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The U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, one of the Coast Guard’s
predecessor services, played a unique role in the 19th century
technological transition from wood and sail to iron and steam.
During the late 18th and early 19th centuries all forms of
mechanized technology saw a change in motive power and construction
materials. Medieval forms of maritime technology associated with
wood and wind energy succumbed to iron and steam power.
In
the mid 19th century, military technology witnessed rapid change
with inventors focusing on naval technology in the years leading up
to the American Civil War. These men applied steam and iron to
machines of war, such as semi-submersibles, rams, heavy ordnance,
mines, spar torpedoes and ironclads.
The Civil War-era
gunboat E.A. Stevens served as an example of the Revenue Cutter
Service’s support of new naval technology and became the most unique
cutter in the history of the U.S. Coast Guard.
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“The Stevens Iron Steam Gun-Boat Naugatuck (previously named Gunboat
Cutter E.A. Stevens), now at Fortress Monroe.” Illustration from
Harper’s Weekly, 1862. Image courtesy of the Naval History &
Heritage Command
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In the late 1830s, inventor Edwin A. Stevens developed a gunboat
to operate in shallow water. He incorporated ballast tanks located
both fore and aft into the vessel’s iron hull. The tanks used a
patented gum elastic liner to ensure a watertight seal. These
ballast tanks made the E.A. Stevens a semi-submersible vessel,
allowing it to submerge to an overall depth of nine feet. This
lowered the gunboat’s profile, minimizing the vessel’s exposure to
cannon fire and placed the vessel’s vulnerable steam machinery below
the waterline.
Stevens equipped the tanks with heavy duty
centrifugal pumps that could fill the tanks with water in just eight
minutes. Conversely, if the gunboat ran aground while ballasted,
pumping out the tanks could float the vessel in minutes. By pumping
the ballast tanks dry, the gunboat doubled its speed from five knots
to 10.
The E.A.
Stevens also had deckhouses located amidships and on the aft deck.
Positioned forward of the smoke stack, the pilothouse served as the
captain’s station while underway. Before entering the war zone, the
crew attached a boilerplate to the pilothouse as protection against
musket fire. The aft deckhouse served as the galley and quarters for
the three officers and received iron plating as well. The vessel’s
enlisted crew of 20 men slept below decks in a compartment located
between the engine room and the forward ballast tank. Their quarters
also served as the loading room for the main gun during combat.
The E.A. Stevens came equipped with little armor and only a few
guns. Besides its deckhouses, the gunship’s only armor consisted of
a low-lying angled armor band or skirt surrounding the main deck.
The band covered a wooden bulwark built of solid cedar. The bulwark
surrounded the deck, keeping water off it and providing cover from
enemy fire.
The gunboat carried three cannon, including two
twelve-pound Dahlgren howitzers mounted on a pivot on each side of
the gunboat. In addition, the Stevens received the first 100-pound
rifled Parrott gun produced for Union military forces. The
diminutive vessel sported a unique muzzle-loading system in which
the rifle’s muzzle pivoted down to an opening in the vessel’s
forward deck where the crew could load it below decks. An
alternative to the new armored turret system, the gunboat’s cannon
could be loaded under the deck in 25 seconds without exposing the
crew to enemy fire. Additionally, Stevens’s patented India rubber
gun suspension system absorbed over 14 inches of the main gun’s
recoil.
The E.A. Stevens’s new technology also included an
innovative propulsion system. The Stevens family had pioneered the
development of the twin-screw system since the beginning of the
1800’s and it made sense to test that technology under combat
conditions. With twin propellers, the Stevens gunboat could revolve
full circle within its own length in only two minutes. The gun
carriage was fixed laterally, so the twin-screw arrangement allowed
the captain to train the gun using the gunboat’s helm and
propellers. And, with its top speed of 10 knots, the E.A. Stevens
could serve as a dispatch vessel for delivering wounded men and
important messages.
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Profile view of the Civil War gunboat Cutter E.A. Stevens, showing
her internal space arrangement. Image courtesy of the Naval History
& Heritage Command
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Stevens offered the E.A. Stevens to the Union Navy free of
charge, but the Navy declined his offer due to the vessel’s
unconventional technology. Stevens turned to the Revenue Cutter
Service, which welcomed the opportunity to operate its own
steam-powered gunboat. In the middle of March 1861, the Treasury
Department ordered the gunboat to head south from New York to
Hampton Roads with a crew of over 20 enlisted men that included a
boatswain, gunner, carpenter, steward, cook, two quartermasters, 14
seamen and a “servant.” On April 9, 1862, the E.A. Stevens steamed
into Hampton Roads, the Union Navy’s base of operations, to join the
James River Squadron.
On April 11, E.A. Stevens began combat
operations, exchanging fire with CSS Virginia, when the Confederate
ironclad emerged from her anchorage near Portsmouth, Virginia.
Virginia’s primary target, the USS Monitor, declined action, so the
hostilities proved inconclusive. On Aril 29, Revenue Cutter Service
lieutenant David Constable took command of the gunboat and crew. By
the time he assumed command of the Stevens, Constable had already
developed into a veteran officer. He received his first commission
as third lieutenant in 1852, made his way up the ranks and, by 1858,
had become executive officer of the new cutter Harriet Lane.
Constable had served as executive officer under distinguished cutter
captain John Faunce on April 12, 1862, when Harriet Lane fired the
first naval shot of the Civil War near Fort Sumter, South Carolina.
On May 8, Constable commanded the Stevens when she had another
opportunity to engage CSS Virginia. The gunboat accompanied the
Monitor and several Union warships in an effort to engage local
Confederate batteries and draw Virginia out of her protected
anchorage.
With President Abraham Lincoln observing from a
steam tug, the Union vessels shelled Confederate positions near
Norfolk. The Confederate ironclad emerged briefly to threaten Union
naval forces, but eventually declined the uneven fight and returned
to her anchorage.
By May 10, Confederate forces had evacuated
Norfolk, leaving the deep-draught Virginia with no defensible
homeport or feasible escape route. The Confederates stripped
Virginia of her cannon and her commanding officer ordered the
ironclad run aground and set her on fire. Early the next morning,
flames reached the ironclad’s magazine and blew up what remained of
the historic warship.
After the destruction of CSS Virginia,
Union army general George McClellan requested that the Union Navy
send warships up the James River to threaten Richmond from the
water. To fulfill this request, the Navy assigned Commodore John
Rodgers command of the James River Squadron, including wooden
warships Aroostook and Port Royal, ironclads Monitor and Galena, and
gunboat E.A. Stevens. It would prove the first true test of the
Union Navy’s three new iron warships under battle conditions.
Located eight miles south of Richmond with an elevation of
approximately 100 feet above the James River, Drewry’s Bluff is one
of the highest promontories on the river’s shores. It overlooks the
James at a sharp river bend, providing an ideal location for a
fortified position to shell approaching vessels.
From the
bluff, cannons could employ plunging fire on targets with
devastating effect. In early May 1862, the Confederates worked
feverishly on the bluff’s fortifications, named Fort Darling, in
preparation for an expected attack. They sank a number of vessels in
the river as obstructions to navigation and hauled ordnance up the
bluff to the fort. When the James River Squadron appeared in the
morning of May 15, the battery included heavy cannon and Confederate
naval personnel from the recently scuttled CSS Virginia.
The
Battle of Drewry’s Bluff would prove the first true test of the E.A.
Stevens under combat conditions. The Union warships experienced only
minor resistance during their passage up the James River, however,
at 7:45 a.m., on the 15th, the battle opened when Commodore John
Rodgers’ flagship Galena approached to within 400 yards of the enemy
obstructions.
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E.A. Stevens shown with U.S. Navy ironclads Monitor and New
Ironsides. Image courtesy of the Naval History & Heritage Command
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The Confederates opened fire and the Galena quickly
sustained shell hits. Rodgers calmly moved Galena into
position using the ship’s anchor. Galena fired round after
round into the fort and managed to cause some damage, but
the Galena suffered far worse punishment than it gave. The
ironclad received approximately 45 hits and nearly half of
them penetrated its armor.
After the Galena made
contact with the enemy, USS Monitor made its own approach.
The ironclad closed on the fortifications at about 9:00
a.m., and began shelling the Confederate positions. However,
the Monitor had been designed for naval combat rather than
shore bombardment, so its cannon could not elevate
sufficiently to hit the top of Drewry’s Bluff. After causing
slight damage to the Confederate fort and sustaining hits
from the enemy guns, Monitor retired downstream.
With
the narrow river channel at Drewry’s Bluff, the squadron’s
vessels could only file in one at a time. So when the
Monitor withdrew, the E.A. Stevens moved up to take its
place. The Stevens submerged to fire its main battery and
the boat’s ordnance loading system successfully protected
the crew from enemy sharpshooters and musket fire. The
gunboat sustained no heavy damage from the enemy’s plunging
fire, but captain David Constable later reported how enemy
musket fire hitting his deckhouse’s armor sounded like
hailstones raining down in a storm.
The Stevens
continued pouring rounds into enemy positions, however, the
gunboat suffered from the same problem as the Monitor. Edwin
Stevens had designed the gunboat’s main ordnance to battle
enemy warships and not shelling land fortifications. In any
case, Stevens’s bombardment came to a halt when its
100-pound Parrott rifle exploded. The explosion blew off the
gun’s breech and damaged the cutter’s pilothouse and deck.
Despite losing the main gun, the Stevens crew continued to
fight with their twelve-pound howitzers with canister and
solid shot against the enemy’s land forces.
By 11:00
a.m., the squadron’s flagship Galena had suffered severe
damage, exhausted its ammunition and sustained many dead and
wounded. After four hours of dueling with the Confederates,
Rodgers ordered his flotilla downriver. One of the Stevens’s
crew received a shot in the arm and another suffered a
serious contusion, however, the gunboat had experienced
relatively few casualties in the hail of musket fire and
enemy shells, and its catastrophic ordnance failure.
Constable had sustained a head injury from shrapnel flying
off the exploding Parrott gun, but remained at his station
directing the broadside guns and commanding the Stevens
throughout the rest of the battle.
James River Squadron
attacks Confederate Fort Darling on Drewry’s Bluff,
Virginia. Contemporary pencil sketch by F.H. Wilcke. Image
courtesy of the Naval History & Heritage Command.
James River Squadron attacks Confederate Fort Darling on
Drewry’s Bluff, Virginia. Contemporary pencil sketch by F.H.
Wilcke. Image courtesy of the Naval History & Heritage
Command.
The James River Squadron retired to
Union-held City Point with the Stevens arriving in the
evening and the rest of the squadron arriving the morning of
May 16. Later that day, Rodgers convened a board composed of
squadron officers to examine the remains of the Stevens’s
Parrott rifle and determine the cause of its failure. The
board concluded that rigorous testing and experimental
firing before its installation on board the Stevens had
weakened the gun, which had been the first of its kind.
Meanwhile, the Stevens received the squadron’s wounded and
proceeded downriver to medical facilities at Fort Monroe, in
Hampton Roads.
The E.A. Stevens had been operating in
Virginia waters since early April 1862. Even though its main
gun remained shattered, Rodgers chose to retain the gunboat
in the James River Squadron. Nevertheless, the Stevens saw
no serious action after Drewry’s Bluff. On May 26, 1862, the
Treasury Department ordered the gunboat to depart Hampton
Roads and steam to the Washington Navy Yard for repairs. On
the 29th, President Abraham Lincoln promoted Constable to
the rank of captain before an audience of his full cabinet.
Soon afterward, the Treasury Department transferred
Constable to a new assignment away from the war zone.
By mid-July 1862, the gunboat had made its way to New
York City to become guard ship for the harbor. Months of
this monotonous duty likely caused great boredom among the
crew requiring the commanding officer to order them thrown
in irons on a regular basis. Occasionally, they received a
harsher sentence as in the case of the ship’s steward, who
“was placed in irons and triced up twelve hours at the
expiration of which time he was placed in solitary
confinement in double irons for two days for insolence to
comdg. officer.”
A year later, the gunboat played a
small role in battling the infamous New York City Draft
Riots. On July 29, 1863, Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase
ordered the gunboat’s name to revert from E.A. Stevens back
to Naugatuck, so the cutter gunboat held the name E.A.
Stevens for only three years.
The gunboat
battle-tested several unique naval technologies including
hidden loading systems, rubber recoil absorbers, multiple
screws, high-speed water pumps and ballast tanks. The use of
ballast tanks in the gunboat proved the most successful
application of that technology up to that time. The
twin-screw system had proven very useful for speed,
maneuverability and aiming the main gun. Despite the success
of its innovations, the Stevens’s exploding gun marred an
otherwise successful service record.
After the Civil
War, the Treasury Department assigned Naugatuck responsibile
for patrolling North Carolina’s inland sounds and it called
the city New Bern its homeport. Naugatuck served this duty
from late 1865 until the summer of 1889, with periodic trips
to New York, Norfolk and Baltimore for maintenance and
repairs. Throughout its career as a gunboat, the E.A.
Stevens/Naugatuck never belonged to the U.S. Navy, remaining
a cutter in the long blue line.
By William H. Thiesen, Atlantic Area Historian, USCG
Provided
through
Coast
Guard
Copyright 2017
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