From “The Navy in the Civil War.”
In those days James B. Eads, afterwards famous as an engineer, was a river-boat builder, having his yard at Carondelet, Missouri. When in July, 1861, the quartermaster-general of the army advertised for bids for the construction of seven ironclad gunboats for service in the Mississippi Valley, Eads submitted plans, with estimates of cost and time, that were at once accepted by the government. The contracts were signed on August 7th, and it was agreed that the seven should be ready for crews and guns in sixty-five days, although the birds were teaching their young to fly among the branches of trees that were to be used in building the hulls of these vessels, and the shops that were to supply the iron were and had been idle ever since hostilities had stopped the business of the country.
The Cairo.
From a photograph.
As the event showed, Eads was for the Mississippi what Ericsson was on the coast. He was a man of original ideas. And yet, as Porter says, “it is strange how slowly even the cleverest of men receive new ideas.” He built ironclads, it is true, but with the smooth water in which he was to send them afloat they might have carried a thickness of armor fit to turn the heaviest shot instead of the boiler plate that was used. As described by Eads himself, these boats “were to draw six feet of water, carry thirteen heavy guns each, be plated with two-and-a-half-inch iron, and have a speed of nine miles an hour. The De Kalb (at first called the St. Louis) was the type of the other six, named the Carondelet, Cincinnati, Louisville, Mound City, Cairo, and Pittsburg. They were 175 feet long, 51½ feet beam; the flat sides sloped at an angle of about thirty-five degrees, and the front and rear casemates corresponded with the sides, the stern-wheel being entirely covered by the rear casemate. Each gun-boat was pierced for three bow guns, eight broadside guns (four on a side), and two stern guns. Before these seven gun-boats were completed, I engaged to convert the snag-boat Benton into an armored vessel of still larger dimensions.”
The Pittsburg.
After a photograph.
Each was propelled by a single paddle-wheel set into the stern, where it was protected by the fork-shaped hull as well as a casemate. The boats were expected to fight bow on, and the iron plate across the bow was backed by two feet of oak. On the sides opposite the boilers the iron armor was not backed save by a slender supporting frame, while the stern had neither armor nor oak wall. The pilot-house was of good oak covered with two and a half inches of iron in front and an inch less in the rear. The crews had every incentive to keep the bow of the ship toward the enemy.