Ironclad The Devil is in the Details

[USS ALASKA]

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Excerpt from U.S. NAVAL INSTITUTE's Naval History Magazine

The Devil is in the Details
The fate of Memphis, Vicksburg, and the ironclad CSS Arkansas in the Civil War offer a classic example of the 'for want of a nail' proverb.
By Lieutenant Commander Larry Parker, U.S. Navy (Retired)
December 2022
Naval History Magazine

Any commander of any ship worth his or her salt will impress upon the crew, most emphatically, that "the devil is in the details," and much personal anguish (in descending order of rank and increasing level of severity) awaits any junior officer, chief, petty officer, or seaman who lacks sufficient "attention to detail." As a case in point, the saga of the CSS Arkansas illustrates the truth of this dictum and its relevance in today's technologically advanced Navy.

Construction began on the casemate ironclads CSS Arkansas and Tennessee at Fort Pickering, just below Memphis, Tennessee, in October 1861. Scheduled for completion no later than 24 December, difficulties locating and transporting lumber, armor, boilers, marine engines, and heavy naval guns severely delayed construction. So humble an item as nails were obtained only by an appeal to the governor of Mississippi. Oakum could not be found anywhere, for any price. Cotton served as caulking. With materials finally in hand, shortages of skilled labor caused further delay. Appeals to the army to release carpenters and ironworkers fell on deaf ears. Leaving the Tennessee unfinished, the builder, John Shirley, concentrated all available manpower on the Arkansas.

When news of the fall of New Orleans reached Memphis, the senior naval officer for the area panicked. Union forces would not approach for over a month. Nevertheless, he ordered the Arkansas removed to Greenwood, Mississippi, and the Tennessee to be burned on her stocks to prevent capture. The Arkansas languished at Greenwood until Lieutenant Isaac N. Brown, her new captain, arrived. Reporting for duty, Brown found an incomplete hull, engines in pieces on the deck. and guns without carriages. Railroad iron intended for her armor lay at the bottom of the river, the barge containing it having sunk.

A 27-year Navy veteran and a man of enormous energy and an indomitable will, Brown knew how to get things done. Recovering the railroad iron, he ordered the Arkansas towed to Yazoo City, Mississippi, where construction facilities were somewhat better. Driving his crew, the civilian workers, and Army labor enlisted for the effort, he saw to it that the Arkansas got underway under her own power five weeks later.

Consider the possibilities if the Arkansas had survived and had been present when General Ulysses S. Grant and the Union fleet returned to Vicksburg in 1863. Consider the possibilities if both the Arkansas and Tennessee had been completed in a timely manner and had been available to defend Memphis in early 1862. For the want of common iron spikes, history literally turned on a lack of nails. The devil is, indeed, in the details.

Full article can be read here - https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2022/december/devil-details

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[wausaubob]

Except if the Confederate building facilities were that limited, and the skilled labor necessary to install and operate steam engines was also limited, why was the iron dedicated to these two ironclads? One never fought and the other last only a matter of weeks. That is the question repeatedly asked by @DaveBrt .
Indeed, why after the lopsided victory by the US MIssissippi flotilla at Memphis, was there any hope that the US could not respond with and ironclad, a ram vessel, or a river monitor, if it needed to?