d up and down. Both sides
and ends were inclined at an angle of forty-five degrees, and over the
outside planking was placed the armor, 6 inches thick, in thin plates
of 2 inches each, on the forward end, and elsewhere 5 inches thick.
Within, the yellow pine frames were sheathed with 21/2 inches of oak.
The plating throughout was fastened with bolts 11/4 inch in diameter,
going entirely through and set up with nuts and washers inside. Her
gunners were thus sheltered by a thickness of five or six inches of
iron, backed by twenty-five inches of wood. The outside deck was
plated with two-inch iron. The sides of the casemate, or, as the
Confederates called it, the shield, were carried down to two feet
below the water-line and then reversed at the same angle, so as to
meet the hull again six to seven feet below water. The knuckle thus
formed, projecting ten feet beyond the base of the casemate, and
apparently filled in solid, afforded a substantial protection from an
enemy's prow to the hull, which was not less than eight feet within
it. It was covered with four inches of iron, and being continued round
the bows, became there a beak or ram. The pilot-house was made by
carrying part of the forward end of the shield up three feet higher
than the rest. The casemate was covered with heavy iron gratings,
through whose holes the smoke could rise freely, and it was pierced
with ten ports, three in each end and two on each side. The vessel
carried, however, only six guns; one VII-1/8-inch rifle at each end
and two VI-inch rifles on each broadside. These were Brooke guns, made
in the Confederacy; they threw 110-pound and 90-pound solid shot. The
ports were closed with iron sliding shutters, five inches thick; a bad
arrangement, as it turned out.

Though thus powerfully built, armored, and armed, the Tennessee must
have been a very exasperating vessel to her commander. She had two
grave defects; the first, perhaps unavoidable from the slender
resources of the Confederacy, was lack of speed. Her engines were not
built for her, but taken from a high-pressure river steamboat, and
though on her trial trip she realized about eight knots, six seems to
be all that could usually be got from her. She was driven by a screw,
the shaft being connected by gearing with the engines. The other
defect was an oversight, yet a culpable one; her steering chains,
instead of being led under her armored deck, were over it, exposed to
an enemy's fire. She w