At the time of the “Virginius’s” difficulty with Spain, which occurred about five years after the close of the Civil War, a “grand fleet” was assembled at Key West under the command of Rear-Admiral Case. This fleet consisted of a large number of wooden cruising steamers of various types and classes, all obsolete, many of them unseaworthy, and all incapable of meeting an up-to-date ship of that period (1874-75) with any chance of success whatever. To these wooden hulks were added the double-turreted monitors “Terror,” “Amphitrite,” and “Monadnock,” which were built at the navy-yards of wood, and a batch of old worn-out single-turreted monitors. The bottoms of the wooden monitors were so weakened structurally that, whenever an effort was made to wedge up the spindles so that the turrets could revolve, the bottom went down instead of the turret going up, the latter necessarily remaining immovable. Unquestionably any one, or at most any two, of our first-class modern battleships at this writing, 1903, could have annihilated and sunk the entire fleet in two or three hours, although it consisted, all types and classes taken together, of over forty vessels. This was an object lesson, and it to some extent aroused the sensibilities of the country; but the then existing administration of the Navy Department was under the absolute control of the navy-yard rings, and all naval work of every description was done in navy-yards. The “Spanish Scare,” as it was called, did, however, have the effect of spurring Congress to provide for the construction of eight (8) new vessels, the first provided for since the Civil War. Of these, three were given out to be built by contract; two, the “Huron” and “Alert,” small iron sloops-of-war or gun-vessels, were given to John Roach and built at his works at Chester; and another of the same class, the “Ranger,” was given to Harlan & Hollingsworth, of Wilmington, and built there. The other five were built in navy-yards, and were completed at different periods between 1875 and 1879. [Illustration: BATTLESHIP ALABAMA]