Passes of the Mississippi.
From “The Navy in the Civil War.”
The work of shipbuilding was done under the eyes of a commission that included Capt. L. Rousseau, Commander E. Farrand, and Lieut. Robert J. Chapman, of the Confederate navy, all of whom had been reared in the government navy. Capt. George N. Hollins, formerly of the American navy, was assigned to command the fleet when built.
By the first of October, four river steamers had been converted into the semblance of gunboats by adding timbers so that they could carry eight or nine guns. They were called the Polk, the Ivy, the Livingston, and the Maurepas. A merchant steamer with a bark rig became the McRae. To this was added a most remarkable vessel—the first of her class, the ironclad ram Manassas.
The Manassas was originally the double-screw tug Enoch Train, of Boston. She was 128 feet long, twenty-six wide, and when loaded she drew thirteen feet of water. She was, in short, a tug of the first class in size. Capt. John A. Stevenson, of New Orleans, undertook the contract of making a ram of this vessel for a company of capitalists who determined to use her, privateer-fashion, against the government blockaders immediately after the Confederate Congress enacted a law on May 21, 1861, binding the Confederate treasury to pay to the destroyers twenty per cent. of the value of any government ships that might be destroyed by volunteers.
The tug was cut down almost to the water, first of all, and then her bow was filled in solid with timbers for a space of twenty feet abaft the stem. A deck in the shape of half of a long, sharp egg was built over her, twelve-inch oak timbers being used for the purpose. Of course, all the woodwork was thoroughly bolted. Then the bow and the rounded deck were everywhere plated with flat bar-iron one and a half inches thick. There was one gun-port forward, where a sixty-eight-pounder was mounted, but for some fault of construction they were not able to use it at first.
For motive power she had one compound engine and two screws, the high-pressure cylinder working one shaft and the low-pressure the other. There was but one hatch, a small one, at that, and through this everything—coal, supplies, men—must pass. A ship like that, no matter what her power, could never be popular in any navy in time of peace, but she was built for an emergency, and there was no trouble in finding a crew. Lieut. Alexander F. Warley, formerly in the government service, took command of her for her owners.
From time to time the government officers on the blockaders down at the head of the passes heard about the work in the New Orleans ship-yards. They learned some of the details of the ram that was building, as well as of the gunboat, but they not only did not make any preparations for meeting or guarding against an attack: they did not even consider what might be done if the Confederates should come.
At 3.30 o’clock on the morning of October 13, 1861, the government fleet lay quietly at anchor, save that the schooner Joseph H. Toone was alongside the Richmond, and the Richmond’s watch on deck were taking coal out of her. The Preble was in advance—that is, was further up the river than any. Below her lay the flagship Richmond, and below her the Vincennes, while the Water Witch lay between the Richmond and the east shore, with a little prize schooner, the Frolic, near by. It was a moonlight night, with some clouds flying, the worst kind of a night, as all seamen know, for seeing anything clearly, but there had been no especial care in posting or warning lookouts. It was with the squadron literally “the careless end of night.” Within ten minutes after the bell struck the hour of 3.30, a lookout on the Preble saw a dark object driving down the river, but without any smoke or steam or other appearance of motive power. At nearly the same moment the lookout on the prize schooner saw it, and as the alarm was raised on the Preble the schooner lookout bawled to Richmond: “A rebel steamer is coming down the river.”
In a minute the whole squadron awoke, and with rattle and shout the crews ran to quarters, but before they could get a gun cast loose, the dark object afloat, the ram Manassas, driving with the aid of the current at about nine miles an hour, glanced across the coal schooner’s bow, crashed through a cutter, and struck the Richmond “abreast of the port forechannels, tearing the schooner from her fasts.” “Three planks on the ship’s side were stove in, about two feet below the water-line, making a hole about five inches in circumference.” These quotations are from Pope’s official report, but the report did not use italics.