Through a Spyglass, Darkly...

[Mark F. Jenkins]

or, the Worst Depictions of Civil War Warships!

I've seen a lot of illustrations of Civil War warships... and, while they haven't got the market cornered, the newspaper illustrations of Civil War ironclads and submarines are frequently breathtaking in their inaccuracy. In many cases, it is plain that the newspaper artist had nothing but the vaguest notion of what the vessel looked like, and in some cases not even that...

A few that spring immediately to my mind:

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Look at the size of those gunports! And that freeboard!

Attack of the A-Frames!

Nope, this isn't supposed to be the Manassas... it's supposedly the Savannah.

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How did the Confederates get "Pook Turtles"? And on the James River, no less?

There's that A-Frame again... this time, posing as CSS Arkansas.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Lest you think Union ships were immune...

Nice sectional drawing, eh?

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Accompanying a story reporting how the entire Union ironclad fleet was sat upon and squashed.

From a follow-up on that story.

The more I look at this one, the weirder it looks. The funnel is in front of the turret, for one thing.

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

I think that " A-Frame ironclad" made an appearance in Oh Brother Where Art Thou.

 

[TinCan]

And they want you to think it wasn't the work of aliens.........oh yeah!

 

[vikingbear]

Well at least .two designs at least seem kinda like proposed designs. The so called Merrimack design has some similar features to one of John's designs of the proposed reconstruction of the ships raised from Norfolk. The Savannah also looks like one of the early southern ironclad designs, the gulf coast I believe.
And to pick on John once more, he drafted a copy of the 1861 Union Norris 1 gun iron g unboat design, later saying that (or something like that) "Looks like something like a southerner would design. who knows what designs were sent to richmond and failed to be built. As a matter of fact Didn't John just write something about a design sent to Richmond being dropped from his book because there was no info about it? For all we know it could have looked like a A frame on a barge. As for the cow..........what's that saying? desperate time means desperate measures. (remenber the double barrel cannon?)......................so new type of southern secrate weapon........wait for it............."the cow bomb"!.............. Boy, would not like to be the guy hiding under that roof getting ready to light that thing .....well at least methine gas blows upward!
.....................Sorry guys couldn.t resist ........that's what happens when you walk all day go to a family party than try to play catch on the up on the naval forums. As for John, no disrespect intented but Believe all the above stuff is correct...............have to crash now as me Mini has been giving me dirty looks for the past hour..........so good night Grizz

GRIZZ

 

[rebelatsea]

Grizz , dead right. We know there were plans, sketches, models, written descriptions of vessels sent to Mallory or Porter from all over ,and all lost when the arsonist set fire to the mechanics institute GRRRRRRR ! There are tantalising fragments, but nothing concrete (or iron in this case).

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

That's hysterical, 7th Miss! Have to say, bet that kind of thing has always driven the real Navy folks insane- and newspapers got away with it because people like me would have bitten. I LIKE ships, too- even have tried and still try to tool around, learn about them, STILL would have bitten ( although would have caught most of these, The Alabama and the immersed Zeplin? ).

You would have thought given the hours and hours of work this art took, gee whiz- go the extra mile, try to get it right?

 

[rebelatsea]

Not forgetting these two:

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

And another "A-frame" version of the Arkansas:

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And I'll have to drop a dime on "my guy" Henry Walke; he did a few illustrations of the Arkansas, none of which are worth much (images to follow once I locate them). It's something I've puzzled over, as Walke is a generally reliable witness and usually paid pretty close attention to vessel appearances; yet here was an action he was in and he doesn't seem to have been able to produce a good image of his opponent? All I can figure is that he was too busy to do any sketching and the details were hazy by the time he could, but that's just speculation. An odd lapse (and an inconvenient one from our perspective).

Here's one of them... Arkansas' freeboard is ridiculously high here. Walke sensibly put Arkansas behind Carondelet and mostly shrouded her in smoke, perhaps a tacit admission that he didn't clearly remember what she looked like. I'm pretty sure from other illustrations of Arkansas that she did have a higher bow and freeboard than the Pook Turtles, but nowhere near that much higher. (By contrast, the Carondelet is nearly perfectly drawn... but of course Walke was much more familiar with her. I just noticed that this is a good example of the anchor symbol on the spreader bar between her chimneys.)

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Some submarine silliness...

I'd rather be the guy "supervising" than the guy cranking.

Uh... no. Just no. And I think the commander should be watching where he's going...

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

This design showed up a number of times when the artist didn't know what an ironclad was supposed to look like... seems to have been a hybrid "Monitor/Virginia," with two turrets atop a sloping casemate. Here, at left, it's portraying the first of the "dummy ironclads" on the Mississippi:

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(By the way, the original concept for the Dunderberg did have turrets atop a casemate, though they were eliminated in the final design for weight considerations.)

 

[rebelatsea]

That vessel bears a marked a resemblance to a design offered to Earles Shipbuilders of Hull UK. Attributed to John Hughes, Which i think is most unlikely, as I suspect it to be of English origin. It also offers homage to a proposal by Cowper Coles.
Mallory sent it to England. I don't know whether which Southern representative made the proposal ,but Earles turned it down, probably because, at this time they had never built a warship, let alone an ironclad. A remarkably accurate print of this vessel appeared in the British press alleging that this was North's ironclad.
This vessel was:
277ft 2ins OA 0x 47ft EX x 18ft D, 3.348 tons, single screw, to make 12 knots over the measured mile.
guns:4 -70pdr hexagonal bored Whitworth MLR in two Coles turrets
Protection:4.5 inch iron belt citadel and turrets.
The sailing rig appears to be for steadying purposes only .

I was made aware of this by a happy accident, in that a young friend moved to Hull and met the lady who is now his wife. Knowing my interest in ships and particularly this period , he spotted the plan when helping his father in law to move some stuff they had in storage, got hold of me and got permission for me to see it. The male side of the family are descendants of the Earles and have a lot of stuff relating to the shipyard, which has now been I understand given to the Hull city museum.
I did ask if I could obtain the plan but was politely and firmly told no.
The drawing is incomplete and unsigned, that I could see anyway, It is very fragile and has been badly damaged with a lot of detail obscured, for example. the engines appear to be Penn trunk, but are nearly all missing.
It is kept under glass, and I was not allowed to photocopy or photograph it, so I had to measure it and used the press print to complete my version. There are indications that bow and stern should be level with the citadel, but as I couldn't be sure so have followed the print.

 

[rebelatsea]

I have since wondered if Coles and maybe Lairds had a hand in this design, but there is nothing to indicate a link asisde from the turrets.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Weight and stability considerations aside, it strikes me that the turrets-on-casemate concept was a sound one... that's more or less the idea behind the RN's "breastwork monitors," isn't it?

 

[rebelatsea]

Mark , I'm afraid my drawing is a little crude, and I'm not sure I got the hull lines quite right, she was very broad and straight sided , but not quite flat bottomed, I may not have got the dead rise right. HMS Achilles hull is the nearest I can think of. Coles turrets were sunk into the upper deck, and the slope of the citadel is identical to that in one of his proposals. Yes you are correct about the Breastwork monitors.

 

[NeilL]

There is this image of the Arkansas; while the sketch actually is not bad, look at the excerpt of the story: who knew it could partially submerge! (according to the author, that is).

 

[AndyHall]

This is one of my favorites, the gun deck of C.S.S. Virginia as envisioned by the Parisian engravers at Le Monde Illustre. It's inaccurate in every way, yet so precisely detailed you can almost smell the garlic-sauteed escargot.

 

[rebelatsea]

I've always wondered why French sailors are manning Armstrong 110pdr BLR mounted of French wooden compressor slide carriages !

 

[Republican Blues]

Alleged photograph of CSS Georgia... looks like that A-Frame keeps popping up everywhere!!! FWIW, this has been debated and debated... I'm not convinced... cause that Ironclad sure looks like a drawing or sketch to me... it just dont look right ya know? According tot he attached, it is a photograph of a photograph found at a yardsale... the original image has since disappeared... seems a little to cconvenientya know?

http://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2013/11/mysteries-of-deep-upcoming-raising-of.html

 

[AndyHall]

That image looks like a second-generation photo of an original that's been heavily retouched.