Antebellum Naval Service
Between 1822 and 1843, Foote saw service in the Caribbean, Pacific, and Mediterranean, African Coast and at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. He first began as a midshipman on the USS Grampus. In 1830, he was commissioned a lieutenant, and was stationed in the Mediterranean. In 1837, Foote circumnavigated the globe in the USS John Adams. After serving on sea, Foote was put in charge of the Philadelphia Naval Asylum. After serving on land he went back to sea, and organized a Temperance Society aboard the USS Cumberland. This group developed into a movement that resulted in ending the policy of supplying grog to U.S. Naval personnel.
From 1849 to 1851, Foote commanded the USS Perry, cruising the waters off the African coast. He was active in suppressing the slave trade there. This experience persuaded him to support the cause of Abolition, and in 1854, he published a 390 page book, Africa and the American Flag. In this book, Admiral Foote described the geography of the African continent, the customs of many of the African people, the establishment of American colonies in Africa, the slave-trade and its evils and the need to protect American citizens and commerce abroad. He also became a frequent speaker on the Abolitionist circuit.
Foote was promoted to Commander in 1856, and took command of the USS Portsmouth in the East India Squadron. With this command, Foote was assigned the mission of observing British operations against Canton, China, during the Second Opium War. This eventually resulted in his being attacked from Chinese shore batteries. Foote led a landing party that seized the barrier forts along the Pearl River in reprisal for the attack. This led to a short occupation by the U.S. Navy of Chinese territory.
Foote returned to the Continental United States in 1858, and took command of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, in Brooklyn, New York, a post he held until the outbreak of the hostilities of the Civil War.
Read more about this topic: Andrew Hull Foote
Famous quotes containing the words antebellum, naval and/or service:
“He was high and mighty. But the kindest creature to his slaves—and the unfortunate results of his bad ways were not sold, had not to jump over ice blocks. They were kept in full view and provided for handsomely in his will. His wife and daughters in the might of their purity and innocence are supposed never to dream of what is as plain before their eyes as the sunlight, and they play their parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter.”
—Anonymous Antebellum Confederate Women. Previously quoted by Mary Boykin Chesnut in Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, edited by C. Vann Woodward (1981)
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