of course it hampered him intolerably to be without funds. He had,
besides, other difficulties to contend with. At least one of his
sub-contractors or head-workmen was a disappointed bidder for the
gunboat contract, and was on a salary which ran till the boats were
finished; and while Eads would not mention such a suspicion in public,
he suggested in a private letter that this had been an additional cause
of delay.

After all, the seven boats had been launched and were ready to be put
into commission by Flag-Officer Foote, before he had more than one
third of the necessary crews ready for them.

These seven, the Saint Louis (afterwards De Kalb), the Cairo,
Carondelet, Cincinnati, Louisville, Mound City, and Pittsburg, were all
alike. The Saint Louis, as Eads wrote to Lincoln, when he sent him a
photograph of her, "was the first ironclad built in America.... She was
the first armored vessel against which the _fire of a hostile battery_
was directed on this continent; and, so far as I can ascertain, she was
the first ironclad that ever _engaged a naval force_ in the world." In
reading the descriptions of them, and in reading in the naval histories
of their undeniable faults, it must be remembered that Eads "had no
part in the modeling of these boats, and is therefore relieved of all
responsibility as to their imperfections." They were 175 feet long,
51-1/2 feet beam. Their flat sides sloped upward and inward at an angle
of about 35 deg., and the front and rear casemates corresponded with the
sides, the stern-wheel being entirely covered by the rear casemate. It
was a large paddle-wheel, placed forward of the stern so as to be
protected. The whole thing was like a tremendous uncovered box, with
its sides sloping up and in, and containing the battery, the machinery,
and the paddle-wheel, while the smoke-stacks and the conical
pilot-house stuck up out of the top. Captain Mahan says that they
looked like gigantic turtles. Underneath the water, they were simply
like flat-bottomed scows. As they were intended always to fight bows
on, they were built with that in view. In front they were accordingly
armored two and a half inches over two feet of solid oak. The only
other armor they carried was abreast of the boiler and engines. The
stern, therefore, and the greater part of the sides were decidedly
vulnerable. Their armament consisted of three guns forward, four on
each broadside, and two at the stern.

When Eads was given a c