Talk:Clement H. Stevens

Floating battery

The Floating battery was never at Morris Island; it was constructed by Hamilton on the Charleston waterfront and then towed to Sullivan's Island. Stevens' battery was an entirely different land-based battery with railroad iron covering. Please look at this map. The Steven's battery had 3, 8" columbiads. I think I may have photos...just need to locate.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 06:29, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I have located one sketch of the Stevens' battery under construction, one map with the Stevens' battery and Floating battery far apart on different islands, and also found a sketch that has the backside of the Stevens' battery on Morris Island. These are on pages 13, 14 & 16 respectively of The Civil War at Charleston by Wilcox & Ripley. I need to keep looking to see about the photos that I believe exist of this battery.

As to calling it a ship, someone has confused the yankee vessel built by Edwin Augustus Stevens (which can be seen here) with the land-based battery on Morris Island. They have nothing to do with each other. Go read that article on that Stevens and you will see that he is the one associated with the floating Stevens' battery.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 07:02, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

SEE LAST PARAGRAPH BELOW TO SKIP SOURCES FOR ORIGINAL ARTICLE, PRELIMINARY RESEARCH AND REASONING AND SEE THE CONCLUSION TO LEAVE ARTICLES AS NOW WRITTEN

The Harpers Weekly quotation in Floating Battery of Charleston Harbor and Eicher, 2001, p. 509, refers to the Stevens battery as a floating battery. Eicher also says this should not be confused with the Robert L. Stevens battery so he clearly was differentiating the two batteries and adhering to the idea that the Clement Stevens battery was "floating." The Harpers Weekly story refers to both the Hamilton floating battery and the Stevens floating battery, as well as to an iron battery at Cummings Point. I did not thoroughly read the Harpers quotation so I wrongly added Stevens role in design and construction to the Hamilton battery when I should have indicated there were two different floating batteries unless the contemporary Harpers article and the recent Eicher book are wrong. I think you are saying there was only one such battery. Warner, 1959, p. 291 and Boatner, who generally follows Warner, as well as Longacre, 1988 (Faust), p. 717 state the Stevens battery was on Morris Island, which seems to imply they thought it was land based. Eicher, p. 509 states in the entry on Clement Stevens: "Designed the "Floating Battery" for the defense of Charleston Harbor..," which coincides with the contemporary Harpers article. Sifakis, in the entry about Stevens, p. 622, does not state that Stevens's battery was floating but does state that the idea was "later adapted to the CSS Virginia." The idea was using railroad iron as the facing. This would not necessarily mean he thought Stevens's battery was floating but it certainly would have been closer to the ironclad warship idea if it had been.

I erred in not citing Eicher in the floating battery articles but simply in effect relying on the Stevens article and its citations. I also should have distinguished the Robert L. Stevens battery there too, although admittedly I intentionally left it out because I thought it was an unnecessary bit of information unlikely to be the subject of comment, confusion or dispute. One should never take anything like that for granted in a Civil War article, however.

In view of your research, the exact nature of the Clement Stevens battery seems to need a little further research. If Clement Stevens designed and built a floating battery in addition to the Hamilton battery, we should give him the credit. I don't think we can write off Eicher as a mistaken minority view because he differentiates the Robert L. Stevens battery and, importantly, a contemporary source refers to two different batteries. Let me add that we, of course, can write these sources off if the sources you cite or others in fact show he is wrong and Harpers was wrong to describe Stevens's battery as floating. I will look at your sources more closely. I thought I would reply to show that I was not thoroughly without sources. Yours may prove conclusive but I will need to wait until tomorrow to do more work on this. Either way, if Sifakis is right that Stevens's idea inspired the designers and builders of the CSS Virginia (whether or not the Stevens battery was floating), that should be restored to the Stevens article. Is there a reason to disagree with that statement?

I would restore to the Stevens article the Sifakis statement, in a footnote if not in the body, that the Stevens idea inspired the CSS Virginia idea. I even would restore the point that the Clement Stevens battery was a floating battery - based on Harpers and Eicher - although I would differentiate the Hamilton and Robert L. Stevens batteries. I will not do that until I see if there are other sources which might indicate that Harpers and Eicher are wrong - or on the other hand, reinforce them. Whether to make any changes in the floating battery articles is another question but if there were two floating batteries, I think that ought to be in those articles, not simply tucked away in the article on Stevens.

I am putting this on your talk page, hopefully as a matter of convenience and not nuisance. Although I note a rationale for restoring information to the Clement Stevens article in somewhat changed form, I am sure it is preferable for me to be persuasive about it and for us to have consensus on these points. Donner60 (talk) 09:12, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Of course, you refer to yet another Stevens so I really need to look at your material, and any other I can find if it seems inconclusive, before I make any more statements. Despite my long winded dissertation, I did not make any further change in the articles, showed I had some basis for what I wrote in the Stevens and other articles, and said I would look into it further. I should have left it at that instead of launching into detail before reaching a final conclusion based on all the sources. Maybe Harpers and Eicher are wrong. It is a little strange that there were three different men named Stevens involved in similar projects but I suppose we should not be surprised to run into people with common names in this context. Sorry if I have made more of this than it deserves. Donner60 (talk) 09:28, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

CONCLUSION TO LEAVE ARTICLES AS NOW WRITTEN

I have read several additional sources, including contemporary ones, and I think I have it straight now. There was one floating battery but a few sources, including Harper's, referred to it as the Stevens floating battery. The basis explicitly expressed in one source seems to have been that Clement Stevens designed it and Hamilton either constructed and manned it or simply was its commander. (I am not sure that Stevens was involved with the floating battery, or to what extent if he was involved, so I do not favor saying he was involved in any way based on what I have seen to date.)

In addition, Stevens built a land based battery on Morris Island. Cummings Point is on Morris Island, so there apparently was not a separate battery on Morris Island just the Cummings Point battery, as far as Stevens involvement. That was a land based battery but it did have the armor fortification and was occasionally cited as inspiration for the CSS Virginia - although the floating battery also was cited. All of the sources are not entirely clear. It does appear that Eicher is wrong. Perhaps he relied on Harper's but Harper's very likely was giving Stevens credit for the floating battery which he may not have deserved. I conclude that the Harper's article cannot be a certain basis for stating there were two floating batteries, that Eicher is probably wrong in the way he expressed Stevens's work and that Stevens should only be credited with a land-based battery at Cummings Point on Morris Island.

Whether or not Stevens should be credited with inspiring the work on the Merrimack/Virginia is another question. I don't think we ought to state with certainty that this was a fact without something more definitive and I think it is not worth spending more time on. If I run across anything, I will note it to you to see if we should put that back in. (Robert L. Stevens was Edwin Augustus Stevens's brother so that explains the third Stevens. His involvement with his brother's work in New York does not add more to the mix.)

My conclusion is to concede that the Clement Stevens and floating battery (2) articles should be left as they are now written. Sorry that I did not get this straight to begin with and that I took up an undue amount of space essentially in working this through and bothering you with unnecessary discussion on the matter. (I did feel I should explain my sources and reasons, however, because I think it shows how I may have become confused in good faith.) Thanks for setting it straight. Donner60 (talk) 10:22, 19 January 2012 (UTC)