An Act of Congress approved on April 30, 1798 provided "that there shall be an executive department under the denomination of the Department of the Navy, the chief officer of which shall be called the Secretary of the Navy, whose duty it shall be to execute such orders as he shall receive from the President of the United States, relative to the procurement of naval stores and materials and the construction, armament, equipment and employment of vessels of war, as well as all other matters connected with the naval establishment of the United States…From 1788 to 1815 the Secretary's Office exercised all the administrative functions of the Navy Department except those assigned to the several navy yards and to the Marine Corps. In 1815, a number of functions, including chiefly procurement, construction, repair, and equipment, were separated from the Secretary's Office and assigned to the Board of Navy Commissioners, from which (with functions relative to hydrography and astronomy) they were transferred in 1842 to four bureaus. In 1842 most functions relative to medicine and surgery, and in 1862 most functions relative to enlisted men, were transferred to bureaus." Two autonomous groups within the Secretary's Office are the Office of the Judge Advocate General and the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. Record Group 80 does not include records from either of these autonomous offices.
James R. Masterson
(1945), 2006, CD-ROM, Graphic Images, Adobe Acrobat v6, PC or Mac, 118 pp.
ISBN: 9780788440250
101-CD4025
