DK - The American Civil War

Action on the Mississippi River

The struggle for control of the Mississippi in 1862 brought strange warships into conflict, from cottonclad

rams to “Pook Turtles,” in battles at Island Number Ten, Plum Point Bend, and Memphis. The campaign

was a disaster for the Confederacy, but the Union side also fell short of its final objective.

CLASH OF ARMIES 1862

immediately possible because it

required the creation of a Union river

fleet that could cooperate with the

army to overcome the Confederate

fortresses dominating the waterway.

For the construction of a flotilla of

ironclad river gunboats, the Union

A

t the outset of the Civil War, the
Anaconda Plan proposed by
Union general-in-chief Winfield
Scott gave priority to an advance down
the Mississippi to cut the Confederacy
in two. Whether considered desirable
or not, such an offensive was not

turned to engineer and industrialist

James Eads. He built seven vessels from

scratch to a design by Samuel Pook, a

naval architect based in Cairo, Illinois.

They were shallow-draft ships driven by

a paddlewheel at the stern and enclosed

in sloping iron armor. Officially called

City-class gunboats, they were better

known by their nickname: Pook Turtles.

The seven ironclads formed the core

of the Western Gunboat Flotilla,

initially under U.S. Army control.

The Confederates, in contrast, had

to make do with adapting riverboats

The Battle of Memphis

The Confederate cottonclad CSS General Beauregard is

rammed by USS Monarch off Memphis on June 6, 1862.

The revival of the ancient naval tactic of ramming was an

unexpected result of the use of armored steam ships.

The “Pook Turtle”

USS Cairo was one of the Union City-class

ironclad gunboats designed by Samuel Pook for

the river war. Commissioned in January 1862,

she initially had 16 guns and a crew of 250.

into ships of war, usually by adding

cotton bales as armor—making them

“cottonclads”—then reinforcing the

prow with iron to make a ram, and by

arming them with one or two guns.

Island Number Ten

The first strongpoint that Union forces

needed to overcome as they pressed

down the Mississippi was Island Number

Ten, a fortified position at a turn in the

river near the town of New Madrid. At

the start of March 1862, Major General

John Pope’s newly formed Army of the

Mississippi, advancing through Missouri,

arrived outside New Madrid. Unable to

resist Union siege guns, the Confederates

quickly abandoned the town, but the

island was a tougher obstacle. The Union

BEFORE

Both sides in the Civil War recognized that
control of the Mississippi River was a major
strategic objective. The Union held Cairo,
Illinois, at the confluence of the Mississippi
and Ohio, but the Confederates hoped to
prevent them from advancing farther south.

CONFEDERATE MOVES
In September 1861, Confederate troops under
General Leonidas Polk seized Columbus on
the Mississippi in Kentucky. He turned it into
a fortress with 143 guns trained on the river,
which was blocked by a chain. This “Gibraltar of
the West” presented a formidable obstacle to
any Union advance down the Mississippi.
However, after the fall of Fort Donelson in
February 1862 104–105 ❯❯, Columbus was
abandoned without a fight, rendered untenable
by the threat to its supply lines. Part of the
garrison and many of its guns were relocated
50 miles (80km) south at Island Number Ten.

UNION STRATEGY
On February 23, 1862, the Union commander
in the Western theater, General Henry
Halleck, ordered the creation of the Army of
the Mississippi. With 25,000 men under Major
General John Pope, the army’s task was to
advance down the Mississippi River in
cooperation with the river fleet.

“... they struck terror into

every guilty soul as they floated

down the river.”

CREW MEMBER OF A POOK TURTLE, 1862