At that moment our navy was at its lowest ebb, and, of the few ships available for immediate service, many were on foreign stations and could not easily or quickly be recalled, as the cable system of communication was then unknown.
The task therefore became that of immediately improvising a navy capable of enforcing a real blockade. To accomplish this, before the end of 1861 every steamer of every description that could keep the sea or carry a gun was pressed into the service, and our commercial fleet, so far as steam navigation was concerned, ceased to exist.
These converted vessels served a fairly good purpose ad interim, or until the government could bring its resources to build a more effective fleet of regular men-of-war.
In addition to this necessity for the immediate improvisation of a blockading fleet, the question of armored vessels presented itself, because, besides the blockade, bombardment of sea-coast fortifications which had been seized by the Confederates must be an essential part of the general plan of operations.
CRUISERS BALTIMORE AND PHILADELPHIA
The idea of armored ships was then entirely novel. In 1861 only two efforts had been made, one by England and the other by France, to construct an armored sea-going vessel. To meet this necessity of having ships capable of attacking heavily armed forts, Congress passed an act, approved August 3, 1861, authorizing the construction of armored vessels. This act authorized and directed the Secretary to appoint a board of skilled naval officers to investigate plans and specifications that might be submitted for the construction of iron- or steel-clad steamships or steam floating batteries; and, on their favorable report, authorizing the Secretary to cause one or more armored or iron- or steel-clad steamships to be built, making an appropriation of $1,500,000 to carry the act into effect. Pursuant to this act, the Secretary appointed on August 8 a board consisting of Commodore Joseph Smith, Commodore Hiram Paulding, and Commander Charles Davis, to examine such plans as might be submitted, and issued an advertisement, under date of August 7, calling for plans and prices. The advertisement stated that a general description and drawings of the vessels’ armor and machinery, sufficient to indicate the character and probable efficiency of the vessel, would be required; also that the offer must state the cost and time for completing, exclusive of armament and stores, the rate of speed proposed, etc. Persons proposing to make offers under this advertisement were required to inform the Department of their intention before the 15th of August, and to have their propositions presented within twenty-five days from the date of the advertisement.
On September 16, 1861, the board reported that seventeen offers had been laid before them. All but three, however, were ruled out, mainly on account of insufficiency of data or lack of drawings. Several of them were, in fact, mere suggestions.
The three selected were: First, one to be built of wood and plated with four inches of iron; to be a full-rigged ship of about three thousand three hundred tons displacement; price, $780,000; length of the vessel, two hundred and twenty feet; breadth of beam, sixty feet; depth of hold, twenty-three feet; contract time, nine months; draught of water, thirteen feet; speed, nine and one-half knots.
The second, offered by C. S. Bushnell & Co., of New Haven, was of the low freeboard monitor type, the invention of which is commonly ascribed to John Ericsson; and the third, offered by same parties, which was afterward known as the “Galena.”