Cincinnati were in use. Twenty-one steam-engines and thirty-five boilers were needed. Prepared timber was brought from eight different States, and the first iron plating used in the war was rolled not only in Saint Louis and Cincinnati, but in small towns in Ohio and Kentucky. Within two weeks 4000 men were at work in places miles apart,--working by night and seven days a week. To the workmen on the hulls who should stick to the task till it was done Eads promised a "handsome bonus;" and in this way gratuitously paid out thousands of dollars. The building of this little fleet has been called "a triumph of sagacity, pluck, and executive ability unsurpassed by any exploit in the military or civil history of the times." To be sure, the seven boats were not finished at the time called for. That they were all launched within a hundred days of the signing of the contract is amazing enough, but if they had been built after designs of Eads's own, so that he would not have been delayed by sudden changes necessitated when he found weaknesses in the plans furnished him, or when the designer changed the specifications, and if the government, harassed and driven as it then was, had been able to pay him according to its part of the contract, there is little doubt that he would have had the vessels finished in time acc
