In 1862, when Farragut’s Union squadron was preparing to occupy the vital hub of the South – New Orleans, the Confederate agent L. Merton approached the Austrian government for a passible naval arms deal. Relations between the Austrian Empire and the North were poor during the war. The Austrians tried to interest the Confederacy in steam warships, many of them gunboats. With the New Orleans ironclads, they could present a dangerous challenge to the Union navy on the high seas, potentially capable of overwhelming squadrons on individual blockading stations. In reality, the…