Malvern Hill-Covering the Retreat, July 1-2, 1862

When electing to pull back from Richmond and conduct his "change of base," General George McClellan instructed the Army of the Potomac to fall back towards Harrison's Landing on the James River.    With the Confederate Army in hot pursit, the Union Army made its stand at Malvern Hill.  The James River Flotilla at the time consisted of the the ironclads USS Galena and Monitor, along with the wooden gunboats USS Jacob Bell, Aroostook, and Mahaska. 

Monitor and Jacob Bell provided cover for the Army upstream near City Point. Aroostook served as a communications vessel with signaling officers keeping lines open between ships and the Army on shore. Galena and Mahaska anchored at a section of the James River known as Turkey Bend (now known as Turkey Point, go here for a modern day map of the region) with a clear view of Malvern Hill. In a move that would bring great ridicule upon him in the press, McClellan then came on board Galena for discussions with the Navy. 

Alfred Waud deptiction of Galena and Mahaska during Malvern Hill.

On July 1 watches on Galena spotted the Confederate Army approaching Malvern Hill.  With U.S. Army Signal Corps officers on board, Galena and Mahaska opened up on Confederate positions with their 100-Parrot Rifle and IX-Inch Dahlgrens for two hours.  When rapid fire bombardment stopped at 8 p.m., the two ships fired 206 shells.

While the rate of fire was impressive, there were considerable problems with the bombardment.  All issues originated in the fact that the Confederate formations were upwards of two miles away.  The longest fuzes in the ships' arsenal was for 15-seconds, thus several shells exploded prematurely and some even exploded near Union formations.   Despite the issues, Union soliders were thankful that the Navy had their back during the retreat.  Several times, U.S. Naval officers reported that when Union soldiers spotted them from shore, they cheered. 

An 1864 Republican cartoon lampooning General George McClellan's presence on board USS Galena during the Battle of Malvern Hill. 

USS Galena: Flawed, but Still Standing

In preparation for Drewry's Bluff, we present USS Galena.  This is the ship that is often mentioned in passing and in hush circles as that "other ironclad" that had a flawed design.  The ship served as the flagship for the squadron of U.S. Navy ships that challenged, and failed, the Confederate defenders at Fort Darling and the Bluff.

USS Galena was of the three "experimental" ironclad designs put recommended by the Ironclad Board. The ship had all the right connections.  Her designer was none other than Samuel Pook, designer of the "City"-class ironclads that dominated the Mississippi River system during the war and had a hand is designing the Merrimack-class of steam frigates.  Successful New England shipbuilder C.S. Bushnell backed the ship's design and had her built at his shipyard in Connecticut.

So what was wrong? In simple terms, Galena was a wooden ship trapped in the body of an ironclad.  Pook design a wooden steam sloop with four inches of iron slapped on the sides.  Placing iron over wood was nothing extraordinary.  Most ironclads, including New Ironsides and Virginia, had several inches of wood backing up the ship's iron plates.  The wood and iron work together as an integrated system.

 However, Galena was simply a wooden steam sloop with four inches of iron slapped on the sides.  Additionally, Galena's armor was placed in a "tumblehome" design, meaning the ship's top deck is narrower  than the beam.  The result was a odd, aircraft shelter-like, look to the ship.  The ship's iron would go on to show that just because one places iron on a ship, doesn't make the ship the next Achilles. 

However, when you read more about Drewry's Bluff in future posts, do remember this: of the three experimental ironclads,  only Galena was still floating in 1867.   Granted, this had nothing to do with superior design than the will of Neptune.   It could even be argued that because of Galena, there would never have been a Monitor.  One story goes that Bushnell asked his friend John Ericson's to consultant on Pook's design.  During the meeting, Ericsson's rejected Galena's design outright and pulled out a plan for what he thought an ironclad warship should look like.  Impressed by the design, Bushnell encouraged Ericsson to put his plan in front of the Board.

The U.S. Navy's Ironclad Board-Good Ideas/Bad Ideas

In August 1861, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles tasked three veteran naval officers, Commodore Joseph Smith, Commodore Hiram Paulding, and Commander Charles H. Davis, to find the U.S. Navy ironclad warships to counter reported Confederate ironclads already under construction. The three men of the “Ironclad Board” turned to the private sector’s ingenuity to provide a solution. With a public advertisement, the board gave American engineers and inventors twenty-five days to submit their ideas. The ideas had to be backed up with construction data and builder’s plans. By the end of September, the Board received sixteen proposals, some more sound than others.

In the end, the Board recommended three ships-John Ericson’s Monitor, Merrick & Sons’ New Ironsides, and C.S.Bushnell’s Galena. Even these three designs, the Board was not entirely pleased with. Ericson’s and Bushnell’s designs were considered unseaworthy and Merrick’s design was possibly too complex for American ironworks to build. The Board deferred judgment on a design from prolific inventor Edward Renwick. The Board liked Renwick’s design, but at $1.5 million, it would have cost the Board’s entire budget to fund.

As for the other twelve, the Board placed those designs in the “not recommended” category and threw them in the trash. Among this group were two monster ships that each displaced about 15,000 tons, were about 325 feet in length, and drew 25 feet of water (the size of a first generation dreadnought-type battleship); one that was far too small as it only displaced 90-tons; one that was outright fraud as the proposed cost seemed too low and the plans were amateurish; two that had defective armor schemes; and one where the engineer proposed building a “rubberclad” with rubber armor instead of iron.