Danmark's Confederate origins and ironclad design

Danmark was a single-screw, steam-and-sail ironclad with four boilers, a full ship rig, an eight-knot top speed, and a crew of about 530. Her belt and battery armour ranged from roughly three and a half to four and a half inches. Her Clyde builder, J. & G. Thomson, later became part of John Brown and Company. The Confederacy turned to the British design after failing to obtain the French ironclad Gloire. Her contract price of £190,000, or two million Confederate dollars, shows that she was conceived as a substantial blockade-breaking warship rather than a small coastal craft.