Jefferson Davis was not the man to accept this ominous situation without
a desperate struggle. The man who had substituted iron gun carriages for
wood in the army consulted his Secretary of the Navy on the possibility
of revolutionizing the naval-warfare of the world by the construction of
an iron-clad ship of first-class power. In his report to the Confederate
Naval Committee, Secretary Mallory had developed this possibility two
months before the subject had been broached in the report of Gideon
Welles in Washington.
"I regard the possession of an iron-armored ship," Mallory urged, "as a
matter of the first necessity. Such a vessel at this time could traverse
the entire coast of the United States, prevent all blockade, and
encounter with a fine prospect of success their entire navy. Inequality
of numbers may be overcome by invulnerability, and thus not only does
economy but naval success dictate the wisdom and expediency of fighting
with iron against wood, without regard to first cost."
The President of the Confederacy gave his hearty endorsement to this
plan--and summoned the genius of the South to the task. At the bottom of
the harbor of Norfolk lay the half-burned hull of the steam frigate
_Merrimac_ which the Government had set on fire and sunk on destroying
the Navy Yard.
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