The origin of the effort dates from June, 1881, when the first Advisory Board was appointed to consider and to report on the need of appropriate vessels for the navy. This Board, in its report of November 7, 1881, decided that the United States navy should consist of seventy unarmored cruisers of steel; it reported that there were thirty-two vessels in the navy fit for service as cruisers, and it indicated the character of the new vessels to be built. This Board confined itself to the consideration of unarmored vessels, as it did not consider that the orders under which it acted required that it should discuss the subject of armored ships, though it expressed the opinion that such vessels were indispensable in time of war.
Some time elapsed before any practical results followed from the action of this Board, but in an act of Congress approved March 3, 1883, the construction of three steam-cruisers and a despatch-boat was authorized. These vessels, the Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, and Dolphin, are, with the exception of the Chicago, now in commission.
In an act of Congress approved March, 1885, five additional vessels were authorized, and these, the Charleston, Baltimore, Newark, and gun-boats No. 1 and 2, are under construction.[49]
Up to the time of the inception of these cruisers no steel for ship-plates had been rolled in the United States. Construction in American iron plates had been extensively carried on, but if steel plating was required it had to be imported at great cost to the builder. Those who contemplated bidding on the proposals issued by the government for the first four vessels had to consider this matter. Mr. John Roach, of New York and of Chester, Pennsylvania, undertook the manufacture of this material, and finding that success attended his experiment, he was able to direct extensively the steel-works at Thurlow, Pennsylvania, to this line of business, and when the bids were opened it was found that this new industry, introduced through his enterprise, enabled him to underbid all competitors. After receiving the contracts for the ships, Mr. Roach contracted with the Phœnix Iron Company, of Phœnixville, with Messrs. Park Brothers, of Pittsburgh, and the Norway Iron and Steel Works, of South Boston, for supplies of similar material: thus the first step in this effort to rehabilitate the navy resulted in introducing a new industry into the country. The still more extensive development of industries that will attend the work of rehabilitation as it advances will be treated further on.
Before presenting the types of cruisers which are now to be introduced into the navy, it may be well to refer to an error that exists, or has existed, in the popular mind as to the signification of a steel cruiser. To many who are uninformed in technical language the word steel, in connection with a vessel of war, implies protecting armor, and such misapprehension would convey the idea that a cruiser of steel is able to contend with an armored vessel. This is a mistake; there is protection obtained by constructing a vessel of steel, but not such as is provided by armor. The destructive effect of shell-firing and the development in modern artillery have made armor necessary for all vessels which can carry it, and has also made it necessary to provide all other protection possible to vessels that cannot carry armor. Although this protection cannot be given absolutely to the hull of such ships and to the personnel, it is provided to the buoyancy by the introduction of water-tight compartments and protective decks, which limit the destructive effect of the fire of the enemy and localize the water that may enter through shot-holes. With a wooden hull it would not be possible to combine this precaution because of the difficulty in making joints water-tight between wood and metal, and in consequence of the weight that would be added to a wooden hull, which is already from sixteen per cent. to twenty per cent. heavier than if constructed of steel. The only defensive advantage possessed by a steel unarmored cruiser over a wooden one is derived from this system of construction.
U. S. FRIGATE “CHICAGO” (STEEL).
The Chicago is a steam-frigate, built throughout of steel of domestic manufacture, the outside plating being 9/16 inch thick. Her length is 325 feet, beam 48.2 feet, draught of water 19 feet. She has a displacement of 4500 tons, and will attain a minimum speed of 14 knots per hour with an indicated horse-power of 5000. The capacity of her coal-bunkers is 940 tons, and she carries a battery of four 8-inch steel breech-loading guns in half-turrets, and eight 6-inch and two 5-inch steel breech-loaders on the gun-deck. This ship has nine athwartships bulkheads, dividing the hull into ten main water-tight compartments, and the machinery and boilers are covered by a protective deck one and a half inches in thickness. When the bunkers are full of coal she has a coal protection nine feet thick from the water-line to eight feet above it.
