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Everybody knows the Continental Army, and tales of their heroics at Saratoga, Trenton, Yorktown, and others. But fewer know of the battles at sea, where privateers and converted merchantmen did battle with British man-o-wars both along the American coast and along the English coast. Through this exhibit, I intend to show that the war at sea was just as crucial to the outcome of the war as the army was, and to show how the fledgling American navy attempted to stand up to the mighty Royal Navy. 

From the very beginning, when Washington's army began to run low on supplies like gunpowder, a solution was to raid and capture British shipping, and the earliest expeditions of the Continental Navy were undertaken for this purpose, and to guarantee the safety of supply lines and American ports. Without these valuable missions, Washington might have run out of powder with which to fire his guns, ending the rebellion. By the end of the war, Washington was quoted as saying, "whatever efforts are made by the Land Armies, the Navy must have the casting vote in the present contest."¹ However, many scholars have lessened, or ignored the impact of the Navy, and privateers in particular on the war.² In order to construct a more wholistic view of the Revolutionary War, the sailors of the state navies, of the Continental Navy, and the countless privateering vessels, must be counted.

¹ Nathan Miller, The US Navy: A History, (Naval History Press, 1997), pg. 13

² Kylie Hulbert, The Untold War at Sea: America's Revolutionary Privateers, (Georgia University Press, 2022), pg. 11, 181