To amplify literally means to enlarge, increase, or exaggerate. Amplitude is a related term, often used to describe the height of a wave. I often think of amplifying as a heightening. It is in this sense of heightening or exaggerating an existing tendency that I meant, "technology does not so much create, as it amplifies," in my previous post. It may do so at the expense of another tendency.
We are terribly aware of it today, for instance, as the internet seemingly breaks down certain kinds of received authority, both by allowing self-publication (like this) and also by permitting formerly isolated enthusiasts, experts, and autodidacts to pool information on myriad topics (as in the case of Wikipedia). Automobiles represented a similar tendency in American society in the last century, pushing the restlessness and desire to spread out, so noted throughout our history, to its logical conclusion.
Returning to steamers and ironclads for the moment, we can see different ways they functioned within the naval and maritime culture of the day.
I have already noted the geometric mania that emerged in mid- and late-Victorian naval tactics. While this was partly the result of the increased maneuverability gained with steam, it was also an opportunity for British officers to demonstrate the extent to which they were making their profession into a science. Reducing every discipline to a science was a ruling passion of that century, and the naval and military services of the major powers were as prone to it as any other group. Not only were they able to present their new tactics as having a mathematical and geometric (and therefore scientific) basis, but the transformation of the naval officer into an engineer was also getting its toehold, as engineers became essential for both the design and running of a warship. This would not have been the case had sailing ships continued to dominate the sea lanes.
I have also noted the extreme aggressiveness of Royal Naval officers, who seem to have been taught to fight even against greatly superior odds. This Nelsonic ideal was already present in the small US Navy, and seems to have influenced other fleets as well. In the American Civil War steamers and ironclads were used by both sides and produced some spectacular battles and incidents. Mobile Bay (August 1864) was one of the largest and most spectacular. While it is not clear that Farragut actually said, the famous line, "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead," it captures the force and daring with which he handled the Union squadron.
The attack itself would have been impossible, and nearly inconceivable fifty years earlier. Not even the insanely brave Lord Thomas Cochrane, one of the principal models for Horatio Hornblower, would likely have led a fleet of sailing ships against two fortresses, a small collection of enemy vessels, and torpedoes (as naval mines were then called). Sailing ships did not normally attack fortifications on land; they were too vulnerable to hot shot and other incendiaries. In the 1850s, during the Crimean War, they had begun to do so, but tentatively and always wary of Russian torpedoes. It was only with the advent of true armored warships after 1858 that this became possible. Even then, torpedoes were a terrible danger, one well understood since the sinking of the USS Cairo by one twenty months previously. Even given the aggressiveness of officers like David Farragut or his foster brother David Dixon Porter, it would have been expressed very differently without ironclads.
In future posts, I hope to make this matter of technologies abilities to amplify or heighten clearer, as well as delineating the way it operates in greater detail.
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