THE GUN-BOATS “TYLER” AND “LEXINGTON” ENGAGING THE BATTERIES OP COLUMBUS, KY., DURING THE BATTLE OP BELMONT.
After a sketch by Rear-Admiral Walke.
acceptable to Captain Pox, who said: “We want vessels much lighter than that.”
“But you want them to carry a certain thickness of iron?” I replied.
“Yes, we want them to be proof against heavy shot,—to be plated and heavily plated,—but they must be of much lighter draught.”
After the interview I returned with the plans to my hotel, and commenced a revision of them; and in the course of a few days I presented the plans for the Osage and the Neosho. . . . Each vessel had a rotating turret, carrying two eleven-inch guns, the turret being six inches thick, but extending only a few feet above the deck of the vessel. I was very anxious to construct these turrets after a plan which I had devised, quite different from the Ericsson or Coles systems, and in which the guns should be operated by steam. But, within a month after the engagement at Port Donelson, the memorable contest between the Merrimae and the Monitor occurred, whereupon the Navy Department insisted on Ericsson turrets being placed upon these two vessels.
At the same time the department was anxious to have four larger vessels for operations on the lower Mississippi River, which should have two turrets each, and it consented that I should place one of my turrets on each of two of these vessels (the Chickasaw and the Milwaukee) at my own risk, to be replaced with Ericsson's in ease of failure. These were the first turrets in which the guns were manipulated by steam, and they were fired every forty-five seconds. . . . While perfecting those plans, I prepared the designs for the larger vessels (the Chickasaw, Milwaukee, Winnebago, and Kickapoo), and when these were approved by Captain Pox and the officers of the navy to whom they were submitted at Washington, Mr. Welles expressed the wish that I should confer with Admiral Poote about them before proceeding to build them, inasmuch as the experience which he had had at Ports Henry and Donelson and elsewhere would be of great value, and might enable him to suggest improvements in them. I therefore hastened from Washington to Island Number Ten, a hundred miles below Cairo, on the Mississippi River, where Foote’s flotilla was then engaged. . . .
through a snatch-block fastened by a large chain to a ring-bolt in the side of the vessel. I was on the upper deck of the vessel near Captain Winslow when the chain which held this lock broke. It was made of iron one and one-eighth inches in diameter, and the link separated into three pieces. The largest, being one-half of the link, was found on the shore at a distance of at least five hundred feet. Half of the remainder struck the iron plating on the bow of the boat, making an indentation half the thickness of one’s finger in depth. The third piece struck Captain Winslow on the fleshy part of the arm, cutting through his coat and the muscles of his arm. The wound was a very painful one, but he bore it as might be expected. The iron had probably cut an inch and a half into the arm between the shoulder and the elbow. In the course of the day the Benton was floated, and proceeded on her voyage down the river without further delay. Captain Winslow soon after departed for his home on leave of absence. On his recovery he was placed in command of the Kearsarge, and to that accident he owed, perhaps, the fame of being the captor of the Alabama.
When the Benton arrived at Cairo she was visited by all the officers of the army and navy stationed there, and was taken, on that or the following day, on a trial trip a few miles down the river. The Essex, in command of Captain William D. Porter, was lying four or five miles below the mouth of the Ohio on the Kentucky shore. As the Benton passed up, on her return from this little expedition, Captain Porter offered his congratulations to Poote on the apparent excellence of the boat. “Yes,” replied Poote,“but she is almost too slow.”
‘ ‘ Plenty fast enough to fight with,” was Porter’s rejoinder.
Very soon after this (early in the spring of 1862) I was called to Washington, with the request to prepare plans for still lighter iron-elad vessels, the draught of those which I had then completed being only about six feet. The later plans were for vessels that should be capable of going up the Tennessee and the Cumberland. As rapidly as possible I prepared and presented for the inspection of Secretary Welles and his able assistant, Captain Pox, plans of vessels drawing five feet. They were not
REAR-ADMIRAL ANDREW HULL FOOTE. From a photograph.
requested by Admiral Poote to accompany the vessel, he had not instructed the captain so far as I knew, to be guided by my advice in case of difficulty. After they had been working all night to get the boat afloat, she was harder on than ever; moreover, the water had fallen about six inches. I then volunteered the opinion to Captain Winslow that if he would run hawsers ashore in a certain direction, directly opposite to that in which he had been trying to move the boat, she could be got off. He replied, very promptly, “Mr. Eads, if you will undertake to get her off, I shall be very willing to place the entire crew under your direction.” I at once accepted the offer; and Lieutenant Bishop was called up and instructed to obey my directions. Several very large hawsers had been put on board of the boat for the fleet at Cairo. One of the largest was got out and secured to a large tree on the shore, and as heavy a strain was put upon it as the cable would be likely to bear. As the water was still falling, I ordered out a second one, and a third, and a fourth, until five or six eleven-inch hawsers were heavily strained in the effort to drag the broad-bottomed vessel off the bar. There were three steam capstans on the bow of the vessel, and these were used in tightening the strain by luffs upon the hawsers. One of the hawsers was led
manner the Benton became a war vessel of about seventy-five feet beam, a greater breadth, perhaps, than that of any war vessel then afloat. She was about two hundred feet long. A slanting casemate, covered with iron plates, was placed on her sides and across her bow and stern; and the wheel was protected in a similar manner. The casemate on the sides and bow was covered with iron 3J inches thick; the wheel-house and stern with lighter plates, like the first seven boats built by me. She carried 16 guns,—7 32-pounders, 2 9-ineh guns, and 7 army 42-pounders.
The wish of Admiral Poote to have me see this boat safely to Cairo was prompted by his knowledge that I had had experience in the management of steamboats upon the river, and his fear that she would be detained by grounding. Ice had just begun to float in the Mississippi when the Benton put out from my ship-yard at Carondelet for the South. Some 30 or 40 miles below St. Louis she grounded. Under the direction of Captain Winslow, who commanded the vessel, Lieutenant Bishop, executive officer of the ship, an intelligent and energetic young man, set the crew at work. An anchor was put out for the purpose of hauling her off. My advice was not asked with reference to this first proceeding, and although I had been
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