Oct. 13, 2026 marks 251 years since the Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, voted to send two armed sailing vessels to sea. Each was to carry ten carriage guns plus swivel guns and a crew of 80, and their orders were a three-month cruise to intercept British transports carrying munitions and stores. The U.S. Navy dates its existence from that resolution.
The vote answered a narrow, practical problem: two unarmed British supply ships headed for Quebec. The force it started would put more than fifty armed vessels to sea before the Revolutionary War ended.
The Naval History and Heritage Command lays out the record in its essay “The Birth of the Navy of the United States”: “On Friday, October 13, 1775, meeting in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress voted to fit out two sailing vessels, armed with ten carriage guns, as well as swivel guns, and manned by crews of eighty,” with orders “to send them out on a cruise of three months to intercept transports carrying munitions and stores.” NHHC calls that legislation “the birth certificate of the navy.”
Two brigs bound for Quebec
The idea of a Continental fleet had been argued for weeks before it passed. By the autumn of 1775, NHHC’s essay notes, Congress had already created a Continental Army, issued paper money and launched an invasion of Canada, while Britain held command of the sea. Many delegates feared that building a navy would be read as a step toward independence. Samuel Chase of Maryland called it “the maddest Idea in the World to think of building an American Fleet.” John Adams of Massachusetts was the leading advocate on the other side.
Rhode Island’s delegates put forward a fleet proposal on Oct. 3, 1775, but NHHC records that the resolution was too vague and drew opposition. Two days later the debate turned specific. On Oct. 5, according to the essay, Congress “received intelligence of two English brigs, unarmed and without convoy,” loaded with munitions and bound for Quebec. A committee of New Englanders proposed sending two armed vessels to catch them.
The final push came from the Army. On Oct. 13, Gen. George Washington reported that he had taken “three schooners to cruise off Massachusetts” at Continental expense to go after enemy supply ships. With ships already at sea under Continental authority, the committee’s plan looked reasonable, and Congress adopted it, NHHC says.
How the Navy keeps the date
The Navy ties its birthday directly to that vote. A Navy press release announcing plans for the service’s 250th anniversary states it plainly: “Because the Continental Navy began in Philadelphia on Oct. 13, 1775, the Navy claims that date as its birthday.” The same release on the 250th birthday in Philadelphia, issued on the Navy’s 248th birthday, said the Navy and Marine Corps would hold that celebration in the city in 2025.
The Navy’s All Hands magazine says the same thing in its Navy Birthday feature: “Thus was born the Continental Navy, and October 13 remains the official birth date of the U.S. Navy.” The feature describes the resolution as a decision to “purchase two armed ships to attack British supply ships.” The NHHC essay itself closes by tying the Continental Navy to the modern service, “whose birthday we celebrate each year in October.”
More than fifty ships, nearly 200 prizes
The two-ship resolution was the start, not the whole of it. “Within a few days, Congress established a Naval Committee charged with equipping a fleet,” NHHC’s essay records. Over the course of the war, the Continental Navy sent to sea “more than fifty armed vessels of various types,” and “they took nearly 200 British vessels as prizes,” according to the same account.
NHHC credits the small fleet with more than captures. It forced Britain to divert warships to protect convoys and trade routes, carried diplomats and dispatches to Europe, and stirred diplomatic crises that helped bring France into the war. NHHC’s Today in Naval History entry for Oct. 13 sums up the 1775 vote in one line: “The Continental Congress establishes Continental Navy, later the U.S. Navy.” Oct. 13, 2026 is the 251st time the date comes around.
Top image: The Continental brig Andrew Doria receives a salute from the Dutch fort at St. Eustatius on Nov. 16, 1776, in a painting by Phillips Melville from the U.S. Navy Art Collection. Image Credit: Phillips Melville, U.S. Navy Art Collection / Naval History and Heritage Command (NH 85510-KN) — Public domain / Wikimedia Commons
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Combat Rated editors prior to publication.