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US Stream Warships Totally outnumbered on the high seas, there was no shortage of American ideas to resolve this problem and break the British blockade. Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat, travelled to Washington D.C. in 1813 to present plans for a steam powered warship to President Madison. The ship was actually launched in 1814 in New York Harbor. It mounted twenty-four 32-pounders and could make 4 knots weighing in at 2,455 tons. The U.S.S. Fulton was the US Navy's first steam powered warship. The commander of the Fulton was Matthew Perry, Oliver Hazard Perry's brother. Fulton died in 1815 before finishing his design for the ship's main armament . . . a 100-pound cannon intended to be fired below the waterline.
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