Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

---

[594] to foresee the great part reserved for iron-clad vessels as it was difficult to make a definite choice among the opposite systems, none of which had as yet received the sanction of experience. It was important, in the first place, that their construction should be rapid and easy. There were no American establishments at that time able to build vessels that could compare with those of France and England. Workmen and materials were wanting in the dock-yards of the South, time was lacking in those of the North, occupied with more pressing labors. Consequently, the first rudelyconstructed iron-clads which figured in the war before the end of 1861 met with but little success. We have seen how Hollins could attempt nothing serious with the Manassas at New Orleans, and that Foote's gun-boats were not protected by their armor against the plunging fire of Fort Donelson.

In the mean while, more formidable adversaries were preparing on both sides to enter the lists. As early as the month of July, 1861, the Federal Secretary of War had appointed a committee to examine all the plans that had been submitted to him for building iron-clads. A few months after, this committee recommended the construction of three vessels, expressing, at the same time, very serious doubts as to the advantage to be derived from them. The first two, with bulwarks, named respectively the Galena and Ironsides, played but an insignificant part during the war; the third was Mr. Ericsson's. The Swedish engineer engaged to construct, in less than four months, and at a cost of two hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, a vessel of nine hundred tons, forty metres in length, eleven in width, whose deck, covered with iron plates of fourteen centimetres in thickness, should jut out beyond the hull to protect it, drawing three metres twenty centimetres of water, and carrying a single turret, three metres in height and six metres fifty centimetres interior diameter, formed of plates laid upon each other, the entire thickness being eighteen centimetres. This vessel was to carry two Dahlgren guns of thirty centimetres calibre. Entrusting the execution of his work to three different private establishments, Ericsson set to work to superintend the details with ardent solicitude, foreseeing the services his invention might render to his adopted country. The prospect of a war with England arising out of the Trent