After a brief service in the Sabine he was given a presidential appointment soon afterwards to enter the United States Naval Academy on July 27, 1866, graduating from that institution on June 7, 1870, as a passed midshipman.

In March 1884, hebegan a three-year tour at sea aboard the sloop-of-war USS Hartford, after which he was assigned for two years at the U.S. Navy Bureau of Navigation.

He then was assigned briefly (from July to September 1889) to the Office of Naval Intelligence and reported to the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey late in October 1889, a posting he took until the spring of 1893.

He was named executive officer of the dispatch vessel USS Dolphin in April 1898, but the Spanish-American War broke out that month, and he remained aboard Helena.

After finishing his assignments ashore on April 17, 1907, with the end of a tour in Washington, D.C., he went to the New York Shipbuilding Corporation in Camden, New Jersey, the next day to commission the new Connecticut-class battleship Kansas.

He commanded the battleship for the next two years, which was an auspicious time, for Kansas was picked to be part of the "Great White Fleet" that sailed around the world between December 1907 and February 1909.

As his promotion to rear admiral was imminent, Vreeland broke his flag aboard the battleship Virginia as Commander, 4th Division, United States Atlantic Fleet.