gun drill for steel breech-loader

USS Maine constructed at Brooklyn Naval Yard

Chet Arthur 1881-5

• appoints Wm. Chandler, Rodgers Board
  
• Navy Act of 1883 - ABCD ships
  
• Gun Foundry Board 1883
  
• Navy Act of 1885 - 30 new steel ships
  

Naval War College

• by Stephen Luce at Newport 1884
  
• A.T. Mahan - capital ship theory
  
• Naval War College

Benjamin Harrison 1889-93

• "Billion $ Congress" - T. Reed, N. Aldrich
  
• appointed Benjamin Tracy - "Blue Water" admirals
  
• crises: Chile, Italy, Samoa
  
• Tracy idea to name battleships after states and cruisers after cities, to gain popular support for the Big Navy
• Squadron of Evolution sent around world
  
• First Annual Report Dec. 1889 - "a fighting force"
  
• Eugene Hale and Charles Boutelle on Maine, Lodge of MA, Joseph Hawley of CT ("you cannot negotiate without a gun")
• Navy Act of 1890 - from Boutelle's House Naval Affairs Committee, to build 3 "first-class" battleships with range of 5000 miles
• "sea-going coast-line battleships" of 10,000 tons: Indiana, Massachusetts, Oregon
  
• 2 fleets to replace "distant stations"
  

Grover Cleveland 1893-96

• pro-Mahan strategy of Hilary Herbert
• political reasons