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Contact Info
Home Town East Benton, Maine. Raised in Stevens Point, WI
Last Address Died at Philadelphia. Burial: Elmwood Cemetery Norfolk, Virginia, USA
Albert Weston Grant served during the Spanish–American War and was commander of Battleship Force 1, Atlantic Fleet, in World War I.
Other Comments:
Namesake: In 1943, the destroyer USS Albert W. Grant was named in honor of Admiral Grant, sponsored by his granddaughter, Miss Nell Preston Grant.
Albert Weston Grant was born on April 14, 1856, in East Benton, Maine. He grew up at Stevens Point, Wisconsin, with his pioneer family and won a competitive appointment to the United States Naval Academy, from which he graduated on June 20, 1877.
Following service on USS Pensacola, Lackawanna, Alliance, Passaic, and Iroquois, he served ashore at the Norfolk Navy Yard, received torpedo training, and served briefly at the Naval War College.
Duty in Trenton, Richmond, Saratoga, and Yorktown preceded his return to Norfolk to supervise major repairs to Pensacola, which entailed pioneer work in applying electricity to warships and then reporting to Concord. On May 9, 1893, his commission as a lieutenant reached him while he was serving in that gunboat.
A tour on the cruiser San Francisco ended in the summer of 1894 when Grant was ordered back to the Naval Academy for duty as an instructor. Detached some three years later, he returned to sea in Helena and served off the coast of Cuba in Massachusetts during the Spanish-American War.
Transferred to Machias on September 8, 1898, Grant was serving in her when promoted to lieutenant commander on July 1, 1900, a month before orders sent him back to the Academy for two more years as an instructor.
Three years of service in the Far East followed — as executive officer of Oregon and then as commanding officer of that battleship — before he returned to Annapolis, where he was promoted to commander and placed in charge of the Seamanship Department. During this assignment, he prepared a study of naval tactics, The School of the Ship, which became a standard textbook.
On July 22, 1907, Grant reported to the Naval War College for instruction and, upon completing the course in the autumn, assumed command of the Arethusa, which was the fuel tender to the Great White Fleet's destroyer flotilla. Grant took the Arethusa around Cape Horn to the Pacific.
Detached on the last day of March 1908, he embarked in Connecticut as chief of staff to the Commander of the Atlantic Fleet. During that tour of duty, he was promoted to captain on July 1, 1909. He relinquished his post as chief of staff on October 26, 1909, but remained in Connecticut as her commanding officer.
Grant became commandant of the Philadelphia Navy Yard on March 21, 1910, and simultaneously took command of the 4th Naval District. Two years later, he became head of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet. Command of the new battleship Texas came in 1913 and command of Submarine Flotilla, Atlantic Fleet, followed two years later.
In the summer of 1917 — some three months after the United States entered World War I — Grant took over Battleship Force 1, Atlantic Fleet, with additional duty in command of Squadron 2 and Division 4. This position gave him the rank of vice admiral.
December 1918 brought him command of the Atlantic Fleet. The following spring, he became commandant of the Washington Navy Yard and superintendent of the Naval Gun Factory.
Retired on April 6, 1920, Vice Admiral Grant died in Philadelphia on September 30, 1930.
Admiral Grant received the Navy Distinguished Service Medal in 1918 for his service as Commander of Battleship Force ONE.
Note: At the time, the DSM was the highest award the Navy offered. It outranked the Navy Cross until the beginning of WWII, when their standing was reversed.
Vice Admiral Grant's great-great-grandson, LT Richard Weston Grant III, is a graduate of the class of 2009 from the United States Naval Academy.
World War I
From Month/Year
April / 1917
To Month/Year
November / 1918
Description The United States of America declared war on the German Empire on April 6, 1917. The U.S. was an independent power and did not officially join the Allies. It closely cooperated with them militarily but acted alone in diplomacy. The U.S. made its major contributions in terms of supplies, raw material and money, starting in 1917. American soldiers under General John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), arrived in large numbers on the Western Front in the summer of 1918. They played a major role until victory was achieved on November 11, 1918. Before entering the war, the U.S had remained neutral, though it had been an important supplier to Great Britain and the other Allied powers. During the war, the U.S mobilized over 4 million military personnel and suffered 110,000 deaths, including 43,000 due to the influenza pandemic. The war saw a dramatic expansion of the United States government in an effort to harness the war effort and a significant increase in the size of the U.S. military. After a slow start in mobilising the economy and labour force, by spring 1918 the nation was poised to play a role in the conflict. Under the leadership of President Woodrow Wilson, the war represented the climax of the Progressive Era as it sought to bring reform and democracy to the world, although there was substantial public opposition to United States entry into the war.
Although the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, it did not initially declare war on the other Central Powers, a state of affairs that Woodrow Wilson described as an "embarrassing obstacle" in his State of the Union speech. Congress declared war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire on December 17, 1917, but never made declarations of war against the other Central Powers, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire or the various Co-belligerents allied with the central powers, thus the United States remained uninvolved in the military campaigns in central, eastern and southern Europe, the Middle East, the Caucasus, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific.
The United States as late as 1917 maintained only a small army, smaller than thirteen of the nations and empires already active in the war. After the passage of the Selective Service Act in 1917, it drafted 2.8 million men into military service. By the summer of 1918 about a million U.S. soldiers had arrived in France, about half of whom eventually saw front-line service; by the Armistice of November 11 approximately 10,000 fresh soldiers were arriving in France daily. In 1917 Congress gave U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans when they were drafted to participate in World War I, as part of the Jones Act. In the end Germany miscalculated the United States' influence on the outcome of the conflict, believing it would be many more months before U.S. troops would arrive and overestimating the effectiveness of U-boats in slowing the American buildup.
The United States Navy sent a battleship group to Scapa Flow to join with the British Grand Fleet, destroyers to Queenstown, Ireland and submarines to help guard convoys. Several regiments of Marines were also dispatched to France. The British and French wanted U.S. units used to reinforce their troops already on the battle lines and not to waste scarce shipping on bringing over supplies. The U.S. rejected the first proposition and accepted the second. General John J. Pershing, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) commander, refused to break up U.S. units to serve as mere reinforcements for British Empire and French units. As an exception, he did allow African-American combat regiments to fight in French divisions. The Harlem Hellfighters fought as part of the French 16th Division, earning a unit Croix de Guerre for their actions at Château-Thierry, Belleau Wood, and Séchault.
Impact of US forces on the war
On the battlefields of France in spring 1918, the war-weary Allied armies enthusiastically welcomed the fresh American troops. They arrived at the rate of 10,000 a day, at a time when the Germans were unable to replace their losses. After British Empire, French and Portuguese forces had defeated and turned back the powerful final German offensive (Spring Offensive of March to July, 1918), the Americans played a role in the Allied final offensive (Hundred Days Offensive of August to November). However, many American commanders used the same flawed tactics which the British, French, Germans and others had abandoned early in the war, and so many American offensives were not particularly effective. Pershing continued to commit troops to these full- frontal attacks, resulting in high casualties against experienced veteran German and Austrian-Hungarian units. Nevertheless, the infusion of new and fresh U.S. troops greatly strengthened the Allies' strategic position and boosted morale. The Allies achieved victory over Germany on November 11, 1918 after German morale had collapsed both at home and on the battlefield.
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
April / 1917
To Month/Year
November / 1918
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
Memories In the summer of 1917 - some three months after the United States entered World War I - Grant took over Battleship Force 1, Atlantic Fleet, with additional duty in command of Squadron 2 and Division 4. This position gave him the rank of vice admiral. December 1918 brought him command of the Atlantic Fleet. The following spring, he became commandant of the Washington Navy Yard and superintendent of the Naval Gun Factory.
