page_title: Peter Rainsford Brady
section_title: Naval foray
hierarchical_section_title: Peter Rainsford Brady / Naval foray
caption_attribution_description: Painting of the USS Lexington (1825) off Smyrna in 1828.
context_page_description: Peter Rainsford Brady was an American military officer, surveyor and politician. Following a short service in the United States Navy he joined the Texas Rangers, where he served during the Mexican–American War and along the western frontier. From Texas he moved westward where he became an early settler and political office holder in Arizona Territory.
context_section_description: Modern attempts to deal with his naval service are similarly confounded; notably, Texas Ranger handbooks and sites claim various things, that he graduated from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1844, and after a year's service resigned from the navy, or that he served as a midshipman, but not at the Academy. The Academy was founded in 1845. The most credible report has him being a midshipman 1844–1846, graduating with the first class ever to graduate from there, Class of 1846, and resigning to fight in the Mexican–American War with the "Texas Rangers," then the military arm of the new State of Texas.
  One may speculate as follows. Originally student naval officers, or midshipmen, began their careers in a more practical vein aboard a sailing ship of war. After an apprenticeship at sea they took an examination, passing which they were termed "passed midshipman," a term that persisted in the early Naval Academy. The rank of Lieutenant then had to be earned. The rank of Ensign as it exists today was not created until the Civil War, when it was resurrected from an earlier use. "Passed midshipman" was dropped in its favor.
  In 1834 a Naval School was created, but it had to be placed in the Philadelphia Naval Asylum at Naval Square, Philadelphia, which it shared with a hospital and a naval retirement home. This fine building bore a resemblance to the first Bancroft Hall. The inappropriate name of Naval Asylum clung to the educational institution rather than its official name of Naval School. A requirement was now added that all midshipmen must serve 8 months at the Naval School and take their examination there. Before then the Midshipmen were "active," meaning they were in a ship-board environment. If they passed they were "Passed." In 1845 the new Academy at Annapolis collected both midshipmen and instructors from the Philadelphia school. Time spent at the Naval School and on voyages counted; thus the Academy was able to have graduates one year after its founding.
  Brady is reported by some (credibly or not) to have served as midshipman on the early USS Lexington and also aboard the USS Plymouth in the Mediterranean Sea. The Lexington might be thought less likely, as she was in the Mediterranean the whole time Brady must have been at the Naval School/Academy. There is some evidence for the Plymouth. The Army and Navy Chronicle of April 18, 1844, reports the departure of the USS Plymouth to join the Mediterranean Squadron, then patrolling the Mediterranean to serve United States interests and prevent the re-institution of piracy along the Barbary Coast. Among the acting midshipmen was Peter P. Brady, where the P must be a typographical error for R.
  When the Academy began in 1845 it did so with a roster of Midshipmen from the Naval School and any active Midshipmen ready for their required attendance at the School. It was a five-year program: first and last at Annapolis, middle three at sea. In January, 1846, it had 36 who had started, apparently at the Naval School, in 1840, 13 in 1841, and 7 appointees from 1845. The 36 would be the Class of 1846. Brady was not among any of them, barring an omission by error.
  Conspicuously absent were midshipmen from 1843 and 1844, the reason probably being that they were away at sea. Other officers of flag rank in the later Navy, known graduates, claimed to have been at sea in those years. Registries of Academy midshipmen were not kept, or at least did not survive, until after the reorganization of 1850, so there would seem to be no way to verify the attendance and graduation of people such as Brady, who left the Navy immediately after graduation. The early population had to be reconstructed imperfectly from other sources.
  It is not absolutely certain that Brady attended, or chose to resign rather than attend. If he did attend, it is not certain that he graduated. It is documented that he was on the Plymouth. She was with the Mediterranean Squadron until October, 1846, too late for Brady to have been in the Class of 1846, if he was with her the whole time, which is questi
caption: USS Lexington (1825) off Smyrna by Corsini
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