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===The Eads gunboats===

The key to winning the war was control of the Mississippi River, and this fact was not lost on federal planners. A fleet of river warships was needed, and these vessels not only had to be powerful and withstand Confederate fire, but had to be able to navigate the river's shallow waters, something a normal Naval vessel could not do. The man who won the contract to build them was a veteran riverman named James B. Eads, whose engineers went to work almost immediately, altering and improving the paddle-wheel steamers Eads already owned. What came out of his yards were the ''City''-class gunboats, shallow-draft vessels with an iron-plated casemate housing up to a dozen or more guns. Although slow and cumbersome, they were thoroughly intimidating; one seaman commented that they were "of the mud-turtle school of architecture, with just a dash of pollywog treatment by way of relief. But, they struck terror into every guilty soul as they floated down the river." (TL 4, pg. 69).