es, and
doubt and distrust prevailed every-where. The worst feature of all was,
that skilled workmen were either enlisting in the army or seeking
employment in States more remote from the scene of war. Every thing
needed for the gunboats was to be made. Even the timber for their hulls
was still standing in the forest, and the huge machinery which was to
roll out and harden their iron plates had yet to be constructed. No
single city, no two cities, however great in resources, could possibly
supply every thing needed within the stipulated time, and it was
necessary to employ help wherever it could be obtained.

The very day the contract was signed, the telegraph was kept busy
sending instructions all over the West for the commencement of the
various parts of the work. The saw-mills in Kentucky, Tennessee,
Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota, and Missouri were set to getting out
the timber, which was hurried to St. Louis by railroad and steamboat as
fast as it was ready. There were twenty-one steam engines and
thirty-five boilers to be made, and the machine-shops in St. Louis,
Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh were put to work upon them. The huge
rolling-mills of Cincinnati and Portsmouth, Ohio, Newport, Kentucky, and
St. Louis were engaged in making the iron plates, and employed for this
purpose no less than four thousand men. Night and day, Sundays included,
the work went on with an almost superhuman swiftness. Mr. Eads paid the
workmen on the hulls large sums from his own pocket, in addition to
their wages, to induce them to continue steadily at their work.

On the 12th of October, 1861, just forty-five days from the time of
laying her keel, the first iron-clad, belonging to the United States,
was launched, with her engines and boilers on board. Rear Admiral Foote
(then a flag officer), appointed to command the Mississippi squadron,
named her the "St. Louis," but upon being transferred to the Navy
Department her name was changed to the "Baron de Kalb." She was followed
by the other vessels in rapid succession, all being completed within the
stipulated time.

In September, 1861, General Fremont ordered the purchase of the snag
boat "Benton," which had been proposed by Mr. Eads and rejected by
Captain Rodgers, and sent her to Mr. Eads to be armored and equipped as
a gunboat. Work was at once begun on her, and pushed forward with the
same energy that had been displayed in the construction of the other
iron-clads. Her performanc