The news was true. The Confederates had cut down the "Merrimac" nearly to the water's edge and built a solid deck over her at this level. Then on the deck they erected a huge deck-house, with sloping sides pierced with port-holes for ten heavy smooth-bore guns. The funnel passed up through the roof of the deck-house. There were no masts, only a flagstaff. The flat deck space, fore and aft, and the sloping sides of the deck-house were to be armoured with four inches of iron, but there were no armour plates available. Railway iron was collected and rolled into long narrow strips, and these were bolted on the structure in two layers, laid crosswise in different directions. An armoured conning-tower, low and three-sided, was built on the front of the deck-house roof. The bow was armed with a mass of iron, in order to revive the ancient method of attack by ramming. Thus equipped the "Merrimac" was commissioned, under the command of Commodore Buchanan, and renamed the "Confederate States' ironclad steam-ram 'Virginia,'" but the ship was always generally known by her former name. At noon on Saturday, 8 March, 1862, the "Merrimac" started on her voyage down the Elizabeth River. It was to be at once her trial trip and her first fighting expedition. She was to attack and destroy the Federal blockading fleet in Hampton Roads. Up to the last moment the ship was crowded with working men. They were cleared out of her as she cast off from the quay. As the "Merrimac" went down the river the officers were telling off the men to their stations. Not one of her guns had ever been fired. There had been a few hurried drills. Everything was improvised. The first disappointment was to find that with the engines doing their best she could only make five knots. She steered badly, answering her helm slowly and turning on a wide circle. As one of her officers put it, "she was as unmanageable as a water-logged vessel." She drew 22 feet of water, so that she had to keep to the narrow channel in the middle of the river, and the risk of getting hopelessly aground was serious. The Confederate troops crowded the batteries on either bank, and cheered the "Merrimac" as she went slowly down. It was a fine day, with bright sunshine and absolutely no wind, and the broad stretch of water in Hampton Roads was like a pond. At the same time a small squadron of Confederate gunboats came down the James River to co-operate in the attack. These ships were the "Yorktown" (12 guns), the "Jamestown" (2 guns), and the "Teaser" (1 gun). Two other gunboats, the "Beaufort" and the "Raleigh," followed the "Merrimac." But the chief hope of the attack was placed upon the ironclad.