With the aid of his friend W. C. Redfield, he collected statistics of all the privately-owned steamers in the United States with their cost, dimensions and consumption of fuel, showing their possible power of conversion for war purposes. Encouraged by Perry, Mr. Redfield treated the whole question of naval offence and defence in a series of letters on “The Means of National Defence.” These were printed in the New York Journal of Commerce during the summer of 1841, and afterwards reprinted in the Journal of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. His note-books with illustrations, diagrams and pen-sketches show that his coming ideal war-ship was like the Lackawanna of our civil war days which, while but five feet narrower, is sixty-two feet longer than “Old Ironsides,” the Constitution of 1812. His favorite type was a long narrow and comparatively low vessel like the Kearsarge which is twenty-two feet less in breadth than an old “seventy-four.” Like Perry, he looked forward to the day when one eleven-inch shell gun would be able to discharge the metal once hurled by a twenty-gun broadside of the old President.
During July 1840, Perry conducted a series of experiments on the Fulton, to determine the effect on the ship’s timbers of the firing of heavy ordnance across the deck of a vessel. The introduction of pivot guns on board men-of-war, rendered these experiments of great value. The bowsprit and bulwarks removed, and the eight-inch Paixhans placed in the middle part of the forward cross bulwarks, thirty feet of the Fulton’s deck was exposed to concussion. Thirty-four rounds fired at a target on shore, showed that every discharge produced an upheaval of the deck. Empty buckets reversed and placed at various distance and positions on the deck approaching the gun, were upset, kicked into the air, destroyed, or shaken overboard. The ease with which men could be killed by the windage of the balls, was demonstrated. A stout cask twelve feet forward of the gun but out of line of fire was knocked overboard. A glass phial which was hung three feet above the cannon’s muzzle withstood the shock, but three feet forward at the same elevation was shattered. Tarpaulin of two thicknesses fastened over a scuttle was rent, and pine boards securely nailed withstood only two or three firings.
Perry at once gave the natural explanation that the expansion, pressure, and sudden contraction of the gases generated by the gunpowder, caused the air of the hold to rush up to fill the vacuum, and thus pressed upon the planking of the deck. The heavily built Fulton could resist, where a weaker vessel would start her planks, just as a fish brought up in a trawl from deep-sea beds, bursts when coming to the air. He suggested that any slightly built vessel could be rendered safe, simply by flooding the decks with three inches of water. This he demonstrated after many curious and interesting experiments, thus adding to the sum of knowledge which every naval officer, in the changed conditions of warfare, ought to obtain.
Perhaps no finer illustration of the value and power of pivot guns was ever given than upon the Kearsarge when sinking the Alabama. Yet of that very ship, the British newspapers had said, “Her decks cannot withstand the concussion and recoil of her heavy guns.” They were evidently unaware of the knowledge obtained by Perry on the Fulton, and applied by American builders of our men-of-war.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE SCHOOL OF GUN PRACTICE AT SANDY HOOK.
The French Navy was at this time leading the British in improved ordnance. A French man-of-war of twenty-six guns was armed entirely with cannon able to fire “detonating shot.” She was reckoned equal to two old line-of-battle ships. Her visit to American ports created great interest among our naval officers, and the Navy Department awoke to the necessity of improving our ordnance.
On the 4th of May, 1839, Perry received orders which he was glad to carry out. He was directed to give his attention to experiments with hollow shot. These were round projectiles, non-explosive, but in that line of the American idea of low velocity, with smashing power. With less weight, they were of greater calibre, and required less powder in firing. They were invented by W. Cochrane, known as the father of heating by steam, and other useful appliances.
Perry selected a site near Sandy Hook and erected platforms, targets, sheds, and offices for ammunition and fuses. From this first trial and scientific study in the United States, of bombs and bomb-guns, down to the last experiments with dynamite shells, the waste space at Sandy Hook—the American Sheerness—has been utilized in the interest of progress in artillery. Perry set up butts at 800, 880, 1,000 and 1,200 yards distance from the guns, and erected one target for firing at from the ship. He devoted himself to the experiments with the best methods and instruments of precision, then at command, during the months of June and July, returning to the navy yard once or twice a week for letters, provisions and fuses. The experiments in shell practice were interesting, instructive and sufficiently conclusive. Those with hollow shot were not so satisfactory.
The faith of Perry in the shell-gun was fixed. Thenceforth he believed that bombs could be fired with very nearly as much precision and safety from accident as solid shot. He saw, however, that much practice, even to the point of familiarity, was needed. His report, at the end of the season, in which he recommended a continuance of the experiments, gives us a picture of the state of knowledge in our navy at that time, concerning shell-shot. Not one of those under his direction had ever seen a bomb-gun discharged; nor had had his attention specially called to a shell-gun when in the navy, which had so long suffered from the dry rot of unmeaning routine. He complains of the lamentable want of knowledge in this important branch of the naval profession, when already so many of the French and British ships were armed with shell-guns. However, the officers trained at Sandy Hook, were now capable of teaching others in the use of explosive projectiles aboard the ship. Men and boys had all made progress in expertness. He suggested that the winter months be employed in teaching boys on the Fulton a knowledge of pyrotechny, and that fifteen or twenty boys from the North Carolina should be associated with them, and a class of gunners be thus trained.
His plan was approved by the Department. A course of study and drill in gunnery, pyrotechny and the knowledge of the steam engine, was organized and carried out during the winter. The graduates of this school afterwards gave good account of themselves in the Mexican and our Civil War. We see in this school, the beginning of the present admirable training of our sailors in the science of explosives.