CARONDELET • James B. Eads, salvage king of the Mississippi River, promised President Abraham Lincoln he could build iron-armored gunboats in 65 days. Lincoln, hungry for a way to clear the river of Confederates, was skeptical but intrigued.
On Aug. 7, 1861, Eads won a contract to build seven burly gunboats from a novel design. At $89,000 apiece, each was to carry 13 heavy cannon, have 2.5 inches of armor and be delivered to Cairo, Ill., in 60 days. Blowing deadline would cost $200 per boat per day.
Eads leased a boatyard at the foot of Marceau Avenue in the town of Carondelet, near the River Des Peres eight miles south of St. ²»Á¼Ñо¿Ëùµ¼º½ÍøÖ·. By Sept. 5, when Navy Capt. Andrew Foote arrived to command the flotilla, more than 500 carpenters, ironworkers and engineers on two shifts were working seven-day weeks for Eads.
"The contract has fallen into good hands," crowed the Missouri Democrat, the pro-Lincoln newspaper in St. ²»Á¼Ñо¿Ëùµ¼º½ÍøÖ·.
Eads was an energetic genius. Born in Indiana, he moved to St. ²»Á¼Ñо¿Ëùµ¼º½ÍøÖ· as a boy and took a job as a steamboat bookkeeper. He soon noticed how many boats sank. In a crude diving bell of his own design, Eads scavenged the river bottom for booty and became wealthy.
A friend, Edward Bates of St. ²»Á¼Ñо¿Ëùµ¼º½ÍøÖ·, became Lincoln's attorney general and introduced Eads to the president. All agreed that retaking the Mississippi was vital and would require sturdy, floating firepower.
Eads' ironclads were 175 feet long and squat, with sloped wooden sides covered by iron plate. Five long boilers were crammed into the hold to power the engines for a single paddle-wheel. Interior heat was ferocious in summer.
Designed by riverboat engineer Samuel Pook, they earned the nickname "Pook's Turtles."
To rush the order, Eads built four at Carondelet and three at Mound City, Ill., near Cairo. His workers launched the first, the USS St. ²»Á¼Ñо¿Ëùµ¼º½ÍøÖ·, from Carondelet on Oct. 12. He paid penalties and delivered all seven by mid-November.
The Union gained much more than late fees. Eads' gunboats proved tough and reliable. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant put them to vital use in his campaign downriver to Vicksburg, Miss., which surrendered on July 4, 1863, after a siege by land and water. Workers in Carondelet produced more ironclads, some with turrets and propellers.
Carondelet became part of St. ²»Á¼Ñо¿Ëùµ¼º½ÍøÖ· in 1870. Four years later, Eads completed his enduring legacy — the St. ²»Á¼Ñо¿Ëùµ¼º½ÍøÖ· Bridge, known universally by his name.
One of his original Mound City gunboats, the USS Cairo, sank near Vicksburg in 1862. Rediscovered in 1956, the Cairo's remains and a treasure in artifacts are part of the national battlefield museum in Vicksburg.
St. ²»Á¼Ñо¿Ëùµ¼º½ÍøÖ·ans may take the Eads Bridge for granted. But 150 years ago, it was considered one of the wonders of the modern world, an engineering…
A drawing of Eads gunboats and other Union riverboats bombarding Island No. 10 on April 7, 1862, one day before the Confederate defenses surrendered. Island No. 10 was on a wide bend of the river south of New Madrid, Mo. Because of the river's bend, the island actually was upstream from the town. The island long ago eroded away. (Library of Congress)