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“Plenty fast enough to fight with,” was
Porter's rejoinder.
Very soon after this (early in the spring of 1862) I was called to
Washington, with the request to prepare plans for still lighter iron-clad vessels, the draught of those which I had then completed being only about six feet. The later plans were for vessels that should be capable of going up the
Tennessee and the
Cumberland.
As rapidly as possible I prepared and presented for the inspection of
Secretary Welles and his able assistant,
Captain Fox, plans of vessels drawing five feet. They were not acceptable to
Captain Fox, who said: “We want vessels much lighter than that.”
“But you want them to carry a certain thickness of iron?”
I replied.
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The “Osage” (twin of the “Neosho” ). from a photograph. |
“Yes, we want them to be proof against heavy shot — to be plated and heavily plated,--but they must be of much lighter draught.”
After the interview I returned with the plans to my hotel, and commenced a revision of them; and in the course of a few days I presented the plans for the
Osage and the
Neosho.
These vessels, according to my recollection, were about forty-five feet beam on deck, their sides slanting outward, and the tops of the gunwales rising only about six inches above the surface of the water, so as to leave very little space to be covered with the plating, which extended two and a half feet down under water on these slanting sides.
The deck of the vessel, rising from six inches above water, curved upward about four feet higher at center; and this was covered all over with iron an inch thick.
The plating on the sides was two and a half inches thick.
Each vessel had a rotating
