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Abstract
Since the 1970s, the Caribbean has been a hub for nautical archaeology, often focusing on European naval ordnance as evidence of early modern maritime occupation. The mid-nineteenth century ushered in a new military context with rapid American expansion, introducing contemporary innovations in American naval artillery. This study delves into the significance of American naval ordnance in the late nineteenth-century Caribbean, with a focus on its potential for revealing new imperialism and evolving regional dynamics in the archaeological record. It analyses the late nineteenth-century naval operational context in the Caribbean, concentrating on USS Kearsarge and its guns’ history from 1862–94 and its loss on Roncador Cay. Primary sources provide insight into their evolution associated with the wreck site, with emphasis placed on Dahlgren shell guns as a potential identifying feature.
Notes
1 The authors are grateful to the anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions.
2 See Ciarlo, ‘Industrialization, Warfare’; Sondhaus, Naval Warfare; Symonds, The Civil War, 2–10.
3 Reed and Simpson, Modern Ships; Bennett, The Steam Navy.
4 See Smith, The Spanish-American War; Navarro et al., ‘Los pecios españoles’.
5 Gomez Pretel et al., ‘Preserving Sunken Military Vessels’.
6 Howard, ‘Early Ship Guns’; Eriksson, ‘How Large Was Mars?’; Henry and Farrel, ‘A Preliminary Analysis’, 7–8.
7 Lavery, The Arming and Fitting.
8 Ballard, ‘The Fighting Ship’; Lyon, The Sailing Navy List.
9 Hoyt, ‘An Empirical System’; Guilmartin, ‘Early Modern Naval Ordnance’; Roth, ‘A Proposed Standard in the reporting’; Ciarlo, ‘Una síntesis histórica’.
10 MacLeod, ‘In Situ Conservation’; Henry and Farrell ‘A Preliminary Analysis’.
11 Roth, ‘A Proposed Standard’, 192, 193–201, 202.
12 Keith et al., ‘A Bronze Cannon’; Phillips et al., ‘The Sinking of the Galleon San José; DIMAR, Galeon San José, 100–37.
13 Mahan, The Interest of American, 271–314.
14 For example, Irion, ‘The Forty Cannon Wreck’; Vargas, ‘Artefacts from the Sabana’s Site’.
15 Harpster, ‘Shipwreck identity’.
16 Ortega, ‘Aproximaciones a la artillería’.
17 See for example, Keith and Simmons III, ‘Analysis of Hull’; Harris and Richards, ‘Preliminary Investigations’.
18 See Delgado et al., ‘The Hidden Landscape’; Gomez Pretel et al., ‘Shipwrecks in the Western Caribbean’.
19 Field, ‘American Imperialism’.
20 See Herrera et al., ‘La memoria anfibia’; Delgado et al., ‘Nineteenth–century Shipwrecks’.
21 See Watts, ‘The Location and Identification’.
22 See Sigsbee, The ‘Maine’; Wegner, ‘New Interpretations’; Hobson, The Sinking of the Merrimac; Delgado, Adventures of a Sea Hunter, 139–52.
23 Sondhaus, Naval Warfare, 97–9.
24 Guérout, ‘The Engagement’.
25 McBride, Technological Change, 12–21.
26 Bennett, The Steam Navy, 679–712, 771–806.
27 Veeser, World Safe for Capitalism, 30–42.
28 Headley, ‘Darien Exploring Expedition’; Cullen, Over Darien; Selfridge, Reports of Explorations.
29 Ammen, ‘Surveys and Reconnoissances’.
30 Gomez Pretel et al., ‘Shipwrecks in the Western Caribbean’.
31 Delgado et al., The maritime landscape, 156.
32 Delgado et al., ‘Nineteenth-century Shipwrecks’.
33 Rentfrow, Home Squadron.
34 Robinson, W., ‘The Alabama–Kearsarge Battle’.
35 Canney, The Old Steam Navy.
36 Padfield, Guns at Sea, 191–210.
37 National Archives and Records Administration, Record of the Proceeding.
38 House of Representatives, Rescue of the Armament.
39 Gomez Pretel et al., ‘Combining Historical, Remote-sensing, and Photogrammetric’.
40 See Irion, ‘The Forty Cannon Wreck’; Guilmartin, ‘Early Modern Naval Ordnance’, 39–40.
41 See Johnson, ‘Admiral John AB Dahlgren’.
42 See for example, Dahlgren, Shells and Shell-Guns; Dahlgren, Cast Iron; Dahlgren, Projectiles for Rifled.
43 The US Navy classified Dahlgren shell guns with Roman numeral calibre designations; this convention was standard for these guns in the period, and remains the most common way to refer to Dahlgren shell guns today. The authors have chosen to use this convention here.
44 Johnson, ‘The Merrimac–Monitor’, 360–3.
45 See Dahlgren, Shells and Shell-Guns.
46 See for example, Dahlgren, Improvement in Cast Iron.
47 Schneller, ‘The Last Smoothbore’, 16; Tucker, Arming the Fleet, 203; Legg, ‘Quest for Glory’, 19–22.
48 Baird, ‘Pneumatic Steering’; Symonds, The Civil War, 39–43.
49 US Congress et al., Communication of Norman Wiard; Johnson, ‘The Merrimac–Monitor’.
50 Edge, An Englishman’s View, 45–7; Schneller, ‘The Last Smoothbore’, 29.
51 See Tucker, Arming the Fleet; Tucker, ‘Armaments and Innovations’; Olmstead et al., The Big Guns.
52 Preble, ‘Rear Admiral Dahlgren’, 76; Grace and Forlow, West Point Foundry, 8–9; Bell, Civil War Heavy Explosive, 3; See also Kotlensky, ‘From Forest and Mine’ and Babits et al., ‘The Tale of a Gun’.
53 Olmstead et al., The Big Guns, 87.
54 Dahlgren, The Petition to the National Government, 5.
55 Ibid.
56 Kennedy, ‘The Converted Eight Inch’.
57 Olmstead et al., The Big Guns, 90–1.
58 Ibid., 89–90, See also Kennedy, ‘The Converted Eight Inch’.
59 US National Archives and Records Administration (hereafter NARA): Log of USS Kearsarge, https://www.archives.gov/research/military/logbooks/navy-online-thru-1940#k-pre-1940.
60 US Bureau of Ordnance, Ordnance Instructions, 3–8.
61 Tucker, (ed.), American Civil War, 1055.
62 US Naval History Division, Civil War, 369–70.
63 NARA: Log of USS Kearsarge, 1868.
64 Ibid., 1872.
65 Olmstead et al., The Big Guns.
66 NARA: Log of USS Kearsarge, 1879.
67 Ibid., 1883, 189.
68 Lyon, ‘Our Rifled Ordnance’.
69 NARA: Log of USS Kearsarge, 1889.
70 Ibid., 1893–1894.
71 NARA: Record of the Proceeding of a Court of Inquiry, Order by the Secretary of the Navy, to Investigate the Loss of the US; Ship Kearsarge; Held at the Navy Yard, New York. N. Y, February 26, 1894. Court Martial Records, vol. 550, no. 4854. Court of inquiry loss of the USS Kearsarge, Record group, 125 (Washington, 1894).
72 McGuinness, Path of Empire.
73 See Selfridge, Reports of Explorations; Rentfrow, Home Squadron.
74 Delgado et al., ‘Nineteenth-century Shipwrecks’.
75 See US Office of Naval Intelligence et al., Notes on the Spanish-American War; Veeser, A World Safe for Capitalism, 30–42.
76 Bastable, ‘From Breechloaders’; Johnson, ‘Some Monster Guns’, 424–5.
77 Lathrop, ‘Vanished Ships’, 951; Delgado, ‘Missing and Presumed Lost’; Cumberland, ‘The Confederate Loss’,128; Heyl, Early American Steamers, 372.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
William Gomez Pretel
William Gomez Pretel is a former navy officer and oceanographer with a PhD from Korea Maritime and Ocean University. He focuses on underwater cultural heritage. His recent research delves into historical hurricanes and shipwrecks in the Caribbean’s small islands, revealing ‘hidden landscapes.’ Emphasizing past maritime accidents, he uncovers the concept of ‘hidden shipwrecks,’ where identification evidence is limited.
Erik Farrell
Erik Farrell is the senior objects conservator at the Mariners’ Museum and Park in Newport News, Virginia. He specializes in the identification, analysis, and conservation of seventeenth- to nineteenth-century artillery and ordnance. He has previously worked as a marine archaeological conservator for the wrecks of USS Monitor (1862) and Queen Anne’s Revenge (1718).