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CHAPTER XIV.

THE RAMS “"ARKANSAS," "QUEEN OF THE WEST,” "INDIANOLA," AND "WEBB."

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HE immense preparations for building gunboats at St. Louis and other Western cities, by the United States, as heretofore explained, greatly alarmed the Legislature of the State of Tennessee, which, by joint resolutions of June 24th, 1861, called the attention of the Confederate Government to the exposed and undefended condition of all Western waters, and asked for an immediate appropriation of $250,000, for their defence. These resolutions were laid before Congress by a special message from President Davis on July 31st, and the Act of August 24th, making additional appropriations for the navy, included a clause, "for the construction, equipment and armament of two iron-clad gunboats for the defence of the Mississippi River, and the city of Memphis, $160,000.”1 On the day of the approval of that act, Secretary Mallory entered into a contract with John T. Shirley, of the city of Memphis, "to construct and deliver to the Secretary of the Navy of the Confederate States, on or before the 24th day of December, 1861, two vessels of the character and description provided in the plans and specifications" of the Department. Heavy penalties were imposed for delay beyond, and like amounts to be paid for each day previous to, the 24th of December, were embraced in the contract.

The two vessels were the rams Arkansas and Tennessee. The constructor of the Arkansas was Prime Emmerson, of Memphis, Tenn. It was necessary for the contractor to begin his work by building two saw-mills, such as would saw long pine timber, which was brought from a distance of 104 miles by railroad; and in addition, the oak timber had to be prepared in five other saw-mills, which were located from ten to twenty miles away.

1 It is said that this sum was found totally inadequate, and in order to raise funds, which

were supplied tardily by the government, Capt. Shirley was compelled to sell his homestead.

The iron was purchased partly in Memphis and more largely in Arkansas, on the other side of the Mississippi River, and was altogether railroad iron. The bolts and spikes had to be rolled on the Cumberland River, and the first lot of these was seized by Confederate officers at Nashville, and taken and put into an iron boat under construction at that city. This required to have the spikes and bolts again rolled, and with increased difficulty. The complement of iron was picked up at one place and another in fifty and one hundred pound lots, wherever it could be found. Very little success attended efforts to procure ship-carpenters in New Orleans, St. Louis, Mobile, and Nashville. Details of these carpenters from the army were refused notwithstanding the efforts of the Secretary of the Navy. The contract was for the completion of the vessels in four months from August 24, 1861, but over seven months passed before their completion. The successful passage of Columbus and Island No. 10, by the enemy, opened the way down to Memphis, and the passage of the Federal fleet of the forts below New Orleans, it was then thought opened the way up to Memphis, and hence the destruction of the Tennessee, and the removal of the Arkansas to Greenwood, on the Yazoo River, became a necessity. In the removal a barge laden with 400 bars of drilled railroad iron was sunk in the Yazoo, which compelled a delay of several weeks before the barge was raised. Every bar of iron required six holes to be drilled through, and the steam machinery at Memphis for that purpose had to be taken down and transported, and set up before the new iron could be drilled. The Arkansas was removed to the Yazoo in April, 1862, before the actual fall of Memphis. These boats were commenced in October, and their construction carried on together; the Tennessee's frame having been completed and the planking on her; and the Arkansas had her wood-work entirely completed, and her hull covered with iron nearly to the main deck. The iron for the Tennessee was on the Arkansas side of the river, when, on the evening before the enemy arrived at Memphis, the boat was burned. The failure to complete the Tennessee was due to causes and circumstances beyond the control of either the Secretary of the Navy or the contractorto the unprepared condition of the country for the speedy completion of such ships. Those natural and unavoidable impediments to speedy work were increased by the refusal of Gen. Polk to detail the carpenters in his army to work upon the rams. The Secretary wrote to him on December

24th, 1861, that:

"The completion of the iron-clad gunboat at Memphis, by Mr. Shirley is regarded as highly important to the defences of the Mississippi.

One of them at Columbus would have enabled you to complete the annihilation of the enemy,

"Had I not supposed that every facility for obtaining carpenters from the army near Memphis would have been extended to the enterprise,

I would not have felt authorized to have commenced their construction then, as it was evident that ruinous delays must ensue, if deprived of the opportunity to obtain mechanics in this way.

"These vessels will be armed with very heavy guns, and will be ironclad, and with such aid as mechanics under your command can afford, they may be completed, I am assured, in sixty days.

"Now I ask, therefore, that you will extend to this department the necessary aid."

The refusal of Gen. Polk is the more extraordinary and unaccountable because he had particularly and emphatically endorsed and recommended Mr. Shirley to the Navy Department, as the contractor for these boats, and Gen. Polk ought to have known, without Secretary Mallory's statement, that "unless mechanics could be obtained from the forces under your command, the completion of the vessels will be a matter of uncertainty." That failure by Gen. Polk to comply with the request of the Secretary caused the latter, on January 15th, to bring the matter to the attention of the President, who was then informed officially that:

"The two iron-clad ships being built at Memphis, and which would be worth many regiments in defending the river, progress very slowly from the difficulty of procuring workmen; Gen. Polk, in command there, having declined to permit the contractor to have any from his forces.

"I have the honor to ask, therefore, that such measures may be adopted as will secure to this department the services of such shipwrights, carpenters and joiners in the army as may be willing to work for it in the construction of vessels."

But

On the 10th of April, 1862, Capt. Hollins, then in command of the Upper Mississippi, telegraphed the Navy Department that three iron-clad gunboats of the enemy had passed Island No. 10, and was advised by the Secretary of the Navy to "act according to your best judgment-do not let the enemy get the boats at Memphis;" and on the same day, Commander McBlair, in command of the Arkansas, was advised by the Secretary of the passage of Island No. 10 by the enemy's fleet, and to "get your boat to New Orleans, and complete her as soon as possible, if she is in danger at Memphis." on April 25th, Commander McBlair advised the Department by telegraph that in consequence of the passage of the forts below New Orleans by the enemy's fleet, that he would take the Arkansas up the Yazoo River, carrying the material for completing the gunboat, and also carrying the engines of the boat on the stocks, and that arrangements would be made to destroy the Tennessee. Accordingly, on the approach of the enemy's gunboats to Memphis the Tennessee, being on the stocks, was burned, and the Arkansas towed down to the mouth of the Yazoo and up that river to Yazoo City. Below the city, batteries were speedily erected and armed, and a raft was built across the river to protect the ram while being finished from the gunboats of the enemy.

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On the 26th of May, 1862, Lieut. Isaac N. Brown,' C. S. N., received orders "to assume command of the Arkansas and finish the vessel without regard to expenditure of men or money. On the 28th this efficient officer took command at Greenwood. He found the Arkansas surrounded by refugee merchant steamers and four miles from dry land. Nothing could be done at that place toward rendering the vessel effective. The barge which had brought down some of the railroad iron intended for armor was sunk in the Yazoo River, the guns and machinery lying on deck, and but one blacksmith's forge and five carpenters were at work. The timber from which the gun-carriages were subsequently made was still growing in the woods. The outlook was certainly anything but encouraging. In two days time the barge was raised from the bed of the river with the railroad iron, and the Arkansas taken 160 miles nearer the enemy to Yazoo City. Fourteen forges and 200 carpenters were immediately employed, and divided into day and night parties, were set to work upon the ram. Iron armor was brought by wagons from the railroad, twenty-five

Isaac N. Brown, son of Rev. Samuel Brown, of the Presbyterian Church, was born in Livingston County, Ky., and appointed an officer in the U. S. navy from Mississippi on the 15th of May, 1834. He served five years on the West India station and Gulf of Mexico, and performed efficient service in the Seminole war on the Florida coast in open boats, and also in the interior. In 1840 he stood his examination at the naval school, then in Philadelphia, and passed No. 1. He served in the Mexican War, first in the Gulf, and was present at the capture of Vera Cruz. He was then transferred to the Pacific coast, where he performed arduous service during the remainder of the war. His service afloat took him three times around Capes Horn and Good Hope, including a voyage to Australia, and going twice around the globe. For a time he served on the Coast Survey, and also at the U. S. Naval Observatory, then under the charge of Commander M. F. Maury. He served one cruise as Executive officer of the U. S. frigate Susquehannah in the Mediterranean, and assisted in the first attempt to lay the Atlantic cable. He was the Executive officer of the U. S. frigate Niagara when that vessel returned to their homes the first Japanese Embassy to the United States. On the return of the Niagara to Boston in 1861, Lieut. Brown finding two governments where the year previous he had left but one, promptly resigned his commission after having given twenty-seven years of his life to the naval service of the United States. He entered the service of the C. S. navy on June 6, 1861, with the rank of lieutenant, and was assigned for duty at the headquarters of the Army of the West, to aid in the defences of the Mississippi River. When Randolph, Fort Pillow and Columbus were armed with heavy guns, Lieut. Brown was sent to Nashville with instructions to purchase and change into gunboats certain river steamers for the defence of the Cumberland River. This work was entered into with his accustomed vigor, but was interrupted by the withdrawal of the Confederate forces from the Cumberland as a line of defence. He was then ordered to New Orleans to contract for and superintend the construction of four ironclad gunboats. He was pushing this work at the

ship yards at Algiers, opposite New Orleans, when that unfortunate city fell into the hands of the enemy. Lieut. Brown proceeded to Vicksburg where he received on May 26th, 1862, a telegraphic order from the Navy Department to assume command of the gunboat Arkansas. For his gallant service on board of the Arkansas he was promoted to the rank of Commander on August 25th, 1862. After her destruction, during his absence on account of sickness, he resumed command of her surviving officers, and men, and was engaged on shore duty in the batteries at Port Hudson. In a short time most of the officers were detached for service on the seaboard, leaving Lieut. Brown with a small command with which he defended the defences on the Yazoo River. While engaged in this duty he destroyed the Federal iron-clads DeKalb and Cairo by torpedoes in the Yazoo. He was then assigned by Lieut. Gen. Pemberton to the command of a body of troops, and in conjunction with an improvised cotton-clad squadron of river steamers, materially aided in the repulse of an expedition composed of 10,000 men, with several iron-clads, under the command of Gen. Ross, which made an attack on Fort Pemberton. In this engagement a small detachment of the crew of the Arkansas with a sixty-four-pounder gun rendered the most effective service. After the fall of Vicksburg Commander Brown was ordered to the command of the C. S. iron-clad Charleston, at Charleston, S. C., where he performed good service in the defence of that heroic city. After the fall of Charleston he was appointed to the command of all the naval defences west of the Mississippi, including the coast of Louisiana and Texas. Before reaching his des tination, however, he received intelligence of the cessation of hostilities. Returning on parole to his plantation in Mississippi, without a dollar, he overcame the difficulties of his situation, and surrounded by his interesting family cultivated it for the following twenty years. Half of this time he was disfranchised, but on the restora tion of his citizenship he declined to take any part in civil or political affairs. Commander Brown is now [1887] a resident of Corsicana, Texas, though still retaining his property in Mississippi.

miles distant, drilling machines started, gun-carriages contracted for, and the work energetically and intelligently pushed.'

While working thus assiduously on the ram, Lieut. Brown ordered Lieut. Read to go down to Liverpool Landing, and take measures to protect the Polk and the Livingston, of the Hollins fleet, which had taken refuge up the Yazoo, from the enemy's gunboats. Lieut. Read's instructions were to protect the two gunboats with cotton, turn their heads down the stream, keep steam up, and be prepared to fight and ram any gunboat of the enemy that might present itself on the river. But Commander Pinkney, then awaiting the arrival of Capt. William F. Lynch, who was to take command of all the naval forces in Western waters, determined to await the arrival of Capt. Lynch, and would not for that reason assent to the programme of operations designed by Lieut. Brown. There remained nothing then to do but to push forward the completion of the ram. Upon his arrival, Capt. Lynch inspected the ram, and dispatched to Secretary Mallory that the Arkansas is very inferior to the Merrimac in every particular. The iron with which she is covered is worn and indifferent, taken from a railroad track, and is poorly secured to the vessel; boiler iron on stern and counter; her smoke-stack is sheet iron." Nevertheless, Lieut. Brown completed the ram, and armed her with ten guns: two eight-inch Columbiads in the two forward or bow ports; two nine-inch Dahlgren shell guns, two six-inch rifled, and two thirty-two pounders, smooth bores in broadside, and two six-inch rifles astern. Her engines were new, having been built at Memphis, and on the trial trip had worked well; she had two propellers and separate engines.

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1 Lieut. George W. Gift, a gallant officer of the Arkansas, says: "The ship was in a very incomplete condition. The iron of her armor extended only a foot, or a little more, above the water line, and there was not a sufficiency of iron on hand to finish the entire ship. Of guns we had enough, but were short four carriages. In the matter of ammunition and outfit for the battery we were also very deficient. It was fearfully discouraging, but Brown was undismayed. He summoned the planters from the neighborhood and asked for laborers and their overseers. Numbers of forges were sent in, and the work commenced. The hoisting engine of the steamboat Capital was made to drive a number of steam drills, whilst some dozen of hands were doing similar work by hand. A temporary blacksmith shop was erected on the river bank, and the ringing of the hammer was incessant. Stevens went to Canton and got the four guncarriages. I have often been greatly amused when thinking of this latter achievement. He made no drawing before his departure, not knowing that he could find a party who would undertake the job. Being agreeably disappointed in this latter respect, he wrote back for the dimensions of the guns. With two squares I made the measurements of the guns (all different patterns) and sent on the data. In a week or a little more, Stevens appeared with four ox teams and the carriages. However, it would

take more space than is necessary to recite all that was done and how it was done. It is sufficient to say that within five weeks from the day we arrived at Yazoo City, we had a man-of-war (such as she was) from almost nothing-the credit for all of which belongs to Isaac Newton Brown, the commander of the vessel."-Southern Hist. Society Papers, Vol. XII., No. 5, May 1884.

Brig. Gen. M. L. Smith, who first assumed command of Vicksburg and its defences, on the 12th of May, 1862, in obedience to orders from Major Gen. Lovell, in his official report, dated August, 1862, says: "As bearing immediately upon the defence of this place, measures had also been taken to push the Arkansas to completion. It was reported the contractor had virtually suspended work; that mechanics and workmen were leaving; that supplies were wanting; finally, that a very considerable quantity of iron prepared for covering her had been sunk in the Yazoo River. Steps were taken to promptly furnish mechanics and supplies, and bell-boat being obtained and sent up to the spot, the prepared iron was soon recovered. It was considered fortunate that soon after this Capt. Brown was assigned to the duty of completing the boat, as after his assignment this important work gave me no further concern."

2 Lieut. C. W. Read in So. Hist. Papers, Vol. I., No. 5, May 1876.

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