Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 33.djvu/7

 Story of the Confederate Armored Earn Arkansas. 3

der all the circumstances of the case, taxed to the severest degree of energy, perseverance and hard labor, the ability of her command- er, officers, crew and workmen. No one can appreciate the history of the "Arkansas" without doing full justice to the arduous work of those six weeks of preparation up the Yazoo. Besides the con- struction and armament, the training of a crew, mostly landmen, for practice with the larger guns, was a labor of the heaviest sort, in the exhausting heat of the season.

"On June 20, 1862, the Confederate steamer 'Arkansas,' having been completed according to the material at the disposal of her commander, Isaac N. Brown, left Yazoo City and descended the Yazoo River to Liverpool Landing, where an earthwork and raft of logs were in position to prevent the Federal fleet from ascend- ing the river. The officers of the 'Arkansas' were: Lieut. I. N. Brown, commanding; First Lieut. Henry K. Stevens, executive officer; Lieuts. John Grimball, A. D. Wharton, G. W. Read, Al- phonse Barbot, George W. Gift; Surgeon H. W. M. Washington; Assistant Surgeon Charles M. Morfit; Assistant Paymaster Rich- ard Taylor; First Assistant Engineer George W. City; Second As- sistant Engineer E. Covert; Third Assistant Engineers William H. Jackson, E. H. Brown, James T. Donald, John S. Dupuy, James S. Gettis; Acting Masters Samuel Milliken, John L. Phillips; Mid- shipmen R. H. Bacot, D. M. Scales, H. S. Cooke, C. W. Tyler, D. B. Talbott; Master's Mate John A. Wilson; Paymaster's Clerk, Wilson; Gunner T. B. Travers; Pilots John Hodges, James

Brady, William Gilmore, J. H. Shacklett, Montgomery. Her

crew consisted of 200 seamen, landsmen, firemen, soldiers and boys. She mounted 10 guns, viz, two 8-inch columbiads forward, two 6-inch astern and two g-inch, two 6-inch and two 32-pounder guns in broadside. She was 165 feet in length, with 35 feet of beam, and drew nj4 feet of 1 water. Her plating was of railroad iron, 4^ inches in thickness, and her general appearance was long and rak- ish." Wilson.

While her shields, fore and aft, were slanted, her sides were not, but stood perpendicular to the water, unlike most of the other rams. An excellent drawing by one of her officers at the time, and now in possession of Lieut. John Grimball, of Charleston, shows this to have been her build, and in this particular differs from the frontis- piece illustration in Vol 19, Official Records, above mentioned.

" Her engines were low pressure, and her two propellers acted independently. It is said she also had a steam hose apparatus, by