menu_book Chapter 3

chapter two part one of from sail to steam by alfred thayer mahan this librivox recording is in the public domain chapter two naval conditions before the war of secession the vessels less far-reaching because men are greater than ships but still of immense timeliness as a preparative to the war was the reconstitution of the material of the navy practically coincident with the regeneration of the personnel the causes which led to this are before my time and beyond my contemporary knowledge they therefore form no part of my theme but the result which is more important than the process was strictly contemporary with me it marked a definite parting with sails as the motive reliance of the ship-of-war but at the same time was characterized by an extreme conservatism which then was probably judicious and certainly represented the naval opinion of the day it must be remembered that the atlantic was first crossed under steam in eighteen thirty seven a feat shortly before thought impossible on account of coal consumption and that the screw propeller was not generally adopted till several years afterwards

in eighteen fifty five the transatlantic liners were still paddlers but the paddle-wheel shaft was far above the water and so in necessary consequence was much of the machinery which transmitted power from the boilers to the wheel all battle experience avouched the probability of disabling injury under such exposure not more certain but probably more fatal than that to spars and sails of sailing ships despite this drawback paddle-wheel men-of-war were being built between eighteen forty and eighteen fifty our own navy had of these two large and powerful vessels sisters the missouri and the mississippi singularly enough both met the same end by fire the missouri being burned in the bay of gibraltar in eighteen forty three the mississippi in the river whence she took her name in the course of farragut's passage of the batteries at port hudson in eighteen sixty three this engagement marked the end of the admiral's achievements in the river through which beginning with the passage of the forts and the capture of new orleans the mississippi had done good work

at the time of her destruction the present admiral dewey was her first lieutenant besides these two we had the susquehanna paddle-wheel steam frigate which also served manfully through the war and was in commission after it it was she that carried general sherman on his mission to mexico in eighteen sixty six as usual the principal european navies had built many more of these vessels that is had adopted improvements more readily than we did during my first cruise after graduation on the coast of brazil eighteen fifty nine to sixty one the british squadron there was composed chiefly of paddlers the flagship leopard being one as i remember there was only one screw steamer the sloop of war curassal by that time however the paddlers were only survivals but it may be noted in passing with reference to the cry of obsolescence so readily raised in our day that these survivals did yeoman service in the war of secession it is possible to be too quick in discarding as well as too slow in adopting

by eighteen fifty the screw had made good its position and the difficulty which had impeded the progress of steam in men-of-war disappeared when it became possible to place all machinery below water there were however many improvements still to come before it could be frankly and fully accepted as the sole motive power it is not well to let go with one hand till sure of your grip with the other so in the early days of electric lighting prudent steamship companies kept their oil lamps trimmed and filled in the brackets beside the electric globes apart from the problem experienced by the average man and governments are almost always averages in adjusting his action to novel conditions, the science of steam-engineering was still very backward. Notably, the expenditure of coal was

excessive. To produce a given result in miles traveled or speed attained, much more had to be burned than now, a condition to which contributed also the lack of rigidity in the wooden halls, which still held their ground. Sails were very expensive articles, as I heard said by an accomplished officer of the olden days, but they were less costly than coal. Steam, therefore, was accepted at the first only as an accessory for emergencies. It was too evident for a question

that in battle a vessel independent of the wind would have an unqualified advantage over one independent, though an early acquaintance of mine, a sail-maker in the navy, a man of unusual intelligence and tried courage, used to maintain that steam would never prevail. Small steamers, he contended, would accompany sailing fleets to tow vessels becalmed or disabled in battle, a most entertaining instance of professional prepossession. What would be his reflections,

had he survived this year of grace to see only six sail-makers on the active list of the navy the last one appointed in eighteen eighty eight and not one of them afloat likewise in breasting the continuous head-winds which mark some ocean districts or traversing the calms of others there would be gain but for the most part sailing it was thought was sufficiently expeditious decidedly cheaper and more generally reliable for steamers broke down admiral bodin a french veteran of the napoleonic period was very sarcastic over the uncertainties of action of the steamers accompanying his sailing frigates when he attacked fort san juan de ola off vera cruz in eighteen thirty nine and since writing these words i have come across the following quotation of several years later from the london guardian which in republishing some of its older news under the title tis sixty years since quote naval maneuvers in eighteen forty six the squadron of evolution is one of the topics of the present week june tenth eighteen forty six

its arrival in the cove of cork after a cruise which has tested by every variety of weather the sailing qualities of the vessels has furnished the world with a few particulars of its doings and with some materials for speculating on the problems it was sent out to solve the result as far as it goes is certainly unfavorable to the exclusive prevalence of steam agency in naval warfare sailing ships it is seen can do things which steamers as at present constructed cannot accomplish they can keep the sea when steamers cannot but the screw steamer which is reported to have astonished everybody is certainly an exception perhaps by this contrivance the rapidity and convenience of steam locomotion may be combined with the power and stability of our huge sailing batteries under convictions thus slowly recasting the first big steam ships of war carried merely auxiliary engines were in fact sailing vessels of the types in use for over a century into which machinery was introduced to meet occasional emergencies in some cases probably in many ships already built as sailors were lengthened and engined as late as eighteen sixty eight we were station mates with one such the rodney of ninety guns

then the flagship of the british china squadron and we had already met another the princess royal at the cape of good hope homeward bound she however had been built as a steamer she was a singularly handsome vessel of her majestic type and as she lay close by us i remember commenting on her appearance to one of my messmates poor stuart who afterwards went down in the oneida yes he replied she possesses certain elements of the sublime they were certainly imposing creations with their double and treble tiers of guns thrusting their black muzzles through the successive ports which to the number of fifteen to twenty broke through the two broad white bands that from bow to stern traversed the blackness of their hulls above those rose spars as tall and broad as ever graced the days of nelson to make the illusion of the past as complete as possible and the dissemblance from the sailing-ship as slight the smoke-stack or funnel was telescopic permitting it to be lowered almost out of sight for those who can recall these predecessors of the modern battleships the latter can make slight claim to beauty or impressiveness yet despite the ugliness of their angular broken skyline they have a gracefulness all their own when moving slowly in still water

i remember a dozen years ago watching the french mediterranean fleet of six or eight battleships leaving the harbor of villefranche near nice there was some maneuvering to get there several stations during which here and there a vessel lying quiet waiting her opportunity would glide forward with a dozen slow turns of the screws not agitating the water beyond a light ripple at the bows the bay at the moment was quiet as a mill-pond and it needed little imagination to prompt recognition of the identity of dignified movement with that of a swan making its leisurely way by means equally unseen no turbulent display of energy yet suggestive of mysterious power before the war of secession and indeed for twenty years after it the united states never inclined to the maintenance of squadrons properly so called it is true a dozen fine ships of the line were built during the sail period but they never sailed together and the essence of the battleship in all eras is combined action

our squadrons till long after i entered the navy were simply aggregations of vessels no two of which were necessarily of the same size or class when a ship of the line went to sea which never happened in my time she went without mates a palpable paradox a ship of the line which to no line belonged ours was a navy of single isolated cruisers and under that condition we had received a correct tradition that whatever the nominal class of an american ship of war she should be somewhat stronger than the corresponding vessels built by other nations each cruiser therefore would bring superior force to any field of battle at all possible to her this was a perfectly just military conception to which in great measure we owed our successes in eighteen twelve the same rule does not apply to fleets which to achieve the like superiority rely upon united action and upon tactical facility obtained by the homogeneous qualities of the several ships enabling them to combine greater numbers upon a part of the enemy

therefore great britain which so long ruled the world by fleets attached less importance to size in the particular vessel class for class her ships were weaker than those of her enemies but in fleet action they usually won at the period of which i am writing the screw propeller having fairly established its position prompted a reconstruction of the navy with no change of the principles just mentioned the cruiser idea dictated the classes of vessels ordered and the idea of relative size prescribed their dimensions there were to be six steam frigates of the largest class six steam sloops and six smaller vessels a precise title for which i do not know i myself have usually called them by the french name corvette which has a recognized place in english marine phraseology and means a sloop of war of the smaller class a transfer of terms accompanying a change of system is apt to be marked by anomalies these eighteen vessels were the nucleus of the fighting force with which the government met the war of eighteen sixty one in the frigates and sloops steam was purely auxiliary

they had every spar and sail of the sailing ships to which they corresponded four of the larger sloops the hartford richmond brooklyn and pensacola constituted the backbone of farragut's fleet throughout his operations in the mississippi the lancaster one of the finest of these five sisters was already in the pacific and there remained throughout the contest while the san jacinto being of different type and size was employed rather as a cruiser than for the important operations of war it was she that arrested the confederate commissioners slidell and mason on board the british mail steamer trent in eighteen sixty one the corvettes for the most part were also employed as cruisers being at once less effective in battery for river work and swifter they alone of the vessels built in the fifties were engined for speed as speed went in those days but their sail power also was ample though somewhat reduced one of them the iroquois accompanied farragut to new orleans as did a sister ship to her the oneida which was laid down in eighteen sixty one after many southern senators and representatives had left their seats in congress and the secession movement became ominous of war

when it began to be admitted that perhaps after all for sufficient cause brothers might shed the blood of brothers the steam frigates were of too deep draught to be of much use in the shoal waters to which the nature of the hostilities and the character of the southern coast confined naval operations being extremely expensive in upkeep with enormous crews and not having speed under steam to make them effective chasers they were of little avail against an enemy who had not and could not have any ships at sea heavy enough to compete with them the wabash of this class bore the flag of admiral du pont at the capture of port royal and after the fight the negroes who had witnessed it on shore reported that when that checker-sided ship following the elliptical course prescribed to the squadron for the engagement came abreast the enemy's works the gunners after one experience took at once to cover no barbette or merely embrasured battery of that day could stand up against the twenty or more heavy guns carried on each broadside by the steam frigates if these could get near enough at new orleans even the less numerous pieces of the sloops beat down opposition so long as they remained in front of fort st philip and close to but when they passed on so the first lieutenant of one of them told me the enemy returned to his guns and hammered them severely

this showed that the fort was not seriously injured nor its armament decisively crippled but that the personnel was completely dominated by the fire of many heavy guns during the critical period required for the smaller as well as larger vessels to pass as most of the river work was of this character the broadsides of the sloops were determinative and those of the frigates would have been more so could they have been brought to the scene but they could not much labor was expended in the attempt to drag the colorado sister ship to the wabash across the bar of the mississippi but fruitlessly for the reason named the screw frigates built in the fifties had little active share in the civil war were they then from a national standpoint uselessly built not unless preparation for war is to be rejected and reliance placed upon extemporized means to this resort our people have always been inclined to trust unduly owing to a false or partial reading of history but to it they were excusably compelled by the extensive demands of the war of secession which could scarcely have been anticipated

at the time these frigates were built they were by their dimensions and the character of their armaments much the most formidable ships of their class afloat or as yet designed though correctly styled frigates having but one covered deck of guns they were open to the charge brought against our frigates in eighteen twelve by the british of being ships of the line in disguise and being homogeneous in qualities they would in acting together have presented a line of battle extorting very serious consideration from any probable foreign enemy it was for such purpose they were built and it is no reproach to their designers that being intended to meet a probable contingency they were too big for one which very few men thought likely at that moment when the portentous evolution of naval material which my time has witnessed was but just beginning they were thoroughly up to date abreast and rather ahead of the conclusions as yet reached by contemporary opinion

the best of compliments was paid them by the imitation of other navies for when the first one was finished we sent her abroad on exhibition much like a hen cackling over its last performance with the result that we had not longed to congratulate ourselves on the newest and best thing it is this place in a long series of development which gives them their historical interest but if the frigates were unfitted to the particular emergency of a civil contest scarcely to be discerned as imminent in eighteen fifty five the advantage of preparation for general service is avouched by the history of the first year of hostilities even so exceptional as those of eighteen sixty one and eighteen sixty two within a year of the first bull run farragut's squadron had fought its way from the mouth of the mississippi to vicksburg that the extreme position was not held was not the fault of the ships but a backwardness in other undertakings of the nation all the naval vessels that subdued new orleans had been launched and ready before the war except the oneida and the gunboats and to attribute any determinative effect in such operations to the gunboats with their one heavy gun is to misunderstand the conditions even a year later at the very important passage of port hudson the fighting work was done by the hartford richmond

mississippi and monongahela of which only the last named and least powerful was built after the war began it would be difficult to overrate the value material and moral of the early successes which led the way to the opening of the great river due to having the ships and officers ready so the important advantages obtained by the capture of port royal in south carolina and of hatteras inlet in north carolina within the first six months were the results of readiness slight and inadequate as that was in reference to anything like a great naval war a brief analysis of the composition of the navy at the opening of the war of secession will bring out still more vividly how vitally important to the issue were the additions of the decade eighteen fifty to sixty in march eighteen sixty one when lincoln was inaugurated the available ships of war at sea or in the yards numbered sixty one of these thirty-four were sailing vessels substantially worthless although as the commerce of the world was still chiefly carried on by sailing ships they could be of some slight service against those attempting to pass a blockade

for the most part however they were but scarecrows if even respected as such of the twenty-seven steamers only six dated from before eighteen fifty the remainder were being built when i entered the naval academy in september eighteen fifty six their construction with all that it meant constituted a principal part of the environment into which i was then brought of which the recasting of the list of officers was the other most important and significant feature both were revolutionary in character and prophetic of further changes quite beyond the foresight of contemporaries from this point of view the period in question has the character of an epoch initiated made possible by the invention of the screw propeller which in addition to the better nautical qualities associated with it permitted the defence of the machinery by submersion and of the sides of the ship by the application of armour in this lay the germ of the race between the armor and the gun involving almost directly the attempt to reach the parts which armor cannot protect the under-water body by means of the torpedo

the increases of weight induced by the competition of gun and armor led necessarily to increases of size which in turn lent itself to increases of speed that have been pushed beyond the strictly necessary and at all events are neither militarily nor logically involved in the progress made it has remained to me always a matter of interest and satisfaction that i first knew the navy was in close personal contact and association with it in this period of unconscious transition and that to the fact of its being yet incomplete i have owed the experience of vessels now wholly extinct of which it would be no more than truth to say that in all essential details they were familiar to the men of two hundred years ago in their predecessors of that date as transmitted to us by contemporary prints it is easy to trace the development in form of the ships i have known from the mediaeval galley and this were the records equally complete would doubtless find its rudimentary outlines in the triremes of the ancient world of this evolution of structure clear evidences remain also in terminology even now current

survivals which if the fact were unknown would provoke curiosity and inquiry as to their origin as physiologists seek to reconstruct the past of a race from scanty traces still extant End of chapter 2, part 1