Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1886 — UNCLE SAM’S NAVY. [ARTICLE]

UNCLE SAM’S NAVY.

What the Chief of the B ureau of Construction and Repair Says of It. The Chief of the Naval Bureau of Construction and Repair, in his annual report, to the Secretary of the Navy, says that the Lackawanna, Tennessee, and Shenandoah are beyond repair, thus reducing tbe number of serviceable vessels in the navy to two first-rate, ten second-rate, twenty third-rate, and seven fourth-rate vessels, the latter class including two torpedo rams. Tho Franklin, Wabash, Minnesota, and New York, all first-rate vessels, are set down as requiring extensive repairs, and thirteen ironclads require more or less repairs. In addition the naval list comprises thirteen iron and twelve wooden sailing vessels used for receiving and transport ships. The new vessels completed, building, or authorized to be built are summed up as follows: One (the Dolphin), complete; two (the Boston and Atlanta), armament incomplete; live (the Chicago and the monitors), incomplete; five (the Baltimore, Charleston, and Newark, and two gunboats), under advisement; and fonr (an armored cruiser, a battle ship, a pneumatic dynamite boat, and a torpedo boat), not yet designed. To this list can be added the Alert and the Ranger, four guns each; the Monocacy, paddle-wheel gunboat, six guns; Michigan, paddle-wheel gunboat, fonr guns; Alarm, one gun; Intrepid (yet to be completed), gunboat, two -thirteeninch guns. The remainder of the ironbuilt vessels now in the service consist of thirteen river and harbor monitors with single screws rated as fourth-rates, which could not be got ready for service without an expenditure of $200,000 under this bureau alone. Of the second-rates the Trenton, Omaha, and Vandalia can probably be continued in service ten years longer, the Lancaster and Brooklyn six years, and tbe Hartford, Richmond and Pensacola five years. Of the third-rates the Michigan can be continued in tbe service for ten years, the Adams, Alliance, Essex, Enterprise, Tallapoosa, Yantic, and Nipsio for six years, and the Juniata, Ossipee, Qninnebaug, Swatara, Galena, Marion, Kearsarge, and Iroqnois five years longer.