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Updated: June 3, 2025
Nor was the armor idea, directly, at all unrecognized even then; for we are told of the Real Felipe in Mathews's action, that, being so weakly built that she could carry only twenty-four-pounders on her lower deck, she had been "fortified in the most extraordinary surprising manner; her sides being lined four or five foot thick everywhere with junk or old cables to hinder the shot from piercing."
It was built of stone and brick, and was very high; but a dozen shots from our twenty-four-pounders would have levelled it with the ground. Indeed, one bastion had given warning of its intending to stand no longer. The tempests that rage in these hills had shaken its foundation. The gate was strong, but its hinges were small.
The Constitution was called a forty-four-gun frigate, although she actually carried thirty twenty-four-pounders on her main deck, and twenty-two thirty-two-pounders on her spar deck. She had one gun deck instead of two, and her cannon were heavier than were usually carried on foreign war ships of her own class.
We had brass twenty-four-pounders on our quarterdeck, forecastle, poop, and main deck, brass thirty-twos on our middle deck, and brass forty-two-pounders on our lower deck. I don't think, myself, it made much difference in the weight of metal, and we were sorry to part with them.
General Cullum, Halleck's chief of staff, who was stationed at Cairo and had immediate charge and supervision of sending reinforcements and supplies to the armies in Halleck's department, not finding rifled thirty-twos, obtained three twenty-four-pounders and one eight-inch howitzer.
These, when converted, will still retain their age and constant tendency to decay, their models long since abandoned, their original design, height of decks, and other proportions adapted to the eighteen- and twenty-four-pounders formerly in use, which are now giving place to Dahlgren and rifled cannon carrying balls of sixty-four to one hundred pounds weight.
This man was captain of the starboard bow-chaser, one of the two long twenty-four-pounders on the forecastle. In time of action, the command of that iron Thalaba the Destroyer would devolve upon him.
Quoin was a little old man-of-war's man, hardly five feet high, with a complexion like a gun-shot wound after it is healed. He was indefatigable in attending to his duties; which consisted in taking care of one division of the guns, embracing ten of the aforesaid twenty-four-pounders.
The fleet that he commanded consisted of the flagship "Saratoga," carrying eight long twenty-four-pounders, six forty-two-pound and twelve thirty-two-pound carronades; the brig "Eagle," carrying eight long eighteens, and twelve thirty-two-pound carronades; schooner "Ticonderoga," with eight long twelve-pounders, four long eighteen-pounders, and five thirty-two-pound carronades; sloop "Preble," with seven long nines; and ten galleys.
The further extremity of the cuddy, overhanging the ship's stern, was pierced with three openings, windows or port-holes, according as men or cannon might peer, socially or unsocially, out of them. At present neither men nor cannon were seen, though huge ring-bolts and other rusty iron fixtures of the wood-work hinted of twenty-four-pounders.
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