[614] splendid vessels as they had been in their day, were now as obsolete as the galleys of Themistocles. It was in placing a false reliance upon these vessels that the Government was at fault: it should have recognized in the course of twenty years that their day was gone forever, that they were of no more use than if they did not exist, that they would only be the slaughterhouses of their gallant crews in an encounter with a modern antagonist; and it should by that time have replaced every one of them by war-ships of the period. At the beginning of President Lincoln's administration, out of the forty vessels composing the steam-fleet, one, the Michigan, was stationed on the lakes, and five were from one cause or another unserviceable. The remaining thirty-four, which comprised the whole of the effective force, were in the scattered situation that is usual in time of profound peace. Nine were laid up in ordinary, and with the traditional methods prevailing at the Navy Department, it would have taken some months to fit them out for sea. No orders had been issued for the general recall of the seventeen ships on foreign service, an operation requiring considerable time in those days, when no submarine cable existed. In the Home Squadron there were seven steamers, two of which, the sloop-of-war Brooklyn and the small steamer Wyandotte, were at Pensacola; two others, the gun-boats Mohawk and Crusader, were at New York; the Pawnee, a second-class sloop, was at Washington; and the Powhatan, a side-wheeler of 1850, was on her way home from Vera Cruz in company with the gun-boat Pocahontas. Five sailing ships were also attached to this squadron,--the frigate Sabine and the sloop St. Louis, at Pensacola; the sloops Cumberland and Macedonian, at Vera Cruz or returning thence, and the store-ship Supply, at New York. These twelve vessels, together with the Anacostia, a small screw-tender, at the Washington Navy Yard, were all that could be said to be at the immediate disposal of the Administration. When the vessels abroad were gathered in, and those in ordinary were fitted out, the Government had a little squadron of about 30 steamers, of which the most important were 5 screw-frigates (the sixth, the Merrimac, having been abandoned at Norfolk), 6 sloops of
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| The United States frigate “Merrimac” before and after conversion into an iron-clad. |
