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Robert F. R. Lewis

United States admiral (1826–1881)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 5, 2026
Entity authorityQ7344209 ↗
Source-derived summary

Captain Robert F. R. Lewis (30 January 1826 – 23 February 1881) was an officer in the United States Navy. He participated in the Paraguay Expedition, fought in the Mexican War and American Civil War, and served briefly as commander of the Asiatic Squadron.

Naval career

Lewis was born on 30 January 1826 in Washington, D.C. He was appointed as a midshipman in October 1841 and immediately was attached to the sloop-of-war USS Warren, which was fitting out at Norfolk Navy Yard in Portsmouth, Virginia, at the time. Before Warren could put to sea, however, Lewis was transferred to the receiving ship USS Pennsylvania at the navy yard, remaining aboard her for a few months. In 1842, he was attached to the sloop-of-war USS Vandalia, and served aboard her until 1845 off the coast of Africa and in the West Indies Squadron.

Mexican War

Lewis next reported to the sloop-of-war USS Cyane at Norfolk, Virginia, and served aboard her in the Pacific Squadron from 1845 to 1848. Aboard Cyane, he took part in the Mexican War, seeing action in the capture of San Diego, California – then a part of Mexico – the destruction of a Mexican artillery battery at San Blas, the seizure of La Paz in Baja California, and the bombardment of Guaymas in Sonora, where Cyane cut out the Mexican brig Condor while under fire from Mexican troops and artillery ashore and burned the small Mexican fleet there. Cyane went on to clear the Gulf of California of Mexican ships over the course of the next month and participated in the capture of Mazatlán before relieving the siege by Mexican troops and Yaqui Indians of San José del Cabo. Upon Cyane's return to the United States at the conclusion of the war in 1848, United States Secretary of the Navy John Y. Mason congratulated her crew for their significant contribution to the American victory.

1848–1861

After returning to the United States, Lewis reported to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1848 and passed his examination.

Editorial summary

“Robert F. R. Lewis” enters the record as united States admiral (1826–1881). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Robert, Lewis and United can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1826, 1881, 1841, 1842—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Robert, Lewis and United.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Robert F. R. Lewis” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Robert, Lewis and United provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7344209. The first chronological checks are 1826, 1881, 1841 and 1842.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Robert F. R. Lewis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.