What would Dahlgren have thought of the Iowa class?

What would John A. Dahlgren have thought of the Iowa-class battleships?

Probably admiration followed immediately by a demand for larger guns. The answer is a joke about Dahlgren's work as an influential naval ordnance designer.

The question briefly shifts from the Civil War campaign to the long development of American naval artillery. Dahlgren stands beside one of the weapons associated with his work, a reminder that the admiral supporting Sherman was also a major ordnance innovator. This is a playful counterfactual rather than a documented historical claim. Dahlgren's professional instinct was to pursue powerful naval guns, so even an Iowa-class battery might have seemed an invitation to go bigger. The aside links Sherman's coastal support with later American battleship gunnery.