Frederick Rodgers

Rear Admiral Frederick W. Rodgers (3 October 1842 – 3 November 1917) was an officer in the United States Navy. He fought in the American Civil War and rose to be the last commander of the Asiatic Squadron. He was a grandson of U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry.

Naval career Rodgers was born in Havre de Grace, Maryland, on 3 October 1842, a son of (1809–1891) and the former Sarah Perry (1818–1905), a daughter of U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry (1794–1858). His brother, , also became a rear admiral in the Navy.

He was appointed as an acting midshipman on 25 September 1857 and attended the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, from 1857 to 1861, completing his studies just after the April 1861 outbreak of the American Civil War.

Promoted to midshipman on 1 June 1861 and to acting master on 10 June 1861, Rodgers' first assignment was aboard the sailing frigate in the Gulf of Mexico as part of the Union blockade of the Confederate States of America. After Santee captured her second blockade runner – the hermaphrodite brig Delta carrying a cargo of salt from Liverpool, England – on 27 October 1861, Rodgers was placed aboard Delta in command of her prize crew.

Rodgers was promoted to lieutenant on 16 July 1862 and from 1862 to 1863 served aboard the gunboat , seeing action along the Mississippi River in Louisiana at the First Battle of Donaldsonville on 9 August 1862 and in actions at Port Hudson and College Point. He transferred to the screw steamer in 1863 and served aboard her in the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron from 1863 to 1864 and the West Gulf Blockading Squadron from 1864 to 1865, and Grand Gulf successfully intercepted a number of blockade runners during his tour. In 1865 he served aboard the steam sloop-of-war .

Rodgers returned to sea as commanding officer of the protected cruiser from September 1890 to July 1892, then served as Supervisor of the Harbor of New York from July 1892 to September 1893. His next tour was as Captain of the Yard at the New York Navy Yard in Brooklyn, New York, from 1893 to 1896. He took command of the new battleship as her first commanding officer when she was commissioned on 10 June 1896. During the Spanish–American War he commanded the coastal monitor which operated in both the Cuban and Puerto Rican Campaigns. Following the war, he served as President of the Board of Inspection and Survey from 1 December 1898 until 1901, being promoted to commodore on 25 September

While in the Asiatic Squadron, Rodgers was at the center of a legal case, Frederick Rodgers v. United States, involving a claim Rodgers made for additional pay he believed was due him and eight other rear admirals in the wake of the passage by the United States Congress of the Navy Personnel Act of 3 March 1899. The Supreme Court of the United States heard arguments in the case on 26 February 1902 and ruled against Rodgers on 26 April 1902.

Rodgers was commandant of the New York Navy Yard from 1 April 1903 until 3 October 1904, when he retired from the Navy upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 62.

Retirement and death In retirement, Rodgers lived in Washington, D.C., for a time. He was involved in various activities, such as serving in 1907 as senior member of a naval board considering land boundaries at Honolulu in the Territory of Hawaii.

Rodgers died of a stroke at his home in St. James on Long Island, New York, on 3 November 1917. He was survived by his wife and a son.

Rogers is buried at Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C.