Seas of Change: From Wood to Metal
By Dr. John Wallace Smith Professor of History At Savannah University
History forever marches on and man with it. Man strives to forward progressing every year. One of the things that progresses with time, is technology.
One of the most rapid periods of advancement was during the Unification Wars. These were a series of wars, fought from 1799 to 1851, fought between the Second Republic of Merica and various neighboring states that were eventually absorbed into the Republic. During these 52 years of war, the Republic saw the rapid advancement of technology. Prior to the wars the meritocratic structure of the Republic and economic freedom allowed many people to prosper and gave brilliant minds free reign and attracted many from other lands. One thing to emerge from the period just prior to the wars was more efficient iron production, this would play a huge role later.
Many of the rapid advances were from contests sponsored by the state. These contest were held in response to fears that the surrounding states had eyes toward conquering the Republic which was seen as weaker by its neighbors and a few did have ambitions as such since the Republic was smaller than its neighbors in terms of land mass and the population at least. Also, the Republic was attracting many of the best and brightest minds and most capable individuals from other kingdoms and nations due to the meritocratic structure of the Republic which allowed these people to rise to places of high status they would not otherwise be able too, due to the structure of the other societies. All of this led to a rapid advancement of technology within the Republic which it would ruthlessly exploit in coming wars. Of this technology were better metallurgy and more efficient iron production which meant more available and higher quality metal for cannons and armor. In addition to this, after the war with the Southern Raiders, a machine was invented to bore cannon barrels instead of being forced to cast them whole by a man named Elijah Wood. This machine was adapted to bore cylinders for steam engines this allowed them to be made smaller and more powerful and could be mounted on to ships, a debate briefly rages as too paddle wheel versus screw, which was settled by a tug of war between the two types of propulsion, screw won. Prior to this they were called atmospheric engines and operated on vacuum pulling the piston down instead of steam pushing. Using these advantages, the Republic would quickly take the lead in warships in the following the years. The Republic already possessed certain advantages over its enemies in the form of exploding shells and more effective sail layouts and was experimenting with limited iron reinforcements but this was revolutionize everything.
There were other advantages that the Republic enjoyed as well. Namely, the corruption and nepotism most of the Republics adversaries were riddled with. Many of the men in positions of power were there due to corruption or by birth not by skill and those with it were often kept out of such positions as those in power sought to keep it that way. Thus the gifted and brilliant would flee to Republic were there talents were rewarded, so a brain drain of sorts was occurring everywhere but the Republic. In short, if a noble or rich person does not have the idea it was bad and it would make no headway. And this helped give the Republic is technological edge later.
All of these advantages would come together in 1826. Earlier in 1821, the Duchy of Jekyll and the remnants of the Southern Raiders went to war against the Republic and actually managed to push the Republic forces off the island and retake all of the Confedercy lands and push the Republic Navy from the sea. Republic began construction of a new ship class in 1826 using all of the new technologies, the casemate ironclad. And then on December 8, 1827, the Republic launched a full counteroffensive and leading the way were new warships clad in iron. A full two squadrons of eights ships each, a total of 16, lead the counter-attack on the sea. These new ships were built of varying sizes. However one thing they all shared in common was a slanted casement protecting them, they were all steam powered and had a ram. Ten of them were not much larger than gunboats and only carried a total of 2 7 inch rifles each but these guns were mounted on an internal swivel so they could be withdrawn from the firing port on the starboard and switch to port or fire one over the bow and stern. These were the
Congress class. While 6 of these casemate ironclads where of larger designs close in size to a frigate, and armed with eight 9 inch smoothbores and two 7 inch rifles, these mounted one each at the bow and stern. These were the
Republic class. Each of the
Republic’s was powered by 2 steam engines supplied by four boilers giving a total of about 1,200 horsepower while the
Congress only had a pair of boilers and a single steam engine supplying 300 horsepower. Both classes were built in the O'Malley Shipyards.
These new ships possessed both great advantages and disadvantages. These ships were slow only able to manage 6 or 7 knots at most so a sailing ship with a good wind could outrun one but they were not reliant on the wind to propel them through the sea. But the biggest advantage each these ironclads had was their armor. The ironclads were also limited in range due to reliance on coal for there boilers, meaning they had to hop from port to port or be accompanied by colliers. Each one was covered in 6 inches of iron back by a foot of wood. This armor covered the side of the casemate and extended below the water line 2 feet, the tops were relatively unarmored. This armor protected the ship from all manner of shot and shell from solid iron shot to the exploding shells, and there were not any cannons around really capable of penetrating the armor of these ironclads. However, all this armor was heavy and prevented the ships from being built as large as other wooden vessels or being as heavily armed. However, this was made up for by outfitting the ships with heavy cannon and rifles that fired exploding shells capable of devastating wooden hulled warship. The only other disadvantages were the
Republic class was somewhat top heavy and did poor in heavy weather. This was later demonstrated when the
Senator was lost in a bad storm in 1830.
The only thing comparable to these ships were those made of ironwood. Ironwood is a species of trees related to the oak, more specifically live oak. However, these faces issues, most important of which is that ironwood was notoriously difficult to work with. There were special techniques to make it easier but these were zealously guarded by the Sea Hunter and their shipwrights and nothing would pry this knowledge from them. Another issue was that the ironwood trees grow only in the northern highlands and the high cost of materials. Despite the advantages, ironwood ships offered, as demonstrated by Captain Wallace and the
Acionna during a punitive raid, no one was interested in pursuing ships made of ironwood and were fine to leave it to the sea hunters.
On December 8, 1827, the Second Republic Navy sailed into battle against the Duchy of Jekyll and Southern Raiders. A fleet of over 56 ships, 16 ironclads, 30 wooden warships of varying classes, the rest supply, and colliers. On December 22, 1827, the Republic fleet met with the enemy fleet at the mouth of Terror Bay. A fleet of 69 warships, led by a squadron of 8 first-rate ships of the line and 4 second and 4 third-rate ships of the line. The wooden ships of the Republic Navy held back while the 16 ironclads moved in to engage the enemy. The
Congress's held back and hammered the enemy fleet with there rifles from long range and were devastatingly effective since they were firing shells. While the
Republic's closed in and hammered the enemy fleet to splinters while the enemy ships were impotent to respond as broadside after broadside bounced off of the ironclad's armor. It was in truth no battle but a slaughter as 29 ships were outright sunk, 11 captured after they surrendered while 19 were forced to flee in varying states of damage even though the Duchy of Jekyll had mastered the art of making exploding shells, they were still unable to significantly damage the Republic ironclads due to their iron thick armor. The Republic fleet suffered damage to two
Republic class ironclads, one had a funnel shot away and another also had the funnel shot away and suffered damage when a shell entered through a gun port and exploded. After the battle, the Republic was able to land its troops and materiel unmolested and eventually retake the lost territory and eventually conquer the Duchy of Jekyll. The Duchy would attempt to sortie ships to combat the Republic at sea several more times but each time they would meet the Republic ironclads and be soundly defeated each time. The Republic had firmly established its dominance at sea and it would maintain that for the rest of the Unification Wars.
The Age of Wood was over and the Age of Iron had arrived.