Warships and their story

by R. A. Fletcher

This heavy cannonade proved too much for her. With her armour battered, her machinery damaged, her commander badly wounded, her steering gear disabled, she lay helpless at the mercy of her foes and surrendered.

Another type of ironclad which the Confederates employed was known as the David, because though small it was hoped it would deal as effectively with the big northern warships as its Hebrew namesake had dealt with Goliath of old. The parallel, however, ceases with the name. The first American David was tried at Charleston, in October, 1863. She was cigar-shaped, 54 feet long, and 6 feet in diameter, and carried a small steam engine to drive a small screw propeller. Her one weapon was a spar torpedo, and when she had exploded it she was expected to go to the bottom with such of her crew as did not happen to be able to save themselves.

Many brave deeds have been done in war by combatants and non-combatants alike, but the cool courage of the pilot or steersman of the first David will take some beating. Her initial attack was directed against the ironclad ship Ironsides, named in commemoration of the “Old Ironsides,” and whether failure or success attended the attempted destruction of the ship, those on the David knew they were engaged in a forlorn hope. Only the funnel and pilot-house of the little vessel were discernible above the sea level, and even they were not very conspicuous. The David was hailed, and replied with a volley of musketry, and an instant later a torpedo exploded against the sides of the warship. It lifted her and shook her, but inflicted no material damage worth speaking of, but the moral effect was considerable, as the Federals knew the Confederates had now devised a new means of attacking them. At the moment of the explosion the four or five men composing the crew of the David jumped overboard, as it was thought she would be swamped by the backwash of the explosion. She did not sink, however, and the pilot held on to her for his life, for he was the only man on board who could not swim. The engineer swam to her, and together they took her back to Charleston.

On the Mississippi and the other American rivers both sides improvised as gunboats anything that had an engine in it and a platform upon which a gun could be carried. Small tug-boats were given turtle-back armour, too thin to be of use, whence some of them got the name of tin-clads in contradistinction to the ironclads; big side-wheel steamers were protected with anything that could be utilised for the purpose, from logs to bags of ashes, and ordinary river cargo steamers and barges were also found very adaptable. It may, indeed, be doubted if in any war there has been such an assemblage of opposing warships improvised from the most unpromising materials as in the American Civil War. The majority of them were not of great use as combatants, notwithstanding that their crews usually handled them with reckless bravery, and after the passage of the Mississippi mouth had been forced and the northern warships were able to ascend the river, the fighting value of these makeshifts became almost a negative quantity. In the absence of superior force, however, there was no telling what they might attempt, for their crews were as reckless as they were daring.

When the Civil War began, Edwin Stevens offered the Federal Government, at his own expense, a small vessel called the Naugatuck. This was a twin-screw vessel, which could be immersed two feet below her load-line and raised again in eight minutes by pumping out the water admitted into the tanks. The solitary gun was mounted on a revolving carriage, and the recoil taken by rubber disc springs. It was loaded, directed and fired from below the deck, the loading being accomplished by bringing the depressed gun opposite a hole in the deck, provided for the purpose.[39] She carried a Parrott gun, a 100-pounder, and was one of the fleet that attacked the Merrimac. Her twin screws enabled her to turn from end to end in seventy-five seconds. She did good service on the James River, until her gun burst; her crew, thanks to her protecting deck, escaping injury. This vessel is chiefly of interest because of the method of placing and loading the gun.

THE NAUGATUCK.

THE GUN-CARRIAGE OF THE NAUGATUCK.

Ericsson’s inventive genius was responsible in 1861, before the war broke out, for a vessel of 3,033 tons, which he named the Dictator, but she was not launched until 1863, the builders being the Delamater Iron Works. She was an iron-framed vessel, and had a wooden skin 3½ feet thick. The iron protecting her sides was 11 inches thick, 5 inches of which were solid bars measuring 3 inches by 5 inches, and the other portion was built up in single 1-inch plates. Her ram, a heavy structure of oak and iron, projected 22 feet beyond the bow. On deck she carried a single turret with an inside diameter of 24 feet. The walls of the turret were protected by 15 inches of iron plates, each 1 inch in thickness, and weighed 500 tons. Her engine was of Ericsson’s vibrating lever type with two cylinders 100 inches in diameter, and indicating 5,000 h.p. The screw was 21 feet 6 inches in diameter, with a pitch of 34 feet, and was cast in one piece, its weight being 17⅖ tons. The Dictator’s armament was two smooth-bore 15-inch guns, known as Ericsson guns, which were of the same type as he introduced into America on behalf of Col. Stockton, and with a charge of 80 lb. of powder, threw a round shot weighing 460 lb. The ship was 320 feet long, 50 feet broad, and drew 22 feet of water.