Decommission Warships

[shrike6]

Nevermind found the answer after deep diviing. Essential what you said. Thanks Dragoon!

Source:https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-...ip-naming.html

On 3 March 1819, an act of Congress formally placed the responsibility for assigning names to the Navy’s ships in the hands of the Secretary of the Navy, a prerogative which he still exercises. This act stated that “all of the ships, of the Navy of the United States, now building, or hereafter to be built, shall be named by the Secretary of the Navy, under the direction of the President of the United States, according to the following rule, to wit: those of the first class shall be called after the States of this Union; those of the second class after the rivers; and those of the third class after the principal cities and towns; taking care that no two vessels of the navy shall bear the same name.” The last-cited provision remains in the United States Code today.

An act of 12 June 1858 specifically included the word “steamship” in the ship type nomenclature, and officially defined the “classes” of ships in terms of the number of their guns. Ships armed with 40 guns or more were of the “first class”; those carrying fewer than 40, but more than 20, guns were of the “second class.” The name source for the second class was expanded to include the principal towns as well as rivers. The unprecedented expansion of the fleet during the Civil War was reflected ─ as far as ship naming was concerned ─ in an act of 5 August 1861, which authorized the Secretary of the Navy “to change the names of any vessels purchased for use of the Navy Department...” This provision also remains in current law.