Early Naval Career
At the age of 22, Isherwood was appointed First Assistant Engineer in the Navy May 23, 1844, serving aboard General Taylor in 1846–47. During the Mexican–American War, he served in the steam warship Princeton, and later was senior engineer of the gunboat Spitfire.
When the Mexican–American War ended, Isherwood was assigned to the Washington Navy Yard, where he assisted Charles Stuart in designing engines and experiments with steam as a source of power for propelling ships. Throughout the 1850s, Isherwood compiled operational and performance data from steam engines in U.S. and foreign commercial vessels and warships. He used these empirical data to analyze the efficiency of engine types then in use.
In the twelve years between the Mexican–American War and the Civil War, Isherwood published 55 technical and scientific articles on steam engineering and vessel propulsion in the prestigious Journal of the Franklin Institute. In 1859 the engineer published the results of his own original thermodynamic experiments in the two-volume Engineering Precedents for Steam Machinery. Isherwood was the nation's most prolific antebellum technical writer.
Isherwood went to sea during the period between the wars, serving as Chief Engineer of the steam frigate San Jacinto on a cruise of more than three years on the Asiatic Station. During this cruise he was stricken with dysentery, prompting his return to the United States.
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