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The USS Monadnock: Great Naval Wonder

Found this wonderful description of the twin-turreted monitor USS Monadnock (pictured, right) while researching the life and naval service of a sailor who served aboard her from 1865-1866. This account, excerpted from a letter written by a correspondent named "Roland," is dated San Francisco, June 25, 1866. It was published in the August 4, 1866, issue of the Pacific Commercial Advertiser (Honolulu, Hawaii). I've added notes [in brackets] when appropriate.

Crowds are daily visiting this great naval wonder and the war steamer Vanderbilt, both lying off in the bay, and which arrived a day or two after we came into port. In the language of Jack Downing, I and Gen. [Irvin] McDowell together visited the first named. At a distance she looks like a half sunken ship, standing less than two feet out of water. As you approach her, flat and motionless, she bears nothing formidable or terrifying in appearance, but rather looks tame and sleepy. When once aboard, and you proceed to enter the aperture of one of her turrets, facing the grim, open mouth, of one of those famous Dahlgren “swamp angels,” [reference to the famed monster gun used by the federals in the 1863 bombardment of Charleston, S.C.] you begin to wake up to the sense of your “situation.” These enormous guns are fourteen feet in length, black and menacing, with 480 lb. balls laying beside them and consuming 60 lbs. of powder at a charge. After seeing them, you can soon begin to form a conception of their death-dealing, destructive qualities. I put my head into the muzzle of one, and concluded I had a very small head or that was a very large hole. One of the officers told me that while the monitor was at Rio, Brazil, they found one of the Brazilian officers, with his knife, trying to chip or pick into the guns, suspecting that they might be only “quaker guns,” made of wood. [Reference to wooden logs painted black; used by both sides in the Civil War to deceive their adversary.] Surrounding the inside of the turrets are suspended canvass, thickly lined with felt, which serves to deaden the sound, so that the noise of the discharge is no greater inside the turret than outside. While the Emperor of Brazil was on board, at his request two guns were loaded to be fired, himself to be allowed to discharge them. After discharging the first he hastily withdrew, requesting them to omit the other.

On the deck lay two “Baulseys” or cigar shaped water-tight boxes, about 28 feet long, and 5 feet in diameter at the center, for supplies and water in case of disaster or shipwreck. But what strikes a visitor as the most peculiar and novel are the band-box turrets, 46 feet in circumference, 10 feet high, and 11 inches thick, with little horizontal spaces, cut half an inch in width four or five inches long, for sight holes. The outside of these are ingeniously protected by a little stairway of steps, cut into each successive layer of plate, till it widens to something over a foot long and four inches wide, forcing a ball when striking to change its inclination and dart either upwards or downwards. On the top of the turrets, are removable pilot houses never used in action. The compasses are immersed in alcohol to prevent the attraction of the magnet towards the iron. In the fire rooms the average heat is 150 to 160 degrees, but it has touched 175. The highest speed attained was 9 knots an hour, but usually she makes 6 1/2 knots. She draw 12 1/4 feet of water, and has 18 engines for all purposes. She is soon to be taken to the navy yard and laid up, her officers and crew returning to New York on the steamer of July 10th or 20th.

Photo from a U.S. navy lithograph.

"The Spirit of the Age"

The Sixty-second U.S. Colored Infantry is perhaps best known for its commitment to educate the mostly illiterate slaves who joined its ranks in late 1863 and early 1864. In reading various accounts of the regiment's history, I am impressed with the African American men and the strides they made to better themselves and the white officers who linked leadership to literacy and education to citizenship.

These officers were more than men of their time. They were visionaries who contributed to the immediacy of a brutal and bloody war with a long view to addressing the future needs of what most assuredly would be a dramatically changed society in peacetime. This brings to mind the engraving of the eagle pictured here, with arrows and an olive branch gripped in it talon. It was scanned from the enlistment paper of a slave who joined the army in 1864. It represents the extremes that these men faced.

Last week I read through the original regimental order book of the Sixty-second, part of the collection of the National Archives. Preserved in this volume are all the handwritten general and special orders issued by the staff officers. Page after page, I was struck by the commitment of these men to the betterment of freed slaves.

General Order No. 36, transcribed here, caught my attention, for it illustrates both the weakness of man and the strength of human character. I like the phrase "the spirit of the age," which acknowledges this unique moment in history that transformed a race and rebuilt the very foundation of our modern democracy.

Hd. Qrs. 62nd Regt. U.S. Cold. Inf.
Brazos Santiago, Texas
November 9th 1864
General Orders
No 36

The Lieut. Col. Comdg. has learned with regret that several officers of this command have been in the habit of abusing men under their command by striking them with their fists or swords, & by kicking them when guilty of very slight offenses. This is as unmanly and unofficer like as it is unnecessary. An officer is not fit to command who cannot control his temper sufficiently to avoid the habitual application of blows to enforce obedience. Men will not obey as promptly an order who adopts the customs of the slave driver to maintain authority as they will him who punishes by a system consistent with the character and enormity of offenses and the spirit of the age. The time for enforcing authority with the sword is in case of willful disobedience of orders, mutiny, or cowardice in action, which in the ordinary course of events, will rarely occur.

While censuring the officers referred to, their commander makes allowance for the fact that, generally, the men who have received such punishment have been of the meanest type of soldiers; lazy, dirty & inefficient and provoking to any high spirited officer. But he is satisfied never-the-less that such treatment will not produce reform in them, while it has an injurious effect on all good men, from its resemblance to their former treatment while slaves.

By order of
Lieut. Colonel David Branson
Comdg. Regt.
R.B. Foster
1st Lt. & actg. Adjt.