The Civil War and USS Naugatuck
When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, Edwin Stevens claimed that a completed Stevens Battery would have a decisive impact against Confederate forces. Hoping to prove his point, he purchased an iron-hulled steamer and modified greatly into a warship that would demonstrate to the Union Navy some of the principles he had in mind for the Stevens Battery, including high maneuverability, a respectable top speed, a semisubmersible capability, and a large gun on the main deck capable of a high rate of fire and loaded from below the deck by gun crews protected by armor.
The resulting vessel, Naugatuck, went into service with the United States Revenue Cutter Service in the autumn of 1861, but soon was loaned to the Navy. In action in May 1862, her main gun burst. Her armor protected the gun crew from the explosion as Stevens intended, but the Navy was not won over by the design, and Naugatuck soon went back to the Revenue Cutter Service.
Although the Navy had a large ironclad program during the Civil War for which the Stevens Battery seemed a logical fit, a Navy board found numerous deficiencies in the ship and the Navy decided not to spend any more money on her. On July 17, 1862, Congress voted to turn all ownership of and rights to the Stevens Battery over to the Stevens family, and the ship spent the Civil War in her drydock.
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