The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 63, January, 1863

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BENJAMIN BANNEKER, THE NEGRO ASTRONOMER

In these days, when strong interests, embodied in fierce parties, are clashing, one recalls the French proverb of those who make so much noise that you cannot hear God thunder. It does not take much noise to drown the notes of a violin; but go to the hill a fourth of a mile off, and the noises shall die away at its base, whilst the music shall be heard. Those who can remove themselves away from and above the plane of party-din can hear God's modulated thunder in the midst of it, uttering ever a "certain tune and measured music." And such can hear now the great voice at the sepulchre's door of a race, saying, Come forth! This war is utterly inexplicable except as the historic method of delivering the African race in America from slavery, and this nation from the crime and curse inevitably linked therewith in the counsels of God, which are the laws of Nature. If the friends of freedom in the Government do not understand this, it is plain enough that the myrmidons of slavery throughout the land understand it. And hence it is that we are witnessing their unremitting efforts to exasperate the prejudices of the vulgar against the negro, and to prove degradation, and slavery to be his normal condition. They point to his figure as sculptured on ancient monuments, bearing chains, and claim that his enslavement is lawful as immemorial custom; but as well point to the brass collars on our Saxon forefathers' necks to prove their enslavement lawful. The fact that slavery belonged to a patriarchal age is the very reason why it is impracticable in a republican age,—as its special guardians in this country seem to have discovered. But this question is now scarcely actual. The South, by its first blow against the Union and the Constitution, whose neutrality toward it was its last and only protection from the spirit of the age, did, like the simple fisherman, unseal the casket in which the Afreet had been so long dwarfed. He is now escaping. Thus far, indeed, he is so much escaped force; for he might be bearing our burdens for us, if we only rubbed up the lamp which the genie obeys. But whether we shall do this or not, it is very certain that he is now emerging from the sea and the casket, and into it will descend no more. Henceforth the negro is to take his place in the family of races; and no studies can be more suitable to our times than those which recognize his special capacity.

The questions raised by military exigencies have brought before the public the many interesting facts drawn from the history of Hayti and from our own Revolution, showing the heroism of the negro, though we doubt whether they can surpass the stories of Tatnall, Small, and others, which have led a high European authority to observe that in this war no individual heroism among the whites has equalled that of the blacks. But the forthcoming social questions concerning the negro will be even more exciting than the military. What are we to expect from the unsealed Afreet,—good or evil? It was whilst studying in this direction that I came upon the few facts which relate to Benjamin Banneker,—facts which, though not difficult of access, are scarcely known beyond the district in Maryland where, on the spot where he was born, his unadorned grave receives now and then a visit from some pilgrim of his own race who has found out the nobleness which Jefferson recognized and Condorcet admired.

Benjamin Banneker was born in Baltimore County, near the village of Ellicott's Mills, in the year 1732. There was not a drop of the white man's blood in his veins. His father was born in Africa, and his mother's parents were both natives of Africa. What genius he had, then, must be credited to that race. Benjamin's mother was a remarkable woman, and of a remarkable family. Her name was Morton, before marriage, and a nephew of hers, Greenbury Morton, was gifted with a lively and impetuous eloquence which made its mark in his neighborhood. Of him it is related that he once came to a certain election-precinct in Baltimore County to deposit his vote; for, prior to the year 1809, negroes with certain property-qualifications voted in Maryland. It was in this year, in which the law restricting the right of voting to free whites was passed, that Morton, who had not heard of its passage, came to the polls. When his vote was refused, Morton in a state of excitement took his stand on a door-step, and was immediately surrounded by the crowd, whom he addressed in a strain of passionate and prophetic eloquence which bore all hearts and minds with him. He warned them that the new law was a step backward from the standard which their fathers had raised in the Declaration, and which they had hoped would soon be realized in universal freedom; that that step, unless retraced, would end in bitter and remorseless revolutions. The crowd was held in breathless attention, and none were found to favor the new law.

This man, we have said, was the nephew of Benjamin's mother. She was a woman of remarkable energy, and after she was seventy years of age was accustomed to run down the chickens she wished to catch. Her husband was a slave when she married him, but it was a very small part of her life's task to purchase his freedom. Together they soon bought a farm of one hundred acres, which we find conveyed by Richard Gist to Robert Bannaky, (as the name was then spelt,) and Benjamin Bannaky, his son, (then five years old,) on the tenth of March, 1737, for the consideration of seven thousand pounds of tobacco. The region in which Benjamin was born was almost a wilderness; for in 1732 Elkridge Landing was of more importance than Baltimore; and even in 1754 this city consisted only of some twenty poor houses straggling on the hills to the right of Jones's Falls. The residence of the Bannekers was ten miles into the wilderness from these.

It was under these unpromising circumstances that little Benjamin grew up, his destiny being apparently nothing more than to work on the little farm beside his poor and ignorant parents. When he was approaching manhood, he went, in the intervals of toil, to an obscure and remote country-school; for, until the cotton-gin made negroes too valuable on the animal side for the human side to be allowed anything so perilous as education, there were to be found here and there in the South fountains whereat even negroes might slake their thirst for learning. At this school Benjamin acquired a knowledge of reading and writing, and advanced in arithmetic as far as "Double Position." Beyond these rudiments he was entirely his own teacher. After leaving school he had to labor constantly for his own support; but he lost nothing of what he had acquired. It is a frequent remark that up to a certain point the negroes learn even more rapidly than white children under the same teaching, but that afterward, in the higher branches, they are slow, and, some maintain, incapable. Young Banneker had no books at all, but in the midst of his labor he so improved upon and evolved what he had gained in arithmetic that his intelligence became a matter of general observation. He was such an acute observer of the natural world, and had so diligently observed the signs of the times in society, that it is very doubtful whether at forty years of age this African had his superior in Maryland.

Perhaps the first wonder amongst his comparatively illiterate neighbors was excited, when, about the thirtieth year of his age, Benjamin made a clock. It is probable that this was the first clock of which every portion was made in America; it is certain that it was as purely his own invention as if none had ever been made before. He had seen a watch, but never a clock, such an article not being within fifty miles of him. The watch was his model. He was a long time at work on the clock,—his chief difficulty, as he used often to relate, being to make the hour, minute, and second hands correspond in their motion. But at last the work was completed, and raised the admiration for Banneker to quite a high pitch among his few neighbors.

The making of the clock proved to be of great importance in assisting the young man to fulfil his destiny. It attracted the attention of the Ellicott family, who had just begun a settlement at Ellicott's Mills. They were well-educated men, with much mechanical knowledge, and some of them Quakers. They sought out the ingenious negro, and he could not have fallen into better hands. It was in 1787 that Benjamin received from Mr. George Ellicott Mayer's "Tables," Ferguson's "Astronomy," and Leadbetter's "Lunar Tables." Along with these, some astronomical instruments, also, were given him. Mr. Ellicott, prevented from telling Benjamin anything concerning the use of the instruments for some time after they were given, went over to repair this omission one day, but found that the negro had discovered all about them and was already quite independent of instruction. From this time astronomy became the great object of Banneker's life, and in its study he almost disappeared from the sight of his neighbors. He was unmarried, and lived alone in the cabin and on the farm which he had inherited from his parents. He had still to labor for his living; but he so simplified his wants as to be enabled to devote the greater portion of his time to astronomical studies. He slept much during the day, that he might the more devotedly observe at night the heavenly bodies whose laws he was slowly, but surely, mastering.

And now he began to have a taste of that persecution to which every genius under similar circumstances is subject. He was no longer seen in the field, where formerly his constancy had gained him a reputation for industry, and some who called at his cabin during the day-time found him asleep; so he began to be spoken of as a lazy fellow, who would come to no good, and whose age would disappoint the promise of his youth. There was a time when this so excited his neighbors against him that he had serious fears of disturbance. A memorandum in his hand-writing, dated December 18, 1790, states:—

"– –informed me that – stole my horse and great-coat, and that the said – intended to murder me when opportunity presented. – – gave me a caution to let no one come into my house after dark."

The names were originally written in full; but they were afterward carefully cancelled, as though Banneker had reflected that it was wrong to leave on record an unauthenticated assertion against an individual, which, if untrue, might prejudice him by the mere fact that it had been made.

Very soon after the possession of the books already mentioned, Banneker determined to compile an almanac, that being the most familiar use that occurred to him of the information he had acquired. To make an almanac was a very different thing then from what it would be now, when there is an abundance of accurate tables and rules. Banneker had no aid whatever from men or tables; and Mr. George Ellicott, who procured some tables and took them to him, states that he had advanced far in the preparation of the logarithms necessary for his purpose. A memorandum in his calculations at this time thus corrects an error in Ferguson's Astronomy:—

"It appears to me that the wisest men may at times be in error: for instance, Dr. Ferguson informs us, that, when the sun is within 12° of either node at the time of full, the moon will be eclipsed; but I find, that, according to his method of projecting a lunar eclipse, there will be none by the above elements, and yet the sun is within 11° 46' 11" of the moon's ascending node. But the moon being in her apogee prevents the appearance of this eclipse."

Another memorandum makes the following corrections:—

"Errors that ought to be corrected in my Astronomical Tables are these:—2d vol. Leadbetter, p. 201, when [symbol] anomaly is 4^s 30°, the equation 3° 30' 41" ought to have been 3° 28' 41". In [symbol] equation, p. 155, the logarithm of his distance from [symbol] ought to have been 6 in the second place from the index, instead of 7, that is, from the time that his anomaly is 3^s 24° until it is 4^s O°."

Both Ferguson and Leadbetter would have been amazed, had they been informed that their elaborate works had been reviewed and corrected by a negro in the then unheard-of valley of the Patapsco.

The first almanac prepared by Banneker for publication was for the year 1792. By this time his acquirements had become generally known, and amongst those who were attracted by them was James McHenry, Esq. Mr. McHenry wrote to Goddard and Angell, then the almanac-publishers of Baltimore, and procured the publication of this work, which contained, from the pen of Mr. McHenry, a brief notice of Banneker. In their editorial notice Goddard and Angell say, "They feel gratified in the opportunity of presenting to the public through their press what must be considered as an extraordinary effort of genius,—a complete and accurate Ephemeris for the year 1792, calculated by a sable son of Africa," etc. And they further say that "they flatter themselves that a philanthropic public, in this enlightened era, will be induced to give their patronage and support to this work, not only on account of its intrinsic merits, (it having met the approbation of several of the most distinguished astronomers of America, particularly the celebrated Mr. Rittenhouse,) but from similar motives to those which induced the editors to give this calculation the preference, the ardent desire of drawing modest merit from obscurity, and controverting the long-established illiberal prejudice against the blacks."

Banneker was himself entirely conscious of the bearings of his case upon the position of his people; and though remarkable for an habitual modesty, he solemnly claimed that his works had earned respect for the African race. In this spirit he wrote to Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State under Washington, transmitting a manuscript copy of his almanac. The letter is a fervent appeal for the down-trodden negro, and a protest against the injustice and inconsistency of the United States toward that color. Mr. Jefferson's reply is as follows:—

"Philadelphia, Pa., August 30, 1791.

"Sir,—I thank you sincerely for your letter of the 19th instant, and for the almanac it contained. Nobody wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that Nature has given to our black brethren talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing only to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa and America. I can add with truth that no one wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition both of their body and mind to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of their present existence, and other circumstances which cannot be neglected, will admit. I have taken the liberty of sending your almanac to Monsieur de Condorcet, Secretary of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and Member of the Philanthropic Society, because I considered it a document to which your whole color had a right for their justification against the doubts which have been entertained of them.

"I am, with great esteem, Sir,

"Your most obedient serv't,

"THO. JEFFERSON."

When his first almanac was published, Banneker was fifty-nine years of age, and had received tokens of respect from all the scientific men of the country. The commissioners appointed after the adoption of the Constitution in 1789 to run the lines of the District of Columbia invited the presence and assistance of Banneker, and treated him as an equal. They invited him to take a seat at their table; but he declined, and requested a separate table.

Banneker continued to calculate and publish almanacs until the year 1802. Besides numerous valuable astronomical and mathematical notes found amongst his papers are observations of passing events, showing that he had the mind of a philosopher. For instance:—

"27th Aug. 1797. Standing at my door, I heard the discharge of a gun, and in four or five seconds of time the small shot came rattling about me, one or two of which struck the house; which plainly demonstrates that the velocity of sound is greater than that of a cannon-bullet."

"23d Dec. 1790. About 3 o'clock A.M., I heard a sound and felt a shock like unto heavy thunder. I went out, but could not observe any cloud. I therefore conclude it must be a great earthquake in some part of the globe."

In April, 1800, he writes:—

"The first great locust year that I can remember was 1749. I was then about seventeen years of age, when thousands of them came creeping up the trees. I imagined they came to destroy the fruit of the earth, and would occasion a famine in the land. I therefore began to destroy them, but soon saw that my labor was in vain. Again, in the year 1766, seventeen years after their first appearance, they made a second. I then, being about thirty-four years of age, had more sense than to endeavor to destroy them, knowing they were not so pernicious to the fruit as I had imagined. Again, in the year 1783, which was seventeen years later, they made their third appearance to me; and they may be expected again in 1800. The female has a sting in her tail as sharp and hard as a thorn, with which she perforates the branches of trees, and in the holes lays eggs. The branch soon dies and falls. Then the egg, by some occult cause, immerges a great depth into the earth, and there continues for the space of seventeen years, as aforesaid."

The following is worthy of Pliny:—

"In the month of January, 1797, on a pleasant day for the season, I observed my honey-bees to be out of their hives, and they seemed to be very busy, excepting one hive. Upon examination, I found all the bees had evacuated this hive, and left not a drop behind them. On the 9th of February ensuing, I killed the neighboring hives of bees, and found a great quantity of honey, considering the season,—which I imagine the stronger had taken from the weaker, and the weaker had pursued them to their home, resolved to be benefited by their labor, or die in the contest."

Mr. Benjamin H. Ellicott, who was a true friend of Banneker, and collected from various sources all the facts concerning him, wrote in a letter as follows:—

"During the whole of his long life he lived respectably and much esteemed by all who became acquainted with him, but more especially by those who could fully appreciate his genius and the extent of his acquirements. Although his mode of life was regular and extremely retired,—living alone, having never married, cooking his own victuals and washing his own clothes, and scarcely ever being absent from home,—yet there was nothing misanthropic in his character; for a gentleman who knew him thus speaks of him: 'I recollect him well. He was a brave-looking, pleasant man, with something very noble in his appearance. His mind was evidently much engrossed in his calculations; but he was glad to receive the visits which we often paid him.' Another writes: 'When I was a boy I became very much interested in him, as his manners were those of a perfect gentleman: kind, generous, hospitable, humane, dignified, and pleasing, abounding in information on all the various subjects and incidents of the day, very modest and unassuming, and delighting in society at his own house. I have seen him frequently. His head was covered with a thick suit of white hair, which gave him a very dignified and venerable appearance. His dress was uniformly of superfine drab broadcloth, made in the old style of a plain coat, with straight collar and long waistcoat, and a broad-brimmed hat. His color was not jet-black, but decidedly negro. In size and personal appearance, the statue of Franklin at the library in Philadelphia, as seen from the street, is a perfect likeness of him. Go to his house when you would, either by day or night, there was constantly standing in the middle of the floor a large table covered with books and papers. As he was an eminent mathematician, he was constantly in correspondence with other mathematicians in this country, with whom there was an interchange of questions of difficult solution.'"

Banneker died in the year 1804, beloved and respected by all who knew him. Though no monument marks the spot where he was born and lived a true and high life and was buried, yet history must record that the most original scientific intellect which the South has yet produced was that of the pure African, Benjamin Banneker.

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THE SLEEPING SENTINEL

When the great Theban, in his midnight tramp,
A sleeping guard beside the postern saw,
He slew him on the instant, that the camp
Might read in blood a soldier's swerveless law.

"Blame not your General!"—pointing to the slain,—
The wise, severe Epaminondas said,—
"I was not cruel, comrades, for 't is plain
I only left him, as I found him, dead!"

IRON-CLAD SHIPS AND HEAVY ORDNANCE

The new system of naval warfare which characterizes the age was proposed by John Stevens of Hoboken during the War of 1812, recommended by Paixhans in 1821, made the subject of official and private experiment here and in Europe during the last ten years especially, subjected to practical test at Kinburn in 1855, recognized then by France and England in the commencement of iron-clad fleets, first practised by the United States Government in the capture of Fort Henry, and at last established and inaugurated not only in fact, but in the principle and direction of progress, by the memorable action of the ninth of March, 1862, in the destruction of the wooden sailing-frigates Cumberland and Congress by the steam-ram Merrimack, and the final discomfiture of that powerful and heavily armed victor by the turreted, iron, two-gun Monitor.

The consideration of iron-clad vessels involves that of armor, ordnance, projectiles, and naval architecture.

ARMOR

Material. In 1861, the British iron-plate committee fired with 68-pounders at many varieties of iron, cast-steel and puddled-steel plates, and combinations of hard and soft metals. The steel was too brittle, and crumbled, and the targets were injured in proportion to their hardness. An obvious conclusion from all subsequent firing at thick iron plates was, that, to avoid cracking on the one hand, and punching on the other, wrought-iron armor should resemble copper more than steel, except that it should be elastic, although not necessarily of the highest tensile strength. Copper, however, proved much too soft. The experiments of Mr. E.A. Stevens of Hoboken, with thick plates, confirm this conclusion. But for laminated armor, (several thicknesses of thin plates,) harder and stronger iron offers greater resistance to shot, and steel crumbles less than when it is thicker. The value of hard surfaces on inclined armor will be alluded to.

Solid and Laminated Armor compared. Backing. European experimenters set out upon the principle that the resistance of plates is nearly as the square of their thickness,—for example, that two 2-inch plates are but half as strong as one 4-inch plate; and the English, at least, have never subjected it to more than one valuable test. During the last year, a 6-inch target, composed of 5/8-inch boiler-plates, with a 1-1/2-inch plate in front, and held together by alternate rivets and screws 8 inches apart, was completely punched; and a 10-inch target, similarly constructed, was greatly bulged and broken at the back by the 68-pounder (8 inch) smooth-bore especially, and the 100-pounder rifle at 200 yards,—guns that do not greatly injure the best solid 4-1/2-inch plates at the same range. On the contrary, a 124-pounder (10 inch) round-shot, having about the same penetrating power, as calculated by the ordinary rule, fired by Mr. Stevens in 1854, but slightly indented, and did not break at the back, a 6-5/8-inch target similarly composed. All the experiments of Mr. Stevens go to show the superiority of laminated armor. Within a few months, official American experiments have confirmed this theory, although the practice in the construction of ships is divided. The Roanoke's plates are solid; those of the Monitor class are laminated. Solid plates, generally 4-1/2 inches thick and backed by 18 inches of teak, are exclusively used in Europe. Now the resistance of plates to punching in a machine is directly as the sheared area, that is to say, as the depth and the diameter of the hole. But, the argument is, in this case, and in the case of laminated armor, the hole is cylindrical, while in the case of a thick armor-plate it is conical,—about the size of the shot, in front, and very much larger in the rear,—so that the sheared or fractured area is much greater. Again, forged plates, although made with innumerable welds from scrap which cannot be homogeneous, are, as compared with rolled plates made with few welds from equally good material, notoriously stronger, because the laminae composing the latter are not thoroughly welded to each other, and they are therefore a series of thin plates. On the whole, the facts are not complete enough to warrant a conclusion. It is probable that the heavy English machinery produces better-worked thick plates than have been tested in America, and that American iron, which is well worked in the thin plate used for laminated armor, is better than English iron; while the comparatively high velocities of shot used in England are more trying to thin plates, and the comparatively heavy shot in America prove most destructive to solid plates. So that there is as yet no common ground of comparison. The cost of laminated armor is less than half that of solid plates. Thin plates, breaking joints, and bolted to or through the backing, form a continuous girder and add vastly to the strength of a vessel, while solid blocks add no such strength, but are a source of strain and weakness. In the experiments mentioned, there was no wooden backing behind the armor. It is hardly possible,—in fact, it is nowhere urged,—that elastic wooden backing prevents injury to the armor in any considerable degree. Indeed, the English experiments of 1861 prove that a rigid backing of masonry—in other words, more armor—increases the endurance of the plates struck. Elastic backing, however, deadens the blow upon the structure behind it, and catches the iron splinters; it is, therefore, indispensable in ships.

Vertical and Inclined Armor. In England, in 1860, a target composed of 4-1/2-inch plates backed with wood and set at 38° from the horizon was injured about one-half as much by round 68-pounder shot as vertical plates of the same thickness would have been. In 1861, a 3-1/4 plate at 45° was more injured by elongated 100-pounder shot than a 4-1/2 vertical plate, both plates having the same backing and the weights of iron being equal for the same vertical height. When set at practicable angles, inclined armor does not glance flat-fronted projectiles. Its greater cost, and especially the waste of room it occasions in a ship, are practically considered in England to be fatal objections. The result of Mr. Stevens's experiments is, substantially, that a given thickness of iron, measured on the line of fire, offers about equal resistance to shot, whether it is vertical or inclined. Flat-fronted or punch shot will be glanced by armor set at about 12° from the horizon. A hard surface on the armor increases this effect; and to this end, experiments with Franklinite are in progress. The inconvenience of inclined armor, especially in sea-going vessels, although its weight is better situated than that of vertical armor, is likely to limit its use generally.

Fastening Armor. A series of thin plates not only strengthen the whole vessel, but fasten each other. All methods of giving continuity to thick plates, such as tonguing and grooving, besides being very costly, have proved too weak to stand shot, and are generally abandoned. The fastenings must therefore be stronger, as each plate depends solely on its own; and the resistance of plates must be decreased, either by more or larger bolt-holes. The working of the thick plates of the European vessels Warrior and La Gloire, in a sea-way, is an acknowledged defect. There are various practicable plans of fastening bolts to the backs of plates, and of holding plates between angle-irons, to avoid boring them through. It is believed that plates will ultimately be welded. Boiler-joints have been welded rapidly and uniformly by means of light furnaces moving along the joint, blowing a jet of flame upon it, and closely followed by hammers to close it up. The surfaces do not oxidize when enveloped in flame, and the weld is likely to be as strong as the solid plate. Large plates prove stronger than small plates of equally good material. English 4-1/2-inch armor-plates are generally 3-1/2 feet wide and to 24 feet long. American 4-1/2-inch plates are from 2 to 3 feet wide and rarely exceed 12 feet in length. Armor composed of light bars, like that of the Galena, is very defective, as each bar, deriving little strength from adjacent, offers only the resistance of its own small section. The cheapness of such armor, however, and the facility with which it can be attached, may compensate for the greater amount required, when weight is not objectionable. The 14-inch and 10-inch targets, constructed, without backing, on this principle, and tested in England in 1859 and 1860, were little damaged by 68-and 100-pounders.