is report to the Confederate
Naval Committee, Secretary Mallory had developed this possibility two
months before the subject had been broached in the report of Gideon
Welles in Washington.

"I regard the possession of an iron-armored ship," Mallory urged, "as a
matter of the first necessity. Such a vessel at this time could traverse
the entire coast of the United States, prevent all blockade, and
encounter with a fine prospect of success their entire navy. Inequality
of numbers may be overcome by invulnerability, and thus not only does
economy but naval success dictate the wisdom and expediency of fighting
with iron against wood, without regard to first cost."

The President of the Confederacy gave his hearty endorsement to this
plan--and summoned the genius of the South to the task. At the bottom of
the harbor of Norfolk lay the half-burned hull of the steam frigate
_Merrimac_ which the Government had set on fire and sunk on destroying
the Navy Yard.

The _Merrimac_ was raised. A board was appointed to draw plans and
estimate the cost of the conversion of the vessel into a powerful,
floating, iron-clad battery. In the crippled condition of the Norfolk
Navy Yard the task was tremendous and the expense would be great.

The President ordered the work prosecuted with the utmost vigor. Day and
night the ring of hammers on heavy iron echoed over the quiet harbor of
Norfolk. Blacksmiths were forging the most terrible ship of war that
ever sailed the seas. If the hopes of her builders should be realized,
the navy of the North would be swept from the ocean and the proudest
ships of the world be reduced to junk in a day.

CHAPTER XXI

THE GATHERING CLOUDS

Disaster followed disaster for the South now in swift succession. The
United States Navy, not content with the supremacy of the high seas, set
to work with determination to build a war fleet on the great rivers of
the West which could pierce the heart of the lower South.

Before the South could possibly secure arms and ammunition with which to
equip the army of Albert Sidney Johnston, these gunboats were steaming
down the Ohio and Mississippi bearing thousands of troops armed, drilled
and led by stark, game-fighting generals from the West.

By the end of November the Federal troops threatening Tennessee numbered
fifty thousand and they were rapidly reenforced until they aggregated a
hundred thousand.

General Albert Sidney Johnston sent the most urgent appe