Initial planning of military operations against the increasing number of American States seceeding from the Union, or planning to, reached a fever pitch after the April, 1861 commencement of open hostilities between the Federal North and the Confederate Southern States. St. Louis, Missouri based James Buchanan Eads, known internationally as a premier constructor of riverine marine architecture and salvage, was contacted days after the firing on Ft. Sumter by President Abraham Lincoln's Attorney-General Edward Bates requesting advice regarding consideration of naval operations on the Western rivers. Bates, himself a resident of St. Louis prior to accepting the cabinet position in Lincoln's administration, referred Eads' April 29 response to Commodore Hiram Paulding, U.S.N., who had been detailed by Lincoln to assist in building a war-time fleet, sending Captain John Rogers, U.S.N., to go West and consult with Eads; Rodgers being placed on the staff of then area commander General McClellan. The interior position of the rivers automatically placed the command structure under army control. This consultation resulted in the conversion of three passenger river steamers as men-of-war, vessels Conestoga, Taylor and Lexington getting make-overs as Oak-clad gunboats in June of 1861 at Cincinatti, Ohio. This at a time when the U.S. Navy consisted of 76 vessels with 1,783 guns held on a tonnage of 105,271. Mr. Lincoln's Navy consisted of 870 vessels in May of 1865.
James Buchanan Eads was awarded further construction contracts by the War Department. August 7, 1861 saw contraction for seven iron-clad shallow draft gunboat vessels. These became known as the City class gunboats, the DeKalb, originally named the St. Louis, becoming the first to complete on October 12, 1861 and was sent to Cairo, Illinois for armament and finish work.
Major-General John Calhoun Fremont, then in command of the Western Department of the Army, chose to assume that the August 6, 1861 confiscation act of Congress had unlimited scope and , Aug. 30, 1861, issued a proclimation confiscating the property and freeing the slaves of all citizens of Missouri who had taken, or should take, up arms against the government. This action of Fremont embarrassed President Lincoln greatly and did strengthen Southern resolution. On September 11, 1861, President Lincoln revokes Major General John C. Fremont's unauthorized military proclamation of emancipation in Missouri. Later, the President relieves Gen. Fremont of his command on October 14 and replaces him with Brigadier-General David Hunter at ten in the evening on November 2, 1861.
It was Major-General Fremont who initiated the use of large Mortars in concert with gunboats in order to force passage Southward and Eastward along the confluence of the Mississippi River. Philip St. George Cooke, recalled to Washington, D.C. apon the deactivation of his command in Utah, consulted with Fremont in St. Louis. Cooke was the official United States observer to events during the Crimean War of 1854-55, having watched the effect of Royal Marine Artillery Mortars apon the Russian works at Cronstadt, Sevastapol and Kinburn.
Commander Rogers was replaced by Captain Andrew Hull Foote, U.S.N., on September 6th; Foote assumed command of the Federal naval resources at St. Louis, Missouri. Foote immediately encountered the problems that had vexed his predecessor, that is, lack of commanding rank to provide weight to materials requisitions and a riverine chain of command that had been initiated by the army, as well as a lack of funding support and a dearth of naval departmental support. At the time Foote assumed command there were no navy yards or depots on the Western waters, the nearest naval yard on the Mississippi River being at New Orleans, Louisiana, then part of Confederate Department Number 1. Captain Foote's Western flotilla forces consisted, apon his assumption of command,of the three vessels mentioned in the preceeding paragraph, with nine iron-clad gunboats and thirty-eight mortar boats under construction spread between three yards under contract to Washington, D.C, the St. Louis, Carondelet and Cairo, Illinois yards. Captain Foote addresses the condition of the river fleet at this time in a letter to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles.:
"On assuming this command, September 6, 1861, the force consisted of three wooden vessels in commission, purchased, equipped, and armed as gun-boats by Captain Rogers. There were also nine iron-clad gun-boats and thirty-eight mortar-boats in process of building. Seven of these gun-boats had been contracted for by Quartermaster-General Meigs, under the authority of the War Department; and the two remaining boats were purchased and converted into gun-boats by order of Major-General Fremont. The thirty-eight mortar boats were also built by order of Major-General Fremont; these were built of solid timber, without motive power, and were each designed to carry a single mortar. The iron-clad boats had less than one half of the vessel plated, while its most vunerable part had on it but two and a half inches of plate."
President Lincoln, concerned about the increasing number of complaints from Union men regarding General Fremont, decided to send Postmaster-General Montgomery Blair and Quarter Master General Montgomery C. Meigs to investigate matters and counsel Fremont. The two men, with Maj. Gen. David Hunter added at the President's request, arrived in St. Louis at midnight on September 12. The official reason for the visit to St. Louis was given as an examination of the overland mail, though reports in the press stated that the Government was concerned about contract irregularities, as well as Fremont's poor performance.And, after his suspension, on the 14th of October, 1861, the Secretary, by a like order, appointed a board of commissioners to examine the Quartermaster Department; "to examine and report, to the Secretary of War, upon all unsettled claims against the military department of the West, that had originated prior to the 14th of October, 1861, the day General Fremont had been superseded." Quartermaster General Justus Mckinstry still maintained his postion as area Provost Marshall after being relieved of the Quartermaster General portion of his responsibilities at this time.
Foote was doubtful of the potential of the mortar-boats, having concerns as to the ability of the vessels in waters with rapid current; being convinced by arguments of Secretary Fox and his subordinates and later, as stated by Foote biographer J.M.Hoppin, "by actual use."
The material under construction was not completed in the time alloted by the contract, though the massive effort cannot be condemned for lateness on a lack of effort.Quartermaster Meigs was informed at Washington, D.C by Flag-Officer Foote that the thirty-eight Mortar Boats and their tug boats had arrived at Cairo as of January 4, 1862, with Foote complaining of their condition as built, vessels leaking, and mentioning need to secure the vessels, "during the winter season." Captain A.G.A. Constable, a native of England who had served in the British East India Company where he aquired a working knowledge of ordnance, was placed in charge of winter anchorage of the Mortar Boats. The statement was made by Captain Pennock of the Lexington that, "If they had been finished two months earlier than they were there would have been no Columbus, no Island No. Ten, no Memphis, no Vicksburg, and all the Western forces might all have been sent East. Every thing turned on those two months." Ulysses Simson Grant, promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General with a view towards leading active operations, mentions the changing Western river conditions in a telegram, voicing his concern regarding the amount of force that would be locked in the Northern river basins by the rapidly approaching winter conditions.
Cairo, November 22, 1861
To Commodore Foote,- I would inform you that the Mississippi is falling, with scant six feet. Would it not be well to send the gun-boats while it is still possible?
U.S. Grant
Assistant Secretary of the Navy G.V. Fox sent a telegram to Captain Foote requesting a full report, on President Lincoln's order, on the condition of Gun and Mortar boats.
Washington, January 10, 1862
To A.H. Foote- The President desires immediately a full report of the number of your gunboats, armament, crew, etc., and full particulars in relation to the mortar-boats, the number in commission, number of mortars mounted, number of mortars ready to mount, and the time of completion of all the boats.
G.V. Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Additions to the planning of operations channeled the initial casting of XIII inch bore Seacoast Mortars away from their original destination, sending them to the bomb fleet then abuilding at yards on the Delaware and East Rivers for use in forcing a passage on the Mississippi River from the Gulf of Mexico. In a letter of January 17, 1862, Colonel Lorenzo Thomas, newly appointed Adjutant General of the Army, informs Captain A.H. Foote that, "At this late hour it becomes necessary to resort to other means to utilize the great expense that has already been incurred." Thomas had served as Chief of Staff to Winfield Scott prior to his acceptance of the AG position, later becoming chairman of the War Board, an organisation that assisted Lincoln and Stanton in management of the War Department.
Manpower for the massive expansion of maritime operations on the Western rivers became a critical issue. The vessels, completed by January, lacked men with the expertise necessary to operate them, gunners, in particular, in great demand. Transportation and subsistence were critical issues as well at this juncture, with Major-General Henry Halleck reporting that the amount of funds available to Major Allen, McKinstry's replacement at the Quartermaster Department, was $10,000, "all the money we can rake or scrape together". Halleck mentions the proposed use of "forced requisitions" in his January 18 message to Brigadier-General Samuel R. Curtis, Halleck stating he would back Curtis when such measures became necessary to supply. "We must have no failure in the movement against Price. It must be the last." Major-General Sterling Price, C.S.A., was considered the major effective commander for the Confederacy in the area of proposed operations. Had the Federal Government failed in its initial operations on the upper Mississippi River the Southern Confederacy might have won by default, Federal finances being stretched so thin by this point as to be invisible.
President Abraham Lincoln saw the year of 1862 begin with a frustrated view of events regarding operations against the "insurgency." On Sunday, January 26, 1862,
irritated by slow production of mortars, Lincoln decides, in interview as reported by Asst. Sec.of the Navy Fox, "to take these army matters into his own hands.", and consults with Secretary of War Stanton and E. M. Shield, construction engineer at the Ft. Pitt, Pennsylvania maufactury, regarding manufacture of mortar beds.
After discussions with cabinet members regarding proposed operations and taking into consideration then General in Chief Major-General McClellan's proclivity for verbose explainations of inactivity, Lincoln penned his General War Order Number 1 in order to insure movement of forces. Lincoln chose President George Washington's birthdate as the effective date for large scale operations to begin.:
Executive Order
January 27, 1862
Ordered, That the 22nd day of February, 1862, be the day for a general movement of the land and naval forces of the United States against the insurgent forces, that especially the army at and about Fortress Monroe, the Army of the Potomac, the Army of Western Virginia, the army near Munfordville, Ky., the army and flotilla at Cairo, and a naval force in the Gulf of Mexico be ready to move on that day.
That all other forces, both land and naval, with their respective commanders, obey existing orders for the time and be ready to obey additional orders when duly given.
That the heads of Departments, and especially the Secretaries of War and of the Navy, with all their subordinates, and the General in Chief, with all other commanders and subordinates of land and naval forces, will severally be held to their strict and full responsibilities for prompt execution of this order.
Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln writes an endorsement, again on what have been a very busy January 27, 1862, on a letter from Henry A. Wise, of the U.S. Navy's Ordnance & Hydrography Bureau. Wise forwarded a request from Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote, who is stationed at Cairo, Illinois. Foote explained, "As the mortar Boats have no accommodations for cooking, keeping or carrying provisions, the men must have a steamer for their accommodation. Shall I purchase or hire a steamer for them?" Lincoln replies, "If Flag-officer Foote, can find a suitable Boat which he can purchase at a fair price, let him purchase it at once."
President Abraham Lincoln spent much of the month of February, 1862 on a whirl-wind speech tour of nine states, as well as weathering the death of his beloved son ,Willie, on February 20 from Typhoid . Lincoln, in many of the speeches made to the crowds of people who assembled to hear him, made the statement that the crisis the nation was facing was "altogether artificial." "Artificial" causes Lincoln may have adhered to the growing contest, but the effects became very tangible as the order as above became general movement of the Federal forces, Southward.