Captain was the highest official rank in the navy. But the senior captain of the second navy, Edwin W. Moore, was always called Commodore. The uniform for captain and Commodore was one and the same.

The full dress uniforms had the tailcoat shown but two variations in trousers. The one shown is the more formal, with nearly obsolete knee-breeches. Plain white pantaloons over "short boots" were an alternate. The pantaloons could also be blue over "half boots" (probably the same as "short boots").

There were two versions of the undress uniform. The first should perhaps be described here as it was identical to the full dress uniform except for the elimination of the oak leaf trim, and thus really an only slightly modified version of full dress.

Commanders wore the same formal dress as captains, except for the oak leaves, the pennant embroidered on the collar was smaller, and they had only three buttons on cuffs and under pocket flaps instead of the four for captain.