This vessel, called the
Stevens Battery, was begun by authority of the Government in
1842; but, owing to changes in the design and inadequate
appropriations by Congress, it was never launched. It lay for
many years in the basin at Hoboken an unfinished hulk. Robert
died in 1856. On the outbreak of the Civil War, Edwin tried to
revive the interest of the Government, but by that time the
design of the Stevens Battery was obsolete, and Edwin Stevens was
an old man. So the honors for the construction of the first
ironclad man-of-war to fight and win a battle went to John
Ericsson, that other great inventor, who built the famous Monitor
for the Union Government.
Carlyle's oft-quoted term, "Captains of Industry," may fittingly
be applied to the Stevens family. Strong, masterful, and
farseeing, they used ideas, their own and those of others, in a
large way, and were able to succeed where more timorous inventors
failed. Without the stimulus of poverty they achieved success,
making in their shops that combination of men and material which
not only added to their own fortunes but also served the world.
We left Eli Whitney defeated in his efforts to divert to himself
some adequate share of the untold riches arising from his great
invention of the cotton gin. Whitney, however, had other sources
of profit in his own character and mechanical ability.
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