“ABCD” Cruisers
12 APRIL 1884
“ABCD” CRUISERS
By the end of the Civil War such advances as iron plate armor, steam propulsion, and large bore, rifled shell guns had poised our Navy on the cusp of technology. But sadly, in the following decades our Navy languished as Congressional attention waned. Traditionalism returned, our senior officers re-embracing a fascination with the glorious, albeit by-gone, age of sail. It was unconscionable to senior minds that the oily mechanical engineer might deserve an equal place beside the fresh-air, gentleman sailor. Most of the cramped, hot, dirty, “stinkpots,” as the Civil War monitors were nicknamed, were mothballed. Our limited new ship construction continued to constitute wooden-hulled screw frigates. By the 1880s most of the world’s navies had surpassed us.
As well, the contemporary mission for our Navy was different than today’s. We did not consider ourselves worthy of challenging the naval heavyweights of the day in fleet actions. Rather, we pursued the less risky business of raiding an enemy’s commercial vessels. Then, before leaving office in 1881, President James Garfield’s Secretary of the Navy, William H. Hunt, appointed an advisory board chaired by RADM John Rodgers to consider updating our Naval technology (though not our commerce raiding strategy). The Board planned three fast cruisers and a smaller dispatch boat to be constructed of steel–lighter and stronger than iron. Steam engines would propel these cruisers at a remarkable 15 knots, but recognizing our lack of overseas coaling stations, these cruisers were also fully rigged with masts and sails. The hulls were thin, however the deck over the engine spaces was reinforced against plunging fire, and coal bunkers were intentionally positioned outboard of the engine spaces. The decision to build these cruisers signaled a shift away from a navy of sail power and is generally taken to be the renaissance of the modern American Navy.
On this day our Navy’s first steel-hulled warship, the dispatch boat USS DOLPHIN was launched. Together with the subsequent cruisers ATLANTA, BOSTON, and CHICAGO (named to flatter America’s 19th century geo-political centers) these became known as the “ABCD” cruisers. Together they briefly constituted the Squadron of Evolution. To modern eyes, they look like queer hybrids. The largest, CHICAGO, displaced 4500 tons and was rigged as a brig, though her weight and excessive leeway limited her to only 3-4 knots under canvas. CHICAGO was skippered by such notables as CAPT Alfred T. Mahan and CAPT Chester W. Nimitz though she never saw combat. Only BOSTON and DOLPHIN ever fired their guns in anger, for BOSTON at the battle of Manila Bay.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 16 APR 22
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Beach, Edward L. The United States Navy: 200 Years. New York, NY: Henry Holt Co., 1986, pp. 322-23, 330.
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 2 “C-F”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, pp. 102, 285.
Hagan, Kenneth J. This People’s Navy: The Making of American Sea Power. New York, NY: Free Press, 1991, pp. 186-88.
Love, Robert W. History of the US Navy, Vol 1 1775-1941. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1992, p. 352.
