REVENUE CUTTER SERVICE, UNITED STATES, a military service organized in 1790 by Congress to en force the navigation and customs laws. The United States navy had not at that date been established and the service was made a branch of the Treasury as it is today. The service, consisting at first of ten small vessels, was gradually added to and became the nucleus of a navy. Congress in 1799 authorized the President to employ it to defend the seacoast and repel hostility to vessels and commerce within their jurisdiction. The development was necessary, for American foreign commerce meant in those days a corresponding growth in shipping with a corresponding liability to collision with foreign interest. From 1843 onward vessels driven by steam gradually replaced the old sailing ves sels.
The necessity for the service was shown almost from the year of its or ganization. The War of the Revolution had been fought almost wholly on land and its success had turned American eyes away from the requirements of a naval arm. Very speedily, however, the cutters justified their existence. They had repeated clashes with the British and French forces and upheld the dig nity of the United States. In 1812 it
made foreign invasion impossible and helped in transporting troops in the Nullification troubles of 1832-33 and the Seminole War of 1836. In the Civil War the cutters pursued blockade runners, carried dispatches, and joinedin at tacks on Southern forts. the Spanish War the service showed itself a most efficient arm of the navy, con tributing 20 vessels and nearly a hun dred guns to the forces. During the World War the service beginning with 44 vessels had them added to and acted as a complement to the navy in so far as its coastwise duties enabled it so to do. The captain commandant of the service is under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, and un der him are the five divisions of the service, each with a senior captain. The vessels have done duty on the Alaskan coast and occasionally make prolonged voyages, and have often done good work in cases of disasters at sea. In 1915 the Life Saving and Revenue Cutter services were merged into the Coast Guard.