just a quick comment. I believe it might be interesting to see if Ebaugh every worked for Ross Winans in Maryland. He seems to have had a background in railroad equipment and that is what Winans did for a living. The hull shape of the David was definately similar to the Winans "Cigar" ship. On the other hand, the propulsion was markedly different. I seem to remember reading somewhere that the "blockade running" scaled-up David was actually built by the Springer (as in torpedo) organization under what may have been a Confederate government contract. I think I saw this is Ragan's book on Union and Confederate submersibles. Union forces captured correspondence pertaining to the Springer organizations activities including the Shreveport subs, train-busting in Tennessee and the 160-ft long steamer that was captured uncompleted. There was a proposal to provide it with both forward and side-mounted torpedoes. Did this vessel actually steam on its own or was it towed? 400 bales of cotton would have been about 100 tons net payload. Storage in the hull would not have been particularly efficient due to the cross-section of the hull. I wonder a bit about the coal-bunkering and how the vessel would have been conned at sea. Like the original Winans Cigar ship, she would have been a very "wet boat". I don't believe anyone has ever produced any evidence that Winans himself had anything to do with the David. He was, however, a southern sympathizer, was jailed for a period of time by Union authorities, had his cigar ship confiscated (it was suggested that it be used to sink the Virigina!) and moved to England where he built two further version of the Cigar ships. Other versions were built for military purposes in Russia where is railroad company had a number of contracts.