I.
Introduction.
"Before the introduction of rifled cannon, and the use of steel as the material for their construction, the United States boasted of her Dahlgren and Rodman cast-iron guns, which were the models for imitation and the standards for comparison of all nations. While the rest of the world has advanced with the progress of the age, the artillery of the United States has made no step forwards. Its present condition of inferiority is only the natural result of such want of action."
Lieutenant-Commander F. M. Barber, in a recent paper presented to the Senate Naval Committee, and prepared in view of the discussion on the construction of steel vessels, gave the following facts, which bear directly upon the very important question of providing modern ordnance:
At the beginning of the war, the only efficient portion of this Navy was that propelled by steam. This force was small, but most of it at the time of its construction (1855 to 1858) compared favorably with individual ships in foreign navies. Especially was this the case with vessels like the Colorado, Roanoke, and Wabash. Wherever they appeared, when first built, they excited the wonder and admiration of foreign naval authorities. No vessels had ever appeared that carried such heavy batteries, had such clear decks, and were at the same time so efficient under sail or steam.
In the day of these vessels the United States led the world in the architecture of its wooden ships, with their enormous battery power of shell-guns, as easily as it did in 1812, when its 32-pounders proved more than a match for the English 18s and 24s.
Never in the history of maritime war has any period been so fruitful in revolutionary inventions as the four years of our rebellion. It produced the monitor, the steam blockade-runner, the inclined casemate, the double-ender, the XV.-inch-gun with its mammoth powder, and it developed beyond all former anticipation the wonderfully destructive power of the torpedo. Of all these inventions, the blockade-runner is the only one not purely American, and of the remainder (excepting the double-ender) it is hard to say which has received the greatest attention from foreign nations.
At the same time that they developed their broadside ironclads, they did not neglect the American ideas. The Monitor has developed into the Inflexible and Italia. The XV.-inch smoothbore had reached its zenith with us because it was cast-iron; but its size was emulated and exceeded in Europe in rifled steel, while its mammoth powder, with its secret of low initial pressures, was retained and has produced the 100-ton guns of the Uuilio and Lepanto. The torpedo has developed into an innumerable variety of forms, and is now seen perfected in the Whitehead, Swartzkopf and Lay, of which, foreign nations possess thousands; to say nothing of the torpedo-boat, the most wonderful combination of speed, lightness, and handiness that is now afloat, and of which Europe possesses hundreds.
In all these years we have done almost nothing in these fields.
This may perhaps be warranted in a slight degree by our peaceful attitude and our geographical position ; but we have also neglected to keep pace with foreigners in the construction of the ordinary sea-cruisers for commerce-protection.
In 1861, England commenced the construction of sea-going armor-clads wholly of iron, and all European nations have followed her. While in Europe they have gone deeply into the subject of breech-loading rifled ordnance, with tremendous penetrating power, we have idled along, trying to brace up our antiquated smoothbores by inserting a rifle-tube ; and whereas they have endeavored in every possible way to mount their guns so as to obtain an all-round fire from the ship and as great a lateral train as possible for each individual gun, in our Navy we have not a single sea-going vessel that has stern-fire ; and the bow-fire is in most cases very inefficient, while the train on the broadside is exceedingly limited.