Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS) says that she was built for the Southern Steamship Company. She was used as a towboat and as a cotton lighter in Mobile Bay off the Gulf of Mexico. On November 8, 1861, the Alabama General Assembly passed legislation appropriating $150,000 for an ironclad that could serve as both a gunboat and as a ram. The state government formed a commission to select a vessel for conversion, and the sidewheel steamer Baltic was bought on December 13 at a cost of $40,000. The process of converting her into a casemate ironclad began on December 22 and enlarged the ship's dimensions, increasing the length to , the beam to , and her tonnage to 624 tons. To allow her hull to carry the extra weight of the armor and guns, the ship was fitted with hog chains. Bisbee states that the converted ship's draft was , the DANFS and naval historian Paul Silverstone state , and naval historian William N. Still Jr. provides a figure of about . The ship's propulsion machinery consisted of two single-cylinder steam engines with a bore of and a stroke. These were fed by four horizontal return-flue boilers; the boilers were either long and had a diameter of either . The two paddle wheels were in diameter and wide. As was normal for steamboats of the time, the vessel could be powered by burning either wood or coal. Baltic had a fuel capacity of up to . The changes needed to convert her into an ironclad made her very slow; Silverstone and the DANFS list her speed as , and Bisbee describes it as "not [...] more than a man's walking pace". Most Confederate ironclads were screw steamers instead of paddle steamers; Baltic was one of the few paddle steamer ironclads actually completed or converted within the Confederacy, and naval historian Raimondo Luraghi described her propulsion as obsolescent. She also had difficulty steering. She had a crew of 86, whose quarters Luraghi describes as "very poor". Confederate ironclads frequently had issues with excessive heat below deck, the emission of noxious fumes from the machinery, and poor ventilation; Baltics crew frequently slept on dry land or in the open air. Her bow was strengthened so that it could serve as a ram, and she was armed with six cannons: two Dahlgren guns, two 32-pounder guns, and two other pieces that