page_title: Japanese ironclad Kōtetsu
section_title: Origins and career
hierarchical_section_title: Japanese ironclad Kōtetsu / Origins and career
context_page_description: Kōtetsu, later renamed Azuma, was the first ironclad warship of the Imperial Japanese Navy. She was designed as an armored ram for service in shallow waters, but also carried three guns. The ship was built in Bordeaux, France, for the Confederate States Navy under the cover name Sphinx, but was sold to Denmark after sales of warships by French builders to the Confederacy was forbidden in 1863. The Danes refused to accept the ship and sold her to the Confederates which commissioned her as CSS Stonewall in 1865. The ship did not reach Confederate waters before the end of the American Civil War in April and was turned over to the United States.
  The Tokugawa shogunate of Japan bought her from the United States in 1867 and renamed her Kōtetsu, but delivery was held up by the Americans until after the Imperial faction had established control over most of the country. She was finally delivered in March 1869 and had a decisive role in the Naval Battle of Hakodate Bay in May, which marked the end of the Boshin War, and the completion of the military phase of the Meiji Restoration.
  Renamed Azuma in 1871, she played minor roles in the Saga rebellion and the Taiwan Expedition, both in 1874.
context_section_description: In June 1863 John Slidell, the Confederate commissioner to France, asked Emperor Napoleon III in a private audience if it would be possible for the Confederate government to build ironclad warships in France. Arming ships of war for a recognized belligerent like the Confederate States would have been illegal under French law, but Slidell and his agent, James D. Bulloch, were confident that the Emperor of France would be able to circumvent his own laws more easily than other potential secret contractors. Napoleon III agreed to the building of ironclads in France on the condition that their destination remain a secret. The following month Bulloch entered a contract with Lucien Arman, a French shipbuilder and a personal confidant of Napoleon III, to build a pair of ironclad rams capable of breaking the Union blockade. To avoid suspicion, the ships' guns were manufactured separately from the ship herself and the pair were named Cheops and Sphinx to encourage rumors that they were intended for the Egyptian Navy.
  Prior to delivery, however, a shipyard clerk walked into the U.S. Minister's office in Paris and produced documents which revealed that Arman had fraudulently obtained authorization to arm the ships and was in contact with Confederate agents. The French government blocked the sale under pressure from the United States, but Arman was able to sell the ships to Denmark and Prussia, which were then fighting on opposite sides of the Second Schleswig War. Cheops was sold to Prussia as Prinz Adalbert, while Sphinx was sold to Denmark under the name Stærkodder on 31 March 1864.
  Manned by a Danish crew, the ship left Bordeaux for its shakedown cruise on 21 June 1864. The crew tested the vessel while final negotiations were being conducted between the Danish Naval Ministry and Arman. Intense haggling over the final price and a disagreement over compensation from the company for cited problems and late delivery led to negotiations breaking down on 30 October, although the ship had set sail for Copenhagen, Denmark, on 25 October. The Danish government refused to relinquish the vessel, claiming confusion in regards to the negotiations. She arrived in Copenhagen on 10 November and was in the Orlogsværftet dockyard at the beginning of 1865.
caption: CSS Stonewall in the Washington Navy Yard, c. 1865
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