Читать книгу Benjamin Franklin Isherwood, Naval Engineer - Edward William Sloan III - Страница 9

“The first act I had to perform as Engineer-in-Chief,” Isherwood later recalled, “was to prepare machinery for the war service, as the war was then upon us.”¹

At the beginning of March, 1861, the American Navy consisted of ninety vessels, of which forty-two were in commission. There were only twelve stationed in the home squadron, and of these, just four ships, with twenty-five guns among them, were in Northern ports.² To hastily reassemble a fleet spread all over the world was a difficult task for the Navy Department; far more challenging would be the effective use of these few ships.

The most obvious role for the Navy at the beginning of the Civil War was to blockade southern supply routes. This was a staggering undertaking. From Alexandria, Virginia to Brownsville, Texas stretched 3,550 miles of coast, much of which was “double coastline,” providing a continuous, shallow inner waterway in which Confederate blockade-runners and coasters could operate with relative impunity. By his institution of a formal blockade of the South on April 19, 1861, President Lincoln gave his Secretary of the Navy the task of patrolling 189 harbors and navigable river mouths with a handful of naval vessels. If it were successful, this “Anaconda Policy” of strangling the South through disrupting its trade and economy would devastate the Confederacy by attrition, while complementing the military strategy of the Union Army.³

To achieve a successful blockade, Secretary Welles had to improvise a large fleet of steamers, capable of staying continually on station without breakdown, and fast enough to discourage all but the swiftest Confederate blockade-runners. For such warships, Welles once again turned to his Engineer in Chief.

Benjamin Isherwood, in 1861, presented an appearance and manner which alone were convincing evidence of his ability to meet the Secretary’s most stringent demands. Isherwood was a heavy-set man, with immensely broad shoulders and a thick chest. Although five feet, ten inches in height, he did not appear to be that tall because of his massive frame; yet his quick movements and alert manner dispelled any impression of corpulence. And the combination of his dark, masculine features, curly hair, and sensitive, if often forbidding countenance, won him an accolade as “the handsomest man in Washington” during the Civil War.⁴

Although reputed to be a great conversationalist, especially with the ladies of the Capital, Isherwood was not the charming bon vivant his well-meaning friends have portrayed. Passionately devoted to thoroughness and accuracy, and indifferent to his personal reputation with others, Isherwood was not an easy companion. His enormous energies far exceeded those of most of his associates; and his basic impatience, under the pressure of the war years, grew into an unremitting intolerance of stupidity, laziness, and error. He had neither time nor desire to cultivate people, regardless of their importance, and this indifference too often appeared to be contempt. He was admired, but all too often grudgingly, and his consistently unequivocal position on any issue, controversial or not, won him few real friends, but many dedicated enemies.

To create a steam Navy, Isherwood could draw on few resources other than his own abilities, but he received invaluable aid from a colleague. As Engineer in Chief, he was still under the immediate supervision of the Bureau of Construction, Equipment, and Repairs, currently directed by the civilian naval constructor John Lenthall. When he became head of the newly created Bureau of Steam Engineering, in 1862, Isherwood continued his close association with his former Chief. The Union and its Navy were fortunate that Lenthall and Isherwood were fast friends and would remain so throughout the war. Lenthall, fifteen years older than Isherwood, had a disposition closely resembling that of his colleague. Without, as Gideon Welles recorded in his diary, “much pliability or affability,” John Lenthall was sternly honest, and as dedicated to his profession as was his young engineering associate. His “unaffected manner ha[d] offended others” just as Isherwood’s tactlessness had endeared him to few, and Lenthall’s indifference to private interests won him a bitter, destructive criticism in which Isherwood was soon to share.⁵ With unfaltering faith in each other’s abilities, Lenthall and Isherwood worked together in complete trust, meeting the continuing challenge of technological and naval developments with confidence and conviction.

Totally out of keeping with Benjamin Isherwood’s personality were the surroundings in which he labored. In 1861 the Navy Department was housed in a “small red-brick building . . . very plain and even humble.” In this building Isherwood’s offices were located in “rooms below stairs,” while the Secretary and his staff enjoyed offices which lined both sides of an upstairs hall. To lend a feeling of tradition, a number of oil paintings, water colors, and engravings adorned the walls along the upstairs corridor.⁶

Isherwood started with a small staff which expanded only slightly throughout the war. This office, initially part of Lenthall’s bureau, contained several young naval engineers assigned to assist the Engineer in Chief. As the increasing amount of detailed and largely mechanical work threatened to inundate the engineers, Lenthall, in June, 1861, requested both a clerk and a draftsman for Isherwood’s office, noting that there were none attached there at the time.

Among the young engineers who worked with Isherwood, no one questioned the Engineer in Chief’s absolute authority. According to Clark Fisher, a naval engineer who worked with him during the Civil War, Isherwood “instilled a wholesome dread of any carelessness or error” in his subordinates. Not only was he “quick to discover a mistake,” but he was “never at a loss for incisive words expressive of his opinion of the culprit and his work, or lack of it.”⁷ His dedication to exact, exhaustive work easily explains the impatience and abruptness which kept his juniors full of a healthy respect for their superior.

Yet Isherwood was not a martinet merely seeking to gratify his cravings for power by a ruthless rule. If he was “unsparing in criticism,” he was also “generous in approval and commendation.” His professional dedication to both engineering and naval progress had a contagious quality, capable of driving his subordinates to a degree of effort and enthusiasm they had never anticipated. The virtues of and necessity for teamwork were not lost to Isherwood, for “his assistants were always made to feel rather as associates, engaged in advancing a common cause than as subordinates, receiving and executing orders from their superior officer.” In this manner Isherwood drew “zealous co-operation” rather than “perfunctory service” from his men, and the office of the Engineer in Chief operated with an efficiency and a productivity which contributed heavily to the success of the steam Navy throughout the Civil War.⁸

The magnitude as well as the difficulty of Isherwood’s task was unprecedented. With only a handful of steamers, the American Navy suddenly had been called on to perform a function which required hundreds of vessels, most of which had to run by steam power. To cope with this problem, Isherwood had no traditions and no precedents in creating such a steam fleet. America had never been a big naval power; and, traditionally, had relied on a last-minute collection of whatever ships were available to meet wartime needs. In the Civil War the Navy was as unprepared as ever; but, in addition, it now had the problem of producing warships which had to utilize a relatively new and unpredictable form of propulsion. Never had a naval engineer been faced with this situation, for never before had large-scale naval operations had to rely on steam engines. Throughout the Civil War, all that Isherwood did to design, build, and maintain the motive power of the steam fleet would be unprecedented. It was inevitable that he would make mistakes; the department only hoped that he could meet the challenge.

The most pressing need of the Navy, when Isherwood became Engineer in Chief, was for small gunboats which could be used for close, inshore work and for supporting amphibious operations against Confederate strongholds, such as Port Royal, South Carolina. In March, 1861, there were none of these vessels in the Navy, but Isherwood quickly supplied an answer to the problem. He had recently been employed by the Russian government to design the machinery for two 691-ton gunboats to be used on the Amur River, under the command of the Russian Captain Davidoff. Isherwood not only designed the engines, but also superintended construction of these boats at the Novelty Iron Works, in New York city. When Welles requested the immediate construction of gunboats, Isherwood was able to present him with complete plans of the “Davidoff Gunboat.”

He recommended that Welles immediately contract with the Novelty Iron Works for four such vessels, since the drawings, specifications, and patterns were complete. In addition, the cost of such vessels was known exactly, since Davidoff had visited nearly all the principal American machine shops looking for the lowest bid. Welles showed little enthusiasm for this suggestion, wishing instead to follow the normal government contract procedure of advertising for the gunboats. Isherwood and Lenthall, however, unwilling to waste such a unique advantage, finally persuaded Welles to contract directly with the Novelty Iron Works.

As a result, the first four 9½-knot steamers were built in the phenomenally short time of 90 days, thus earning this class of vessel the name of “ninety-day gunboats.” Ultimately, 23 of these small, heavily armed, screw vessels were built, all of which had the same Isherwood engines, although the last 19 had 60 per cent greater boiler power.⁹ With nearly all the contracts for these gunboats let in early July, 17 of them were in active service by the end of the year, proving to be of great value to the Union Navy in its early operations.

The next class of vessels built under Isherwood’s supervision was an unusual type, called forth by the exigencies of river operations against Confederate forces. Inland waterways so sinuous that turning a vessel around would be hazardous if not impossible required speedy, shallow-draft boats which could go with equal facility in either direction. For this purpose the Navy decided on a class of side-wheel “double-enders,” of which 12 of the 1,100-ton, 11-knot vessels with rudders at both ends were built, starting in the summer and fall of 1861. These gunboats all used an orthodox, direct-acting inclined engine of Isherwood’s design, and also employed the new feature of forced draft by the use of mechanical blowers.¹⁰ In the autumn of 1862 the construction of an improved class of double-enders was under way, these Sassacus-class vessels having a designed speed of 14½ knots, with 4 more double-enders, featuring iron hulls, being able to attain 15 knots.¹¹ These gunboats, displacing 1,173 tons, were considerably larger than the earlier class of double-enders which were about to join the fleet.

Not only were small gunboats needed in great quantity. For cruising at sea, the Navy also required fast screw sloops, able to intercept the coastal blockade-runners which infested southern waters. Fortunately, Congress had authorized the construction of 7 sloops of war in February, 1861. The department, using the plans of sloops built in 1858, constructed 4 of these 1,560-ton vessels, including the Kearsarge, destined for fame in its fateful encounter with the Confederate raider Alabama. Congress also authorized the construction of 10 additional sloops of war at this time, and these were equipped with Isherwood’s machinery.¹² Larger than the 1858 models, the new screw steamers varied in size, ranging from 1,934 tons to 2,200 tons, and producing speeds between 12 and 13 knots in the open sea. Construction began early in the fall of 1861.

Near the end of 1862, as Isherwood was working busily upon his improved class of double-enders, additional contracts were let on a class of 12½-knot, small screw sloops. This group of 8 vessels, which included the Nipsic, was intended for cruising close to the shore, as the sloops were only 150 tons larger than the ninety-day gunboats, and were built mainly for speed.¹³

In addition to the close-in blockade of the southern coastline, the Navy also had to man the “outer line,” approximately one hundred miles offshore, where large, swift cruisers were stationed to cut off the larger blockade-runners and to challenge the formidable Confederate commerce destroyers which roamed the open seas. For this purpose, the Navy Department, in 1863, projected a group of twenty vessels, including both gun-deck frigates and sloops of war. All of these ships were to be built with two-cylinder, back-acting engines of Isherwood’s design. Eight of them, the large frigates, were to displace approximately four thousand tons and have a thirteen-knot speed. Best known of this class were the Antietam and Guerriere, both serving in the Navy for many years. The smaller sloops of war, of the Contoocook class, displaced only three thousand tons, and, consequently, were speedier, being designed for fifteen knots. Of the ten proposed, only four of this class were built.

Finally, in 1863, the Navy Department, with an eye toward possible British and French intervention on the side of the Confederacy, planned a class of supercruisers in which all other qualities were to be subordinated to speed. These vessels, wooden hulled, unarmored, and carrying enough sail power to permit extended periods of cruising without steam, were the result of lessons imperfectly learned from the War of 1812. The aura surrounding the exploits of America’s superfrigates, such as the Constitution, led American naval strategists of the 1860’s to believe that if war with a large commercial power once again came, America would repeat the terrorizing raids of its legendary frigates, and that such exploits would bring the enemy to its knees. Thus there came into being a class of vessels which never took part in the Civil War, but which nevertheless vitally affected the naval and engineering reputation of Benjamin Isherwood. The brief careers of the Wampanoag and her sister ships sounded, in the later 1860’s, a tragic note which would produce echoes in subsequent years as the Navy made its descent into the “dark ages” of American naval history.

Between 1861 and 1865, Benjamin Isherwood designed the machinery for forty-six paddle-wheel vessels and for seventy-nine screw steamers. Not only did he produce the general plans for such machinery, but he spent sixteen to twenty hours a day in his office turning out “the most minutely detailed specifications” and all the working drawings for constructors.¹⁴ The ingenious inventors of his day could also turn out engine designs quickly enough, but Isherwood had a further responsibility. His engines had to run, and they had to continue running without breaking down.

The tremendous increase of the Navy’s steam fleet during the war posed many problems, not the least of which was finding personnel capable of handling the machinery in steam vessels. As patriotic young men flocked to the Navy Department to offer their engineering talents, zeal soon outdistanced skill as the major contribution of engineering recruits. As much as the Engineer in Chief labored to screen the applicants and train these new men, it was not enough. There was no naval engineering school to teach them their trade; they had to learn by experience, and often while under fire. The best way to deal with this problem was not to spend precious weeks and months training the engineers, for there was not time for that. Instead, as Isherwood soon realized, he would have to design and build his engines to be so simple and reliable that any novice could operate them without causing an immediate engine breakdown.

With durability and reliability as his guiding principles, Isherwood designed engines which could withstand the manhandling of the clumsiest of mechanics. His engines were immensely strong, and, consequently, immensely heavy. Fuel economy and power, though desirable qualities, took second place to simple mechanical dependability. In a period of rudimentary steam technology, when low steam pressures were necessary, Isherwood refused to employ more advanced theories which utilized high pressures and great degrees of steam expansion. The success of engines built on more sophisticated principles was too questionable, considering the low caliber of most engineers and the tremendous demands placed continuously on naval steam engines. His engine designs, therefore, became an easy target for those who criticized Navy steamers for lack of power or economy and for the excessive weight of their machinery.

Isherwood’s requirements for engines clearly demonstrated his absorption with practicality in machinery design. Insisting on “fairness of parts” in his engines, he stressed simplicity of combination and an arrangement which would feature easy access and constant observation. All surfaces in moving contact with other metal parts were to be large in order to withstand the great strains and continuous abrasion in a working engine. Anticipating the inevitable mechanical problems caused by bad materials and bad workmanship in construction, as well as from mismanagement and abnormal strains through continuous operation, he insisted on extraordinary strength of components.¹⁵

At times, Isherwood’s best efforts to forestall engine breakdowns failed. Finding competent engineers when so many were needed was not always possible, as he soon discovered. In July, 1863, Admiral Farragut, in the midst of directing naval operations at the mouth of the Mississippi River, wrote testily to Welles about the poor condition of the new vessels being sent out to him, ascribing the difficulties to the rapid increase in the Engineer Corps. “The majority of them know very little of their duties,” the Admiral said, “and their engines are cut up and ruined by neglect and want of proper care.”¹⁶ Welles turned the problem promptly over to Isherwood, remarking that the difficulties apparently stemmed from “employment of incompetent and neglectful persons in the engineer department.” He urged Isherwood to attempt to improve the caliber of the Engineer Corps, especially of the temporary branch comprised of noncareer marine engineers being utilized only for the duration of the war. To safeguard against the employment and appointment of incompetents, Welles informed Isherwood that the department would send a circular letter to all Navy Yard commandants, encouraging a more rigid screening of applicants.¹⁷ Isherwood, perhaps more realistic in his view of the situation, continued to design more rugged and fool-proof engines.

Bad workmanship in engine construction was a problem scarcely less serious than that of mishandling by inexperienced engineers. Private contractors were unprepared for the deluge of orders suddenly thrust upon them during the war, and inevitably the quality of their product deteriorated as they struggled to complete their work against rising material and wage costs which threatened to wipe out the handsome profits they had at first envisaged. The likelihood of hidden defects in the hastily made forgings produced by such contractors forced Isherwood, in designing his engines, to use an enormous factor of safety to forestall wholesale engine failures caused by breaking parts.¹⁸ This practice, along with the need to protect the engines from the engineers, forced Isherwood into a vulnerable position, and he did not have to wait long for the onslaught of criticism. Yet his engines worked and worked reliably, and that was all that really mattered. Despite occasional complaints from commanding officers, his machinery did all that could reasonably be asked of it; and, considering the circumstances, even a bit more.

Isherwood’s work as Engineer in Chief included more than the design of engines and the supervision of the men operating them. The Navy was unable to build enough ships to meet the sudden demands for blockade and river operations and, consequently, had to embark on a large purchasing program which actually obtained, by the end of the war, more than twice the number of vessels built by the government. The purchase of over 400 steamers, ranging from ferryboats to private yachts, was achieved largely through the remarkable efforts of George D. Morgan, brother-in-law of the Secretary of the Navy. Although accusations of nepotism and of excessive commissions plagued Morgan’s attempts to procure this large fleet for the Navy, there now is little question that he performed invaluable service in obtaining so many vessels at unusually reasonable prices for the government. Isherwood, as the naval engineering expert in the department, was consulted frequently on prospective purchases, as the mechanical reliability of these vessels was paramount.

Perhaps the most time-consuming task for Isherwood was arranging for the building of the engines he had designed for government service. With only a rudimentary bureaucratic organization and a small staff, the executive officers in the Navy Department enjoyed a variety of duties, of which a most significant one was dealing with private contractors. Isherwood, in charge of steam machinery for the Navy, became responsible for making all the contracts for the construction of this machinery, as well as for procuring the necessary supplies, tools, and spare parts. Navy Yards were able to build some of the machinery, but the larger work had to be let out to private marine engine builders, most of whom were located in New York, Boston, or Philadelphia. In order to deal directly and effectively with these private builders, Isherwood spent much of his time traveling up and down the Atlantic Coast, negotiating for the Navy’s machinery.

In contracting for machinery, Isherwood rarely relied on public advertisements for eliciting bids from contractors. Instead, he would announce that the government needed machinery of given specifications and would invite builders to state their quoted price for such equipment. Isherwood would, subsequently, send circular letters to engine builders throughout the country, asking them to contract for a pair of engines at a price based on the lowest estimate he had received. Since he would negotiate with any competent and reputable engine manufacturer, he often asked for contracts with builders who had declined to give him an initial estimate. That there were too few private companies to do all the work meant that Isherwood had to travel around the country trying to persuade engine manufacturers to take on extra business.

If his refusal to contract through open competitive bidding indicated favoritism, it was, nevertheless, a necessary practice. Machinery building was too important and too complicated to be trusted simply to the lowest bidder. To insure the best possible work, Isherwood had to limit his contracts to responsible builders and set a price where they could make a fair profit. Only by this procedure could he protect the quality of his machinery and discourage the horde of opportunists who plagued the government throughout the war with their impassioned and impractical offers to supply its needs.

The normal procedure after contracting with a private builder was for the government to make progress payments as the machinery moved towards completion. Since there was no contractual guarantee by the builder to achieve certain standards of performance, the government was not able to recover funds on machinery which later proved inadequate. Consequently, the only way the government could protect itself was to control the original specifications so rigorously that the contractor, in meeting them, would assure the reliability of the machinery. Isherwood thus prepared extremely elaborate and detailed specifications and drawings for builders, so that, as he expressed it, “there [was] not a bolt, a nut, or a screw left out.” In this way no misunderstanding could occur, and no builder could find a loophole.¹⁹

Typical of Isherwood’s negotiation procedure was a trip he took in August, 1861, to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, in which he made arrangements with five of the largest and most experienced marine engine builders for the construction of 5 inclined steam engines. These engines were to be placed in paddle-wheel steamers built in the Philadelphia, New York, Charlestown, and Kittery Navy yards. In reporting about his trip to Welles, Isherwood took pride in having been able to make contracts for a building period 15 days shorter than that for similar engines previously built, and in setting a price 12 per cent less by weight or power.

Unfortunately, Isherwood usually had to give Welles less favorable news. Writing to him in February, 1862, the Engineer in Chief explained that work on the USS Roanoake, in process of conversion into an ironclad at the New York Navy Yard, had halted because he was unable to contract for a propeller shaft. All the private forges were taken up with other work, so that contractors had flatly refused to take on this necessary job.

Finally, Isherwood was able to persuade one builder to cast it in rough form, but when the unfinished shaft was taken to the government machine shop, Isherwood quickly discovered that the finished work could not be done there, since both the largest planer and lathe were inadequate for such a large piece of work and broke down when attempting it. The problem here was twofold; the Navy Department did not have sufficiently large tools to do the work, and private contractors, overwhelmed with both government and private construction, had neither room nor time to take on the work that the Navy yards were unable to handle.

Frequently, engine builders, greedy for profits or overly patriotic, took on Navy Department work they could not possibly handle. With their limited facilities they had to turn to other builders, subletting their contracts, which inevitably resulted in delays. The reputable firm of Pusey and Jones, in Wilmington, Delaware, contracted to do the machinery of the Juniata, promising to complete the work in 140 days. As they had no foundries and forges of their own, they had to sublet to another builder, resulting in a discouraging delay of 164 days more before the machinery could be delivered. Despite Isherwood’s care in negotiating, time and again he discovered these “responsible” builders solemnly engaging for work which they alone could not possibly perform. Out on the Mississippi River or off the Carolina coasts, the Union Navy would ultimately suffer from the lack of a vessel.

There was one problem over which neither the contractors nor the Navy Department had control, and which threatened to throw the entire ship- and machinery-building industry into chaos. During the war the price of gold, measured in United States dollars, fluctuated greatly, reflecting a lack of confidence in the financial stability of the Union. Gold rose in price, especially after the issue in 1862 of greenback paper currency, resulting in a greater depreciation in the value of the dollar. The natural concomitant was soaring costs, particularly for materials and labor. Builders who had made what first had appeared to be profitable contracts with the government suddenly found that they would not make their profit and might even take a serious loss if they received only the contracted price for their machinery. Desperately, they turned to the Navy Department for extensions of time for construction, hoping also to avoid the penalty payments for delay which would further cut into their vanishing profits. Justifiably, they feared new contracts. The rate of inflation became so rapid that builders could no longer depend on short-term arrangements, let alone binding agreements for machinery which might take months to build.

Isherwood’s task became more difficult as inflation cut into contractors’ earnings. Writing to Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus Fox, in August, 1862, the Engineer in Chief complained that he could get contracts for only two engines in Boston, because all the other builders objected to both the established price and the delivery date. Fearing that some of them might soon refuse to comply with contracts already signed, Isherwood explained that “prices of labor and material have risen enormously within a week.” Part of the rise in wages was because of the scarcity of labor. To this initial shortage of skilled workers came the complicating factor of the draft, which indiscriminately seized men who were far more valuable to the government by remaining in their civilian occupation. Isherwood begged Fox to obtain for such workers a draft exemption which he hoped would not only enlarge the labor force, but also lower wage costs, thus allowing builders to accept contracts and fulfill them on time. “Indeed, if it is not done,” warned the Engineer in Chief, “I am hopeless of the contracts already out being executed in any reasonable approximation to their time.”²⁰

To get his contracts accepted, Isherwood often had to increase the government’s original price for machinery by 10 per cent and, in addition, extend completion dates for a month or two. “The most willing parties hesitate to accept,” reported the discouraged engineer in another letter to Fox, “nothing will induce them but a price under which they will be safe at the expected advance.” Because of the soaring labor costs, “common riveters for boiler work are now getting two dollars a day, and first-class workmen two and a half to three dollars. . . .”²¹

Throughout the nation, shipyard workers, conscious of the sudden rise in their value, demanded better pay. “At the Morgan Works the men have struck for higher wages,” Isherwood wrote to Fox, from New York city, “and at all the others the wages have been raised within the last week from 10 to 15 cents a day.” Preparing to leave for Boston, Isherwood warned the Secretary of the difficulty in obtaining any contracts for engines. He would try to persuade the builders to take as many engines as possible, but this would be a formidable task, since, “the principal objection to the price offered is the expectation that labor and materials will advance 16 per centum before the work can be completed.” Little wonder that the engine builders demanded a fat margin of profit.²²

When the Navy Department planned to build a new group of larger geared engines, in 1863, Isherwood found only three builders willing to consider the job. Asking them to build the machinery in ten months, he found that the contractors refused to do the work in less than twelve. They had the facilities to do the job in ten months, they said, but lacked the raw materials and skilled labor, regardless of the price they were willing to pay to hire such labor. Isherwood had to agree to the longer time period and to the price of $700,000 for each engine, which was actually not too steep, he reflected in a letter to Welles, “when the present enormous rates for wages and materials are considered, with the great prospective increase anticipated in both.”²³

Traveling constantly to inspect vessels and make contracts for new ones, Isherwood could not afford any interruptions. When he fell from a ladder while inspecting the Tacony, in Philadelphia, he refused to stop work, although he had badly sprained his ankle and possibly fractured some of the smaller bones in his foot. With his ankle too swollen to determine the extent of his injuries, Isherwood wrote Assistant Secretary Fox on July 2, 1863, “I shall be in Washington Monday morning, on a pair of crutches I regret to add, but I shall be there.^,, Furious at the delays caused by this ill-timed injury, Isherwood, oblivious of his own discomfort, apologized to Fox, “Nothing can be more inopportune than this accident. The pain and personal inconvenience I do not regard, but the loss of time, now so precious, grieves me much.” Refusing to rest his ankle, Isherwood had it encased in a bandage filled with crushed ice, and hobbled into the offices of New York machinery builders, seeking contracts. His insistence on carrying on business as usual occasionally produced a ludicrous situation. When visiting the offices of Morris and Towne, New York engine builders, Isherwood was able to discuss engine contracts successfully with these men, but, as he wryly remarked, “with my back on the floor and Mr. Towne fomenting the ankle with ice water.”²⁴

As the war continued, the Navy Department found it harder to obtain its machinery. In February, 1864, when asking for estimates on a group of thirty engines for the Sassacus class of double-enders, Isherwood received only four proposals. Setting the price and building time on the basis of these estimates, he once again trudged around the country, successfully restraining his blunt and tactless nature while applying “much personal solicitation” to get twenty-seven of the engines contracted for. As ever, the price was too low and the time required was too short. In order to make his contracts at all, Isherwood had to promise not to exact penalty payments from contractors if they ran over the allotted time, so long as they continued to act in good faith. As he told Welles, he could not have contracted for more than six engines without this promise to make the forfeiture clause a dead letter.

“Unexpected and unprecedented rise of price in material and labor . . . disorganization of labor by strikes and its withdrawal for military purposes . . . difficulty of procuring materials . . .” appeared constantly in the reports of Isherwood to his superior, and there was no indication that conditions would improve.²⁵

To further complicate the Engineer in Chief’s duties, there was intense competition for scarce skilled labor between private builders and the government Navy yards. Handicapped by the inability to adjust their wage rates freely to meet the rising costs of labor, the Navy yards soon found themselves unable to compete with private yards for the inadequate supply of workers. As a result, the Navy Department had to farm out its repair work to private yards, “where the most exorbitant prices are charged,” although tools lay idle in its own yards.

To alleviate this uneconomic situation, Isherwood urged Welles to obtain from the government an authorization to offer workers up to a 50 per cent increase in their wages, in order to keep them from leaving. Convinced that it would be more economical to pay much higher wages if this could keep the government yards busy, Isherwood asserted, in a letter to Welles, August 22, 1864, that the Navy would save an “immense amount of money annually by doing its own work.” As it was, many costly tools were now standing idle while the government had to depend on the unpredictable, often irresponsible, and always costly private builders.²⁶

Welles realized the need for utilizing government facilities to the fullest, and, along with his Engineer in Chief, he wished to increase greatly the size and capacity of the Navy yards. Urging the establishment of a new Navy yard for iron vessels and machinery, Welles followed Isherwood’s and Lenthall’s lead in seeking to lessen the government’s dependence on private contractors.

During the war, Isherwood grew more and more pessimistic about the motives of private builders; and in his annual reports to Welles, he sharply criticized their business operations. Only interested in profits, they naturally preferred private to government work, he felt, since the latter, at best, provided a temporary boom in their industry, while they based their business over the years on private construction. As these builders operated with an eye to the least cost for themselves, they built engines for the Navy just to “answer a temporary purpose, using of course the poorest materials and least skilled labor because [it was] the cheapest.” For this reason, engines built in government yards would always be better, Isherwood insisted, since the Navy Department stressed reliability and durability in the products it made for itself, regardless of cost. Not having to worry about profits “paid to wealthy capitalists,” the government manufacturing facilities could afford to employ the most skilled workers at the highest rates, in order to insure the best workmanship.²⁷

Isherwood felt that he had learned a valuable business lesson during the Civil War. Concerning the “popular impression” that the government could depend on private yards in time of war, he asserted, “such expectation would prove wholly fallacious.” Drawing from his wartime experience with private contractors, he maintained that the facilities in private yards were inadequate even for the demands for privateers which, of course, would take precedence over any government work, as they had during the Civil War. Regardless of contract stipulations, private builders would always postpone government work to concentrate on the more lucrative private jobs. The Navy Department would always find itself saddled with inexcusable delays of vitally needed work while the private builders fattened themselves on immense profits, enough to pay, in one or two years, for the entire cost of equipping all the Navy yards. The only solution, Isherwood concluded, was for the Navy Department to have its own machine shops, large and complete enough to handle its own needs.²⁸

Such growth of government facilities was not to occur in the 1860’s. Apart from the strong objections naturally raised by private builders who had no desire to lose this government work, even if it was at times marginal, there was the thorny problem of where to build such facilities and how much they would cost. The bitter and lengthy debate in the late 1860’s over the establishment of the League Island Navy Yard, at Philadelphia, is an instructive example of the problems that arose in locating a large new government facility. Moreover, after the Civil War, Congress was in no mood to authorize large expenditures on the Navy.

Isherwood’s difficulties in finding skilled labor existed even in his own office. The increase of work brought on by wartime demands was more than his small staff could handle. In September, 1863, Isherwood asked Welles for another assistant draftsman, because of the great increase in the drafting department’s work—most of which was on Isherwood’s own engine designs. However, even with the Secretary’s approval of this request, his problems were not over. A month later he wrote Welles, informing him that a naval engineer was currently filling in as the assistant draftsman because, at the government-regulated salary of $1,200, Isherwood could not find any civilian to take the job. As it was, he had raised the engineer’s salary from $800 to $1,000 a year.

The Engineer in Chief not only struggled to find workers for his office, he had to strive hard to keep them there. Understandably, his young engineers chafed at their inability to be out on the firing line, but Isherwood turned a deaf ear to their requests for transfer. He detained them “without regard to . . . personal wishes or interest,” Isherwood explained, because he didn’t have the time to educate replacements; and once he had a trained, reliable man in his office, he was not about to let him go.²⁹

The problems of the Navy were not always caused by the shortcomings of private contractors or the gyrations of the economy. If Isherwood indignantly complained about the unconscionable profit-seeking behavior of the builders, there were reasons enough for these men also to become impatient. The rapid advance in naval technology, spurred on by wartime demands, had its inevitable repercussions as builders struggled with new and ever changing designs. Much of the delay in building was the result of more than constructors’ procrastination; the fertile minds of both civilian and naval inventors made their contribution to the chaos. Assistant Secretary Fox, in a letter to Alban Stimers, dated February 25, 1864, indicated this influence on mounting costs and delays as he attacked “those horrible bills for additions and improvements and everlasting alterations, all of which have cursed our cause and our Department.” Doubling the contract price with such alterations, additions, and improvements was common, as Isherwood and Lenthall, supervising the design and the building of vessels, continually disrupted the progress of construction with new specifications and changed designs.

As the Civil War progressed, it became obvious that certain of the Navy Department bureaus were overloaded with work. In particular, the Bureau of Construction, Equipment, and Repairs was clogged with the excessive responsibilities for both the vessels and machinery of an expanding fleet. Steam engineering had suddenly become paramount, and expenditures in this area were soon to exceed any other in the Navy Department. “Steam has become such an indispensable element in naval warfare,” Gideon Welles reported, March 25, 1862, in a letter to the House Committee on Naval Affairs, “that naval vessels propelled by sails only, are considered useless for war purposes.” The last sailing vessel for the Navy, the Constellation, had been completed in 1855, and soon the Navy would be “exclusively a steam navy,” and a very large one.³⁰

To meet the demands for a more efficient department, Welles combined with Senator James W. Grimes, of Iowa, in early 1862, to plan a Navy reorganization which would create three new bureaus, while removing the excessive work load from the existing ones. Their plan, which became law on July 5, 1862, broke apart Lenthall’s bureau, leaving him the function of construction and repair, placing the equipment duties into a new Bureau of Equipment and Recruiting, and, in particular, creating a new Bureau of Steam Engineering. The tenure of bureau chiefs changed from an indefinite status, subject to the pleasure of the President, to a regular four-year term. Salary would be $3,500, in lieu of regular Navy pay for those bureau chiefs who were naval officers.

The new steam engineering bureau was to have six clerical assistants to the chief—two clerks, two draftsmen, a messenger, and a laborer—with salaries high enough, it was hoped, to attract civilians to fill the positions. Beating down an attempt to open up the position of bureau chief to civilians, Grimes managed to restrict the position to chief engineers in the Navy, a move which was greeted with enthusiasm by the corps of naval engineers, but met with a civilian reaction which presaged trouble for the future.

Many naval engineers, confused by the new structure of the department, thought that the chief of the bureau and the Engineer in Chief would be separate positions, requiring two men. Several of the senior chief engineers thus eyed the new office with interest, quietly marshaling support for their cause, while publicly disclaiming their own ambition. This was not what the Secretary of the Navy had intended. In creating the new bureau, Welles had expected the Engineer in Chief simply to switch hats, continuing his former duties without interruption. On Welles’s advice, President Lincoln nominated Isherwood to be the new bureau chief, on July 11, 1862. At the same time, he nominated John Lenthall to continue his work as chief of the Bureau of Construction and Repair.

The nominations went routinely to the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs, but six days later Isherwood and Lenthall realized they might be in trouble as their nominations were tabled and the Committee on Naval Affairs was discharged from further consideration of the matter. Although the Senate had not confirmed the presidential nomination, Welles sent Isherwood his commission as bureau chief as of July 23. The Engineer in Chief gratefully accepted it, giving Welles his thanks “for this continued evidence of the great confidence and trust you have reposed in me; and to assure you that no efforts will be wanting on my part to justify your selection.”³¹ In a situation like this, the support of his superior was no small matter.

As the months went by, Isherwood served as bureau chief, but there was no further move in the Senate to act on his nomination. Finally, on December 1, Lincoln again nominated Isherwood and Lenthall as bureau chiefs. After the nominations went to the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs, there was a period of bitter debate concerning the merits of the two men. On December 22, James W. Grimes presented to the Senate three “memorials of proprietors of the principal marine-engine building establishments in the country,” along with one from engineers in the Navy, all asking for the confirmation of Isherwood as bureau chief.³² At the same time there was fierce opposition, as disgruntled contractors, administration opponents, and professional rivals sought the removal of both Isherwood and Lenthall. By the end of January there was still no resolution of the issue. Welles wrote to his son Edgar that the Senate refused to confirm the two men and that he “would not be surprised if matters go hard with Isherwood,” because of the sharp criticism of the engines he had designed and had placed in government vessels.³³

There were many influential line officers who, despite their absence from Washington, could wield powerful influence against both Isherwood and Lenthall. Reflecting their attitude was a colorful diatribe by David D. Porter, which, though written during the previous year, indicated the distrust and contempt felt by line officers for the bureau chiefs.

“That man Lenthall,” fumed Porter, “has been an incubus upon the Navy for the last ten years.” Convinced that the naval constructor was the tool of Stephen Mallory, former chairman of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee and now secretary of the Confederate Navy, Porter claimed that Lenthall and Mallory had plotted to “throw as much of the Navy as possible into the hands of traitors” in early 1861. Lenthall was responsible for keeping the Merrimack at Norfolk, Porter asserted in a letter to Gustavus Fox, July 5, 1861; for as a civilian, he tried to get the Navy yards out of the control of naval officers and into the hands of civilians, so that at the proper time he could hand over the yards to the South.³⁴

Declining to assail the Engineer in Chief as a traitor, Porter contented himself in the same letter to Gustavus Fox, with a contemptuous description of “that little fellow Isherwood who will take all the signs in Algebra to prove how many ten penny nails it will take to shingle a bird’s nest, who will bring out more equations to prove that a pound of water can be so expanded that it will make a ship go 25 miles an hour, and yet he can’t make an Engine.” With a convenient inaccuracy of recollection, Porter related that Isherwood had been “Engineer with me 9 months; I took him out of the Engine Room for incapacity, [but] he may have improved since. . . .”³⁵

Porter, in his unique way, mirrored the line officers’ frustration with a Navy Department that, to them, seemed unable to meet their needs and appeared to disregard or depreciate their views. In the midst of battle, they resented those men back in Washington who appeared indifferent to their problems which, the officers insisted, should be of paramount importance in the conduct of the war. The never-ending accumulation of data for Isherwood, continuing on vessels even as they came under fire, drove commanding officers to distraction. They had no patience for work which seemed to bear no relation to the actual operation of their vessels. Isherwood’s only duty and responsibility, they believed, was to produce engines which would never break down and engineers who would never make mistakes. As neither of these demands would ever be wholly met, Isherwood was bound to become a target of frustrated and often vengeful men who had become convinced that he neither knew nor cared about their vital interests out on the firing line.

Despite the resistance to his nomination from so many quarters, Isherwood emerged triumphant. When President Lincoln nominated him for the third time on March 7, 1863, the opposition collapsed; and three days later, the Senate considered and confirmed Isherwood’s appointment. By an order of the Secretary of the Navy, dated March 13, Isherwood, as bureau chief, now ranked with commodores, taking precedence among the other staff officer bureau chiefs according to the date of his commission as a naval officer. Lenthall had met less opposition and, consequently, received confirmation as chief of the Bureau of Construction and Repair on February 21, 1863.

As Engineer in Chief under Lenthall, and then as Chief of the Bureau of Steam Engineering, Isherwood, throughout the Civil War, mastered a tremendously complex, arduous, and often frustrating assignment. In later years he would describe the full scope of his duties with a succinct and disarmingly direct statement :

During the war the appointing and detailing of nearly two thousand Engineers were in my hands, besides the designing of the machinery of several hundred naval vessels, and the direction of the repairs and alterations of as many more. The contracts for all these, and for the immense quantity of engineering supplies, were part of my duty, and in addition there was the examination of the innumerable plans of vessels and machinery daily presented to the Department, and the writing of complete reports upon the same.

In short, everything connected with the engineering of the Navy during the war—in the widest sense of the word—was under my immediate direction, and I was held responsible for it. The nominal and the real responsibility were the same, and no Boards of officers were allowed to either shield or assist me.³⁶

Characteristically, he had preferred to depend on his own judgment, rarely asking for help as he brought the vast, unco-ordinated aspects of wartime naval engineering together into a unified whole. Absorbed in his work and convinced of its importance, he needed no praise nor prodding. His country had called him to this service; he could do no less than his best.