Birth of the Brown Water Navy

One-hundred and fifty years ago this week, an important component to the Federal efforts in the Western Theater came to the fore - the Mississippi River Squadron.

At the onset of war both the Army and Navy officers recognized the need for river gunboats complementing land operations along the Mississippi River and tributaries. The requirements for river operations - or "brown water" - differed significantly from the more traditional "blue water" navy's warship designs. On the Mississippi, the Navy needed light draft ships capable of maneuvering within the river channels. Likely tactical scenarios placed those gunboats in close proximity to enemy river defense batteries. So on that light draft, the boats had to carry structural bracing, armor, and heavy armament. Given these and other requirements, the ironclad river gunboats evolved almost independently of the contemporary "blue water" monitors.

Complying with immediate demands, the first river gunboats were conversions of existing river craft. Three riverboats became "timberclads" with the addition of heavy oak "armor" and a battery of naval guns. While useful for river patrols and action against less well defended points, these ships lacked the armor to deal with heavily fortified river bastions or the anticipated Confederate ironclads.



In September 1861 the Army acquired the ferry New Era for conversion into a timberclad. When turned over to the Navy for operations, Commander William D. "Dirty Bill" Porter renamed the ship USS Essex in honor of the famous War of 1812 era frigate commanded by his father. Porter also had light iron plating installed on the forward casemate and sides, making the Essex an "iron-plated" gunboat. She carried three 9-inch Dahlgren guns. While more formidable than the "timberclads," the Essex was not the all the Navy required. (Of note, the Navy completely rebuilt the Essex later in 1862 transforming the ship into a proper river ironclad.)


The solution came in the form of a class of armored gunboats, designed specifically for use on the rivers. Working from a description offered by the Army, naval chief constructor John Lenthall designed a vessel with very light draft. Lenthall then recommended the Army further consult with Samuel M. Pook, a shipbuilder of note, to refine the design. Pook would do more than just refine the design, . What emerged was a vessel uniquely adapted for riverine warfare.



Pook's design featured a hull 175 feet long and 50 feet wide, but drawing a draft of only 6 feet. A central casemate, not unlike later Confederate rams in appearance, housed a battery of heavy naval guns - three 8-inch, four 42-pdrs, and six 32-pdrs as designed. Five boilers, placed low in the hull, powered a central paddle wheel. Iron plate, some 2.5 inches thick, covered the forward casemate, sixty feet of the sides, and the pilot house. Because of the incomplete armor arrangements, these were not ironclads in the strict sense of the word. Although weighing 512 tons, Pook's gunboats could make nine miles-per-hour with a head of steam.



In August 1861, James Buchanan Eads won the contract to construct these vessels. Working at yards in Carondolet, Missouri and Mound City, Illinois, Eads' project move rapidly (mostly due to stiff penalties for late delivery!). First to roll off the ways was the USS St. Louis in mid-October at Carondelet. The USS Carondelet, USS Louisville, and USS Pittsburgh followed from the Missouri yards. The USS Cairo, USS Cincinnati, and USS Mound City came out of the yards in Illinois.



These seven "City-class" gunboats became the core of the Mississippi River Squadron. The St. Louis first went into action at Lucas Bend, just above Columbus, Kentucky, alongside the Essex, on January 11, 1862. Encountering three Confederate gunboats escorting a floating battery into position, the two Federal gunboats drove off their unarmored opponents. In the first engagement these "ironclad" gunboats established ascendency on the rivers.



During the first week of February, the Essex, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Carondelet moved down the Tennessee River in support of a Federal force under General U.S. Grant. The Army didn't have much to do after the Navy's gunboats silenced Confederate defenses at Fort Henry. But assumptions about the gunboats effectiveness against shore defenses proved a bit premature. Later on February 14, at Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River four city-class gunboats could not pass the Confederate batteries. The problem was just as much tactical as technical.



Despite the Valentine's Day setback, the "brown water" gunboats figured prominently in Federal plans. The force continued to grow with the addition of more gunboats, such as the converted USS Benton at the end of February. In months to follow the gunboats pressed the Confederate defenses along the Mississippi. The Mississippi River Squadron provided the mobile striking force for the combined Army-Navy team that eventually drove the wedge through the Confederacy.

Carondelet: Then and Now

As explained in earlier posts, James Eads was awarded many of the major naval building contracts in the western theater. He divvied up the work between several shipyards, but the Union Iron Works at Carondelet, Missouri hosted the lion's share of production.

Eads turned an already busy port town into a major naval center virtually overnight. His contract to construct the City-class gunboats (more about them soon) resulted in the building of four new ironclad warships in Carondelet: the Baron de Kalb, Louisville, Pittsburg, and most appropriately, the Carondelet.
The boatyards spanned across much of Carondelet's Mississippi riverfront property, ranging from the confluence of the River des Peres and Missisippi northeast past Marceau and Davis streets and along Vulcan Street. The warehouses and docks were supported by nearby rolling mills, sawmills, and foundries. Businesses like the R.C. Totten and Company Foundry in St. Louis provided much of the armor for the new vessels.


The City-class ships were finally completed in January 1862, and Carondelet's namesake ironclad would feature prominently in many of the upcoming battles for the west. Carondelet would continue to build more vessels, including many of the tinclads that were introduced later in the war.

(Image from Google Maps)

Today there's no evidence Eads's shipyards ever existed, though many other buildings from the Civil War-era remain elsewhere in town. The shoreline where ironclads were once built is now overgrown, and empty, decaying factories stand nearby. The area that was once the center of the marine ways is now the home of the New World Pasta factory. I visited Carondelet in July, and took these photos just before a storm blew in.

"Drive On": The Genius of James Buchanan Eads

Building a naval fleet is not the work of a military organization alone. In the Civil War as now, the Navy depended upon businesses and individuals of action to help conceive and produce the nation's ships of war. John Ericsson traditionally receives effusive praise and a surfeit of attention for his role in designing the Monitor and a host of other ingenious creations. But Ericsson has a forgotten counterpart in the American west: James B. Eads. Without Eads's shipbuilding and design collaboration, the western ironclad flotilla may never have come into being, or its birth might have been a great deal more painful.
James Eads started, as many great figures of American history, under inauspicious circumstances. Raised in relative poverty, as a boy, Eads supported himself by working in a variety of menial capacities on commercial riverboats. His job selling apples to hungry passengers took him to the west's great ports and waterways and gave him an expert knowledge of western rivers and their unique navigational challenges.
Eads applied his experiences while still a young man, designing a primitive diving bell that allowed him to descend upon submerged wrecks and salvage their valuable cargoes. Eads achieved such great success that he went on to design and construct several purpose-built boats, which he called submarines. These unique river craft were capable of raising entire wrecks, and Eads's salvage operations had little competition. By the 1850's, Eads had earned a fortune, and he entered retirement at the age of 37.
The arrival of the Civil War brought the prominent St. Louisan out of his permanent retreat. Working with U.S. Attorney General (and Missourian) Edward Bates, Eads secured an audience with cabinet leaders in Washington. Nothing definitive resulted from this tentative spring meeting, but policy makers heard his proposals for the fortification of the upper Mississippi. Naval Constructor Pook also had the opportunity to evaluate Eads's design of an armed and front-armored riverboat. Pook saw promise in the energetic riverman's ideas. Secretary of War Simon Cameron thought the notion of a Mississippi ironclad absurd, and he axed any early construction efforts.
Undeterred, Eads followed his own motto of "Drive On" and presented new proposals to the government. Eads believed his Submarine no. 7 could be refitted and converted into a formidable warship. The Army's Navy advisors needed only approve the proposal, and the improved shallow-draft ship could be delivered within months. But Commander Rodgers saw no merit in converting no. 7. Military authorities would later reconsider the offer.
In August 1861, the Army and Navy finally came to their senses. A few timberclads and a swarm of lightly-armed riverboats would be insufficient force to pacify the Mississippi. The war in the west demanded an ironclad gunboat fleet. In early August Eads won the bid to construct seven ironclads, all to be delivered within three months. The contract secured, and his expertise finally acknowledged, Eads rapidly plunged into work and set his shipyards to the task. The ironclads would be built in Mound City, Illinois, on the Ohio River, and at the burgeoning Mississippi river port at Carondelet, Missouri, south of St. Louis. Once completed these "Pook Turtles" or "City Class" ironclads would form the core of the Union's western naval might. Eads would continue to design and build ironclads in the west, launching the Osage and Neosho in 1862, and several more vessels later in the conflict. Eads's shipbuilding centers became some of the chief hubs of naval activity in the west, and would remain commercial centers long after the war concluded.
Eads may have been the only man capable of properly undertaking such a huge building project in far-flung territory the Union military often regarded as a side show to the big show. Certainly, the Union benefited greatly from his unceasing energy and forward-thinking action. Had the South had its own James Eads, the war for the west might have gone a great deal differently.

In upcoming posts, we'll explore the west's naval bases, including Carondelet and Mound City, where thousands of laborers built the City Class ironclads that helped win the war.

Arming Western Waters

In the spring of 1861, Winfield Scott's plan to bisect the Confederacy was but a dream. The U.S. Navy was solely a saltwater institution, and understandably so. In America's previous wars, inland waterways were of little value to overall military strategy, and whatever action took place in coastal waterways was typically handled by the available vessels of shallow draft, content to sail a short distance inland. But the Civil War was an entirely new affair and the United States needed to master the Father of Waters and its tributaries. Success in the Western Theater depended upon seizing control of the Mississippi River and securing Army troop movements into the Confederate heartland.

Scott understood that the Mississippi needed a naval force as soon as possible. In an early memorandum to General George McClellan, commander of western operations, Scott commented that the Army would need at least 12-27 gunboats. It proved to be a gross underestimate. Neither the Army or the Navy maintained any naval force on the Mississippi. All future vessels of war needed to be purchased and converted for wartime duty, or built from scratch.

Organizing a western fleet began within weeks of the fall of Fort Sumter. At the advice of U.S. Attorney General and Missourian Edward Bates, the Navy summoned James B. Eads, a prominent and wealthy St. Louis salvager and naval architect. After a positive meeting with Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and Gustavus Vasa Fox, on 29 April Eads submitted a proposal for a blockade of the upper Mississippi. Cairo, Illinois would be the base of forward operations. These proposals were forwarded to Secretary of War Simon Cameron, who directed McClellan to organize a naval force.

Welles was preoccupied with the oceanic blockade and treated the Mississippi predicament as a sideshow. On 16 May, he dispatched Commander John Rodgers to Cincinnati to advise McClellan. In his orders to Commander Rodgers, the Secretary made it clear that all waterborne matters in the west, including vessel procurement and building, were the responsibility of the Army. Above all, it was up to the Army to finance the project:

SIR: You will proceed to Cincinnati, Ohio, or the headquarters of General McClellan, where they may be, and report to that officer in regard to the expediency of establishing a naval armament on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, or either of them, with a view of blockading or interdicting communication and interchanges with the States that are in insurrection.
This interior nonintercourse is under the direction and regulation of the Army, and your movements will therefore be governed in a great degree by General McClellan, the officer in command, with whom you will put yourself in immediate communication. He will give such orders and requisitions as the case to him shall seem necessary, you acting in conjunction with and subordinate to him.
Whatever naval armament and crew may be necessary to carry into effect the objects here indicated, you will call for by proper requisition.

Not only would the Army draw upon the expertise of James Eads and John Rodgers, but the Navy additionally detailed U.S. Naval Constructor Samuel Pook to Cairo. Together, these three men formed a knowledgeable team. Eads was intimately familiar with the Mississippi and her tributaries, and understood the peculiar design requirements any gunboats would have to meet. Pook was able to combine, with Eads, his skill in ship design, and they developed the plans for many of the vessels launched in 1861 and 1862. Rodgers, whose liaison assignment in the West would be brief, added the necessary military background and worked closely with the Army, setting in motion the creation of the Western Gunboat Flotilla.

Spotlight on Civil Engineers during the Civil War

Charles Ellet, Jr.

Charles Ellet, Jr. gained early fame as a civil engineer and designer of suspension bridges in West Virginia and Pennsylvania. The Navy Department initially mocked the frail engineer for his design of an unarmed steam vessel used for breaking blockades in the 1850s. Determined, Ellet went so far as to submit plans to Imperial Russia during the Crimean War. Seeing the success of the CSS Virginia's ramming blows at Hampton Roads, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton grew convinced and offered Ellet a commission as an Army Colonel and money to construct the United States Ram Fleet for operations on the Mississippi River in coordination with the Western Gunboat Flotilla. Each steam-powered ram was braced with iron bars along the bow, creating a powerful and centralized force utilizing the weight of the vessel and flow of the fast-moving Mississippi River. His design quickly proved adequate at the June 1862 Battle of Memphis, where Ellet's Ram Fleet decimated the Confederate River Defense Fleet. Fortune did not smile for Ellet, however, as he died two weeks later from a leg wound received during the melee.

James Eads

Indiana native James Eads made a name for himself in St. Louis, Missouri as a civil engineer, boat builder, and salvager. At the beginning of the war, the government contracted him to quickly construct seven shallow-draft gunboats for riverine warfare. These ships, with flat-bottoms, wide-beams, and 2.5 inch armor plating, became known as the City class ironclads. City class ships were a revolution in design, as the casemates constructed by naval constructor Samuel Pook helped earn their nickname "Pook's Turtles." These ships became some of the more famous Union ships during the war, including the St. Louis, Carondelet, and Cairo, which was sunk by a naval mine during the first attempt to take Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1862. Eads would earn greater fame after the war for his construction of the Mississippi River bridge, also known as the Eads Bridge, in St. Louis. Eads held more than fifty patents at the time of his death in 1887.

For more information on Charles Ellet, Jr., please go here.

For more information on James Eads, please go here.