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When a Presidential Salute Became a Shrapnel Massacre: USS Princeton 1844
When a Presidential Salute Became a Shrapnel Massacre: USS Princeton 1844
A single gun fired only five proof shots while another had been fired more than 150 times - and that divergence turned a presidential outing into a massacre that killed six people. Which decisions about testing, design, and pride turned an elegant new warship into a scene of shrapnel and political fallout?
In this episode, we tell the story of the USS Princeton on February 28, 1844, describing the ship's innovations, the two guns called the Oregon and the Peacemaker, and the choices that led to disaster - and ask how an…
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