THE SCHOOL OF GUN PRACTICE AT SANDY HOOK.
THE French Navy was at this time leading the British in improved
ordnance. A French man-of-war of twenty-six guns was armed entirely with
cannon able to fire “detonating shot.” She was reckoned equal to two old
line-of-battle ships. Her visit to American ports created great interest
among our naval officers, and the Navy Department awoke to the necessity
of improving our ordnance.
On the 4th of May, 1839, Perry received orders which he was glad to
carry out. He was directed to give his attention to experiments with
hollow shot. These were round projectiles, non-explosive, but in that
line of the American idea of low velocity, with smashing power. With
less weight, they were of greater calibre, and required less powder in
firing. They were invented by W. Cochrane, known as the father of
heating by steam, and other useful appliances.
Perry selected a site near Sandy Hook and erected platforms, targets,
sheds, and offices for ammunition and fuses. From this first trial and
scientific study in the United States, of bombs and bomb-guns, down to
the last experiments with dynamite shells, the waste space at Sandy
Hook—the American Sheerness—has been utilized in the interest of
progress in artillery. Perry set up butts at 800, 880, 1,000 and 1,200
yards distance from the guns, and erected one target for firing at from
the ship. He devoted himself to the experiments with the best methods
and instruments of precision, then at command, during the months of June
and July, returning to the navy yard once or twice a week for letters,
provisions and fuses. The experiments in shell practice were
interesting, instructive and sufficiently conclusive. Those with hollow
shot were not so satisfactory.
The faith of Perry in the shell-gun was fixed. Thenceforth he believed
that bombs could be fired with very nearly as much precision and safety
from accident as solid shot. He saw, however, that much practice, even
to the point of familiarity, was needed. His report, at the end of the
season, in which he recommended a continuance of the experiments, gives
us a picture of the state of knowledge in our navy at that time,
concerning shell-shot. Not one of those under his direction had ever
seen a bomb-gun discharged; nor had had his attention specially called
to a shell-gun when in the navy, which had so long suffered from the dry
rot of unmeaning routine. He complains of the lamentable want of
knowledge in this important branch of the naval profession, when already
so many of the French and British ships were armed with shell-guns.
However, the officers trained at Sandy Hook, were now capable of
teaching others in the use of explosive projectiles aboard the ship. Men
and boys had all made progress in expertness. He suggested that the
winter months be employed in teaching boys on the _Fulton_ a knowledge
of pyrotechny, and that fifteen or twenty boys from the _North Carolina_
should be associated with them, and a class of gunners be thus trained.
His plan was approved by the Department. A course of study and drill in
gunnery, pyrotechny and the knowledge of the steam engine, was organized
and carried out during the winter. The graduates of this school
afterwards gave good account of themselves in the Mexican and our Civil
War. We see in this school, the beginning of the present admirable
training of our sailors in the science of explosives.
Perry, meanwhile, kept himself abreast of the latest developments and
discoveries in every branch of the naval art. We find him forwarding to
the War and Navy Departments the most recent European publications on
these subjects. He made himself familiar with the applications of
electricity to daily use. Neither the science nor the art of ordnance
had made great progress in America, since Mr. Samuel Wheeler cast, in
1776, what was probably the first iron three-pounder gun made in the
United States, and which the British captured at Brandywine and took to
the Tower of London. The war of 1812 showed, however, that in handling
their guns, the Yankees were superior in theory and practice to their
British foes.
In 1812, Colonel Bomford, of the United States Ordnance Department,
invented the sea-coast howitzer, or cannon for firing shells at long
range, by direct fire, which he improved in 1814 and called a
“Columbiad.” By this gun a shell was fired at an English vessel, near
New York, in 1815, which exploded with effect. It was this invention
which the French General Paixhans, introduced into Europe in 1824.[10]
The Frenchman was another Amerigo, and Bomford, being another Columbus,
was forgotten, for the name “Paixhans” clung to the _canons obusiers_ or
improved columbiad. The making or the use of bomb-cannons, in America,
was not continued after the war of 1812, and when first employed by
Perry, at Sandy Hook, were novelties to both the lay and professional
men of the navy on this side of the Atlantic. When four shell-guns were,
in 1842, put upon the ship-of-the-line, _Columbus_, according to Captain
Parker, shells were still unfamiliar curiosities. He writes in his
_Recollections_, p. 21:—
“The shells were a great bother to us, as they were kept in the shell
room and no one was allowed even to look at them. It seemed to be a
question with the division officers whether the fuse went in first, or
the sabot, or whether the fuse should be ignited before putting the
shell in the gun or not. However, we used to fire them off, though I
cannot say I ever saw them hit anything.” As the jolly captain elsewhere
says: “It took so long to get ready for the great event (of target
practice) that we seemed to require a resting spell of six months before
we tried it again.” About this time also pivot guns came into general
use on our national vessels, all cannon having previously been so
mounted that they could only fire straight ahead.
The Mexican War was a school of artillery practice and marked a distinct
era of progress. The flying artillery of Ringgold, in the field, and
Perry’s siege guns, in the naval battery at Vera Cruz, were revelations
to Europe of the great advance made by Americans in this branch of the
science of destruction. In the Civil War, on land and water, the stride
of centuries was taken in four years, when Dahlgren introduced that “new
era of gun manufacture which now interests all martial nations.” Since
then, the enormous guns of Woolwich and Krupp have come into existence,
but perfection in heavy ordnance is yet far from attainment. Much has
been done in improving details, but the original principle of gun
architecture is still in vogue. The loss of pressure between breach and
muzzle is not yet remedied. To build a gun in which velocity and
pressure will be even “at the cannon’s mouth” is the problem of our age.
When a ball can leave the muzzle with all the initial pressure behind it
we may look for the golden age of peace: such a piece of ordnance may
well be named “Peace-maker.” This problem in dynamics greatly interested
Perry; but foiled him, as it has thus far foiled many others.
The School of Gun Practice was opened again in the spring of 1840. He
was now experimenting with an eight-inch Paixhans gun, and comparing
with it a forty-two pounder, which had a bore reamed up to an eight-inch
calibre. Not possessing the present delicate methods of measuring the
velocity of shot, such as the Boulanger chronograph, invented in 1875,
and now in use at the United States ordnance grounds at Sandy Hook, he
obtained his measurements by means of hurdles or buoys. After their
positions had been verified by triangulation, these were ranged at
intervals of 440 yards apart along a distance of 3¼ miles. Observers
placed at four intermediate points noted time, wind, barometer, etc. The
extreme range of a Paixhans shot was found to be 4067 yards, or about
2-1/3 miles. In transmitting eight tables, with his report he stated
that “These experiments have furnished singular and important
information.” After a summary of unusual, interesting and valuable work,
the school was closed November 23, 1840, the weather being too severe
for out-door work.
It may be surmised that all articles of the new naval creed in which
Perry so promptly uttered his faith, were very disagreeable to many of
the old school. The belief in the three-decker line-of-battle ship and
sailing wooden frigate approached, in many minds, the sacredness of an
article of religion. The new appliances and discoveries which upset the
old traditions savoured of rank heresy. Those who held to the old
articles, and to wooden walls were perforce obliged, as ecclesiastics
are, when driven to the wall, to strengthen their position by damnatory
clauses. Anathemas, as numerous as those of the Council of Trent, were
hurled at the new reformation from the side which considered that there
was no need for reform. It was in vain that the employment of explosive
shells was denounced as inhuman. History follows logic. If “all is fair
in war,” then inventions first branded as too horrible for use by human
beings, will be finally adopted. The law of military history moves
toward perfection in the killing machine.
Laymen and landsmen, outside the navy, who look upon naval improvement
and innovation as necessities, in order that our soldiers of the sea may
be abreast of other nations in the art of war, consider radical changes
a matter of course: not so the old salts who have hardened into a half
century of routine, until their manner of professional thinking is
simple Chinese. They saw that horizontal shell firing was likely to turn
floating castles into fire-wood. In the good old days ships were rarely
sunk in battle, whether in squadron line or in naval duels. Though
hammered at for hours, and reduced to hulks and charnel houses, they
still floated; but with the new weapon, sinking an enemy was
comparatively easy work. British oak or Indian teak was nothing against
bombs that would tear out the sides. The vastness of the target surface,
on frigate or liner, was now a source of weakness, for shells produced
splinters of a size unknown before. A little ship could condense a
volcano, and carry a sapping and mining train in a bucket. The old
three-deckers must go, and the frigates become lower and narrower with
fewer and heavier guns.
A brave British officer is said to have cried out, “For God’s sake, keep
out the shells.” New means of defence must be provided. The mollusk-like
wooden ships must become crustacean in iron coats. The demonstrated
efficiency of shells and shell-guns, and the increased accuracy of fire
of the Paixhan smooth-bore cannon—cultivated to high pitch even before
the introduction of rifles—had made impossible the old naval duel and
line-of-battle.
During the whole of this extended series of experiments on the _Fulton_,
and at Sandy Hook, with new apparatus and projectiles, with assistants
often ignorant and unfamiliar with the new engines of war, until
trained, no lives were lost, nor was a man injured by anything that
could be foreseen. The bursting of a gun cannot always be guarded
against, and what befell Perry, in his boyhood, happened again in 1841,
though this time without injury to himself. The forty-four pounder on
the _Fulton_ burst, killing two men. Their funeral October 8, 1841, was,
by the Commodore’s orders, made very impressive. The flags of all ships
on the station were flown at half-mast. All the officers who could be
spared, and two hundred seamen and marines, formed the cortege in ten
boats, the rowers pulling minute strokes. The flotilla moved in solemn
procession round the _Fulton_, the band playing a dirge. Perry, himself,
brought up the rear—a sincere mourner. At the grave, Chaplain Harris
made remarks befitting the sad occasion.
Jackson’s administration being over, and with it much of the corruption
which the spoils system introduced into the government service, it was
now possible to reform even the navy yards. An honor all the more
welcome and enjoyable, because a complete surprise, was Perry’s
appointment to the command of the Brooklyn Navy Yard and New York Naval
Station. On the 24th of June, 1840, the Secretary of the Navy wrote to
Perry, stating his dislike of the bad business conduct of the yard, and
the undue use of political influence. With full confidence in Captain
Perry’s character and abilities—stating, also, that Perry had never
sought the office either directly or indirectly—he tendered him the
appointment. The Secretary desired that “no person in the yard be the
better or the worse off on account of his political opinions, and that
no agent of the government should be allowed to electioneer.” The letter
was an earnest plea for civil service reform.
Henceforth, Matthew Perry’s symbol of office was “the broad pennant,”
and his rank that of “commodore.” Yet despite added responsibilities and
honors, he was but a captain in the navy. Until the year 1862, there was
no higher office in the United States Navy than that of captain, and all
of Perry’s later illustrious services under the red, the white, or the
blue broad pennant, in Africa, Mexico and Japan, added nothing to his
pay, permanent rank, or government reward. Not until four years after
his death was the title of commodore significant of grade, or salary,
higher than that of captain.
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[10] See P. V. Hagner, U. S. A., _Johnson’s Encyclopædia_, article
_Columbiad_.