The Stevens brothers succeeded in getting Congress to overrule Bancroft and Skinner, and set about radically redesigning the Stevens Battery. The new design was ready by January 1854. It called for a great increase in the ship's size and capabilities. She was now to be 420 feet (128 m) long, 53 feet (16 m) in beam, and displace 4,683 tons. She was to be proof against 125-pound (56.7-kilogram) shells, with armor made up of 6.75-inch (171-millimeter) iron plates sloping upwards from 1 foot (0.3 m) below the waterline to the main deck and running along the entire side of the ship from stem to stern. She was to have bulwarks to make her more seaworthy when steaming which could be lowered to reduce her freeboard in combat, making her a smaller target. Again, the ship was to be semisubmersible, able to submerge herself down to the gunwales, also to make her a smaller target.