After the Mexican War, having leisure, he wrote the following letter:—
Washington, D. C., Nov. 11, 1850.
Sir,—Since the introduction of steamers of war into the navies of the world, I have frequently thought that a most effectual mode of attack might be brought into operation by using a steamer as a striking body, and precipitating her with all her power of motion and weight upon some weak point of a vessel of the enemy moved only by sails, and, seizing upon a moment of calm, or when the sail vessel is motionless or moving slowly through the water.
I had always determined to try this experiment, should opportunity afford, and actually made preparations for securing the boilers and steam pipes of the Fulton at New York, when I thought it probable I might be sent in her to our eastern border ports at the time of the expected rupture with Great Britain upon the North Eastern Boundary question.
Experience has shown that a vessel moving rapidly through the water, and striking with her stem another motionless, or passing in a transverse direction, invariably destroys or seriously injures the vessel stricken without material damage to the assailant. Imagine for example the steamer Mississippi under full steam and moving at the moderate rate of 12 statute miles per hour, her weight considered as a projectile being estimated as 2,500 tons, the minimum calculation, and multiplying this weight by her velocity, say 17½ feet per second, the power and weight of momentum would be a little short of 44,000 tons, and the effect of collision upon the vessel attacked, whatever may be her size, inevitably overwhelming.
It may be urged that the momentum estimated by the above figures may not be as effective as the rule indicates, yet it cannot be maintained that there would not be sufficient force for all the purposes desired.
I have looked well into the practicability of this mode of attack, and am fully satisfied that if managed with decision and coolness, it will unquestionably succeed and without immediate injury to the attacking vessel. Much would of course depend on the determination and skill of the commander, and the self-possession of the engineers at the starting bars, in reversing the motion of the engines at the moment of collision; but coolness under dangers of accident from the engines or boilers, is considered, by well trained engineers, a point of honor, and I feel well assured there would be no want of conduct or bearing in either those or the other officers of the ship.
The preparations for guarding the attacking steamer against material damage would be to secure the boilers more firmly in their beds, to prepare the steam pipes and connections so as to prevent the separation of their joints, to render firm the smoke-stack by additional guys and braces, to strip off the lower masts and to remove the bowsprit. All these arrangements could be made in little time and without much inconvenience.
It would be desirable that the bowsprit should be so fitted as to be easily reefed or removed, but in times of emergency, this spar should not for a moment be considered as interposing an obstacle to the contemplated collision.
It will be said, and I am free to admit, that much risk would be encountered by the steamer from the guns of the vessel assailed, say of a line-of-battle ship or frigate, but considering the short time she would be under fire, her facilities for advance and retreat, of choice of position and of the effect of her own heavy guns upon the least defensible point of the enemy’s ship on which she would of course advance, the disparity of armaments should not be taken into view.