Steam Warships (Military History)

Introduction

The steam warship was a transitional stage between warships powered by human muscle power or the wind, and the modern warship propelled entirely by mechanical means that emerged in the late 1880s. Steam propulsion gave warships additional mobility, speed, and maneuverability, but its main impact was to enhance the strategic power of maritime forces. Initially conceived as auxiliaries for “conventional” sailing ship navies, a process that culminated in the paddle wheel warship of the 1830s and 1840s, steam capital ships emerged in the late 1840s, using screw propellers and compact engines in modified wooden sailing warships. Iron hulls and armor plate reinforced the shift to steam propulsion: after 1870 steam warships slowly abandoned auxiliary sails. Compound and then triple expansion engines improved boilers and twin-screw propulsion, ending the need for sails outside the central Pacific. The subject has been dominated by design and technical histories, generally undervaluing political, economic, and strategic issues, while works in the latter fields tend to ignore technical development and overestimate capabilities. Academic studies date back to the 1930s and, although still limited in extent, have increased markedly in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Although technical histories have been produced since the early 20th century, they remain largely disconnected from academic study. While most studies examine the steam warship in a narrow naval context, their primary impact was strategic; steam warships transformed the tactical capabilities of navies against shore-based defenses and the logistics of maritime power projection, enhancing the strategic role of sea power in war, deterrence, and diplomacy. The critical role of sea power in the Crimean and the American Civil Wars prompted a proliferation of defensive systems to deny steam warships access to coasts, harbors, and rivers. These included major fortress programs; submarine mines; new warship concepts, including the Monitor; coast defense battleships; torpedo boats; and submarines. Britain, the dominant sea power, created a specialized power-projection battle fleet, deterring rival powers from challenging British interests. Elsewhere, the steam warship became the basic tool of imperialism; small “gunboats” carried colonial power into the heart of continents, with suitably medicated crews. Between 1865 and the late 1880s, Britain faced no serious naval challenge. The next wave of naval competition emerged at roughly the same time as the maturing of the modern warship in 1889, leading to a fifteen-year period of design stability and a quadrupling of world battleship fleets.

General Overviews

Warship history has been dominated by works devoted to mastering the technical detail of warships and their construction and service careers, with lists of ships, dates, and specifications. Relatively few works have set the warship in wider contexts, even separating them from commercial steamships. Among such works, few focus on the 19th century. The excellent Conway’s History of the Ship volumes (see Gardiner and Lambert 1992 and Greenhill and Gardiner 1993) were the first large-scale attempts to encompass the field and pioneered the comparative study of the steam warships as well as the tactical and strategic roles they fulfilled. They addressed the evolution of technology, contrasting approaches to the opportunities provided by mechanical power, the interconnected nature of attack and defense, and the long-ignored issue of steam and sail ship handling, and these works must be read together. Sondhaus 2001 offers a narrative naval history overview. The rapid and varied development of steam warships has confused many historians who fail to grasp the different value of new and old ships of the same type, or confuse small coast defense assets with large ocean-going types, notably those who claim that the Royal Navy operated coast defense ships in the period 1865–1890. Such errors are easily avoided. Ship designs are easily understood, although like any specialist branch of historical literature, there are important tools. Detailed specifications reveal the intended role of the ship. Designers strove to meet requirements set by strategic, tactical, economic, and political input. In the early 1860s, Russia invested in a large fleet of slow, low freeboard, low endurance, armored turret ships because it feared a British attack on Saint Petersburg. Comparing these ships with the much larger, longer ranged and more seaworthy contemporary British battleships makes the point very clear. The best warship histories, notably Brown 1990 and Brown 1997, the first two volumes of five, link design to these wider considerations.

Brown, D. K. Before the Ironclad: The Development of Ship Design, Propulsion and Armament in the Royal Navy 1815–1860. London: Conway, 1990.
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Examines the development of warships and design expertise. It provides students with the tools needed to understand the link between warship function and design. See also Brown 1997.
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Brown, D. K. Warrior to Dreadnought: Warship Development 1860–1905. London: Chatham, 1997.
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Part of a five-volume set, with Brown 1990, by an eminent naval architect and historian of British warship design.
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Gardiner, R., and A. Lambert, eds. Steam, Steel and Shellfire: The Steam Warship, 1815–1905. London: Conway, 1992.
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Multiauthor work examining the evolution of naval technology in strategic and political context. The scale of the work, excellent bibliographic referencing, and illustrations make this a landmark text. It has not been superseded.
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Greenhill, B., and R. Gardiner, eds. The Advent of Steam: The Merchant Steam Ship before 1900. London: Conway, 1993.
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Important chapters on steam technology, screw propulsion, iron hulls, and steam-sail navigation make this an essential companion to Gardiner and Lambert 1992. Merchant steamships were used extensively in 19th-century wars as auxiliary warships, transports, and blockade-runners.
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Sondhaus, L. Naval Warfare, 1815–1914. London: Routledge, 2001.
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Narrative overview, especially good on the activity of smaller navies; the many wars; and civil wars of Latin America, the Crimean, and the American Civil and Italo-Austrian Wars. A good textbook and guide to the secondary literature.
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Reference Works

Factual listings of warships, with analytical commentary, have been a standard of the genre since Fred Jane’s All the World’s Fighting Ships of 1897. Gardiner and Kolesnik 1979 covers warships between 1860 and 1905. A volume for the period 1815 to 1860 is in progress, with different editors. In addition excellent studies of national fleets include the highly significant work Tredea and Sozaev 2010, which examines all Russian wooden-hulled steam warships. Silverstone 1989 examines the US and Confederate Navies; Lyon and Winfield 2004 (cited under National Studies) details the Royal Navy’s steam force; and Gröner, et al. 1990 provides full data for all the German warships of the era. The role of specialist publishers in this field is significant. Three British publishing houses, all directed at one stage by author/editor/publisher Robert Gardiner, have largely created modern technical history and the key reference works. The US Naval Institute Press has produced American editions of these books, along with original work.

All the World’s Fighting Ships: 1815–1859. London: Conway, n.d.
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Work in progress that should appear in the next few years.
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Gardiner, R., and E. Kolesnik, eds. All the World’s Fighting Ships, 1860–1905. London: Conway, 1979.
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Applied the Fighting Ships format to a longer period. Compiled by a team of national experts. Although some of the text has been challenged or superseded, the book has no competitor. A new edition would be useful, but until then this remains the standard.
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Gröner, E., D. Jung, and M. Maass, eds. German Warships 1815–1945. Vol. 1, Major Surface Warships. London: Conway, 1990.
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The most accessible edition of the standard reference for German warships, having been translated from the German original. Covers all the steam warships.
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Silverstone, P. H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute, 1989.
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Comprehensive list of all warships used by both sides in the conflict, including the US Coast Guard and Revenue Service. Later editions have been updated.
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Tredea, J., and E. Sozaev. Russian Warships in the Age of Sail, 1696–1860: Design, Construction, and Fates. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth, 2010.
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Steam exposed the technological backwardness of Russia, which had to buy ships and engines abroad. Crimean War shipbuilding (1854–1856) focused on defending Cronstadt/Saint Petersburg against British coastal assault operations, but Russia made peace rather than risk an attack.
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National Studies

While naval history and technology are among the most international of subjects, the standard analytical texts dealing with steam warships, and indeed most other warships, adopt a national perspective. This approach stresses the key issues of continuity and evolution is design and promotes the integration of diplomatic, political, and economic drivers into the assessment of design and procurement choices. The model studies in the field, those of Brown and Canney, are comprehensive, archive based, and analytical. Other works adopt more specific approaches: the shorter time span in Battesti 1997 provides in-depth discussion of policy, rather than technology. Langensiepen and Güleryüz 1995 links the technical and operational history of the Ottoman navy, while Lillo, et al. 2001 provides a fine illustrated study of the Spanish steam warships.

Battesti, M. La Marine de Napoléon III: Une Politique navale. 2 vols. Paris: Service Historique de la Marine, 1997.
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Major study of a long-neglected epoch in French naval history, including the introduction of the wooden steam battleship and the ironclad, two naval arms races with Britain, a major war, several minor conflicts, and a shattering defeat.
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Langensiepen, B., and A. Güleryüz. The Ottoman Steam Navy, 1828–1923. London: Conway, 1995.
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Combines a detailed listing of Ottoman warships with an operational history. Emphasizes the issues of steam age sea power for a land power with limited industrial capacity.
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Lillo, C., J. Luis, and A. R. Rodriguez-González. Buques de la Armada Española a través de la fotografía (1849–1900). Madrid: Ministerio de Defensa, 2001.
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An illustrated essay on Spanish naval history. The steam warship was adopted to defeat Carlist insurgents, secure the Balearic Islands against potential French invasion, maintain links with the other Bourbon dynasty in Naples, and protect Cuba against American filibustering. Lacks footnotes and bibliography.
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Lyon, D., and R. Winfield. The Steam and Sail Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815–1889. London: Chatham, 2004.
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Comprehensive work based on the Admiralty draught collection at the National Maritime Museum. Introductory essay provides diplomatic and strategic context for the development of British designs, ensuring the ships are understood as policy outcomes, not mere hardware. The standard reference complements the analytical works Lambert 2011 (cited under Coast Assault) and Beeler 2001 (cited under the Armored Battle Fleet, 1870–1890).
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McLaughlin, S. Russian and Soviet Battleships. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute, 2003.
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Pre-1889 Russian battleship designs emphasized coastal defensive concerns, including seizing the Bosphorus to keep the Royal Navy out of the Black Sea. Often used stolen British plans. Dependence on foreign suppliers for engines and armor plate emphasized Russia’s weakness. McLaughlin’s articles in Warship (from 2011 on) examine Russian coast defense ships.
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Ropp, T. The Development of a Modern Navy: French Naval Policy 1871–1904. Edited by S. S. Roberts. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute, 1987.
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This important 1930s PhD thesis, belatedly published with excellent editorial input, examines the naval policy and strategy of the Third Republic from 1871. The development of naval technology and infrastructure forms a significant element, but some conclusions on ship design require correction.
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Sondhaus, L. The Habsburg Empire and the Sea: Austrian Naval Policy, 1797–1866. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1989.
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Examines the naval policy of a great power with limited naval ambitions, considers the impact of steam on the evolution of strategy and operations, and examines links between the navy and the commercial sector. See also The naval Policy of Austria-Hungary 1867–1918: Navalism, Industrial Development and the Politics of Dualism. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1999.
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Wright, R. The Chinese Steam Navy 1862–1945. London: Chatham, 2000.
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An important study of Chinese efforts to build a modern navy; their dependence on foreign ships, officers, and technology; and the ultimate collapse of the fleet in the 1890s under the weight of imperial corruption, Confucian hostility, and widespread indifference.
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Anthologies

Few anthologies have focused on the steam warship. International Commission of Military History and Service historique de la marine are exceptions. More typical is Lang 1990, addressing iron hulls, the critical enabler of increased size, speed and design specialization, and the long running Shipbuilding of the Thames series, notably Ellmers 2013, which includes steam warships among many other products of a major shipbuilding center. Leggett and Dunn 2012 broadens the contextualization of the steam ship, including the warship, and exemplifies current academic approaches.

Ellmers, C., ed. Proceedings of the Fifth Symposium on Shipbuilding on the Thames. Papers presented at a conference held at the Museum of London Docklands, February 2012. London: Docklands History Group, 2013.
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The latest installment in a series focused on the Thames and Medway as shipbuilding centers. Includes useful papers on marine steam engine constructors and warship building.
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International Commission of Military History. ACTA, Athens 24–31 August 1987. Papers presented at a colloquium titled The First National Fleets: The Use of Steam in Naval Warfare. Athens, Greece: International Commission of Military History, 1988.
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Despite the land-based interests of the International Commission of Military History, this useful collection provides the only, or at the least the only English-language account in print of early steam navies, useful material toward a history of the subject.
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Lang, J., ed. Metals in Shipbuilding: Conference of the Historical Metallurgy Society. Papers presented at the March 1990 conference of the Historical Metallurgy Society held at the National Maritime Museum in London. London: Historical Metallurgy Society, 1990.
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Useful papers on the technology of iron shipbuilding.
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Leggett, D., and R. Dunn, eds. Re-inventing the Ship: Science, Technology and the Maritime World, 1800–1918. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2012.
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A multidisciplinary essay collection that engages history, geography, culture, and literature to address science and technology of the steam ship, with important chapters on the sociocultural identity of ironclad warships and American design exceptionalism.
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Service historique de la marine. Marine et Technique au XIXe Siécle: Actes du colloque international, Paris, Ecole militaire, les 10, 11, 12 juin 1987. Paris: Service historique de la Marine, Institut d’histoire des conflits contemporains, 1988.
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Excellent collection of Anglo-French papers from a conference held in Paris, especially strong on the early ironclad period.
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Journals

The two major journals in the field are the American Warship International and British-based Warship. Both produce mainstream ship history studies of warship design, technology, and service lives. In both cases the main focus is on 20th-century ships, but 19th-century subjects are covered, primarily from the 1860 period.

Warship. 1977–.
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From 1977 to 1988 quarterly, now an annual collection of essays in warship history, primarily late-19th- and 20th-century content. Information on the 2015 edition is available online.
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Warship International. 1964–.
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Since 1964, a quarterly journal of warship history, from the early steam age to present day.
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Steam Ships

While the concept of a steam-powered ship dated back to the first practical steam engines in the 17th century, it was only after James Watt developed the separate condenser that engines became sufficiently compact, powerful, and reliable to be useful. The world’s first commercially successful steamship, Robert Fulton’s North River Steam Boat, entered service on the Hudson River in 1807, using a Boulton and Watt engine. Steamships were first used in war during the War of 1812 when pioneer American steamers carried supplies on the Mississippi and elsewhere. They were not used in combat roles. In 1814 Robert Fulton designed a catamaran-hulled harbor defense battery to secure New York Harbor and Long Island Sound against British warships, but the Demologos was only completed after the war had ended (Canney 1990–1993). Demologos was Fulton’s response to the failure of his torpedo warfare system. Although France and Denmark expressed interest in Fulton’s concept, no more such vessels were built. Instead navies harnessed the rapidly evolving technology for auxiliary roles. The first ship-based use was powering bucket dredgers (see Skempton 1974–1976), followed by towing warships out of harbors and rivers, and carrying government mail. Brisou 2001 is concerned with steam machinery and complements Roberts 1976. Hackemer 2001 focuses on industrial capacity.

Brisou, D. Accueil, introduction et développement de l’énergie vapeur dans la marine militaire français au XIXe siècle. Paris: Service Historique de la Marine, 2001.
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Complements Battesti 1997 (cited under National Studies) and Roberts 1976, focusing on the development of steam machinery and the importance of technology transfer from Britain.
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Canney, D. L. The Old Steam Navy. 2 vols. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute, 1990–1993.
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This model national history examines every steam warship built for the US Navy from the archives and includes many original building drawings. Volume 1, Frigates, Sloops, and Gunboats, 1815–1888. Volume 2, The Ironclads, 1842–1885.
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Hackemer, K. The U.S. Navy and the Origins of the Military-Industrial Complex, 1847–1883. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute, 2001.
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Searching analysis of the initial failure of the navy to adjust to the steam warship, and shifting to reliance on the private sector for machinery, hulls, and other equipment the 1850s, creating a new industrial base that would play a key role in the Civil War and shape later developments.
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Roberts, S. S. “The Introduction of Steam Technology into the French Navy: 1818–1852.” PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1976.
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Excellent (unpublished) PhD thesis stressing French dependence on technology transfer from Britain. Each successive step in marine steam engine size and technology followed the purchase of a British sample. This was a major weakness of all of Britain’s European rivals.
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Skempton, A. W. “A History of the Steam Dredger, 1797–1830.” Transactions of the Newcomen Society 47 (1974): 97–116.
DOI: 10.1179/tns.1974.008Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The Royal Navy first used steam on a ship in 1809, to power a bucket dredger clearing mud from the riverside at the dockyards of Deptford and Woolwich. Steam dredging transformed the utility of these yards at a critical period of the Napoleonic conflict.
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Steam Power

While most works recognize the marine steam engine was subject to constant evolution between 1815 and 1889, Griffiths 1997 provides a comprehensive assessment of the subject, including boilers and auxiliary machinery, which emphasizes both the commonality of early engines between commercial and naval uses and design specialization after 1850 as warship designers compressed the power plant into the underwater hull for protection from gunfire and commercial ships used less confined systems. Allington and Greenhill 1997 examines the problem of using low-powered steam machinery alongside sailing rigs on oceanic voyages, an entirely new form of seamanship that developed to solve the peculiar problem of using paddle wheel propulsion on a rolling ocean.

Allington, P., and B. Greenhill. The First Atlantic Liners: Seamanship in the Age of Paddle Wheel, Sail and Screw. London: Conway, 1997.
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The only study of how the early steamships were handled, focusing on the wooden-hulled Atlantic paddle wheel liners of the late 1830s and 1840s, which were very similar to contemporary paddle wheel frigates. Explains the limitations of the steam warship as a weapons system and a strategic asset.
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Griffiths, D. Steam at Sea: Two Centuries of Steam-Powered Ships. London: Conway, 1997.
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The standard text, written by an experienced marine engineer and academic, replaces numerous older works. The Anglo-centric focus is inevitable, given British dominance of marine engineering throughout the 19th century.
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Pippon, P. M. Evolution of Engineering in the Royal Navy: Volume 1, 1827–1939. Tunbridge Wells, UK: Spellmount, 1988.
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Written as a collection of short sections dealing with technical issues. Engineer Commander Pippon’s text is a useful companion to Griffiths 1997.
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Engineers

Among the standards of 19th-century writing on technology and innovation, the life of the disappointed engineer was a common feature. Even highly successful engineers, such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, were eulogized as men of vision who had been ignored by reactionary obstructionists, while others, notably the Swedish American innovator John Ericsson, had their failures obscured by their successes. Both men made major contributions to the steam warship: Brunel transformed half-formed concepts into practical solutions, while Ericsson’s endless search for innovation ultimately led to the Monitor. Despite their intermittent engagement with navies, both men made their fortunes in other areas, Brunel with railways and docks and Ericsson with hot air engines for domestic heating (see Griffiths, et al. 1999). American Civil War–era naval engineer Benjamin Isherwood is the only career naval engineer to receive a full-scale biography, Sloan 1965, which rehearses his grievances. More recent studies have addressed the wider context and emphasized the importance of naval policymakers in setting the technology agenda (Lambert 2003).

Griffiths, D., A. Lambert, and F. Walker. Brunel’s Ships. London: Chatham, 1999.
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Examines the three liners built by Brunel and his critical role in the design and development of the world’s first purpose-built screw-steam warship, HMS Rattler, which provided vital data on powering and hull forms for his iron Atlantic liner SS Great Britain, a troop transport in the Crimean War.
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Lambert, A. D. “The Royal Navy, John Ericsson, and the Challenge of New Technology.” International Journal of Naval History 2.3 (2003).
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Examines the Royal Navy’s response to John Ericsson’s work as a pioneer of screw propulsion, the creator of the USS Princeton and the Monitor. Article continues in International Journal of Naval History 3.1 (2004).
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Sloan, E. W., III. Benjamin Franklin Isherwood, Naval Engineer. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute, 1965.
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A useful, if dated study that emphasizes the division between naval engineering and ship design in the pre–Civil War US Navy as well as the politically contentious nature of wartime engineering.
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Paddle Wheel Warships

Between 1830 and 1850, naval paddle steamers developed from auxiliary craft with limited roles to an integral element in the seagoing battle fleet, and above all, specialist littoral warfare platforms combing maneuverability, heavy shell-firing guns, and large boats capable of landing horses and artillery. Equipped with full sailing rigs, they never matched the performance of pure sailing ships. There were several categories, the largest, the steam frigate, normally carried a broadside armament on the gun deck as well as a powerful upper deck battery, and it had the power to tow fully laden first-rate sailing battleships for tactical or strategic purposes. Brown 1993 provides an excellent guide to the British ships, which were widely copied; many smaller navies bought their steam warships, engines, and designs from British shipyards, including Russia, Spain, Naples, Ottoman Turkey, Austria, and the North German Confederation. By 1848 British battle fleets paired large sailing battleships with paddle wheel frigates for towing; under the sail, the battleships towed the frigates. The intention was to force battle on a reluctant foe. While large paddle frigates, such as HMS Terrible, were major investments, the ocean-going paddle wheel warship was a complete dead end, condemned by poor seagoing performance, exposed propulsion system, and limited broadside fire. They remained useful in rivers, notably in the American Civil War, and for imperial campaigning. Akrigg and Akrigg 1992 examines one such imperial commission.

Akrigg, G. P. V., and H. B. Akrigg. HMS Virago in the Pacific, 1851–1855. Victoria, Canada: Sono Nis, 1992.
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A steam warship serving on the Pacific Station, which stretched from Cape Horn to the Bering Straits and as far west as Hawaii. British confidence in their steam machinery led them to send this new steam sloop to the other side of the world.
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Brown, D. K. Paddle Wheel Warships: The Earliest Steam Powered Fighting Ships, 1815–1850. London: Conway, 1993.
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Thorough design and construction history of British warships by a distinguished naval architect and historian of naval architecture. Uses contemporary designs, structure plans, and machinery layouts to explain how the ships were built and used.
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Wooden Screw Steam Warships

Following the first ships of the type, HMS Rattler and the USS Princeton in the mid-1840s, the wooden-hulled screw propeller warship became the dominant naval system of the 1850s. The screw focused attention on intellectual property rights in Britain and the United States, leading to some highly unsatisfactory designs. Griffiths, et al. 1999 (cited under Engineers) and Lambert 1999 examine the origins and career of the Rattler, the world’s first such ship, and the debate about intellectual property. These ships were either converted sailing ships or built new with enlarged hulls and finer lines for increased speed. The small steam plant and screw propeller, often capable of being raised into the afterbody of the ship for improved sailing performance, were auxiliary to the sailing rig. They were significantly more expensive to build and far more costly to maintain. Not only did the machinery require regular maintenance, but the heavy, unbalanced propeller shaft and unbalanced engine created powerful vibrations that literally shook the stern of the ship to pieces, while heat and damp promoted timber decay. The superior strength and carrying capacity of iron hulls ensured they were quickly taken up by merchant ship owners, but they remained unsuitable for major warships until the development of armor. The iron-hulled, armored screw-propelled Stevens’ Battery of the mid-1840s was both a conceptual successor to Fulton’s Demologos and a major demonstration of American technological dependence on Britain. It was never completed. Lambert 1984 examines the steam screw-propelled wooden battleship, the Anglo-French arms races in this technology, and the limited construction of such ships by other states. The Danish frigate Jylland is the only surviving vessel of the type, while the best known is the British-built Confederate States sloop CSS Alabama (Bowcock 2002). Her loss attracted considerable attention from French artists (Wilson-Bareau and Degener 2003).

Bowcock, A. CSS Alabama: Anatomy of a Confederate Raider. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute, 2002.
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A comprehensive examination of the design of the ship, a modified British gun vessel, with additional bunker capacity for her commerce-raiding function. The ship was sunk in battle in 1864 off Cherbourg and some artifacts, including a heavy gun, were recovered by a Franco-American archaeological expedition.
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Kure, B. Historien om fregatten Jylland. Copenhagen: Høst, 1995.
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A thorough examination of the construction, career, and reconstruction of the historic Danish steam frigate, which took part in the Battle of Helgoland in 1864. The only surviving ship of this type.
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Lambert, A. D. Battleships in Transition: The Creation of the Steam Battlefleet, 1815–1860. London: Conway, 1984.
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Pioneer study of hitherto neglected ships stressing the continuity of capital ship design from sailing ships to ironclads. Includes ships built by France, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, Austria, and Italy, mostly relying on British technology transfer. The last units were converted into wooden-hulled ironclad in the 1860s.
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Lambert, A. D. “Responding to the Nineteenth Century: The Royal Navy and the Introduction of the Screw Propeller.” History of Technology 21 (1999): 1–28.
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Overturns the 19th-century myth that the Royal Navy opposed the introduction of the screw propeller. Examines the wider strategic and political context.
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Rodgers, B. M. Guardian of the Great Lakes: The U.S. Paddle Frigate Michigan. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996.
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Superb study of the unique American iron paddle frigate that spent her long service life on the upper Great Lakes and examines the importance of technology transfer from the United Kingdom.
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Wilson-Bareau, J., and D. Degener. Manet and the American Civil War: The Battle of the U.S.S. Kearsarge and C.S.S. Alabama. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003.
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The only art history monograph dealing with a steam warship battle examines the response of the French Impressionist Édouard Manet to the sinking of Alabama, companion to an exhibition at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Demonstrates the potential for new approaches to 19th-century sea power.
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Coast Assault

Steam propulsion enhanced the ability of navies to attack ports and naval bases by either rushing past or outflanking exiting coastal and harbor defense systems designed to deal with heavy sailing ships. They were quickly integrated into the coastal offensive thinking of the Royal Navy, which had been so prominent in latter stages of the Napoleonic conflict and the War of 1812. By 1840 important forts at Veracruz and Acre had been bombarded into submission by fleets using steam power. The bombardment of Sweaborg in August 1855 demonstrated further progress in tactics and technology (Lambert 2000, Lambert 2011). The Crimean and American Civil Wars demonstrated that weaker naval powers were unlikely to contest sea control, enabling dominant navies to focus on coastal offensive operations and economic blockades, while weaker navies were limited to local defense. Steam and iron hulls encouraged a proliferation of novel designs that exploited the ability to build ships in any form, creating new tools for power projection. Along with the French-inspired armored floating battery and the older mortar vessel, the British steam gunboat formed a vital part of the coast attack force, created to attack Russian fortresses. At Sweaborg in August and Kinburn in October 1855, these ideas were successfully demonstrated. Kinburn surrendered, while the base at Sweaborg was destroyed. The threat to Cronstadt and Saint Petersburg persuaded Russia to accept peace in March 1856. The British celebrated their victory over Russia with a massive naval review on 23 April 1856, inviting the representatives of all the major powers to watch as the fleet built to attack Saint Petersburg conducted a mock attack on Southsea. Lambert 2003 argues that when the Trent crisis broke in December 1861, the mobilization of British gunboats persuaded President Lincoln to settle for “one war at a time.” The new technology plateau of the 1860s that combined iron hulls, wrought iron armor plate, and heavy rifled cannons created new warship types, the armored coast assault battery, and the American Monitor that were ideal for the attack and defense of coastal spaces. British ironclad capital ships of the 1860s and early 1870s were a mixture of ocean-going ships designed to fight other warships and low-freeboard turret coast assault types, designed to attack the defenses of hostile naval bases and ports. Britain not only secured sea control, but also created the equipment to exploit it. French attempts to apply similar pressure to Germany in 1870 failed. Unable to coal in Denmark, the French coastal siege train was overtaken by the collapse of the French army.

Lambert, A. D. “‘Within Cannon Shot of Deep Water’: The Syrian Campaign of 1840.” In Seapower Ashore: 200 Years of Royal Navy Operations on Land. Edited by P. Hore, 79–95. London: Chatham, 2000.
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Case studies of two major British coastal bombardment operations of the steam warship era, Acre in 1840 and Sweaborg in 1855. See also “Under the Heel of Britannia: The Bombardment of Sweaborg, 9–11 August 1855” pp. 96–129.
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Lambert, A. D. “Winning without Fighting: British Grand Strategy and Its Application to the United States, 1815–1865.” In Strategic Logic and Political Rationality: Essays in Honor of Michael I. Handel. Edited by B. Lee and K. Walling, 164–195. London: Frank Cass, 2003.
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Emphasizes the strategic contest between the costly program of American coastal defenses and British sea power as the key to securing Canada.
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Lambert, A. D. The Crimean War: British Grand Strategy against Russia, 1853–1856. 2d ed. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2011.
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Strategic analysis of British strategy as steam powered, maritime, and focused on the destruction of hostile naval bases, notably Cherbourg and Sevastopol. Examines steam-powered operations, including coastal assault, long-range amphibious invasion, and sustained logistics.
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Coast Defense

Steam dramatically enhanced the impact of sea power on land at a time when major nations lacked adequate railway coverage to counter steam-powered logistics, a point emphasized both in the Crimean and American Civil Wars. Small and medium navies quickly developed new steam warships and weapons to counter coast assault operations. These included specialist coast defense battleships, which sacrificed seaworthiness, range, and even speed to emphasize firepower and protection, and underwater weapons. Pioneered in the American War of Independence, without success, the mine was revived by Robert Fulton and used in the War of 1812 (Lundeberg 1974, Roland 1978, Browning 1983). The addition of an electrical command system (see Siemens 1966) and then improved contact fuses created a weapon that would sink more Union steamships in the Civil War than all other methods combined. The naval battle space remained littoral until the end of the steam warship era.

Browning, R. S. Two if by Sea: The Development of American Coast Defense Policy. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1983.
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Examines American coast defense policy in context, including steam batteries and submarine mines as alternative or supplementary systems.
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Lundeberg, P. K. Samuel Colt’s Submarine Battery: The Secret and the Enigma. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute, 1974.
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An important study of mine development in the early steam ship era, linking Russian, German, and British work with American practice. A useful corrective to the assumption of American exceptionalism that limits so much older American writing on 19th-century technology.
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Roland, A. Underwater Warfare in the Age of Sail. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1978.
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Follows the subject down to the end of the American Civil War. Excellent on the transfer of mine technology, as developed by American Robert Fulton, across Europe and the limited impact of mines before 1861.
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Siemens, Werner von. Inventor and Entrepreneur: Recollections of Werner von Siemens. London: Lund Humphries, 1966.
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Siemens’s memoirs range widely, but stress his role in pioneering electrically detonated submarine mines in 1848, during the war between Germany and Denmark, and the related technology of telegraph cables, both on land and under the sea.
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Gunboats

Although widely associated with the projection of power in colonial contexts (Headrick 1981), the wooden screw steam gunboat, and many of her iron-hulled successors, was designed to carry heavy guns into coastal waters to bombard the naval bases of first-class powers. The British ships built in 1854–1856 for the Crimean War had been designed in 1845, for a war with France. After bombarding Sweaborg and Kinburn, the British massed 250 gunboats for an assault on Cronstadt and Saint Petersburg, and when Russia made peace, they celebrated by displaying their coastal power projection capabilities at Spithead. Mobilized in 1861, the same gunboats secured peace in the Anglo-American Trent crisis. Elsewhere, they were the key instruments of victory in the Second China War, 1856–1860, and conducted numerous other operations on a smaller scale. Preston and Major 2007 is the standard reference on British operations.

Headrick, D. R. The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
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A highly influential text that links iron steamboats, tropical medicine, and improved firearms as key agents in the spread of imperial rule across the extra-European world.
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Preston, A., and J. Major. Send a Gunboat: The Victorian Navy and Supremacy at Sea, 1854–1904. London: Conway, 2007.
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This revised second edition of the 1967 classic contains additional material and a wealth of contemporary photographs and illustrations. The coast assault role of the early craft was carried forward by the “Rendel” Flat Iron gunboats of the 1870s, one of which saw action in 1914.
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Ironclads

Iron armor plate was a direct response to the introduction of shell-firing artillery in the 1830s and 1840s. Armor would burst shells outside the hull. First used in action at Kinburn on 17 October 1855, ironclad warships quickly became the definitive tools of naval power. For many years the emergence of the ironclad warship was treated as the decisive event in warship history, separating ancient from modern, rather than a step in an evolutionary process. This reflected the influence of Baxter 1933, the first major academic work on warship history. Baxter examined the ironclad from a comparative history perspective, while Ballard 1980 offered first-hand testimony of naval service in these ships; Parkes 1970 (cited under the Armored Battle Fleet, 1870–1890) built on these works as a grand survey. France could not build big iron ships, lacking iron and shipyard capacity, so the iron-hulled HMS Warrior left the wooden la Gloire looking obsolescent. This mattered because la Gloire was primarily a tool of French diplomacy, intended to coerce Britain into accepting French designs to reorganize Europe into a constellation of weak, French-dominated states. Rapid construction and unseasoned timber meant the French ships did not last more than a decade, but by 1865 the arms race was over. Britain had won by superior economic muscle, technology, and infrastructure. Lambert 2011 examines a single ship from this era, as does Chantriot 1988.

Ballard, G. The Black Battlefleet: A Study of the Capital Ship in Transition. London and Lymington, UK: Nautica, 1980.
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Admiral Ballard published essays on the capital ships of the 1860s as essays in the 1930s; this edition benefits from improved graphics. The original essays were critical sources for Oscar Parkes and offer an impression of the ships as working environments.
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Baxter, J. P. The Introduction of the Ironclad Warship. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933.
DOI: 10.4159/harvard.9780674282575Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Integrates the ironclad development of the three major powers. Overvalues the noisy, inconclusive action between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia, when both were already obsolete, and the combat power of the early wooden-hulled French fleet of the 1860s.
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Chantriot, J. “La Fregate-cuirass la Gloire.” In Marine et Technique au XIXe Siécle: Actes du colloque international, Paris, Ecole militaire, les 10, 11, 12 juin 1987. Paris: Service historique de la Marine, Institut d’histoire des conflits contemporains, 1988.
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The standard account of the origins and early service of this pioneering ship, supplements.
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Lambert, A. D. “Politics, Technology and Policy-Making, 1859–1865: Palmerston, Gladstone and the Management of the Ironclad Naval Race.” Northern Mariner 8 (July 1998): 9–38.
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Examines the Anglo-French naval race of the early 1860s, in the diplomatic context, emphasizing deep divisions within the British cabinet about how defense spending was required, and the balance between naval and fortress expenditure. Emphasizes the importance of superior technology and infrastructure in British success.
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Lambert, A. D. HMS Warrior, 1860: Victoria’s Ironclad Deterrent. 2d ed. London: Conway, 2011.
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First published in 1986, examines the design, construction, career, and rebuilding of the first ironclad capital ship that returned to Portsmouth that year as a museum. The new edition has additional text dealing with strategy and deterrence.
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Zaforteza, C. A. “Medium Powers and Ironclad Construction: The Spanish Case; 1861–1868.” In New Interpretations in Naval History: Selected Papers from the Sixteenth Naval History Symposium held at the United States Naval Academy 10–11 September 2009. Edited by C. C. Felker and M. O. Jones, 11–20. Newport, RI: Naval War College, 2012.
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Pioneer essay that examines the strategic and political aims behind the Spanish ironclad fleet of the 1850s, which included deterring an American invasion of Cuba and maintaining influence in the Mediterranean.
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The American Civil War

The profoundly asymmetric balance of naval force between the maritime industrial North and the agrarian South ensured the Union held command of the sea from the start of the war. Mobilizing merchant steamships provided a fleet to blockade the southern coast and open up the major river systems to invasions, based on sea and river logistics (Reed 1978). Consequently, most Civil War naval battles were fought in coastal or enclosed waters, by coastal ironclads that were incapable of sailing or fighting at sea. The famous duel between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia was typical. During the war the Union created the world’s most numerous ironclad fleet in only four years, deciding to back John Ericsson’s Monitor concept, which failed as a coast assault system, lacking the firepower to suppress Confederate defenses. A separate ironclad fleet was built on the Mississippi, to open the river and its tributaries to Union armies (Bearss 1980). The destruction of the wooden steam sloop CSS Alabama ended the Confederate commerce-destroying campaign using wooden-hulled screw steam sloops (Owsely 1987). High-speed steel-hulled vessels, developed from British passenger steamers, were used to run the Union blockade, bringing in vital supplies and exporting cotton. These craft were the basis for post-1865 dispatch vessels and light cruisers. Still 1985 and Still 1987 examine Confederate armored ships and the shipbuilding infrastructure that shaped their limited designs.

Bearss, E. C. Hardluck Ironclad: The Sinking and Salvage of the Cairo. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980.
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Purpose-built Union river ironclad, sunk by mines, badly damaged during salvage in the 1960s and put on display.
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Owsely, F. L., Jr. The C.S.S. Florida: Her Building and Operations. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1987.
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One of two purpose-built British wooden-hulled screw steam sloops to serve as Confederate commerce destroyers.
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Reed, R. Combined Operations in the Civil War. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute, 1978.
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Sophisticated analysis of the development of Union coastal offensive operations and their strategic context. Emphasizes the critical role of water-based logistics and steam shipping in the outcome of the conflict.
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Still, W., Jr. Iron Afloat! The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1985.
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The standard account of the Confederate armored warship building effort.
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Still, W., Jr. Confederate Shipbuilding. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1987.
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Demonstrates how weak infrastructure and limited political support hampered Confederate attempts to create the ironclad fleet planned by the navy secretary. Unable to build powerful marine steam engines, iron hulls, or turrets, Confederate ironclads used crude wooden hulls, second-hand engines, and recycled iron, suitable for harbor and river warships, but not oceangoing types.
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The Monitor

For many years the icon of the Union cause, and among the most studied warships in history, the merits of John Ericsson’s turret warship concept have recently been challenged; Roberts 1999 and Roberts 2002 argue they were adopted for political reasons, with strong support within the governing party, because they could be built quickly, and after the action in Hampton Roads, they were part of the propaganda of the Union. Roberts argues wooden-hulled broadside ironclads would have provided a more effective strategic asset. The failure of the monitor fleet to take Charleston in 1863 was a major setback for the Union cause: the government scapegoated Admiral Du Pont, who had already advised the navy secretary that monitors lacked the firepower to do the job. Monitor sank in a storm, demonstrating the problem of operating an iron-armored raft at sea. They were desperate to cash in on the deterrent value of the Monitor to keep Britain out of the war, and Canney 1990–1993 (see Steam Ships) shares Roberts’s view of the Monitor craze, but Fuller 2008 argues these vessels deterred British intervention. The British were not impressed by monitors; they had already built bigger, stronger turret ships. The technology that did interest them was the torpedo.

Fuller, H. J. Iron at Sea: The American Civil War and the Challenge of British Naval Power. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008.
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Shifts the Civil War agenda to Anglo-American relations to locate the Union decision to adopt and develop the monitor concept. These vessels constituted a strictly defensive deterrent.
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Roberts, W. H. USS New Ironsides in the Civil War. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute, 1999.
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Career history of the only large broadside ironclad built for the Civil War, argues that ships of this type were more effective in combat than monitors.
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Roberts, W. H. Civil War Ironclads: The U.S. Navy and Industrial Mobilization. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
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Connects the decision making that resulted in the construction of large monitor fleet to politics, strategy, engineering resources, and bureaucratic power struggles. The acquisition process was run by a new office, abolished at the end of the conflict, after cost overruns and design failures.
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Still, W. Monitor Builders: A Historical Study of the Principal Firms and Individuals Involved in the Construction of USS Monitor. Washington, DC: National Maritime Initiative, 1988.
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Examines how John Ericsson and his collaborators spread the work of constructing the pioneer ironclad across the engineering firms of New York, to ensure rapid completion. A case study in industrial mobilization.
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Life on Board

While older studies of naval life recognized that the experience of war and peace on board a steam ship was distinctly different from sailing ships, they were focused on smoke, dirt, and coal heaving. The impact was far deeper: age-old routines were transformed by the need to come into harbor frequently for coal, which with the heat and vibration of heavy machinery, made the ship dirty, noisy, and damp. Above all the old way of life of the upper deck sailor was replaced by claustrophobia, isolation, and the sense that men were now just cogs in the machine. Mindell 2000 uses the USS Monitor—the semisubmerged steam raft, bereft of sails and even an accessible upper deck while at sea—to emphasize the transformation.

Mindell, D. A. War, Technology and Experience Aboard the USS Monitor. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.
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Impressive analysis of the experience of men serving in this transformational warship, along with contemporary readings about mechanization of war. Men no longer saw the enemy becoming dehumanized and stripped of their warrior status.
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The Armored Battle Fleet, 1870–1890

After the collapse of the Russian navy in 1856, with the United States and France following between 1865 and 1871, the Royal Navy was the only major navy for most of the next two decades. Consequently, British procurement emphasized coastal power projection rather than ship-to-ship fighting power (Beeler 2001). Beeler also dismisses the old idea in Parkes 1970 that this era constituted the “dark ages” of the Victorian navy, and revises Sandler 1979, which accepts some of the Parkes thesis. Beeler stresses that new designs were developed for ships, guns, engines, and protection, and that new weapons systems were introduced, including all-steel cruisers for trade protection. Rival powers built coast defense ships and forts, and tried to create workable commerce-destroying strategies, without the global network of coaling stations and bases that sustained and extended British power. The technological developments that created the next generation of warships, the so-called pre-Dreadnoughts, is examined in Lautenschläger 1983.

Beeler, J. Birth of the Battleship: British Capital Ship Design, 1870–1881. London: Chatham, 2001.
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Overturns Parkes’s 1956 “dark ages” thesis, demonstrating that the Admiralty delivered exactly what their political masters wanted, a cheap navy adequate to uphold British mastery of the seas in battle, if necessary, and protect commerce, with most “battleships” designed for coast assault operations.
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Lautenschläger, K. “A Majestic Revolution.” Warship 7.25 (1983).
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Pioneering two-part essay setting out the key technological criteria that created the pre-Dreadnought-type warship. Article continues in Warship 7.26 (1983).
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Parkes, O. British Battleships: A History of Design, Construction and Armament, 1860–1950. London: Seeley Service, 1970.
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The first major design and service history of steam warships, based on archival research, but lacks footnotes. Parkes’s opinions have been criticized, but this remains a core text. Reprinted in the original format in 1990.
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Sandler, S. The Emergence of the Modern Capital Ship. Newark, NJ: University of Delaware Press, 1979.
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Pioneer academic study of British battleship design, focused on the personal rivalry between Edward Reed and Cowper Coles, culminating in loss of HMS Captain in September 1870. Undervalues political and economic contexts.
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Torpedoes and Torpedo Boats

The development of the ironclad steamship as an offensive system focused attention on the unprotected underwater hull. The spar torpedo was successfully employed in 1863, and the locomotive torpedo was tested soon afterward, providing improved defenses against naval power and a new antiship weapon for combat at sea. The spar torpedo, a contact projectile mounted on a long spar, required suicidal courage to be effective, but achieved some success in the American Civil War, including the first successful submarine attack. The Gatling-type machine gun of 1864 rendered such systems obsolete. English engineer Robert Whitehead, based in the Austrian port of Fiume, solved the basic problems of the self-propelled torpedo in the late 1860s, but it was not until the 1890s that these weapons actually sank a warship in combat, and even then most victims were stationary (Gray 1991 and Gray 2004). Torpedo boats have been analyzed by Lyon in Gardiner and Lambert 1992 (cited under General Overviews) and early attempts at countering the torpedo boat in Brown 1997 (cited under General Overviews). The submarine, despite the success of the Confederate HL Hunley sinking a Union cruiser, remained wholly experimental. French torpedo craft were critical tools of the Jeune École strategy of commerce raiding and coastal defense, and were expected to sink merchant ships without warning (le Masson 1963, Røksund 2007).

Gray, E. The Devil’s Device: Robert Whitehead and the History of the Torpedo. 2d ed. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute, 1991.
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Examines the development of the modern torpedo by Whitehead.
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Gray, E. Nineteenth Century Torpedoes and Their Inventors. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute, 2004.
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Sets Whitehead’s success in the wider context of the widespread failure of other innovators.
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le Masson, H. Histoire du Torpilleur en France. Paris: Académie de Marine, 1963.
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Classic study of the evolution of French torpedo boats and destroyers, includes strategic context.
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Røksund, A. The Jeune École: The Strategy of the Weak. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2007.
DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004157231.i-242Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Excellent Norwegian analysis of the subject, which emphasizes, among other issues, technological failure.
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Iconography

“The link between science, technology, ships and engines, and art, culture, history and politics is hard to define, and lacks the predictable linearity of histories constrained by a qualifying prefix, but it promises far richer insights” (Lambert in Leggett and Dunn 2012, cited under Anthologies, p. 218). The aesthetic of the steam warship has yet to receive the attention devoted to the Atlantic liners of the 20th century or the sailing battle fleets of the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1856 leading British cultural commentator John Ruskin chose to emphasize the sailing warship, despite the prominence of steam in the art of his hero, J. M. W. Turner. Johnstone 1983 hints at the wealth of material generated by new ships and technology in an era that employed the colored aquatint, photographs, and ever-cheaper mass production techniques to disseminate imagery. Lambert 2010 uses the full range of images to emphasize that the ship has been loaded with meaning since Antiquity, a rich tradition that the steam warship inherited, ranging from high art to the use of a British ironclad as a staple advertising motif stressing strength and dependability. The myriad images of the USS Monitor dueling the CSS Virginia vindicated the Union cause. Gardiner and Lambert 1992 (cited under General Overviews) and Canney 1990–1993 (cited under Steam Ships) make good use of contemporary illustrations, without exploring the deeper meanings. Wilson-Bareau and Degener 2003 (cited under Wooden Screw Steam Warships) offers an impressionist reading of an iconic steam warship combat and suggests a methodology for further study. Dingle 2009 reproduces striking images from the Admiralty collection, which were taken by the best local photographers of the day.

Dingle, N. British Warships 1860–1906: A Photographic Record. Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword, 2009.
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Outstanding photographs that combine technical and aesthetic qualities, combined with a well-informed and up-to-date text on the ships and their place in national strategy. Misses the opportunity to discuss photographers and their working methods.
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Johnstone, P. F. Steam at Sea. Salem, MA: Peabody Museum of Salem, 1983.
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Illustrated history of commercial steam ships that connects iconography with utility.
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Lambert, A. D., ed. Ship: A History in Art & Photography. London: Conway, 2010.
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With an introduction by Lambert. Emphasizes the importance of warship imagery to the construction of naval culture. 19th-century images include J. M. W. Turners’s iconic The Fighting Temeraire of 1839 and HMS Rattler towing HMS Alecto stern first, a lithograph created to “prove” the superiority of the screw propeller.
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Ruskin, J. The Harbours of England. London: Gambart, 1856.
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An extended introduction to a set of Turner engravings focusing the cultural concerns of the age on the glories of past, elevating the wooden sailing ship to the status of national symbol, and treating Turner’s art as backward looking. Misread the artist’s message that steam ships embodied a positive future.
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Infrastructure

The steam warship made new demands on naval infrastructure, fundamentally changing existing naval base and dockyard facilities. Saint and Guillery 2012 examines the creation of the first specialized naval steam factory at Woolwich, while Evans 2004 and Evans 2006 assess the new workshops, magazines, coal depots, and repair assets needed to service the steam warship. Paddle wheel ships needed wider dry docks, while the screw propeller greatly increased the need for docking accommodation for maintenance and repair. Shipbuilding in iron transformed the dockyards, replacing old timber piles and sawpits with steam-powered cutting and bending tools for iron plates and far higher levels of mechanization. Hamilton 2005 and MacDougall 2009 offer documentary collections that examine the transformation at Portsmouth and Chatham. While some dockyards expanded, the British yards at Portsmouth, Plymouth, Chatham, Deptford, and Woolwich became obsolete and were closed. The scale of the transformation can be judged by the fact that in 1889, British dockyards were building fourteen-thousand-ton armored battleships, rather than the three-thousand-ton wooden screw steamers of 1859. Marolda 1999, Winslow 1995, and Whyte 2012 examine the work of three American navy yards. Gray, in “Black Diamonds,” offers a wider perspective on the nature of the British global coaling network.

Evans, D. Building the Steam Navy: Dockyards, Technology and the Creation of the Victorian Battle Fleet; 1830–1906. London: Conway, 2004.
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A study of the evolution of naval infrastructure to meet the needs of steam and iron warships.
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Evans, D. Arming the Fleet: The Development of the Royal Ordnance Yards, 1770–1945. Gosport, UK: Explosion! Museum of Naval Firepower, 2006.
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Major studies of the built infrastructure of the steam age Royal Navy, emphasizing the impact of steam and iron on the shore facilities that supported sea power under steam.
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Gray, S. J. “Black Diamonds: Coal, the Royal Navy, and British Imperial Coaling Stations circa 1870–1914.” PhD diss., University of Warwick, n.d.
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Unpublished dissertation. Uses coal to link imperialism, strategy, and policy, with race and contact between cultures. Emphasizes how effective British coaling strategy was in comparison with the feeble efforts of her imperial rivals. Control of global coal supplies ensured British command of the seas in the steam age.
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Hamilton, C. I. Portsmouth Dockyard Papers 1852–1869: From Wood to Iron; A Calendar. Winchester, UK: Hampshire County Council, 2005.
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A volume of official papers dealing with the work of dockyard in era of steam and iron.
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MacDougall, P., ed. Chatham Dockyard, 1815–1865. Publications of the Navy Record Society 154. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2009.
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Excellent edited collections tracing the evolution of dockyard work across the age of transition. Chatham was the first to build an ironclad.
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Marolda, E. J. Washington Navy Yard: An Illustrated History. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1999.
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Effective overview of the work of a US navy yard in peace and war.
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Saint, A., and P. Guillery. Survey of London. Vol. 48, Woolwich. London: Yale University Press, 2012.
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Includes an outstanding chapter dealing with the Royal Navy’s pioneer steam factory and refit complex, active between the 1820s and the 1850s, based on extensive archaeological work.
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Whyte, W. “The Brooklyn Navy Yard: The Heart of the Union Anaconda.” Northern Mariner 22.4 (2012): 393–408.
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Useful article that emphasizes the role of the yard in converting merchant ships for war, maintaining the fleet, and building new vessels as the key to both the Union blockade and Union victory.
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Winslow, R. E., III. “Constructing Munitions of War”: The Portsmouth Navy Yard Confronts the Confederacy, 1861–1865. Portsmouth, NH: Portsmouth Marine Society, 1995.
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Extensive narrative of the work of one of the US Navy’s eight Atlantic shipyards during the Civil War.
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Preserved Steam Warships

Despite the transient nature of the ship as an artifact, six significant steam warships have been preserved, along with the abandoned, decaying hulk of a coast assault battleship and a number of archaeological sites. The Danish frigate HMDS Jylland is a unique, wooden-hulled screw steam warship that fought other warships, restored and moored alongside at Ebeltotft in Jutland. HMNS Rap, one of the first torpedo boats, has been brought ashore at the Royal Norwegian Navy’s museum at Horten, a unique reminder of these fragile craft. The large ironclad HMS HMS Warrior, and three 1860s vintage coast defense ironclads the Dutch HMNS Buffel and HMNS Schorpionen, and the British- built Chilean, ex-Peruvian ironclad Huascar (Wood, et al. 1986). The wreck of the USS Cairo survives in a museum, while the USS Tecumseh remains on the bottom of Mobile Bay. The best-known steam warship wreck is that of the USS Monitor Center & Foundation, lost off Cape Hatteras while on passage to join the attack on Charleston. Major elements of the ship have been salved, including her turret, which are exhibited at the Monitor Museum. The wartime celebrity of the ship secured far more generous budgets for recovery and preservation than accorded other wreck sites. The large coast defense turret ironclad HMAS Cerberus, which was acquired by the State of Victoria to defend Melbourne and Port Philip Bay, lies abandoned and rusting, but not forgotten.

HMAS Cerberus.
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Website dedicated to the half-submerged coast defense ironclad at Melbourne, Australia.
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HMDS Jylland.
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Website dedicated to the preserved wooden steam frigate at Edletoft, Denmark.
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HMNS Buffel.
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Website dedicated to the preserved Dutch coast defense ironclad.
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HMNS Rap.
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Website dedicated to the preserved pioneer British-built torpedo boat at Horten, Norway.
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HMNS Schorpionen.
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Website dedicated to the preserved Dutch coast defense ironclad.
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HMS Warrior.
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Website dedicated to the preserved ironclad, now at Portsmouth, United Kingdom.
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USS Cairo.
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Website dedicated to the preserved Civil War warship.
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USS Monitor Center & Foundation.
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Impressive website dedicated to the Civil War warship, which is partly preserved ashore and partly lying on the seabed off Cape Hatteras.
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USS Tecumseh.
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Website dedicated to the wreck site of the Civil War warship.
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Wood, C., P. Somervell, and J. Maber. “The Iron Clad Turret Ship Huascar.” Warship 37 (1986).
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Important account of the restoration of the British-built Chilean, ex-Peruvian turret ship. Article continues in Warship 38 (1986).