USS Missouri (1841)

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The Burning of the USS Missouri in Gibraltar.jpg
The Accidental Burning of the USS Missouri in Gibraltar by Edward Duncan, based on an eye witness sketch by George Mends
History
US flag 26 stars.svgUnited States
NameMissouri
Namesake Missouri River
Ordered1839
Builder New York Navy Yard
Cost$568,806 [1]
Laid down1840
Launched7 January 1841
Commissioned1842
FateDestroyed by fire, 26–27 August 1843
General characteristics
Type Sidewheel steam frigate
Displacement3,220 long tons (3,272 t)
Length
  • loa: 229 ft (70 m)
  • lbp: 220 ft (67 m) [2]
Beam40 ft (12 m)
Draft
  • Mean: 19 feet (5.8 m)
  • Deep: 20 ft (6.1 m) [2]
Installed power517  ihp (386  kW)
Propulsion
  • 4 boilers
  • 2 engines
  • 2 paddlewheels
Sail plan Barque rig
Speed7–9 knots (13–17 km/h; 8.1–10.4 mph)
Range4 months of provisions
Complement
  • Design: 226
  • At destruction: 384
Armament
  • 2 × 10 in (25 cm) guns
  • 8 × 8 in (20 cm) guns

USS Missouri was a sidewheel steam frigate of the United States Navy. Alongside her sister ship Mississippi , she was one of the first steam warships of the Navy. She was ordered by Congress in an attempt to force the fleet to modernize and embrace steam engines. Commissioned in 1842, she carried 10 guns and was among the fleet’s largest ships. Her introduction helped legitimize the role of engineers and disrupted the traditional conservative zeitgeist throughout the Navy.

Contents

In her first year, she made trial runs along the US East Coast to demonstrate her engines, followed by a deployment to the Gulf of Mexico. In 1843, she made the US Navy’s first steam-powered Atlantic crossing, bound for Egypt. While anchored off Gibraltar, a turpentine spill ignited a fire that consumed the ship overnight. Despite an international firefighting effort, her captain judged it futile and ordered the ship abandoned. After the crew evacuated, her magazine detonated, which destroyed the ship by morning.

Development and design

By the 1830s, the steam engine began to eclipse sails as the primary propulsion of warships. [3] The US Navy failed to initially embrace the new technology, as conservative senior officers opposed a radical change to the status quo. One of the opponents to steam power was Secretary of the Navy James Paulding, who vowed to never, "See our grand old ships supplanted by these new and ugly sea-monsters" in reference to steam-powered warships. [4] The Board of Navy Commissioners –an advisory group that executed naval policy–likewise opposed change, and the Navy technologically stalled. [5] [6] By 1839, both the French and Royal navies had at least 15 steam warships in service, far outpacing the Americans. [7] The only steam vessels operated by the Navy that year was the tugboat Engineer and floating battery Fulton. [8] The technological gap with the European powers led to a public demand for naval modernization. In response, Congress ordered the construction of two "sea steamers" for the Navy that year. [3] [7]

Illustration depicting either Missouri or Mississippi. The ships were identical aside from their engines and furnishings. Mississippi, starboard side - NARA - 513004 (cropped).jpg
Illustration depicting either Missouri or Mississippi. The ships were identical aside from their engines and furnishings.

To fulfill the order from Congress, the Navy assembled two boards to develop the new ships. The first group was composed of line officers that outlined the capabilities they would like in the vessels. The second board was made up of engineers and constructors that analyzed the officers' request and developed specific instructions required to build the duo. [9] [7] The resulting specifications stated that the new vessels would be ocean-going steamships equipped with 10 guns, provisions to supply a crew of 200 for two months, and enough fuel to power an engine producing 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) for 20 days. The final design was by Joshua Humphreys, Samuel Hartt, and John Lenthall, [7] and featured an overall length of 229 feet (70 m), a beam of 40 feet (12 m), mean draft of 19 feet (5.8 m), a mean draft displacement of 3,220 long tons (3,272 t), and a barque rig with 19,000 square feet (1,800 m2) of canvas. [10] The ships were the longest in the Navy, even in comparison to the 120-gun Pennsylvania . To prevent hogging (longitudinal bending), the ships were the first American vessels that included diagonal iron straps intended to strengthen the hull. [2]

Armament consisted of an eight Paixhan 8-inch (20 cm) gun broadside that fired 68-pound (31 kg) shells and two bow-mounted Paixhan 10-inch (25 cm) guns that launched 120-pound (54 kg) rounds. The two bow guns were mounted on pivots and had a 146° arc of fire. The hulls were made of live oak and were subdivided by four iron water-tight bulkheads. Onboard, the officer's cabins were situated aft while the enlisted sailors slept in front of the engines located amidship. While generally similar, Missouri was praised as having an interior, "much superior" to that of her sistership Mississippi.The final design had provisions to support a compliment of 226 sailors and officers for four months. [2]

The main difference between the ships were the engines, as the Navy wanted to investigate different designs. Missouri was fitted with inclined engines, which were popular with American paddle steamers. Mississippi received side-lever engines, commonly used by trans-Atlantic steamships and the Royal Navy. [10] [7] Missouri was equipped with four (or three) double return copper boilers that provided steam to two inclined direct-acting engines with a 10-foot (3.0 m) stroke and 62-inch (160 cm) deep cylinders. The engines turned two 28-foot (8.5 m) tall, 11-foot (3.4 m) wide paddlewheels that produced 517 indicated horsepower (386 kilowatts ) and an average speed between 7–10 knots (13–19 km/h; 8.1–11.5 mph). Each paddle had a length of 6 feet (1.8 m) and a width of 3 feet (0.91 m); there were 21 paddles on each wheel. [11] [10] [2]

History

Service history

In the Americas

Her engines were designed by Charles Copeland, principal engineer of the US Navy, and were built at the West Point Foundry at Cold Springs, New York. [1] She was laid down at the New York Navy Yard in Brooklyn sometime in 1840 and launched on 7 January 1841. In early 1842, she was completed and commissioned as Missouri after the river of the same name. Missouri left New York in March 1842 and sailed to Washington D.C. for a trial run along with her sister ship Mississippi, although the voyage was interrupted when the former ran aground off Port Tobacco, Maryland on 1 April. [12] During the trials, Copeland stated that Missouri reached a top speed of 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph), although she cruised at a speed of 8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph) for longer voyages. [13] The ship reached her destination on the 13th, and proceeded to undergo further trial runs to demonstrate the power of steam propulsion in rivers to the government. By the end of the summer, she deployed to the Gulf of Mexico and did not return until next April. [12] She operated with the Home Squadron, who complained about her high costs to coal and operate. [14]

By 1842, the introduction of Missouri and Mississippi required the Navy to hire engineers to service the new ships. The engineers were unsatisfied with their pay and conditions within the Navy, and with the help of lawyer and politician Gilbert L. Thompson, pressured Congress to establish the Engineer Corps and engineer-specific ranks. Thompson was appointed as the first engineer-in-chief of the US Navy, even though he lacked a background in engineering in a decision that critics alleged was due to nepotism. When Missouri docked in Washington D.C. in 1843, Thompson ordered her 7-foot (2.1 m) wide funnel to be removed and replaced with two funnels half the size connected to the two paddlewheel houses. He believed that the turning of the paddlewheels would force air down the funnels and into the engine rooms, even though the idea was rejected by Charles Haswell, chief engineer of Missouri and one of the most senior engineers in the Navy. Thompson was confident in his idea and invited members of the presidential cabinet to witness a test run of Missouri with her new funnels. The trial did not meet Thompson's expectations, and he successfully blamed Haswell for the poor performance. However, the event ruined Thompson's reputation with the Navy, and in the resulting political fallout, he was ousted from the Navy and replaced by Haswell by the next year. [15] The organizational changes within the Navy was a part of a larger restructuring, as Congress believed that the Board of Navy Commissioners' reluctance to support innovation was detrimental and ordered it to be dissolved and broken up. [16]

For most of mid-1843, she was overhauled, which included her old funnel design to be reinstated. [17] [12] On either 5 or 6 August 1843, work was complete and she embarked US Minister to China Caleb Cushing, who was sailing to Alexandria, Egypt. The voyage was the first part of Cushing's trip to China, where he was ordered to negotiate a trade treaty with the Daoguang Emperor. On the same day, she was visited by President John Tyler, who observed the ship for several hours before disembarking. She sailed from Norfolk to Fayal, where she loaded coal before continuing her voyage. [11] [18]

Caleb Cushing, whose voyage to China was the motive for Missouri to sail to the Mediterranean. Caleb Cushing.jpg
Caleb Cushing, whose voyage to China was the motive for Missouri to sail to the Mediterranean.

Destruction

On the afternoon of 25 August, Missouri anchored in Gibraltar harbor. [11] Captain John T. Newton and Cushing went ashore to meet Sir Robert Wilson, the governor of Gibraltar, and the US Consul to Gibraltar. The men planned to stay ashore for most of the day as Missouri loaded coal and performed routine maintenance. [14] Her arrival marked the first powered crossing of the Atlantic by an American warship, and was applauded by British sailors when she arrived. [18] [14]

At 7:50 pm, collier John Sutton was in the starboard engineering storeroom looking for a pair of weighing scales. When he grabbed the items from a shelf, he accidentally knocked down a wrench that shattered a demijohn full of turpentine. The men one deck below then chastised Sutton for spilling what they believed was water. He cleaned up most of the liquid and left to check if anything leaked onto the engines and report the incident to the chief engineer. In the engine room, Alfred Clum saw the liquid drip from the deckhead and moved to cover the engine heads with canvas when some of the turpentine fell onto his lighted lamp and ignited. The blaze then rapidly engulfed the steam chest as Clum ran to get water. [14] At about 8:05, a boatswain's mate on the gun deck spotted flames emerging from the forward hatch and yelled, "fire!" The alarm was relayed by a drummer boy, who then immediately jumped ship. The crew then manned pumps, hoses, and bucket brigades to combat the fire as it consumed hemp, oil, turpentine and paint in the storeroom and spread across the berth deck. The first lieutenant responded when the alarm was first raised and ordered the aft magazine to be flooded. He then attempted to reach the forward magazine, which contained nearly 3,000 pounds (1,400 kg) of gunpowder, but was blocked by the flames. [11]

Sailors jettisoned shells and other explosives overboard as the ship's engineers opened valves to flood the bilge. To protect the ship's alcohol amidst the chaos, a sentry was posted outside the storeroom. [11] Captain Newton and Commissioner Cushing arrived at about 8:20 pm, and the two climbed aboard. Cushing then ran to save his documents, which included an official letter to the Emperor of China. [14] [12] A distress signal was fired, which was responded to by the ship of the line HMS Malabar , crews from Gibraltar, and several nearby vessels. A boat from Gibraltar crewed by convicts and another containing Royal Sappers came along Missouri and poured water down an air port as a boat from Malabar attempted, but failed to, scuttle the steamship by drilling a hole into the hull. Boats from adjacent American vessels came alongside and saved important items from the burning ship, including the chronometers and paymaster's materials; a British steamship attempted to tow her into deeper water, but Missouri was flooded with 8 feet (2.4 m) of water and rested at an angle on the ocean floor. [11]

Sailors onboard HMS Malabar, left, observe Missouri's magazine detonate after attempting to help the Americans fight the fire. Edward Duncan - The Explosion of the United States Steam Frigate Missouri (cropped).jpg
Sailors onboard HMS Malabar, left, observe Missouri's magazine detonate after attempting to help the Americans fight the fire.

The Anglo-American effort initially succeeded in containing the fire, but a breeze fanned the flames as Missouri's crew was pushed towards the bow and stern. After discussing the issue with officers from Missouri and Malabar, Newton believed the effort was pointless and ordered the ship to be abandoned from atop the wheel house. He was the last off, and minutes later, the ship's mainmast collapsed. Later on, the two bow guns fell through the deck and one exploded. [11] At about 2 am the next morning, Missouri's forward magazine detonated, obliterating the bow as the wreck continued to burn for another 6 hours. The entire ship's compliment of 384 reconvened on Malabar from the various boats each men fled on. The only casualty was the ship's mascot, which was a bear originally from USS Ontario. The animal was spooked by the fire and was unable to be taken off the ship. [11] [14]

The ship's crew remained in Gibraltar to salvage the wreck for a week. They were then sent to Boston onboard a chartered American ship and arrived 42 days later. Newton and several others stayed behind to further dismantle the ship, and efforts were aided when Congress budgeted $60,000 to destroy the wreck. [11] Congress had also thanked the Governor of Gibraltar for aiding the crew, and she was slowly dismantled. [12] Cushing traveled China, and arrived in February 1844. He negotiated the Treaty of Wanghia, and achieved his goal by forcing China to establish several treaty ports with the US. [19] Newton was subsequently court-martialed and accused of negligence in the loss of the ship, and the trial concluded in October 1844. [20] He was convicted and sentenced to a two-year long suspension from service, but in March 1845, President Tyler remitted the remaining portion of the suspension and wrote in his order that, "there is nothing implicating in the slightest degree the moral standing of Captain Newton" and that the disaster was due to the steam engines. [21] [11] Her chief engineer was also court-martialed, and was suspended for one year. His punishment was suspended eight months into the sentence. [17]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Bennett, Frank Marion; Weir, Robert (1896). The Steam Navy of the United States: A history of the Growth of the Steam Vessel of War in the U. S. Navy, and of the Naval Engineer Corps. University of California Libraries. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Legare Street Press. p. 36.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Canney, Donald L. (January 1, 1990). "Harbor Batteries to Frigates, 1815-1840". The Old Steam Navy Volume 1: Frigates, Sloops and Gunboats, 1815–1885. Naval Institute Press. p. 12. ISBN   978-0870210044.
  3. 1 2 Chapelle, Howard I. (1 January 1998). The History Of The American Sailing Navy The Ships And Their Development. Konecky & Konecky. p. 426. ISBN   978-1568522227.
  4. ↑ Bennett, Frank Marion; Weir, Robert (1896). The Steam Navy of the United States: A History of the Growth of the Steam Vessel of War in the U. S. Navy, and of the Naval Engineer Corps. University of California Libraries. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Legare Street Press. p. 123.
  5. ↑ Chapelle, Howard I. (1 January 1998). The History Of The American Sailing Navy The Ships And Their Development. Konecky & Konecky. p. 413. ISBN   978-1568522227.
  6. ↑ Paullin, Charles Oscar (April 1907). "Naval Administration Under the Navy Commissioners, 1815-1842". Proceedings of the US Naval Institute . 33 (2). Archived from the original on 2025-07-09. Retrieved 2025-08-05.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Canney, Donald L. (January 1, 1990). "Harbor Batteries to Frigates, 1815-1840". The Old Steam Navy Volume 1: Frigates, Sloops and Gunboats, 1815–1885. Naval Institute Press. p. 11. ISBN   978-0870210044.
  8. ↑ Chapelle, Howard I. (1 January 1998). The History Of The American Sailing Navy The Ships And Their Development. Konecky & Konecky. pp. 412–413. ISBN   978-1568522227.
  9. ↑ Bennett, Frank Marion; Weir, Robert (1896). The Steam Navy of the United States: A history of the Growth of the Steam Vessel of War in the U. S. Navy, and of the Naval Engineer Corps. University of California Libraries. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Legare Street Press. p. 32.
  10. 1 2 3 Bennett, Frank Marion; Weir, Robert (1896). The Steam Navy of the United States: A history of the Growth of the Steam Vessel of War in the U. S. Navy, and of the Naval Engineer Corps. University of California Libraries. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Legare Street Press. p. 35.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Farenholt, Ammen (June 1912). "The Destruction of the U. S. Steam Frigate Missouri at Gibraltar, August 26, 1843". Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute . 38 (2).
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 "Missouri I (Steam Frigate)". Naval History and Heritage Command . 3 February 2025. Archived from the original on 1 April 2025. Retrieved 5 August 2025.
  13. ↑ Canney, Donald L. (January 1, 1990). "Harbor Batteries to Frigates, 1815-1840". The Old Steam Navy Volume 1: Frigates, Sloops and Gunboats, 1815–1885. Naval Institute Press. p. 15. ISBN   978-0870210044.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Cressman, Robert J. (January 2012). "'An Ornament to the Navy'". Naval History Magazine. 26 (1). Archived from the original on 2024-11-05. Retrieved 2025-08-06.
  15. ↑ Bennett, Frank Marion; Weir, Robert (1896). The Steam Navy of the United States: A history of the Growth of the Steam Vessel of War in the U. S. Navy, and of the Naval Engineer Corps. University of California Libraries. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Legare Street Press. pp. 39–42.
  16. ↑ Chapelle, Howard I. (1 January 1998). The History Of The American Sailing Navy The Ships And Their Development. Konecky & Konecky. p. 428. ISBN   978-1568522227.
  17. 1 2 Bennett, Frank Marion; Weir, Robert (1896). The Steam Navy of the United States: A History of the Growth of the Steam Vessel of War in the U. S. Navy, and of the Naval Engineer Corps. University of California Libraries. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Legare Street Press. p. 42.
  18. 1 2 "Missouri I (Steam Frigate)". Naval History and Heritage Command. 6 February 2006.
  19. ↑ Kuo, Ping Chia (1933). "Caleb Cushing and the Treaty of Wanghia, 1844". The Journal of Modern History. 5 (1): 34–35. ISSN   0022-2801. Archived from the original on 2021-04-13. Retrieved 2025-08-06.
  20. ↑ "Naval Court Martial". New York Daily Herald . No. 3886. 16 October 1844. p. 1. Archived from the original on 12 April 2023. Retrieved 7 April 2023– via newspapers.com.
  21. ↑ "Captain Newton". Brooklyn Daily Eagle . Vol. 4, no. 65. 13 March 1845. p. 2 – via newspapers.com.
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