In considering the operations of the War of 1812 it is interesting to speculate upon what might have occurred had the war lasted another year. In 1813 Robert Fulton submitted to President Madison plans for a sea-going steam battery. His plans were accepted. and in March, 1814, Congress authorized the building of one or more of such batteries for the defense of the coast. Fulton died in February, 1815, but the Demologos (Voice of the People) was completed in the following spring and had successful trials in June. On July 4, 1815, she made a trip to sea and back, steaming 53 miles in eight hours and twenty minutes. Her length was 156 feet, beam 56 feet, depth 20 feet, and she measured 2475 tons, or more than a line-of-battle ship and 1000 tons more than the Constitution. al though her cost, $320,000, was only $17,000 more than the first cost of the latter. Her sides were 5 feet thick and impenetrable to any guns carried by British ships, while her battery con sisted of 20 guns, which were heavier than any then afloat. A furnace was fitted for heating shot, and there were pumps for throwing cold or hot water on the enemy's deck. The propel ling apparatus of the Demologos consisted of a single paddle-wheel in the centre of the ship. operating in a channel extending the length of the ship below the gun deck and dividing the under-water body into two parts, which were held together by the upper works and transverse frames at the bottom. Had this vessel got to sea before the conclusion of hostilities and met the warships of the enemy it is tolerably certain that she would have destroyed the heaviest squadrons with ease and caused a revolution in naval affairs. As it was, however, her powers remained unproved and the natural conserva tism of the naval authorities, accustomed to the use of sails, caused her to be looked upon as an interesting experiment of no great practical value. She was, therefore, tied up alongside the wharf at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and used as a receiving ship. On .June 4, 1829, her magazine blew up, killing 24 persons and injuring 19.
The successful performance of the Demologos (or Fulton, as she was afterwards called in honor of her designer) led Congress in 1816 to authorize the construction of another steam bat tery. But the conservative officers at the head of affairs in the navy could not understand the importance of steam-propelled ships, and it was not until 1835 that measures were taken to carry out the provisions of the law. In the meantime a number of ships of the line were built, about a dozen in all, and some of them took part later in the Mexican War. In 1835 the Secretary of the Navy, acting upon better advice, directed the Board of Commissioners to proceed at once to the construction of a steam man-of-war. In 1837 the vessel was completed and tried, a speed of 12 knots being realized. Iler propelling power consisted of side paddle-wheels and engines on the upper deck. Several other paddle-wheel vessels were built in the next few years, one of which was the iron steamer Michigan, which is still in service on the Great Lakes—the first iron vessel in the navy, and also the first one afloat on the Lakes. In 1842-43 the screw steamer Princeton (of about 1000 tons) was built and fitted with machinery designed by John Ericsson. She was the first war vessel in any navy to be fitted with screw propulsion, and likewise the first to have all her machinery and boilers below the water-line and to have blowing fans for forcing the draught under the boilers. A
Congressional committee, after considering the advantages of the submerged propeller and iron hulls, recommended in 1846 that thirteen screw steamers of iron be immediately constructed. When authority for the construction of four war steamers was granted in the following year, a board of prominent naval officers recommended that three of the four should have paddle-wheels. The fourth was the San Jacinto; and it as well as the others was built of wood. In 1S54 Con gress ordered the building of "six first-class steam frigates to be provided with screw pro pellers." These vessels were the celebrated ships of the Merrimac, Niagara, and Wabash class. They were of fine model. for their day, and should have had good speed, but instead of having full steam and auxiliary sail power they had full sail power and only auxiliary engines. They were followed, however, in 1857 by the steam frigates of the Hartford class, in which the en gine power was relatively considerably increased.
The operations of the navy in the Civil War soon showed the true importance of steam and the uselessness, or worse than uselessness, of sails. Even after the close of the war the practice of giving full sail power to our cruising men-of-war was continued from mistaken ideas of economy; though during the war the rigged ships had been very generally stripped of yards and upper masts. The practice died hard, and it was not until 1887 that a full sail rig was abandoned for cruising vessels. The ill-fated Maine was the last ship for general service to be designed to carry a heavy square rig, but this was ellanged to military masts before her com pletion.
The importance of possessing armored vessels was realized as soon as the Civil War commenced, and on both sides an investigation of the sub ject of armored ships was begun at once. The Confederates started work first, but the superior resources of the North enabled the first really armored ships to be completed on practically the same day. Both Monitor and Merrimac ginia ) were fatally defective in details, but many of the defects were corrected in -later vessels of the same types. See Sun', AftmenEn.
After the close of the Civil War the navy again sank into decadence, the enormous ex penses entailed by the war causing Congress to cut down appropriations in every direction. The personnel of the regular service was in creased just after the end of the struggle, but it was cut down later, the last cut being in 1S82, just as new construction was about to commence. During the interval 1865-82 only a few vessels were authorized—five monitors of 4000 to 6000 tons and about a dozen wooden cruisers, only one of which (the Trenton) was over 2000 tons. Old vessels were repaired and kept going, but nothing new was attempted, the wooden cruisers mentioned being out of date when put in service. So that, in ISSO, the United States Navy, with its antiquated ships and no less antiquated ord nance, was the laughing-stock of the world and in power below that of several of the small re publics of South America. Finally, in 18S1, a board was appointed by the Secretary of the Navy to consider the needs of the service. This board recommended the building of sixty-eight vessels of various types.