ABSTRACT
Between the War of 1812 and the Civil War, the peacetime role of the U.S. Navy expanded dramatically. The primary peacetime mission of the Navy continued to be the protection of American overseas commerce, but accelerating American economic activity around the world transformed the operational definition of that duty by creating an array of additional demands and pressures for increased naval support. In the years after 1815, the protection of commerce meant that the Navy combated pirates, policed smuggling, showed the flag in major ports around the globe, maintained a continuous presence on various overseas stations, and performed limited diplomatic duties. Government officials and most politicians, regardless of their partisan faction, believed the Navy should play a limited peacetime commercial role and defined that mission in a rather narrow and defensive manner. Americans also assumed that most of the Navy’s activities would occur in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic. To perform its role, the Navy Department maintained a small, active force of fewer than two dozen wooden sailing warships and existed on a budget that averaged less than $4 million per year.
