HIS PART IN THE CIVIL WAR 159 



the state of Virginia the support of the measure by 

 passing two acts on December 23, 1861. These author- 

 ized the construction of not more than a hundred of the 

 gunboats, according to a plan submitted by Maury and 

 approved by a board of naval officers, and provided also 

 $2,000,000 for that purpose. 



Maury set to work superintending the building of the 

 gunboats on the Rappahannock and at Norfolk. They 

 were 21 feet in beam and 112 feet in length, and drew 

 six feet of water. Their armament consisted of a 9-inch 

 gun forward and a 32-pounder aft, and each carried a 

 crew of forty men. By the middle of April, 1862, 

 Maury expected to have the last hull ready for the 

 machinery and guns. But delay was occasioned through 

 the difficulty of procuring materials, both iron and wood, 

 and steam engines, and also by the lack of a sufficient 

 number of mechanics. Meanwhile the Merrimac^ (C. S. 

 S. Virginia) had demonstrated the great possibilities of 

 iron-plated rams, and the Confederate Congress author- 

 ized, on March 17, 1862, the discontinuance of all such 

 construction of wooden gunboats as might retard the 

 building of ironclad rams. 



Secretary of the Navy Mallory, who had not warmly 



1 Maury had some connection with the reconstruction of this vessel. In a 

 lecture on "Man's Power-giving Knowledge", delivered by him to Virginia 

 Military Institute students on January 23, 1871, he said, "After the burning of 

 the Norfolk Navy Yard in 1861, the Governor's Council advised that the 

 Merrimac should be raised and converted into an ironclad. Quick to perceive 

 and prompt to act, as in the emergencies of the war he ever was, his Excellency 

 caused it to be done". This is corroborated by the following entry in the 

 minutes of the Council for May 11, 1861, for a meeting at which Maury was 

 present: "Governor submitted for approval a proposal of B. and I. Baker of 

 Norfolk to raise the wreck of the steamer Merrimac and deliver her in the Dry 

 Dock at Gosport Navy Yard for $5000. . . . Advised unanunously that the 

 proposed be accepted". * 



