With much hitching of trousers and shifting of quid, the old longshoreman
will tell you that sea-life isn’t at all what it once was.
He will gaze out to sea, where the great iron machines are plying back
and forth, and a reminiscent sparkle will come into his eyes as he turns
to his lobster-pots and tells you how it was in the good days of clippers
and sailing-frigates, when sailor-men were sailor-men and not boiler-room
swabs, machine-made and steam-soaked. He will also yarn, with much d--ning
of his eyes (and yours), of how fair it was in the deck-watches of the
“Saucy Sally” barque, with everything drawing alow and aloft, grog and
’baccy a-plenty, and never a care but the hurry to spend the voyage-money.
And not till he’s mumbled all his discontent will he haul his sheets and
give you right-of-way.
He forgets, sheer hulk that he is, that he’s been in dry-dock a generation
or more and that swift-moving Time has loosed his gear and dimmed his
binnacle-lights. Despite his ancient croaking, tricks at the wheel are
to-day as ably kept, eyes as sharp as his still peer into the dimness
over the forecastle, and the sea-lead takes as long a heave as in the
early sixties, when he hauled up to New York with a thousand dollars
in prize-money and a heart full for the business of spending it. It has
always been so. There has never been an age that has not had its carper
to tell you of the wonders that once were.
Yet it was truly beautiful. With the tide on the ebb and the wind a-piping
free, never was a fairer sight than the Atlantic clipper as she picked
her speedy way through the shipping to the harbor’s mouth; and nothing
so stately as the gallant frigate in her wake, with all sail set to
ga’n’s’ls, her topsails bellying grandly to the quartering breeze, which
whipped the filmy wave-tops against her broad bows, under which the yellow
curl lapped merrily its greeting. The harbor clear and the capes abeam,
aloft flew the nimble sail-loosers. The royals and the stu’n-sails flapped
to the freshening wind, sheets went home with a run, and the yards flew
to their blocks.
Then, her departure taken, like a gull she sped blithely on her course.
The rays of the afternoon sun gilded her snowy canvases until she looked
a thing of air and fairyland, not of reality. On she flew, her tall spars
dipping grandly to the swells--a stately farewell courtesy to the clipper,
hull down to leeward. On the decks the boatswain piped his cheerful note,
and everything came ship-shape and Bristol-fashion for the cruise. The
running-gear was neatly coiled for running, the guns secured for sea,
and the watches told off. The officer of the deck walked to and fro,
singing softly to himself, casting now and then a careful eye aloft to the
weather-leeches, which quivered like an aspen as the helmsman, leaning to
the slant of the deck, kept her well up to her work.
And yet the poetry has not gone out of it all. The poetry of the
sailing-frigate was lyric. That of the steel battle-ship is Homeric.
Nothing save a war of the elements has the power of a battle-ship in
action. Ten thousand tons of steel,--a mighty fortress churning speedily
through the water fills the spirit with wonder at the works of man and
makes any engine for his destruction a possibility. Away down below the
water-line a score or more of furnaces, white-heated, roar furiously under
the forced draught, and the monster engines move their ponderous arms
majestically, and in rhythm and harmony mask their awful strength. Before
the furnace-doors, blackened, half-naked stokers move, silhouetted against
the crimson glare, like grim phantoms of the Shades. The iron uprights and
tools are hot to their touch, the purple gases hiss and sputter in their
very faces, yet still they toil on, gasping for breath, their tongues
cleaving to their mouths, and their wet bodies steaming in the heat of it.
[Illustration: MODERN SEA MONSTERS IN ACTION]
The deck above gives no sign of the struggle below. Where, in the old
days, the sonorous trumpet rang out and the spar-deck was alive with the
watch who hurried to the pin-rail at the frequent call, now all is quiet.
Here and there bright work is polished, or a lookout passes a cheery call,
but nothing save the man at the wheel and the officer of the watch shows
the actual working of the ship.
Seamanship, in the sense of sail-handling, is a thing of the past. Though
there is no officer in the navy who could not in an emergency handle
a square-rigger with the science of an old sea-captain, the man on the
bridge has now come to be first a tactician and after that a master of
steam and electricity.
In the sea-battles of 1812 the captain was here, there, and everywhere in
the thickest of the fight, inspiring by his personal magnetism the men at
the guns. He was the soul of his ship. To-day the sea-battle is a one-man
battle. The captain is still the heart and soul of the ship, but his ends
are accomplished in a less personal way. His men need not see him. By the
touch of a finger he can perform every action necessary to carry his ship
to victory. He can see everything, do everything, and make his presence
everywhere felt by the mere operation of a set of electrical instruments
in front of him.
The intricacies of his position are, in a way, increased. He may lose
a boiler, split a crank, or break an electrical connection, but the
beautiful subtleties of old-fashioned seamanship have no place whatever
on the modern war-ship.
Let it not be understood that the handling of the great ocean fortress of
to-day may be mastered by any save a craftsman of the art. With plenty
of sea-room and a keen watch alow and aloft the trick is a simple one,
for the monster is only a speck in the infinity of sea and sky, and there
is never a fear save for a blow, or a ship, or a shore. But in close
manœuvre, or in harbor, the problem is different. Ten thousand tons of
bulk cannot be turned and twisted on the heel with the swish and toss
of the wieldy clipper. Observant transpontine voyagers, who have watched
the gigantic liner warped out from her pier into a swift tide-way with a
leeward ebb, will tell you what a complicated and difficult thing it seems
to be.
The captain of the battle-ship must be all that the merchant captain is,
and more besides. Mooring and slipping moorings should be an open book
to the naval officer, but his higher studies, the deeper intricacies of
the science of war, are mysteries for the merchant captain. All of it
is seamanship, of course. But to-day it is the seamanship of the bridled
elements, where strength is met by strength and steam and iron make wind
and wave as nothing.
The perfection of the seamanship of the past was not in strength, but
in yielding, and the saltiest sea-captain was he who cajoled both ship
and sea to his bidding. The wind and waves, they say, are always on the
side of the ablest navigators, but it was rather a mysterious and subtle
knowledge of the habits and humors of God’s sea and sky, and a sympathy
born of constant communion, which made both ship and captain a part of
the elements about them, and turned them into servants, and not masters.
The naval captains of 1812 had learned this freemasonry of sea and sky,
and one incident--a typical one--will show it as no mere words can do.
Its characteristics are Yankee pluck and old-fashioned Yankee seamanship.
The frigate “Constitution”--of glorious memory--in 1812 gave the British
squadron which surrounded her startling proof of the niceties of Yankee
seamanship. There never has been a race for such a stake, and never will
be. Had “Old Ironsides” been captured, there is no telling what would have
been the deadly effect on the American fortunes. It was the race for the
life of a nation.
The “Constitution” was the country’s hope and pride, and Captain Hull
knew it. He felt that “Old Ironsides” could never fail to do the work
required of her. So for four days and nights the old man towed her along,
the British frigates just out of range, until he showed clean heels to
the entire squadron. The ingenuity and deft manœuvring of the chase has
no parallel in the history of this or any other country in the world.
With hardly a catspaw of wind, Hull drifted into sight of the British
fleet off the Jersey coast. Before he knew it, they brought the wind up
with them, and his position was desperate. There were four frigates and
a ship-of-the-line spread out in a way to take advantage of any breath
of air. Hull called away his boats, and running lines to them, sent them
ahead to tow her as best they might. The British did still better, for
they concentrated the boats of the squadron on two ships, and gained
rapidly on the American. Hull cut ports over the stern, and ran two
18-pounders out of his cabin windows, where he began a continuous fire on
the enemy. The British ships shifted their helms and took up positions on
the quarters of the frigate, unable to approach too closely with their
boats for fear of the “Constitution’s” stern-guns, which dropped their
hurtling shot under their very bows.
The desperate game had only begun. Hull, finding that he had but one
hundred and fifty feet of water under him, decided to kedge her along. In
a few minutes the largest boat was rowing away ahead with a small anchor
on board, stretching out half a mile of cable. The anchor dropped, the men
hauled in roundly and walked away with the line at a smart pace. It was
heart-breaking work, but the speed of the ship was trebled. By the time
the vessel was warped up to the first anchor another one was ready for
her, and she clawed still further out of the enemy’s reach. The British
did not at first discover the magic headway of the American, and not for
some time did they attempt to follow suit.
Then a breeze came up. Hull hauled his yards to it, picked up his boats
without slacking sail, and went ahead. But hardly were the sails drawing
when the wind died away again. One of the ships came into range, and there
was nothing for it but to go back to the kedging. Three times did this
occur, the captain, with his eye on the dog-vane, jockeying her along as
a skipper would his racing-yacht. The men had now been at their quarters
for thirty-six hours without rest or sleep. But at the order they dropped
into the boats again, ready for anything.
Another breeze sprang up now and held for two hours. Like logs the
sailor-men tumbled over on the decks, nearly dead for lack of sleep. On
the afternoon of the third day of the chase the “Constitution” lost the
wind and the enemy kept it. Back again to kedging they went, weary and
sick at heart.
But relief was in sight. A great cloud hove up on the southeastern
horizon, and the black squall that followed was a Godsend to the
“Constitution” and her weary crew. Hull knew the Englishmen would not
like the looks of the squall. No more did he. But he kept his boats at
the towing, nevertheless.
He stationed his men at the halyards and down-hauls, and had everything in
hand for the shock. He calmly watched the on-coming line of froth, growing
whiter every minute, while his officers came to him and begged him to take
in his sail. But wait he did until the first breath stirred his royals.
Then the shrill pipe of the boatswain called the boats alongside of the
“Constitution.”
They were not a moment too soon. As the men were hooking the tackles the
blast struck the ship. Over she heeled, almost on her beam ends, the boats
tossed up like feather-weights. The yards came down with a rush, and the
sails flew up to the quarter-blocks, though the wind seemed likely to blow
them out of the bolt-ropes. She righted herself in a moment, though, and
so cleverly had Hull watched his time that not a boat was lost.
Among the enemy all was disorganization. Every sail was furled, and some
of their boats went adrift. Then, as the friendly rain and mist came down,
the wily Yankee spread his sails--not even furled--and sailed away on an
easy bowline at nine knots an hour.
The race was won. Before the Englishmen could recover, Hull managed by
wetting his sails to make them hold the wind, and soon the enemy was but
a blur on his western horizon. Then the British gave it up.
The superiority of Yankee seamanship was never more marked than in this
chase. The British had the wind, the advantage of position, the force,
and lacked only the wonderful skill and indomitable perseverance of the
American, who, with everything against him, never for a moment despaired
of pulling gallant “Old Ironsides” out of the reach of his slow-moving
enemy.
The difficult manœuvre of picking up his boats without backing a yard
or easing a sheet he repeated again and again, to the wonderment of his
adversaries, whose attempts in this direction failed every time they tried
it in a smart breeze. Hull’s tactics at the coming of the squall were
hazardous, and under any other circumstances would have been suicidal. For
a skipper to have his boats two cable-lengths away from his ship, with his
royals flapping to the first shock of a squall, is bad seamanship. But if
tackles are hooked and men are safe aboard there is no marine feat like
it.
The naval history of this country is full of such instances. Captain
Charles Stewart, on the same ship, did a wonderful thing. In his fight
with the “Cyane” and the “Levant” he delivered a broadside from both
batteries at the same time. Then, shifting his helm under cover of the
smoke, he backed his topsails and drew out sternward from the enemy’s
fire, taking a new position, and delivering another broadside, which
brought about their surrender.
The war-ship of fifty years ago was as different from the battle-ship
of to-day as a caravel from a torpedo-boat. With half the length and a
third the tonnage, the old “ship-of-the-line” had three times as many men
as the modern sea-fighter. Yet, with a thousand men aboard, she had work
for them all. More than two acres of canvas were to be handled, and over
a hundred guns were to be served, loaded, and fired. A thousand pieces
of running-gear were to be rove and manned. The huge topsails, weighing,
with their yards, many tons, needed on their halyards half a hundred
men. Great anchors were to be broken from their sandy holds, and the
capstan-bars, double-banked, hove around to the sound of the merry chantey
and deep-voiced trumpet. Homeward bound, the business of anchor-hoisting
turned into a mad scene, and many a rude jest and hoarse song turned the
crowded fo’c’s’le into a carnival of jollity.
In matters of routine and training the crews of the American frigates
differed little from those of England. The sailor-men of the United
States, though newer to the work of navigating the big ships, were smart
seamen, and could cross or bring down their light yards, send down their
masts, or clear for action with the oldest and very best of England’s
men-o’war’s-men.
The ships themselves differed little in general construction. During the
war of 1812, of large frigates we possessed but the “Constitution,” the
“President,” and the “Constellation.” Though built upon models patterned
after the accepted standards of the period, they were somewhat smaller
than the British vessels and usually carried a lighter armament. Their
unbroken list of victories during the war with England is remarkable when
one considers what the young nation was contending against, both at home
and abroad, and how little aid Congress had given the infant navy.
It seems really wonderful how a large body of men, numbering from three
hundred to six hundred, and later a thousand or more, could find comfort
and a home from one year’s end to another in a space only two hundred feet
long and fifty feet wide.
But Jack is nowhere so comfortable as aboard ship. He is used to
prescribed limits, and crawls into his hammock at night happy that
the space is no greater. There is a companionship, he thinks, in close
quarters, and he likes them.
In the old ships it was a matter of great importance to provide
comfortable quarters for the great crews they were obliged to carry.
In England, during the first years of the century, the complement of a
“Seventy-four” was five hundred and ninety, and even six hundred and
forty men. Hammocks seem to have been used during the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, when they were called “nets,” probably because they were made
of rope-yarn.
The officers were then, as now, given the after part of the ship. A wooden
bulkhead separated the cabins of the officers from the main-decks, where
the men lived, though when the ship was cleared for action the bulkheads
were taken down and all movable property both of officer and man was taken
below-deck.
This gave a clean sweep of the deck from bow to stern. The steerage had
from two to six broadside-guns in it, and even the captain had to live
with a couple of brass stern-chasers and a broadsider or two.
The grandest line-of-battle-ship ever built for this country was the old
“Pennsylvania.” She was made of wood throughout, two hundred and twenty
feet long and fifty-eight feet beam, with a draft of twenty-five feet
of water and thirty-five hundred tons displacement,--just one-third of
that of the modern “Iowa.” Eleven hundred men could swing their hammocks
on her wide decks, where no modern gun-carriages or steel compartments
broke the long sweep from the cabin forward. Her sides were of oak, with a
thickness of eighteen inches at the upper gun-ports and thirty-two inches
at the water-line, almost heavy enough at long range to resist the shot
of a modern rifle. Her sixteen inches were proof against her own fire at
a mile. On her three fighting-decks she carried sixteen 8-inch guns, the
heaviest they had in those days, and one hundred and four 32-pounders. Her
mainmast was over two hundred feet long, and with all sail set she could
leg it at twelve knots an hour.
But compare her with the modern “Indiana.” The “Pennsylvania” weighed less
than the armor of the “Indiana” alone. The “Indiana” has but sixteen guns,
against one hundred and twenty on the “Pennsylvania;” but that broadside
can send two tons of tempered steel at a single discharge. The old 8-inch
guns of the “Pennsylvania” could send a shell through fifteen inches of
oak at a distance of a mile--the equivalent of half an inch of steel.
The range of a modern rifle is from five to twelve miles; the
penetration is almost anything you please in the way of steel armor.
The “Pennsylvania’s” shells at point-blank range would hardly make a
perceptible dent in the “Indiana’s” steel armor, and the old cast-iron
shot would roll harmlessly down the new ship’s sides. But one explosive
shell from the “Indiana” would go through the “Pennsylvania” from stem to
stern, and would splinter and burn her beyond repair.
The “Pennsylvania” cost the government, in 1837, nearly seven hundred
thousand dollars; a fabulous sum for a battle-ship in those days. The
“Indiana” cost three millions and a half,--only two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars less than the sum paid for that vast territory bought
from Napoleon, and known as the “Louisiana Purchase,” and about half the
sum paid for the acquisition of Alaska from Russia.
The statistics are interesting. According to official authority, in
putting this vessel together seven hundred tons of rivets alone were used.
About four hundred plans were made for the hull and about two hundred and
fifty plans and drawings were made for the engines. These would take a
force of one hundred men a year to complete.
The engines and machinery alone weigh about nine hundred tons. The
smoke-stacks are about sixteen feet in diameter. Each of the main engines
is so enormous that under the great frames, in the economy of space and
construction, are two smaller engines, the sole mission of which is to
start the big ones. There are about sixty-six separate engines for various
purposes. The condensing-tubes, placed end to end, would cover a distance
of twelve miles. Thirty tons of water fill her boilers, which would stand
a pressure of one hundred and sixty pounds to the square inch. Three
dynamos provide the electricity,--a plant which would light a town of five
thousand inhabitants. There are twenty-one complete sets of speaking-tubes
and twenty-four telephone stations.
The two great turrets are clad with nineteen inches of toughened steel.
In each of these turrets are two 13-inch guns. Each of these guns is about
fifty feet long and weighs sixty-one tons. There are eight 8-inch guns on
the superstructure, in sets of twos, and amidships on the main-deck are
four 6-inch rifles. In ten minutes, firing each 13-inch gun once in two
minutes, and using all the other guns at their full power, the “Indiana”
could fire about sixty tons of death-dealing metal.
The millennium has not yet been reached, but such awful force makes
universal peace a possibility. What the immediate future holds forth in
naval architecture and gunnery is a matter which excites some curiosity,
for it almost seems as though perfection, according to the standard of the
end of the century, has been reached. And yet we already know of certain
changes, improvements, and inventions, the direct outcome of the Spanish
war, which are to be made on the vessels now contracted for, which affect
importantly the government of the ship; and so it may be that the next
twenty years will show as great an evolution as have the two decades just
past.
But whatever the future may bring, it has been a marvellous and momentous
change from the old navy to the new. Since the “Monitor”–“Merrimac” fight
no country has been quicker to profit by the lessons of the victory of
iron over wood and steel over iron than the United States.
But the navy that is, however glorious its achievements, can never dim the
glory of the navy that was, though sailor-men, old and new, know that in
a test of ship and ship, and man and man, the flag of this country will
continue to fly triumphant.