THE AMERICAN BOOKS
A LIBRARY OF GOOD CITIZENSHIP
“The American Books” are designed as a series of authoritative manuals,
discussing problems of interest in America to-day.
THE AMERICAN BOOKS
THE AMERICAN COLLEGE BY ISAAC SHARPLESS
THE INDIAN TO-DAY BY CHARLES A. EASTMAN
COST OF LIVING BY FABIAN FRANKLIN
THE AMERICAN NAVY BY REAR-ADMIRAL FRENCH E. CHADWICK, U. S. N.
MUNICIPAL FREEDOM BY OSWALD RYAN
AMERICAN LITERATURE BY LEON KELLNER
(TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY JULIA FRANKLIN)
SOCIALISM IN AMERICA BY JOHN MACY
AMERICAN IDEALS BY CLAYTON S. COOPER
THE UNIVERSITY MOVEMENT BY IRA REMSEN
THE AMERICAN SCHOOL BY WALTER S. HINCHMAN
THE FEDERAL RESERVE BY H. PARKER WILLIS
(_For more extended notice of the series, see the last pages of this
book._)
_The American Books_
The
American Navy
By
Rear-Admiral French E. Chadwick
(_U. S. N., Retired_)
[Illustration]
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1915
_Copyright, 1915, by_
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
_All rights reserved, including that of
translation into foreign languages,
including the Scandinavian_
TO
MY COMRADES OF THE NAVY
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Rear-Admiral French Ensor Chadwick was born at Morgantown, W. Va.,
February 29, 1844. He was appointed to the U. S. Naval Academy
from West Virginia (then part of Virginia) in 1861, and graduated
in November, 1864. In the summer of 1864 he was attached to the
_Marblehead_ in pursuit of the Confederate steamers _Florida_ and
_Tallahassee_. After the Civil War he served successively in a number
of vessels, and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Commander in
1869; was instructor at the Naval Academy; on sea service, and on
lighthouse duty (1870-1882); Naval Attaché at the American Embassy in
London (1882-1889); commanded the _Yorktown_ (1889-1891); was Chief
Intelligence Officer (1892-1893); and Chief of the Bureau of Equipment
(1893-1897).
During the war with Spain he was Admiral Sampson’s Chief of Staff, and
also commanded the flagship _New York_. He participated in all the more
important engagements in the Atlantic during the war; was advanced five
numbers in rank for conspicuous conduct in battle, and was presented
with a sword of honor by citizens of his native state.
From 1900 to 1903 he was President of the Naval War College at Newport;
was promoted Rear-Admiral October 11, 1903, and in 1904 became
commander-in-chief of the South Atlantic squadron. He retired February
28, 1906.
Rear-Admiral Chadwick is one of the most influential friends of the
United States navy; he has written extensively on diplomatic and naval
topics, and is the author of “Causes of the Civil War” in the “American
Nation Series.” He is also much interested in problems of municipal
government, is a member of the Newport Representative Council, a member
of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, corresponding member of
the Massachusetts Historical Society, member of the American Historical
Association, etc.
INTRODUCTION
The navy in all countries has ever been, and, as far as we can now
judge, ever will be, a preëminent instrument of government. It was
through her navy that Greece destroyed the power of Persia; Rome that
of Carthage; the allies at Lepanto that of the Turks; England that of
Holland and later that of France in America; the navy of France, in
turn, caused the relinquishment of Great Britain’s sovereignty over
the thirteen colonies which formed the United States, and a generation
later it was the British navy which made the efforts of the great
Napoleon the “baseless fabric of a vision.”
Coming to days within the ken of many still living, the navy was the
power which made possible the preservation of the Union in our great
Civil War by the cutting off of the Southern Confederacy from its
means of support by sea and reducing its forces thereby to practical
inanition. For had the Confederacy had free access to the sea and
control of the Mississippi River, no armies of the North could have
conquered well-supplied armies of the South. So, too, the control
of the sea decided the outcome of the Spanish War. When Sampson’s
fleet destroyed Spain’s only battle squadron off Santiago de Cuba,
Spain could no longer reinforce her army in Cuba, and surrender was a
necessity. Even as this is written Germany’s every sea outlet is closed
by the British fleet, so superior in number to the German, and German
commerce on the sea is for the time entirely swept away, leaving Great
Britain for the moment navally and commercially supreme upon the ocean.
As one attempts to look into the future the vastness of the possible
changes startles the imagination, but in it all is ever present the
power that goes with the ubiquitous warship, from whose threat no port
of the world is free. Military power fades to insignificance, through
its narrow limits of mobility, when compared with the meaning of a
great fleet. The present sketch of history is to show what the warship
has done for us.
THE AMERICAN NAVY
CHAPTER I
When Great Britain attempted to reduce to obedience the rebellious
colonies which were to form the United States of America she was
dealing with a people who in the North at least had long been
conversant with the building and sailing of ships. A New England built
ship entered the Thames in 1638, only eighteen years after the landing
of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, Massachusetts. The New England men, with a
sterile coast, with limitless fishing grounds and unsurpassed harbors,
turned as naturally to the sea for livelihood as did the South, more
kindly treated by nature, to agriculture. In 1670 it was estimated
that two thirds of the British shipping was employed in the American
trade. The Dutch, who had been great carriers on the sea, were excluded
from this trade by the navigation laws of the period. Scotland was not
admitted to the trade of the American plantations until her union with
England in 1707, and Ireland not until 1780, while in 1670 nothing
could be imported into the American colonies but what was laden in
England in English-built ships. But while none of their products could
be carried anywhere (except to other of the plantations) till they were
first landed in England, the ships built in America were reckoned as
English, and this fact gave great impetus to American shipbuilding.
American shipping prospered amazingly. But while thus prospering, it
was the attempted repression of our commerce afloat and ashore (which
included such things as forbidding the exportation of hats, restricting
the manufacture of iron, and forbidding commerce with the foreign-owned
islands of the West Indies) which did much more to develop the idea of
independence than did the Stamp Act. But the net result of conditions
was to foster shipping, and our competition had so increased by 1725
that in that year “the shipwrights of the river Thames came up to
Whitehall with a complaint that their business had declined and their
workmen emigrated because the plantations furnished England with ships.”
On the register of the underwriters at Lloyd’s for 1775, comprehending
the shipping of the three preceding years, there were 3,908
British-built vessels of 605,545 tons, and 2,311 of American build
with a tonnage of 373,618 tons. The average size of the ship of the
time was about 400 tons displacement. One 100 feet in length and 26
to 28 feet broad was a good-sized ship. They were but cockle boats in
comparison with the vast ships of to-day, many of which are full a
hundred times 400 tons displacement.
The foregoing will show that when there came a time to dispute the sea
with Great Britain there was no difficulty in supplying the ships,
and the many ironworks which had been established, particularly in
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, despite Great Britain’s restrictions,
could furnish guns in the manufacture of which our foundries were
adepts before the war.
The larger men-of-war of the period were greater in size than the
largest merchantmen. The greater ships-of-the-line (by which expression
is meant those which could take their place in the line of battle,
the formation of which was in a single extended column) varied from
4,000 to 3,000 tons displacement. The larger of these, which carried
guns on three main decks and some light guns on the upper deck, to the
number altogether of 100, or even 120, were 180 to 190 feet on the gun
deck, with about 53 feet beam. The most usual size, however, was the
“74,” carrying nominally that number of guns, but usually six or eight
more, on two main decks (and thus known as a two-decker). This class
was about 168 feet long on the gun deck and 47 feet broad. Below this
class there were many ships of sixty, fifty, or even forty-four guns,
with two gun decks. Such, for a long period, formed part of the line of
battle.
The frigates had but one covered gun deck. They varied in length from
115 to 130 feet on the gun deck, and were from 32 to 36 feet beam,
roughly a fourth of their length. They formed no part of a line of
battle, their duty when accompanying a fleet being to remain clear of
the line and repeat the admiral’s signals. There was also a small class
of ship called a sloop-of-war, which carried guns on only the upper,
or spar, deck as it came to be called. These vessels were ship-rigged;
that is, they had three masts with square sails on each. They were
usually about 100 feet long and about 27 feet beam.
The three-deckers, or 100-gun ships, carried about 900 men; the 74’s
about 600; the frigates about 160. The guns of the period were of
course all smooth-bores and muzzle-loaders. In the large ships, the
heavier guns, usually 32-pounders, were carried on the lower gun
decks to give stability to the ship; 18’s or 24’s were carried on the
middle deck, 9’s and 12’s on the upper, 9’s and 6’s on the quarter
deck, which was the part of the upper deck aft of the mainmast, and on
the forecastle, which was the part of the upper deck forward of the
foremast; the space between the two was called the waist. The larger
frigates usually carried 18’s on the gun deck; the smaller, 12’s or
9’s. The sloops carried 9’s or 6’s. The greatest range of even the
heavier guns was but little over 2,000 yards, as the ports rarely
allowed more than 8° or 9° elevation. Such guns were but toys compared
with modern ordnance, but they were common alike to all nations, and
all were thus on the same footing.
An immense difference between that day and this was in the motive power
which then and for two and a half generations later consisted of lofty
wooden masts, reaching skyward in the greater ships about 200 feet,
crossed by “yards,” the larger of which were about 100 feet long, the
former supported by a great mass of rigging known as shrouds and stays,
the latter moved by “braces” and the sails worked by a maze of running
rigging. All this, of course, was subject to being shot away, and ships
were thus frequently completely dismasted or disabled in action. The
same result was often, too, produced by a gale of wind, it being no
uncommon thing for a fleet to be thus completely incapacitated for the
continuance of a voyage.
Weeks or fortnights were spent in a voyage now done in days. Of
certainty as to time of reaching port, there was none. And amid all
there was the danger from enemies, legal or piratical, for the world
was only slowly ridding itself of the latter; and from the inherent
dangers of the sea itself to the clumsy ships which slowly worked their
way across it. How great these last were, through the ignorance at
that time of the law of storms, may be known by the fate of a great
fleet which in 1782 left the West Indies under Admiral Graves, with ten
line-of-battle ships convoying nearly a hundred merchantmen. Among the
former were six of the prizes taken in Rodney’s great naval battle of
April 12, 1782. Caught in a fierce gale southeast of Nova Scotia, five
of the battleships foundered with nearly all on board. One of those
which went down with every soul was the _Ville de Paris_, which had
been the flagship of the unfortunate Count de Grasse. The total loss
of men was estimated at 3,500.
Such was the setting of the period which saw the birth of the first
American navy, which was to have an existence of but eight short
years, to be succeeded, however, nine years after (1794) by the modest
beginnings which have grown into the great fleet of to-day, and whose
history is one of uninterrupted success and honor.