Charles Morris, instrumental in bringing the fledgling US Navy
through its early trials and in plotting a course to the
greatness that would follow, served in the Navy for 57
years. Born in Woodstock,
Connecticut, in 1784, he joined the Navy at the age of
15, during the Quasi-War with France.
During the Barbary Wars in 1804, in bomb ketch
Intrepid under Lt. Stephen Decatur, he
participated the raid to burn the former US frigate
Philadelphia, which had been stranded and captured at
Tripoli. During the War of 1812, as
first lieutenant of Constitution under
Capt. Isaac Hull, it was he that suggested kedging to escape a
five-ship British squadron chasing her off New Jersey. A
month later, Constitution defeated HMS
Guerriere off Boston.
Promoted to commodore, Morris twice served in the South
Atlantic, flying his flag in frigate
Constellation in 1819–20 and ship-of-the-line
Delaware in 1841–44. He also served in many key
posts—Navy Commissioner from 1823 to 1827; Chief of the
Bureau of Construction Equipment and Repairs from 1844
to 1847; and Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance and
Hydrography (with responsibility for the then-new Naval
Academy) in the 1850s. He died in
1856. In 1880—-eighteen years
before the official start of its book-publishing
program-—the Naval Institute published his
autobiography as an issue of Proceedings magazine. It is now
available again.
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