While in his senior year of high school he was given an opportunity to enter a competitive examination for entrance into the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.

Detached from that post on 29 August 1896, Ensign Vogelgesang reported to the gunboat USS Bancroft on 3 September 1896.

During that war, Vogelgesang served in her during convoy escort missions and on blockade duty off Havana, Cuba, and near the Isle of Pines.

On 6 June 1904, Vogelgesang returned to the Bureau of Navigation for a two-year tour of duty, during which he attained the rank of lieutenant commander on 1 July 1905.

This was followed by his first command, the Presidential yacht USS Mayflower during the latter part of the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt.

In May 1909, Lieutenant Commander Vogelgesang reported for duty ashore once more, this time to study at the Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island.

Vogelgesang was ordered to form a commission, and, with 35 other selected U.S. Navy officers, proceeded to Rio de Janeiro.

Having a basic knowledge of French and Spanish, he was able in six weeks' time to absorb the Portuguese language sufficiently to conduct his lectures to the Brazilian officers in their native tongue.

As a mark of esteem for his excellent service, the Brazilian Government sent an envoy to place a commemorative plaque in the Mahan Library at the United States Naval Academy in his honor.

Early in his Brazilian assignment, Vogelgesang was promoted to rear admiral, to date from 16 October 1922, the first person from California to become a flag officer.

Rear Admiral Vogelgesang completed his mission in Brazil in January 1925 and returned to the United States on 7 February 1925.

He took up duties at OpNav at the Department of the Navy in Washington, D.C. On 3 April 1925, he broke his flag in battleship USS New York (BB-34), meaning his flag was raised on this ship, and became Commander, Battleship Division 2 of the Scouting Fleet; one of his first duties during this tour was to command the 1925 Midshipman Summer Cruise, which took him to the Pacific.

Rear Admiral Vogelgeang's tour of duty in the Light Cruiser Division was abbreviated when he entered the Naval Hospital, Washington, D.C., for treatment of a kidney ailment.

However, in New York City on 3 August 1944, work began at the Bethlehem Steel Corporation shipyard at Staten Island on a new destroyer, to which the name Vogelgesang had been transferred.