In the “Horatio Hornblower” books, as well as Melville’s “White Jacket” and “Billy Budd,” most of the wooden sailing ships had commissioned officers of only two ranks, the captain and the lieutenants. The USS United States, Melville’s ship, also had a commodore, who outranked the captain, but let him run the ship.
My question is, when did the Navy and the Army decide to coordinate their different ranks? The Army had majors before the Navy had lieutenant commanders, but today they are considered equal ranks. Was a Navy captain always considered the equal of an Army colonel? To make it even more confusing, the Marines served aboard Navy ships but held Army ranks, and any ship’s commanding officer is usually addressed as “captain” regardless of rank, e.g. Lieutenant William Bligh of the Bounty.
That’s not how it happened. Lieutenants had been serving as the captain’s understudy since the late 16th century, and eventually came to be in charge of boats and some smaller ships. In 1794, the Royal Navy decided that those in command of small ships (but larger than those commanded by lieutenants) should be called commanders.
In 1827, the rank of commander became used for the captain’s second-in-command. First Lieutenants in battleships were also made Commanders. Lieutenants who were commanding small naval vessels (who in bigger ships would be commanders) were then called Lieutenant-in-Command, and set apart from more junior lieutenants by addition of a “half-stripe” to the two full stripes of lieutenant. In 1914, the rank of Lieutenant-Commander was established to fully distinguish these officers from junior lieutenants, with the same insignia.
Sublieutenants came along in about 1860, as a result of splitting the senior petty officer rank of master’s mate into masters-to-be and lieutenants-to-be. And admirals - admirals are a whole other thing.
The U.S. Navy adopted British ranks during the Revolutionary war, and thought admiral was too royalist for a republic, so they had three grades of captain - roughly equivalent to the army’s ranks of brigadier general, colonel and lieutenant colonel - until 1857, when they decided that having admirals was OK after all. The highest grade captains became commodores (commodore was already in some use) and rear admirals, the lowest became commanders, and captains in the middle remained captains. As far as I can tell, there was always some necessity (for the sake of both pay and precedence) to work out equivalency between ranks, and since a ship captain’s independence of command was far greater than an army captain’s, navy captains were held to be equal to Army colonels.
I’m not sure of the dates when the Navy established the ranks they currently use. (Those have had a bit of off-and-on variance since WWI.)
However, there is some confusion in nomenclature that is interfering with your understanding.
While captain is a rank, it is also a position within the hierarchy of a ship. The chief officer/head honcho on a ship or boat is the captain, regardless of rank. So a four-striper Captain as the most senior officer of an aircraft carrier and the Lieutenant junior grade in charge of a harbor patrol boat are both addressed as Captain in their role as senior officer of their vessel.
Commodore indicates (roughly) the officer in charge of a squadron. As such, he is,basically, a passenger on whatever ship is carrying his flag while he sets the direction for the operations of the squadron, while the captain of the ship, regardless of rank, is actually in charge of the operation of the ship.
The U.S. Navy has flirted with an actual rank of Commodore, from time to time, but over the last century, or so, they have simply called the rank above Captain, (corresponding to Brigadier General–one star), “Rear Admiral, (lower half)” while referring to the next higher rank (corresponding to Major General–two stars), as “Rear Admiral.” That “lower half” rank has carried the title “Commodore” on occasion, but only rarely.
A captain of a ship, with a rank below Captain, is refereed to as Captain. If he is not a 4 stripper he is not called Captain Jones, but Captain or Commander Jones if he is a 3 stripper.
Pretty much. It just indicates a “senior lieutenant” . In the RN I believe that it has as much to do with seniority as actual command.
In O’Brian’s Jack Aubrey books he is styled “Master and Commander” because, as a junior lieutenant, he is given command of the brig, HMS Sophie. (A brig has two masts while a frigate has three)
To go back further, the original usage of “Captain” was as a leader of a company of soldiers.
Early on, there was a distinction between a ship’s master (i.e. the guy in charge of sailing the ship and navigating) and the captain of the ship’s company.
However, as ships became larger, the rank of Captain corresponded closer with that of the army rank of Colonel, and Lieutenant in the navy corresponded more to that of an Army captain, which is why the grade O-6 is Captain/Colonel, and O-3 is Lieutenant/Captain.
Admirals don’t command individual ships. They are “upper management”, and responsible for groups of ships, but not the day-to-day operation of a ship. Should the Captain (in rank and role) of an Admiral’s flagship become incapacitated, the ship’s Executive Officer (of whatever rank) would assume command of the ship, while the Admiral would continue to supervise the squadron (or task force, or whatever).
I suppose you might call an Admiral “Captain” if you were a passenger on his own personal sailboat, but within the Navy I’m not aware of any roles for an Admiral commanding a vessel.