These boats were lightly armored, had a crew of about 70 men, carried six to eight light cannons and could go just about anywhere because they had a draft of 30 inches of water.īy the end of 1862, the Union put 17 tinclads into action and fitted out 74 by the time Robert E. Union commanders realized that their ironclads clustered their men into a few boats, so they improvised and created a fleet of tinclads, also known as “mosquitoes.” (Acting Assistant Surgeon George Holmes Bixby, MD, Chief Medical Officer, steamer Red Rover, now in the collections of U.S. Note the decorative star suspended between its smokestacks. The gunboat Cricket (1863-1865, "Tinclad" # 6), tied up at a Western Rivers city, during the last years of the Civil War, with a barge astern and a boat alongside. Bits and pieces of information are littered throughout the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies, materials in the National Archives, collections of sailors’ letters and diaries, and post-war accounts. The evidence for this unconventional war is hidden in the shadows of the archives. In the process, the Union navy waged a nasty war against southerners who supported the insurgents. It protected Union transports and supply boats from Confederate ambushes. Naval History and Heritage Command)Īs a Civil War historian who has been researching the Union’s river navy for seven years, I have learned that the fleet was important in ways beyond its attacks on southern forts. Mortar boats are firing from along the river bank. Ships seen include (from left to right): Mound City, Louisville, Pittsburg, Carondelet, Flagship Benton, Cincinnati, Saint Louis and Conestoga.
It depicts the bombardment of the Confederate fortifications on Island Number Ten by Federal gunboats and mortar boats. "Bombardment and Capture of Island Number Ten on the Mississippi River, April 7, 1862," a Currier & Ives lithograph, circa 1862.
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