Atlantic Warfare Yesterday : 377 



firepower converted wooden vessels into mere fire traps and rendered 

 them obsolete. 



To meet this situation Napoleon III immediately commenced the 

 construction of a fleet of armored vessels in the shipyards of France. 

 These vessels could be sailed but their masts were dismountable and 

 they were also supplied with auxiliary steam power. The decks of the 

 ships were protected with thin plates of iron while iron plates four 

 inches thick protected the vessel's sides. 



A fleet of five ships was built by the French, three of which partici- 

 pated in the operation at Kinburg at the mouth of the Dnieper River. 

 Though these three ships received hundreds of hits from the shore 

 batteries, their plates were merely grooved and dented and no ship 

 suffered any serious damage while their firepower was such that the 

 Russians surrendered after three hours of fighting. 



The British had already ordered the construction of four armor- 

 clad vessels and after the battle at Kinburg the French set seriously to 

 work to supply themselves with an armor-clad navy. This was six 

 years before the Confederates hung armor plates on the old Merrimac 

 and Ericsson constructed the Monitor. 



When the Civil War broke, the Federal government enjoyed the 

 immediate advantage of holding and utilizing the bulk of the United 

 States Navy which then consisted of some ninety warships, forty-two 

 of which were in commission, twenty-seven of which could be com- 

 missioned and twenty-one of which were judged to be unserviceable. 

 Gideon Welles, Lincoln's secretary of the navy, soon had seventy-six 

 vessels in commission. To this number he added 136 vessels which 

 were purchased and fifty-two vessels built in government and private 

 yards. By 1865 200 vessels had been constructed, seventy-four of them 

 ironclads. 



Most of the navy yards were also in Northern hands. Out of ten 

 navy yards, only Norfolk and Pensacola were available to the South. 

 Norfolk was wrecked and dismantled before it was abandoned by the 

 Federal government and Pensacola was largely a yard for repair 

 rather than construction. 



Stephen Russell Mallory assumed command of the Confederate Navy 

 and he was ably supported by many skilled and highly qualified naval 

 commanders such as Buchanan, Maury, Semmes, Catesby Jones and 

 John M. Brooke. There were, however, only a few old inadequate ves- 

 sels for these splendid officers to command. 



The Confederacy, throughout the war, did its best to buy and 

 build vessels but under great handicaps, for the South was largely an 



