The Battle of Mobile Bay: The History of the Monitor Tecumseh
Tecumseh Monitor Model
…and they said with a loud voice: Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.
Gospel of Luke 17:13
"When the time comes for you to die, don't be like those whose hearts are so filled with fear of death that when their time comes, they cry piteously and beg for a little more time to live their lives differently. Sing your death song and die like a hero returning home."
Indian chief Tecumseh
Gospel of Luke 17:13
"When the time comes for you to die, don't be like those whose hearts are so filled with fear of death that when their time comes, they cry piteously and beg for a little more time to live their lives differently. Sing your death song and die like a hero returning home."
Indian chief Tecumseh
Stories about the war stories. It so happened that after the first reports on the Battle of Mobile Bay appeared, several Military Review readers approached me with a request to elaborate on... the monitor Tecumseh. They said everyone knows about the Monitor itself, it's what people write about most often, and they also write about the Miantonomo, which crossed the ocean and visited Kronstadt. But what about other ships of this type? How were they constructed, how did they differ from each other? Why did the Tecumseh sink so easily? In short, they asked me to digress from the battle itself and talk about the design of this particular Northern warship. Well, readers' requests must be honored, so today we'll tell you about this particular ship. So...
Construction of the Tecumseh began on October 8, 1862, at the Charles A. Secor and Company shipyard on the Hudson River in Jersey City, New Jersey. Tecumseh had an overall length of 68 meters, a beam of 13,2 meters, a draft of 4,1 meters, and a normal displacement more than twice that of the original Monitor. She was named after the Shawnee Indian chief and leader of the Indian tribal alliance known as Tecumseh's Confederacy, who fought on the side of the British against the Americans during the Anglo-American War (1812-1813) and was killed in 1813.
Photograph of the Canonic monitor. U.S. Congressional Archives
The ship belonged to the Canonic-class monitors, which, in turn, were a development of the Passaic-class monitors. Although a larger seagoing vessel than the Monitor itself and the Passaic-class ships, the Tecumseh had a draft only one foot (30 cm) deeper than those ships. This meant she was just as capable of operating in shallow river waters or close to shore as other monitors.
Her hull was framed with wrought iron beams, and her deck was made of 1.5-inch-thick white pine planks supported by 12-by-16-inch-thick oak beams and covered with 1.5-inch-thick armor. Like the Passaic, the Tecumseh's sides were covered with five-inch-thick armor plates, but the new ship also had four-inch-thick iron stringers installed inside her hull. However, the ship's armor was not monolithic, but consisted of a stack of relatively thin armor plates bolted together. Each armor plate was 25 mm thick. The rotating turret and the fixed conning tower mounted on its roof were protected by ten layers of 25 mm plates, for a total thickness of 250 mm.
The base of the smokestack (to prevent water from entering the furnaces if breached) and the fan inlet were also armored. Additionally, an armored parapet made of thin 13-millimeter iron plate was installed on the turret roof to protect against bullets. The main deck sloped 5 inches on each side to drain seawater, improving seaworthiness compared to the "Monitor."
A model of the Tecumseh monitor. A view of the bow.
The Tecumseh was powered by two 640-horsepower Ericsson-designed rocker-lever steam engines, fed by steam from two main and two auxiliary boilers. Two 150-ton coal bunkers provided fuel for the boiler furnaces. A massive armored telescopic smokestack on the deck vented smoke from the boiler rooms, and a 25-foot ventilator pipe provided smoke exhaust from the galley and other compartments. Three wooden lifeboats were stored on davits or lashed to the main deck. Two powerful ventilators supplied outside air from the top of the turret to the engine room, officers' quarters, and crew deck.
The engines, mounted ahead of a single rudder on a 15-inch diameter shaft, drove a 14-foot-long, cast-iron, four-bladed propeller. According to Erickson, the Tecumseh's sharper hull lines, coupled with its 320-horsepower engine, would have allowed it to reach a speed of 13 knots, but in practice, the new monitors were only one knot faster than the Passaics—eight knots versus seven. In other words, a speed of 13 knots (about 15 miles per hour) was unattainable.
Like its predecessors, this monitor was equipped with a single rotating turret with two 15-inch (380 mm) smoothbore guns, making it the most powerful monitor built at the time. Each gun weighed 19,5 tons, was mounted on a specially designed carriage, and required a crew of eight to operate. Incidentally, the ship's entire crew consisted of 100 men.
The guns fired iron or steel cannonballs weighing up to 200 kilograms, or thin-walled high-explosive cast iron bombs weighing 160 kilograms. The maximum range of these projectiles, due to their smoothbore barrels and low muzzle velocity (up to 360 meters per second), could not exceed 2000 meters. The maximum elevation angle was seven degrees. A much higher angle would have significantly increased the range, but at the time, artillerymen didn't even consider firing beyond two miles. They simply didn't need it. Moreover, at close range, say, 200-250 meters, their guns were extremely effective.
It's believed their cannonballs could penetrate three layers of iron armor, totaling 150 millimeters in thickness, positioned at a 30-degree angle. However, their effectiveness dropped sharply with increasing range. These guns could also fire one-kilogram pellets, each loaded into a metal cup. The effectiveness of such a shot at close range was simply monstrous. However, reloading each gun took five minutes.
A model of the Tecumseh monitor. View of the stern.
A significant design change on the Tecumseh resulted in the turret being mounted 20 feet further forward than on her predecessors. The turret was a foot wider in diameter than that of the Monitor and was protected by ten curved, one-inch-thick armor plates. The Tecumseh and her sister ships also featured a five-inch-thick, 15-inch-high bronze ring around the base of the turret to prevent it from jamming when hit by a shell. Another design change compared to the Passaic-class ships was the relocation of the pilothouse from the bow to the roof of the turret. This was also protected by 10 inches of armor. This removed the pilothouse from obstructing the forward-firing guns and provided a better view for the helmsman.
Henkel Tecumseh Monitor Model Kit from Paper and Cardboard, 1:200 Scale
Interestingly, on the Tecumsé, the brass magnetic compass, whose readings were distorted by the abundance of steel surrounding it, was moved from the wheelhouse to the top of the mast, located seven feet above it. The ship's helmsman monitored the course through a periscope located along the mast. The ship's interior was accessible through watertight hatches on the main deck at the bow, midship, and aft ends. The wheelhouse was accessed through a single hatch and ladder inside the turret; another ladder and hatch led outside through the top of the turret.
The Tecumseh was launched on September 12, 1863, a year after the contract for its construction was signed. The launch day was a major event, covered in local newspapers:
"The number of spectators exceeded five thousand. The courtyard, the rooftops, the windows, the adjacent piers, and every available space were filled with people, and the ship's deck was packed with invited guests. The fact that so many of our compatriots gathered at such an early hour to witness the launch of the ship testifies to the interest our people show in the development of the ironclad fleetAt half past seven, workers began raising the ship, and at eight o'clock it began moving slowly along the rails toward its natural habitat. As the ship departed, Mrs. Kate Gregory, Admiral Gregory's daughter-in-law, christened the vessel in the most delightful way possible, to the cheers of the crowd, smashing a bottle of wine over the bow and declaring, "In the name of Neptune, I christen thee Tecumseh."
One of the Canonic-class monitors (1865–1899, formerly Manayunk). Photographed during the Spanish–American War, 1898. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships collection at the U.S. National Archives.
Such were the strange people of those days, the Americans: first they killed him, and then they named their own warship after him. And who knows, maybe Tecumseh's spirit took revenge on them during the Battle of Mobile Bay?!
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