[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
CHAPTER 2
Ericsson, the Monitors and the
American Civil War
T
HE EXACT MOMENT WHEN
the sailing ship of the line
ceased to dominate naval affairs could be said to have been
on 9 March 1862 when the USS
Monitor
and the CSS
Virginia
lumbered within sight of one another at Hampton
Roads and laboriously exchanged fire for several hours with-
out a conclusive result. But the engagement between these
totally unfamiliar-looking craft, which were bereft of any
sailing rig, shook the global naval establishment to its foun-
dations. All at once, the world's sailing fleets had been
apparently rendered obsolete. Of course, this was not to be
for the rest of the 1860s and most of the 1870s, as it took a
long time for the very low freeboard Ericsson-type monitors
to evolve into genuine seagoing turret ships which could
manage without a sailing rig. But the promise was there.
For the Swede John Ericsson's creation had introduced a
great number of technological changes, made others highly
necessary, and threatened to overturn the generally ac-
cepted ideas of what was involved in the maintenance of a
close blockade against an enemy. The monitors' role in the
Union's defeat of the Confederacy was equally influenced
by the latter's basic essential industrial weakness, which
made it very hard for the 'gallant South' to equal the North
in technology or resources.
Ironically, the role of the monitors in the Union's victory
had a negative influence on the further development of the
United States as a sea power, as their legend was in effect a
psychological deadweight, apparently justifying Congressio-
nal reluctance to spend money on larger, more seaworthy
replacements. And so it was that the completely erroneous
view that monitors could even challenge a more sophisti-
cated enemy on the high seas was allowed to take root in
some quarters. The result of this of course was that Con-
gress refused to fund any replacements for the Civil War
monitors and the deception of the 'great repairs' was used to
secretly build replacements in the shape of
Puritan
and the
Amphitrite
class.
Even in 1898, when America went to war against Spain
and sent fleets to Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, it
was believed that monitors had a useful role to play on the
high seas. Those that were sent to join Dewey's squadron in
the Philippines had the roughest and most difficult of
passages across the Pacific, thereby putting an end to the
nonsense of the 'New Navy' monitors being regarded as an
element of the ocean-going battle fleet. They and their
successors spent most of their lives laid up or in secondary
roles, just as their Civil War forebears had after that conflict.
Ericsson's Monitor
Yet during that war, the importance of the monitors' role
could not be underestimated. The outbreak of the Civil
War in April 1861 found the Union unprepared because of
the Confederate Navy's rapid conversion of the former sail-
rigged frigate
Merrimack
into the ironclad vessel
Virginia.
An
immediate response was required to this sudden and fright-
ening technological challenge and so it was that John
Ericsson was contracted to provide, in just one hundred
days, some sort of vessel which could reasonably be ex-
pected to take on
Virginia
and survive.
The requirement was demanding, although the contract
price, $275,000, was relatively modest for such an important
new warship. Because there was so little time available,
whatever vessel was produced would have to be small, yet
she would need to be armoured to a level sufficient to with-
stand some of the most powerful contemporary guns, as
fitted to
Virginia.
However, because her small dimensions
effectively made it impossible for a large battery of weapons
to be fitted, some means would have to be provided to
maximise the effectiveness of a small battery. Ericsson had
first put forward the idea of a cupola or turret mounting in
1854, and hence in 1861 the method chosen of resolving the
design puzzle was a simple central turret mounting a pair of
11 in (279.4mm) Dahlgren muzzle-loading smoothbores.
The turret was mounted on a central spindle on what was
for a l l practical purposes an armoured raft with a displace-
ment of just 987 tons, and dimensions of 172ft x 41ft 6in x
10ft 6in (52.42m x 12.64m x 3.2m).
Ericsson had opposed the US Bureau of Construction and
Repair, which had favoured a low-freeboard ironclad with a
pair of Coles turrets (as designed by Britain's Captain
Cowper Coles, see Chapter 3), each mounting a single l l i n
gun. But Ericsson's approach had the benefit of simplicity,
allowing for very rapid construction. However Ericsson's
final design was somewhat more practical than his early
sketch concepts for a vessel with 6in (152mm) side armour
and 2in (50.8mm) deck protection which would have made
it impossible to operate the vessel given its other weights.
for comfort.
1
The complement of 49 was modest indeed,
but made sense given that there was no other armament.
The
Monitor,
the name chosen 'that she might be a warn-
ing to others', was laid down at Continental Iron Works on
25 October 1861 (on the same day the contract was signed),
was launched less than three months later on 30 January
1862, and was commissioned on 25 February of that year:
which, though 23 days longer than the contracted period
and some days longer if the short preparation of materials
for the vessel is taken into account, was nevertheless very
impressive. It is worth recalling that among the sceptical
voices greeting
Monitor's
arrival in the Union fleet was that
of David Farragut, later to become the Union's senior naval
commander, who came to understand the strengths of the
monitor concept at first hand.
The Union Navy knew that, because the approaches to
the Confederacy's key harbours and much of its waters were
shallow, a vessel like the
Monitor
would need to have a
shallow draught for coastal operations. This it had at 10ft
6in (3.2m) mean draught, with a freeboard of just 2ft (0.6m),
decreasing to just lft 2in (0.35m) when fully laden. This
had the advantage of presenting the smallest possible side
armour to the enemy, this armour being from 4.5in (114mm)
to 3-2in (76-50mm) thick below the waterline. This side
protection was fitted to an overhang of the
Monitors
raft
structure which had the dual advantage of enhancing the
vessel's stability and adding to its protection against
ramming.
The lower hull over which the composite armour and
wood raft were hung was slab-sided with dimensions of
126ft x 34 ft max (38.4m x 12.64m), with a flat bottom 18ft
(5.48m) wide. The raft overhang extended 14ft (4.28m)
beyond the
Monitor's
sides forward, 32ft (9.79m) aft and 3ft
9in (1.14m) amidships; the aft overhang contributed to a
lowering of
Monitor's
speed below its contracted speed. The
side, deck and turret armour consisted of iron plates lin
(25.4mm) thick, or thinner, riveted or bolted together in
laminated plates, the turret armour being 9-8in (228.6-
203.2mm) thick on an internal diameter of 20ft (6.12m).
America's inability to roll armour thicker than lin con-
trasted with Britain's practice of rolling armour at the time
in solid 4in (102mm) plates. A curious pagoda-like canopy
with railings sat atop the turret, where crewmen could ob-
serve the vessel's passage in somewhat more comfort than
from the pilot house.
Monitor's
propulsion comprised two Martin boilers and a
single shaft, vibrating lever engine of Ericsson's own
design, developing 320ihp for a speed of 6kts, which was
2kts below the contracted speed. Two square funnels 6ft
high, fore and aft of the turret, together with a very small
pilot house made from 9in (228.6mm) thick iron, with a 3in
(76mm) glacis later installed around it, made for a very clean
superstructure around the 9ft (2.75m) high turret. The clean
lines belied a poor ventilation system though, with very
high temperatures in the engine room and below the main
deck, while the hawse pipe was too close to the waterline
Virginia and Hampton Roads
What of
Monitor's
opposition at Hampton Roads, the CSS
Virginia,
whose sailors contemptuously described
Monitor,
upon sighting her, as a 'cheesebox on a raft'? Whereas
Monitor
was purpose-designed from scratch,
Virginia
was, for
the time, a fairly ingenious, if quickly improvised floating
battery, clearly constructed with the experience of the
French and British floating batteries of the Crimean War in
mind. The objective was to concoct a vessel which could
break the blockade of the Confederacy which the Union
swiftly tried to establish after the outbreak of war.
Displacing 4,500 tons,
2
Virginia
was based on the sunken
wooden hull of the Union wooden steam frigate USS
Mer-
rimack,
which had been seized at Norfolk naval dockyard in
April 1861. After a survey of the hull, the sailing rig was
removed in June, and sloping armour cladding was installed
which had itself been constructed from railway line rails,
bolted together in groups of three, an early sign of the
industrial weakness which was to be the Confederacy's
downfall. Dimensions were 275ft x 38ft 6in x 22ft (83.81m x
11.73m x 6.7m).
The Confederate ironclad was armed with 68pdr muzzle-
loaders which were able to fire a broadside every 15 minutes
and was also fitted with a short iron ram. The full battery
comprised a pair of 7in (177.8mm) Brooke rifled muzzle-
loaders, a pair of 6.4in (162.5mm), six 9in (228.6mm)
smoothbores and two 12pdr smoothbore howitzers. The 7in
were installed forward and aft, firing through three ports in
the casemate, while the other guns were fired through eight
other ports, four each side. The two cylinder horizontal
return connecting rod steam engine and four Martin boilers
drove a single shaft to provide a maximum speed variously
put at 7kts
3
, 7.5kts
4
and even 9kts.
5
Virginia's
armour com-
prised a casemate of 4in-thick rails consisting of two 2in rails
bolted together, with side armour less than lin thick, the
casemate's lower end being just 6in below the waterline.
The vessel's high complement, at 320 men, reflected its
fairly extensive armament.
Virginia's
momentous, if inconclusive encounter with
Monitor
came a day after she had made short work of the
Union wooden frigates
Congress
and
Cumberland
'at Hampton
Roads. The next day, after firing on the 'cheesebox',
Virginia's
crew were surprised to see that their shells had no
noticeable effect on
Monitor,
but then again, nor did
Moni-
tor's
on
Virginia.
It has been said that had
Monitor
fired 301b
charges rather than the 151b charges to which she had been
limited (because her guns had not yet been proof-fired), or
had
Virginia
fired solid shot, then perhaps this first ironclad
battle, which lasted three and a half hours, would have had a
more conclusive result. In the event, there was none, de-
spite even
Virginia's
attempt to ram the little
Monitor.
After a refit in which she was given extra plating provid-
ing side armour ranging from 3-1 in,
Virginia
tried to engage
Monitor
one more time on 11 April, and with solid shot this
time, but the Union vessel sensibly refused to be drawn
into battle.
Virginia
was then unceremoniously burned on 11
May with the abandonment of Norfolk in the state after
which the ship had been named.
Monitor's
end was equally
sad, as she foundered under tow on 31 December in Force 7
winds with, it is believed, a separation of the core inner hull
from the armoured raft which had rested upon her.
Side armour was better than
Monitor
at 5-3in (127-
76mm), with 11 in (279.4mm) on the turret and lin
(25.4mm) on the decks. The crew numbers remained mod-
est, at 75, but with better ventilation, more extensive ship's
boats arrangements, and a turret-mounted pilot house
(which did not turn with the turret), the
Passaics
were a
good deal more practical than
Monitor.
Dimensions were
200ft x 46ft x 10ft 6in (60.96m x 14.01m x 3.2m).
Nine improved versions of the
Passaics,
the 2,100 ton
Can-
onicus
class, were built between 1862 and 1865, benefiting
from the experience gained during the war. They were
longer (223-225ft; 67.97-68.58m), but thinner (43ft-43ft 4in;
13.1-13.2m), and with a deeper draught (12ft 5in—13ft mean;
3.78-3.96m). Armament was standardised at a pair of 15in,
but once again the ambitious designed speed of 13kts was
beyond the capabilities of the powerplant, identical to the
Passaics,
except for some which used Stimers in place of
Martin boilers. Actual speed was 8kts on trials and in service
and the
Catawba,
later sold to Peru, could only make 6kts
with her new owner. Side armour protection was as on the
Passaics,
though turret armour at lOin (254mm) was lin thin-
ner and deck armour half an inch thicker at 1.5in (38mm).
Catawba
and
Oneota
were sold to Peru in 1868; the others,
with the exception of the unfortunate
Tecumseh,
were sold
between 1891 and 1907, four of them not having been com-
missioned in time to take part in the war.
The
Passaics
were complemented by the first multi-hull
monitor, the 4,395 ton
Roanoke,
a former wooden frigate
which, after its conversion between May 1862 and April
1863 and its commissioning in June of that year, went to sea
with three turrets with a mixed armament of, from fore to
aft, one 15in smoothbore and one 8in rifled muzzle-loader,
one 15in and one 1
lin
smoothbore, and one 1 lin and one
8in. Towards the end of the war, in January 1865, three
12pdr smoothbore howitzers were also provided. The 265ft
(80.77m) ship was broken aft after its launching and the
turrets (with 1
lin
armour) were too heavy for the hull, with
its 4.5—3.5in side and 1.5in deck armour. This curious vessel
was a local coast defence ship at Hampton Roads and saw
no action during the war, being sold in 1883.
The Union Girds its Loins
In August 1861, Congress authorised the construction of
ironclads at a cost of $1.5 million to match the
Merrimack,
inter alia.
The Union Navy, though able to draw on a strong
industrial base, was weak at the war's outset, with just
ninety ships of all types, of which only forty-one were actu-
ally in commission. These paltry assets were what was im-
mediately available to begin the blockade of the southern
rebels, who had opened the conflict at sea with the bom-
bardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbour in April
1861. Within three weeks of the inconclusive battle at
Hampton Roads, the Union had contracted for another ten
Ericsson-type monitors of the
Passaic
class, these being
among no fewer than sixty-four monitors and turreted iron-
clads the Union ordered during the Civil War. Another
twenty ironclads of other types were also built, but the bulk
of the new fleet which comprised monitors formed a coastal
and riverine offensive force which was nonetheless to have
a profound influence on the development of coastal defence
vessels in the decades to come.
The
Passaics,
launched in 1862-64 and commissioned in
1862-65, had almost double the displacement
of Monitor,
at
1,875 tons. With the same powerplant and speed as
Monitor,
the
Passaics
carried 50 tons more coal at 150 tons, and a
more powerful armament of one 15in (381mm) smoothbore
and one 11 in smoothbore in the case of seven vessels, in-
cluding the name ship, two 15in in the case of
Camanche,
and one 15in and one 8in Parrott rifled muzzle-loader on
Lehigh
and
Patapsco.
The 15in suffered from the disadvan-
tage, however, of not projecting from the 21ft-diameter
(6.42m) turret, and had to be aimed via the 11 in or 8in ports.
The first purpose-designed multi-turret Union monitor
was the twin-turret, 2,551-ton
Onondaga,
launched by Con-
tinental Iron Works in July 1863 and commissioned in
March 1864. This vessel was somewhat more practical than
Roanoke,
with each turret containing one 15in smoothbore
and one 8in Parrott rifled muzzle-loader. Side armour was
thicker at a maximum of 5.5in (140mm), though deck ar-
mour was thinner at lin; as on
Roanoke
and the
Passaics,
turret armour was 11 in. The four Martin boilers and 610ihp
twin shaft horizontal return connecting rod gave a speed of
7kts, no different from
Monitor,
though the crew, at 150, was
twice the size. Dimensions were 228ft 7in x 51ft 2in x 12ft
lOin (69.67m x 15.6m x 3.91m).
The next monitor design efforts were aimed at improving
the type's seakeeping, so as to permit operations in the
open sea. Two classes were built, the four 3,400 ton
Mian-
tonomoh
class, designed by the Bureau for Construction and
Repair, and Ericsson's own curiously-named
Dictator,
which
displaced 4,438 tons. All were laid down in 1862, the latter
in August, but the former class was a better bet and were
proven to have good seakeeping characteristics.
Wooden-hulled vessels, the
Miantonomohs
were armed
with four 15in in two turrets with thinner lOin armour than
previous monitors; side armour was 5.5in, deck protection
1.5in and pilot houses were provided on top of each turret.
Actual speed was 9-10kts, designed speed not being
known, provided by four Martin boilers and, in
Agamenticus
and
Miantonomoh,
Ericsson vibrating lever engines, with
Isherwood
6
horizontal return connecting rod engines in
Monadnock
and
Tonawanda,
both engine types apparently
generating l,400ihp. Coal bunkerage of 300 tons was good,
though not as good as
Roanoke's
550 tons, but the class
proved its long range capabilities when
Monadnock
went to
San Francisco via Cape Horn in 1865-66 and when
Mian-
tonomoh
went for a cruise of 17,767 miles to Europe in 1866-
67.
Dictator
differed from the
Miantonomons
not only in being
1,038 tons heavier, yet only being fitted with a single turret
with a pair of 15in smoothbores, but also in disposing of a
significantly heavier armour package, comprising 15in
(381mm) on the turret, 6-lin (152-25mm) on the sides and
2in (50mm) for the deck. But where
Dictator
failed was in
speed: her designed speed of llkts was not reached, her
actual service speed being 9kts. Six Martin boilers were
provided but Ericsson stuck with his own vibrating lever
engine, developing 3,500ihp. As completed in November
1864,
Dictator
is believed to have been fitted with a
hurricane deck around the funnel amidships. Her mechan-
ical failings curtailed an action during the conflict and she
was laid up after the war, being sold in 1883. Dimensions
were 312ft x 50ft x 20ft 6in mean (95.1m x 15.24m x 6.25m).
One other monitor based on the
Dictator
design was
Pu-
ritan,
laid down in July 1862. Though launched in 1864, this
4,912 ton vessel (as planned) was never completed, and was
surreptitiously broken up in 1874—75 to allow for the clan-
destine construction of a new replacement under the so-
called 'great repairs' ordered by Secretary of the Navy
George Robeson (see Chapter 5).
Four other wooden-hulled monitors never completed
during the war would have been the largest, the
Ka-
lamazoos,
intended to displace 5,660 tons. With deeper
draughts and more generous 3ft 9in (1.146m) freeboards
than the
Miantonomoh^
on which they were based (their
freeboards being 2ft 7in or 0.78m), the
Kalamazoo
class were
laid down in 1863 and 1864 but were eventually broken up
on the stocks in 1874
{Shackamaxon)
and 1884 for the other
three vessels. Conceived with the intention of being able to
use their four 15in in a seaway, they have been stated to be
'the only monitors that could have fought contemporary
European warships on equal terms outside protected coastal
areas'.
7
Two other significant types of monitor were built for the
US Navy during the Civil War, the
Milwaukee
and
Casco
classes, of which four of the former were built while of the
twenty
Cascos,
just eight were completed in time to be
commissioned during the Civil War, none seeing any action.
The 1,300 ton
Milwaukee^
were launched at Union Iron
Works at Carondelet on the Mississippi (not to be confused
with the later San Francisco yard of the same name) in May
1862, being commissioned between May and August 1864.
They were designed by J B Eads for riverine service, but
spent most of their Civil War service with the West Gulf
Blockading Squadron. Admiral Farragut had
Chickasaw
and
Winnebago
under his command at the Battle of Mobile Bay
and said 'no vessels in his fleet performed more efficient
service'.
8
The other two vessels in this turtle-decked class
were
Kickapoo
and
Milwaukee.
Powered by seven horizontal tubular boilers, the
Mil-
waukee^
four shaft horizontal non-condensing engines were
intended to provide a speed as designed of 9kts; horse-
their new names or were renamed yet again. All of this
troubled class, complete or not, were sold or broken up in
1874-75.
Besides the monitors and the intended riverine craft of
the
Milwaukee
and
Casco
classes, the Union Navy also com-
missioned five other river monitors the function of which is
of tangential relevance to this account. For the record they
were the two vessels of the
Neosho
class, the single vessel
Ozark,
and the two ships of the
Marietta
class. All were
armed with two llin Dahlgren smoothbores and were 180ft
or 170ft
(Marietta
class) long, with old tonnage displace-
ments of 523 tons, 578 tons and 429 tons for
Neosho, Ozark
and
Marietta
respectively.
The Union of course commissioned numerous other sea-
going, coastal and riverine armoured vessels, with case-
mated or conventional side armour for the time. These
ranged from the seagoing ironclad
New Ironsides
to the thir-
teen casemated riverine craft known as the Took turtles'
after their designer Samuel M Pook.
power is not known. Side armour composed of three lin
plates extended 4in beneath the waterline on three vessels,
while
Winnebago
had heavy 3in-thick iron plates. The tur-
rets had 8in (203mm) armour protection and the deck half
an inch (12.7mm). The class garnered considerable praise
from Farragut and others, not least because of the installa-
tion of an Eads turret forward for two of the four llin
Dahlgren smoothbores on all four vessels in the class; the
other turret was an Ericsson design.
The
Scientific American
of 28 November 1863 described
the guns in the Eads turret as being 'placed on a huge
platform, loaded in the hold, and raised in the turret by
steam power. They are also run out by steam; the recoil is
received on steam cylinders, and the whole apparatus, guns
and all, is operated by one man.' Elevation of the guns in
the Eads turret was 20 degrees, twice that of the Ericsson
turret. Dimensions of these vessels was 229ft x 56ft x 6ft
mean (69.8m x 17.07m x 1.83m). All but
Milwaukee,
which
met her end at Mobile Bay in 1865, were sold in 1874.
The
Casco
class of shallow draught monitors did not share
the success of the
Milwaukee?,.
With a designed displace-
ment of 1,175 tons (but which reached 1,618 tons in the case
of
Squando),
their dimensions were 225ft x 45ft x 6ft 4.5in
(68.58m x 13.72m x 1.94m) and their designed freeboard, as
completed, was supposed to be 15in, but was nearer 3in, as
shown by the example of
Chimo.
The failure to correctly
calculate displacement doomed many of the class to either
non-completion or non-delivery to the navy. The twin
ironies of this situation were that, as designed, the class was
lightly armoured to meet the demand for shallow draught
(armour thickness being as on the
Milwaukee^),
and a ballast
tank was installed to enable the
Cascos
to go into action
partially submerged, keeping their silhouettes low. The
reason behind this was the riverine threat posed by the
Confederate ram
Albermarle,
among other vessels, which
could not be countered with deeper draught monitors.
Armed with two llin smoothbores, another of the
Cascos'
considerable failings was their inability to meet the
designed service speed of 9kts, which in fact did not ex-
ceed 5kts, machinery comprising two Stimers boilers and
twin shaft Stimers direct acting inclined engines. Dogged
by delays, the programme was noteworthy for a complete
change in its direction with the decision to complete five
ships
(Casco, Chimo, Modoc, Napa
and
Naubuc)
as spar tor-
pedo vessels without turrets, a single 1 lin on an open pivot
mounting, and with a thinner deck.
Casco
cleared mines in
the James River, but 5kts was not exactly a hopeful start-
ing point for a spar torpedo attack. Fifteen monitors in the
class had their hulls deepened at least to allow them to
carry the required weights and of these,
Tunxis
was recom-
missioned with one llin and one 8in Parrott rifled muzzle-
loader. All of the class received new names mostly derived
from Greek mythology in June 1869, recovering their for-
mer names less than two months later, though some kept
Battles Joined
The Union's advantage in industrial power, as evidenced by
the large number of monitors and other ironclads built
during the conflict, could never be equalled by the Con-
federacy, which tried, but mostly failed, to obtain ironclads
from Britain and France. However a handful of armoured
vessels were acquired, notably the 1,400 ton armoured ram
Stonewall,
built by Arman at Bordeaux. The replacement
casemate ironclad
Virginia,
laid down at Richmond in 1863
after the destruction of its original namesake, and commis-
sioned in 1864, had a short enough career, being scuttled on
the evacuation of Richmond. Meanwhile the casemate ship
Tennessee,
which like the first and second
Virginias,
was
armed with 7in Brooke rifled muzzle-loaders, was eventu-
ally obliged to surrender at the Battle of Mobile Bay on 5
August 1864.
As for the Union's ironclads, after Hampton Roads the
Passaics
took on the major part of the burden of the Union,
1
ironclads' assault on Charleston. As a result of their experi-
ence, some of them were given additional armour and they
also carried a pair of light guns, usually 12pdr smoothbore
howitzers on field carriages.
Meanwhile the twin-turret monitor
Onondaga,
the
Union's first purpose-designed multi-turret monitor, saw
active service at the James River, being sold in 1867 to the
French Navy, which retained the vessel's name, but re-
armed it with four 240mm (9.4in) Ml864 or Ml866 breech-
loaders, themselves replaced by Ml870s; the vessel was
only stricken in 1904. Of the
Miantonomohs,
only
Monadnock
saw action in the Civil War, while
Dictator's
effort to parti-
cipate in the attack on Fort Fisher was called off because of
excessive wear on her short shaft bearings.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]