 By contrast, the United States Navy, which was not yet twenty years old, was a frigate navy that had only twenty-two commissioned vessels.The chief fighting strength of the U.S. Navy was a squadron of three frigates and two sloops of war under Commodore John Rodgers, based in New York.A week after Congress declared war, United States Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton had sent orders to Rodgers to cruise off New York, and to Captain Isaac Hull, commanding at Annapolis on Chesapeake Bay, to join Rodgers.