Millers Photographic History of the Civil War Vol 6 "The Navies". "In order to furnish efficient fighting-vessels that could thread the shallow streams and bayous along the shore, the construction of a dozen light-draft monitors was undertaken late in the war. They were to draw only seven feet of water, and to be a small edition of the original monitor, mounting one gun only. Through a miscalculation in the engineer's office, their displacement was wrongly estimated. They proved utter failures. All or nearly all of them were on the ways at the same time. When the first was launched, she proved not sufficiently buoyant to sustain her armor and guns, giving a very good imitation of a submarine when striking the water. To meet the demand for light-drafts–three on the James River–these monitors were lightened by removing their turrets, as has been done in the case of the one in the picture. The naval reports record every form of disparagement of these vessels, except the profanity they evoked from officers and men."
