On the 15th of January 1838, Captain Perry received orders to carry out the Act of Congress, and cruise along the coast. Perry wrote pointing out, (1) that the heavy and clumsy Fulton, a veritable floating fortress being unlike ocean steamers, was not likely to prove seaworthy, (2) she was adapted only to bays and harbors, (3) she could carry fuel only for seventy hours consumption; (4), that no deposits of coal were yet made along the coast; (5), that her wheel guards being only twenty inches clear, the boat would be extremely wet and dangerous at sea. Nevertheless he promised to take this floating battery out into the ocean back to the coaling depot, and thence through the Long Island Sound.
Accordingly January 18, the Fulton steamed down to Sandy Hook and anchoring at night, ran out as the wintry weather permitted during the day. In a wind the vessel labored hard. She lay so low in the water, that several of her wheel buckets were lost or injured, and the previous opinion of naval men was confirmed. Nevertheless, Perry was astonished at her power, and her facility of management demonstrated a new thing on board a vessel of war. Having asked for the written opinion of his officers, several interesting replies were elicited. The Acting Master C. W. Pickering noted that the Fulton carried six forty-four pounders, and being a steamer could have choice of position and distance. Two or three of such vessels could cripple a whole enemy’s squadron or destroy it. In case of a calm, she could fight a squadron all day, and not receive a shot. In case of chase, or light winds, she could destroy a squadron one by one, or tow them separately out of sight as was desired. The trial in the Sound proved her one of the fastest boats known. From New London with 9½ inches steam she made twenty-eight miles in one hour and fifty-seven minutes, or one hundred and eighteen miles in little less than nine hours.
Her utility on a blockade was manifest, and her advantage in every point over sailing vessels demonstrated. She would in a fight be equal to any “seventy-four” and in fact to any number of vessels not propelled by steam. Her strength and power were unrivalled in the world.
Lieut. Wm. F. Lynch, afterwards the Dead Sea explorer and later the Confederate Commodore, suggested a better arrangement of her battery. Taking a hint from Jackson’s cotton-bale breastworks of 1815, he pointed out how the Fulton might be made cotton-clad and shot-proof. He carried out his idea in later years, and some of the confederate steamers in the civil war were so armed and made formidable. It is interesting to read now what he wrote in 1838. “The machinery can easily be protected by cotton bales, or other light elastic material between it and the ship’s side.” The idea of protecting armor to war ships was first conceived by Americans.
In fact, all the opinions as to the Fulton’s capacity for the offense or defense were favorable. A glow of enthusiasm pervades the reports of those on board the maiden trip of this the first American war steamer. Perry himself saw her defects, and how they could be remedied. Her machinery and horizontal engines took up too much room. Yet even as she was, her annual expenses would be less than a first-class vessel of war under sail with proportionate crew, provisions, and canvass.
By prophetic insight, Perry saw that the revolution in naval education, tactics and warfare had already dawned. Writing from Montauk Point, February 6, 1838, he suggested that a training school for naval engineers should be established by the government, that firemen apprentices should be enlisted and trained, stating that these had better be sons of engineers and firemen. The Secretary immediately approved of his suggestion in a letter dated February 13, 1838. He directed Commodore Ridgely to place on the Fulton five apprentices to be exclusively attached to the engineer’s department.[[8]] What was first suggested by Perry, is now magnificently realized in the Annapolis Naval Academy, with its six years course in engineering, graduating yearly a corps of cadet engineers among the best in the world.
In a further report, written from Gardiner’s Island February 17, 1838, Perry uttered his faith that sea-going war steamers of 1400 or 1500 tons could be built to cruise at sea even for twenty days, and yet be efficient and as safe from disaster as the finest frigates afloat, while the expense would be considerably less. This was a brave utterance at a time when the number of believers in the possibility of the financial success of ocean steam-navigation, or of the practicability of large war vessels propelled by steam, was very few indeed. Perry’s letter was read and re-read by the Naval Commissioners.
In May, he took the Fulton to Washington, where President Jackson and his cabinet enjoyed the sight of a war-ship independent of wind and tide. It was intimated to Perry that he should be sent to Europe to study the latest results in steam, ordnance, and lighthouse illumination.
The year 1837 was a memorable one for Matthew Perry, marking his promotion to a Captaincy in the United States Navy. The emblazoned parchment bearing President Andrew Jackson’s signature is dated February 9, 1837. He ranked number forty-four in the list of the fifty naval captains allowed by law. By the Act of Congress of March 8, 1835, the pay of a captain off duty was $2,500, on duty, $3,500, and in command of a foreign squadron, $4,000.