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hope no further calls will be made until we are placed in a defensible condition.
While this correspondence was going on between
Gen. Lovell and the War Department, we shall see what had become of the naval structures in the harbour, that were calculated, as the
Richmond authorities claimed, to allay all the fears of
Gen. Lovell, and to assure, in any circumstances, the safety of New Orleans.
Mr. Benjamin, the
Secretary of War, had written to
Gen. Lovell: “From the recent experiment of the
Virginia, and what I hear of the steamers of New Orleans, I feel confident that if even one of them can be got ready before you are attacked, she will disperse and destroy
any fleet the enemy can gather in the river, above or below.
The naval officers say that
Tift's steamer is far superiour to the
Virginia.”
In the report of
Mr. Mallory,
Secretary of the Navy, made to the Confederate Congress on the 27th of February, 1862, he had made the following statement: “There are now being constructed at New Orleans two large and formidable iron-plated steamships, of about fourteen hundred tons each, designed for the carrying of twenty of the heaviest guns.
One of these, the
Louisiana, has been launched, and is nearly completed, and the other, it is believed, will be completed in six weeks.”
With reference to the construction of these vessels we may place here the testimony of
Gov. Moore of
Louisiana, taken before a secret committee of the Confederate Congress, not only for its interest to the immediate subject, but for its curious explanation of the way the affairs of the
Confederacy were managed.
The following are extracts from his testimony:
My first active interposition, of which any record is kept, was on the 26th of February, 1862.
Several weeks prior to that date I had been aware that the work on the ram Mississippi was not being prosecuted with the vigour and energy that our danger seemed to me to require.
Many merchants and business men of New Orleans, and particularly the Committee of Public Safety, had spoken to me of the slow progress of the work, but I had refrained from any interference, except verbal expressions.
of my dissatisfaction to the Commanding General, (Lovell) who in turn assured me he had nothing to do with the work.
At length the excuse was given for this torturing want of vigour, that the work could not proceed faster for want of funds.
The Navy Department had not paid its obligations, and, in consequence, had lost credit.
I therefore telegraphed the Treasury Department as follows:
The Navy Department here owes nearly a million.
Its credit is stopped.
If you wish, I will place two millions of dollars on account of the war tax, to the credit of the
Government, so that the debts can be paid, and the works continued.
One of the causes of the delay in completing the Mississippi was the insufficient
