In the predawn hours of January 1, 1863, a tiny Confederate flotilla steamed into Galveston Bay in the Gulf of Mexico. The larger of the two vessels, Bayou City, was a 165-foot-long side-wheel commercial steamer that-with the addition of a single 32-pounder rifled cannon on the foredeck and a 1-inch strip of iron along its bow-had been hastily converted to a ram and gunboat. Its companion, a former mail packet christened Neptune No. 2, had been fitted with two 24-pounder howitzers. The decks of both steamers had been lined, or "clad," with 500-pound cotton bales stacked two and three deep, "to give the appearance of protection." Both vessels had been chartered to the Texas Marine Department by their owners, who were frustrated that they could no longer haul Texas cotton because of the Union blockade. Now these two odd-looking conglomerates had been sent to Galveston to engage six Federal ships that were guarding the harbor.
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