CSS Mississippi - Concept, Contract, and Construction

Concept, Contract, and Construction

Nelson Tift had been raised in Florida, but moved to Georgia as a young man and there became locally prominent. (The town of Tifton, in Tift County, is named for him.) At the outbreak of the Civil War, he realized some of the difficulties faced by the South in its need to confront the Northern navy. Secretary Mallory had called for building a navy essentially from scratch, but not only were there no shipyards, there were also no skilled shipwrights to work in them. Reasoning that too much time would be lost training men in traditional techniques, Tift hit on the idea of constructing ships on house-building principles. He thought of making a ship with flat sides, with square corners except where the pointed ends join with the rest of the hull. He made a model to illustrate his idea, and used it to further his proposal. (See accompanying figure.)

Nelson's brother Asa F. Tift agreed to work with him. Asa's support was important, as he had remained in Florida when Nelson moved to Georgia. He had become a successful businessman in Key West, where he came to know Stephen Mallory before he became a United States Senator and then Confederate Secretary of the Navy. No evidence exists that Asa Tift and Mallory were ever formally associated in any of their businesses, but their friendship opened doors. The Tifts showed the model to Mallory, who in turn showed it to a naval review board. When the board pronounced the idea to be feasible, Mallory authorized the brothers to go to New Orleans and there put their idea into concrete form. They were to supervise the construction of an as yet unnamed armored ship carrying 18 guns, driven by three screws.

The contract, such as it was, was unusual. The Tifts were not paid for their labors, aside from expenses. They were encouraged to alter the planned construction if they thought that doing so would improve it. No completion date and no cost limit were set. All depended upon the skill and integrity of the Tifts. In the words of Secretary Mallory,

The Department trusts to your patriotism, judgment, and discretion to produce the ship designed in the shortest time at the lowest price and to act in the premises generally as if you were building for yourselves and had to pay the money out of your own pockets.

Among the first tasks confronting the brothers was that of finding a shipyard capable of handling a job as big as the one envisioned. None in or near New Orleans was suitable, so they established their own at Jefferson City, on the river just north of the city line. As the builders of CSS Louisiana had the same experience and solved it the same way, the two monsters came to be built side by side. Mississippi's name was henceforth forever linked with that of Louisiana.

The first plank —it would be incorrect to refer to it as the keel— was laid down on 14 October 1861. Already it had been found that the engines of the original design could not drive the finished vessel at the desired speed, so more boiler space had to be added. This increased the overall length to 252 feet (76.8 meters). The extra length allowed positions for two more guns, for a total of twenty. For comparison, CSS Virginia (ex-USS Merrimack) carried only 12 guns, while Louisiana had 16.

From the first, construction was delayed by a combination of circumstances. Acquisition of parts and materials was most obvious, but the builders also encountered labor troubles, plus interference from the local military authorities. Consider these in turn.

Iron for the armor was in short supply throughout the Confederacy, and was not to be found near New Orleans. Eventually the Tifts were able to find a foundry in Atlanta that would produce plate iron of sufficient thickness, but delivery by way of the already overtaxed railroad system was often sporadic. Plates awaiting shipment sometimes lay in Atlanta for weeks. The final armor arrived in New Orleans on the day the ship was burned.

The engines and shafts added to the problems. The increased size of boilers, already alluded to, caused some delay. The contract that was let for the engines called for the job to be done by the end of January, but they were not installed until April. The greatest mechanical problem, however, was fabrication of the three shafts that were to connect the engines to the screws. The two outboard shafts could be handled by New Orleans shops, but the long central shaft could not be manufactured anyplace in the Confederacy. A satisfactory shaft was found in a wrecked ship in October, but only the Tredegar Iron Works or the Gosport (Norfolk) Navy Yard in Virginia could handle the needed modifications. When they were completed, the shaft then had to be transported over the rails. It was shipped out on 26 March. Although all three shafts were put into the hull, they were not hooked up with the engines, and the two outboard screws were still on the wharf at the end.

Labor troubles of the traditional sort arose in November, shortly after work commenced. The workers in all the shipyards struck, demanding that their wages be increased from $3 to $4 per day. The other owners wanted to wait out the strikers, but after a week the Tifts gave in. The others were forced to follow suit. Trouble of a different sort was found shortly thereafter, when the Tifts found that they were competing with E. C. Murray, who was building Louisiana, for the same skilled workmen. To solve this problem, the Tifts and Murray agreed to share labor, with Louisiana having first call.

Another set of delays was caused by the local military policies, which insisted that all men of appropriate ages participate in militia activities, including parades. A protest to the governor was rejected. Murray and the Tifts requested of Major General Mansfield Lovell that their men be exempted. Although Lovell agreed and issued the needed order, the practice continued.

Although all the delays cannot be simply added to find how much time was lost, clearly the loss was critical. Long after Mississippi was torched and New Orleans was surrendered, Nelson Tift stated that he believed his ship would have been completed in another two or three weeks. (This estimate was contradicted by Captain Sinclair, who thought she was more like ten weeks away from completion.)