"Pawed geese" enter the battle
Still from the movie The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1973). A steamboat from the Mississippi is excellently shown. When the war began between the northern and southern states, it was on the basis of these steamers that the combat gunboats of both were built.
We go to Richmond with a dark blue wall,
Stripes and stars we carry in front of us,
John Brown’s body lies in the damp earth,
But his soul is calling us into battle!
The national anthem of the republic, USA, 1861
Stripes and stars we carry in front of us,
John Brown’s body lies in the damp earth,
But his soul is calling us into battle!
The national anthem of the republic, USA, 1861
History military equipment. When the American Civil War began in the spring of 1861, the states that were part of a single union state were divided as follows: 11 states left the Union, but 25 remained loyal to it. True, even among the Unionist states there were not a few "neither yours nor ours", and that is, outright supporters of the South. There were especially many of these in states such as West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and Missouri. In this regard, it could be expected that with the successes of the southerners, they would take their side.
Such guns were then in honor and were even installed on ships!
That's why it was necessary as soon as possible... to cut the Confederacy apart. To do this, it was necessary "only" to put the Mississippi River under the control of the federalists throughout its entire length - "backbone of rebellionas President Abraham Lincoln put it. And these words of his were not an exaggeration or "a biting phrase to the public." Although there were only three rebellious states west of the Mississippi—Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas—their significance to the other eight was truly enormous. The fact is that huge herds of cattle grazed there, and cattle are meat, and meat is the best food for soldiers. By depriving the Confederates of meat allowances by tearing away these three states from them, the northerners significantly undermined the ability of the South to resist. That's why they thought "the Mississippi is worth the effort."
Nevertheless, the very first combat river flotilla northerners set up on the Potomac River. It served as sea-going steam vessels, not very adapted for river navigation, and their artillery was not suitable for combating southern coastal batteries equipped with heavy guns. But the service here also bore a somewhat unusual character for sailors. So, most of the dark time of the day they were engaged in rowing on boats, pursuing southern spies and northern smugglers. During the day they slept off, and ... going out on deck, they were in danger of being shot by a southerner hiding in coastal thickets. In addition, there was a danger of being fired from the shore from the guns of the camouflaged southern batteries.
Well, such guns then stood on the forts and fired at ships that tried to attack these forts ...
Meanwhile, little by little, the war on the rivers of North America was gaining unprecedented scope. Moreover, it turned out that the northern states were able to prepare for this earlier than the southern ones. Already three days after the start of the war, the government of the northerners decided to create river combat fleets. And on August 7, engineer John Eads, a well-known specialist in river shipbuilding, signed a contract with the army, according to which he undertook to not only prepare a project in 65 days, but also build as many as seven armed river gunboats. And... he fulfilled all the terms of the contract, proving once again that personal initiative and money are everything, and no government agency can catch up with a private trader. Instructions to harvest wood and saw it into boards and beams, build steam engines and engage in armor rental were transmitted by telegraph, despite the fact that the prices for such transmissions at that time were very high.
Unionist river gunboat "Chillikota", 1862
As a result, after 45 days, the first US river battleship St. Louis was launched into the water, and soon all six others followed. The contract was completed ahead of schedule, but Eads did not calm down on this, but launched his "initiative" eighth battleship Benton. Thus, in just 100 days, he managed to create a whole river flotilla of armed ships with a total displacement of five thousand tons!
The absurdity of the design of all these first combat river vessels of the northerners is simply amazing!
They immediately joined the battle and captured Forts Henry, Donelson and Fort No. 10 on the Tennessee, Cumberland and Mississippi rivers. Fort Henry was located on the island, was well fortified and armed with 19 large-caliber guns. The attack was launched after a stormy night with heavy rain and a thunderstorm, so that the northern rivermen on the ships, in fact, could not get enough sleep. But the next day the sun came out and the attack began. The battleships, covered with metal armor, went first, followed by gunboats with oak timber armor. Having approached 600 meters, the battleships of the northerners opened fire on the fort, and then the gunboats began firing at the fort from their guns. The southerners responded, and quite successfully, but they were still defeated and surrendered, and the fort turned into ruins.
True, the northerners also got it. Although the armor of the ships as a whole withstood the impacts of the cannonballs quite well, one cannonball pierced the port side of the battleship Essex and broke the steam boiler. Twenty people were killed or scalded by steam. But in general, the northerners were convinced that in almost all other cases, the cores of the southerners bounced off their armor like peas. Wooden armor also held shells well. The kernels were pressed into the wood, but they did not pierce through it.
On this battleship, at least part of the armor is metal ...
Fort Donelson was armed with heavier guns, and its batteries were three tiers above the river. It turned out that the gunboat Karandolet, which approached him first, could shoot at him only from three bow guns, while 15 were fired at her from the fort! Having received damage, she was forced to retreat, but other ships took her place, some of which risked approaching the fort by only 100 meters. But, as it turned out, at this distance, the cores pierced the armor. On one of the gunboats, the cannonball blew off the heads of five sailors at once, and one of its guns was broken. Then two more battered gunboats left the battle, but the two remaining "armored boats", despite the damage, continued to fire. This time, in order to deal with this fort, it took more time - not one hour, but ... an hour and a half!
Moreover, the same “St. Louis”, although it received 59 (!) Shell hits, had only the wounded on board, and in total, after an hour and a half battle, there were 11 killed and 43 wounded on the flotilla.
By this time, the southerners also realized the importance of the river fleet and began to create it. But they lacked metal, elementary - bolts and nuts. Steam engines were removed from river steamers, ship captains were appointed by patronage and complete arbitrariness, and often they did not even know what duties certain members of his crew should perform.
The crew of the Choctaw gunboat, 1862-1865.
Meanwhile, the northerners blockaded Fort No. 10, located on the Mississippi River. The armed ships of the southerners came to the aid of the fort, but they were powerless against the battleships of the Unionists. They were driven away, after which the ships of the northerners and the army surrounded it both from land and from the side of the river, so there were practically no shots: the garrison of the fort did not doom itself to starvation and raised a white flag! But I must say, the northerners were seriously concerned about resisting the southerners in a boarding battle - boiling water was prepared, poured over them with hoses, asbestos gloves to hold them, and hand grenades that exploded on impact. True, in the end, they did not need all this weapons then.
This is how "Uncle Sam's pawed geese" entered the battle and showed the superiority of armor over the projectile! Interestingly, to armor their ships, the northerners used not only iron armor, but also all sorts of materials at hand. Quite funny, for example, looked like armor from ship chains, sailor berths, bags of coal, sand and flour, and bales of cotton were also used, and all this was already painted in a protective gray color.
By the way, the southerners understood that their ships could not compete with the battleships of the northerners, and relied on ram attacks. When, after the fall of Fort No. 10, the ships of the northerners moved to Fort Pillow upstream, the southerners attacked them on May 8, 1862.
Then eight rams, built in three columns, went on the attack at once. Black smoke billowed from the chimneys. The sun was shining in the sky, and all the banks of the river were dotted with smart people, hoping to see the battle up close. The most ingenious set up benches along the shore, or even brought them from home, and the seats on them went for one dollar or even more. Stagecoaches with ladies drove up, and gentlemen in top hats arrived on horseback. Immediately there was a trade in beer, pies, thirsty poured lemonade and, of course, whiskey. Many bet on very decent amounts. In general, for someone it was a mortal battle, but for someone it was a very profitable business and an exciting spectacle.
A Choctaw gunboat and a Northmen bomb schooner armed with a mortar! Magazine and newspaper graphics made from photographs
In the second half of 1861, Northern Fleet Commander David D. Porter proposed an original idea to the command: to use 330-mm mortars mounted on ships to bombard the Southern forts. And this is how this mortar looked on the deck of a bomb schooner!
Finally, the opponents converged. The southerners tried to ram the ships of the northerners, but when they failed, they boarded. However, he also failed - jets of boiling water drove them off the decks. The guns fired at close range, literally barrel to barrel, from embrasure to embrasure. The southerners' ships had an advantage in speed, but they did not have the heavy guns and thick armor of the northerners' gunboats. They managed to damage two Unionist gunboats out of seven, but they themselves lost half of their ships disabled, which lost their course and which carried downstream ... Therefore, the southerners interrupted the battle and retreated under the protection of Fort Pillow ...
To be continued ...
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