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The New Orleans Class Ships of the Line a Design and Construction History

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The New Orleans Class Ships of the Line a Design and Construction History The New Orleans Class Ships of the Line A Design and Construction History Gary M. Gibson Introduction ..................................................................................................2 Origin ...........................................................................................................3 Ships of the Line ..........................................................................................7 Design ........................................................................................................16 Armament ..................................................................................................31 Paying for it All .........................................................................................32 Contract Complications .............................................................................38 Steam Frigates? ..........................................................................................40 Farewell to Jones........................................................................................42 Final Preparations ......................................................................................43 Construction ...............................................................................................47 Distressing Developments .........................................................................57 British Intelligence .....................................................................................59 February-April 1815 – “Suspend All Operations”.....................................62 Was it Worth Doing? .................................................................................68 May 1815 – “They Will Perish In Two Years” .........................................75 1815-1817 – “Scandalous Workmanship” .................................................77 1817-1825 – “In a State of Decay” ............................................................84 1825-1834 – The End of the Chippewa .....................................................87 1835-1869 – “Becoming Precarious” ........................................................96 1870-1883 – “Like a Corpse in State” .....................................................106 1883-1884 – “Cutting Her Up” ................................................................112 The New Orleans Lives On......................................................................115 Bill of Materials For Three Ships of the line ...........................................119 The Rope Walk ........................................................................................123 Contract to Build the New Orleans and Chippewa .................................127 Contract to Build Shiphouses over the New Orleans & Chippewa .........130 Acknowledgements ..................................................................................132 Reference Abbreviations ..........................................................................132 2 WAR OF 1812 MAGAZINE ISSUE 24 NOVEMBER 2015 INTRODUCTION rom the last half of the seventeenth until the end of the first half of the nineteenth century F the number of sailing ships of the line a nation possessed determined that nation’s sea power. These warships, each mounting from 60 to over 130 cannon and carronades, were the largest and most complex machines of their day. During this period, while the nations of Europe, principally Great Britain, France and Spain, built many hundreds of these capital ships the fledgling United States Navy built only fifteen. Of the ships of the line built by the United States between 1777 and 1822, only eleven were launched.1 Of the four that remained incomplete, two were built during the War of 1812 on Lake Ontario.2 One of these ships, the New Orleans, remained on the stocks at Sackets Harbor, New York, until its rotting remains were sold in 1883. This vessel is reasonably well documented and it is the only ship of the line built for the United States Navy during the War of 1812 that was photographed as it appeared while under construction.3 The other Lake Ontario ship of the line, the Chippewa, laid down at Storrs Harbor, New York, is a different matter entirely. Both the ship and its building site have almost vanished from the pages of history. The War of 1812 was the only time that sailing warships of this size and power ever appeared on a fresh water lake. The New Orleans and Chippewa were built in great haste and under wartime conditions. Never launched, they remained for decades after the war as attractions for visitors and objects of curiosity for residents long after they had lost any value as warships. This is their story. See page 132 for a list of abbreviations used in the footnotes. 1 The America, launched in 1782 and given to France as a gift, and the War of 1812 era vessels Independence, Washington, Franklin, Columbus, Delaware, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Vermont and the Alabama (later renamed New Hampshire) laid down between 1813 and 1822 and launched between 1814 and 1864, DANFS, IV pp.559-604. 2 The other two ships of the line were under construction on the Atlantic, the New York at the Norfolk Navy Yard which was burned in April 1861 during the American Civil War and the Virginia at Boston which remained on the stocks until broken up in 1874, DANFS, IV pp.559-604. 3 See the photograph on page 110. GIBSON NEW ORLEANS CLASS SHIPS OF THE LINE 3 ORIGIN he 1814 American military campaign in Canada failed. The Niagara Frontier in the summer Tand early fall saw the hardest sustained fighting of the war, but ended without any advantage to the United States.4 With the end of the Napoleonic War in Europe, and Napoleon himself isolated on the Isle of Elba, thousands of British troops were available for service in North America. Over ten thousand British infantry arrived in Lower Canada during the summer of 1814. Almost half of these men came from the Duke of Wellington’s army that had years of experience fighting in Portugal, Spain and southern France, although not all saw active employment in Canada that year. Now badly outnumbered, the United States Army in Northern New York was forced to defend its own territory. Offensive operations against Canada were no longer possible. On Lake Ontario that year, a war of ship carpenters continued with the United States constructing two frigates and two large brigs.5 By August 1814 the United States gained naval superiority on that lake, but too late in the year to aid the army in its operations on the Niagara Frontier or to accomplish anything significant at the eastern end of Lake Ontario. By mid-September it was time for the United States to formulate its plans for the 1815 campaign. As the latest reports had the peace negotiations with the British going nowhere, the Americans needed a new and war-winning strategy. For the United States Navy it was clear that Lake Ontario was the only theatre in which they could have any effect on the outcome of the war, and also the only theatre in which advance planning was worthwhile. Thanks to Master Commandant Thomas Macdonough’s victory on Lake Champlain on 11 September 1814 and Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry’s victory on Lake Erie the year before, the navy believed it was in firm control of both lakes, and that this control was unlikely to be seriously challenged in 1815.6 On the Atlantic, the Royal Navy’s overwhelming superiority made operational planning an exercise in futility. The best that could be done was to slip a warship into the Atlantic every now and then to annoy the British. If the 4 The capture of Fort Erie, the battles of Chippewa and Lundy’s Lane, the siege of Fort Erie, and the battle at Lyon’s Creek, all between July and October 1814. In early November the United States Army abandoned all its positions on the Canadian side of the Niagara River. 5 The 56-gun frigate Superior, the 42-gun frigate Mohawk and the 22-gun brigs Jefferson and Jones. 6 The British had other ideas. Commodore Sir James Lucas Yeo, at Kingston, Upper Canada, informed the Admiralty in London on 1 January 1815, that he wanted to build “three good frigates and two heavy brigs” on Lake Champlain by May 1815, and that “this force, with the addition of gun boats I consider sufficient to regain the naval superiority on that lake.” NAUK, ADM 1/2738, LAC film B-2942 and LAC, RG 8, C.734 pp.8-9, film C-3244. Although by December 1814 the British had given up plans to build warships on Lake Erie in 1815 due to a lack of a suitable site, at the end of 1814 supplies and workmen were at Penetangushene Bay on Lake Huron preparing to build a 44-gun frigate that winter. LAC, RG 8, C.733 pp.131-133 and pp.170-171, film C-3244. 4 WAR OF 1812 MAGAZINE ISSUE 24 NOVEMBER 2015 Navy was to accomplish anything significant in 1815, it would have to be done on Lake Ontario, and directed from the naval station at Sackets Harbor, located at the mouth of Black River Bay on the lake’s eastern shore. Before the War of 1812, Sackets Harbor was a small village of about 40 families whose principal fame was as a notorious haven for smugglers.7 The war radically transformed the little village. By October 1814, Sackets Harbor was the busiest naval Isaac Chauncey station in the United States. With ranks augmented by men transferred from Macdonough’s victorious squadron on Lake Champlain, it was the base for over 2,500 sailors and marines and a large but variable number of regular soldiers and militia.8 In addition there were the residents themselves, whose numbers had been
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