Dale,

All I've seen with regards to the unnamed boats is William Still's few lines about it in "Confederate Shipbuilding." He says on page 13 that according to contract two gunboats were to be constructed there and three at other locations "but there is no evidence that any of them were completed."

From what he says the original concept was that these were proposed by Mallory in the same vein as the Maury gunboats that were to have two rifle pivot guns each with a length of ~106-112 feet, beam of 21 feet, and drawing 6-8 feet of water. The sources he gives are all from early war correspondence but they aren't specific to the contract. (There is also an error/typo in the main text referring to "Saffold County, Georgia.") What date do you have for the contracts? What sort of terms?

Seems doubtful that engines, boilers, and such could have been spared for a small yard effectively in the middle of nowhere. With the difficulty in finding labor due to conscription, one wonders how a yard would still be operating at all in the area by 1864. David Johnston must have been well connected.

There doesn't seem to have been much urgency to shipbuilding on this river.