Hey everyone, welcome to a special bonus episode of our Civil War podcast.

I'm Rich.

And I'm Tracy. Hello y'all. Thanks for downloading this show about timber clads and iron clads.

Yeah, Tracy and I just wanted to do a short episode that would expand a bit on something we touched upon in the last show, Episode 82.

When we mentioned the Union's efforts to start building a flotilla of gunboats, which would operate on the rivers out in the western theater of the war.

And that flotilla of gunboats is sometimes referred to as the Federal's brown water navy because it operated on those western rivers rather than out on the ocean like the ships of the blue water navy.

Yep. And so in this episode, we're going to talk just a bit about the three timber clads that were the first gunboats, the Union deployed in the west.

And we'll also look at the seven city class iron clads, which became the backbone of the Federal's brown water navy.

Rich and I have already talked about how both Federals and Confederates recognized early on that the war in the west might well hinge on control of the region's rivers.

Others like the Ohio, the Cumberland, the Tennessee, and of course the Mississippi. And so each side set out to build warships, especially adapted to navigate on those strategically vital inland waterways.

And first out of the gate in this effort to build a brown water navy was the Union, thanks to its decided edge and organization in resources and in industrial capacity.

The first federal gunboats to be completed were the so-called timber clads. They were the work of commander John Rogers, a very capable US naval officer who navy secretary Gideon Wells sent west in May of 1861 to act as a liaison with the army, with the intent of assisting the army's operations by establishing an iron clad gunboat flotilla on the region's rivers.

Rogers with the assistance from a couple of other gentlemen will meet in the next part of the show, but Rogers rather quickly started the ball rolling as far as plans for building some iron clads, but their construction would take time.

So as a temporary stop gap measure until the iron clads were completed, Rogers had three steam boats converted into warships. These were the so-called timber clads.

On June 8th Rogers sent a report to Wells indicating that he had purchased three steam boats at Cincinnati for naval service. They were the AO Tyler, the Lexington and the Conestoga.

With the changes that Rogers had in mind, changes that would hurriedly convert the steam ships into warships, the vessels would cost the navy about $34,000 each.

But Gideon Wells had a fit that Rogers was spending the navy's money on what the secretary believed was an army project.

When Wells sent Rogers west, he apparently did so thinking the navy would pay Rogers salary, but the army, that is the war department, would foot the bill for everything else, such as the construction cost for any gun boats that were built.

Despite Wells' short-sidedness, and fortunately for all those involved, General McClellan, who at that point in the war, was then still the department commander in Cincinnati, McClellan decided to approve the bills for Rogers timber clads.

The three side-wheelers steam ships were sheathed and five-inch thick oak panels. The engines and boilers were dropped into the holds to make room for the big naval guns, and to support the weight of those cannon, the decks were reinforced with timbers and beams.

There were problems with the modifications that were done to convert the three civilian vessels into warships, which isn't surprising since no one involved had ever tried to convert river steamers of such size and demand of war.

But the major problems were ironed out during the remainder of the summer, the guns were loaded on board, and on August 12, the timber clads arrived at Cairo.

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