Era No.5

From Military Wiki.

One of the ships I mentioned in the talk given on the Queen of the West and Indianola.

Shallow draft steamer built in 1860 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Was chartered by the Confederates early in 1863 to transport corn from the Red River to Camden, Arkansas.

As the steamer, laden with 4,500 bushels of corn, proceeded to her destination on 14 February 1863, she rounded a sharp bend 15 miles from the mouth of the Black River, came upon and was captured by the USS Queen of the West.

After the loss of the Queen of the West the same day, her crew fled to Union positions in the Era No. 5.

The Era No. 5 was then assigned to  Colonel Charles Rivers Ellet's river fleet, fitted out with protective cotton baling and used by the Union ships as a dispatch boat and transport on the Mississippi River.

--Old B-Runner