Secretary Mallory was in a bind: there was no capability in the South to build engines to run a heavy ironclad ship.
It burned but only to the waterline, so its engines were intact. One of them, the USS Merrimack, was a state of the art wooden frigate. However, the commander didn’t move in time and was forced to scuttle 9 ships. When the state of Virginia seceded, the fleet based in Portsmouth, called Gosport Naval Yard, was ordered to leave and join the blockade. His initial thought was to refurbish captured or scuttled Federal vessels. He used the technology of the day to create ships and weapons that were so innovative and thoughtful that they became the standards of the next century (or two).
Because he knew nothing, he had no ties to tradition or to the old ways.
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