AndyHall
Colonel
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2011
Renders of a digital model of the Confederate casemate ironclad Texas, as she might have looked if completed as planned in 1865. Texas was laid down at Rocketts, the shipyard on the east bank of the James River below Richmond, in the late summer of 1863. Texas was similar in form to other ironclads designed by John L. Porter, but featured a very short casemate housing only four guns. The casemate was fitted with eight gunports – three each ahead and astern, each set served by a single gun on a pivot, and one gun on each broadside. Texas differed from most Confederate ironclads in having two screws, which may have been a choice forced on the builders by the availability of machinery. When Richmond was evacuated ahead of advancing Federal armies on April 2, 1865, Texas was still being plated with armor, and had yet to have her engines installed. The nearly-complete ironclad was abandoned where she lay.
This model is based on plans of Texas by David Meagher, published in John Coski’s superb history, Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron. Meagher’s drawings of Texas are (as always) finely-drawn and detailed. I departed from them in a few places, though, that need mentioning.
Meagher’s drawings show Texas as having a flat deck forward and aft, but other sources, notably Bob Holcombe’s 1993 master’s thesis from East Carolina University, point out that Texas’ deck had both camber (i.e., higher along the centerline of the vessel than at the sides), and also a sort of “reversed sheer,” in which the height of the deck rises as one approaches midships. This reportedly gave Texas an odd appearance, but was presumably done to help with the deflection of enemy shot.
Other reconstructions of the ship depict this feature using flat planes with hard angle, but for a variety of reasons – actually only one reason, because it looks better – I’ve chosen to make both the deck’s camber and “reverse sheer” smoother and more graceful. I also departed from Meagher’s drawings by reducing the diameter of the smokestack to match contemporary plans that survive today.
Meagher’s reconstruction of the casemate (above) is odd, as well, in that his interior plan includes a pivot gun set up to fire from any of the three after-facing gunport, but puts the forward gun on a Marsilly carriage, along with the two broadside guns. This impractical arrangement seems unlikely to have been used in practice. Additionally, Meagher places the pilothouse on the casemate behind the ship’s funnel, which would substantially block its view directly forward. This, too, seems to be an unlikely configuration.
Whatever its other limitations, though, Meagher's plan represents a formidable warship that like other Confederate ironclads constructed during the war, never quite managed to have the opportunity to prove themselves in action. Special thanks to CWT user Kazziga for his assistance in compiling material on this remarkable warship that almost was.
As before, full-size versions are available on Flickr.