EWitten507 wrote:

> Saturday afternoon, while browsing the shelves at my local used book
> store, I came across a copy of William C. Davis’ _Duel Between the
> First
> Ironclads_ (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company 1975). The
> following appears on pages 69-70:
>
> This left the Cumberland. Just nine years old, she had
> at one time been a magnificent forty-four-gun screw
> frigate,

This is just crazy. According to Chapelle’s _The American Sailing
Navy_, the _Cumberland was one of 8 sisters of the _Brandywine_ class
and was laid down as a *sailing* frigate in 1825. She was launched at
Boston Navy Yard in 1842 and commisioned in 1843.

> the flagship of Commodore Joseph Smith’s
> Mediterranean squadron. and of the African squadron
> as well.

Don’t know about this.

> In 1856 she had been “razeed”-cut down a
> deck, making her into a sloop of war mounting
> twenty-four guns, twenty-two 9-inch smoothbores, one
> 10-inch smoothbore, and one formidable 70-pounder
> rifle.

The razing started in 1850 and lasted until 1856. Chapplle has this to
say: “One of the best examples of a cut-down frigate was the
_Cumberland_. It will be recalled that this ship was relatively new,
having been launched in 1842. She originally carried 40 carriage guns,
32-pdrs., and 10 of the 64 pdr 8″ shell guns. She was . . . reduced to
a magnificent corvette carrying 26 guns on her main deck, 32 pdrs., and
2 10″ guns on pivots, one each at bow and stern. . . .Stripping these
ships of the weight of their spar-deck bulwarks and armament, as well as
removing the heavy quarter galleries (and the reducing of windage that
resulted from the removal of the spar-deck bulwarks and hammock rails)
made the ships very fast sailers.”

She never had an engine.

> Edward Wittenberg
> ewitten507@aol.com

—

Steve Alvin
Dept. of Social Sciences
Illinois Valley Community College

salvin@ocslink.com

“I have snatched my share of joys from the grudging hand of fate
as I have jogged along, but never has life held for me anything
quite so entrancing as baseball.”–Clarence Darrow