Arkansas construction starved of labor and materials

Builder John T. Shirley requested one hundred carpenters and received only eight because Major General Leonidas Polk prioritised projects on the Tennessee River. The fall of Fort Henry transferred Eastport and valuable shipbuilding material to Union hands, after which Eastport was completed in a Union yard, while the surrender of Island Number Ten brought the threat closer to Memphis. Arkansas was launched with engines and boilers uninstalled, gunports uncut, and only four guns available, while her sister Tennessee never reached completion. Towing Arkansas and her stores up the Yazoo produced further delay when flooding stranded the ship four miles from shore and the material barge sank. Machinery and supplies then had to be recovered from the riverbed with a diving bell.