The Miraculous Crossing

                               TODAY IN NAVAL HISTORY                       27-28 SEPTEMBER 1066                     THE MIRACULOUS CROSSING For the first week of January in the year 1066, King Edward the Confessor of England agonized on his death bed.  A sudden apoplexy (cerebral hemorrhage) caused lapses in and Read More

PROVIDENCE vs. MILFORD

                       20 SEPTEMBER 1776                      PROVIDENCE vs. MILFORD On 10 May 1776, temporary CAPT John Paul Jones assumed command of the Continental Navy sloop Providence, armed with twelve 4-pounder guns.  Jones received his permanent appointment on August 8th and departed the Delaware Capes Read More

Action at the Northern End

                                     TODAY IN NAVAL HISTORY                                              11 SEPTEMBER 1814                                  ACTION AT THE NORTHERN END The heavyweights concentrated at the northern end of the battle line.  Here the headforemost approach of CAPT George Downie in the British flagship CONFIANCE, 37, allowed SARATOGA and Read More

Action at the Southern End

                                     TODAY IN NAVAL HISTORY                                              11 SEPTEMBER 1814                                  ACTION AT THE SOUTHERN END As MacDonough had correctly anticipated, HMS FINCH, 11, could not sail close enough to the wind to approach the southern American line.  In falling to leeward however, she Read More

Battle of Lake Champlain

                                     TODAY IN NAVAL HISTORY                                              11 SEPTEMBER 1814                                    BATTLE OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN To the British, our War of 1812 was only a distant theater of a more global war against Napoleonic France.  And the defeat of Napoleon at Toulouse and his Read More

RADM George Brown

                                     TODAY IN NAVAL HISTORY                                               4 SEPTEMBER 1887                                          RADM GEORGE BROWN On the moonless night of 14-15 February 1863, 27-year-old LCDR George Brown of the Union Navy’s Mississippi River Squadron took the sidewheel ironclad gunboat USS INDIANOLA south toward Vicksburg.  His Read More