USS Indianola Epilogue

From Wikipedia.

The USS Indianola was built in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1862 and commissioned September 27, 1862.  It was a 174 or 175 foot casemate ironclad mounting 2 eleven-inch Dahlgren smoothbores and 2 nine-inch Dahlgren smoothbores. 

After the Black Terror frightened off the CSS Queen of the West, the Confederates aboard the Indianola trying to raise it might have been intoxicated and threw the nine-inch guns into the river and pointed the eleven-inch ones at each other muzzle-to-muzzle and fired them and then burned the rest of the ship to the waterline.

The remains of the Indianola were raised  on January 5, 1865, and she was towed to Mound City, Illinois, where the remains were sold on January 17.

--Old B-R'er

Charles Rivers Ellet, the Queen of the West and USS Indianola-- Part 5: The Black Terror Causes USS Indianola to Be Destroyed

The chase was on.  The Indianola was moving up the Mississippi River, but slowly.  Even worse, the ship stopped to take cotton on board which cost her time she did not have.  The Confederate pursuit ships were commanded by Joseph L. Brent of the Confederate Army.

The Confederate ships caught up with the Indianola near Palmyra Island, about 30 miles south of Vicksburg.  After being rammed six times in the space of an hour and with the Queen of the West upriver and bearing down hard (along with the current) for a final ramming, the USS Indianola surrendered after also running aground.

The loss of both the Queen of the West and the Indianola derailed the supply line on the railroad.

With the Confederates working rapidly to raise the Indianola, it was decided to make a fake ironclad and send it down river from the Union position north of Vicksburg, so the Black Terror was built.  An old coal barge was lengthened and had a casemate built along with Quaker guns and two smokestacks made out of pork barrels.

The Black Terror was sent downriver on February 27 and frightened Confederates destroyed the Indianola.

--Old B-R'er

Feb. 16-17-- Part 2: "Old Bogey" Scares Confederates at Fort Anderson

Unable to acquire other monitors for the reduction of Fort Anderson, Porter resorted to subterfuge as he had on the Mississippi River in February 1863.  He improvised a bogus monitor from a scow, timber and canvas.

The "Old Bogey", as she was quickly nicknamed by the sailors, had been towed to the head of the Fort Anderson bombardment line, where she succeeded in drawing heavy fire from the defending Southerners.

--Old B-Runner