The Memoirs of Charles H. Cramp

by Augustus C. Buell

About 1846, or in his nineteenth year, Mr. Cramp, having attained to a certain point the qualifications of a practical ship-builder in his uncle’s shipyard, went to that of his own father.

MONITOR TERROR

Among the first things undertaken when in his father’s yard, Mr. Cramp designed the pioneer propeller tug-boat ever built in the United States, the “Sampson,” and it fixed the type now so numerous in the waters of America. She was of a peculiar build. Her dimensions were eighty feet long and twenty feet beam. She had as much dead rise as a pilot-boat or “pungy,” and had a keel three feet wide at the stern-post. In getting up the design, it was considered indispensable by the marine engineers at that time to have the screw entirely beneath the bottom of the vessel, and, as the screw was six feet in diameter, the engine-builders wanted the keel six feet wide. When shown the impracticability of this, they were content to have three feet of the screw beneath the bottom of the ship. The propeller shaft ran on top of the floors and the bearings were between the frames. The crank was between the frames and just cleared the outside planking in its sweep. She proved to be a profitable investment for the owners, Michael Molloy & Son, who ordered another one. This was the “Bird.” She had a narrower keel, and the bearings of the propeller shaft were secured to the top of the floors. Another one was built a short time after, and, in view of the shallow water in which she had to run, the keel was only ten inches wide. This was considered a great detriment to the efficiency of the screw; but on the trial it was found that the importance of wide keels was overestimated, and the practice came to an end.

A considerable operation of unusual and interesting character was undertaken by his father about that time, and in which Mr. Cramp himself assisted. This was the design and construction of a fleet of surf-boats intended for the purpose of facilitating the landing of General Scott’s army at Vera Cruz. The naval and military authorities of that time were doubtful of the capacity of the ordinary boats of the fleet itself to land a sufficient body of troops at one time to command the shore. The intention at first was to provide a sufficient number of boats to land the whole army at once, and three hundred boats were contracted for upon a design made by William Cramp.

Only a part of them was built by Mr. Cramp, but they were all built upon his plans. They were large surf-boats of three different sizes, and were carried to Vera Cruz on the decks of schooners chartered for the purpose. The thwarts were taken out of the larger boats and the smaller ones of different sizes were stowed in them.

The “Standard History of the Mexican War” shows that out of the total number (three hundred) designed by Cramp and contracted for with different boat-builders, only one hundred and eighty-six (186) were actually delivered and used, and in the operations against Vera Cruz, General Scott’s army was landed by divisions. The Regular Division commanded by General Worth was put on shore first, then the Volunteer Division of General Robert Patterson, and, finally, the mixed Regular and Volunteer Division of General Twiggs.

After these boats had been used for their original purpose they were cast adrift. Their sea-worthiness may be estimated from the fact that some of them were picked up in mid-Atlantic months afterward.

There are stories in history about invading armies burning their bridges behind them, but this is unquestionably the only instance where an army deliberately cast loose the boats in which it had landed upon the soil of an enemy. Burning bridges might mean, and doubtless would, the simple destruction of means of recrossing a river in the case of disaster, but the destruction or dispersion of the boats in which Scott’s army landed at Vera Cruz meant the obliteration of any possible means they might have had of crossing a gulf and ocean had the fortune of war been adverse to them.

Starbuck, in his “History of the American Whale-fishery,” refers to this incident, and says that some of these boats were picked up by whaling-ships, whose crews highly prized them, and that they were used for years afterward in the sperm and right-whale fisheries of the Pacific Ocean.