Ironclads - Lords of Mississippi
Model of the battleship "Choctau": the ship, of course, is completely phantasmagoric in appearance
They hung a body with a beard on the gallows,
He will pull his whole team behind him,
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
He will pull his whole team behind him,
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. Very soon, not a single military operation could do without battleships on the Mississippi. Even their special designations appeared for their types. So, battleships “covered with iron” were called “ironclads”, they were followed by “thin armadillos” with armor made of wooden beams, and finally the southerners widely used “armadillos” with cotton armor - “cottonclads”.
At the same time, the development of armored craft on the Mississippi brought a lot of new and interesting things to their very creation. So, it never even occurred to anyone before that a rifle bullet is easily tangled in cotton. And, by the way, this experience was subsequently used by the Volga sailors on the steamships KOMUCH, where the steamships Field Marshal Milyutin and Wulf were armored with a hopcomb. On them, in addition to turrets for machine guns made of iron pipes, a fence made of bales of Iranian cotton along the sides was arranged. Moreover, each such bale weighed ... 12 pounds, had a thickness of two feet and perfectly held even rifle bullets of the 1891 model.
Model of the battleship Choctaw. Plates of metal armor are clearly visible, apparently of sufficient thickness, if they protected this ship well from the artillery of the southerners
It is clear that in 1861 there were no such bullets at all, so, most likely, bales of smaller thickness could delay them. In any case, all these "battleships" on the Mississippi were used in different ways. So, "thin armadillos" carried out patrol service and prevented the transportation of contraband along the river. It is clear that for police operations this was “the very thing”, only this work was considered not prestigious, and not grateful, and too dangerous, because it was easier to run into an unexpected bullet from the coastal bushes.
But the "real" armadillos in this case had to be more afraid of shells than bullets.
Model of the battleship Choctaw. Even behind him there were guns, but they most likely did not play a special role ...
When the northerners began blockade Vicksburg in the spring of 1863, General Grant's ships already dominated the entire length of the Mississippi. Only Vicksburg remained, and on the night of April 22, his ships went on a breakthrough past the Confederate forts. The latter opened fire, but since all their guns were only smoothbore, they could not inflict damage on the battleships.
But then they were followed by transports towing barges with provisions and troops, and now they got it quite hard. Several transports of northerners were sunk.
However, in general, this risky operation was a success, and Vicksburg - the southerners called it "Gibraltar Mississippi", was then surrounded on all sides and already in July 1863 surrendered to the mercy of the winners. And then the war of attrition began, where the freedom of movement of goods, tight wallets and battalions of foreigners defeated the courage and dedication of the southerners who fought for the "good old traditions" and "the freedom of the beautiful Dixie."
Projections and sections of the Choctaw, as well as its booking scheme
By the way, it is important to note that after the fall of Vicksburg, food prices in the southern states rose six times, and many areas had to switch from the production of export goods - cotton and tobacco to the cultivation of wheat, which most deplorably affected the gold and foreign exchange income of the Confederation.
Battleship Lafayette - Sistership Choctaw
Now only the fortifications of the southerners at the mouth of the river near New Orleans blocked the Union ships from entering the Mississippi from the south. To eliminate this last stronghold of the rebels on the great river, the northerners assembled a squadron under the command of David Glasgow Farragut from four steam wooden frigates (106 guns), three sloops (26 guns), nine gunboats (18 guns) and twenty mortar schooners.
All upper rigging was removed from the ships, and the sides and decks were reinforced with chains and sandbags. It was not a very good defense, so the northerners made the main bet on surprise. So suddenly they approached the two forts of the southerners, which closed the approach to New Orleans - Fort St. Philip and Fort Jackson, and opened fire on them. These forts had only 28 cannons, and two large battleships of the southerners were still under construction. True, one of them - "Louisiana" was already at the outfitting pier, but he could not move independently. Several armed steamships and one rammed battleship Manassas, which was a port tug before the war, were all the "river forces" that the Confederates had in this place.
"Choctaw" - a photograph of the time
On April 24, 1862, having fired 16 shells at the forts of the southerners, Farragut's squadron began a breakthrough between the forts of the southerners on both sides of the river. The same "Manassas" immediately went on the attack and rammed the ships of the northerners several times, but ... He never managed to break through the side of any of them.
As a result, he washed ashore, where he was burned by his own crew. His mass was too small, and his speed was also low, so he didn’t succeed in ramming!
The battleships of the northerners are shelling the coastal fortifications of the southerners. Linocut of those years
The unfinished battleship "Louisiana" also opened fire on Farragut's ships and, although his armor protected him well from enemy shells, he could not conduct an active battle. This is how the northerners broke through upstream the Mississippi, cutting off the garrisons of coastal forts from supplies.
On April 25, the northerners captured New Orleans, which was the largest city and industrial center in the south of the Confederacy. As a result, the unfinished battleships were burned by the southerners themselves, and they could no longer create new large ships of this class, capable of measuring their strength with the ships of the northerners. After this defeat, France decided not to intervene on the side of the South, and Great Britain did not dare to act alone.
Northern River Monitor
Well, now we will talk a little about one very unusual Union ship - the battleship Choctaw.
To begin with, it was the first US Navy ship named after an Indian tribe. And they named it after the Choctaw tribe because they lived in the states of Alabama and Mississippi. At first it was a typical cargo-passenger steamer of large tonnage, it was laid down in New Albany, Indiana, and launched in 1856. Like most "Mississippi" steamers, he made trips up and down the river, and no one at that time even thought that very soon he would have a chance to "sniff gunpowder."
Another river monitor of northerners. Obviously, this is a huge ship, the construction of which is simply unthinkable without a developed industry ...
On September 27, 1862, it was purchased by the United States Army. An underwater ram made of iron was attached to the hull of the ship, and the hull itself was also upholstered with armor plates and boiler iron, after which it was assigned to the base of the naval fleet northern states in St. Louis, Missouri.
On March 23, 1863, Lieutenant Francis M. Ramsay was appointed captain of the Choctaw. After the conversion, this ship looked a little strange, but there was nothing to be done: because it is better to command such a ship than to knead the dirt in the infantry or cavalry.
The crew of the ship consisted of 106 people. As for the armament, it was quite strong: one 100-pound gun and 5 Parrot rifled guns of a smaller caliber. It was intended to use the Choctaw both as a gunboat and also as a ramming vessel, if he was lucky enough to meet with the ships of the southerners on the rivers of the Confederation.
The service of the ship from April 23, 1863 until the end of the war took place on the Mississippi River and its tributaries. From April 29 to May 1, 1863, he was on the Yazoo River, where he bombarded Haynes Bluffwater during the Battle of the Northerners with the Confederates at Grand Gulf. It is interesting that in this battle the battleship was subjected to severe fire from the southerners, and they managed to achieve 53 hits on it. They achieved them, but only his armor was not pierced anywhere, so there were no dead or wounded on board the Choctaw after this battle.
Remaining on the Yazoo River from May 18 to 23, the Choctaw took part in the destruction of the military dock and several ships of the southerners that were under construction on the stocks of Yazoo City.
Confederate Battleship Atlanta. The photo was taken after the capture of the ship by northerners
Then, on June 6, the battleship participated in the Battle of the Millikan Bend to repel attacks by Confederate ramming ships, where her team distinguished themselves by rescuing a large number of Confederates from the water who were escaping by swimming, and then sent them all into captivity. From March 7 to May 15, 1864, the Choctaw again participates in the battles to capture Fort DeRussy in Louisiana. But this was, most likely, his last "decisive battle."
Well, on July 20, 1865, he arrived in the city of Algiers, in the same Louisiana, where he was decommissioned from the fleet exactly two days later. Well, on March 28, 1866, it was sold for scrap in New Orleans. No one wanted to bother with its restructuring into a cargo-passenger steamer, but a good idea to turn it into a profitable museum ship at that time was not even born in the minds of people.
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