ordered while she was being built that reflected battle experience with earlier monitors. This included the rebuilding of the turrets and pilot houses to increase their armor thickness from eight inches to and to replace the bolts that secured their armor plates together with rivets to prevent them from being knocked loose by the shock of impact from shells striking the turret. Other changes included deepening the hull by to increase the ship's buoyancy, moving the position of the turret to balance the ship's trim and replacing all of the ship's deck armor. Completion of the ship was further delayed by the low depth of the Ohio River, which prevented its movement from Cincinnati, in December 1864, to finish its fitting out. The river finally rose in March 1865, allowing the ship to reach Mound City, Illinois, on 7 March. Catawba was placed in ordinary there after completion, together with two of her sisters. The ships needed a deep-water berth and were moved opposite Cairo, Illinois, in mid-1865, even though they still had to be anchored in the main channel, where they were often struck by debris, drifting ice, and vulnerable to accidents. Tippecanoes anchor chain was broken on 27 March 1866, when she was struck by a steamboat towing barges; the monitor collided with and the two ships were dragged downstream before they could be brought under control. This was a persistent problem and the Navy finally decided to move the ships down to New Orleans in May 1866. In August 1867, the Navy turned over Catawba and Oneota to Swift & Co., contingent on a guarantee that they would be returned in good shape if they could not be sold, and the company began refitting them for Peruvian service. In October 1867, an agent for Swift & Co. negotiated a deal with Peru, to purchase Catawba and her sister, for a million dollars apiece. Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, initially indicated that the company could repurchase the pair if it refunded the government's costs to build them, but changed his mind and said that he had no authority to do that. Congress debated the issue and ultimately decided that they would be appraised by a board of officers and that the highest competitive bid in equal to or in excess of the appraised value would be accepted. The ship was appraised at $375,000, and sold for that