JANUARY 10, 1865: Commander Bulloch wrote Secretary Mallory that he had obtained one of the French ironclads which Louis Napoleon, unwilling to provoke the United States government, had previously refused to release to the South.
The ironclad had been sold to Denmark for the Schleswig-Holstein War, but when that conflict ended abruptly before the ship could be delivered, the Danes refused to accept her, and she was sold secretly to the Confederacy.
Captain Thomas Jefferson Page took command of her in Copenhagen. "I have requested Captain Page," Bulloch wrote, "to name the ironclad Stonewall, an appellation not inconsistent with her character, and one which will appeal to the feelings and sympathies of our people at home."
The Stonewall, with a temporary crew and under the name Spinx to divert suspicion as to her real ownership had departed from Copenhagen on 7 January.
And, of course, Stonewall Jackson. --Old B-Runner
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