JULY 1ST, 1864: Confederate Secretary of the Navy Mallory wrote President Davis that due to a shortage of mechanics the ordnance works at Selma, Alabama, could not "make more than one gun a week, whereas with a proper number of mechanics it could manufacture with carriages and equipments complete, three in a week and in a few months one every day...."
Shortage of skilled craftsmen was a handicap the South could never overcome.
The manpower and material shortages at Selma specifically crippled the progress of the ironclad squadron Admiral Buchanan was desperately trying to develop in Mobile Bay. Only ram Tennessee was ready when the critical moment arrived in just over a month, August 5th, when Farragut "Damned the torpedoes."
--Old B-Runner
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