Robley D. Evans (Admiral)

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Robley D. Evans

Robley Dunglison Evans , USN , (born August 18, 1846 in Floyd Court House, Floyd County , Virginia ; † January 3, 1912 in Washington, DC ) was an American admiral . He commanded the Great White Fleet on the first leg of their voyage around the world.

Life

"Fighting Bob" Evans , historic postcard, 1906

Robley D. Evans was born in Floyd County, Virginia, the son of a country doctor, but had lived with his uncle in Washington, DC since the age of 11 - after the death of his father - at the age of thirteen he moved to Utah to relocate from to receive a Naval Academy nomination in that state . He entered the academy on September 20, 1860 and stayed there after the outbreak of the civil war - despite requests from his family to join the confederation . Due to the war-related shortage of officers, the graduating class of 1864 graduated in October 1863 and Evans - 17 years old - was promoted to serving lieutenant ( Acting Ensign ). He received his first command on the USS Powhatan , on which he also spent most of the rest of the war. During the attack on Fort Fisher in mid-January 1865, he led a marine company ashore and was seriously wounded by several shots in both legs and right foot. He drove away the army surgeon who wanted to amputate his leg with a gun in his hand.

His injuries plagued him for the rest of his life and resulted in his being retired in May 1866. In early 1867 - after prevailing against Congress - he returned to active service. During the late 1860s did until the 1870s he service on the USS Piscataqua (renamed in 1896 in Delaware ), the flagship of Asia fleet was, and 1866 to lieutenant commander and 1868 to Lieutenant Commander (dt. Korvettenkapitän ) transported. After serving in the naval shipyard in Washington and at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, he received a two-year on-board command with the European squadron in mid-1873, first on the USS Shenandoah and later on the USS Congress .

Then he went back to the naval shipyard in Washington, where he dealt with the technology of signal transmission, and then was frigate captain and commanding officer of the training ship USS Saratoga (1878-1880). For the next twelve years he served as a lighthouse inspector and a member of the Light House Board and the Naval Advisory Board . Here he was particularly committed to steel shipbuilding. As chief inspector for steel construction, he oversaw the production of ship steel before he became the commanding officer of the gunboat Yorktown in the Pacific from 1891 to 1893 . Because of his determined leadership during the crisis with Chile after the Baltimore incident in 1891-92, he was given the popular nickname "Fighting Bob" and his vigorous crackdown on illegal seals in the Bering Sea in late 1892 increased his reputation even more.

After promotion to Captain in June 1893, he served again in the Light-House Board and then commanded from 1894 to 1897 the battleship USS New York and the new battleship USS Indiana . With the New York he took part in the opening of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal in 1895 and made friends with the Emperor's brother, Prince Heinrich , who was also a naval officer. During the Spanish-American War he was given command of the USS Iowa , the newest and most modern battleship in the Navy, and distinguished himself in the Battle of Santiago on July 3, 1898, when the Iowa in front of the port entrance besides several Spanish ships Engaged but lost not a single man himself. The defeated Spanish fleet commander Admiral Pascual Cervera and the officers of three Spanish ships also handed over their swords on his ship . Evans was then transferred to the Board of Inspection and Survey from October 1898 to 1902 and, after being promoted to Rear Admiral in February 1901 , became its President.

When Prince Heinrich visited the United States in 1902, Evans was his orderly officer and from 1902 to 1904 he commanded the Asian fleet , before taking over the Atlantic fleet in March 1905 . His brother-in-law and classmate in Annapolis Admiral Henry Clay Taylor , whose sister Charlotte Evans had married in 1871, died suddenly in July 1904. From late 1907 to early 1908, although already seriously ill, Evans led Roosevelt's Great White Fleet on the first leg of their voyage from Hampton Roads around Cape Horn to San Francisco , but had to resign from command in May 1908 because of his illness after he had already completed the last had to spend three months in bed at sea.

He retired in August 1908 at the age of 62, but served a few more years with the General Board of the Navy . He died in 1912 as, alongside George Dewey , the most famous American naval hero of his time and is buried together with his wife, who died in 1919, and his grandson Robley Evans Sewall, who died in 1908, in Arlington National Cemetery.

Two US Navy destroyers were named after Rear Adm. Robley D. Evans: USS Evans (DD-78) , 1918–1940, and USS Evans (DD-552) , 1943–1947.

Works

  • A Sailor's Log: Recollections of Forty Years of Naval Life. - New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1901 <reprint Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, March 2005. - ISBN 1-41790787-8 >
  • An admiral's log: Being Continued Recollections of Naval Life. - New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1910

literature

  • Howard Miller: "Fighting Bob". In: The CONNector. Connecticut State Library Newsletter - Volume 4, Number 4. Hartford, Connecticut: Online November 2002
  • Michael Morgan: "Fighting Bob" Evans served with equal distinction during the Civil War and in the "steel navy" of the late 19th century. In: Military History. - Herndon: June 2001. Vol. 18, Issue 2; P. 20 ff.
  • James R. Reckner: Evans, Robley Dunglison. In: American National Biography Online , February 2000 (Access Date: Sat Sep 10 2005 11:58:53 GMT + 0200)
  • Clark G. Reynolds: Famous American Admirals. - New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1978 <New edition: Annapolis, Md .: Naval Institute Press, 2002. - ISBN 1-55750-006-1 >

Web links

Commons : Robley Dunglison Evans  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files