I was
watching the bowls and the announcers were bragging about the quarterbacks and
a lineman, how they had such cerebral grade point averages. So why, I asked myself, does the median NFL
player retire with a net worth of under half a million dollars. I guess they all buy fast cars and don’t
watch their nickels.
January
2, Naval Act of 1794, is the day that Congress approved money for 6 ships for the
first US Navy. There was no Dept. of the
Navy at the time, it was just a defensive move by Congress because the Barbary
pirates were intercepting our shipping. In
anticipation, a certain William Brabb, a shipbuilder’s purchasing agent, had
immigrated from Hull, England to Boston in 1792 at the invitation of George
Claghorn, shipbuilder. I know Bill Brabb. He was my great grandfather 7 generations
ago. Hull, on the coast north of London was the center for the shipbuilding
industry of the British Empire. The
enterprise takes a lot of different materials, specialist builders and careful watching
of the nickels. Brabb was a minor player, but he had an important job. And my
gang still watches its nickels.
Claghorn was the shipbuilder hired to
build the USS Constitution. 6 frigates were authorized by the Naval Act,
most with 44 guns and designed by Joshua Humphries. Humphries was a genius. America was a small player. England had 800 navy ships and France had
250. Our ships had to be rugged enough
to withstand a hard fight but also fast enough to avoid an encounter with a
British Ship of Line which might have 80-100 cannons. (An old French saying, “He who fights and
runs away, lives to fight another day.”) The French built fast blockade-avoiding
ships to get past the British, but they were made of pine. British ships were pine also, but had white
oak masts. Humphries called for ships of
smaller beam (width) and longer keel like the French ships, but made of live
oak and white oak primarily. Southern
Live oak was used for the ribs of the hull.
It is extremely hard and waterproof.
The upper sides were also made of oak.
And then the Constitution was fitted with very large ship-of-line type
bombardment cannons shooting 24 lb. balls. Most ships carried guns for 12 or 18
lb. balls. The heavy use of oak became
famous for the Constitution in the war of 1812 when it demolished the HMS
Guerriere and the sailors gleefully reported that British cannonballs literally
bounced off the sides. I’m no authority
on 18th century naval warfare, but I have heard it said that tactics
were multiple. You could shoot for the
rigging and masts using either chainshot or balls. This disabled the craft. You could use balls to try to blast holes
near the waterline for a sinking, but the best idea was to blast the
sides. This caused a spray of deadly
splinters into the opponent’s crew. It
took a dozen men to arm and fire each cannon so by killing/injuring the
manpower, this was the most effective technique.
Apparently defense spending was the same then
as now. The 6 frigates Humphries
designed were built in 6 different seaports since Congress wanted to spread the
money around—or had to for enactment. They authorized $688,888, a big number
for the day. Building low volume,
specialized military weaponry costs real bucks.
There was a year-long delay when a crew sent to Georgia to cut live oaks
all came down with malaria. Congress was informed there were cost overruns, and
at least twice had to appropriate more money, making the total tab over $1
million. By autumn of 1797 only 3 ships
were built and Congress was in a terrific argument, Democrats claiming this was
money down a rat hole. A big
investigation ensued, 3 shipbuilders were fired, and Congress decided April 30,
1798 to create a Department of the Navy in order to get a handle on costs in
the future. But in Boston,
Constitution was launched in October, 1797.
And several of the folks who had been instrumental in getting costs down
and schedules done in Boston were asked to help organize the new Navy department.
It is not clear what William Brabb
had to do with this, but we do know that one of his grandkids married a
granddaughter of General and Congressman Dan Morgan of New Jersey. Morgan was
the ultimate redneck who rarely wore a uniform and had founded a group called
the Virginia Sharpshooters. They had
accurate rifles and long-barrel muskets that could pick off British officers
instead of just firing generally into the crowd of the opponent’s line. At Saratoga he got frontier women to work as sharpshooters
which confused the Hessians and Brits who felt it was dishonorable to shoot at
a woman. His victory at Cowpens, North Carolina was instrumental in defeating
the British in the Revolutionary War. A
couple generations later, the Brabbs founded a small town, Romeo, Michigan
(now a suburb of Detroit). They were the
bankers and accountants, naturally. A
great, great aunt was the first woman to graduate as a medical doctor at the
University of Michigan. My great
grandfather, Bill Brabb (Same name again) dreamed of being a cowboy and came to
the Flint Hills north of here.
The War of 1812 could have turned
out so differently had it not been for the hurricane that destroyed the British
invasion in 1814. But some historians
hold that an important reason the British decided ultimately to sue for peace
was the US Navy, though tiny, had ship-for-ship beat the stuffing out of the
greatest navy in the world. They reasoned that the Americans, acting as
pirates, would forever harm shipping, even if the Brits recaptured the American
colonies. Constitution became famous for its exploits with the public and thus
it was preserved time and again, and now sits in Charleston Naval Yard at
Boston as a floating museum. It is the
oldest commissioned vessel afloat in the world, has been used to promote the
Navy and many other causes. Now that’s a
well-spent nickel.
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