wished, the turret itself was revolved by steam
machinery provided for the purpose. When loading, the port through which
the gun was fired was turned away from the enemy; so that if a shot
happened to strike at that time it fell on the solid armor. Above the
gun-turret there was a second of much smaller diameter, which did not
revolve. It was also heavily plated and designed to shelter the
commanding officer and those charged with the steering of the ship. So
much inconvenience was, however, experienced from smoke and from
concussion when these steering turrets were struck, and their dimensions
were so contracted, that many captains preferred to remain outside,
where they could see better, their orders being transmitted to the
helmsmen through the sight-holes pierced in the armor. Of these
ironclads, four accompanied Farragut in his attack upon Mobile Bay. Two,
the Tecumseh and Manhattan, came from the Atlantic coast, and were
sea-going monitors. They had each but one turret, in which they carried
two fifteen-inch guns, the heaviest then in use afloat. The other two
were river monitors, built at St. Louis for service in the Mississippi.
They were consequently of light draught, so much so that to obtain the
necessary motive power they each had four screw propellers of small
diameter, and they carried four eleven-inch guns in two turrets. Their
names were the Winnebago and the Chickasaw. The armor of the two
single-turreted monitors was ten inches thick, and that of the river
monitors eight and a half inches.

The Tennessee, to which these were to be opposed, was a vessel of
different type, and one to which the few ironclads built by the
Confederates for the most part conformed--called commonly the broadside
ironclad, because the guns, like those of ships-of-war generally, were
disposed chiefly along the sides. Her hull was built at Selma, on the
Alabama River, and thence towed to Mobile to be plated; it being
desirable to take her down the river while as light as possible. She was
two hundred and nine feet long and forty-eight feet wide, drawing, as
has been said, fourteen feet when loaded. Upon her deck, midway between
the bow and the stern, was a house seventy-nine feet long, whose sides
and ends sloped at an angle of thirty-four degrees and were covered with
iron plating, six inches thick on the forward end and five inches thick
on the other end and the sides. With the inclination given, a cannon
ball striking would