Texas Navy

Texans have always been ambitious.  Faced with the prospect of an overwhelming land invasion, the new government of Texas in January 1836 decided to found a Navy in addition to an Army.  The force consisted of four schooners, Invincible, Brutus, Independence and Liberty,  all under the command of Commodore Charles Edwards Hawkins.  Although massively outnumbered and outgunned by the Mexican Navy, the Texas Navy succeeded in foiling the attempt by the Mexican Navy to blockade the Texan ports, and captured badly needed supplies from Mexican merchant ships, sending them on to Houston’s army.  By October of 1837 all the original ships of the Texas Navy had been lost due to enemy action or mishap at sea.

The Second Texas Navy came into being in January 1839 and consisted of three schooners, San Jacinto, San Bernard and San Antonio, the steam powered schooner Zavala, the brigs Wharton, Archer and Potomac and the flagship of the Texas Navy, the sloop Austin.

In the state of ongoing war between Texas and Mexico, the Texan Navy kept busy protecting the coast of Texas and raiding Mexican shores.   In the battle of Campeche in 143, the Texas Navy, allied with Mexican rebels in Yucatan, forced the Mexican Navy to lift the blockade of Campeche.  When Texas was admitted to the Union in 1846, the Texas Navy merged with the US Navy.