Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-10-28
Steam BatterinR.Rams.

We frequently talk of the lack of enter
prise and dependence of the South upon the
North, but in the matter of defending their
rivers and harbors they greatly exceed us in
their ready adaptation of means to ends, de-
ficient as they may be, in mechanical re-
sources, as compared with the Northern
States. While we have been content with
discussing the power of resistance of iron
plates to cannon balls, and the practicability
of making iron. n.clad floating fQrtre4ses, the
Southern commercial cities have gone to
work and fitted out steam battering. rams,
and the first experiment with one at New
Orleans was the sinking by it of vessel Of
war. This significant fact ought to arouse
our Navy Department at once to our inferi-
ority in this respect, and to the danger
which threatens our naval expedition with
such formidable instrument of war.
We are glad to see so distinguished civil
engineer as Mr.. Charles Ellet jr., calling the
attention of the Government to a ready
means of converting our ships into most
formidable naval weapons for offense and de-
fense. Science, it is evident, is changing the
mode of warfare upon water. Steam is an
agent now as indispensable as gunpowder,
and with the changes introduced by steam
and the heavy armament now employed in
wsrfare, other adaptations of forces or modi-
6cations of instruments must be employed to
resist their operations. Stevens battering
ram was the first great change which the
scientific and eminently practical mind of
| its inventor suggested as a necessary modif-
cation of our naval defenses. European Gov
| err ments have tested the principles Of that
great invention, and proved their practical
value. We have neglected to improve the
suggestions of our own country men, and now
wake up to find them put in operation against
us by the rebels, whose enterprise we have
despised.
Mr.. Ellet suggests that we can convert any
one of our steam-tugs or old colliers into an
effective instrument of war, and Just in the
way the rebels have done with the ERoch
| Train, by strengthening their frames and
| interior detenses, and converting them into
| swift and powerful steam battering-rams,
with peculiarly constructed bows, by which
any vessel can be cut through, even mail
clad ship. of war. He says:
"The hulls of steamers can be so con-
| structed that they may be used safely for
such work. A moderate amount of material
may be so placed in their frames and interior
| defenses that they can sustain the collision
| and the hull of The enemy, as ships of war
are now built, must be burst through by the
| shock.
Few of our seaports are accessible to fleets
| excepting by narrow channels or a circum-
| scribed navigation. The enemy approaching
in ships of heavy draugnt can not, therefore,
maneuver much, and if he advances along a
narrow channel he can not refuse the coils
| ion.
'The assaulting rams will be expected to
FIRE in such cases but very few minutes,
and for those few minutes it will not be diff
fcult to protect them against shot by many
simple expedients.
ut ought not to be forgotten that we hold
in hand now a tremendous power, which
we have never yet used in war-the steam
engine.
81 wish this power to be made available,
not merely for carrying out aclumsy gun or
huge mortar, but to propel a strong and
swift ship, which would strike the vessel
bearing that gun or mortar, end sink 1t be.
fore the unwieldiDg piece could be brought
into position"
This suggestion, which he made six year;
ago, is practically demonstrated by the
EnOch Train. We have many such steamers
or tugs, as is here required, for such pur.
poses, and with proper alterations we could
soon have a number of them converted into
steam battering.rams, ready to defend oul
rivers and barbors from an invading DO wer
or to pursue the rebels in their shallow
waters and destroy their gun-boats, Whilt
the ships of war are at work bombardinG
their permanent Notifications.