Charles Rivers Ellet and the Queen of the West-- Part 2: Running Past Vicksburg

On February 2, 1863, Charles Rivers Ellet was ordered by Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter to make a run down the Mississippi River in the Queen of the West past the batteries of Vicksburg to support Admiral Farragut south of the city.

This was done in daylight and for fifty straight minutes the Queen of the West was under fire.  The ship took twelve hits but sustained just minimal damage.  Once past the batteries, Ellet found the CSS City of Vicksburg (also called the CSS Vicksburg) docked.  Ellet rammed her and set her on fire.

Enemy fire, however, forced the Queen of the West to disengage.  Damage to the Vicksburg ended her days as a fighting ship and she ended up as just a wharf ship after machinery was removed.

Union forces supplied the Queen of the West with 20,000 bushels of coal by floating an unmanned coal barge past Vicksburg.

On February 3 the Queen of the West captured three Confederate transport ships:  CSS A.W. Baker, CSS Moro, and CSS Berwick Bay.  Two of them were loaded with supplies for Vicksburg.

--Old B-R'er

February 13, 1863: USS Indianola Steams Past Vicksburg: Orders to Pay Visit to "Jeff Davis' Plantation"

FEBRUARY 13, 1863:  The USS Indianola, Lieutenant Commander George Brown, ran past the batteries at Vicksburg to join the USS Queen of the West in blockading the Red River.  Rear Admiral Porter's instructions to Brown added:  "Go to Jeff Davis' plantation load up with all the cotton you can find and the best single male Negroes."

Towing two barges filled with coal, the Indaianola steamed slowly past the upper batteries of Vicksburg undetected.    Abreast the point, Indianola was sighted and a heavy fire opened upon her without effect."

A Little "Something" for Jeff Davis.  --Old B-Runner

June 6, 1862: Battle of Memphis

JUNE 6TH, 1862:  The USS Benton, Louisville, Carondolet, St. Louis and Cairo, under Captain Davis, and rams Queen of the West and Monarch under Col. Charles Ellett, Jr., engaged the Confederate River Defense Fleet: CSS Earl Van Dorn, General Beauregard, General M. F. Thompson, Colonel Lowell, General Bragg, General Sumter, General Sterling Price and Little Rebel under Captain Montgomery in the Battle of Memphis.

In the ensuing close action the Queen of the West was rammed and Colonel Ellett mortally wounded.  The Confederate River defense Fleet was destroyed; all ships, excepting the Van Dorn, were either captured, sunk or grounded on the river bank to avoid sinking.

Memphis surrendered to Captain Davis, and the pressure of relentless naval power had placed another important segment of the Mississippi River firmly under Union control.

Wasn't Much of a Battle.    --Old B-Runner

The Mississippi Marine Brigade and Mississippi River Squadron

From Wikipedia

A few weeks ago, I was writing about the ship Queen of the West, commanded by Charles Rivers Ellet and mentioned that it had been in the Mississippi River Squadron and under Army command at one time.

This has always been a confusing item to me, so did the old Wiki thing.

MISSISSIPPI RIVER SQUADRON

Initially was part of the Army though commanded by Naval officers and originally known as the Western Gunboat Flotilla.  Still confused here.  Ellet was an Army officer.


MISSISSIPPI MARINE BRIGADE

Was a Union Army unit raised as part of the US Ram Fleet.  They acted as Marines and would be transported on the rams from place to place.  Their main duty was to fight Confederate guerrillas operating along Western rivers.

Commanded by members of the Ellet family and were part of the regular Army.

Organized in early 1863 with 350 men and officers.

The Queen of the West-- Part 5: Capture

The new pilot ran the Queen of the West aground by Confederate Fort DeRussey.  The bombardment was intense and Charles Rivers Ellet and his crew were forced to abandon the ship and float downstream on cotton bales.

Confederates repaired the ship and ten days later, the CSS Queen of the West helped capture the USS Indianola.  On April 11, 1863, it engaged Union gunboats on the Atchafalaya River and a shell from the USSCalhoun set the Queen of the West's cotton (used for protection) on fire.  It then drifted downstream for several hours before running aground and then blowing up.

Charles Rivers Ellet later commanded the ram Switzerland, then infantry from the Marine Brigade before dying of disease October 29, 1863.

The Story of a Boat.  --Old B-Runner

The Queen of the West-- Part 4: River Actions Below Vicksburg

The Queen of the West ran past the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg and destroyed the CSS City of Vicksburg in the process.  That put pressure on the Confederates at Port Hudson, south of Vicksburg and they destroyed three vessels to prevent their capture.

On February 12th, the Queen of the West steamed up the Atchafalaya River, a tributary of the Red River and destroyed wagons, supplies and burned houses in retaliation for the wounding of a Union officer.

On February 13th, the Union ironclad Indianola ran past Vicksburg to protect the Queen of the West.  The two ships then steamed fifteen miles upriver to the mouth of the Black River (a Red River tributary and on the 14th captured the steamer Era No. 5 with a cargo of corn.  Here, Ellet heard there were other Confederate ships farther upriver.

His pilot had fallen ill and he got a replacement who was probably a Southern sympathizer.

Bad Things In Store for the Queen.  --  Old B-R'er

The Queen of the West-- Part 3

The Queen of the West also traded shots with the Confederate ironclad CSS Arkansas.  On October, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles reorganized the Western Flotilla, naming it the Mississippi Squadron under the command of David Dixon Porter.

In November, the ram fleet was transferred to the Navy from the Army by Lincoln (which would explain why a colonel would be commanding a warship).  But the rams more or less continued to operate independently of the Navy control.

Early in 1863, Porter formed the Mississippi Marine Brigade intended to fight Confederate guerrillas who were a major problem.  It  consisted of 350 men under Army command, artillery and cavalry.  They were ferried by the rams which were under Navy command.  But the officers remained Army. 

Charles Ellet's brother, Alfred was appointed brigadier general and placed in command of the brigade.  Charles Rivers Ellet, his nephew, was placed in command of the Queen of the West.

Old B-Runner

The Queen of the West: Charles Ellet Jr.'s Rams-- Part 2

Charles Ellet, Jr. (Charles Rivers Ellet's father) was an early proponent of the ancient ram as a weapon, but didn't get any support until the CSS Virginia rammed and sank the USS Cumberland.  Secretary of War Edwin Stanton met with him and made him a colonel, authorizing him to purchase and outfit steam vessels for use in military (Army) rams.

Ellet bought seven of the fastest vessels he could find on the Ohio River and enlisted twelve family members, including his son, Charles Rivers (good middle name as it turned out).

The Queen of the West was built in Cincinnati in 1854 and weighed 406 tons and was 181 feet long.  I was retrofitted with solid oak bulkheads and other protection was added.  Four guns were mounted, but the ship's main weapon was to be its reinforced ram at its bow.  To further make the ship look menacing, it was painted all black.

In its first action, in June 1862, the Queen of the West and the Monarch jumped ahead of the Union fleet and destroyed all but one of the eight Confederate ships at Memphis.  But, Charles Ellet was mortally wounded and died two weeks later.

Watch Out for Those Rams.  --Old B-R'er

Queen of the West: Charles Rivers Ellet-- Part 1

From the February 13, 2013 New York Times Opinionator by Rick Beard.

Charles Rivers Ellet was one of the Union's youngest colonels at age 19.  A Feb. 2, 1863 report of Rear Admiral D.D. Porter said "the kind of man I like to command" a "gallant and daring officer" who will undertake anything I wish him to without asking questions.  But, he added, "The only trouble I have is to hold him in and keep him out of trouble."  He essentially was the army's counterpart to the Navy's William Cushing on the Atlantic coast.

That same day he had ordered Ellet to take the Queen of the West past Vicksburg and to reconnoiter the lower Red River and destroy any Confederate ships he encountered.

The young colonel had been a medical student when the war broke out and the fleet of Union rams, including the Queen of the West, were launched by his father, Charles Ellet, Jr., who, before the war had designed wire cable suspension bridges including the one over the Schuylkill River  and the one in Wheeling, Virginia  (now West Virginia), over the Ohio River and a 770-foot footbridge  at Niagara Falls.  He had also built canals and railroads.  Quite the engineer.

Quite the Family.  --Old B-Runner

Naval Happenings 150 Years Ago: February 2nd to 3rd,1863

FEBRUARY 2ND

The ram USS Queen of the West, under Col. C.R. Ellett (an army commander?), attacked the CSS City of Vicksburg which was under the guns of Vicksburg.  The ramming attempt failed, but, using incendiary shot, managed to set the Confederate ship afire, but it was quickly put out.

Then, the Queen of the West was damaged and had to break off the fight.  The Queen of the West then did a lot of damage below Vicksburg.


The CSS Alabama experienced a fire on board, but it was quickly extinguished.

USS Mount Vernon drove the blockade-runner Industry aground off New Topsail Inlet, NC, and burned her.


FEBRUARY 3RD

The Army-Navy operation against Fort Pemberton at Greenwood < Mississippi began with the opening of the levee at Yazoo Pass

Union ships repulsed a Confederate attack at Fort Donelson.

CSS Alabama captured and burned the schooner Palmetto.

Old B-Runner

Naval Happenings 150 Years Ago: July 21st to 22nd , 1862

JULY 21ST

US steamers carrying troops arrive to protect Evansville, Indiana, at request of the states's Governor Morton.  Confederate guerrillas had captured Henderson, Kentucky, across the Ohio River, and were now driven away. These coordinated Army-Navy attacks help keep Confederates from reoccuppying positions along the interior rivers.


JULY 22ND

USS Essex and Queen of the West attack the CSS Arkansas which was at anchor with a disabled engine at Vicksburg.  Many of the Confederates on board the Arkansas were ashore sick and wounded from the action of July 15th.  Queen of the West rammed the Arkansas, but with little effect and the Essex exchanged close quarter gunfire.  Both Union ships were badly damaged.

Confederate commander Brown described one of the Essex's broadsides from twenty feet away  like "nothing that I had ever heard before....We were so close that out men were burnt by the powder of the enemy's guns..."

President Davis telegraphs Mississippi Governor John J. Pettus that the CSS Arkansas desperately needs boatmen and with the blockade becoming more effective, there has to be a lot of them out of work and wants the governor to find some.

Old B-Runner