The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence

Alfred Thayer Mahan (September 27, 1840 to December 1, 1914) was a United States Navy flag officer, geo-strategist, and historian, who has been called “the most important American strategist of the nineteenth century.” His concept of “sea power” was based on the idea that countries with greater naval power will have greater worldwide impact; it was most famously presented in The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783 (1890). The concept had an enormous influence in shaping the strategic thought of navies across the world, especially in the United States, Germany, Japan and Britain, ultimately causing a European naval arms race in the 1890s, which included the United States. His ideas still permeate the U.S. Navy Doctrine. This study of the naval aspects of the War of American Independence was first published in 1913. It is a professional analysis of the military strategies and major fleet actions that governed the outcome of the American Revolution -- a war that involved the great fleets of Britain, France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic, and ranged from Lake Champlain in upstate New York, to the West Indies, to Chesapeake and Narraganset Bays, and deep into the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.