s before, no
craft dared sail under the American flag. It was a strange navy in
looks, but in actions it showed itself worthy of the service in which
it was enlisted.

Many of the steamers built for the river marine were wooden gunboats,
hastily remodelled from the hulks of old craft. They were seldom
plated with iron, and their machinery was feebly protected by coal
bunkers, while their oaken sides were barely thick enough to stop a
musket-ball. But the true iron-clad war-vessel made its appearance on
the rivers even before it was to be seen in the ocean squadrons.

It was as early in the war as July, 1861, that the
quarter-master-general advertised for bids for the construction of
iron-clad gunboats for service on the Mississippi and tributary
rivers. The contract was given to James B. Eads, an engineer, who
during the war performed much valuable service for the United States
Government, and who in later years has made himself a world-wide fame
by the construction of the jetties at the mouth of the Mississippi
River, by which the bar at the mouth of the great stream is swept away
by the mighty rush of the pent-up waters. Mr. Eads was instructed to
build seven iron-clad gunboats with all possible expedition. They were
to be plated two and a half inches thick, and, though of six hundred
tons burden, were not to draw more than six feet of water. They were
to carry thirteen heavy guns each.

[Illustration: A River-Gunboat.]

These river-gunboats, like the little "Monitor," had none of the grace
and grandeur of the old style of sailing-frigate, in which Paul Jones
fought so well for his country. The tapering masts of the mighty
frigate, the spidery cordage by which the blue-jackets climbed to
loosen the snowy sheets of canvas--these gave way in the gunboat to a
single slender flagstaff for signalling, and two towering smoke-stacks
anchored to the deck by heavy iron cables, and belching forth the
black smoke from roaring fires of pitch-pine or soft coal. Instead of
the gracefully curved black sides, with two rows of ports, from which
peeped the muzzles of great cannon, the gunboat's sides above water
sloped like the roof of a house, and huge iron shutters hid the cannon
from view. Inside, all was dark and stuffy, making battle-lanterns
necessary even in daylight fights. The broad white gun-deck, scrubbed
to a gleaming white by hollystone and limejuice, on which the
salt-water sailors gathered for their mess or drill, w