BUILDING THE EADS GUN-BOATS AT CARONDELET. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.

RECOLLECTIONS OF FOOTE AND THE GUN-BOATS.BY CAPTAIN JAMES B. EADS.**SOON after the surrender of Fort Sumter, while in St. Louis, I received a letter from Attorney-General Bates, dated Washington, April 17th, in which he said: "Be not surprised if you are called here suddenly by telegram. If called, come instantly. In a certain contingency it will be necessary to have the aid of the most thorough knowledge of our Western rivers and the use of steam on them, and in that even I have advised that you should be consulted." The call by telegraph followed close upon the letter. I hurried

---------------

**Of the services of Captains Eads of the Western flotilla, the Reverend C. B. Boynton says, in his "History of the Navy":

"During the month of July, 1861, the Quartermaster-General advertised for proposals to construct a number of iron-clad gun-boats for service on the Mississippi River. The bids were opened on the 5th of August, and Mr. Eads was found to be the best bidder for the whole number, both in regard to the time of completion and price . . . On the 7th of August, 1861, Mr. Eads signed a contract with Quartermaster-General Meigs to construct these vessels ready for their crews and armaments in sixty-five days. At this early period the people in the border State, especially in the slave States, had not yet learned to accommodate themselves to a state of war. The pursuits of peace were interrupted; but the energy and enterprise which were to provide the vast material required for an energetic prosecution of the war had not then been aroused. None could foresee the result, and a spirit of doubt and distrust pervaded financial and commercial circles. It was at this time that the contractor returned to St. Louis with an obligation to perform what, under ordinary circumstances, would have been deemed by most men an impossibility. Rolling-mills, machine-shops, foundries, forges, and saw-mills were all idle. The demands of peace had ceased for months before, and the working-men were enlisting, or seeking in States more quiet their accustomed employment. The engines that were to drive this our first iron-clad feet were yet to be built. The timber to from their hulls was uncut in the forests, and the huge rollers and machinery that were to form their iron armor were not yet constructed. The rapidity with which all these various parts were to be supplied forbade depending along on any two or three establishments in the country, no matter how great were their resources. The signatures were scarcely dry upon this important contract before persons in different parts of the country were employed upon the work through telegraphic orders issued from Washington. Special agents were dispatched in every direction, and saw-mills were simulatenously occupied in cutting the timber required in the constructions of the vessels, in Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota, and Missouri; and railroads, steamboats, and barges were engaged for its immediate transportation. Nearly all of the largest machine-shops and foundries in St. Louis, and many small ones, were at once set at work day and night, and the telegraph lines between St. Louis and Pittsburgh and Cincinnati were occupied frequently for hours in transmitting instructions to similar establishments in those cities for the constructions of the twenty-one steam-engines and the five-and-thirty steam-boilers that were to propel the fleet . . . Within two weeks not less than four thousand men were engaged in the various details of its construction. Neither the sancinity of the Sabbath nor the darkness of night was permitted to interrupt it. The workmen on the hulls were promised a handsome in money for each one was stood steadfastly at the work until if was completed, and many thousands of dollars were thus gratiuously, paid by Mr. Eads when it was finished. On the 12th of October, 1861, the first United States iron-clad, with her boilers and engines on board, was launched in Carondelet, Missouri, in forty-five days from the laying of her keel. (1) She was named the St. Louis, by Rear-Admiral Foote, in honor of the city. When the fleet was transferred from the War Department to the Navy, this name was changed to Baron de Kalb, there being at that time a vessel commissioned in the Navy called the St. Louis. In ten days after the De Kalb the Carondelet was launched, and the Cincinnati, Louisville, Mound, City, Cairo, and Pittsburgh followed in rapid succession. An eighth vessel [the Benton], larger, more powerful and superior in every respect, was also undertaken before the hulls of the first seven had fairly assumed shape . . . Thus one individual put in construction and pushed to completion within one hundred days a powerful squadron of eight steamers, aggregating five thousand tons, capable of steaming at nine knots per hour, each heavily armored, fully equipped, and all ready for their armament of one hundred and seven large guns. The fact that such a work was done is nobler praise than any that can be bestowed by words. It is to be regretted, however, that the promptness and energy of the man who thus created an iron-clad navy on the Mississippi were not met on the part of the Government with an equal degree of faithfulness in performing its part of the contract. On one pretext or another, the stipulated payments for the work were delayed by the War Department until the default assumed such magnitude that nothing but the assistance rendered by patriotic and conflicting friends enabled the contractor, after exhausting his own ample means, to complete the fleet. Besides the honorable reputation which flows from success in such a work, he has the satisfaction of reflecting that it was with vessels at the time his own property that the brilliant capture of Fort Henry was accomplished, and the conquest of Donelson and Island Number Ten achieved. The ever-memorable midnight passage of Number Ten by the Pittsburgh and Carondelet, which compelled the surrender of that powerful stronghold, was performed by vessels furnished four or five months previous by the same contractor, and at the time unpaid for." EDITORS.

(1) It was stipulated in the contract that the gun-boats should be delivered, October 10th, at Cairo. As a matter of fact, they were not sent to Cairo until the latter part of November, and considerable work still remained to be done before their completion. They were finished and accepted, January 15th, 1862, and put in commission the next day. The delay was in part due to lack of funds and in part of the necessity of alternation in the designs of the vessels. Had they been completed in the time specified, the Mississippi campaign, from Island Number Ten to Vicksburg, would probably have been over before Farragut passed the forts at New Orleans.

EDITORS.

--------------------------------------