An accident which happened to the Fulton belongs to the history of modern warfare. It revealed to Perry’s alert mind a valuable principle destined to work a revolution in the tactics of naval battles. Like the mountaineer of Potosi who when his bush failed as a support, found something better in the silver beneath, so Perry discovered at the roots of a chance accident a new element of power in war.

The Fulton was rather a massive floating battery than a sea-steamer. Once started, her speed for those days was respectable, but to turn her was no easy matter. To stop her quickly was an impossibility.

On the 28th of August, the Fulton, while making her way to Sandy Hook amid the dense crowd of sloops, schooners, ships and ferry-boats of the East river, came into partial collision with the Montevideo. The brig lay at anchor, and Lieutenant Lynch in charge of the Fulton, wished to pass her stern, and ahead of her starboard quarter. When nearly up with the brig, the flood tide running strongly caused her to sheer suddenly to the full length of her cable and thus brought her directly in line of the contemplated route. Lynch, to save life, was obliged to destroy property and strike the brig.

The steamer’s cutter and gig were stove in and her bulwarks, in paint and nails, somewhat injured. With the brig the case was different. Though only a glancing stroke, the smitten vessel was all but sunk.

Captain Perry was not on board the Fulton, having remained on shore owing to indisposition. On hearing the story of Lieutenant Lynch, there was at once revealed to him the addition that steam had made to the number and variety of implements of destruction. The old trireme’s beak was to reappear on the modern steam war vessel and create a double revolution in naval warfare. The boiler, paddle and screw had more than replaced the war galley’s banks of oars, by furnishing a motive power that hereafter should not only sink the enemy by ramming, but should change the naval order of battle. The broadside to broadside lines of evolution must give way to fighting “prow on.” In a word, he saw the ram.

Perry required written reports of the affair from his lieutenants, and wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Navy suggesting the possibilities of the rostral prow.

To think of the new weapon was to wish to demonstrate its power. He proposed to try the Fulton again, purposely, upon a hulk, to satisfy himself as to the sinking power of the steamer. He arranged to do this by special staying of the boiler pipes and chimneys, so that no damage from the shock would result. He was also prepared, by exact mathematical computation of mass, velocity and friction, with careful observations of wind and tide, to express the results with scientific accuracy.

The report duly was received at Washington and, instead of being acted upon, was pigeon-holed. Perry was unable, at private expense, to follow up the idea, but thought much of it at the time, and the subject, though not officially noticed, remained in his mind.

After the Mexican War, having leisure, he wrote the following letter:—

Twenty years later in the river of her own name, the war steamer Mississippi became a formidable ram, though before this time in 1859, the French iron-clad, La Gloire had been launched. It had been said of the British Admiral, Sir George Sartorius, that “He was one of the first to form, in 1855, the revolution in naval warfare, by the renewal of the ancient mode of striking an adversary with the prow.” It will be seen that Perry anticipated the Europeans and taught the Americans.

Other points in this letter of Perry’s are of interest at this time. First, last, and always, Perry honored the engineer and believed in his equal possession, with the line officers, of all the soldierly virtues, notwithstanding that the man at the lever, out of sight of the enemy, must needs lack the thrilling excitement of the officers on deck. He felt that courage in the engine-room had even a finer moral strain than the more physically exciting passions of the deck.

We may here note that Perry really had part in the naval victories of our civil war. The method of ramming action, as used by Farragut in his brilliant victories of wooden steamers over Confederate iron-clads, was that out-lined by Perry years before.

Perry also made a thorough study, so far as it was then possible, of the problems of resistance and penetration, of rifled cannon and of iron-clad armor.

He was for years on the board of officers appointed to report upon the Stevens floating battery at Hoboken. Until his death, he was familiar with the whole question, and believed in the early adoption of both rifles and armor on ships. Prior to the Mexican War he thought the right course was to develop to the highest stage of efficiency the ram and the smooth-bore shell-gun. It turned out that in the war for the Union in 1861, most of the naval officers associated with him and who shared his ideas were on the Confederate side. Hence the Southerners were in a much better state of advanced naval science than the Northerners. Even the Monitor was the fruit of a private inventor, and not of a naval officer. The first appearance of an iron coat on an American war vessel, and the first ram effectively used in war were upon the Confederate steamer Virginia (the old Merrimac) which was the idea and application of T. ap. Catesby Jones; while the Tennessee in Mobile Bay was wholly the creation of Franklin Buchanan. Both of these gentlemen were life-long friends, and subordinate officers, who were also familiar with the problem of ramming, and enjoyed Perry’s confidence and ideas. For the methods of the Merrimac in her devastation of the Federal fleet at Hampton Roads, the epistle of Perry might seem almost a letter of instruction.

Had good machinists and founderies existed in the South, in number proportionate to that of Confederate naval officers, the story of Mobile Bay and the Mississippi river might have been different. With no lack of courage or skill in the northern sailors and their leaders, their greatest ally lay in the poor machinery of the Confederate iron-clads. These were true testudos in armor, but fortunately for the Union cause they were tortoises in speed also. Or, to change the metaphor, though meant to act as swordfish, they behaved as sluggishly as whales. They fell a prey even to wooden vessels able to obey their helms but moving rapidly with sinking force.

With the old system of tactics under sail, no ramming was possible, as the vessel under propulsion would expose herself to a raking fire while slowly working up to position. Gunpowder rendered obsolete the trireme ram. Steam, by its gigantic propelling force, had now in turn overcome gunpowder.

The model of the machine-ram, made by Captain Samuel Barron in 1827, and referred to by Captain Perry is now at Annapolis Naval Academy. So far as we can gather, Perry had not seen this at the time of his first writing of the ram in 1839. His valuable paper was duly read, laid aside and bound up with other “Captain’s Letters” in 1839 and forgotten. When in 1861, the Merrimac, steaming out from Norfolk, by one thrust of her iron snout turned the grand old wooden frigate, Cumberland, into a sunken hulk, she revealed the powers of the ram to the whole world. The curtain then fell on the age of wood and ushered in the age of iron.

The water-ways leading to New York are such as to make Manhattan Island unique in its advantages for commerce. Already the metropolis of the continent, it is yet to be the commercial centre of the world. Until 1837 these highways of sea, river, and bay were greatly neglected, and on all except moonlight nights, vessels had great difficulty in approaching the city. Raritan and Newark bays were so destitute of buoys and beacons, that pilots charged double rates for navigating ships in them, rocks littered their channels, and the benighted New Jersey coast was jeeringly said to be “outside of the United States.” During the summer of 1837, Captains Kearney, Sloat, and Perry made a study of the water approaches to New York, the latter concerning himself with the Jersey side. His report, written at Perth Amboy, December 9, 1837, was made such good use of in Congress by Senator G. D. Wall, that a bill for the creation of lighthouses was passed, and Captain Perry was ordered to Europe for further study.

Embarking on the steamer Great Western on her second round trip, June 27, 1838, Perry crossed the ocean when such a voyage was a novelty. The passage occupied twelve and a half days, during which a constant study of the engines and their behavior, and of wages and fuel satisfied him that steam could be applied to war vessels with safety and economy. This was in 1838, yet even as late as 1861, there were American naval officers more afraid of the boilers under their feet, than of the enemy’s guns; and many old sea-dogs still believed in the general efficiency of sailing frigates over steamers.

Arriving at Bristol his first business was to visit the lighthouses of the United Kingdom, after which he returned to London. In the foundries and shipyards he acquainted himself with engineers and manufacturers. He found a ferment of ideas. A real revolution in naval science was in progress. The British government was ambitious to have the largest steamer force in the world ready for sudden hostilities so as to possess an over-whelming advantage. So much encouragement was given by the admiralty, that nearly every mechanic in the kingdom, as it seemed, was eager to invent, improve or discover new steps to perfection. Especial attention was given to the problem of the economy of fuel. Vessels wholly built of iron were beginning to be common. These, as Perry predicted, were ultimately to have the preference for peaceful purposes, but their fitness as war vessels was still uncertain. Two were then building for the Emperor of Russia. The first paddle-wheel steamers, Penelope, Terrible, and Valorous, were afloat or building. The era of steam appliances as a substitute for manual labor aboard ships was being ushered in.

It is now seen that the immediate fruit of this possession, by the British government, of steam both as a motor and a substitute for manual labor on shipboard, was the growth of an imperial policy of extensive colonial dependencies and possessions for which the Victorian era will ever be conspicuous in history. The British Empire could never have become the mighty agglomeration which it now is, except through the agency of steam. The new force was not an olive branch, nor calculated to keep the battle flags furled; for already, the first of the twenty-five wars which the Victorian era has thus far seen had begun.

At the time of Perry’s visit, however, Britain’s exclusive domain seemed threatened by France. The spirit of invention and improvement, encouraged by Louis Philippe, was abroad in “la belle France.” Already nine war steamers afloat, with more planned on paper, the beginning of a respectable sea-force, were within two hours of England. A vigorous naval policy was in popular favor and the Prince de Joinville, in command of a corvette, the Creole, was beginning to express views which alarmed the Admiralty. The brilliant successes of the French in Mexican waters, the capture of the castle of St. Juan d’Ulloa after six hours bombardment, in which the terrific power of shells had been demonstrated, encouraged them to believe that their rivalry with England on the ocean was again possible. The undisputed supremacy of the British on the seas since Trafalgar, had, except from 1812 to 1815, remained unbroken because the only large navy left in Europe was British. France, now recovering from the long impoverishment inflicted upon her by the wars of Napoleon, was investing her money largely in steam war vessels of the finest type. Fortunately for her, the revival of her financial fortunes co-incided with the era of steam, and every franc applied to naval uses was expended on first-class vessels equal to any on the seas. On the contrary, many of the British fleet were sailing vessels. Furthermore, the science of artillery was undergoing a revolution, and France led the way in ordnance as well as in ships. Such an unexpected development of energy and wisdom in her rival startled the English naval mind as it afterward aroused the British public.

The carronades or “smashers” of the sailors, had had their day and their glory was already passing away. The Paixhans gun, or chambered ordnance capable of horizontal shell-firing, was now to supersede them. Fully alive to the needs of the times, the British government had three war steamers equipped, five were in course of construction, and the keels of six others were soon to be laid. These were to be of from eight hundred to twelve hundred tons and to mount heavy shell-guns at each end and in broadside. Even then, they had but fourteen against the nineteen steamers of France and hence the feverish desire for more.

Perry’s visit to Europe was exceedingly well-timed to secure the largest results, for a revolution in optical science and applied methods of illumination, as well as in ships and guns, was at hand. Science and invention were to do much for the saving of human life as well as for its destruction. The balances of Providence were to settle to a new equilibrium.

Crossing the channel, he visited Cherbourg and Brest, there finding the same courtesy and cordial reply to his questions. In Paris he came in contact with a number of distinguished scientific men. He was especially well assisted by the United States Agent, Mr. Eugene A. Vail. The illustrious Augustin Fresnel who had said in a letter to a friend, December 14, 1814, that he did not know what the phrase “the polarization of light meant,” was in 1819 crowned by the French Academy of Science as the first authority in optics. He had demonstrated to his countrymen the error of the old theory of the transmission of light by the emission of material particles. This he had achieved by the study of polarization. The practical application of his researches to the apparatus of lighthouses struck a death-blow to the old system of coast illumination.

Among other pleasant experiences in the French capital, was a second visit to King Louis Philippe. Invited by His Majesty to an informal supper, at which the royal family were present, Captain Perry took his seat at their table as a guest feeling more honored by this private confidence than if at a state dinner. At the table sat the King’s wife and children, tea being poured by the Queen herself. At this time, the Duc d’Orleans, son of the King, was rejoicing over the recent birth of a son. His name was Louis Albert Philippe d’Orleans, Comte de Paris. He afterwards served in the Union armies during our civil war of 1861–65, and is the accomplished author of the best general history of that series of events yet published, Historie de la Guerre Civile en Amérique. At this time, November 1838, the infant boy was not quite three months old, and the talk and thoughts of the royal family were centered on him.

Leaving Portsmouth December 10, by sailing packet, Perry arrived in New York, January 14, 1839. After a few days spent at home he went to Washington to deliver up his rich spoil of contemporaneous science, and his own elaborate reports, criticisms, and suggestions. His face was flushed with the irresistible enthusiasm of new ideas. And his thought was in the direction of the future. The wires of a magnetic telegraph had been strung across the campus of Princeton college, four years before this, by Professor Joseph Henry. Out of the discoveries of Faraday and Henry, brilliant results had sprung, of which application to the arts of war and peace was already being made. Both as a naval officer and as a lover of science, Perry rejoiced to see

He now bent his energies to bring before Congress the condition and needs of our lighthouse system. He wrote a vigorous and detailed letter exposing the abuses and the schemes of the ignorant set of plunderers who were opposing improvement. He proved that often important lighthouses were left for days in charge of wholly incompetent persons. Hence there was waste, robbery, and inefficiency, while a powerful combination held the system in its coils. “The Lighthouse Ring” was then as strong as that of “The Indian Ring” of later years. Further, the battle was one of science and new ideas against ignorance and ultra-conservative old fogyism. The lenses were struggling against the reflectors. The latter were the outcome of the emission theory of the propagation of light. The Lenticular method was based on the undulatory theory. Ignorance and avarice long held the field, but under the hammer-like facts and arguments of Perry, and those who thought with him, both were routed, and the present grand system is the final result. Our lighthouse establishment is not a creation, it is a growth.

At the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876, the exhibit made by the government of the United States was under the charge of Rear-Admiral Thornton A. Jenkins, one of Perry’s pupils and friends. The triumphs of a half century in the illuminating art were manifest. Progress had at first crept by slow steps, from rude beacons of wood or coal fires on headlands, to oil lamps with flat wicks and spherical reflectors, to paraboloid mirrors and argand burners, to eclipse revolving or flashing lights. The katoptric system of Teulère, based on the reflection of light by metallic surfaces was introduced about 1790, and soon came in vogue among most civilized nations. It was costly and expensive, since half the rays of light were lost by absorption in the mirror even when new and perfectly polished; while the loss was far more when the mirror was old, unclean, or in constant use. Yet despite its many defects, it was the best of its kind known until Fresnel’s brilliant discoveries based on the principle of a burning-glass or convex lens refraction. After a struggle, the dioptric conquered the katoptric, and lenses rule the coast.

It was to introduce the dioptric system that Perry now earnestly labored. The influence of his arguments in Congress was powerful, and from this time the lenticular method prevailed, and the system of lighthouses on all our coasts was extended. From the first lighthouse built by the general government in 1791 at Cape Henry, the number had increased to seven in 1800. In 1838 there were but sixteen. The number now is not far from 250.

No less an authority than Rear-Admiral Thornton A. Jenkins, who, besides being the Naval Secretary of the Light-House Board from 1869 to 1871, framed the organic law under which the present efficient Light-House Board was established in 1852, says that “Through Perry’s influence the first real step was taken towards the present good system.” The light on the Neversink Highlands which the voyager to Europe sees, as the last sign of native land as it sinks below the horizon is one of the first, as it was the direct, fruits of Perry’s mission.

In an excellent article on this subject in the American Whig Review, March 1845, the same which contained Poe’s “Raven,” the writer, after commending Perry’s work and expatiating on the excellence of the Fresnel light, pleads for the union of science and experience, and more administrative method for this branch on the efficacy and perfection of which depend, not only the wealth with which our ships are freighted, but the lives of thousands who follow the sea.

When, in 1852, Perry lived to see his efforts crowned with success, and Congress finally organized the Light-House Board, Jenkins wished Perry to take the presidency of the Board; but other matters were pressing, Japan was looming up, and he declined.

On his return from Europe, in 1839, Captain Perry purchased a plot of land near Tarrytown, New York. He built a stone cottage, to which he gave the appropriate name of “The Moorings.” The farm comprised about 120 acres; and, needing much improvement, he set about utilizing his few leisure hours with a view to its transformation. Revelling in the exercise of tireless energy, he set out trees and planted a garden.

To get time for his beloved tasks he rose early in the morning, and long before breakfast had accomplished yeoman’s toil. If no nobler work presented itself, this man of steam and ordnance weeded strawberry beds. In due time this Jason sowing his pecks, not of dragon’s teeth, but of approved peas and beans, rejoiced in a golden fleece and real horn of plenty in the darling garden which produced twelve manner of vegetables.

At “Moorings” Perry was surrounded by most pleasant neighbors and a literary atmosphere which stimulated his own pen to activity during the winter, when long evenings allured to fireside enjoyments or studious labor.

About this time, Lieutenant Alexander Slidell MacKenzie, impelled by a request of the dead hero’s son, and irritated at the criticisms of J. Fenimore Cooper, began his life of Oliver Hazard Perry. In this he was assisted somewhat by Captain Perry, who corresponded with General Harrison and other eye-witnesses of the Lake Erie campaign of 1814. Among Perry’s papers, are several autograph letters in the cramped handwriting of the hero of Tippecanoe. Although admiring Harrison as a military man, and highly amused at the popularity and oddities of his hard cider and log cabin campaign, Perry voted, as was his wont, the Democratic ticket.

Another neighbor was Washington Irving, the great caricaturist of the Hollanders in America, who dwelt in the many gabled and weather-vaned Woolfert’s Roost. This quaint old domicile which Woolfert the Dutchman built to find lust in rust (pleasure in rest), crowned a hill over-looking the Tappan Zee, in the south of Tarrytown, while the “Moorings” was in the northern part towards Sing Sing. Perry maintained with Irving a warm friendship to the last. He was an ardent admirer of the genial bachelor author of Sunnyside, and like him was a devoted reader of Addison. A humbler but highly appreciated neighbor was Captain Jacob Storm, who owned the sloop William A. Hart, on which both Irving and Perry often sailed up from New York. Storm was a genial and unique character, famous until his death in 1883, alike for his mother-wit and devotional spirit.

James Watson Webb, then the Hotspur, and afterwards the Nestor, of the press was a genial neighbor and life-long friend.

The changes in naval construction required by the necessities of war, have been many. The history of ship building is literally one of ups and downs. Three great revolutions, of the oar, the sail, and the boiler, have compelled the changes. The ancient sea-boats grew into high decked triremes with many banks of oars, and these again to the low galleys of the Vikings and Berbers. The sides of these, in turn, were elevated until cumbersome vessels with lofty prow, many-storied and tower-like stern, and enormous top-hamper sailed the seas. Again, the ship of the Tudor era was only, by slow processes, cut down to the trim hulls of Nelson’s line-of-battle ships.

In the clean lines of the American frigate, the naval men of our century saw, as they believed, the acme of perfection. They considered that no revolution in the science of war could seriously affect their shape. Down to 1862, this was the unshakable creed of the average sailor. Naval orthodoxy is as tough in its conservatism, as is that of ecclesiastical or legal strain.

Yet both Redfield and Perry as early as 1835, clearly foresaw that the old models were doomed; the many-banked ships must be razed, and the target surface be reduced. Steam and shells had wrought a revolution that was to bring the upper deck not far from the water, and ultimately rob the war-ship of sails and prow. The next problem, between resistance and penetration, was to make the top and bottom of ships much alike, and to put the greater portion of a war vessel under water. It is scarcely probable, however, that either of them believed that the reduction of steam battery should proceed so near the vanishing point, as in the Monitor, to be described as “a cheese-box on a raft” or “a tomato-can on a shingle.”

The first idea concerning “steam batteries” as they were called, was that they were not to have an individuality of their own as battle ships, but were to be subordinate to the stately old sailing frigates. They were expected to be tenders to tow the heavy battering ships into action, or to act as despatch boats and light cruisers. They were conceived to be the cavalry of the navy; ships mounted, as it were. Redfield and Perry, on the other hand, laid claim for them to the higher characteristics of cavalry and artillery united in a single arm of the service.

The first English steamers were exceedingly cumbrous and unnecessarily heavy. It was, with their ships, as with their wagons, or axe-handles. The British, ignorant of the virtues of American hickory, knew not how to combine lightness with strength. Redfield proposed to apply the Yankee jack-knife and whittle away all superfluous timber. Denying that the British type was the fastest or the best, he pled earnestly that our naval men should discard transatlantic models, and create an American type. Regretting that our government and naval men held aloof from the use of steam as a motor in war, he yet demonstrated that even a clumsy steamer, like the Nemesis, had proved herself equal to two line-of-battle ships. He prophesied the speedy disappearance from the seas of the old double and trebled-banked vessels then so proudly floating their pennants. Redfield writing to Perry as a man of liberal ideas, said “Opinions will be received with that spirit of candor and kindness which has so uniformly been manifested in your personal intercourse with your fellow-citizens.” The confidence of this eminent man of science and practical skill in the naval officer was fully justified.

One thing which occupied Perry’s thoughts for a number of years was the question of defending our Atlantic harbors from sudden attacks of a foreign enemy. Steam had altered the old time relations of belligerents. He saw the modern system of carrying on war was to make it sudden, sharp and decisive, and then compel the beaten party to pay the expenses. A few hostile steamers from England could devastate our ports almost before we knew of a declaration of war. While England was always in readiness to do this, there was not one American sea-going war steamer with heavy ordnance ready to meet her swift and heavily armed cruisers, while river boats would be useless before the heavy shell of the enemy. He did not share the ideas of security possessed by the average fresh-water congressman. The spirit of 1812 was not dead, in him, but he knew that the brilliant naval duels of Hull and Decatur’s time decided rather the spirit of our sailors than the naval ability of the United States.

He proposed a method for extemporizing steam batteries by mounting heavy guns on hulks of dismantled merchant vessels. These were to be moved by a steamer in the center of the gang, holding by chains, and able to make ten knots an hour. If one hulk were disabled, it could be easily separated from the others. Such a battery could be made ready in ten days and fought without sailors. The engines could be covered with bales of cotton or hay made fire-proof with soap-stone paint.

With the aid of his friend W. C. Redfield, he collected statistics of all the privately-owned steamers in the United States with their cost, dimensions and consumption of fuel, showing their possible power of conversion for war purposes. Encouraged by Perry, Mr. Redfield treated the whole question of naval offence and defence in a series of letters on “The Means of National Defence.” These were printed in the New York Journal of Commerce during the summer of 1841, and afterwards reprinted in the Journal of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. His note-books with illustrations, diagrams and pen-sketches show that his coming ideal war-ship was like the Lackawanna of our civil war days which, while but five feet narrower, is sixty-two feet longer than “Old Ironsides,” the Constitution of 1812. His favorite type was a long narrow and comparatively low vessel like the Kearsarge which is twenty-two feet less in breadth than an old “seventy-four.” Like Perry, he looked forward to the day when one eleven-inch shell gun would be able to discharge the metal once hurled by a twenty-gun broadside of the old President.

During July 1840, Perry conducted a series of experiments on the Fulton, to determine the effect on the ship’s timbers of the firing of heavy ordnance across the deck of a vessel. The introduction of pivot guns on board men-of-war, rendered these experiments of great value. The bowsprit and bulwarks removed, and the eight-inch Paixhans placed in the middle part of the forward cross bulwarks, thirty feet of the Fulton’s deck was exposed to concussion. Thirty-four rounds fired at a target on shore, showed that every discharge produced an upheaval of the deck. Empty buckets reversed and placed at various distance and positions on the deck approaching the gun, were upset, kicked into the air, destroyed, or shaken overboard. The ease with which men could be killed by the windage of the balls, was demonstrated. A stout cask twelve feet forward of the gun but out of line of fire was knocked overboard. A glass phial which was hung three feet above the cannon’s muzzle withstood the shock, but three feet forward at the same elevation was shattered. Tarpaulin of two thicknesses fastened over a scuttle was rent, and pine boards securely nailed withstood only two or three firings.

Perry at once gave the natural explanation that the expansion, pressure, and sudden contraction of the gases generated by the gunpowder, caused the air of the hold to rush up to fill the vacuum, and thus pressed upon the planking of the deck. The heavily built Fulton could resist, where a weaker vessel would start her planks, just as a fish brought up in a trawl from deep-sea beds, bursts when coming to the air. He suggested that any slightly built vessel could be rendered safe, simply by flooding the decks with three inches of water. This he demonstrated after many curious and interesting experiments, thus adding to the sum of knowledge which every naval officer, in the changed conditions of warfare, ought to obtain.

Perhaps no finer illustration of the value and power of pivot guns was ever given than upon the Kearsarge when sinking the Alabama. Yet of that very ship, the British newspapers had said, “Her decks cannot withstand the concussion and recoil of her heavy guns.” They were evidently unaware of the knowledge obtained by Perry on the Fulton, and applied by American builders of our men-of-war.

The French Navy was at this time leading the British in improved ordnance. A French man-of-war of twenty-six guns was armed entirely with cannon able to fire “detonating shot.” She was reckoned equal to two old line-of-battle ships. Her visit to American ports created great interest among our naval officers, and the Navy Department awoke to the necessity of improving our ordnance.

On the 4th of May, 1839, Perry received orders which he was glad to carry out. He was directed to give his attention to experiments with hollow shot. These were round projectiles, non-explosive, but in that line of the American idea of low velocity, with smashing power. With less weight, they were of greater calibre, and required less powder in firing. They were invented by W. Cochrane, known as the father of heating by steam, and other useful appliances.

Perry selected a site near Sandy Hook and erected platforms, targets, sheds, and offices for ammunition and fuses. From this first trial and scientific study in the United States, of bombs and bomb-guns, down to the last experiments with dynamite shells, the waste space at Sandy Hook—the American Sheerness—has been utilized in the interest of progress in artillery. Perry set up butts at 800, 880, 1,000 and 1,200 yards distance from the guns, and erected one target for firing at from the ship. He devoted himself to the experiments with the best methods and instruments of precision, then at command, during the months of June and July, returning to the navy yard once or twice a week for letters, provisions and fuses. The experiments in shell practice were interesting, instructive and sufficiently conclusive. Those with hollow shot were not so satisfactory.

The faith of Perry in the shell-gun was fixed. Thenceforth he believed that bombs could be fired with very nearly as much precision and safety from accident as solid shot. He saw, however, that much practice, even to the point of familiarity, was needed. His report, at the end of the season, in which he recommended a continuance of the experiments, gives us a picture of the state of knowledge in our navy at that time, concerning shell-shot. Not one of those under his direction had ever seen a bomb-gun discharged; nor had had his attention specially called to a shell-gun when in the navy, which had so long suffered from the dry rot of unmeaning routine. He complains of the lamentable want of knowledge in this important branch of the naval profession, when already so many of the French and British ships were armed with shell-guns. However, the officers trained at Sandy Hook, were now capable of teaching others in the use of explosive projectiles aboard the ship. Men and boys had all made progress in expertness. He suggested that the winter months be employed in teaching boys on the Fulton a knowledge of pyrotechny, and that fifteen or twenty boys from the North Carolina should be associated with them, and a class of gunners be thus trained.

His plan was approved by the Department. A course of study and drill in gunnery, pyrotechny and the knowledge of the steam engine, was organized and carried out during the winter. The graduates of this school afterwards gave good account of themselves in the Mexican and our Civil War. We see in this school, the beginning of the present admirable training of our sailors in the science of explosives.

Perry, meanwhile, kept himself abreast of the latest developments and discoveries in every branch of the naval art. We find him forwarding to the War and Navy Departments the most recent European publications on these subjects. He made himself familiar with the applications of electricity to daily use. Neither the science nor the art of ordnance had made great progress in America, since Mr. Samuel Wheeler cast, in 1776, what was probably the first iron three-pounder gun made in the United States, and which the British captured at Brandywine and took to the Tower of London. The war of 1812 showed, however, that in handling their guns, the Yankees were superior in theory and practice to their British foes.

In 1812, Colonel Bomford, of the United States Ordnance Department, invented the sea-coast howitzer, or cannon for firing shells at long range, by direct fire, which he improved in 1814 and called a “Columbiad.” By this gun a shell was fired at an English vessel, near New York, in 1815, which exploded with effect. It was this invention which the French General Paixhans, introduced into Europe in 1824.^[10] The Frenchman was another Amerigo, and Bomford, being another Columbus, was forgotten, for the name “Paixhans” clung to the canons obusiers or improved columbiad. The making or the use of bomb-cannons, in America, was not continued after the war of 1812, and when first employed by Perry, at Sandy Hook, were novelties to both the lay and professional men of the navy on this side of the Atlantic. When four shell-guns were, in 1842, put upon the ship-of-the-line, Columbus, according to Captain Parker, shells were still unfamiliar curiosities. He writes in his Recollections, p. 21:—

“The shells were a great bother to us, as they were kept in the shell room and no one was allowed even to look at them. It seemed to be a question with the division officers whether the fuse went in first, or the sabot, or whether the fuse should be ignited before putting the shell in the gun or not. However, we used to fire them off, though I cannot say I ever saw them hit anything.” As the jolly captain elsewhere says: “It took so long to get ready for the great event (of target practice) that we seemed to require a resting spell of six months before we tried it again.” About this time also pivot guns came into general use on our national vessels, all cannon having previously been so mounted that they could only fire straight ahead.

The Mexican War was a school of artillery practice and marked a distinct era of progress. The flying artillery of Ringgold, in the field, and Perry’s siege guns, in the naval battery at Vera Cruz, were revelations to Europe of the great advance made by Americans in this branch of the science of destruction. In the Civil War, on land and water, the stride of centuries was taken in four years, when Dahlgren introduced that “new era of gun manufacture which now interests all martial nations.” Since then, the enormous guns of Woolwich and Krupp have come into existence, but perfection in heavy ordnance is yet far from attainment. Much has been done in improving details, but the original principle of gun architecture is still in vogue. The loss of pressure between breach and muzzle is not yet remedied. To build a gun in which velocity and pressure will be even “at the cannon’s mouth” is the problem of our age. When a ball can leave the muzzle with all the initial pressure behind it we may look for the golden age of peace: such a piece of ordnance may well be named “Peace-maker.” This problem in dynamics greatly interested Perry; but foiled him, as it has thus far foiled many others.

The School of Gun Practice was opened again in the spring of 1840. He was now experimenting with an eight-inch Paixhans gun, and comparing with it a forty-two pounder, which had a bore reamed up to an eight-inch calibre. Not possessing the present delicate methods of measuring the velocity of shot, such as the Boulanger chronograph, invented in 1875, and now in use at the United States ordnance grounds at Sandy Hook, he obtained his measurements by means of hurdles or buoys. After their positions had been verified by triangulation, these were ranged at intervals of 440 yards apart along a distance of 3¼ miles. Observers placed at four intermediate points noted time, wind, barometer, etc. The extreme range of a Paixhans shot was found to be 4067 yards, or about 2-1/3 miles. In transmitting eight tables, with his report he stated that “These experiments have furnished singular and important information.” After a summary of unusual, interesting and valuable work, the school was closed November 23, 1840, the weather being too severe for out-door work.

It may be surmised that all articles of the new naval creed in which Perry so promptly uttered his faith, were very disagreeable to many of the old school. The belief in the three-decker line-of-battle ship and sailing wooden frigate approached, in many minds, the sacredness of an article of religion. The new appliances and discoveries which upset the old traditions savoured of rank heresy. Those who held to the old articles, and to wooden walls were perforce obliged, as ecclesiastics are, when driven to the wall, to strengthen their position by damnatory clauses. Anathemas, as numerous as those of the Council of Trent, were hurled at the new reformation from the side which considered that there was no need for reform. It was in vain that the employment of explosive shells was denounced as inhuman. History follows logic. If “all is fair in war,” then inventions first branded as too horrible for use by human beings, will be finally adopted. The law of military history moves toward perfection in the killing machine.

Laymen and landsmen, outside the navy, who look upon naval improvement and innovation as necessities, in order that our soldiers of the sea may be abreast of other nations in the art of war, consider radical changes a matter of course: not so the old salts who have hardened into a half century of routine, until their manner of professional thinking is simple Chinese. They saw that horizontal shell firing was likely to turn floating castles into fire-wood. In the good old days ships were rarely sunk in battle, whether in squadron line or in naval duels. Though hammered at for hours, and reduced to hulks and charnel houses, they still floated; but with the new weapon, sinking an enemy was comparatively easy work. British oak or Indian teak was nothing against bombs that would tear out the sides. The vastness of the target surface, on frigate or liner, was now a source of weakness, for shells produced splinters of a size unknown before. A little ship could condense a volcano, and carry a sapping and mining train in a bucket. The old three-deckers must go, and the frigates become lower and narrower with fewer and heavier guns.

A brave British officer is said to have cried out, “For God’s sake, keep out the shells.” New means of defence must be provided. The mollusk-like wooden ships must become crustacean in iron coats. The demonstrated efficiency of shells and shell-guns, and the increased accuracy of fire of the Paixhan smooth-bore cannon—cultivated to high pitch even before the introduction of rifles—had made impossible the old naval duel and line-of-battle.

During the whole of this extended series of experiments on the Fulton, and at Sandy Hook, with new apparatus and projectiles, with assistants often ignorant and unfamiliar with the new engines of war, until trained, no lives were lost, nor was a man injured by anything that could be foreseen. The bursting of a gun cannot always be guarded against, and what befell Perry, in his boyhood, happened again in 1841, though this time without injury to himself. The forty-four pounder on the Fulton burst, killing two men. Their funeral October 8, 1841, was, by the Commodore’s orders, made very impressive. The flags of all ships on the station were flown at half-mast. All the officers who could be spared, and two hundred seamen and marines, formed the cortege in ten boats, the rowers pulling minute strokes. The flotilla moved in solemn procession round the Fulton, the band playing a dirge. Perry, himself, brought up the rear—a sincere mourner. At the grave, Chaplain Harris made remarks befitting the sad occasion.

Jackson’s administration being over, and with it much of the corruption which the spoils system introduced into the government service, it was now possible to reform even the navy yards. An honor all the more welcome and enjoyable, because a complete surprise, was Perry’s appointment to the command of the Brooklyn Navy Yard and New York Naval Station. On the 24th of June, 1840, the Secretary of the Navy wrote to Perry, stating his dislike of the bad business conduct of the yard, and the undue use of political influence. With full confidence in Captain Perry’s character and abilities—stating, also, that Perry had never sought the office either directly or indirectly—he tendered him the appointment. The Secretary desired that “no person in the yard be the better or the worse off on account of his political opinions, and that no agent of the government should be allowed to electioneer.” The letter was an earnest plea for civil service reform.

Henceforth, Matthew Perry’s symbol of office was “the broad pennant,” and his rank that of “commodore.” Yet despite added responsibilities and honors, he was but a captain in the navy. Until the year 1862, there was no higher office in the United States Navy than that of captain, and all of Perry’s later illustrious services under the red, the white, or the blue broad pennant, in Africa, Mexico and Japan, added nothing to his pay, permanent rank, or government reward. Not until four years after his death was the title of commodore significant of grade, or salary, higher than that of captain.