In 1868 there was launched, as a finishing touch to our immense Civil War naval building program, a vessel of such remarkable speed and endurance as to fail of credence among maritime nations. This vessel and her 7 sister-ships were designed to carry 15 guns and attain a speed of 15 knots. Such was their forbidding aspect from a maritime standpoint that, according to Marvin, the historian of our American Merchant Marine:
It is one of the great unwritten facts of history that it was the warlike potentialities of the Wampanoag and her sisters, rather than an abstract love of peace, that persuaded the British Government to submit the Alabama claims for arbitration.
Yet in spite of their great naval potentialities, as attested by a careful study of the Anglo-American situation at the time, just one year after attaining their greatest success in the trial trips, this noble vessel and her sisters were condemned by a naval board in 1869 to destructive conversion to improve their sailing qualities. No doubt in the course of the next 15 years the Navy had good cause to regret the action of this board which deprived the United States of its only modern naval weapon at the beginning of a period of such congressional neglect as is unparalleled in the history of our country. The period from 1865 to 1883 represents the darkest age of our naval history and to this age belongs the story of the Wampanoag. Like a shooting star she hewed a sudden path of brilliance against a gloomy naval background, then was as quickly swallowed by the overpowering gloom. The Wampanoag, as well as the seven other vessels of her class, was the brain' child of Benjamin F. Isherwood, the wartime Engineer in Chief of the Navy. His conception of the strategical value of high speed commerce destroyers in the event of hostilities with England was based on n sound knowledge of the basic cause of our success in our two previous naval wars with that country and a shrewd estimate of her immediate problems in fostering her merchant marine. Committed as she was to steam conversion supported by generous subsidies, England could ill-afford to suffer any wholesale destruction of her merchant shipping. Certainly she had no intention of hazarding the gains in shipping and commerce which had already accrued to her as a result of the depredations of the Confederate commerce destroyers, which had been built and outfitted in British shipyards.
With the international situation of 1863 thus clear in his mind and with full confidence in his own ability to design proper engines for the vessels, Isherwood urged upon the Secretary the desirability of building eight commerce destroyers of exceptional speed. To attain unusual speed, he made the radical proposal to use a narrow hull with rather fine lines forward. In short, the relation between length, breadth, and depth was such as never would have been recommended for a sailing vessel which would require ample breadth of beam to support a large press of sail. This radical departure from the broad lines of sailing vessels and auxiliary steamers (all ocean steamers carried sails) met with a storm of protest from the other Bureaus of the Navy Department. However, Isherwood was able to convince the Secretary of the practicability of his proposed design and construction was accordingly authorized; not, however, before another protest was voiced from an unexpected source with the most unusual consequences.
A civilian marine engineer named Dickerson called the Secretary’s attention to the fact that Isherwood, in designing the engines for the proposed cruisers, had used the steam cut-off at two-thirds of the stroke. Such was the undeveloped state of marine engineering at the time that there existed a school of thought supporting the theory that steam behaved as a perfect gas and that steam engines should employ a very early cut-off to make full use of the power available. Mr. Dickerson was a proponent of this theory. What with Isherwood’s unpopularity in the Navy Department, engendered by his disregard of naval advice in gaining approval of the Wampanoag’s radical hull design, Dickerson found considerable sympathy, both in and out of the Navy, for his protests against Isherwood’s engine design. He stirred up considerable publicity with his charges against the Engineer in Chief (who remained unperturbed) and, finally, with the aid of powerful congressional influence obtained the contract for one of the ships, the engines to be of his design. Various contractors received the other orders to build to Isherwood’s design.
Construction on all eight ships began in 1863 and was well advanced by the close of the war. The sudden curtailment of building funds with the termination of hostilities resulted in a marked delay in their completion. Dickerson’s ship, the Idaho, was the first one to be finished. In 1866 she was ready for her trial trips. By this time Mr. Dickerson’s published criticisms of Isherwood’s engine designs had focused public attention on the strange controversy, which was being viewed as an issue in the naval building program. But the public interest in the matter was doomed to sudden decline. On her trial trips the Idaho failed to exceed 8.27 knots, although the contract speed had been 15 knots.
In spite of the Idaho's dismal failure to materialize as a high-speed cruiser, Mr. Dickerson persisted in voicing his criticisms of Isherwood’s engines. He stated that the Wampanoag would be unable to better the Idaho’s performance and that Isherwood was purposely delaying construction in order to forestall the comparison which would be sure to prove unfavorable to his ship.
The Wampanoag was finally completed in 1868. She was a vessel of 4,215 tons displacement, 335 feet long with 45-foot beam. The engines consisted of two low- pressure cylinders 100 inches in diameter, having a 48-inch stroke. The cylinders, which lay athwartships, one on each side of the shaft, used steam at a pressure of 35 pounds per square inch gauge. The propeller was driven through an enormous wood-toothed gear which transmitted 2.04 revolutions to the screw for each double stroke of the engine. Steam was generated by 4 boilers and superheated by 4 more boilers. It was a superpower plant for those early days of steam navigation and the boldness of its conception should redound to the eternal fame of Isherwood.
On her trial trip the Wampanoag attained the unprecedented speed of 17.75 knots, and for a period of 38 hours maintained an average speed of 16.6 knots. Isherwood, in defense of the Wampanoag, at a later date wrote:
Indeed, so unexampled is her success that the engineering journals of England have boldly questioned the veracity of the captain by inventing the statement that the speed was obtained by the assistance of sails, with a strong wind abaft the beam, not knowing how else to account for it, and they declare the speed impossible under any other circumstances.
When it is considered that her speed of 17.75 knots exceeded by 3 knots the greatest sea speed then known and that 6 sister ships were ready to be commissioned, it is small wonder that England decided to arbitrate the Alabama claims. The trial board reported:
The maximum performance can be easily maintained during a passage across the Atlantic, or for any required service, and we are of the opinion that it is not equaled for speed or economy by that of any seagoing screw steamer of the merchant or naval service of any country.
The original purpose of providing a vessel of the greatest attainable speed with a sufficient armament for destroying the enemy’s commerce, and for self-defense in case of need, has been attained.
Needless to say, the Dickerson controversy came to an abrupt end, the laurels going to Isherwood. But, alas for the Wampanoag, the progressive naval engineering policy of the war was almost completely abandoned in a flurry of economy and diminished budgets. A board headed by Admiral Goldsborough was convened in 1839 to make recommendations for the disposal of the vessels acquired by the Navy during the war. The Board was instructed as follows:
You will state … whether they are suitable for vessels of war, taking into consideration power, economy and efficiency …
The eight cruisers of Isherwood’s design received special attention in the Board’s report:
It [the Wampanoag] may nevertheless serve, like most others of the sort, as a source from which important lessons may be drawn, and among them it impresses the expediency of consulting, instead of ignoring, experienced naval minds as to the properties to be secured in the construction and arrangements of a vessel of war.
The Board is of the opinion that the engine of the Wampanoag class is not suitable for a vessel of war. Of the three qualities required, power is the only one which it appears to possess.
The Board took exception to the hull proportions of the vessel, the sail rig, the bunker capacity, and the weight of machinery, among other things. It was seriously recommended that the 4-bladed screw be replaced by a 2-bladed screw capable of being housed behind the stern- post when sailing; that the main gear of the reduction unit be removed to permit stepping a mast; that the four superheating boilers (for which the Board could see no use) be removed. In fact, the Board practically went on record as proclaiming that the Navy was not yet ready to use steam as a primary motive power. In justice to the Board it must be said that, failing adequate financial support, the Navy was faced with the problem of maintaining a fleet of sailing vessels with or without auxiliary engine power if an operating range of any extent was to be maintained. Coal was expensive and we had no coaling stations in the Far East, where our commerce required the most protection. It is none the less difficult to divorce from a survey of the Board’s comments the observation that animosity toward Isherwood constituted an element in its conclusions. Be that as it may, the recommendations of the Board of 1869 signed the death warrant of the Wampanoag. In the Secretary’s report for 1869 appears the following statement:
By order of the Department, four of the eight boilers of the Tennessee [formerly the Madawasca] have been removed, and orders have been given to remove four of the eight boilers from the Florida [formerly the Wampanoag] for the purpose of affording additional room for the storage of coal and stores, and for the better accommodations of the crew.
After her conversion according to the recommendations of the Board of 1869, the Wampanoag (whose name was changed to Florida in 1869) saw very little service. Of course, she never again attained the then phenomenal speed of her first trials, notwithstanding the Board’s assertion that substitution of the 2-bladed screw for the 4-bladed one would not reduce her speed and their further assertion that the four superheating boilers were of no use. According to Bennett’s Steam Navy of the United States, she nevertheless remained a source of pride to our engineering cadets up to the time when she was finally sold in 1885.
The brilliant short career of the Wampanoag, in its influence on Anglo-American relations in 1869, should constitute an object lesson for the citizens of this country in the value of a modern Navy for the maintenance of peace as opposed to the conduct of war. For the Navy, it furnished a bitter lesson in the value of bureau cooperation in naval construction. The unfair criticism and acrimonious condemnation aimed at the Wampanoag and her creator moved the Secretary of the Navy in 1869 to make the following recommendation in his annual report:
At the last session of Congress a bill was passed through one house, but not acted upon in the other, which provided for a board of experts to review the action of the Bureaus and to advise the Secretary in regard to building, furnishing and equipment of the Navy. These [the Bureaus], under the system of independent action formerly pursued, were often antagonistic in their ideas and not infrequently came into direct conflict with each other.
Because the dearth of naval construction between 1869 and 1883 precluded the immediate necessity of organizing such a board, the Secretary’s Advisory Board actually was not created until the Act of Congress of August 5, 1882. The organization of this council marked the first step in our advance to the position of a world naval power. The lesson of the Wanpanoag had been well-learned, to the eternal benefit of our Navy.