Cutterman Hugh George Campbell and Super-Cutter Eagle in the Quasi War with France

摘要

In the late 1790s, the United States and Revolutionary France began fighting an undeclared naval war known as the Quasi War. With only a small naval force available at the time, United States authorities called on the Revenue Cutter Service to protect American merchantmen and defend against French privateers. At the time, the new nation's revenue cutters were small, lightly-armed vessels, cruising for only days at a time out of their homeports along the east coast. The Service quickly built a class of small warships, or super-cutters, which matched or exceeded the speed and armament of the enemy's privateers.