USS Indianola: Union Ironclad in the American Civil War

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Using their superior speed and maneuverability, the two wooden Confederate rams darted from one side of the river to the other, using the serpentine curves of the Mississippi to stay out of the line of fire of the Union ironclad immediately ahead of them. Each captain knew that one salvo from the enemy boat’s powerful guns could blow his own boat apart.

The Confederate commander was content to wait until the skies were dark. His boats were twice as fast as the ironclad, and he knew he could overtake her before she could reach the safety of the Union fleet above Vicksburg. He wanted darkness to blind the Union gunners’ aim, enabling the Confederate boats to get close enough to use their rams.

In the midwinter darkness the lookouts lost sight of the ironclad near Palmyra Island. Suddenly they spotted her. She had come about with her lights extinguished and was slowly drifting down the river toward them. The Confederacy had always used the Mississippi River to supply Vicksburg and Port Hudson. For the last three weeks, Union boats had blockaded it. Now the crucial battle for control of the supply lines was about to take place.

By the beginning of 1863, the Union Army’s advance down the Mississippi Valley had ground to a halt. The 100,000-man army that Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck had assembled at Pittsburg Landing, Tenn., following the Battle of Shiloh, had been broken up, part of it now at Murfreesboro, Tenn., under Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans, another part at Oxford, Miss., under Maj. Gen. U.S. Grant.

In December, the ever-aggressive Grant tried to seize Vicksburg, but Maj. Gen. William Sherman’s corps was repulsed at Chickasaw Bluffs. While the Army contemplated other operations, the Navy decided to take its turn in attacking the Confederates. Commanding the Western Flotilla on the Mississippi was Rear Adm. David D. Porter. Porter had helped plan the attempt to relieve Fort Pickens before the firing on Fort Sumter and commanded that expedition. He later was deeply involved in planning the attack on New Orleans (and after the war would claim chief credit for originating the idea).

For his efforts, the Navy Department gave Porter command of the mortar boats during the News Orleans operation. Porter publicly vowed to reduce Forts Jackson and St. Philip in two days. Admiral David Farragut gave him his two days, and when the defenses of the forts seemed to be as strong as ever, led his warships past the forts (over Porter’s protests) to seize New Orleans.

Porter’s actions during the campaign were a blemish on his record. He thought he should have commanded the Gulf Squadron instead of Farragut, and he constantly tried to undermine Farragut’s position in private letters to Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus Fox in which he criticized Farragut’s handling of the operation.

Flag Officer Charles Davis had done a creditable job as commander of the Western Flotilla during the summer of 1862, but the Navy could not forget that he was a blue-water oceanographer. Later that year, the Navy appointed Porter to replace him. By the end of January 1863, Porter was ready for the Navy to take the offensive against the two remaining Confederate positions on the Mississippi–Vicksburg, Miss., and Port Hudson, La.

The Confederacy controlled the Mississippi between these two bastions, using the river to keep them supplied. Porter believed that if he could put one or more boats at the mouth of the Red River he could stop the Confederates from supplying these positions from the west, especially from Texas.

The first boat Porter sent downriver was Queen of the West. A former freight boat on the St. Louis to New Orleans run, Queen was the flagship of the Marine Brigade, formerly the Army Ram Fleet. Commanded by 19-year-old Colonel Charles R. Ellet, Queen was a veteran boat, having participated in the Battle of Memphis.

Porter knew the operation would be dangerous. The initial problem was getting past Vicksburg. Although Farragut had run the Gulf Squadron past it twice in early summer 1862, the defenses were much stronger in January than they had been six months before.

The Confederates had one warship on the river that particularly worried Porter. He wrote Ellet: ‘There is one vessel, the Webb, that you must look out for. If you get the first crack at her, you will sink her, and if she gets the first crack at you, she will sink you. Webb had been a lower river towboat noted for her speed and endurance. Heavy iron plate protected the machinery and boilers, but the boat was essentially unarmored.

Queen’s movement south on February 2 began ominously. Problems with her steering caused a delay in departure that caused Queen to arrive at Vicksburg at dawn. Queen’s first mission was to sink the steamer City of Vicksburg, tied up at a wharf below the city. Queen tried to ram her, but only succeeded in staving in some deck planks. The crew then threw firebombs onto Vicksburg, but her crew extinguished them. Queen tried to ram the steamer a second time, but only succeeded in driving her into the mud.

Ellet wanted to try again, but fire from the Confederate batteries worried him. Queen had been hit 12 times already. All of the hits were above the waterline, but they had set fire to cotton bales on her deck. Ellet brought Queen safely about and continued downriver.

During the next 10 days, Queen ruled the Mississippi and Red rivers. Fifteen miles south of the Red River she captured the steamer A.W. Baker, which had just unloaded her cargo at Port Hudson. Going up the Red River, she seized the steamers Moro and Berwick Bay.

With coal supplies low, Queen returned to the Mississippi. Finding that his prizes slowed him up, Ellet removed some supplies from them before burning the enemy vessels. On the 10th, Queen was at Warrenton, where she took on 20,000 bushels of coal from the tender De Soto.

Queen returned to the Red River, and on the 12th prowled the Atchafalaya River in search of a transport reported to be there. On the 13th, Porter sent another boat downriver to join Queen, the powerful new ironclad Indianola.

Indianola, which cost a lordly $183,662.56 to construct, mounted four guns, two 11-inch Dahlgrens forward and two 9-inch rifles aft. She was unusual in that she had two sidewheels plus a pair of screw propellers. In 1863, Appleton’s Cyclopedia described Indianola as a new iron-clad gun-boat, one hundred and seventy-four feet long, fifty feet beam, ten feet from the top of her deck to the bottom of her keel. Her sides five feet down were thirty-two inches thick of oak. Outside of this was three-inch-thick plate iron. Her casemate stood at an incline of twenty-six and a half degrees, and was covered with three-inch iron. She had seven engines–two for working her side wheels, two for her propellers, two for her capstans, and one for supplying water and working the bilge and fire pumps.

The problems associated with building Indianola foreshadowed the problems she would later encounter during her brief career. When a Confederate army under General Edmund Kirby Smith threatened Cincinnati in September 1862, Union Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace seized the still-uncompleted Indianola to help in the defense of the city. But though her guns were in place, there was no ammunition for them. The builder immediately complained to the Navy that the Army was interfering with completion of the boat.

To try to regain control of Indianola from the Army, the Navy appointed Acting Master Edward Shaw to command her. With the Confederates retreating toward Tennessee, Wallace had no reason to retain control of the ironclad. Construction resumed soon after Shaw assumed command.

The man chosen to command Indianola permanently was Lt. Cmdr. George Brown, an 1855 graduate of the Naval Academy. Brown knew Porter, having served under him on Powhatan during the attempt to relieve Fort Pickens in 1861. In 1862, Brown had commanded the six-gun, 829-ton steamer Octorara as part of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron.

Brown discovered more problems once in command. Captain Alex M. Pennock, at the naval depot at Cairo, Ill., provided Brown with a crew, but everyone had the rating of seaman and, as Brown reported to Porter, expected the higher pay of a seaman. Security was another problem. Captain J.B. Hull, the Navy officer responsible for overseeing construction of Indianola, was upset about a report in the Missouri Republican giving details about her construction. Citing a Navy General Order, he ordered Brown to keep newspaper correspondents off the boat during construction. In addition, he wanted Brown to try to find out who had given the Republican the information, telling him to pay particular attention to the Cincinnati newspapers.

When Indianola was ready to sail, low water kept her from leaving Cincinnati. Finally, in December, Porter ordered Brown to take her to Louisville to be ready to cross the falls of the Ohio at the first opportunity, and pointedly criticized him for not making the move sooner.

These problems were mere nuisances. The real problems with Indianola lay in her design. Indianola’s engines took up so much space that there was no room for a crew. Porter tried to get Hull to correct it, but he refused to take any action without prior authorization from Washington. Temporary quarters were built on top of the boat, but they were not enough to house the entire crew. When Brown steamed south from Vicksburg, he could take only a skeleton crew and did not have sufficient crew members to man all his guns at once.

The gunports were too small to allow the gunners to elevate their guns to achieve the maximum range. At the same time, the portholes in the pilothouse were too small to allow the pilots to help the gunner aim their guns at night.

By December 1862 Indianola had joined the Western Flotilla, being assigned on the 25th to the second division under Lieutenant Gwin in Benton. As in the case of many other ironclads, the Navy had actual possession of the ironclad before having legal title to her. It was not until January 12, 1863, that Hull informed Porter that Indianola had completed her testing as required by the contract and was officially being turned over to Porter.

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Tags: 19th Century, America's Civil War, American Civil War, Historical Conflicts

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