US Navy growth spurt

[Carronade]

Warship construction was at a leisurely pace in the early-mid-1800s. Of nine ships of the line authorized in 1816, three were completed by 1820, one in 1837, one in 1848, three were still on stocks at the outbreak of the Civil War, and one was never started. The nine Brandywine class frigates started construction in 1819, but the last two were not commissioned until 1855. Smaller ships were completed a bit more promptly, some 25 sloops and ten brigs and schooners in the 1820s-40s. There were also the "repaired" Congress, Constellation, and Macedonian, actually new-built ships; all told some 52 sailing warships in the forty years 1816-55.

Steamers did not progress any more quickly. Demelogos aka Fulton was laid up almost as soon as she was commissioned in 1816. Starting with the second Fulton in 1837, there were about ten steam frigates, sloops, and gunboats by 1852, including Michigan, the one ship we were allowed by treaty on the Great Lakes. In sum, 62 ships in forty years, about 1 1/2 per year.

Starting in 1854 there was a significant increase in warship construction: six large, powerful steam frigates, followed by five sloops, basically smaller versions of the frigates, with the same broadside batteries of 9" Dahlgrens. Next came seven sloops of a new design, featuring heavy pivot guns*. Each were among the most powerful of their type in the world. All were in service by 1861, forming the core of the Union navy early in the war, and most had significant war service (one, Merrimack, on the wrong side ).

The number of ships and the promptness with which they were completed - 18 in seven years, start to finish - were a departure from prior practice and, as it turned out, quite timely. It would have been a significant increase in the annual naval budget also. Does anyone know what the motivation was? I'm not aware of any situation that required a naval buildup. The new ships featured the new Dahlgren guns, but that alone would not seem to explain the scale or urgency of the new program.

* one ship, Pawnee, was designed to carry 11" pivot guns but was given a conventional broadside arrangement of 9-inchers.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

The motivation appears to be at least partly political, and it did not occur in a vacuum; the Navy was going through a period of reform and activism that saw the abolition of flogging in 1850 and resulting reforms in the naval justice system, attempts to cull the officer corps of deadwood and put promotion on more logical basis, and continuing attempts to abandon the spirit ration. The recent experience of the Mexican War had emphasized the value of steamers in wartime, and the rise to prominence of reform- and forward-minded officers such as Matthew Calbraith Perry and Samuel Francis Du Pont coincided with a favorable legislative environment (Stephen R. Mallory of Florida as Chairman of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee, to name a significant individual) and a cooperative and energetic Secretary of the Navy, J. C. Dobbin.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

BTW, I think it was Donald Canney who noted that, while the majority of the antebellum U.S. Navy was composed of obsolete types, largely because of an unfavorable funding environment, the Navy did "keep its toe in the water," so to speak, of up-to-date developments, building just a one or a handful of modern ships at a time, and hoping that rapid building could answer any emergency. The Navy was apparently caught off guard by the advent of the Civil War, but that probably says more about Buchanan's Secretary of the Navy Isaac Toucey than it does about the capability of the service to react.


Along those lines, the actual reaction once Gideon Welles (and soon after, Gustavus Fox) was in place and running was to:

1) Call home ships from foreign stations;
2) Activate ships in ordinary ("mothballed");
3) Institute an immediate building program by ordering additional examples of warships already built or in construction by various shipyards;
4) Build a large series of small gunboats (the famed "90-day gunboats") based on a modified but pre-existing plan;
5) Purchase appropriate civilian vessels for conversion.

If Toucey had started even one of these items going during the lame-duck Buchanan administration, the Navy would have been significantly more ready in April 1861. But he didn't.

 

[godofredus]

Thanks guys. The U.S. Navy in the Civil War is a much neglected topic FMPofV....
I am fascinated by it because if the Union Army was composed of "hired Hessians and Negroes," the Union Navy was composed of an even more polyglot mix of the ordinary seamen ranks....

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Mph. Watch that Hessian talk. One of my ancestors would take it personal.

 

[Carronade]

BTW, I think it was Donald Canney who noted that, while the majority of the antebellum U.S. Navy was composed of obsolete types, largely because of an unfavorable funding environment, the Navy did "keep its toe in the water," so to speak, of up-to-date developments, building just a one or a handful of modern ships at a time, and hoping that rapid building could answer any emergency. The Navy was apparently caught off guard by the advent of the Civil War, but that probably says more about Buchanan's Secretary of the Navy Isaac Toucey than it does about the capability of the service to react.


Along those lines, the actual reaction once Gideon Welles (and soon after, Gustavus Fox) was in place and running was to:

1) Call home ships from foreign stations;
2) Activate ships in ordinary ("mothballed");
3) Institute an immediate building program by ordering additional examples of warships already built or in construction by various shipyards;
4) Build a large series of small gunboats (the famed "90-day gunboats") based on a modified but pre-existing plan;
5) Purchase appropriate civilian vessels for conversion.

If Toucey had started even one of these items going during the lame-duck Buchanan administration, the Navy would have been significantly more ready in April 1861. But he didn't.

True, but any of those actions except bringing home some of our ships from overseas stations would have been seen as provocative, especially the acquisition of any ships distinctly suitable for operation in American coastal waters. It would also have required appropriations from Congress, which would have been contentitious to say the least. Activating any significant number of ships would also require recruiting crews - did we maintain officers on half-pay the way the RN did?

Neither Buchanan nor Lincoln prior to Sumter were prepared to call up troops or make any but the most discreet arrangements to secure federal property, and I think the same logic would apply to naval mobilization.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Oh, yes, and that's the main reason for Toucey's apparent inactivity: he was trying to do absolutely nothing that could have been seen as provocation, and that includes all methods that would have made the Navy more prepared.

Yes, there was a similar arrangement for officers' pay as with the RN. The formula wasn't precisely half-pay-- rank, experience, and other factors changed it up a little-- but it's pretty close.

 

[OpnCoronet]

As an old 'conspiracy theorist' I think the date (1854) is significant, to the uptick of ship completions. IIs it possible that other ships besides the Merrimack, were intended to be captured in southern ports at the outbreak of secession/War?
In this regard too, I understand the Officer corps and Navy Dept. was even more rife with Confederate supporters and sympathizers than the Army, if that were possible.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Despite charges to the contrary, and some undisputed connivance among certain Southern-leaning officers (like Farrand and Renshaw at Pensacola), it does not appear that there were any deep-laid plans or conspiracies at work. There were a large number of vessels laid up at Norfolk because Norfolk was one of the three largest prewar naval bases (along with New York/Brooklyn and Boston). By the numbers ( http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/going_south.htm#app ), the proportion of officers "going south" was not significantly different in the Navy than in the Army, allowing for the fact that it was a much smaller service.

 

[Carronade]

All five Merrimack class frigates were in ordinary at the time, four of them in northern ports. She was the only steamer in Norfolk, and I'm only aware of one other steam warship in any port in the seceded states, the old Fulton at Pensacola. The only other really valuable ship at Norfolk was Cumberland, which had been rearmed with 9- and 10-inch Dahlgrens; she was the one ship the federals managed to save, towed away by Pawnee.

 

[rebelatsea]

If memory serves me right, I think I said in another thread, that it was the intention to razee the surviving ships of the line and convert them into single deck steam frigates. Had this program been commenced, I wonder how long it would have been before someone suggested adding armour?

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

If memory serves me right, I think I said in another thread, that it was the intention to razee the surviving ships of the line and convert them into single deck steam frigates. Had this program been commenced, I wonder how long it would have been before someone suggested adding armour?

The impetus for this had come from the undoubted success of the former ship of the line Independence as a "razee" frigate; the same approach was used in another successful conversion, that of the frigate Cumberland into a sloop.

That said, most of the liners that were in the water in the 1850s were serving as receiving ships; I'm not sure how much farther they would have gone to turn them back into fighting units.