uss frolick

I found this little gem in the stacks. I'm sure many have read it, but its new to me. Makes me want to cry ... "306 OPERATIONS ON THE ATLANTIC COAST. Confederate reports and correspondence relative Jo the destruction and abandonment of Norfolk navy yard. [Telegram.] NORFOLK, April22, 1861. North left for Charleston to-day; I answer your dispatch. The Penn- sylcania, Merrimack, Germantown, Raritan, Columbia, and Dolphin are burned to the waters edge and sunk. The Delaware, Columbus, and Plymouth are sunk. All can be raised; the Plymouth easily; not much injured. The Germantown crushed and sunk by the falling of shears. Her battery, new and complete, uninjured by fire; can be recovered. The most abominable vandalism at the yard. Destruction less than might be expected. The two lower ship houses burned, with the New York, line of battle ship, on the stocks. Also the rigging loft, sail loft, and gun-carriage depot, with all the pivot gun carriages and many others. No other buildings burned. The metal work of the car- riages will be recovered; most of it good. About 4,000 shells thrown overboard; can be recovered. The Germantowns battery will be up and ready for service to-morrow. In ordnance building all small arms broken and thrown overboard will be fished up. The brass howitzers thrown overboard are up. The Merrimack has 2,200 10-pound cartridges in her magazine in water-tight tanks. The flag of Virginia floats over the yard. Only eight guns, 32-pounders, destroyed; about 1,000 or more from 11-inch to 32-pounders taken, and ready for our cause. Many of them are ready in batteries. We saved about 130 gun carriages; all saved at St. Helena [Va.]. Many thousands of shells and shot, from 11-inch to 32-pounders, safe. All the machinery uninjured. Magazine captured, with 2,000 barrels of powder and vast numbers of shells and quantities of fixed ammunition. An attempt made to blow up the dry dock failed. Everything broken that they could break. Private trunks broken open and officers clothing and that of their wives stolen. Glorious news! General Gwynn just read me a telegram; it comes from a reliable source; the New York Regiment, attempting to march through Maryland, was met half waybetween Marlborough and Annapo- lis and cut all to pieces. G. T. SINCLAIR. S. H. MALLORY, Secretary of the Navy."

Remember the old saying: "No military plan survives contact with the enemy."

Somebody needs to build this fine frigate! No need to reconstruct the stern either!

A Rebel view of the Congress: "Report of Lieutenant Sharp, C. S. Navy, giving information obtained while a prisoner on the U. S. ship Congress in Hampton Roads. BUREAU ORDNANCE, Richmond, Va., December 9, 1861. MY DEAR SIR: In a moment of leisure it occurs to me to write you of my observations while on board of the Congress, Commander Wil. 11am Smith, off Newport News, during nine days. There is a strongly built battery of five large guns riverward, at the npper bridge toward the river. The southeast gun is on a semicircular battery alone; the others on a parapet. The battery seems continuous Page 748 748 NORTH ATLANTIC BLOCKADING SQUADRON. looking inland, but the Congress deck being about as high as the sand ~bank, I could not count inland guns, or even see then~, though the parapet curvature satisfied me that the battery is circular or oval. The same parallel line of view prevented me from the judging of the number of troops, but it was extensive. The river-edge trees remain; inland, they have been cut down, and houses, etc., are built and being built. In addition to the original old bridge, a fine, large one has been constructed, similar to the ordnance bridge, you may recollect, at Old Point. Steamers go to both bridges. The Express, steamer, runs twice daily between Newport News and Old Point; the other boats are hos- pital, house boats, etc. While there one night, about 8 p. in., a steamer was seen and reported as the P. II. [Patrick Henry]. General quarters and thorough prepara- tions were made, but relieved on falsifying the statement. The Congress has removed her gun deck cabin and has two long 32s out of stern ports. The original crew she had in Brazil, Lieutenants J. B. Smith and A. Pendergrast, Purser Buchanan, and Dr. Shippen; all the rest are masters and masters mates from the merchant service, unless for- ward officers. At sunset, though always loaded, batteries are primed, guns cast loose and ranged obliquely; regular sea watches kept; no hammocks allowed on gun deck, or lights above water; stream anchor at port quarter, hawsers bent, and others on deck; buoys all around ship, and spars in angular form reach from forward of flying jibbooms, lashed, hung by tackles from head booms and fore channels, passing the last so as to glance off passing objects, torpedoes, etc. Crew well drilled, furnisfied with Sharps and Mini~ rifles, and all modern appliances. Boat howitzer in Quarter-deck after ports. Stevens, Butt, and I were confined on the Congress; Dalton and Loyall on the Cumberland, Cap- tain Livingston; officers, Lieutenants G. U. Morris and Selfridge, Dr. Jackson, and others merchautmen appointments. The Cumbertand rows guard nightly. Both ships two cables length apart, nuder the battery, less than half a mile distant. The Cumberland has outriggers like the Congress. 1 left the Congress on the 20th ultirno,

I found this letter in the Naval Records of the Rebellion, North Atlantic Blockading squadron, Volume 4, page 393: "Report of Commander Smith, U. S. Navy, commanding U. S. ship Con- gress, regarding means for protection against torpedoes, etc. U. S. FRIGATE CONGRESS, Newport News, November 4, 1861. SIR: I have received your note about torpedoes, etc. We have been preparing some guards against fire craft, torpedoes, infernal machines, etc., but, in consequence of the bad weather, only completed them to- day. I suppose that any of these things with which the rebels may attack us will be towed and placed directly ahead and as near the ship as they can safely come, so that when let loose they will drift with the tide to the ship, taking the chain or cutwater; on this supposition we have acted. We have made with spars a frame in the shape of the letter A, which is suspended by the crosspiece from the bowsprit cap; the ends reach aft to the lower booms, resting on the water, and are secured by tackle Page 393 NORTH ATLANTIC BLOCKADING SQUADRON. 393 to the ships sides to steady them. At night the lower booms are brought nearly alongside, forming a continuation of the spars in the water. A stout grapuel has 2 fathoms of chain attached to it; to the end of the chain 10 or 12 fathoms of stout rope with a kedge. This apparatus is put into the bow of a boat at night at the gangway ready for use. Should any fire craft come down with the tide directly ahead of us it must take agaiust the frame and glance off and pass clear of the ship. Should the fire craft be on fire at any distance from the ship, the boat will be sent to it, the grapnel secured to it, and the kedge thrown overboard; it will be anchored and can burn out at leisure. These arrangemeuts, I think, will protect us against any attack of fire craft Suspended from the jibboom and under the above frame is a spar athwartships, some 30 feet long, to which is attached on its whole length a strong netting 14 feet deep and kept in a vertical position by weights at the bottom. Should such a machine as the one that attacked the ]lfinnesota approach us and come near the cable, it must be caught in the net and held there until we relieve it. Or should it pass outside the net, the tube which floats on the surface to supply the inmates with fresh air would be caught on the A spars, and the supply of fresh air be cut off, causing suffocation, and if it should pass outside of the spars it would go entirely clear of the ship, doing no harm. I think this arrangement will secure us against such torpedoes. There is another plan of preparing an infernal machine or torpedo by having two tanks containing powder submerged, and each suspended to a buoy floating ou the surface of the water. The tanks connected by a line and the buoys also connected by a line, the two connecting lines being of the same length. These machines are placed directly ahead of the ship and let go; they drift down, the connecting rope catching against the cable or cutwater brings the tanks under the ships bot- tom, where they are made to explode by matches leading from the buoys through elastic tubes to the tanks. To guard against these we are riding by a scope of cable 20 fathoms greater than the length of the ship, and on the buoy rope close under the buoy a grapuel is secured. At the distance of 40 fathoms from the anchor, on each side, is placed a kedge with a buoy and rope with a grapuel attached, as to the anchor buoy. Should any machine of the latter description be sent to attack us, the connecting rope must be caught on one of the grapuels and hang there, the floats would swing together, taking with them the tanks ahead of the ship, and explode without doing any damage to the ship. I think all of these arrangements will protect us against any fire craft, torpedoes, or infernal machines. J have not yet devised any plan to defend us against the Merrimack, unless it be with hard knocks. Yery respectfully, your obedient servant, W. SMITH, Commanding U. S. Frigate Congress. Flag-Officer L. M. GoLDSBoROUGH," Hard knocks, indeed!

The round-sterned USS Brandywine was the second built, but the first launched ahead of the older square-sterned sister USS Potomac, and the sister USS Columbia was constructed on Brandywine's ways. But Potomac and Columbia were both completed in normal, quick time, but sat on the ways seasoning until needed. Both were complete by 1827. Jones superintended the construction of the America, 74, in Portsmouth, NH, in 1782, and ordered the heavy stern galleries left off.

All historians agree that the Congress was built to Humphries 36-gun draught. It is fairly complete, given that most of the inboard profile is superimposed over the lines. With that, and the 1820-ish Charles Ware sail plan, one could make a reasonably accurate post-1812 model of her, except for the carvings and once again, that freakin stern! Makes me kinda wish that the British had captured her ... kinda.

The Essex was thought to have been built on the design of the Alliance, as the same family built both twenty years apart. It may surprise many to learn that not one single line survives for the Bon Homme Richard, just dimensions. That beautiful Ancre monograph is entirely a reconstruction by Jean Boudriot based on French East India Company practice. I've always had a problem with the stern, with its huge gallery. It's OK for the Indiaman Duc De Duras (Duck De Donald? ), but it most certainly would have been removed or simplified in its conversion to a man of war. And I definitely disagree with the placement of the six extra gun-ports cut into the lower deck for the 18-pounders. I believe they all would have been in close line with each other, and placed as far back as they could be fitted. The only known deviation of the USS Columbia from her sisters is described in a letter by Humphries written to William Bainbridge in 1827. The only difference was in her "upper bow", in so much as she was "less full than the others". But no explanation was given. Did Humphries mean that the stem-post was smaller, with less of an overhang, (called "the flam of the stem", i.e., the Raritan having a huge flam), or was he referring to the hull lines being less bluff in the upper bows than did the others? (See Donald L. Canney, "Sailing Warships Of The US Navy, Naval Institute Press, page 70.)

Lafayette was a proposal for a three decked ship based on the Spanish Santisma Trinidad (spelling!). The project eventually evolved into the 120-gun USS Pennsylvania.

In general, if Chapelle didn't find it, it doesn't exist. The rare exception being the Frigate John Adams. Your's Truly discovered them. {"Thank You! Thank You!" - Frolick bows to thunderous applause}. #1 and #4 above are in the National Archives, not the Smithsonian, and you have get them directly from that source, if they can find them. #2 and #3 are part of the Josiah Fox Papers, in The Peabody & Essex Museum of Salem, in Salem Massachusetts. Good luck getting anything from them in timely manner ... :lol Maryland Silver has only a few of the many NA plans, and as you can see, he's a Civil war guy mainly. Coker's book is a really good illustrated history, but don't expect it to be a ship plan source, other than for the JA's body line plan.

Three John Adams 1799 plans do survive, enough for a complete reconstruction. Chapelle missed them. 1. Original body lines, pre 1829: National Archives, presumably (published in Charleston's Maritime Heritage, Coker.) 2. Out board profile, which includes partial inboard profile, partial waterlines (or are they diagonal projections?), as designed, 1/4" scale Peabody Museum, Fox Papers. Note twenty-four broadside ports, but with no bridle port. The latter was added, along with a five feet extension of keel in Charleston. Not labeled as JA in Fox Papers. 3. Half-breadth of Decks, all, with stowage, 1/8th scale, as converted to a corvette, circa 1807, Fox papers. Position of projected stern chase ports indicate an original six window design, with ports in the two and five windows, with the others planked over. All they did was remove the spar deck in 1807-08. Shows length, mast and gunport position as built. (Labeled as "Decks Chesapeake" in Fox Papers, by some long dead, blind, crack-smoking staff volunteer!!) I forgot one! 4. There is an inboard profile plan from the 1850s showing her final configuration. I've seen it, but I don't have a copy, from the NA, that shows ten ports aside - down from the 1829 rebuild's twelve - a full projecting stem-post, and a sketch of her bust figurehead.

That's a lot of Boxwood.

Thanks Lads! I have only Volumes III and IV, hence my ignorance.

Father Romero had planned a fifth volume, containing, amongst other things, the ship's history gleaned from her log books, but I've never seen one up for sale in the usual venues.

Fantasy Entry we would all like to see: "No. of windows in the sterne of ye humble Friggate Constitution: Six. Any fewer would be vainglorious buffoonery - sheer madness. This is so patently obvious I shall not even bother to sketch them in any of the draughts."

Le Centaur looks a lot like Jean Boudroit's Bon Homme Richard, even down to the lion figurehead. I really enjoyed your BHR build! But are you sure that won't get bored, covering much of the the same ground again?

Bad cop! No donut!

The remains of the USS Cumberland is still at Hampton Roads, lying one hundred yards from the CSS Florida wreck. There is reportedly a charred frigate hull buried in the Potomac muck at the site of the old Washington Navy Yard: Contenders are USS Boston, USS New York, or USS General Greene which were burned to prevent capture by the British in 1814. The brackish water fortunately prevents the wooden hulls' destruction by the Toredo Worm.

Shot was held securely in the racks by netting, otherwise even the slightest sea motion would send all the balls flying. The USS Wasp plans of 1806 has the carronade shot all stored around the hatchways, while the USS Scourge wreck of 1813 has them in troughs at the bulwarks. The advantages seem to be with the Wasp's storage, as the balls are closer to the centerline of the hull and less likely to break loose by rolling motion of the ship. Shot that was stowed by the bulwarks was also prone to scattering amongst the friendly gun crews if was hit by an enemy's shot from the outside. If the enemy's shot struck a hatchways' shot rack, then the balls would be scattered to the unengaged side of the vessel where there are presumably fewer people to be hurt. The advantage of having the shot by the bulwarks is that it was closer to the muzzle, and thus quicker to reload. The deck plan of the USS United States, drawn by Charles Ware of the Boston Navy Yard circa 1820, shows two types of shot storage. Shot was stored around most hatchways on the gun and spar decks of the frigate, and the upper deck chase guns and carronades were supplemented by portable shot boxes, each holding nine shot, (three rows of three in square), placed just forward of each forecastle gun, and just aft of each quarterdeck gun. They were movable and were placed about two-thirds the way out from the bulwarks to the end of the gun carriages or carronade slides. No shot boxes are shown on her gun-deck. The perfectly preserved 1813 wreck of the USS Hamilton, laying 300 feet from the USS Scourge in Lake Ontario, and capsized in the same squall, had no solid bulwarks, and no shot garlands at all for her carronades or her single pivot gun. So she must have used portable shot boxes exclusively. That two schooners of the same squadron would each have different methods of shot storage shows that there was no universal standard at that time.

This from Historian John Miller from his "Early American Ships", Page 174: "The 16 gun Privateer Ship Rattlesnake was built in Plymouth Massachusetts in 1779 or 1780 allegedly to the designs by the maverick designer John Peck. She was owned by John Andrews and others of Salem, and her captain was Mark Clark. She mounted anywhere between 14 and 20 carriage guns at various times, and she usually carried about 85 men. The earliest dated commission found of her is dated June 12, 1781, but she may have been commissioned earlier. One privateer with the name of Rattlesnake is reported to have captured more than $1 million worth of British shipping on a single cruise in the Baltic, but whether it was this Rattlesnake or not we do not know. Our Rattlesnake was captured off the American coast in 1781 by the brand new British 44-gun ship Assurance, and was renamed Cormorant. She was taken to England and her lines were drawn (her lines survive on file at the national Maritime Museum at Greenwich). It took the British bureaucracy a long time to realize that they already had a ship called Cormorant in the Royal Navy, and she was renamed Rattlesnake once more in August 1783, after the war was over. Chapelle says she was sold out of the service in 1784, but British records indicate that she was not sold until 10 October 1786. What happened next is partially conjecture, but it seems she passed into French hands during the period of the French Revolution, for there was a French privateer called Le Tonnant in the 1790s that had the Rattlesnakes exact lines."

Chapelle's "The Search for Speed Under Sail" is the best for the technical aspects of American privateers, and it includes every known plan. It was his last and best book (1967), and it includes a better set of plans plans of the Rattlesnake drawn by Merit Edson. If you are looking for the specific history of the cruises of the Rattlesnake, then unfortunately, you are out of luck. Her career is no longer remembered, other than the date of her capture. There was a book called "The History of American Privateers" published at the end of the 19th century that is quite good, and it has been reprinted in modern times. I forget the author: Edward Stanton MacClay, maybe. "The Republic's Private Navy" by Jerome Garritee is the best scholarly modern work, but it deals with Baltimore's Privateer from the War of 1812, and of course, the Rattlesnake is a Revolutionary War ship out of Massachusetts (we think she is anyway). There is a new book out about the history of Salem privateers that I saw on Amazon that I haven't read, and I forget the title, but it looks promising.

It's still available.

BIN price or $81.27. Kind of an odd price. Well worth it if you have the funds. Very hard to find in English. She was a Cruizer Class Brig Sloop of the Royal Navy named HMS Grasshopper, but she was taken by the Dutch in 1807 and renamed the Irene. The book follows the building of a solid hull model, published circa 1970, with Jean Boudriot quality drawings and plans. The famous War-of-1812 British Brigs Frolic, Peacock, Pelican, Epervier, Reindeer, Avon and Penquin were all sister-brigs. I hope someone here grabs it. I have a copy that took me five years to find.

Mr. Delacroix, As usual, your monographs looks absolutely first rate! Since you are in the monograph business, might I be so bold as to make a recommendation for a future subject? The beautiful 24-pounder French frigate class deserves to be covered. These include La Forte/Egyptienne, La Vengeance/Resistance and the numerous frigates of the Immortalite Class, of which many plans and models survive. I predict that this would be a very popular subject, especially with members here.

I love where you're going with this project!