ll it was done Eads promised a
"handsome bonus;" and in this way gratuitously paid out thousands of
dollars. The building of this little fleet has been called "a triumph
of sagacity, pluck, and executive ability unsurpassed by any exploit in
the military or civil history of the times."

To be sure, the seven boats were not finished at the time called for.
That they were all launched within a hundred days of the signing of the
contract is amazing enough, but if they had been built after designs of
Eads's own, so that he would not have been delayed by sudden changes
necessitated when he found weaknesses in the plans furnished him, or
when the designer changed the specifications, and if the government,
harassed and driven as it then was, had been able to pay him according
to its part of the contract, there is little doubt that he would have
had the vessels finished in time according to his agreement. Even as it
was, it was legally decided later that he was not at fault. When he
entered into the contract he was a rich man; and as he was not to
receive his first payment from the government for twenty days, probably
only a rich man could have had the credit necessary to put so much
machinery into motion. As it proved subsequently, the government was so
lax in its payment, and demanded work so much more expensive than the
specifications called for, that before the work was finished Eads was
in a hard way financially. He had been much worried and distracted in
obtaining funds: after exhausting his own fortune he had sought the aid
of patriotic friends, and it was principally in order to pay them back
that he made his appeal to the government. By the terms of his contract
he might have delayed the work until his payments were received, and
might thus have saved himself great distress and worry, but, as I have
said, he realized how much the Union needed the boats. He himself said
that it was "of the utmost importance that these boats should be made
as effective as possible, without reference to how I was to be affected
by delays, ... and that their completion should be pushed with the
utmost energy, whether the government failed in its part of the bargain
or not." Their rapid completion then was a proof not only of Eads's
masterful energy, but of his self-sacrificing patriotism as well.
Ultimately he was paid most of the money for the gunboats, and as a
result of his patriotism won back the fortune he had risked; but at the
time