[KS] the General Sherman

[Kwang On Yoo]

1. Daewongun salvaged and towed the remains of the General Sherman and
had his engineers tinker with it at Norangjin. Unfortunately they were not
able to float her. Incredibly they fired the engine with CHARCOAL instead
of coal.  I do not know what happened to her afterwards.

2. Someone sold Daewongun on the idea of making warship( with crane
feathers(*학우선*, 鶴羽船), so he killed almost all the cranes in Korea at the
time.

3. Daewongun also made bulletproof vests out of layers of silk and used
them against U.S. Marines in the 1871 war. The vest were indeed bulletproof
but they were too heavy and caught fire when hit and soldiers had to jump
into the sea. A vest was displayed at the 1893 Chicago World Fair and the
Chicago Field Museum loaned the vest to the 1993 Daejon Expo exactly 100
years later.

Kwang-On Yoo

On Sat, Dec 3, 2011 at 9:05 PM, Robert Neff <robertneff103 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am familiar with the role it played as a "pirate" but I am still at a
> loss as to how this ship was returned to the United States.  I would love
> to see the citations used by the blogger and by Mr. Southerton.
>
> I find it strange that none of the English newspapers in the region -
> particularly the North China Herald - do not mention this return of the
> ship.  And, I could find no mention of the ship on the shipping rosters for
> the region.  Nor does it explain why there were several missions sent to
> verify the destruction of the ship and its crew.  Foulk was sent in 1885 to
> investigate its destruction.
>
> The only reference I can find of he General Sherman in the papers in 1867
> is:
>
> "It is reported from Chefoo that two of the Europeans who were on board
> the General Sherman when she was taken by the Coreans, are still alive.
> The information is not certain; but measures will, we believe be at once
> taken to sift it.  If it be true, probably one of the survivors is the Rev.
> Mr. Thomas who, it will be remembered, spoke the Corean language."
> North China Herald, December 9, 1867.
>
> Several years ago I remember reading something about the machinery and
> perhaps one of the cannons of the General Sherman being brought to
> Norangjin where an attempt was made to construct a "modern" Korean
> warship.  Through a great many efforts (including using feathers because
> the ship kept sinking - but I am a little skeptical as to the truth of
> this) they did manage to get the ship to float but could not arm it and
> sent it to Kangwha island just prior to the 1871 war with the United
> States.  What became of it is unknown.
>
> Robert Neff
>
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 3, 2011 at 10:38 AM, Brother Anthony <ansonjae at sogang.ac.kr>wrote:
>
>> There is a recent (June 2011) lengthy blog posting about the full history
>> of the General Sherman at
>> http://maritimediver.blogspot.com/2011/06/general-sherman-uss-princess-royal.html
>>
>> The story is somewhat complicated by the existence of a much smaller ship
>> also named "General Sherman" during the Civil War but the story told in the
>> blog seems to be fully documented
>>
>> Brother Anthony
>> Sogang University etc
>>
>>
>>
>
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