Hoping to prove his point, he purchased an iron-hulled steamer and modified her greatly into a warship that would demonstrate to the U.S. Navy some of the principles he had in mind for the Stevens Battery, including high maneuverability, a respectable top speed, a semisubmersible capability, and a large gun on the main deck capable of a high rate of fire and loaded from below the deck by gun crews protected by armor. The resulting vessel, Naugatuck, went into service with the United States Revenue-Marine in the autumn of 1861, but soon was loaned to the Navy. In action in May 1862, her main gun burst. Her armor protected the gun crew from the explosion as Stevens intended, but the Navy was not won over by the design, and Naugatuck soon went back to the Revenue-Marine. Although the Navy had a large ironclad program during the Civil War for which the Stevens Battery seemed a logical fit, a Navy board found numerous deficiencies in the ship and the Navy decided not to spend any more money on her. On July 17, 1862, Congress voted to turn all ownership of and rights to the Stevens Battery over to the Stevens family, and the ship spent the Civil War in her drydock. The 1869 design Edwin Stevens died in 1868, leaving the Stevens Battery and $1,000,000 (USD) with which to finish her to the State of New Jersey. New Jersey Governor Theodore F. Randolph appointed an oversight commission, and Major General George B. McClellan, the commander of the Army of the Potomac early in the Civil War, became engineer-in-chief. McClellan redesigned the ship yet again. The 1866 Battle of Lissa, in which ramming had proven an important tactic, was influential in ship design for 40 years, and his 1869 design called for the ship to have an iron spur ram bow. She also was to have a heavier hull. Instead of guns mounted in casemates, the Stevens Battery now was to have her guns in a revolving turret like that of USS Monitor, although the type and caliber of guns were never determined. Her machinery was removed and replaced by ten large-diameter boilers and two Maudsley and Field vertical overhead-crosshead steam engines which were to give the Stevens Battery a top speed of . The end By 1874, all the money for her completion was gone, and the ship was not yet