CHAPTER XVIII.

THE TWIN STEAMERS MISSOURI AND MISSISSIPPI.

THE activity of American inventors kept equal pace at this period in the two directions of artillery and steam appliances. In 1841 the sum of fifty thousand dollars was appropriated by Congress for experiments in ordnance, and a possible one million dollars for the “shot-and-shell proof” iron-clad “Stevens Battery” then building at Hoboken, N. Y.

Perry was frequently called upon to pronounce upon the various methods of harnessing, improving, and economizing the new motor. We find him in April, 1842, testing three new appliances for cutting off steam, and, on May 17, 1842, praying that the _Fulton_ may be kept in commission for the numerous experiments which he was ordered to make. The Secretary of the Navy gladly referred the numerous petitioners for governmental approval to Captain Perry. In November the question is upon a ventilator; again, it is on the comparative merits of Liverpool, Pennsylvania, or Cumberland coal; anon, a score or so of minor inventions claimed to be improvements. Perry sometimes tried the temper of inventors who lived in the clouds and fed on azure, yet he strove to give to all, however visionary, a fair chance, for he believed in progress. He foresaw the necessity of rifled ordnance and armor, and of steamers of the maximum power for swiftness and battery: perfection in these, he knew could be obtained only by prolonged study and slow steps of attainment.

The collaborator of Washington Irving in _Salmagundi_, James K. Paulding, was at this time Secretary of the Navy. The position offered to Irving and declined, was given, at Irving’s suggestion to his partner. He was known more as a literary expert than as a statesman or man for the naval portfolio, although as far back as 1814, he had been appointed by President Madison one of a Board of Naval Commissioners. He was not a warm friend to the new fashions which threatened to overthrow naval traditions, denude the sea of its romance, and the sailing ships of their glory. The ferment of ideas and the explosion of innovations around him were little to his taste. To his mind, the engineers who were beginning to invade the sacred precincts of the Department seemed little better than iconoclasts. In the _Literary Life of J. K. Paulding_ are some amusing references to his horror of the new fire-breathing monsters; and the entries in his journal show how intensely bored he was by the new ideas, and the persistency with which the advanced naval officers held them. He wrote that he “never would consent to see our grand old ships supplanted by these new and ugly sea-monsters.” He cries out in his diary, “I am _steamed_ to death.”

For this metaphorical parboiling of “the literary Dutchman in Van Buren’s cabinet,” Perry was largely responsible. Steam had come to stay, and with it the engineer, despite the Rip Van Winkles in and out of the service. Officers call Perry “the father of the steam navy.” An old engineer says, “He certainly was, if any man may be entitled to be so called.” Another writes “It was largely through his influence and representations, that the _Mississippi_ and _Missouri_, then the most splendid vessels of their class, were built.”

A beginning of two steam war vessels had been practically determined on, soon after Perry’s return from Europe. He was summoned to Washington in May 1839 to preside at the Board of Navy Commissioners to consult concerning machinery for them. The sessions from 9 A. M. to 3.30 P. M. were held from May 23d to 28th.

The practical wisdom of Captain Perry’s decision in regard to the engines most suitable for our first steamers—the superb _Missouri_ and the grand old _Mississippi_—is seen in the fact that when ready for service, the _Mississippi_ had no superior on the sea for beauty, speed and durability. Probably out of no vessel in the navy of the United States, was so much genuinely good work obtained as out of the _Mississippi_, during her twenty years of constant service in all the waters. Had she not been burned off Port Hudson in the river whose name she bore, in 1862, she might have lived a ship’s generation longer. Her praises are generously sung in the writings of all who lived on board her. Captain Parker speaks of “The good old steamship _Mississippi_, a ship that did more hard work in her time than any steamer in the navy has done since and she was built as far back as 1841.” What the _Constitution_ was among the old heavy sailing frigates, the _Mississippi_ was to our steam Navy. On the outside of Commodore Foxhall Parker’s book on _Naval Tactics Under Steam_ is fitly stamped in gold a representation of the _Mississippi_.[11]

To speak precisely, she was begun in 1839, and launched in 1841, at Philadelphia. She was of 1692 tons burthen, and 225 feet long. She carried two ten-inch, and eight eight-inch guns, and a crew of 525 men. Her cost was $567,408. The cost of the iron-clad “Steven’s Battery,” as limited by Congress, was not to exceed that of the twin wooden steamers. Hence, its construction languished, while the _Mississippi_ and _Missouri_ were soon built. Perry, from the first, strenuously urged that the greatest care should be used, the best materials selected, and the most trustworthy contractors be chosen. “In the first ocean steamers to be put forth by the government, no cost should be spared to make them perfect in all respects.” As there was then no lack of harmony and union among the bureaus, there was no danger of constructing different parts of the ship on incompatible plans, with the consequent peril of failure of the whole. The various constructive departments wrought in unison. These two steam war vessels were built before naval architecture and the sea alike were robbed of their poetry. The _Missouri_ beside her machinery, carried 19,000 square feet of canvass, and the _Mississippi_ about as much, so that they looked beautiful to the eye as well as excelled in power.

On her trip of March 5, starting at eight pounds pressure and rising to sixteen, the _Missouri_ made twelve and a half statute miles per hour. Her motion was quiet and graceful, the tremor slight, while at her bow, above the cutwater, rose a _boa_ of water five feet high. A trial at sea with her heavy spars was made on the 24th of March. In pointing out her merits and the defects, Perry emphasized the necessity of having in the persons, in charge of the equipment of war steamers, a combined knowledge of engineering and seamanship. In the men who presided over the machinery, this was noticeably lacking. Most engine-builders and engineers in 1841 had never been at sea; hence a knowledge of all the details necessary for safety and efficiency was not common.

During the month of October, the twin vessels were made ready, and on the 9th of November, proceeded to Washington. On her return, the _Mississippi_ made the time from the Potomac Navy Yard to the Wallabout in fifty-one hours.

Commander A. S. Mackenzie having applied December 16th for the second in command, the Naval Commissioners asked Perry in regard to the number and arrangements of the crew of the _Missouri_. He recommended that there should be on each of the large steamers a captain, and a commander; so that, after some experience, the latter could take command of the medium or smaller steamers to be hereafter built. From the first Perry urged that all our naval officers should learn engineering as well as seamanship, so as not to be at the mercy of their engineers. In the beginning, from the habits, education, and manners of engineers taken from land or the merchant service, one must not look for those official proprieties derivable only from a long course of education and discipline in the navy. Hence there would be a natural disposition to exercise more authority than belonged to them, and to be chary of communicating the little knowledge they possessed. A purely naval officer in such condition would be like a lieutenant at the mercy of the boatswain. The captain must not carry sail without reference to the engines, and so the steam power must not be exerted when mast, spars or sails would be strained. Harmony between quarter-deck and engine-room was absolutely necessary.

The British Government encouraged officers to take charge of private steamers so as to acquire experience, and no man unused to the nature of machinery could command a British war steamer. In our navy no one should be appointed to command in sea steamers unless he had a decided inclination to acquire the experience.

Even while the _Missouri_ was building, Perry wrote a letter concerning her complement, and after speaking a good word for the coal heavers and firemen, and praying that their number might be increased, he again proposed a scheme for the supply of naval apprentices for steamers. He suggested also that a class of Third Assistant Engineer should be formed. This would create emulation and an _esprit du corps_ highly favorable for high professional character and abilities among the engineers. The grade would be good as a probationary position, besides reducing to a minimum, jeopardy to the ship and crew.

In a word, Perry foresaw that, if the splendid new steam frigate _Missouri_ were left to incompetent hands, she would fall a prey by fire or wreck, to carelessness and ignorance.

“He was proud of these two vessels, and no one had a better right to be proud of them than he. He imagined them and created them, while others did the details and claimed most of the credit of their superiority over men-of-war of that day of other nations;” for down to 1850, our policy was to build better vessels than were built in any part of the world. Thus our navy was small but very effective.

“Perry’s two vessels were without question not only successes, but far beyond the most sanguine hopes and expectations of friendly critics of the time. It is a remarkable fact that the _Susquehanna_ (and some others of smaller size) built after the _Mississippi_ and the _Missouri_ had proved themselves successes, were not successes. With these latter, Commodore Perry had nothing to do, as to plans, designs or construction.”

No sketch of the early history of the steam navy of the United States could be justly made without honorable mention of Captain Robert F. Stockton. Nor was the paddle-wheel of the _Mississippi_ to remain the emblem upon the engineer’s shoulder-strap. The propeller screw was soon to supersede the paddle-wheel as motor of the ship and emblem of the engineer’s profession. The screw is one of the many discoveries located, by uncritical readers, in China. The French claim its invention, and have erected at Boulogne a monument to Frederick Sauvage its reputed inventor. Ericsson demonstrated its value in 1836, by towing the _Admiralty_ up the Thames at the rate of ten miles an hour; yet the British naval officers reported against its possibility of use on ships of war. Eight years afterward, the man-of-war, _Rattler_, was built as a propeller, and a successful one it was. Ericsson, after constructing the engines of the propeller steamer, _Robert F. Stockton_, was invited to Philadelphia, where he built the first screw steamer of the United States Navy, and of the world, planned as such. After the name of his native town, it was called by the Commodore, the _Princeton_.

At the end of ten years of shore service, devoted to the mastery of the science and art of war as illustrated in the applications of steam, chambered and rifled ordnance, hollow shot and explosive shells, iron armor and rams, the building and handling of new types of ships, Perry was beginning to see clearly, in outline at least, the typical American wooden man-of-war of the future. Such a ship, we may perhaps declare the _Kearsarge_ to have been. In her build, motor and battery, she epitomized all the points of American naval architecture and ordnance, to which Perry’s faith and works led. Yet these very features were severely criticized by the English press, in the days before the British-built _Alabama_ was sunk. These were, in construction, stoutness of frame, narrowness of beam, heaviness of scantling, all possible protection of machinery, lightness of draught, and a model calculated for a maximum of speed; in battery, the heaviest shell-guns mounted as pivots and firing the largest shells, accuracy of aim combined with rapidity of fire; in movement, the utmost skill with sail, steam and rudder, and celerity in obtaining the raking position. In such a ship and with such guns, were the right executive officer, and commander, when the first great naval duel fought with steam and shells took place on Sunday June 19, 1864, at sea, outside of Cherbourg. Historic and poetic justice to the memory of Matthew Perry was then done with glorious results, that will ever live in history. When the _Alabama_ sank from the sight of the sun with her wandering stars and the bars of slavery after her into the ocean’s grave, the guns that sent her down were directed by James S. Thornton,[12] the efficient executive officer of the _Kearsarge_, and by his own boast and testimony, the favorite pupil of Commodore Matthew C. Perry.

[11] The _Mississippi_ made six long cruises, two in the Gulf of Mexico, one in the Mediterranean, two to Japan, and one in the Gulf and Mississippi under Farragut. She twice circumnavigated the globe. Thoroughly repaired, she left Boston, May 23, 1861, for service in the Civil War. In passing Forts Jackson and Philip, April 24, 1862, and in the capture of New Orleans which gave the Confederacy its first blow in the vitals, the _Mississippi_ took foremost part under command of Captain Melancthon Smith. Her guns sunk two steamers, and her prow sunk the ram _Manassas_. Passing safely the fire rafts, and the Challmette batteries, she was the first vessel to display the stars and stripes before the city. In the attack on Port Hudson, March 14, 1863, this old side-wheeler formed the rear guard of Farragut’s line. In the dark night and dense smoke, the pilot lost his way. The _Mississippi_ grounded, and was for forty minutes under steady fire of the rifled cannon of the batteries, and was burned to prevent her use by the Confederates.

[12] See his portrait, p. 926, _Century Magazine_, 1885.