By J.
T. Headley
Comprising the early life and
public services of the prominent naval commanders who, with Grant and Sherman
and their generals, brought to a triumphant close the great rebellion of
1861-1865. (First edition 1867)
(Return to table of contents of this book)
CHAPTER
I.
MODERN
SCIENCE IN NAVAL WARFARE
EARLIEST
NAVAL ENGAGEMENT ON RECORD—BATTLE OF SALAMIS—ROMAN MODE OF
FIGHTING—ANCIENT ENGINES AND IMPLEMENTS OF DESTRUCTION—CANNON FIRST USED IN
NAVAL COMBATS.—THE TERRIBLE BATTLE OF LEPANTO—RAPIDITY WITH WHICH ANCIENT
NAVAL EXPEDITIONS WERE FITTED OUT—IMPROVEMENT IN SHIPBUILDING—THE PAIXHAN
GUN—EXPLOSION OF SHELLS BY CONCUSSION—OUR SECOND WAR WITH
ENGLAND—ASTOUNDING RESULTS OF THE VARIOUS COMBATS—CHIEF CAUSE OF OUR
VICTORIES—SIGHTS ON CANNON—INFERIORITY OF OUR NAVY AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF
THE REBELLION—IMPROVEMENTS IN GUNS—DAHLGREN GUN—DESCRIPTION OF THE PARROTT
GUN—CONSTRUCTION OF IRON-CLADS—THE MONITOR, GALENA, AND
IRONSIDES—FOUNDATION OF THE IRON-CLAD NAVY—STRENGTH OF THE NAVY AT THE
COMMENCEMENT OF THE WAR—ITS DIVISION—EXTENT OF COAST TO BE
BLOCKADED—NUMBER OF VESSELS BUILT AND PURCHASED—EUROPE ON THE
BLOCKADE—ENGLAND—SOUTHERN EFFORTS TO BREAK THE BLOCKADE—BLOCKADE
RUNNERS—NUMBER CAPTURED THE FIRST YEAR—TOTAL NUMBER DURING THE
WAR—INCREASE OF OUR NAVAL FORCE DURING THE WAR—AMOUNT EXPENDED BY OUR NAVY
DEPARTMENT.
Modern science has worked
greater changes in naval warfare since the breaking out of the recent rebellion
than ever before in the same period of time. These changes have been not only in
the size and destructive power of cannons, but in the mode of constructing ships
of war.
The earliest naval engagement
on record was fought by Eurythus, a prince who controlled the Red Sea. The most
noted one of ancient times was that of Salamis, between the Greeks and Persians.
The fleet of the latter consisted of twelve hundred galleys, manned by five
hundred thousand men, while the former had but four hundred vessels. Xerxes
caused his throne to be placed on a mountain overlooking the scene of combat, in
which he sat surrounded with secretaries, pen in hand, to note the heroic deeds
of individual commanders, and to mark the laggards in the conflict. The mountain
ridges near the Acropolis and the Hill of Mars were crowded with spectators of
the fight, which ended in the dispersion and destruction of the whole Persian
fleet. This was five hundred years before Christ.
The Romans were accustomed to
advance to the attack with their galleys arranged in the form of a triangle-the
admiral’s vessel at the head. Then, as now, human ingenuity multiplied the
engines of destruction. Turrets were erected on the prow or stern, from which
arrows could be discharged in showers; huge engines arose from the centre, from
which rocks were hurled with a power that sent them, like round-shot, through
the bottoms of the vessels; battering-rams swung from the masts, to beat in
their sides; while pots of live coals and melted pitch and combustible compounds
were added to the battle-axe and spear. It is said that the ancestor of Hannibal
threw pots of live and poisonous serpents on board his enemy’s ships, which,
darting around on deck, spread consternation among the crew.
The invention of cannon
introduced a new element into naval warfare. The Venetians and Genoese, the
great naval powers of the 16th century, first used them in naval combats. The
first great battle fought after their introduction was that of Lepanto, in 1571,
between the Venetians and Spanish on one side, and the Turks on the other, in
which the great question was decided whether Christianity or Mohammedanism
should control Northern Europe. The Turks had two hundred and thirty galleys and
transports, with six vessels carrying heavy artillery. The Christians had two
hundred and fifty, manned with fifty thousand men. Nearly five hundred vessels,
with two mighty armies on board, met in mortal combat. No time was lost in
distant firing, for the vessels rushed on each other in a close death-grapple.
Modern naval warfare furnishes no such an imposing array of force. It was a
frightful struggle, and when it closed nearly a hundred of the Turkish vessels
had sunk to the bottom of the sea, and twenty-five thousand men lay dead on the
decks, or had disappeared beneath the waves, Ten thousand Christians also had
fallen, making the total number of victims in this terrific sea-fight
thirty-five thousand. Such a loss of life in a naval combat at the present day
can hardly be conceived of.
In those old barbarous times,
as we are accustomed to call them, grand naval expeditions were fitted out with
a rapidity that even in these days would be regarded with astonishment. Rome
once fitted out an immense fleet in ninety days after the trees were standing in
the forest. Pisa built and equipped a fleet, to sail against the king of
Syracuse, of two hundred and twenty vessels in forty-five days.
War-vessels kept pace with
improvements in ship building, till huge fabrics with three gun-decks, and
throwing a terrific amount of metal in a single broadside, were launched by the
great maritime powers of the world.
Hollow shot or shells were
very early introduced into the navy; but being thrown from mortars, were used
chiefly in assailing fortified places on land. The Paixhan gun, though invented
by an American, about 1812, received but little attention here until it was
introduced into France by Captain Paixhan. This was a great improvement in naval
warfare, for with this piece of ordnance shells were fired point-blank like
round-shot. Before they were thrown in a curve, and hence of but little use on
the water. The explosion of shells by concussion was a great step forward. With
this exception, however, the improvement in cannon was very slight. There is,
however, a great difference between the howitzer of 1693 and the Dahlgren
howitzer, which is used for firing grape and canister at close quarters.
In our second war with England
we made a great stride forward in naval warfare. England had been regarded by
the world as “mistress of the sea," and the attempt to contend with her
on her favorite element was considered the world over to be a piece of madness
on our part.
The first conflict took place
between the Constitution and
Guerrière, and lasted less than an
hour, yet so terribly was the English frigate cut up, that she went down in the
waves while yet crimson with the blood of her slain. In the single-handed fight
that occurred not long after between the United States and Macedonian, the
latter had a third of her- entire crew and officers, numbering three hundred
men, killed and wounded, while the American frigate lost but twelve, all told.
So also the United States suffered but very little in her hull, while the Macedonian
received a hundred shot below her bulwarks. In the fight between the Constitution
and Java, the former came out of it with every spar standing, and ready
for another antagonist, while the latter resembled a slaughter-pen, and sank a
helpless wreck to the bottom. In nearly every contest the same result followed.
Not only were we the victors, but the disparity between the killed in the two
ships, and the frightful manner in which the enemy was cut up, while we suffered
but little, caused the most unbounded astonishment. The English accounted for it
on the ground of a slight difference in the weight of the respective broadsides,
or attributed it to mere accident. We made as great a mistake in boasting that
our success arose from superior bravery or seamanship. The simple truth was, we
had introduced an improvement in gunnery, of which the English at that time were
ignorant. We had placed sights on our cannon. The English regulated their firing
by a pendulum, swinging in the square of the hatchway, by which the inclination
of the ship was indicated, and which enabled them to know when the guns were in
a horizontal position, and thus, if in a smooth sea, on a level with the hostile
ship. But with a vessel rolling on a swell it was a very uncertain guide. On the
contrary, we had sights on the guns, sometimes on the muzzle-ring, answering to
the forward sight of the rifle, and sometimes tubes were laid along the gun, and
capable of being adjusted to suit the range. Hence our gunners took aim when
they fired, and the consequence was, that in a broadside engagement, we, in an
incredibly short space of time, made a wreck of the enemy. This rifle-practice
with cannon on board ships was an entirely new thing in naval warfare.
This new improvement was soon
adopted by the naval powers of Europe, and others made, so that at the
commencement of the recent civil war, our navy was hardly equal to one of the
third-rate maritime powers. The country was living on the fame of its former
achievements, and had we been suddenly thrown into war with either France or
England, we would have been amazed and mortified at the sorry exhibition our
navy would have made. Our ports would have been blockaded and our ships shut up
in harbors, until we could have built vessels and created a navy of respectable
proportions. We were, however, making improvements in guns as well as England.
The Dahlgren gun differs from ordinary cannon only in that the metal is taken
from the forward part of the piece and put around the breech. The great strain
always being in the back part of a cannon, the strength is concentrated here, so
that a Dahlgren gun and one constructed on the old principle of the same weight,
would have very different calibers-the former throwing a much larger shot.
Almost endless experiments have been made to make guns of large caliber that
would be safe. The casting of so large a mass as a gun that should be capable of
throwing one hundred or two hundred pound shot, and yet have it, in the cooling
process, retain its strength, was very difficult. Throwing a jet of water in the
bore while the atmosphere cooled the outside has overcome some of the
difficulty.
The rifled cannon of Parrott
attracted but little attention from the public at large, until the breaking out
of the war. It seems strange that the superior accuracy of the rifle to the
musket did not suggest rifled cannon before, but the great difficulty was to
make any large iron ball fit so closely as to get a spiral motion from the
grooves. This was at last overcome by having the ball long instead of round, and
slightly conical, and a band of copper metal around the base, which would expand
into the grooves by the air being forced underneath it when the charge was
fired. A tumbling shot from a rifled piece would, of course, be worse than a
round shot from a smooth bore.
But a charge of thirty or
forty pounds of powder required great strength in the breech of the piece, and
to secure this, Parrott resorted to an ingenious contrivance. After the gun was
cast, the surface of the breech was made of polished smoothness. Then a
wrought-iron bar, several inches square, was rolled by machinery into a spiral
coil, and the inside dressed off perfectly smooth, yet a fraction too small in
bore to slip over the gun. This was then heated to make it expand, when it was
driven over the breech. Contracting in cooling, it hugged the piece almost as
close as though it had been welded to it. This wrought-iron reinforcement gives
the rifled cannon prodigious strength, for the strain on the former is
lengthwise of the metal. The various English rifled guns, such as the Whitworth,
Armstrong, and others, differ only in the manner of producing the spiral motion
of the shot or in being breech-loading.
But the greatest improvements
have been in the construction of iron-clad vessels. France and England had both
for a long time been experimenting on a large scale in their construction, and
though our attention had been directed to it, but little had been done except to
encourage by large appropriations the completion of the famous Stevens Battery
at New York. But the breaking out of the civil war stimulated at once the
proverbial ingenuity of Americans, and a great variety of models were proposed.
The increased size of ordnance rendered a corresponding power of resistance in
ships necessary, and Congress made an appropriation for the carrying out of some
experiments in building iron-clad steamers. The Secretary of the Navy was also
authorized to appoint a board of three skilful naval officers to investigate the
plans and specifications that might be submitted for their construction, and
report on the same. The Navy Department immediately issued an advertisement for
the construction of" one or more iron-clad steam vessels of war" for
sea or river service, "to carry an armament of from eighty to one hundred
and twenty tons’ weight, with provisions and stores for from one hundred and
eighty-five to three hundred persons, according to armament, for sixty days,
with coal for eight days." This was in the forepart of August, 1861. The
board consisted of Joseph Smith, H. Paulding, and C. H. Davis. By the middle of
the next month their report was ready. Some seventeen propositions with
specifications were sent in, of which only three were accepted. One was the Monitor
of Ericsson, the price of which was to be $275,000; length of vessel 1’72
feet, breadth’ of beam 41 feet, depth of hold 10 feet, displacement 1,255
tons; speed per hour, nine statute miles. The second was the famous Ironsides, of Philadelphia, offered by Merrick & Sons. The price
of this was to be $780,000; length of vessel 220 feet, breadth of beam 60 feet,
depth of hold 23 feet, draught of water 13 feet, displacement 3,296 tons, speed
per hour, nine and a half knots. The third proposition accepted, was that of
Bushnell & Co., New Haven (the Galena).
The price of this was $235,250; length of vessel 180 feet, breadth of beam __
feet depth of hold 12+ feet, draught of water 10 feet, displacement, __ tons;
speed per hour, twelve knots. Of these it will be seen that the Ironsides
was to be a very large vessel, and the contractors asked for nine months’ time
in which to complete her. In accordance with, the recommendation of the Board
the Navy Department immediately made a contract with the three parties named
above, and our iron-clad navy was commenced. Ericsson’s model was a novel
one-the vessel being made to lie very low in the water, and to carry but two
guns of large caliber, which were to be mounted in a shot-proof turret that
revolved by machinery placed within it, so that, without maneuvering the vessel,
the broadside of two guns could be brought to bear on any desired point.
These were not to be made for
exhibition, and to awaken criticism or excite doubts, but for actual immediate
combat. No time could be wasted on target practice. The ponderous shot and shell
already in use and to which wooden vessels presented no resistance, were to be
tested on these, and the question settled at once for the whole world whether
anything that would resist them could be made to float.
The Board did not think it
desirable to go into the question of large sea-going steamers; for in the first
place the appropriation was not sufficient, and in the second place, in this
war, upon which we had entered, we should have little need of these, as the
contest on the water was to be chiefly in our harbors and shoal rivers.
Various minor improvements, of
course, followed these, but the three vessels contracted for settled the
question of iron-clads, and revolutionized naval warfare.
But some months would
necessarily elapse before these would be ready for service, and in the mean time
the rebel ports must be blockaded, and such war-vessels as the enemy had stolen,
or could extemporize, met and disposed of.
The coast was to be guarded
over three thousand miles in extent, while our little navy was scattered over
the world at the time of the breaking out of hostilities, so that the home
squadron consisted on the 4th of March, 1861, the time of Mr. Lincoln’s
inauguration, of but twelve vessels, only a few of which were in Northern ports.
These were the Pawnee, screw, at
Washington, Crusader and Mohawk
steamers, and a supply and store ship at New York. Before the month closed,
however, the Powhatan, Pocahontas, and Cumberland
arrived.
The old navy, all told,
consisted of but seventy-six vessels, carrying 1,783 guns. Fifteen vessels
returned during the year, which, as fast as they could, were ordered on duty.
It can scarcely be wondered
at, that European powers at first ridiculed the idea of our blockading so great
an extent of coast with such an insignificant fleet.
At the outset our naval force
was divided into two squadrons-the Atlantic, extending south of Cape Florida,
under Stringham, and the Gulf squadron, its line of blockade reaching from Cape
Florida to Grand Gulf, under G. W. Mason, who, in September, was superseded by
Mclean. Besides these there was the Potomac flotilla, necessary to keep open the
water communication with Washington. Added to this, the Mississippi River must
be opened, and a flotilla was at once ordered to be built on our western waters.
Of course the necessities of the Government in a war of such gigantic
proportions, and thrown so suddenly upon it, were too urgent to permit it to
wait for the building of a sufficient number of vessels, and those to be used as
a part of the navy, or that could be easily transformed into war-vessels, were
purchased. One hundred and thirty-six were thus bought the first year, and
fifty-two built, which, added to the old navy, made the new one to consist of
264 vessels, in all carrying 2,557 guns, with an aggregate of 218,000 tons and
22,000 seamen.
Although the seaports of
Wilmington, Newbern, Charleston, Mobile, and New Orleans were very important
ones in a military point of view, and their occupation by our forces necessary
in the great plan for the overthrow of the rebel army, it was not expected they
would be taken at once. Hence the sudden and great accession of naval strength
was for the purpose of blockading them, for the South being a non-manufacturing
country, its guns, ammunition, clothing, etc., must’ be brought from abroad.
It was of the utmost importance to cut off these supplies; and the vessels which
brought them belonging in the main to neutral powers, and the South having
nothing deserving the name of a navy at sea, comparatively weak vessels would
answer for blockading purposes. Speed was the first consideration; number and
size of guns a secondary one. The South being filled with cotton, the want of
which had stopped many mills in England, it furnished a tempting prize to
adventurous ship-owners, especially as the articles which they brought in
exchange for it would command fabulous prices. It had long ago been established
as a law of nations that a paper blockade,
or a blockade simply declared by proclamation, was not binding. There must be an
adequate force to maintain it, or neutral powers were not obliged to regard it.
Hence the enormous efforts of our Government to accumulate sufficient force at
the various Southern seaports to sustain the President’s proclamation. Of
course, we could not have maintained the blockade of such an extent of coast had
we been at a war with even a third-rate maritime power. The Southern Government,
aware of this, began at once to construct a powerful ram, for the purpose of
running down our vessels and breaking up the blockade. Rams, or vessels
constructed with an iron beak to sink vessels by running into them, had been
talked of before the war, and Col. Ellet urged on Congress the advantage to the
Government of building such vessels. Their final adoption was another new
feature in naval warfare. On our rivers and the smooth waters of our harbors
they became powerful engines of destruction.
Great efforts were made by
Southern emissaries to get France and England to deny the blockade, and it was
fondly believed by the rebel Government that England would do this, on account
of the cotton, on which her mills depended. It had been repeated so often by
Southern speakers that " Cotton was king," that the South believed it,
and that England, to keep her great manufactories going, and her millions from
starving, would risk a war rather than do without it. But the British Government
dreaded nothing so much as a collision with us, for although at the outset her
powerful navy might overwhelm us, her statesmen well knew our vast resources,
great inventive capacity, national pride, and indomitable perseverance in
anything that we undertook; in short, that if we fell, like Samson, we would
carry the pillars of her commercial temple with us in our overthrow.
But though, as a nation, she
did not dare to disregard our blockade, she was not at all anxious to interfere
with the private enterprise of her citizens in their efforts to render it
ineffectual. The amount of shipping engaged in this nefarious business may be
gathered from the fact that the very first year, with our inadequate naval
force, we captured a hundred and sixty-one blockade runners, and during the war,
of both small and great, more than a thousand were taken or destroyed. When it
is remembered that only a small percentage of those actually employed in this
business were taken, at least in their first voyage, some estimate may be made
of the number of times the blockade was run.
From this brief summary it may
be seen how weak our naval force was at the outset of the war-the urgency of the
Government in getting those vessels home that were scattered over different
seas, and the prodigious efforts it put forth to obtain a naval force sufficient
for the vast work it had to do. How great this work was, may be gathered from
the fact that during the war, two hundred and eight vessels were commenced, and
most of them completed, and four hundred and eighteen purchased, while the
number of men in the service was increased from 7,600 to 51,500, and the number
of artisans and laborers in the various navy-yards from 3,844 to 16,880,
exclusive of an almost equal number engaged in private shipyards and
establishments under contracts. The total sum expended by the Navy Department
during the war was $314,170,960 68, or an annual average expenditure of
$72,500,990 93.
Designing this brief outline
of naval affairs as an introduction to the heroic deeds of our naval commanders,
we refer the reader to the Appendix for fuller and more complete statistics.