He was for years on the board of officers appointed to report upon the Stevens floating battery at Hoboken. Until his death, he was familiar with the whole question, and believed in the early adoption of both rifles and armor on ships. Prior to the Mexican War he thought the right course was to develop to the highest stage of efficiency the ram and the smooth-bore shell-gun. It turned out that in the war for the Union in 1861, most of the naval officers associated with him and who shared his ideas were on the Confederate side. Hence the Southerners were in a much better state of advanced naval science than the Northerners. Even the Monitor was the fruit of a private inventor, and not of a naval officer. The first appearance of an iron coat on an American war vessel, and the first ram effectively used in war were upon the Confederate steamer Virginia (the old Merrimac) which was the idea and application of T. ap. Catesby Jones; while the Tennessee in Mobile Bay was wholly the creation of Franklin Buchanan. Both of these gentlemen were life-long friends, and subordinate officers, who were also familiar with the problem of ramming, and enjoyed Perry’s confidence and ideas. For the methods of the Merrimac in her devastation of the Federal fleet at Hampton Roads, the epistle of Perry might seem almost a letter of instruction.
Had good machinists and founderies existed in the South, in number proportionate to that of Confederate naval officers, the story of Mobile Bay and the Mississippi river might have been different. With no lack of courage or skill in the northern sailors and their leaders, their greatest ally lay in the poor machinery of the Confederate iron-clads. These were true testudos in armor, but fortunately for the Union cause they were tortoises in speed also. Or, to change the metaphor, though meant to act as swordfish, they behaved as sluggishly as whales. They fell a prey even to wooden vessels able to obey their helms but moving rapidly with sinking force.
With the old system of tactics under sail, no ramming was possible, as the vessel under propulsion would expose herself to a raking fire while slowly working up to position. Gunpowder rendered obsolete the trireme ram. Steam, by its gigantic propelling force, had now in turn overcome gunpowder.
The model of the machine-ram, made by Captain Samuel Barron in 1827, and referred to by Captain Perry is now at Annapolis Naval Academy. So far as we can gather, Perry had not seen this at the time of his first writing of the ram in 1839. His valuable paper was duly read, laid aside and bound up with other “Captain’s Letters” in 1839 and forgotten. When in 1861, the Merrimac, steaming out from Norfolk, by one thrust of her iron snout turned the grand old wooden frigate, Cumberland, into a sunken hulk, she revealed the powers of the ram to the whole world. The curtain then fell on the age of wood and ushered in the age of iron.
| [9] | Commodore James Barron’s model of his “prow-ship” was exhibited in the rotunda of the capitol in Washington in 1836. As described by him in the Patent Office reports, it was a mere mass of logs, white pine, poplar, or gum-tree wood. Perry meant to use a real ship always available for ramming. |
CHAPTER XV.
LIGHTHOUSE ILLUMINATION, LENSES OR REFLECTORS?
The water-ways leading to New York are such as to make Manhattan Island unique in its advantages for commerce. Already the metropolis of the continent, it is yet to be the commercial centre of the world. Until 1837 these highways of sea, river, and bay were greatly neglected, and on all except moonlight nights, vessels had great difficulty in approaching the city. Raritan and Newark bays were so destitute of buoys and beacons, that pilots charged double rates for navigating ships in them, rocks littered their channels, and the benighted New Jersey coast was jeeringly said to be “outside of the United States.” During the summer of 1837, Captains Kearney, Sloat, and Perry made a study of the water approaches to New York, the latter concerning himself with the Jersey side. His report, written at Perth Amboy, December 9, 1837, was made such good use of in Congress by Senator G. D. Wall, that a bill for the creation of lighthouses was passed, and Captain Perry was ordered to Europe for further study.
Embarking on the steamer Great Western on her second round trip, June 27, 1838, Perry crossed the ocean when such a voyage was a novelty. The passage occupied twelve and a half days, during which a constant study of the engines and their behavior, and of wages and fuel satisfied him that steam could be applied to war vessels with safety and economy. This was in 1838, yet even as late as 1861, there were American naval officers more afraid of the boilers under their feet, than of the enemy’s guns; and many old sea-dogs still believed in the general efficiency of sailing frigates over steamers.
Arriving at Bristol his first business was to visit the lighthouses of the United Kingdom, after which he returned to London. In the foundries and shipyards he acquainted himself with engineers and manufacturers. He found a ferment of ideas. A real revolution in naval science was in progress. The British government was ambitious to have the largest steamer force in the world ready for sudden hostilities so as to possess an over-whelming advantage. So much encouragement was given by the admiralty, that nearly every mechanic in the kingdom, as it seemed, was eager to invent, improve or discover new steps to perfection. Especial attention was given to the problem of the economy of fuel. Vessels wholly built of iron were beginning to be common. These, as Perry predicted, were ultimately to have the preference for peaceful purposes, but their fitness as war vessels was still uncertain. Two were then building for the Emperor of Russia. The first paddle-wheel steamers, Penelope, Terrible, and Valorous, were afloat or building. The era of steam appliances as a substitute for manual labor aboard ships was being ushered in.