U.S.S. Essex

Welles explained what was needed, two, at the present, fully armored gunboats of very light draft for use on the Mississippi and its tributaries. Going to his hotel room, Eads designed a monitor-type vessel with a draft of 3 1/2 feet and with a new type of gun turret. This turret, he explained to Welles, was entirely different from any other, with the guns worked by steam. Welles was satisfied, however, with Ericcson's turret design and Eads' turret design was rejected. Hurrying back to St. Louis, Eads began work on the two ships - the Neosho and the Osage.

Hardly had he settled to his drawing board when he was on his way back to Washington. Welles wanted four more monitors, larger ones, each with two gun turrets, for the lower Mississippi. When Eads presented his sketches of the ironclads to Welles, there again was his rotating steam turret. Again Welles said no, but then compromised: Eads could place one of his turrets on two of the four boats provided he would change it at his own expense - about $35,000 - to an Ericsson turret if his type proved unsatisfactory. The other six turrets, however, must be of Ericsson's design.

June found Eads in St. Louis begging Eastern mills for armor plate and engine parts, trying to build his shallow draft monitors. He wrote everywhere for men, skilled or unskilled. Hiring whatever straggler who happened along, he would return to his office and the plans for the large monitors.

To provide shallow draft, yet afford sufficient headroom, the deck was crowned, rising from six inches above the water at the sides to four feet at the ships center-line so that they were known as "turtle-backs." Two hundred fifty-seven feet long with a fifty-seven foot beam, the ships had four eleven inch guns, two in each turret. They each had four screws - two on each side of the rudder. They were of small diameter because of the shallow draft desired. Each pair was driven by bevel gearing from the same engine shaft. The vessels were equipped with a cylindrical conning tower to the rear of the forward turret. Here the captain would normally direct the helmsman. The single funnel was between the conning tower and the stern turret.

The machinery was very complex, steam being used for every possible function. Each ship had fifteen separate engines. Eads turrets were marvels for their time. The guns, loaded below deck and raised by steam, could be fired every 45 seconds - seven times as fast as the guns in the Ericsson type turrets. The portholes were so small that enemy shot were unable to enter when the guns were in battery, and the automatic shutters closed the ports when the muzzle-loading guns were withdrawn. The recoil, ordinarily five feet or more, was cushioned by steam, reducing the strain on the tackles. Only threemen were necessary to operate the guns.

The design completed, the plans prepared, various contractors built the four large monitors. The Winnebago and Milwaukee were built by Eads, the Kickapoo was built by G. B. Allen and Co., and the Chickasaw was built by T. G. Gaylord, all in St. Louis.

Months before, New Orleans had fallen to Farragut's fleet and the incomplete Louisiana and Mississippi had been scuttled and burned. Memphis had fallen, but the Confederates had managed to save the ironclads under construction and were frantically completing them at Yazoo City. The Arkansas was almost complete and three more were in various stages of construction. Up the Red River a casemated sternwheel ironclad was taking shape. At Selma, Alabama four more ironclads were being built.

Gideon Welles

Severe cold weather slowed the work on the ironclads early in 1863, but as spring came slowly, Eads hurried the work at the shipyards. The pressure for the gunboats was mounting ever higher as the siege of Vicksburg began. The war in the west was focused there; there where the city sat ion its terraced bluffs, flanked by guarding hills and steep ravines, impregnable. Holding the river in the vice of its guns, Vicksburg protected the supply corridor from the trans-Mississippi to the east. While the last paint was bring put on the light-draft gunboats, Eads heard that Grant, running the batteries to dry land below the city and forcing Pemberton back in a series of battles, was besieging Vicksburg.

Vicksburg surrendered July 4, 1863. On the 5th, the Winnebago was launched, the first of the large monitors. The Navy inspector, J.W. King, after examining the Eads turret, sent an enthusiastic report to Welles. It was the first time in the history of artillery that heavy guns were worked entirely by steam.. Whether permission was given before or after this report, Eads finally placed one of his turrets on each of three of the four large monitors, redesigning one of the Ericsson turrets on the fourth.

The Mississippi was open, yet it was under constant threat by the strong flotilla of ironclads being built at Selma by the South. Already, contrabands told Farragut, now commanding the blockading fleet at Mobile, the Tennessee had been floated downriver to Mobile and would soon be over the bar, others to follow. The spector of the Confederates sending their ironclads against his wooden blockading fleet caused the Admiral to send orders to increase the fortifications at Pensacola and New Orleans as he prepared for a last ditch struggle to hold the blockade. Never enthusiastic about ironclads, at last he sent a piqued request to Eads for monitors. "If I could see any great importance these vessels would be to Porter," he wrote, "I would not ask for them."

Eads realized that his ships were a pivot on which could turn victory or defeat in the Gulf, and, with the country all but wrung dry of men and materials, it would take almost superhuman efforts to complete them. The shipyards were treadmills of toil, torches flaring in the night as the work went on. Men, iron, credit, were all low as summer turned to fall.

Not until February 10, 1864 was the Chickasaw launched; a tragic launching which boded ill for the ship's luck. As "the immense iron structure slid from the sways and plunged into the river, rising and floating like a cork," the laughter and applause of the watching crowd turned into screams of terror. The anchor had gone overboard and the huge coils of its cable were sweeping the decks before them. Several people were thrown into the water. They clung to floating timbers until rescue boats reached them and drew them, half frozen, aboard. All but one -- a Mrs. Bradley -- who drowned in the icy water.

After the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, almost all supplies from the Trans-Mississippi were cut off; and so, although several Texas ports were open, Mobile was to the Confederates the only usable port in the Gulf. Even though since fairly early in the war the blockade had been regarded as effective, time after time swift blockade runners, creeping along the shore, would dash through the blockading fleet and gain the protection of the forts commanding the entrance to Mobile Bay.

Three forts there were: Morgan, Gaines and Powell. Fort Morgan, on the east side of the main channel, was pentagon shaped; a brick bastioned work with walls four feet eight inches thick. Mounting 86 guns, many of them the newest type obtainable from England, it was garrisoned by 640 men. Fort Gaines, three miles to the northwest, and Fort Powell, six miles beyond, were weaker. They commanded passes that were navigable only to shallow draft vessels.

A small naval squadron was in the bay - three gunboats, the Morgan, Gains and Selma. Carrying a total of 22 guns, 8 rifles and 14 smoothbores, they would be value auxiliaries to the ironclads. Farragut, determined by now that the only positive blockade would entail occupation of the lower bay, studied the defenses. The forts were there to be seen, the contrabands brought increasingly accurate reports of the ironclads, but what of the other perils? What, wondered the Admiral, of the torpedoes which had been assured were thickly planted in the channels? There might be submarines lurking there, too - for the Confederate submarine Hunley had been built at Mobile. Carried by rail to Charleston, it had on February 17, sunk the screw sloop Houstanic. Were more of these weapons at Mobile? No matter, the passage had to be forced as at New Orleans and Port Hudson.

Early in May, 1864, the Tennessee, having been floated over the Dog River Bar, appeared in full view of the blockading fleet. It was to be the Flagship of Admiral Buchanan -- "Old Buck" -- the first commander of the Virginia (Merrimac) and perhaps the best Captain in the Confederate Navy. Two hundred nine feet long, forty-eight feet wide, with a heavy iron ram spur projecting from the bow, the Tennessee was the most powerful ship ever to fly the Confederate flag. Her sides of 25" of oak and pine sloped inward at a 45 degree angle and were plated with five to six inches of iron. The six heavy Brooke's rifles she carried were mounted so that, by ports and pivots, an effective all-around fire could be maintained. Her speed, though, was only six knots, for she had a common failing of most Confederate ships, poor engines. The Tennessee's engines had come from a river steamer, the Alonzo Child, and were not powerful enough to enable the Tennessee to make effective use of her best weapon -- the ram.

By now, new monitors were leaving the yards and four were assigned to Farragut -- two Ericsson ships, the Tecumseh and the Manhattan and two of Eads' -- the Chickasaw and the Winnebago. Porter, in command at New Orleans, stated that the Eads monitors would never be able to make the voyage from New Orleans to Mobile. Eads heard in amazement Porter's declaration that "these vessels would break to pieces in the least swell" and indignantly offered to replace them at his own cost if they should be lost in any ordinary weather during their passage through the Gulf. The need was so imperative that Farragut decided to make the attempt.

Assigned as captain to the Chickasaw was George Perkins. At the Battle of New Orleans he had distinguished himself by accompanying Admiral Bailey through the hostile crowds to accept the city's surrender. Only 27, the youngest commander in Farragut's squadron, he was on his way north when offered the Chickasaw. Joining the ship at New Orleans, he found it not yet complete - the mechanics still were at work on her machinery and fittings. Her crew of one hundred forty-five men and twenty-five officers were, with the exception of half-a-dozen, landsmen or river-boat men, knowing nothing of salt-water sailing or naval discipline. Perkins started training his men as the ship was readied, and on the 28th of July, he left New Orleans to join the fleet off Mobile.

Perhaps the greatest danger to the Chickasaw was met in the Mississippi. Called away from the conning tower, Perkins glanced up an saw the course had been changed - the ship was heading for a sunken hulk. Racing back to the wheel, he wrenched it from the pilot's grasp, spinning it around unitl they were headed away from the wreck. Suspicious of the pilot, Perkins stood by with a drawn revolver until the bar was crossed. The rest of the trip was uneventful, though rough weather was met.

August 1, 1864 the Chickasaw joined the waiting fleet, the men painting and pale "the cabin is so hot that I cannot stay in it" wrote Perkins. "When we are under steam the thermometer, below decks, goes up to 150 degrees, and in the engine room to 214 degrees." Joining the Manhattan and the Winnebago at anchorage they waited for the Tecumseh to arrive.

August 2nd General Granger landed with 2,000 Federal troops on Dauphin Island and began the investment of Fort Gaines. The naval forces were to advance simultaneously, but were delayed, for the Tecumseh still was absent. August 4th brought the Tecumseh. August 5th, 1864, at 5:30 a.m., Farragut advanced with his fleet to force the entrance to Mobile Bay.

The fourteen wooden ships were in a column led by the Brooklyn, with the Octorara lashed alongside. Next were the flagship Hartford with the Metacomet as its auxiliary followed by five more couples. In each case a heavy vessel was to the right of a light one so as to protect the smaller vessel and yet have a means of locomotion should the larger ship be disabled. To the right of the Brooklyn and somewhat in advance, the Tecumseh led the monitors Manhattan, Winnebago and Chickasaw from the Sand Island anchorage.

Craven, in the Tecumseh opened the battle at 6:47, firing at Fort Morgan with his 15 inch guns, the largest guns afloat at this time. Soon the fort replied, not at the monitors, but on the advancing Brooklyn and Hartford which, because of the narrow channel, but to approach almost bows on. For many minutes they were raked by the forts' guns, unable to reply except with their bow-chasers. Trying to disconcert the Southern gunners, the monitors fired rapidly at the fort.

Protected by armor 8 1/2 inch thick, the men in the Chickasaw were relatively safe. Directing the battle through the narrow slits of the conning tower, however, was too much for Perkins. Soon he was on top of one of the turrets, waving his cap and dancing about in his excitement, under the full fire of the fort.

As the Chickasaw was the last ship in the column of monitors, she was the last to fire at the fort. She avoided the mistakes made by the other monitors of firing too soon, for the smoothbore guns, though firing a projectile of great size and weight, had but a moderately short range.

Soon the fire from the fort quieted as the guns from the remainder of the fleet joined the monitors in their attack. Perkins could see through the rifts in the smoke of his guns the Confederates being driven to shelter. But suddenly all went wrong in the Union fleet.

It had been reported to Farragut that the Confederates had planted a triple row of torpedoes extending west from a red buoy, which closed the main channel except for three hundred yards directly under the walls of Fort Morgan. The torpedo, to this time, had been a rather crude mechanism, unreliable in operation. Farragut was not greatly worried by the torpedoes; but, to lessen the peril, certain precautions were taken. The Brooklyn, having a torpedo rake under its bows, was allowed to lead the main column and both columns were to pass between the end of the torpedo line and the walls of the fort.

As the fleet advanced through the slackening fire of the fort, the Tennessee was seen leaving the protection of Fort Morgan and steaming slowly westward. In his eagerness to attack, Craven took the Tecumseh to the west of the red buoy. There was a muffled roar, the monitor careened violently, and then sank so quickly that she carried with her 113 men out of her compliment of 135. Included was her captain who had politely stepped back to let the pilot escape first. The torpedo had exploded under her turret and within two minutes nothing but eddies and a few struggling sailors marked the spot where the large sea-going monitor had been.

When the Tecumseh went down, Perkins was in the forward turret. Panic-struck by the sight of the sinking monitor, the men turned to rush from their guns. Seizing a pistol, the young captain stood in the doorway and calmly threatened to shoot the first man to leave his post. For the rest of the campaign, Perkins had nothing but praise for his crew.

The Brooklyn had been close to the disaster as she led the main column. Torpedoes reported directly ahead, Alden, her captain, backed engines. Then, uncertain, he stopped, throwing the column into confusion as Fort Morgan again began firing, causing heavy losses.

David Farragut

The monitors continued, as well as they could, to engage Fort Morgan. The Manhattan could use but one of her guns, as the vent of the other was closed by rust. The turrets of the Winnebago would not rotate and so the ship had to be maneuvered to aim the guns. The Chickasaw had minor troubles, but her 11 inch guns were fired as fast as possible. More shells were fired into the fort by the Chickasaw than by the other two monitors combined, sending 75 five second shells crashing against the masonry. Several hits were scored on the Chickasaw by return fire. One shell broke through the deck setting fire to the hammocks below.

By the time the Chickasaw steamed past the fort, half the fleet had entered the bay. Already the three small Confederate gun-boats had fled. The Selma was overtaken and captured by the Metacomet while the Morgan and the Gaines had tried to ram the Hartford, the Brooklyn, the Richmond and the Lackawanna as, one by one, they entered the bay. Faster than the under-powered ram, they escaped her lunges, though not her heavy rifled shells. Passing to the west, Perkins fired several 11 inch shells at the monster. Then, obeying signals from the Hartford, the Chickasaw steamed slowly north in the wake of the wooden ships.

Four miles up the bay the channel widened. Here Farragut signaled the fleet to anchor. Soon the men were relaxing as breakfast was prepared. Although they were in the bay, while the Tennessee was afloat the battle was not over. Farragut planned to force the issue by going himself in the Manhattan that evening. In company with the other monitors he would attack the ram under the walls of the fort. Admiral Buchanan, commanding the Tennessee made this unnecessary. At 8:45 a.m., before the rear of the Union column had come to anchor, the Tennessee came out and steamed toward the Hartford.

Quickly the mess gear was put away. The larger wooden ships were ordered to attack "not only with their guns, but bows on at full speed." Dr. Palmer, the fleet surgeon, about to leave the Hartford on his rounds, was sent to the monitors with orders. "Happy as my friend Perkins habitually is," he noted in his diary, "I thought he would turn a somersault overboard with joy when I told him 'the Admiral wants you to go at once and fight the Tennessee.'"

The Union monitors had the same basic defect as the Tennessee - they were slow and difficult to maneuver. Before they could attack, the Monongahela began the second engagement. She struck the Tennessee a blow that cost her her iron prow, but did no visible harm to her foe. The Lackawanna rammed with as little success. As the Hartford approached to ram, the Tennessee turned so that the ships scraped past each other. The guns depressed as much as possible, the entire port broadsides of the Hartford was fired, but the shot ricocheted off. The Tennessee could fire but one shell, but this, passing through the berth deck of the Hartford, killed five men and wounded eight. Further attempts at ramming were even less successful. In the confusion the Lackawanna rammed the Hartford, tearing a gaping hole in her bows just above the water line.

At last the monitors arrived, their guns flashing at the ram. The Manhattan, with her one available gun, fired only six shots. One fifteen inch bolt, however, penetrated the armor and timber of the casement, finally being stopped by the splinter netting inside. The Winnebago was not too effective as the turret rotating mechanism was still inoperative. Only the Chickasaw demonstrated the power of the monitors, doing more harm to the Tennessee than the rest of the fleet combined.

In the stress of battle, the steering mechanism of the Chickasaw failed and Perkins had to steer his ship by the engines. The vessel below was becoming hotter and hotter. The ventilation system had also failed, for when the guns had been fired over the intake openings, the concussions burst the ducts. Powder fumes were sucked in through the breaks fouling the air and causing an explosion hazard to the powder being passed up to the turret. Shell holes in the stack lowered the draft so that tallow and coal tar had to be put in the furnaces to keep up the steam.

Taking position under the stern of the Confederate, the Chickasaw clung like a bull dog, never more than fifty yards away and sometimes as near as ten. Although her eleven inch shot were unable to penetrate the rams' armor, Perkins kept pounding away on all the exposed equipment and on the after end of the casement. Soon a shot carried away the smokestack of the Tennessee making it almost impossible to keep up steam as the draft was gone. The smoke threatened to suffocate the men in the casement.

Coming close under the stern of the ram, the Chickasaw fired two eleven inch shot from the forward turret against the enemy's stern gun port. The cover resisted the bolts, but was so jammed that it couldn't be opened to run out the gun. Admiral Buchanan, who was personally commanding the gun crews, hurried aft sat once with a mechanic to repair the shutter. At this moment, the aft turret of the Chickasaw fired. Again a shot struck the stern port, killing the mechanic as he was removing the pivot bolt and fracturing Buchanan's leg. The other shot carried away the rudder chains of the ram which, but a fatal error of design, were exposed on the deck.

The Tennessee was by now in a desperate situation. The Admiral wounded, the command had fallen on Commander J.D. Johnston who attempted to get back to Fort Morgan. With the rudder chains gone and steam low, however, the Tennessee was unmanageable. The Chickasaw was still close under her stern, Perkins "firing his eleven inch guns like a pair of pocket pistols," as the Ossipee came charging down to ram.

Realizing that a continuation of the fight meant only the sacrifice of the crew, Johnston lowered the Confederate flag which, toward the last, had been flying from the handle of a gun scraper shoved through the top grating. Then, coming out on the shield, he hoisted a white flag in surrender.

Seeing the white flag, Commander LeRoy of the Ossippee stopped his engines, but his momentum carried him into the Tennessee. It was to LeRoy that Johnston surrendered, saying "If it had not been for that damned black hulk hanging on our stern, we would have got along well enough; she did us more damage than all the rest of the Federal fleet." His pilot echoed, "Damn him! He stuck to us like a leech. We could not get rid of him." This was shortly after 10:00 a.m.; the battle had lasted three and a quarter hours with a thirty minute intermission. Passing a line to the prize, the Chickasaw towed her slowly to the anchorage of the Union fleet.

Four hours later the Chickasaw was ordered to bombard Fort Powell, the smaller of the remaining two forts. The other monitors unable to aid, she attacked the fort alone. Officers and crew, exhausted by the morning's fight and the heat, gas and smoke below decks, fought on. Ignoring the fire from the fort, the Chickasaw closed within 350 yards to seize the barge Ingomar loaded with intrenching tools. Removing the barge, the monitor opened fire with five-second shells, regularly, again and again. The fort was well provisioned and the seaward face was strongly defended. The bay side, where lay the Chickasaw, was not, however, complete. A seven-inch Brooke rifle was dragged to where the monitor's fire could be returned. Though a shell was put through her smokestack, no other damage was done. The monitor's bombardment made it impossible for the Confederates to man the two guns in the rear. The elevating screw of the ten-inch Columbiad was broken by a shell fragment. Another shell entered a sally-port, passed entirely through a bombproof and buried itself in the opposite wall without exploding. The shells exploding against the parapets blew the sand away faster than it could be replaced. Lt. Colonel Williams, the Southern commander, realized that unless the Chickasaw was driven off, a shell would soon strike the magazines. To drive her off was impossible.

Until nightfall the unequal fight continued. Knowing the fort was doomed, as the Chickasaw withdrew, Williams evacuated his men. Spiking the guns, he exploded the magazine as the troops left. Early the next morning the Chickasaw returned to the now silent, smoking ruin. Calling away his gig, Perkins went to the fort and raised the Stars and Stripes from the staff. By the capture of Fort Powell a passage well suited to shallow draft ships was opened and Farragut' supply line was safe.

Fort Gaines was next. On the eastern end of Dauphin Island, it was opposite Fort Morgan. Three days before Union troops had been landed on the island and besieged the fort. After Fort Powell was captured, Perkins steamed down the bay to Dauphin Island. For over an hour he attempted to signal to General Granger. Unsuccessful in his attempt to coordinate his attack, Perkins fired shells at the fort for two hours from eighteen hundred yards. The aim was good, many of the shells falling within the forts' masonry walls. The reply from the Confederate batteries did the monitor no harm as she lay there like a giant turtle in the calm waters of the bay. The next morning, August 7, 1864, the entire garrison of Fort Gaines, eight hundred men, surrendered to the combined army and naval forces, leaving only Fort Morgan, alone under the Confederate flag.

The siege of Fort Morgan lasted for another fifteen days. Fifteen days of heat and exhaustion as the Union lines became tighter and tighter around the walls. Until the surrender of the fort, the Chickasaw formed part of the besieging force, leaving its position at times when Confederate naval forces threatened. Variety came with the 9th of August as the small boats were sent out. The gig brought back a boat with three prisoners as the launch brought in a captured sloop. On the 11th, the army landed in the rear of the fort, placing batteries within four hundred yards under the cover of a severe storm. The Chickasaw, still the only monitor fit for duty, supported the landing with shell fire. So the siege went the ironclad returning daily to shell the fort.

The 15th found the Chickasaw, still alone, in sight of Mobile, exchanging fire with two rams the Confederates were hurrying to completion. The channel being completely blocked with piles, sunken hulks, and torpedoes, the opposing ships were unable to close and Perkins retired down the bay.

The following day the monitor returned and lay watching the southern rams across the obstruction. Reports of guerilla activity on the shore were brought to Perkins and a boat was sent to patrol the shores. It returned, with two men wounded in an attack by the partisans.

Slow, tedious days passed under the broiling August sun. one by one the other Union ironclads came into action. Finally, at dawn on the 22nd, the final bombardment opened on Fort Morgan by land and sea. The Chickasaw, the Winnebago and the Manhattan were accompanied by the captured Tennessee as, close in, they shelled the fort. The larger vessels stayed outside, firing at the fort at long range. Surrender followed the next day and on august 23, 1864 the entrance to Mobile Bay was sealed to the Confederates. The last major port in the eastern gulf was closed.

Though Mobile Bay was closed, Mobile itself was not captured until April 12, 1865. For six months the city held out, watching the Union forces grow stronger as the Confederacy withered behind them. The Union army made its final drive in early April, as the ironclads, strongly reinforced, supported them closely. The torpedoes strewn through the channel took their toll The Chickasaw's sister ship, the Milwaukee, was sunk by torpedoes in the upper channel before the final surrender of all Confederate armed forces on the gulf - the 4th of May, 1865.

Soon all the ironclads in the gulf were gathered at New Orleans where they were de-commissioned. Lying there they slowly rotted until one by one they were sold out.

The Pacific coast of South America in the 1870's had become a powder keg as Chile cast covetous eyes on the nitrate provinces of Peru and Bolivia. An armaments race began and in 1874 the Chickasaw and Winnebago were sold to Peru. Despite Porter's doubts of their sea-worthiness ten years before, both ships rounded the horn and joined the Peruvian navy.

The "War of the Pacific" broke out in 1879. By now the Chickasaw, renamed the Manco Capac was the harbor ship at Arica. Only once did she leave her moorings, then to drive away the Chilean ironclad Huascar. Laying in the harbor, she was used as a floating battery against the Chilean fleet. Arica fell by assault on June 7, 1880, and, scuttled to avoid capture, that "damned black hulk" sank as she lived, in the flames of battle.