Commander John Rodgers was ordered to report for duty to Gen. John C. Frémont, who was then in command in the Mississippi Valley, in order that he might attend to this work. His first move, like the work of the Navy Department in establishing the blockade, was to buy and arm some merchant vessels. Three that were named _Taylor_, _Lexington_, and _Conestoga_ were obtained at Cincinnati, and converted into warships by shifting the boilers and steam-pipes into the hold and building five-inch oak bulwarks around the decks to protect the crews from musket-shots. These bulwarks were pierced with portholes, and old guns were mounted in them, navy fashion. The _Taylor_ had seven, and the others five and three respectively, nearly all the guns being medium-length sixty-four-pounder shell guns. They had no iron armor of any kind. [Illustration: Mississippi Valley--Cairo to Memphis. _From “The Navy in the Civil War.”_] In those days James B. Eads, afterwards famous as an engineer, was a river-boat builder, having his yard at Carondelet, Missouri. When in July, 1861, the quartermaster-general of the army advertised for bids for the construction of seven ironclad gunboats for service in the Mississippi Valley, Eads submitted plans, with estimates of cost and time, that were at once accepted by the government. The contracts were signed on August 7th, and it was agreed that the seven should be ready for crews and guns in sixty-five days, although the birds were teaching their young to fly among the branches of trees that were to be used in building the hulls of these vessels, and the shops that were to supply the iron were and had been idle ever since hostilities had stopped the business of the country. [Illustration: The _Cairo_. _From a photograph._]