U.S. Navy Rear Admirals: Navy Grade and Pay Regulation Act of 1862-- Part 1

On September 12, I wrote about Du Pont thanking Iowa Senator James Grimes for his work in support of the Navy and the creation of of the new Navy rank of rear admiral (I'm sure in part because he would be in line to be one).

JULY 16, 1862   Congress established the rank of rear admiral with David D. Farragut named to be America's first rear admiral.

The act was called:

NAVY GRADE AND PAY REGULATION ACT OF 1862

An Act to establish and equalize the Grade of Line Officers of the United States Navy.

Approved by President Abraham Lincoln July 16, 1862.  This act established the U.S. navy ranks of rear admiral, commodore, lieutenant-commander and ensign.

--Old B-R'er

Senator James W. Grimes of Iowa: Friend of the Navy

On September 12, 2017, I wrote about Iowa Senator James W, Grimes who was thanked by Naval officer Du Pont for his work furthering the Union Navy.

From Wikipedia

James Wilson Grimes  October 20, 1816 to February 7, 1872  Third governor of Iowa and U.S. senator from Iowa.  Born in New Hampshire.  Governor of Iowa 1854-1858.  Elected U.S. senator 1859 as a Republican.  Reelected in 1865.

In 1861, he was a member of the Peace Commission in Washington, D.C. in an attempt to avoid the coming war.

In December 1861 he introduced the bill o create the Medal of Honor (initially only for the Navy and Marines).

He served on the Committee on Naval Affairs and the Joint Commission on Reconstruction and drafted the 14th Amendment.

--Old B-Runner

September 12, 1862: Senator Grimes of Iowa Pushes the Navy

SEPTEMBER 12TH, 1862:  Rear Admiral Du Pont wrote Senator Grimes of Iowa expressing his "warm appreciation of your tremendous labors in behalf of the Navy during the last session.  I believe this to be emphatically the opinion of the whole service."

Grimes had strongly backed the bill creating the rank of Rear Admiral in the Navy.

In reply, the Senator stated:  "I am in no wise deserving of the kind compliments you lavish upon me .... you know that up to my time [in Congress] it was supposed that all information  in relation to your branch of the public service was confined to a select 'guild' about the Atlantic cities, no one from the interior having presumed to know anything about it.

"If i have been of any real service it has been in breaking down and eradicating that idea. , in  assisting to nationalize the Navy -- in making frontiersmen as well as the longshoreman feel that he was interested in it and partook of its glory."

--Old B-Runner