Man on the Ocean: A Book about Boats and Ships

by R. M. Ballantyne

“You ascend again through a trap-door, and find yourself in a circular room, some twelve feet in diameter, padded from top to bottom like the interior of a carriage. By your side is a huge mass of iron. You are inside the turret. A glimmering lamp sheds its feeble light on the moving forms around you, and from below comes the faint whispering of the men, until the trap is shut and you are again in utter silence.

“‘Prepare!’ The gunner’s mate stands on your toes, and tells you to lean forward and thrust your tongue out of your mouth. You hear the creaking of machinery. It is a moment of intense suspense. Gradually a glimmer of light—an inch—a flood! The shield passes from the opening; the gun runs out. A flash, a roar—a mad reeling of the senses, and crimson clouds flitting before your eyes—a horrible pain in your ears, a sense of oppression on your chest, and the knowledge that you are not on your feet—a whispering of voices blending with the concert in your ears—a darkness before your eyes—and you feel yourself plump up against the padding, whither you have been thrown by the violence of the concussion.

“Before you have recovered sufficiently to note the effects I have endeavoured to describe, the shield is again in its place and the gun ready for reloading. They tell you that the best part of the sound has escaped through the port-hole, otherwise there would be no standing it, and our gunner’s mate whispers in your ears, ‘It’s all werry well, but they bu’sts out bleeding from the chest and ears after the fourth discharge, and has to be taken below.’ You have had enough of it too, and are glad that they don’t ask you to witness another shot fired.”

It must be stated that since the Miantonoma was built a new and improved principle of turret-firing has been introduced. Electricity is now employed in discharging the guns, and there is thus no necessity for anyone being in the turret, which is of course a great advantage.

At the close of the civil war, America possessed a fine fleet of monitors, of which scarcely any now remain. For the time they seemed all but impregnable to shot and shell; but they were built by contract, of unseasoned wood, and in the course of ten or twelve years yielded to natural decay. But the Brooklyn and the Ohio, both fine examples of naval architecture, still survive to maintain, in so far as two ships can, America’s maritime prestige.

A chapter treating of ironclads would, we think, be incomplete without allusion made to the loss of the Captain, whose terrible fate in 1870 has caused a mournful interest to be attached to that vessel.

The Captain was 320 feet in length and 53 feet broad. Her armour-plating reached to five feet below the water-line. Opposite the turrets her plating was eight inches in thickness and seven inches in other parts. The ship was furnished with two screws, placed side by side. The screws were available for steering, and thus the vessel could be governed without the rudder. The Captain was fully rigged, and could carry a large spread of canvas.

The special characteristic of the ship was her revolving turrets. Each turret was 27 feet in diameter on the outside and 22 feet 6 inches on the inside. The walls of the turrets were therefore 2 feet 3 inches thick; and one half of this thickness was composed of iron. The turrets were revolved by separate engines, but they could also be turned, if occasion required, by hand-labour. Two Armstrong twenty-five ton guns, throwing six hundred pound shot, were placed in each turret. The ship was built after designs by Captain Coles—the architect also of the Monarch.

On her first sea-voyage the Captain showed, apparently, such excellent sea-going qualities that her architect and the contractors, the Messrs Laird, were quite satisfied as to her safety in mid-ocean. In the autumn of 1870 she accompanied the fleet on a cruise; and on the 6th of September, shortly after midnight, foundered off Cape Finisterre. The whole crew were lost, with the exception of nineteen men, and among those who perished was Captain Coles himself, Captain Burgoyne, the commander of the ship, and a son of the then First Lord of the Admiralty—Mr Childers. It is unnecessary to recall to the memory of the adult among my readers the deep feeling of pity and gloom spread by this awful disaster throughout Great Britain.