These seven, the Saint Louis (afterwards De Kalb), the Cairo, Carondelet, Cincinnati, Louisville, Mound City, and Pittsburg, were all alike. The Saint Louis, as Eads wrote to Lincoln, when he sent him a photograph of her, "was the first ironclad built in America.... She was the first armored vessel against which the _fire of a hostile battery_ was directed on this continent; and, so far as I can ascertain, she was the first ironclad that ever _engaged a naval force_ in the world." In reading the descriptions of them, and in reading in the naval histories of their undeniable faults, it must be remembered that Eads "had no part in the modeling of these boats, and is therefore relieved of all responsibility as to their imperfections." They were 175 feet long, 51-1/2 feet beam. Their flat sides sloped upward and inward at an angle of about 35 deg., and the front and rear casemates corresponded with the sides, the stern-wheel being entirely covered by the rear casemate. It was a large paddle-wheel, placed forward of the stern so as to be protected. The whole thing was like a tremendous uncovered box, with its sides sloping up and in, and containing the battery, the machinery, and the paddle-wheel, while the smoke-stacks and the conical pilot-house stuck up out of the top. Captain Mahan says that they looked like gigantic turtles. Underneath the water, they were simply like flat-bottomed scows. As they were intended always to fight bows on, they were built with that in view. In front they were accordingly armored two and a half inches over two feet of solid oak. The only other armor they carried was abreast of the boiler and engines. The stern, therefore, and the greater part of the sides were decidedly vulnerable. Their armament consisted of three guns forward, four on each broadside, and two at the stern.