1.
CSS Virginia II
–
CSS Virginia II was a Confederate Navy steam-powered ironclad ram laid down in 1862 at the William Graves shipyard in Richmond, Virginia. Acting Constructor William A. Graves, CSN, was the superintendent in charge of her construction, due to the shortening of her casemate, the number of her cannon were reduced to a single 11 smoothbore, a single 8 rifle, and two 6.4 rifles. The Virginia II was named after the more famous Confederate ironclad, CSS Virginia, the chairman was Maria Gaitskell Clopton. It is estimated that the society contributed more than $30,000 towards Virginia IIs construction, by November 1862, John Mercer Brooke was able to report that she was pretty well advanced, frames up, clamps in, etc. She will be a strong and fine vessel. However, after this start, significant delays plagued the new ironclad. It was not until more than a year after she was laid down that Virginia II was finally launched without incident on June 29,1863 and she glided into the water like a thing of life amid the prolonged cheers of the spectators. However, she suffered from further fitting-out delays and was not fully commissioned until May 18,1864, almost a year later, she was made the flagship of the James River Squadron. Virginia II went into action on June 21,1864 as the flagship of Commodore John K. Mitchell, CSN, during the engagement between the Confederate James River Squadron and Federal ships in Trents Reach. But the ironclad developed mechanical problems when an errant chain from the nearby CSS Richmond became entangled in her propeller, on August 13, the Virginia II participated in the attack on the Union forces at Dutch Gap. USS Maugus and her gunboats joined in the battle but could not effectively train their guns, on August 17, she participated in the capture of Signal Hill, shelling the Union defenses from 3 p. m. until 9 p. m. before finally ceasing fire. Once again, though, the Virginia II suffered difficulty, delaying her entrance into the battle and she had just received a new cannon, and in the rush to leave the dock, the supply ship Gallego became entangled in her anchor chain, causing the Gallego to sink. In their routine patrol of the James River, the squadron was surprised to discover, on the morning of October 22, that the Union Army had finished fortifying Cox Hill. To cover the retreat of the Confederate wooden vessels, Virginia II approached the battery, during this, the Virginia IIs smokestack was riddled by shells. On December 7 Virginia II, along with the Fredericksburg and Richmond, steamed down to Fort Brady near Trents Reach, a reliable report indicated there was a passage through, as a result of a freshet of melting ice. After passing the Union batteries at Fort Brady sometime after 8 p. m. the Virginia II accidentally beached Torpedo by cutting too close to the shore, the captain of Nansemond untied his ship from Virginia II in an attempt to free Torpedo. The fleet continued on and reached the obstructions at Trents Reach, again Virginia II ran into trouble, this time running aground, the smaller ships tried to free her for three hours. Only two ships made it through, the rest were either running aground or helping the ones that had run aground. Dawn came with most of the squadron in full view of the Union fortifications at Battery Parsons, in late morning, just as the water was high enough to re-float Virginia II, the Union fleet arrived and added its firepower
CSS Virginia II
–
Smokestack from CSS Virginia II
CSS Virginia II
–
Site of the sinking of Virginia II and other ships in the
James River. The part showing above water is from
CSS Jamestown. (Photograph by
Mathew Brady)
2.
CSS Virginia
–
Virginia was one of the participants in the Battle of Hampton Roads, opposing the Unions USS Monitor in March 1862. The battle is significant in naval history as the first battle between ironclads. When the Commonwealth of Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861, one of the important federal military bases threatened was Gosport Navy Yard in Portsmouth, accordingly, orders were sent to destroy the base rather than allow it to fall into Confederate hands. On the afternoon of 17 April, the day Virginia seceded, however, the previous night secessionists had sunk lightboats between Craney Island and Sewells Point, blocking the channel. On 20 April, before evacuating the Navy Yard, the U. S. Navy burned Merrimack to the waterline and sank her to preclude capture. When the Confederate government took possession of the fully provisioned yard and this was completed by May 30, and she was towed into the shipyards only graving dock, where the burned structures were removed. The wreck was surveyed and her hull and machinery were discovered to be undamaged. Stephen Mallory, Secretary of the Navy decided to convert the Merrimack into an ironclad, preliminary sketch designs were submitted by Lieutenants John Mercer Brooke and John L. Porter, each of whom envisaged the ship as a casemate ironclad. Brookes general design showed the bow and stern portions submerged, the detailed design work would be completed by Porter, who was a trained naval constructor. The hulls burned timbers were cut down past the original waterline, leaving just enough clearance to accommodate her large. A new fantail and armored casemate were built atop a new deck, and a v-shaped breakwater was added to her bow. This forward and aft deck and fantail were designed to stay submerged and were covered in 4-inch-thick iron plate. It was decided to equip their ironclad with a ram, an anachronism on a 19th century warship, merrimacks steam engines, now part of Virginia, were in poor working order, they had been slated for replacement when the decision was made to abandon the Norfolk naval yard. There were four gun ports on each broadside, their protective iron shutters remained uninstalled during both days of the Battle of Hampton Roads, Virginias battery consisted of four muzzle-loading single-banded Brooke rifles and six smoothbore 9-inch Dahlgren guns salvaged from the old Merrimack. Two of the rifles, the bow and stern guns, were 7-inch caliber. The other two were 6. 4-inch cannon of about 9,100 pounds, one on each broadside. The 9-inch Dahlgrens were mounted three to a side, each weighed approximately 9,200 pounds and could fire a 72. 5-pound shell up to a range of 3,357 yards at an elevation of 15°. Both amidship Dahlgrens nearest the boiler furnaces were fitted-out to fire heated shot, on her upper casemate deck were positioned two anti-boarding/personnel 12-pounder Howitzers
CSS Virginia
–
CSS Virginia. The image is captioned Merrimac; see
below.
CSS Virginia
–
Cut away view showing the 4 inches (102 mm) of iron armor and 24 inches (610 mm) of wood backing it
CSS Virginia
–
Chromolithograph depicting the Battle of Hampton Roads
CSS Virginia
–
Anchor of the CSS Virginia at the Museum of the Confederacy
3.
Confederate States of America
–
The Confederate States, officially the Confederate States of America, commonly referred to as the Confederacy, was a breakaway country of 11 secessionist slave states existing from 1861 to 1865. It was never recognized as an Independent country, although it achieved belligerent status by Britain. A new Confederate government was established in February 1861 before Lincoln took office in March, after the Civil War began in April, four slave states of the Upper South – Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina – also declared their secession and joined the Confederacy. The government of the United States rejected the claims of secession, the Civil War began with the April 12,1861, Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter, a Union fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. In spring 1865, after four years of fighting which led to an estimated 620,000 military deaths, all the Confederate forces surrendered. Jefferson Davis later lamented that the Confederacy had disappeared in 1865, Missouri and Kentucky were represented by partisan factions from those states, while the legitimate governments of those two states retained formal adherence to the Union. Also fighting for the Confederacy were two of the Five Civilized Tribes located in Indian Territory and a new, but uncontrolled, Confederate Territory of Arizona. Efforts by certain factions in Maryland to secede were halted by federal imposition of law, while Delaware, though of divided loyalty. A Unionist government in parts of Virginia organized the new state of West Virginia. With the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1,1863, the Union made abolition of slavery a war goal, as Union forces moved southward, large numbers of plantation slaves were freed. Many joined the Union lines, enrolling in service as soldiers, teamsters and laborers, the most notable advance was Shermans March to the Sea in late 1864. Much of the Confederacys infrastructure was destroyed, including telegraphs, railroads, plantations in the path of Shermans forces were severely damaged. Internal movement became increasingly difficult for Southerners, weakening the economy and these losses created an insurmountable disadvantage in men, materiel, and finance. Public support for Confederate President Jefferson Daviss administration eroded over time due to repeated military reverses, economic hardships, after four years of campaigning, Richmond was captured by Union forces in April 1865. Shortly afterward, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, President Davis was captured on May 10,1865, and jailed in preparation for a treason trial that was ultimately never held. The U. S. government began a process known as Reconstruction which attempted to resolve the political and constitutional issues of the Civil War. By 1877, the Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction in the former Confederate states, Confederate veterans had been temporarily disenfranchised by Reconstruction policy. The prewar South had many areas, the war left the entire region economically devastated by military action, ruined infrastructure
Confederate States of America
–
Alexander Stephens CSA Vice President; old Whig friend of Lincoln; author of 'Cornerstone Speech'
Confederate States of America
–
Flag (1861–1863)
Confederate States of America
–
William L. Yancey, Alabama Fire-Eater, "The Orator of Secession".
Confederate States of America
–
William Henry Gist, Governor of South Carolina, called the Secessionist Convention.
4.
Scuttling
–
Scuttling is the deliberate sinking of a ship by allowing water to flow into the hull. This can be achieved in several ways—valves or hatches can be opened to the sea and their success would have halted his inland march and conquest of the Aztec Empire. HMS Sapphire was a 32-gun, fifth-rate sailing frigate of the Royal Navy in Newfoundland Colony to protect the English migratory fishery, the vessel was trapped in Bay Bulls harbour by four French naval vessels led by Jacques-François de Brouillan. To avoid capture, the English scuttled the vessel on 11 September 1696, the British sank one ship on October 10,1781 to prevent it from getting captured by the French fleet. During the Belgian war of independence, Dutch gunboat commander Jan van Speijk came under attack from a mob of Antwerp labourers. When they forced him and his crew to surrender, he ignited a barrel of gunpowder, thus sinking his ship and killing himself, according to tradition, in his last words he said hed rather be blown up than become a Belgian. Van Speijk went on to become a hero in The Netherlands. After the war, it became a challenge to recover the ships. In 1861, the Federal steam frigate Merrimack was set afire in Gosport Shipyard to keep her from falling into Confederate hands, the unsuccessful attempt at scuttling enabled the Confederate Navy to raise and rebuild her as Virginia. Virginia was later sunk by the Confederates after her famous battle with USS Monitor to keep her from being taken back. During the War of the Pacific, as Chilean troops entered Lima and El Callao, in August 1914, SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse was requisitioned by the Kaiserliche Marine and converted into an auxiliary cruiser, assigned to commerce raiding in the Atlantic. She was fitted with six 10.5 cm guns and two 37 mm guns, after sparing two passenger ships because they were carrying many women and children, she sank two freighters before she herself was sunk on 26 August 1914. She was caught refuelling off the shore of the then Spanish colony of Río de Oro in western Africa by the old British 6-inch gunned cruiser HMS Highflyer, badly outgunned, the ship eventually ran out of ammunition. The crew abandoned and scuttled her, British sources at the time insisted that Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse sank because of the damage inflicted by Highflyer. In December 1914, SMS Dresden was the only German warship to escape destruction in the Battle of the Falkland Islands and she eluded her British pursuers for several more months, until she put into Más a Tierra in March 1915. Her engines were out and she had almost no coal left for her boilers. There, she was trapped by British cruisers, which violated Chilean neutrality, dresdens Executive Officer - the future Admiral Wilhelm Canaris - negotiated with the British and bought time for his shipmates to scuttle Dresden. Thetis, Intrepid and Iphigenia were filled with concrete then sent to block a critical canal, heavy defensive fire caused the Thetis to scuttle prematurely, the other two cruisers sank themselves successfully in the narrowest part of the canal
Scuttling
–
Monument to the Scuttled Ships by
Amandus Adamson, just off the promenade at
Sevastopol.
Scuttling
–
A ship lying underwater in Sevastopol, 1858.
Scuttling
–
Merrimack alight 20 April 1861.
Scuttling
–
SMS Hindenburg after scuttling in Scapa Flow.
5.
Casemate ironclad
–
The casemate ironclad is a type of iron or iron-armored gunboat briefly used in the American Civil War. In its general appearance, a casemate ironclad consisted of a hull with little freeboard. This casemate housed anywhere from 2 to 15 cannons, most of them in positions as in classical warships. The casemate was heavily armored over heavy wood backing and was sloped to deflect direct hits, armor was also applied to the part of the hull above the waterline. The casemate was often box-shaped, with octagon shapes appearing in the stages of the war. From the top of the casemate protruded an armored lookout structure that served as a pilothouse, inside the casemate, the guns were housed in one continuous deck. Unlike with turret ironclads, the guns had to fire through fixed gunports and therefore aiming was done by moving the gun relative to the gunport. This was labor-intensive and often up to 20 men were needed to load, aim, fire, and clean a gun, and even with this manpower the firing rate was no better than one shot per five minutes. Although the Union successfully used a fleet of casemate ironclad riverboats in their Mississippi and Red River Campaigns. In their specific outer appearances, i. e, british examples were among others HMS Bellerophon and HMS Hercules. French examples included Brasil and Redoutable, as a result, by 1910 no navy had any casemate warship left in service. Union Navy Confederate States Navy Baxter, James Phinney, 3rd, the Introduction of the Ironclad Warship. War at Sea in the Ironclad Age, hampton Roads 1862, First Clash of the Ironclads. South Brunswick, New Jersey, Thomas Yoseloff Ltd. p.319, Sea Power, A Modern Illustrated Military History. New York City, New York, Exeter Books, History of the Confederate States navy from its organization to the surrender of its last vessel. Joseph McDonough, Albany, N. Y. p.824
Casemate ironclad
–
Casemate Ironclad
USS Cairo on a contemporary photograph.
Casemate ironclad
–
CSS Palmetto State, the archetypical casemate ironclad. Note the sloped deck and the low waterline.
Casemate ironclad
–
Detail of the remains of
USS Cairo as a museum ship today. The sloped casemate deck is clearly visible.
6.
Horsepower
–
Horsepower is a unit of measurement of power. There are many different standards and types of horsepower, two common definitions being used today are the mechanical horsepower, which is approximately 746 watts, and the metric horsepower, which is approximately 735.5 watts. The term was adopted in the late 18th century by Scottish engineer James Watt to compare the output of engines with the power of draft horses. It was later expanded to include the power of other types of piston engines, as well as turbines, electric motors. The definition of the unit varied among geographical regions, most countries now use the SI unit watt for measurement of power. With the implementation of the EU Directive 80/181/EEC on January 1,2010, units called horsepower have differing definitions, The mechanical horsepower, also known as imperial horsepower equals approximately 745.7 watts. It was defined originally as exactly 550 foot-pounds per second [745.7 N. m/s), the metric horsepower equals approximately 735.5 watts. It was defined originally as 75 kgf-m per second is approximately equivalent to 735.5 watts, the Pferdestärke PS is a name for a group of similar power measurements used in Germany around the end of the 19th century, all of about one metric horsepower in size. The boiler horsepower equals 9809.5 watts and it was used for rating steam boilers and is equivalent to 34.5 pounds of water evaporated per hour at 212 degrees Fahrenheit. One horsepower for rating electric motors is equal to 746 watts, one horsepower for rating Continental European electric motors is equal to 735 watts. Continental European electric motors used to have dual ratings, one British Royal Automobile Club horsepower can equal a range of values based on estimates of several engine dimensions. It is one of the tax horsepower systems adopted around Europe, the development of the steam engine provided a reason to compare the output of horses with that of the engines that could replace them. He had previously agreed to take royalties of one third of the savings in coal from the older Newcomen steam engines and this royalty scheme did not work with customers who did not have existing steam engines but used horses instead. Watt determined that a horse could turn a mill wheel 144 times in an hour, the wheel was 12 feet in radius, therefore, the horse travelled 2.4 × 2π ×12 feet in one minute. Watt judged that the horse could pull with a force of 180 pounds-force. So, P = W t = F d t =180 l b f ×2.4 ×2 π ×12 f t 1 m i n =32,572 f t ⋅ l b f m i n. Watt defined and calculated the horsepower as 32,572 ft·lbf/min, Watt determined that a pony could lift an average 220 lbf 100 ft per minute over a four-hour working shift. Watt then judged a horse was 50% more powerful than a pony, engineering in History recounts that John Smeaton initially estimated that a horse could produce 22,916 foot-pounds per minute
Horsepower
–
A team of six horses mowing hay in
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
7.
Marine steam engine
–
A marine steam engine is a steam engine that is used to power a ship or boat. Reciprocating steam engines were replaced in marine applications during the 20th century by steam turbines. The first commercially successful engine was developed by Thomas Newcomen in 1712. The steam engine improvements brought forth by James Watt in the half of the 18th century greatly improved steam engine efficiency. In 1807, the American Robert Fulton built the worlds first commercially successful steamboat, simply known as the North River Steamboat, following Fultons success, steamboat technology developed rapidly on both sides of the Atlantic. The first successful transatlantic crossing by a steamship occurred in 1819 when Savannah sailed from Savannah, Georgia to Liverpool, the first steamship to make regular transatlantic crossings was the sidewheel steamer Great Western in 1838. As the 19th century progressed, marine engines and steamship technology developed alongside each other. A wide variety of reciprocating steam engines were developed over the course of the 19th century. The two main methods of classifying such engines are by connection mechanism and cylinder technology, most early marine engines had the same cylinder technology but a number of different methods of supplying power to the crankshaft were in use. Thus, early engines are classified mostly according to their connection mechanism. Some common connection mechanisms were side-lever, steeple, walking beam, however, steam engines can also be classified according to their cylinder technology. One can therefore sometimes find examples of engines which were classified under both methods, such as the walking beam. Over time, as most engines became direct-acting but cylinder technologies were growing more complex, Some of the more commonly encountered types of marine steam engine are listed in the following sections. Note that not all of these terms may have been used exclusively in relation to marine applications, the side-lever engine was the first type of steam engine to be widely adopted for marine use in Europe. The side-lever was an adaptation of the earliest form of steam engine and these levers extended, on the cylinder side, to each side of the bottom of the vertical engine cylinder. A piston rod, connected vertically to the piston, extended out of the top of the cylinder and this rod attached to a horizontal crosshead which, at each end, was connected to vertical rods. These rods connected down to the levers on each side of the cylinder and this formed the connection of the levers to the piston on the cylinder side of the engine. The other side of the levers were connected to each other with a horizontal crosstail and this crosstail in turn connected to and operated a single connecting rod, which turned the crankshaft
Marine steam engine
–
Period cutaway diagram of a triple-expansion steam engine installation, circa 1918
Marine steam engine
–
Side-lever engine of
SS Pacific (1849)
Marine steam engine
–
Side-lever engine of
RMS Persia (1855)
Marine steam engine
–
Early Napier side-lever engine from PS Leven, on display at
Dumbarton,
Scotland
8.
Boiler (steam generator)
–
A boiler is a closed vessel in which water or other fluid is heated. The fluid does not necessarily boil, the heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications, including water heating, central heating, boiler-based power generation, cooking, and sanitation. The pressure vessel of a boiler is usually made of steel, stainless steel, especially of the austenitic types, is not used in wetted parts of boilers due to corrosion and stress corrosion cracking. In live steam models, copper or brass is used because it is more easily fabricated in smaller size boilers. For much of the Victorian age of steam, the material used for boilermaking was the highest grade of wrought iron. In the 20th century, design practice instead moved towards the use of steel, which is stronger and cheaper, with welded construction, which is quicker and requires less labour. It should be noted, however, that wrought iron boilers corrode far slower than their steel counterparts. This makes the longevity of older wrought-iron boilers far superior to those of welded steel boilers, cast iron may be used for the heating vessel of domestic water heaters. Although such heaters are usually termed boilers in some countries, their purpose is usually to produce hot water, not steam, the brittleness of cast iron makes it impractical for high-pressure steam boilers. The source of heat for a boiler is combustion of any of several fuels, such as wood, coal, oil, electric steam boilers use resistance- or immersion-type heating elements. Nuclear fission is used as a heat source for generating steam, either directly or, in most cases. Heat recovery steam generators use the heat rejected from other such as gas turbine. 18th century Haycock boilers generally produced and stored large volumes of very low-pressure steam and these could burn wood or most often, coal. Flued boiler with one or two large flues—an early type or forerunner of fire-tube boiler, fire-tube boiler, Here, water partially fills a boiler barrel with a small volume left above to accommodate the steam. This is the type of boiler used in nearly all steam locomotives, the heat source is inside a furnace or firebox that has to be kept permanently surrounded by the water in order to maintain the temperature of the heating surface below the boiling point. Fire-tube boilers usually have a low rate of steam production. Fire-tube boilers mostly burn solid fuels, but are adaptable to those of the liquid or gas variety. Water-tube boiler, In this type, tubes filled with water are arranged inside a furnace in a number of possible configurations and this type generally gives high steam production rates, but less storage capacity than the above
Boiler (steam generator)
–
A portable boiler (preserved,
Poland).
Boiler (steam generator)
–
A stationary boiler (
United States).
Boiler (steam generator)
–
1950s design
steam locomotive boiler, from a
Victorian Railways J class
Boiler (steam generator)
–
A superheated boiler on a steam locomotive.
9.
Knot (unit)
–
The knot is a unit of speed equal to one nautical mile per hour, approximately 1.151 mph. The ISO Standard symbol for the knot is kn, the same symbol is preferred by the IEEE, kt is also common. The knot is a unit that is accepted for use with the SI. Etymologically, the term derives from counting the number of knots in the line that unspooled from the reel of a log in a specific time. 1 international knot =1 nautical mile per hour,1.852 kilometres per hour,0.514 metres per second,1.151 miles per hour,20.254 inches per second,1852 m is the length of the internationally agreed nautical mile. The US adopted the definition in 1954, having previously used the US nautical mile. The UK adopted the international nautical mile definition in 1970, having used the UK Admiralty nautical mile. The speeds of vessels relative to the fluids in which they travel are measured in knots, for consistency, the speeds of navigational fluids are also measured in knots. Thus, speed over the ground and rate of progress towards a distant point are given in knots. Until the mid-19th century, vessel speed at sea was measured using a chip log, the chip log was cast over the stern of the moving vessel and the line allowed to pay out. Knots placed at a distance of 8 fathoms -47 feet 3 inches from each other, passed through a sailors fingers, the knot count would be reported and used in the sailing masters dead reckoning and navigation. This method gives a value for the knot of 20.25 in/s, the difference from the modern definition is less than 0. 02%. On a chart of the North Atlantic, the scale varies by a factor of two from Florida to Greenland, a single graphic scale, of the sort on many maps, would therefore be useless on such a chart. Recent British Admiralty charts have a latitude scale down the middle to make this even easier, speed is sometimes incorrectly expressed as knots per hour, which is in fact a measure of acceleration. Prior to 1969, airworthiness standards for aircraft in the United States Federal Aviation Regulations specified that distances were to be in statute miles. In 1969, these standards were amended to specify that distances were to be in nautical miles. At 11000 m, an airspeed of 300 kn may correspond to a true airspeed of 500 kn in standard conditions. Beaufort scale Hull speed, which deals with theoretical estimates of maximum speed of displacement hulls Knot count Knotted cord Metre per second Orders of magnitude Rope Kemp
Knot (unit)
–
Graphic scale from a Mercator projection world map, showing the change with latitude
10.
Brooke rifle
–
The Brooke rifle was a type of rifled, muzzle-loading naval and coast defense gun designed by John Mercer Brooke, an officer in the Confederate States Navy. They were produced by plants in Richmond, Virginia and Selma, Alabama between 1861 and 1865 during the American Civil War and they served afloat on Confederate ships and ashore in coast defense batteries manned by the Confederate States Army. Brookes can be identified by the presence of at least one band of iron at the breech. Because no southern foundries had the capacity to wrap the rifles in a band like the Parrott design. All of Brookes rifles used the same seven-groove rifling with a right-hand twist, most of Brookes guns had a Gomer-style powder chamber, shaped like a truncated cone with a hemispherical tip, but the 6. 4-inch rifles had a simple hemispherical powder chamber. These weapons were manufactured at the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia, Guns manufactured at Selma bear the foundry imprint S, those from Tredegar TF. R. N. O. W may be found on some guns as they were bored and rifled by the Richmond Naval Ordnance Works in Richmond, Virginia after a fire in May 1863 temporarily crippled Tredegars boring shop. Brooke reported fourteen single-banded 6.4 in rifles were completed by 8 January 1863, three were cast in 1861 with the remainder in 1862. Two of the earliest were mounted on the broadside of the ironclad CSS Virginia, two were mounted fore and aft on pivot carriages aboard the ironclad gunboat CSS Neuse. Two others were mounted on the broadside of the ironclad CSS Atlanta, double-banded rifles were produced from 28 October 1862 by direction of Stephen Mallory, Confederate Secretary of the Navy. Twenty-four were cast by Tredegar between 1862 and 1864 while Selma cast twenty-seven, but only fifteen were shipped due to casting problems, five of the damaged gun blocks were rebored as 8-inch double-banded smoothbores. Nine survivors exist, including four from USS Tennessee, and one from CSS Albemarle, the first seven single-banded 7-inch were bored and rifled from 9-inch Dahlgren gun blocks between July and December 1861. Two of these were the front and rear guns of the CSS Virginia. Tredegar made another nineteen to the Brooke pattern between 1862 and 1863 of which three survive, two of these are found at the Washington Navy Yard as trophies from CSS Atlanta. Selma cast fifty-four double-banded rifles in 1863 and 1864, but only shipped thirty-nine due to casting flaws, Tredegar cast thirty-six between 1863 and 1865. Eight survive, two from USS Tennessee, one in the Washington Navy Yard and the other in Selma, another, number S89, may be found at Fort Morgan State Historic Park. Two more have just been recovered from the CSS PeeDee on September 29,2015, three triple-banded rifles were cast by Tredegar in 1862. These were 15 inches longer than the other 7-inch rifles and were unique among Brooke guns in that they lacked cast trunnions, instead a separate trunnion strap was fitted around the breech
Brooke rifle
–
A 7-inch (178 mm) single-banded Brooke rifle captured aboard CSS Atlanta
Brooke rifle
–
Drawing of a single-banded Brooke for the
CSS Texas
Brooke rifle
–
A 8-inch (203 mm) double-banded Brooke rifle
11.
Dahlgren gun
–
Dahlgren guns were muzzle-loading naval artillery designed by Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren USN, mostly used in the period of the American Civil War. Dahlgrens design philosophy evolved from an explosion in 1849 of a 32-pounder being tested for accuracy. He believed a safer, more powerful naval cannon could be designed using more scientific design criteria, because of their rounded contours, Dahlgren guns were nicknamed soda bottles, a shape which became their most identifiable characteristic. During the Mexican-American War the U. S. found itself lacking in light guns that could be fired from ships’ boats, light artillery borrowed from the army proved unsatisfactory. The first boat howitzers to be designed were a light 12-pounder, a heavy 12-pounder, later a lighter 12-pounder and a rifled 12-pounder heavy howitzer were introduced. Having the single mounting lug expedited moving the howitzer from the launch to field carriage, in naval service the boat howitzers had gun crews of 10 in the boat and 11 ashore. The field carriage was made of wrought iron, no limber was used in naval service, but two ammunition boxes could be lashed to the axle of the field carriage. Members of the gun crew also carried a round in an ammunition pouch. The smoothbore boat howitzers fired shell, shrapnel, and canister, the rifled 12-pounder fired shot and shell. Percussion primers were used in service, but the howitzers could also use friction primers obtained from the army. The small and the light 12-pounder boat howitzers were not popular, the boat howitzers were occasionally used in artillery batteries, but were more often used in infantry units, in a role that would later be called infantry support guns. At First Bull Run, Company I of the 71st Regiment, NY National Guard, the unit had trained on boat howitzers while deployed at Washington D. C. and when called to Bull Run, brought two of them along. When the regiment retreated they left the howitzers behind for the Confederate forces to capture, during the Antietam Campaign, Whitings Battery, employed five Dahlgren boat howitzers. The howitzers fired on Confederate skirmishers at Snavelys Ford and suppressed them, the Confederate Grimes Battery had two smoothbore Dahlgren boat howitzers, with which they fought near Pipers Stone Barn. The boat howitzers appeared to be popular—when Grimes battery was forced to turn in one of its guns, the 1st Regiment, New York Marine Artillery, also armed themselves with boat howitzers, using them for their designed use of amphibious expeditions. The unit participated in 16 raids along the North Carolina coast employing their boat howitzers, the New York Marine Artillery was issued twelve 12-pounder rifled boat howitzers made by Norman Wiard out of semi-steel, a low-carbon iron alloy. Other than the used, the Wiard boat howitzers were identical to the Dahlgren 12-pounder rifled boat howitzers. The Wiard howitzers were not made in large numbers, boat howitzers were used in the western theaters also
Dahlgren gun
–
John A. Dahlgren standing next to a 50-pounder Dahlgren rifle aboard
USS Pawnee, 1865.
Dahlgren gun
–
A 9-inch Dahlgren smoothbore naval gun and crew in the stern pivot position of
USS Miami, 1864. (
National Archives).
Dahlgren gun
–
Dahlgren boat howitzer mounted in frigate's launch. The field carriage can be seen in stern
Dahlgren gun
–
Dahlgren boat howitzer mounted on field carriage
12.
Smoothbore
–
A smoothbore weapon is one that has a barrel without rifling. Smoothbores range from handheld firearms to powerful tank guns and large artillery mortars, the majority of shotguns are smoothbores and the term can be synonymous. Early firearms had smooth barrels that fired projectiles without significant spin, to minimize inaccuracy-inducing tumbling during flight their projectiles required stable shape, such as a sphere. However, the Magnus effect causes even spheres rotating randomly during flight to curve when spinning on any axis not parallel to the direction of travel, rifling a barrel with spiral grooves or polygonal rifling imparts a stabilizing gyroscopic spin to a projectile that prevents tumbling in flight. Not only does this more than counter Magnus-induced drift, but it allows a longer, heavier round to be fired from the same caliber barrel, artillery weapons were smoothbore until the middle 19th century, and smoothbores continued in limited use until the 1890s. Early rifled artillery pieces were patented by Joseph Whitworth and William Armstrong in the United Kingdom in 1855, in the United States, rifled small arms and artillery were gradually adopted during the American Civil War. However, heavy coast defense Rodman smoothbores persisted in the US until circa 1900 due to the tendency of the Civil Wars heavy Parrott rifles to burst, some smoothbore firearms are still used. A shotgun fires multiple, round shot, firing out of a barrel would impart centrifugal forces that result a doughnut-shaped pattern of shot. While this may be acceptable at close ranges this is not desirable at longer ranges, the cannon made the transition from smoothbore firing cannonballs to rifled firing shells in the 19th century. However, to penetrate the thick armor of modern armored vehicles many modern tank guns have moved back to smoothbore. These fire a long, thin kinetic-energy projectile, too long in relation to its diameter to develop the necessary spin rate through rifling. Instead, kinetic energy rounds are produced as fin-stabililzed darts, not only does this reduce the time and expense of rifling barrels it also reduces the need for replacement due to barrel wear. The first tank with a gun was the Soviet T-62. Today all main battle tanks field them except the British Challenger 2, while the 73 mm gun of the early Soviet infantry fighting vehicles BMP-1 and BMD-1 was a smoothbore, their more recent successors BMP-3 and BMD-4 use a rifled 100 mm gun. The Russian navy conducted experiments with large-caliber smoothbore naval guns, which were halted by budget cuts, the armour-piercing gun evolution has also shown up in small arms, particularly the now abandoned U. S. The ACR rifles used smoothbore barrels to fire single or multiple flechettes, rather than bullets, per pull of the trigger, to long range, flat trajectory. Just like kinetic-energy tank rounds, flechettes are too long and thin to be stabilized by rifling, the ACR program was abandoned due to reliability problems and poor terminal ballistics. Mortar barrels are typically muzzle-loading smoothbores, since mortars fire bombs that are dropped down the barrel and must not be a tight fit, a smooth barrel is essential
Smoothbore
–
Replica of "Twin Sisters" smoothbores used in the
Battle of San Jacinto (1836)
Smoothbore
–
A
81mm L16 smoothbore mortar
Smoothbore
–
A smooth-bore, cast-iron ship's cannon, from the
Grand Turk, a replica of a mid-18th century three-masted frigate
Smoothbore
–
USS Monitor (1862) with the muzzle of one of its two 11-inch smoothbore
Dahlgren guns showing.
13.
Howitzer
–
In the taxonomies of artillery pieces used by European armies in the 17th to 20th centuries, the howitzer stood between the gun and the mortar. Howitzers, like other artillery equipment, are organized in groups called batteries. The English word howitzer comes from the Czech word houfnice, from houf, crowd, haufen, sometimes in the compound Gewalthaufen, also designated a pike square formation in German. This is particularly true in the forces of the United States. Because of this practice, the howitzer is used in some armies as a generic term for any kind of artillery piece that is designed to attack targets using indirect fire. Thus, artillery pieces that bear resemblance to howitzers of earlier eras are now described as howitzers. Most other armies in the reserve the word howitzer for guns with barrel lengths 15 to 25 times their caliber. The British had a method of nomenclature. In the 18th century, they adopted projectile weight for guns replacing the old naming system of culverin, saker, mortars had been categorized by calibre in inches in the 17th century and this was inherited by howitzers. The modern howitzers were invented in Sweden towards the end of the 17th century, originally intended for use in siege warfare, they were particularly useful for delivering cast-iron shells filled with gunpowder or incendiary materials into the interior of fortifications. In the middle of the 18th century, a number of European armies began to introduce howitzers that were enough to accompany armies in the field. Though usually fired at the high angles of fire used by contemporary siege howitzers. Rather, as the guns of the day were usually restricted to inert projectiles. Many, for the sake of simplicity and rapidity of fire, the Abus gun was an early form of howitzer in the Ottoman Empire. In 1758 the Russian Empire introduced a type of howitzer, with a conical chamber, called a licorne. The most famous of these gun-howitzers was the Napoleon 12-pounder, a weapon of French design that saw service in the American Civil War. The longest-serving artillery piece of the 19th century was the mountain howitzer, in 1859, the armies of Europe began to rearm field batteries with rifled field guns. These new field pieces used cylindrical projectiles that, while smaller in caliber than the spherical shells of smoothbore field howitzers, moreover, their greater range let them create many of the same effects that previously required the sharply curved trajectories of smoothbore field howitzers
Howitzer
–
Pre-
WW1 290-mm howitzer battery at
Charlottenlund Fort,
Denmark
Howitzer
–
Mountain howitzer firing
Howitzer
–
12-pdr Napoleon at the
Colorado State Capitol
Howitzer
–
Nineteenth-century 12-pounder (5 kg) mountain howitzer displayed by the
National Park Service at
Fort Laramie in
Wyoming, United States
14.
Belt armor
–
Belt armor is a layer of heavy metal armor plated onto or within the outer hulls of warships, typically on battleships, battlecruisers and cruisers, and aircraft carriers. The belt armor is designed to prevent projectiles from penetrating to the heart of a warship, typically, the main armor belt covers the warship from its main deck down to some distance below the waterline. If, instead of forming the hull, the armor belt is built inside the hull, it is installed at a sloped angle for improved protection. Furthermore, the spaces around the main belt in some designs were filled with storage tanks that could contain fuel oil, seawater. The liquids in these tanks absorb or scatter much of the force of warheads. To deal with the leakage from the tanks and incoming seawater and this multilayer design is featured in the cross-sectional drawings of Tirpitz and King George V. In combat, a warship can be seriously damaged underwater not only by torpedoes, to improve protection against both shells and torpedoes, an air space can be added between the armor belt and the hull to increase the buoyancy of the warship. Some kinds of naval warships have belt armor thinner than actually necessary for protection against projectiles and this is common especially with battlecruisers, battleships, and aircraft carriers to reduce their weight, thus increasing their acceleration and speed. Another possible reason is to meet treaty restrictions on ship displacement, one such method is all-or-nothing armoring, where belt armor is stripped from areas deemed non-vital to the functioning of the ship in battle. Agility gained from such processes are an asset to offensive warships that seek to quickly bring their heavy striking power to the enemy. In carriers, the maneuverability is exploited when deploying and recovering aircraft, since planes take off and land most easily when flying into the wind, the aircraft carrier steams rapidly into the wind in both maneuvers, making take-off and landing safer and easier. S. Comparison of WW2 battleship armor schemes Torpedo belt Protected cruiser Armored cruiser
Belt armor
–
Belt armor on damaged USS Oklahoma
Belt armor
–
Diagram of common elements of warship armor. The belt armor is denoted by "A".
15.
Deck (ship)
–
A deck is a permanent covering over a compartment or a hull of a ship. On a boat or ship, the primary or upper deck is the structure that forms the roof of the hull, strengthening it. Decks for some purposes have specific names, the main purpose of the upper or primary deck is structural, and only secondarily to provide weather-tightness and support people and equipment. The deck serves as the lid to the box girder which is the hull. It resists tension, compression, and racking forces, the decks scantling is usually the same as the topsides, or might be heavier if the deck is expected to carry heavier loads. The deck will be reinforced around deck fittings such as the capstan, cleats, on ships with more than one level, deck refers to the level itself. The actual floor surface is called the sole, the term refers to a structural member tying the ships frames or ribs together over the keel. In modern ships, the decks are usually numbered from the primary deck. So the first deck below the deck will be #2. Some merchant ships may alternatively designate decks below the deck, usually machinery spaces, by numbers. Ships may also call decks by common names, or may invent fanciful and romantic names for a deck or area of that specific ship. Equipment mounted on deck, such as the wheel, binnacle, fife rails. Eastern designs developed earlier, with efficient middle decks and minimalist fore, in vessels having more than one deck there are various naming conventions, numerically, alphabetically, etc. However, there are various common historical names and types of decks,01 level is the term used in naval services to refer to the deck above the main deck. The next higher decks are referred to as the 02 level, the 03 level, afterdeck an open deck area toward the stern-aft. Berth deck, A deck next below the gun deck, where the hammocks of the crew are slung, Boat deck, Especially on ships with sponsons, the deck area where lifeboats or the ships gig are stored. Boiler deck, The passenger deck above the vessels boilers, may also refer to the deck of a bridge. Flight deck, A deck from which aircraft take off or land, flush deck, Any continuous unbroken deck from stem to stern
Deck (ship)
–
RMS Olympic 's deck
Deck (ship)
–
The upper deck of the
Falls of Clyde is iron; a centre strip is planked with wood as a sort of walkway. As is typical for a late-19th-century vessel, several deckhouses may be seen.
Deck (ship)
–
Crew and passengers on the wraparound deck of
RMS Queen Mary 2, an
ocean liner.
Deck (ship)
–
Weather deck of the Swedish 17th century warship
Vasa looking aft toward the sterncastle.
16.
Casemate
–
A casemate, sometimes erroneously rendered casement, is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which guns are fired. Originally, the referred to a vaulted chamber in a fortress. In armoured fighting vehicles that do not have a turret for the main gun, the word comes from the Italian casamatta, the etymology of which is uncertain. Others think that it comes from the Arabic word kasaba, transliterated to kasbah, menagio speculated that it came from the Greek word for pit, khasma, the plural of which is khasmata. Hensleigh Wedgwood thought that it came from the Spanish casa and matar, others take matto in its archaic Italian meaning of dark, equivalent to the English matt, as in opaque, making a casamatta a dark house. Casematte were also used as prisons, making use of their lack of light to add to the punishment. This explanation seems to be the most agreed upon, a casemate was originally a vaulted chamber usually constructed underneath the rampart. It was intended to be impenetrable and could be used for sheltering troops or stores, with the addition of an embrasure through the scarp face of the rampart, it could be used as a protected gun position. In the early 19th century, French military engineer Baron Haxo designed a free-standing casemate that could be built on the top of the rampart, casemates built in concrete were used in the Second World War to protect coastal artillery from air attack. In warship design the term casemate has been used in a number of ways, the most famous naval battle of the war was the duel at Hampton Roads between the Union turretted ironclad USS Monitor and the Confederate casemate ironclad CSS Virginia. Casemate ship was a term for central battery ship or center battery ship. The casemate was a box that extended the full width of the ship protecting many guns. The armoured sides of the box were the sides of hull of the ship, there was an armoured bulkhead at the front and rear of the casemate, and a thick deck protecting the top. The lower edge of the casemate sat on top of ships belt armour, some ships, such as the Alexandra, had a two-storey casemate. A casemate was a room in the side of a warship. A typical casemate held a 6-in gun, and had a 6 front plate, with armour plates on the sides and rear, with a protected top and floor. Casemates were similar in size to turrets, ships carrying them had them in pairs, the first battleships to carry them were the British Royal Sovereign class laid down in 1889. They were adopted as a result of live-firing trials against HMS Resistance in 1888, the use of casemates enabled the 6-in guns to be dispersed, so that a single hit would not knock out all of them
Casemate
–
Fort Bokar was built as a two-story casemate fortress, standing in front of the medieval
Walls of Dubrovnik in
Croatia.
Casemate
–
Early 19th century casemates under the rampart at the
Bastille overlooking
Grenoble
Casemate
–
An early 19th century Haxo casemate at
Fort Amherst,
Chatham
Casemate
–
Three tiers of artillery casemates at the mid-19th century
Fort Point, San Francisco
17.
Ironclad warship
–
An ironclad is a steam-propelled warship protected by iron or steel armor plates used in the early part of the second half of the 19th century. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of warships to explosive or incendiary shells. The first ironclad battleship, Gloire, was launched by the French Navy in November 1859 and this type of ship would come to be very successful in the American Civil War. Ironclads were designed for several roles, including as high seas battleships, coastal defense ships and this change was pushed forward by the development of heavier naval guns, more sophisticated steam engines, and advances in metallurgy which made steel shipbuilding possible. The quick pace of change meant that ships were obsolete as soon as they were finished. Many ironclads were built to use of the ram or the torpedo. There is no end to the ironclad period, but towards the end of the 1890s the term ironclad dropped out of use. New ships were constructed to a standard pattern and designated battleships or armored cruisers. The ironclad became technically feasible and tactically necessary because of developments in shipbuilding in the first half of the 19th century. According to naval historian J. Richard Hill, The had three characteristics, a metal-skinned hull, steam propulsion and a main armament of guns capable of firing explosive shells. It is only when all three characteristics are present that a ship can properly be called an ironclad. Each of these developments was introduced separately in the decade before the first ironclads, in the 18th and early 19th centuries fleets had relied on two types of major warship, the ship of the line and the frigate. The first major change to these types was the introduction of power for propulsion. While paddle steamer warships had been used from the 1830s onwards, steam-powered screw frigates were built in the mid-1840s, and at the end of the decade the French Navy introduced steam power to its line of battle. The desire for change came from the ambition of Napoleon III to gain influence in Europe. The first purpose-built steam battleship was the 90-gun Napoléon in 1850, the introduction of the steam ship-of-the-line led to a building competition between France and Britain. Eight sister ships to Napoléon were built in France over a period of ten years, altogether, France built ten new wooden steam battleships and converted 28 from older ships of the line, while the United Kingdom built 18 and converted 41. The era of the wooden steam ship-of-the-line was brief, because of new, in the 1820s and 1830s, warships began to mount increasingly heavy guns, replacing 18- and 24-pounder guns with 32-pounders on sailing ships-of-the-line and introducing 68-pounders on steamers
Ironclad warship
–
The first battle between ironclads:
CSS Virginia (left) vs.
USS Monitor, in the March 1862
Battle of Hampton Roads
Ironclad warship
–
Napoléon (1850), the first steam battleship
Ironclad warship
–
A
Paixhans naval
shell gun. 1860 engraving.
Ironclad warship
–
French Navy ironclad floating battery
Lave, 1854. This ironclad, together with the similar Tonnante and Dévastation, vanquished Russian land batteries at the
Battle of Kinburn (1855).
18.
Confederate States Navy
–
The Navy of the Confederate States was the naval branch of the Confederate States Armed Forces, established by an act of the Confederate Congress on February 21,1861. It was responsible for Confederate naval operations during the American Civil War, the Confederate navy could never achieve numerical equality with the U. S. Navy, so it used technological innovation, such as ironclads, submarines, torpedo boats, and naval mines to gain advantage. In February 1861 the Confederate Navy had 30 vessels, only 14 of which were seaworthy, the Union Navy had 90 vessels. The C. S. Navy eventually grew to 101 ships to meet the rise in naval threats and conflicts, on April 20,1861 the U. S. was forced to quickly abandon the important Gosport Navy Yard at Norfolk, Virginia. In their haste they failed to burn the facility with its large depots of arms and other supplies. As a result, the Confederacy captured much needed war materials, including cannon, gunpowder, shot. Of most importance to the Confederacy was the dry docks. The Confederacys only substantial navy yard with at time was in Pensacola, Florida. The most significant warship left at the Yard was the screw frigate USS Merrimack, the U. S. Navy had torched Merrimacks superstructure and upper deck, then scuttled the vessel, it would have been immediately useful as a warship to their enemy. Little of the structure remained other than the hull, which was holed by the scuttling charge. Confederate Navy Secretary Stephen Mallory had the idea to raise Merrimack, when the hull was raised, it had not been submerged long enough to have been rendered unusable, the steam engines and essential machinery were salvageable. The decks were rebuilt using thick oak and pine planking, the newly rebuilt superstructure was unusual, above the waterline the sides sloped inward and were covered with two layers of heavy iron-plate armor. The vessel was a new kind of warship, an all-steam powered iron-clad, in the centuries-old tradition of reusing captured ships, the new ship was christened CSS Virginia. She later fought the Unions new ironclad USS Monitor, on the second day of the Battle of Hampton Roads, the two ships met and each scored numerous hits on the other. After four hours both ships were taking in water through split seams and breaches by enemy shot, the engines of both were becoming dangerously overtaxed, and their crews were near exhaustion. The two ships turned and steamed away, never to meet again, the last Confederate surrender took place in Liverpool, United Kingdom on November 6,1865 aboard the commerce raider CSS Shenandoah when her flag was lowered for the final time. This surrender brought about the end of the Confederate navy, the Shenandoah had circumnavigated the globe, the only Confederate ship to do so. The act of the Confederate Congress that created the Confederate Navy on February 21,1861 also appointed Stephen Mallory as Secretary of the Department of the Navy
Confederate States Navy
–
Illustration of the Confederate fleet at New Orleans
Confederate States Navy
–
Confederate Navy Department Seal
Confederate States Navy
–
CSS Virginia
Confederate States Navy
–
Drawing of the
Hunley
19.
American Civil War
–
The American Civil War was an internal conflict fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of America, the Union won the war, which remains the bloodiest in U. S. history. Among the 34 U. S. states in February 1861, War broke out in April 1861 when Confederates attacked the U. S. fortress of Fort Sumter. The Confederacy grew to eleven states, it claimed two more states, the Indian Territory, and the southern portions of the western territories of Arizona. The Confederacy was never recognized by the United States government nor by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal, including border states where slavery was legal, were known as the Union or the North, the war ended with the surrender of all the Confederate armies and the dissolution of the Confederate government in the spring of 1865. The war had its origin in the issue of slavery. The Confederacy collapsed and 4 million slaves were freed, but before his inauguration, seven slave states with cotton-based economies formed the Confederacy. The first six to declare secession had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, the first seven with state legislatures to resolve for secession included split majorities for unionists Douglas and Bell in Georgia with 51% and Louisiana with 55%. Alabama had voted 46% for those unionists, Mississippi with 40%, Florida with 38%, Texas with 25%, of these, only Texas held a referendum on secession. Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession, outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincolns March 4,1861 inaugural address declared that his administration would not initiate a civil war, speaking directly to the Southern States, he reaffirmed, I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists. I believe I have no right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. After Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy, efforts at compromise failed, the Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on King Cotton that they would intervene, but none did, and none recognized the new Confederate States of America. Hostilities began on April 12,1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, while in the Western Theater the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, the battle was inconclusive in 1861–62. The autumn 1862 Confederate campaigns into Maryland and Kentucky failed, dissuading British intervention, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal. To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy, then much of their western armies, the 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lees Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg, Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grants command of all Union armies in 1864
American Civil War
–
New Orleans the largest cotton exporting port for New England and Great Britain textile mills, shipping Mississippi River Valley goods from North, South and Border states.
American Civil War
–
Clockwise from top:
Battle of Gettysburg,
Union Captain John Tidball's artillery,
Confederate prisoners,
ironclad USS Atlanta, ruins of
Richmond, Virginia,
Battle of Franklin
American Civil War
–
Sen. Stephen Douglas, author of the
Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854
American Civil War
–
Sen. John J. Crittenden, of the 1860
Crittenden Compromise
20.
Steam frigate
–
Steam frigates, also known as screw frigates, and the smaller steam corvettes and steam sloops were steam-powered warships. The first such ships were steam-powered versions of the frigates, corvettes. The first vessel that can be considered a warship was the Demologos. From the early 1820s, the British Navy began building a number of steam warships. This first generation of warships, termed paddle warships, used paddlewheels mounted on either the sides or in the center. The ships were equipped with guns, generally mounted on one deck. These warships more closely resembled the traditional sailing warship, and were built with steam engines and these screw frigates, built first of wood and later of iron, continued to perform the traditional role of the frigate until late in the 19th century. France and the United Kingdom were the two countries to develop fleets of wooden steam screw battleships, and both navies built numbers of screw frigates. From 1859, armour was added to ships based on existing frigate, the phrase armoured frigate remained in use for some time to denote a sail-equipped, broadside-firing type of ironclad. For a time, they were the most powerful type of vessel afloat, towards the end of the 19th century, the term frigate fell out of use. Armoured vessels were designated as either battleships or armoured cruisers, while unarmoured vessels including frigates, the only surviving screw frigate is the Danish Jylland. List of frigate classes of the Royal Navy
Steam frigate
–
Russian steam corvette
Vityaz
Steam frigate
–
HMS Birkenhead was laid down as a steam frigate, but made redundant by screw-driven propulsion before her completion in 1845.
21.
USS Merrimack (1855)
–
USS Merrimack, also improperly Merrimac, was a frigate, best known as the hull upon which the ironclad warship CSS Virginia was constructed during the American Civil War. The CSS Virginia then took part in the Battle of Hampton Roads in the first engagement between ironclad warships, Merrimack was the first of six screw frigates begun in 1854. Like others of her class, she was named after the eponymous river, in Massachusetts, the Merrimack River flows through the town of Merrimac, often considered an older spelling which has sometimes caused confusion of the name. Merrimack was launched by the Boston Navy Yard 15 June 1855, sponsored by Miss Mary E. Simmons and she was the second ship of the Navy to be named for the Merrimack River. Shakedown took the new frigate to the Caribbean and to Western Europe. Merrimack visited Southampton, Brest, Lisbon, and Toulon before returning to Boston, recommissioning 1 September 1857, Merrimack got underway from Boston Harbor 17 October as flagship for the Pacific Squadron. She rounded Cape Horn and cruised the Pacific coast of South, upon returning to Norfolk, she decommissioned 16 February 1860. Merrimack was still in ordinary during the crisis preceding Lincolns inauguration, soon after becoming Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles took action to prepare the frigate for sea, planning to move her to Philadelphia. The day before the firing on Fort Sumter, Welles directed that great vigilance be exercised in guarding and protecting Norfolk Navy Yard and her ships. On the 20 April, before evacuating the Navy Yard, the U. S. Navy burned Merrimack to the waterline and sank her to preclude capture. The Confederacy, in desperate need of ships, raised Merrimack and rebuilt her as a ram, according to a design prepared by Lt. John Mercer Brooke. The entry can be found here, the Old Steam Navy, Frigates, Slops and Gunboats, 1815–1882. Chesneau, Roger, Kolesnik, Eugene M. eds, conways All the Worlds Fighting Ships 1860–1905. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, olmstead, Edwin, Stark, Wayne E. Tucker, Spencer C. The Big Guns, Civil War Siege, Seacoast, and Naval Cannon, alexandria Bay, New York, Museum Restoration Service. Silverstone, Paul H. Civil War Navies 1855–1883, the Reign of Iron, The Story of the First Battling Ironclads, the Monitor and the Merrimack
USS Merrimack (1855)
–
USS Merrimack; Engraving by L.H. Bradford & Co., after a drawing by G.G. Pook.
22.
Battle of Hampton Roads
–
The battle was a part of the effort of the Confederacy to break the Union blockade, which had cut off Virginias largest cities, Norfolk and Richmond, from international trade. The major significance of the battle is that it was the first meeting in combat of ironclad warships, i. e. the USS Monitor, the Confederate fleet consisted of the ironclad ram Virginia and several supporting vessels. On the first day of battle, they were opposed by several conventional, on that day, Virginia was able to destroy two ships of the Federal flotilla, USS Congress and USS Cumberland, and was about to attack a third, USS Minnesota, which had run aground. Determined to complete the destruction of Minnesota, Catesby ap Roger Jones, acting as captain in Buchanans absence, returned the ship to the fray the next morning, during the night, however, the ironclad Monitor had arrived and had taken a position to defend Minnesota. When Virginia approached, Monitor intercepted her, the two ironclads fought for about three hours, with neither being able to inflict significant damage on the other. The duel ended indecisively, Virginia returning to her home at the Gosport Navy Yard for repairs and strengthening, the ships did not fight again, and the blockade remained in place. The battle received worldwide attention, and it had immediate effects on navies around the world, the preeminent naval powers, Great Britain and France, halted further construction of wooden-hulled ships, and others followed suit. A new type of warship, monitor, was produced based on the principle of the original. The use of a number of very heavy guns, mounted so that they could fire in all directions was first demonstrated by Monitor. Shipbuilders also incorporated rams into the designs of warship hulls for the rest of the century, on April 19,1861, shortly after the outbreak of hostilities at Charleston Harbor, US President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of ports in the seceded states. On April 27, after Virginia and North Carolina had also passed ordinances of secession, even before the extension, local troops seized the Norfolk area and threatened the Gosport Navy Yard in Portsmouth. Merrimack burned only to the waterline, however, and her engines were more or less intact, the destruction of the navy yard was mostly ineffective, in particular, the large drydock there was relatively undamaged and soon could be restored. Without firing a shot, the advocates of secession had gained for the South its largest navy yard, as well as the hull and they had also seized more than a thousand heavy guns, plus gun carriages and large quantities of gunpowder. With Norfolk and its yard in Portsmouth, the Confederacy controlled the southern side of Hampton Roads. To prevent Union warships from attacking the yard, the Confederates set up batteries at Sewells Point and Craney Island, the Union retained possession of Fort Monroe, at Old Point Comfort on the Virginia Peninsula. They also held a small island known as the Rip Raps, on the far side of the channel opposite Fort Monroe. With Fort Monroe went control of the lower Peninsula as far as Newport News, forts Monroe and Wool gave the Union forces control of the entrance to Hampton Roads. The blockade, initiated on April 30,1861, cut off Norfolk, to further the blockade, the Union Navy stationed some of its most powerful warships in the roadstead
Battle of Hampton Roads
–
Chromolithograph depicting the Battle of Hampton Roads
Battle of Hampton Roads
–
CSS Virginia (ex-USS Merrimack)
Battle of Hampton Roads
–
USS Monitor
Battle of Hampton Roads
–
The heart of battle, from an 1871 wood engraving published by A.S. Barnes & Co.
23.
Union Navy
–
The Union Navy was the United States Navy during the American Civil War, when it fought the Confederate States Navy. The term is sometimes used carelessly to include vessels of war used on the rivers of the interior while they were under the control of the United States Army, the Confederates saw the U. S. as being opposed to slavery and thus, referred to them as abolitionists. Accordingly, the U. S. Navy was termed by them as being the Abolition fleet, the primary missions of the Union Navy were,1. Maintain the blockade of Confederate ports by restraining all blockade runners, declared by the President on April 19,1861, meet in combat the war vessels of the CSN. Carry the war to places in the states that were inaccessible to the Union Army. Support the Army by providing gunfire support and rapid transport and communications on the rivers of the interior. To accomplish these, the Union Navy had to undergo a profound transformation, during the war, sailing vessels were completely supplanted by ships propelled by steam for purposes of combat. Vessels of widely differing character were built from the keel up in response to problems they would encounter. Wooden hulls were at first protected by armor plating, and soon were replaced by iron or steel throughout, the institutional changes that were introduced during the war were equally significant. The Bureau of Steam Engineering was added to the bureau system, testimony to the U. S. Navys conversion from sail to steam. Most important from the standpoint of Army-Navy cooperation in joint operations, the establishment of the ranks of admirals implied also a change of naval doctrine, from one favoring single-ship operations to that of employing whole fleets. At the start of the war, the Union Navy had 42 ships in commission, another 48 were laid up and listed as available for service as soon as crews could be assembled and trained, but few were appropriate for the task at hand. Most were sailing vessels, some were hopelessly outdated, and one served on Lake Erie, during the course of the war, the number in commission was increased by more than a factor 15, so that at the end the U. S. Navy had 671 vessels. Even more significant than the increase in raw numbers was the variety of types that were represented. To confront the forms of combat that came about, the government developed a new type of warship. The U. S. Navy took over a class of armored river gunboats created for the U. S. Army, but designed by naval personnel, so-called double-enders were produced to maneuver in the confined waters of the rivers and harbors. The Union Navy experimented with submarines before the Confederacy produced its famed CSS Hunley, accordingly, at the end of the war, most of them were soon stricken from the service rather than being mothballed. The number of ships at sea fell back to its prewar level, the highest rank available to an American naval officer when the war began was that of captain
Union Navy
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Part of the crew of
USS Monitor, after her encounter with CSS Virginia (ex-USS Merrimack)
Union Navy
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Crewmen of
USS Monitor in 1862.
Union Navy
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USS Conestoga, a converted gunboat that served on the Mississippi River.
Union Navy
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Officer Rank Structure of the Union Navy
24.
USS Monitor
–
USS Monitor was an iron-hulled steamship. Built during the American Civil War, she was the first ironclad warship commissioned by the Union Navy, the unique design of the ship, distinguished by its revolving turret which was designed by American inventor Theodore Timby, was quickly duplicated and established the monitor type of warship. The remainder of the ship was designed by the Swedish-born engineer and inventor John Ericsson, before Monitor could reach Hampton Roads, the Confederate ironclad had destroyed the sail frigates USS Cumberland and USS Congress and had run the steam frigate USS Minnesota aground. A four-hour battle ensued, both ships pounding the other with cannon fire, although neither ship could destroy or seriously damage the other. This was the battle fought between two armored warships and marked a turning point in naval warfare. After the Confederates were forced to destroy Virginia as they withdrew in early May, on her way there she foundered while under tow, during a storm off Cape Hatteras on the last day of the year. Monitors wreck was discovered in 1973 and has been partially salvaged and her guns, gun turret, engine and other relics are on display at the Mariners Museum in Newport News, Virginia. The use of iron plating on the sides of warships was not practical until steam propulsion matured enough to carry its great weight. Developments in gun technology had progressed by the 1840s so that no practical thickness of wood could withstand the power of a shell, since there was no pressing need for such a ship at the time, there was little demand to continue work on the unfinished vessel. It was France that introduced the first operational armored ships as well as the first shell guns, the French followed those ships with the first ocean-going ironclad, the armored frigate Gloire in 1859, and the British responded with HMS Warrior. Northern newspapers published accounts of the Confederates progress in converting the Merrimack to an ironclad. Concealed in her dress was a message from a Union sympathizer who worked in the Navy Yard warning that the former Merrimack, convinced by the papers Mary was carrying he had production of Monitor sped up. Welles later recorded in his memoirs that Mrs. Louveste encountered no small risk in bringing this information, after the United States received word of the construction of Virginia, Congress appropriated $1.5 million on 3 August 1861 to build one or more armored steamships. It also ordered the creation of a board to inquire into the various designs proposed for armored ships, the Union Navy advertised for proposals for iron-clad steam vessels of war on 7 August and Welles appointed three senior officers as the Ironclad Board the following day. Their task was to examine plans for the completion of iron-clad vessels, the two first met on 9 September and again on the following day, after Ericsson had time to evaluate Galenas design. During this second meeting Ericsson showed Bushnell a model of his own design, Bushnell got Ericssons permission to show the model to Welles, who told Bushnell to show it to the board. Upon review of Ericssons unusual design, the board was skeptical, concerned that such a vessel would not float, especially in rough seas, President Lincoln, who had also examined the design, overruled them. Ericsson assured the board his ship would float exclaiming, The sea shall ride over her, on 15 September, after further deliberations, the board accepted Ericssons proposal
USS Monitor
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Model of USS Monitor
USS Monitor
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Statue of John Ericsson in
Battery Park, New York City, with model of Monitor in hand
USS Monitor
–
Inboard plans of USS Monitor
See also: Outboard plans
USS Monitor
–
Transverse hull section through the turret
25.
United States
–
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
United States
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Native Americans meeting with Europeans, 1764
United States
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Flag
United States
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The signing of the
Mayflower Compact, 1620.
United States
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The
Declaration of Independence: the
Committee of Five presenting their draft to the
Second Continental Congress in 1776
26.
Norfolk Naval Shipyard
–
The Norfolk Naval Shipyard, often called the Norfolk Navy Yard and abbreviated as NNSY, is a U. S. Navy facility in Portsmouth, Virginia, for building, remodeling, and repairing the Navys ships. It is the oldest and largest industrial facility that belongs to the U. S. Navy as well as the most multifaceted, located on the Elizabeth River, the yard is just a short distance upriver from its mouth at Hampton Roads. It was established as Gosport Shipyard in 1767, destroyed during the American Revolutionary War, it was rebuilt and became home to the first operational drydock in the United States in the 1820s. Changing hands during the American Civil War, it served the Confederate States Navy until it was destroyed in 1862. The shipyard was again rebuilt, and has continued operation through the present day, the Gosport Shipyard was founded on November 1,1767 by Andrew Sprowle on the western shore of the Elizabeth River in Norfolk County in the Virginia Colony. This shipyard became a naval and merchant facility for the British Crown. In 1775, at the beginning of the American Revolution, Sprowle stayed loyal to the Crown and fled Virginia, in 1779, while the newly formed Commonwealth of Virginia was operating the shipyard, it was burned by British troops. In 1794, United States Congress passed An Act to Provide a Naval Armament, in 1799 the keel of USS Chesapeake, one of the first six frigates authorized by Congress, was laid, making her the first ship built in Gosport for the U. S. Navy. The federal government purchased the shipyard from Virginia in 1801 for $12,000 and this tract of land measured 16 acres and now makes up the northeastern corner of the current shipyard. In 1827, construction began on the first of what would be the first two dry docks in the United States. The first one was completed three weeks ahead of projects in both Boston, Massachusetts and South America, making it the first functional dry dock in the Americas. Dry Dock One, as it is referred to today, is operational and is listed as historical landmark in Portsmouth. Officers Quarters A, B, and C were built about 1837, additional land on the eastern side of the Elizabeth River was purchased in 1845. Enslaved Labor, slave labor was utilized in the Norfolk Navy Yard from its foundation until the Civil War. Some idea of the scale can be found in this exert from a letter of Commodore Lewis Warrington dated 12 October 1831 to the Navy Board of Commissioners. Warringtons letter to the BNC, was in response to various worker petitions. usgwarchives. net/va/portsmouth/shipyard/nnysharp. html#enslaved> In 1861, fearing that the Confederacy would take control of the facility, the shipyard commander Charles Stewart McCauley ordered the burning of the shipyard. The Confederate forces did in fact take over the shipyard, the capture of the shipyard allowed a tremendous amount of war material to fall into Confederate hands. 1,195 heavy guns were taken for the defense of the Confederacy, and employed in areas from Hampton Roads all the way to Fort Donelson Tennessee, Port Hudson
Norfolk Naval Shipyard
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The 350-ton
hammerhead crane at Norfolk Naval Shipyard
Norfolk Naval Shipyard
–
Ruins of the shipyard after the Civil War, 1864; photo by James Gardner. From the collection of the
National Archives & Records Administration.
Norfolk Naval Shipyard
–
Aerial view of the shipyard looking north towards Norfolk
Norfolk Naval Shipyard
–
USS Arizona (BB-39) during a refit at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in 1931
27.
Portsmouth, Virginia
–
Portsmouth is an independent city located in the U. S. commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 95,535 and it is part of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. The shipyard upgrades, remodels, and repairs ships of the US Navy and is one of the few facilities in the world with the capability to dry dock an aircraft carrier. Directly opposite Norfolk, the city of Portsmouth also has miles of waterfront land on the Elizabeth River as part of the harbor of Hampton Roads, there is a ferry boat that takes riders back and forth across the water between Downtown Norfolk and Olde Towne Portsmouth. Portsmouth is located on the side of the Elizabeth River directly across from the City of Norfolk. In 1620, the site of Portsmouth was recognized as suitable shipbuilding location by John Wood, a shipbuilder. The surrounding area was settled as a plantation community. Portsmouth was founded by Colonel William Crawford, a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses and it was established as a town in 1752 by an act of the Virginia General Assembly and was named for Portsmouth, England. In 1767, Andrew Sprowle, a shipbuilder, founded the Gosport Shipyard adjacent to Portsmouth, the Gosport Shipyard at Portsmouth was owned by the Commonwealth of Virginia after the American Revolutionary War and was sold to the new United States federal government. In 1855, the Portsmouth and Norfolk area suffered an epidemic of fever which killed 1 of every three citizens. It became an independent city from Norfolk County in 1858, during the American Civil War, in 1861, Virginia joined the Confederate States of America. Fearing that the Confederacy would take control of the shipyard at Portsmouth, the Confederate forces did in fact take over the shipyard, and did so without armed conflict through an elaborate ruse orchestrated by civilian railroad builder William Mahone. The Union forces withdrew to Fort Monroe across Hampton Roads, which was the land in the area which remained under Union control. In early 1862, the Confederate ironclad warship CSS Virginia was rebuilt using the hulk of USS Merrimack. Virginia engaged the Union ironclad USS Monitor in the famous Battle of Hampton Roads during the Union blockade of Hampton Roads, the Confederates burned the shipyard again when they left in May 1862. Following the recapture of Norfolk and Portsmouth by the Union forces, the name of the shipyard was derived from its location in Norfolk County. The Norfolk Naval Shipyard today is located entirely within the city limits of Portsmouth, Portsmouth was the county seat of Norfolk County until 1963 when the new city of Chesapeake was formed in a political consolidation with the city of South Norfolk. Portsmouths other county neighbor, the former Nansemond County, also consolidated with a smaller city, one of the older cities of Hampton Roads, in the early 21st century, Portsmouth was undergoing moderate urban renewal in the downtown
Portsmouth, Virginia
–
Downtown Portsmouth
Portsmouth, Virginia
–
Harbor at Portsmouth in 1843; the Naval Hospital is visible in the background
Portsmouth, Virginia
–
The
Lightship Portsmouth is part of the Naval Shipyard Museum
Portsmouth, Virginia
–
Newport News,
Hampton, Portsmouth and
Norfolk,
Virginia from space in July 1996. (Portsmouth is in the center right portion of the photo)
28.
Benjamin F. Isherwood
–
Benjamin Franklin Isherwood was an engineering officer in the United States Navy during the early days of steam-powered warships. He served as an engineer during the Mexican–American War. Rising to the rank of admiral, as Engineer-in-Chief of the Navy during the Civil War. Isherwood was born in New York City and he worked for the Utica and Schenectady Railroad and trained under William C. Young, one of the most prominent engineers of that period, Isherwood then worked on the Croton Aqueduct, followed by an engineering job on the Erie Canal. Designing and constructing lighthouses for the Treasury Department was Isherwoods last employment before joining the Navy, at the age of 22, Isherwood was appointed First Assistant Engineer in the Navy May 23,1844, serving aboard General Taylor in 1846–47. During the Mexican–American War, he served in the steam warship Princeton, throughout the 1850s, Isherwood compiled operational and performance data from steam engines in U. S. and foreign commercial vessels and warships. He used these data to analyze the efficiency of engine types then in use. In 1859 the engineer published the results of his own original thermodynamic experiments in the two-volume Engineering Precedents for Steam Machinery, Isherwood was the nations most prolific antebellum technical writer. Isherwood went to sea during the period between the wars, serving as Chief Engineer of the steam frigate San Jacinto on a cruise of more than three years on the Asiatic Station, during this cruise he was stricken with dysentery, prompting his return to the United States. When the Civil War began, the Navy had 28 steam vessels, and during the war, Isherwood conducted the design and construction of the machinery necessary to accomplish this. He designed ships that were fast enough to pursue the blockade runners, immediately upon the conclusion of the war, Isherwood was principally involved with organizing a new scientific curriculum for steam engineering at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. By 1874, naval engineers refined this curriculum to the point that it served as the model for engineering education at most American universities. In 1869 Isherwood ran afoul of former Spitfire shipmate Admiral David Dixon Porter, during the war years Isherwood led a campaign to increase the rank and influence of engineering officers in the navy. Porter opposed this change in the class structure. After the presidential inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant, Isherwoods longtime patron, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, Admiral Porter banished Isherwood to the Mare Island Navy Yard in San Francisco. Despite his diminished stature, Isherwood continued to produce technical innovations, in 1870 and 1871, Isherwood conducted experiments that resulted in a propeller that was used by the Navy for the next 27 years. He was a pioneer in the production of fast cruisers, producing this class against strong opposition, following a tour of European dockyards, he became president of the Experimental Board under the Bureau of Steam Engineering until his retirement on October 6,1884
Benjamin F. Isherwood
–
Benjamin F. Isherwood, c. 1860s
29.
Flag Officer
–
A flag officer is a commissioned officer in a nations armed forces senior enough to be entitled to fly a flag to mark the position from which the officer exercises command. In some countries, such as Bangladesh, the United States, Pakistan and India, it may apply to all armed forces and this means generals can also be considered flag officers. In most Arab armies, liwa, which can be translated as flag officer, is a specific rank, however, ensign is debatably a more exact translation of the word. In principle, a flag officer commands several units called flags, Flag officer corresponds to the generic terms general officer and air officer. A flag officer sometimes is an officer, called a flag lieutenant or flag adjutant. In the Canadian Forces, an officer is an admiral, vice-admiral, rear-admiral, or commodore. Base commanders, usually full colonels, also have a pennant that flies from the mast or flagpole on the base, since the unification of the Canadian Forces in 1968, a flag officers dress tunic had a single broad stripe on the sleeve and epaulettes. There are no epaulettes on the exterior of the tunic, in India, it is applied to brigadiers, major generals, lieutenant generals and generals in the Army. The equivalents are commodore, rear admiral, vice admiral and admiral in the Navy and air commodore, air marshal, air marshal. Each of these category of officers is designated with a specific flag. Indias honorary ranks are field marshal in the Army, marshal of the Indian Air Force in the Air Force, in the Royal Navy, there is a distinction between flag officer and officer of flag rank. Formerly all officers promoted to flag rank were considered to be flag officers, of the 39 officers of flag rank in the Royal Navy in 2006, very few were flag officers with entitlement to fly a flag. List of fleets and major commands of the Royal Navy lists most admirals who were flag officers, a flag officers junior officer is often known as Flags. The rank of flag officer was bestowed on senior Navy captains who were assigned to lead a squadron of vessels in addition to command of their own ship, during the American Civil War, the Confederate States Navy also used the term. S. Navy or Coast Guard serving in or having the grade of admiral, vice admiral, rear admiral, or rear admiral, in 1862 Congress authorized American use of the title admiral. In the United States Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps, brigadier general, or pay grade O-7, and above. However, as a matter of law, Title 10 of the United States Code makes a distinction between officers and flag officers. Non-naval officers usually fly their flags from their headquarters, vessels, or vehicles, in the United States all flag and general officers must be nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, each subsequent promotion requires renomination and re-approval
Flag Officer
–
Four-star rank
30.
French Forrest
–
French Forrest was an American naval officer who served first in the United States Navy and later the Confederate States Navy. His combat experience prior to the American Civil War included service in the War of 1812, born in Helen, Maryland, he became a midshipman on June 9,1811 and participated in the War of 1812. He fought with Commodore Oliver Perry at the Battle of Lake Erie and was present in the action between the USS Hornet and HMS Peacock on February 24,1813. He became a lieutenant on March 5,1817, a commander on February 9,1837, and he was adjutant general in the Mexican–American War, and in 1847, he commanded the American naval forces in the landing at Veracruz, Mexico. When Virginia seceded from the United States on April 17,1861, Forrest was made its first and only flag officer in the Virginia Navy and assumed command of the Gosport Shipyard. In that capacity he raised and rebuilt the USS Merrimack into the casemate ironclad CSS Virginia, which he expected to command, Forrest was then replaced as the Commandant of the Gosport Shipyard, because Secretary of the Navy Mallory thought he had been too slow to repair the ex-Merrimack. Forrest then headed to the Department of the Navy offices and became the Chief of the Bureau of Orders and Details until March 1863. He commanded the James River Squadron twice, from July 10,1861 to February 27,1862, Forrest returned to Washington to find that his property there had been seized, and died shortly after the War in Georgetown on December 22,1866. Inventory of the Forrest Family Papers, in the Southern Historical Collection, UNC-Chapel Hill
French Forrest
–
French Forrest
Confederate States
