What Happened to 'em Part IV.Mobile Bay...CSS Tennessee And Her Support Squadron.

What Happened To 'Em Part IV

Tennessee and her support squadron

Gaines, Morgan and Selma

When I started researching The Battle of Mobile Bay I decided early on to do another series of 'What Happened To 'Em' posts. After all there were 22 ships directly involved in the battle, so it stands to reason that at least a couple of them had interesting careers after the battle and the war.


I was right..a couple of them even deserve their own posts, but we'll get to those in a bit. I'll take care of the ones we can knock out in groups first. And, being a Southern boy, born and bred, I'll start with the Confederate Navy ships. Ok, it's also easier, as there were only four Confederate Navy ships versus eighteen Union Navy ships involved in the battle. (Does seem a bit one-sided don't it?)


Before I get to CSS Tennessee I'll start with her support squadron. Like the CSS Virginia, Tennessee had a trio of gunboats that acted as her tenders and support squadron. Of course, Virginia is far better known that Tennessee, and her support squadron was more involved in all facets of the Naval war (On both sides at that), so they are, arguably, better known than the three gunboats that backed up Tennessee in Mobile Bay. This, of course, doesn't diminish the roles that CSS Gaines, CSS Morgan and CSS Selma played in the battle by any means. All three gave the Union Navy hell during the battle, and CSS Selma was a thorn in the Union Navy's side well before The Battle of Mobile Bay. So lets take a quick look at all three of 'em

'The Twin Gunboats'

I'm going to take on Gaines and Morgan first. The two gunboats were built at about the same time and were virtually identical. Only one of them survived the war.

CSS Gaines and CSS Morgan were built and commissioned in 1861 and named for the two forts guarding the entrance to Mobile Bay. Both were side wheelers, designed and built in Mobile specifically as gunboats  and shared almost identical dimensions...202 feet long with a 38 foot beam, and displacement of 863 tons. The only three differences between the two were their boilers...Morgan had low pressure boilers installed, while her sister ship 's boilers were high pressure boilers; their draft...Gaines drew six feet, while Morgan drew seven feet two inches; and their armament...Morgan mounted ten guns while Gaines mounted six.

They were built quickly to give the Confederate naval forces some agile floating fire-power to escort blockade runners in and out of the bay and to provide some back up for CSS Tennessee. They were built so quickly, in fact, that unseasoned wood was used in their construction which very likely created some problems with hull integrity and leaks,...but these issues were apparently more of a nuisance than a problem because they're barely mentioned at all in any descriptions of the gunboats.


Armor had become a popular concept by the time they were built, and both gunboats' hulls were partially armored with 2 inch iron plates in the area of their boilers and engine rooms. Both proved themselves capable gunboats, and both lobbed broadside after broadside at the Union Fleet entering Mobile Bay, doling out some pretty telling punishment to both Hartford and Brooklyn while they were at it.

Of course, what happened to the near-twin gunboats during and after  the battle was definitely not identical.

CSS Gaines 

CSS Gaines. CSS organ was almost identical. Sadly no pics...of any kind...exist of Morgan.

 

Lets take a look at Gaines, first. Quick recap of an important tactic Admiral James Farragut used to get his ships into the bay...he lashed a smaller gunboat to the port side of each of his wooden warships both to protect the smaller ship, and probably more importantly, to pull the larger ship out of danger if her engines and boilers were disabled. (This became a Very Good Thing for USS Onieda when she took a shell through one of her boilers). As soon as the wooden warships cleared Fort Morgan, they cut the smaller gunboats on their port sides loose and let them hunt for targets of opportunity...AKA the Confederate gunboats. Gaines found herself in a running battle with several of them (History doesn't record exactly which Union gunboats went after her, so I’m assuming several of them got in on the fight). Gaines was hit seventeen times times, and was taking on water as if her hull was actually a sieve. On top of that her steering ropes were cut by at least one of the hits.

Her captain managed somehow to out run the Union Gunboats and (Probably with crew members on the severed end of the steering ropes and moving the rudder by brute force) get over to the north side of Fort Morgan Point, where he ran her aground under the protection of the fort's guns.  Her crew salvaged as much of her ordinance, small arms, and their own personal belongings as they could stuff in Gaines' boats when they abandoned her, then to prevent her capture, they set her on fire to ensure that the Union Navy had nothing left to seize but some charred timbers and fire-seared metal. While two of her crew were killed in the action with the Union ships, no one was killed or injured when she was grounded and abandoned, and they managed to ultimately make their way to Mobile, thirty miles away. So Gaines really doesn't have an 'After the battle' history...except as a wreck.

Yep, what's left of Gaines is still sitting where she burned, about 500 feet off of Fort Morgan beneath six or so feet of water and several feet of bottom mud...she was found by Clive Cussler's NUMA team in 1989 during their survey of Mobile Bay's civil war shipwrecks. With the exception of some coal sitting on the bottom, all of her boilers, engines, and whatever remains of her hull is buried by the bay's bottom mud, waiting to be excavated.

CSS Morgan

During the early stages of the battle, CSS Morgan stood off a couple of hundred yards to starboard of Farragut's wooden warships and lobbed broadside after broadside at them, scoring a number of punishing hits and becoming one of the pet projects of USS Metacomet and her crew after Metacomet cast off from USS Hartford's port side.


Morgan and Metacomet were pretty well matched in size, performance, and armament, and equally well matched in the abilities of their respective crews...but Morgan still managed to hold off the Union gunboat, and in fact run her off, before retiring under the protection of her namesake fort's guns on the north side of Fort Morgan Point. Before reaching protected waters, however, she was grounded in shallow water not far from where her sister ship either was abandoned and burning brightly, or was soon to be abandoned, depending on the order of events here. If it was the former, it added a bit of motivation as her captain, George W Harrison, called for all astern full, and her paddle wheels beat the surface of the bay into a froth as they backed her off the bar.. I'm going to assume that she was with-in range of the fort's guns and under their protection when she grounded, otherwise the Union gun boats would have had turned her into kindling and scrap metal in short order.


As the battle raged, the Union supply ship USS Phillippi's captain apparently decided that she was a warship, and, earned himself a court marshal and Dishonorable Discharge when, against explicit orders, he followed the line of wooden warships into the bay. Fort Morgan's gunners quickly found her range and pounded her, putting her boilers out of commission and causing her crew to abandon her. After CSS Morgan got off of the sandbar, one of her boats was dispatched to finish Phillippi off. They had to row a small boat across a couple of miles of bay to accomplish this, BTW...Phillippi's wreck is actually a bit closer to Fort Gaines than to Fort Morgan. The crew from CSS Morgan salvaged what they could from her before setting her on fire and letting her sink. Phillippi's wreck, is supposedly sitting upright and mostly uncovered on the bottom of the mouth of Mobile Bay.


As it became obvious that the Union navy was winning a very one sided battle, Harrison discussed scuttling Morgan to prevent her capture, but his second in command, Lt Thomas Harrison...no relation to the good Captain...talked him out of it. Instead they waited for nightfall and eased out from behind the peninsula under cover of darkness, their way lit only by stars and the moonlight. The moonlight's probably what almost sealed their fate as they were spotted trying to skirt the anchored Union fleet. The fact that they had been spotted was announced, most likely, by the echoing 'BOOOM!!' of a big naval cannon and a large geyser erupting fairly close aboard, then by a couple of Union gunboats a few hundred yards away making for her with smoke boiling from their funnels and bones in their teeth.


If Morgan wasn't already making full speed, Captain Harrison definitely rang for it then, and probably told the engine room crew to tie down the boilers' safety valves while they were at it...and so began one of the epic, and largely unknown battles of The Civil War. The Morgan engaged the gunboats in a full speed running gun battle under starlit skies, a battle that was made for a movie if there's ever been one. Picture it...Side wheels pounding the bay into froth as the Morgan's stern gun, and the Union gunboats' bow guns spit fire into the night, their 'BOOM!!'s echoing across the bay as the shells kicked geysers skyward. The gun crews would have been sweating in the legendary humidity of the Deep South in August, hustling to run the guns in for loading, swab the barrel between shots, then ram powder bags and shells home before straining to run them back out, the gun captains getting their range and elevation, barking orders as the crew strained to swing the big gun on it's pivot track to follow their foe, and finally, the barked order 'FIRE!!'

Morgan was rated at 10 knots and it wouldn't surprise me at all if her engine room crew didn't manage to squeeze an extra knot or so out of the spunky craft. She made it too, ultimately making it to the protection of the shore batteries ringing Mobile, much to the frustration of the crews of the Union gunboats, whose identities have been lost to history.

Morgan hung around Mobile for the rest of the war, and was heavily damaged in the Battles of Blakely Island and Spanish Fort...arguably considered the last battle of The Civil War.

Though heavily damaged she still survived, and was surrendered to the Union Navy on May 4^th, 1865. She was laid up until December of that same year, when she was sold to a private owner. Few if any records exist concerning her after the sale...even whether she was converted for commercial use or scrapped after she was sold. Sad, really, that such a scrappy little vessel ended up fading into oblivion.

CSS Selma

CSS Selma had, by far, the most interesting career of any of the three Confederate gunboats that backed up CSS Tennessee. In short she was a serious thorn in the Union Navy's side from just about the minute she was taken over by the Confederate Navy.


Selma was the only one of the three that wasn’t built specifically as a gunboat, and she also wasn’t originally named Selma…she was built for the Mobile Mail Line in 1856 as a passenger and mail steamer, and was launched and christened as the Florida, which was also the name she originally carried as a Confederate gunboat after being taken over by the Confederate Navy on April 22nd, 1861.


As a mail steamer she ran to New Orleans, and this is both where she was turned over to the CSN, and where she was modified to the point of being unrecognizable. Basically the Confederate shipwrights turned her into an 1860s version of a stealth watercraft. The first thing they did was remove all of her upper works and replace them with a small, efficient deck-house amidships, between the wheelhouses. They also strengthened her hull by installing hog frames…a pair of heavy exposed trapezoidal frames on either side of the deck that extended from just forward of the deck house to just aft of that same structure. They were as tall as the wheelhouses housing the paddle wheels, built from heavy timber, and designed to keep the hull from ‘Hogging’, which is the term to describe the keel bending upward in the middle due to loads near the bow and stern (Like, maybe, heavy naval cannon)

CSS Selma  The trapezoid-shaped frames amidships on moth sides were 'Hog Frames', installed to reinforce the hull in order to prevent it from 'hogging'...the keel bending upward in the middle due to loads near the bow and stern. The loads they were concerned about were her guns. The final touch was painting her flat black to make her difficult to spot at night. Though she started life as a Confederate gunboat, she ended the was as a U.S.Navy ship after being capturred during the Battle of Mobile Bay.

An overhead view of a paper model of Selma, looking at her from the stern, showing how her guns were mounted. From the looks of things, her Hog Frames would have really restricted the arc of fire of her Nos 2 and 3 guns. Either her bow or stern gun was a 6.4 inch Brooke rifled cannon...extremely accurate and longer range than smoothbores, it definitely gave Union Navy officers who engaged her something to think about.

Port bow view of the same model, showing the Hog Frames to good advantage. Enclosed pilot houses were becoming standard on steamships by the time she was converted..

After her conversion to a gunboat, she retained her 252 foot length and 30 foot beam, but she only displaced 590 tons and drew 6 feet of water. Her deck was partially armored with 3/8 inch iron plate, protecting her boilers and engines, and a quartet of big guns…a pair of 9 inch smoothbores, a single 8 inch smoothbore, and a single 6.4 inch rifled cannon…were mounted on semicircular pivot tracks, two forward and two aft of the deck house Finally, they painted her a dull flat black,,, as black, one newspaper reported, as ‘The inside of her smokestack’ to make her hard to spot at night.


She was sent to Mobile Bay as CSS Florida and put to work escorting transports, supply ships, and blockade runners and doing it well enough to cause a flurry of official dispatches and messages to fly back and forth between the naval forces blockading Mobile Bay, and Naval Headquarters in Washington, and to cause a U.S Navy captain to lose his command, basically for saving his ship.


The first time that Florida’s crew drew attention to themselves was when, after escorting a merchant ship out of the bay, they managed to snag the main telegraph line with their anchor (No note was made of just why they dropped anchor) and then managed to ground themselves for a day and a half in full view. Thankfully, no Union ships happened along during that period, because she was just about the Webster’s definition of ‘Sitting Duck’.


Not too long after that little near-fiasco, they redeemed themselves by putting a 6.5  inch shell almost clean through USS Massachusetts.They sortied into Mississippi Sound, which runs between the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama and a line of barrier islands, and near the western end of the sound they encountered a nice fat target, though not the target they thought they’d found. Apparently Florida’s crew actually thought they were attacking another Union ship…the USS R. R. Cuyle,  a slightly larger and slightly faster ship than the Massachusetts, which was comparable in both size and armament (other than Massachusetts not having any rifled cannon) to Selma, but was screw propelled rather than being a sidewheeler. They engaged her, and Massachusetts’s gunners immediately answered back. Her engine room crew also answered bells, and the next thing Florida’s crew knew, water was beginning to curl at Massachusett’s bow as she got under way and came after them.   Florida made a run for Ship Island…one of the barrier islands …all the while engaging in a spirited running naval battle with her pursuer. It was during this running battle that Selma’s 6.4 inch rifle put a rifled shell into Massachusetts just aft of the engine and about five feet above the water line.  The shell took out a row of steam lines, cleared the officer’s ward room of furniture, and finally exploded in ‘Officer’s Country’, setting fire to several of the officers’ staterooms. While Massachusetts’ crew was taking care of firefighting, Florida slipped into shoal water near Ship Island, out of range of Massachusetts’ guns, and in water too shallow for her to follow. (And, apparently, out of sight of the Union fortifications on the island)


 This was also one of the first real demonstrations of the superiority of rifled naval cannon over smoothbores. Rifled cannon are both more accurate and longer range than smoothbores, therefore even though Massachusetts had bigger guns, Florida’s 6.4 inch Brooke rifle had longer range, allowing the Confederate gunboat to stand out of range of Massachusetts’ guns while lobbing accurate shots her way. This caused enough concern that an official message specifically addressing this issue was passed along to the flag officer in command of the Gulf Blockading Squadron.  Keep in mind that only one of Florida/Selma’s four guns was rifled…the other three were big smoothbores. Had she had four 6.4 inch rifles, she would have been an even more formidable opponent.

A 6.4 inch Brooke rifle of the type that allowed Selma to be such a pain in the Union Navy's side. This particular Brooke Rifle's at Tredegar Ironworks in Richmond, where it was cast in 1862.

This wouldn’t be the only time Florida’s rifled pivot gun created havoc, consternation, and mayhem.  She was escorting a Confederate transport out of Mississippi Sound…navigating Horn Island Pass, to be specific…when the crew of the Union steam screw gunboat USS Montgomery  decided to add a nice fat transport to her talley, and opened fire, only to find Florida charging after her with all guns firing. Montgomery had a big eight inch (Some sources say 10 inch) smoothbore, but she was a knot slower then Florida flat out, giving the Confederate gunboat all of the options they needed. They could either close with USS Montgomery at will, and circle her, out of range of her guns, while pumping rifled shells into her, or just pull away from her and use their superior speed to stand out of range of Montgomery’s smoothbores and lob rifled shell after rifled shell at her. Seeing that he was in a desperate fix, and that no help was with-in got-your-back distance, Montgomery’s captain had his helmsman aim her bow for Ship Island, rang for all ahead full, and ran under the cover of the Union gun batteries on Ship Island.

His superiors were not impressed…they relieved him of command despite the fact that in all probability he saved the USS Montgomery’s bacon.

CSS Florida carried that name until July 1862, when the Commerce raider  CSS Florida  was commissioned. The original CSS Florida was renamed CSS Selma after the Alabama city where CSS Tennessee was built.

She carried on, performing the same tasks as before, and the only incident of note before The Battle of Mobile Bay occurred on Feb 5, 1863 when she hit a snag (Partially submerged fallen tree) as she crossed the Dog River Bar, near Mobile, and promptly sank in about 8 feet of water. She had 100 extra men aboard as she was heading out to try and capture one of the ships in the blockade fleet (Exactly which one has been long lost to history), so she also had enough men to start salvage operations. Her hull was patched, and she was pumped out (I’m assuming using steam pumps on a salvage barge as her machinery was flooded) and she was towed to Mobile where permanent repairs were made to her hull. They were hustling…she was back in service by February 13^th.

She also had some problems with members of her crew deserting (As did Gaines and Morgan) during the early part of the next year, with her crew falling to 15 men in February of that year…definitely not enough to run and fight the ship. Apparently this problem…an ongoing problem for both sides, especially later in the war…was rectified by the Battle of Mobile Bay, at least to the point where she had an effective crew.
During the opening stages of The Battle Of Mobile Bay, Selma, along with CSS Morgan, gave Admiral Farragut particular hell as they entered the bay as they stood off to starboard of the Union ships and greeted them with a steady, withering raking fire. As soon as the Union Navy gunboats could cut loose from the larger ships port sides, Admiral Farragut ordered USS Metacomet’s captain to give Morgan and Selma special attention.  Morgan’s Uber- scrappy crew managed to chase Metacomet off, and escape under the protection of Fort Morgan’s guns, so Metacomet then went after Selma. Selma’s crew had a good bit of scrappiness and fight in ‘em as well, but they were, for once, at a disadvantage. Metacomet out gunned her 10 guns to 4, and was almost three knots faster than she was; Also, even if Selma could have out run her, Metacomet didn’t draw but 2 1/2 feet more than she did, so getting to shoal water wouldn’t have been that much of an advantage…she probably couldn’t have gotten out of range of Metacomet’s guns.

The two gunboats engaged in a running gun battle, Metacomet chasing Selma as Selma’s C.O, Lt Murphy, racked his brain trying to think of a way to get beneath Fort Morgan’s guns…Selma was apparently further from Fort Morgan than Morgan had been, and  Metacomet kept managing to cut her off as she came around and tried to make for the protection of the fort.  He probably tried to think of a bar that was long enough and shallow enough to keep Metacomet  from following them, but without any success…the only place that might be remotely possible was the mouth of the Dog River, thirty miles away, near Mobile. Metacomet would simply overtake her…

After an hour of twisting, turning, and cutting curved lines of white wake through the surface of the bay, Lt Murphy rang for all stop and ran up a white flag, striking his colors as he did so.  Metacomet came along side, and her Captain James Jouette boarded her to claim her.  Selma’s crew didn’t get out of this one unscathed. She lost 7 of her crew, with 8 wounded. Lt Murphy was among the wounded, taking a shell fragment in the arm.

In this contemporary woodcut, CSS Selma surrenders to the USS Metacomet.  From Sonofthesouth.net.

Admiral Farragut wasted no time what so ever changing the ‘C’ to a ‘U’…as in USS Selma. She was recommissioned as a Union Navy gunboat the evening after the battle, with Lt Arthur R Yates tapped as her Commanding Officer. They wasted no time what so ever putting her to work. Five days later she was lobbing shells at Fort Morgan along with the rest of Admiral Farragut’s fleet, (including the also captured now USS Tennessee) and on August 16^th, the now USS Selma was sent up the Dog River on a recon patrol.

She hung around Mobile Bay until January 1865, when she was transferred to New Orleans, where she finished out the war performing routine patrols and assisting the Gulf Blockading Squadron. She was decommissioned on July 16^th 1865, and sold that same day to a dude by the name of G.A.Hall, who wasted no time in converting her to commercial service. (I’m thinking she was probably converted to a coastal freighter). She was registered as a commercial vessel two months almost to the day after she was sold and served in that capacity until June 24^th, 1868, when she clashed with a storm and lost, foundering just off of the mouth of the Brazos river, near Galveston Texas. Her wreck’s still on the bottom of The Gulf, of course, largely unexplored and possibly undiscovered from what I’ve been able to find. Probably not much left of her hull, but her engines and boilers should still be there, as well as lots of artifacts from a century and a half back. And it would be interesting to see if anything remains of the massive hog frames that gave Selma her distinctive profile.

CSS Tennessee

Overhead and profile views of the Ironclad known on both sides as 'The Beast Of Mobile Bay'. CSS Tennessee.

Now we get to the flagship of Admiral Buchanan’s Mobile Bay defense squadron, arguably the most powerful Ironclad that the CSA had afloat (Though nowhere near as powerful as Union Navy Admiral David Farragut thought she was), the CSS Tennessee. First, though, a quick Hit and Run style overview of both the Confederate economy, and Confederate Navy shipbuilding doctrine’s in order.  (I know, I know…Rob’s gonna act like he’s smart again!, lol).

 The Confederate Navy never had a single major wooden capital ship…you know the big ‘Wooden Walls’ bristling with two or more decks of broadside guns that had been the ‘heavy’ of navies worldwide for a couple of centuries. Not a one…they didn’t have the yard capacity to build such vessels. So they developed new technology, in the form of The Ironclad Ram, the legendary and oft misnamed CSS Virginia being the first one built to the same basic design that the Confederate Navy’d use throughout the war.  Now Ironclad warships were not brand new tech…European navies had been experimenting with them for over a decade, and they weren’t unknown on this side of the pond, either. In fact, both sides had ironclads in service well before the iconic Virginia and Monitor were even conceived of. The Civil War just created motivation for both sides pick up the Ironclad Ball, and really run with it. Both the Union Navy and the CSN ramped up ironclad development, and came up with some extremely good designs at that. The heavy industry north of the Mason-Dixon line gave the Union Navy the advantage from the git-go, allowing them to also develop rotating gun turrets, highly efficient steam power-plants and sophisticated and efficient steam powered auxiliary equipment.

 The Confederacy, however, was a largely agricultural economy with very little heavy industry, and very few major shipyards. There was only one large foundry capable of producing cannon and armor plate in significant quantities (Tredegar, right here in Richmond). The Confederate Naval Brass decided early on to concentrate on two distinct types of warship.

 First, light, fast, and well armed blockade runners, and commerce raiders that were utilized, respectively, to blockade-bust in order to get Confederate products out and needed supplies in to blockaded Confederate seaports and to go after Union merchant ships, sinking them to both interrupt the US forces supply chain, and to damage their ability to engage in profitable commerce needed to finance the war. Many of these nimble, quick vessels were either converted from already extant vessels, or bought from overseas shipbuilders, usually British.

 The second type of warship was the heavily armed and armored casement type ironclad ram. The ironclads were utilized by the CSA to defend their ports, harass the blockading fleets, and keep the rivers free of Union ships as well as defending major cities (Richmond) situated (Richmond) on rivers (Did I mention Richmond?). All of these were built right here in good ‘ol’ Dixie. All of them were basically good, solid designs...but all of them suffered from the same set of problems. Shortage of materials and ordinance, piss-poor engines, and lack of shipbuilding facilities were the big three.

The lack of shipyards and lack of heavy industry dogged the Confederate Navy throughout the war. They had an idea of the number and types of ironclads that they wanted to put in service, but they had to face the reality of what they could actually do. This post isn’t the place to go into a really detailed analysis of how, where, and when the Confederate Ironclad Fleet was put in the water, but it’s important to note that almost all of the Confederate Navy’s ironclads were built at near-makeshift shipyards that were hastily built on rivers well inland and as far from the threat of Union capture or attack as possible. One of those shipyards was built near the city of Selma, Alabama, about 150 river-miles north of Mobile on the Alabama River. That shipyard was built almost exclusively to build a trio of ironclads for Admiral Buchanan to use in defense of Mobile Bay and the City of Mobile, though several smaller craft such as gunboats were also built there. Only one of them would be of any real use. That one, of course, would be CSS Tennessee

Now I covered Tennessee’s role in The Battle of Mobile Bay here ( http://bet-you-didnt-know.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-battle-of-mobile-bay-and-admiral.html )  in my last post, and her career after the battle, though it’ll get covered here, wasn’t all that memorable. As for her building and fitting out…as they say, getting there’s half the fun. 

She was to be a modified Columbia class Ironclad ram with a length of 209 feet and 48 foot beam, drawing 14 feet of water and displacing just shy of 2300 tons. She'd have two engines geared to s single propeller shaft (More on those beasts a bit further down) and I have a feeling that her rated (Make that hoped for) top speed was a bit higher than the speed she actually achieved. With her throttle wide open she was good for about six knots, or just a bit faster than average walking speed.

Tennessee’s keel was laid in October 1862, and she was launched four months later on February 16^th, 1863, but she wouldn’t be commissioned for another year. She faced all manner of obstacles to her completion, and none of them were thrown up by the Union navy or Army. All were the products of lack of materials, or manpower, or an overabundance of bureaucracy. Keep readin' and you'll see what I mean.

A major item that the Confederacy's lack of industrial muscle affected was the propulsion machinery needed to power their ships. I don’t believe a single Confederate ironclad was equipped with brand new engines built specifically for her. Not only were most if not all of their boilers and engines cannibalized from other ships, the engines were always too small and/or cantankerous for the Ironclads they were installed in. On top of that, all were well along in years when acquired. Tennessee’s engines were no exception.

 They'd acquired engines for Tennessee by removing them from the Riverboat Alonzo Childs, which had been built in 1857 and had been either seized or purchased by the Confederate Navy, apparently for those very engines.  The Alonzo Childs and her excised engines were in Yazoo City, Mississippi, on the Yazoo River and about 15 miles closer to Mobile that they were to Selma. Admiral Buchanan (Who was still limping from injuries he received while aboard CSS Virginia) was chomping at the bits to get Tennessee finished and commissioned...he ordered that both the engines and the ironclad be brought to Mobile.

Of course, before she could be towed to Mobile so her engines could be installed, she had to be launched…and when she was launched on Feb 16^th it became a pretty interesting little exercise in near disaster. Southern Alabama had apparently gotten some serious rain during February of 1863, causing the river to run high and fast. As Tennessee's hull slipped down the ways into the river, this high, fast water got hold of her and, before her line handlers and the tug crew that I’m assuming was along side could get her secured, drove her bow through the wall of a waterfront warehouse, causing some damage to Tennessee, and destroying the warehouse. I couldn't find any info on just how much damage Tennessee's hull suffered, but I have a feeling it needed a little more than 'buffing out'. None of her armor had been installed, and her lower hull wasn't going to be armored anyway. I have a sneaking suspicion that slamming a wooden hull through a brick wall didn't do it any good, and that at the very least some rebuilding of her bow was probably required. It was noted by CSN Lt. Jameds Johnston that this was her 'one and only experience as a ram'.

Her engines were transported to Mobile by rail…getting them to Mobile wasn’t the problem. Tennessee, on the other hand,was presently engineless…getting her to Mobile after she was repaired would require some logistics.  So they commandeered the Riverboat Southern Republic, made a towline fast to Tennessee’s bows (As well as those of the CSS Huntsville, one of the other ironclads built in Selma) and headed south for Mobile.

Now remember this was 1863. None of the modern navigational aids that river pilots take for granted today had even been thought of yet…heck the technology required for them to be developed hadn’t even been thought of yet…so navigating on any of the nation’s major navigable rivers was a daytime only proposition. This of course meant that when the sun started down they nosed in to the bank and tied up to a convenient large tree. They did this, in fact, every night for the entire week that the trip took them. (Today, a trip of the same length…about 150 miles…pushing a string of barges at about 5-6 miles per hour would take about a day and a half thanks to all the technology that's been developed over the last century and a half or so. The speeds haven’t changed all that much, just the technology.).

Of course there was an advantage to these nightly stops, that advantage being publicity. Every night, the Southern Republic’s calliope would send the notes of Dixie through the countryside, and crowds would gather to cheer for The South’s newest warships, built right there in Alabama.

When they finally made it to Mobile, they still weren’t even close to out of the woods. Remember the 'Overabundance of Bureaucracy? The Confederate government was uphill-molasses slow releasing skilled craftsmen from the army to work on…well anything. They didn't want to release members of an infantry company without a replacement,which meant that the crews working on engine installation and fitting out (Including the installation of much of her armor) were less than stellar. After all, these workers were guys who had not made the cut to serve in any of the armed forces of the CSA, which in and of itself says multitudes.

As if the less-than-stellar workforce wasn't bad enough, the first armor received for her (Even though it actually got there when it was supposed to) was the wrong armor, so it had to be stripped off, and the correct armor waited for, then installed, by uninspired workers who took every excuse to ‘Take a Break’  Admiral Buchanan put a stop to the last problem by having all of the yard workers conscripted into the Navy and put under his command. Which meant he could order harsh punishment to be meted out to anyone who didn’t obey his orders. Me thinks he probably didn’t have to do that but maybe once or twice.

SO finally they had a workforce that was...grudgingly...doing what they were supposed to be doing, her engines were installed, the correct armor was installed, various auxiliary and ancillary equipment was installed. There was still something missing. Oh...yeah...guns. Kinda important on a warship, they are they are...

One of the reasons that Selma was picked as the location for a shipyard was because of the gun foundry that was being built there as well. Only problem was it never did meet expectations as to production levels because of the lack of both raw materials, and damage to the railroads that were used to transport them. At best they were able to forge about one gun a day, and that was during a good week. As to why they didn't install her guns in Selma, that's a decision whose inspiration's lost to history...but a lot of people have a theory on it. Admiral Buchanan was desperate to get at least one ironclad in service on the waters of Mobile Bay before the inevitable northern push into the bay, though an unfinished vessel with no guns is just a useless in Mobile as it is in Selma, and maybe more so as it's more likely to be damaged or destroyed in the attack to come. But at any rate, she was towed to Mobile to be finished, and her guns had to follow along behind her...a good bit behind her actually. And only two of them came from the foundry in Selma. The two seven inch Brooke rifles were made in Selma and shipped to Mobile, but the other four...the 6.4 inchers...were very likely removed from a couple of the floating batteries ringing Mobile. But where ever they came from, she finally had guns.

She was finally finished, flaws and all, and ready for battle, except for one minor problem...OK, major problem. And it was called The Dog River Bar. The Dog River is a short and very shallow river that empties into Mobile Bay about 8 miles south of the 1863 city limits of Mobile (It's all but entirely within the City of Mobile today). If you look at the river on a map, it looks a bit more like a scorpion than a dog, and today it's a mecca for recreational boaters, with a several big marina's on it, but in 1863 it was home to the marine construction facilities where the CSS Tennessee was undergoing her extended fitting out. 

The Dog River today...the Dog River Bar is just about under the bridge that carried the Dauphin Island Pkwy across the mouth of the river. The present day Port of Mobile is well to the north...outr of the frame...along the Mobile River. And I told ya it looks more like a scorpion than a dog!

 

Now, today, Mobile is one of the busiest seaports in The US, handling dozens of ocean going bulk freighters weekly, and the Port of Mobile's located on the Mobile River, hard by The City of Mobile, enjoying deep water and lots of room to get a big ocean going vessel turned around and docked. The Mobile River was probably shallower back then (Its kept dredged today) but it would have still been a far better location than the Dog River for these same shipbuilding facilities for a variety of reasons, but the biggest reason was the infamous Dog River Bar. This was a sandbar that stretched all the way across the mouth of the Dog River, reducing it's depth at that point to 9 feet. That's nine feet at high tide, by the way. Tennessee barely got across the bar inbound in her engineless, unfinished state. Finished, she drew thirteen feet, and that's with minimal coal aboard, lightened as much as possible. Loaded she'd draw fourteen feet. They had a big problem. 'Maybe if we take all of her guns and ammunition off of her, as well as everything else not bolted down...' Tried that. It decreased her draft by about four inches.

Next thing they tried was building wooden caissons..basically big floats with the capability of being raised and lowered by pumping water out or in...to lighten her enough to get hr across the bar. They were hoping to raise her four feet, which would have given them a foot of clearance. The first set they built only raised her about two feet. So they built six more larger caissons, and a fire destroyed them before they could be floated to the ironclad and lashed alongside. They built six more, attached them to the hull, and pumped the water out. This raised her between three and four feet. Just barely enough. Maybe. If they held their mouth just right.

Using both Tennessee's engines and tugs, they got her across...barely. Her keel still came close to digging a groove through the bar, and her prop kicked up clouds of mud, but they got her across. The next several days were utilized filling her coal bunkers, boarding all the provisions and equipment that they couldn't board before they tried to get her across the bar, and training her crew.

Oh her crew. That was another sore spot. Seems the Navy got shorted there as well (This happened regularly, from what I've read. ) Admiral Buchanan submitted 650 applications for transfer of men from the Army to the Navy. The military brass approved 20 of them. Were it not for Army commander at Mobile, she'd have been essentially crewless when Dave Farragut made his dash through the torpedoes and uttered his famous catch-phrase. The commander of land forces in and around Mobile transferred 150 men to Admiral Buchanan, and after a whirlwind of training them on naval and warship operations Tennessee was finally made ready for war. She was commissioned on May 22, 1864...just a scosh more than two months before the battle.

Tennessee's hull and casemate was extremely well built. Her hull was constructed of yellow pine and oak, Her beams were yellow pine,13 inches square and spaced closely together, and her casemate had, on top of these humongous beams, 4 inches of oak on top of five and a half inches of yellow pine with her six inches of iron armor on top of all that.  Her armor was secured with inch and a half bolts, with nuts and washers on the inside of the casemate. The nuts were reinforced, possibly with wire mesh, so the nuts wouldn't become missiles if the bolt was struck by incoming shot. Yeah, construction wise she was built for the long haul...that wouldn't be her downfall. As they say, it's the details that'll do you in.

 One of her biggest flaws, if not the biggest, were the tracks for the steering chains, which ran along the top of the after deck. While the tracks were covered, they weren't vaguely armored and...well read my (And indeed, any) account of her fight during the Battle of Mobile Bay, and you'll see how well that worked out for her. The term 'Achilles' Heel' comes immediately to mind. She was also slow (Six knots wide open) and cumbersome (Her turning radius, at a half mile, was the size of some small towns) and had sliding gunport shutters that closed automatically when the guns were run in for loading and opened likewise when they were run out for firing....and, despite this impressive design feature, were easily jammed if damaged by incoming fire. This feature would become Achilles Heel #2.

A model of CSS Tennessee. There are actually four gunports on each side of the casemate...her forward and aft guns were both pivots, able to be swung and fired through gunports on either side of the casemate to give her the capability of firing a four gun broadside.  The modeler finished this one depicting the side gunports for the fore and aft guns...her forward and aft-most port side gunport shutters...being closed. Unfortunately for ehr and her crew, during the battle several of her gunport shutters would get jammed in the closed position. This was one of her Achilles Heels. Also, note the exposed steering chains...running in the 'V' shaped pair of tracks on the afterdeck. They'd become her  other...and biggest...Achilles Heel in a big way. Also, looking at the ventilators on the bow, and where her forward gun is...I can't help but wonder if they weren't shot of during the battle by Tennessee's gunners rather than by shells from Union warships.

A cut-away image of CSS Tennessee. Note that in this model  the two ventilators of her foredeck that obstructed her forward gun are not included.

As for what Admiral Farragut had been told about the Confederate Naval force he'd be facing, and the reality concerning that same naval force...lets just say that inaccurate intelligence is not something new...it seems those responsible for gathering intelligence on the Confederate naval force on Mobile Bay left out some...er, minor...details. Admiral Farragut was given information that there were four (Count 'em) four Confederate Navy ironclads on Mobile Bay, and in fact there actually were four ironclads in Mobile in different stages of completion at the same time....Tennessee and three others, two of them also built in Selma and towed to Mobile.

 There were the ironclads Huntsville and Tuscaloosa, both of which shared the dubious distinction of having the worst engines installed in any Confederate ironclad, making them so slow and ponderous that they could barely move against an incoming tide. Neither vessel even left their pier during the coming battle, and both were considered little more than barely self propelled floating batteries, suited only for harbor defense and river operations. More on these two floating lemons in 'Notes'

Then there was CSS Nashville, a 270 foot ironclad side wheel behemoth that had the potential of being the super battle-wagon of her era. She was built in Montgomery Alabama and unfortunately the same problems that plagued the other Confederate ironclads plagued her as well. She wasn't completed until well after The Battle of Mobile Bay, and never did receive all of her guns

Part of the reason three of there ironclads weren't ready makes perfect sense. Buchanan decided to concentrate on getting one of his ironclads finished rather than being caught with 4 uncompleted...and useless... ironclads sitting next to their piers when the Union Naval force pushed into the bay (And, as he expected, into Mobile itself though that didn't happen until late in the war.). Tennessee was the nearest to being ready to fight, and would prove to be, by far, the best of the four. Problem was, the intelligence on her was off as well...Tennessee wasn't anywhere near as powerful as Admiral Farragut had been led to believe.

This last fact became evident, of course, during the battle. I covered what happened to Tennessee during the battle in my post on The Battle of Mobile Bay, but to recap real quick...she and her crew got their asses beat. Then again they went up against Admiral Farragut's entire fleet, single handed...with odds of fifteen against one, the outcome was pretty much a given before the first shot in the second phase of the battle was even fired. Whatever you want to say about Tennessee's crew, no one can ever accuse them of being anything less than brave.

Tennessee surrendered and was repaired and recommissioned as the USS Tennessee, then placed in service with Admiral Farragut's Mobile Bay force on August 19^th, 1864. Like Selma, she was utilized during the shelling of Fort Morgan, and her new crew found out what her weaknesses were. Her Union Navy crew had to deal with the same cantankerous engines and lousy handling that her CSN crew dealt with.

Tennessee after she was captured and became USS Tennessee. If you've ever experienced a summer in the Deep South, you'll know exactly what her awnings were for. I have a feeling her crew spent as little time as possible below decks.

After Fort Morgan surrendered and Mobile Bay was firmly in Union Hands, Tennessee was moved to New Orleans where more extensive repairs and modifications were performed. Her armor was overhauled and repaired, with some plates being replaced altogether. Her steering chains were rerouted and better armored. Her gunport shutters were either repaired or removed altogether. More blowers were installed for ventilating both her engine and boiler rooms and her berth deck. And her pilothouse was remodeled making it both safer and easier to work in. After all of these repairs, she became part of the Mississippi River Squadron, and basically became a river patrol boat, patrolling that river for the rest of the war. and for a short while after the war ended. She was apparently pretty well suited for the duties she performed on the Mississippi, but then again the US Navy had enough warships that they didn't need to utilize her in any tasks she wasn't well suited for. It was noted by several of the USN brass that 'With proper engines she'd be a formidable warship'.

Ten years earlier they would have yanked her feeble engines out, put decent engines in her, probably given her twin screws, made other adjustments and improvements, and turned her into a truly formidable little patrol craft. But by 1865, technology had left her far behind...she was not the type of warship that the US. Navy saw any future in, therefore once the war ended, and her usefulness likewise ended, there was no intention of spending any money to upgrade her engines or equipment...or even to touch up her paint, for that matter. She was still slow, handled, at best, like a waterlogged sponge, and when all was said and done she was basically a broadside warship...old and dying technology. The U.S. Navy (And pretty much every major navy in the world) was moving ahead with the newer technologies developed during the war, particularly the revolving gun turret. Tennessee was an anachronism, and was declared surplus.


She was laid up in New Orleans on August 19^th, 1865, a year to the day after she was recommissioned as a Union Navy warship. She languished there, likely in the oft-noted backwater, moored to an out of the way pier, for over two years. On November 27^th, 1867, she was sold at public auction, to J.F. Armstrong , for 7100 dollars. She was scrapped shortly after.

Five of her six guns are still around, though. Both of her 7 inch Brook Rifles and two of her 6.4 inchers are on display at the Washington Navy Yard, and one of her 6.4 inch Brooke Rifles in on display at the Norfolk Navy Base.

<<<<Notes, Links, and Stuff>>>>

 

CSS Florida/Selma wasn’t the only civilian passenger steamer named Florida that was converted to a warship of the same name.  The Union Navy also had such a vessel…The USS Florida. She was a good sized ocean-going  sidewheeler built in 1850, and sailed as a merchant ship for 11 years before she was bought by the U.S. Navy and converted to a cruiser.

As was common for steamers of her day, she also had a full suite of sails. I couldn’t find much info on her, but I did find that she was part of the Atlantic Blockading Squadron for most of the war, and assisted with the capture or destruction of several Confederate blockade runners. 

 

She was transferred to the Gulf of Mexico in the latter part of the war, and after the war was retained by the Navy, and served in the West Indies.. She was decommissioned in April of 1867, laid up for 4 months shy of two years, and finally sold in December 1868 to become the Merchant steamer Delphine. At some point she was sold to the Haitian Navy, converted back to a warship, and renamed the Republique. Time and age finally caught up with her…she was disposed of by the Haitian Navy in the mid 1870s sometime, and, we can only assume, scrapped.

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CSS Tennessee was not the first Confederate warship…or even the first confederate ironclad…named after The Volunteer State. There were, in fact, actually two other Confederate warships named CSS Tennessee.

The first CSS Tennessee was an ocean-going side wheel merchant steamship…launched as the S.S. Tennessee… that was trapped in New Orleans at the outbreak of the Civil War. She was seized by the Confederate forces, and refitted as an armed blockade runner, but she was never able to escape the blockade of New Orleans, and in fact was all but unknown.  When the U.S captured New Orleans in May, 1862, they also captured the first CSS Tennessee, refitted her for service as a fast gunboat, and recommissioned her as USS Tennessee. When the final…and most famous…CSS Tennessee was captured during the Battle of Mobile Bay, the steamer turned blockade runner turned gunboat USS Tennessee was rechristened USS Mobile so the newly captured ironclad could retain the name Tennessee.

The Mobile would continue service as a Union Navy gunboat until she was damaged in a hurricane off of the mouth of the Rio Grande River in October, 1864. She was taken to New York for repair and declared too expensive to refit. She was sold at auction, renamed S S Republic by her new owners, and placed on a New York-New Orleans freight run. On her fifth trip after the end of the war, she once again tangled with a hurricane, and lost this time, going down at 4PM on October 25^th, 1865. Most of her passengers were rescued…but the $400,000 worth of ten and twenty dollar gold coins she was carrying went down with her.

The second CSS Tennessee was one of two Arkansas class ironclad casemate rams under construction in Memphis Tennessee when that city faced imminent capture by Federal forces in April 1862. The CSS Arkansas was near enough completion to be launched and towed to Greenwood, Miss. To be completed, but her sister ship…the first CSS Tennessee…was not yet capable of being floated, and was burned on the slipway to prevent her capture.

There’s an interesting conundrum concerning the way the three CSS Tennessees are remembered by historians. The steamer-turned-blockade runner was actually the first CSS Tennessee, but when historians refer to CSS Tennessee I they’re always referring to the Arkansas class ironclad that was burned in her slipway to prevent her capture.  And Tennessee II always refers to Admiral Buchanan’s flagship in Mobile Bay. The blockade runner is all but forgotten, and almost never mentioned when the CSS Tennessees are discussed, even though she was actually the first Confederate warship to bear that name.

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Not only did Tennessee have a pair of feeble, profoundly inadequate engines, the gear train that turned her propeller shaft was so complicated that it would have made Rube Goldberg proud. The steamboat that the engine came out of was a sidewheeler, which meant that the engines each turned a paddlewheel. (This, BTW, allowed twin engine sidewheelers to be among the most maneuverable vessels ever built)  To do so, each engine also turned a shaft that ran perpendicular to the keel.

 Tennessee however, had a single propeller at her stern, turned by a shaft that was parallel to her keel, to push her through the water. Twin screws would have been far a better option and would have probably added a couple of knots and made her a bit more nimble, but, for various reasons a single screw was used, and her two engines were mounted fore and aft, acting on a single propeller shaft. Obviously gearing had to be used to get the engines rotation turned 90 degrees so it would spin the propeller shaft. 
 
 From what I've read, it sounds like the engines were next to each other, probably turned so their cylinders opposed each other ‘Boxer’ style, and mounted ‘fore and aft’ on the hull center-line rather than one on each side of the hull. Their crankshafts would have been perpendicular to the prop shaft. The crankshafts used two sets of spur gears to spin an idler shaft running between the two engines,. (Wooden spur gears…think that may have caused a few problems????) On the other end of the idler shaft and the inboard end of the prop shaft was a pair of cast iron bevel gears that allowed the idler shaft to turn the prop shaft. 
 
Also, there had to be a way to disengage each set of spur gears so you could take a disabled engine off line, adding another bit of complication into the mix…there almost had to be a pair of idler gears (One idler gear in each set of spur gears) in there for that purpose.

Sure is an awful lot of efficiency lost turnin’ all that hardware before the prop even makes a single revolution! I’m assuming it had to be set up this way because of space constraints and the way the engines were laid out, because  there were several better ways of setting it up. I’d bet lunch at one of the finer restaurants in Richmond that one of the very first things the Union Navy did after she was captured was replace those wooden spur gears with iron gears! The rest of the set-up they had to live with. 
 

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 One potentially deadly little weapon that CSS Tennessee carried in her arsenal was an antipersonnel weapon designed to repel borders.  She had a fitting attached to her boilers that allowed scalding hot water to be piped to two discharges…one forward of her casemate and one aft. This scalding hot water could be sprayed under pressure at an enemy boarding party to pretty much parboil them. It’d definitely have put a quick stop to any attempt to board her. This fearsome and deadly little feature never got used…the single time she was boarded was after she had already surrendered.

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CSS Tennessee lives on…kinda.  A modern Mississippi River towboat (Which actually pushes strings of barges) bears her name…including the ‘CSS” The towboat was built in 1980, and originally named the Vickie Marie C.  She was renamed CSS Tennessee in 1988, and is owned by Carline's Geismar Fleet, Inc. out of  Gonzales, LA. She’s 60 feet long with a 24 foot beam, and is powered by a pair of Cummins KTA19-M3 marine diesels, generating a combined 1200 horsepower. She could probably literally run circles around her namesake...even if she was pushing a string of barges at the time!  For a look at this most recent CSS Tennessee, go here: http://www.towboatgallery.com/CSS_Tennessee-0624433.php?mnu=3

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CSS Huntsville and CSS Tuscaloosa definitely suffered from the ‘Lousy Engine Syndrome’ that affected the CSN Ironclad fleet.  Both were small casemate ironclads. 152 feet long with a 32 foot beam, drawing only 7 feet of water.  They were armed with a single 6.4 inch Brooke Rifle, and a quartet of 32 pounder smoothbores. The 6.4 incher would have been a pivot gun, with the capability of firing through either the bow gun port, or gun ports on the extreme forward starboard and port sides of the casemate.

A portside profile of either Huntssville or Tuscaloosa. They were actually pretty trim, sleek looking little gunboats. If the CSN had been able to get hold of decent engines they would have probably been as fast as they looked.

They were originally designed to be fast ironclad gunboats, able to harass the blockade fleet at will, but their profoundly anemic engines killed that idea…it turned out, as noted before, they were so slow that a fairly energetic sea turtle could leave them in its wake, and so underpowered that they couldn’t move against an incoming tide. Their engines were so poor, in fact, that they were often towed into position rather than utilizing their engines.

 On top of that that, as noted above, they weren’t even finished when the battle of Mobile Bay took place. …but they weren’t completely out of the war by any means. They were home based in Mobile for the duration of the war, and were utilized to shell troops on the shore of Spanish River and other tributaries of The Mobile and Alabama Rivers in a desperate fight to hold off Union troops advancing on Mobile in the late stages of the war.

A contemporary painting of either CSS Huntsville or CSS Tuscaloosa under way, on one of the rivers near Mobile, in the latter stages of the war. The artist didn't specify which. He probably also exaggerated the wake she was leaving behind as she cut through the water. At best they could do about 4.5 knots....that's on a good day with the wind and current behind them!

In fact, Huntsville and Tuscaloosa were utilized against Union forces advancing on Spanish Fort and Fort Blakely right on up to the very end. When Mobile fell and it became obvious that the battle (And the war ) was lost, an attempt was made to take them further upriver, but their engines were just as incapable of moving them against the river current as they had been against the tides. There were no vessels available to tow them to safety, so, their crews were removed (With whatever personal effects they could grab) and they were scuttled within a couple of hundred feet of each other at the confluence of the Spanish and Mobile Rivers, both to act as obstacles to prevent the Union Naval forces from coming up river and to prevent their own capture.

Both wrecks were located in 1985, and have been surveyed extensively. Thanks to both their remote location, and the fact that they’ve been buried in mud and silt the wrecks are in remarkably good condition, and plans have been made...several times, in fact...to raise at least one of them . Sadly both expense and environmentalists have shot down every attempt. Be nice if they could be raised and displayed in their name-sake cities…complete with their guns, and the personal effects of the men who served on board.

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I’ve mentioned CSS Nashville a couple of times (And she’ll get her own post before long, trust me on this) but had things gone the way the Confederate Navy wanted, there would have been not just one but two (And possibly three) ironclad sidewheel behemoths of the same class on Mobile Bay.  The second of the pair of big sidewheel ironclads was christened CSS Phoenix…but unfortunately she was severely damaged while being launched, apparently to the point that repairs couldn’t be made, and she ended up being towed to Mobile sans engines and relegated to the role of unpowered floating battery.

 She was only utilized in this role for about six months…on August 7^th 1864 (Right after the Battle of Mobile Bay) she was scuttled across the mouth of the Dog River to act as an obstacle. Sailors from USS Metacomet blew her up a couple of nights later in an attempt to clear the obstacle, then a couple of days after that, Confederate troops burned her.

Her remains are still where she was scuttled, now buried in the bottom mud, and when last surveyed, appeared to be in good condition (For a ship that was blown up and burned, at any rate!) 
As for the third big side wheeler, she’s a bit of a mystery. Reports of the remains of another similar ironclad among the obstructions at the mouth of The Dog River have been reported, but many question this, and quite a few people have stated that this was just Phoenix’s remains. The concentration of scuttled Confederate warships at the mouth of the Dog River has been declared a historic landmark, BTW.

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So what about the Alonzo Childs...you know the riverboat that donated her engines to the CSS Tennessee

She remained in Yazoo, Mississippi, engineless and reduced to being used as a barge, and possibly for storage. At one point, consideration was made of using her as a fireship...loading her down with combustibles, lighting her off, and setting her adrift among the Union ships below Yazoo to see what havoc she could raise. She was loaded with combustibles, and towed down river, but was never set on fire. Consideration was also given to sinking her as an obstruction. None of the above happened, and she remained moored below Confederate fortifications on the river, the combustibles removed, and her hull and large superstructure likely used for a variety of purposes.

As the Union forces advanced, the Confederate forces abandoned the fortifications, and left her there to be discovered by advancing naval forces, badly deteriorated but still afloat. Most of the damage was cosmetic in nature...she was seized by Union forces, inspected and found to be sound but in need of repair. She was towed north to Cairo, Illinois for repair and conversion to a receiving and barracks ship. On the way she and the USS New National, which was towing her, ran up on the USS Sam Young, hard aground with 350 oir so Confederate P.O.W.s aboard. The prisoners and their armed guard were transferred to the Alonzo Childs and they continued their voyage north. 

 

They reached Cairo in early August of 1863, the prisoners were removed and transferred to P.O.W. Camps, and the Childs was taken to the navy yard at Mound City, Ill where she was fitted out as a barracks ship...she served in this capacity to the end of the war, and was decommissioned and sold on March 29^th, 1865. No records exist concerning what happened to her after that, but she was probably scrapped. 
 
One interesting little tdbit about the Childs, though. When she was serving as a riverboat...before the war...one of her pilots was none other than one Samuel Clemens. That's right...Mark Twain Himself.

 <<<<<<LINKS>>>>>>

First off...the inevitable Wikipedia pages for all four of the ships featured in this post.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSS_Gaines
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSS_Morgan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSS_Selma_(1856)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSS_Tennessee_(1863)



http://www.history-sites.net/cgi-bin/bbs62x/cwnavy/webbbs_config.pl?md=read;id=1692  Message board post with a good bit of info and detail on late careers of Huntsville  and 
Tuscaloosa.
 
http://www.steelnavy.com/FlagshipCSSTennessee.htm Excellent site about CSS/USS Tennessee as well as a review of a model of the ironclad

http://shelbyironworks.typepad.com/shelby_iron_works/css_tennessee/ Great little site on the Tennessee that includes a detailed report written by the crew that examined her immediately after she was captured. It goes into fine detail about the ships construction, accommodations, and machinery.

http://markerhunter.wordpress.com/2008/07/29/guns-of-the-css-tennessee/   A site describing the guns from Tennessee at the Washington Navy Yard, as well as a few more artifacts that might have originated from the battle.