had sailed on an expedition up towards Spitsbergen

05:23 - in the North Pole with Horatio Nelson as a shipmate.

05:29 - It was a success, but with a small ass.

05:33 - It wasn't nearly the amount of gunpowder and military supplies there,

05:38 - and the only thing that happened towards the end is they returned.

05:42 - They encountered a couple of British ships protected by a British warship,

05:46 - the Glasgow and the Glasgow steered off all five ships.

05:50 - They all did not fight at the same with the same level intensity.

05:55 - But the Glasgow came out of it unscathed.

05:58 - So it would be like jumping,

06:01 - gang jumping, a kid in an alley and, and failure of Pittsburgh

06:05 - and finding out that the person they jump is a middleweight boxer.

06:10 - It didn't go so well.

06:12 - How were sailors recruited for this new Navy?

06:17 - They set up a very enterprising approach

06:20 - for both the sailors and the Marines fell.

06:23 - They had what they called rendezvous and rallies, usually in front of a tavern.

06:29 - The top two marine officers and the first Marines

06:32 - were both people whose families owned taverns here in Philadelphia.

06:36 - But there would be, fife and drum.

06:38 - There would be a recruiter, there would be drinks.

06:42 - And, you know, your chance to come and join the Continental Navy.

06:47 - And, you know, Congress had a hand in it for all the wrong reasons.

06:51 - One of the things that they did was subtly take half of the proceeds

06:56 - to go towards expenses for the government, where the British navy,

06:59 - whatever those British ships captured, those shares were immediately available.

07:04 - Nothing went to the Crown.

07:07 - And pretty soon it became obvious that you're not

07:10 - going to be paid or on a timely basis if you're serving in the Continental Navy.

07:14 - Meanwhile, the privateers that are sailing from all the ports in the and,

07:19 - the new United States, but especially Philadelphia,

07:24 - had privateers that were going out and coming back.

07:27 - They were mainly just attacking British shipping that they could catch

07:30 - without being, quite or, sunk themselves.

07:34 - And as soon as they got back, they paid their crews,

07:37 - John Barry in between,

07:40 - assignments with the Continental Navy, actually took a, the Philadelphia or.

07:44 - I'm sorry, the Delaware out, out on a couple of cruises

07:49 - because he needed the money.

07:52 - What role did African-Americans play in the Continental Navy?

07:55 - At least 10% of the Continental

07:59 - Navy sailors were black Americans.

08:03 - Some freed, some not freed.

08:06 - And, a

08:08 - sizable portion, especially in New England of Native Americans,

08:12 - on one of Barry's early voyages in 76,

08:16 - he purchased, a black man as his servant.

08:21 - But the man also fought in a couple of the engagements that Barry took place in.

08:25 - When he returned to Philadelphia, he applied to Ben

08:29 - Franklin and the Committee of Safety.

08:32 - Not just for his.

08:33 - He wanted his shares, but not to buy slops

08:36 - or spend some money on the ladies along the waterfront.

08:40 - But to buy his freedom.

08:42 - And he writes a very passionate letter about that.

08:45 - We don't have the response recorded, but he did not get his wish.

08:50 - There was also quite a few,

08:53 - black enslaved men who sailed, on Continental

08:57 - Navy ships whose owners were congressmen and they looked at it the same way.

09:01 - We'll get their shares on one of Barry's, voyages.

09:05 - Two of those enslaved men ran off to new Jersey, and the congressmen were furious.

09:10 - And Barry basically said, I'm not responsible for what happens with them.

09:15 - Once you know, from the time we leave port to the time we come back,

09:19 - are my responsibility, but not before or after

09:23 - that.

09:23 - There were a variety of naval operations that during the War of Water,

09:27 - which took place on Lake Champlain under Benedict Arnold,

09:30 - how did he build a navy on a lake?

09:32 - And how significant was the Battle of Alker Island?

09:36 - It's significant.

09:37 - And that it's a loss for the Americans.

09:40 - But it's also,

09:43 - in Arnold is a guess.

09:45 - Like many people come America's Lucifer.

09:48 - I mean, he really was a brave man and an intrepid man.

09:53 - He was able to use the shipbuilders and boat builders around the lake,

09:58 - coming up with, you know, gunboats and nothing the size of a frigate.

10:02 - But, they had quite a standoff with, the British,

10:06 - ships, at Falkirk Island.

10:09 - There's another point where, one of the 13,

10:13 - frigates that the Congress had

10:15 - ordered to be built in 1775.

10:18 - The Trumbull is literally almost it's it's

10:22 - sandbar locked and, body of water up in New England.

10:26 - And he comes with the idea of take everything off the ship,

10:30 - get as many barrels as we can to attach below,

10:33 - and we can float it over the sandbar and get it to fight.

10:37 - You know, the first part of the revolution,

10:40 - Benedict Arnold's practically indispensable.

10:44 - Now, George Washington also improvised a navy,

10:47 - while he was in New England during the siege of Boston.

10:50 - What what inspired the need for that?

10:52 - And where did he find the men to perform that naval role?

10:56 - Washington saw a need for some kind of shipping

11:00 - not to engage directly with the British Navy, but to get supplies

11:04 - moving back and forth and maybe do a couple of things of harassment.

11:08 - And he turned to John Glover of Marblehead, Massachusetts,

11:12 - and his men that just became known in our history as the Marblehead men.

11:16 - And they were, you know, in charge of that.

11:19 - Washington was renting ships or boats for maybe a buck or two, a day,

11:25 - which tells you how much farther Guiler went back then.

11:30 - But Glover comes in

11:31 - hand many, many times, particularly,

11:35 - a year later, when Washington is surly defeated at the Battle of Brooklyn.

11:39 - And it's the Marblehead men, with addition to some other,

11:43 - you know, seaworthy or, you know,

11:46 - skilled river men that rode the what's left of the Continental Navy

11:51 - thanks to fog and rain

11:54 - over the East River to Manhattan so they could still fight.

11:58 - And it's those same men that on December the afternoon and evening of December

12:03 - 25th of 76, they get Washington and what's left of his army

12:07 - across the Delaware to attack the Hessians at Trenton.

12:12 - Now, you also mentioned privateering earlier.

12:14 - Okay.

12:14 - Talk a lot about what privateering was and what was the legal basis of it.

12:19 - Privateering been around this as long as there have been governments

12:23 - that look to do some kind of business or war at sea,

12:28 - the owner of a privateer.

12:29 - And that ship's captain gets

12:31 - what's called a letter of marque, in this case authorized by Congress,

12:35 - that give that ship permission to hunt down enemy shipping.

12:40 - It also usually specifies who you can't go after.

12:45 - So you're basically getting a chance to send your.

12:49 - If you're a merchant

12:50 - and an owner, you know, you've had to get your ship refitted for guns,

12:53 - and now you get a, captain with some combat experience,

12:58 - and you go out hunting down, stray British merchantmen,

13:02 - or sometimes they would follow a convoy and stay towards the end,

13:07 - you know, the back of it and not be too close to the ships of the

13:11 - line, frigates that were escorting it and seeing what you cut out.

13:15 - And as I said before, when they came back,

13:17 - you know, the their prizes,

13:20 - their what they captured was immediately sold and auctioned off.

13:24 - And the men got their money right away.

13:27 - Robert Morris from Philadelphia writes in a letter to another congressman.

13:32 - You know, these privateers are killing the Navy.

13:35 - It's it's really cutting into us.

13:36 - And the very next paragraph, he talks about investing in a privateer himself

13:42 - from a military

13:42 - perspective, how successful was privateering?

13:47 - It was successful.

13:48 - More from the damage to,

13:52 - the British commerce than it was in anything militarily.

13:56 - But the Continental Navy had its share of, victories for sure.

14:01 - Now, probably one of the most famous figures from the continental,

14:04 - the Continental Navy was John Paul Jones.

14:06 - There's a lot of mythology around him.

14:08 - Who was he? And what made him significant?

14:11 - John Paul Jones is a Scotsman, but,

14:15 - born near the Mull of Kintyre.

14:18 - His father ostensibly was a gardener.

14:20 - But there's always been some conjecture that it might have been the laird

14:23 - of the estate who was Jones's, real father,

14:28 - who was a successful merchantman before the,

14:32 - revolution.

14:34 - He did quite a business in the slave trade.

14:37 - And he was actually offered the captaincy of a sloop,

14:40 - the Providence among the first squadron being, converted in the Navy.

14:45 - And he turned it down because he had never sailed on a four and a half vessel.

14:49 - He'd only sailed on a square record once.

14:51 - So he's second in command to another New England captain.

14:55 - And as soon as he's seen what that guy's doing, he's going, I screwed up.

14:58 - I should have taken command.

15:01 - He later gets command of that sloop, the Providence.

15:03 - There's a wonderful,

15:05 - rebuilt replica of her

15:07 - down in Alexandria that cruises up to Philadelphia sometimes.

15:11 - And then he's he's on his way.

15:13 - He's a visionary.

15:15 - He writes,

15:17 - suggestions constantly to Congress.

15:20 - He's his own press agent.

15:22 - At one point when he's in Boston, he hears about Phillis

15:25 - Wheatley, the black poetess.

15:27 - And so he writes a poem to her.

15:30 - He is, a fearless man.

15:33 - He's really never liked by any of his crews.

15:35 - He's just too, too stern, too hard at it.

15:39 - But, and in his most famous battle at Flamborough Head,

15:44 - commanding the Burnham Richard, an old, ancient, rebuilt Frenchman,

15:48 - against, British frigates who were rapists,

15:51 - they encountered the highest casualties of any battle in the war.

15:56 - Well over 50%.

15:58 - But Jones, he's he's he's something

16:02 - the other also numerous ship on ship battles during the war.

16:06 - Take us into one of those battles.

16:07 - But what did they have looked like?

16:12 - You know, in the wooden world, the main thing

16:15 - you're going for is, making sure you have every bit the edge.

16:20 - If you've got, the wind,

16:23 - you know, working for you instead of against you.

16:26 - It's almost similar to gunfighters in Western movies

16:30 - where they're angling which guy's going to have the sun in their eyes.

16:33 - You want the wind at your advantage?

16:37 - A good example of that in terms of one on one

16:41 - would be the last fight in the revolution, which is,

16:44 - Captain John Barry and his frigate, the Alliance, which was the finest

16:48 - frigate built in the United States during the war.

16:51 - And he and Coutts counters, frigate, the civil of the Royal Navy down

16:56 - near Cape Canaveral, and they fight for two hours back and forth.

17:01 - Barry has become such a good commander and such a skillful

17:05 - wartime mariner that, in the end, the Civil War beats off.

17:09 - And, so Barry doesn't get a chance to capture,

17:12 - but he's protecting a ship that Robert Morris wants him to guard.

17:16 - That's bringing thousands of dollars in specie

17:19 - from Havana to Philadelphia to help get the government, the government going.

17:25 - In 1776,

17:26 - there was also a battle in the Delaware Bay with the HMS Roebuck.

17:30 - And this also involved some boats from the Pennsylvania State Navy.

17:33 - Can you describe that battle

17:34 - and what was unique about it as more of a riverine type of battle?

17:39 - The Roebuck is a frigate commanded

17:41 - by Captain Andrew Snape Heymans and,

17:46 - John Barry's been driving him nuts and his brigantine to Lexington. He.

17:50 - Whenever he's down towards the Delaware Capes, the Roebuck chases him

17:54 - and he goes into the shoals and things where

17:57 - Hammond cannot neither go to nor duke

18:00 - his guns have the reach to to strike the Lexington.

18:03 - And then he darts off again.

18:05 - But in the spring of, 76,

18:08 - he comes up, and there's quite a battle with the,

18:11 - Pennsylvania Navy, which is led by Captain Hazelwood.

18:15 - They're they're row galley smaller ships.

18:17 - And, they stand off against Hammond and a couple of the other

18:21 - British captains pretty well,

18:24 - let's talk a little bit more about the Pennsylvania State Navy

18:26 - because other, other, other states had navies, too.

18:28 - So Owens had what was a relationship between the state navies

18:32 - and the roles they played in the Continental Navy.

18:35 - They really didn't have too much to get together with for,

18:39 - you know, the captains all knew each other, especially Barry knew

18:42 - Hazelwood, and they and the other captains, Hazelwood knew Nicholas Biddle.

18:45 - He's another, like I said, another rather adventurous and bold,

18:49 - you know, Philadelphia captain.

18:52 - But, the biggest asset that Hazelwood and those played was a year later

18:59 - when the whole British fleet is coming into Philadelphia

19:01 - and you have the siege at Fort Mifflin and the battles at Fort Mercer and,

19:06 - hazelwood's throw galleys, play,

19:10 - kind of a holding pattern, a very brave one, you know,

19:13 - withstanding the bombardment of the British ships

19:16 - and some of the British ships or ships to the line,

19:18 - which are huge and some have as many as 100 guns.

19:22 - And, those sailors were quite brave, as were the continental soldiers

19:28 - that were in, Fort Mifflin, during that siege.

19:33 - One fellow was very famous,

19:35 - especially if, listeners of just watch Ken Burns for Revolution.

19:39 - Joseph Plumb Martin is a teenager, and he was there

19:42 - and he described one day's bombardment, which was the longest

19:47 - and the loudest in the country until the three hours at Gettysburg.

19:51 - You know, 85 years later that,

19:55 - the fort's courtyard looked as if

19:57 - it was plowed like a field.

20:00 - So with the Continental Navy,

20:02 - founding in October of 1775, take us kind of through

20:06 - the war as as ships are being built and launched, how does the Navy evolve?

20:10 - And, how did how do its operations change

20:14 - the Navy?

20:16 - Congress assigned different ports from, Portsmouth

20:19 - and Boston down to, Baltimore to build these 13 frigates.

20:24 - And they allotted, $13 million,

20:28 - or, you know, to

20:31 - get these built at one point later in the war,

20:34 - cost over $1 million just to refit one frigate

20:37 - to go back to sea.

20:40 - Occasionally they were to operate as a squadron.

20:43 - There were, just as many times where they were sailing on their own.

20:47 - There was a fistful of captains, an infamous captains list,

20:50 - which drove Jones crazy because he was listed as 17th.

20:56 - John Barry was listed as seventh.

21:00 - You have significant,

21:03 - heroic exploits by Barry, as we said on many occasions.

21:08 - And also Nicholas Biddle,

21:11 - who writes to his brother, I fear nothing except what I ought to fear.

21:15 - He's an extremely brave young man, and at one point, he takes his frigate,

21:20 - or he takes her on a ship of the line and was holding his own until a very,

21:27 - happenstance tragedy where

21:30 - a spark cut into the powder magazine and blew his ship,

21:32 - the Randolph, up.

21:36 - There there were 57 ships

21:38 - fell in the Continental Navy throughout the course of the war.

21:41 - But by the end of the war, there were only two.

21:44 - And John Adams, who wrote that the building of the Navy,

21:47 - the creation of the Navy was the happiest part of my life.

21:51 - And Congress at the end of the war, wrote,

21:54 - it is difficult to think of our Navy without tears.

21:58 - Let's talk about the the end of the war.

22:01 - At that point, we look at if we were to assess the role of the Continental Navy

22:05 - in in the larger outcome of the war, what would it look like?

22:11 - Historians

22:12 - during the whole of all viewed it as a minor incident or not much,

22:17 - of of something worthwhile.

22:19 - But they're forgetting some of the stories,

22:21 - and some of the real impact felt that that the Continental Navy captains had.

22:26 - And that brings me to Gustavus Cunningham.

22:29 - I'll bet you maybe nine out of ten

22:33 - of, your

22:34 - viewers don't know who the heck he is.

22:37 - But this is another Philadelphian from northern Ireland,

22:42 - who takes a couple of cutters,

22:46 - from Dunkirk.

22:47 - They're about half the size of a frigate.

22:50 - They're usually used for capturing smugglers.

22:54 - And in the course of the couple of years.

22:57 - 2 or 3 years.

22:58 - Well, based in France,

23:01 - sailing the English Channel,

23:04 - the North Sea and parts of the Atlantic,

23:07 - Gustavus Cunningham and his little crew capture or burn over 60 ships.

23:12 - That's more than John Paul Jones, John Barrie and Nicholas Biddle combined.

23:17 - And he's become,

23:20 - so well known and so feared among British commerce,

23:25 - of with the possible exception of Ben Franklin.

23:28 - At this point, there's somebody that King George wants to hang.

23:32 - It's Gustavus Cunningham,

23:34 - and he does get captured when he comes back to the States,

23:38 - and he's sent back with 55 pounds of chains to where to be hanged.

23:44 - And the only thing that keeps him from being hanged is someone in Washington

23:47 - sends a letter to Lord Germain and say, you hang him.

23:50 - I hang six British officers.

23:52 - We can play this game, too.

23:54 - And he leads a great escape out of, male prison and privies,

23:59 - getting 50, the other escapees out.

24:02 - That's the only thing

24:03 - missing in this great escape is Steve McQueen in a motorcycle.

24:07 - But he's somebody we don't know about at all.

24:09 - And we should.

24:11 - You know, there should be bridges named after him.

24:14 - Once the war ends, what happens to the Continental Navy?

24:18 - Well, they're down to two ships.

24:20 - The, Duke, the Dara and the Alliance.

24:24 - And the alliance is purchased by Maurice.

24:27 - And he plans on sending John Barry to China.

24:31 - But, with a hold full of,

24:35 - tobacco that he's supposed to,

24:39 - take to China.

24:39 - But the ship starts, gets, gets rammed on a rock and, things a disaster.

24:44 - And so Barry is not the first captain John Green is to eventually go to China.

24:50 - But the soldiers, the sailors haven't been paid.

24:53 - The captains and officers haven't been paid.

24:56 - They're joining the war, the to work, you know, the docks of Philadelphia

25:00 - where there were toasts and songs written about them just a year ago.

25:05 - And now they're desperately looking for work.

25:08 - I think the best story I can tell you that tells you just how difficult it is.

25:12 - At one point, John Barry, who during the Valley Forge winter

25:17 - helped Anthony Wayne in a cattle wrestling venture getting cattle

25:21 - from New Jersey over to, Valley Forge,

25:25 - reaches out to Wayne and saying, I'd like to pay my men

25:29 - if I could get $400, I could at least pay them all half shares.

25:34 - And Wayne doesn't have the money either, so he borrows it from a bank.

25:38 - And, when he calls in the loan, Barry is left scrambling for money.

25:43 - There was just no money at all.

25:44 - Inflation was unbelievably high.

25:47 - The the Continental Navy sort of is, this is an idea that didn't work.

25:52 - But when we look back,

25:55 - to the prism of time and just

25:58 - see what the Continental Navy was about, I think sometimes

26:03 - if the Gettysburg is our Iliad, maybe the Continental Navy's our Odyssey.

26:10 - We've been speaking with Tim McGrath.

26:11 - He is the author of

26:12 - Give Me a Fast Ship, The Continental Navy and the American Revolution at Sea.

26:16 - Tim, thanks for joining me.

26:18 - Thanks a lot for your hand.

26:19 - Appreciate the time, as always.