CSS Atlanta
Description and career as Fingal
Fingal was designed and built as a merchantman by J&G Thomson's Clyde Bank Iron Shipyard at Govan in Glasgow, Scotland, and was completed early in 1861. She was described by Midshipman Dabney Scales, who served on the Atlanta before her battle with the monitors, as being a two-masted, iron-hulled ship 189 feet (57.6 m) long with a beam of 25 feet (7.6 m). She had a draft of 12 feet (3.7 m) and a depth of hold of 15 feet (4.6 m). He estimated her tonnage at around 700 tons bm. Fingal was equipped with two vertical single-cylinder direct-acting steam engines using steam generated by one flue-tubular boiler. The engines drove the ship at a top speed of around 13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph). They had a bore of 39 inches (991 mm) and a stroke of 30 inches (762 mm).
The ship briefly operated between Glasgow and other ports in Scotland for Hutcheson's West Highland Service before she was purchased in September 1861 by James D. Bulloch, the primary foreign agent in Great Britain for the Confederacy, and Major Edward Clifford Anderson Confederate Secretary of War in England, to deliver the military and naval ordnance and supplies that they purchased. To disguise his control of Fingal, and the destination of her cargo, Bulloch hired an English crew and captain and put out his destination as Bermuda and Nassau in the Bahamas. The cargo was loaded in Greenock in early October, although Bulloch and the other passengers would not attempt to board until they rendezvoused with the ship at Holyhead, Wales. On the night 14/15 October, as she was slowly rounding the breakwater at Holyhead, Fingal rammed and sank the Austrian brig Siccardi, slowly swinging at anchor without lights. Bulloch and the passengers embarked in the steamer while Bulloch dispatched a letter to his financial agents instructing them to settle damages with the brig's owners because he could not afford to take the time to deal with the affair lest he and Fingal be detained. The ship reached Bermuda on 2 November and, after leaving port on 7 November, Bulloch informed the crew that the steamer's real destination was Savannah, Georgia; he offered to take anyone who objected to the plan to Nassau. However, all of the crew agreed to join in the effort to run the Union blockade. Fingal was able to slip safely into the Savannah estuary in a heavy fog on the night of 12 November without sighting any blockaders.
While Fingal was discharging her cargo, Bulloch and Anderson went to Richmond to confer with Stephen Mallory, Secretary of the Navy. Mallory endorsed Bulloch's plan to load Fingal with cotton to sell on the Navy Department's account to be used to purchase more ships and equipment in Europe. He returned to Savannah on 23 November and it took him almost a month to purchase a cargo and acquire enough coal. He made one attempt to break through the blockade on 23 December, but it proved impossible to do as the Union controlled every channel from Savannah, aided by their occupation of Tybee Island at the mouth of the Savannah River. Bulloch reported to Mallory in late January 1862 that breaking out was hopeless so Mallory ordered him to turn the ship over to another officer and to return to Europe some other way.
As Atlanta
The brothers Asa and Nelson Tift received the contract to convert the blockade runner into an ironclad in early 1862 with the name of Atlanta, after the city in Georgia. This was largely financed by contributions from the women of Savannah. Fingal was cut down to her main deck and large wooden sponsons were built out from the sides of her hull to support her casemate. After the conversion, Atlanta was 204 feet (62.2 m) long overall and had a beam of 41 feet (12 m). Her depth of hold was now 17 feet (5.2 m) and she now had a draft of 15 feet 9 inches (4.8 m). Atlanta now displaced 1,006 long tons (1,022 t) and her speed was estimated at 7–10 knots (13–19 km/h; 8.1–11.5 mph).
The armor of the casemate was angled at 30° from the horizontal and made from two layers of railroad rails, rolled into plates 2 inches (51 mm) thick and 7 inches (180 mm) wide. The outer layer ran vertically and the inner layer horizontally. Her armor was backed by 3 inches (76 mm) of oak, vertically oriented, and two layers of 7.5 inches (191 mm) of pine, alternating in direction. The bottom of the casemate was some 20 inches (508 mm) from the waterline and its top was 8 feet 6 inches (2.59 m) above the waterline. The pyramidal pilothouse was armored in the same way and had room for two men. The upper portion of Atlanta's hull received 2 inches (51 mm) of armor.
The rectangular casemate was pierced with eight narrow gun ports, one each at the bow and stern and three along each side. Each gun port was protected by an armored shutter made of two layers of iron riveted together and allowed the guns to elevate only to a maximum of +5 to +7°. Atlanta was armed with single-banded, 7-inch (178 mm) Brooke rifles on pivot mounts at the bow and stern. The middle gun port on each side was occupied by a single-banded, 6.4-inch (163 mm) Brooke rifle. The 17-caliber, seven-inch guns weighed about 15,000 pounds (6,800 kg) and fired 80-pound (36 kg) armor-piercing "bolts" and 110-pound (50 kg) explosive shells. The equivalent statistics for the 18.5-caliber, 6.4-inch gun were 9,110 pounds (4,130 kg) with 80-pound bolts and 64-pound (29 kg) shells. Atlanta was also armed with a 20-foot (6.1 m), solid iron, ram that was reinforced by a series of vertical steel bars. In front of the ram was a spar torpedo that carried 50 pounds (23 kg) of black powder on a wooden pole connected to an iron lever that could be raised or lowered by means of pulleys.