I know that guy

[vikingbear]

This is a little different than usual but it widely connects with this forum.

The other day , while looking up stuff,something about ironclads spotted something that at first seemed out of place.

Away during the search, I quickly covered the 1st page and on to the second. There were the typical well known pictures, drawings, & paintings of steam ships, ironclads, ship profiles/plans and the pictures of the famous (and not so Famous) when several of Rebel at sea drafts appeared. Continued
searching untill reached a picture of Robert Small then stopped. There was some thing that seemed known that had just passed. Backtracking up, looking for what I thought had seen.....and it soon appeared. It was a picture of a older gentleman and it also was in color.
Sitting 3/4 of a page down, almost in the center of old pictures of ships and famous people (Not quite as old as the rest on the page ) Was a well known face, wearing a white shirt and tie seemingly ready to answer all our questions and supply informational drafts as needed.
If you don't by now.....could have also said he talked funny, but then he could say the same thing about us.
The picture was of Repel at sea, the only such picture on the whole two pages.
, Well John, do not know if that makes you famous , but in the world of naval civil war history . you stand alone. (hope that means the same thing there as it does here!)


Impressive job!

from a fellow forum member.
can only hope to be 1/2 as good some day

 

[rebelatsea]

I wonder what you were looking at, my drawings seem to turn up in all sorts of sites, usually completely without acknowledgement and sometimes well out of date, but not seen my mug shot!

 

[vikingbear]

Hi John,
Well it was you all right, the same one above your name, on the left of this screen.
I know had to do a double take at first. Well look at it this way, you deserve some thing for all the work you do!



Grizz

 

[rebelatsea]

Thanks Grizz.

 

[Waterloo50]

Thanks Grizz.

Just a quick question if you don't mind. When you draw up plans of ships, do you reference copies of original drafts or do you have a stash of reference books etc, I've been wondering how you manage to get access to drafts and plans, I've been wanting to get hold of a few plans of German U-boats but I'm not sure how to go about it. I appreciate that you deal mainly with CW era boats and ships but I'd imagine that the process and method of research and gaining access to original documents is exactly the same. I've seen quite a few of your posts and along with other members on the naval forum, you all come across as extremely knowledgeable and it never ceases to amaze me how often you mention things that don't appear to be general knowledge, I assume that you must have access to some very good material. I've been wanting to produce my own work theories etc but I don't want to rehash things that people already know about U-boats. How did you get started and how did you develop things.

My apologies, I just realised that I said 'just a quick question' I've actually asked you a number of questions.
Kind regards Waterloo.

 

[rebelatsea]

Just a quick question if you don't mind. When you draw up plans of ships, do you reference copies of original drafts or do you have a stash of reference books etc, I've been wondering how you manage to get access to drafts and plans, I've been wanting to get hold of a few plans of German U-boats but I'm not sure how to go about it. I appreciate that you deal mainly with CW era boats and ships but I'd imagine that the process and method of research and gaining access to original documents is exactly the same. I've seen quite a few of your posts and along with other members on the naval forum, you all come across as extremely knowledgeable and it never ceases to amaze me how often you mention things that don't appear to be general knowledge, I assume that you must have access to some very good material. I've been wanting to produce my own work theories etc but I don't want to rehash things that people already know about U-boats. How did you get started and how did you develop things.

My apologies, I just realised that I said 'just a quick question' I've actually asked you a number of questions.
Kind regards Waterloo.

No problem, indeed I have and have had some amazing sources, a lot of which are available to the public or on the net, but an equal number perhaps that are not. Here is the list from my manuscript.
It represents more than 30 years research and contacts, some of whom have passed on in the meantime.

INFORMATION SOURCES

Publications

Civil War Naval Chronology - US Navy Historical Division
Iron - William Still
Confederate Shipbuilding - William Still
Civil War Ironclads - Macbride
Pictorial History of the Confederate Navy - Philip Van Doren Stern
Ironclads in Action - H.W. Wilson
The Confederate Ironclads - Murray Melton
Battle Flags South - J.M. Merril
The History of The Confederate States Navy - Thomas Scharf
The Dictionary of American Fighting Ships - US Navy Historical Division
Die Deutschen Kreigschiff 1815 - 1945 - Erich Groener
Vor Panzerskribe - R Steen Steensen
British Battleships - Oscar Parkes
Warship International - International Naval Research Organisation (INRO)
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War- Johnson
All the World's Fighting Ships 1860 - 1905- Conway Maritime Press
Das Schwimmende Flottenmateriel der Seemachte 1881 - Seigfreid Weyer
Modern History of Warships - Professor Hovgard
The Secret Service of the Confederate States. - J.D.Bulloch
Memoirs of Service Afloat in the War Between the States - Raphael Semmes
Photographic History of the Civil War - F.T. Miller (beware of the captions)
Warships of the Civil War Navies - Paul H Silverstone
Warships and Naval Battles of The Civil War -Tony Gibbons
The Encyclopaedia of Ships GeneralEditor - Chris Marshall
The Encyclopaedia of Ships -General Editor Tony Gibbons
A History of the Confederate States Navy - Raimondo Luraghi
Thunder Along the Mississippi - Jack D. Combe
Capital Navy John M. Coski
The Confederate Navy, The ships MEN and Organisation 1861 - 1865 - Editor: Wm. Still.
The Evolution of Confederate Ironclad Design, unpublshed thesis - A. Robert Holcombe
North South Naval Images - W. Atteridge.
Ironclad of the Roanoke - Robert G. Elliott
Monitor James - Tertius Dekay
Battle of the Ironclads -John V Quarstein
Command Magazine
Recollections of a Rebel Reefer -James Morris Morgan
Rebel Reefers -James Lee Conrad
Sea Hawk of the Confederacy - R Thomas Campbell
Ironclads and Big Guns of the Confederacy - George M Brooke Jr
The Confederate Navy – A Study in Organisation Tom Wells
Ironclads at War - H. W Wilson
Calculated Tables of Ranges for Army & Navy guns - Lieut. W P Buckner USN
The Port City Ram, Port Columbus Museum of Civil War Naval History
Heavy Artillery Projectiles of the Civil War 1861 –1865 - Sydney C Rankin & Thomas S Dickey
Bizarre Ships of the Nineteenth Century - John Guthrie
From Monitor to Missile Boat Paloczi – Horvath. April 2002
Various period newspapers & journals as quoted in the main body text
US Monitors and Confederate Rams -Louis Davidson
The Engineer, various issues.
The New Vanguard Series Osprey Publishing.
The Flags of the Confederacy - Devereaux D. Cannon, Jr.
The Big Guns - Olmstead, Stark, & Tucker
Navy Gray - Maxine Turner
In Situ Archeological Evaluation of the CSS Georgia - Savannah District, US Army Corps of Engineers
Various contemporary newspapers et al - Courtesy of Ben Shuman
Illustrated London News
CSS Phoenix Thesis - David A Ball
CSS Raleigh, The History and Chronology Of a Civil War ironclad in the Cape Fear River- Martin D Peebles
Engines of the Rebellion - Saxon T Bisbee.
Report of Evidence taken before a Joint special committee of both houses of the Confederate Congress, to investigate the affairs of the Navy Department. With reference given to the evidence submitted and given by Secretary Mallory, the Tift brothers, constructors and others in regard to CSS Mississippi and her proposed consorts.
Clark County Historical Society Quarterly Clark County Alabama
Articles on Oven and Choctaw Bluff by Charles L Schell.
Ironclad Down - Carl D Park
The Best Station of them All - Maurice Melton
A man and his Boat - Katherine Bush Jeter.
The Laird Rams: Warships in Transition 1862-1885 Thesis by Andrew Ramsey English,
Ironmaker to the Confederacy - Charles B Dew
Gunboat building at Montgomery down through the years (article) - Peter Brannon in the Montgomery Advertiser,
Advertiser, January 2nd 1938. Microfilm,The Chattahootchie Valley Community College.
Ironclads at War - Jack Greene & Allessandro Massignani
Shaping the Royal Navy A collection of contemporary Admiralty Records & papers 1853 - 1870



Organisations

The Science Museum London England
The National Maritime Museum London England
The Liverpool Maritime Museum Liverpool England
Glasgow Maritime Museum Glasgow Scotland
Glasgow University Archives Glasgow Scotland
Port Columbus Museum of Civil War Naval History Columbus Ga. USA
Musee De Marine Paris France
Turkish Naval Museum Istanbul Turkey
International Naval Research Organisation (INRO) Worldwide
The US Naval Institute Washington DC
Museum of the Confederacy Richmond, Virginia
The American Civil War Round Table (UK)
Fort Branch Field Commission North Carolina. USA
Newcastle City Library and Archive Newcastle England
County Durham Archive Newcastle England
The American CivilWarTalk forum Internet.

People

The Curators and Staff of the above; and my friends and fellow researchers, The late James B Shuman (Ben), Henry P Harris, Robert Holcombe, Dean Stehman, Kazimerz (Kaz) Zygadlo, Patrick Hreachmack, The late Bernie Sanz, Frank Whitaker, Jack Greene, William E Lockridge, Manager of the Selma Research Project, Bill Ragan who unravelled the puzzles of shipbuilding at New Orleans and much more, Lt Cdr Charlie Robbins (Retd) USN, Mark Jenkins, George Wright, Dave Bright, Andy Hall, and many more gentlemen of the CivilWarTalk Naval Forum. Emir Yenir and Diego Mar of the ironclad pages on Facebook. Carpenter Brian Squires, Elliott James, Pat Stearman Archivist and Librarian, and many, many, more who helped in research and discovery


With apologies to any organisation or person I have left out who has been involved over the years.

Amazingly I have three sets of plans I am unable to use as the owners "do not want to be connected with the south and by implication, slavery". I have to say that I have a strong suspicion that one of them was not obtained llegally.

It is not my field , but the Bundesarchiv Koblenz, and the Naval Memorial Museum at Kiel, the Imperial War Museum in London, and perhaps your own Smithsonian come to mind. The latter two because of captured information. I'm not sure whether the Submarine Museum at Gosport, Hampshire UK holds any German records.
Hope that is helpful.

 

[Waterloo50]

Thank you very much for your response to my questions, I greatly appreciate it. That's an extremely impressive list of resources that you have there. I've built up a reasonably good U-boat collection of books some of which are quite rare. I'm a member of the U-boat.net forum and a few other U-boat groups which are helpful when trying to find those unusual pieces of information. I notice that you haven't listed the Admiralty in your list of resources, I don't know how things are today but for a small fee it used to be possible to get copies of plans and maps from them, I believe that they have quite an archive of information on shipwrecks world wide. Here's a link.https://www.gov.uk/guidance/inspire-portal-and-medin-bathymetry-data-archive-centre

 

[rebelatsea]

I didn't list the Admiralty as I am uncertain of the current state of the plans archive. It used to be in Bath, but a lot of stuff has been transferred out to the NMM, IWM, and the RN museum at Portsmouth. Also the Public Records Office at Kew!. This seems to be the done thing these days as the National Railway Museum at York is doing the same.They call it "de- aquisitioning"!
Many of the guys listed have become good friends over the years, a bonus !

 

[Waterloo50]

I didn't list the Admiralty as I am uncertain of the current state of the plans archive. It used to be in Bath, but a lot of stuff has been transferred out to the NMM, IWM, and the RN museum at Portsmouth. Also the Public Records Office at Kew!. This seems to be the done thing these days as the National Railway Museum at York is doing the same.They call it "de- aquisitioning"!
Many of the guys listed have become good friends over the years, a bonus !

I believe that the naval hydrographic office used to be based in Taunton Somerset but as you say things have changed, the archives may have been transferred elsewhere. Having good friends with the same interests is definitely a bonus, every decent historian and researcher that I've ever read about builds a network, it's a necessary requirement.

 

[rebelatsea]

It was

I believe that the naval hydrographic office used to be based in Taunton Somerset but as you say things have changed, the archives may have been transferred elsewhere. Having good friends with the same interests is definitely a bonus, every decent historian and researcher that I've ever read about builds a network, it's a necessary requirement.

It was indeed, the drawing office was in Bath, a friend's Dad worked there, making naval conversations a bit tricky at times! You would be surprised how many nautical buffs are interested in railroads and vice versa.