Talos

Many ships had the stripe removed during the war to help hide on blockade. With the all-black hull it was much harder to spot the ships in low light. This included ships like Farragut's squadron of sloops and gunboats pulled from the blockade and sent up the Mississippi. They did this back during the War of 1812 as well. I think President had her stripe painted out when she was trying to slip out to see past the British blockade.
 
This wasn't universal though, you can see pictures of Santee and Constitution on training duty at the Naval Academy still having their stripes, so when you get to the 1870s it wasn't that the stripe was brought back, more that they weren't involved in war at the time. You see the short-lived ships built at the end of the war like Congress using it. Macedonian doesn't seem to get her stripe back during the war after her time on the blockade, as seen in photographs, while most of the photos of Pensacola from the war I've seen show her with a stripe. It's possible she kept hers since she wasn't operating close in-shore like other ships.
 
Then sometime by the 1880s they had switched navy-wide to an all-black scheme with a narrow white stripe along the upper hull and a narrow one on the divide between hull and copper. The only exception was Constitution, which I've seen in pictures in the 1880s and 1890s with the stripe still in place, but she was already a heritage ship by that point.

You can see the typical American obsession with speed in these ships too, especially with the shallowness of their hulls and the massive sail plans (seriously, Truxton's is scary-huge).
 
With Lawrence it was the extreme V-shape of her hull. She was the most extreme clipper (as in Baltimore clipper) design ship the US Navy ever built. It was a combination of the stern being way deeper than any other brig (at least as deep as a large sloop of war), and an inability to wedge enough supples in the hull for an overseas deployment that caused the ship to be retired after just a few years. With the other brigs, it was just a general comment on their shallow, sharp hulls and big rigs, especially compared to the previous, deeper USS Dolphin.
 
Cyane had increased length and tonnage that allowed the designer to give her much finer and better lines than the very blunt Bostons. There's a second set of finer hull lines on her plans, it's possible that at the last minute Humphey decided to push a little harder for more speed. She (and Levant) were both faster and better sailors and able to carry their armament even better than the sloops of the 1820s. It's certainly a matter of balance between effectiveness and costs, along with quality versus quantity. If you cheapen out on the ship enough, does it matter if it's not going to stand up to an enemy warship in action?
 
The Navy at the time was also adopting a "peacetime armament" idea, where a ship lands a couple guns in peacetime, usually the chasers.
 
@frolick: Philadelphia carried sixteen 32-pounder carronades as her upper-deck armament in 1803. Before that she carried 9-pounders in her upper works. I had noticed that carronade in back too! The 9-pounder is probably a chase gun.

Thanks, Charlie. I did them for myself originally since I love the side by side comparisons. You can really see things like changes in lines, sizes, detail, etc.
 
Erie was a rebuild of the War of 1812-era sloop and man, she does have a ton of drag. Ended up as a store ship late in life.
 
The next three, designs by Eckford, Grice, and Floyd, were never built, but were proposals that helped shape the Boston class. Eckford's was the original design that started it all, while Grice's was smaller and cheaper. Floyd's was quite a bit bigger, but featured a couple extra guns. The Bostons were never amazing, they were pretty slow due to their hull forms and overloaded. A big part of this was the Navy cheapening out and sticking the Floyd's armament in a hull quite a bit smaller.
 
I’m pretty sure all three were used. Humpreys’ was the main design of course, but Doughty’s was used for the Warren, Natchez, and Lexington. Chapelle notes that Boston and Vincennes were both listed as having a beam slightly narrower than the others, which matches the dimensions of the Barker design, so they might have been that. Chapelle does note that while none of the hulls are really that good (to blunt for good speed), Barker’s stern lines were slightly better than the others.
 
The Bostons and the later 3rd-class sloops of the Dales were a good showcase for the problems with going cheap when building ships. Dales were tiny, built roughly in the dimension of the War of 1812 original sloop Peacock, but loaded with heavier guns, more boats, more supplies, etc. Chapelle noted that while they were great sailors, and good cheap ships to show the US flag in foreign ports, they were very lightly armed and outmatched even by some European brigs of the era. Better in peacetime than in war.
 
They were originally armed with custom, short 24-pounders that were a unique design. These were pretty conical, with trunnions mounted well below the centerline of the gun. Thomas ap Catesby Jones, uncle of the future CSS Virginia commander from the Battle of Hampton Roads, Catesby ap Roger Jones, was serving as ordnance inspector and he denounced the guns heavily. They were too light and short, weren’t safe to use heavy charges or double-shot. They were all refitted with 32-pounder carronades instead. Two survived the Civil War, and the class ship survived until 1906. We have a couple photos of her. Dale herself was a sail training ship for a long time, which was a role she was well-suited for, being smaller and cheaper to operate but still maintaining a full three-masted ship rig.
 
You can see the difference with Cyane, which was a much more successful design, fast, good sailor, and carried her armament well. That extra tonnage made all the difference. It was an enhancement on the rebuilt Peacock, which was a very sharp design and too overloaded with her as-built armament.  After Cyane, Saratoga was even bigger and a very successful design, so it set the pattern for the 1840s big sloops we were talking about earlier, all of which were successful (except for poor Albany).
 
Speaking of brigs earlier, the Navy had a string of very extreme brig designs in the end. Somers, Bainbridge, Lawrence, Truxton, and Perry were all crazy designs. Lawrence was the big failure, being an extreme clipper shape with an incredible drag to her keel. Her hull was too cramped for enough supplies and she drew a huge amount of water aft. Only lasted a few years before she was sold. Somers was the site of the Somers Affair, the only mutiny in US Navy history, which resulted in the son of the Secretary of War (a midshipman) and two others being hung from the yardarms of the brig. This is what led to the abolishing of the midshipmen training and the founding of the US Naval Academy. She later capsized suddenly a few years later. Her sister, Bainbridge, also capsized later during the Civil War. Truxton was a different design that had to be fitted with lighter carronades than the others. She grounded and was burned during the Mexican-American War. The final one was Perry, which was very active in anti-slavery patrols in Africa, where she could sail in shallower waters. She had a counter stern with a large cabin aft on the gundeck, which meant she couldn’t use stern chasers. Perry lasted through the Civil War and was sold off at the end of it.
 
The unusual brig I wanted to highlight, especially after the Dales, was a never-built brig that was to be named Burrows. She’s unique and much larger than the others, being 126 feet long, nearly ten feet longer than Dale was. Just looking at her hull lines and sail plan, she probably would have been a hell of a sailor. Pierced for sixteen guns, plus chasers, which is 2-4 more than the smaller brigs. Overall just a fascinating what-if ship. You can see her at the bottom of the brig comparison I’m attaching.

Thanks, Charlie. I did them for myself originally since I love the side by side comparisons. You can really see things like changes in lines, sizes, detail, etc.
 
Erie was a rebuild of the War of 1812-era sloop and man, she does have a ton of drag. Ended up as a store ship late in life.
 
The next three, designs by Eckford, Grice, and Floyd, were never built, but were proposals that helped shape the Boston class. Eckford's was the original design that started it all, while Grice's was smaller and cheaper. Floyd's was quite a bit bigger, but featured a couple extra guns. The Bostons were never amazing, they were pretty slow due to their hull forms and overloaded. A big part of this was the Navy cheapening out and sticking the Floyd's armament in a hull quite a bit smaller.
 
I’m pretty sure all three were used. Humpreys’ was the main design of course, but Doughty’s was used for the Warren, Natchez, and Lexington. Chapelle notes that Boston and Vincennes were both listed as having a beam slightly narrower than the others, which matches the dimensions of the Barker design, so they might have been that. Chapelle does note that while none of the hulls are really that good (to blunt for good speed), Barker’s stern lines were slightly better than the others.
 
The Bostons and the later 3rd-class sloops of the Dales were a good showcase for the problems with going cheap when building ships. Dales were tiny, built roughly in the dimension of the War of 1812 original sloop Peacock, but loaded with heavier guns, more boats, more supplies, etc. Chapelle noted that while they were great sailors, and good cheap ships to show the US flag in foreign ports, they were very lightly armed and outmatched even by some European brigs of the era. Better in peacetime than in war.
 
They were originally armed with custom, short 24-pounders that were a unique design. These were pretty conical, with trunnions mounted well below the centerline of the gun. Thomas ap Catesby Jones, uncle of the future CSS Virginia commander from the Battle of Hampton Roads, Catesby ap Roger Jones, was serving as ordnance inspector and he denounced the guns heavily. They were too light and short, weren’t safe to use heavy charges or double-shot. They were all refitted with 32-pounder carronades instead. Two survived the Civil War, and the class ship survived until 1906. We have a couple photos of her. Dale herself was a sail training ship for a long time, which was a role she was well-suited for, being smaller and cheaper to operate but still maintaining a full three-masted ship rig.
 
You can see the difference with Cyane, which was a much more successful design, fast, good sailor, and carried her armament well. That extra tonnage made all the difference. It was an enhancement on the rebuilt Peacock, which was a very sharp design and too overloaded with her as-built armament.  After Cyane, Saratoga was even bigger and a very successful design, so it set the pattern for the 1840s big sloops we were talking about earlier, all of which were successful (except for poor Albany).
 
Speaking of brigs earlier, the Navy had a string of very extreme brig designs in the end. Somers, Bainbridge, Lawrence, Truxton, and Perry were all crazy designs. Lawrence was the big failure, being an extreme clipper shape with an incredible drag to her keel. Her hull was too cramped for enough supplies and she drew a huge amount of water aft. Only lasted a few years before she was sold. Somers was the site of the Somers Affair, the only mutiny in US Navy history, which resulted in the son of the Secretary of War (a midshipman) and two others being hung from the yardarms of the brig. This is what led to the abolishing of the midshipmen training and the founding of the US Naval Academy. She later capsized suddenly a few years later. Her sister, Bainbridge, also capsized later during the Civil War. Truxton was a different design that had to be fitted with lighter carronades than the others. She grounded and was burned during the Mexican-American War. The final one was Perry, which was very active in anti-slavery patrols in Africa, where she could sail in shallower waters. She had a counter stern with a large cabin aft on the gundeck, which meant she couldn’t use stern chasers. Perry lasted through the Civil War and was sold off at the end of it.
 
The unusual brig I wanted to highlight, especially after the Dales, was a never-built brig that was to be named Burrows. She’s unique and much larger than the others, being 126 feet long, nearly ten feet longer than Dale was. Just looking at her hull lines and sail plan, she probably would have been a hell of a sailor. Pierced for sixteen guns, plus chasers, which is 2-4 more than the smaller brigs. Overall just a fascinating what-if ship. You can see her at the bottom of the brig comparison I’m attaching.

In my random trawling of the NH&HC site today, I found this beautiful shot of the USS St Louis, the last surviving member of the Boston-class sloops from the 1820s. She was a sistership of both the rebuilt USS John Adams and the famous globetrotting USS Vincennes. There were three designs used for that class, ones by Humphreys, Doughty, and Barker. I might be seeing things, but she reminds me more of the Barker plan than the others. You can see the three designs marked as such in the attachment. Another thing is the number of gunports on the side (filled in with windows). The original ship had a dozen plus bridle ports per side. This has eight, plus bridles. I wonder when she got refitted, because her Civil War armament was 18 guns (4 x 8" shell guns, 12 x 32-pounders and 2 x 20-pounder Parrotts), which would fit that port arrangement exactly.

 
Also a gorgeous picture of St. Mary's. Such a handsome vessel.

Many ships had the stripe removed during the war to help hide on blockade. With the all-black hull it was much harder to spot the ships in low light. This included ships like Farragut's squadron of sloops and gunboats pulled from the blockade and sent up the Mississippi. They did this back during the War of 1812 as well. I think President had her stripe painted out when she was trying to slip out to see past the British blockade.
 
This wasn't universal though, you can see pictures of Santee and Constitution on training duty at the Naval Academy still having their stripes, so when you get to the 1870s it wasn't that the stripe was brought back, more that they weren't involved in war at the time. You see the short-lived ships built at the end of the war like Congress using it. Macedonian doesn't seem to get her stripe back during the war after her time on the blockade, as seen in photographs, while most of the photos of Pensacola from the war I've seen show her with a stripe. It's possible she kept hers since she wasn't operating close in-shore like other ships.
 
Then sometime by the 1880s they had switched navy-wide to an all-black scheme with a narrow white stripe along the upper hull and a narrow one on the divide between hull and copper. The only exception was Constitution, which I've seen in pictures in the 1880s and 1890s with the stripe still in place, but she was already a heritage ship by that point.

I do love these charts you do Talos. Keep em coming they give a unique perspective like look at those top 3 erie and grice very wide at the stern while eckford seems wider at the bow. And look how tiny Dale is. Nice to see one Boston class got imaged. So did all 3 designs get used or do we not know which of the 3 became the class?

In my random trawling of the NH&HC site today, I found this beautiful shot of the USS St Louis, the last surviving member of the Boston-class sloops from the 1820s. She was a sistership of both the rebuilt USS John Adams and the famous globetrotting USS Vincennes. There were three designs used for that class, ones by Humphreys, Doughty, and Barker. I might be seeing things, but she reminds me more of the Barker plan than the others. You can see the three designs marked as such in the attachment. Another thing is the number of gunports on the side (filled in with windows). The original ship had a dozen plus bridle ports per side. This has eight, plus bridles. I wonder when she got refitted, because her Civil War armament was 18 guns (4 x 8" shell guns, 12 x 32-pounders and 2 x 20-pounder Parrotts), which would fit that port arrangement exactly.

 
Also a gorgeous picture of St. Mary's. Such a handsome vessel.

Speaking of Albany's old guns, here's something related. These are the frigate Philadelphia's old cannons recovered in Tripoli.
 

In my random trawling of the NH&HC site today, I found this beautiful shot of the USS St Louis, the last surviving member of the Boston-class sloops from the 1820s. She was a sistership of both the rebuilt USS John Adams and the famous globetrotting USS Vincennes. There were three designs used for that class, ones by Humphreys, Doughty, and Barker. I might be seeing things, but she reminds me more of the Barker plan than the others. You can see the three designs marked as such in the attachment. Another thing is the number of gunports on the side (filled in with windows). The original ship had a dozen plus bridle ports per side. This has eight, plus bridles. I wonder when she got refitted, because her Civil War armament was 18 guns (4 x 8" shell guns, 12 x 32-pounders and 2 x 20-pounder Parrotts), which would fit that port arrangement exactly.

 
Also a gorgeous picture of St. Mary's. Such a handsome vessel.

Speaking of Albany's old guns, here's something related. These are the frigate Philadelphia's old cannons recovered in Tripoli.
 

In my random trawling of the NH&HC site today, I found this beautiful shot of the USS St Louis, the last surviving member of the Boston-class sloops from the 1820s. She was a sistership of both the rebuilt USS John Adams and the famous globetrotting USS Vincennes. There were three designs used for that class, ones by Humphreys, Doughty, and Barker. I might be seeing things, but she reminds me more of the Barker plan than the others. You can see the three designs marked as such in the attachment. Another thing is the number of gunports on the side (filled in with windows). The original ship had a dozen plus bridle ports per side. This has eight, plus bridles. I wonder when she got refitted, because her Civil War armament was 18 guns (4 x 8" shell guns, 12 x 32-pounders and 2 x 20-pounder Parrotts), which would fit that port arrangement exactly.

 
Also a gorgeous picture of St. Mary's. Such a handsome vessel.

Speaking of Albany's old guns, here's something related. These are the frigate Philadelphia's old cannons recovered in Tripoli.
 

In my random trawling of the NH&HC site today, I found this beautiful shot of the USS St Louis, the last surviving member of the Boston-class sloops from the 1820s. She was a sistership of both the rebuilt USS John Adams and the famous globetrotting USS Vincennes. There were three designs used for that class, ones by Humphreys, Doughty, and Barker. I might be seeing things, but she reminds me more of the Barker plan than the others. You can see the three designs marked as such in the attachment. Another thing is the number of gunports on the side (filled in with windows). The original ship had a dozen plus bridle ports per side. This has eight, plus bridles. I wonder when she got refitted, because her Civil War armament was 18 guns (4 x 8" shell guns, 12 x 32-pounders and 2 x 20-pounder Parrotts), which would fit that port arrangement exactly.

 
Also a gorgeous picture of St. Mary's. Such a handsome vessel.

Many ships had the stripe removed during the war to help hide on blockade. With the all-black hull it was much harder to spot the ships in low light. This included ships like Farragut's squadron of sloops and gunboats pulled from the blockade and sent up the Mississippi. They did this back during the War of 1812 as well. I think President had her stripe painted out when she was trying to slip out to see past the British blockade.
 
This wasn't universal though, you can see pictures of Santee and Constitution on training duty at the Naval Academy still having their stripes, so when you get to the 1870s it wasn't that the stripe was brought back, more that they weren't involved in war at the time. You see the short-lived ships built at the end of the war like Congress using it. Macedonian doesn't seem to get her stripe back during the war after her time on the blockade, as seen in photographs, while most of the photos of Pensacola from the war I've seen show her with a stripe. It's possible she kept hers since she wasn't operating close in-shore like other ships.
 
Then sometime by the 1880s they had switched navy-wide to an all-black scheme with a narrow white stripe along the upper hull and a narrow one on the divide between hull and copper. The only exception was Constitution, which I've seen in pictures in the 1880s and 1890s with the stripe still in place, but she was already a heritage ship by that point.

Speaking of Albany's old guns, here's something related. These are the frigate Philadelphia's old cannons recovered in Tripoli.
 

Much weaker design. Dahlgren approached his gun designs scientifically and really changed how he designed them compared to earlier guns. With the Peacemaker gun on Princeton, the gun itself was an experimental material plus the design wasn't strong enough. A second of the design survives at the Naval Academy. That gun, and Dahlgren's, are detailed in Spencer Tucker's Arming the Fleet (which is also where I found the table of dimensions to do the drawings of the 1840s cannons).

It was the standard frigate armament. She probably would have been overloaded with a gundeck of IX-inch Dahlgrens and a second gundeck of 32-pounders. Since she had the spar deck still, she wouldn't get the heavier guns like Cumberland. She also had twice as many guns, so her weight of iron wasn't any lower. It's pretty common to arm razees with a heavier gun since they suddenly don't have the weight of an upper deck and the guns from that deck on top of everything.The 32-pounder did have advantages in faster firing (faster to load and the 32-pounder shot is the biggest that one man can easily carry. It takes two men with a sling or clamp to carry a IX-inch shell).
 
 
I definitely think they influenced Dahlgren when he started experimenting. He didn't do his guns until over a decade after these were designed though. It was a general push towards simplier guns, with a different distribution of iron (more of it over the breech, less on the barrel). The bottle shape only really goes for the true Dahlgrens, which have no angles at all on them, unlike these. They definitely reduced the weakpoints though, and these are pretty darn good cannons.
 
As far as Buggs, it's simple. Cheaper to draw and animate without any details on it!

As one of the replacement guns, yes, not one of the original Paixhan-style 10" guns. And they probably were about as good as it was going to get. Monitor had a pair of XI-inch Dahlgrens firing reduced charges and did pleny of damage to Virginia (just not any disabling ones). Cumberland had a heavy rifle that was probably also potentially damaging to it, plus a full battery of twenty-two IX-inch Dahlgrens that at close range were much more damaging than Congress' 32-pounders.
 
This is a 50-pounder Dahlgren rifle. Her second pivot was likely either this or a bigger version. Completely smooth and with an interesting trunnion band wrapped around it the cascable at the back of the gun.
 

 
 
Oh, it got worse later on! The irony is the brig Truxton was the one with the craziest depicted sail plan. I'm attaching her's and coupled with a shallow, v-shaped hull... and yet she's the one that didn't get lost at sea! (she was wrecked on rocks in the Mexican-American War). I'm also linking Albany's ship rig. Chapelle includes the original bark rig too, with the fore-and-aft mizzen. She has an extreme v-shaped hull too.
 

 
 
Dahlgrens can't be on Albany, she was lost before they were introduced. In fact, she was lost shortly after the book I was quoting from was written. She had 8" shell guns of 63 cwt and 32-pounders of 42 cwt. It's always possible they were misidentified (since they were advanced, undecorated guns) and was Albany. She was leaving Colombia when she was lost. Does sound like an interesting site to check out though!

Many ships had the stripe removed during the war to help hide on blockade. With the all-black hull it was much harder to spot the ships in low light. This included ships like Farragut's squadron of sloops and gunboats pulled from the blockade and sent up the Mississippi. They did this back during the War of 1812 as well. I think President had her stripe painted out when she was trying to slip out to see past the British blockade.
 
This wasn't universal though, you can see pictures of Santee and Constitution on training duty at the Naval Academy still having their stripes, so when you get to the 1870s it wasn't that the stripe was brought back, more that they weren't involved in war at the time. You see the short-lived ships built at the end of the war like Congress using it. Macedonian doesn't seem to get her stripe back during the war after her time on the blockade, as seen in photographs, while most of the photos of Pensacola from the war I've seen show her with a stripe. It's possible she kept hers since she wasn't operating close in-shore like other ships.
 
Then sometime by the 1880s they had switched navy-wide to an all-black scheme with a narrow white stripe along the upper hull and a narrow one on the divide between hull and copper. The only exception was Constitution, which I've seen in pictures in the 1880s and 1890s with the stripe still in place, but she was already a heritage ship by that point.

In Moses Safford's diary  "Showing the Colors" Safford mentions "painting ship" about once a year.
 
8/22/62: painting ship
6/26/63: painting ship and tarring rigging
7/27/64: painting ship
 
I recall him mentioning them painting out the white strip with no mention of why other than the captain ordered it so, nor any report of it being painted back on.  She had the stripe when deSimone painted her in 62, and when she arrived at Norfolk in 65.  The index only mentions the three above "painting ship" occurrences from March 62 to February 65, I can't find the specific point the stripe was painted out.

Speaking of Albany's old guns, here's something related. These are the frigate Philadelphia's old cannons recovered in Tripoli.
 

Speaking of Albany's old guns, here's something related. These are the frigate Philadelphia's old cannons recovered in Tripoli.
 

Much weaker design. Dahlgren approached his gun designs scientifically and really changed how he designed them compared to earlier guns. With the Peacemaker gun on Princeton, the gun itself was an experimental material plus the design wasn't strong enough. A second of the design survives at the Naval Academy. That gun, and Dahlgren's, are detailed in Spencer Tucker's Arming the Fleet (which is also where I found the table of dimensions to do the drawings of the 1840s cannons).

It was the standard frigate armament. She probably would have been overloaded with a gundeck of IX-inch Dahlgrens and a second gundeck of 32-pounders. Since she had the spar deck still, she wouldn't get the heavier guns like Cumberland. She also had twice as many guns, so her weight of iron wasn't any lower. It's pretty common to arm razees with a heavier gun since they suddenly don't have the weight of an upper deck and the guns from that deck on top of everything.The 32-pounder did have advantages in faster firing (faster to load and the 32-pounder shot is the biggest that one man can easily carry. It takes two men with a sling or clamp to carry a IX-inch shell).
 
 
I definitely think they influenced Dahlgren when he started experimenting. He didn't do his guns until over a decade after these were designed though. It was a general push towards simplier guns, with a different distribution of iron (more of it over the breech, less on the barrel). The bottle shape only really goes for the true Dahlgrens, which have no angles at all on them, unlike these. They definitely reduced the weakpoints though, and these are pretty darn good cannons.
 
As far as Buggs, it's simple. Cheaper to draw and animate without any details on it!