Mr. President and Gentlemen:—Having accepted your kind invitation to read a paper before the Institute, I had already progressed well towards the completion of an essay before I knew that the very distinguished officer who read the last paper had selected a subject almost identical with that on which I proposed to address you. On listening to his very able paper, at the last meeting, I was not a little gratified to find his views according generally with those set forth in my own paper, then already nearly prepared. His very clear and thorough exposition of the points discussed would appear to render superfluous any further treatment from me, yet I venture to lay before you what I had prepared, hoping that as the subjects treated are of wide scope and vital importance, another discussion of them from a somewhat different standpoint, may not prove uninteresting as cumulative evidence of the tendency of thought in the service at the present time.
In the brief space of a single paper, so broad a subject as that to which I invite your attention this evening, can be considered in a few of its phases only, and they merely in outline. In what follows I propose to discuss briefly the necessity for maintaining a powerful navy; the condition of our present establishment; and to propose such changes in certain particulars as are, in my opinion, necessary to enable it to perform its legitimate functions with efficiency, economy, and credit to the country, both in peace and war.
It may be considered idle for me to enter into argument to show that the prosperity and safety, as well as the prestige and dignity, of our country demand the maintenance of a powerful navy, for the arguments have often been presented with much more force and cogency than lie within my power. But, whether it be that our civil polity is not prolific in statesmen of broad views, or that the principles of political economy have with us no other outgrowth than partisan parsimony, or whether it be for some other reason less obvious to the average mind, it is certainly true that argument and the voice of history alike have thus far appealed to deaf ears. The facts therefore cannot be too often repeated and insisted upon.
"The Navy," says the Secretary in his report for 1871, "is our only means of direct protection to our citizens abroad, or for the enforcement of any foreign policy; and while we may have some reason to hope that in our own generation we may see the beginning of the end of warlike strife among the more enlightened and free of civilized nations yet we cannot expect that the world will be wholly civilized in our day, nor that freedom will come to it without contention. Barbarism will still respect nothing but power, and barbaric civilization repels alike interference, association and instruction. Even in civilized communities, ambitious, selfish and turbulent passions will sway the actions of men, and arbitrary power will not yet resign, without a struggle, its hold on the organization of civilized society. Not only on the shores and among the islands of our own continent, but in every sea-port of civilized Europe; in Asia, from the shores of the Bosphorus to the head of navigation of unnamed rivers on the confines of the Chinese Empire; in Japan; in the islands and semi continents of the East, and among the groups of the Pacific and the Southern Oceans, our citizens claim and need protection. In every quarter of the known world they are found occupying every field which enterprise dares invade, or which energy avails to conquer; and everywhere, outside of our own limits, wherever they enter, they carry with them affirmative, and sometimes aggressive, ideas of freedom and progress, antagonistic alike to the traditions, customs and habits of the people, and the ideas and practices of local governments. Such is the result of our progressive civilization upon the enterprising and affirmative spirit of our people. Its effect is apparent in every land that they penetrate; and we cannot afford, either as a government or as a people, to neglect wholly our responsibilities as a representative nation, nor our national obligations to our citizens who, wherever they are, claim the countenance of the government and the protection of its flag."
In all nations commercial supremacy and naval power have gone hand in hand. That the former should precede and the latter follow is true; but we have once made the fatal mistake in this country of permitting our commerce to develop with no commensurate addition to our naval strength, and, should occasion offer, it is to be feared that we will do so again. Moreover a recognition of their intimate relations should impel any nation discovering its commerce on the wane to redoubled efforts to maintain an efficient navy as one of the most important aids to its resuscitation. In times of commercial prosperity good seamen are abundant, and vessels more or less fitted to serve a temporary purpose in the navy may be had when wanted. But when commerce has long been on the decline, neither the seamen nor the ships are forthcoming on demand. How much the more necessary then to exercise the most solicitous care, at such a time, to maintain a proper naval establishment, ships, officers and men.
If we can go to market when we like and buy as occasion demands, we may, perhaps, look upon an empty larder with some degree of complacency. But when the market is not at hand we should stock our cellars lest the unexpected arrival of a guest put us to shame. War, happily for us, has not been a frequent guest, but it is his habit to call on short notice and to stay after his welcome is well worn out. It therefore seems the part of prudence to maintain a reasonable state of preparation.
Diminished revenues may imperatively demand a diminution of expenditures, but in reducing our military establishments we should at least preserve always the elastic nucleus capable of immediate expansion when times demand. In starting upon the work of reduction both in the army and navy at the close of the civil war this principle seems to have governed. But of late it appears in danger of being forgotten.
There is a legend afloat in the service (I dare say you have all heard it) of a certain First Lieutenant of the olden time, who, considering that the bean broth made for the ship's company was too thick, ordered that the trouble should be corrected by putting in fewer beans. This order obeyed, it resulted that the broth was too thin, whereupon less water was ordered. Thus, beans and water were alternately abstracted till nothing was left. So with the army and navy, they never seem to be exactly right, but, thick or thin, the remedy is always subtraction—never by any chance, addition. It is just now complained that the navy is too thick with officers. This may or may not be true, but, as there is not enough of it as it stands to satisfy the needs of the country, the proper remedy would seem to be to dilute it with a few men.
There are certain cases in which the statement of an isolated fact, however incontrovertible the fact in itself may be, inevitably leads to erroneous conceptions of the subject to which it relates. A boy in school who reported himself as standing next the head of his class was warmly congratulated; but, when it appeared that there were only two in the class, his brilliancy was questioned although his veracity could not be doubted. So when the statement is made that there is one officer to every three men in our navy, the impression naturally is that the number of officers is excessive and should be reduced. But when we learn that there is in the navy only the six thousand six hundred and sixty-sixth part of a man for each inhabitant of the country, it appears rather that the number of men is ridiculously small and should be increased.
In appealing to the past to show the necessity for a navy to protect our commerce, we need not go beyond the history of our own country, nor to the record of events more distant than those within the vivid recollection of all here present. During the half century succeeding our last war with Great Britain our commerce developed with unexampled rapidity. In 1860, the carrying trade of the world was largely in our hands and seemed likely to remain in them. Relying, however, upon a blind belief in the "manifest destiny of the Republic," as the phrase was, no adequate navy had been created for its protection. In the following year, like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, the blow fell from a most unexpected quarter and our flag became a stranger to the seas.
To my mind there is no doubt that, had an adequate naval force been at the disposal of the government at the outbreak of the civil war, the ports of the states seceding would have been seized before they could have been put in a posture for defense. Not a blockade runner could have entered; not a rover could have escaped to prey upon our commerce; those fitted out elsewhere would have been cut short in their careers of destruction; and, in a word, the whole train of causes leading to the extinction of our foreign carrying trade would have been nipped in the bud. How much better for all concerned on both sides would not this prompt settlement have been, than the long years of strife and blood now a part of our history?
Protracted and exhausting internal strife is quite as fatal to the commerce of a country as foreign aggression. To put a stop to either in the shortest possible time, and with the least possible loss, no means at the disposal of a country situated as this one is, can be more efficient than a powerful navy.
But if the teachings of the past are insufficient let us glance at the possibilities of the future. Suppose our commerce to start now upon the career of prosperity that the near future seems to promise. Suppose that it develops until it begins to threaten to control the carrying trade of the world. Suppose, all other means failing to arrest our progress, the hands in which the carrying trade now rests—hands at once so dependent upon it and so capable of defending it—decide to appeal to the arbitrament of war. Suppose, finally, the relative naval strength of the two countries to remain as it now is. What would be the result? I venture nothing in saying that, within one month from the declaration of war, our commerce, foreign and coastwise, would be annihilated: our principal seaports, even if we succeeded in defending them from capture would be hermetically sealed, while our coasts would be ravaged from the St. Croix to the Rio Grande. This, of course, could not go on forever. We should devise means to drive the hostile fleets from our coasts. But this would take time. Meanwhile the mischief would have been done, and property destroyed in thirty days of sufficient value to cover the expenses of an efficient naval establishment for thirty years.
We have never yet had a war with a naval power in a position to give us its undivided attention. When we do, if the unlucky day finds us as ill provided as we now are, our countrymen will look with astonishment upon the methods of annoyance that modern means of warfare will place within the reach of an alert and aggressive foe.
But if it is neither to be supposed that a war of two great sections will ever again desolate our country, nor that we are liable to attacks from without, the experience of the past few years should teach us that domestic violence, in the form of serious riots, is to be anticipated from within. Eras of discontent among certain classes of our population are sure to come. We live in an age of sudden and radical changes. New discoveries are constantly demanding a more or less extensive readjustment of our social, commercial and industrial relations, and while such readjustments are in progress, large bodies of persons are sure to suffer. At such times it is not unnatural that the persons thus affected should look upon their changed condition (though brought about by the operation of natural laws as immutable as the principles governing the material universe) as forced upon them by conspiracy on the part of those more fortunately situated than themselves. As far as our native citizens are concerned there is nothing to fear, but we have a large heterogeneous foreign population comprising many elements of a most dangerous character. Among us but not of us, they are the scum thrown off by the ever-boiling political cauldron of Europe, as from time to time it becomes too hot to hold them. They are neither of our race nor our ways of thinking. Unaccustomed to the methods by which our citizens, under a free government, express their will with the ballot, and unmindful of the horrors of anarchy—the bare possibility of which is worse than almost any evil that can befall a people under even the worst form of government—they look upon a resort to violence as the only cure for all the ills of their condition, real or imaginary. Congregated chiefly in the populous cities of our seaboard, and standing as they do ever ready to fan the spark of discontent into the flame of violence, these people are a perpetual menace to the stability of our social and political fabric.
I do not share with Lord Macaulay his apprehensions that in some season of adversity our people will do things that will prevent prosperity from returning; that there will be spoliation increasing the distress, and distress inciting to fresh spoliation, until either civilization or liberty must perish: until either some Caesar or Napoleon will seize the reins of government with a strong hand, or our republic will be as fearfully laid waste by barbarians from within as was the Roman Empire from without. I do not fear, I say any such fearful culmination as that, for I have faith in the "saving common sense" of our citizens to teach there that the true interests, of every person, rich or poor, not a professional pirate upon society, are best served by the maintenance of law and order. But I do fear that a lack of preparation to crush such demonstrations at their inception may lead to their more frequent occurrence and enable them to assume serious proportions, with deplorable consequences, when otherwise they would have proved of little moment.
As these scenes of violence are likely to have their commencement in our seaboard cities, the Navy, evidently, is a most efficient instrument for their suppression. Our seamen, as well as the marines, are now so drilled as to operate on shore with all the facility of soldiers; and the man-of-war, ready to proceed at once to any point accessible by water and carrying with her everything necessary to make her a base of supplies for her forces, realizes in the highest possible degree that mobility necessary where widely separated points are to be protected by a comparatively small force.
The necessity for a Navy of some sort, however, while by no means unquestioned, is so generally admitted that the main interest for us centers rather upon the second point proposed for discussion; the present condition of our naval establishment.
We naturally commence a consideration of this question by an inventory of our possessions in the naval line. The list, unfortunately, is not long; still, we have some things that are really valuable and which were we without, the creation of a navy would be truly a formidable task. What then have we? First, an organization in running order, which, (although it could, in the opinion of many, be changed greatly for the better) has proved itself competent to administer with a certain degree of efficiency the affairs of a navy as large as we may wish to create. Second, a corps of trained officers comprising in its various branches, it is to be supposed, all the talent necessary to create, organize and maintain an efficient naval establishment; and already sufficiently large to officer a respectable navy whenever Congress shall see lit to provide proper ships and seamen to man them. Third, the finest educational establishment of the kind in the world, capable of turning out as many graduates as the casualties of the service in any ordinary times may require. Fourth, the nucleus of a training system that seems likely to give the service a superior class of American seamen, devoted to the flag and trained to the service, to supersede the motley crowd (not long since manning many of our national vessels) whose speech was a confusion of tongues, and to whom the Stars and Stripes or the cross of St. George were alike objects of indifference, symbolizing nothing higher than pay, nothing holier than rations. Fifth, a number of well situated yards where the facilities for the construction of any type of vessel and ordnance we may require already exist, or may readily be supplied. Sixth and last, to sum up briefly, a fleet of some sixty cruisers of antiquated type, mostly in various stages of dilapidation, poorly armed and of insignificant speed, with some two dozen ironclads, having neither the armor to make them impregnable nor the ordnance to make them formidable.
This last is almost calculated to provoke a smile, yet we are talking seriously of the navy of a nation of forty millions of people, proud and progressive, the sails of whose ships have in times past "whitened every sea," and who look confidently forward to the day in the near future, when they will do so again. Such a state of affairs is certainly anomalous; how then is this decline of our naval power till it approximates the vanishing point to be accounted for? Many causes, some of large influence, others of small, some of direct and immediate influence, others of indirect and remote, have of course contributed to bring it about. But, in ray opinion, it may be traced to three principal causes of which I mention as the first, although it may not be the chief, the results of our experience in the late civil war.
The history of the part taken by the navy in that struggle, is certainly a glorious one. The results achieved were amazing to the world and most honorable to all connected in any way with producing them. But the circumstances were peculiar and our exultation over our success should not blind us to the facts, nor lead us into false conclusions. Our navy in 1861, though relatively of much greater strength than now, was utterly inadequate to the gigantic task set before it, yet we soon improvised an establishment of enormous proportions that proved wonderfully successful in accomplishing the difficult work that fell to its lot. Seeing these successes, and not qualified to judge of the circumstances, the public not unnaturally has become possessed of the idea that it will always be possible to improvise a navy when war threatens, and, consequently, that in times of peace hardly anything more is necessary than that a few educated officers should keep alive the germs of naval knowledge, much as the monks did that of letters during the middle ages.
This idea in the public mind is, I say, not unnatural, but those qualified to judge, know it to be utterly fallacious, and it is our duty to warn the country of the danger into which such ideas will lead it; to teach our fellow citizens to draw correct lessons for their guidance in the future, rather than to allow themselves to be lulled into false security by basking in the light reflected from the great achievements of the past.
The circumstances of our last war were, as I said, peculiar, and not likely to recur. Our next war will, in all likelihood, be with some nation possessing a powerful naval force. Suppose, now, the states lately seceding had possessed such a force at the outset, while the general government was as poorly provided as at present. How quickly would the tables have been turned. How infallibly would our principal seaports have fallen at once into their hands; of what avail against their powerful cruisers with trained officers and disciplined crews, would have been our gun-boats, hastily improvised from the most incongruous and unsuitable material, manned, and in many cases officered, by fresh recruits entirely destitute of naval training and experience? They would have been swept from the sea, if indeed our ports had not been seized before time was given us to fit out even such travesties on men-of-war. The tables, I repeat, would have been turned; northern ports would have been closed while southern ones would have remained open to receive supplies from those so eager to furnish them, and the flag of the Confederacy with the prestige of such success would have been recognized in Europe ere the nation had half recovered from the stunning blows thus showered upon its defenseless head.
Such would have been our experience then: such it will be in the future if we allow ourselves to be drawn into war as ill prepared as we now are. The experience of the last ten years shows that wars in these days are short and decisive. The strongest and best prepared nation advances like an avalanche and overwhelms its foe. We may be protected by our situation from being overwhelmed, but not from the infliction of loss, annoyance, and suffering, of which in advance we can form but little conception.
Our best means of defense against foreign aggression is, of course, a navy, and the idea that one can be improvised under the spur of necessity is at once foolish and fatal. Trained officers and men will not spring up at our call as clansmen at the whistle of Rhoderick Dhu; neither can ships suitable for naval purposes be built in a hurry, nor patched up out of those taken from the merchant marine.
The second great reason for allowing our naval power to decline, is, I believe, to be found in the general belief, towards which our people have been drifting, that all questions relating to the defense of our coasts and harbors are to be settled in the main by the torpedo. For my own part, I dissent entirely from this belief. I yield to none in honoring the officers of our service who have with such genius developed the capabilities of this terrible instrument of destruction; nor indeed, I may say, do I yield to any in a most wholesome respect for the torpedo itself. But to assume that, unaided, it can protect us against aggressions from an enemy possessing a powerful fleet, is rating its powers too high.
Whether in the form of the submarine mine, planted in narrow channels, and arranged to be exploded by electricity when the ships of the enemy are in position to receive the full benefit of its terrific power, or as a movable weapon carried by swift vessels, it must certainly form an important element in our scheme of defense. To whatever state of perfection it may have been brought for use under the former conditions however, much certainly remains to be desired in the latter, and I do not think that naval men have ever anticipated any possible development of it beyond that of a very useful auxiliary to a fleet combining all the other recognized elements of strength, offensive and defensive. The conditions of its use otherwise than as a stationary mine, are such as to involve a great amount of uncertainty in its manipulation, or to admit a correspondingly simple and certain defense, and I do not think we would be justified in placing too much reliance upon its powers.
We have an enormous extent of coast line, along which much valuable property lies within the range of ordnance now afloat, or the easy reach of the enemy in a sudden raid, without the necessity of his taking his ships into any port at all. I doubt, the possibility of our protecting the entrances of Penobscot Bay, Buzzard's Bay, Long Island Sound, Delaware or Chesapeake Bays by torpedoes alone, either fixed or movable. And what damage and annoyance would not be inflicted upon us by an alert and aggressive enemy, en rendezvous in either place?
Our coastwise commerce would not last long with an enemy cruising upon our coasts, and torpedoes alone can neither prevent that, nor his covering with a fleet the approaches to New York or Boston, on the breaking out of hostilities, and making a prize of every vessel bound in or out. To protect ourselves from such aggressions as these, we must have at hand the means to drive an enemy entirely from the vicinity of our coasts. The most ready and economical means to effect that object will be considered farther on in this paper.
The third great cause for the apathy with which our people have viewed the decay of our naval power is, I think, to be found in the disagreement among naval officers themselves, as to what should be done to preserve it. If our leading officers had been in accord as to what was wanted, and had worked together to obtain it, it is by no means certain that the appropriations would not have been forthcoming. If the congressman, honestly anxious to learn the wants of the country in the way of a navy, gets from two officers ideas diametrically opposed, and from a third no definite ideas at all, but advice to "lay on our oars", his only escape from the horns of the dilemma would appear to be to accept the latter advice.
Disagreement, however, under the circumstances has been natural, if not inevitable. All sciences, not mathematically exact, pass through their phases of doubt, disagreement and discussion, followed by periods when all are in agreement, except perhaps the few restless spirits who thrive only on a diet of doubts, and who, however little appreciated by their contemporaries, often appear to posterity to have been the leaven of the lump. Through such a revolutionary period the science of war, perhaps the least exact of all, has been passing for twenty years. Guns have grown until our XV inch, once a giant, has become a pigmy; armor has increased in thickness beyond the wildest conceptions of the last generation; small arms have improved until they are as superior to the old musket as that to the cross-bow; explosives of such terrific power as to make gunpowder quite contemptible have sprung into existence; while the revival of the ram and the introduction of the torpedo in its multifarious forms have entirely upset our traditional notions of naval warfare.
Change thus succeeding change with bewildering rapidity, all who have sought to keep up in any degree with the times have been constantly called upon to absorb fresh ideas before the last had been assimilated. Doubt and disagreement have naturally followed. At the present time signs are not wanting that the era of discussion is setting in, and I am of the opinion that an interchange of ideas will now show an approximate unanimity on leading principles that is to be hailed as the first sign that the star of our navy has passed its lower culmination, and is soon to be again in the ascendant. I am not prepared to say that we have not done well in thus far watching the development of events and getting the benefit of the experience of other powers without cost to ourselves, but it will not do for us to allow ourselves to become entirely extinct as a naval power while waiting for the crucial test of battle to decide points at issue. In the next naval war we ourselves may be one of the interested parties, and however faulty some may think the navies of Europe, few will contend that they are not immeasurably superior to none at all.
While we have been "hove-to" watching the progress of affairs, other nations have worked steadily along, until, what with all that they have gained to windward and all that we have lost to leeward, we are in danger of being left quite "hull down." I submit that it is time for us to "fill away"; to draw what conclusions we may from the experience of others, and set seriously to work to build up a navy suited to the times and the peculiar requirements of our situation, one of such strength and character as to prevent other nations from feeling that they can assail us with impunity, and that will, should occasion arise, enable us to give a good account of ourselves, as we have done in the past whenever called upon.
The task of building up such a navy will, of course, be a huge one and one involving great expense. At this, however, we should not complain but look upon the money spent as an investment yielding good returns, if for no other reason than that by preparing for war we diminish the probability of its occurrence.
In what I shall have to propose this evening for the improvement of the materiel of the navy, (and I shall obtrude none of my opinions touching personnel) I lay no claim to novelty or originality. The gist of the scheme was given in a paper of great force and perspicuity, read before the Institute by Commodore Parker in 1874, and it represents, I am inclined to think, in a general way, the views of most of our officers at the present time.
In inquiring as to the means best suited to accomplish the legitimate functions of a naval establishment in the most efficient and economical manner, at the present time, we find that modern means and methods of warfare point to the expediency of a radical departure from traditional systems.
In former times one general type of ships sufficed to fulfill all the purposes for which a naval force could be employed. The "wooden walls" of a country formed a serried rampart against the invading foe, or, scattered abroad over the seas in offensive warfare, sought him out wherever he might be found. But the appliances of naval warfare have so changed of late that a navy containing but one type of vessel, whatever that type might be, would be neither efficient nor economical. Our coasts may be best defended by ships radically different in construction from those adapted to cruising abroad to protect our commerce from depredation and our citizens from outrage. For the latter purposes and to cut up an enemy's commerce in time of war a fleet of swift and heavily armed cruisers is required. For harbor and coast defense our main reliance, so far as the navy is concerned should be upon floating batteries, torpedo boats and rams.
Let us consider first, what we need as a fleet of cruisers.
In these our chief aims should be speed, and handiness with great power and range of armament. In these three qualities we should allow our ships to be surpassed by none. These three qualities are paramount; for with the ships possessing them in a superior degree will go the day in the time of trial. Second to those come the capability of keeping the sea and making fair time under sail, and as large a coal capacity as can be secured without a sacrifice of the other qualities named. To these five qualities all else should give way. Whatever else of good is attainable should of course be sought and secured, but only so far as may be possible without prejudice to the others.
As for the type of ships which shall unite these desiderata, two of them at least, speed and handiness, are incompatible with any great weight of armor, and I believe that the officers of our navy are pretty well agreed that, as far as we may judge from what has been done on the other side of the water, the contest so long waged between guns and armor has resulted, so far as cruising ships are concerned, entirely in favor of the guns. Or, if that point be not conceded by the partisans of armor, they must at least acknowledge that the armored Achilles presents a very vulnerable heel to the ram, and therefore to the torpedo. If then the armored ship be hardly less vulnerable than her more agile unencumbered foe, it appears to me that in a pitched battle the advantage is quite as likely to be with the latter as with the former. Indeed, I believe that it only remains for the first fleet action to show that, what with their unhandiness and their tremendous momentum, even at low speeds, the armored ships will prove, on the least appearance of confusion in the line of battle, quite as dangerous to friend as to foe.
For our cruisers, then, I would abandon entirely the idea of armor. In discussing the special type to be adopted there is room for great range of opinion, and, of course, none would be decided upon except after the most careful study and deliberation by a board of competent officers who would call to their aid the best talent in the several specialties going to make up an efficient man-of-war that the country affords. The navies of foreign countries, especially those of England and France, offer many examples each with special features worthy of consideration. For myself, though lacking the special knowledge of naval architecture that would enable me to judge of all details, I am very favorably impressed with the general plan of the cruiser proposed by Lieut. J. C. Soley in his valuable paper read before the Institute a few months since. I am of the opinion that vessels of that type with high speed, and rifled guns of great range, would be most formidable engines of war, and economical both as to first cost and current expense of maintenance in commission. I would however venture to suggest a few trifling modifications in the particular plan referred to. In the first place I doubt whether the sail-power of the proposed cruiser is sufficient to fulfill the purposes set forth by her projector, and I would be in favor of increasing it: bearing in mind, of course, the desirability of avoiding excessive top-hamper. Secondly, I think the point against projecting bows, made by Admiral Porter in his article on Our Navy, in the first number of the "United Service," well taken. Especially in so light a ship as the one proposed would it prove a serious weakness, and I would substitute for it either a straight stem or one formed on the arc of a circle of large radius. Either of these would be much stronger than the "swan breast," and sufficiently effective in ramming. In this connection I would say that I entirely agree with Commodore Parker in thinking that the idea of using a gun-bearing ship either as a ram or a torpedo vessel should be held entirely in the back ground. The energies of an officer commanding such a ship, on going into action should be concentrated upon injuring the enemy with his guns, and his thoughts should revert to the ram only when his guns are disabled or when so incontestably fair an opportunity presents itself as to leave no possible room for doubt in the choice of weapons. Guns, Rams and Torpedoes are each excellent in their way; each indispensable to our naval establishment: but they should not be too much mixed aboard any one vessel.
If we should decide upon the unarmored, composite vessel, sheathed in wood, as the proper type for our cruising navy, the next step would be to consider what classes we should require and how many of each class. Here is scope for the widest differences of opinion. For my own part I would be governed as to class by the general principle of building for the present no ships incapable of carrying a good battery of the heaviest rifled guns, with a view to securing as quickly as possible a fair number of powerful ships, sufficiently alike in size, speed and armament to form a homogeneous fleet. One such ship will add more to our real fighting power, and especially to our power of acting on the offensive, than half a dozen gun boats. Small ships are useful for many purposes both in peace and war; but they can never form any part of the body of a formidable fleet. We have quite a number of them already, or, at all events, ships that will serve very well every purpose to which a small vessel can be put, can easily be procured at any time. But, as has been said, ships fit to fulfill the purposes of a powerful man-of-war can neither be built in a hurry nor converted from vessels taken from the merchant marine.
In a general way I would place the lowest limit of any vessel that we ought now to build at three thousand tons displacement; and, perhaps, the largest at five thousand tons. Let us suppose, by way of fixing our ideas, that we should build as speedily as possible, twelve First Rates, of five thousand tons displacement; twenty Second Rates of four thousand tons; and twenty Third Rates of three thousand tons all "frigate built," swift, and armed with as many rifled guns as they could properly carry. These fifty-two ships, if of equal or nearly equal speed, would form a homogeneous fleet—economical in peace, formidable in war.
Half of them cruising at any one time, distributed among our various stations and supplemented by whatever we now have that can be called fit to cruise, would give us all that in the present state of our commerce can be thought necessary. At first the new ships should be spared at the expense of the old. Those should cruise constantly till worn out, the place of each being then supplied by a new one designed to harmonize as far as possible with those already built, but, of course, embodying all the latest improvements in naval architecture up to the time of laying her down.
A sufficient number of such ships as I have indicated having been secured, our attention could profitably be turned to devising and constructing new ships of small size, that could perform the work required of them in a more efficient and economical manner than is possible with our present type.
In laying stress on the desirability of building our ships so as to form a homogeneous fleet, I do not do so with any idea that the fleet fighting of the days of Rodney and Nelson is ever to be seen again. That is to say, I do not think it probable that fleets of fifty or sixty sail will ever again be fitted out to cruise for an enemy similarly concentrated, and that general actions between fleets of that size will again occur. But it will often be desirable for a limited number of ships to operate together, or to concentrate for mutual protection, and if two such squadrons of opposing forces should meet, a fleet action would of course ensue. It is, therefore, it appears to me, eminently desirable that all our new ships should be so alike in speed, armament and general type as to be able to operate together effectively whenever a number of them are in company.
But, not to prolong my paper to an unreasonable length, we must come to a consideration of what is required of us in the way of coast and harbor defense and the best means of meeting these requirements. I have already indicated the character of the work that the navy will be called upon to do in this line and my belief that our best means for performing it satisfactorily will be found in a fleet of floating batteries, rams and torpedo-boats.
In our floating batteries our aim should be to unite the nearest possible approach to impregnability to shot, with the capability of carrying the heaviest rifled ordnance that can be handled afloat. These chief requisites secured, we should seek such sea-going qualities as will enable them to make short cruises in the waters immediately adjacent to our coasts, and as much speed as the other conditions will allow. So far as I am able to judge, it appears to me probable that these qualities can be most effectively and economically united in vessels of the monitor type; since, with their low freeboard and circular turrets, they appear to offer the maximum protection to their guns with the minimum weight of armor. We need, however, vessels with heavier armor than any now in the service, and a radical departure from the muzzle-loading smooth bore to the breech-loading rifle, as has been repeatedly urged by the present eminent chief of the Bureau of Ordnance.
For torpedo-boats the essential qualities seem to be speed and handiness, with the least possible exposure of surface to the enemy's shot. It appears to me that the lighter they are built, the better. The best type of boat for this purpose remains, I think, yet to be devised. The two we now have are too complicated and expensive, unless it can be shown that they are greatly superior to some more simple form, and that I very much doubt. There is a fine field here for the inventive genius of our officers, for a good torpedo-boat is certainly a thing much to be desired. We may, however safely, leave this matter in the hands of those who have made it a special study, in full confidence that they will in good time give us something equal at least to anything that can be produced elsewhere.
I mention as the last, though I consider it really the chief, element of our coast defense fleet, the marine-ram. For an efficient ram the essential qualities are speed, handiness, great strength of construction and a practical invulnerability to shot, to be secured either by heavy armor or by such form as will offer the least surface and most unfavorable angle to the enemy's projectiles. All these are most admirably united in the type proposed by Rear-Admiral Ammen. This proposed ram so perfectly fitted for its intended purposes, is not generally known in its details to the service, and I therefore give a brief description of its principal features from data kindly furnished me, in response to my request, by its distinguished projector.
An idea of the general shape of the craft may, perhaps, be best conveyed by calling her cigar shaped. That is, she approximates the spindle form, though none of her sections are circular. Her cross sections are formed by two semi-ellipses, the deeper one forming the bottom below the line of greatest beam, the other forming the top above it. The longitudinal section shows a straight middle body of forty-eight feet on each side of the center; beyond that the ends taper, enclosed by parabolic curves. From this it will appear that, when in the water, the exposed surface will show what is familiarly known as a "turtle-back." The body of the craft is entirely of iron, with a double skin, divided into compartments by nine water-tight bulkheads. Commencing at about three feet below the deep load line the body of the craft is sponsoned out with oak. This sheathing of oak is carried about three feet below the water-line and entirely over the top of the vessel. It is three feet thick at the apex of the sponson, when it forms a sharp angle, diminishing, of course, in thickness towards the ends as well as towards the crown and below the water line.
This oak affords a backing for plate armor, three inches thick from the apex of the sponson to two feet above the load-line, and thence decreasing to one and one-half inches at the crown of the deck. In construction the longitudinal and transverse bracket-frame systems have been combined in such a way as to produce a vessel of most extraordinary strength. There are twenty longitudinal frames built up of plates, butt-straps and angle-irons so as to form continuous girders running from one end of the hull to the other, while at intervals of thirty-six inches, transverse bracket-frames bind the whole firmly together.
At the bow all the longitudinal frames converge and are secured directly to arms cast on a solid head of crucible steel which is the snout of the ram, forming a punch so situated as to strike an enemy's vessel about two feet below the water-line. It will be seen that this construction is such as to distribute at once the shock of collision over the whole body of the ram in such a way as to avoid undue strain on any one part, and to reduce to a minimum the danger of damage to the ram itself. A novel and valuable feature of the snout of the ram is that the apex, on which the main force of a blow will fall in ramming, is easily removable, so that a new one can be readily substituted in case of damage.
Another novel feature of the ram is her pilot house, which being the only part so exposed as to be likely to be injured by shot, is rendered impregnable by being built up of concentric rings of crucible steel twenty inches in thickness.
The dimensions proposed for the experimental vessel are as follows:
Length… 205 feet.
Breadth… 30”
" over sponsons… 36”
Depth… 18”
Light draft…11”
Load … 13”
Displacement… 1500 tons.
To give her handiness she is to have twin screws 11 ½ feet in diameter. If it be found advisable, the Mallory propeller may be substituted. This enables a vessel to reverse instantly and go astern as fast as she can go ahead. The calculated speed of the craft is thirteen knots, but a speed of fourteen is thought entirely practicable. She carries two hundred tons of coal, sufficient for five days full steaming, and has good accommodations for the four officers and sixteen men necessary to man her. Her cost is estimated at four hundred thousand dollars.
To show the extraordinary strength of this craft it may be stated that calculations from the original plans showed that if the hull were supported upon piers, at two points only, one hundred and fifty feet apart, it would sustain, in addition to its own weight, a load of four thousand five hundred tons placed half-way between the points of support. This strength was thought entirely in excess of any possible requirement, and the designs were therefore modified by taking out several girders and reducing generally the weight of the parts. But as now proposed, if she were placed as the span of a bridge, on two piers one hundred and fifty feet apart, the heaviest freight train could be run over her with perfect safety. After this description, no argument can be necessary to show the wonderful effectiveness and economy which this type of vessel promises.
In regard to the number of monitors, rams and torpedo boats that would be likely to suffice for the proper protection of our coasts, it would be difficult to arrive at any very definite conclusion. On our sea-coast we have many places of importance, widely separated. Before any one of these, during war, an enemy is likely to appear suddenly at any time. We should therefore have a sufficient number of vessels for coast defense, to distribute in respectable numbers, in the immediate vicinity of each place of importance. We cannot rely upon protecting Charleston or Savannah with a fleet of ironclads at New York, nor New York with a fleet stationed on the New England coast; for, while reinforcements were arriving, the threatened place would be taken. These considerations seem to render necessary a number of coast-defense vessels large in the aggregate, otherwise the squadrons into which it would be necessary to divide them, would be so small as to be in danger of being destroyed in detail. The rams and torpedo-boats would cost comparatively little, and if constructed mainly of iron, as they should be, they could be hauled up on ways at convenient places and housed over. They would thus suffer no great deterioration, and would always be ready when wanted in any sudden emergency.
Considering the extent and character of our seacoast on the Atlantic and Pacific, I would say that the least number with which the country could feel reasonably secure would be forty thoroughly formidable monitors, with twenty-four rams, and twenty-four torpedo-boats.
Gentlemen, I esteem it a great compliment to have been invited to appear before you, and I owe you many thanks for the patience with which you have listened to so long an exposition of ray ideas, which, after all, are not new, and I fear, may be of little value. But I have been impelled to lay them before you by the belief that it is only by "line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little," that the country is to be awakened to a realization of the decay of our strength as a naval power.
I cannot believe, notwithstanding the motto so conspicuous on our new coins, that the nation has entirely settled down to a resolve to trust in Providence to deliver it by main strength from all the mishaps into which it may fall.
I believe rather that the general sentiment of our countrymen is that "God helps those who help themselves" and that ere long, if we do our duty in keeping the facts before the public, a re-action in favor of an efficient naval establishment will set in. It will then remain for us so to use the means provided as to hand down to coming generations a flag as unsullied, an example as noble, a record as glorious as have been bequeathed to us.
Rear Admiral Ammen. I desire to say a few words in relation to the Ram after the kind manner in which it has been presented by my friend Lieut. Collins:
Coming home from China nearly ten years ago, it occurred to me that our Navy was gradually falling to pieces that its condition was such as to give every old officer great concern for the maintenance of ourselves in the event of a war. The first idea was to look to torpedoes; on going to Newport it seemed to me that although those able officers had produced what seemed wonderful results, at the same time that there would be great embarrassment in the practical application of torpedoes upon an enemy well prepared; therefore instead of carrying out the conception of a torpedo boat that I had already begun, I set to work on a ram designed to have immunity in a great degree from shot and shell. I enlarged upon my first design and with the aid of some gentlemen, one of whom was Lieut. Wood, a very able young officer, and with the assistance and advice of officers here and there I embodied something that seemed to possess the elements of strength to ram and resistance to shot, with qualities that would enable her to meet an enemy in broad daylight. If we cannot meet an enemy when he looks at us I do not think that we have a Navy that can be depended upon.
After the displacement and weights of materials had been twice computed and specifications made sufficient to admit of a fair consideration of her elements by a Naval Constructor, I did not fail to ask the assistance of the ablest that I have known; had I the right to mention his name, I feel sure that his efforts, if not mine, would command your confidence. The Ram, as presented in calculations, specifications and drawings, has undergone the careful revisal of one of the ablest Naval Constructors, indeed in my belief the ablest, that our country has produced. Whatever alterations have been suggested have been made, so that substantially it is not the work of an amateur or person unskilled in such matters.
The Engineer-in-chief kindly aided too, and had calculations made which indicated that when loaded to a water line at the greatest beam of the vessel her co-efficient showed extraordinary capacity for developing speed, and even when at her fighting depth, (two feet greater draught) a speed of 13 knots would be obtainable.
She has been looked at also by another Engineer of rank and ability who had been abroad and had been shown in the English Admiralty a design apparently identical in construction and measurements, except an increase of two feet of beam. This Engineer, whom I do not feel at liberty to name, after giving some calculation and consideration to the matter thinks a yet higher rate of speed obtainable than that already named.
In permitting these papers to be laid before you it is understood that I do not pretend to be a Naval Constructor, nor would I submit them with confidence had they not undergone a close scrutiny and amendment which I think will be found sufficient to entitle them to your consideration and confidence.
Rear Admiral John Rodgers (the President). The officer who has just read his paper to us thinks that future cruisers will be wooden vessels. I have, for some time, thought as he does. Formerly, in armies, armor and guns were pitted against one another; finally, guns won and armor was thrown aside. Ajax had a shield of seven bulls' hides, which no spear could pierce. Then men found that iron armor was lighter, and as efficacious. In armor of proof they defied sword and arrow and spear. Gunpowder was invented, and while the armor at first resisted the bullets on account of the crudeness both of guns and powder—as these became better, the Knight was forced gradually to increase the strength and consequent weight of the armor, until at last he was borne down, but no longer protected. Then he threw off his armor and fought lightly clad.
What has happened to personal armor will happen to ships. Now, they make guns so large that no armor which can be carried to sea is able to resist the shot. The logical end of armor has been reached. It encumbers, but will not protect. The time is not far off when armor will be thrown away and light wood or iron substituted. Protection will be found in many compartments. Geometers have found in analyzing the shape of the honey-comb that the hexagon used in them gives the greatest possible capacity with the least expenditure of material. Geometrically, hexagonal compartments would be the best; in practice, this shape however may offer too great difficulties. But many compartments will make the vessel safe. With enough of them a ship may have two or three shot pierce her below water, or be blown up with two or three torpedoes, and still swim, still fight, and still possibly carry her enemy into port.
The Chairman. I am quite sure that all present at this meeting will agree with me that our thanks are due to Lieut. Collins for the very interesting and admirably written paper, which he has read to us to night. The subject—a difficult one—and one upon which there will always be more or less difference of opinion, has in my judgment been ably discussed, leading toward that unity which is so essential to final good results. What we have long wanted is a general agreement as to the real requirements in building up such a Navy as this country needs. Money, although indispensable, cannot alone accomplish the object. Thoroughly considered and well digested plans, prepared by professional experts and carried out under their personal supervision, by faithful skilled laborers, can alone save the Navy in the dark day of trial, from disgrace. At present the Department has no money to carry out any general plan of regeneration, and I think it is better that no money should be expended on any general idea of increase of material, until some practical and practicable program has been determined upon. The great misfortune, it seems to me, has been, of late, the absence of professional influence and judgment in our naval constructions, and the necessarily consequent waste of money. It has been a kind of "the blind leading the blind," purely and simply for want of well considered plans and needs. There is little use of having highly educated and experienced officers, and well drilled Seamen gunners, when called to meet an enemy, if they are not provided with the most efficient vessels and the best ordnance that can be fabricated—at least equal to the ships, ordnance and other appliances of war, of those with whom they are to, (or are most likely to) come in contact.
I hope the meeting will, by vote, give its thanks to Lieut. Collins for the agreeable entertainment the reading of his excellent and admirably prepared paper has afforded us this evening:—I make that motion.
The motion was seconded, put, and unanimously carried.
Lieut. Collins. I am obliged to the gentlemen of the Institute for the kind manner in which they have received my paper and to the Chairman also for the complimentary way in which he has spoken of it. I wanted to bring out one idea in the paper and if I did not bring it out clearly there I shall try to do so now, and that is this; that it is our duty as Naval Officers to teach the public what they need in the way of a Navy. We are the experts in this matter and they look to us to tell them of our needs, and if we fail to do so we fail in our duty. The time will come when we will have a war on our hands, and if we are not better prepared then than now, we shall come to grief. If we then say "we have no ships, no effective ordnance "the Country will reply "You should have said so before while there was time to prepare them."' I think that we ought not to lay ourselves open to that reproach, but that we should tell the country what we need, and insist upon it until we get it.