Part 12 (2/2)
The naval history of this country is full of such instances. Captain Charles Stewart, on the same s.h.i.+p, did a wonderful thing. In his fight with the ”Cyane” and the ”Levant” he delivered a broadside from both batteries at the same time. Then, s.h.i.+fting his helm under cover of the smoke, he backed his topsails and drew out sternward from the enemy's fire, taking a new position, and delivering another broadside, which brought about their surrender.
The war-s.h.i.+p of fifty years ago was as different from the battle-s.h.i.+p of to-day as a caravel from a torpedo-boat. With half the length and a third the tonnage, the old ”s.h.i.+p-of-the-line” had three times as many men as the modern sea-fighter. Yet, with a thousand men aboard, she had work for them all. More than two acres of canvas were to be handled, and over a hundred guns were to be served, loaded, and fired. A thousand pieces of running-gear were to be rove and manned. The huge topsails, weighing, with their yards, many tons, needed on their halyards half a hundred men. Great anchors were to be broken from their sandy holds, and the capstan-bars, double-banked, hove around to the sound of the merry chantey and deep-voiced trumpet. Homeward bound, the business of anchor-hoisting turned into a mad scene, and many a rude jest and hoa.r.s.e song turned the crowded fo'c's'le into a carnival of jollity.
In matters of routine and training the crews of the American frigates differed little from those of England. The sailor-men of the United States, though newer to the work of navigating the big s.h.i.+ps, were smart seamen, and could cross or bring down their light yards, send down their masts, or clear for action with the oldest and very best of England's men-o'war's-men.
The s.h.i.+ps themselves differed little in general construction. During the war of 1812, of large frigates we possessed but the ”Const.i.tution,” the ”President,” and the ”Constellation.” Though built upon models patterned after the accepted standards of the period, they were somewhat smaller than the British vessels and usually carried a lighter armament. Their unbroken list of victories during the war with England is remarkable when one considers what the young nation was contending against, both at home and abroad, and how little aid Congress had given the infant navy.
It seems really wonderful how a large body of men, numbering from three hundred to six hundred, and later a thousand or more, could find comfort and a home from one year's end to another in a s.p.a.ce only two hundred feet long and fifty feet wide.
But Jack is nowhere so comfortable as aboard s.h.i.+p. He is used to prescribed limits, and crawls into his hammock at night happy that the s.p.a.ce is no greater. There is a companions.h.i.+p, he thinks, in close quarters, and he likes them.
In the old s.h.i.+ps it was a matter of great importance to provide comfortable quarters for the great crews they were obliged to carry.
In England, during the first years of the century, the complement of a ”Seventy-four” was five hundred and ninety, and even six hundred and forty men. Hammocks seem to have been used during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when they were called ”nets,” probably because they were made of rope-yarn.
The officers were then, as now, given the after part of the s.h.i.+p. A wooden bulkhead separated the cabins of the officers from the main-decks, where the men lived, though when the s.h.i.+p was cleared for action the bulkheads were taken down and all movable property both of officer and man was taken below-deck.
This gave a clean sweep of the deck from bow to stern. The steerage had from two to six broadside-guns in it, and even the captain had to live with a couple of bra.s.s stern-chasers and a broadsider or two.
The grandest line-of-battle-s.h.i.+p ever built for this country was the old ”Pennsylvania.” She was made of wood throughout, two hundred and twenty feet long and fifty-eight feet beam, with a draft of twenty-five feet of water and thirty-five hundred tons displacement,--just one-third of that of the modern ”Iowa.” Eleven hundred men could swing their hammocks on her wide decks, where no modern gun-carriages or steel compartments broke the long sweep from the cabin forward. Her sides were of oak, with a thickness of eighteen inches at the upper gun-ports and thirty-two inches at the water-line, almost heavy enough at long range to resist the shot of a modern rifle. Her sixteen inches were proof against her own fire at a mile. On her three fighting-decks she carried sixteen 8-inch guns, the heaviest they had in those days, and one hundred and four 32-pounders. Her mainmast was over two hundred feet long, and with all sail set she could leg it at twelve knots an hour.
But compare her with the modern ”Indiana.” The ”Pennsylvania” weighed less than the armor of the ”Indiana” alone. The ”Indiana” has but sixteen guns, against one hundred and twenty on the ”Pennsylvania;” but that broadside can send two tons of tempered steel at a single discharge. The old 8-inch guns of the ”Pennsylvania” could send a sh.e.l.l through fifteen inches of oak at a distance of a mile--the equivalent of half an inch of steel.
The range of a modern rifle is from five to twelve miles; the penetration is almost anything you please in the way of steel armor.
The ”Pennsylvania's” sh.e.l.ls at point-blank range would hardly make a perceptible dent in the ”Indiana's” steel armor, and the old cast-iron shot would roll harmlessly down the new s.h.i.+p's sides. But one explosive sh.e.l.l from the ”Indiana” would go through the ”Pennsylvania” from stem to stern, and would splinter and burn her beyond repair.
The ”Pennsylvania” cost the government, in 1837, nearly seven hundred thousand dollars; a fabulous sum for a battle-s.h.i.+p in those days. The ”Indiana” cost three millions and a half,--only two hundred and fifty thousand dollars less than the sum paid for that vast territory bought from Napoleon, and known as the ”Louisiana Purchase,” and about half the sum paid for the acquisition of Alaska from Russia.
The statistics are interesting. According to official authority, in putting this vessel together seven hundred tons of rivets alone were used.
About four hundred plans were made for the hull and about two hundred and fifty plans and drawings were made for the engines. These would take a force of one hundred men a year to complete.
The engines and machinery alone weigh about nine hundred tons. The smoke-stacks are about sixteen feet in diameter. Each of the main engines is so enormous that under the great frames, in the economy of s.p.a.ce and construction, are two smaller engines, the sole mission of which is to start the big ones. There are about sixty-six separate engines for various purposes. The condensing-tubes, placed end to end, would cover a distance of twelve miles. Thirty tons of water fill her boilers, which would stand a pressure of one hundred and sixty pounds to the square inch. Three dynamos provide the electricity,--a plant which would light a town of five thousand inhabitants. There are twenty-one complete sets of speaking-tubes and twenty-four telephone stations.
The two great turrets are clad with nineteen inches of toughened steel.
In each of these turrets are two 13-inch guns. Each of these guns is about fifty feet long and weighs sixty-one tons. There are eight 8-inch guns on the superstructure, in sets of twos, and amids.h.i.+ps on the main-deck are four 6-inch rifles. In ten minutes, firing each 13-inch gun once in two minutes, and using all the other guns at their full power, the ”Indiana”
could fire about sixty tons of death-dealing metal.
The millennium has not yet been reached, but such awful force makes universal peace a possibility. What the immediate future holds forth in naval architecture and gunnery is a matter which excites some curiosity, for it almost seems as though perfection, according to the standard of the end of the century, has been reached. And yet we already know of certain changes, improvements, and inventions, the direct outcome of the Spanish war, which are to be made on the vessels now contracted for, which affect importantly the government of the s.h.i.+p; and so it may be that the next twenty years will show as great an evolution as have the two decades just past.
But whatever the future may bring, it has been a marvellous and momentous change from the old navy to the new. Since the ”Monitor””Merrimac” fight no country has been quicker to profit by the lessons of the victory of iron over wood and steel over iron than the United States.
But the navy that is, however glorious its achievements, can never dim the glory of the navy that was, though sailor-men, old and new, know that in a test of s.h.i.+p and s.h.i.+p, and man and man, the flag of this country will continue to fly triumphant.
FARRAGUT IN MOBILE BAY
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