Thomas Sheppard
“To Save What’s Far More Important”: Honor and the American Naval Officer Corps in the Interwar Years, 1798–1811
Among the many dramatic results of the Age of Revolutions was an altered perception of aristocracy. While many European nations clung tenaciously to their privileged classes, the United States’ Constitution prohibited such a caste system. This did not mean, however, that all Americans eschewed the idea of privileged orders. Many American naval officers, while fighting to defend their republican style of government, perceived themselves as a unique class, qualified not by birth, but by talents and expertise. These men, though they possessed no hereditary titles, viewed themselves as deserving of due respect and honor from their society. Often, their idea of what constituted due respect clashed with the principle of civilian control, as officers refused to defer to the wishes of the Secretary of the Navy and at times openly challenged his authority. The most senior officers struggled, not just with the civilian government, but also with subordinate officers who brought the same reluctance to yield to authority and the same touchy sense of personal honor into relations with their own superiors. In particular, frequent duels and embarrassing incidents in foreign ports tainted the prestige of the officer class, not just before American audiences but, perhaps more importantly, before the military officers of Europe’s powers, especially Great Britain. During the period from the creation of the American Navy in the 1790s through the coming of the War of 1812, America’s naval officer corps struggled to develop its own identity, while also meriting the respect of its European counterparts. This paper explores the efforts of senior officers to preserve the honor of their profession, while also trying to assert their autonomy from distant leaders in Washington, during this tumultuous period.
Thomas Sheppard graduated from Troy University with a degree in history in 2008. He then earned his M.A. in war and society at Florida State University, before moving to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to pursue a Ph.D. in military history at the University of North Carolina. His research centers on military and naval history in the era of the American Revolution and early republic, with a particular emphasis on issues of civilian control of the military. His dissertation project, “Petty Despots and Executive Officials: Civil-Military Relations in the Early American Navy” explores the contestation over authority between naval officers and various Secretaries of the Navy from the 1790s through the aftermath of the War of 1812.
