Warships and their story

by R. A. Fletcher

THE “BANGOR,” FIRST IRON SEA-GOING PROPELLER STEAMER IN
THE UNITED STATES.

From a Print in the possession of, and reproduced by permission of, the Harlan & Hollingsworth
Corporation, U.S.A.

Their engines were on Penn’s trunk system, with two cylinders of 112 inches diameter, and a stroke of 52 inches. Each had ten boilers with four furnaces per boiler, the total grate area being 956 square feet, and the steam was supplied up to a pressure of 25 lb. per square inch. These ships each carried a four-bladed Mangin propeller of 24 feet diameter, which was adjustable so that the pitch could be altered from 22½ feet to 28½ feet. The Northumberland was the first war vessel on which Macfarlane Gray’s steam steering gear, originally invented for the Great Eastern, was installed. These three vessels were 400 feet 3 inches in length, and had a beam of a fraction over 59 feet, and drew 27 feet 3 inches, with a displacement of about 10,786 tons.

Before referring to the historic American ships of the third quarter of the last century, some attention may be given to a remarkable vessel which passed into the possession of the United States Government.

The steamer Bangor was built by the firm of Betts, Harlan and Hollingsworth (now the Harlan and Hollingsworth Corporation), in 1843-4, for the Bangor Steam Navigation Company, of Maine, and was the first iron sea-going propeller steamer constructed in the United States. The hull was formed of bar iron ribs or frames secured by numerous wrought-iron clamps, and her plating was put on in the lapped or “clinker” style, instead of the modern inside and outside method of arranging the sheets.

The Bangor measured 231 tons burthen; her length over all was about 131 feet; length between perpendiculars, 120 feet; beam moulded, 23 feet; and depth of hold from base line amidships, 9 feet. She had three wooden masts, with bowsprit and jib-boom, and was schooner-rigged, carrying a suit of eight sails. Passengers were carried aft in a commodious deck-house fitted up in a style of elegance unusual in those days, and considered particularly handsome by her owners and builders. There were but two deck-houses upon the vessel at the time she was built, the third or forward house, as shown in the illustration, having been added afterwards.

Her machinery consisted of independent twin-screw propeller engines, having cylinders 22 inches in diameter by 24 inches stroke of piston. The propeller wheels were of the Loper type and 8½ feet in diameter. Her boiler was placed in the hold and was of iron, 20 feet in length, of the type known as the “drop flue” boiler. On her trial trip she averaged 10.61 miles per hour at one time. The first five miles were run with low steam, making forty-four revolutions. The pressure of steam was under 46 lb. to the square inch during the whole trip. Afterwards with full steam the speed per hour was 14.07 miles. From this, however, there should be deducted 2½ miles for tide, giving an actual speed of 11.57 miles per hour. On the second trip of the Bangor from Boston, she caught fire, and was beached upon the New England coast, near Nantucket, in order to save the crew and freight. She was afterward adjudged a wreck, the insurance settlement was effected, and she was towed to a New England shipyard (probably at Bath, Me.), where she was repaired and rebuilt. She afterwards continued to run on the same line until she was, in 1846, purchased by the United States Government, and re-named the Scourge at the time of the outbreak of the Mexican War. During her employ as a war vessel she was equipped with three guns. After two years of war service, she was, on October 7th, 1848, finally sold by the Government to John F. Jeter, of Lafayette, Louisiana. From the date of this transfer no trace of her can be found. It is possible that she may have been either lost by fire or storm, or have been dismantled and altered for other than her natural purposes.

A visit was paid to England in October, 1856, on her trial cruise, by a ship which was destined to have considerable influence in the not distant future upon warship construction, and to help to revolutionise completely all the hitherto accepted theories. This was the famous Merrimac—the first of six steam frigates the United States had constructed. She was considered by her designers to be a match for any vessel afloat on the European side of the Atlantic, and as a specimen of the American fondness for fast and heavily armed frigates, a type of vessel in which they excelled, she left nothing to be desired. Naturally, she attracted a great deal of attention.

The Merrimac—she came to England under that name, and not as the Virginia, as sometimes stated—was 300 feet over all, and 250 feet on the keel, and 260 feet on the load water-line, and was 51 feet 4 inches beam, and drew 28 feet of water. She was of 3,987 tons measurement, and 4,500 tons displacement. Her engines were of 600 h.p. and presented several peculiarities. The cylinders were of 72 inches diameter, with a stroke of three feet, and there were two rods to each piston. Her screw propeller was on Griffith’s system, and had means of varying the pitch. Normally the screw had a pitch of 26 feet 2 inches; its diameter was 17 feet 4 inches. She had four of Martin’s vertical tubular boilers. The frame of the ship was of live oak, crossed internally with two sets of diagonal iron plates, inclined in opposite directions, and similar plates on the outside strengthened her bow and stern. Her model, or shape, is said to have been of considerable beauty, while her internal arrangements for the comfort and accommodation of the officers and crew were of a high order. She could spread 56,629 feet of canvas, and nautical men here were of opinion that she could easily have borne heavier masts and spars and so have spread more canvas still. However, the weight of her armament had to be considered, and this may have been one reason why she was not more heavily equipped aloft. She was pierced for sixty guns, but on account of the weight and size and effectiveness of those she had, the number on board was only forty. Nevertheless, she was claimed to be, and with good reason, as powerful as anything Europe could show. Two large pivot guns, of 10 inches calibre, and each weighing nearly 5½ tons, were on the upper deck, together with fourteen 8-inch guns, weighing more than three tons each; while on the gun-deck were twenty-four 9-inch guns, each weighing close upon 4½ tons. All these guns were strong enough to fire solid shot, but they were intended to take hollow shot or shell, a custom to which the Americans attached considerable importance. The guns were built on the Dahlgren system, which gave them throughout their length a thickness proportionate to the pressure caused by the explosion of an ordinary service charge of powder. The adaptation of these guns to the Paixhan system of shell-firing was another novelty she presented. As solid shot were more destructive against fortifications and heavy works than the shells or hollow shot—uncharged shells that is—the naval experts of Europe did not look favourably upon explosive shells, preferring to consider them more suitable for large swivel guns, such as were sometimes mounted on the sponsons of paddle boats. The Merrimac had not a solid shot on board. Her guns were of unusual thickness at the breech and thinner than the European guns in that part called the chase, which lies between the trunnions and the muzzle. Their mounting, also, presented some peculiarities. There was no hinder truck, the force of the recoil being taken up by the friction of the carriage against the deck, but the gun recoiled sufficiently on discharge to permit of reloading; while, instead of the hinder truck, a contrivance attached to the end of a handspike was thrust under the gun carriage. There were, in addition, a number of smaller guns.