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THE WASHINGTONNAVY YARD

THE WASHINGTONNAVY YARD

An Illustrated History

Edward J. Marolda

with Foreword byRear 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 1999359.7’09753—dc21 99–31616

Secretary of the Navy’sAdvisory Subcommittee on Naval History

Dr. David A. Rosenberg, Chairman

CDR Wesley A. Brown, CEC, USN (Ret.)Dr. Frank G. BurkeJ. Revell CarrVADM Robert F. Dunn, USN (Ret.)VADM George W. Emery, USN (Ret.)Dr. Jose-Marie GriffithsDr. Beverly Schreiber JacobyDavid E. KendallHonorable G. V. MontgomeryDr. James R. RecknerDr. 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 bythe American National Standard for Information Sciences “Permanence of Paper for PrintedLibrary Materials” (ANSI Z39.48–1984).

For sale by theUnited States Government Printing Office,Superintendent of Documents, Mail Stop: SSOP,Washington, DC 20402–9328ISBN 0-16-050104-0

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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 30Brazilian steamer Paraense 31Ordnance stores and armor test pieces 31John Wilkes Booth 32Monitor Montauk, autopsy site 33Confederate naval officer Raphael Semmes 34

Post-Civil War EraLieutenant William N. Jeffers 35John Surratt’s arrival at the navy yard 36Gunboat Nipsic 37The new steel ship USS Atlanta 38

Arming a New NavyWashington Navy Yard, 1888 print 39Naval Gun Factory workers 40Sailors work on gun components 40Workers of the pattern and joiner shop 41Construction of the Experimental Model Basin 41Rear Admiral David W. Taylor 42Filling the Experimental Model Basin 42Civilian scientist prepares a hull model 43Experimental Model Basin just before its dedication 43“USS Maine Blowing Up in Havana Harbor on

15 February 1898” 44Rear Admiral William T. Sampson 45Sailors prepare a casket for a ceremonial procession 46Visitors on a gun barrel 47A seaplane catapult launching 49President and Mrs. Howard Taft with Argentine visitors 50Presidential yacht Mayflower 50The Great White Fleet underway 51President Theodore Roosevelt welcomes the return of the

Great White Fleet 51Curtiss Pusher plane takes off 52Preparing to test a catapult 52

Ordnance for a Navy Second to NoneGun factory workers processing steel 53A tractor mount and 7-inch naval rifle 54Pay wagon 55Navy Yard Chapter of the American Red Cross 55Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels 56American sailors preparing to emplace a mine 56Submarine chasers searching for German U-boats 57A 14-inch naval rifle mounted on a railway car 58Seaplane 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” xivTriopoli Monument 1“Benjamin Stoddert” 2Tingey House, or Quarters A 3“USS Chesapeake” 4“Mosquito Squadron” 5Quarters B, the oldest structure 6Building 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’ ” 15Interior view of the experimental battery 16Civil War 9-inch Dahlgren gun 16Commodore Charles Morris 17John A. Dahlgren 18Washington Navy Yard waterfront, 1866 19The first Japanese delegation to visit the United States 20U.S. Marine detachment of the navy yard garrison 21

Civil War Naval Arsenal and Operating Base“Honorable Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy” 22The 71st New York Infantry Regiment 22“The Contest for Henry Hill” 23Civil War lithograph shows the navy yard’s two shiphouses 25President Abraham Lincoln 26African-American sailors mend their clothes 27Colonel Ulric Dahlgren 28“The Ironclads” 28Hand-tinted woodcut of fishermen along the Eastern

Branch 29The gun park of the navy yard 30

List of Illustrations

vii

Between the World WarsIndustrial activity at the gun factory 59Navy yard workers honored 60Navy yard employee Almira V. Brown 61Camp Good Will sponsored by the navy yard 61Captain J. J. Raby throws out the ball on opening day 62Navy yard baseball team cartoon 62United States Navy Band performing at the navy yard 62The first aircraft carrier Langley (CV 1) 63Charles A. Lindberg 63Mayflower during a 1912 fleet review 65Thomas King, 66Flood waters inundate navy yard buildings 66President and Mrs. Herbert Hoover with Commander

Louis J. Gulliver, CO of Constitution 67Presidential yacht Potomac arrives at the navy yard, 68President and Mrs. Roosevelt with King George VI and

Queen Elizabeth 68

Ordnance Nerve Center for a Global ConflictA skilled worker clears metal cuttings from a gun barrel 69Employees work metal into shape 70Work in the breech mechanism shop 71A 3-inch .50-caliber, rapid-fire, twin-mount

antiaircraft gun 71World War II sailors test gun range-finders 72Sparks and flames leap from cauldrons of molten metal 72Sailors take part in navy yard ceremony 73Navy yard employees gather in Leutze Park for a band

concert 74Women shift workers take a break 74

A New Mission for the Navy YardPresident Harry S. Truman 751947 map 76Naval School of Diving and Salvage 77Submarine torpedo tubes produced at the gun factory 77Welcoming ceremony for Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd 78Navy yard workers operate data processing equipment 78Land acquired by the Washington Navy Yard 79

President Dwight D. Eisenhower disembarks Mayflower 80USS Blandy (DD 943) 80Wisconsin (BB 64) fires a 16-inch gun 81Washingtonians enjoy a “Watergate Concert” 81Admiral Arleigh Burke, former Chief of Naval

Operations 82Fighting top of USS Constitution 82Guns and missiles on display in Willard Park 83The Navy Museum 83A PT boat in President Kennedy’s inaugural parade 84President John F. Kennedy speaking at the navy yard 84The Navy Art Gallery 85“Score Another for the Subs” 85Children at The Navy Museum 86First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mayor Anthony

Williams, Rear Admiral Arthur N. Langston,Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, andDirector of Naval History William S. Dudley 87

“Queen of the Fleet” 88Captain William F. McGonagle, Commanding Officer

of Liberty 88USS Liberty (AGTR 2) after attack by Israeli forces 89Presidential yacht Sequoia 89Captured 18th-century guns in Leutze Park 90Civil War-era cannon along Dahlgren Avenue 91Commodore Dudley W. Knox 92Assistant Secretary of the Navy James R. Soley 92The Dudley Knox Center for Naval History 93The Marine Corps Historical Center 94Sailors and marines render honors 95Aerial view of the Washington Navy Yard looking

south 96–97Aerial view of the Washington Navy Yard looking

north, 98Artist’s rendering of commercial and government

facilities, 99

Unless otherwise specified, photographs are from the collec-tions of the Naval Historical Center.

viii

ing the last fifty momentous years. Indeed, this year aswe celebrate our bicentennial and face the new millen-nium, the Washington Navy Yard is undergoing signifi-cant growth and revitalization as it takes on a new roleas a model for cost-effective support to our Navy’s shoreestablishment. At the same time, the Navy’s long-stand-ing commitment to and partnership with the communityaround the Navy Yard is undergoing a rejuvenation andexpansion. The stage is thus set for another era of ser-vice to our nation by the Navy Yard.

The Navy Yard is extremely fortunate to have withinits walls the Naval Historical Center and its Navy Muse-um, the display ship Barry, and a variety of artifacts thatattest to the yard’s key role in the growth of a strong andcapable U.S. Navy. The Naval Historical Center’s impor-tant contribution to the preservation of our rich historyis reflected in this excellent book and for this I offer mypersonal thanks to that fine institution.

My hope is that after you read about the WashingtonNavy Yard, you will make it a point to come here aspart of your visit to our nation’s capital. In so doing, youwill be captured, as I have been, by the historical sig-nificance of this wonderful installation. But you willalso be honoring the hundreds of thousands of Sailors,Marines, and civilians who have given, and continue togive, a great deal of themselves to our country and ourNavy at this historic place.

Rear Admiral Christopher E. Weaver, USNCommandant Naval District Washington

It is a great honor to be the 83rd Commandant of theNaval District of Washington, home of the Navy’s oldestand most historic base, the Washington Navy Yard. Iespecially value the opportunity to serve in this capaci-ty in this, the Navy Yard’s bicentennial year.

Throughout its history, the yard has been associatedwith names like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, andKennedy. Kings and queens have visited the yard; itswaterfront has seen many historic moments; and someof our Navy’s most senior and most notable officershave called it home. Such legendary ships as USS Con-stitution and USS Constellation sailed from its piers,and the 14-inch and 16-inch guns that armed ourNavy’s battleships during Word Wars I and II were builtin its factories.

The Navy Yard’s colorful and storied history wasoriginally chronicled in Round-Shot to Rockets: A Histo-ry of the Washington Navy Yard and U.S. Naval GunFactory, written in 1949 by Taylor Peck to mark theyard’s sesquicentennial. His work is indeed a compre-hensive history of the first 150 years of the WashingtonNavy Yard. It details the evolution of the yard from itsearliest days and documents the service of such leg-endary officers as Captain Thomas Tingey, who servedas the first Commandant for an astounding twenty-nineyears, and Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, perhaps theNavy’s most renowned ordnance engineer.

The Washington Navy Yard: An Illustrated History, byEdward J. Marolda, complements Round-Shot to Rock-ets and details the proud heritage of the Navy Yard dur-

Foreword

ix

Preface

During much of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Wash-ington Navy Yard was the most recognizable symbol ofthe United States Navy in the nation’s capital. Theshipyard built a number of the Navy’s first warshipsand repaired, refitted, and provisioned most of thefrigates, sloops, and other combatants of the fledglingnaval service. The masts and rigging of USS Constitu-tion were a common site on the banks of the AnacostiaRiver. Booming cannon became a routine sound insoutheast Washington during the mid-19th century asCommander John A. Dahlgren, “father of Americannaval ordnance,” test-fired new guns for the fleet. TheNaval Gun Factory’s fire and smoke-belching blast fur-naces, foundries, and mills gave birth to many of thefleet’s weapons, from small boat howitzers to the enor-mous 14-inch and 16-inch rifles that armed the navalrailway batteries in World War I and the Iowa-classbattleships in World War II and the Cold War. RearAdmiral David W. Taylor inaugurated a new era in shipdevelopment when he used scientific measurements inhis Experimental Model Basin to test the properties ofprototype hulls. Before and after World War I, the pio-neers of naval aviation experimented in the Anacostiaand navy yard facilities with various seaplane types,shipboard catapults, and other equipment that wouldsoon revolutionize warfare at sea.

The Washington Navy Yard has been a witness tohistory—to the evolution of the United States ofAmerica from a small republic, whose ships werepreyed upon by Barbary corsairs and whose capitalwas burned by an invading British army, into a nationof enormous political, economic, and military powerand global influence. The Civil War that so dramati-cally altered American society swirled around andthrough the Washington Navy Yard. American presi-dents, first ladies, foreign kings and queens, ambas-sadors from abroad, legendary naval leaders, nationalheroes and villains, and millions of citizens have allpassed through Latrobe Gate during the yard’s 200-year existence.

The Washington Navy Yard has also been the work-place for tens of thousands of Americans, a familiarlandmark in the District of Columbia, and a valuedmember of the Washington community. Throughout the

19th and 20th centuries, ship riggers, hull caulkers,iron and bronze smiths, joiners, millwrights, machin-ists, foundrymen, boilermakers, and tool and die mak-ers; skilled workmen and laborers; naval officers, blue-jackets, and marines have earned their livings withinthe walls of the navy yard. Numerous Americans, whiteand black, male and female, have spent their entireworking lives at the yard building warships, manufac-turing guns, testing vessel and aircraft models, trainingsailors, or administering the needs of American com-batants steaming in the distant waters of the world.Navy yard workers, as many as 26,000 men and womenat one point in 1944, contributed to the success of U.S.arms in the Spanish-American War, World Wars I andII, the Cold War, and Operation Desert Storm.

Yard workers, most of them residents of the District,Maryland, and Virginia, over the years have helpedlocal authorities extinguish fires, hold back floodwaters, rescue victims of natural disasters, and care forneedy members of the surrounding neighborhoods.They have helped federal authorities put togethernational celebrations to mark the end of the country’swars, repair the Capitol and other government build-ings, receive the sacred remains of unknown U.S. ser-vicemen from overseas, stage presidential inaugura-tions, and welcome foreign dignitaries to Americansoil. Above all, they have loyally served the UnitedStates and the U.S. Navy.

This richly illustrated history was written in thebicentennial year to highlight the importance of theWashington Navy Yard and its employees to the nation,the Navy, and the District of Columbia. It touches onthe major activities of the facility and on some of theyard’s past workers and significant visitors. Much ofthe text relies on authoritative compilations, publishedand unpublished, primary documents, and othersources identified in the bibliography that are main-tained in the Navy Department Library and the Navy’sOperational Archives. We do not suggest that this isthe definitive work on the subject or a follow-on to theseminal history by Taylor Peck, Round-Shot to Rockets:A History of the Washington Navy Yard and U.S. NavalGun Factory, published in 1949. Accomplishing thatworthwhile goal demands intensive research in the

xi

document collections and personal papers relating tothe navy yard in the National Archives, Library of Con-gress, Operational Archives, and numerous otherrepositories nationwide. A worthy research and writingproject beckons some aspiring scholar!

As the momentous 20th century and the millenniumdraw to a close, the Navy is increasingly concentratingits Washington-area commands and activities at theWashington Navy Yard. The site offers many financialand administrative advantages for the Navy in the leanbudgetary environment of the post-Cold War era. Long-standing buildings, unique in their designs andreminders of the navy yard’s proud industrial past, arebeing reconditioned to accommodate the Naval SeaSystems Command and other commands. New govern-ment and commercial buildings are rising along thebanks of the Anacostia and in the nearby southeastWashington neighborhoods. The Washington Navy Yardis once again abuzz with activity. Hence, in thismomentous bicentennial year, the future looks espe-cially bright for the U.S. Navy’s oldest and most his-toric base.

Edward J. Marolda

Acknowledgments

I owe special thanks to Rear Admiral Christopher E.Weaver, Commandant Naval District Washington, forhis encouragement and financial support of this publi-cation project and for his energetic efforts highlightingthe Washington Navy Yard’s significance in Americanhistory. Additional support came from John Imparatoand Senior Chief Jody Haubry of the admiral’s staff,who worked hard to bring about successful celebra-tions in this momentous year.

It is especially appropriate that professional staffmembers of the Naval Historical Center, many of whomhave worked in the Washington Navy Yard for decades,some for their entire professional careers, have collab-orated in the completion of this anniversary history.While many of my colleagues long ago dedicated heartand soul to the study of naval history, they have takenspecial interest in interpreting the evolution of theirworkplace. I wish to thank Dr. William S. Dudley,Director of Naval History, who first proposed prepara-tion of this work and then gave unwavering support toits completion; Regina Akers, Christine Hughes, JackGreen, Kim Nielsen, John Reilly, Mark Evans, Dr.Robert J. Schneller, and Susan Scott, learned profes-sionals who authored sidebars and reviewed the manu-script; Charles R. Haberlein, Jack Green, EdwinFinney, and Roy Grossnick, whose knowledge of theCenter’s photo collections enabled them to suggest andlocate unique images; Gale Munro, Lynn Turner, KarenHaubold, and DM1 Erick Marshall Murray, who rec-ommended several exceptional paintings from theNavy Art Collection; Jean Hort, Glenn Helm, BarbaraAuman, Tonya Montgomery, and Davis Elliot, whopointed me to rare and valuable published and unpub-lished manuscripts in the Navy Department Library;Kathy Lloyd and Regina Akers, who suggested keysources in the Operational Archives; Captain ToddCreekman and Commander James Carlton, successiveDeputy Directors of Naval History, administrator JillHarrison, and financial manager Donna Smilardo, whoprovided encouragement and administrative support.As with every publication project of the Center, SeniorEditor Sandra Doyle applied her considerable profes-

sional skills to the editing, composition, and design ofthe work.

Numerous individuals outside the Center eagerlycontributed to this history. James Dolph, in addition tocarrying out his responsibilities as the historian of thePortsmouth Naval Shipyard, conducted extensiveresearch on the industrial uses of Washington NavyYard buildings and graciously shared the product ofthat work with the author; Carolyn Alison, PublicAffairs Officer of the Office of the Judge AdvocateGeneral, and Roger Williams and William Brack of theNaval Facilities Engineering Command helped enlight-en the author about the current restoration of historicnavy yard buildings; Jan Herman, historian of theBureau of Medicine and Surgery, provided much usefulinformation on Washington’s earliest naval medicalfacility; Captain Guillermo Montenegro, ArgentineNavy (Ret.), made a special effort to verify the visit byPresident William Howard Taft to Argentine warshipSarmiento when the vessel put in at Washington in1910, and Captain Hugo Diettrich, Argentine Navy(Ret.), provided a photo of the event; Dr. David Win-kler and David Manning of the Naval Historical Foun-dation facilitated the reproduction of photographs;Lawrence P. Earle and A. Donald Lawrence of theChesapeake Division, Naval Facilities EngineeringCommand supplied several of the graphics and aerialphotos; Master Chief Musician Jon Youngdahl of theUnited States Navy Band provided historical informa-tion on his long-time Washington Navy Yard tenantactivity; Jean Kirk of the Medals and Awards Branchmade available unique photographs; and DiAnn Baum,Bill Rawley, and Jeffrey Dorn of the Government Print-ing Office’s Typography and Design shop applied theirexpertise to the final format and design of the book.

I am grateful to all those individuals who helped inthe preparation of this illustrated history, but any mis-interpretations or factual errors that appear on the fol-lowing pages are my own. The views expressed do notnecessarily reflect or represent those of the Depart-ment of the Navy or any other U.S. Government agency.

Edward J. Marolda

xiii

“Captain ThomasTingey” (Navy Art Col-lection, artist unknown).Tingey was the first Com-mandant of the Washing-ton Navy Yard. Duringthe thirty-year tenure ofthis courageous andfocused officer, the yardbecame one of theNavy’s prime shipbuild-ing and supply centers.

1

first Secretary of the Navy. A dynamic and vision-ary leader, Stoddert worked hard to build anddevelop the new U.S. Navy. He hoped to limit ship-building costs by establishing naval yards on fed-

eral land at several EastCoast locations rather thandepend on private firms forconstruction. Knowing thatPresident George Washing-ton had given his approvalin 1792 for a 12-acre tracton the Eastern Branch (nowthe Anacostia River) of thePotomac River, PresidentJohn Adams approved useof the public land at the sitein 1798. Stoddert hadaffirmed for the Presidentthat this site in the new fed-eral capital lay near abun-dant supplies of timber forbuilding warships and pos-sessed a suitable waterfrontfrom which to launch them.Equally important to theSecretary of the Navy andthe nation’s founders, who

were suspicious of standing military forces, a navyyard at that location just off Capitol Hill could bekept “under the eye of the Government.”1 On 25February 1799, Congress passed legislation thatprovided $50,000 for construction of two drydocksand $1 million for the launching of twelve war-ships. The drydocks and one ship were to be com-pleted in Washington.

The Washington Navy Yard began its illustrioushistory on 2 October 1799, when public land on the

The Washington Navy Yard dates its founding fromthe earliest days of the republic and the UnitedStates Navy. The Continental Navy that fought theAmerican Revolution from 1775 to 1783 was dises-tablished soon afterthe conflict. Congressand many Americansconcluded that therewas no longer a needfor naval protection.The citizens of the newUnited States of Amer-ica soon learned thatthey could not preventEuropean navies orprivateers commis-sioned by GreatBritain, France, and

the Barbary states of North Africa from seizingAmerican merchant ships on the high seas. So in1794 Congress appointed six naval captains andapproved funds for the construction of Constitutionand five other fast, 44-gun and 36-gun frigates.The commissioning of United States in 1797marked the rebirth of the American navy.

The following year, Congress established theDepartment of the Navy and appointed prominentGeorgetown merchant Benjamin Stoddert as the

The Early Years

The Tripoli Monument.This memorial toStephen Decatur andother heroes of the Bar-bary Wars was thenational capital’s firstmonument. It greetedvisitors to the navy yardfor thirty-five years atthe beginning of the19th century and nowrests on the grounds ofthe U.S. Naval Academy

Eastern Branch passed into Navy custody. With theestablishment of the yard, Benjamin Stoddert, whowould soon direct U.S. naval forces during theQuasi-War with France, put the Navy on a firm foot-ing as the young, vibrant nation confidently enteredthe new century.

To develop the Washington Navy Yardand build its first warship, Stoddertselected Captain Thomas Tingey, ashort, stout naval officer who hadalready made a name for him-self. The English-born Tingeyhad served as an officer inthe Royal Navy, before join-ing the U.S. Navy in 1798.He erased any doubtsabout his loyalty to the newrepublic when he refused tolet British officers searchhis naval vessel for crewmenwho might have been theking’s subjects. He hadassured his shipmates that hewould die before surrendering anyof them to the British.

Arriving in Washington in February1800, Tingey inspected the site of the future navyyard and suggested the need for a contingent ofmarines and a high fence around the site to discour-age pilferage of lumber and other building materials.The Navy Department acted on his suggestion. Fromthat year to the present, the U.S. Marine Corps hascontinuously posted a guard at the Washington NavyYard. Tingey also rented nearby a solid, two-storyhouse with a large kitchen, stable, carriage house,and a well. When he moved in during the spring of1800, Tingey became the first naval officer to make apermanent 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 construct-

ing 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, con-

structed under contract with the

Lovering and Dyer Company of

Georgetown. During this same

period, a small “naval hospi-

tal” was established in a

building outside the yard

near the main gate. The facili-

ty, the only one of its kind in the

Washington area, provided med-

ical care to navy yard personnel for

the next three decades.2

President Jefferson, whose home at Monti-

cello 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 Wash-

ington 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 cov-

ered 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

The Washington Navy Yard2

“Benjamin Stoddert” byE. F. Andrews (Navy ArtCollection). Stoddert, thefirst Secretary of the Navy,pressed for the establishmentand early development of theWashington 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 Engi-neer of the Navy Department. In the latter capacityhe developed an overall design for the WashingtonNavy Yard that the Navy accepted the following year.The main gate, which has come to be known as theLatrobe Gate, was built from his plan and is one ofthe few original structures in the yard. DuringLatrobe’s tenure with the Navy Department in thefirst decade of the 19th century, the navy yard wit-nessed construction of the Commandant’s House, themain gate and guardhouse, offices, and shops forjoiners, blacksmiths, plumbers, armorers, riggers,and painters. Also established were a foundry androlling mill. A rudimentary steam engine poweredmany of the yard’s machines—when it worked, whichit often did not.

Neither Jefferson nor Congress wanted to incur theexpense of maintaining an operating fleet, so the

Navy’s frigates were laid up. By late 1804, the 44-gun frigates Constitution, United States, and Presi-dent and the 36-gun frigates Congress, Constellation,and New York had been placed in ordinary at theWashington Navy Yard. As an alternative, Jeffersonpushed the construction of small, one- or two-gungunboats, which he considered adequate to defendAmerican ports. The Washington Navy Yard built theprototype gunboat and many of the several hundredfollow-on models. The Navy found them unseaworthyand poor combat vessels and by 1815 had takenthem out of service.

As they had at the end of the 18th century, theBarbary corsairs and European navies continued tointerfere with U.S. oceangoing trade, even in Ameri-can coastal waters. On one occasion, Jeffersonwarned the captain of supply ship Huntress, then atthe navy yard, to watch out for privateers when heput to sea. Despite this warning, the master lost hisship and its cargo to a Spanish privateer only threedays out of port. To defend American merchantmen

Tingey House or Quar-ters A, the long-time resi-dence of WashingtonNavy Yard commandantsand after 1978 the offi-cial home of the Chief ofNaval Operations.


from these oceangoing predators, Congress fundedthe building of several sloops-of-war. When complet-ed in 1806, Wasp became the first ship built in theWashington Navy Yard.

In the decade before the War of 1812, the navyyard employed several hundred workmen, many ofwhom lived in a nearby settlement called Navy YardHill. This habitation boasted a public market, villagegreen, churches, wells, and springs. Fields of grass orgrain, fruit orchards, and shade trees surroundedindividual homes. Slaves also toiled at the navy yard.

“USS Constellation” byJohn W. Schmidt (NavyArt Collection). The shipwas one of the firstfrigates built for the U.S.Navy and a common siteat the navy yard in theearly 19th century.

5The Early Years

Their accommodations canonly be surmised, but theywere undoubtedly muchmore austere than thehomes of Navy Yard Hill.

In 1807 frigate Chesapeake, after fitting out at thenavy yard, sailed to Norfolk, Virginia, then out to seawhere the British warship HMS Leopard fired on her,compelling the American captain to submit. RoyalNavy officers boarded the U.S. naval vessel andremoved several crewmen they believed to be Britishsubjects. Involved in a life and death struggle withNapoleon’s France, the British wanted every seamanthey could get for their navy, even those men crewingAmerican vessels. United States citizens were out-raged by the high-handed British action and there wastalk of war. Diplomacy averted a conflict, but manypeople remembered the slight to national honor whenAnglo-American relations again soured in 1812.

As the nation edged closer to war with GreatBritain, Captain Tingey oversaw the fitting out ofwarships at the yard. Not all of his customers weresatisfied with the service. On one occasion, CaptainStephen Decatur, by now a national hero for hisexploits against the Tripolitan corsairs, complainedthat the rigging installed on his ship, United States,was inadequate. Captain William Bainbridge, a com-bat officer almost as famous as Decatur, made a simi-lar complaint. Tingey explained to Secretary of theNavy Paul Hamilton that he considered the materialsgood enough and that some officers were toodemanding. Personal judgment was key to the issue,since the Navy then had no standard specificationsfor masting and sparring a ship, the quantity of storesto be carried, or even arming a warship.

Privateers commissioned by Great Britain, France,Spain, and the Barbary states of North Africa andpirates continued to prey on American merchant

“Mosquito Squadron”by Fred S. Cozzens(Navy Art Collection).The navy yard built anumber of these gun-boats during the Jeffer-son administration.

metrical five-bay front marks theoriginal building, but extensiverenovations, retrimmings, and thelengthening of windows in themid-19th century have made itsubstantially Victorian. The manyadditions to the exterior of thehouse have covered up but notdestroyed the original fabric. Inthe face of the imminent Britishoccupation in August 1814,Thomas Tingey set the yard on firebut Quarters A survived. Thebuilding’s central location in theyard gave its occupants a sweepingview of the workshops and laborersin the gently sloping vista belowthe house. Every commandant ofthe yard resided in Quarters Afrom 1812 until 1978 when itbecame the home of the Chief ofNaval Operations.

that emphasized the affinitybetween the Greek democratic stateand the American republic.

Alterations in 1880 and 1881added two stories across the gateand three stories on either side of it,leaving most of the old gate intact,except the eagle, the old roof, and aparapet wall. A Victorian melangeof classical and Italianate motifscharacterized this new design.

Quarters A is commonly calledTingey House after the yard’s firstcommandant, Thomas Tingey, wholived in the house from 1812 untilhis death in 1829. Situated on thecrest of a hill adjacent to the northwall and just east of the LatrobeGate, Tingey House, which datesfrom 1804, is a two-story structurebuilt with Flemish bond brick. Alate Georgian design with a sym-

The NavyYard’sOldestBuildings

The creator of the gateway to theWashington Navy Yard envisionedportals befitting a place of labor.Benjamin Henry Latrobe, PresidentThomas Jefferson’s Surveyor of thePublic Buildings, designed theLatrobe Gate in 1805 “with a viewto the greatest economy that iscompatible with permanence, andwith an appearance worthy of thesituation.” Durable but inexpensivefreestone composed the one-storyarch whose simple architrave andfrieze without a pediment echoed akinship with Greek Revival design.The north facade comprised twoGreek Doric columns set ten feetapart and two flanking pylons. Aneagle grasping an anchor in itstalon originally crowned the gateand a rectangular panel with ananchor design carved in bas-reliefwas inset in each pylon. A semi-circular arch spanned a 20-footroadway on the southern façadeand a double colonnade of Doriccolumns connected the two sides. Alow-pitched hipped roof coveredthe structure and the one-storybrick guard lodges housed themarine sentries. Completed in1806, the Latrobe Gate graces theNavy’s first navy yard, and itsGreek character foreshadowed thecoming of a new movement inAmerican architectural thinking

Quarters B or Second Officer’s Quarters, the oldest structure at the Wash-ington Navy Yard. Early in the 19th century, local builders Lovering andDyer created this residence for officers who served as second in commandat the naval facility. The building later served as a barrack for the U.S.Marine guard force and then the residence of the Commandant, NavalDistrict Washington.

6 The Washington Navy Yard

Lack of substantive documenta-tion clouds the origin of QuartersB. One unsubstantiated view holdsthat it was originally a farmhousethat stood on the yard when theNavy acquired the property in1799. Another account asserts thatSecretary of the Navy Robert T.Smith ordered CommandantThomas Tingey in October 1801 “tocontract with Mssrs. Lovering andDyer for the building of a house toaccommodate the officer of Marinesand the Superintendent of the NavyYard.” According to Navy records acontract for a house was let to thisfirm and in all probability it wasconstructed in late 1801 or early1802. The latter version is the morereliable as the house does notappear on the November 1801 enu-meration of houses in Washington.Tingey, however, did not live therebut chose to rent a house on 11thand G Streets, near the yard. Quar-ters B was evidently used as anofficer’s residence and offices dur-ing its early years. This structuresurvived the British invasion ofWashington in August 1814, butresidents from the neighborhoodlooted the house when the U.S.Navy abandoned the yard tem-porarily. Quarters B was originallya simple two-and-one-half-story,gabled-roof, Federal-style brickhouse approximately 36 feet longand 24 feet deep. The house wasenlarged twice to its present lengthof 76 feet in the years before 1868.Today it houses the CommandantNaval District Washington.

Designed originally as an officefor the officers of the WashingtonNavy Yard, Building 1 or the Com-mandant’s Office was built between1837 and 1838. Latrobe Gate is the

ceremonial entrance to the Wash-ington Navy Yard from Eighth Streetand Building 1 forms the southernterminus on this axis. Exterior mod-ifications to the building have notobscured its original scale or mass.The structure is a freestanding, rec-tangular, two-story brick buildinglaid in a Flemish bond pattern. Alow, bellcast hipped roof covers themain block, and frame porches sur-round the exterior. Renovations in1873 and in 1895–1896 changedthe style of porch columns and rail-ings. In the later renovation thenorth façade gained a projecting,one-story entrance porch with agabled roof, and the south façade, aprojecting two-story porch withstairs. Besides being a major focalpoint of the yard, Building 1 servedas the administrative center for its

commandants. John Dahlgren, per-haps the yard’s most illustrious fig-ure, slept and ate in a room outsidehis office in 1861, having profferedthe officers of the 71st New YorkInfantry Regiment accommodationsin Tingey House. President Abra-ham Lincoln and his cabinet mem-bers frequently visited Dahlgren inBuilding 1 during the Civil War. Inthe mid-20th century, Building 1served as living quarters; later itwas a Public Affairs Office. Since1993, historians of the Naval His-torical Center have occupied theNavy’s oldest active office building.

The National Register of HistoricPlaces has included Latrobe Gate,Quarters A (Tingey House), Quar-ters B, and Building 1 on its listingssince 1973.

Christine F. Hughes

The old Commandant’s Office (Building 1).

The Early Years 7


that the yard had had toreplace only one rotten tim-ber in Wasp, which wasbuilt in his yard, while theprivately built Hornet had tobe completely rebuilt toreplace many rotten tim-bers. The yard alsoequipped ten gunboats withnew masts, sails, and can-non and added heavier ord-nance, stronger masts and spars, and new rigging tofrigates Congress, Constellation, and the soon-to-befamous Constitution.

shipping during the early years of the 19th century,but opponents of the Navy in Congress refused tofund new warship construction. Many legislatorsfrom the southern and western states, which werenot dependent on overseas trade, could see no ben-efit to a larger Navy.

Even though several of the nation’s other navyyards fell on hard times for lack of adequate fund-ing, the Washington Navy Yard did get support forrepairing and refitting the Navy’s warships. From1810 to 1812, the yard shops replaced rotten tim-bers and weathered rigging, caulked and copperedthe hulls, and painted sections of brigs Vixen andHornet, schooner Enterprise, frigate Adams, andsloop Wasp. Tingey observed in his correspondence

“USS Chesapeake”by F. Muller (Navy ArtCollection). In 1807,HMS Leopard fired onthe American warship,killing and woundingtwenty-four men. TheBritish removed foursailors from her,claiming they weresubjects of their king.The incident, a majorirritant to U.S.-Britishrelations, was a factorin the outbreak of theWar of 1812.

9

Bermuda, entered the Chesapeake, and moved northto the mouth of the Patuxent River in August 1814.When the alarm was raised in Washington, the gov-ernment called out local militia units under

Brigadier General WilliamH. Winder. His motleyforce of regulars and ill-trained militiamen boldlymarched across the navyyard bridge on the EasternBranch and took up posi-tions at Bladensburg,Maryland, some twelvemiles to the northeast.

At the same time, Com-modore Barney and thesailors and marines of hissmall defensive flotilla,trapped in the upperreaches of the Patuxent,burned their vessels andheaded for the navy yardbridge, which they initial-ly were ordered to defend.When General Winder

realized on the 24th that the British troops were notheaded for the bridge, he dispatched Barney and hismen to Bladensburg. When the commodore’s grouparrived, many American regulars and militiamen hadbegun to flee from the battle being fought there. Bar-ney deployed his sailors and marines and their gunsto halt the enemy advance, and despite repeatedassaults the British regulars could not budge thenaval force. Finally, when the enemy routed anAmerican unit on one flank and wounded Barneywith their fire, the sailors and marines retired towardWashington.

The United States declared war against Great Britainin 1812, and at the beginning of 1813 Congressauthorized construction of four 74-gun warships andsix 44-gun frigates. The Washington Navy Yardalmost immediately beganwork on frigate Columbiaand sloop-of-war Argus.Preoccupied with militaryoperations on the frontierwith Canada, the Madisonadministration failed toimprove Washington’sdefenses. As a stopgap, in1813 navy yard officersand seamen manned threesmall scows armed with afew light pieces of ord-nance and took station inthe Potomac River off

Greenleaf’s Point. Tingeyemplaced and fortified a battery of seven guns on thepoint (now part of Fort Leslie J. McNair).

When it appeared that the British were headed forBaltimore, the Navy ordered all but a few officersand men at the yard to join Commodore Joshua Bar-ney and his Chesapeake defense flotilla. Service inthe local militia companies also took away many ofthe yard’s civilian workers.

The vulnerability of the nation’s capital to attackbecame clear when a British fleet commanded byRear Admiral George Cockburn and carrying troopsunder Major General Robert Ross sortied from

The War of 1812

“Joshua Barney”byJ. Gross (RooseveltLibrary). The com-modore made a heroicstand with sailors andmarines at the Battle ofBladensburg.

Meanwhile, Captain Tingey pre-pared to carry out the orders of theSecretary of the Navy to burn theWashington Navy Yard, rightly charac-terized by one writer as the “pride ofthe U.S. Navy,” lest it be captured bythe enemy.3 He observed that the navyyard was “historic acreage...where thefledgling navy’s warships were built.”He added, “Tingey and his staff werekeenly aware of the navy yard’s placein the tiny capital. It was not only theworkplace for hundreds of Washingto-nians, but was also one of the mostfamiliar landmarks in their home-town.”4 The gravity of Tingey’s missionwas driven home in the late afternoonwhen Winder’s men ignited explosives that completelydestroyed the bridge over the Eastern Branch.

The commandant dispatched his chief clerk,Mordecai Booth, on a scouting mission to determineif British troops were advancing on the navy yard.When the enemy made clear their approach by twicefiring on Booth, he hurried back to report to Tingey.Even then the captain hesitated. He did not want theenemy to capture the valuable navy yard and theships and stores there, but he also did not want tostart 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 heordered fires started in storehouses, offices, mechan-ical shops, and the sawmill, all of which werecrammed full of valuable materials, machinery,equipment, and papers. And, “like possessed pyro-maniacs, the government employees set fire to[frigate Columbia and sloop-of-war Argus, then underconstruction] and watched pitifully as the flamesdevoured months of fine workmanship in the brilliantnocturnal pyre.”5 As Tingey and his chief subordi-nates departed the navy yard in a small vessel, theywatched flames consume the facility. Neither Tingeynor the British, however, torched the Commandant’sHouse or the second officer’s quarters.

The next day, enemytroops briefly entered theyard and burned thebuildings that had notbeen set on fire by theAmericans. Surprisingly, the Americans and theBritish failed to destroy schooner Lynx, which wasclose to completion; two gunboats; and stores of pow-der and other materials. As soon as the Britishdeparted, the local populace began plundering notonly the untouched stores but also the two resi-dences. As one historian observed, “not a movableobject from cellar to garret was left, and even the fix-tures and locks on the doors were taken.”6 Soonafterward, Tingey strongly recommended erecting a10-foot-high brick wall around the yard to prevent arecurrence of this activity.


“United States Ship-of-the-Line Columbus”(Navy Art Collection,artist unknown). Built atthe navy yard, she servedthe nation for much ofthe 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 manu-

facturing 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 estab-

lishment 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 offi-

cial weight to the navy yard’s status as the manufac-

turer 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 appro-

priated 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 differ-

ent uses for the yard. On the recommendation of the

new Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin Crowninshield,

Congress established a Board of Navy Commission-

ers, composed of three senior Navy captains, to

advise him on the administration of the naval ser-

vice. 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 expe-

rienced 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 Statesversus HMS Macedonian”by Arthur N. Disney Sr.(Navy Art Collection).U.S. Navy sailors gaineda reputation for profes-sional skill and valor inbattle during the War of1812.

persuaded the American people and their represen-tatives in Congress to build a postwar fleet worthy ofthe new, proud nation. The legislature provided forthe building of nine ships of the line and twelve 44-gun frigates at navy yards, rather than at privateyards whose products were oftenconsidered unsatisfactory. In1819, the Washington Navy Yardlaunched the 74-gun Columbus,which served the Navy ably untilher deliberate destruction to pre-vent capture during the Civil War.

Completion of the frigatePotomac coincided with Com-modore John Rodgers’ develop-ment of a new aid to constructionand repair. He considered it possi-ble for yard workers to haul a shipout of the water on an inclinedplane and into a roofed-overbuilding so work could proceed regardless of wind,rain, and snow. The commodore demonstrated thefeasibility of his project before President James Mon-roe, members of Congress, foreign dignitaries, and

the public in 1822. Using ropes, 140 men hauledPotomac out of the water and along a wooden incline,the nation’s first marine railway. So impressed werehis visitors that in 1823 Congress authorized con-struction of a marine railway to be powered by men,

animals, or mechanical winchesand a large, covered shiphouse.The completed building became arecognized feature of the Washing-ton Navy Yard for many years. Thefirst ship worked on in the ship-house was Potomac, which tookpart in the siege of Vera Cruz dur-ing the Mexican War and operatedwith the Union blockading forcesin the Civil War.

From the beginning, the navyyard was closely involved with theactivities of the federal govern-ment in the nation’s capital and

with the life of the Washington, D.C. community. Forinstance, skilled yard workers repaired a chandelierthat fell from the ceiling of the House of Representa-tives. On several occasions during this early period,


Above. “President JohnQuincy Adams” byAsher B. Durand (NavyArt Collection).

Left. “USS Brandywine”by N. Cammilliari (NavyArt Collection). The shipcarried Lafayette hometo 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 com-

mandant. The New Englander immediately directed

that excess stores, equipment, and building materi-

als be sold or shipped to other yards, shops be

cleaned and reorga-

nized, and the yard be

made generally ship-

shape. Change is not

often well received, but

Hull’s personnel

actions caused more

than the usual irrita-

tion. 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 whenHull, frustrated by theloss of tools andstores to theft, for-bade workers’ bring-

ing their food containers into the yard. Eventhough one workman was discovered secretinggovernment materials out of the yard in his foodbasket, the others were outraged that theirintegrity was questioned. Around Navy Depart-ment building near the White House. Coolerheads finally prevailed and after compromiseswere made on both sides, the men returned towork. In the fall of that difficult year, Hull askedfor and was given permission to resign as com-mandant. In the years after his resignation, sever-al officers served as commandant; two died dur-ing office in the Commandant’s House.

navy yard men left their workstations to help battlefires in Alexandria and Georgetown.

Throughout its history, the navy yard was host todistinguished American and foreign visitors. Presi-dent John Quincy Adams stood on the deck of frigateBrandywine as she entered the Eastern Branch. Yardworkers cheered hearti-ly, not only because ofthe President’s pres-ence but because theywere given the rest ofthe day off to mark theoccasion. Originallycalled Susquehanna,the ship had beenrenamed to honorFrench General Mar-quis de Lafayette, ahero of the AmericanRevolution who showedexceptional leadershipduring the Battle ofBrandywine. The gen-eral and his party made

a triumphal procession through the streets of Wash-ington and enjoyed a full day of ceremonies at theWhite House, Capitol, and navy yard on 15 October1824. Mrs. Tingey hosted a tea for the distinguishedFrench general. The following September, to thecheers of many Americans lining the Potomac, thegeneral boarded Brandywine, then anchored in theriver. As the ship prepared for the transatlantic jour-ney to France, Lafayette bade farewell to the countrywhose freedom he helped win.

The yard entered a new era on 23 February 1829

when Thomas Tingey, Commandant of the Washing-

ton Navy Yard for almost three decades, died in his

Supporting the New Navy 13

“The Marquis deLafayette” (PierpontMorgan Library, artistunknown). A Frenchhero of the AmericanRevolution.

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 paddle-

wheel steamer that served the Navy during the Mexi-

can 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 effi-

ciency, in 1842 the Secretary of the Navy disestab-lished the old Board of Navy Commissioners andestablished six bureaus. The Chief of the Bureau ofYards and Docks was responsible for the WashingtonNavy Yard, but because the yard handled a number

of functions for the ser-vice, other bureaus alsoexercised some authorityat the facility. Disagree-ments between thebureaus often made life difficult for the commandant.

As one of the earliest naval engineering facilities,the yard became the first to produce complete steampropulsion machinery for a warship in 1843, withthe commissioning of steam gunboat Union. Between1843 and 1861, the navy yard was the only govern-ment facility manufacturing steam plants for navalvessels, and did so for four of them.7 In 1854, thenavy yard constructed the 243-foot-long steamfrigate Minnesota, which displaced 4,800 tons andwas then one of the world’s largest naval vessels.

“USS Water Witch” byR. G. Skerrett (Navy ArtCollection). The vesselwas one of the Navy’sfirst paddle wheelsteamers.


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 Amer-

ican 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 cen-

ter,” 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, Pres-

ident 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 fir-

ings, 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 ord-

nance 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 ofthe ‘Peacemaker’ ” byN. Currier (Navy ArtCollection).

Above. Interior view ofthe experimental batterybuilt and operated byDahlgren on the water-front of the navy yard.Much of the ordnanceoperated by the U.S.Navy during the CivilWar was first tested and“proofed” at the uniquefacility.

Left. A naval officerrests his arm on thedistinctive “soda-waterbottle” shaped 9-inchDahlgren gun, one ofthe most powerful andreliable weapons in theU.S. Navy’s Civil Wararsenal.


Dahlgren’s unconventional ideas about ordnancedesign met strong opposition from some quarters.Commodore Charles Morris, Chief of the Bureau ofOrdnance and Hydrography in the early 1850s,delayed or opposed many of Dahlgren’s requests for

material or other support. Dahlgren consid-ered Morris an “old fogy.”12 Dahlgren

overcame most opposition by culti-vating friendships with promi-

nent government and congres-sional figures and othernaval officers and persuad-ing them that his ideaswere sound. Shortly afterMorris died in 1856, theNavy Department imple-mented Dahlgren’s pro-gram by arming the new

warship Merrimack with abattery of his 9-inch guns.

He successfully tested theweapon during the ship’s

cruise from Norfolk to Annapo-lis. Dahlgren 9-inch and 11-inch

guns became mainstays of the fleet andpassed the even more demanding test of com-

bat during the four years of the Civil War. In additionto cannon for major warships, Dahlgren designed andhad cast in the navy yard brass furnace a 225-poundboat howitzer for use by naval landing parties.

As Dahlgren’s ordnance ideas took hold, the Navybuilt new facilities at the yard to handle the entiredesign, testing, and manufacturing process. A cannonfoundry, mechanical finishing shop, and gun-carriageshops soon joined the existing facilities at the Navy’sindustrial plant. Dahlgren also worked to create askilled, dedicated, and professional workforce at theyard. He raised the pay for some civilian workers,established billet descriptions and work standards,and provided relevant training. “By attending to theneeds of his men, Dahlgren produced a cadre of loyalordnance specialists.”13

blacksmith, anchor-making, rigger, and painter shopsmanufactured anchors, small arms, chain, and othermateriel.9

A few years earlier the Navy had decided to stan-dardize its large-caliber guns and needed a system todetermine how well prototypes would per-form before proceeding with produc-tion. Dahlgren had the answer. Hebuilt a firing range on the yard’swaterfront. Guns being testedfired their rounds out overthe Eastern Branch. Byrecording the splash ofrounds, Dahlgren could

determine the power andrange properties of eachtype of gun. Like many ofhis successors, PresidentJames K. Polk visited the navyyard to witness the test firing ofnaval cannon at Dahlgren’s “experi-mental battery.”10

Despite Dahlgren’s attention to safety, ordnancetesting was dangerous business. Michael Shiner, aslave who worked in the yard from 1813 to 1865,noted in a later account that there were many indus-trial mishaps and accidental explosions in this peri-od that killed or injured workers.11 In 1849 a gunbeing tested at the yard’s experimental batteryexploded. Jagged pieces of iron from the weaponkilled the gunner and narrowly missed Dahlgren.This incident reinforced his belief that he needed adifferent approach to gun development if he were tobuild safe, large-caliber guns for the Navy. The resultwas a family of guns, soon called Dahlgren Guns,that had stronger and thicker metal around theirbreeches, making them look to some people like“soda-water bottles.”


Commodore CharlesMorris, a hero of theWar of 1812, but toDahlgren an “old fogy.”

facilities became the seed of theNaval Gun Factory.

Dahlgren’s R&D efforts yieldedintegrated systems of shipboardarmament, featuring light bronzeboat guns, heavy smoothbore shellguns, and heavy rifled cannon. Theboat guns were revered throughoutthe Navy and admired around theworld. The heavy smoothbores,characterized by their peculiar“soda-water bottle” shape, were hismost famous invention. Theirdesign stemmed from Dahlgren’sscientific research in ballistics andmetallurgy. To ensure their reliabili-ty, he had them manufactured underthe most innovative and compre-hensive quality control programseen in the Navy to that time. Theprogram included detailed specifi-cations, production monitoring, anda rigorous system of proof testing.Dahlgren also instituted a gunnerytraining program to teach naval offi-cers and enlisted men how to usethe new weapons. When first intro-duced to the fleet in the mid-1850s,Dahlgren guns were the most pow-erful and reliable naval cannon inthe world. They remained theNavy’s standard armament untilreplaced by steel rifled cannon inthe 1880s. Dahlgren’s only failurewas his heavy rifled ordnance.

In the process of inventing anddeveloping cannon, Dahlgren artic-ulated an unusually comprehensiveconception of naval ordnance,including its role in naval strategyand tactics and national policy. Anadvocate of steam propulsion, hedevised doctrine for what he con-sidered the optimum balance ofsteam, sail, and ordnance in navalvessels. And he improved ordnanceequipment of all kinds, including

mathematics, scientific theory, andthe use of precision instrumentswhile serving on the U.S. Coast Sur-vey (1834–1837). Ordered to ord-nance duty at the Washington NavyYard in 1847, Dahlgren began hisfirst task there—developing rocketsfor use on board warships. He didthe job so well that the Chief of the

Bureau of Ordnanceand Hydrographyassigned him everincreasing responsi-bilities, empoweredhim to expand theyard’s facilities athis discretion, andarranged for him toremain on ordnanceduty indefinitely.Dahlgren served inWashington for thenext fifteen years.

In the early 1850she launched the Ord-nance Establish-ment, the first sus-tained weapons R&Dorganization and pro-gram in Americannaval history. Itswork fell into fourbroad categories:manufacturing ord-nance and equip-ment, inspectingordnance produced

at private foundries, testing ord-nance and inventions, and researchand development. The facilities thatDahlgren set up at the WashingtonNavy Yard included a firing rangealong the Anacostia River dubbedthe “experimental battery,”foundries, machine shops, andexpanded office spaces. These

The Fatherof AmericanNavalOrdnance

John Adolphus Bernard Dahlgren(1809–1870) determined the direc-tion of weapons development in theUnited States Navy for more than twodecades (1847–1870). His achieve-ments earned him the title “father ofAmerican naval ordnance.”

Dahlgren joined the Navy in 1826and received training in advanced


locks, sights, carriages, the ropeused for breeching tackle—eventhe preservative coating used toprotect gun barrels from rust.

Promoted to commander in 1855,captain in 1862, and rear admiralin 1863, Dahlgren became Com-mandant of the Washington NavyYard in 1861 and Chief of theBureau of Ordnance in 1862. Hespent most of the first two years ofthe Civil War meeting the Navy’svastly increased demands for ord-nance, for which he received a voteof thanks from Congress. Duringthat same period Abraham Lincolndrove his carriage down to the yardalmost weekly. He often did so justto have coffee, cigars, and a chatwith Dahlgren, who had become thePresident’s favorite naval officer,

principal uniformed advisor onnaval affairs, and friend.

During the Civil War Dahlgren’sguns were mounted on almostevery Union ship and many Con-federate naval vessels, includingUSS Monitor and CSS Virginia,which fought history’s first duelbetween ironclad warships, andUSS Kearsarge, which sank CSSAlabama, the most successful com-merce raider of all time. Not one ofDahlgren’s 9- or 11-inch guns—the principal heavy calibers—failed prematurely in combat.

With help from Lincoln, Dahlgrenleft Washington in July 1863 andtook command of the South AtlanticBlockading Squadron. For the nexttwo years, he led naval forcesbesieging Charleston, South Caroli-

na, the Union navy’s most frustratingcampaign. After the war, he com-manded the South Pacific Squadron,the Bureau of Ordnance, and onceagain the Washington Navy Yard,where he died in 1870.

Dahlgren was an intelligent,hard-working individual who pos-sessed enormous persistence, drive,and self discipline. He gave Ameri-can sailors something they neverhad before: an unshakable faith intheir guns, a faith justified by theexistence of an organization found-ed on the idea that systematicresearch and development couldproduce safer and more powerfulweapons. That idea was Dahlgren’smost important contribution to theAmerican naval tradition.

Robert J. Schneller Jr.

A view of the navy yard waterfront captured in 1866 by famed photographerMathew Brady. The building in the left foreground houses the experimental battery.


The ordnance facilities at the yard cast the gunsand manufactured their ammunition, and Dahlgrentested them in his experimental battery on the EasternBranch. In addition to the heavy Dahlgren shell gunand the smaller boat gun, Dahlgren considered devel-opment of the “Ordnance Establishment [that]. . . hecreated to test, improve, and manufacture naval ord-nance” as his most important accomplishment.14 Ord-nance experts from Great Britain, France, Russia, andSweden visited the Washington Navy Yard to learnmore about Dahlgren’s designs and investigate thefacility that armed the American fleet.

As the nation edged closer to civil conflict in thespring of 1860, the navy yard served to support U.S.foreign policy. On 14 May, the steamer Philadelphiabrought to Washington the first Japanese delegationto the United States, headed by 1st AmbassadorShinmi Buzen. Captain Franklin Buchanan, Com-mandant of the Navy Yard and a participant in Com-modore Matthew C. Perry’s historic 1854 visit to

Japan, advanced betweentwo rows of marines atpresent arms to greet theJapanese dignitary and hisparty. The foreign delega-tion, carrying with them inan ornate box the treatyPerry helped conclude,then boarded carriages forthe short ride throughLatrobe Gate to Willard’sHotel on PennsylvaniaAvenue. A little more than a week later, the Japaneseparty returned to inspect the anchor, boiler, engine,and ordnance shops at the yard. The visitors paidclose attention on the tour, for Japan was then in thethroes of its own civil conflict, the Meiji Restoration,during which the Japanese incorporated many West-ern military and industrial ideas.

The first Japanese dele-gation to visit the UnitedStates poses with U.S.naval officers soon afterthe foreign group’s arrivalin May 1860. Pictured inaddition to Japanese 1stAmbassador ShinmiBuzen (seated 4th fromthe left) are two men whowould figure prominentlyin American naval histo-ry, Lieutenant DavidDixon Porter (standing4th from the left) andCaptain FranklinBuchanan (standing7th from the right).


21

Civil War Naval Arsenaland 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 increas-

ing 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 Com-

mander 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 sympa-

thies) 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-south-

ern mobs.15 The threat was real, for southern sympathies

were strong in the Maryland and Virginia regions sur-

rounding 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 detach-ment, part of the navyyard garrison, stands atease during the Civil War.Marines have continuous-ly manned the guard postat Latrobe Gate since theestablishment of thenaval facility.

for defense. Dahlgren immediately armed civiliansteamer Mount Vernon and assigned some of hissailors and marines to the ship. On the 23rd, MountVernon joined five other warships patrolling the lowerreaches of the river. He also positioned guns todefend Latrobe Gate, barricaded and fortifiedthe other entrances, and lined the water-front with cannon to oppose a water-borne assault on the yard or attackagainst the bridge across the East-ern Branch. The defenders of thenavy yard included thirty-sevenmarines, three companies ofWashington, D.C. volunteers,and the men from the OrdnanceDepartment; 348 men in all.Security concerns for the navy yardeased on 27 April when the 71stNew York Infantry Regiment marchedin and took up defensive positions. AtDahlgren’s suggestion, unit officers madetheir quarters in the Commandant’s House, while hetook up residence in his office near the waterfront.

There the busy officer spent most of his time in thenext few years.

The destruction of the Norfolk Navy Yard, then theNavy’s largest facility, and its huge reserves of navalordnance to prevent their capture by southern troops,

added to the Washington Navy Yard’s impor-tance as an arsenal and a base for opera-

tions in the Potomac River and Chesa-peake Bay. Dahlgren kept his shops

open around the clock; each daythey produced 200 shells, 25,000percussion caps, and 35,000Minie and musket balls, in addi-tion to casting, rifling, finishing,and mounting boat guns.17

The Union Navy’s PotomacFlotilla, which operated from the

navy yard, prevented Confederateforces from using the river and its

tributaries, enabling northern generals tomove their forces the length of the waterway.

Recognizing the importance of the relationshipbetween the Washington Navy Yard and the

22

Above. “HonorableGideon Welles, Secretaryof the Navy” by J.M.Butler (Navy Art Collec-tion). The dynamic andtalented Welles led theNavy during the CivilWar

Left. The 71st New YorkInfantry Regiment in for-mation at the navy yardduring the Civil War.

The Washington Navy Yard

many demoralized, from the Virginia shore to Wash-ington. A pitiful remnant of the 71st New YorkInfantry Regiment straggled back to their barracksin the yard. There was panic in the streets as Wash-ington braced for an expected Confederate assaulton the capital. Marines and sailors helped the gov-ernment restore order after Bull Run by guarding,either at the yard or on board vessels, the few hun-dred soldiers from New York and Maine who hadrefused to take orders.

Dahlgren also dispatched more than 100 sailors andmarines, along with three 9-inch guns and five how-itzers, to newly named Fort Ellsworth in Alexandria.Eventually, 600 sailors manned the Naval Battery anddefenses of Fort Ellsworth. Dahlgren also established atraining program at the yard to improve the gunneryskills of the best seamen assigned to the fleet.

The Navy aided the cause in other ways. Soonafter the outbreak of hostilities, slaves began fleeingsouthern plantations and seeking refuge on boardUnion warships. In August 1861, Resolute returnedto the navy yard with seventeen African Americans.In contrast to the previous practice of returningslaves to their masters, the Navy Department told

Potomac Flotilla, the Navy assigned both com-mands to one officer.

One of the war’s first waterborne expeditions waslaunched from the yard on 23 April 1861 whensteamers Baltimore and Mount Vernon embarked the1st Zouave Regiment under Colonel Elmer EphraimEllsworth and transported them the short distance toConfederate-held Alexandria, Virginia. The northerntroops occupied the town and captured thirty-five ofits southern defenders the next morning, but when thecolonel removed a Confederate flag from one of itshouses, the owner shot him dead. The ships carriedthe officer’s body and prisoners back to the yard. ThePresident and Mrs. Lincoln came down to the yard toview the fallen colonel. The Commander in Chief, whowould be deeply affected by the suffering of the Amer-ican people during the Civil War, graciously directedthat Ellsworth’s body be transferred to the WhiteHouse so citizens of Washington could pay theirrespects.

Ellsworth’s fate was shared by thousands more ofhis countrymen in the disastrous First Battle of BullRun. Days after the battle on 21 July, navy yard ves-sels transported Union soldiers, some wounded and

Civil War Naval Arsenal and Operating Base

“The Contest for theHenry Hill” (Navy ArtCollection, artistunknown). This actiontook place at the FirstBattle of Bull Run.

23

with some yard mechanics, fellowlaborers, and marines, to volunteerto move the cornerstone of a memo-rial to President George Washing-ton. Shiner and other workers alsohelped fight local fires threateningbuildings in Alexandria, Virginia,Senator Thomas Hart Benton’shome in the District, and the U.S.Capitol library.

The weather could and oftendid affect worker productivity aswell as damage portions of theyard. Shiner and his workmateshad to contend with cold snowywinters, and the frozen waters ofthe Eastern Branch and thePotomac River. Strong northwestwinds on 16 and 17 December1831, for example, shattered sixor seven 12-by-18-foot windows,leading Commodore Isaac Hull toclose the yard. An eclipse on 12February 1831, lasting from 11:30a.m. to 3:30 p.m., halted work.Describing an especially severedrought, Shiner wrote:

We had a smart of rain in Mayand din JUne they wher Butlittle rain and in July it wherhot and dry and evry thing onthe earth sufering for vegerta-tion and no rain in august [.][T]he ground wher so hot thatthe heat would exstend troughthe souls of your shoes par-ticelar thin souls and wehadent anno untel the Middeleof september 1838.

He documents incidents whichshow that the Washington NavyYard was not a safe place to work.Although he narrowly missed beingmaimed or killed on several occa-sions, his diary is replete withreports of injuries and deaths on the

We heard the tread of Britisharmmy feet . . . and as soon asWe got sight of the Britisharmmy raising that hill theylook like red flames of fier allred coats and the stoks of therguns painted With red verMilon and iron Work.

When Shiner prepared to flee,Mrs. Reid questioned him, “Whatdo you recon the British WantsWith such a niger as you[?]”

Shortly afterwards, the Britishtroops advanced across the capitalsearching buildings for suppliesand then setting them on fire.Shiner recounts, however, that astorm extinguished many fires:

i never shall for get that dayone of the auuflys stormsWhich Raidge for a long timeWith out intermision it thunan-rd lightent hailed and rained ittakinng some ole houses upfrom oft ther foundation andBloWing them down in shelterand British armmy stood as ifthey Whrt on MarBle neverwent in shelter.

In the years after the War of1812, Shiner often worked twelvehours a day on various jobs withyard mechanics, clerks, andsailors. Like his fellow workers, helabored on projects for the federalgovernment outside the yard. Onone occasion, he helped crew abarge transporting President JohnQuincy Adams on the Potomac andaround Georgetown. Shiner’s bosswas so pleased with the crew’s per-formance that he gave the menshort-term passes to leave the yard.Shiner considered it an honor whenhis superiors allowed him, along

An African-American’sReflectionsOn Working in theWashington NavyYard, 1813–1865

The workers of the WashingtonNavy Yard—slave and free, civil-ian and military, American bornand immigrant—have long madevital contributions to the nationand the Navy. One such worker,Michael Shiner, toiled for hiscountry, first as a slave and thenas a freed man, in the WashingtonNavy Yard for fifty-two years. Hishandwritten observations covering1813 to 1865 appear in an over-sized diary subtitled, “The EarlyHistory of Washington, D.C.”

Shiner’s diary opens with acompelling account of the Britishinvasion of Maryland and attackon Washington in 1814. Hedescribes how navy yard workerspiloted vessels moving soldiersfrom the city to Bladensburg,Maryland, where the Britishtrounced the Americans in battle.Shiner goes on to describe thedestruction of the bridge over theEastern Branch to retard theenemy army’s advance. As theBritish troops approached, Shiner,along with a black man namedJohn and an old white womannamed Mrs. Reid, stood in awewatching.

. . . t he ArmMy coming a Bovethe tall gate in Washington[.]


job. One German immigrantemployee working on a pile-drivingproject was decapitated in June1833. A shell detonated in June1842 killing Navy gunner ThomasBarry, and the explosion of awrought iron cannon on board U.S.steam frigate Princeton in February1844 killed many government offi-cials and a young black man. ABaltimore brick layer fell thirty feetoff a scaffold to his death in 1853.

Shiner was present on numer-ous occasions when presidents,cabinet members, congressmen,delegates from Indian tribes, andforeign dignitaries visited the navyyard. He also witnessed many cer-emonies, especially ship launch-ings. Because he spent so manyyears there, he saw the physicaland technological changes in theyard, including the construction ofthe rolling mill plant, the ordnanceshop, and the copper rolling millengine, the first installation of gaspipes, the use of hydraulic power,and the extension of the east wall.

As a slave, Shiner had to obtaina pass from his master, the clerk of

the yard, when he wished to leavethe facilities, as he often did toattend religious services in wardsix. The navy yard worker wor-shipped at a Methodist churchwhose pastor, Reverend Payton,attracted Shiner because “his walkand conversation proved [that] hecarried the love of god in hisheart.” Shiner had an active sociallife, frequenting black-owned and-operated establishments, particu-larly a bar and grill on CapitolHill. He sometimes drank toomuch and wound up fighting otherpatrons. These altercations landedhim in jail where he was restrainedin leg irons. Although his masterseldom punished him for thesetransgressions, once when Shinersaid he wanted to visit friends inthe country and then went some-where else, the master refused togive him a pass for a month.

The Washington Navy Yard andits workers were vital to the suc-cess of the United States Navyduring the Civil War. In the dark,early days of the conflict, Shinerhelped transport scarce provisions

to the U.S. Capitol and prepare theyard’s defenses. Like all but a fewof his fellow workers, Shiner tookthe oath of allegiance to the UnitedStates administered by JusticeWilliam Clark at the flagpole inthe navy yard on 1 June 1861. Heand many other African-Ameri-cans who served the Navy helpedbring victory to Union arms in theCivil War and rid the country ofthe scourge of slavery. Shiner doesnot specify when he obtained hisfreedom. It may have happened on12 April 1862 when Congressabolished slavery in the District.

Shiner’s handwritten account isimportant because it provides theinsight of an African-Americanman who lived through a tumul-tuous time in U.S. history when fewof his race could read or write. Hiskeen powers of observation, senseof humor, and appreciation ofevents in which he took part pre-serve a unique perspective on theearly history of the nation’s capitaland the Washington Navy Yard.

Regina T. Akers

This lithograph pub-lished during the CivilWar shows the navyyard’s two shiphouses,the experimental battery(left foreground behinda sailing vessel), ord-nance manufacturingshops, and the Comman-dant’s Office (Building 1)fronted by an ordnancedisplay park.



Abraham Lincoln, 16thPresident of the UnitedStates and the nation’sleader during the mosttrying time of its exis-tence. Lincoln oftensought relief from thepressures of his office byvisiting the navy yard.

else would, and now he shall keep it as long as hepleases.”21

Even as the threat to Washington from Confeder-ate armies receded, the enemy’s naval arm mounteda challenge. On 8 March 1862, the Confederate iron-clad CSS Virginia, built on the hull of Merrimack and

commanded by formerCommandant of theWashington Navy YardFranklin Buchanan,boldly attacked theUnion blockading flotil-la positioned in Hamp-ton Roads off NewportNews, Virginia. TheConfederate casemateironclad attacked sloopCumberland with a1,500-pound cast-ironram bolted to her bowand tore apart frigateCongress with gunfire.Both wooden-hulledships and many of theircrewmen sank beneaththe waves. The steamfrigate Minnesota thenran aground trying tofight Virginia. Theother vessels of the

blockading force sought safety under the guns ofnearby Fort Monroe.

The reaction to the disaster at Hampton Roads wasnothing short of panic when word reached Washingtonthe following day. When President Lincoln’s cabinetgathered to consider a course of action, Secretary ofWar Edwin M. Stanton and others expressed the fearthat Virginia would soon appear in the Potomac andbegin shelling the Capitol and the White House. Theentire Union cause was seen at risk from the uncon-ventional, but single enemy warship!

The President immediately went to the navyyard to consult with Dahlgren. The President and

Dahlgren to release them. And, as the war madeincreasing demands on the North’s manpower, theNavy employed black men in its service. The Secre-tary of the Navy authorized the enlistment of blacks,for which they received pay of $3 a month and oneration. On 16 April1862, Congress passedthe District of Colum-bia Emancipation Act,abolishing slavery inWashington. In thewords of one historian,“freedom did not comewith expanded jobopportunities, but it didmean that MichaelShiner and other work-ers in Washingtoncould receive a salaryor, in some cases, high-er pay for their labor.”18

As the pressures ofwar mounted, the Presi-

dent sought relief byvisiting Dahlgren, whosoon became a confidant, and the navy yard, becauseLincoln “simply liked gadgets, weapons, and muni-tions, and these things abounded” there.19 On oneoccasion, the President picked up a breechloadingcarbine being tested and fired a shot. Lincoln, thesame age as Dahlgren, regularly appeared unan-nounced at his friend’s office for “coffee, cigars, anda chat with his favorite naval officer.”20 When severalcaptains queried the Navy Department about replac-ing Commander Dahlgren as commandant of thenavy yard, a position normally held by a captain, theCommander in Chief weighed in. Lincoln observedthat Dahlgren defended the navy yard “when no one


African-American sailorsmend their clothes on thedeck of a Union warshipduring a break from duty.

Dahlgren returned to the White House where theyjoined the secretaries of State, War, and Navy foranother meeting on the crisis. Lincoln and Stanton,periodically looking through the window to see if Vir-ginia had arrived at the capital, became increasinglyagitated. Secretary of the NavyWelles and Dahlgren tried to assurethe assemblage that KettlebottomShoals would probably prevent theironclad from ascending thePotomac to Washington.

At Dahlgren’s suggestion, thePresident authorized Wabash to joindefensive forces near HamptonRoads. The commander also pro-posed posting a steamer on lookoutduty south of the city. The Secretaryof War did not consider theseactions sufficient. Stanton insistedadamantly that sixty barges beloaded with stone and sunk in theriver to block the channel. Withequal vehemence, the Secretary ofthe Navy fought the proposal. As a compromise, thePresident ordered that the vessels be prepared and

positioned in the river but not sunk unless the enemywarship made its appearance.

The crisis passed as quickly as it had arisen whenthe Union ironclad Monitor reached Hampton Roadsfrom New York. After a blazing, close-order battle

that lasted four hours, the batteredConfederate vessel retired from thescene, never to fight again. She waslater scuttled to prevent capture.Months after the battle, as a navalparty with the President on boardmade its way down the Potomac,someone asked about the purpose ofthe barges lined up along the Mary-land shore. Lincoln responded: “Oh,that is Stanton’s Navy. That is thefleet concerning which he and Mr.Welles became so excited in myroom. Welles was incensed andopposed the scheme, and it hasproved that Neptune was right. Stan-ton’s Navy is as useless as the papsof 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


Above. Colonel UlricDahlgren, the bold andcourageous son of Johnand Mary ClementDahlgren. When Ulric’sleg had to be amputatedbecause of wounds sus-tained in battle, the limbwas entombed behind amemorial plaque placedon a new building at thenavy yard. The leg hassince disappeared.

Left. “The Ironclads”by Raymond Bayless.CSS Virginia is in theforeground, and USSMonitor in the back-ground, right. Courtesyof Raymond Bayless

ened Harpers Ferry in the spring of 1862. ActingMaster Daniels and cavalry Colonel Ulric Dahlgren,the commandant’s son, deployed to Maryland with acompany of thirty-two seamen armed with four can-non, two howitzers, and one Dahlgren 9-inch gun.When Confederate Lieutenant General Jubal Early’sforces threatened Washington later in the war, 800sailors assigned to the navy yard reinforced Fort Lin-coln to help defend the city against an attack thatnever came. Early retired south rather than test whathad become a formidable defensive redoubt.

The bold and talented Dahlgren, who ever longedfor glory in battle, pressed his superiors for a combatcommand. They refused to part with the services ofthis brilliant ordnance engineer, administrator, andpresidential advisor. In fact, in July 1862, whenWelles divided the Navy’s administrative responsibil-ities among a number of newly established bureaus,

the Battle of HamptonRoads. This visit rein-forced Lincoln’s view thatthe Navy should developa fleet of ironclad vesselsable to withstand heavyshot and shell. Dahlgren

exploited the President’s support to press for theestablishment of facilities at the yard for the test-ing and production of quality armor plate for war-ships. Congress, however, did not approve the pro-posal. Dahlgren also conferred a number of timesat the yard with Monitor’s designer, John Ericsson,about optimum ordnance and armor plating forUnion vessels.

The sailors of the Washington Navy Yard onceagain answered the call when Confederate LieutenantGeneral Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s forces threat-


This hand-tinted woodcutdepicts fishermen work-ing in the EasternBranch, the shiphousesand shops of the Wash-ington Navy Yard, andthe unfinished U.S. Capi-tol building during themomentous April of 1861.


Above. Hundreds ofsmoothbore cannon,rifled guns, and mortarsand stacks of roundshotwere photographed byMathew Brady in the gunpark of the navy yard.

Left. A Mathew Bradyphotograph of the navyyard’s main ordnancefoundry, which stooduntil World War I.

Above. Sailors man theyards in salute to Presi-dent Lincoln during thevisit of Brazilian steamerParaense to the navyyard in January 1863.

Right. A Mathew Bradyphoto of ordnance storesand armor test pieces onthe west side of the yard.The cupola in the back-ground still stands.


Usually without overtime compensation, skilledworkers often toiled on Sundays and for two extrahours each weekday. Even though Congress passedlegislation to decrease the difference in pay betweenworkers at government navy yards and those at com-

mercial shipyards, this provedhard to implement. Navy yardworkers paid a price in lowerwages and longer hours fortheir dedication to governmentservice. Moreover, some politi-cians expected loyalty of anoth-er sort from navy yard employ-ees. Throughout the war andwith varying success, influen-tial congressmen pressed theNavy Department to hire theirpolitical supporters.

As often happens inwartime, the enormous out-pouring of funds from govern-ment coffers for provisioningnew ships and purchasingweapons, supplies, and other

necessities of war stimulated corruption. In 1863,Secretary Welles relieved from duty CommodoreAndrew A. Harwood, Dahlgren’s successor as com-mandant, for his inattention to the misuse of govern-ment funds by some employees. Welles also fired thenaval storekeeper and two master workmen for theirillicit involvement in the sale of scrap copper.

When news of Lee’s surrender at Appomattoxreached the people of Washington on 10 April 1865,navy yard workmen fired salutes with Dahlgren gunsand joined other Washingtonians and military bandswho marched joyously through the streets of thenational capital. Navy yard carpenters and joinershelped decorate the Navy Department building forend-of-war celebrations. All over the capital, flags,

he appointed Dahlgren as head of the Bureau of Ord-nance and allowed him to continue his experimentaland testing work at the yard.

Adding to Dahlgren’s frustration over his failure tosecure a combat command early in the war was con-cern for his son Ulric who hadlost a leg in a skirmish on 6July 1863, just after the Battleof Gettysburg. To honor theofficer, who lay close to deathfrom loss of blood in the Com-mandant’s House, his severedlimb was sealed in the wall ofa new foundry building (208)at the navy yard and a plaqueplaced over the spot. Mysteri-ously, the leg could not befound when the bizarre cryptwas opened years later.

Ultimately, John Dahlgrenwas promoted from comman-der to captain and then rearadmiral and given a combatassignment, command ofthe naval forces besiegingCharleston, South Carolina.Sadly for Dahlgren, this dutydid not bring the ordnance expert the glory he des-perately sought. The conflict demanded one moresacrifice of the dedicated and patriotic navalleader. Ulric was killed leading a cavalry raid nearRichmond.

Dahlgren, his sailors, and the skilled and semi-skilled workmen of the Washington Navy Yard werevital to the success of the Union war effort and loyalcitizens of the United States of America. At the out-break of the war, naval leaders were concerned thatmany workers harbored southern sympathies. In Mayand June of 1862, however, 917 sailors and civilianemployees swore an oath of allegiance to the UnitedStates in a public ceremony at the yard. Only eightworkers refused to take the oath and were fired.

John Wilkes Booth, theassassin of President Lincoln.



bunting, and lighted candles were displayed to markthe happy occasion. Sadness replaced joy on 14April, when actor John Wilkes Booth assassinatedPresident Lincoln, a frequent and welcome visitor tothe navy yard, who was beloved by many of thesailors and workers there.

Booth escaped into Maryland via the navy yardbridge (now the 11th Street Bridge). Between 17 and29 April, the eight men suspected of conspiring withBooth to kill the President were brought to the navyyard. They were put in irons on board monitorSaugus and other warships in the river and keptunder constant guard. Secretary of War Stantondirected that navy yard officials put a canvas bag,with only a hole for eating and breathing, over thehead of each man. The guards also kept a suicidewatch over one of the accused men.

Early on the morning of 27 April, federal authori-ties brought Booth’s body to the yard and placed iton board monitor Montauk. That day, the Army’sSurgeon General carried out an autopsy on Booth in

In April 1865, ArmyDepartment officialsautopsied the body of aman they claimed wasJohn Wilkes Booth onboard monitor Montauk,the vessel on the left inthe photo and similar tomonitor Miantonomoh inthe foreground.

The next act in this assassination drama tookplace a few days later, when an Army guard trans-ferred the eight prisoners from the navy yard to thefederal 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 yardfired a salute every half-hour from noon to sunset tomark the burial in Springfield, Illinois, of PresidentAbraham Lincoln.


Raphael Semmes, thedaring Confederatenaval officer confinedat the navy yard in1865 and 1866.

the presence of an assistant, various Army officers,and a photographer. Even though these activitiesoccurred at the navy yard, under Navy Departmentjurisdiction, Stanton took personal interest in thedisposition of the assassin’s remains. Without theNavy’s knowledge or permission, Army Departmentrepresentatives removed the body from the yard thatafternoon. This action and Stanton’s earlier involve-ment with Booth’s apprehension and death in Vir-ginia have fueled speculation to this day that theSecretary of War was somehow connected with theconspiracy. Some historians even doubt that theremains held at the navy yard were those of Booth.23

The Post-CivilWar Era

35

navy yard building. His one pleasure was viewing theMaryland and Virginia shores from his window.Semmes wrote in a diary that his captors fed him sat-isfactorily and provided him daily with newspapers

and “plenty of water, soap,and towels.”25 In April1866, when Bolles finallydecided that the chargeswere groundless and thepublic’s rage had sub-sided, he persuadedWelles to release Semmes,who returned to Alabamaand retirement.

One of the last acts ofthe Civil War dramaoccurred in February1867, when the steamsloop-of-war Swatara tookon board in Egypt a Lin-coln assassination conspir-ator, John Harrison Sur-ratt, who had fled to firstEngland, then Italy, andfinally Egypt. When

apprehended, Surratt was found dressed in the uni-form of a Zouave of the Pope’s army. Swatara’s cap-tain, Commander William N. Jeffers, clapped Surrattin irons and confined him to the brig for the transat-lantic voyage. The day after Swatara anchored in theAnacostia River, Jeffers had the prisoner rowed to anavy yard wharf and turned over to a U.S. marshalaccompanied by District police.

The postwar years were hard on the Navy. A fleetof 700 commissioned vessels shrank to a force of just52 vessels between 1864 and 1870.26 The oncemighty Potomac Flotilla almost disappeared as its

Anger over Lincoln’s assassination and the bitterlyfought Civil War influenced not only Congressmen butNavy Department leaders during the Reconstructionperiod. In December 1865, Secretary Welles directedthe arrest and confinementat the navy yard of RearAdmiral Raphael Semmes,the commanding officer ofConfederate raiding shipsSumter and Alabama,which had cruised theoceans of the world sinkingmany Union merchant ves-sels. The naval officer wascharged with variousoffenses, but the real rea-son, according to NavyJudge Advocate GeneralJohn A. Bolles, was that

“the exploits of Semmes were by no means forgottenby any one; and they rankled in the memories of thou-sands who had suffered from the depredations of theSumter and the Alabama.”24 Northern newspaperswhipped up the public by reporting that Semmes hadharshly treated prisoners and inspired other misdeeds.A long prison term or even execution of the formerConfederate naval officer were possible outcomes of atrial in 1865.

During the four months it took the Navy to investi-gate the allegations against Semmes, he spent hishours confined under marine guard in the attic of a

Lieutenant William N.Jeffers on board Monitor

during the Civil War. AsChief of the Bureau ofOrdnance during the1870s, Jeffers had a majorimpact on the developmentof rifled naval ordnance.


tions and the efforts of successive commandants didlittle to curb these abuses.

Unfortunately, the Navy Department was alsoguilty of questionable actions with regard to thepolitical process. In 1869, when Radical Republi-cans ruled in Congress, Vice Admiral David DixonPorter, a Civil War hero, issued a directive with theblessing of the Secretary of the Navy that called forall navy yard commandants to ensure that their work-men were loyal to the Grant administration. He stip-ulated that in employment “preference in all casesshould be given to those who have belonged to theUnion party.”27

The post-Civil War years witnessed the materialdecline of the Washington Navy Yard and the Navyitself. Americans wished to recover from the con-flict’s enormous expense in blood and national trea-sure. With no threat to the nation likely at home orfrom abroad, Americans focused on building a pros-perous industrial society and exploiting western agri-cultural lands and mineral resources.

As a result, Congress drastically reduced appropri-ations 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 Depart-

ment tried to reduce the number of workers on the

navy yard payroll. Congressmen, especially the legis-

lators from Maryland, demanded special considera-

tion 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 employ-

ment 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. Polit-

ical 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 regula-

John Surratt, accusedplotter in the assassina-tion of Lincoln, on hisarrival at the navy yardin 1866 (U.S. NavalInstitute).

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 tech-nologies, many developed in the United States andadopted by European powers for their naval forces.The Civil War monitors, gunboats, and wooden-hulledsailing ships got older and increasingly decrepit.

John A. Dahlgren, who once again served as Com-mandant of the Washington Navy Yard, from 1869 to1870, was a metaphor for this melancholy period ofnaval history. He had lost his health and his sonUlric to the war. And the brilliance of his reputationas a weapons designer had faded as newer designsgained favor. Dahlgren, whose name was synonymouswith the Washington Navy Yard for many years in the19th century, died from a sudden heart attack in theCommandant’s House on 12 July 1870.

Much of Dahlgren’s pioneering work with ordnancewas carried on by Captain William Jeffers, who wasassigned duty as the assistant to the Chief of theBureau of Ordnance at the Washington Navy Yard onthe death of his illustrious predecessor. Jeffers, editorof the well-regarded Ordnance Instruction for the U.S.Navy, pushed for the manufacture by the Navy ofrifled guns to replace the smoothbore weaponsfavored by Dahlgren. Because of the latter’s opposi-tion and lack of funding support for new ordnance,Jeffers’ recommendations were not heeded during his

Gunboat Nipsic (or pos-sibly Yantic), the lastnaval vessel built at theWashington Navy Yard,tied up in front of thewest shiphouse in theearly 1870s.

eight-year tenure with the bureau. But Jeffers’“strong and effective leadership [provided] the prin-cipal impetus for most of the improvements in mater-ial and expertise in the seventies” that paid benefitsin the 1880s when the Navy began rebuilding.28

He did oversee the rifling of the old smoothboresin the Navy’s arsenal that gave the guns greateraccuracy and range. At his urging, the Navy adoptedbreech-loaded boat guns and the development ofofficers skilled in ordnance design and production.Jeffers also helped inspire American steel manufac-turers to develop the equipment and processes forproducing the large, breech-loaded guns that wouldarm America’s steel navy of the late 19th century. Bythe time he retired, his ideas about ordnance hadtaken hold. In the words of one scholar, “Jeffers’foresight and persistence during a so-called periodof decay and stagnation resulted in substantialimprovement in the quality of domestic gun steel, inknowledge of information about gun design, and inprofessional expertise that contributed significantlyto the resurgence of American naval power duringthe eighteen eighties.” He added that, “with theexception of Dahlgren, Jeffers had “more impact onthe development of naval ordnance than any otherwho held the position of bureau chief.”29 Much ofJeffers’ work was done at the Washington Navy Yard.


USS Atlanta, one of thenew steel ships thatentered the fleet in thelate 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 Facto-

ry, formally established on 14 August

1886, slowly took shape as the

Navy enlarged existing

buildings and fitted

them with heavy-

lift 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 fac-

tory 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, Ital-

ians, and Russians constructed huge water-filled

The Navy’s fortunes improved in the 1880s as thenation once again paid attention to internationalaffairs and considered rebuilding its militarystrength. Foreign naval forces increasingly appearedin the Caribbean and the Pacific asEuropean governments soughtoverseas colonies andglobal influence. Amer-icans too began toconsider outletsabroad for theirmanufacturedgoods, farm pro-duce, and mis-sionary zeal. Amer-ican nationalistsconcluded that sincethe United States was fastbecoming a strong nation, theNavy should be technologicallyadvanced and militarily powerful. In 1881 and 1882,Secretary of the Navy William H. Hunt and his suc-cessor, William E. Chandler, recommended to Con-gress the construction of four, all-steel warships.Within a few years of their authorization, cruisersAtlanta, Boston, and Chicago and despatch vesselDolphin—the ABCD ships—put to sea, inauguratinga new era in naval history.

In 1883, President Chester A. Arthur asked theSecretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy toappoint a Gun Foundry Board and have it investi-gate the optimum approach to ordnance design andmanufacture. The board members spent the nextyear visiting steel mills in the United States andgun foundries in Great Britain, France, and Russia.On their return, they recommended establishmentof separate gun foundries in the United States forthe Army and the Navy.

39

Left. Naval Gun Factoryworkers add finishingtouches to the guns thatwill be used by navallanding parties.

Below. Under theirinstructor’s watchful eye,sailors in the SeamanGunners Class work thecomponents of a largegun on the navy yardwaterfront.



Right. Workers of thepattern and joinershop pose in front oftheir workplace forthis 1905 photo-graph. From the earli-est days of the navyyard, many residentsof Washington, D.C.,earned their living atthe naval facility.

Below. Constructionbegan in February1897 on the Experi-mental Model Basin,where the Navy wouldtest the hull designs ofnew steel battleships,cruisers, and otherwarships entering thefleet. To the left ofthe construction isBuilding 1, and tothe right, the eastshiphouse.

basins to test hydrodynamic properties of less-than-

full-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-test-

ing basin at the navy yard.Work on the Experimental Model Basin (EMB), as

the facility became known, was begun in February1897 under the direction of Naval Constructor DavidW. Taylor. Navy pile drivers embedded pilings deepinto the soil near the navy yard waterfront. The PennBridge Company of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania,removed soil and reinforced the pilings with thicklayers of concrete, broken stone, and asphalt. Thecontractor then built a basin that was 470 feet long,42 feet wide, and almost 15 feet deep and could holda million gallons of fresh water provided by the Dis-trict water system. The constructors covered the basinwith a 500-foot-long, brick building crowned by along skylight. A 40-ton towing carriage built by the

Above. Rear AdmiralDavid W. Taylor, a pio-neer of hydrodynamicsin the United States.

Left. Managers andworkers watch as waterfills the newly builtExperimental ModelBasin in the early sum-mer of 1898. For thenext half-century, theNavy tested thousandsof hull models at thestate-of-the-art facility.


Right. A civilian scientistprepares a hull modelfor testing in the water-filled model basin.

Below. The ExperimentalModel Basin (Building70) just before its dedi-cation on 4 July 1899.The shiphouse to theleft, a waterfront land-mark for much of the19th century, wasdemolished in 1901.


“USS Maine Blowing Upin Havana Harbor on 15February 1898” (NavyArt Collection, artistunknown).


Washington Navy Yard. The press and the public,including yard workers during lunch breaks,thronged the proceedings, which lasted from Sep-tember to December. In the end, Admiral GeorgeDewey, the hero of Manila Bay and President of the

Court, spoke for the other officers when heconcluded that Schley had issued mis-

leading reports and had not fol-lowed orders promptly or with

great professional skill. Presi-dent Theodore Rooseveltrejected Schley’s appeal toreverse the court’s judg-ment. Above all, the Presi-dent wanted to end thepublic squabble betweennaval leaders, for he hadbig plans for the U.S. Navyin the new century.

Convinced by Roosevelt,the far-thinking strategist

Alfred Thayer Mahan, andother “navalists” that the new

international stature of the Unit-ed States demanded a powerful

battle fleet, Congress appropriatedhuge sums of money to build one. From

1901 to 1905, the nation supported the con-struction of ten battleships, four armored cruisers,

and seventeen other warships. The Naval Gun Facto-ry once again worked on a 24-hour schedule,employing more than 2,000 workers to produce thehundreds of guns that soon joined the fleet. Directingthe factory during this enormous growth period wasCaptain E.H.C. Leutze.

For the first time in the Navy’s history, the yardbegan to rely on other government and commercialplants to produce much of the ordnance needed forthe new fleet. The Navy Department enlisted the ser-vices of outside contractors and the Army’s Watervli-et Arsenal, which manufactured guns to Navy speci-fications, to keep up with the building schedules.

William Sellers Company of Washington rested ontwo pairs of steel rails running parallel to the basin. Areciprocating steam engine that drove three GeneralElectric dynamos and four motors powered the car-riage, allowing it to tow a model at speeds rangingfrom 0.5 to 18 knots. When Taylorannounced completion of the facility onIndependence Day of 1899, theExperimental Model Basin was thelargest such facility in the world.

The nation went to war withSpain as the model basin wasunder construction. But theSpanish-American War of

1898 ended so quickly thatthe current operations of theNaval Gun Factory had littleeffect on the outcome of theconflict. The ordnance facilityproved its worth, however,when the ships of the U.S. Navy,armed with guns manufacturedmostly in Washington during the1880s and 1890s, devastated Spanishflotillas in the battles of Manila Bay andSantiago de Cuba. Guns produced during the warby the 2,255 workers, who toiled in shifts in a 24-hour, 6-day work cycle, entered the fleet in greatnumber in the years afterward.

There was another connection between the navyyard and the Spanish-American War. Rear AdmiralWilliam T. Sampson, commander of the NorthAtlantic Squadron, and Commodore Winfield ScottSchley, commander of the Flying Squadron andSampson’s subordinate, engaged in a nasty postwardebate in the press over each other’s wartime per-formance. In 1901, at Schley’s request, Secretary ofthe Navy John D. Long convened a court of inquiryin the Sail Loft over the Gunner’s Workshop at the

Rear Admiral William T.Sampson.


needs of the President, the Secretary of the Navy,and other high-ranking government officials.Between 1902 and 1929, converted yachts Sylph andMayflower alternated in that duty. Roosevelt andPresident William Howard Taft boarded the vesselsat the yard for day-long outings in the vicinity of thenation’s capital, visits to the fleet in the Atlantic, orcruises to New York and New England. The elegantlyfurnished Mayflower, a two-masted vessel displacing2,690 tons and capable of making 17 knots, servedas the site at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for diplo-matic negotiations ending the Russo-Japanese War.

President Roosevelt’s decision to send what cameto be called “The Great White Fleet” around theworld to highlight America’s new prominence on theinternational stage compelled the Naval Gun Factoryto rush the completion of needed ordnance equip-ment. In the three months before the Atlantic Fleetdeparted from Hampton Roads, Virginia, in 1907 thegun factory provided the warships there with146,000 pieces of manufactured ordnance, includingmore than 11,000 spare parts, 432 telescopes, 314gun 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 fire-

control equipment for long-range shooting. Accurate

gunfire was critical to the combat success of 20th-

century “Dreadnought” battleships.President Theodore Roosevelt, his successors, and

U.S. naval leaders of the new, powerful fleet desiredto put to sea in their own “flagships.” During the late19th century, former steamer Despatch and the steel-hulled Dolphin, operating from the Washington NavyYard, had occasionally transported presidents andsecretaries of the Navy on diplomatic voyages andPotomac River excursions. Beginning in 1898, how-ever, the Navy formally assigned vessels to the Wash-ington Navy Yard to serve the diplomatic and social

Sailors at the navy yardprepare a casket for aMarch 1912 ceremonialprocession through thestreets of Washington toArlington NationalCemetery. The fallensailor and many of hisshipmates died in theexplosion of battleshipMaine.


156 sets of training gear, 150 firing locks, and 130guns. The gun factory shipped additional material toSan Francisco while the fleet, under Rear AdmiralRobley D. “Fighting Bob” Evans, made its passagethrough the South Atlantic, around Cape Horn, andnorth along the Latin American coast to the U.S.West Coast. When the fleet steamed from San Fran-cisco en route to New Zealand, Australia, the Philip-pines, China, and Japan in 1908, it was well armedfor the historic, around-the-world cruise.

Significant improvements were made to the gunfactory during the years before World War I. Oilgradually replaced coal as the fossil fuel to fire boil-ers. The Bureau of Ordnance installed an 80-toncrane in the gun shop and enlarged the building tohandle the huge 14-inch naval rifles the facilitybegan to produce. Electric and gasoline-poweredvehicles 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 Birming-

ham, 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. Sev-

eral attempts to launch aircraft with the device

failed, but on 12 November 1912, a modified cata-

pult propelled Lieutenant T. G. “Spuds” Ellyson and

his plane into the air.

Like many boys beforeand since, these visitorspose for the camera onthe barrel of a gun dis-played at the navy yard.


ness of the aeroplane in navies, indeveloping a practical catapult forthe launching of aeroplanes fromships, in assisting in the practicalsolution of the hydroaeroplane bythe production in association withothers of the flying boat, in havingbeen instrumental in the introduc-tion into our halls of Congress ofbills for a National AerodynamicLaboratory, and a Competitive Test,and through his perseverance andable efforts in advancing theprogress of Aeronautics in manyother channels.”

On 9 October 1913, Acting Sec-retary of the Navy Franklin D. Roo-sevelt designated Chambers theSenior Member of a newly estab-lished Board on Naval AeronauticalService. The board, whose othermembers included Richardson,Commander Carlo B. Brittain, Com-mander Samuel S. Robison, Lieu-tenant Manley H. Simons, Lieu-tenant A. A. Cunningham, andLieutenant John H. Towers, wascharged with planning the organiza-tion of a Naval Aeronautic Service.These men fought an uphill, butultimately successful struggle toconvince skeptical Navy leadersthat aviation could play a prominentrole in future operations for controlof the sea. Chambers and Richard-son, for instance, energeticallyovercame funding shortages andpushed equipment testing toadvance the cause.

These were exciting years forAmerican naval aviation. On 9March 1914, the Navy establishedits first wind tunnel at the navyyard’s Experimental Model Basin.Within months, the facility begantesting less-than-full-size airplane

October 1911, Chambers describeda promising test of the new Forlani-ni hydrovanes for use as floats withseaplanes. The very next day hesang the praises of heavy oil (ordiesel) engines and turbine enginesto Glenn H. Curtiss, the soon-to-be-famous designer and manufacturerof airplanes for the Navy, observingthat “this turbine is the surest stepof all, and the aeroplane manufac-turer who gets in with it first isgoing to do wonders.”

On 31 July 1912, off Annapolis,Maryland, Lieutenant Theodore G.“Spuds” Ellyson piloted a NavyCurtiss A–1 as it was catapultedfrom the deck of a warship in thefirst attempt at such a launch innaval aviation history. The NavalGun Factory had built the catapult,a device powered by compressedair, based on an initial designdrawn up in Chambers’ office in theNavy Department. Midway throughthis first launch, however, a gust ofwind caught the plane, which wasnot secured to the catapult, andpitched it into the water. Despite itsinitial failure, the Navy refined andstandardized the methods of cata-pult launching, forever changingthe nature of naval warfare.

President William Howard Taftwas so impressed with the work ofChambers, Richardson, and theNaval Gun Factory that he readilyendorsed the recommendation ofthe Secretary of the Navy to lookinto establishing an aerodynamicallaboratory at the navy yard. In fur-ther recognition of Chambers’unique contributions, late in 1912the Aeronautical Society presentedthe naval officer with a medal forhis “unusual achievements in beingthe first to demonstrate the useful-

The EarlyDays ofNavalAviation

The Washington Navy Yardbecame closely associated with thedevelopment of naval aviation soonafter farsighted strategists and air-craft designers concluded that alighter-than-air craft, an airplane,could revolutionize warfare. Withina few years of Orville and WilburWright’s historic flight at KittyHawk, North Carolina, on 17December 1903, innovative navalofficers reasoned that aircraft couldhelp the fleet’s battleships deliveraccurate fire at great distances byspotting where rounds hit the water.They also understood that planeslaunched from ships could locateand then bomb an enemy fleet farover the horizon. Because theWashington Navy Yard was one ofthe service’s principal design, test-ing, and production plants, and wasclose to powerful political leadersin the nation’s capital, aviationenthusiasts selected the facility toinvestigate promising concepts anddevelop new equipment.

Instrumental to this effort wasLieutenant Holden C. Richardson,the Navy’s first aviation engineeringand maintenance officer, who wasassigned to the navy yard on 10October 1911. He worked for anoth-er aviation pioneer, Captain Wash-ington I. Chambers, who was burst-ing with ideas. In a letter dated 16


models at various wind speeds anddirections.

Lieutenant Richardson, whoearned his wings on 12 April 1915to become Naval Aviator #13, andhis shop at the navy yard continuedto work on catapult designs. On 16April 1915, a catapult fabricated bythe Naval Gun Factory propelledLieutenant Patrick N. L. Bellingerand his AB-2 flying boat into the airfrom a barge positioned off Pensaco-la, Florida; this was the Navy’s firstsuccessful catapult launch of an air-craft from a waterborne vessel.

On 10 July 1915, the Secretary ofthe Navy authorized establishment atthe yard of the Aeronautical EngineLaboratory that soon began investi-

gating various propulsion machineryfor the fighters, light bombers, andscout planes that the Navy wouldneed when the United States went towar against Germany in April 1917.To handle the increased workloadbrought on by war, on 19 October1917 the Navy established the Ana-costia Naval Air Station across theriver from the navy yard. By thesummer of 1918, most aircraft test-ing took place at the air station.

After the war, aviation work con-tinued at the navy yard, although ona smaller scale. On 13 June 1923,President Warren G. Harding touredLangley (CV 1), the Navy’s first air-craft carrier, then at the navy yard.The ship became the primary vessel

for testing the Navy’s naval air warconcepts and tactics. During the1930s and early 1940s, the NavalGun Factory and the ExperimentalModel Basin developed, tested, andmanufactured a range of engines,airframes, bombs and rockets, andother aviation equipment. TheNavy’s requirements for aviationresources were so enormous bythen, however, that other navalfacilities around the countryeclipsed the navy yard in terms ofimportance. Still, one can creditthe Washington Navy Yard with amajor role in the birth and earlydevelopment of U.S. naval aviation.

Mark L. Evans

A seaplane is launched by catapult from a navy yard barge operating in theAnacostia River during tests conducted in 1926.


Above. President andMrs. William HowardTaft, U.S. and Argentinecivilian officials, andnaval officers of bothnations pose for a photoon board Sarmientowhen the Argentine Navywarship arrived at theWashington Navy Yardin October 1910 for anofficial visit to the Unit-ed States. Photo cour-tesy of Captain HugoDiettrich, ArgentineNavy (Ret.)

Left. USS Mayflower(PY 1) steams on theAnacostia River past theArmy War College.



Right. The Great WhiteFleet gets underwayfrom Hampton Roads,Virginia, in December1907.

Below. PresidentTheodore Rooseveltspeaks to sailors of theGreat White Fleet atthe end of their globe-circling cruise in Febru-ary 1909.

Left. The early days ofnaval aviation. A CurtissPusher plane takes offfrom the deck of Birm-ingham (CS 2) on 14November 1910.

Below. A navy yard crewprepares to test a cata-pult for launching theCurtiss seaplane.


Ordnance for a NavySecond 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 three-

year program anticipated the building of ten battle-

ships, 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 pro-

duction 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 exam-

ple, the triple 14-inch gun mounts for new battleships

Oklahoma, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Arizona.

This honeymoon did not last long. German sub-

marine 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 ofwar. Naval Gun Factoryworkers process steel forone of the thousands ofguns needed by the U.S.fleet in World War I.


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 build-

ings 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 wave-

making machine.This increased capacity resulted in the wartime

production of hundreds of guns, and thousands ofbreech mechanisms, spare parts, gun sights, and12,000 pieces of wireless, or radio equipment, andtens of thousands of cartridge cases. Most of themines used in the North Sea Mine Barrage, a hugeminefield laid between Norway and Scotland to

of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s 18-inch guns, Amer-ican 16-inch rifles were the largest and most power-ful warship guns ever produced and served the U.S.Navy in every war it fought during the late 20th cen-tury.

The Naval Act of 1916 demanded a multifoldincrease in the gun factory’s industrial capacity. Inthe next two years, the Navy bought land on the eastand west sides of the yard, filled in land on thewaterfront, and hired thousands of new workers. ByApril 1917, the 6,000 gun factory employees wereworking at fever pitch in three shifts to prepare forthe imminent U.S. entry into the war. By the end of1918, the labor force had swelled to more than10,000 workers.

Like their compatriots around the nation, theseworkers enthusiastically supported the war effort. Themaster mechanics of the shops, chief clerks of offices,and family members of navy yard employees bought$225,000 worth of War Savings Certificates and ThriftStamps during the war. Employees held dance bene-fits, put their spare pennies in empty shell casingsplaced around the yard, and in other ways contributedan average of $3,800 each month to the Navy Depart-

A tractor mount and7-inch naval rifle manu-factured by the gun fac-tory are parked in frontof Tingey House priorto their shipment to thebattlefield in Franceduring World War I.

55

hinder German submarine operations, were manufac-

tured 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 sub-

marines. 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 mate-

rial at the yard tripled from 1916 to 1918.

One of the gun factory’s most stellar accomplish-

ments 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 Depart-

ment 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 experi-

ence could be accommodated. The Navy thorough-

ly trained the men at naval proving grounds in

Above. Patriotic feelingran high at the gun facto-ry in World War I.Employees routinelybought “Liberty Bonds”to support the war effortwhen they received theirwages at the installation’spay wagon.

Right. The Navy YardChapter of the AmericanRed Cross in World War I.

Ordnance for a Navy Second to None


Indian Head, Maryland; Sandy Hook, New Jersey;and the Naval Gun Factory in Washington; it testedthese weapons at Sandy Hook. Between April andJuly 1918, the first railway gun mount was com-pleted, transported to France, tested once more,and deployed to a position opposite the Germangun harassing Paris. When German aircraft spottedthe weapon being moved to the front, the enemyceased shelling the French capital and moved theirown long-range weapon out of harm’s way. By theend of the war, five U.S. naval railway batterieswere bombarding enemy rail facilities near Laonand the road and rail links to the German forcesbetween Verdun and Metz.

The World War I era proved to be a productiveperiod for the Experimental Model Basin and anintellectually creative time for its guiding force, RearAdmiral Taylor. His book, The Speed and Power ofShips, which was based on the systematic investiga-tions and analyses done at EMB, brought the admiral

Left. During World War I,Secretary of the NavyJosephus Daniels madeinspirational remarks tonavy yard workers andsailors assembled inLeutze Park and accept-ed their $5,000 checkfor war bonds.

Below. American sailorsprepare to emplace amine in the North SeaMine 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 previ-

ous recipients. The award recognized Taylor’s “out-

standing achievement in marine architecture, for rev-

olutionary 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 20th-

century warships. One historian compared the “pre-

renown 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 Con-

structor and Chief of the Bureau of Construction and

Repair. Between 1914 and 1923, the admiral over-

saw 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 hydrody-

namics.”32 EMB designed and built many of the

Navy’s early aircraft catapults and seaplanes and

U.S. Navy submarinechasers search forGerman U-boats inEuropean waters.

Ordnance for a Navy Second to None 57


Taylor” cruiser Olympia

“with its forward-cutting

sharp bow” to the “after

Taylor” Iowa-class battle-

ship New Jersey, “with its

swept-back, curved bow

and a forward-jutting bulb

under the water line.” He

observed that the “charac-

teristic bows of later high-

speed ships reflect the

Taylor lines so widely that, without too much exagger-

ation, one could regard modern naval fleets them-

selves 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 navalrifle mounted on a spe-cially built railway carand crewed by Americansailors fires a shelltoward German positionsin France during WorldWar I. The navy yarddesigned and assembledeight naval railwaybatteries.

Left.The model of a sea-plane in the Experimen-tal Model Basin’s windtunnel.

59

Following the accidental loss of several sub-marines during the 1920s, the Navy established anEMB experimental diving unit that worked to designbetter diving and salvage gear and improve underwa-

ter cutting and weldingtechniques. In 1927, theNavy also established theDeep Diving School in anavy yard building on theAnacostia. The sailors weretaught how to operate withcompressed air and an oxy-gen-helium mixture atdepths as great as 320 feet.

As it became clear in the1930s that the Navy wouldbe designing and construct-ing a new, more modernfleet, naval leaders decidedthat the hull and airframe-testing facilities at theWashington Navy Yard wereno longer adequate. Notonly was the model basintoo small but physicallyunsuitable. In the words ofone historian, “by the mid-

1930s, the basin was forty years old and, in somerespects, quite decrepit. Periodic river flooding [likethe flood of 1936], fire damage to the building, settle-ment of the foundation into the soft soil on the bank ofthe Anacostia, and recurrent repairs and cleaning ofthe aging equipment all took a toll of workdays.”36 Inaddition, “the basin had become technically inade-quate to meet the demands of both commercial usersand the rapidly modernizing Navy.”37

So, under the driving force of Rear Admiral EmoryS. Land, Chief of the Bureau of Construction and

Ordnance production begun during World War I con-tinued to some degree at the Naval Gun Factorybetween the world wars, but in the early 1920s Con-gress drastically reduced naval funding. In an era ofstrong antiwar and isola-tionist feeling, some Ameri-cans hoped to limit expen-ditures for military forcesand overseas ventures. Inaddition, as a result of theWashington Naval Treaty of1922, the United States,Great Britain, Italy, France,and Japan agreed to limitthe size of their fleets byscrapping ships and endingmuch new construction.Naturally, there was little

need for new ordnance. InFebruary 1922, the navyyard discharged 1,500workers and by the end of1923, employed fewer than 3,000 people.

In this lean period, the navy yard concentrated onimproving airplane and submarine equipment for thefleet. The Experimental Model Basin carried outaerodynamic testing of aircraft, for which the Navyshowed increasing interest during the interwar years.A small staff working at EMB but under the directionof the new Bureau of Aeronautics investigatedimprovements to airfoil, fuselage, cockpit, and wind-shield designs for fighters, seaplanes, blimps, rigidairships, and kite balloons.

Between the World Wars

This contemporary drawingreflects the industrial activ-ity continued at the gunfactory in the immediatepost-World War I years.


Navy yard workers hon-ored in 1920. Employ-ees commonly joined theworkforce as appren-tices, learned ordnancemanufacturing skills, andretired after decades ofloyal and productive ser-vice for the Navy.

the group had the sad duty of performing “Nearer MyGod to Thee” as the President’s body was placed onboard a train for transportation to Washington. Hard-

ing’s successor, Calvin Coolidge, was soimpressed with the quality of the band’s

music that he readily signed a special actof Congress in 1925 which stipulatedthat “hereafter the band now stationedat the Navy Yard, known as the NavyYard Band, shall be designated as theUnited States Navy Band.”39 Duringthe 1920s the Navy Band began itstraditional yearly world tours to repre-sent the U.S. Navy.

The navy yard continued to serveduring the interwar years as the U.S.

Navy’s preeminent ceremonial site in theWashington area. On 11 June 1927, light

cruiser Memphis arrived at the yard carryingColonel Charles A. Lindberg, the first person to

fly a plane non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean fromthe United States to France. President Coolidge hadinsisted that the American hero be returned home ina U.S. warship. More than 9,000 admirers crowded

Repair, the Navy pressed Congress to build a newmodel basin in the Washington area. In 1937, Secre-tary of the Navy Claude Swanson, with PresidentRoosevelt’s hearty endorsement, named theNavy’s newly constructed hull-testing facili-ty in honor of the Navy’s hydrodynamicgenius. In the years following construc-tion of the David Taylor Model Basinin 1939, an increasing number ofoperations were shifted from theWashington Navy Yard to the newCarderock, Maryland facility.

These interwar years also saw theUnited States Navy Band become theservice’s premier musical organiza-tion. During World War I, the NavyDepartment had combined a 16-piecegroup from battleship Kansas with a 17-piece unit serving presidential yachtMayflower to form the “Washington Navy YardBand.”38 When President Warren G. Harding traveledthroughout the West and to Alaska in 1923, he wasaccompanied by thirty-five Navy bandsmen. When asudden heart attack felled Harding in San Francisco,


Above. Women were ded-icated employees of thenavy yard from the earli-est days of its existence.Mrs. Almira V. Brown,still an employee at age81 in 1920, joined theworkforce during theCivil War.

Right. Throughout itshistory, the navy yardacted as part of theWashington, D.C. com-munity. In the yearsafter World War I, thecommand sponsoredCamp Good Will andother summer camps forchildren of employeesand local indigent fami-lies.


Above Left. Navy yardemployees worked andoften played together.Commandant J. J. Rabythrew out the first ballof the 1920 baseballseason.

Above Right. The navyyard baseball teamscores a success.

Left. Impressed with thequality of music playedby the Navy Yard Band,in 1925 Congress passedand President CalvinCoolidge signed a specialact designating thegroup as the UnitedStates Navy Band. Inthis view, the band per-forms at a navy yardconcert during the late1920s.

Soon after Franklin D. Roosevelt was electedPresident in 1932, he directed the Navy to operate anew presidential yacht from the Washington NavyYard. For that purpose, in 1933 the Navy acquiredthe relatively new wooden yacht Sequoia. In 1936,Potomac took on that responsibility and Sequoiabecame the “barge” for the Secretary of the Navy.For many years afterward, both vessels were commonsights on the navy yard waterfront.40

into the navy yard between the maingate and the waterfront to catch aglimpse of “Lucky Lindy.” In theirenthusiasm to get close to the pilot ofthe “Spirit of St. Louis,” fans,reporters, and photographers surgedpast Marine guards and temporarybarriers in a mad rush. Not untilLindberg’s car had passed throughLatrobe Gate was order once againestablished.

The Washington Naval Treaty hadcurtailed construction of new battle-ships and their heavy ordnance, butthe gun factory kept its workers busyduring the late 1920s manufacturingnew 5-inch and 8-inch guns for cruisers and recondi-tioning existing 14-inch and 16-inch guns on the oldbattleships. The labor force totaled more than 4,000workers in 1929. Despite the London Naval Treaty of1930 mandating warship reductions, and PresidentHerbert Hoover’s decision to drastically cut navalconstruction and other government expenditures tostave off an economic depression, the gun factorycontinued to turn out ordnance in the early 1930s.


Above. The gun factorydesigned and testedequipment for the newaviation arm. In June1923, Langley (CV 1),the Navy’s first aircraftcarrier, tied up at thenavy yard.

Right. Charles A. Lind-berg, America’s heroafter his daring andunprecedented soloflight across the Atlantic,disembarks from cruiserMemphis (CL 13) at thenavy yard in June 1927.

who later received a Nobel PeacePrize for this successful effort,introduced Russian and Japanesedignitaries to one another on herdecks, and they discussed keyissues in her compartments.

The presidential yacht continuedto serve the social needs of thenation’s principal elected leader.The widower Woodrow Wilsonfound Mayflower an ideal setting forcourting Edith Bolling Galt, whobecame his second wife. He likedMayflower’s victorian ambiance andhe could find refuge on board frominquisitive Washington reporters.Calvin Coolidge frequently usedMayflower to entertain his friendsand the press corps. The taciturnand frugal New Englander madesure, however, that the press corpsdid not have second helpings at thebuffet table! With the onset of theGreat Depression in 1929, Presi-dent Herbert Hoover orderedMayflower and Sylph decommis-sioned as economy measures.

Sequoia (AG 23), unlike theyachts before and after her, was nota blue-water, oceangoing vessel.She was built in 1925 as a civiliancabin cruiser for inland waterwayoperations. The Navy took charge ofher when President Hoover indicat-ed he had official and social needsfor the vessel—he especially likedto fish. When Franklin D. Rooseveltrequested a larger, oceangoing ves-sel for his use in 1936, the Navytransferred Sequoia to the Secretaryof the Navy. The vessel operated insupport of the Navy’s head civilianfor the next four decades.

When commissioned in 1936,Potomac (AG 25), a former CoastGuard cutter, became the new presi-dential yacht. The President and

dent with a means for escaping tem-porarily the pressures of his officeand the hot, humid Washingtonsummers.

Sylph (PY 12), purchased in1898, was the first naval vesselassigned the primary duties of car-rying the chief executive of theUnited States to and from officialfunctions and hosting his social out-ings. Presidents McKinley,Theodore Roosevelt, and WilliamHoward Taft spent many leisurelyhours on board Sylph while she wasanchored off the coasts of New Yorkand New England. Traditionally,when the President was assigned anew yacht, the old one was handeddown to the Secretary of the Navy,so Sylph served as the Secretary’spersonal conveyance, from 1905 to1929, after Mayflower became thepresidential yacht.

Mayflower (PY 1), the largest,grandest, and longest-serving of thepresidential yachts, was built inScotland in 1896. Almost the size ofa World War II destroyer escort, theyacht boasted a crew of 171 men,including bandsmen and Marineguards. Commissioned originally asa gunboat for the Spanish-AmericanWar, Mayflower operated off Cubaand transported Admiral of theFleet 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 symbolizetheir nation’s military and industrialpower and their personal stature. Inthat regard, Mayflower served as thevenue for the 1905 diplomaticnegotiations sponsored by PresidentTheodore Roosevelt to end theRusso-Japanese War. Roosevelt,

ThePresidentialYachts

For more than fifty years, theWashington Navy Yard was thehome port for yachts and other ves-sels serving the diplomatic andsocial needs of the President of theUnited States.

Despatch and Dolphin, while notformally designated presidentialyachts, were the first U.S. navalvessels to be employed in “Presi-dential service” when assigned tothe navy yard. In the days beforeradio communication these faststeamers transported messagesbetween shore-based headquartersand the fleet. Despatch, the formermerchant steamer America pur-chased by the Navy in 1873, hostedthe President, the Secretary of theNavy, and other high-ranking gov-ernment officials in their visits tothe fleet for naval reviews andshort-term cruises on the PotomacRiver from 1880 to 1891. Whencommissioned in the mid to late1880s, despatch vessel Dolphin wasone of the first steel vessels built forthe modern Navy. From 1885 toWorld War I, Dolphin routinely car-ried out her message-deliveryresponsibility, but on a number ofoccasions embarked the President.In 1897, for instance, the shiptransported President WilliamMcKinley to New York City for aceremony at Ulysses S. Grant’stomb. During the late 19th century,these vessels provided the Presi-


Nixon and Gerald Ford conductedsocial activities and hosted foreigndignitaries on board Sequoia, butthey were the last chief executivesto do so. In 1977, President JimmyCarter, determined to rid the gov-ernment of ostentation, ordered theyacht sold. Many Americans sharedhis view, so there was little opposi-tion to the action. In another senseselling the vessel was appropriate,since in the modern era of long-range aircraft, nuclear weapons,and intercontinental ballistic mis-siles, presidential yachts no longersymbolized for most Americans thepower and majesty of the UnitedStates. For much of the 20th centu-ry, however, the Washington NavyYard has witnessed history throughits visitors, as presidents, emperors,kings and queens, and other worldleaders passed through LatrobeGate to embark in the presidentialyachts on the Anacostia River.

Jack A. Green

Mrs. Roosevelt embarked on severaloccasions for cruises in the Chesa-peake Bay and to Florida and theBahamas. In 1939, the Presidentand First Lady hosted the King andQueen of Great Britain on board thevessel during a short day-trip toGeorge Washington’s Mount Vernonestate. In 1941, President Rooseveltembarked in Potomac for a voyageto Cape Cod, Massachusetts, wherehe secretly transferred to cruiserAugusta, which carried him toArgentia Bay, Nova Scotia, for ameeting with British Prime MinisterWinston Churchill. The two leadersreached agreement on the historicAtlantic Charter that defined Alliedgoals in World War II.

To provide the President with asafer wartime retreat, the Navyestablished what Roosevelt calledShangri La, now known as CampDavid, in the Catoctin Mountains ofMaryland. Initially, the command-ing officer of the presidential yacht

was responsible for the operation ofCamp David.

After World War II and Roo-sevelt’s death, the Navy selectedanother yacht for President Harry S.Truman. Williamsburg (AGC 369),which was built in 1931 and hadserved as a gunboat and a flagshipduring World War II, transportedthe President to his Key West,Florida summer White House, toPhiladelphia for the annual Army-Navy game, and to other East Coastdestinations. The vessel also hosteddisabled veterans taking excursionsto Mount Vernon. President DwightD. Eisenhower used Williamsburgjust once and in 1954 ordered theship decommissioned as an econo-my measure.

President John F. Kennedy madeuse of the Secretary of the Navy’syacht Sequoia when he needed toentertain important guests, as hedid with Pakistan’s President AyubKhan in 1961. Presidents Richard

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


Of greater significance was Roosevelt’s decisionsoon after taking office to stimulate national recoveryfrom the Great Depression by increasing naval con-struction. He was also concerned that Congress hadfailed to maintain even the low number of capitalships and guns allowed the United States in the navallimitation treaties. He persuaded Congress to pass theVinson-Trammell Act, which provided for warshipconstruction in the categories regulated by thetreaties. During the next several years, the Naval GunFactory produced an impressive quantity of newweapons and ordnance equipment. The workforce,numbering almost 8,000 by 1934, produced new navalrifles ranging from 5-inches to 16-inches, sights, gundirectors, and torpedo tubes. The expiration of theLondon Naval Treaty in 1936 and the increasinglyaggressive actions of Germany and Italy in Europe andJapan in the Far East stimulated Congress to approveeven more construction for what would become a “twoocean navy.” Shipyards began building new battle-ships, destroyers, and submarines. In May 1939, Con-gress authorized production of 3,000 aircraft and a 20percent increase in the warship strength of the Navy.


Above. Washington resi-dent Thomas King servedhis country as a “BuffaloSoldier” in the famed 9thU.S. Cavalry Regimentand in the years afterWorld War I as a loyalemployee of the Washing-ton Navy Yard. Courtesyof Carl Cole

Left.Throughout its his-tory, the navy yard hassuffered from flooding ofthe Anacostia River.Surging waters inundatedbuildings close to thewaterfront during theflood of 1936.

67Between the World Wars

That year, as Europe edged toward war, the navyyard manufactured 383 naval rifles of all calibersand reconditioned another 764. Various shops pro-duced over 18,000 spare parts and almost 6,000optical pieces.

The Washington Navy Yard provided a setting forthe meeting of leaders who would lead their nationsin the second global conflict of the 20th century. On9 June 1939, the President and Mrs. Roosevelt wel-comed Their Highnesses, the King and Queen ofGreat 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 informal ceremonies. Potomac, flying the flag of thePresident of the United States and the banner of HisMajesty, the King of Great Britain, got under way justafter noon and shaped a course for President GeorgeWashington’s Mount Vernon estate. As the vesselheaded down the Anacostia River for the afternoon’sexcursion, the Washington Navy Yard ceremonialbattery fired a 21-gun salute and the crowd cheered.The embarked leaders would enjoy few suchmoments of peace in the months and years ahead.

President and Mrs. Her-bert Hoover converse withCommander Louis J. Gul-liver, Commanding Officerof Constitution, when theNavy’s oldest commis-sioned warship visited thenavy yard in November1931.


Left. The yacht Potomaccomes alongside thenavy yard dock withthe President and Mrs.Roosevelt and the Kingand Queen of GreatBritain embarked duringthe royal visit to Americain June 1939.

Below. First LadyEleanor Roosevelt,Queen Elizabeth, KingGeorge VI, PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt,and his Naval Aide,Captain Daniel J.Callaghan (who receiveda posthumous Medal ofHonor for extraordinaryvalor in World War II),appear at the rail ofPotomac.

69

ensure ordnance standardization. It also concentratedon the repair of battle-damaged equipment and theproduction of critical or specialized items, replace-ment parts and equipment, and prototype ordnance.

For instance, the gunfactory designed thehuge turrets for the 16-inch guns of the NorthCarolina- and Iowa-class battleships, new12-inch, 8-inch, and6-inch guns thatemployed the latest inautomatic loading andfiring devices, sub-mersible deck guns forsubmarines, and rapid-fire rocket launchers.The yard also was a sitefor the design and test-ing of air-to-surfacerockets and other avia-tion ordnance, forwhich the Navy con-structed Building 220on a high-priority basis.Only three months afterthe Bureau of Ordnanceauthorized full-scale

production of the technologically advanced variabletime (VT) fuse for gun ammunition in 1943, the facili-ty manufactured 2,200 fuses each day, and by June1945 that figure had increased ninefold.43

The facilities at the Washington site employed thelargest number of workers of any Navy shore estab-lishment, with the exception of the major navy yards.In mid-1940 there were 10,000 employees at the

Ordnance Nerve Centerfor a Global Conflict

Soon after the German army invaded Poland on 1September 1939, sparking the outbreak of World WarII, the Navy took action to prepare for the war thatPresident Roosevelt and many naval leaders felt theUnited States could notavoid. By then, theNaval Gun Factory hadprovided the Navy withthe “finest ship borneartillery of any navy inthe world.”41 To main-tain that edge, theBureau of Ordnancetook steps to increaseordnance design, test-ing, and production bythe gun factory andhundreds of industrialfacilities around thecountry.

Naval leaders recog-nized early that onlyprivate industry could produce the enormous numberof weapons and ordnance systems needed by the fleetto fight a two-ocean, global conflict, but theybelieved the Naval Gun Factory should continue tobe the “nerve center”42 of the Navy’s ordnance designand testing program. The Washington facility wasresponsible for furnishing blueprints, drawings, andspecifications to the nation’s industrial plants to

Arsenal of democracy.A skilled worker, one of26,000 men and womenwho toiled at the gunfactory at the peak ofWorld War II, clearsmetal cuttings from thebarrel of a weaponbeing machine-rifledfor accuracy.

yard. By the end of 1944 the figure had risen to26,000, the wartime peak.44

Many of these employees were women, tens ofthousands of whom went to work at defense plantsacross the nation. The women at the WashingtonNavy Yard, like the men, had to endure long hours oflabor in the routinely hot or cold, noisy, and dirty


industrial facilities. Thewomen did not shareequally in pay and othercompensation. The take-home pay for some women was $23 a week whilesome skilled men received $22 a day! One formerfemale worker observed that the navy yard women

Gun factory employeeswork metal into shapefor one of the weaponsthe U.S. Navy will use inWorld War II.


Above. Work is in fullswing at the breechmechanism shop (Build-ing 76) during the war.

Right. A 3-inch .50-cal-iber, rapid-fire, twin-mount antiaircraft gunafter assembly at the gunfactory. These weaponswere essential to thefleet’s defense againstJapanese kamikazeattacks in the Pacific.

“would stand for practically anything—five months

without sleeping in a bed, a solid year on the grave-

yard 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 mis-

erably low wages.”45 The women were partially moti-

vated 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 produc-

tion 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-


Above. Much like JohnDahlgren’s men in theexperimental battery,these World War IIsailors, operating fromthe top floor of the high-est building (157) in theyard, test gun range-finders by sighting visiblelandmarks across theAnacostia River.

Left. Sparks and flamesleap from cauldrons ofmolten metal as the gunfactory works to arm theNavy for the globalconflict.

ordnance and gunnery schools—Gunners Mates andElectric Hydraulic School, Mine Disposal School,Gunnery School, Ordnance School, Optical PrimarySchool, and Advanced Fire-Control School. BetweenSeptember 1943 and July 1945, the number of offi-cers and men attending these schools rose from 1,658to 5,822.46 Many members of the Women Acceptedfor Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) replacedmale sailors at navy yard facilities who were thenavailable for service in the combat theaters.

In celebration of Victory in Europe (VE) Day, 8May 1945, the Navy broadcast to all yard employeesPresident Truman’s speech to the nation announcingthe German defeat. To celebrate the event, the com-mandant opened the yard to 5,000 citizens, allowedvisitors to tour destroyer George K. MacKenzie, andsponsored various programs throughout the facility47

ties, the yard hosted a lab-oratory for investigatingmines and certain aspectsof ammunition develop-ment. After the war the

Naval Ordnance Laboratory was moved from the yardinto new facilities at White Oak, Maryland.

The navy yard’s Medical Department concentratedon reducing on-the-job injuries and illnesses, regis-tering considerable success during the war. Employ-ment of safety engineers and other measures helpedreduce the incidence of time lost to illness or injuryby more than half from 1942 to 1945. These employ-ees 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


Sailors from the receiv-ing station unit at thenavy yard take part in aceremony as they pre-pare for their assign-ments to the fleet.

The workers of the Naval Gun Factory could bejustly proud of their contribution to victory over theAxis Powers in World War II. During the conflict,the facility produced a prodigious amount of first-rate ordnance for the fleet, including 236 16-inch,370 12-inch and 8-inch, 134 6-inch, and 427 5-inchguns, plus thousands of turrets, catapults, andantenna mounts.48

As a symbol of the factory’s importance to theAllied victory, a bronze plaque manufactured by theNaval Gun Factory was affixed to the spot on thedeck of battleship Missouri (BB 63) where Japaneseofficials signed surrender documents in Tokyo Bay.49


Above. Navy yardemployees gather inLeutze Park for enter-tainment by the UnitedStates Navy Band and awell-deserved break fromwartime labors.

Left. Women shift work-ers take a meal breakduring their workday atthe gun factory. Thou-sands of women, manywith children at homeand husbands far awayin combat theaters,worked long, hard hoursand for low pay duringthe war.

75

fare. Other naval facilities around the country werebetter suited than the navy yard to the design, testing,and production of aircraft and radar-guided missilesystems. Throughout the early Cold War years, the gun

factory laid off anincreasing numberof employees as theNavy issued fewerand fewer ordnancework orders.

For those work-ers still on the pay-roll, there was stillplenty to do. InOctober 1949 theWashington NavyYard celebrated its150th anniversarywith a week ofevents that includ-ed a Marine Paradeand Water Pageant,Power Boat Regat-ta, a canoe androwing competition,and an aircraft fly-

over. President Truman attended several of theevents. Unfortunately, the good feeling from theseactivities was somewhat dissipated in November andDecember of that year when two passenger planescrashed into the Anacostia River nearby, killing anumber of people on board. Navy yard workers andheavy equipment helped raise the aircraft so govern-ment investigators could determine the cause of thedual tragedies. The gun factory also continued tomaintain the U.S. Senate’s subway system, whosetwo cars were built at the navy yard in 1912.51

On 1 December 1945, the Secretary of the Navy formal-ly changed the name of the Washington Navy Yard tothe United States Naval Gun Factory. This recognitionwas belated, for the yard had been functioning as anordnance research,design, testing, andproduction facilitysince 1886 ratherthan as a traditionalnavy yard.50 Thedecision was notwell received bysome old-time yardworkers and Wash-

ington residents,who appreciated thelocation’s uniquepast and its impor-tance to the history of the nation’s capital and the Navy.

The post-World War II years saw drastic reductionin ordnance work at the navy yard. With a huge fleetof heavily armed warships already built, the Navy didnot need to produce additional guns. Furthermore,during the 1950s the Truman and Eisenhower admin-istrations, hoping to hold down the cost of maintaininglarge, expensive conventional forces, limited construc-tion of new warships. The Navy added to gun factorywoes by stressing the preeminence of the aircraft car-rier and the guided missile in a new era of naval war-

A New Mission for the Navy Yard

As a fitting symbolof the gun factory’scontribution toAllied victory inWorld War II,President Harry S.Truman views aplaque designed andcast at the yard tocommemorate theJapanese surrenderon board Missouri.


Above. The navy yard’sNaval School of Divingand Salvage, operatingfrom barge Tom O’Mal-ley (YRST 5) and build-ings ashore, preparedthousands of sailors forhazardous duty with thefleet.

Right. Submarine torpe-do tubes and other ord-nance produced by thegun factory were heavilyused by the fleet in theCold War era.


Above. In the years afterWorld War II, the yardcontinued to serve as aceremonial site for theNavy and the nation.On 14 April 1947, RearAdmiral Richard E. Byrd(standing behind themicrophones) returned tothe United States from anaval exercise in Antarc-tica. Welcoming thefamous explorer homeare (left to right) Chief ofNaval Operations FleetAdmiral Chester W.Nimitz, Secretary of theNavy James Forrestal,and Rear AdmiralRichard H. Cruzen.

Left. Navy yard workersoperate data processingequipment in a gun fac-tory administrativeoffice. With the Navyemphasizing aircraft andmissiles for its Cold Warmissions, lessening theneed for guns, the navyyard became more of anadministrative center.

then expected that the radiation, heat, and blast of a

nuclear detonation would cause widespread devasta-

tion 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 facili-

ties 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 Corp-

s’ Ceremonial Guard Company, billeted in Building

58 adjacent to Leutze Park from 1957 to 1977, per-

formed their world-famous precision drills at the yard

One of the navy yard’s responsibilities, maintain-

ing 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 enter-

tained 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-cut-

ting measure.52

At the height of the Cold War, employees prepared

for the worst—a Soviet nuclear attack on Washing-

ton, D.C.! Initially, employees were instructed to

remain at their workstations and cover their mouths

with handkerchiefs to ward off the ill effects of atom-

ic 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


Land acquired by theWashington Navy Yard.


Left. As it had in thefirst half of the 20thcentury, the navy yardcontinued to maintainthe presidential yachtduring much of theCold War. Shortlyafter PresidentDwight D. Eisenhowerdisembarked fromMayflower in May1953, the retiredgeneral discontinuedoperation of the vessel.

Below. DestroyerBlandy (DD 943),which returnedremains of unknownAmerican servicemento the United Statesin 1958.


Above. Guns manufac-tured at the navy yardwere used against theenemy in every one ofthe nation’s 20th-centurywars, including this 16-inch gun on board Wis-consin (BB 64) firing attargets in Iraqi-occupiedKuwait during OperationDesert Storm in 1991.

Right. Washingtoniansenjoy a “WatergateConcert” at the foot ofMemorial Bridge. Thegun factory fabricatedthe band shell and bargecombination for the con-certs held here duringthe 1950s and 1960s.

and the nearby barracks on 8th and I Streets. In anygiven year, the navy yard hosted numerous retirements,award presentations, changes of command, and wel-coming ceremonies for domestic and foreign digni-taries. In 1959, for instance, U.S. naval leaders wel-comed to America naval flag officers from Colombia,Mexico, Greece, and seven othercountries. In June 1960, the Navyhosted a formal ceremony inLeutze Park to mark the 100thanniversary of the first visit to theUnited States by a Japaneseambassador. The commandantpresented the crew of Japanesemerchant ship Nippon Maru withan anchor forged by the plant andinscribed with the words “stead-fast in friendship.”54

The Bureau of Ordnancebegan to identify missions otherthan production of heavy ordnance for the Naval GunFactory. Its shops investigated the use of electronicsand plastics in weapons, tested equipment for asatellite 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 StatesNaval Gun Factory to United States Naval WeaponsPlant, “in recognition of the fact that gun technologywas no longer paramount in modern naval combat.”By the end of 1961, the plant had completed all of its

scheduled ordnanceproduction. In short,“a 114-year traditionof ordnance manu-facture on the banksof the AnacostiaRiver was over.”56 Inthe next two years,the weapons plantwas disestablishedand half of the build-ings and land for-merly constitutingthe navy yard trans-

ferred to the General Services Administration.The United States Navy Band, headquartered at

the Washington Navy Yard in the Sail Loft (Building112) since its establishment, continued to attract

Above. Admiral ArleighBurke, former Chief ofNaval Operations, sharesa laugh with fellow flagofficers at a navy yardchange-of-command cer-emony in which AdmiralDavid L. McDonald(right) succeeded GeorgeW. Anderson as CNO. Astrong advocate of U.S.naval history, Burkedirected establishment ofwhat became The NavyMuseum at the yard.

Left. A sailor looks overthe Fighting Top of USSConstitution exhibited inthe Navy Museum.


personnel and the public in naval history, traditions,heritage and scientific contribution.”58

The cavernous building eventually displayed thefighting top of frigate Constitution, World War II air-craft and weapons, the Trieste deep-diving vessel,and thousands of other unique artifacts, paintings,ship models, medals, flags, and uniforms. Exhibitscover all periods in U.S. naval history and interpretthe service’s role in war and peace, diplomacy, explo-ration, and scientific research.

Almost from its beginning, the yard has displayedat outdoor sites larger artifacts, including bronze andiron guns from the Navy’s past wars and skirmishes.

national attention for the excellence of its programsand accomplished musicians. The loss of nineteenband members in an air disaster in Brazil duringFebruary 1960 saddened Americans but did not endthe band’s well-regarded foreign tour. On many occa-sions, the national media highlighted the virtuosity ofNavy Band members like Master Chief MusicianFrank J. Scimonelli, at one time the world’s foremostEnglish post horn player. The band routinely per-formed at presidential inaugurals, Washingtonmemorial dedications, U.S. Capitol concerts, andfuneral services at Arlington National Cemetery forsailors who made the ultimate sacrifice in World WarII, Korea, and Vietnam. The United States NavyBand also entertained the public at “Watergate Con-certs,” for many years held on board a barge manu-factured by the Naval Gun Factory and moored at thefoot of Memorial Bridge.57

Recognizing that the Washington Navy Yard wasthe Navy’s oldest and one of its most historic sites, in1961 Chief of Naval Operations Admiral ArleighBurke persuaded Secretary of the Navy John B. Con-nally to establish the U.S. Naval Historical DisplayCenter (later the U.S. Navy Memorial Museum, thenThe Navy Museum) in Building 76, the old breechmechanism shop. The purpose of the museum’s col-lections was to “inspire, inform, and educate service

Right. Guns and missileson display in WillardPark.

Below. The Navy Museum.



Above. The float built bythe navy yard and carry-ing a PT boat (actuallyPT 796) moves alongPennsylvania Avenueduring President John F.Kennedy’s inauguralparade in January 1961.

Left. President Kennedyspeaks on board U.S.Coast Guard sail trainingship Eagle at the navyyard.

The majority of outdoor artifacts are found in WillardPark, named for a former commandant. The historicpieces in this site across from the museum includeU.S. and captured Confederate cannon from the CivilWar, a 16-inch naval rifle, a 14-inch railway battery,a Talos surface-to-air missile,and a Vietnam-era fast patrolcraft, or “Swift boat.”

The Navy established anotherexhibit center at the yard, theCombat Art Gallery (later theNavy Art Gallery). The galleryexhibits oils and watercolors byNavy and civilian artists,including Thomas Hart Benton,Reginald Marsh, and others,who depicted sailors andmarines taking part in WorldWar II, the Korean and Vietnamwars, and in other operations ofthe Cold War era.

In 1977, Barry, a ForrestSherman-class destroyer thatserved for twenty-six years with the Atlantic andPacific fleets and saw action in the Vietnam War, waspermanently moored at Pier 2 on the waterfront andopened 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, Canadi-

an, and other warships and non-

combatant 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 desig-

nated 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 ArtGallery (formerly theCombat Art Gallery).

Left.“Score Another forthe Subs” by ThomasHart Benton (Navy ArtCollection).



tors with exciting educational expe-riences throughout the day. All ofthe museum’s programs are open tothe public and free of charge.

To increase public outreach, TheNavy Museum establishes partner-ships with other educational organi-zations. The partnership betweenThe Navy Museum and the Alexan-dria Seaport Foundation is especial-ly productive. Begun in March1998, it has developed into a coop-erative community boat-buildingproject that serves youngsters fromthe District of Columbia and sur-rounding communities. The NavyMuseum, whose mission is toincrease outreach to the public, wasattracted by the Alexandria SeaportFoundation’s success with past pro-grams that taught the value of team-work, in addition to basic boat-building skills. Both organizationsare dedicated to the education andinspiration of local youth.

submarine periscopes, gun mounts,and other hands-on objects providevisitors with an interactive museumexperience.

The museum offers the surround-ing community an active educationand public programs schedule.Teachers are encouraged to sign upfor curriculum-based school pro-grams and tours for grades onethrough twelve. Tours for senior cit-izens, families, naval reuniongroups, and general audiences arealso available. The Navy Museumsponsors evening events throughoutthe year including lectures, slidepresentations, book-signings, andconcerts performed by the UnitedStates Navy Band and traditionalmaritime musicians. Each fall, themuseum hosts the Seafaring Cele-bration, a family festival highlight-ing naval and maritime traditions.Activity workshops, demonstrations,storytelling, and musical perfor-mances provide thousands of visi-

The NavyMuseum

The Navy Museum opened to thepublic in 1963 to collect, preserve,display, and interpret artifacts andartwork for the general public.Called one of Washington, D.C.’smost “user-friendly” museums, TheNavy Museum exhibits an extraor-dinary collection of ship models,uniforms, medals, ordnance, pho-tographs and fine art. Housed in theformer Breech Mechanism Shop ofthe old Naval Gun Factory, themuseum collection includes an F4UCorsair, nicknamed “Big Hog”; atwin mount 5-inch .38 caliber anti-aircraft gun; the foremast FightingTop from frigate Constitution; andthe bathyscaphe Trieste thatdescended nearly seven miles to thedeepest location in the PacificOcean.

Tracing wars, battles, and crisesfrom the American Revolutionthrough the Vietnam War, The NavyMuseum presents over 225 years ofnaval and maritime history. Themuseum’s most comprehensiveexhibit, “In Harm’s Way,” chroni-cles the Navy’s role in World War IIfrom the attack on Pearl Harbor in1941 to Japan’s surrender in 1945.Its three sections examine thePacific and Atlantic campaigns andthe home front effort. Thematicexhibitions, such as “UnderwaterExploration,” “Polar Exploration,”and “Commodore Matthew Perryand the Opening of Japan,” featurethe Navy’s diplomatic and peace-time contributions. World War II Children enjoy a hands-on experience in The Navy Museum.


Fast attack craft continued to be popular attrac-tions during the Kennedy administration. In May1963, Lieutenant (jg) John R. Graham brought thevessel under his command, Norwegian-built PTF 3,from Norfolk to the navy yard. Two days later, Sec-retary of the Navy Fred H. Korth boarded the vesselfor a demonstration in the Potomac River of the ves-sel’s speed, maneuverability, and other characteris-tics. Impressed with the fast patrol boat’s potential

for use in special operations, Korth, other navalleaders, and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNa-mara purchased more boats in the class from Nor-way and deployed them to Southeast Asia. PTF 3and her sisters of the “Nasty” class were involved inraids on North Vietnam’s coast that helped sparkthe Tonkin Gulf Incident of August 1964 andreflected the Navy’s and the nation’s increasinginvolvement in the Vietnam War.60

The first boat-building programat The Navy Museum began in thesummer of 1998 with high schoolstudents from the Greater Washing-ton Urban League’s EnvironmentalWALL program. The young peoplebuilt two, 12-foot rowing skiffs foruse in taking water samples fromthe Anacostia and Potomac Rivers.After the boats were completed, the

museum held a “Blessing of theFleet” ceremony to honor the boatbuilders and their finely made craft.On 5 March 1999, First LadyHillary Rodham Clinton officiatedat a similar “Blessing of the Fleet”ceremony held in The Navy Muse-um. Honored guests included Sec-retary of the Navy Richard Danzig,Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes

Norton (D–D.C.), and District ofColumbia Mayor Anthony Williams.

Priceless artifacts, didacticexhibits, and diverse public pro-grams attract nearly 350,000 peopleannually to The Navy Museum.Each visitor leaves the museumwith an appreciation of America’srich naval and maritime heritage.

Susan Scott

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton visits The Navy Museum in March 1999 to lendher support to preserving America’s historic treasures. Among others, she is accom-panied by (left to right) Anthony Williams, Mayor of the District of Columbia; RearAdmiral Arthur N. Langston, Director Navy Staff; Congresswoman Eleanor HolmesNorton, (D–D.C.) and William S. Dudley, Director of Naval History (far right).


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 dur-

ing 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 responsibili-

ties. 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 sur-

face 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 Com-

mand 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 activi-

ties 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 Oceanog-

rapher. 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 theFleet” by Navy artistErick Marshall Murray(Navy Art Collection).

Below. Captain WilliamL. McGonagle, wearingthe Medal of Honor hewas awarded at a navyyard ceremony for hiscourageous leadership asCommanding Officer ofLiberty (AGTR 5).

ington Navy Yard. Joining the Navy Memorial Muse-um and the Operational Archives, the latter of whichwas moved to the navy yard from Arlington, Virginia,in 1963, was the Naval History Division.62

The Naval History Division had evolved almostfrom the beginning of the United States Navy. Its firstcomponent was the Navy Department Library. Presi-dent John Adams established the library in 1800 toprovide Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Stoddertwith books on “naval architecture, navigation, gun-

the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and theChief of Naval Operations.

With the demolition of the Main Navy Building onConstitution Avenue in 1970, the Navy leased com-mercial property in Northern Virginia for some of itsWashington-area activities and renovated govern-ment-owned buildings at naval facilities for others.As part of this effort, the Navy began consolidating itshistorical program, then spread around the nationalcapital region, at a most appropriate site, the Wash-


Right. Liberty afterattack by Israeli forcesin June 1967.

Below. Yacht Sequoia(AG 23) off the navyyard in the 1960s.


guns were made under one of thefirst rationalized systems of artillerydesign. Although records of theseold guns are sparse at best, theseguns are believed to have been pur-chased in the late 1790s, when warwith revolutionary France seemedlikely. A number of stubby-barreledhowitzers were designed to fire earlyexplosive shells. Two of these how-itzers, of unusual form, bear theLion of Saint Mark on their barrels,showing that they were made at thefamed Arsenal of Venice, a com-bined shipyard and ordnance plantthat built and armed Venetian war-ships during the time when this Ital-ian city-state was a major navalpower.

In the 1840s the navy yard tookon the task of ordnance develop-ment. Lieutenant John Dahlgrenbuilt an “experimental battery” onthe waterfront and began testingguns and ammunition by firing themdown the Anacostia River. Theyard’s collection reflects these days

modore Matthew Perry first openedJapan to American commerce. Feu-dal clans of southern Japan resentedwhat they saw as foreign intrusioninto their country, and fought a civilwar for supremacy. Their coastalforts fired on French and Dutchships and on the American warshipWyoming. An international navalsquadron retaliated in 1864, silenc-ing the batteries after a heavy gun-nery duel. This success is creditedwith ending the anti-foreign move-ment in Japan.

Two heavy bronze guns, cast atBarcelona in 1788 and purchasedby the Pasha of Tripoli to arm two ofhis gunboats, commemorate the Bar-bary Wars. Stephen Decatur cap-tured these gunboats in Tripoli Har-bor in 1804, and the frigateConstitution carried them back toWashington. Displayed with themare two guns made in 1740 for KingLouis XV of France. Early muzzle-loading guns were made in manycalibers and dimensions. These

The NavyYard’sHistoricOrdnanceCollection

Visitors to the Washington NavyYard notice the array of early bronzeand iron artillery displayed in andaround Willard and Leutze Parks.These pieces are visible remindersof the navy yard’s service as a ship-yard, an operating base, a manufac-turing plant, and an ordnance testfacility.

Trophies of America’s wars andexpeditions have been brought tothe nation’s capital since the age ofsail. The navy yard collectionincludes guns used, or captured, byAmerican forces from the Quasi-Warwith revolutionary France throughWorld War I. A French bronze4-pounder Gribeauval-pattern can-non, a type that armed Napoleon’sfield artillery, was cast at Lyons in1793 and bears the revolutionarymotto “liberté, egalité.” The oldestpiece in the collection, cast in 1686for King Charles II of Spain, bearsthe name “San Bruno” given to it byits makers. It honors Saint Bruno, an11th-century scholar and founder ofthe Carthusian order of monks, whomight have been a bit surprised tofind his name on an artillery piece.

A large bronze gun of unusualform, taken from a Japanese coastalfort, recalls the time when Com-

Captured 18th-century guns in Leutze Park.

91

of experimentation. Two wrought-iron smoothbore guns, made for theNavy in 1844, were designed byDaniel Treadwell, a Massachusettsinventor. They gave satisfaction intests, but appear to have been toocostly for service. After the CivilWar many designers worked todevelop serviceable breech-loadingartillery. Colonel Theodore Yatesdesigned an unusual “clamshell”breech mechanism that worked wellwith yacht saluting guns but provedunable to handle the powder pres-sures involved in actual gunnery. A3.25-inch Yates gun, thought to bethe only one of its kind, was appar-ently tested by the Navy but reject-ed for service.

A 12-inch shell gun, one of sev-eral prototypes developed in the1840s by Commodore Robert Stock-ton, holds a conspicuous place in

Willard Park. Called the “MerseyGun,” it was made in England toreplace Stockton’s “Peacemaker,”which had exploded in 1844 duringdemonstration firing on boardPrinceton in the Potomac River. Aninvestigation convinced the Navythat the technology of that timecould not yet turn out reliable large-caliber iron guns, so guns of thissize did not enter the fleet until theCivil War. Around this gun aregrouped five heavy guns designedduring that war by Commander JohnMercer Brooke, chief of ordnance inthe Confederate Navy. His gunswere rugged and powerful, and somehave judged them to have been thebest American-designed guns oftheir day.

Rifling began to be used inartillery pieces at the time of ourCivil War to give them greater power

and accuracy. Many early rifledguns were older smoothbores, rifledand usually reinforced to take thehigher pressures involved. Five gunsacross the street from The NavyMuseum illustrate the variety ofsuch attempts; American andBritish guns, converted to rifles,include an American gun madebefore the War of 1812.

These, along with other guns dis-played in the navy yard, are studiedwith interest by historians and anti-quarians. Along with comparableordnance collections at the NavalAcademy and nearby Fort Lesley J.McNair, they serve as a three-dimensional technical archive and areminder of the efforts and sacrificesmade by generations of Americansoldiers 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 ofmathematics subservient to the profession of the sea”and the “lives of all the admirals . . . who have distin-guished themselves by the boldness and success oftheir navigation, or their gallantryand skill in naval combats.”63

During the 19th century, thelibrary was housed in the State,War and Navy Building (now theExecutive Office Building next tothe White House). In 1882, as theNavy underwent rejuvenation afterthe lean post-Civil War years,James Russell Soley, a naval offi-cer, respected internationallawyer, prolific writer, and NavalAcademy professor, was assignedresponsibility for managing thelibrary. He improved the library’sholdings by gathering rare books,professional journals, official records relating to theCivil War, and prints and photographs of battles andwarships. Congress supported his efforts by appropri-ating an initial $2,640 for the location, collection,

and publication of documents on the conflict. Soleycontinued to oversee the Office of Library and NavalWar Records (after 1915 Office of Naval Records andLibrary) when he was appointed Assistant Secretary

of the Navy in 1890. Between1894 and 1927, Soley and hissuccessors published the 31-vol-ume Official Records of the Unionand Confederate Navies in the Warof the Rebellion.

During World War I, Secretaryof the Navy Josephus Danielsdirected historical sections inLondon and Washington to gatherdocuments on the Navy’s involve-ment in that conflict. In 1921,Captain (later Commodore) Dud-ley Knox, who would become the“driving force of the Navy’s histor-ical programs for the next twenty-

five years,” took the helm of the department’s docu-ment collection, publication, and library sections.Knox, awarded the Navy Cross for his support of thewar effort in London by Admiral William S. Sims,


Above. CommodoreDudley W. Knox, theNavy’s influential andgifted chief historianduring the mid-20thcentury.

Left. Assistant Secretaryof the Navy James R.Soley encouraged thecollection and preserva-tion of books and docu-ments on the history ofthe U.S. Navy at the endof the 19th century.

With the outbreak of World War II, Knox estab-lished a unique archival system to handle the hun-dreds of thousands of documents he knew wouldbegin pouring into the Navy Department. He espe-cially wanted to make the collection usable for theresearchers and historians who would analyze theNavy’s operations and administration in the greatestwar of the 20th century. To manage the monumentalarchival effort, the captain brought on board NavalReserve officers trained as historians at the nation’sfinest universities. In addition, Samuel Eliot Morison,a scholar already internationally renowned for hiswork in naval and maritime history, persuaded Roo-sevelt to employ him in the preparation of a history ofwartime naval operations based on these records.

In 1944, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestalappointed retired Admiral Edward C. Kalbfus asDirector of Naval History to oversee the Navy’s vari-ous historical efforts, including those under Knox.


The Dudley Knox Centerfor 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, giftfor writing, and deep knowledge of his navy’s history.As a result of Knox’s successful actions to organizethe Navy’s historical materials and his friendshipwith Franklin D. Roosevelt and other prominentleaders, the Office of Naval Records and Librarygained a “national and international reputation in thefield of naval archives and history.”64 In 1930 Knoxwas named Curator for the Navy Department andassigned responsibility for the collection and preser-vation of the Navy’s art objects and artifacts of histor-ical importance. At President Roosevelt’s requestand with his support, during the 1930s and early1940s Knox published thirteen volumes document-ing the Navy’s part in the early 19th century Quasi-War with France and wars with North Africa’s Bar-bary states.

Another reorganization took place in March 1949,when a new Naval Records and History Division (after1952 simply the Naval History Division) was estab-lished in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations tomanage all of the service’s historical programs.Throughout the 1950s, these programs were centeredin the Main Navy Building on Constitution Avenue. In1971, a year after most Naval History Division compo-nents had moved to the Washington Navy Yard, it wasrenamed the Naval Historical Center.

Other new postwar tenants of the WashingtonNavy Yard included the Chesapeake Division, NavalFacilities Engineering Command, Naval Dental Clin-ic, Naval Investigative Service, Navy Publicationsand Printing Service, the Defense Department Com-puter Institute, Naval Regional Data AutomationCommand, Weapons Engineering Support Activity,and the Military Sealift Command.65

In 1973, the U.S. Congress’ Joint Committee onLandmarks identified the Washington Navy Yard“Historic District” as an important landmarkbecause of its significant contribution to the “cultur-al heritage and visual beauty of the District of

Columbia.” The National Park Service also listed theyard on the National Register of Historic Places.

Presidential yachts continued to operate at thenavy yard. President Richard M. Nixon usedPotomac often for social functions and occasionallyas a convenient venue for thinking through policydecisions. After conferring with his advisors onboard the ship in May 1972, Nixon ordered the min-ing of North Vietnam’s harbors. His successor, Ger-ald Ford, hosted Japanese Emperor Hirohito onboard for a cruise down the Potomac. As had HerbertHoover and Dwight D. Eisenhower, President JimmyCarter discontinued use of presidential yachts in1977.66

That same year, the Chief of Naval Operations’ res-idence at the Naval Observatory on MassachusettsAvenue was assigned to the Vice President of theUnited States. In 1978, the Navy chose Tingey Houseas the new official residence of the CNO. Given thehistorical importance and ceremonial role of the navyyard and the CNO’s close association with thoseduties, the choice was appropriate. As with mosthomes that have served generations of families,


The Marine CorpsHistorical Center(Building 58), as seenfrom Leutze Park.

In 1982 the Director of Naval History, retired RearAdmiral John D.H. Kane Jr., concentrated the variousbranches of the Naval Historical Center in the navyyard’s historic precinct around Building 57, fittinglynamed the Dudley Knox Center for Naval History.Established close by in Building 58 was the MarineCorps Historical Center, whose histories, archives,museum, library, and other branches focus on pre-serving and interpreting the operational and institu-tional experience of the Corps. Museum displays ofcombat art, weapons, uniforms, and other artifactscomplement the center histories that detail marinevalor and sacrifice in the nation’s wars and crises.

The ending of the Cold War opened a new era inU.S.-Soviet relations. As a reflection of the changing

Tingey House experienced its share of sadness. On 16May 1996, Admiral Jeremy Boorda, a dynamic, well-liked and respected Chief of Naval Operations, tookhis own life on the grounds of the residence.

With the navy yard becoming a popular tourist sitein the nation’s capital during the 1980s, the Navy pre-sented a weekly “Summer Ceremony” that featuredthe United States Navy Band and its various compo-

nents, including the SeaChanters, Country Current,Commodores, and PortAuthority. The U.S. NavyCeremonial Guard cappedthe musical performanceswith precision drills.


Sailors and marines ren-der honors as ceremonialguns boom during anofficial function inLeutze Park, a commonoccurrence during thepost-World War II years.Behind the formationare Latrobe Gate (left)and Tingey House.


An aerial view of thenavy yard in 1998.Visible in the foregroundare Latrobe Gate, therear of Tingey House,and Leutze Park. Decom-missioned destroyerBarry (DD 933) ismoored on the AnacostiaRiver waterfront.

times, in December 1988 six Soviet military museumdirectors toured the Marine Corps Historical Centerfor briefings on computer applications for artifactcataloging, history writing, and publication printing.The following April, Colonel General Dmitri A.Volkogonov, the Soviet Union’s most prominent mili-tary historian and biographer of Joseph Stalin, led adelegation that visited the Naval Historical Center.The general expressed the hope that the relationshipbetween the USSR and the United States wouldimprove, “not just historically, but politically as well,because if two such powers can learn to live witheach other in a friendly manner, it will be better forthe entire world.”67

The close of the Cold War also had a positiveimpact on the Washington Navy Yard. Congressbegan to cut the annual Defense Department budgetsin the early 1990s and to close military bases. TheNavy’s 1990 Master Plan, strongly endorsed by theBase Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC)in 1993 and again in 1995, called on its Washington-area commands to drastically reduce high-cost com-

mercial 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 gener-

ated positive publicity for the Navy and its relation-

ship to Washington, D.C. But the effort also brought

to the surface the environmental degradation caused

by almost 200 years of industrial production that pol-

luted 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


An aerial view of theWashington Navy Yardlooking north. Visible inthe foreground are TheNavy Museum andBuilding 1.


the extent of the pollution and the requirements fordealing with any contaminants discovered.68

Going beyond the BRAC recommendations, theNavy took action in the late 1990s to develop theWashington Navy Yard as the future heart and soul ofthe naval service in the national capital region. Planswere implemented for the navy yard to serve as thehome of major Washington-area commands, includ-ing the Naval Sea Systems Command, and the yearlyhost for thousands of American and foreign tourists.

The concept entaileddeveloping a waterfrontcommercial hotel and con-ference center, boat mari-na, and pedestrian ameni-

An artist’s rendering ofcommercial and govern-ment facilities intendedto grace the Anacostiawaterfront—a vision ofthe Washington NavyYard for the 21st century.

ties, and enhancing museum and outdoor artifact dis-plays. Befitting its historic importance to the Navyand the nation, the Naval District Washington NavalStation Washington Master Plan of February 1998envisioned the Washington Navy Yard as the “Quar-terdeck of the Navy representing the best of the Navyand the United States of America” in the 21st centu-ry.69 The Washington Navy Yard, a national and localtreasure, thus confidently prepared to begin a newera 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 wasestablished right after Pearl Harbor to manage the Washing-ton 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 Com-

mand, Washington Navy Yard Master Plan, March 1982, 6.63. Quoted in Morgan and Leonhart, History of the Naval Histor-

ical 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., 8111. 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, Nineteen-

Twenty,” 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. CommandHistories, 1959–1962. Post-1946 Command File.Operational Archives, Naval Historical Center.

U.S. Navy. Bureau of Ordnance. United States NavalAdministration in World War II. Vol. 129, U.S. NavalGun Factory. Washington, 1945. Rare Book Collec-tion, Navy Department Library.

Published Books and Reports

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

Bureau of Yards and Docks. Building the Navy’s Basesin World War II: History of the Bureau of Yards andDocks and the Civil Engineer Corps, 1940–1946.Washington: The Bureau/GPO, 1947.

Canney, Donald L. Lincoln’s Navy: The Ships, Men, andOrganization, 1861–1865. Annapolis: Naval Insti-tute Press, 1998.

________. The Old Steam Navy. Vol. 1, Frigates, Sloops,and Gunboats, 1815–1885. Annapolis: Naval Insti-tute Press, 1990.

Carlisle, Rodney P. Where the Fleet Begins: A History ofthe David Taylor Research Center, 1898–1998.Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1998.

Chesapeake Division, Naval Facilities EngineeringCommand. Washington Navy Yard Master Plan,March 1982. Washington: CHESDIVNAVFAC,1982.

Coletta, Paolo E. ed. United States Navy and MarineCorps Bases, Domestic. Westport, CT: GreenwoodPress, 1985.

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Dolph, James, and Naval Reserve Detachment 901.Washington Navy Yard: Building and StructureSummary of Use Database. Washington: Environ-mental and Safety Office, NDW, 1997.

Archival and Special Collections

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“History: Navy Yard-Washington, 1799–1921.” Origi-nal history of the Washington Navy Yard revised andbrought up to date. 2 vols. Unpublished manuscriptin Special Collection, Navy Department Library,Naval Historical Center.

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Naval District Washington. Command Histories,1965–Present. Post-1974, Post-1990 CommandFiles. Operational Archives, Naval Historical Center.

Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense–PublicAffairs). News Release. “Two River Commands to BeMerged to Form Naval District Washington, D.C.” 31December 1964. Reference File, Navy DepartmentLibrary.

Potomac River Naval Command. Command Histories,1959–1965. Post–1946 Command File. OperationalArchives, Naval Historical Center.

Rear Admiral David Watson Taylor. Biography. Opera-tional Archives, Naval Historical Center.

“Recreator: Year Book: Washington Navy Yard, Nine-teen-Twenty.” Rare Book Collection, Navy Depart-ment Library.

Reference Files [information regarding the U.S. MarineCorps presence in the Washington Navy Yard]. Ref-erence Branch, Marine Corps Historical Center,Washington, DC.

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

103

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Battle of Hampton Roads, 29Bayless, Raymond, 28Bellinger, Patrick N. L., 49Benton, Thomas Hart, 24, 85Bermuda, 9Bethlehem Iron Company, 39Birmingham, 47, 52Bladensburg, Maryland, 9, 24Blandy (DD 943), 79, 80Board of Navy Commissioners, 11, 14Bolles, John A., 35Boorda, Jeremy, 95Booth, John Wilkes, 32–34Booth, Mordecai, 10Boston, 39Brady, Mathew, 19, 30–31Brandywine, 12, 13Brazil, 83Brittain, Carlo B., 48Brown, Almira V., 61Brown, John, 21Buchanan, Franklin, 20–21, 27Building 1, 6–7Building 57, 95Building 58, 79, 95Building 76, 71, 83. See also Navy Museum, TheBuilding 112, 82Building 157, 72Building 208, 32Building 220, 69Bull Run, 23Bureau of Aeronautics, 59Bureau of Construction and Repair, 57, 58, 59, 61Bureau of Ordnance, 19, 32, 35, 37, 47, 55, 69, 82Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography, 17, 18Bureau of Yards and Docks, 14, 15Burke, Arleigh, 82, 83Butler, J. M., 22Buzen, Shinmi, 20Byrd, Richard E., 78

CCallaghan, Daniel J., 68Cammilliari, N., 12Camp Good Will, 61Canada, 9Cape Horn, 47

Index

AABCD ships, 39Adams, John, 1, 8, 12, 13, 24, 89Adams, John Quincy, 12, 24Advanced Fire-Control School, 73Alabama, CSS, 19, 35Alaska, 61Alexandria, Virginia, 23, 24, 55America, 64American Red Cross, 54, 55American Revolution, 1, 13, 86Anacostia Naval Air Station, 49Anacostia River, 1, 18, 35, 49–50, 65–67, 72, 75, 82, 90,

97–98. See also Eastern BranchAnderson, George W., 82Andrews, E. F., 2Annapolis, Maryland, 1, 17, 48, 88Antarctica, 78,Appomattox, Virginia, 32Argentine Navy, 50Argus, 9, 10Arizona (BB 39), 53,Arlington National Cemetery, 46, 79, 83Arlington, Virginia, 89Army Department, 33, 34Army Surgeon General, 33Army War College, 50Arthur, Chester A., 39Atlanta (CL 23) 38, 39Atlantic Fleet, 46Atlantic Ocean, 61Augusta (CA 31), 65Australia, 47Axis Powers, 74

BBainbridge, William, 5Baldwin Locomotive Works, 55Baltimore, Maryland 9, 10, 25, 39Baltimore, 23Barbary Wars, 1, 3, 5, 8, 90, 93Barney, Joshua, 9Barry, Thomas, 25Barry (DD 933) 85, 97Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC), 98–99Battle of Bladensburg, 9Battle of Brandywine, 13Battle of Gettysburg, 32

107

Capitol, 1, 13, 24–25, 27, 29, 83Capitol Hill, 1, 25,Carderock, Maryland, 61Caribbean, 39,Carter, Jimmy, 65, 94Ceremonial Guard Company, 79Chambers, Washington I., 48Chandler, William E., 39Charleston, South Carolina, 19, 21, 32Charlottesville, Virginia, 2Chesapeake, 4–5Chesapeake Bay, 9, 22, 65Chicago, 39Chief of Naval Operations, 3, 6, 78, 82–83, 89, 94–95, 98China, 47Churchill, Winston, 65Civil War, 15, 17, 19, 21–34, 91, 92Cleveland, Grover, 42Clinton, Hillary Rodham, 87Cockburn, George, 9Cold War, 75, 77–80, 85, 88, 95, 98Colombia, 82Colt, Samuel, 15Columbia, 9, 10Columbus, 10, 12Combat Art Gallery. See Navy Art GalleryCommandant Naval District Washington, 6–7, 88Commandant’s House, 3, 10, 13, 22, 32, 37.

See also Quarters A; Tingey HouseCongress, 3, 8, 27Congress, U.S., 1–4, 11–12, 27, 36–37, 45, 60, 66–67Connally, John B., 83Constellation, 3, 8Constitution, 1, 3, 8, 13, 67, 82–83, 86, 89–90, 94Constitution Avenue, 89, 94Continental Navy, 1Coolidge, Calvin, 61–62, 64Country Current, 95Cozzens, Fred S., 5Crowninshield, Benjamin, 11Cruzen, Richard H., 78Cumberland, 27Cunningham, A. A., 48Currier, N., 15Curtiss, Glenn H., 48Curtiss A-1, 48Curtiss Pusher plane, 47, 48, 52Curtiss seaplane, 52

DDahlgren, John A., 7, 15–23, 27–29, 32, 37, 72, 90–91Dahlgren, Mary Clement, 28Dahlgren, Ulric, 28, 29Dahlgren Avenue, 91Dahlgren gun, 16, 18–19

Daniels, Josephus, 55, 56, 92Danzig, Richard, 87David Taylor Model Basin, 60, 61.

See also Experimental Model BasinDecatur, Stephen, 5Deep Diving School, 59Defense Department, 94, 98Defense Department Computer Institute, 94Despatch, 39, 46, 64Dewey, George, 45Director of Naval History, 87, 93, 95District of Columbia, 2, 6–7, 24–25, 35, 42, 86–88, 94, 99District of Columbia Emancipation Act, 27Dolphin, 39, 46, 64Dreadnought, 46Dudley, William S., 91Dudley Knox Center for Naval History, 93, 95.

See also Naval Historical CenterDurand, Asher B., 12

EEagle, 84Earle, Ralph, 55Early, Jubal, 29East Coast, 1, 65, 79Eastern Branch, 2, 11, 15, 17, 20, 24.

See also Anacostia RiverEgypt, 35Eighth Street, 7Eisenhower, Dwight D., 65, 80, 94Electric Hydraulic School, 73Ellsworth, Elmer Ephraim, 23Ellyson, Theodore G., 47, 48Ely, Eugene, 47, 48Emperor Hirohito, 94England, 35, 46, 64, 91Enterprise, 8Environmental Protection Agency, 99Ericsson, John, 29Europe, 53, 66–67, 73, 93Evans, Robley D., 47Executive Office Building, 92Experimental battery, 16–20, 25, 72, 90Experimental diving unit, 59Experimental Model Basin, 41–43, 45, 48–49, 54 56–59

FFar East, 66First Battle of Bull Run, 231st Zouave Regiment, 23Flood, 59, 66Florida, 21, 49, 65Flying Squadron, 45Ford, Gerald, 94

Index108

Independence Day, 45Indian Head, Maryland, 56Iowa (BB 61) class, 58, 69Israel, 88–89Italy, 35, 39, 59, 66

JJackson, Thomas “Stonewall,” 29Japan, 20, 47, 59, 66, 72, 86, 90Jaques, William, 39Jeffers, William N., 35, 37Jefferson, Thomas, 2–3, 5–6John Fritz Medal, 57Johnson, Lyndon B., 88Joint Chiefs of Staff, 89Joint Committee on Landmarks, 94Judge Advocate General, 35, 98

KKalbfus, Edward C., 93Kamikaze, 71Kansas (BB 21), 61Kane, John D. H., Jr., 95Kearsarge, 19Kennedy, John F., 65, 84–85, 87Kettlebottom Shoals, 28King George VI, 65, 67, 68King, Thomas, 66Knox, Dudley W., 92–93Korean War, 79, 83Korth, Fred H., 87Kuwait, 81

LLafayette, Marquis de, 12–13Land, Emory S., 59, 61Langley (CV 1), 49, 63Langston, Arthur N., 87Laon, France, 56Latrobe, Benjamin Henry, 2–3, 6–7Latrobe Gate, 3, 6–7, 20, 21, 22, 63, 65, 95, 97Leopard, HMS, 4, 5Leutze, E.H.C., 45Leutze Park, 56, 74, 79, 82, 90, 94–95, 96–97Liberty (AGTR 5), 88–89Liberty Bonds, 55Lincoln, Abraham, 19, 21, 23, 26, 27–29, 32–35Lindberg, Charles A., 61, 63London, 63, 66, 92London Naval Treaty, 63, 66Long, John D., 45Lord Kelvin, 57Lovering and Dyer, 2, 6–7Lynx, 10

Forrestal, James, 78, 93Forrest Sherman (DD 931) class, 85Fort Ellsworth, 23Fort Leslie J. McNair, 9, 34Fort Lincoln, 29Fort McHenry, 10Fort Monroe, 27Fort Sumter, 21

GGeneral Electric, 45General Services Administration, 82George K. MacKenzie (DD 836), 73–74Georgetown, 1–2, 13, 24Germany, 49, 66, 72Graham, John R., 87Grant, Ulysses S., 36, 64Great Britain, 1, 5, 9, 20, 39, 59, 65, 67–68Great Depression, 64, 66Great War, 57Great White Fleet, 46, 47, 51Greece, 82Greek Revival, 6Greenleaf Point, 9–10Gross, J., 9Guardian, 85Guerriere, HMS, 13Gulliver, Louis J., 67Gun Foundry Board, 39Gunnery School, 73

HHamilton, Paul, 5Hampton Roads, 27–29, 46–47, 51Harding, Warren G., 49, 61Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, 21, 29Harrison, John, 35Harwood, Andrew A., 32Havana Harbor, 44Henry Hill, 23Hill, Andrew J., 88Historic District, 94Honey Fitz, 85Hoover, Herbert, 64, 67, 94Hornet, 8House of Representatives, 12Hull, Isaac, 13, 24, 27, 41–43, 57, 59, 61Hunt, William H., 39Huntress, 3

IIgnatius, Paul R., 88Illinois, 34Imperial Japanese Navy, 54

Index 109

MMacedonian, HMS, 11Madison administration, 9Mahan, Alfred Thayer, 45Main Navy, 89, 94Maine, 23, 44, 46Manila Bay, 45Marine Corps Historical Center, 94, 95, 98Marine Parade, 75Marsh, Reginald, 83Massachusetts Avenue, 94Mayflower (PY 1), 46, 50, 61, 64–65, 80McDonald, David L., 82McGonagle, William L., 88McKinley, William, 64McNamara, Robert S., 87Medal of Honor, 68, 88Medical Department, 73Mediterranean, 88Meiji Restoration, 20Memorial Bridge, 81, 83Memphis (CL 13), 61, 63Merrimack, 17, 27Metz, France, 56Mexican War, 12, 14Mexico, 82Miantonomoh, 33Military Sealift Command, 94Mine Disposal School, 73Minnesota, 14, 27Missouri (BB 63), 74, 75Mohammad Ayub Khan, 85Monitor, 19, 28–29, 33, 35Monroe, James, 12Montauk, 33Monticello, 2Morison, Samuel Eliot, 93Morris, Charles, 17“Mosquito Squadron,” 5Mount Vernon, 22–23Mount Vernon estate, 65, 67, 85Murray, Erick Marshall, 88

NNapoleon, 5, 90“Nasty” class, 45, 87National Register of Historic Places, 7, 94Naval Act of 1916, 53–54Naval Battery, 23Naval Dental Clinic, 94Naval District Washington, 6–7, 88, 99Naval Facilities Engineering Command, 94, 98Naval Gun Factory, 18, 39–40, 45–46, 48-49, 53, 56, 59, 66,

69, 74–75, 82–83, 86Naval Historical Center, 7, 94–95, 98

Naval History Division, 89, 94Naval Investigative Service, 94Naval Observatory, 94Naval Ordnance Laboratory, 73Naval railway battery, 55–56, 58Naval Records and Library, 92–94Naval Regional Data Automation Command, 94Naval Reserve, 54, 93Naval School of Diving and Salvage, 77Naval Sea Systems Command, 99Naval Station Washington Master Plan, 99Naval War Records, 92Navy Art Gallery, 85Navy Cross, 92Navy Department, 2–3, 13, 17, 23, 27, 32, 34–36, 45, 48, 55,

61, 93Navy Department Library, 89Navy Museum, The, 82–83, 86–87, 91, 98Navy Yard Apprentice School, 73Navy Yard Hill, 4–5Nevada, 53New England, 46, 64New Jersey (BB 62), 58New York, 3New York, 46, 64New Zealand, 47Newport News, Virginia, 27Nimitz, Chester W., 78Nippon Maru, 82Nipsic, 37Nixon, Richard M., 65, 94Norfolk, Virginia, 5, 17, 22, 87Norfolk Navy Yard, 22North Africa, 1, 5, 93North Atlantic, 53North Atlantic Squadron, 45North Carolina (BB 55) class, 69North Sea Mine Barrage, 54, 56North Vietnam, 87, 94Northern Virginia, 89, 98Norton, Eleanor Holmes (D–D.C.), 87Norway, 54, 87

OOffice of Naval Records and Library, 92–93Ohio Railroad, 39Oklahoma, 53Olympia, 58Operation Desert Storm, 81Optical Primary School, 73Ordnance Department, 22Ordnance Establishment, 18, 20Ordnance Instruction for the U.S. Navy, 37Ordnance School, 73

Index110

SSail Loft, 45, 82Sampson, William T., 45San Francisco, California, 47, 61Sandy Hook, New Jersey, 56Santiago de Cuba, 45Sarmiento, Argentine, 50Saugus, 33Schley, Winfield Scott, 45Schmidt, John W., 8Scimonelli, Frank J., 83Scotland, 54, 64Sea Chanters, 95Secretary of State, 15Secretary of War, 27–28, 33–34, 39Semmes, Raphael, 34–35Sequoia, 63-65, 85, 8971st New York Infantry Regiment, 7, 22–23Severn River Naval Command, 88Shiner, Michael, 17, 24–25, 27Simons, Manley H., 48Sims, William S., 46, 92Skerrett, R. G., 14Smith, Robert T., 7Soley, James Russell, 92South Atlantic, 47South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, 19Southeast Asia, 87Soviet Union, 79, 95, 98Spain, 5, 45, 64, 90“Spirit of St. Louis,” 63Springfield, Illinois, 34Stalin, Joseph, 98Standard Steel Car Company of America, 55Stanton, Edwin M., 27–28, 33–34Stockton, Robert, 91Stoddert, Benjamin, 1–2, 89Submarine, 53–55, 57, 59, 77, 86“Summer Ceremony,” 95Sumter, 35Surgeon General, 33Surratt, John, 34–36Surratt, Mary, 34Susquehanna, 13Swanson, Claude, 61Swatara, 35Sweden, 20Swift boat, 85Sylph (PY 12), 46, 64

TTaft, William Howard, 50Talos missile, 85Tartar missile, 82Taylor, David Watson, 42, 45, 56–58, 61

PPacific, 19, 39, 71, 85–86Paraense, Brazilian, 31Paris, 55, 56Patrick J, 85Patuxent River, 9“Peacemaker” gun, 15, 91Penn Bridge Company, 42Pennsylvania, 53Pennsylvania Avenue, 20, 84Pensacola, Florida, 21, 49Perry, Matthew C., 20, 86, 90Philadelphia, 20, 65Philippines, 47Poland, 69Polk, James K., 17Port Authority, 95Porter, David Dixon, 20, 36Portsmouth, 46Potomac, 12Potomac (AG 25), 63, 64–65Potomac Flotilla, 22–23, 35, 36Potomac River, 1, 9, 11, 22, 24, 46, 64, 87–88, 91Potomac River Naval Command, 88Power Boat Regatta, 75President, 3Princeton, 15, 25, 91privateers, 1, 3, 5PT 109, 84, 85PT 796, 84, 85PTF 3, 87

QQuarterdeck, 79, 99Quarters A, 3, 6–7. See also Commandant’s House; Tingey HouseQuarters B, 6–7Quasi-War with France, 2, 93Queen Elizabeth, 65, 67, 68

RRaby, J. J., 62Radical Republicans, 36Reconstruction, 35Resolute, 23Richardson, Holden C., 48–49Richmond, 32Robison, Samuel S., 48Rodgers, John, 12Roosevelt, Eleanor, 68Roosevelt, Franklin D., 48, 61, 63–69, 93Roosevelt, Theodore, 9, 45–46, 51, 64Ross, Robert, 9Royal Navy, 2, 5Russia, 20, 39Russo-Japanese War, 46, 64

Index 111

Taylor Standard Series, 56–57Thrift Stamps, 54Tingey, Thomas, xiv, 2–3, 5–10, 13, 54, 94–95, 97Tingey House, 3, 6, 54, 94, 95, 97.

See also Commandant’s House; Quarters ATokyo Bay, 74Tom O’Malley (YRST 5), 77Tonkin Gulf Incident, 87Towers, John H., 48Trieste, 83, 86Tripoli Monument, 1,Truman, Harry S., 65, 73, 75, 79Tyler, John, 15

UU.S. Coast Geodetic Survey Ship Oceanographer, 88U.S. Coast Guard, 84U.S. Marine Corps, 2, 6, 79, 94–95, 98U.S. Naval Academy, 1, 91–92U.S. Naval Historical Display Center. See Navy Museum, TheU.S. Naval Institute, 36U.S. Naval Weapons Plant, 82U.S. Navy, 1, 18, 25, 57, 61–62, 74, 82–83, 86, 89, 95U.S. Navy Ceremonial Guard, 95U.S. Navy Memorial Museum. See Navy Museum, TheU.S. Senate, 75Union Navy, 19, 22United States, 3, 5United States Naval Weapons Plant, 82United States Navy Band, 61–62, 74, 82–83, 86, 95Urban League, WALL program, 87USSR, 98

VVerdun, 56Victory in Europe (VE) Day, 73Vietnam War, 83, 85–87, 94Vinson-Trammell Act, 66Virginia, CSS, 19, 27, 28Vixen, 8Volkogonov, Dmitri A., 98VT fuse, 69

WWabash, 28War of 1812, 9–10, 11–12Warrington, Lewis, 15War Savings Certificates, 54Washington, George, 1Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, 59, 63Washingtonians, 10, 32, 81Wasp, 4, 8Water Pageant, 75Water Witch, 14“Watergate Concert,” 81Watervliet Arsenal, 45Weapons Engineering Support Activity, 94Welles, Gideon, 21–22, 28–29, 32, 35–36West Coast, 47White House, 13, 23, 27-28, 65, 92White Oak, Maryland, 73Whitney, William C., 39Willard Park, 83, 85, 90–91Willard’s Hotel,, 20William Sellers Company of Washington, 45Williams, Anthony, 87Williamsburg (AGC 369), 65, 79Wilson, Woodrow, 53, 64Winder, William H., 9–10Wisconsin (BB 64), 81Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES), 73Women workers 54, 61, 69–70, 72–74, 88World War I, 30, 47, 53–56, 58–59, 61, 64, 66, 79, 90, 92World War II, 64–65, 68–70, 72, 74–75, 78-79, 83, 85–86, 93, 95Wright, Orville, 48, 57Wright, Wilbur, 48Wyoming, 90

YYantic, 37Yates, Theodore, 91

Index112