Amphitrite Class Monitor - Development and Construction - The Robeson Subterfuge

The Robeson Subterfuge

Secretary of the Navy George Robeson wasted no time in bringing the Navy's lack of readiness to the attention of Congress, which hastily allocated a million dollars for the overhaul of five of the larger twin-turret Civil-War era monitors—Puritan, Amphitrite, Miantonomoh, Monadnock and Terror. These vessels were in such poor condition however, that Robeson took it upon himself to use the money to build five entirely new monitors instead, under the guise of "repairing" the old ones. In furtherance of this scheme, he gave the new monitors identical names to the old, and authorized the scrapping of the latter to help pay for the new construction.

As the Navy's own shipyards lacked the capability to build ironclads at this time, Robeson approached four private shipyards—Harlan & Hollingsworth, William Cramp & Sons, John Roach & Sons and the Continental Iron Works, and offered them his "repair" contracts for Amphitrite, Terror, Miantonomoh and Puritan respectively. A fifth contract, for Monadnock, was accepted by a New York entrepreneur, Phineas Burgess. Continental Iron Works was the only firm to decline Robeson's offer, and consequently John Roach & Sons accepted the contracts to build both Puritan and Miantonomoh. However, Continental Iron Works would still participate in construction of the monitors through its supply of prefabricated ship parts to Burgess. The terms for each contractor were identical—a set of three contracts which covered respectively the building of the frames, installation of hull plates, and installation of the engines and boilers. The third contract was left unsigned in each case until the first two had been fulfilled.

Since Robeson had been unable to secure funding for new warship construction, he hoped to be able to complete the ships from the Navy's annual repair and maintenance budget, but in the wake of the Virginius incident, the Navy increased the number of its personnel and also conducted a series of Naval demonstrations, all of which reduced available funds. Robeson resorted to cannibalizing many of the old Civil War era ironclads to sell as scrap to the shipbuilders in lieu of cash payments. The Cramp shipyard received four old monitors for scrapping, including Otsego. John Roach & Sons, which had its own iron mill and could directly recycle scrap iron, received the most ironclads for scrapping—the original Miantonomoh and Puritan, in addition to the Casco-class monitors Cohoes, Casco, Chimo, Modoc, Napa, Nausett and Waxsaw. The scrap value of Puritan was estimated at $43,000 and that of the Casco class from $7,000 to $20,000 each. Roach also received several other vessels for scrap including the screw frigate Neshaminy and the screw sloop Severn—fourteen ships in total, including the monitors.

In spite of these ad hoc measures, Robeson soon ran out of money. In 1876, he was forced to ask Congress for an appropriation of $2,300,000 to complete the five new monitors. A few days before leaving office, he decided to sign the third (machinery) contracts for all five vessels, in hope that the incoming administration would honor them. He also awarded a new $997,642 contract to Roach for the fitting of additional armor to Puritan.