THE WASHINGTON

NAVY YARD
THE WASHINGTON

NAVY YARD

An Illustrated History

Edward J. Marolda

with Foreword by

Rear Admiral Christopher E. Weaver, USN

Commandant Naval District Washington

N A V A L H I S T O R I C A L C E N T E R

Washington, 1999
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Marolda, Edward J.

The Washington Navy Yard : an illustrated history / Edward J.

Marolda ; with foreword by Christopher E. Weaver

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0–945274–41–6 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Washington Navy Yard—History. I. Title.

VA70.W3M37 1999

359.7’09753—dc21 99–31616

Secretary of the Navy’s

Advisory Subcommittee on Naval History

Dr. David A. Rosenberg, Chairman

CDR Wesley A. Brown, CEC, USN (Ret.)

Dr. Frank G. Burke

J. Revell Carr

VADM Robert F. Dunn, USN (Ret.)

VADM George W. Emery, USN (Ret.)

Dr. Jose-Marie Griffiths

Dr. Beverly Schreiber Jacoby

David E. Kendall

Honorable G. V. Montgomery

Dr. James R. Reckner

Dr. William N. Still Jr.

ADM William O. Studeman, USN (Ret.)

Virginia S. Wood

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements for permanence established by

the American National Standard for Information Sciences “Permanence of Paper for Printed

Library Materials” (ANSI Z39.48–1984).

For sale by the

United States Government Printing Office,

Superintendent of Documents, Mail Stop: SSOP,

Washington, DC 20402–9328

ISBN 0-16-050104-0

➇
List of Illustrations vii

Foreword ix

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xiii

The Early Years 1

The War of 1812 9

Supporting the New Navy 11

The Father of Naval Ordnance 15

Civil War Naval Arsenal and Operating Base 21

The Post-Civil War Era 35

Arming a New Navy 39

Ordnance for a Navy Second to None 53

Between the World Wars 59

Ordnance Nerve Center for a Global Conflict 69

A New Mission for the Navy Yard 75

Notes 101

Bibliography 103

Index 107

Contents
The main ordnance foundry 30

Brazilian steamer Paraense 31

Ordnance stores and armor test pieces 31

John Wilkes Booth 32

Monitor Montauk, autopsy site 33

Confederate naval officer Raphael Semmes 34

Post-Civil War Era

Lieutenant William N. Jeffers 35

John Surratt’s arrival at the navy yard 36

Gunboat Nipsic 37

The new steel ship USS Atlanta 38

Arming a New Navy

Washington Navy Yard, 1888 print 39

Naval Gun Factory workers 40

Sailors work on gun components 40

Workers of the pattern and joiner shop 41

Construction of the Experimental Model Basin 41

Rear Admiral David W. Taylor 42

Filling the Experimental Model Basin 42

Civilian scientist prepares a hull model 43

Experimental Model Basin just before its dedication 43

“USS Maine Blowing Up in Havana Harbor on

15 February 1898” 44

Rear Admiral William T. Sampson 45

Sailors prepare a casket for a ceremonial procession 46

Visitors on a gun barrel 47

A seaplane catapult launching 49

President and Mrs. Howard Taft with Argentine visitors 50

Presidential yacht Mayflower 50

The Great White Fleet underway 51

President Theodore Roosevelt welcomes the return of the

Great White Fleet 51

Curtiss Pusher plane takes off 52

Preparing to test a catapult 52

Ordnance for a Navy Second to None

Gun factory workers processing steel 53

A tractor mount and 7-inch naval rifle 54

Pay wagon 55

Navy Yard Chapter of the American Red Cross 55

Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels 56

American sailors preparing to emplace a mine 56

Submarine chasers searching for German U-boats 57

A 14-inch naval rifle mounted on a railway car 58

Seaplane model in the EMB wind tunnel 58

Cover: Lithograph of the Washington Navy Yard,

published during the Civil War

The Early Years

“Captain Thomas Tingey” xiv

Triopoli Monument 1

“Benjamin Stoddert” 2

Tingey House, or Quarters A 3

“USS Chesapeake” 4

“Mosquito Squadron” 5

Quarters B, the oldest structure 6

Building 1, the old Commandant’s Office 7

“USS Constellation” 8

The War of 1912

“Joshua Barney” 9

“United States Ship-of-the-Line Columbus” 10

Supporting the New Navy

“United States versus HMS Macedonian” 11

“President John Quincy Adams” 12

“USS Brandywine” 12

“The Marquis de Lafayette” 13

“USS Water Witch” 14

The Father of Naval Ordnance

“Awful Explosion of the ‘Peacemaker’ ” 15

Interior view of the experimental battery 16

Civil War 9-inch Dahlgren gun 16

Commodore Charles Morris 17

John A. Dahlgren 18

Washington Navy Yard waterfront, 1866 19

The first Japanese delegation to visit the United States 20

U.S. Marine detachment of the navy yard garrison 21

Civil War Naval Arsenal and Operating Base

“Honorable Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy” 22

The 71st New York Infantry Regiment 22

“The Contest for Henry Hill” 23

Civil War lithograph shows the navy yard’s two shiphouses 25

President Abraham Lincoln 26

African-American sailors mend their clothes 27

Colonel Ulric Dahlgren 28

“The Ironclads” 28

Hand-tinted woodcut of fishermen along the Eastern

Branch 29

The gun park of the navy yard 30

List of Illustrations

vii
Between the World Wars

Industrial activity at the gun factory 59

Navy yard workers honored 60

Navy yard employee Almira V. Brown 61

Camp Good Will sponsored by the navy yard 61

Captain J. J. Raby throws out the ball on opening day 62

Navy yard baseball team cartoon 62

United States Navy Band performing at the navy yard 62

The first aircraft carrier Langley (CV 1) 63

Charles A. Lindberg 63

Mayflower during a 1912 fleet review 65

Thomas King, 66

Flood waters inundate navy yard buildings 66

President and Mrs. Herbert Hoover with Commander

Louis J. Gulliver, CO of Constitution 67

Presidential yacht Potomac arrives at the navy yard, 68

President and Mrs. Roosevelt with King George VI and

Queen Elizabeth 68

Ordnance Nerve Center for a Global Conflict

A skilled worker clears metal cuttings from a gun barrel 69

Employees work metal into shape 70

Work in the breech mechanism shop 71

A 3-inch .50-caliber, rapid-fire, twin-mount

antiaircraft gun 71

World War II sailors test gun range-finders 72

Sparks and flames leap from cauldrons of molten metal 72

Sailors take part in navy yard ceremony 73

Navy yard employees gather in Leutze Park for a band

concert 74

Women shift workers take a break 74

A New Mission for the Navy Yard

President Harry S. Truman 75

1947 map 76

Naval School of Diving and Salvage 77

Submarine torpedo tubes produced at the gun factory 77

Welcoming ceremony for Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd 78

Navy yard workers operate data processing equipment 78

Land acquired by the Washington Navy Yard 79

President Dwight D. Eisenhower disembarks Mayflower 80

USS Blandy (DD 943) 80

Wisconsin (BB 64) fires a 16-inch gun 81

Washingtonians enjoy a “Watergate Concert” 81

Admiral Arleigh Burke, former Chief of Naval

Operations 82

Fighting top of USS Constitution 82

Guns and missiles on display in Willard Park 83

The Navy Museum 83

A PT boat in President Kennedy’s inaugural parade 84

President John F. Kennedy speaking at the navy yard 84

The Navy Art Gallery 85

“Score Another for the Subs” 85

Children at The Navy Museum 86

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mayor Anthony

Williams, Rear Admiral Arthur N. Langston,

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, and

Director of Naval History William S. Dudley 87

“Queen of the Fleet” 88

Captain William F. McGonagle, Commanding Officer

of Liberty 88

USS Liberty (AGTR 2) after attack by Israeli forces 89

Presidential yacht Sequoia 89

Captured 18th-century guns in Leutze Park 90

Civil War-era cannon along Dahlgren Avenue 91

Commodore Dudley W. Knox 92

Assistant Secretary of the Navy James R. Soley 92

The Dudley Knox Center for Naval History 93

The Marine Corps Historical Center 94

Sailors and marines render honors 95

Aerial view of the Washington Navy Yard looking

south 96–97

Aerial view of the Washington Navy Yard looking

north, 98

Artist’s rendering of commercial and government

facilities, 99

Unless otherwise specified, photographs are from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

viii
ing the last fifty momentous years. Indeed, this year as

we celebrate our bicentennial and face the new millennium, the Washington Navy Yard is undergoing significant growth and revitalization as it takes on a new role

as a model for cost-effective support to our Navy’s shore

establishment. At the same time, the Navy’s long-standing commitment to and partnership with the community

around the Navy Yard is undergoing a rejuvenation and

expansion. The stage is thus set for another era of service to our nation by the Navy Yard.

The Navy Yard is extremely fortunate to have within

its walls the Naval Historical Center and its Navy Museum, the display ship Barry, and a variety of artifacts that

attest to the yard’s key role in the growth of a strong and

capable U.S. Navy. The Naval Historical Center’s important contribution to the preservation of our rich history

is reflected in this excellent book and for this I offer my

personal thanks to that fine institution.

My hope is that after you read about the Washington

Navy Yard, you will make it a point to come here as

part of your visit to our nation’s capital. In so doing, you

will be captured, as I have been, by the historical significance of this wonderful installation. But you will

also be honoring the hundreds of thousands of Sailors,

Marines, and civilians who have given, and continue to

give, a great deal of themselves to our country and our

Navy at this historic place.

Rear Admiral Christopher E. Weaver, USN

Commandant Naval District Washington

It is a great honor to be the 83rd Commandant of the

Naval District of Washington, home of the Navy’s oldest

and most historic base, the Washington Navy Yard. I

especially value the opportunity to serve in this capacity in this, the Navy Yard’s bicentennial year.

Throughout its history, the yard has been associated

with names like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and

Kennedy. Kings and queens have visited the yard; its

waterfront has seen many historic moments; and some

of our Navy’s most senior and most notable officers

have called it home. Such legendary ships as USS Constitution and USS Constellation sailed from its piers,

and the 14-inch and 16-inch guns that armed our

Navy’s battleships during Word Wars I and II were built

in its factories.

The Navy Yard’s colorful and storied history was

originally chronicled in Round-Shot to Rockets: A History of the Washington Navy Yard and U.S. Naval Gun

Factory, written in 1949 by Taylor Peck to mark the

yard’s sesquicentennial. His work is indeed a comprehensive history of the first 150 years of the Washington

Navy Yard. It details the evolution of the yard from its

earliest days and documents the service of such legendary officers as Captain Thomas Tingey, who served

as the first Commandant for an astounding twenty-nine

years, and Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, perhaps the

Navy’s most renowned ordnance engineer.

The Washington Navy Yard: An Illustrated History, by

Edward J. Marolda, complements Round-Shot to Rockets and details the proud heritage of the Navy Yard durForeword

ix
Preface

During much of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Washington Navy Yard was the most recognizable symbol of

the United States Navy in the nation’s capital. The

shipyard built a number of the Navy’s first warships

and repaired, refitted, and provisioned most of the

frigates, sloops, and other combatants of the fledgling

naval service. The masts and rigging of USS Constitution were a common site on the banks of the Anacostia

River. Booming cannon became a routine sound in

southeast Washington during the mid-19th century as

Commander John A. Dahlgren, “father of American

naval ordnance,” test-fired new guns for the fleet. The

Naval Gun Factory’s fire and smoke-belching blast furnaces, foundries, and mills gave birth to many of the

fleet’s weapons, from small boat howitzers to the enormous 14-inch and 16-inch rifles that armed the naval

railway batteries in World War I and the Iowa-class

battleships in World War II and the Cold War. Rear

Admiral David W. Taylor inaugurated a new era in ship

development when he used scientific measurements in

his Experimental Model Basin to test the properties of

prototype hulls. Before and after World War I, the pioneers of naval aviation experimented in the Anacostia

and navy yard facilities with various seaplane types,

shipboard catapults, and other equipment that would

soon revolutionize warfare at sea.

The Washington Navy Yard has been a witness to

history—to the evolution of the United States of

America from a small republic, whose ships were

preyed upon by Barbary corsairs and whose capital

was burned by an invading British army, into a nation

of enormous political, economic, and military power

and global influence. The Civil War that so dramatically altered American society swirled around and

through the Washington Navy Yard. American presidents, first ladies, foreign kings and queens, ambassadors from abroad, legendary naval leaders, national

heroes and villains, and millions of citizens have all

passed through Latrobe Gate during the yard’s 200-

year existence.

The Washington Navy Yard has also been the workplace for tens of thousands of Americans, a familiar

landmark in the District of Columbia, and a valued

member of the Washington community. Throughout the

19th and 20th centuries, ship riggers, hull caulkers,

iron and bronze smiths, joiners, millwrights, machinists, foundrymen, boilermakers, and tool and die makers; skilled workmen and laborers; naval officers, bluejackets, and marines have earned their livings within

the walls of the navy yard. Numerous Americans, white

and black, male and female, have spent their entire

working lives at the yard building warships, manufacturing guns, testing vessel and aircraft models, training

sailors, or administering the needs of American combatants steaming in the distant waters of the world.

Navy yard workers, as many as 26,000 men and women

at one point in 1944, contributed to the success of U.S.

arms in the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and

II, the Cold War, and Operation Desert Storm.

Yard workers, most of them residents of the District,

Maryland, and Virginia, over the years have helped

local authorities extinguish fires, hold back flood

waters, rescue victims of natural disasters, and care for

needy members of the surrounding neighborhoods.

They have helped federal authorities put together

national celebrations to mark the end of the country’s

wars, repair the Capitol and other government buildings, receive the sacred remains of unknown U.S. servicemen from overseas, stage presidential inaugurations, and welcome foreign dignitaries to American

soil. Above all, they have loyally served the United

States and the U.S. Navy.

This richly illustrated history was written in the

bicentennial year to highlight the importance of the

Washington Navy Yard and its employees to the nation,

the Navy, and the District of Columbia. It touches on

the major activities of the facility and on some of the

yard’s past workers and significant visitors. Much of

the text relies on authoritative compilations, published

and unpublished, primary documents, and other

sources identified in the bibliography that are maintained in the Navy Department Library and the Navy’s

Operational Archives. We do not suggest that this is

the definitive work on the subject or a follow-on to the

seminal history by Taylor Peck, Round-Shot to Rockets:

A History of the Washington Navy Yard and U.S. Naval

Gun Factory, published in 1949. Accomplishing that

worthwhile goal demands intensive research in the

xi
document collections and personal papers relating to

the navy yard in the National Archives, Library of Congress, Operational Archives, and numerous other

repositories nationwide. A worthy research and writing

project beckons some aspiring scholar!

As the momentous 20th century and the millennium

draw to a close, the Navy is increasingly concentrating

its Washington-area commands and activities at the

Washington Navy Yard. The site offers many financial

and administrative advantages for the Navy in the lean

budgetary environment of the post-Cold War era. Longstanding buildings, unique in their designs and

reminders of the navy yard’s proud industrial past, are

being reconditioned to accommodate the Naval Sea

Systems Command and other commands. New government and commercial buildings are rising along the

banks of the Anacostia and in the nearby southeast

Washington neighborhoods. The Washington Navy Yard

is once again abuzz with activity. Hence, in this

momentous bicentennial year, the future looks especially bright for the U.S. Navy’s oldest and most historic base.

Edward J. Marolda
Acknowledgments

I owe special thanks to Rear Admiral Christopher E.

Weaver, Commandant Naval District Washington, for

his encouragement and financial support of this publication project and for his energetic efforts highlighting

the Washington Navy Yard’s significance in American

history. Additional support came from John Imparato

and Senior Chief Jody Haubry of the admiral’s staff,

who worked hard to bring about successful celebrations in this momentous year.

It is especially appropriate that professional staff

members of the Naval Historical Center, many of whom

have worked in the Washington Navy Yard for decades,

some for their entire professional careers, have collaborated in the completion of this anniversary history.

While many of my colleagues long ago dedicated heart

and soul to the study of naval history, they have taken

special interest in interpreting the evolution of their

workplace. I wish to thank Dr. William S. Dudley,

Director of Naval History, who first proposed preparation of this work and then gave unwavering support to

its completion; Regina Akers, Christine Hughes, Jack

Green, Kim Nielsen, John Reilly, Mark Evans, Dr.

Robert J. Schneller, and Susan Scott, learned professionals who authored sidebars and reviewed the manuscript; Charles R. Haberlein, Jack Green, Edwin

Finney, and Roy Grossnick, whose knowledge of the

Center’s photo collections enabled them to suggest and

locate unique images; Gale Munro, Lynn Turner, Karen

Haubold, and DM1 Erick Marshall Murray, who recommended several exceptional paintings from the

Navy Art Collection; Jean Hort, Glenn Helm, Barbara

Auman, Tonya Montgomery, and Davis Elliot, who

pointed me to rare and valuable published and unpublished manuscripts in the Navy Department Library;

Kathy Lloyd and Regina Akers, who suggested key

sources in the Operational Archives; Captain Todd

Creekman and Commander James Carlton, successive

Deputy Directors of Naval History, administrator Jill

Harrison, and financial manager Donna Smilardo, who

provided encouragement and administrative support.

As with every publication project of the Center, Senior

Editor Sandra Doyle applied her considerable professional skills to the editing, composition, and design of

the work.

Numerous individuals outside the Center eagerly

contributed to this history. James Dolph, in addition to

carrying out his responsibilities as the historian of the

Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, conducted extensive

research on the industrial uses of Washington Navy

Yard buildings and graciously shared the product of

that work with the author; Carolyn Alison, Public

Affairs Officer of the Office of the Judge Advocate

General, and Roger Williams and William Brack of the

Naval Facilities Engineering Command helped enlighten the author about the current restoration of historic

navy yard buildings; Jan Herman, historian of the

Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, provided much useful

information on Washington’s earliest naval medical

facility; Captain Guillermo Montenegro, Argentine

Navy (Ret.), made a special effort to verify the visit by

President William Howard Taft to Argentine warship

Sarmiento when the vessel put in at Washington in

1910, and Captain Hugo Diettrich, Argentine Navy

(Ret.), provided a photo of the event; Dr. David Winkler and David Manning of the Naval Historical Foundation facilitated the reproduction of photographs;

Lawrence P. Earle and A. Donald Lawrence of the

Chesapeake Division, Naval Facilities Engineering

Command supplied several of the graphics and aerial

photos; Master Chief Musician Jon Youngdahl of the

United States Navy Band provided historical information on his long-time Washington Navy Yard tenant

activity; Jean Kirk of the Medals and Awards Branch

made available unique photographs; and DiAnn Baum,

Bill Rawley, and Jeffrey Dorn of the Government Printing Office’s Typography and Design shop applied their

expertise to the final format and design of the book.

I am grateful to all those individuals who helped in

the preparation of this illustrated history, but any misinterpretations or factual errors that appear on the following pages are my own. The views expressed do not

necessarily reflect or represent those of the Department of the Navy or any other U.S. Government agency.

Edward J. Marolda

xiii
“Captain Thomas

Tingey” (Navy Art Collection, artist unknown).

Tingey was the first Commandant of the Washington Navy Yard. During

the thirty-year tenure of

this courageous and

focused officer, the yard

became one of the

Navy’s prime shipbuilding and supply centers.
1

first Secretary of the Navy. A dynamic and visionary leader, Stoddert worked hard to build and

develop the new U.S. Navy. He hoped to limit shipbuilding costs by establishing naval yards on federal land at several East

Coast locations rather than

depend on private firms for

construction. Knowing that

President George Washington had given his approval

in 1792 for a 12-acre tract

on the Eastern Branch (now

the Anacostia River) of the

Potomac River, President

John Adams approved use

of the public land at the site

in 1798. Stoddert had

affirmed for the President

that this site in the new federal capital lay near abundant supplies of timber for

building warships and possessed a suitable waterfront

from which to launch them.

Equally important to the

Secretary of the Navy and

the nation’s founders, who

were suspicious of standing military forces, a navy

yard at that location just off Capitol Hill could be

kept “under the eye of the Government.”1 On 25

February 1799, Congress passed legislation that

provided $50,000 for construction of two drydocks

and $1 million for the launching of twelve warships. The drydocks and one ship were to be completed in Washington.

The Washington Navy Yard began its illustrious

history on 2 October 1799, when public land on the

The Washington Navy Yard dates its founding from

the earliest days of the republic and the United

States Navy. The Continental Navy that fought the

American Revolution from 1775 to 1783 was disestablished soon after

the conflict. Congress

and many Americans

concluded that there

was no longer a need

for naval protection.

The citizens of the new

United States of America soon learned that

they could not prevent

European navies or

privateers commissioned by Great

Britain, France, and

the Barbary states of North Africa from seizing

American merchant ships on the high seas. So in

1794 Congress appointed six naval captains and

approved funds for the construction of Constitution

and five other fast, 44-gun and 36-gun frigates.

The commissioning of United States in 1797

marked the rebirth of the American navy.

The following year, Congress established the

Department of the Navy and appointed prominent

Georgetown merchant Benjamin Stoddert as the

The Early Years

The Tripoli Monument.

This memorial to

Stephen Decatur and

other heroes of the Barbary Wars was the

national capital’s first

monument. It greeted

visitors to the navy yard

for thirty-five years at

the beginning of the

19th century and now

rests on the grounds of

the U.S. Naval Academy
Eastern Branch passed into Navy custody. With the

establishment of the yard, Benjamin Stoddert, who

would soon direct U.S. naval forces during the

Quasi-War with France, put the Navy on a firm footing as the young, vibrant nation confidently entered

the new century.

To develop the Washington Navy Yard

and build its first warship, Stoddert

selected Captain Thomas Tingey, a

short, stout naval officer who had

already made a name for himself. The English-born Tingey

had served as an officer in

the Royal Navy, before joining the U.S. Navy in 1798.

He erased any doubts

about his loyalty to the new

republic when he refused to

let British officers search

his naval vessel for crewmen

who might have been the

king’s subjects. He had

assured his shipmates that he

would die before surrendering any

of them to the British.

Arriving in Washington in February

1800, Tingey inspected the site of the future navy

yard and suggested the need for a contingent of

marines and a high fence around the site to discourage pilferage of lumber and other building materials.

The Navy Department acted on his suggestion. From

that year to the present, the U.S. Marine Corps has

continuously posted a guard at the Washington Navy

Yard. Tingey also rented nearby a solid, two-story

house with a large kitchen, stable, carriage house,

and a well. When he moved in during the spring of

1800, Tingey became the first naval officer to make a

permanent home in the District of Columbia.

Following the short Quasi-War with France and

Thomas Jefferson’s presidential inauguration in

1801, the Navy decommissioned a number of its

older warships and placed them in reserve or “in

ordinary” at the Washington Navy Yard and its other

naval facilities. Equipment from the ships and huge

piles of live oak and other timber used for constructing sturdy warships were kept out of the elements in

a new, covered building on the north bank of the

Eastern Branch. That fall, Tingey oversaw the

completion of an officer’s residence, constructed under contract with the

Lovering and Dyer Company of

Georgetown. During this same

period, a small “naval hospital” was established in a

building outside the yard

near the main gate. The facility, the only one of its kind in the

Washington area, provided medical care to navy yard personnel for

the next three decades.2

President Jefferson, whose home at Monticello near Charlottesville, Virginia, bears witness to

his genius for inventive architecture and design,

became excited about the prospect of building an

800-foot-long, 175-foot-wide drydock at the Washington Navy Yard. He suggested that with a system of

locks Navy frigates (virtually the entire fleet in 1802)

could be raised out of the water and kept in a covered structure until they were needed for operations.

He reasoned that this facility would significantly

reduce the funds that Congress, which continued to

oppose maintaining a large navy, would have to

appropriate for ship upkeep. To design the structure,

he enlisted Benjamin H. Latrobe, a brilliant architect

and like himself, a Renaissance man. Latrobe agreed

that such a drydock was feasible. Congressmen from

2 The Washington Navy Yard

“Benjamin Stoddert” by

E. F. Andrews (Navy Art

Collection). Stoddert, the

first Secretary of the Navy,

pressed for the establishment

and early development of the

Washington Navy Yard.
The Early Years 3

the western states and others opposed to even a small

navy, however, voted down the appropriations bill.

Latrobe stayed on in the capital city as Jefferson’s

Surveyor of Public Buildings and after 1804 as Engineer of the Navy Department. In the latter capacity

he developed an overall design for the Washington

Navy Yard that the Navy accepted the following year.

The main gate, which has come to be known as the

Latrobe Gate, was built from his plan and is one of

the few original structures in the yard. During

Latrobe’s tenure with the Navy Department in the

first decade of the 19th century, the navy yard witnessed construction of the Commandant’s House, the

main gate and guardhouse, offices, and shops for

joiners, blacksmiths, plumbers, armorers, riggers,

and painters. Also established were a foundry and

rolling mill. A rudimentary steam engine powered

many of the yard’s machines—when it worked, which

it often did not.

Neither Jefferson nor Congress wanted to incur the

expense of maintaining an operating fleet, so the

Navy’s frigates were laid up. By late 1804, the 44-

gun frigates Constitution, United States, and President and the 36-gun frigates Congress, Constellation,

and New York had been placed in ordinary at the

Washington Navy Yard. As an alternative, Jefferson

pushed the construction of small, one- or two-gun

gunboats, which he considered adequate to defend

American ports. The Washington Navy Yard built the

prototype gunboat and many of the several hundred

follow-on models. The Navy found them unseaworthy

and poor combat vessels and by 1815 had taken

them out of service.

As they had at the end of the 18th century, the

Barbary corsairs and European navies continued to

interfere with U.S. oceangoing trade, even in American coastal waters. On one occasion, Jefferson

warned the captain of supply ship Huntress, then at

the navy yard, to watch out for privateers when he

put to sea. Despite this warning, the master lost his

ship and its cargo to a Spanish privateer only three

days out of port. To defend American merchantmen

Tingey House or Quarters A, the long-time residence of Washington

Navy Yard commandants

and after 1978 the official home of the Chief of

Naval Operations.
4 The Washington Navy Yard

from these oceangoing predators, Congress funded

the building of several sloops-of-war. When completed in 1806, Wasp became the first ship built in the

Washington Navy Yard.

In the decade before the War of 1812, the navy

yard employed several hundred workmen, many of

whom lived in a nearby settlement called Navy Yard

Hill. This habitation boasted a public market, village

green, churches, wells, and springs. Fields of grass or

grain, fruit orchards, and shade trees surrounded

individual homes. Slaves also toiled at the navy yard.

“USS Constellation” by

John W. Schmidt (Navy

Art Collection). The ship

was one of the first

frigates built for the U.S.

Navy and a common site

at the navy yard in the

early 19th century.
The Early Years 5

Their accommodations can

only be surmised, but they

were undoubtedly much

more austere than the

homes of Navy Yard Hill.

In 1807 frigate Chesapeake, after fitting out at the

navy yard, sailed to Norfolk, Virginia, then out to sea

where the British warship HMS Leopard fired on her,

compelling the American captain to submit. Royal

Navy officers boarded the U.S. naval vessel and

removed several crewmen they believed to be British

subjects. Involved in a life and death struggle with

Napoleon’s France, the British wanted every seaman

they could get for their navy, even those men crewing

American vessels. United States citizens were outraged by the high-handed British action and there was

talk of war. Diplomacy averted a conflict, but many

people remembered the slight to national honor when

Anglo-American relations again soured in 1812.

As the nation edged closer to war with Great

Britain, Captain Tingey oversaw the fitting out of

warships at the yard. Not all of his customers were

satisfied with the service. On one occasion, Captain

Stephen Decatur, by now a national hero for his

exploits against the Tripolitan corsairs, complained

that the rigging installed on his ship, United States,

was inadequate. Captain William Bainbridge, a combat officer almost as famous as Decatur, made a similar complaint. Tingey explained to Secretary of the

Navy Paul Hamilton that he considered the materials

good enough and that some officers were too

demanding. Personal judgment was key to the issue,

since the Navy then had no standard specifications

for masting and sparring a ship, the quantity of stores

to be carried, or even arming a warship.

Privateers commissioned by Great Britain, France,

Spain, and the Barbary states of North Africa and

pirates continued to prey on American merchant

“Mosquito Squadron”

by Fred S. Cozzens

(Navy Art Collection).

The navy yard built a

number of these gunboats during the Jefferson administration.
metrical five-bay front marks the

original building, but extensive

renovations, retrimmings, and the

lengthening of windows in the

mid-19th century have made it

substantially Victorian. The many

additions to the exterior of the

house have covered up but not

destroyed the original fabric. In

the face of the imminent British

occupation in August 1814,

Thomas Tingey set the yard on fire

but Quarters A survived. The

building’s central location in the

yard gave its occupants a sweeping

view of the workshops and laborers

in the gently sloping vista below

the house. Every commandant of

the yard resided in Quarters A

from 1812 until 1978 when it

became the home of the Chief of

Naval Operations.

that emphasized the affinity

between the Greek democratic state

and the American republic.

Alterations in 1880 and 1881

added two stories across the gate

and three stories on either side of it,

leaving most of the old gate intact,

except the eagle, the old roof, and a

parapet wall. A Victorian melange

of classical and Italianate motifs

characterized this new design.

Quarters A is commonly called

Tingey House after the yard’s first

commandant, Thomas Tingey, who

lived in the house from 1812 until

his death in 1829. Situated on the

crest of a hill adjacent to the north

wall and just east of the Latrobe

Gate, Tingey House, which dates

from 1804, is a two-story structure

built with Flemish bond brick. A

late Georgian design with a symThe Navy

Yard’s

Oldest

Buildings

The creator of the gateway to the

Washington Navy Yard envisioned

portals befitting a place of labor.

Benjamin Henry Latrobe, President

Thomas Jefferson’s Surveyor of the

Public Buildings, designed the

Latrobe Gate in 1805 “with a view

to the greatest economy that is

compatible with permanence, and

with an appearance worthy of the

situation.” Durable but inexpensive

freestone composed the one-story

arch whose simple architrave and

frieze without a pediment echoed a

kinship with Greek Revival design.

The north facade comprised two

Greek Doric columns set ten feet

apart and two flanking pylons. An

eagle grasping an anchor in its

talon originally crowned the gate

and a rectangular panel with an

anchor design carved in bas-relief

was inset in each pylon. A semicircular arch spanned a 20-foot

roadway on the southern façade

and a double colonnade of Doric

columns connected the two sides. A

low-pitched hipped roof covered

the structure and the one-story

brick guard lodges housed the

marine sentries. Completed in

1806, the Latrobe Gate graces the

Navy’s first navy yard, and its

Greek character foreshadowed the

coming of a new movement in

American architectural thinking

Quarters B or Second Officer’s Quarters, the oldest structure at the Washington Navy Yard. Early in the 19th century, local builders Lovering and

Dyer created this residence for officers who served as second in command

at the naval facility. The building later served as a barrack for the U.S.

Marine guard force and then the residence of the Commandant, Naval

District Washington.

6 The Washington Navy Yard
Lack of substantive documentation clouds the origin of Quarters

B. One unsubstantiated view holds

that it was originally a farmhouse

that stood on the yard when the

Navy acquired the property in

1799. Another account asserts that

Secretary of the Navy Robert T.

Smith ordered Commandant

Thomas Tingey in October 1801 “to

contract with Mssrs. Lovering and

Dyer for the building of a house to

accommodate the officer of Marines

and the Superintendent of the Navy

Yard.” According to Navy records a

contract for a house was let to this

firm and in all probability it was

constructed in late 1801 or early

1802. The latter version is the more

reliable as the house does not

appear on the November 1801 enumeration of houses in Washington.

Tingey, however, did not live there

but chose to rent a house on 11th

and G Streets, near the yard. Quarters B was evidently used as an

officer’s residence and offices during its early years. This structure

survived the British invasion of

Washington in August 1814, but

residents from the neighborhood

looted the house when the U.S.

Navy abandoned the yard temporarily. Quarters B was originally

a simple two-and-one-half-story,

gabled-roof, Federal-style brick

house approximately 36 feet long

and 24 feet deep. The house was

enlarged twice to its present length

of 76 feet in the years before 1868.

Today it houses the Commandant

Naval District Washington.

Designed originally as an office

for the officers of the Washington

Navy Yard, Building 1 or the Commandant’s Office was built between

1837 and 1838. Latrobe Gate is the

ceremonial entrance to the Washington Navy Yard from Eighth Street

and Building 1 forms the southern

terminus on this axis. Exterior modifications to the building have not

obscured its original scale or mass.

The structure is a freestanding, rectangular, two-story brick building

laid in a Flemish bond pattern. A

low, bellcast hipped roof covers the

main block, and frame porches surround the exterior. Renovations in

1873 and in 1895–1896 changed

the style of porch columns and railings. In the later renovation the

north façade gained a projecting,

one-story entrance porch with a

gabled roof, and the south façade, a

projecting two-story porch with

stairs. Besides being a major focal

point of the yard, Building 1 served

as the administrative center for its

commandants. John Dahlgren, perhaps the yard’s most illustrious figure, slept and ate in a room outside

his office in 1861, having proffered

the officers of the 71st New York

Infantry Regiment accommodations

in Tingey House. President Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet members frequently visited Dahlgren in

Building 1 during the Civil War. In

the mid-20th century, Building 1

served as living quarters; later it

was a Public Affairs Office. Since

1993, historians of the Naval Historical Center have occupied the

Navy’s oldest active office building.

The National Register of Historic

Places has included Latrobe Gate,

Quarters A (Tingey House), Quarters B, and Building 1 on its listings

since 1973.

Christine F. Hughes

The old Commandant’s Office (Building 1).

The Early Years 7
8 The Washington Navy Yard

that the yard had had to

replace only one rotten timber in Wasp, which was

built in his yard, while the

privately built Hornet had to

be completely rebuilt to

replace many rotten timbers. The yard also

equipped ten gunboats with

new masts, sails, and cannon and added heavier ordnance, stronger masts and spars, and new rigging to

frigates Congress, Constellation, and the soon-to-be

famous Constitution.

shipping during the early years of the 19th century,

but opponents of the Navy in Congress refused to

fund new warship construction. Many legislators

from the southern and western states, which were

not dependent on overseas trade, could see no benefit to a larger Navy.

Even though several of the nation’s other navy

yards fell on hard times for lack of adequate funding, the Washington Navy Yard did get support for

repairing and refitting the Navy’s warships. From

1810 to 1812, the yard shops replaced rotten timbers and weathered rigging, caulked and coppered

the hulls, and painted sections of brigs Vixen and

Hornet, schooner Enterprise, frigate Adams, and

sloop Wasp. Tingey observed in his correspondence

“USS Chesapeake”

by F. Muller (Navy Art

Collection). In 1807,

HMS Leopard fired on

the American warship,

killing and wounding

twenty-four men. The

British removed four

sailors from her,

claiming they were

subjects of their king.

The incident, a major

irritant to U.S.-British

relations, was a factor

in the outbreak of the

War of 1812.
9

Bermuda, entered the Chesapeake, and moved north

to the mouth of the Patuxent River in August 1814.

When the alarm was raised in Washington, the government called out local militia units under

Brigadier General William

H. Winder. His motley

force of regulars and illtrained militiamen boldly

marched across the navy

yard bridge on the Eastern

Branch and took up positions at Bladensburg,

Maryland, some twelve

miles to the northeast.

At the same time, Commodore Barney and the

sailors and marines of his

small defensive flotilla,

trapped in the upper

reaches of the Patuxent,

burned their vessels and

headed for the navy yard

bridge, which they initially were ordered to defend.

When General Winder

realized on the 24th that the British troops were not

headed for the bridge, he dispatched Barney and his

men to Bladensburg. When the commodore’s group

arrived, many American regulars and militiamen had

begun to flee from the battle being fought there. Barney deployed his sailors and marines and their guns

to halt the enemy advance, and despite repeated

assaults the British regulars could not budge the

naval force. Finally, when the enemy routed an

American unit on one flank and wounded Barney

with their fire, the sailors and marines retired toward

Washington.

The United States declared war against Great Britain

in 1812, and at the beginning of 1813 Congress

authorized construction of four 74-gun warships and

six 44-gun frigates. The Washington Navy Yard

almost immediately began

work on frigate Columbia

and sloop-of-war Argus.

Preoccupied with military

operations on the frontier

with Canada, the Madison

administration failed to

improve Washington’s

defenses. As a stopgap, in

1813 navy yard officers

and seamen manned three

small scows armed with a

few light pieces of ordnance and took station in

the Potomac River off

Greenleaf’s Point. Tingey

emplaced and fortified a battery of seven guns on the

point (now part of Fort Leslie J. McNair).

When it appeared that the British were headed for

Baltimore, the Navy ordered all but a few officers

and men at the yard to join Commodore Joshua Barney and his Chesapeake defense flotilla. Service in

the local militia companies also took away many of

the yard’s civilian workers.

The vulnerability of the nation’s capital to attack

became clear when a British fleet commanded by

Rear Admiral George Cockburn and carrying troops

under Major General Robert Ross sortied from

The War of 1812

“Joshua Barney”by

J. Gross (Roosevelt

Library). The commodore made a heroic

stand with sailors and

marines at the Battle of

Bladensburg.
Meanwhile, Captain Tingey prepared to carry out the orders of the

Secretary of the Navy to burn the

Washington Navy Yard, rightly characterized by one writer as the “pride of

the U.S. Navy,” lest it be captured by

the enemy.3 He observed that the navy

yard was “historic acreage...where the

fledgling navy’s warships were built.”

He added, “Tingey and his staff were

keenly aware of the navy yard’s place

in the tiny capital. It was not only the

workplace for hundreds of Washingtonians, but was also one of the most

familiar landmarks in their hometown.”4 The gravity of Tingey’s mission

was driven home in the late afternoon

when Winder’s men ignited explosives that completely

destroyed the bridge over the Eastern Branch.

The commandant dispatched his chief clerk,

Mordecai Booth, on a scouting mission to determine

if British troops were advancing on the navy yard.

When the enemy made clear their approach by twice

firing on Booth, he hurried back to report to Tingey.

Even then the captain hesitated. He did not want the

enemy to capture the valuable navy yard and the

ships and stores there, but he also did not want to

start a fire that might spread to neighboring houses.

Tingey delayed giving the order until after dusk,

when the wind died down. Then, around 8:20 he

ordered fires started in storehouses, offices, mechanical shops, and the sawmill, all of which were

crammed full of valuable materials, machinery,

equipment, and papers. And, “like possessed pyromaniacs, the government employees set fire to

[frigate Columbia and sloop-of-war Argus, then under

construction] and watched pitifully as the flames

devoured months of fine workmanship in the brilliant

nocturnal pyre.”5

As Tingey and his chief subordinates departed the navy yard in a small vessel, they

watched flames consume the facility. Neither Tingey

nor the British, however, torched the Commandant’s

House or the second officer’s quarters.

The next day, enemy

troops briefly entered the

yard and burned the

buildings that had not

been set on fire by the

Americans. Surprisingly, the Americans and the

British failed to destroy schooner Lynx, which was

close to completion; two gunboats; and stores of powder and other materials. As soon as the British

departed, the local populace began plundering not

only the untouched stores but also the two residences. As one historian observed, “not a movable

object from cellar to garret was left, and even the fixtures and locks on the doors were taken.”6 Soon

afterward, Tingey strongly recommended erecting a

10-foot-high brick wall around the yard to prevent a

recurrence of this activity.

10 The Washington Navy Yard

“United States Shipof-the-Line Columbus”

(Navy Art Collection,

artist unknown). Built at

the navy yard, she served

the nation for much of

the early 19th century.
11

the Washington site remained indispensable as a

shipyard and industrial facility because of its skilled

workforce and unique shops.

In that regard, shops were established for manufacturing the Navy’s anchors and chain cables. With

a new steam engine, the navy yard could fabricate

anchors more economically than private firms and

ensure product uniformity for the Navy. The establishment of a factory for making chain cable made

the yard the sole source for the naval service. In

1827, the Board of Navy Commissioners added official weight to the navy yard’s status as the manufacturer for the Navy when they stipulated that many

items of ships’ equipment were to be provided only

by the yard.

The Navy’s noteworthy performance during the War

of 1812, in marked contrast to that of the Army,

In the years after the War of 1812, Congress appropriated funds to build new structures at the navy

yard according to the previous street layout, but this

time made of brick. The Navy also considered different uses for the yard. On the recommendation of the

new Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin Crowninshield,

Congress established a Board of Navy Commissioners, composed of three senior Navy captains, to

advise him on the administration of the naval service. The first board recommended that the number

of navy yards be reduced to three and include the

Washington Navy Yard. They also observed that

because of the difficulty that the larger vessels experienced navigating the Potomac River and its Eastern

Branch and because of Washington’s distance from

the sea, most of the fleet should operate from and be

repaired at sites on the ocean. Yet, they found that

Supporting the New Navy

“USS United States

versus HMS Macedonian”

by Arthur N. Disney Sr.

(Navy Art Collection).

U.S. Navy sailors gained

a reputation for professional skill and valor in

battle during the War of

1812.
persuaded the American people and their representatives in Congress to build a postwar fleet worthy of

the new, proud nation. The legislature provided for

the building of nine ships of the line and twelve 44-

gun frigates at navy yards, rather than at private

yards whose products were often

considered unsatisfactory. In

1819, the Washington Navy Yard

launched the 74-gun Columbus,

which served the Navy ably until

her deliberate destruction to prevent capture during the Civil War.

Completion of the frigate

Potomac coincided with Commodore John Rodgers’ development of a new aid to construction

and repair. He considered it possible for yard workers to haul a ship

out of the water on an inclined

plane and into a roofed-over

building so work could proceed regardless of wind,

rain, and snow. The commodore demonstrated the

feasibility of his project before President James Monroe, members of Congress, foreign dignitaries, and

the public in 1822. Using ropes, 140 men hauled

Potomac out of the water and along a wooden incline,

the nation’s first marine railway. So impressed were

his visitors that in 1823 Congress authorized construction of a marine railway to be powered by men,

animals, or mechanical winches

and a large, covered shiphouse.

The completed building became a

recognized feature of the Washington Navy Yard for many years. The

first ship worked on in the shiphouse was Potomac, which took

part in the siege of Vera Cruz during the Mexican War and operated

with the Union blockading forces

in the Civil War.

From the beginning, the navy

yard was closely involved with the

activities of the federal government in the nation’s capital and

with the life of the Washington, D.C. community. For

instance, skilled yard workers repaired a chandelier

that fell from the ceiling of the House of Representatives. On several occasions during this early period,

12 The Washington Navy Yard

Above. “President John

Quincy Adams” by

Asher B. Durand (Navy

Art Collection).

Left. “USS Brandywine”

by N. Cammilliari (Navy

Art Collection). The ship

carried Lafayette home

to France in 1825.
quarters. That April, Commodore Isaac Hull, captain

of Constitution during her famous fight with HMS

Guerriere in the War of 1812, became the next commandant. The New Englander immediately directed

that excess stores, equipment, and building materials be sold or shipped to other yards, shops be

cleaned and reorganized, and the yard be

made generally shipshape. Change is not

often well received, but

Hull’s personnel

actions caused more

than the usual irritation. He cut the pay of

some workmen and

reduced the number of

employees in several

shops. These and other

actions caused friction

between Hull and his

workers.

Matters came to a

head in 1835 when

Hull, frustrated by the

loss of tools and

stores to theft, forbade workers’ bringing their food containers into the yard. Even

though one workman was discovered secreting

government materials out of the yard in his food

basket, the others were outraged that their

integrity was questioned. Around Navy Department building near the White House. Cooler

heads finally prevailed and after compromises

were made on both sides, the men returned to

work. In the fall of that difficult year, Hull asked

for and was given permission to resign as commandant. In the years after his resignation, several officers served as commandant; two died during office in the Commandant’s House.

navy yard men left their workstations to help battle

fires in Alexandria and Georgetown.

Throughout its history, the navy yard was host to

distinguished American and foreign visitors. President John Quincy Adams stood on the deck of frigate

Brandywine as she entered the Eastern Branch. Yard

workers cheered heartily, not only because of

the President’s presence but because they

were given the rest of

the day off to mark the

occasion. Originally

called Susquehanna,

the ship had been

renamed to honor

French General Marquis de Lafayette, a

hero of the American

Revolution who showed

exceptional leadership

during the Battle of

Brandywine. The general and his party made

a triumphal procession through the streets of Washington and enjoyed a full day of ceremonies at the

White House, Capitol, and navy yard on 15 October

1824. Mrs. Tingey hosted a tea for the distinguished

French general. The following September, to the

cheers of many Americans lining the Potomac, the

general boarded Brandywine, then anchored in the

river. As the ship prepared for the transatlantic journey to France, Lafayette bade farewell to the country

whose freedom he helped win.

The yard entered a new era on 23 February 1829

when Thomas Tingey, Commandant of the Washington Navy Yard for almost three decades, died in his

Supporting the New Navy 13

“The Marquis de

Lafayette” (Pierpont

Morgan Library, artist

unknown). A French

hero of the American

Revolution.
During this period, the Navy investigated the use

of steam propulsion for its warships and by 1842 the

navy yard had become the prime site for this work.

Manufactured in the yard were the boiler and

machinery for Water Witch, a small iron paddlewheel steamer that served the Navy during the Mexican War. That war confirmed the benefits of steam

over sail power for warships because steam-powered

combatants could operate along coasts and in rivers

where there was often no wind to fill sails.

Partly to improve the Navy’s administrative efficiency, in 1842 the Secretary of the Navy disestablished the old Board of Navy Commissioners and

established six bureaus. The Chief of the Bureau of

Yards and Docks was responsible for the Washington

Navy Yard, but because the yard handled a number

of functions for the service, other bureaus also

exercised some authority

at the facility. Disagreements between the

bureaus often made life difficult for the commandant.

As one of the earliest naval engineering facilities,

the yard became the first to produce complete steam

propulsion machinery for a warship in 1843, with

the commissioning of steam gunboat Union. Between

1843 and 1861, the navy yard was the only government facility manufacturing steam plants for naval

vessels, and did so for four of them.7 In 1854, the

navy yard constructed the 243-foot-long steam

frigate Minnesota, which displaced 4,800 tons and

was then one of the world’s largest naval vessels.

“USS Water Witch” by

R. G. Skerrett (Navy Art

Collection). The vessel

was one of the Navy’s

first paddle wheel

steamers.

14 The Washington Navy Yard
15

Colt sank a vessel whose hulk hindered navigation in

the waterway until just before the Civil War.

Few naval officers were as closely associated with

the Washington Navy Yard as John A. Dahlgren.

Many have characterized him as the “father of American naval ordnance.” He became “synonymous with

naval armament during the Civil War era” and “an

immortal figure in the pantheon of American naval

heroes.”8 Dahlgren’s genius for ordnance design and

production was evident soon after his assignment to

the navy yard in 1847 to handle the development of

rockets. He was also charged with inspecting rocket

fuses, shells, locks, and powder tanks. By the end of

the year he was made responsible for handling all

ordnance matters at the yard, independently of the

commandant.

The navy yard was already the Navy’s “principal

industrial center” and “foremost metalworking center,” whose rolling mill, tilt hammer, foundry, and

The development of ordnance for the Navy, for which

the Washington Navy Yard became perhaps most

famous, was inspired by a tragedy in the Potomac

near the nation’s capital. On 28 February 1844, President John Tyler and 500 other government officials,

foreign dignitaries, and their family members were

embarked on Princeton for the test firing of a new

naval gun, called the “Peacemaker.” After several firings, the gun suddenly exploded, killing the Secretary

of State, Secretary of the Navy, and a number of other

passengers and crewmen. The Navy clearly needed a

better system for determining the worthiness of ordnance for its warships.

In 1845, under the direction of Commodore Lewis

Warrington, the first Chief of the Bureau of Yards and

Docks, the yard established a facility for the study

and production of fuses, rockets, and mine-torpedo

devices. While testing underwater explosive devices

in the Eastern Branch, renowned inventor Samuel

The Father of Naval Ordnance

“Awful Explosion of

the ‘Peacemaker’ ” by

N. Currier (Navy Art

Collection).
Above. Interior view of

the experimental battery

built and operated by

Dahlgren on the waterfront of the navy yard.

Much of the ordnance

operated by the U.S.

Navy during the Civil

War was first tested and

“proofed” at the unique

facility.

Left. A naval officer

rests his arm on the

distinctive “soda-water

bottle” shaped 9-inch

Dahlgren gun, one of

the most powerful and

reliable weapons in the

U.S. Navy’s Civil War

arsenal.

16 The Washington Navy Yard
Dahlgren’s unconventional ideas about ordnance

design met strong opposition from some quarters.

Commodore Charles Morris, Chief of the Bureau of

Ordnance and Hydrography in the early 1850s,

delayed or opposed many of Dahlgren’s requests for

material or other support. Dahlgren considered Morris an “old fogy.”12 Dahlgren

overcame most opposition by cultivating friendships with prominent government and congressional figures and other

naval officers and persuading them that his ideas

were sound. Shortly after

Morris died in 1856, the

Navy Department implemented Dahlgren’s program by arming the new

warship Merrimack with a

battery of his 9-inch guns.

He successfully tested the

weapon during the ship’s

cruise from Norfolk to Annapolis. Dahlgren 9-inch and 11-inch

guns became mainstays of the fleet and

passed the even more demanding test of combat during the four years of the Civil War. In addition

to cannon for major warships, Dahlgren designed and

had cast in the navy yard brass furnace a 225-pound

boat howitzer for use by naval landing parties.

As Dahlgren’s ordnance ideas took hold, the Navy

built new facilities at the yard to handle the entire

design, testing, and manufacturing process. A cannon

foundry, mechanical finishing shop, and gun-carriage

shops soon joined the existing facilities at the Navy’s

industrial plant. Dahlgren also worked to create a

skilled, dedicated, and professional workforce at the

yard. He raised the pay for some civilian workers,

established billet descriptions and work standards,

and provided relevant training. “By attending to the

needs of his men, Dahlgren produced a cadre of loyal

ordnance specialists.”13

blacksmith, anchor-making, rigger, and painter shops

manufactured anchors, small arms, chain, and other

materiel.9

A few years earlier the Navy had decided to standardize its large-caliber guns and needed a system to

determine how well prototypes would perform before proceeding with production. Dahlgren had the answer. He

built a firing range on the yard’s

waterfront. Guns being tested

fired their rounds out over

the Eastern Branch. By

recording the splash of

rounds, Dahlgren could

determine the power and

range properties of each

type of gun. Like many of

his successors, President

James K. Polk visited the navy

yard to witness the test firing of

naval cannon at Dahlgren’s “experimental battery.”10

Despite Dahlgren’s attention to safety, ordnance

testing was dangerous business. Michael Shiner, a

slave who worked in the yard from 1813 to 1865,

noted in a later account that there were many industrial mishaps and accidental explosions in this period that killed or injured workers.11 In 1849 a gun

being tested at the yard’s experimental battery

exploded. Jagged pieces of iron from the weapon

killed the gunner and narrowly missed Dahlgren.

This incident reinforced his belief that he needed a

different approach to gun development if he were to

build safe, large-caliber guns for the Navy. The result

was a family of guns, soon called Dahlgren Guns,

that had stronger and thicker metal around their

breeches, making them look to some people like

“soda-water bottles.”

The Father of Naval Ordnance 17

Commodore Charles

Morris, a hero of the

War of 1812, but to

Dahlgren an “old fogy.”
facilities became the seed of the

Naval Gun Factory.

Dahlgren’s R&D efforts yielded

integrated systems of shipboard

armament, featuring light bronze

boat guns, heavy smoothbore shell

guns, and heavy rifled cannon. The

boat guns were revered throughout

the Navy and admired around the

world. The heavy smoothbores,

characterized by their peculiar

“soda-water bottle” shape, were his

most famous invention. Their

design stemmed from Dahlgren’s

scientific research in ballistics and

metallurgy. To ensure their reliability, he had them manufactured under

the most innovative and comprehensive quality control program

seen in the Navy to that time. The

program included detailed specifications, production monitoring, and

a rigorous system of proof testing.

Dahlgren also instituted a gunnery

training program to teach naval officers and enlisted men how to use

the new weapons. When first introduced to the fleet in the mid-1850s,

Dahlgren guns were the most powerful and reliable naval cannon in

the world. They remained the

Navy’s standard armament until

replaced by steel rifled cannon in

the 1880s. Dahlgren’s only failure

was his heavy rifled ordnance.

In the process of inventing and

developing cannon, Dahlgren articulated an unusually comprehensive

conception of naval ordnance,

including its role in naval strategy

and tactics and national policy. An

advocate of steam propulsion, he

devised doctrine for what he considered the optimum balance of

steam, sail, and ordnance in naval

vessels. And he improved ordnance

equipment of all kinds, including

mathematics, scientific theory, and

the use of precision instruments

while serving on the U.S. Coast Survey (1834–1837). Ordered to ordnance duty at the Washington Navy

Yard in 1847, Dahlgren began his

first task there—developing rockets

for use on board warships. He did

the job so well that the Chief of the

Bureau of Ordnance

and Hydrography

assigned him ever

increasing responsibilities, empowered

him to expand the

yard’s facilities at

his discretion, and

arranged for him to

remain on ordnance

duty indefinitely.

Dahlgren served in

Washington for the

next fifteen years.

In the early 1850s

he launched the Ordnance Establishment, the first sustained weapons R&D

organization and program in American

naval history. Its

work fell into four

broad categories:

manufacturing ordnance and equipment, inspecting

ordnance produced

at private foundries, testing ordnance and inventions, and research

and development. The facilities that

Dahlgren set up at the Washington

Navy Yard included a firing range

along the Anacostia River dubbed

the “experimental battery,”

foundries, machine shops, and

expanded office spaces. These

The Father

of American

Naval

Ordnance

John Adolphus Bernard Dahlgren

(1809–1870) determined the direction of weapons development in the

United States Navy for more than two

decades (1847–1870). His achievements earned him the title “father of

American naval ordnance.”

Dahlgren joined the Navy in 1826

and received training in advanced

18 The Washington Navy Yard
locks, sights, carriages, the rope

used for breeching tackle—even

the preservative coating used to

protect gun barrels from rust.

Promoted to commander in 1855,

captain in 1862, and rear admiral

in 1863, Dahlgren became Commandant of the Washington Navy

Yard in 1861 and Chief of the

Bureau of Ordnance in 1862. He

spent most of the first two years of

the Civil War meeting the Navy’s

vastly increased demands for ordnance, for which he received a vote

of thanks from Congress. During

that same period Abraham Lincoln

drove his carriage down to the yard

almost weekly. He often did so just

to have coffee, cigars, and a chat

with Dahlgren, who had become the

President’s favorite naval officer,

principal uniformed advisor on

naval affairs, and friend.

During the Civil War Dahlgren’s

guns were mounted on almost

every Union ship and many Confederate naval vessels, including

USS Monitor and CSS Virginia,

which fought history’s first duel

between ironclad warships, and

USS Kearsarge, which sank CSS

Alabama, the most successful commerce raider of all time. Not one of

Dahlgren’s 9- or 11-inch guns—

the principal heavy calibers—

failed prematurely in combat.

With help from Lincoln, Dahlgren

left Washington in July 1863 and

took command of the South Atlantic

Blockading Squadron. For the next

two years, he led naval forces

besieging Charleston, South Carolina, the Union navy’s most frustrating

campaign. After the war, he commanded the South Pacific Squadron,

the Bureau of Ordnance, and once

again the Washington Navy Yard,

where he died in 1870.

Dahlgren was an intelligent,

hard-working individual who possessed enormous persistence, drive,

and self discipline. He gave American sailors something they never

had before: an unshakable faith in

their guns, a faith justified by the

existence of an organization founded on the idea that systematic

research and development could

produce safer and more powerful

weapons. That idea was Dahlgren’s

most important contribution to the

American naval tradition.

Robert J. Schneller Jr.

A view of the navy yard waterfront captured in 1866 by famed photographer

Mathew Brady. The building in the left foreground houses the experimental battery.

The Father of Naval Ordnance 19
The ordnance facilities at the yard cast the guns

and manufactured their ammunition, and Dahlgren

tested them in his experimental battery on the Eastern

Branch. In addition to the heavy Dahlgren shell gun

and the smaller boat gun, Dahlgren considered development of the “Ordnance Establishment [that]. . . he

created to test, improve, and manufacture naval ordnance” as his most important accomplishment.14 Ordnance experts from Great Britain, France, Russia, and

Sweden visited the Washington Navy Yard to learn

more about Dahlgren’s designs and investigate the

facility that armed the American fleet.

As the nation edged closer to civil conflict in the

spring of 1860, the navy yard served to support U.S.

foreign policy. On 14 May, the steamer Philadelphia

brought to Washington the first Japanese delegation

to the United States, headed by 1st Ambassador

Shinmi Buzen. Captain Franklin Buchanan, Commandant of the Navy Yard and a participant in Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s historic 1854 visit to

Japan, advanced between

two rows of marines at

present arms to greet the

Japanese dignitary and his

party. The foreign delegation, carrying with them in

an ornate box the treaty

Perry helped conclude,

then boarded carriages for

the short ride through

Latrobe Gate to Willard’s

Hotel on Pennsylvania

Avenue. A little more than a week later, the Japanese

party returned to inspect the anchor, boiler, engine,

and ordnance shops at the yard. The visitors paid

close attention on the tour, for Japan was then in the

throes of its own civil conflict, the Meiji Restoration,

during which the Japanese incorporated many Western military and industrial ideas.

The first Japanese delegation to visit the United

States poses with U.S.

naval officers soon after

the foreign group’s arrival

in May 1860. Pictured in

addition to Japanese 1st

Ambassador Shinmi

Buzen (seated 4th from

the left) are two men who

would figure prominently

in American naval history, Lieutenant David

Dixon Porter (standing

4th from the left) and

Captain Franklin

Buchanan (standing

7th from the right).

20 The Washington Navy Yard
21

Civil War Naval Arsenal

and Operating Base

The inauguration of Abraham Lincoln as President

of the United States on 4 March 1861 triggered South

Carolina’s attack and capture of federal Fort Sumter in

Charleston and secession from the Union of an increasing number of southern states. After Virginia seceded

and Maryland prepared to take the same step, Captain

Buchanan and every southern-born officer except one

at the navy yard resigned his commission in the U.S.

Navy. At the President’s suggestion, on 22 April 1861,

Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles appointed Commander Dahlgren Commandant of the Navy Yard.16

The new commandant had to act fast to defend not

only the navy yard but Washington itself, because in

the first chaotic months of the Civil War there were

few Union troops and even fewer warships available

As war clouds gathered in early 1861, Captain

Buchanan (even though he harbored Southern sympathies) and Commander Dahlgren concentrated cannon,

small arms, and ammunition in the yard’s main building,

“turning it into a fortress,” and prepared to blow up the

munitions rather than allow their seizure by pro-southern mobs.15 The threat was real, for southern sympathies

were strong in the Maryland and Virginia regions surrounding Washington. John Brown’s short-lived capture

of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia,

and the loss of Navy property in Pensacola, Florida,

were fresh in the minds of these officers. Only 1,000

troops and 1,500 volunteers guarded the nation’s capital.

The naval officers drew up defensive plans for the yard’s

loyal sailors and marines.

A U.S. Marine detachment, part of the navy

yard garrison, stands at

ease during the Civil War.

Marines have continuously manned the guard post

at Latrobe Gate since the

establishment of the

naval facility.
for defense. Dahlgren immediately armed civilian

steamer Mount Vernon and assigned some of his

sailors and marines to the ship. On the 23rd, Mount

Vernon joined five other warships patrolling the lower

reaches of the river. He also positioned guns to

defend Latrobe Gate, barricaded and fortified

the other entrances, and lined the waterfront with cannon to oppose a waterborne assault on the yard or attack

against the bridge across the Eastern Branch. The defenders of the

navy yard included thirty-seven

marines, three companies of

Washington, D.C. volunteers,

and the men from the Ordnance

Department; 348 men in all.

Security concerns for the navy yard

eased on 27 April when the 71st

New York Infantry Regiment marched

in and took up defensive positions. At

Dahlgren’s suggestion, unit officers made

their quarters in the Commandant’s House, while he

took up residence in his office near the waterfront.

There the busy officer spent most of his time in the

next few years.

The destruction of the Norfolk Navy Yard, then the

Navy’s largest facility, and its huge reserves of naval

ordnance to prevent their capture by southern troops,

added to the Washington Navy Yard’s importance as an arsenal and a base for operations in the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay. Dahlgren kept his shops

open around the clock; each day

they produced 200 shells, 25,000

percussion caps, and 35,000

Minie and musket balls, in addition to casting, rifling, finishing,

and mounting boat guns.17

The Union Navy’s Potomac

Flotilla, which operated from the

navy yard, prevented Confederate

forces from using the river and its

tributaries, enabling northern generals to

move their forces the length of the waterway.

Recognizing the importance of the relationship

between the Washington Navy Yard and the

22

Above. “Honorable

Gideon Welles, Secretary

of the Navy” by J.M.

Butler (Navy Art Collection). The dynamic and

talented Welles led the

Navy during the Civil

War

Left. The 71st New York

Infantry Regiment in formation at the navy yard

during the Civil War.

The Washington Navy Yard
many demoralized, from the Virginia shore to Washington. A pitiful remnant of the 71st New York

Infantry Regiment straggled back to their barracks

in the yard. There was panic in the streets as Washington braced for an expected Confederate assault

on the capital. Marines and sailors helped the government restore order after Bull Run by guarding,

either at the yard or on board vessels, the few hundred soldiers from New York and Maine who had

refused to take orders.

Dahlgren also dispatched more than 100 sailors and

marines, along with three 9-inch guns and five howitzers, to newly named Fort Ellsworth in Alexandria.

Eventually, 600 sailors manned the Naval Battery and

defenses of Fort Ellsworth. Dahlgren also established a

training program at the yard to improve the gunnery

skills of the best seamen assigned to the fleet.

The Navy aided the cause in other ways. Soon

after the outbreak of hostilities, slaves began fleeing

southern plantations and seeking refuge on board

Union warships. In August 1861, Resolute returned

to the navy yard with seventeen African Americans.

In contrast to the previous practice of returning

slaves to their masters, the Navy Department told

Potomac Flotilla, the Navy assigned both commands to one officer.

One of the war’s first waterborne expeditions was

launched from the yard on 23 April 1861 when

steamers Baltimore and Mount Vernon embarked the

1st Zouave Regiment under Colonel Elmer Ephraim

Ellsworth and transported them the short distance to

Confederate-held Alexandria, Virginia. The northern

troops occupied the town and captured thirty-five of

its southern defenders the next morning, but when the

colonel removed a Confederate flag from one of its

houses, the owner shot him dead. The ships carried

the officer’s body and prisoners back to the yard. The

President and Mrs. Lincoln came down to the yard to

view the fallen colonel. The Commander in Chief, who

would be deeply affected by the suffering of the American people during the Civil War, graciously directed

that Ellsworth’s body be transferred to the White

House so citizens of Washington could pay their

respects.

Ellsworth’s fate was shared by thousands more of

his countrymen in the disastrous First Battle of Bull

Run. Days after the battle on 21 July, navy yard vessels transported Union soldiers, some wounded and

Civil War Naval Arsenal and Operating Base

“The Contest for the

Henry Hill” (Navy Art

Collection, artist

unknown). This action

took place at the First

Battle of Bull Run.

23
with some yard mechanics, fellow

laborers, and marines, to volunteer

to move the cornerstone of a memorial to President George Washington. Shiner and other workers also

helped fight local fires threatening

buildings in Alexandria, Virginia,

Senator Thomas Hart Benton’s

home in the District, and the U.S.

Capitol library.

The weather could and often

did affect worker productivity as

well as damage portions of the

yard. Shiner and his workmates

had to contend with cold snowy

winters, and the frozen waters of

the Eastern Branch and the

Potomac River. Strong northwest

winds on 16 and 17 December

1831, for example, shattered six

or seven 12-by-18-foot windows,

leading Commodore Isaac Hull to

close the yard. An eclipse on 12

February 1831, lasting from 11:30

a.m. to 3:30 p.m., halted work.

Describing an especially severe

drought, Shiner wrote:

We had a smart of rain in May

and din JUne they wher But

little rain and in July it wher

hot and dry and evry thing on

the earth sufering for vegertation and no rain in august [.]

[T]he ground wher so hot that

the heat would exstend trough

the souls of your shoes particelar thin souls and we

hadent anno untel the Middele

of september 1838.

He documents incidents which

show that the Washington Navy

Yard was not a safe place to work.

Although he narrowly missed being

maimed or killed on several occasions, his diary is replete with

reports of injuries and deaths on the

We heard the tread of British

armmy feet . . . and as soon as

We got sight of the British

armmy raising that hill they

look like red flames of fier all

red coats and the stoks of ther

guns painted With red ver

Milon and iron Work.

When Shiner prepared to flee,

Mrs. Reid questioned him, “What

do you recon the British Wants

With such a niger as you[?]”

Shortly afterwards, the British

troops advanced across the capital

searching buildings for supplies

and then setting them on fire.

Shiner recounts, however, that a

storm extinguished many fires:

i never shall for get that day

one of the auuflys storms

Which Raidge for a long time

With out intermision it thunanrd lightent hailed and rained it

takinng some ole houses up

from oft ther foundation and

BloWing them down in shelter

and British armmy stood as if

they Whrt on MarBle never

went in shelter.

In the years after the War of

1812, Shiner often worked twelve

hours a day on various jobs with

yard mechanics, clerks, and

sailors. Like his fellow workers, he

labored on projects for the federal

government outside the yard. On

one occasion, he helped crew a

barge transporting President John

Quincy Adams on the Potomac and

around Georgetown. Shiner’s boss

was so pleased with the crew’s performance that he gave the men

short-term passes to leave the yard.

Shiner considered it an honor when

his superiors allowed him, along

An AfricanAmerican’s

Reflections

On Working in the

Washington Navy

Yard, 1813–1865

The workers of the Washington

Navy Yard—slave and free, civilian and military, American born

and immigrant—have long made

vital contributions to the nation

and the Navy. One such worker,

Michael Shiner, toiled for his

country, first as a slave and then

as a freed man, in the Washington

Navy Yard for fifty-two years. His

handwritten observations covering

1813 to 1865 appear in an oversized diary subtitled, “The Early

History of Washington, D.C.”

Shiner’s diary opens with a

compelling account of the British

invasion of Maryland and attack

on Washington in 1814. He

describes how navy yard workers

piloted vessels moving soldiers

from the city to Bladensburg,

Maryland, where the British

trounced the Americans in battle.

Shiner goes on to describe the

destruction of the bridge over the

Eastern Branch to retard the

enemy army’s advance. As the

British troops approached, Shiner,

along with a black man named

John and an old white woman

named Mrs. Reid, stood in awe

watching.

. . . t he ArmMy coming a Bove

the tall gate in Washington[.]

24 The Washington Navy Yard
job. One German immigrant

employee working on a pile-driving

project was decapitated in June

1833. A shell detonated in June

1842 killing Navy gunner Thomas

Barry, and the explosion of a

wrought iron cannon on board U.S.

steam frigate Princeton in February

1844 killed many government officials and a young black man. A

Baltimore brick layer fell thirty feet

off a scaffold to his death in 1853.

Shiner was present on numerous occasions when presidents,

cabinet members, congressmen,

delegates from Indian tribes, and

foreign dignitaries visited the navy

yard. He also witnessed many ceremonies, especially ship launchings. Because he spent so many

years there, he saw the physical

and technological changes in the

yard, including the construction of

the rolling mill plant, the ordnance

shop, and the copper rolling mill

engine, the first installation of gas

pipes, the use of hydraulic power,

and the extension of the east wall.

As a slave, Shiner had to obtain

a pass from his master, the clerk of

the yard, when he wished to leave

the facilities, as he often did to

attend religious services in ward

six. The navy yard worker worshipped at a Methodist church

whose pastor, Reverend Payton,

attracted Shiner because “his walk

and conversation proved [that] he

carried the love of god in his

heart.” Shiner had an active social

life, frequenting black-owned and

-operated establishments, particularly a bar and grill on Capitol

Hill. He sometimes drank too

much and wound up fighting other

patrons. These altercations landed

him in jail where he was restrained

in leg irons. Although his master

seldom punished him for these

transgressions, once when Shiner

said he wanted to visit friends in

the country and then went somewhere else, the master refused to

give him a pass for a month.

The Washington Navy Yard and

its workers were vital to the success of the United States Navy

during the Civil War. In the dark,

early days of the conflict, Shiner

helped transport scarce provisions

to the U.S. Capitol and prepare the

yard’s defenses. Like all but a few

of his fellow workers, Shiner took

the oath of allegiance to the United

States administered by Justice

William Clark at the flagpole in

the navy yard on 1 June 1861. He

and many other African-Americans who served the Navy helped

bring victory to Union arms in the

Civil War and rid the country of

the scourge of slavery. Shiner does

not specify when he obtained his

freedom. It may have happened on

12 April 1862 when Congress

abolished slavery in the District.

Shiner’s handwritten account is

important because it provides the

insight of an African-American

man who lived through a tumultuous time in U.S. history when few

of his race could read or write. His

keen powers of observation, sense

of humor, and appreciation of

events in which he took part preserve a unique perspective on the

early history of the nation’s capital

and the Washington Navy Yard.

Regina T. Akers

This lithograph published during the Civil

War shows the navy

yard’s two shiphouses,

the experimental battery

(left foreground behind

a sailing vessel), ordnance manufacturing

shops, and the Commandant’s Office (Building 1)

fronted by an ordnance

display park.

Civil War Naval Arsenal and Operating Base 25
26 The Washington Navy Yard

Abraham Lincoln, 16th

President of the United

States and the nation’s

leader during the most

trying time of its existence. Lincoln often

sought relief from the

pressures of his office by

visiting the navy yard.
else would, and now he shall keep it as long as he

pleases.”21

Even as the threat to Washington from Confederate armies receded, the enemy’s naval arm mounted

a challenge. On 8 March 1862, the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia, built on the hull of Merrimack and

commanded by former

Commandant of the

Washington Navy Yard

Franklin Buchanan,

boldly attacked the

Union blockading flotilla positioned in Hampton Roads off Newport

News, Virginia. The

Confederate casemate

ironclad attacked sloop

Cumberland with a

1,500-pound cast-iron

ram bolted to her bow

and tore apart frigate

Congress with gunfire.

Both wooden-hulled

ships and many of their

crewmen sank beneath

the waves. The steam

frigate Minnesota then

ran aground trying to

fight Virginia. The

other vessels of the

blockading force sought safety under the guns of

nearby Fort Monroe.

The reaction to the disaster at Hampton Roads was

nothing short of panic when word reached Washington

the following day. When President Lincoln’s cabinet

gathered to consider a course of action, Secretary of

War Edwin M. Stanton and others expressed the fear

that Virginia would soon appear in the Potomac and

begin shelling the Capitol and the White House. The

entire Union cause was seen at risk from the unconventional, but single enemy warship!

The President immediately went to the navy

yard to consult with Dahlgren. The President and

Dahlgren to release them. And, as the war made

increasing demands on the North’s manpower, the

Navy employed black men in its service. The Secretary of the Navy authorized the enlistment of blacks,

for which they received pay of $3 a month and one

ration. On 16 April

1862, Congress passed

the District of Columbia Emancipation Act,

abolishing slavery in

Washington. In the

words of one historian,

“freedom did not come

with expanded job

opportunities, but it did

mean that Michael

Shiner and other workers in Washington

could receive a salary

or, in some cases, higher pay for their labor.”18

As the pressures of

war mounted, the President sought relief by

visiting Dahlgren, who

soon became a confidant, and the navy yard, because

Lincoln “simply liked gadgets, weapons, and munitions, and these things abounded” there.19 On one

occasion, the President picked up a breechloading

carbine being tested and fired a shot. Lincoln, the

same age as Dahlgren, regularly appeared unannounced at his friend’s office for “coffee, cigars, and

a chat with his favorite naval officer.”20 When several

captains queried the Navy Department about replacing Commander Dahlgren as commandant of the

navy yard, a position normally held by a captain, the

Commander in Chief weighed in. Lincoln observed

that Dahlgren defended the navy yard “when no one

Civil War Naval Arsenal and Operating Base 27

African-American sailors

mend their clothes on the

deck of a Union warship

during a break from duty.
Dahlgren returned to the White House where they

joined the secretaries of State, War, and Navy for

another meeting on the crisis. Lincoln and Stanton,

periodically looking through the window to see if Virginia had arrived at the capital, became increasingly

agitated. Secretary of the Navy

Welles and Dahlgren tried to assure

the assemblage that Kettlebottom

Shoals would probably prevent the

ironclad from ascending the

Potomac to Washington.

At Dahlgren’s suggestion, the

President authorized Wabash to join

defensive forces near Hampton

Roads. The commander also proposed posting a steamer on lookout

duty south of the city. The Secretary

of War did not consider these

actions sufficient. Stanton insisted

adamantly that sixty barges be

loaded with stone and sunk in the

river to block the channel. With

equal vehemence, the Secretary of

the Navy fought the proposal. As a compromise, the

President ordered that the vessels be prepared and

positioned in the river but not sunk unless the enemy

warship made its appearance.

The crisis passed as quickly as it had arisen when

the Union ironclad Monitor reached Hampton Roads

from New York. After a blazing, close-order battle

that lasted four hours, the battered

Confederate vessel retired from the

scene, never to fight again. She was

later scuttled to prevent capture.

Months after the battle, as a naval

party with the President on board

made its way down the Potomac,

someone asked about the purpose of

the barges lined up along the Maryland shore. Lincoln responded: “Oh,

that is Stanton’s Navy. That is the

fleet concerning which he and Mr.

Welles became so excited in my

room. Welles was incensed and

opposed the scheme, and it has

proved that Neptune was right. Stanton’s Navy is as useless as the paps

of a man to a suckling child.”22

Later in the war, when Monitor put in at the navy

yard for repairs, the President visited the victor of

28 The Washington Navy Yard

Above. Colonel Ulric

Dahlgren, the bold and

courageous son of John

and Mary Clement

Dahlgren. When Ulric’s

leg had to be amputated

because of wounds sustained in battle, the limb

was entombed behind a

memorial plaque placed

on a new building at the

navy yard. The leg has

since disappeared.

Left. “The Ironclads”

by Raymond Bayless.

CSS Virginia is in the

foreground, and USS

Monitor in the background, right. Courtesy

of Raymond Bayless
ened Harpers Ferry in the spring of 1862. Acting

Master Daniels and cavalry Colonel Ulric Dahlgren,

the commandant’s son, deployed to Maryland with a

company of thirty-two seamen armed with four cannon, two howitzers, and one Dahlgren 9-inch gun.

When Confederate Lieutenant General Jubal Early’s

forces threatened Washington later in the war, 800

sailors assigned to the navy yard reinforced Fort Lincoln to help defend the city against an attack that

never came. Early retired south rather than test what

had become a formidable defensive redoubt.

The bold and talented Dahlgren, who ever longed

for glory in battle, pressed his superiors for a combat

command. They refused to part with the services of

this brilliant ordnance engineer, administrator, and

presidential advisor. In fact, in July 1862, when

Welles divided the Navy’s administrative responsibilities among a number of newly established bureaus,

the Battle of Hampton

Roads. This visit reinforced Lincoln’s view that

the Navy should develop

a fleet of ironclad vessels

able to withstand heavy

shot and shell. Dahlgren

exploited the President’s support to press for the

establishment of facilities at the yard for the testing and production of quality armor plate for warships. Congress, however, did not approve the proposal. Dahlgren also conferred a number of times

at the yard with Monitor’s designer, John Ericsson,

about optimum ordnance and armor plating for

Union vessels.

The sailors of the Washington Navy Yard once

again answered the call when Confederate Lieutenant

General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s forces threatCivil War Naval Arsenal and Operating Base 29

This hand-tinted woodcut

depicts fishermen working in the Eastern

Branch, the shiphouses

and shops of the Washington Navy Yard, and

the unfinished U.S. Capitol building during the

momentous April of 1861.
30 The Washington Navy Yard

Above. Hundreds of

smoothbore cannon,

rifled guns, and mortars

and stacks of roundshot

were photographed by

Mathew Brady in the gun

park of the navy yard.

Left. A Mathew Brady

photograph of the navy

yard’s main ordnance

foundry, which stood

until World War I.
Above. Sailors man the

yards in salute to President Lincoln during the

visit of Brazilian steamer

Paraense to the navy

yard in January 1863.

Right. A Mathew Brady

photo of ordnance stores

and armor test pieces on

the west side of the yard.

The cupola in the background still stands.

Civil War Naval Arsenal and Operating Base 31
Usually without overtime compensation, skilled

workers often toiled on Sundays and for two extra

hours each weekday. Even though Congress passed

legislation to decrease the difference in pay between

workers at government navy yards and those at commercial shipyards, this proved

hard to implement. Navy yard

workers paid a price in lower

wages and longer hours for

their dedication to government

service. Moreover, some politicians expected loyalty of another sort from navy yard employees. Throughout the war and

with varying success, influential congressmen pressed the

Navy Department to hire their

political supporters.

As often happens in

wartime, the enormous outpouring of funds from government coffers for provisioning

new ships and purchasing

weapons, supplies, and other

necessities of war stimulated corruption. In 1863,

Secretary Welles relieved from duty Commodore

Andrew A. Harwood, Dahlgren’s successor as commandant, for his inattention to the misuse of government funds by some employees. Welles also fired the

naval storekeeper and two master workmen for their

illicit involvement in the sale of scrap copper.

When news of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox

reached the people of Washington on 10 April 1865,

navy yard workmen fired salutes with Dahlgren guns

and joined other Washingtonians and military bands

who marched joyously through the streets of the

national capital. Navy yard carpenters and joiners

helped decorate the Navy Department building for

end-of-war celebrations. All over the capital, flags,

he appointed Dahlgren as head of the Bureau of Ordnance and allowed him to continue his experimental

and testing work at the yard.

Adding to Dahlgren’s frustration over his failure to

secure a combat command early in the war was concern for his son Ulric who had

lost a leg in a skirmish on 6

July 1863, just after the Battle

of Gettysburg. To honor the

officer, who lay close to death

from loss of blood in the Commandant’s House, his severed

limb was sealed in the wall of

a new foundry building (208)

at the navy yard and a plaque

placed over the spot. Mysteriously, the leg could not be

found when the bizarre crypt

was opened years later.

Ultimately, John Dahlgren

was promoted from commander to captain and then rear

admiral and given a combat

assignment, command of

the naval forces besieging

Charleston, South Carolina.

Sadly for Dahlgren, this duty

did not bring the ordnance expert the glory he desperately sought. The conflict demanded one more

sacrifice of the dedicated and patriotic naval

leader. Ulric was killed leading a cavalry raid near

Richmond.

Dahlgren, his sailors, and the skilled and semiskilled workmen of the Washington Navy Yard were

vital to the success of the Union war effort and loyal

citizens of the United States of America. At the outbreak of the war, naval leaders were concerned that

many workers harbored southern sympathies. In May

and June of 1862, however, 917 sailors and civilian

employees swore an oath of allegiance to the United

States in a public ceremony at the yard. Only eight

workers refused to take the oath and were fired.

John Wilkes Booth, the

assassin of President Lincoln.

32 The Washington Navy Yard
Civil War Naval Arsenal and Operating Base 33

bunting, and lighted candles were displayed to mark

the happy occasion. Sadness replaced joy on 14

April, when actor John Wilkes Booth assassinated

President Lincoln, a frequent and welcome visitor to

the navy yard, who was beloved by many of the

sailors and workers there.

Booth escaped into Maryland via the navy yard

bridge (now the 11th Street Bridge). Between 17 and

29 April, the eight men suspected of conspiring with

Booth to kill the President were brought to the navy

yard. They were put in irons on board monitor

Saugus and other warships in the river and kept

under constant guard. Secretary of War Stanton directed that navy yard officials put a canvas bag,

with only a hole for eating and breathing, over the

head of each man. The guards also kept a suicide

watch over one of the accused men.

Early on the morning of 27 April, federal authorities brought Booth’s body to the yard and placed it

on board monitor Montauk. That day, the Army’s

Surgeon General carried out an autopsy on Booth in

In April 1865, Army

Department officials

autopsied the body of a

man they claimed was

John Wilkes Booth on

board monitor Montauk,

the vessel on the left in

the photo and similar to

monitor Miantonomoh in

the foreground.
The next act in this assassination drama took

place a few days later, when an Army guard transferred the eight prisoners from the navy yard to the

federal penitentiary at what is now Fort Leslie J.

McNair. Three of the men and another conspirator,

Mary Surratt, were hanged there shortly afterward.

Finally, on 4 May 1865, the guns at the navy yard

fired a salute every half-hour from noon to sunset to

mark the burial in Springfield, Illinois, of President

Abraham Lincoln.

34 The Washington Navy Yard

Raphael Semmes, the

daring Confederate

naval officer confined

at the navy yard in

1865 and 1866.

the presence of an assistant, various Army officers,

and a photographer. Even though these activities

occurred at the navy yard, under Navy Department

jurisdiction, Stanton took personal interest in the

disposition of the assassin’s remains. Without the

Navy’s knowledge or permission, Army Department

representatives removed the body from the yard that

afternoon. This action and Stanton’s earlier involvement with Booth’s apprehension and death in Virginia have fueled speculation to this day that the

Secretary of War was somehow connected with the

conspiracy. Some historians even doubt that the

remains held at the navy yard were those of Booth.23
The Post-CivilWar Era

35

navy yard building. His one pleasure was viewing the

Maryland and Virginia shores from his window.

Semmes wrote in a diary that his captors fed him satisfactorily and provided him daily with newspapers

and “plenty of water, soap,

and towels.”25 In April

1866, when Bolles finally

decided that the charges

were groundless and the

public’s rage had subsided, he persuaded

Welles to release Semmes,

who returned to Alabama

and retirement.

One of the last acts of

the Civil War drama

occurred in February

1867, when the steam

sloop-of-war Swatara took

on board in Egypt a Lincoln assassination conspirator, John Harrison Surratt, who had fled to first

England, then Italy, and

finally Egypt. When

apprehended, Surratt was found dressed in the uniform of a Zouave of the Pope’s army. Swatara’s captain, Commander William N. Jeffers, clapped Surratt

in irons and confined him to the brig for the transatlantic voyage. The day after Swatara anchored in the

Anacostia River, Jeffers had the prisoner rowed to a

navy yard wharf and turned over to a U.S. marshal

accompanied by District police.

The postwar years were hard on the Navy. A fleet

of 700 commissioned vessels shrank to a force of just

52 vessels between 1864 and 1870.26 The once

mighty Potomac Flotilla almost disappeared as its

Anger over Lincoln’s assassination and the bitterly

fought Civil War influenced not only Congressmen but

Navy Department leaders during the Reconstruction

period. In December 1865, Secretary Welles directed

the arrest and confinement

at the navy yard of Rear

Admiral Raphael Semmes,

the commanding officer of

Confederate raiding ships

Sumter and Alabama,

which had cruised the

oceans of the world sinking

many Union merchant vessels. The naval officer was

charged with various

offenses, but the real reason, according to Navy

Judge Advocate General

John A. Bolles, was that

“the exploits of Semmes were by no means forgotten

by any one; and they rankled in the memories of thousands who had suffered from the depredations of the

Sumter and the Alabama.”24 Northern newspapers

whipped up the public by reporting that Semmes had

harshly treated prisoners and inspired other misdeeds.

A long prison term or even execution of the former

Confederate naval officer were possible outcomes of a

trial in 1865.

During the four months it took the Navy to investigate the allegations against Semmes, he spent his

hours confined under marine guard in the attic of a

Lieutenant William N.

Jeffers on board Monitor

during the Civil War. As

Chief of the Bureau of

Ordnance during the

1870s, Jeffers had a major

impact on the development

of rifled naval ordnance.
36 The Washington Navy Yard

tions and the efforts of successive commandants did

little to curb these abuses.

Unfortunately, the Navy Department was also

guilty of questionable actions with regard to the

political process. In 1869, when Radical Republicans ruled in Congress, Vice Admiral David Dixon

Porter, a Civil War hero, issued a directive with the

blessing of the Secretary of the Navy that called for

all navy yard commandants to ensure that their workmen were loyal to the Grant administration. He stipulated that in employment “preference in all cases

should be given to those who have belonged to the

Union party.”27

The post-Civil War years witnessed the material

decline of the Washington Navy Yard and the Navy

itself. Americans wished to recover from the conflict’s enormous expense in blood and national treasure. With no threat to the nation likely at home or

from abroad, Americans focused on building a prosperous industrial society and exploiting western agricultural lands and mineral resources.

As a result, Congress drastically reduced appropriations for the Navy. The Navy did not build a single

monitors, gunboats, and other vessels were sold,

scrapped, or left to rot in the Anacostia.

With the war emergency over, the Navy Department tried to reduce the number of workers on the

navy yard payroll. Congressmen, especially the legislators from Maryland, demanded special consideration for workers from their districts. Secretary Welles

successfully resisted some but by no means all efforts

to influence the hiring and firing of navy yard

employees, and he had to pay constant attention to

the matter. To bring some uniformity to the employment process, he established a preference system for

the Navy and Army veterans who made up about one

third of the yard’s workforce by the fall of 1865. Political influence, favoritism, and corruption—especially

after Welles left government and the administration of

President Ulysses S. Grant came in—ran rampant at

the Washington Navy Yard, as it did in the nation’s

other navy yards. Party bosses, working through navy

yard managers and master craftsmen, demanded and

received financial contributions and election support

from workers as payment for their jobs. Navy regulaJohn Surratt, accused

plotter in the assassination of Lincoln, on his

arrival at the navy yard

in 1866 (U.S. Naval

Institute).
The Post-Civil War Era 37

armored vessel for twenty years after the war.

Reduced labor forces continued to work with sail,

steam, and wood rather than with newer naval technologies, many developed in the United States and

adopted by European powers for their naval forces.

The Civil War monitors, gunboats, and wooden-hulled

sailing ships got older and increasingly decrepit.

John A. Dahlgren, who once again served as Commandant of the Washington Navy Yard, from 1869 to

1870, was a metaphor for this melancholy period of

naval history. He had lost his health and his son

Ulric to the war. And the brilliance of his reputation

as a weapons designer had faded as newer designs

gained favor. Dahlgren, whose name was synonymous

with the Washington Navy Yard for many years in the

19th century, died from a sudden heart attack in the

Commandant’s House on 12 July 1870.

Much of Dahlgren’s pioneering work with ordnance

was carried on by Captain William Jeffers, who was

assigned duty as the assistant to the Chief of the

Bureau of Ordnance at the Washington Navy Yard on

the death of his illustrious predecessor. Jeffers, editor

of the well-regarded Ordnance Instruction for the U.S.

Navy, pushed for the manufacture by the Navy of

rifled guns to replace the smoothbore weapons

favored by Dahlgren. Because of the latter’s opposition and lack of funding support for new ordnance,

Jeffers’ recommendations were not heeded during his

Gunboat Nipsic (or possibly Yantic), the last

naval vessel built at the

Washington Navy Yard,

tied up in front of the

west shiphouse in the

early 1870s.

eight-year tenure with the bureau. But Jeffers’

“strong and effective leadership [provided] the principal impetus for most of the improvements in material and expertise in the seventies” that paid benefits

in the 1880s when the Navy began rebuilding.28

He did oversee the rifling of the old smoothbores

in the Navy’s arsenal that gave the guns greater

accuracy and range. At his urging, the Navy adopted

breech-loaded boat guns and the development of

officers skilled in ordnance design and production.

Jeffers also helped inspire American steel manufacturers to develop the equipment and processes for

producing the large, breech-loaded guns that would

arm America’s steel navy of the late 19th century. By

the time he retired, his ideas about ordnance had

taken hold. In the words of one scholar, “Jeffers’

foresight and persistence during a so-called period

of decay and stagnation resulted in substantial

improvement in the quality of domestic gun steel, in

knowledge of information about gun design, and in

professional expertise that contributed significantly

to the resurgence of American naval power during

the eighteen eighties.” He added that, “with the

exception of Dahlgren, Jeffers had “more impact on

the development of naval ordnance than any other

who held the position of bureau chief.”29 Much of

Jeffers’ work was done at the Washington Navy Yard.
38 The Washington Navy Yard

USS Atlanta, one of the

new steel ships that

entered the fleet in the

late 19th century.
Arming a New Navy

Based on the board’s investigation, in April 1886

Secretary of the Navy William C. Whitney directed

that all Navy ordnance manufacturing be carried out

by the Washington Navy Yard. The Naval Gun Factory, formally established on 14 August

1886, slowly took shape as the

Navy enlarged existing

buildings and fitted

them with heavylift cranes, laid

tracks to connect

the yard with the

Baltimore and

Ohio Railroad, and

installed telephone

lines. To strengthen the

gun factory’s relationship

to the fleet, officers and sailors

were trained at the yard in ordnance

design, production, operation, and repair. By 1892,

the almost 1,000 yard workers (since 1891 hired on

a merit system) were manufacturing 4-inch, 6-inch,

8-inch, 10-inch, and 13-inch guns and the shells

they fired.

In addition to heavy guns for its ships, the new

Navy needed steel plate armor for their protection.

Hence, the gun factory’s Lieutenant William Jaques

worked with British industrialists and John Fritz of

the Bethlehem Iron Company to establish at the factory in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the United States’

first armor plate forging plant.

As they had in other areas of naval technology

during the latter half of the 19th century, European

powers surged ahead of the United States in the

design and testing of warship hulls. The British, Italians, and Russians constructed huge water-filled

The Navy’s fortunes improved in the 1880s as the

nation once again paid attention to international

affairs and considered rebuilding its military

strength. Foreign naval forces increasingly appeared

in the Caribbean and the Pacific as

European governments sought

overseas colonies and

global influence. Americans too began to

consider outlets

abroad for their

manufactured

goods, farm produce, and missionary zeal. American nationalists

concluded that since

the United States was fast

becoming a strong nation, the

Navy should be technologically

advanced and militarily powerful. In 1881 and 1882,

Secretary of the Navy William H. Hunt and his successor, William E. Chandler, recommended to Congress the construction of four, all-steel warships.

Within a few years of their authorization, cruisers

Atlanta, Boston, and Chicago and despatch vessel

Dolphin—the ABCD ships—put to sea, inaugurating

a new era in naval history.

In 1883, President Chester A. Arthur asked the

Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy to

appoint a Gun Foundry Board and have it investigate the optimum approach to ordnance design and

manufacture. The board members spent the next

year visiting steel mills in the United States and

gun foundries in Great Britain, France, and Russia.

On their return, they recommended establishment

of separate gun foundries in the United States for

the Army and the Navy.

39
Left. Naval Gun Factory

workers add finishing

touches to the guns that

will be used by naval

landing parties.

Below. Under their

instructor’s watchful eye,

sailors in the Seaman

Gunners Class work the

components of a large

gun on the navy yard

waterfront.

40 The Washington Navy Yard
Arming a New Navy 41

Right. Workers of the

pattern and joiner

shop pose in front of

their workplace for

this 1905 photograph. From the earliest days of the navy

yard, many residents

of Washington, D.C.,

earned their living at

the naval facility.

Below. Construction

began in February

1897 on the Experimental Model Basin,

where the Navy would

test the hull designs of

new steel battleships,

cruisers, and other

warships entering the

fleet. To the left of

the construction is

Building 1, and to

the right, the east

shiphouse.
basins to test hydrodynamic properties of less-thanfull-size models of proposed hulls. By towing such

models through these basins, marine engineers

could scientifically determine the top speed of a

proposed full-size warship. Determined to develop a

fleet of fast, modern steel warships, in June 1896

Congress passed and President Grover Cleveland

signed a bill authorizing construction of a hull-testing basin at the navy yard.

Work on the Experimental Model Basin (EMB), as

the facility became known, was begun in February

1897 under the direction of Naval Constructor David

W. Taylor. Navy pile drivers embedded pilings deep

into the soil near the navy yard waterfront. The Penn

Bridge Company of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania,

removed soil and reinforced the pilings with thick

layers of concrete, broken stone, and asphalt. The

contractor then built a basin that was 470 feet long,

42 feet wide, and almost 15 feet deep and could hold

a million gallons of fresh water provided by the District water system. The constructors covered the basin

with a 500-foot-long, brick building crowned by a

long skylight. A 40-ton towing carriage built by the

Above. Rear Admiral

David W. Taylor, a pioneer of hydrodynamics

in the United States.

Left. Managers and

workers watch as water

fills the newly built

Experimental Model

Basin in the early summer of 1898. For the

next half-century, the

Navy tested thousands

of hull models at the

state-of-the-art facility.

42 The Washington Navy Yard
Right. A civilian scientist

prepares a hull model

for testing in the waterfilled model basin.

Below. The Experimental

Model Basin (Building

70) just before its dedication on 4 July 1899.

The shiphouse to the

left, a waterfront landmark for much of the

19th century, was

demolished in 1901.

Arming a New Navy 43
“USS Maine Blowing Up

in Havana Harbor on 15

February 1898” (Navy

Art Collection, artist

unknown).

44 The Washington Navy Yard
Washington Navy Yard. The press and the public,

including yard workers during lunch breaks,

thronged the proceedings, which lasted from September to December. In the end, Admiral George

Dewey, the hero of Manila Bay and President of the

Court, spoke for the other officers when he

concluded that Schley had issued misleading reports and had not followed orders promptly or with

great professional skill. President Theodore Roosevelt

rejected Schley’s appeal to

reverse the court’s judgment. Above all, the President wanted to end the

public squabble between

naval leaders, for he had

big plans for the U.S. Navy

in the new century.

Convinced by Roosevelt,

the far-thinking strategist

Alfred Thayer Mahan, and

other “navalists” that the new

international stature of the United States demanded a powerful

battle fleet, Congress appropriated

huge sums of money to build one. From

1901 to 1905, the nation supported the construction of ten battleships, four armored cruisers,

and seventeen other warships. The Naval Gun Factory once again worked on a 24-hour schedule,

employing more than 2,000 workers to produce the

hundreds of guns that soon joined the fleet. Directing

the factory during this enormous growth period was

Captain E.H.C. Leutze.

For the first time in the Navy’s history, the yard

began to rely on other government and commercial

plants to produce much of the ordnance needed for

the new fleet. The Navy Department enlisted the services of outside contractors and the Army’s Watervliet Arsenal, which manufactured guns to Navy specifications, to keep up with the building schedules.

William Sellers Company of Washington rested on

two pairs of steel rails running parallel to the basin. A

reciprocating steam engine that drove three General

Electric dynamos and four motors powered the carriage, allowing it to tow a model at speeds ranging

from 0.5 to 18 knots. When Taylor

announced completion of the facility on

Independence Day of 1899, the

Experimental Model Basin was the

largest such facility in the world.

The nation went to war with

Spain as the model basin was

under construction. But the

Spanish-American War of

1898 ended so quickly that

the current operations of the

Naval Gun Factory had little

effect on the outcome of the

conflict. The ordnance facility

proved its worth, however,

when the ships of the U.S. Navy,

armed with guns manufactured

mostly in Washington during the

1880s and 1890s, devastated Spanish

flotillas in the battles of Manila Bay and

Santiago de Cuba. Guns produced during the war

by the 2,255 workers, who toiled in shifts in a 24-

hour, 6-day work cycle, entered the fleet in great

number in the years afterward.

There was another connection between the navy

yard and the Spanish-American War. Rear Admiral

William T. Sampson, commander of the North

Atlantic Squadron, and Commodore Winfield Scott

Schley, commander of the Flying Squadron and

Sampson’s subordinate, engaged in a nasty postwar

debate in the press over each other’s wartime performance. In 1901, at Schley’s request, Secretary of

the Navy John D. Long convened a court of inquiry

in the Sail Loft over the Gunner’s Workshop at the

Rear Admiral William T.

Sampson.

Arming a New Navy 45
needs of the President, the Secretary of the Navy,

and other high-ranking government officials.

Between 1902 and 1929, converted yachts Sylph and

Mayflower alternated in that duty. Roosevelt and

President William Howard Taft boarded the vessels

at the yard for day-long outings in the vicinity of the

nation’s capital, visits to the fleet in the Atlantic, or

cruises to New York and New England. The elegantly

furnished Mayflower, a two-masted vessel displacing

2,690 tons and capable of making 17 knots, served

as the site at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for diplomatic negotiations ending the Russo-Japanese War.

President Roosevelt’s decision to send what came

to be called “The Great White Fleet” around the

world to highlight America’s new prominence on the

international stage compelled the Naval Gun Factory

to rush the completion of needed ordnance equipment. In the three months before the Atlantic Fleet

departed from Hampton Roads, Virginia, in 1907 the

gun factory provided the warships there with

146,000 pieces of manufactured ordnance, including

more than 11,000 spare parts, 432 telescopes, 314

gun accessories, 264 gun carriages, 172 gun sights,

The practice of using private industry to produce

naval guns increased to the point that in 1905 the

Washington facility returned to an 8-hour work day

and reduced its workforce to 339 men. The Naval

Gun Factory, however, continued to be the Navy’s

primary site for ordnance design and testing and a

center of technical excellence. This factor became

increasingly important as Commander William S.

Sims and other innovative naval officers pressed for

the fleet’s adopting improved gun sights and firecontrol equipment for long-range shooting. Accurate

gunfire was critical to the combat success of 20thcentury “Dreadnought” battleships.

President Theodore Roosevelt, his successors, and

U.S. naval leaders of the new, powerful fleet desired

to put to sea in their own “flagships.” During the late

19th century, former steamer Despatch and the steelhulled Dolphin, operating from the Washington Navy

Yard, had occasionally transported presidents and

secretaries of the Navy on diplomatic voyages and

Potomac River excursions. Beginning in 1898, however, the Navy formally assigned vessels to the Washington Navy Yard to serve the diplomatic and social

Sailors at the navy yard

prepare a casket for a

March 1912 ceremonial

procession through the

streets of Washington to

Arlington National

Cemetery. The fallen

sailor and many of his

shipmates died in the

explosion of battleship

Maine.

46 The Washington Navy Yard
156 sets of training gear, 150 firing locks, and 130

guns. The gun factory shipped additional material to

San Francisco while the fleet, under Rear Admiral

Robley D. “Fighting Bob” Evans, made its passage

through the South Atlantic, around Cape Horn, and

north along the Latin American coast to the U.S.

West Coast. When the fleet steamed from San Francisco en route to New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, China, and Japan in 1908, it was well armed

for the historic, around-the-world cruise.

Significant improvements were made to the gun

factory during the years before World War I. Oil

gradually replaced coal as the fossil fuel to fire boilers. The Bureau of Ordnance installed an 80-ton

crane in the gun shop and enlarged the building to

handle the huge 14-inch naval rifles the facility

began to produce. Electric and gasoline-powered

vehicles replaced the teams of oxen that had labored

for many years to move guns and machinery around

the yard. The Navy also put into operation a new

foundry, at the time one of the most advanced U.S.

facilities, which soon manufactured castings for

steel, iron, and bronze ordnance.

The Washington Navy Yard assisted in the birth of

U.S. naval aviation. On 14 November 1910, civilian

contract pilot Eugene Ely flew his Curtiss biplane

from a wooden deck installed on cruiser Birmingham, anchored in Hampton Roads. The following

month, the Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance directed

the navy yard to design and build a catapult for

launching airplanes from the deck of a warship. Several attempts to launch aircraft with the device

failed, but on 12 November 1912, a modified catapult propelled Lieutenant T. G. “Spuds” Ellyson and

his plane into the air.

Like many boys before

and since, these visitors

pose for the camera on

the barrel of a gun displayed at the navy yard.

Arming a New Navy 47
ness of the aeroplane in navies, in

developing a practical catapult for

the launching of aeroplanes from

ships, in assisting in the practical

solution of the hydroaeroplane by

the production in association with

others of the flying boat, in having

been instrumental in the introduction into our halls of Congress of

bills for a National Aerodynamic

Laboratory, and a Competitive Test,

and through his perseverance and

able efforts in advancing the

progress of Aeronautics in many

other channels.”

On 9 October 1913, Acting Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt designated Chambers the

Senior Member of a newly established Board on Naval Aeronautical

Service. The board, whose other

members included Richardson,

Commander Carlo B. Brittain, Commander Samuel S. Robison, Lieutenant Manley H. Simons, Lieutenant A. A. Cunningham, and

Lieutenant John H. Towers, was

charged with planning the organization of a Naval Aeronautic Service.

These men fought an uphill, but

ultimately successful struggle to

convince skeptical Navy leaders

that aviation could play a prominent

role in future operations for control

of the sea. Chambers and Richardson, for instance, energetically

overcame funding shortages and

pushed equipment testing to

advance the cause.

These were exciting years for

American naval aviation. On 9

March 1914, the Navy established

its first wind tunnel at the navy

yard’s Experimental Model Basin.

Within months, the facility began

testing less-than-full-size airplane

October 1911, Chambers described

a promising test of the new Forlanini hydrovanes for use as floats with

seaplanes. The very next day he

sang the praises of heavy oil (or

diesel) engines and turbine engines

to Glenn H. Curtiss, the soon-to-befamous designer and manufacturer

of airplanes for the Navy, observing

that “this turbine is the surest step

of all, and the aeroplane manufacturer who gets in with it first is

going to do wonders.”

On 31 July 1912, off Annapolis,

Maryland, Lieutenant Theodore G.

“Spuds” Ellyson piloted a Navy

Curtiss A–1 as it was catapulted

from the deck of a warship in the

first attempt at such a launch in

naval aviation history. The Naval

Gun Factory had built the catapult,

a device powered by compressed

air, based on an initial design

drawn up in Chambers’ office in the

Navy Department. Midway through

this first launch, however, a gust of

wind caught the plane, which was

not secured to the catapult, and

pitched it into the water. Despite its

initial failure, the Navy refined and

standardized the methods of catapult launching, forever changing

the nature of naval warfare.

President William Howard Taft

was so impressed with the work of

Chambers, Richardson, and the

Naval Gun Factory that he readily

endorsed the recommendation of

the Secretary of the Navy to look

into establishing an aerodynamical

laboratory at the navy yard. In further recognition of Chambers’

unique contributions, late in 1912

the Aeronautical Society presented

the naval officer with a medal for

his “unusual achievements in being

the first to demonstrate the usefulThe Early

Days of

Naval

Aviation

The Washington Navy Yard

became closely associated with the

development of naval aviation soon

after farsighted strategists and aircraft designers concluded that a

lighter-than-air craft, an airplane,

could revolutionize warfare. Within

a few years of Orville and Wilbur

Wright’s historic flight at Kitty

Hawk, North Carolina, on 17

December 1903, innovative naval

officers reasoned that aircraft could

help the fleet’s battleships deliver

accurate fire at great distances by

spotting where rounds hit the water.

They also understood that planes

launched from ships could locate

and then bomb an enemy fleet far

over the horizon. Because the

Washington Navy Yard was one of

the service’s principal design, testing, and production plants, and was

close to powerful political leaders

in the nation’s capital, aviation

enthusiasts selected the facility to

investigate promising concepts and

develop new equipment.

Instrumental to this effort was

Lieutenant Holden C. Richardson,

the Navy’s first aviation engineering

and maintenance officer, who was

assigned to the navy yard on 10

October 1911. He worked for another aviation pioneer, Captain Washington I. Chambers, who was bursting with ideas. In a letter dated 16

48 The Washington Navy Yard
models at various wind speeds and

directions.

Lieutenant Richardson, who

earned his wings on 12 April 1915

to become Naval Aviator #13, and

his shop at the navy yard continued

to work on catapult designs. On 16

April 1915, a catapult fabricated by

the Naval Gun Factory propelled

Lieutenant Patrick N. L. Bellinger

and his AB-2 flying boat into the air

from a barge positioned off Pensacola, Florida; this was the Navy’s first

successful catapult launch of an aircraft from a waterborne vessel.

On 10 July 1915, the Secretary of

the Navy authorized establishment at

the yard of the Aeronautical Engine

Laboratory that soon began investigating various propulsion machinery

for the fighters, light bombers, and

scout planes that the Navy would

need when the United States went to

war against Germany in April 1917.

To handle the increased workload

brought on by war, on 19 October

1917 the Navy established the Anacostia Naval Air Station across the

river from the navy yard. By the

summer of 1918, most aircraft testing took place at the air station.

After the war, aviation work continued at the navy yard, although on

a smaller scale. On 13 June 1923,

President Warren G. Harding toured

Langley (CV 1), the Navy’s first aircraft carrier, then at the navy yard.

The ship became the primary vessel

for testing the Navy’s naval air war

concepts and tactics. During the

1930s and early 1940s, the Naval

Gun Factory and the Experimental

Model Basin developed, tested, and

manufactured a range of engines,

airframes, bombs and rockets, and

other aviation equipment. The

Navy’s requirements for aviation

resources were so enormous by

then, however, that other naval

facilities around the country

eclipsed the navy yard in terms of

importance. Still, one can credit

the Washington Navy Yard with a

major role in the birth and early

development of U.S. naval aviation.

Mark L. Evans

A seaplane is launched by catapult from a navy yard barge operating in the

Anacostia River during tests conducted in 1926.

Arming a New Navy 49
Above. President and

Mrs. William Howard

Taft, U.S. and Argentine

civilian officials, and

naval officers of both

nations pose for a photo

on board Sarmiento

when the Argentine Navy

warship arrived at the

Washington Navy Yard

in October 1910 for an

official visit to the United States. Photo courtesy of Captain Hugo

Diettrich, Argentine

Navy (Ret.)

Left. USS Mayflower

(PY 1) steams on the

Anacostia River past the

Army War College.

50 The Washington Navy Yard
Arming a New Navy 51

Right. The Great White

Fleet gets underway

from Hampton Roads,

Virginia, in December

1907.

Below. President

Theodore Roosevelt

speaks to sailors of the

Great White Fleet at

the end of their globecircling cruise in February 1909.
Left. The early days of

naval aviation. A Curtiss

Pusher plane takes off

from the deck of Birmingham (CS 2) on 14

November 1910.

Below. A navy yard crew

prepares to test a catapult for launching the

Curtiss seaplane.

52 The Washington Navy Yard
Ordnance for a Navy Second to None

53

stronger Navy the country could deter German

attacks at sea and still keep out of the war. The

Naval Act of 1916 provided nearly $500 million for

constructing a “Navy Second to None.” The threeyear program anticipated the building of ten battleships, six battle cruisers, ten scout cruisers, fifty

destroyers, nine fleet submarines, fifty-eight coastal

submarines, and sixteen support vessels.

The Naval Gun Factory was charged with the production of 14-inch guns for the battle cruisers as well

as with the full production of the newly designed 16-

inch, 45-caliber and 50-caliber naval rifles intended

for the latest battleships. The hugh 16-inch gun

proved to be a weapon of unparalleled range,

destructive power, and accuracy. With the exception

The outbreak of war in Europe during the summer of

1914 did not stimulate increased production at the

Naval Gun Factory. President Woodrow Wilson, the

Congress, and many Americans hoped to avoid

involvement in the conflict, so they did not support

huge increases in military department budgets for

1914 and 1915. The gun factory continued work

appropriated for years earlier, completing, for example, the triple 14-inch gun mounts for new battleships

Oklahoma, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Arizona.

This honeymoon did not last long. German submarine attacks on British passenger and merchant

ships in the North Atlantic, which resulted in many

American deaths, inflamed public passions. Citizens

believed that if the United States built a much

Forging the weapons of

war. Naval Gun Factory

workers process steel for

one of the thousands of

guns needed by the U.S.

fleet in World War I.
54 The Washington Navy Yard

ment Auxiliary of the American Red Cross. On one

occasion, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels

accepted a donation of $5,000 and made appropriate

remarks at an employee gathering on the parade

ground. Women of the Naval Reserve and wives and

daughters of navy yard workers knitted socks and

sweaters for the “gallant boys aboard our battleships

and destroyers, whose constant vigil guarded our boys

on their way ‘over there’ from the treacherous and

cowardly German submarine, that never fairly fought,

but always ‘struck below the belt’.”30

During the war the Navy constructed new buildings and bought advanced tools and machinery. The

yard installed new electric furnaces and rebuilt and

enlarged the existing open-hearth furnaces. The

Experimental Model Basin installed a new wavemaking machine.

This increased capacity resulted in the wartime

production of hundreds of guns, and thousands of

breech mechanisms, spare parts, gun sights, and

12,000 pieces of wireless, or radio equipment, and

tens of thousands of cartridge cases. Most of the

mines used in the North Sea Mine Barrage, a huge

minefield laid between Norway and Scotland to

of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s 18-inch guns, American 16-inch rifles were the largest and most powerful warship guns ever produced and served the U.S.

Navy in every war it fought during the late 20th century.

The Naval Act of 1916 demanded a multifold

increase in the gun factory’s industrial capacity. In

the next two years, the Navy bought land on the east

and west sides of the yard, filled in land on the

waterfront, and hired thousands of new workers. By

April 1917, the 6,000 gun factory employees were

working at fever pitch in three shifts to prepare for

the imminent U.S. entry into the war. By the end of

1918, the labor force had swelled to more than

10,000 workers.

Like their compatriots around the nation, these

workers enthusiastically supported the war effort. The

master mechanics of the shops, chief clerks of offices,

and family members of navy yard employees bought

$225,000 worth of War Savings Certificates and Thrift

Stamps during the war. Employees held dance benefits, put their spare pennies in empty shell casings

placed around the yard, and in other ways contributed

an average of $3,800 each month to the Navy DepartA tractor mount and

7-inch naval rifle manufactured by the gun factory are parked in front

of Tingey House prior

to their shipment to the

battlefield in France

during World War I.
55

hinder German submarine operations, were manufactured by the gun factory, as were depth charges and

depth charge throwing and dropping devices. The

navy yard continued to issue torpedoes, which the

facility had designed, tested, and manufactured

since the 1880s for Navy surface ships and submarines. To handle the increased need during World

War I, the Navy built a torpedo plant in nearby

Alexandria, Virginia, and put the navy yard in

charge of its direction. The output of ordnance material at the yard tripled from 1916 to 1918.

One of the gun factory’s most stellar accomplishments was design and production of railway carriages

on which were mounted 14-inch naval rifles. In

1917, Rear Admiral Ralph Earle, Chief of the

Bureau of Ordnance, persuaded the Navy Department that these rail-mounted guns could effectively

counter German guns shelling the French capital of

Paris and other Allied sites from great distances.

Employing workers experienced in battleship turret

and rail car design and construction, the gun factory

quickly developed a suitable design and contracted

with Baldwin Locomotive Works and Standard Steel

Car Company of America to manufacture eight 14-

inch railway mounts plus 50 locomotives and

kitchen, berthing, repair, and headquarters cars.

More than 20,000 sailors volunteered to serve in

Navy railway batteries, even though only a small

number of men with gunnery and railroad experience could be accommodated. The Navy thoroughly trained the men at naval proving grounds in

Above. Patriotic feeling

ran high at the gun factory in World War I.

Employees routinely

bought “Liberty Bonds”

to support the war effort

when they received their

wages at the installation’s

pay wagon.

Right. The Navy Yard

Chapter of the American

Red Cross in World War I.

Ordnance for a Navy Second to None
56 The Washington Navy Yard

Indian Head, Maryland; Sandy Hook, New Jersey;

and the Naval Gun Factory in Washington; it tested

these weapons at Sandy Hook. Between April and

July 1918, the first railway gun mount was completed, transported to France, tested once more,

and deployed to a position opposite the German

gun harassing Paris. When German aircraft spotted

the weapon being moved to the front, the enemy

ceased shelling the French capital and moved their

own long-range weapon out of harm’s way. By the

end of the war, five U.S. naval railway batteries

were bombarding enemy rail facilities near Laon

and the road and rail links to the German forces

between Verdun and Metz.

The World War I era proved to be a productive

period for the Experimental Model Basin and an

intellectually creative time for its guiding force, Rear

Admiral Taylor. His book, The Speed and Power of

Ships, which was based on the systematic investigations and analyses done at EMB, brought the admiral

Left. During World War I,

Secretary of the Navy

Josephus Daniels made

inspirational remarks to

navy yard workers and

sailors assembled in

Leutze Park and accepted their $5,000 check

for war bonds.

Below. American sailors

prepare to emplace a

mine in the North Sea

Mine Barrage.
established the nation’s first wind tunnel to test the

aerodynamic properties of airplane models.

After Taylor’s retirement from the Navy, a group of

the most prestigious American engineering societies

awarded him the John Fritz Medal; Thomas Edison,

Orville Wright, and Britain’s Lord Kelvin were previous recipients. The award recognized Taylor’s “outstanding achievement in marine architecture, for revolutionary results of persistent research in hull

design, for improvement in many types of warships

and for distinguished service as Chief Constructor of

the United States Navy during the Great War.”33

Taylor and the Experimental Model Basin made a

major impact on the hull design of the Navy’s 20thcentury warships. One historian compared the “prerenown in engineering circles. Its conclusions

became “the basis for the Taylor Standard Series,

which [guided] ship design for the next fifty years.”31

In 1914, the Navy promoted Taylor from captain to

rear admiral and from head of EMB to Chief Constructor and Chief of the Bureau of Construction and

Repair. Between 1914 and 1923, the admiral oversaw the design and construction of 893 vessels of all

classes for the Navy.

The Experimental Model Basin tested more than

2,000 models, producing a basic body of knowledge

and “attracting national and international recognition

for fundamental advances in the science of hydrodynamics.”32 EMB designed and built many of the

Navy’s early aircraft catapults and seaplanes and

U.S. Navy submarine

chasers search for

German U-boats in

European waters.

Ordnance for a Navy Second to None 57
58 The Washington Navy Yard

Taylor” cruiser Olympia

“with its forward-cutting

sharp bow” to the “after

Taylor” Iowa-class battleship New Jersey, “with its

swept-back, curved bow

and a forward-jutting bulb

under the water line.” He

observed that the “characteristic bows of later highspeed ships reflect the

Taylor lines so widely that, without too much exaggeration, one could regard modern naval fleets themselves as floating monuments to his achievement.”34

Taylor rightly has been called the “founding father of

hydrodynamics in the United States.”35

Above. A 14-inch naval

rifle mounted on a specially built railway car

and crewed by American

sailors fires a shell

toward German positions

in France during World

War I. The navy yard

designed and assembled

eight naval railway

batteries.

Left.The model of a seaplane in the Experimental Model Basin’s wind

tunnel.
59

Following the accidental loss of several submarines during the 1920s, the Navy established an

EMB experimental diving unit that worked to design

better diving and salvage gear and improve underwater cutting and welding

techniques. In 1927, the

Navy also established the

Deep Diving School in a

navy yard building on the

Anacostia. The sailors were

taught how to operate with

compressed air and an oxygen-helium mixture at

depths as great as 320 feet.

As it became clear in the

1930s that the Navy would

be designing and constructing a new, more modern

fleet, naval leaders decided

that the hull and airframetesting facilities at the

Washington Navy Yard were

no longer adequate. Not

only was the model basin

too small but physically

unsuitable. In the words of

one historian, “by the mid1930s, the basin was forty years old and, in some

respects, quite decrepit. Periodic river flooding [like

the flood of 1936], fire damage to the building, settlement of the foundation into the soft soil on the bank of

the Anacostia, and recurrent repairs and cleaning of

the aging equipment all took a toll of workdays.”36 In

addition, “the basin had become technically inadequate to meet the demands of both commercial users

and the rapidly modernizing Navy.”37

So, under the driving force of Rear Admiral Emory

S. Land, Chief of the Bureau of Construction and

Ordnance production begun during World War I continued to some degree at the Naval Gun Factory

between the world wars, but in the early 1920s Congress drastically reduced naval funding. In an era of

strong antiwar and isolationist feeling, some Americans hoped to limit expenditures for military forces

and overseas ventures. In

addition, as a result of the

Washington Naval Treaty of

1922, the United States,

Great Britain, Italy, France,

and Japan agreed to limit

the size of their fleets by

scrapping ships and ending

much new construction.

Naturally, there was little

need for new ordnance. In

February 1922, the navy

yard discharged 1,500

workers and by the end of

1923, employed fewer than 3,000 people.

In this lean period, the navy yard concentrated on

improving airplane and submarine equipment for the

fleet. The Experimental Model Basin carried out

aerodynamic testing of aircraft, for which the Navy

showed increasing interest during the interwar years.

A small staff working at EMB but under the direction

of the new Bureau of Aeronautics investigated

improvements to airfoil, fuselage, cockpit, and windshield designs for fighters, seaplanes, blimps, rigid

airships, and kite balloons.

Between the World Wars

This contemporary drawing

reflects the industrial activity continued at the gun

factory in the immediate

post-World War I years.
60 The Washington Navy Yard

Navy yard workers honored in 1920. Employees commonly joined the

workforce as apprentices, learned ordnance

manufacturing skills, and

retired after decades of

loyal and productive service for the Navy.
the group had the sad duty of performing “Nearer My

God to Thee” as the President’s body was placed on

board a train for transportation to Washington. Harding’s successor, Calvin Coolidge, was so

impressed with the quality of the band’s

music that he readily signed a special act

of Congress in 1925 which stipulated

that “hereafter the band now stationed

at the Navy Yard, known as the Navy

Yard Band, shall be designated as the

United States Navy Band.”39 During

the 1920s the Navy Band began its

traditional yearly world tours to represent the U.S. Navy.

The navy yard continued to serve

during the interwar years as the U.S.

Navy’s preeminent ceremonial site in the

Washington area. On 11 June 1927, light

cruiser Memphis arrived at the yard carrying

Colonel Charles A. Lindberg, the first person to

fly a plane non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean from

the United States to France. President Coolidge had

insisted that the American hero be returned home in

a U.S. warship. More than 9,000 admirers crowded

Repair, the Navy pressed Congress to build a new

model basin in the Washington area. In 1937, Secretary of the Navy Claude Swanson, with President

Roosevelt’s hearty endorsement, named the

Navy’s newly constructed hull-testing facility in honor of the Navy’s hydrodynamic

genius. In the years following construction of the David Taylor Model Basin

in 1939, an increasing number of

operations were shifted from the

Washington Navy Yard to the new

Carderock, Maryland facility.

These interwar years also saw the

United States Navy Band become the

service’s premier musical organization. During World War I, the Navy

Department had combined a 16-piece

group from battleship Kansas with a 17-

piece unit serving presidential yacht

Mayflower to form the “Washington Navy Yard

Band.”38 When President Warren G. Harding traveled

throughout the West and to Alaska in 1923, he was

accompanied by thirty-five Navy bandsmen. When a

sudden heart attack felled Harding in San Francisco,

Between the World Wars 61

Above. Women were dedicated employees of the

navy yard from the earliest days of its existence.

Mrs. Almira V. Brown,

still an employee at age

81 in 1920, joined the

workforce during the

Civil War.

Right. Throughout its

history, the navy yard

acted as part of the

Washington, D.C. community. In the years

after World War I, the

command sponsored

Camp Good Will and

other summer camps for

children of employees

and local indigent families.
62 The Washington Navy Yard

Above Left. Navy yard

employees worked and

often played together.

Commandant J. J. Raby

threw out the first ball

of the 1920 baseball

season.

Above Right. The navy

yard baseball team

scores a success.

Left. Impressed with the

quality of music played

by the Navy Yard Band,

in 1925 Congress passed

and President Calvin

Coolidge signed a special

act designating the

group as the United

States Navy Band. In

this view, the band performs at a navy yard

concert during the late

1920s.
Soon after Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected

President in 1932, he directed the Navy to operate a

new presidential yacht from the Washington Navy

Yard. For that purpose, in 1933 the Navy acquired

the relatively new wooden yacht Sequoia. In 1936,

Potomac took on that responsibility and Sequoia

became the “barge” for the Secretary of the Navy.

For many years afterward, both vessels were common

sights on the navy yard waterfront.40

into the navy yard between the main

gate and the waterfront to catch a

glimpse of “Lucky Lindy.” In their

enthusiasm to get close to the pilot of

the “Spirit of St. Louis,” fans,

reporters, and photographers surged

past Marine guards and temporary

barriers in a mad rush. Not until

Lindberg’s car had passed through

Latrobe Gate was order once again

established.

The Washington Naval Treaty had

curtailed construction of new battleships and their heavy ordnance, but

the gun factory kept its workers busy

during the late 1920s manufacturing

new 5-inch and 8-inch guns for cruisers and reconditioning existing 14-inch and 16-inch guns on the old

battleships. The labor force totaled more than 4,000

workers in 1929. Despite the London Naval Treaty of

1930 mandating warship reductions, and President

Herbert Hoover’s decision to drastically cut naval

construction and other government expenditures to

stave off an economic depression, the gun factory

continued to turn out ordnance in the early 1930s.

Between the World Wars 63

Above. The gun factory

designed and tested

equipment for the new

aviation arm. In June

1923, Langley (CV 1),

the Navy’s first aircraft

carrier, tied up at the

navy yard.

Right. Charles A. Lindberg, America’s hero

after his daring and

unprecedented solo

flight across the Atlantic,

disembarks from cruiser

Memphis (CL 13) at the

navy yard in June 1927.
who later received a Nobel Peace

Prize for this successful effort,

introduced Russian and Japanese

dignitaries to one another on her

decks, and they discussed key

issues in her compartments.

The presidential yacht continued

to serve the social needs of the

nation’s principal elected leader.

The widower Woodrow Wilson

found Mayflower an ideal setting for

courting Edith Bolling Galt, who

became his second wife. He liked

Mayflower’s victorian ambiance and

he could find refuge on board from

inquisitive Washington reporters.

Calvin Coolidge frequently used

Mayflower to entertain his friends

and the press corps. The taciturn

and frugal New Englander made

sure, however, that the press corps

did not have second helpings at the

buffet table! With the onset of the

Great Depression in 1929, President Herbert Hoover ordered

Mayflower and Sylph decommissioned as economy measures.

Sequoia (AG 23), unlike the

yachts before and after her, was not

a blue-water, oceangoing vessel.

She was built in 1925 as a civilian

cabin cruiser for inland waterway

operations. The Navy took charge of

her when President Hoover indicated he had official and social needs

for the vessel—he especially liked

to fish. When Franklin D. Roosevelt

requested a larger, oceangoing vessel for his use in 1936, the Navy

transferred Sequoia to the Secretary

of the Navy. The vessel operated in

support of the Navy’s head civilian

for the next four decades.

When commissioned in 1936,

Potomac (AG 25), a former Coast

Guard cutter, became the new presidential yacht. The President and

dent with a means for escaping temporarily the pressures of his office

and the hot, humid Washington

summers.

Sylph (PY 12), purchased in

1898, was the first naval vessel

assigned the primary duties of carrying the chief executive of the

United States to and from official

functions and hosting his social outings. Presidents McKinley,

Theodore Roosevelt, and William

Howard Taft spent many leisurely

hours on board Sylph while she was

anchored off the coasts of New York

and New England. Traditionally,

when the President was assigned a

new yacht, the old one was handed

down to the Secretary of the Navy,

so Sylph served as the Secretary’s

personal conveyance, from 1905 to

1929, after Mayflower became the

presidential yacht.

Mayflower (PY 1), the largest,

grandest, and longest-serving of the

presidential yachts, was built in

Scotland in 1896. Almost the size of

a World War II destroyer escort, the

yacht boasted a crew of 171 men,

including bandsmen and Marine

guards. Commissioned originally as

a gunboat for the Spanish-American

War, Mayflower operated off Cuba

and transported Admiral of the

Fleet George Dewey and his staff.

During the pre-World War I era,

the presidential yacht became a

“prop of power.” U.S. Presidents,

like their European counterparts,

used luxury yachts to symbolize

their nation’s military and industrial

power and their personal stature. In

that regard, Mayflower served as the

venue for the 1905 diplomatic

negotiations sponsored by President

Theodore Roosevelt to end the

Russo-Japanese War. Roosevelt,

The

Presidential

Yachts

For more than fifty years, the

Washington Navy Yard was the

home port for yachts and other vessels serving the diplomatic and

social needs of the President of the

United States.

Despatch and Dolphin, while not

formally designated presidential

yachts, were the first U.S. naval

vessels to be employed in “Presidential service” when assigned to

the navy yard. In the days before

radio communication these fast

steamers transported messages

between shore-based headquarters

and the fleet. Despatch, the former

merchant steamer America purchased by the Navy in 1873, hosted

the President, the Secretary of the

Navy, and other high-ranking government officials in their visits to

the fleet for naval reviews and

short-term cruises on the Potomac

River from 1880 to 1891. When

commissioned in the mid to late

1880s, despatch vessel Dolphin was

one of the first steel vessels built for

the modern Navy. From 1885 to

World War I, Dolphin routinely carried out her message-delivery

responsibility, but on a number of

occasions embarked the President.

In 1897, for instance, the ship

transported President William

McKinley to New York City for a

ceremony at Ulysses S. Grant’s

tomb. During the late 19th century,

these vessels provided the Presi64 The Washington Navy Yard
Nixon and Gerald Ford conducted

social activities and hosted foreign

dignitaries on board Sequoia, but

they were the last chief executives

to do so. In 1977, President Jimmy

Carter, determined to rid the government of ostentation, ordered the

yacht sold. Many Americans shared

his view, so there was little opposition to the action. In another sense

selling the vessel was appropriate,

since in the modern era of longrange aircraft, nuclear weapons,

and intercontinental ballistic missiles, presidential yachts no longer

symbolized for most Americans the

power and majesty of the United

States. For much of the 20th century, however, the Washington Navy

Yard has witnessed history through

its visitors, as presidents, emperors,

kings and queens, and other world

leaders passed through Latrobe

Gate to embark in the presidential

yachts on the Anacostia River.

Jack A. Green

Mrs. Roosevelt embarked on several

occasions for cruises in the Chesapeake Bay and to Florida and the

Bahamas. In 1939, the President

and First Lady hosted the King and

Queen of Great Britain on board the

vessel during a short day-trip to

George Washington’s Mount Vernon

estate. In 1941, President Roosevelt

embarked in Potomac for a voyage

to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where

he secretly transferred to cruiser

Augusta, which carried him to

Argentia Bay, Nova Scotia, for a

meeting with British Prime Minister

Winston Churchill. The two leaders

reached agreement on the historic

Atlantic Charter that defined Allied

goals in World War II.

To provide the President with a

safer wartime retreat, the Navy

established what Roosevelt called

Shangri La, now known as Camp

David, in the Catoctin Mountains of

Maryland. Initially, the commanding officer of the presidential yacht

was responsible for the operation of

Camp David.

After World War II and Roosevelt’s death, the Navy selected

another yacht for President Harry S.

Truman. Williamsburg (AGC 369),

which was built in 1931 and had

served as a gunboat and a flagship

during World War II, transported

the President to his Key West,

Florida summer White House, to

Philadelphia for the annual ArmyNavy game, and to other East Coast

destinations. The vessel also hosted

disabled veterans taking excursions

to Mount Vernon. President Dwight

D. Eisenhower used Williamsburg

just once and in 1954 ordered the

ship decommissioned as an economy measure.

President John F. Kennedy made

use of the Secretary of the Navy’s

yacht Sequoia when he needed to

entertain important guests, as he

did with Pakistan’s President Ayub

Khan in 1961. Presidents Richard

Mayflower, with the President’s pendant hoisted, during a 1912 fleet review.

Between the World Wars 65
Of greater significance was Roosevelt’s decision

soon after taking office to stimulate national recovery

from the Great Depression by increasing naval construction. He was also concerned that Congress had

failed to maintain even the low number of capital

ships and guns allowed the United States in the naval

limitation treaties. He persuaded Congress to pass the

Vinson-Trammell Act, which provided for warship

construction in the categories regulated by the

treaties. During the next several years, the Naval Gun

Factory produced an impressive quantity of new

weapons and ordnance equipment. The workforce,

numbering almost 8,000 by 1934, produced new naval

rifles ranging from 5-inches to 16-inches, sights, gun

directors, and torpedo tubes. The expiration of the London Naval Treaty in 1936 and the increasingly

aggressive actions of Germany and Italy in Europe and

Japan in the Far East stimulated Congress to approve

even more construction for what would become a “two

ocean navy.” Shipyards began building new battleships, destroyers, and submarines. In May 1939, Congress authorized production of 3,000 aircraft and a 20

percent increase in the warship strength of the Navy.

66 The Washington Navy Yard

Above. Washington resident Thomas King served

his country as a “Buffalo

Soldier” in the famed 9th

U.S. Cavalry Regiment

and in the years after

World War I as a loyal

employee of the Washington Navy Yard. Courtesy

of Carl Cole

Left.Throughout its history, the navy yard has

suffered from flooding of

the Anacostia River.

Surging waters inundated

buildings close to the

waterfront during the

flood of 1936.
Between the World Wars 67

That year, as Europe edged toward war, the navy

yard manufactured 383 naval rifles of all calibers

and reconditioned another 764. Various shops produced over 18,000 spare parts and almost 6,000

optical pieces.

The Washington Navy Yard provided a setting for

the meeting of leaders who would lead their nations

in the second global conflict of the 20th century. On

9 June 1939, the President and Mrs. Roosevelt welcomed Their Highnesses, the King and Queen of

Great Britain, on board presidential yacht Potomac,

moored at the yard. More than 5,000 invited guests

were on hand to witness the event and take part in

formal ceremonies. Potomac, flying the flag of the

President of the United States and the banner of His

Majesty, the King of Great Britain, got under way just

after noon and shaped a course for President George

Washington’s Mount Vernon estate. As the vessel

headed down the Anacostia River for the afternoon’s

excursion, the Washington Navy Yard ceremonial

battery fired a 21-gun salute and the crowd cheered.

The embarked leaders would enjoy few such

moments of peace in the months and years ahead.

President and Mrs. Herbert Hoover converse with

Commander Louis J. Gulliver, Commanding Officer

of Constitution, when the

Navy’s oldest commissioned warship visited the

navy yard in November

1931.
68 The Washington Navy Yard

Left. The yacht Potomac

comes alongside the

navy yard dock with

the President and Mrs.

Roosevelt and the King

and Queen of Great

Britain embarked during

the royal visit to America

in June 1939.

Below. First Lady

Eleanor Roosevelt,

Queen Elizabeth, King

George VI, President

Franklin D. Roosevelt,

and his Naval Aide,

Captain Daniel J.

Callaghan (who received

a posthumous Medal of

Honor for extraordinary

valor in World War II),

appear at the rail of

Potomac.
69

ensure ordnance standardization. It also concentrated

on the repair of battle-damaged equipment and the

production of critical or specialized items, replacement parts and equipment, and prototype ordnance.

For instance, the gun

factory designed the

huge turrets for the 16-

inch guns of the North

Carolina- and Iowaclass battleships, new

12-inch, 8-inch, and

6-inch guns that

employed the latest in

automatic loading and

firing devices, submersible deck guns for

submarines, and rapidfire rocket launchers.

The yard also was a site

for the design and testing of air-to-surface

rockets and other aviation ordnance, for

which the Navy constructed Building 220

on a high-priority basis.

Only three months after

the Bureau of Ordnance

authorized full-scale

production of the technologically advanced variable

time (VT) fuse for gun ammunition in 1943, the facility manufactured 2,200 fuses each day, and by June

1945 that figure had increased ninefold.43

The facilities at the Washington site employed the

largest number of workers of any Navy shore establishment, with the exception of the major navy yards.

In mid-1940 there were 10,000 employees at the

Ordnance Nerve Center

for a Global Conflict

Soon after the German army invaded Poland on 1

September 1939, sparking the outbreak of World War

II, the Navy took action to prepare for the war that

President Roosevelt and many naval leaders felt the

United States could not

avoid. By then, the

Naval Gun Factory had

provided the Navy with

the “finest ship borne

artillery of any navy in

the world.”41 To maintain that edge, the

Bureau of Ordnance

took steps to increase

ordnance design, testing, and production by

the gun factory and

hundreds of industrial

facilities around the

country.

Naval leaders recognized early that only

private industry could produce the enormous number

of weapons and ordnance systems needed by the fleet

to fight a two-ocean, global conflict, but they

believed the Naval Gun Factory should continue to

be the “nerve center”42 of the Navy’s ordnance design

and testing program. The Washington facility was

responsible for furnishing blueprints, drawings, and

specifications to the nation’s industrial plants to

Arsenal of democracy.

A skilled worker, one of

26,000 men and women

who toiled at the gun

factory at the peak of

World War II, clears

metal cuttings from the

barrel of a weapon

being machine-rifled

for accuracy.
yard. By the end of 1944 the figure had risen to

26,000, the wartime peak.44

Many of these employees were women, tens of

thousands of whom went to work at defense plants

across the nation. The women at the Washington

Navy Yard, like the men, had to endure long hours of

labor in the routinely hot or cold, noisy, and dirty

70 The Washington Navy Yard

industrial facilities. The

women did not share

equally in pay and other

compensation. The takehome pay for some women was $23 a week while

some skilled men received $22 a day! One former

female worker observed that the navy yard women

Gun factory employees

work metal into shape

for one of the weapons

the U.S. Navy will use in

World War II.
Ordnance Nerve Center for a Global Conflict 71

Above. Work is in full

swing at the breech

mechanism shop (Building 76) during the war.

Right. A 3-inch .50-caliber, rapid-fire, twinmount antiaircraft gun

after assembly at the gun

factory. These weapons

were essential to the

fleet’s defense against

Japanese kamikaze

attacks in the Pacific.
“would stand for practically anything—five months

without sleeping in a bed, a solid year on the graveyard shift so as to be home with the kids during the

day, the double job, indigestible lunches, long hours

and no promise of a future after the war—all for miserably low wages.”45 The women were partially motivated by the need to supplement their husband’s

meager military pay. But, they also recognized that

their sweat and toil would help their country survive

the onslaught by Germany and Japan and perhaps bring about a postwar era of peace and prosperity.

More land to the west of the navy yard was

acquired in 1942 to handle the prodigious production of the gun factory and the storage of massive

amounts of steel and other materials brought into the

site by train and truck. By the end of the war, the

Washington Navy Yard administered 132 buildings

on 127 acres of land in southeast Washington. In

addition to the ordnance design and production facili-

72 The Washington Navy Yard

Above. Much like John

Dahlgren’s men in the

experimental battery,

these World War II

sailors, operating from

the top floor of the highest building (157) in the

yard, test gun rangefinders by sighting visible

landmarks across the

Anacostia River.

Left. Sparks and flames

leap from cauldrons of

molten metal as the gun

factory works to arm the

Navy for the global

conflict.
ordnance and gunnery schools—Gunners Mates and

Electric Hydraulic School, Mine Disposal School,

Gunnery School, Ordnance School, Optical Primary

School, and Advanced Fire-Control School. Between

September 1943 and July 1945, the number of officers and men attending these schools rose from 1,658

to 5,822.46 Many members of the Women Accepted

for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) replaced

male sailors at navy yard facilities who were then

available for service in the combat theaters.

In celebration of Victory in Europe (VE) Day, 8

May 1945, the Navy broadcast to all yard employees

President Truman’s speech to the nation announcing

the German defeat. To celebrate the event, the commandant opened the yard to 5,000 citizens, allowed

visitors to tour destroyer George K. MacKenzie, and

sponsored various programs throughout the facility47

ties, the yard hosted a laboratory for investigating

mines and certain aspects

of ammunition development. After the war the

Naval Ordnance Laboratory was moved from the yard

into new facilities at White Oak, Maryland.

The navy yard’s Medical Department concentrated

on reducing on-the-job injuries and illnesses, registering considerable success during the war. Employment of safety engineers and other measures helped

reduce the incidence of time lost to illness or injury

by more than half from 1942 to 1945. These employees saw to it that workers wore safety shoes, goggles,

and protective glasses.

The navy yard also hosted a number of schools,

including the Navy Yard Apprentice School and six

Ordnance Nerve Center for a Global Conflict 73

Sailors from the receiving station unit at the

navy yard take part in a

ceremony as they prepare for their assignments to the fleet.
The workers of the Naval Gun Factory could be

justly proud of their contribution to victory over the

Axis Powers in World War II. During the conflict,

the facility produced a prodigious amount of firstrate ordnance for the fleet, including 236 16-inch,

370 12-inch and 8-inch, 134 6-inch, and 427 5-inch

guns, plus thousands of turrets, catapults, and

antenna mounts.48

As a symbol of the factory’s importance to the

Allied victory, a bronze plaque manufactured by the

Naval Gun Factory was affixed to the spot on the

deck of battleship Missouri (BB 63) where Japanese

officials signed surrender documents in Tokyo Bay.49

74 The Washington Navy Yard

Above. Navy yard

employees gather in

Leutze Park for entertainment by the United

States Navy Band and a

well-deserved break from

wartime labors.

Left. Women shift workers take a meal break

during their workday at

the gun factory. Thousands of women, many

with children at home

and husbands far away

in combat theaters,

worked long, hard hours

and for low pay during

the war.
75

fare. Other naval facilities around the country were

better suited than the navy yard to the design, testing,

and production of aircraft and radar-guided missile

systems. Throughout the early Cold War years, the gun

factory laid off an

increasing number

of employees as the

Navy issued fewer

and fewer ordnance

work orders.

For those workers still on the payroll, there was still

plenty to do. In

October 1949 the

Washington Navy

Yard celebrated its

150th anniversary

with a week of

events that included a Marine Parade

and Water Pageant,

Power Boat Regatta, a canoe and

rowing competition,

and an aircraft flyover. President Truman attended several of the

events. Unfortunately, the good feeling from these

activities was somewhat dissipated in November and

December of that year when two passenger planes

crashed into the Anacostia River nearby, killing a

number of people on board. Navy yard workers and

heavy equipment helped raise the aircraft so government investigators could determine the cause of the

dual tragedies. The gun factory also continued to

maintain the U.S. Senate’s subway system, whose

two cars were built at the navy yard in 1912.51

On 1 December 1945, the Secretary of the Navy formally changed the name of the Washington Navy Yard to

the United States Naval Gun Factory. This recognition

was belated, for the yard had been functioning as an

ordnance research,

design, testing, and

production facility

since 1886 rather

than as a traditional

navy yard.50 The

decision was not

well received by

some old-time yard

workers and Washington residents,

who appreciated the

location’s unique

past and its importance to the history of the nation’s capital and the Navy.

The post-World War II years saw drastic reduction

in ordnance work at the navy yard. With a huge fleet

of heavily armed warships already built, the Navy did

not need to produce additional guns. Furthermore,

during the 1950s the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, hoping to hold down the cost of maintaining

large, expensive conventional forces, limited construction of new warships. The Navy added to gun factory

woes by stressing the preeminence of the aircraft carrier and the guided missile in a new era of naval warA New Mission for the Navy Yard

As a fitting symbol

of the gun factory’s

contribution to

Allied victory in

World War II,

President Harry S.

Truman views a

plaque designed and

cast at the yard to

commemorate the

Japanese surrender

on board Missouri.
76 The Washington Navy Yard
A New Mission for the Navy Yard 77

Above. The navy yard’s

Naval School of Diving

and Salvage, operating

from barge Tom O’Malley (YRST 5) and buildings ashore, prepared

thousands of sailors for

hazardous duty with the

fleet.

Right. Submarine torpedo tubes and other ordnance produced by the

gun factory were heavily

used by the fleet in the

Cold War era.
78 The Washington Navy Yard

Above. In the years after

World War II, the yard

continued to serve as a

ceremonial site for the

Navy and the nation.

On 14 April 1947, Rear

Admiral Richard E. Byrd

(standing behind the

microphones) returned to

the United States from a

naval exercise in Antarctica. Welcoming the

famous explorer home

are (left to right) Chief of

Naval Operations Fleet

Admiral Chester W.

Nimitz, Secretary of the

Navy James Forrestal,

and Rear Admiral

Richard H. Cruzen.

Left. Navy yard workers

operate data processing

equipment in a gun factory administrative

office. With the Navy

emphasizing aircraft and

missiles for its Cold War

missions, lessening the

need for guns, the navy

yard became more of an

administrative center.
then expected that the radiation, heat, and blast of a

nuclear detonation would cause widespread devastation and kill several thousand workers. Thankfully,

such an attack never happened.53

In May 1958, the navy yard hosted the return to

the United States of the unknown dead from World

War II and the Korean War, as it had for the unknown

men of World War I years earlier. On the 28th, in a

formal ceremony widely reported by the American

news media, destroyer Blandy carried the remains of

the unknown servicemen to the yard, where they

were transferred to vehicles that would bring them to

Arlington National Cemetery for interment.

With ordnance work assigned to other naval facilities and private industry, the Navy reestablished the

Washington Navy Yard as an administrative, supply,

and ceremonial center. As it had for many years, the

yard served as the “ceremonial quarterdeck” for

Washington-area naval commands. The Marine Corps’ Ceremonial Guard Company, billeted in Building

58 adjacent to Leutze Park from 1957 to 1977, performed their world-famous precision drills at the yard

One of the navy yard’s responsibilities, maintaining and operating yachts for the President and the

Secretary of the Navy, continued well into the Cold

War years. In November 1945, the steel-hulled,

diesel-powered yacht Williamsburg replaced

Potomac as the presidential yacht. Williamsburg

served both Truman and Eisenhower who entertained American and foreign dignitaries on board or

used the vessel to transport them on visits to the

fleet or East Coast ports. In 1953, Eisenhower

directed decommissioning of the ship as a cost-cutting measure.52

At the height of the Cold War, employees prepared

for the worst—a Soviet nuclear attack on Washington, D.C.! Initially, employees were instructed to

remain at their workstations and cover their mouths

with handkerchiefs to ward off the ill effects of atomic radiation. Soon, however, more serious measures

were taken to protect yard personnel. Throughout the

1950s, air raid sirens alerted nineteen auxiliary

damage control teams and sent as many as 11,000

workers scurrying into assigned shelters. Planners

A New Mission for the Navy Yard 79

Land acquired by the

Washington Navy Yard.
80 The Washington Navy Yard

Left. As it had in the

first half of the 20th

century, the navy yard

continued to maintain

the presidential yacht

during much of the

Cold War. Shortly

after President

Dwight D. Eisenhower

disembarked from

Mayflower in May

1953, the retired

general discontinued

operation of the vessel.

Below. Destroyer

Blandy (DD 943),

which returned

remains of unknown

American servicemen

to the United States

in 1958.
A New Mission for the Navy Yard 81

Above. Guns manufactured at the navy yard

were used against the

enemy in every one of

the nation’s 20th-century

wars, including this 16-

inch gun on board Wisconsin (BB 64) firing at

targets in Iraqi-occupied

Kuwait during Operation

Desert Storm in 1991.

Right. Washingtonians

enjoy a “Watergate

Concert” at the foot of

Memorial Bridge. The

gun factory fabricated

the band shell and barge

combination for the concerts held here during

the 1950s and 1960s.
and the nearby barracks on 8th and I Streets. In any

given year, the navy yard hosted numerous retirements,

award presentations, changes of command, and welcoming ceremonies for domestic and foreign dignitaries. In 1959, for instance, U.S. naval leaders welcomed to America naval flag officers from Colombia,

Mexico, Greece, and seven other

countries. In June 1960, the Navy

hosted a formal ceremony in

Leutze Park to mark the 100th

anniversary of the first visit to the

United States by a Japanese

ambassador. The commandant

presented the crew of Japanese

merchant ship Nippon Maru with

an anchor forged by the plant and

inscribed with the words “steadfast in friendship.”54

The Bureau of Ordnance

began to identify missions other

than production of heavy ordnance for the Naval Gun

Factory. Its shops investigated the use of electronics

and plastics in weapons, tested equipment for a

satellite navigation system, and produced launchers

for the Navy’s Tartar surface-to-air missile.55 In 1959,

the Navy changed the name of the United States

Naval Gun Factory to United States Naval Weapons

Plant, “in recognition of the fact that gun technology

was no longer paramount in modern naval combat.”

By the end of 1961, the plant had completed all of its

scheduled ordnance

production. In short,

“a 114-year tradition

of ordnance manufacture on the banks

of the Anacostia

River was over.”56 In

the next two years,

the weapons plant

was disestablished

and half of the buildings and land formerly constituting

the navy yard transferred to the General Services Administration.

The United States Navy Band, headquartered at

the Washington Navy Yard in the Sail Loft (Building

112) since its establishment, continued to attract

Above. Admiral Arleigh

Burke, former Chief of

Naval Operations, shares

a laugh with fellow flag

officers at a navy yard

change-of-command ceremony in which Admiral

David L. McDonald

(right) succeeded George

W. Anderson as CNO. A

strong advocate of U.S.

naval history, Burke

directed establishment of

what became The Navy

Museum at the yard.

Left. A sailor looks over

the Fighting Top of USS

Constitution exhibited in

the Navy Museum.

82 The Washington Navy Yard
personnel and the public in naval history, traditions,

heritage and scientific contribution.”58

The cavernous building eventually displayed the

fighting top of frigate Constitution, World War II aircraft and weapons, the Trieste deep-diving vessel,

and thousands of other unique artifacts, paintings,

ship models, medals, flags, and uniforms. Exhibits

cover all periods in U.S. naval history and interpret

the service’s role in war and peace, diplomacy, exploration, and scientific research.

Almost from its beginning, the yard has displayed

at outdoor sites larger artifacts, including bronze and

iron guns from the Navy’s past wars and skirmishes.

national attention for the excellence of its programs

and accomplished musicians. The loss of nineteen

band members in an air disaster in Brazil during

February 1960 saddened Americans but did not end

the band’s well-regarded foreign tour. On many occasions, the national media highlighted the virtuosity of

Navy Band members like Master Chief Musician

Frank J. Scimonelli, at one time the world’s foremost

English post horn player. The band routinely performed at presidential inaugurals, Washington

memorial dedications, U.S. Capitol concerts, and

funeral services at Arlington National Cemetery for

sailors who made the ultimate sacrifice in World War

II, Korea, and Vietnam. The United States Navy

Band also entertained the public at “Watergate Concerts,” for many years held on board a barge manufactured by the Naval Gun Factory and moored at the

foot of Memorial Bridge.57

Recognizing that the Washington Navy Yard was

the Navy’s oldest and one of its most historic sites, in

1961 Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Arleigh

Burke persuaded Secretary of the Navy John B. Connally to establish the U.S. Naval Historical Display

Center (later the U.S. Navy Memorial Museum, then

The Navy Museum) in Building 76, the old breech

mechanism shop. The purpose of the museum’s collections was to “inspire, inform, and educate service

Right. Guns and missiles

on display in Willard

Park.

Below. The Navy Museum.

A New Mission for the Navy Yard 83
84 The Washington Navy Yard

Above. The float built by

the navy yard and carrying a PT boat (actually

PT 796) moves along

Pennsylvania Avenue

during President John F.

Kennedy’s inaugural

parade in January 1961.

Left. President Kennedy

speaks on board U.S.

Coast Guard sail training

ship Eagle at the navy

yard.
The majority of outdoor artifacts are found in Willard

Park, named for a former commandant. The historic

pieces in this site across from the museum include

U.S. and captured Confederate cannon from the Civil

War, a 16-inch naval rifle, a 14-inch railway battery,

a Talos surface-to-air missile,

and a Vietnam-era fast patrol

craft, or “Swift boat.”

The Navy established another

exhibit center at the yard, the

Combat Art Gallery (later the

Navy Art Gallery). The gallery

exhibits oils and watercolors by

Navy and civilian artists,

including Thomas Hart Benton,

Reginald Marsh, and others,

who depicted sailors and

marines taking part in World

War II, the Korean and Vietnam

wars, and in other operations of

the Cold War era.

In 1977, Barry, a Forrest

Sherman-class destroyer that

served for twenty-six years with the Atlantic and

Pacific fleets and saw action in the Vietnam War, was

permanently moored at Pier 2 on the waterfront and

opened for public visitation.

The navy yard continued to serve as the venue for

welcoming foreign heads of state and naval leaders to

the United States and as an appropriate mooring

place for visiting naval combatants, training vessels,

and oceanographic research ships. In any given year,

numerous U.S., British, Canadian, and other warships and noncombatant vessels put in at the

Washington Navy Yard. For

instance, in early 1961, motor

torpedo boat PT 796 arrived at

the yard for the inauguration of

John F. Kennedy, whose exploits

as a PT boat skipper in World

War II were well known. For the

inaugural parade, the navy yard

fabricated a cradle and float to

hold the boat, temporarily designated PT 109. That summer, a

party led by President Kennedy

and President Mohammad Ayub

Khan of Pakistan boarded the

Secretary of the Navy’s yacht Sequoia, the privately

owned vessels Honey Fitz and Patrick J, and naval

vessel Guardian, which carried the group to Mount

Vernon for a state function.59

Above. The Navy Art

Gallery (formerly the

Combat Art Gallery).

Left.“Score Another for

the Subs” by Thomas

Hart Benton (Navy Art

Collection).

A New Mission for the Navy Yard 85
86 The Washington Navy Yard

tors with exciting educational experiences throughout the day. All of

the museum’s programs are open to

the public and free of charge.

To increase public outreach, The

Navy Museum establishes partnerships with other educational organizations. The partnership between

The Navy Museum and the Alexandria Seaport Foundation is especially productive. Begun in March

1998, it has developed into a cooperative community boat-building

project that serves youngsters from

the District of Columbia and surrounding communities. The Navy

Museum, whose mission is to

increase outreach to the public, was

attracted by the Alexandria Seaport

Foundation’s success with past programs that taught the value of teamwork, in addition to basic boatbuilding skills. Both organizations

are dedicated to the education and

inspiration of local youth.

submarine periscopes, gun mounts,

and other hands-on objects provide

visitors with an interactive museum

experience.

The museum offers the surrounding community an active education

and public programs schedule.

Teachers are encouraged to sign up

for curriculum-based school programs and tours for grades one

through twelve. Tours for senior citizens, families, naval reunion

groups, and general audiences are

also available. The Navy Museum

sponsors evening events throughout

the year including lectures, slide

presentations, book-signings, and

concerts performed by the United

States Navy Band and traditional

maritime musicians. Each fall, the

museum hosts the Seafaring Celebration, a family festival highlighting naval and maritime traditions.

Activity workshops, demonstrations,

storytelling, and musical performances provide thousands of visiThe Navy

Museum

The Navy Museum opened to the

public in 1963 to collect, preserve,

display, and interpret artifacts and

artwork for the general public.

Called one of Washington, D.C.’s

most “user-friendly” museums, The

Navy Museum exhibits an extraordinary collection of ship models,

uniforms, medals, ordnance, photographs and fine art. Housed in the

former Breech Mechanism Shop of

the old Naval Gun Factory, the

museum collection includes an F4U

Corsair, nicknamed “Big Hog”; a

twin mount 5-inch .38 caliber antiaircraft gun; the foremast Fighting

Top from frigate Constitution; and

the bathyscaphe Trieste that

descended nearly seven miles to the

deepest location in the Pacific

Ocean.

Tracing wars, battles, and crises

from the American Revolution

through the Vietnam War, The Navy

Museum presents over 225 years of

naval and maritime history. The

museum’s most comprehensive

exhibit, “In Harm’s Way,” chronicles the Navy’s role in World War II

from the attack on Pearl Harbor in

1941 to Japan’s surrender in 1945.

Its three sections examine the

Pacific and Atlantic campaigns and

the home front effort. Thematic

exhibitions, such as “Underwater

Exploration,” “Polar Exploration,”

and “Commodore Matthew Perry

and the Opening of Japan,” feature

the Navy’s diplomatic and peacetime contributions. World War II Children enjoy a hands-on experience in The Navy Museum.
A New Mission for the Navy Yard 87

Fast attack craft continued to be popular attractions during the Kennedy administration. In May

1963, Lieutenant (jg) John R. Graham brought the

vessel under his command, Norwegian-built PTF 3,

from Norfolk to the navy yard. Two days later, Secretary of the Navy Fred H. Korth boarded the vessel

for a demonstration in the Potomac River of the vessel’s speed, maneuverability, and other characteristics. Impressed with the fast patrol boat’s potential

for use in special operations, Korth, other naval

leaders, and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara purchased more boats in the class from Norway and deployed them to Southeast Asia. PTF 3

and her sisters of the “Nasty” class were involved in

raids on North Vietnam’s coast that helped spark

the Tonkin Gulf Incident of August 1964 and

reflected the Navy’s and the nation’s increasing

involvement in the Vietnam War.60

The first boat-building program

at The Navy Museum began in the

summer of 1998 with high school

students from the Greater Washington Urban League’s Environmental

WALL program. The young people

built two, 12-foot rowing skiffs for

use in taking water samples from

the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers.

After the boats were completed, the

museum held a “Blessing of the

Fleet” ceremony to honor the boat

builders and their finely made craft.

On 5 March 1999, First Lady

Hillary Rodham Clinton officiated

at a similar “Blessing of the Fleet”

ceremony held in The Navy Museum. Honored guests included Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig,

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes

Norton (D–D.C.), and District of

Columbia Mayor Anthony Williams.

Priceless artifacts, didactic

exhibits, and diverse public programs attract nearly 350,000 people

annually to The Navy Museum.

Each visitor leaves the museum

with an appreciation of America’s

rich naval and maritime heritage.

Susan Scott

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton visits The Navy Museum in March 1999 to lend

her support to preserving America’s historic treasures. Among others, she is accompanied by (left to right) Anthony Williams, Mayor of the District of Columbia; Rear

Admiral Arthur N. Langston, Director Navy Staff; Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes

Norton, (D–D.C.) and William S. Dudley, Director of Naval History (far right).
88 The Washington Navy Yard

are yet to be discovered, of natural resources that are

yet to be tapped, of a vast wilderness that is yet to be

charted. This is the sea around us.”61

Even though the navy yard had

little direct involvement with the

Navy’s far-flung operations during the Cold War era, it often

served as the setting to honor

Navy men and women who

defended the nation and carried

out its international responsibilities. On 11 June 1968, for

instance, Secretary of the Navy

Paul R. Ignatius awarded the

Medal of Honor to Captain

William L. McGonagle, former

Commanding Officer of Liberty

(AGTR 5). The Navy recognized

the officer’s extraordinary

courage and leadership under

fire when Israeli aircraft and surface vessels attacked his ship in the Mediterranean in

1967. Among the guests of honor at the navy yard

ceremony were some surviving members of his crew,

On 1 January 1965, the Navy created Naval District

Washington, headquartered in the Washington Navy

Yard, to take over responsibilities formerly handled by

the Potomac River Naval Command and the Annapolis-based

Severn River Naval Command.

Rear Admiral Andrew J. Hill,

the first Commandant Naval

District Washington, was

charged with administering

approximately 100 naval activities in the District of Columbia,

Annapolis, and the Maryland

and Virginia counties of the

national capital region.

On 13 July 1966, President

Lyndon B. Johnson visited the

yard to commission a new

research vessel, U.S. Coast

Geodetic Survey Ship Oceanographer. The President called for

a “new age of exploration” to exploit “an unknown

world at our doorstep. It is really our last frontier

here on earth. I am speaking of mountain chains that

Right.“Queen of the

Fleet” by Navy artist

Erick Marshall Murray

(Navy Art Collection).

Below. Captain William

L. McGonagle, wearing

the Medal of Honor he

was awarded at a navy

yard ceremony for his

courageous leadership as

Commanding Officer of

Liberty (AGTR 5).
ington Navy Yard. Joining the Navy Memorial Museum and the Operational Archives, the latter of which

was moved to the navy yard from Arlington, Virginia,

in 1963, was the Naval History Division.62

The Naval History Division had evolved almost

from the beginning of the United States Navy. Its first

component was the Navy Department Library. President John Adams established the library in 1800 to

provide Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Stoddert

with books on “naval architecture, navigation, gunthe Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the

Chief of Naval Operations.

With the demolition of the Main Navy Building on

Constitution Avenue in 1970, the Navy leased commercial property in Northern Virginia for some of its

Washington-area activities and renovated government-owned buildings at naval facilities for others.

As part of this effort, the Navy began consolidating its

historical program, then spread around the national

capital region, at a most appropriate site, the WashA New Mission for the Navy Yard 89

Right. Liberty after

attack by Israeli forces

in June 1967.

Below. Yacht Sequoia

(AG 23) off the navy

yard in the 1960s.
90 The Washington Navy Yard

guns were made under one of the

first rationalized systems of artillery

design. Although records of these

old guns are sparse at best, these

guns are believed to have been purchased in the late 1790s, when war

with revolutionary France seemed

likely. A number of stubby-barreled

howitzers were designed to fire early

explosive shells. Two of these howitzers, of unusual form, bear the

Lion of Saint Mark on their barrels,

showing that they were made at the

famed Arsenal of Venice, a combined shipyard and ordnance plant

that built and armed Venetian warships during the time when this Italian city-state was a major naval

power.

In the 1840s the navy yard took

on the task of ordnance development. Lieutenant John Dahlgren

built an “experimental battery” on

the waterfront and began testing

guns and ammunition by firing them

down the Anacostia River. The

yard’s collection reflects these days

modore Matthew Perry first opened

Japan to American commerce. Feudal clans of southern Japan resented

what they saw as foreign intrusion

into their country, and fought a civil

war for supremacy. Their coastal

forts fired on French and Dutch

ships and on the American warship

Wyoming. An international naval

squadron retaliated in 1864, silencing the batteries after a heavy gunnery duel. This success is credited

with ending the anti-foreign movement in Japan.

Two heavy bronze guns, cast at

Barcelona in 1788 and purchased

by the Pasha of Tripoli to arm two of

his gunboats, commemorate the Barbary Wars. Stephen Decatur captured these gunboats in Tripoli Harbor in 1804, and the frigate

Constitution carried them back to

Washington. Displayed with them

are two guns made in 1740 for King

Louis XV of France. Early muzzleloading guns were made in many

calibers and dimensions. These

The Navy

Yard’s

Historic

Ordnance

Collection

Visitors to the Washington Navy

Yard notice the array of early bronze

and iron artillery displayed in and

around Willard and Leutze Parks.

These pieces are visible reminders

of the navy yard’s service as a shipyard, an operating base, a manufacturing plant, and an ordnance test

facility.

Trophies of America’s wars and

expeditions have been brought to

the nation’s capital since the age of

sail. The navy yard collection

includes guns used, or captured, by

American forces from the Quasi-War

with revolutionary France through

World War I. A French bronze

4-pounder Gribeauval-pattern cannon, a type that armed Napoleon’s

field artillery, was cast at Lyons in

1793 and bears the revolutionary

motto “liberté, egalité.” The oldest

piece in the collection, cast in 1686

for King Charles II of Spain, bears

the name “San Bruno” given to it by

its makers. It honors Saint Bruno, an

11th-century scholar and founder of

the Carthusian order of monks, who

might have been a bit surprised to

find his name on an artillery piece.

A large bronze gun of unusual

form, taken from a Japanese coastal

fort, recalls the time when ComCaptured 18th-century guns in Leutze Park.
91

of experimentation. Two wroughtiron smoothbore guns, made for the

Navy in 1844, were designed by

Daniel Treadwell, a Massachusetts

inventor. They gave satisfaction in

tests, but appear to have been too

costly for service. After the Civil

War many designers worked to

develop serviceable breech-loading

artillery. Colonel Theodore Yates

designed an unusual “clamshell”

breech mechanism that worked well

with yacht saluting guns but proved

unable to handle the powder pressures involved in actual gunnery. A

3.25-inch Yates gun, thought to be

the only one of its kind, was apparently tested by the Navy but rejected for service.

A 12-inch shell gun, one of several prototypes developed in the

1840s by Commodore Robert Stockton, holds a conspicuous place in

Willard Park. Called the “Mersey

Gun,” it was made in England to

replace Stockton’s “Peacemaker,”

which had exploded in 1844 during

demonstration firing on board

Princeton in the Potomac River. An

investigation convinced the Navy

that the technology of that time

could not yet turn out reliable largecaliber iron guns, so guns of this

size did not enter the fleet until the

Civil War. Around this gun are

grouped five heavy guns designed

during that war by Commander John

Mercer Brooke, chief of ordnance in

the Confederate Navy. His guns

were rugged and powerful, and some

have judged them to have been the

best American-designed guns of

their day.

Rifling began to be used in

artillery pieces at the time of our

Civil War to give them greater power

and accuracy. Many early rifled

guns were older smoothbores, rifled

and usually reinforced to take the

higher pressures involved. Five guns

across the street from The Navy

Museum illustrate the variety of

such attempts; American and

British guns, converted to rifles,

include an American gun made

before the War of 1812.

These, along with other guns displayed in the navy yard, are studied

with interest by historians and antiquarians. Along with comparable

ordnance collections at the Naval

Academy and nearby Fort Lesley J.

McNair, they serve as a threedimensional technical archive and a

reminder of the efforts and sacrifices

made by generations of American

soldiers and sailors.

John C. Reilly Jr.

Civil War-era cannon exhibited on Dahlgren Avenue next to The Navy Museum.

A New Mission for the Navy Yard
nery, hydraulics, hydrostatics, and all branches of

mathematics subservient to the profession of the sea”

and the “lives of all the admirals . . . who have distinguished themselves by the boldness and success of

their navigation, or their gallantry

and skill in naval combats.”63

During the 19th century, the

library was housed in the State,

War and Navy Building (now the

Executive Office Building next to

the White House). In 1882, as the

Navy underwent rejuvenation after

the lean post-Civil War years,

James Russell Soley, a naval officer, respected international

lawyer, prolific writer, and Naval

Academy professor, was assigned

responsibility for managing the

library. He improved the library’s

holdings by gathering rare books,

professional journals, official records relating to the

Civil War, and prints and photographs of battles and

warships. Congress supported his efforts by appropriating an initial $2,640 for the location, collection,

and publication of documents on the conflict. Soley

continued to oversee the Office of Library and Naval

War Records (after 1915 Office of Naval Records and

Library) when he was appointed Assistant Secretary

of the Navy in 1890. Between

1894 and 1927, Soley and his

successors published the 31-volume Official Records of the Union

and Confederate Navies in the War

of the Rebellion.

During World War I, Secretary

of the Navy Josephus Daniels

directed historical sections in

London and Washington to gather

documents on the Navy’s involvement in that conflict. In 1921,

Captain (later Commodore) Dudley Knox, who would become the

“driving force of the Navy’s historical programs for the next twentyfive years,” took the helm of the department’s document collection, publication, and library sections.

Knox, awarded the Navy Cross for his support of the

war effort in London by Admiral William S. Sims,

92 The Washington Navy Yard

Above. Commodore

Dudley W. Knox, the

Navy’s influential and

gifted chief historian

during the mid-20th

century.

Left. Assistant Secretary

of the Navy James R.

Soley encouraged the

collection and preservation of books and documents on the history of

the U.S. Navy at the end

of the 19th century.
With the outbreak of World War II, Knox established a unique archival system to handle the hundreds of thousands of documents he knew would

begin pouring into the Navy Department. He especially wanted to make the collection usable for the

researchers and historians who would analyze the

Navy’s operations and administration in the greatest

war of the 20th century. To manage the monumental

archival effort, the captain brought on board Naval

Reserve officers trained as historians at the nation’s

finest universities. In addition, Samuel Eliot Morison,

a scholar already internationally renowned for his

work in naval and maritime history, persuaded Roosevelt to employ him in the preparation of a history of

wartime naval operations based on these records.

In 1944, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal

appointed retired Admiral Edward C. Kalbfus as

Director of Naval History to oversee the Navy’s various historical efforts, including those under Knox.

A New Mission for the Navy Yard 93

The Dudley Knox Center

for Naval History

(Building 57).

wartime commander of U.S. naval forces in Europe,

certainly had the aptitude for his new assignment.

The veteran naval officer had a sharp intellect, gift

for writing, and deep knowledge of his navy’s history.

As a result of Knox’s successful actions to organize

the Navy’s historical materials and his friendship

with Franklin D. Roosevelt and other prominent

leaders, the Office of Naval Records and Library

gained a “national and international reputation in the

field of naval archives and history.”64 In 1930 Knox

was named Curator for the Navy Department and

assigned responsibility for the collection and preservation of the Navy’s art objects and artifacts of historical importance. At President Roosevelt’s request

and with his support, during the 1930s and early

1940s Knox published thirteen volumes documenting the Navy’s part in the early 19th century QuasiWar with France and wars with North Africa’s Barbary states.
Another reorganization took place in March 1949,

when a new Naval Records and History Division (after

1952 simply the Naval History Division) was established in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations to

manage all of the service’s historical programs.

Throughout the 1950s, these programs were centered

in the Main Navy Building on Constitution Avenue. In

1971, a year after most Naval History Division components had moved to the Washington Navy Yard, it was

renamed the Naval Historical Center.

Other new postwar tenants of the Washington

Navy Yard included the Chesapeake Division, Naval

Facilities Engineering Command, Naval Dental Clinic, Naval Investigative Service, Navy Publications

and Printing Service, the Defense Department Computer Institute, Naval Regional Data Automation

Command, Weapons Engineering Support Activity,

and the Military Sealift Command.65

In 1973, the U.S. Congress’ Joint Committee on

Landmarks identified the Washington Navy Yard

“Historic District” as an important landmark

because of its significant contribution to the “cultural heritage and visual beauty of the District of

Columbia.” The National Park Service also listed the

yard on the National Register of Historic Places.

Presidential yachts continued to operate at the

navy yard. President Richard M. Nixon used

Potomac often for social functions and occasionally

as a convenient venue for thinking through policy

decisions. After conferring with his advisors on

board the ship in May 1972, Nixon ordered the mining of North Vietnam’s harbors. His successor, Gerald Ford, hosted Japanese Emperor Hirohito on

board for a cruise down the Potomac. As had Herbert

Hoover and Dwight D. Eisenhower, President Jimmy

Carter discontinued use of presidential yachts in

1977.66

That same year, the Chief of Naval Operations’ residence at the Naval Observatory on Massachusetts

Avenue was assigned to the Vice President of the

United States. In 1978, the Navy chose Tingey House

as the new official residence of the CNO. Given the

historical importance and ceremonial role of the navy

yard and the CNO’s close association with those

duties, the choice was appropriate. As with most

homes that have served generations of families,

94 The Washington Navy Yard

The Marine Corps

Historical Center

(Building 58), as seen

from Leutze Park.
In 1982 the Director of Naval History, retired Rear

Admiral John D.H. Kane Jr., concentrated the various

branches of the Naval Historical Center in the navy

yard’s historic precinct around Building 57, fittingly

named the Dudley Knox Center for Naval History.

Established close by in Building 58 was the Marine

Corps Historical Center, whose histories, archives,

museum, library, and other branches focus on preserving and interpreting the operational and institutional experience of the Corps. Museum displays of

combat art, weapons, uniforms, and other artifacts

complement the center histories that detail marine

valor and sacrifice in the nation’s wars and crises.

The ending of the Cold War opened a new era in

U.S.-Soviet relations. As a reflection of the changing

Tingey House experienced its share of sadness. On 16

May 1996, Admiral Jeremy Boorda, a dynamic, wellliked and respected Chief of Naval Operations, took

his own life on the grounds of the residence.

With the navy yard becoming a popular tourist site

in the nation’s capital during the 1980s, the Navy presented a weekly “Summer Ceremony” that featured

the United States Navy Band and its various components, including the Sea

Chanters, Country Current,

Commodores, and Port

Authority. The U.S. Navy

Ceremonial Guard capped

the musical performances

with precision drills.

A New Mission for the Navy Yard 95

Sailors and marines render honors as ceremonial

guns boom during an

official function in

Leutze Park, a common

occurrence during the

post-World War II years.

Behind the formation

are Latrobe Gate (left)

and Tingey House.
96 The Washington Navy Yard
A New Mission for the Navy Yard 97

An aerial view of the

navy yard in 1998.

Visible in the foreground

are Latrobe Gate, the

rear of Tingey House,

and Leutze Park. Decommissioned destroyer

Barry (DD 933) is

moored on the Anacostia

River waterfront.
times, in December 1988 six Soviet military museum

directors toured the Marine Corps Historical Center

for briefings on computer applications for artifact

cataloging, history writing, and publication printing.

The following April, Colonel General Dmitri A.

Volkogonov, the Soviet Union’s most prominent military historian and biographer of Joseph Stalin, led a

delegation that visited the Naval Historical Center.

The general expressed the hope that the relationship

between the USSR and the United States would

improve, “not just historically, but politically as well,

because if two such powers can learn to live with

each other in a friendly manner, it will be better for

the entire world.”67

The close of the Cold War also had a positive

impact on the Washington Navy Yard. Congress

began to cut the annual Defense Department budgets

in the early 1990s and to close military bases. The

Navy’s 1990 Master Plan, strongly endorsed by the

Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC)

in 1993 and again in 1995, called on its Washingtonarea commands to drastically reduce high-cost commercial leases in Northern Virginia and concentrate

their naval activities on government-owned land at

the navy yard. As a result, in the mid-1990s, the

Navy began converting historic industrial buildings

on the western side of the yard for use as office

spaces. The Office of the Judge Advocate General,

the Naval Facilities Engineering Command, and

some staff branches of the Office of the Chief of

Naval Operations relocated there. Two parking

garages were also built to accommodate the several

thousand employees of these activities.

The modernization of historic navy yard buildings

and beautification of the surrounding grounds generated positive publicity for the Navy and its relationship to Washington, D.C. But the effort also brought

to the surface the environmental degradation caused

by almost 200 years of industrial production that polluted the shore site and the Anacostia River. In the

summer of 1998, the Environmental Protection

Agency named the Washington Navy Yard as a

Superfund Site. Efforts were soon begun to determine

98 The Washington Navy Yard

An aerial view of the

Washington Navy Yard

looking north. Visible in

the foreground are The

Navy Museum and

Building 1.
A New Mission for the Navy Yard 99

the extent of the pollution and the requirements for

dealing with any contaminants discovered.68

Going beyond the BRAC recommendations, the

Navy took action in the late 1990s to develop the

Washington Navy Yard as the future heart and soul of

the naval service in the national capital region. Plans

were implemented for the navy yard to serve as the

home of major Washington-area commands, including the Naval Sea Systems Command, and the yearly

host for thousands of American and foreign tourists.

The concept entailed

developing a waterfront

commercial hotel and conference center, boat marina, and pedestrian ameniAn artist’s rendering of

commercial and government facilities intended

to grace the Anacostia

waterfront—a vision of

the Washington Navy

Yard for the 21st century.

ties, and enhancing museum and outdoor artifact displays. Befitting its historic importance to the Navy

and the nation, the Naval District Washington Naval

Station Washington Master Plan of February 1998

envisioned the Washington Navy Yard as the “Quarterdeck of the Navy representing the best of the Navy

and the United States of America” in the 21st century.69 The Washington Navy Yard, a national and local

treasure, thus confidently prepared to begin a new

era in U.S. naval history.
40. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships 5:63; 6:445.

41. Furer, Administration of the Navy Department in World

War II, “The Bureau of Ordnance,” 341.

42. Peck, Round-Shot to Rockets, 234.

43. Gernand, “Event Chronology: Washington Navy Yard,

Washington, DC,” 38.

44. Bureau of Ordnance, U.S. Naval Gun Factory, 250.

45. Anthony, “Working at the Navy Yard,” 95.

46. Bureau of Ordnance, U.S. Naval Gun Factory, 364.

47. Gernand, “Event Chronology,” 39.

48. Ibid.

49. Ibid., 40.

50. The superintendent of the Naval Gun Factory was also made

responsible for the Potomac River Naval Command that was

established right after Pearl Harbor to manage the Washington region’s naval facilities and resources.

51. Gernand, “Event Chronology,” 41, 45.

52. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships 8:372.

53. Gernand, “Event Chronology,” 42–45.

54. U.S. Naval Weapons Plant, Command History, 1960.

55. Gernand, “Event Chronology,” 46, 48, 49.

56. Daverede, “From Broadsides to BRAC,” 29.

57. United States Navy Band, “History of the United States

Navy Band,” February 1999.

58. Morgan and Leonhart, A History of the Naval Historical

Center and the Dudley Knox Center for Naval History, 10.

59. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships 6:445; Naval

Station Washington, Command History, 1961.

60. Marolda and Fitzgerald, From Military Assistance to Combat,

205.

61. Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966 in Public Papers of the Presidents,

722–24.

62. Chesapeake Division, Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Washington Navy Yard Master Plan, March 1982, 6.

63. Quoted in Morgan and Leonhart, History of the Naval Historical Center and the Dudley Knox Center for Naval History, 1.

64. Ibid., 6.

65. Ibid., 12.

66. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships 6:445.

67. Quoted in Sea Services Weekly, 4 May 1990, 9; Gernand,

“Chronology,” 50.

68. The Washington Post, 24 July 1998; Naval District Washington,

Naval Station Washington Master Plan, February 1998, 10–11.

69. Naval Station Washington Master Plan, 2.

1. Quoted in Peck, Round-Shot to Rockets, 6.

2. Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Historian’s Office,

“Washington, D.C.” Narrative Summary, 9 February 1999.

3. Pitch, The Burning of Washington, 90.

4. Ibid., 101.

5. Ibid., 102.

6. Peck, Round-Shot to Rockets, 62.

7. Canney, Old Steam Navy, app. A; Canney, Lincoln’s Navy, 48.

8. Schneller, A Quest for Glory, xiv, 154.

9. Ibid., 74.

10. Ibid., 81

11. Akers, “Freedom without Equality,” 26–27.

12. Schneller, A Quest for Glory, 152.

13. Ibid., 82.

14. Ibid., 73.

15. Ibid., 180.

16. Dudley, Going South, 8.

17. Schneller, A Quest for Glory, 183.

18. Akers, “Freedom without Equality,” 35.

19. Schneller, A Quest for Glory, 185.

20. Ibid., 186.

21. Quoted in Bruce, Lincoln and the Tools of War, 17.

22. Quoted in Peck, Round-Shot to Rockets, 139.

23. Guttridge, “Identification and Autopsy of John Wilkes

Booth,” 17.

24. Quoted in Spencer, Raphael Semmes, 192.

25. Quoted in Ibid., 195.

26. Sprout and Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power, 195.

27. Quoted in Peck, Round-Shot to Rockets, 167.

28. Glasow, “Prelude to a Naval Renaissance,” 304.

29. Still, Ironclad Captains, 47.

30. “Recreator Year Book: Washington Navy Yard, NineteenTwenty,” 93, Navy Department Library Rare Book Collection.

31. Carlisle, Where the Fleet Begins, 468.

32. Ibid., 109.

33. Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers,

Historical Transactions, app. I, 319.

34. Carlisle, Where the Fleet Begins, 60.

35. Ibid., 137.

36. Ibid., 111.

37. Ibid., 132.

38. United States Navy Band, “History of the United States

Navy Band,” February 1999.

39. Ibid.

Notes

101
U.S. Naval Weapons Plant, Washington, DC. Command

Histories, 1959–1962. Post-1946 Command File.

Operational Archives, Naval Historical Center.

U.S. Navy. Bureau of Ordnance. United States Naval

Administration in World War II. Vol. 129, U.S. Naval

Gun Factory. Washington, 1945. Rare Book Collection, Navy Department Library.

Published Books and Reports

Bruce, Robert V. Lincoln and the Tools of War. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1956.

Bureau of Yards and Docks. Building the Navy’s Bases

in World War II: History of the Bureau of Yards and

Docks and the Civil Engineer Corps, 1940–1946.

Washington: The Bureau/GPO, 1947.

Canney, Donald L. Lincoln’s Navy: The Ships, Men, and

Organization, 1861–1865. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1998.

________. The Old Steam Navy. Vol. 1, Frigates, Sloops,

and Gunboats, 1815–1885. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1990.

Carlisle, Rodney P. Where the Fleet Begins: A History of

the David Taylor Research Center, 1898–1998.

Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1998.

Chesapeake Division, Naval Facilities Engineering

Command. Washington Navy Yard Master Plan,

March 1982. Washington: CHESDIVNAVFAC,

1982.

Coletta, Paolo E. ed. United States Navy and Marine

Corps Bases, Domestic. Westport, CT: Greenwood

Press, 1985.

Crane and Gorwick Associates, Inc. Development PlanWashington Navy Yard/U.S. Naval Station, Washington, D.C. Technical Report #1, Historic Development. Washington: Crane and Gorwick, 1981.

Dolph, James, and Naval Reserve Detachment 901.

Washington Navy Yard: Building and Structure

Summary of Use Database. Washington: Environmental and Safety Office, NDW, 1997.

Archival and Special Collections

“Compilation of Historical Data, 1799–1938.” Commandant to Officer in Charge, Office of Naval

Records and Library, 4 November 1938. Operational

Archives, Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC.

Gernand, Bradley E. “Event Chronology: Washington

Navy Yard, Washington, D.C.” Naval District Washington Public Affairs Office, 1999.

“History: Navy Yard-Washington, 1799–1921.” Original history of the Washington Navy Yard revised and

brought up to date. 2 vols. Unpublished manuscript

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Naval Historical Center.

“Narrative History of the Potomac River Naval Command.” 25 October 1945. In United States Naval

Administration in World War II, Vol. 135. Rare Book

Collection, Navy Department Library.

Naval District Washington. Command Histories,

1965–Present. Post-1974, Post-1990 Command

Files. Operational Archives, Naval Historical Center.

Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense–Public

Affairs). News Release. “Two River Commands to Be

Merged to Form Naval District Washington, D.C.” 31

December 1964. Reference File, Navy Department

Library.

Potomac River Naval Command. Command Histories,

1959–1965. Post–1946 Command File. Operational

Archives, Naval Historical Center.

Rear Admiral David Watson Taylor. Biography. Operational Archives, Naval Historical Center.

“Recreator: Year Book: Washington Navy Yard, Nineteen-Twenty.” Rare Book Collection, Navy Department Library.

Reference Files [information regarding the U.S. Marine

Corps presence in the Washington Navy Yard]. Reference Branch, Marine Corps Historical Center,

Washington, DC.

Shiner, Michael. “Diary 1865–1913.” Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

103

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_________. Naval Station Washington Master Plan:

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Naval Historical Center. Dictionary of American Naval

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_________. The United States Naval Railway Batteries in

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Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Ordnance.

Washington: Naval History Division, 1969.

Peck, Taylor. Round-Shot to Rockets: A History of the

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Pitch, Anthony S. The Burning of Washington: The

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Reilly, John C., Jr. The Bronze Guns of Leutze Park,

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_________. The Iron Guns of Willard Park, Washington

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Schneller, Robert J., Jr. A Quest for Glory: A Biography

of Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren. Annapolis: Naval

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Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers. Historical Transactions, 1893–1943. New York: The

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Spencer, Warren F. Raphael Semmes: The Philosophical

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Sprout, Harold, and Margaret Sprout. The Rise of American Naval Power, 1776–1918. Rev. ed. Princeton,

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Still, William N., Jr. Ironclad Captains: The Commanding Officers of the USS Monitor. Washington: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/GPO,

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Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. 54th

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_________. Committee on Armed Services. Subcommittee on Military Installations and Facilities. Proposed

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Bibliography 105
Battle of Hampton Roads, 29

Bayless, Raymond, 28

Bellinger, Patrick N. L., 49

Benton, Thomas Hart, 24, 85

Bermuda, 9

Bethlehem Iron Company, 39

Birmingham, 47, 52

Bladensburg, Maryland, 9, 24

Blandy (DD 943), 79, 80

Board of Navy Commissioners, 11, 14

Bolles, John A., 35

Boorda, Jeremy, 95

Booth, John Wilkes, 32–34

Booth, Mordecai, 10

Boston, 39

Brady, Mathew, 19, 30–31

Brandywine, 12, 13

Brazil, 83

Brittain, Carlo B., 48

Brown, Almira V., 61

Brown, John, 21

Buchanan, Franklin, 20–21, 27

Building 1, 6–7

Building 57, 95

Building 58, 79, 95

Building 76, 71, 83. See also Navy Museum, The

Building 112, 82

Building 157, 72

Building 208, 32

Building 220, 69

Bull Run, 23

Bureau of Aeronautics, 59

Bureau of Construction and Repair, 57, 58, 59, 61

Bureau of Ordnance, 19, 32, 35, 37, 47, 55, 69, 82

Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography, 17, 18

Bureau of Yards and Docks, 14, 15

Burke, Arleigh, 82, 83

Butler, J. M., 22

Buzen, Shinmi, 20

Byrd, Richard E., 78

C

Callaghan, Daniel J., 68

Cammilliari, N., 12

Camp Good Will, 61

Canada, 9

Cape Horn, 47

Index

A

ABCD ships, 39

Adams, John, 1, 8, 12, 13, 24, 89

Adams, John Quincy, 12, 24

Advanced Fire-Control School, 73

Alabama, CSS, 19, 35

Alaska, 61

Alexandria, Virginia, 23, 24, 55

America, 64

American Red Cross, 54, 55

American Revolution, 1, 13, 86

Anacostia Naval Air Station, 49

Anacostia River, 1, 18, 35, 49–50, 65–67, 72, 75, 82, 90,

97–98. See also Eastern Branch

Anderson, George W., 82

Andrews, E. F., 2

Annapolis, Maryland, 1, 17, 48, 88

Antarctica, 78,

Appomattox, Virginia, 32

Argentine Navy, 50

Argus, 9, 10

Arizona (BB 39), 53,

Arlington National Cemetery, 46, 79, 83

Arlington, Virginia, 89

Army Department, 33, 34

Army Surgeon General, 33

Army War College, 50

Arthur, Chester A., 39

Atlanta (CL 23) 38, 39

Atlantic Fleet, 46

Atlantic Ocean, 61

Augusta (CA 31), 65

Australia, 47

Axis Powers, 74

B

Bainbridge, William, 5

Baldwin Locomotive Works, 55

Baltimore, Maryland 9, 10, 25, 39

Baltimore, 23

Barbary Wars, 1, 3, 5, 8, 90, 93

Barney, Joshua, 9

Barry, Thomas, 25

Barry (DD 933) 85, 97

Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC), 98–99

Battle of Bladensburg, 9

Battle of Brandywine, 13

Battle of Gettysburg, 32

107
Capitol, 1, 13, 24–25, 27, 29, 83

Capitol Hill, 1, 25,

Carderock, Maryland, 61

Caribbean, 39,

Carter, Jimmy, 65, 94

Ceremonial Guard Company, 79

Chambers, Washington I., 48

Chandler, William E., 39

Charleston, South Carolina, 19, 21, 32

Charlottesville, Virginia, 2

Chesapeake, 4–5

Chesapeake Bay, 9, 22, 65

Chicago, 39

Chief of Naval Operations, 3, 6, 78, 82–83, 89, 94–95, 98

China, 47

Churchill, Winston, 65

Civil War, 15, 17, 19, 21–34, 91, 92

Cleveland, Grover, 42

Clinton, Hillary Rodham, 87

Cockburn, George, 9

Cold War, 75, 77–80, 85, 88, 95, 98

Colombia, 82

Colt, Samuel, 15

Columbia, 9, 10

Columbus, 10, 12

Combat Art Gallery. See Navy Art Gallery

Commandant Naval District Washington, 6–7, 88

Commandant’s House, 3, 10, 13, 22, 32, 37.

See also Quarters A; Tingey House

Congress, 3, 8, 27

Congress, U.S., 1–4, 11–12, 27, 36–37, 45, 60, 66–67

Connally, John B., 83

Constellation, 3, 8

Constitution, 1, 3, 8, 13, 67, 82–83, 86, 89–90, 94

Constitution Avenue, 89, 94

Continental Navy, 1

Coolidge, Calvin, 61–62, 64

Country Current, 95

Cozzens, Fred S., 5

Crowninshield, Benjamin, 11

Cruzen, Richard H., 78

Cumberland, 27

Cunningham, A. A., 48

Currier, N., 15

Curtiss, Glenn H., 48

Curtiss A-1, 48

Curtiss Pusher plane, 47, 48, 52

Curtiss seaplane, 52

D

Dahlgren, John A., 7, 15–23, 27–29, 32, 37, 72, 90–91

Dahlgren, Mary Clement, 28

Dahlgren, Ulric, 28, 29

Dahlgren Avenue, 91

Dahlgren gun, 16, 18–19

Daniels, Josephus, 55, 56, 92

Danzig, Richard, 87

David Taylor Model Basin, 60, 61.

See also Experimental Model Basin

Decatur, Stephen, 5

Deep Diving School, 59

Defense Department, 94, 98

Defense Department Computer Institute, 94

Despatch, 39, 46, 64

Dewey, George, 45

Director of Naval History, 87, 93, 95

District of Columbia, 2, 6–7, 24–25, 35, 42, 86–88, 94, 99

District of Columbia Emancipation Act, 27

Dolphin, 39, 46, 64

Dreadnought, 46

Dudley, William S., 91

Dudley Knox Center for Naval History, 93, 95.

See also Naval Historical Center

Durand, Asher B., 12

E

Eagle, 84

Earle, Ralph, 55

Early, Jubal, 29

East Coast, 1, 65, 79

Eastern Branch, 2, 11, 15, 17, 20, 24.

See also Anacostia River

Egypt, 35

Eighth Street, 7

Eisenhower, Dwight D., 65, 80, 94

Electric Hydraulic School, 73

Ellsworth, Elmer Ephraim, 23

Ellyson, Theodore G., 47, 48

Ely, Eugene, 47, 48

Emperor Hirohito, 94

England, 35, 46, 64, 91

Enterprise, 8

Environmental Protection Agency, 99

Ericsson, John, 29

Europe, 53, 66–67, 73, 93

Evans, Robley D., 47

Executive Office Building, 92

Experimental battery, 16–20, 25, 72, 90

Experimental diving unit, 59

Experimental Model Basin, 41–43, 45, 48–49, 54 56–59

F

Far East, 66

First Battle of Bull Run, 23

1st Zouave Regiment, 23

Flood, 59, 66

Florida, 21, 49, 65

Flying Squadron, 45

Ford, Gerald, 94

108 Index
Independence Day, 45

Indian Head, Maryland, 56

Iowa (BB 61) class, 58, 69

Israel, 88–89

Italy, 35, 39, 59, 66

J

Jackson, Thomas “Stonewall,” 29

Japan, 20, 47, 59, 66, 72, 86, 90

Jaques, William, 39

Jeffers, William N., 35, 37

Jefferson, Thomas, 2–3, 5–6

John Fritz Medal, 57

Johnson, Lyndon B., 88

Joint Chiefs of Staff, 89

Joint Committee on Landmarks, 94

Judge Advocate General, 35, 98

K

Kalbfus, Edward C., 93

Kamikaze, 71

Kansas (BB 21), 61

Kane, John D. H., Jr., 95

Kearsarge, 19

Kennedy, John F., 65, 84–85, 87

Kettlebottom Shoals, 28

King George VI, 65, 67, 68

King, Thomas, 66

Knox, Dudley W., 92–93

Korean War, 79, 83

Korth, Fred H., 87

Kuwait, 81

L

Lafayette, Marquis de, 12–13

Land, Emory S., 59, 61

Langley (CV 1), 49, 63

Langston, Arthur N., 87

Laon, France, 56

Latrobe, Benjamin Henry, 2–3, 6–7

Latrobe Gate, 3, 6–7, 20, 21, 22, 63, 65, 95, 97

Leopard, HMS, 4, 5

Leutze, E.H.C., 45

Leutze Park, 56, 74, 79, 82, 90, 94–95, 96–97

Liberty (AGTR 5), 88–89

Liberty Bonds, 55

Lincoln, Abraham, 19, 21, 23, 26, 27–29, 32–35

Lindberg, Charles A., 61, 63

London, 63, 66, 92

London Naval Treaty, 63, 66

Long, John D., 45

Lord Kelvin, 57

Lovering and Dyer, 2, 6–7

Lynx, 10

Forrestal, James, 78, 93

Forrest Sherman (DD 931) class, 85

Fort Ellsworth, 23

Fort Leslie J. McNair, 9, 34

Fort Lincoln, 29

Fort McHenry, 10

Fort Monroe, 27

Fort Sumter, 21

G

General Electric, 45

General Services Administration, 82

George K. MacKenzie (DD 836), 73–74

Georgetown, 1–2, 13, 24

Germany, 49, 66, 72

Graham, John R., 87

Grant, Ulysses S., 36, 64

Great Britain, 1, 5, 9, 20, 39, 59, 65, 67–68

Great Depression, 64, 66

Great War, 57

Great White Fleet, 46, 47, 51

Greece, 82

Greek Revival, 6

Greenleaf Point, 9–10

Gross, J., 9

Guardian, 85

Guerriere, HMS, 13

Gulliver, Louis J., 67

Gun Foundry Board, 39

Gunnery School, 73

H

Hamilton, Paul, 5

Hampton Roads, 27–29, 46–47, 51

Harding, Warren G., 49, 61

Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, 21, 29

Harrison, John, 35

Harwood, Andrew A., 32

Havana Harbor, 44

Henry Hill, 23

Hill, Andrew J., 88

Historic District, 94

Honey Fitz, 85

Hoover, Herbert, 64, 67, 94

Hornet, 8

House of Representatives, 12

Hull, Isaac, 13, 24, 27, 41–43, 57, 59, 61

Hunt, William H., 39

Huntress, 3

I

Ignatius, Paul R., 88

Illinois, 34

Imperial Japanese Navy, 54

Index 109
M

Macedonian, HMS, 11

Madison administration, 9

Mahan, Alfred Thayer, 45

Main Navy, 89, 94

Maine, 23, 44, 46

Manila Bay, 45

Marine Corps Historical Center, 94, 95, 98

Marine Parade, 75

Marsh, Reginald, 83

Massachusetts Avenue, 94

Mayflower (PY 1), 46, 50, 61, 64–65, 80

McDonald, David L., 82

McGonagle, William L., 88

McKinley, William, 64

McNamara, Robert S., 87

Medal of Honor, 68, 88

Medical Department, 73

Mediterranean, 88

Meiji Restoration, 20

Memorial Bridge, 81, 83

Memphis (CL 13), 61, 63

Merrimack, 17, 27

Metz, France, 56

Mexican War, 12, 14

Mexico, 82

Miantonomoh, 33

Military Sealift Command, 94

Mine Disposal School, 73

Minnesota, 14, 27

Missouri (BB 63), 74, 75

Mohammad Ayub Khan, 85

Monitor, 19, 28–29, 33, 35

Monroe, James, 12

Montauk, 33

Monticello, 2

Morison, Samuel Eliot, 93

Morris, Charles, 17

“Mosquito Squadron,” 5

Mount Vernon, 22–23

Mount Vernon estate, 65, 67, 85

Murray, Erick Marshall, 88

N

Napoleon, 5, 90

“Nasty” class, 45, 87

National Register of Historic Places, 7, 94

Naval Act of 1916, 53–54

Naval Battery, 23

Naval Dental Clinic, 94

Naval District Washington, 6–7, 88, 99

Naval Facilities Engineering Command, 94, 98

Naval Gun Factory, 18, 39–40, 45–46, 48-49, 53, 56, 59, 66,

69, 74–75, 82–83, 86

Naval Historical Center, 7, 94–95, 98

Naval History Division, 89, 94

Naval Investigative Service, 94

Naval Observatory, 94

Naval Ordnance Laboratory, 73

Naval railway battery, 55–56, 58

Naval Records and Library, 92–94

Naval Regional Data Automation Command, 94

Naval Reserve, 54, 93

Naval School of Diving and Salvage, 77

Naval Sea Systems Command, 99

Naval Station Washington Master Plan, 99

Naval War Records, 92

Navy Art Gallery, 85

Navy Cross, 92

Navy Department, 2–3, 13, 17, 23, 27, 32, 34–36, 45, 48, 55,

61, 93

Navy Department Library, 89

Navy Museum, The, 82–83, 86–87, 91, 98

Navy Yard Apprentice School, 73

Navy Yard Hill, 4–5

Nevada, 53

New England, 46, 64

New Jersey (BB 62), 58

New York, 3

New York, 46, 64

New Zealand, 47

Newport News, Virginia, 27

Nimitz, Chester W., 78

Nippon Maru, 82

Nipsic, 37

Nixon, Richard M., 65, 94

Norfolk, Virginia, 5, 17, 22, 87

Norfolk Navy Yard, 22

North Africa, 1, 5, 93

North Atlantic, 53

North Atlantic Squadron, 45

North Carolina (BB 55) class, 69

North Sea Mine Barrage, 54, 56

North Vietnam, 87, 94

Northern Virginia, 89, 98

Norton, Eleanor Holmes (D–D.C.), 87

Norway, 54, 87

O

Office of Naval Records and Library, 92–93

Ohio Railroad, 39

Oklahoma, 53

Olympia, 58

Operation Desert Storm, 81

Optical Primary School, 73

Ordnance Department, 22

Ordnance Establishment, 18, 20

Ordnance Instruction for the U.S. Navy, 37

Ordnance School, 73

110 Index
S

Sail Loft, 45, 82

Sampson, William T., 45

San Francisco, California, 47, 61

Sandy Hook, New Jersey, 56

Santiago de Cuba, 45

Sarmiento, Argentine, 50

Saugus, 33

Schley, Winfield Scott, 45

Schmidt, John W., 8

Scimonelli, Frank J., 83

Scotland, 54, 64

Sea Chanters, 95

Secretary of State, 15

Secretary of War, 27–28, 33–34, 39

Semmes, Raphael, 34–35

Sequoia, 63-65, 85, 89

71st New York Infantry Regiment, 7, 22–23

Severn River Naval Command, 88

Shiner, Michael, 17, 24–25, 27

Simons, Manley H., 48

Sims, William S., 46, 92

Skerrett, R. G., 14

Smith, Robert T., 7

Soley, James Russell, 92

South Atlantic, 47

South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, 19

Southeast Asia, 87

Soviet Union, 79, 95, 98

Spain, 5, 45, 64, 90

“Spirit of St. Louis,” 63

Springfield, Illinois, 34

Stalin, Joseph, 98

Standard Steel Car Company of America, 55

Stanton, Edwin M., 27–28, 33–34

Stockton, Robert, 91

Stoddert, Benjamin, 1–2, 89

Submarine, 53–55, 57, 59, 77, 86

“Summer Ceremony,” 95

Sumter, 35

Surgeon General, 33

Surratt, John, 34–36

Surratt, Mary, 34

Susquehanna, 13

Swanson, Claude, 61

Swatara, 35

Sweden, 20

Swift boat, 85

Sylph (PY 12), 46, 64

T

Taft, William Howard, 50

Talos missile, 85

Tartar missile, 82

Taylor, David Watson, 42, 45, 56–58, 61

P

Pacific, 19, 39, 71, 85–86

Paraense, Brazilian, 31

Paris, 55, 56

Patrick J, 85

Patuxent River, 9

“Peacemaker” gun, 15, 91

Penn Bridge Company, 42

Pennsylvania, 53

Pennsylvania Avenue, 20, 84

Pensacola, Florida, 21, 49

Perry, Matthew C., 20, 86, 90

Philadelphia, 20, 65

Philippines, 47

Poland, 69

Polk, James K., 17

Port Authority, 95

Porter, David Dixon, 20, 36

Portsmouth, 46

Potomac, 12

Potomac (AG 25), 63, 64–65

Potomac Flotilla, 22–23, 35, 36

Potomac River, 1, 9, 11, 22, 24, 46, 64, 87–88, 91

Potomac River Naval Command, 88

Power Boat Regatta, 75

President, 3

Princeton, 15, 25, 91

privateers, 1, 3, 5

PT 109, 84, 85

PT 796, 84, 85

PTF 3, 87

Q

Quarterdeck, 79, 99

Quarters A, 3, 6–7. See also Commandant’s House; Tingey House

Quarters B, 6–7

Quasi-War with France, 2, 93

Queen Elizabeth, 65, 67, 68

R

Raby, J. J., 62

Radical Republicans, 36

Reconstruction, 35

Resolute, 23

Richardson, Holden C., 48–49

Richmond, 32

Robison, Samuel S., 48

Rodgers, John, 12

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 68

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 48, 61, 63–69, 93

Roosevelt, Theodore, 9, 45–46, 51, 64

Ross, Robert, 9

Royal Navy, 2, 5

Russia, 20, 39

Russo-Japanese War, 46, 64

Index 111
Taylor Standard Series, 56–57

Thrift Stamps, 54

Tingey, Thomas, xiv, 2–3, 5–10, 13, 54, 94–95, 97

Tingey House, 3, 6, 54, 94, 95, 97.

See also Commandant’s House; Quarters A

Tokyo Bay, 74

Tom O’Malley (YRST 5), 77

Tonkin Gulf Incident, 87

Towers, John H., 48

Trieste, 83, 86

Tripoli Monument, 1,

Truman, Harry S., 65, 73, 75, 79

Tyler, John, 15

U

U.S. Coast Geodetic Survey Ship Oceanographer, 88

U.S. Coast Guard, 84

U.S. Marine Corps, 2, 6, 79, 94–95, 98

U.S. Naval Academy, 1, 91–92

U.S. Naval Historical Display Center. See Navy Museum, The

U.S. Naval Institute, 36

U.S. Naval Weapons Plant, 82

U.S. Navy, 1, 18, 25, 57, 61–62, 74, 82–83, 86, 89, 95

U.S. Navy Ceremonial Guard, 95

U.S. Navy Memorial Museum. See Navy Museum, The

U.S. Senate, 75

Union Navy, 19, 22

United States, 3, 5

United States Naval Weapons Plant, 82

United States Navy Band, 61–62, 74, 82–83, 86, 95

Urban League, WALL program, 87

USSR, 98

V

Verdun, 56

Victory in Europe (VE) Day, 73

Vietnam War, 83, 85–87, 94

Vinson-Trammell Act, 66

Virginia, CSS, 19, 27, 28

Vixen, 8

Volkogonov, Dmitri A., 98

VT fuse, 69

W

Wabash, 28

War of 1812, 9–10, 11–12

Warrington, Lewis, 15

War Savings Certificates, 54

Washington, George, 1

Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, 59, 63

Washingtonians, 10, 32, 81

Wasp, 4, 8

Water Pageant, 75

Water Witch, 14

“Watergate Concert,” 81

Watervliet Arsenal, 45

Weapons Engineering Support Activity, 94

Welles, Gideon, 21–22, 28–29, 32, 35–36

West Coast, 47

White House, 13, 23, 27-28, 65, 92

White Oak, Maryland, 73

Whitney, William C., 39

Willard Park, 83, 85, 90–91

Willard’s Hotel,, 20

William Sellers Company of Washington, 45

Williams, Anthony, 87

Williamsburg (AGC 369), 65, 79

Wilson, Woodrow, 53, 64

Winder, William H., 9–10

Wisconsin (BB 64), 81

Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES), 73

Women workers 54, 61, 69–70, 72–74, 88

World War I, 30, 47, 53–56, 58–59, 61, 64, 66, 79, 90, 92

World War II, 64–65, 68–70, 72, 74–75, 78-79, 83, 85–86, 93, 95

Wright, Orville, 48, 57

Wright, Wilbur, 48

Wyoming, 90

Y

Yantic, 37

Yates, Theodore, 91

112 Index