The United States Ship Idaho: Reminiscences, 1866-1870.
By Rear-Admiral O.W. Farenholt, U. S. Navy.
Few ships of our navy have had a more eventful, if short, career than the first Idaho. She was about one-third of the tonnage of her namesake, the present battleship Idaho, yet when afloat, and for many years after she was broken up, she was, and had been, the largest sailing vessel of all maritime nations.
During the last two years of the Civil War, we laid down and built twelve large commerce destroyers, and but few of them had been launched with the war was ended, and four of these vessels were broken up on the launching ways many years afterwards. These ships were to have been the largest (from four to five thousand tons burden), the swiftest, and most powerful armed vessels afloat. All were built of unseasoned wood—no other was obtainable—and ten years later, not one of them was in active service. They were called the Wampanoag class, and had quaint Indian names. I remember the Wampanoag, Passaconaway, Memphramagog, Piscataqua, Katahdin, Pushmataha, and others. The Idaho belonged to this class, although totally different in many respects. She was built in New York on the lines of the yacht America, by the celebrated naval architect George Sears, the builder of that yacht, in 1851. Her (the Idaho's) engines were designed and built by a Mr. Dickerson. They were a new type, and the contract with the government required that the ship should steam fourteen knots per hour, an unheard of speed for steamers in those days. Under the most favorable conditions, she never made more than ten knots per hour, and Mr. Gideon Welles, our Naval War Secretary, ordered the engines and boilers removed, the former to be broken up, and the latter to be placed in another steamer. The Idaho was then rigged as a three-masted sailing ship, and was to be stationed as a store and hospital ship at Nagasaki, Japan. Immediately after the Civil War we had sent ten fine modern warships to the Asiatic Station, which at that time embraced the waters and coasts from Cape Town in South Africa, to India, Australia, China and Japan.
The changes and alterations in the ship were made at the navy yard in New York. The large "built up" lower masts were allowed to remain in their original places; the ship was heavily and loftily sparred to royals. Her main yard was one hundred and nine feet long. She carried enormous single topsails, and there were thirty-six whole cloths of canvas in her lower square studding sail.
The lower hold, where previously the engines, boilers and coalbunkers had been, was given up to the carrying of coal and stores. Half of the "between decks" was set aside as a fleet hospital with fifty iron bed-steads to be installed upon arrival in Japan. During the outbound voyage this deck was filled with various naval supplies, in fact every foot of space was utilized to cam stores to the Asiatic station.
The original cabin, wardroom and steerage on this deck were retained, and were to be used by sick and invalided officers of the fleet. Officers, ordered to the Brazil squadron as passengers, lived temporarily in these quarters, and the midshipmen in the steerage. A small deckhouse, with very limited quarters for the captain and wardroom officers of the ship, was built on the spardeck abaft the mizzen mast. The space on the spardeck, from the straight stem to the foremast was covered with a light deck, thus making a large, comfortable top-gallant forecastle, which housed the entire crew and ships galley.
As a full rigged sailing ship, the Idaho carried a battery of eight 32-pounder smooth bore guns, two 60-pounder parrot rifles, and a crew of ninety-one men. The latter were totally inadequate to handle the ship in a man-of-war style. As a steam frigate with a full battery, her complement had been four hundred men. Our ship had a full list of officers, including eight midshipmen who were especially sent on board to learn seamanship. The present Rear-Admiral C. T. Hutchins, retired, was one of them, and Pay Director G. A. Lyon, retired, and I, are the only officers living of the thirty-two (including the officer passengers) who sailed from New York to Japan in the Idaho forty-six years ago.
While the ship was fitting out, many predictions were made that she would never reach her destination. These prophesies were based on the claims that "the ship was too large for a sailing vessel and could not be handled as such; that her masts were improperly stepped; that the crew was insufficient," etc. The latter statement was true, yet we managed very well, "merchant ship fashion." In light winds the ship was "sluggish in stays," and had to be carefully watched. Her foremast should have been stepped further forward.
Strange, as it appeared to us, the naval constructor, kind, genial Mr. Delano, who made all the changes and alterations, giving us those towering topmasts and unusually heavy spars, that caused some qualms until we got used to them, was himself dubious regarding our prospects at sea. Before leaving New York, Mr. Faxon, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, came on board to inspect the ship; wished us good luck, and hoped we would arrive safely at our destination, of which he seemed somewhat in doubt.
In September, 1867, I was ordered to the Idaho as her second watch officer. I frankly admit I was awed when I first stepped on board and saw her enormous spardeck of 375 feet and her lofty masts; but we were all young and ambitious, were proud of the ship, and at sea soon got used to her, for she "handled and worked" like the yacht upon whose lines she was built. At that date, she was the largest sailing vessel (4200 tons displacement) afloat. I have never seen a more handsome or graceful one. Her plans and lines were copied and reproduced on a smaller scale by many maritime nations. In whatever port we lay, our vessel was the principal attraction, not only among the naval and merchant marine, but also to the people on shore.
Leaving New York on the first of November, we soon found that the ship was very swift and carried sail "like a church." During the thirty-four days to Rio de Janeiro, a more than average good passage, we did not have a "reef topsail breeze," and, consequently, could not tell what the ship was capable of with regard to speed.
One afternoon, as we lay becalmed near the equator, in company with several other sailing vessels, the fire alarm was sounded. Seeing the heavy columns of black smoke rolling up from the after hatches, we knew it was not a drill, but the "real thing." I know of nothing more startling or "heart twisting," if I so may call it, as the cry of fire at sea; the sailor understands its awful danger, but the landsman believes, that with all the water around him nothing is easier than to put out such a fire. I have witnessed three serious fires on board our man-of-war, in one case the coalbunkers were burning, and for many weary hours, we did not know whether or not the fire had charred a hole through the wooden hull.
The cause of this fire was the breaking of the gunner's lantern in his storeroom, and the consequent firing of the very inflammable articles stored there. The man tried to put it out alone, was nearly suffocated, and it was not until we saw the smoke on deck, that we were aware of the accident. The gunner's storeroom had been built over the after magazine. In the latter was stored more than thirteen tons of powder, which we were carrying to the Asiatic fleet. In those days, in wooden ships, the powder magazines were built on the "keelson." They were constructed of 3-inch pine planks, and lined on the inside with one-quartet d an inch of sheet lead, tightly soldered. As soon as we ascertained where the fire was located, the magazine was promptly flooded—at least we believed so—and felt easier in mind. After a hard fight we extinguished the fire, and found that the deck, and the pine planks of the magazine were badly charred, exposing the lead lining.
I have often noticed, that in the most dangerous and trying experiences, some quaint and ludicrous incident is likely to happen which one can laugh over when the danger is passed. Our close call of the Idaho was no exception. When after an anxious night watch, the order was given to let the water out of the magazine into the bilges of the ship; we noticed, when we entered the magazine, that there never had been more than two inches of water in it at any time. On examination, it was found that the canvas hose attached to the flood-cock had been tightly stopped up instead of being led along the floor for the free admission of the water, and that the few inches of water had merely oozed through the canvas from the outside pressure. No blame for this gross neglect could be laid to the officers of the ship. The magazines, and even its passages, had been filled with full powder tanks by the ordnance department at the navy yard. It had been reported 'n perfect condition, and was not to be opened until we arrived on the station. The magazine for the ship's battery was in the forward part of the vessel.
Our senior medical officer, a genial, kind shipmate, ready to enjoy a joke at his own expense, got badly rattled during the fire. He took two 20 pound pieces of pork, which had been issued to the ship's cook for the next day "pork and bean" ration for the crew, lashed them around his ample waist, climbed onto the bowsprit, calmly awaiting for the after part of the ship to blow up and hoping, as he expressed it, "the pork would keep him afloat until he was picked up by one of the becalmed vessels near by!"
While in the equatorial latitudes, the captain permitted a boat to be lowered, so that one of our messmates, who was an excellent artist with pen and ink, could sketch the ship. I was a member of that boat's crew. There we saw a huge black vessel on a smooth, green sea, her fine, symmetrical lines, more like a yacht than a war or merchant ship; her broad white-painted stripes increasing her length to the eye, and, on her lofty spars, every sail, including the starboard studding sail, set; to me it was an impressive, beautiful sight. How I wish that kodaks had been invented at that time. Our artist made an excellent picture which was photographed on arrival at Nagasaki, and I treasure a faded copy.
We remained at Rio de Janeiro one month, and met in port our Brazil squadron. Our officer-passengers left us, and sorry we were to part with them; on the trip from New York they entertained us with many laughable, theatrical stunts.
From Rio to Cape Town, South Africa, we made the run in nineteen days, a record never excelled by a sailing vessel. The regular mail steamers schedule was from twenty to twenty-four days. We went south as far as the Island of Tristan de Acuna, experienced very heavy weather which tried the ship severely, disproved the doleful predictions made in New York, and showed to us for the first time how fast she could travel. We did not spare her; the watch officers vied with each other in carrying sail to the last moment of safety.
Leaving Cape Town after a short stay, we set a course for "North West Cape," on the Australian Continent, and made the passage in the remarkably fast time of twenty-one days. We encountered rough rainy weather and heavy seas, but generally strong, fair winds. The largest day's run was four hundred and ten miles. The log line (no taffrail log on board) broke during a squall, when nineteen knots had run out.
In gales, or light winds, no vessel ever passed the Idaho. A sail would be reported by the lookout on the foretopsail yard, and if going in our direction, usually in four to six hours she would be abeam and soon far astern. We purposely would steer very near them and enjoyed" their astonishment and admiration shown in cheering us. Frequently we carried topgallant sails, and passed large, strong ships under single or double-reef topsails.
We were surprised to meet so many sailing ships in the Indian Ocean, the majority bound to the eastward and flying the English flag. During our entire voyage to Japan, I do not believe we met two dozen ships displaying the stars and stripes. Even in the latter sixties, two thirds of the world's merchandise at sea was carried in sailing vessels. In many ports in the Far East steamers were a curiosity.
One day we hove to (to make repairs to a sprung yard) under the lee of Saint Paul, a lonely and uninhabited island equidistant from Africa and Australia. A boat's crew was sent on shots to fish in the sunken crater, and also to shoot (for the crews messes) wild pigs and goats left on the island by whaleships who still visited the place at intervals.
Our fair sailing ended upon sighting the Australian Continent Calms, light head winds, strong westerly currents, were our lot for almost two hot and dreary months. For twenty days we did not make fifty miles on an easterly course. It would have been more advantageous to turn back and go south as was originally intended, through "Bass Strait" around Australia, which would have assured to us a fair and strong wind to the equator at that season of the year.
The north-east monsoons prevented our taking the short route by the way of the China Sea, and in company with many sailing vessels of different nations, among them two fine clipper ships flying our flag, we literally drifted over a hundred miles through "Ombay Strait," the large island of Timor on one hand, Flooris, Pantar, and many other islands on the other. One night, during a calm with a smooth sea, the Mary Whittridge, of Baltimore, drifted into the Idaho without doing damage to either vessel. Ten years later I saw this celebrated clipper ship with her masts removed, a coal barge, delivering fuel at the Boston Navy Yard. We anchored at the Portuguese port of Dilli on Timor for water and fresh provisions. It was to this place the English had banished many prominent participants of the Indian mutiny.
The passage from Dilli to Nagasaki was very tedious: calms, baffling and light winds, compelled us to go far to the eastward. We sighted the Island of Guam, little thinking that that spot on the far horizon would one day be one of our outlying possessions. After all our remarkable fast sailing at various times, our voyage from New York to Nagasaki, Japan, including stoppages in port, was over five months.
At Nagasaki I was detached and ordered to the double-ender cruiser Ashuelot. The Idaho was moored opposite the city. The hospital was established on board, and stores were delivered whenever a vessel called for them. The combination of a store and hospital ship was unfortunate. Discharging coal from the lower hold, with men seriously ill on the deck above, did not prove to be a success.
In July, 1869, I returned to the Idaho. Orders had been received to send the ship to San Francisco, where she was to be rebuilt and have engines again installed. In August we left Nagasaki for Yokohama with forty men as a deck force. A few days out of port we ran into the tail end of a typhoon, and lost several sails and spars. At Yokohama the crews of the Maumee, Aroostock, and Unadilla, gunboats, which had been sold on the station, their usefulness having passed, joined us, with all the men whose term of enlistment had expired, thus making a total of four hundred men. We were delighted with the prospect, that on our homeward passage, we would be able to handle and work the ship in a regular man-of-war fashion.
Returning home for their final examination, there also came on board Midshipmen W. E. Uhler, C. A. Copp, J. C. Hull, G. K. Adams, and G. K. Brower. Poor fellows, all were drowned in Yeddo (Tokio) Bay on board the steam sloop-of-war Oneida, when she was sunk with a large loss of life, January 24, 1870, by the Peninsular and Oriental mail steamer Bombay. The latter left the Oneida after the collision, never inquiring if assistance was needed.
Prior to 1869, and for many years later, the first teas of the season from China and Japan were carried to Europe, and some to America, in fast clipper ships. In this there was a great competition. The officers always received a handsome bonus for a successful and first arrival at the home port. The English tea-clipper ships Thermopylae, Marathon and Elisabeth Nicholson had, for years, made swift passages to London. These ships and several others, laden with teas and ready for sea were at anchor at Yokohama near the Idaho, and would have sailed sooner, hut the marine insurance companies refused to "clear them until the equinoctial typhoon season had passed."
The Idaho received orders to go to Hongkong, to take on board the stores left at the abandoned naval storehouse there, and then to sail for San Francisco. The commanding officer, Commander B. B. Taylor, represented to our admiral, Vice-Admiral Stephen C. Rowan, then in port, the status of the tea-clipper ships, and asked to be permitted to remain until they sailed. The admiral thought otherwise, and ordered the ship to leave September 20, which order was obeyed.
The following day we ran into, what was talked about for many years in the Far East, as the "Idaho's Typhoon," were dismasted to the lower masts, and carne near foundering. For some years this disaster was used as a text at the Naval Academy, for few ships had ever gone through the center of a typhoon or had registered a barometer as low as 27.62.
"The Laws of Storms," simple as they are, were not so well understood in 1869, as at the present day; yet every line officer in our wardroom had been for two and more years on the station, and had had experience with these revolving gales. About 7 a.m. September 21, with little change in the direction of the wind, the latter and sea increasing, and the barometer steadily falling, there was every indication of typhoon weather. It was suggested to heave the ship to, and watch which direction the storm was traveling. Had it been done, we would have left the center far to the eastward. As we had plenty of searoom, it was strongly urged at 10 a. m. "to put the ship on the starboard tack" and run for several hours before it. Late as it was, by the maneuver we surely would have escaped the center of the storm. Our captain, a young commander, was a stranger to the ship and station, was anxious to make a quick passage, and keep up the reputation of the ship for speed; he believed "we would soon out run the gale," and so we kept on our course and steered for the center of the storm.
For the better understanding, and to relate what took place during the typhoon, I will quote at the end of this narrative the ship's log, and its hourly reading of the barometer, also the letter of the captain to the admiral reporting the disaster. The latter report was a compilation of those submitted by the executive officer, navigator, and the three watch officers. Before it was sent, the captain referred it to these officers, and several modifications were made.
Many incidents, that would no doubt make interesting reading, happened during the storm, but were not recorded in the ship's log book. We were too busy endeavoring to save the ship, and much of the log was written the next day. Critically examined, it may appear contradictory, but to us on the spot, it was clear and could readily be explained. I quote the log book and the captain's report exactly as they were written. Ship's logs of those days were little more than a very abridged statement of occurrences, the commanding officers required them to be so. Two midshipmen were stationed by the navigator to watch the barometers, they were also consulted by other officers, and their reading is correct.
One unmentioned incident came directly under my observation. All boats, with the exception of the third cutter hanging at the davits in the port waist, had been destroyed, or damaged by wind, sea, and falling spars. Midshipman Copp (drowned four months later on the Oneida) attempted to pass a hawser around this cutter. He was washed out of the boat, and, not catching the rope I threw to him, he remained for several minutes in the awful sea alongside while the ship was in the vortex of the storm, when a wave picked him up and threw him back on deck. It was more than surprising that, with falling spars and other dangers, officers and men were not killed or maimed. With the exception of several minor bruises, no person was injured during the storm.
At daylight the following morning, the sea and gale having moderated, we began to clear the wreck, and saved from the floating debris some of the broken spars and tacklings. Above the tops, the ship had hemp standing rigging. Fortunately the Idaho carried several spare spars, and by working day and night, cutting, fitting, sewing, and making many alterations, using top gallantmasts for topmasts, etc., in twenty-four hours the ship was under "jury rig," carrying topsails as courses, and topgallant sails for topsails.
In this disabled condition, the course was shaped for Yokohama, the ship being not only a wreck in spars and sails, but even more so in her hull and fittings. Decks and outside seams were wide open, the oakum having been forced out by the straining during the storm. Many chain plates of the lower standing rigging had been wrenched from their fastenings in the hull. The vessel was hogged, her back being broken forward of the midship section. She leaked badly, and would have assuredly foundered, had she not been built and fastened like all our wooden warships, with broad, iron, diagonal braces, countersunk into the wooden frames. Merchant vessels are not so strongly built, and no doubt this is the reason one seldom hears that such a vessel has successfully passed through the center of a typhoon, or other revolving storms. In the majority of cases, they had joined "The Port of Missing Ships."
A few days after the storm, the new Pacific side-wheel mail steamer America (burnt in Yokohama harbor a few years Uteri, crowded with passengers, on her maiden voyage from New York via Cape Town to Yokohama and San Francisco, sighted us and noticing the disabled condition, came near and inquired if assistance was needed. Our captain sent an officer on board with strict orders "to accept a tow to Yokohama, but not to ask for it." Captain Doane, of the America, declined this proposal and, liter various interchanges of opinions, he steamed away for Yokohama and reported to our admiral our conditions and whereabouts.
The latter, with the flagship Delaware, the Oneida, Iroquois, Ashuclot and Monocacy, left port to search for us unsuccessfully, and, after a week's cruising, returned to Yokohama. The Delaware, having gone farthest to the eastward, met with very rough weather, lost several spars and boats, for all of which, we on the Idaho did not feel sorry.
We anchored off Yokohama September 28, 1869. Sailing up the bay before an easterly gale, the good old ship under her jury rig made fourteen knots per hour, as if to show to us for the last time what she could do. She never left the port again. There were no facilities to repair her; it would have required the rebuilding of her hull in a dry-dock, and as her frames were of green timber, the expense would not have warranted the outlay. She was condemned for active service, and was used as a permanent station ship at Yokohama until 1875, when she was sold to private parties, and used for several years longer as a rice hulk. Later she was broken up.