troubles of the traditional sort arose in November, shortly after work commenced. The workers in all the shipyards struck, demanding that their wages be increased from $3 to $4 per day. The other owners wanted to wait out the strikers, but after a week the Tifts gave in. The others were forced to follow suit. Trouble of a different sort was found shortly thereafter, when the Tifts found that they were competing with E. C. Murray, who was building Louisiana, for the same skilled workmen. To solve this problem, the Tifts and Murray agreed to share labor, with Louisiana having first call. Another set of delays was caused by the local military policies, which insisted that all men of appropriate ages participate in militia activities, including parades. A protest to the governor was rejected. Murray and the Tifts requested of Major General Mansfield Lovell that their men be exempted. Although Lovell agreed and issued the needed order, the practice continued. Although all the delays cannot be simply added to find how much time was lost, clearly the loss was critical. Long after Mississippi was torched and New Orleans was surrendered, Nelson Tift stated that he believed his ship would have been completed in another two or three weeks. (This estimate was contradicted by Captain Sinclair, who thought she was more like ten weeks away from completion.) The final days In mid-March 1862, the Union fleet under Flag Officer Farragut began to enter the Mississippi from the Gulf of Mexico, with the obvious ultimate purpose of attacking New Orleans. Farragut was already under some time pressure from Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, who feared that if the two ironclad "monsters" (a term widely used at the time to characterize CSS Louisiana and Mississippi) were to be successfully completed, they would be able to shatter the blockade. The Confederate government in Richmond was not so much concerned with the blockade as with the threat posed by the Union Western Gunboat Flotilla, then approaching Memphis. Even as Farragut was moving his ships across the bar, President Davis and Navy Secretary Mallory were promising Flag Officer George N. Hollins, commanding the Confederate States Navy forces on the Mississippi, that Louisiana would be sent up to Memphis as soon as she could be finished (expected to be within days), and Mississippi would follow shortly thereafter. At about this time, the Navy Department ordered Commander