Program Information

Most people thought it would sink, but John Ericsson's odd little craft certainly did the job.

A Moment in Time is a brief, exciting and compelling journey into the past. Created to excite and enlighten the public about the past, its relevance to the present and its impact on the future, A Moment In Time is a captivating historical narrative that is currently broadcast worldwide.

Transcript

Lead: Most people thought it would sink, but John Ericsson's odd little craft certainly did the job.

Intro: A Moment In Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Gideon Welles was Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy. In May 1861 he began to hear rumors that the new Confederacy was constructing a ship layered with iron that might possibly be able to break the blockade by which he was attempting to throttle the South. His advisors were not sure about the prospects of such a craft but Welles, to be on the safe side, began the search for a design that might counteract the threat.

By late August a committee was receiving proposals and gradually eliminated all but two. Both were of conventional design, wood ships covered with iron rail and plate, but they were heavy and thought unstable. The designer of one was C.S. Bushnell of New Haven, Connecticut. When told of the committee's doubts about his vessel, he began to cast about for ways to improve it. He was advised to speak with John Ericsson, a world-renowned inventor and engineer living in New York.

Ericsson was an egotistic genius with a reputation for unpleasant behavior that matched his inventive brilliance. Born in Sweden, educated in London, he adopted the United States in 1839 and there continued his pursuit of highly creative military and civilian invention. Out of storage he brought Bushnell an old blueprint that had been submitted to Emperor Napoleon III of France during the Crimean War. He called it an "iron-clad steam battery." It was a low-slung flat design with a most unusual revolving turret in the center and a single gun. It looked like a cake on a plate.

So novel was the design that weeks of persuasion were needed to even get the committee to grant a preliminary contract. In the process, Bushnell and Ericsson enlisted the support of President Lincoln who went with them to present the design and told the committee, "It strikes me there's something in it." There was. Ericsson's folly proved itself at Hampton Roads against the C.S.S. Virginia in March of 1862 and became the model for Union ironclad ships throughout the war.

The producer of A Moment In Time is Steve Clark. At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.

Virginia Standards