First, a word from our sponsors:
This Friday, August 16, the CSS Neuse Foundation will host its annual “Wings over the Neuse” fund-raiser. Stop by the Farmers Market, pick up a plate or two or five of delicious chicken wings for $5 each plate, and do a walk-through of the Neuse II – if time permits. Plates will be ready for you by 10:30 a.m. Come early and often. Tell your friends.
We return you to our regular programming.
Saturday around 9:30 a.m. I headed to the Neuse II to provide a little help with tours and spend some time learning about the boat from Charlie Broadway. Charlie has been doing tours of the Neuse II for seven years and is a walking gunboat encyclopedia.
While Charlie and I waited for the first visitors to drop in, we discussed conditions on the boat. Since the heat of this August day topped 93, with a feels-like temperature of around 100, I pondered summer conditions on the boat.
As the sun and temperature both rose higher, for the first time I began to understand the tremendous heat the crew of the original Neuse had to face.
First of all, the casemate is basically closed. The replica has a door in the side, but the original crew did not board through such a spacious door. The lower deck had even less ventilation. After all, the CSS Neuse was a warship, not a Fantasy Island cruise liner.
Since the CSS Neuse was steam-powered, someone was chunking coal to fire the boiler, so add the heat of the boiler and of the huge uninsulated smoke stack. The gunboat also had 4inches of iron plating for armor. Black iron. Heat-collecting iron. Boiler on the inside and hot plates on the outside.
When the crew went to battle stations, at least 22 men manned each of the 6.4-inch Brooke rifled cannons. Two cannons meant a minimum of 44 crewmen in the casemate using block and tackle to position, aim and fire the guns. The human body produces somewhere between 340 and 425 BTU’s per hour, depending on whose figures we use. Even using the smaller number, the gun crews alone generated around 15,000 BTU’s.
“How hot do you think it got in here?” I asked Charlie.
“Probably 120 degrees … or more. Something like the temperatures our service people endure in the Middle East these days," he said.
By the time 11:30 a.m. rolled around, I was basting in my own juices. I had to remember that people in the 1860’s did not have air conditioning and were better able to tolerate the heat. I once saw a photo of Mark Twain standing in front of the house where he grew up in Hannibal, Mo. The photo was made during the summer. Twain was wearing a three-piece suit.
While Charlie gave a family the tour of the Neuse II, I took that time to examine the guest register.
In the past six weeks, the Neuse II has had visitors from Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Texas, Arkansas, Utah, Washington state, South Dakota, Minnesota, Maine, Idaho, Florida, and Tennessee. People have come from across North Carolina as well.
If you have not paid a visit to the Neuse II recently, come out one Saturday and take the tour. I am sure you will leave with a new respect for the mechanical genius and determination of those who lived during the mid-19th century.
If you come soon, you can also appreciate how well they tolerated the heat.
Mike Parker is a columnist for The Free Press. You can reach him at mparker16@suddenlink.net or in care of this newspaper.