The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1898-07-22
A YANkEE-MApe BRITISH NAVY.

of the most striking illustrations of Gill
bertian topsy- turveydom that could well
be imagined" recently said well
known authority on naval matters to
Pedrson'S Weekly.
Both in the matter of gross numbers
and of effective vessels the States and
ourselves have completely changed
places during the last forty years. But
far more remarkable than this is the way
in which we have borrowed Yankee
ideas, experimental and improved upon
them, and finally introduced them into
our own vessels in far higher state of
perfection than was ever anticipated by
their original inventors.
''To America we owe the iron-clad
turret ship, the torpedo. the submarine
boat, the quick-6ring gun, the Harvey
process of hardening armor plates, the
wire-wound guns which are now being
mounted on all our latest war ships, the
magazine rifle. the dynamite gun with
which the entrance to New York Harbor
is now guarded, the idea of utilizing our
great ocean liners as armored cruisers in
time of warm fact, it is scarcely an ex-
aggeration to say that every other imple-
ment on board a modern man-of-war,
from her huge turrets down to the tiny
typewriter in her paymaster's Office, is
either directly or indirectly the outcome
of Yankee ingenuity.
1.-The turret ship, like many other
Yankee ideas, was an emergency inven-
ton. The great civil war was at its
height, the dreaded Southern Merrimac,
an iron-plated broadside vessel, seemed
likely to carry all before it. and the
Northerners, dispirited by heavy losses,
were fast beginning TO lose heart. Then
it was that Ericsson's genius saved the
Federal navy.
HE cut down an ordinary steamer
until her deck was perfectly level from
stem to stern. Next he covered her sides
and decks with iron plates and placed
circular, dome rooted iron turret in the
center of the vessel. This turret (Which
was of iron and mounted two smooth
bore 11-inch guns) worked upon a central
pivot, and, owing to the low flush deck
on which it was mounted, could fire fore,
aft or abeam at any angle its gunners
pleased.
1.-The result was two-fold. The Mer-
rimac was beaten off, and, on the result
of that memorable victory being tele-
graphed to the Old World, the Old
World woke up with start to find that
its vast fleets of stately three-deckers
and rakish frigates had in the brief space
of twenty-four hours become effete.
1T seems long journey from the in
significant, low-lying and unseaworthy
Monitor of Ericsson's to the Majestics
! Magniicents, which form the. backbone
of our Channel fleet to-day Yet the
principle of the revolving turret, with
its all-around fire, by means of which
the two weapons Of the Monitor beat the
broadside guns of the Merrimac, is to
this day employed in the construction of
all our battle skips-a principle which,
it should not be forgotten. we owe solely
to the inventive genius of Jonathan"
All Americans are Yankees, and every
American today takes pride in the name.
1t should be supplemented to the forego-
ing, however, for the sake of history that
the naval contrivances of today were
nearly all of them defensive inventions
that originated from the necessities Of
the South in the civil war. The North,
with no Southern navy to resist it, and
with no blockaded ports, had no possible
need for topedoes, torpedo boats or rams,
and would never have required monitor
if there had not been built a Merrimac
/ The first torpedoes were experimental
with in the Crimea in 1855, but failed
and were abandoned. They were revived
by the Southerners, and as early as 1861
Charleston Is. CO. harbor was thickly
mined with varieties of torpedo. At the
bombardment of Fort Sumter, April 12,
OF that year, the Confederates employed
In conjunction the first rifed cannon ever
discharged in actual war and the first
ironclad land battery and first ironclad
water battery in history. From this
same harbor was dispatched against the
blockaders Ironsides and Mercidita, 1868,
the first submarine topedo boat ever built.
Having discharged torpedo into the
ship, the little craft was sunk by its own
recoil. 1t was recovered by the govern
ment after the war and may be viewed
today at the Brooklyn navy yard. With
the Merrimac the world saw the original
| ironclad warship of history, and the ram
made its first appearance at her. prov.
Her construction was begun in the mid
year of 1861, and because of the poverty
of material and resources it took nearly
nine months to complete her. The first
twin-screw vessel ever built was the iron
clad ram Mississippi, which fell into
Commodore Porter's possession on the
surrender of New Orleans. in the spring
t-G -