[Illustration: _In 1803, U.S.S._ Constitution _was careened at a
Boston wharf for recoppering before sailing for the Mediterranean to
confront the Barbary States._]
[Illustration: U.S. Naval Shipyards]
Puget Sound
Washington 1891-present
Rebuilt five battleships damaged during 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.
Mare Island
California 1853-1996
Established for naval expansion into Pacific.
Hunter’s Point
California 1939-1974
Repaired 600 ships during WW II.
Long Beach
California 1935-50; 1951-98
Reactivated for Korean War. In 1982, modernized battleship New
Jersey for missiles.
Pearl Harbor
Hawaii 1900-present
Serviced growing Pacific fleet after Spanish-American War. Damaged
by Japanese air attack in 1941.
Mound City
Illinois 1862-74
Repair facility for Union’s Mississippi Squadron during Civil War.
Pensacola
Florida 1825-1911
Burned by Confederates during Civil War. Has served as air training
facility since yard closing.
Charleston
South Carolina 1901-96
Specialized in the construction of destroyer escorts and LSTs in WW
II.
Strategically located Great Lakes shipyards built gunboats and sloops
during the War of 1812.
Presque Isle
Pennsylvania 1812-25
Sackets Harbor
New York 1812-1870s
Washington
District of Columbia 1800-83
Brooklyn
New York 1800-1966
Portsmouth
New Hampshire 1800-present
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania 1801-1995
Charlestown
Massachusetts 1800-1974
Norfolk
Virginia 1801-present
Of the six original navy yards, only Norfolk and Portsmouth still
service naval vessels.
New London
Connecticut 1868-83
During WW I was developed as major submarine base.
Prologue
The U.S. government established Charlestown Navy Yard as the
newly-formed republic was meeting early challenges to its merchant
shipping. In the decade after gaining independence, the young nation
kept no standing navy. But continuing raids on U.S. commerce by Barbary
pirates and French privateers in the 1790s spurred Congress to authorize
the construction of new warships.
Realizing that existing private shipyards were inadequate for the
increasingly ambitious shipbuilding program, the Secretary of the Navy
established in 1800-1801 six federal yards to build, outfit, repair, and
supply naval vessels. These facilities at Portsmouth, N.H.; Boston; New
York; Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; and Norfolk, Va., were the nucleus
of the naval shipyard system. Except during the Civil War, they launched
most of the Navy’s vessels until the advent of steel hulls in the 1880s,
when private yards began building them in greater numbers.
As with the first six, later naval shipyards were sometimes created to
fill an immediate military need. The War of 1812, for instance, prompted
the building of the two Great Lakes yards. The Mound City yard was
established during the Civil War, strategically located near the
confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to build and repair Union
gunboats. Although U.S. naval vessels are today built in private
shipyards, four navy yards still actively serve the fleet.
[Illustration: _1833 view of one of the yard’s wharves, by William
Bennett. Beyond, decommissioned_ Independence _and_ Columbus _are
roofed over for protection_.]
Growth of the Yard
When Captain William Bainbridge arrived in Boston aboard U.S.S. (United
States Ship) _Constitution_ in February 1813, he had reason to be
satisfied. While the U.S. Army faltered early in the War of 1812, a
string of naval victories over British ships was boosting public
confidence. Two months earlier, the big frigate commanded by Bainbridge
had engaged H.M.S. (His Majesty’s Ship) _Java_ off the coast of Brazil.
_Java_ was the faster ship, but _Constitution_ had heavier guns. By
skillful maneuvering. _Constitution_ kept them trained on the British
frigate, pounding _Java_ with broadsides until its colors came down.
Crew and commander were met with parades in Boston, but Bainbridge had
little time to enjoy the acclaim. He was immediately faced with a task
that, if not as exciting as a sea battle, was nevertheless formidable.
He had temporarily relinquished command of the Charlestown Navy Yard
when he sailed on _Constitution_. While he was gone, Navy Secretary Paul
Hamilton charged the yard with building one of the nation’s first
ships-of-the-line—the battleships of their day. As things now stood,
that was an impossibility: Charlestown simply lacked the facilities for
such an undertaking.
Bainbridge, who at 37 had already seen extensive naval action and been
imprisoned by Barbary pirates, wrote soon after becoming commandant in
1812: “No period of my naval life has been more industrious or
fatiguing.” He was shorthanded and hampered by bad weather, conditions
that must have sorely tested the endurance of a man with his
temperament: aggressive, volatile, not noted for his patience. When he
took command of the Charlestown yard, Bainbridge pressed the Washington
bureaucracy to authorize improvements to a facility that suffered, in
his words, from “mismanagement and neglect.”
[Illustration: _Captain William Bainbridge was the Charlestown
yard’s second commandant (1812-15) and captain of the first ship
built there, U.S.S._ Independence.]
Years later, Bainbridge was typically blunt in depicting for the
Secretary of the Navy what he saw as the Herculean task assigned him in
1812. The yard had been “in a state of perfect chaos. The public
property in a state of ruin and decay ... a boat could not approach at
certain periods of the tide within five hundred feet of the shore ... it
was even exposed to the inroads of the cattle from [the] highway.”
Even allowing for Bainbridge’s penchant for the dramatic, his
description was accurate. The buildings were too few, too small, and in
need of repair. The timber needed to complete the repair of the frigate
_Chesapeake_ was decayed beyond use. But most pressing was the need for
a large stone wharf and building slip. Here was a naval shipyard that
could not service a sloop-of-war, let alone build a large frigate or
ship-of-the-line. Small vessels could tie up at the modest wooden wharf,
but the yard had to rent private wharves for repairing warships.
_Chesapeake_ had been languishing since 1809 in a rented berth at $1500
a year.
The commandant’s hilltop house surveyed 25 acres of scattered buildings
and grassy tidal flats directly across the “stream” (the Charles River)
from Boston. There was a marine barracks, a parade ground, carpenter and
blacksmith shops, a timber shed, a small hospital, a saltwater timber
dock, and piles of cannon, shot, iron, and ballast. The facility
Bainbridge took over in 1812 was in truth more supply depot than
shipyard.
So why, after his exploits aboard _Constitution_, when another ship
command and the chance for further glory were his for the asking, did
Bainbridge return to Charlestown? Because he had also asked to command
the powerful 74-gun ship-of-the-line the yard would build, and he wanted
to oversee construction.
On resuming command in March 1813 he lobbied again for a wharf and
building slip. As a well-known ship’s captain he was used to getting the
attention of the Navy Department. But his sphere of activity had shifted
from quarterdeck to desktop, and he had to watch coveted funds go to
ships bound for sea. He was not, however, one to hold his tongue. He
bombarded the Secretary of the Navy with letters (the tone of which, in
this and other matters, sometimes bordered on sarcasm) until the wharf
and slip were finally begun in April 1813. After the laying of the 74’s
keel in May, Bainbridge was relentless in his requests for more
improvements—a navy store, capstans for hauling out ships, “shears” (a
simple crane) for installing masts, a ropewalk.
But his real passion was the great ship he could watch taking shape from
his window. He even suggested the name: _Independence_. Bainbridge
chafed to “give John Bull an opportunity of testing the strength of an
American 74”—especially after _Chesapeake_ had finally left the yard in
June only to be captured practically within sight of Boston by the
British frigate _Shannon_.
The combative commandant was rarely put off by obstacles—or someone
else’s reputation. Having clashed with workers over compensation they
demanded for days lost to bad weather, he shut out the source of trouble
by ordering a shiphouse 210 feet long and 50 feet high built over the
74’s building slip. To oversee ship construction Bainbridge hired Edmund
Hartt and his son Edward—well-regarded Boston shipbuilders in whose yard
was built the hugely successful _Constitution_. But in a dispute with
Edward Hartt the angry Bainbridge grabbed him “by the shoulder and
carried him out of my office.” Hartt’s father quit in protest, whereupon
Bainbridge quickly engaged another shipbuilder to finish the job.
Bainbridge’s other main duty as commander of the yard was the defense of
Boston Harbor—the importance of which was underscored by the
_Shannon-Chesapeake_ engagement. By spring of 1814 British warships were
raiding the New England coast almost at will, and the Boston citizenry
(many of whom vigorously opposed the war) was anxious over an
anticipated attack on the city. The rising 74, Bainbridge knew, made a
tempting target while it was unarmed and immobile on the ways. He asked
for the New England Guards, a Boston militia company, to stand ready at
the yard as _Independence_ neared completion.
Guarding United States property at the Charlestown yard was normally the
responsibility of the U.S. Marines, stationed there since 1802. But it
was a small detachment, not enough to defend the yard and its ships
against a serious attack. Bainbridge, who earlier protested the
vulnerability of the yard, had other problems with the marines. Though
they were under naval command while at sea, on shore the Navy had no
authority over them. Bainbridge deplored this situation, complaining
that his inability to mete out the same corporal punishment to marines
as was used on sailors was “productive of insubordination.”
In any case _Independence_ was ready for launching by June 1814. But the
much-anticipated ceremony on the 18th was an embarrassing failure.
_Independence_ hung up halfway down the launching ways, much to the
satisfaction of a Federalist quoted in the _Boston Gazette_: “It was no
wonder she stuck ... the war itself sticks.” The next day, when workers
attempted to move the vessel by winch with the New England Guards
pitching in to haul on the lines, a block flew apart and killed master
joiner William Champney.
[Illustration: _U.S.S._ Independence, _built at Charlestown in 1815,
was the nation’s first ship-of-the-line. On its maiden voyage the
74-gun vessel served as flagship of the Mediterranean squadron in
the Barbary Wars. After the Charlestown yard removed one gun deck in
1835, turning the slow 74 into a fast, powerful frigate (above)_,
Independence _served as flagship of the Brazil and Pacific
squadrons. The frigate spent the last 60 years of its career as
receiving ship (temporary sailors’ quarters) at Mare Island Navy
Yard near San Francisco Bay, where it ended a century of service in
1914._]
[Illustration: _Ships-of-the-Line were the battleships of their day,
carrying 64 to 100 guns or more on two or three gun decks (below the
open decks). Ship-rigged (square sails on three masts), these
warships took their place in the line of battle in huge fleet
actions._]
[Illustration: _Frigates had 22 to 44 guns on one gun deck. They
were ship-rigged counterparts of today’s cruisers, excelling in
single engagements and as commerce destroyers. Frigates also did
convoy duty and served as scouts for battle fleets._]
[Illustration: _Sloops-of-War had 8 to 24 guns on an open deck and
were ship-rigged. Fast and versatile—the destroyers of their
day—sloops provided escort protection and harassed enemy shipping.
Their shallow draft made them useful in coast defense and in lake
squadrons._]
[Illustration: _Brigs-of-War had about 20 smaller guns on an open
gun deck and carried square sails on two masts. Designed as small,
fast cruisers, they served as scouts, blockade runners, commerce
raiders, and in anti-piracy and slaveship patrols._]
Then, to worsen an already grim situation, the British warships that had
blockaded Boston Harbor for over a year became an immediate threat. A
raiding party from the frigate _Nymphe_ rowed into the harbor in the
early morning darkness of the 21st and burned a small sloop within a
mile of the yard. The next day, with the charred remains of the vessel
tied up at a Charlestown wharf, the leader of the raid publicly taunted
Bainbridge. In an open letter in the _Boston Patriot_, Bainbridge was
warned to better defend his “unfledged Independence.”
On the afternoon of June 22, under the eye of the Guards, the vessel
finally slid down the ways into Boston Harbor. The launching was
celebrated by a gun salute from _Constitution_ and cheers from a crowd
of 20,000. Bainbridge’s friend, the author Washington Irving, couldn’t
attend but wrote Bainbridge that he would drink a “potation bottle ...
to the success of your first cruise.” In the same spirit Bainbridge
entertained with food and drink 300 mechanics and laborers who had, he
said, “worked cheap, and done their work most faithfully.”
But the war he wanted so badly to join remained out of Bainbridge’s
reach. Desertions, along with financial and outfitting delays, held up
the vessel until 1815, by which time peace with England had been
concluded.
Another opportunity soon presented itself. The predatory corsairs of the
North African Barbary States—Tunisia, Tripolitania, Algeria, and
Morocco—had long been a thorn in the side of American merchant shipping.
Bainbridge, with _Independence_ as his flagship, won command of a
squadron whose mission was to display to the Barbaries the new power of
the U.S. Navy. The assignment was particularly attractive to Bainbridge,
who earlier in his career had surrendered a ship to the Tripolitans and
had another commandeered by the Algerians. But a second squadron under
Captain Stephen Decatur beat Bainbridge across the Atlantic and defeated
the Algerians in battle. His role was thus reduced to persuading the
other Barbaries at gunpoint to end their extortionist ways. The
suppression of the Barbary pirates was nevertheless satisfying to
Bainbridge. As senior officer, he had the honor of commanding the
squadron that initiated a permanent U.S. presence in the
Mediterranean—the first of the Navy’s “distant station” squadrons.
Upon Bainbridge’s return to Boston he attempted to regain command of the
yard from his replacement, Captain Isaac Hull. Unsuccessful, he was
instead appointed Port Captain (“commander afloat” of all naval vessels
in Boston Harbor), with _Independence_ designated station flagship.
Bainbridge settled down to a career as a senior officer, serving as
commandant at the yard twice more in the 1820s and ’30s. He had helped
put Charlestown on the map as the builder of a major warship. More
significantly, after the War of 1812 the yard began building a
reputation as an important repair and supply facility.
The Charlestown yard, and the U.S. Navy itself, owed their existence in
part to the same Barbary pirates who occasioned _Independence’s_ first
cruise. The severing of ties with Britain during the Revolution also
meant the loss of protection from the Barbaries long provided by the
Mother Country’s powerful navy and by the “tribute” Britain paid them.
The United States had no navy to protect its seaborne commerce—so
essential to a coastal nation dependent on overseas trade—and the
treasury could not bear the tribute payments or the ransom demands for
captured ships and sailors.
Thus after independence the Mediterranean trade had been virtually
closed to the United States. There was much unresolved debate about the
problem, but when the pirates spilled out into the Atlantic in 1793 and
took 11 American vessels in a few months, Congress took action. The
following year it authorized six frigates, three of which were launched
in 1797: _United States_, _Constellation_, and _Constitution_.
Congress was spurred to finish the job by the actions of Revolutionary
France during its war with Britain. French commerce raiders so
terrorized American neutral shipping that in 1798 an angry U.S.
government created the Navy Department and prepared for war. (There were
a number of engagements at sea, but war was never declared.) Congress
authorized funds to build, borrow, or accept as gifts 49 vessels,
ranging from galleys to six 74-gun ships-of-the-line.
The 74s were never built, but while the program was still alive, naval
shipyards to build them were established in Portsmouth, Boston, New
York, Philadelphia, Washington, and Norfolk. Boston, wrote Secretary of
the Navy Benjamin Stoddert to President John Adams, from “the natural
strength of its situation [meaning its large, deep, and defensible
harbor], the great number of ship carpenters in its vicinity, and of its
seamen, must always remain a building place and place of rendezvous for
our navy of the first importance.” Thus in 1800 the Charlestown Navy
Yard was established.
For most of its history Charlestown’s primary mission was to keep the
fleet sailing. That is not to say the yard wasn’t a shipbuilder; it
built more than 200 warships over its 174 years of operation. But most
of the new ships were built to meet the immediate demands of war. (Three
quarters of them were launched during World War II alone.) For fully
half of those years no new ships came down the ways. The pattern
established in the yard’s early years was one of ongoing repair,
outfitting, supply, and conversion work punctuated by occasional new
launchings.
The classes of ships that came down the ways at Charlestown and other
naval yards were the outcome of strategic and political deliberations in
Washington. U.S. naval policy devised during the first half of the 19th
century had its roots in the War of 1812. Before the British blockade
bottled up its warships, the tiny U.S. Navy had successfully fought a
brief _guerre de course_ against Britain, using a strategy that
emphasized single ship actions and raids on enemy shipping with
relatively small, fast frigates and sloops-of-war. The early naval
successes prompted Congress in 1813 to authorize six new frigates (three
of which were built) and six sloops. These, and the nine frigates
authorized in 1816 and laid down in the 1820s (including the
Charlestown-built _Cumberland_), formed the backbone of the Navy until
just before the Civil War.
But the War of 1812, which helped shape a practical role for the
19th-century Navy, also led lawmakers into an expensive attempt to
compete with European navies on their terms. Using the argument that
large, powerful ships were essential to the defense of the nation’s
shores (and perhaps remembering the crucial role of French 74s at
Yorktown), Congress also authorized four 74-gun ships-of-the-line in the
1813 act.
While ships-of-the-line were traditionally used in fleet actions with
set lines of battle (hence their name), they were also deployed to break
blockades and to “show the flag”—that is, remind other nations of the
United States’ military reach. Postwar nationalism, a popular navy still
basking in the nation’s praise, and the country’s demonstrated
vulnerability to blockade prompted appropriations in 1816 for additional
74s.
Between 1813 and 1822 fourteen 74s were laid down, including
_Independence_ (1813), _Vermont_ (1818), and _Virginia_ (1822) at
Charlestown. But in the decade after the war strategists cast a
skeptical eye on such large ships. The expensive, provocative, and
easily outmaneuvered behemoths, they said, were only a drag on the
Navy—inappropriate for a young nation that wanted to stay out of
European conflicts. By 1825 only five 74s had gone into service.
In 1835 _Independence_ took a turn in its career that was emblematic of
naval policy. The 74 had lain idle at Charlestown for 13 years. It was a
sluggish sailer, and its great weight and design flaws brought the lower
lee guns too close to the water to be useful during combat. So
_Independence_ was “razeed,” cut down from three decks to two, and
transformed from an unsuccessful ship-of-the-line into a very good
54-gun frigate—the largest and one of the fastest in the Navy.
Only a few present at its 1837 recommissioning realized that
_Independence_ was also among the last of its kind. Fast approaching was
a technology that would displace naval sail; steam would drive the Navy
of the future. In 1839 the Navy’s first commissioned steamer—the
two-year-old harbor battery _Fulton II_—arrived at Charlestown for
repairs. A local paper called it “the oddest looking fish we have ever
set our eyes on.” Four towering stacks spouting black smoke rose from
the deck, on which were mounted engine cylinders four feet in diameter.
The sidewheel covers, likened to “immense fungi,” barely cleared the
sides of the dry dock.
With the dock and other improvements, the Charlestown yard had by the
1840s taken shape as an important repair and shipbuilding facility. The
dry dock (_see pages 40-41_), five years abuilding, had opened in 1833
amid much ceremony. Vice President Martin Van Buren and other
dignitaries watched as the already-venerable _Constitution_, stripped
and demasted, inaugurated the dock. Much of the tidal flats had been
reclaimed behind a granite quay (the yard would triple its original size
by 1869), and the rest of the yard’s uneven grounds had been leveled. A
high stone wall, built to help stop pilfering and protect the ships,
stretched between the Charles and Mystic rivers.
The yard had become more self-sufficient. The boilers for the dry dock
pump engines also provided steam for the new sawmill and blockmaking and
armorer’s shops. In 1837, the yard’s ropewalk (also steam-powered) and
tar house had been completed (_see pages 20-21_). The yard now made its
own paint in the “oil house,” while hardware was supplied by a large
smithy with 12 forges.
Other significant additions: masting shears looming over the new shear
wharf; a sparmaker’s shed, masthouse, and sail loft; new timber docks; a
steam chest for bending wood; an armory with thousands of muskets,
bayonets, and swords; and neat ranks of guns, shot, and anchors in their
respective “parks.” Hundreds of elm trees planted by order of Commodore
Bainbridge softened the yard’s industrial setting.
Anchored out in the harbor were several vessels “in ordinary.” A vessel
in ordinary was out of service and in storage with a skeleton crew until
recommissioned. The ship was demasted, salted to retard dry rot,
whitewashed inside, tightly caulked, and its sides and decks “payed”
with a thick coat of varnish and tar. Tubular windsails directing air
belowdecks and holes cut in the bulkheads insured good air circulation.
Some vessels in ordinary at Charlestown had protective wood and canvas
sheds over their decks, an innovation of Captain Hull.
_Vermont_, _Virginia_, and the frigate _Cumberland_, begun in 1825, had
become permanent fixtures in their great shiphouses. They were still
officially under construction and near completion, but were really in
ordinary. (_Virginia_ was something of an ill-starred vessel. Over the
years at least three people had died in accidents around the ship, and
its reputation was reconfirmed in 1845 when a visitor fell to his death
from its scaffolding.) Construction on _Virginia_ and _Vermont_ had
slowed to a standstill after critics questioned the strategic value of
ships-of-the-line. But economic considerations played at least as big a
role; ordinary was a cheap way to keep expensive-to-sail vessels,
including big frigates like _Cumberland_ (launched in 1842), ready for
war.
In 1848 _Vermont_ was finally launched to “a vast concourse of people
and the firing of cannons.” But the day of the big 74s was over. Neither
_Vermont_ nor _New Hampshire_ (built at Portsmouth Navy Yard), the last
two ships-of-the-line completed by the Navy, ever saw service as a
commissioned warship. In fact most 74s had short careers of little
strategic consequence. _Independence_, first of the class, was the only
one still serving as a warship at mid-century, but it had been cut down
to a frigate.
The launching of _Vermont_ also closed a chapter in the yard’s history.
The second ship laid down at Charlestown 30 years before, _Vermont_ was
the last all sail-powered warship launched there—obsolescent even as it
came down the ways.
Although this was a U.S. Navy Yard run by naval officers, throughout its
history those wielding the caulking mallets and rivet guns were
civilians working for civilian foremen. During the first half of the
19th century the yard’s workforce steadily increased from 89 in 1822 to
370 in 1853. At mid-century the records show most of them were born in
New England—half from Massachusetts. Some 15 percent were Irish, the
majority working as laborers.
So complicated an undertaking as the building of a warship required an
array of specialized occupations falling under the general label of
“mechanics”: carpenters, sawyers, joiners, sparmakers, blockmakers,
painters, gun carriage makers, armorers, sailmakers, blacksmiths,
caulkers, riggers, boatbuilders, coopers, ropemakers, masons,
machinists, plumbers, and coppersmiths. A force of unskilled laborers
was at times supplemented by the ordinary crews and by the sailors
stationed at the yard.
Each shop had its master, quartermen (leaders of several crews),
leadingmen (crew leaders), and crews of mechanics, apprentices,
laborers, and a few boys (before child labor laws eliminated such
positions). In the early years, when the yard’s facilities were sparse,
it was not unusual for the master to have his own shop outside of the
yard. The commandant would in effect contract with the master to do the
work there with his own men. In the 1840s and ’50s the Navy tightened
the regulations, giving the masters less leeway in hiring and ordering
supplies. By the Civil War they were all yard employees.
A look at the young men in the apprenticeship program, started in 1817,
gives a clearer picture of the yard employees they would become. Those
applying for the program—generally at age 16—had to show good character
and be physically able to perform the tasks of their trade. They had to
demonstrate the ability to read, write, and do simple math. The terms of
the five-year indenture (later reduced to four) were generally clear: in
return for exhibiting growing mastery of his trade, the apprentice
received from the Navy room and board, increasing pay, and continuing
education in reading, writing, arithmetic, and theories of the trade.
But because the indenture was technically a personal contract between
the boy’s parents or guardian and the master, not the Navy, questions of
obligation sometimes arose when a new man became master. At the end of
the apprenticeship—usually at age 21—the boy became a yard employee.
_Continues on page 22_
Navy Yard Tradesmen in the Age of Sail
During the early 19th century, Charlestown’s shipyard bell called
several hundred civilian tradesmen and laborers to work each morning.
Laboring from sunrise to sunset under the supervision of naval officers
and civilian shop masters, these yard employees built, repaired, and
supplied United States warships for naval duty around the globe.
Fluctuating government budgets, changing seasons, and the uneven demands
of war and peace made navy yard work intermittent and unpredictable.
[Illustration: A navy yard rigger tightens a warship’s mast
shrouds.]
The Ropewalk
Several factors enticed the U.S. Navy into constructing its only
ropemaking facility at the Charlestown Navy Yard in the 1830s: skilled
labor, access to raw materials, and technical expertise. The port of
Boston already boasted more than a dozen ropewalks employing many
skilled artisans. Perhaps most importantly, the Navy was eager to take
advantage of newly developed labor-saving machines like those already in
use in New England’s textile mills. Because rope had to be twisted in a
straight line, the maximum length that could be produced was determined
by the length of the ropewalk (so called because workers spinning the
hemp fibers by hand walked the length of the building). The Charlestown
ropewalk’s quarter-mile length allowed production of rope up to 1200
feet long. Designed by architect Alexander Parris (best known for
Boston’s Quincy Market), the ropewalk complex included the rope “laying”
area running the length of the building, spinning and preparing machine
rooms, the hemp house, and the tar house. The complex was powered by
massive steam engines and tended by men and boys. The Navy’s move to
mechanized rope production came at a critical time, as machine-spun rope
began to replace intricate hand-spinning techniques. The hand spinners’
resistance inspired contests in the 1840s, in which they challenged the
quality of machine-made rope. The results of such a challenge to the
Charlestown ropewalk were somewhat ironic. Though its machine-made rope
proved to be stronger and cheaper to produce, hand-spun rope was
superior in the smaller sizes, and the mechanized ropewalk began
producing some hand-spun rope, doing so until the end of the 19th
century.
[Illustration: Ropewalk, building]
[Illustration: Ropewalk, machinery]
[Illustration: Spinning Combed bundled fibers called “roving” are
fed from a can onto the spinning frame. At the spindle they are spun
counterclockwise into yarn, which is wound on a bobbin.]
[Illustration: Forming the Strand Bobbins are mounted on the
twisting frame. The yarns are threaded through the register plate to
equalize tension and tied to a rotating hook on the rolling “jack.”
The jack pulls yarns from the bobbins and twists them clockwise into
a strand.]
[Illustration: Laying the Rope Three or four strands are tied to
a rotating hook on the jack. While clockwise tension is kept on the
other ends by rotating hooks, the strands are twisted
counterclockwise into rope.]
Budget-minded Naval Commissioners in Washington allowed the commandant
to pay just enough to hold on to his workers. He generally matched the
rates of private shipyards in the area to keep workers from being lured
away. The daily rates thus fell with the coming of cold weather and the
slowing of work, since the workers were then in low demand elsewhere.
The Navy defended this hard-nosed practice, maintaining that with fewer
daylight hours (workers mustered at sunrise and were dismissed at
sunset), the yard got less work out of the men. The niggardly pay
policies sometimes backfired: in 1821 the low-paid sailmakers left en
masse to work at private yards.
More than the skilled craftsmen, the laborers’ jobs depended on the
amount of work at the yard, but most of the workforce awaited the coming
of cold weather with some anxiety. The yard’s practice was to retain
only as many people as it could keep working, and bad weather sharply
reduced the volume of work. The completion of a new ship or of a major
repair job also meant the letting go of large numbers of workers, at
least until the next job. In effect many in the workforce were not given
permanent jobs, but only hired on to perform seasonal work, much like
house carpenters, or to complete a single project.
Though the situation was normally weighted in favor of the employer, the
scales could occasionally tip the other way, especially for skilled
workers. In 1825, when the coming of spring coincided with a surge in
building brought on by a recent Boston fire, Commandant William Crane
was forced to raise wages to compete for skilled workers. He sent his
Master Builder Josiah Barker up the coast as far as Portland to recruit
mechanics.
At times skilled workers attempted to force the Navy’s hand, organizing
to protest conditions. When the caulkers struck for higher wages in
January 1835, the commandant, Commodore Jesse Elliott, fired them and
quickly found others willing to work at the established rate. Two days
later the “refractory caulkers,” unable to find work in the middle of
the winter, asked to be rehired at their old wages. Wanting to remain on
good terms with his employees, Elliott allowed the men to return.
Sometimes the walkout worked. Yard workers considered unreasonable a
change in their working hours made in 1852. By this time they were
working a straight 10-hour day. But under the new policy, they had to
work sunrise to sunset if that period contained even a minute less than
11 hours, thus adding up to an hour to their day during the winter. They
walked off the job, forcing the Navy to rescind the policy.
These actions represent a period when the yard workers, though not yet
unionized, could strike—an option later denied to government employees.
While workers were generally forced to accept the prevailing pay and
conditions at the yard, they were not completely without power.
In the Charlestown Navy Yard’s first half-century, world events, U.S.
politics, and sectional rivalries affected the ebb and flow of work and
the hiring and firing of men. The yard was born in the midst of a world
at war and grew to prominence in a time of relative calm—in retrospect,
the lull before the storm of civil war.
[Illustration: _Sloop-of-war_ (_U.S.S._ Decatur _or_ Dale) _dry
docked in Charlestown has its rigging tarred and its hull sheathed
with copper, about 1852_.]
_Continues on page 29_
Building a Wooden Ship
The creation of a wooden warship began in the mold loft. There
carpenters translated specifications from standard plans for each class
of vessel into full-sized wooden patterns. These were used to fashion
hull members, for which white oak or live oak were the favored woods.
(Some 2,000 trees were required for a 74-gun ship-of-the-line.) On the
slightly inclined building ways, joiners first laid the keel, the great
spine of the ship running along the bottom of the hull. Then they
attached the stem and the stern post to the keel and raised the
frames—the vessel’s ribs. The frames formed the contours of the hull
and, together with horizontal deck beams and vertical stanchions beneath
the beams, provided a strong skeleton. After 1829, iron and copper bolts
and spikes replaced many of the wooden “treenails” that secured the
structural members and fastened the deck and hull planking. The rudder
was hung, the hull caulked and sheathed with copper to protect it from
teredo worms, and the ship was launched. Riggers then “stepped” masts to
the keelson, a lengthwise beam bolted to the keel (_see page 19_). After
they rigged the horizontal spars, cordage, and sails, the new warship
was ready for outfitting.
[Illustration: _Expanding U.S. interests in the Pacific spurred
Congress in 1825 to authorize a new class of sloop-of-war to protect
those interests. Charlestown Navy Yard constructed three of them
between 1825 and 1827._]
1 Building ways
2 “Shears”: hoisted heavy pieces
3 Keel
4 Stern post
5 Frames
6 Deck beams
7 Planking
8 Drag chains: arrested ship after launch
9 Shiphouse
The Workforce in 1835
138 Carpenters
56 Ropemakers
40 Laborers
37 Joiners
34 Blacksmiths
25 Sailmakers
19 Riggers
18 Coopers
17 Plumbers
16 Boatbuilders
14 Sparmakers
12 Blockmakers
11 Painters
6 Caulkers
6 Masons
6 Sawyers
The Frigate _Constitution_
The first three warships ordered for the infant U.S. Navy in 1794—one of
them the Boston-built _Constitution_—were frigates unlike any others.
Naval strategists knew the nation could afford to build only a few
vessels, so they had to be formidable warships. They were inspired by
French “razees,” ships-of-the-line (_see page 14_) that had one gun deck
removed, transforming them into large, heavily armed frigates. The sharp
lines of _Constitution’s_ hull gave it a frigate’s speed, but in size
and stoutness it was comparable to a small ship-of-the-line. (Its heavy
oak frames, spaced close together and sheathed with thick planking,
proved virtually impenetrable in battle—hence the name “Old Ironsides.”)
The theory was that _Constitution_ would be powerful enough to fight any
frigate, quick enough to flee anything bigger. The British, though,
scorned the new frigates, asserting that they lacked the tactical
strengths of either frigates or ships-of-the-line: too slow to engage
the former, too weak to stand up to the latter. But _Constitution_ more
than lived up to U.S. expectations in the War of 1812, when it bested
two British frigates in separate battles, escaped two more, and captured
a frigate and a sloop-of-war in a third engagement. _Constitution_
fought no more battles, but served honorably for another 40 years.
Throughout its career _Constitution_ has been closely associated with
the Charlestown Navy Yard, undergoing several overhauls there. The first
was in 1833, when the frigate inaugurated the yard’s dry dock. In
1992-95 it was serviced in the same dock. Since 1897 the yard has been
home port for _Constitution_, the Navy’s oldest commissioned warship.
[Illustration: The 24-Pounder Long Gun
A gun crew of 6 to 14 men wrestled with this 5,600-pound gun. To adjust
elevation, a crew member placed a handspike on one of the steps (A) and
levered the breech (B) up or down; the gun captain slid the quoin (C) in
or out.]
[Illustration: U.S.S. Constitution]
Specifications:
Length overall: 204 ft.
Beam (width): 43.5 ft.
Displacement: 2,200 tons
Draft: 22.5 ft.
Hull: 15 to 20 in. thick
Speed: 13-14 knots
Crew: 450-470
Armament in 1812: 30, 24-pounders; 22, 32-pounder carronades; two
24-pounder & one 18-pounder bow chasers on the forecastle
1 Quarter boat
2 Quarterdeck
3 Captain’s quarters
4 Captain’s day cabin
5 Officers’ staterooms
6 Bread room
7 Ship’s wheel
8 Wardroom
9 Cartridge filling room
10 Powder magazine
11 Spirit room
12 Cockpit (junior officers’ quarters)
13 Anchor capstan
14 Bilge pumps
15 Shot locker
16 Spar deck (open)
17 Gun deck
18 Berthing deck (crew hung its hammocks on this deck)
19 Orlop deck (storage)
20 Hold
21 Ballast
22 Anchor cables
23 24-pounder guns
24 Long boat
25 32-pounder carronades
26 Galley
27 Sail locker
28 Sand room
29 Rigging blocks
30 Sick bay
31 Forecastle
32 Manger
33 Crew’s head
[Illustration: _Constitution’s_ Sails
Sail area, with studding sails (not shown), was more than 43,000 sq.
ft.]
1 Flying jib
2 Outer jib
3 Inner jib
4 Fore topmast staysail
5 Foresail
6 Fore topsail
7 Fore topgallant sail
8 Fore royal
9 Fore skysail
10 Mainsail
11 Main topsail
12 Main topgallant sail
13 Main royal
14 Main skysail
15 Spanker
16 Mizzen topsail
17 Mizzen topgallant sail
18 Mizzen royal
19 Mizzen skysail
[Illustration: _Sinking of Union sloop_ Cumberland _by Confederate
ironclad_ Virginia (_ex-U.S.S._ Merrimack) _in 1862, by Alexander C.
Stuart_.]
The Coming of Iron and Steam
_Merrimack_, _Virginia_, _Cumberland_: names that point up the ironies
of war. As the steam frigate _Merrimack_ was being launched in July 1855
(_see pages 32-33_), the partially built ship-of-the-line _Virginia_ lay
in another part of the yard. It had been laid down and named in the
1820s, a more harmonious time. Even if the old 74 had finally come down
the ways, it is not likely that, amidst the sectional acrimony of the
1850s, it would have kept the old name—and certainly not after the
secession of the state whose namesake it was.
A year after _Merrimack’s_ launching, the frigate was back in the yard
after going aground during its shakedown cruise (when the crew becomes
familiar with a ship and problems are ironed out). While workers
replaced damaged coppering and repaired the propeller on the big
warship, a smaller sail frigate waited its turn.
Launched 13 years earlier, _Cumberland_ had served as flagship of the
African Squadron, whose mission was to suppress slave running. Now back
home, _Cumberland_ moved into the dry dock soon after _Merrimack_ was
towed out. It was cut down to a fast sloop-of-war with one gun deck of
28 guns and a crew of 376.
_Cumberland’s_ worth as a leaner warship was proven in the first months
of the Civil War. Assigned to the Atlantic Blockading Squadron, the
vessel took eight Confederate prizes in three weeks. But the next year
_Cumberland_, among the last sailing ships launched by the Navy, came up
hard against the future.
On March 8, 1862, _Cumberland_ and other vessels were on blockade duty
in Hampton Roads, Virginia, when the men on deck sighted a bizarre new
war machine steaming out of Norfolk. Approaching them was a dark,
monolithic vessel—decks awash, no masts, no sails, no sailors. C.S.S.
(Confederate States Ship) _Virginia_, the much-rumored ironclad
blockade-breaker, had finally taken the stage.
[Illustration: _Architect’s rendering of the Charlestown machine
shop’s “Great Chimney,” 1858._]
It was a slow, clumsy vessel, but menacing nevertheless. Using a full
mile to gather momentum, _Virginia_ steamed steadily towards the Union
vessels. It passed the frigate _Congress_ and headed straight for
_Cumberland_, its sloping iron casement shedding the Union ships’
barrage of heavy shot and explosive shell as if they were “peas from a
pop-gun,” in the words of a _Cumberland_ sailor. But _Cumberland_,
though clearly outmatched, could not avoid engagement. It was at anchor
in a dead calm, the crew’s wash drying in the rigging. The Union sailors
could only take the punishing return fire, clear the decks for battle,
and wait for the inevitable.
Longer than _Cumberland_ by half, with a submerged iron ram projecting
from its bow, the approaching vessel looked to the Union ship’s pilot
like a “huge, half-submerged crocodile.” _Virginia_ tore into
_Cumberland’s_ bow below the waterline (_see pages 28-29_), then backed
off, leaving its ram imbedded in a seven-foot hole. Both vessels now
loosed volleys at point-blank range; dozens of _Cumberland’s_ crew were
maimed or killed.
As the vessel listed and began to sink, the crew abandoned ship, but 121
men—already dead, too hurt to save themselves, or firing guns to the
end—went down with _Cumberland_. (As water flooded the gun deck, a young
gun crew officer barely saved himself by squeezing through a gun-port.
He was Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, who in 1890 became commandant of the
Charlestown Navy Yard.) Before darkness ended the fighting, the ironclad
also riddled _Congress_, killing more than a hundred men and setting the
vessel on fire. _Congress_ burned on into the night and finally
exploded.
The frightening weapon that had handed the U.S. Navy its worst defeat
began its career as the hull of a wooden steam vessel. A week after the
surrender of Fort Sumter, the loss of the important Gosport Navy Yard at
Norfolk to rebel troops became inevitable. Evacuating Union forces—under
cover of _Cumberland_—burned and scuttled several warships to keep them
from falling into Confederate hands. But some were salvageable,
including a large steam frigate on which everything below the waterline
was intact. Southern engineers converted the vessel into an advanced
warship, removing the masts and topping the hull with a rooflike iron
shell. The original name of the vessel they retrieved and transformed:
U.S.S. _Merrimack_.
_Merrimack’s_ reincarnation as _Virginia_ embodied two
technologies—steam and iron (and then steel)—that were advanced during
the Civil War and that eventually defined the modern Navy. Steam
engineering had traveled a long road of acceptance in the conservative
Navy. By 1850, the year the Charlestown Navy Yard built its first
steamer, Great Britain had built or converted from sail some 25
propeller and paddlewheel steam warships. The U.S. Navy had launched
only seven. Steam engines were still considered novelties by many old
Navy men—at best auxiliary power, at worst dirty and undependable
nuisances that called for machine tenders rather than sailors.
Their resistance was not entirely unjustified. There was the problem of
range: _Merrimack_, for instance, could cruise only about 17 days with
its coal bunker full. American steamers far from home had to depend on
French or British coaling stations and machine shops in places like Hong
Kong and Shanghai. Unlike self-reliant sail, steam alone could not meet
the demands of distant squadrons. And in the early days of steam, it was
no faster than sail: in fact it was often slower. More crucial, early
steam engines were inefficient and unreliable, so captains would not
trust them in combat. And coal took up valuable space needed for
supplies, crew, and ammunition.
But the main problem was that early steamers were driven by big,
ungainly sidewheels that caused captains no end of problems (_see page
35_). They so harmed a vessel’s sailing qualities that steam was of
necessity the primary power source on sidewheelers—but the Navy wanted
to use steam only as auxiliary power.
Another way of employing steam power for propulsion was needed. The
propeller (called a “screw”) was the answer, allowing naval steam to
come into its own. Construction of the prototype screw sloop _Princeton_
began in 1841, before America’s first sidewheel warships even went into
service. The Navy built only eight more deepwater sidewheelers before
the famous 1854 class of six screw steamers (led by the
Charlestown-built _Merrimack_) made the cumbersome vessels a footnote in
naval history. With the advent of the propeller, enough problems were
solved that auxiliary steam power became feasible in warships. On an
1858 cruise from Honolulu to Acapulco, _Merrimack_ steamed only three
days out of 32.
_Merrimack_, whose subsequent adventures we have already followed, was
in the tradition of large American frigates like _Constitution_. While
its engines were never very dependable, _Merrimack_ was an excellent
sailer, powerfully armed, and on its inaugural European cruise inspired
Britain to build similar vessels with better engines.
[Illustration: Merrimack _is launched at Charlestown in 1855;_
Cumberland _was built in the same shiphouse in 1842_.]
The screw sloop _Hartford_, launched at Charlestown in 1858, was one of
a follow-up class of steamers. (These and other screw steamers of the
’50s were all frigates and sloops; no steam ship-of-the-line was built
at Charlestown or any other yard. As we have seen, the era of such large
wooden ships was over by the time the Navy was converting to steam.)
These were smaller vessels with a shallower draft—better suited to
coastal and river operations. As Rear Admiral David G. Farragut’s
flagship in victories at New Orleans and Mobile Bay, _Hartford_ was
perhaps the most celebrated steamer in the Union Navy.
With propellers, even the most hidebound captains could appreciate the
better maneuverability steam gave them during combat. Gradually the
tactical roles of steam and sail were reversed, with increasingly
efficient and dependable steam engines officially becoming the primary
power source and sail the auxiliary. As a matter of economy, however,
American vessels continued to use sail whenever possible on
long-distance cruises.
Steam technology demanded a whole new set of skills of Charlestown’s
mechanics. When the steam battery _Fulton II_ docked there in 1839, the
yard could repair only the vessel’s wooden components, having to
contract work on the engine to local companies. But by 1845 yard
personnel could fully service the screw sloop _Princeton_. While some
carpenters may have made the transition, it is more likely that most of
those working with steam machinery had a background in the field.
As the yard adapted to the new age, it underwent a decade of
modernization and quickened production preceding the Civil War. The dry
dock was lengthened; gas lights were installed; the yard began
manufacturing wire rope in 1857. But the most important improvement was
a state-of-the-art machine shop—its 240-foot stack long a landmark at
the yard—that replaced the old smithery in 1859. It contained such
equipment as a machine that could plane a metal surface 10 feet square
and a huge lathe capable of handling iron propeller shafts 35 feet long.
The facility also helped the yard to incorporate a new technology
dramatized (though not introduced) by C.S.S. _Virginia_: ironcladding.
Sinking of large warships had rarely occurred in naval battle. Solid
shot either bounced off thick wooden hulls or left a small, patchable
hole. So warships normally just blasted away at each other until one of
them, casualties mounting and its deck and rigging a shambles, hauled
down its colors. Yet _Virginia_ had sunk or caused to eventually sink
two of them in two hours. Its ironcladding allowed it to get close
enough to _Cumberland_ to use an ancient but still effective technique,
ramming, and close enough to _Congress_ to pound the ship at close range
with its broadside shot and big rifles. While ramming would not remain a
tactical option, ironcladding was universally adopted as every naval
power raced to design hulls that could withstand ever more powerful
explosive shells fired from rifled guns (_see pages 42-43_).
As in every war, technology helped shape strategy in the Civil War and
strategic considerations helped determine how new technologies were
applied. The Navy’s major role in the war effort was to blockade some
3,500 miles of Southern coastline. The South’s blockade runners were
typically the most advanced examples of British shipbuilding,
steam-powered sidewheelers that were often iron- or steel-hulled. In the
first year of the war, only about one in eleven of these runners were
caught (partly because sidewheelers were still faster than screw
steamers), and the Union Navy continued to build, borrow, and buy every
vessel it could to strengthen the blockade.
_Continues on page 36_
Steam Propulsion
When steam was introduced as an auxiliary naval power source in the
1820s, paddle-wheels were the initial method of propulsion. In the late
1830s engineers began working with propellers—“screws” in naval
terminology. Each technology had its partisans: the sidewheel provided
greater combat maneuverability, was suited to riverine warfare, and
presented no problems of leakage, as did the screw’s underwater shaft
hole. However, the exposed wheels were vulnerable during combat, ate up
deck space needed for guns, hindered sail handling, and created more
drag than a screw when the vessel was under sail. The launching of the
screw warships H.M.S. _Rattler_ in Britain and U.S.S. _Princeton_ in the
United States in 1843 signaled the coming ascendancy of screw
propulsion. In the historic 1845 tug-of-war between _Rattler_ and an
otherwise-identical sidewheeler, the greater efficiency of the screw was
publicly confirmed.
[Illustration: SECTIONAL VIEW OF THE U.S. STEAM FRIGATE MERRIMAC.
_1857 inboard plan of screw frigate_ Merrimack. _Screw could be hoisted
into a well to reduce drag when the vessel was under sail._]
[Illustration: Sidewheels: good maneuverability, but vulnerable
above the water.]
[Illustration: The screw: more efficient, and protected below the
waterline.]
Thus when naval officers learned of the conversion of _Merrimack_ into
an armored blockade-breaker, they were understandably worried. In the
debate over the type of vessel the Navy should develop to counter the
Southern threat, John Ericsson’s proposal for a turreted,
shallow-drafted coastal ironclad won out over larger, oceangoing designs
with traditional broadsides. His ironclad, called U.S.S. _Monitor_, was
the prototype of the turreted ironclad class named after it. (While
monitors and _Virginia_-type ironclads continued to meet the needs of a
mostly coastal and riverine naval war, two broadside ironclads were
built by the Union. One of them, _New Ironsides_, was quite effective.)
_Monitor_ fought _Virginia_ to a standoff the day after the latter sank
_Cumberland_. It was the first clash between steam-powered ironclads,
and the world took notice. Captain John Dahlgren, creator of _Monitor’s_
two big guns, put it succinctly: “Now comes the reign of iron—and cased
sloops are to take the place of wooden ships.”
It did not happen immediately: _Monitor_-class iron hulls were not very
seaworthy. (_Monitor_ sank in late 1862 while being towed during a storm
off Cape Hatteras.) Wooden ships under both sail and steam power
continued to fight the Civil War’s deepwater battles, but Dahlgren’s
words came true after the war. The evolving iron, and then steel,
warship incorporated elements from both ironclads: the deeper hull and
superstructure of _Virginia_ and, rather than multiple-gun broadsides, a
few large guns in revolving _Monitor_-type turrets that allowed the guns
to be trained without turning the entire vessel.
Only four monitors were built by navy shipyards, but officers considered
them the best produced during the war. _Monadnock_, a double-turreted
monitor built at Charlestown, was generally thought the best of the lot
and the only one of this class to see action. After the war, it proved
its unusual seaworthiness by voyaging around Cape Horn to San Francisco.
Other than _Monadnock_, ironcladding work at the Charlestown yard was
performed on vessels built elsewhere, although the workers clad with
iron the bulwarks of some of the double-ended sidewheelers built there.
These vessels, a temporary reprieve for naval sidewheel technology, were
designed for the narrow, shallow rivers of the South, allowing the
“brown-water” Navy to reverse direction without turning around. The
Charlestown yard built five double-enders—the biggest class constructed
there during the war and, with those built at other yards, the biggest
class of ships produced in the United States before World War I.
The Charlestown yard had in 1858 initiated its first machinist
apprenticeship, acknowledging the inevitable transformation of the
yard’s work. Steam had somewhat prepared the way for the yard’s artisans
to work with iron: those already trained as boilermakers could adapt
their skills to ironcladding. But increasingly the trades related to
steam machinery and ironcladding were formalized with titles and
apprenticeships. Through the 1850s and ’60s, machinists, iron moulders,
and boilermakers accounted for an increasingly large part of the
workforce: from a total of 26 (3 percent) in 1854 to 371 (19 percent) in
1866. But even though such trades were necessary in the yard by the
mid-1860s, they were still in the minority and were paid less,
considered less exacting and more easily mastered than the old wooden
ship trades.
Samuel Cochran, a longtime employee at Charlestown, recalled later in
life that when he arrived at the yard as a young man during the Civil
War “the majority of the men employed were ship carpenters and joiners
and most of the tools they used were cross cut saws and axes.” His own
job was to turn the grindstone on which they were sharpened.
Cochran went on to paint a vivid picture of the yard during the war
years when some 3,000 workers held jobs there: the ordnance workers who
had the dangerous job of retrieving powder from the magazine, donning
canvas slippers to reduce the chance of sparks; the clandestine barrels
of liquor in cellars, complete with drinking straws; the yard
“politicians” who owed their jobs to patronage; sawyers in their
six-foot-deep sawpits; the sailors (“Jackies”) on the receiving ships
finding new ways to get extra grog on board.
A minor labor grievance in 1861 illustrates how the exigencies of war
changed the working atmosphere at the yard and reduced the workers’
leverage. As it had in 1852, the government decided that yard employees
should work sunrise to sunset from September to March, thus bringing
their hours in line with those of private yard workers. Again the
workers protested, although they continued to work, stating in their
petition that they had no desire to hinder the government’s campaign to
“crush out a foul rebellion.” This time the Navy made no concessions.
Two strikes in 1862 over the same issue were half-hearted and futile;
the longer hours remained in effect.
The sense of urgency and focus engendered by war and the accelerated
pace of technological change pushed the yard to extraordinary levels of
production. So it was not surprising that with the coming of peace the
activity here and at other yards fell off. But the drop was precipitous.
At war’s end, in sheer numbers and in engine technology, the U.S. fleet
compared favorably with those of the European powers. In the weeks after
Appomattox, however, the fleet shrank dramatically and continued to
decline thereafter. In the postwar economic and political climate, the
government’s priorities shifted. Massive funds were needed for
reconstruction of the southern states and for war-deferred developments
of the nation’s interior. The Navy would have to wait.
European navies, though, were riding the new wave of technology. In the
1870s their warships began to shed their sailing rigs as steam power
became routine technology. But in America the old guard reasserted
itself in peace, and there was a reaction against steam. After 1869, all
naval vessels, steam or not, were required to have “full sail power,”
and captains were on notice that they would pay for any coal they
consumed other than for emergencies. Four-bladed propellers were
replaced with two blades to reduce drag when under sail—with a
corresponding loss of steaming efficiency.
As the British and European navies rapidly converted to lighter and
stronger iron and then steel hulls on their largest ships, virtually all
U.S. vessels built in the 1860s and ’70s were wooden-hulled (although
some of these contained iron bracing). Even as late as 1885, the _Army
and Navy Journal_ asserted that “a staunch, fast wooden vessel is still
the best for cruising purposes.” But while wooden-hulled U.S. naval
vessels were generally acknowledged to be fine examples of their kind,
many were well past their prime: _Independence_, for example, flagship
of the first Mediterranean squadron, had been a receiving ship at Mare
Island Navy Yard in California since 1857.
It was not only romantic tradition that kept naval shipbuilding in its
antebellum condition. Burning coal in warships cost money; the wind, if
not as dependable, was free. Sails continued to make good sense on
long-distance cruises. America still had no foreign coaling stations to
support a distant steam fleet, and isolationist sentiment hindered their
acquisition.
[Illustration: _Marines guard the entrance to Charlestown Navy Yard
in 1874. The gate no longer exists, but the building at right,
dating to 1813, still stands._]
[Illustration: _Workers in the gun park, 1890s, load cannon and
cannonballs onto a cart. Dry dock and carpenter shop can be seen in
the background._]
[Illustration: _A baseball team of yard workers poses for its
picture in front of the machine shop, about 1905._]
For the same political and strategic reasons, America’s was a cruising
navy, made up of ships not intended for naval battle but for scouting,
showing the flag, and commerce raiding. Wooden hulls sufficed for such
roles. The government and private enterprise continued to look inland,
and iron was used instead for rails and bridges to speed westward
expansion. In any case, American metallurgy lagged behind that of
Britain, while diminishing timber supplies made British designers look
to alternate hull materials—not the case in the United States.
If the Navy in general and navy yards in particular declined in the
1870s, Charlestown’s relative position was strong. From after the war to
the early ’80s, Charlestown was the second most productive yard after
New York. A large number of vessels came to the yard for repair—mostly
wooden vessels with steam engines. To service these ships, Charlestown
in the 1870s continued to hire more machinists, engineers, boilermakers,
and patternmakers while retaining a solid contingent of wooden ship
tradesmen.
Few new vessels were launched from any yard in this period. In the last
three decades of the century Charlestown constructed three—all in 1874.
The screw sloops _Vandalia_ and _Adams_ were launched on successive
days, the latter (constructed at the yard by a private shipbuilder)
being the last wooden warship laid down by the Navy. A few months
earlier the yard had launched its first iron-hulled vessel, the torpedo
ram _Intrepid_. But it was not part of a general transition to iron. The
Navy built only four other iron-hulled vessels, none of them major
warships. The 1874 launchings at the Charlestown yard reflected the U.S.
Navy’s lukewarm and indecisive response to changing naval technology.
The yard by 1880 had changed little since the improvements of the ’50s.
It had greater capacity now with four shiphouses and two building ways,
but the physical plant also reflected the technological limbo into which
the Navy had settled. There was a coaling wharf to service steamers and
a new rolling mill for iron plate. But the large sail loft and wet
timber dock were still very much in use, and oxen still pulled the
timbers from dock to sawmill.
The dry dock was occupied by _Hartford_ in 1879-80. It was receiving new
engines after long tours in the 1860s and ’70s on Far Eastern stations.
Its two-year stay in the dock—longer than normally needed for such a
job—testified to the general state of affairs. The shrinking fleet had
reduced the work load and slowed the pace at the yard. Under such
conditions it was cheaper to use a smaller crew and take longer to do
the work.
That the Navy was willing to give this much attention to so honored a
ship as _Hartford_ is understandable. But it symbolized the fact that it
was only putting off the inevitable—modernization. By the early 1880s
the U.S. Navy floundered in the wake of Europe’s navies—the victim of
limited funds, tradition-bound officers, political neglect, and popular
indifference. There were but 48 decaying vessels in commission, most at
a Civil War or even prewar level of technology. On top of the other
problems, the corruption associated with the administration of Ulysses
S. Grant had touched the Navy—including the Charlestown yard—in the late
1870s. Here, as at other yards, politicians found jobs for men who were
then expected to vote as they were told. It is easy to see why one
historian has characterized this period as the “low water mark” of the
Navy.
There were rumors of yard closings. Nothing happened immediately, but
less and less work came to Charlestown. Then, in 1883, the Navy
suspended all repair and construction work at the yard and reduced its
role to manufacturing. So began hard times at Charlestown Navy Yard,
during which it came perilously close to shutting down altogether.
_Continues on page 45_
The Yard’s First Dry Dock
Before dry docks came into use in the 16th century, the only way to
service a ship’s hull was to “careen” it—heave it over on its side,
still floating (_see pages 6-7_), or laying in the mud at low tide. It
was difficult and time-consuming and put great strain on the hull. The
answer was the dry dock. The concept is simple: float the vessel into a
three-sided basin, then close the seaward end and remove all the water.
The vessel settles on a cradle, its hull accessible. To undock: reflood
the basin, open the seaward end and float the vessel out. But the
concept’s execution required a finely-engineered complex of masonry,
engines, pumps, reservoir, tunnels, culverts, valves, and gates—in
effect a huge well-coordinated machine. The Charlestown dry dock and the
one built concurrently at Norfolk, Va., were the first such naval
structures in the country. Six years under construction, the Charlestown
dock was inaugurated in 1833 with the docking of Constitution. It was
305 feet long (extended in 1856 to 370 feet and again in 1948 to 398
feet), 60 feet wide, and 30 feet deep—the Navy’s largest dry dock until
the 1890s. It took the original eight pumps four to five hours to empty
the tremendous basin. Other operations were to some extent governed by
Boston Harbor’s 10-foot tide. After the dock was enlarged the water
level did not rise as rapidly as the tide during filling, so it took two
high tides to do the job. For emptying and filling, the caisson was
filled with water and sunk in place between grooves in the dock walls.
For docking and undocking, the caisson was emptied and floated out of
the way on the high tide (_see inset_). It took 24 men working hand
pumps for an hour and a half to expel the water from the caisson. The
original wooden caisson lasted until 1901, when the steel caisson still
in use today was completed.
[Illustration: The Yard’s First Dry Dock]
1. After its 1858 launching, U.S.S. _Hartford_ is docked for
installation of its steam engine. To empty the dock, workers opened the
discharge gates (A), releasing water to flow (_red arrows_) down
discharge culverts (B) (on both sides of dock) to fill the reservoir
(C).
2. The pumphouse (D), its steam engine driving two pumps in underground
wells (E), pumped the water from the dock via the reservoir and sent it
through an underground culvert back to the harbor.
3. To fill the dock, the discharge gates were closed and the filling
gates (F) were opened. Water flowed (_green arrows_) first to wells (G),
then into the dock through the same culverts used to empty it.