While ships-of-the-line were traditionally used in fleet actions with set lines of battle (hence their name), they were also deployed to break blockades and to “show the flag”—that is, remind other nations of the United States’ military reach. Postwar nationalism, a popular navy still basking in the nation’s praise, and the country’s demonstrated vulnerability to blockade prompted appropriations in 1816 for additional 74s.
Between 1813 and 1822 fourteen 74s were laid down, including Independence (1813), Vermont (1818), and Virginia (1822) at Charlestown. But in the decade after the war strategists cast a skeptical eye on such large ships. The expensive, provocative, and easily outmaneuvered behemoths, they said, were only a drag on the Navy—inappropriate for a young nation that wanted to stay out of European conflicts. By 1825 only five 74s had gone into service.
In 1835 Independence took a turn in its career that was emblematic of naval policy. The 74 had lain idle at Charlestown for 13 years. It was a sluggish sailer, and its great weight and design flaws brought the lower lee guns too close to the water to be useful during combat. So Independence was “razeed,” cut down from three decks to two, and transformed from an unsuccessful ship-of-the-line into a very good 54-gun frigate—the largest and one of the fastest in the Navy.
Only a few present at its 1837 recommissioning realized that Independence was also among the last of its kind. Fast approaching was a technology that would displace naval sail; steam would drive the Navy of the future. In 1839 the Navy’s first commissioned steamer—the two-year-old harbor battery Fulton II—arrived at Charlestown for repairs. A local paper called it “the oddest looking fish we have ever set our eyes on.” Four towering stacks spouting black smoke rose from the deck, on which were mounted engine cylinders four feet in diameter. The sidewheel covers, likened to “immense fungi,” barely cleared the sides of the dry dock.
With the dock and other improvements, the Charlestown yard had by the 1840s taken shape as an important repair and shipbuilding facility. The dry dock (see pages [40]-41), five years abuilding, had opened in 1833 amid much ceremony. Vice President Martin Van Buren and other dignitaries watched as the already-venerable Constitution, stripped and demasted, inaugurated the dock. Much of the tidal flats had been reclaimed behind a granite quay (the yard would triple its original size by 1869), and the rest of the yard’s uneven grounds had been leveled. A high stone wall, built to help stop pilfering and protect the ships, stretched between the Charles and Mystic rivers.
The yard had become more self-sufficient. The boilers for the dry dock pump engines also provided steam for the new sawmill and blockmaking and armorer’s shops. In 1837, the yard’s ropewalk (also steam-powered) and tar house had been completed (see pages [20]-21). The yard now made its own paint in the “oil house,” while hardware was supplied by a large smithy with 12 forges.
Other significant additions: masting shears looming over the new shear wharf; a sparmaker’s shed, masthouse, and sail loft; new timber docks; a steam chest for bending wood; an armory with thousands of muskets, bayonets, and swords; and neat ranks of guns, shot, and anchors in their respective “parks.” Hundreds of elm trees planted by order of Commodore Bainbridge softened the yard’s industrial setting.
Anchored out in the harbor were several vessels “in ordinary.” A vessel in ordinary was out of service and in storage with a skeleton crew until recommissioned. The ship was demasted, salted to retard dry rot, whitewashed inside, tightly caulked, and its sides and decks “payed” with a thick coat of varnish and tar. Tubular windsails directing air belowdecks and holes cut in the bulkheads insured good air circulation. Some vessels in ordinary at Charlestown had protective wood and canvas sheds over their decks, an innovation of Captain Hull.
Vermont, Virginia, and the frigate Cumberland, begun in 1825, had become permanent fixtures in their great shiphouses. They were still officially under construction and near completion, but were really in ordinary. (Virginia was something of an ill-starred vessel. Over the years at least three people had died in accidents around the ship, and its reputation was reconfirmed in 1845 when a visitor fell to his death from its scaffolding.) Construction on Virginia and Vermont had slowed to a standstill after critics questioned the strategic value of ships-of-the-line. But economic considerations played at least as big a role; ordinary was a cheap way to keep expensive-to-sail vessels, including big frigates like Cumberland (launched in 1842), ready for war.
In 1848 Vermont was finally launched to “a vast concourse of people and the firing of cannons.” But the day of the big 74s was over. Neither Vermont nor New Hampshire (built at Portsmouth Navy Yard), the last two ships-of-the-line completed by the Navy, ever saw service as a commissioned warship. In fact most 74s had short careers of little strategic consequence. Independence, first of the class, was the only one still serving as a warship at mid-century, but it had been cut down to a frigate.