In 1850 and 1853, expeditions to the Arctic were made by ships manned by officers and men of the navy, in a search for the English explorer Sir John Frank lin, who had disappeared into the Arctic regions several years before.
In 1853, Captain Matthew C. Perry commanded an expedition to Japan, until then a "Hermit Nation," which, thanks to the judicious combination by Perry of diplomacy and a show of force, resulted in throwing open the ports of Japan to intercourse with the world and started that nation on the road which, in less than half a century, was to bring it to a position of equality with the nations of the western world.
At the outbreak of the Mexican War in 1846, Commodore Sloat, commanding the naval forces in the Pacific, corn pelled the surrender of the Mexican forces on the coast of what is now Cali fornia and hoisted the United States flag over the whole of that territory. On the E. coast, a close blockade of Mexican ports was maintained; and when it was decided to make Vera Cruz a base for General Scott's advance on Mexico City, the fleet under Commodore M. C. Perry reduced the forts com manding the approaches to Vera Cruz and took possession of the harbor.
The Civil War (1861) found the navy small in numbers as regards both ships and personnel, but efficient in discipline and spirit. It was rapidly expanded, and within a few months established a blockade of the southern coasts under which the ports from the Capes of the Chesapeake to the mouth of the Rio Grande were held in a grip which never relaxed until, at the end of four years of this pressure, combined with that of the Northern armies on the land side, the Confederacy was half-starved, half crushed, into submission. The victories of Farragut at Mobile and New Orleans may be classed among the most bril liant achievements of naval history and easily take rank with Trafalgar and the Nile.
The engagement between the "Moni tor" and "Merrimac" forecast the de velopment of modern armor-clad navies; and the sinking of the Union frigate "Hoosatonic" by a Confederate sub marine was the first practical achieve ment in the development of submarine warfare.
From 1865 to 1882 the navy was neglected and forgotten. But by some miracle of morale, it maintained its spirit and its discipline to such a degree that when, in 1882, a small appropria tion was made for the building of four ships of modern construction and arma ment, the officers of the navy were pre pared to furnish designs for ships and guns and to take up all the problems involved, at a point fully as advanced as that of constructing and ordnance engineers abroad. These, the first ships
of what is called the modern navy, were the "Chicago," "Boston," "Atlanta," and "Dolphin"—cruisers of only moderate size and power, but essentially modern in that ships and guns alike were of up to-date construction and built through out of steel.
In 1888 and 1889 two armored ships were built, the "Texas" and the "Maine," and these were followed in 1890-1892 by three battleships, the "Massachusetts," "Indiana," and "Oregon." Other ships followed, of various types, among them several battleships; and by 1898 the United States was easily fifth among the naval powers of the world.
On Feb. 15, 1898, the "Maine" was blown up in Havana harbor through causes which have never been explained; and out of this incident, coupled with a long train of circumstances connected with conditions of Spanish rule in Cuba, war was declared between the United States and Spain on April 25, 1898. The war was brief and decisive. On May 1st, within a month after the be ginning of hostilities, Commodore Dewey steamed into Manila Bay at the head of a squadron of cruisers and gunboats, and in a few hours destroyed the Span ish squadron which he found at anchor off Cavite. Two months later, July 4th, Admiral Sampson, in command of a fleet of battleships and cruisers off Santiago de Cuba destroyed a Spanish squadron of armored cruisers which, under com mand of Admiral Cervera, attempted to escape from the harbor. In both of these engagements the American forces were greatly superior to those of their oppo nents, and victory was a matter of course; but the swift and sweeping nature of the victory in each case, and the prac tically complete annihilation of the en emy, showed evidence of a superiority in "morale" far exceeding the superiority in material power. At Lake Erie, Lake Champlain, and Mobile Bay, as at Ma nila and Santiago, every ship of the enemy was either captured or destroyed.