Benjamin F. Isherwood

Benjamin F. Isherwood
Isherwood during the American Civil War
Chief of the Bureau of Steam Engineering
In office
March 26, 1861 – March 16, 1869 (1861-03-26 – 1869-03-16)
Preceded byPost established
Succeeded byJames Wilson King
Personal details
BornBenjamin Franklin Isherwood
(1822-10-06)October 6, 1822
New York City, New York, U.S.
DiedJune 19, 1915(1915-06-19) (aged 92)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Military service
AllegianceUnited States of America
BranchUnited States Navy
Years of service
1844–1884
RankRear Admiral
Wars

Benjamin Franklin Isherwood (October 6, 1822 – June 19, 1915) was an engineering officer in the United States Navy during the early days of steam-powered warships. He served as a ship's engineer during the Mexican–American War, and after the war did experimental work with steam propulsion. Rising to the rank of rear admiral, as Engineer-in-Chief of the Navy during the Civil War, he helped to found the Navy's Bureau of Steam Engineering.

Career in civilian engineering

Isherwood was born in New York City and educated at The Albany Academy. He worked for the Utica and Schenectady Railroad and trained under William C. Young, one of the most prominent engineers of that period. Isherwood then worked on the Croton Aqueduct, followed by an engineering job on the Erie Canal. Designing and constructing lighthouses for the Treasury Department was Isherwood's last employment before joining the Navy.

Early Naval career

At the age of 22, Isherwood was appointed first assistant engineer in the Navy May 23, 1844, serving aboard General Taylor from 1846 to 1847. During the Mexican–American War, he served on the Princeton, and later was senior engineer of the 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 American 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 East India Squadron during the Second Opium War. During this cruise he was stricken with dysentery, prompting his return to the United States.

Civil War

Shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War, Isherwood was appointed Engineer-in-Chief of the Navy, and so important were his services considered that the Bureau of Steam Engineering was created under his direction.

When the Civil War began, the Navy had 28 steam vessels, and during the war, the number grew to 600. Isherwood conducted the design and construction of the machinery necessary to accomplish this. He designed ships that were fast enough to pursue the blockade runners. One such ship, the USS Wampanoag, reportedly achieved a speed of more than 17 knots, a record no U.S. naval vessel could surpass for 21 years.

In 1863 and 1865, Isherwood published the first and second volumes of Experimental Researches in Steam Engineering, which were translated into six languages and became a standard engineering text upon which future steam experimentation was based.

Post-war activities

Immediately upon the conclusion of the war, Isherwood was principally involved with organizing a new scientific curriculum for steam engineering at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. By 1874, naval engineers refined this curriculum to the point that it served as the model for mechanical engineering education at most American universities.

In 1869 Isherwood ran afoul of former Spitfire shipmate Admiral David Dixon Porter. During the war years Isherwood led a campaign to increase the rank and influence of engineering officers in the navy. Porter opposed this change in the service's class structure. After the presidential inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant, Isherwood's longtime patron, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, could no longer protect him. Admiral Porter banished Isherwood to the Mare Island Navy Yard in San Francisco.

Despite his diminished stature, Isherwood continued to produce technical innovations. In 1870 and 1871, Isherwood conducted experiments that resulted in a propeller that was used by the Navy for the next 27 years.

He was a pioneer in the production of fast cruisers, producing this class against strong opposition. Following a tour of European dockyards, he became president of the Experimental Board under the Bureau of Steam Engineering until his retirement as a commodore on October 6, 1884. He was advanced to rear admiral on the retired list in June 1906.

Isherwood died in New York City at the age of 92.

Legacy

Isherwood was elected an honorary member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1894, in recognition of his work on steam-powered ships and screw propellers and for his technical publications.

The Navy has recognized Isherwood's contributions in several ways. Isherwood Hall, built in 1905 on the campus of the United States Naval Academy, was the home of the Department of Marine Engineering. It was razed in 1982 to make space for the academy's new Alumni Hall. Isherwood's name lives on as the new hall's Isherwood Entrance.

The Rear Admiral Benjamin F. Isherwood Award is awarded by the Navy to recognize "innovation and expertise in the effective assessment, development, execution, or deployment of technological solutions for operational Fleet needs."

Three U.S. Navy ships – two destroyers named USS Isherwood and the never-finished fleet replenishment oiler USNS Benjamin Isherwood – have been named for him.

According to MIT professor and technology historian Elting E. Morison, Isherwood's work on the Wampanoag in the face of a headwind of bureaucratic inertia and ill-founded skepticism warrants the epithet "heroic," while the approach to sea power that Isherwood advocated anticipated Alfred Thayer Mahan by thirty years. In a 1941 article in the United States Naval Institute's Proceedings, George W. Dyson stated that Isherwood was "possibly the greatest engineer the United States Navy has developed."

The revolutionary engineering program initiated by Isherwood at the U.S. Naval Academy became the template for professional American mechanical engineering education. That basic curriculum designed at Annapolis in the late 1860s and early 1870s still serves as the core of university mechanical engineering pedagogy.

Selected publications

References

  1. 1 2 Bruce, Anthony; Cogar, William (1998). "Isherwood, Benjamin Franklin". Encyclopedia of Naval History. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. pp. 193–194. ISBN 978-1-57958-109-1. Retrieved February 11, 2025.
  2. ↑ Robert Gardiner, Steam, Steel & Shellfire: The Steam Warship, 1815-1905, p.90 (2001).
  3. ↑ "To Perpetuate Great Names—Past-Presidents and Honorary Members of the A.S.M.E." Mechanical Engineering. 52 (4): 277–304. April 1930.
  4. ↑ Historic American Buildings Survey. "U.S. Naval Academy, Isherwood Hall, Annapolis, Anne Arundel County, MD". Library of Congress. Retrieved May 31, 2014.
  5. ↑ "History of the Mechanical Engineering Department". US Naval Academy. Retrieved May 31, 2014.
  6. ↑ Killand, Taylor Baldwin (2007). A Walk in the Yard: A Self-guided Tour of the U.S. Naval Academy. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. p. 147. ISBN 9781591144366. Retrieved May 31, 2014.
  7. ↑ Arbuthnot, Nancy (October 11, 2012). Guiding Lights: Monuments and Memorials at the U.S. Naval Academy. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 9781612512426. Retrieved May 31, 2014.
  8. ↑ Elting E. Morison, Men, Machines, and Modern Times, pp.112-113 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 1966) (retrieved 31 August 2025).
  9. ↑ George W. Dyson, "Benjamin Franklin Isherwood," Proceedings, Vol.67, No.462, p.1139 (United States Naval Institute).

Sources