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Matthew Calbraith Perry: A Typical American Naval Officer
Matthew Calbraith Perry A Typical American Naval Officer Author:William Elliot Griffis Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. MEN, SniPS AND GUNS IN l8l2. Commodore John Rodgers was a man of the time, a typical naval officer of the period. He was minutely careful about... more » the food and habits of his men, and made the President as homelike as a ship could be. He was not precisely a man of science, as was the case with his son in the monitor Weehawken, for this was the pre-scientific age of naval warfare. Indeed, it can scarcely be said with truth that he had either patience with or appreciation of Robert Fulton, the Pennsylvanian whose inventions were destined to revolutionize the methods of naval warfare. This mechanical genius who anticipated steam frigates, iron armor, torpedoes and rams, rather amused than interested Rodgers. To the commodore, who expected no miracles, he seemed to possess "Continuity but not ingenuity." Fulton had not yet perfected his apparatus, though he had in 1804 blown up a Danish frigate off Copenhagen, and in 1810 had published in New York his " Torpedo War and Submarine Explosion." This book is full of illustrations so clear, that to look at them now provokes the wonder that his schemes found so little encouragement. Five thousand dollars were appropriated by CongressMarch 30 1810, for submarine torpedo experiments. Discouragement evidently followed : for our government in 1811, following the example of France England rejected his plans for a submarine torpedo boat. "The Battle of the Kegs" was too often referred to in connection with Fulton's projects. This threw a humorous but not luminous glow over the whole matter. It gave to a serious scientific subject very much the same air as that which Irving has succeeded in casting over the early history of New York. Having glanced at the typical American commander, let us now see what kind of sailors handled th...« less