Back in 1862, informed of the battle of Hampton Roads, between the CSS Virginia and the USS Monitor, the Peruvian Government instructed its Minister in Washington to contact the Monitor’s designer, Swedish born engineer John Ericsson, and to express to him, the interest of buying a couple of those ships.
On May 29 of that year, from New York, Ericsson sent the following letter to Mr. Federico Barreda, the Peruvian representative to the United States:
"Agreeable to your request I have now to state that I am willing to construct for your Government two Armor Clad Iron Steam vessels of war with revolving turrets on the Monitor system. These vessels to be precisely similar to the six vessels of this class which I am now building for the United States Government. The leading dimensions are as follows: Extreme length on decks 200 feet and Extreme beams 45 feet. I agree to finish the vessels completely ready for service in all respects, except guns, ammunition coal and stores, for the sum of four hundred thousand dollars for each vessel. I further agree to have the vessels ready to this port on six months from the day of receiving orders from your Government".
Such a transaction however could not be concluded because the Government of Abraham Lincoln, in war with the Southern States, had forbidden the sale of weapons to foreign countries. However, by the middle of 1866, Peru tried again to get some U.S. made monitors with the purpose of using them in its war against Spain, being the immediate objective to attack the Spanish colony of Cuba sailing from American ports, probably New Orleans. But by 1868 the war was long over and there was no reason to have those ships. The Peruvians, as it has been seen, were very careful in the selection of their warships, most of them brand new, state of the art vessels, built expressly for their Navy. In this opportunity the decision to get these ironclads was made during the Government of President Jose Balta.
Obviously one reason was the fact that the Americans had an excellent reputation building warships, and no country in the world, except for the British and the French, could match their experience. But to buy Civil War-era old coastal monitors intended solely for operations in sheltered, calm waters, mainly rivers, to be used as seagoing ships was something difficult to understand. It seems that no one took into account the fact that during the Civil War two monitors sunk when open ocean passages were attempted.
As we have seen, the first monitor –the “Monitor”- was designed by Mr. Ericsson during the American Civil War and was intended as a means to counter Confederate ships attempting to challenge the blockade of U.S. southern ports; she also saw considerable service in attacking coastal fortifications. This was the first U.S. warship fitted with a turret. Most of the monitors that followed were also designed by Mr. Ericsson, and used a turret of his own design. Ericsson's monitors were built with a shoal iron hull supporting an ironclad raft, which was the only portion visible above water. The raft was of very low freeboard, and generally featured a large overhang all around, particularly at the bow and stern. The joining of the iron hull to the overhanging raft was a weak point in most designs. During the war, Ericsson and other engineers developed three kinds of monitors: Coastal; Shallow Draft Coastal; and Large Coastal/Seagoing. Among these three kinds, six new models of monitors were designed. These were the Passaic, Canonicus, Milwaukee, Casco, and Miantonomoh and Kalamazoo class. The Canonicus, which interest us most in this chapter, were an improved version of the Passaic class ironclads. Nine of these ships were built in different shipyards: The Canonicus, Saugus, Tecumesh, Manhattan, Mahopac, Wyandotte, Ajax, Catawaba and Oneota. Significant changes from the Passaic design, included heavier deck armor, better internal backing for the armor, uniform main batteries, and heavy armor around the turret base. The Canonicus displaced 2,100 tons, had a 350-horse power engine and should reach a theoretical speed of 8 knots, which they never achieved. They were protected by a 3 inch armor which increased to 5 inches in the vital parts of the ships, and were armed each one with two XV-inch Dahlgren guns, mounted over a turret protected with a 10 inch armor. They could carry a crew of 100 officers and men.
Five of these nine ships saw action during the North American Civil War. The Canonicus operated in the James River, then in blockade service, and in attacks on Fort Fisher: the Saugus saw extensive service in the James River and in the assault on Wilmington; the Tecumesh operated in the James River, then in the Gulf of Mexico. It was mined in Mobile Bay on 5 August 1864 and sunk almost immediately; the Manhattan operated also in the Gulf of Mexico, including attacks on Mobile Bay; the Mahopac participated in the attacks on Charleston and Wilmington, and also operated in the James and Appomattox Rivers. The Wyandotte, the Ajax, the Catawaba and the Oneota, were never commissioned.
Alex Swift & Co and Niles Works built the Catawaba and the Oneota in Cincinnati, Ohio, after a contract signed with the U.S. Navy in September 1862. The Catawaba was launched on April 13th, 1864, while the Oneota was launched on May 21st, of that same year. Both were completed on June 10th, 1865, but as most of the Civil War surviving ships, they went into reserve and remained in that condition providing no additional service, before finally being disposed of. After almost two years in a deposit, the U.S. Government resold both to Alex Swift & Co and Niles Works. Almost immediately, the American Company offered the ships to any country interested in buying them, and that was the case of Peru, which officially acquired both monitors on April the 2nd, 1868. The Peruvians renamed the Oneota as Manco Capac and the Catawaba as Atahualpa, in honor of the first and the last ruler of the Inca Empire, respectively (1). Few months after the transaction, Peruvian crews, under command of Navy Captains Camilo Carrillo and Juan Guillermo Moore were sent to the United Sates to bring the ships home.
The monitors sailed to Peru from New Orleans in early January 1869, and had to be towed by the transports Reyes, Marañon and Pachitea, which were bought by the Peruvians for that purpose (2). After their departure, an American newspaper wrote, "There they go, the Peruvians in their iron coffins", because the surface of the ships was only 12 inches above water. It did not take long for the Peruvian sailors to realize that those ships were not the best choice. The ships arrived in Peru in June 1870. The trip between New Orleans and Callao had lasted 15 long and difficult months because the monitors´ travel autonomy was only five days. Many of the officers considered the long voyage inside the “coffins” as the most daring of their careers. In fact it became the longest and most dangerous towing made up to that moment by any Navy in the world. A Peruvian historian once said:
“There has been no more risky trip in naval history”.
A Commission appointed by the U.S. Congress to investigate the case of the Catawaba and the Oneota concluded that "Alex Swift and Company" violated the neutrality laws of the United States by selling them to Peru while still in a state of War with Spain. It also concluded that the American Company made illegal profits from the transaction. A high officer from the Navy Department, Mr. William Faxon, declared to the Commission that he personally would not have boarded the monitors to make the passage trough the Atlantic and said that such a trip was "very dangerous". He added that no naval officer in the world should have been appointed for that task.
Had the monitors been used in Peru’s Amazonian rivers maybe they could have performed better, but to place them in the tough coasts of the Pacific Ocean was a terrible mistake. In few years they deteriorated. When the war with Chile was declared on April 1879, both monitors were already in very bad condition. The Atahualpa could almost not move, and the Manco Capac could only reach a pathetic speed of 3.5 knots.
At the beginning of the war the Chileans feared the monitors most, but their fears had no basis, since both ships had become floating batteries for port defenses because they could not execute operations on high seas. In May 1879, the Peruvian First Naval Division, under Commander Miguel Grau sailed from Callao to the Southern Port of Arica, bringing with him the Atahualpa and the Manco Capac, which were part of the Second Naval Division. However, such was the situation of the crippled Atahualpa that, just few miles away, at the San Lorenzo Island, her engines collapsed and the monitor had to be towed back to Callao, were she remained until January 1881. Once in Arica, the Manco Capac, under Commander Jose Sanchez Lagomarsino, was turned into a mobile battery to protect the port from the attacks of the Chilean squadron. Her two fifteen inch Dahlgren smoothbore guns, which could fire 500-pound grenades, proved to be a mortal weapon.
On February 27 1880, two Chilean warships attacked Arica: The ironclad Huascar and the corvette Magellan. The Manco Capac, accompanied by the torpedo boat Alianza, ventured forth to do battle. Both ironclads engaged in a fierce duel, at ranges as short as 200 meters. A projectile from the Manco Capac hit the Huascar, and killed her Captain, Manuel Thomson and several sailors. Such became the fear against the ship’s guns that during the next four months not a single shot was exchanged between the blockading Chilean fleet and the port defenses. On June 6, 1880, the Chilean fleet once again shelled Arica and one of Manco Capac´s grenades hit the Cochrane causing severe damage and several casualties. Another of her shells hit the Covadonga, forcing her to withdraw. The next day, Arica was taken after a bloody infantry assault and the Commander of the monitor scuttled her to avoid capture by the Chileans. It was the end of the Manco Capac, whose sunken hulk reportedly still exists and is mostly intact.
On December 11, 1880, it was the turn of the Atahualpa to get into action. The Chilean fleet off Callao started firing at the port at ranges of up to 6.5 kilometers. The Peruvian monitor, escorted by a tug, ventured out to do battle with the enemy. It was a duel using heavy long- range guns. During this action a discharge from the eight-inch Armstrong gun of the Chilean steamer Angamos caused it to slip from its carriage, killing the Captain, a Lieutenant and wounding several men.
However, five weeks later in January 16th, 1881, after the battles of San Juan and Miraflores and before the occupation of the capital by the Chilean army, the Peruvians had to scuttled the Atahualpa together with the rest of the fleet (3).
. . . .
(1) According to one source, the Manco Capac was the U.S.S. Winnebago, which was commissioned on 27 April 1864. The ironclad patrolled the Mississippi River and participated in the Battle of Mobile Bay. She was involved in the shelling of Ft. Morgan and operations against Ft. Blakely. Later served on the Tombigbee River against Confederate forces in Montgomery and Selma, Alabama. Remained in U.S. Navy service, stationed at Mobile Bay and later New Orleans. It was sold at auction to Nathaniel McKay, who supposedly sold her to the Peruvian Navy. All indicates however that the information about that ship becoming the Manco Capac is not accurate.
(2) The acquisition of the monitors cost Peru about one million dollars, including the transports to tow them plus the voyage expenses. It was the worst deal, considering that only four years later the Chilean Government would sign a contract with a British company to build two 3,500-ton state of the art ironclads for only US$ 850,000.
(3) In his compilation “World Battleships List: U.S. Civil War Monitors”, naval researcher Andrew Toppan states that the Atahualpa was raised that same year, used as hulk, finally discarded around 1910 and presumably scrapped.
jdelcampo@mail.com
Perú