U. S. SLOOP-OF-WAR “BROOKLYN.”
This class of ships has good speed under sail, with the wind free, but their light draught prevents them from being weatherly on a wind. Much of their cruising is done under sail, which tends to lengthen their existence. Under the late act of Congress prohibiting repairs on wooden ships when the expense shall exceed twenty per cent. of the cost of a new vessel, these ships must soon disappear from the navy list. When that time shall arrive, and steel cruisers shall be substituted, the name of the Hartford should be preserved as closely associated with the glory that Farragut shed upon the navy.
In 1859 a new type of sloop-of-war was introduced, of which the Kearsarge will serve as an example. This ship was built at Kittery, Maine; her length is 199 feet, beam 33 feet, draught of water 15.9 feet. She has a displacement of 1550 tons, and attains a speed of 11 knots per hour with an indicated horse-power of 842. The capacity of her coal-bunkers is 165 tons. Her battery consists of two 8-inch muzzle-loading rifles (converted), four 9-inch smooth-bores, and one 60-pounder. This has proved a very handy class of vessel, and for the year in which they were built were considered as having very fair speed under steam, the proportion of space occupied by boilers and engines being more than had been assigned in previous constructions. Several ships of this class were launched and put in commission before the war, and gave a new impetus to construction.
U. S. SLOOP-OF-WAR “KEARSARGE.”
The types of vessels that were built during the war were selected for special purposes. The effort was made to multiply ships as rapidly as possible to blockade the coast and to enter shoal harbors; the “ninety-day gun-boats” and the “double-enders” were added to the navy list, and merchant-steamers were purchased, and were armed with such batteries as their scantling would bear. All of these vessels have disappeared, with the exception of the Tallapoosa. The Juniata and Ossipee, of the Kearsarge type, but of greater displacement, were launched in 1862, and are still in service; and at about the close of the war several vessels of large displacement and great speed were launched which were never taken into service, have been disposed of since, and form no part of our present navy.
The New Ironsides and the Monitor represented the two features of construction which, produced in that period of emergency, have continued to impress naval architecture.
U. S. IRON-CLAD “NEW IRONSIDES.”
As a sea-going iron-clad the New Ironsides was, for the time and service required, a success. She was built at the yard of Mr. Cramp, in Philadelphia, in 1862. Her length was 230 feet, beam 56 feet, draught of water 15 feet. She had a displacement of 4015 tons, and attained a speed of six knots per hour with an indicated horse-power of 700. The capacity of the coal-bunkers was 350 tons. Her battery consisted of twenty 11-inch smooth-bore guns. She was built of wood, and was covered with armor four inches in thickness, which, with the inclination given to her sides, made her impervious to the artillery that was used against her during the war. In one engagement with the batteries on Sullivan’s Island, Charleston Harbor, lasting three hours, she was struck seventy times, but at the end of the action, except some damage to a port shutter or two, she withdrew in as perfect fighting condition as when the fight commenced. This ship does not appear on the navy list, as she was destroyed by fire off the navy-yard at League Island, Pennsylvania.