CSS Ivy
History | |
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Name | Ivy |
Namesake | V.H. Ivy |
Owner | Confederate States Navy |
Builder | Burtis |
Launched | 1845 |
Commissioned | May 16, 1861 |
Fate | Destroyed to prevent capture at Liverpool Landing, Yazoo River, May 1863 |
General characteristics | |
Tons burthen | 447 tons |
Length | 191 ft (58 m) |
Beam | 28 ft (8.5 m) |
Draft | 9 ft (2.7 m) |
Propulsion | Side paddle wheels, one vertical condensing beam engine; cylinders, 44” diameter, 11’ stroke[1] |
Speed | 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) |
Complement | 60 officers and men |
Armament | 1 8”-smoothbore, 1 32-pounder rifle[2] |
CSS Ivy was a sidewheel steamer and privateer purchased by Commodore Lawrence Rousseau for service with the Confederate States Navy, and chosen by Commodore George Hollins for his Mosquito Fleet. The Mosquito Fleet was a group of riverboats converted to gunboats, and used to defend the Mississippi River in the area of New Orleans during the American Civil War.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b1/Cutter_on_the_USS_Niagara_%28II%29.jpg/306px-Cutter_on_the_USS_Niagara_%28II%29.jpg)
Equipped with a powerful rifled 32-pounder, Ivy fought with the Mosquito Fleet at the Confederate victory of the
Description
Ivy was 191 feet (58.2 m) long
As a privateer Ivy was armed with two brass 24-pounder smoothbore howitzers. As a riverboat her armament was increased to an eight-inch smoothbore mounted aft, and a 32-pounder rifled gun mounted on a forward pivot position on the bow. The conventional description of "rifled 32-pounder" is misleading, however. This gun was a former 32-pounder smoothbore that had been "modernized" by rifling the barrel, and machining and shrinking a single layer of red hot bands of wrought iron onto the breech of the barrel to allow it to operate at much greater breech pressures. This rifling and banding allowed the gun to fire a 100-pound (6.4-inch diameter) conical shot or shell at much greater ranges than would be possible with 32-pound round shot fired out of a smoothbore barrel. This modification was similar to the James rifle process used to produce siege guns, and the resulting gun tube resembled a Parrott rifle. This gun could be much more accurately described as a 6.4 inches (16 cm) banded rifle, and was the most powerful long range weapon in the mosquito fleet.[4][5]
Privateer
As a privately owned commercial vessel, Ivy had been known as Roger Williams and El-Paraguay. CSS Ivy began her Civil War career as a New Orleans-based privateer V.H. Ivy, sent out to capture Union commercial vessels once
Mosquito fleet
Blockade of the Mississippi
The
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Cannon_Banded_Rifle_6.4inch_CSN1864.jpg/220px-Cannon_Banded_Rifle_6.4inch_CSN1864.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/Lower_Mississippi_River_Map.jpg/220px-Lower_Mississippi_River_Map.jpg)
Battle of the Head of Passes
Ivy began patrolling the Mississippi River south of Forts Jackson and St. Phillip beginning in September 1861, captained by Lieutenant Fry of the CSN. On September 19 she encountered USS Water Witch. Water Witch was scouting the Head of Passes for the blockade fleet, which was planning to occupy the Head of Passes and set up a shore battery to control this strategic point. On October 5 Ivy reported the Head of Passes occupied by three vessels of the Union fleet, and shelled them with her bow pivot gun. Returning to the forts, Fry warned Hollins that the Union fleet was establishing a base at the Head of Passes. Hollins decided that the advance of the Blockade Fleet was a significant threat to New Orleans and moved to attack with the entire mosquito fleet. This attack resulted in the Battle of the Head of Passes, a Confederate victory which routed the Blockade Fleet and sent it back to the mouth of the Southwest Passage.[9]
Battle of Island Number 10
This victory reinforced the idea in the Confederate War Department that Flag Officer
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a5/Yazoo_River_1863_Porter.jpg/220px-Yazoo_River_1863_Porter.jpg)
Destruction
Commander McBlair CSN at Memphis, being informed that New Orleans had fallen after the Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, ordered the remaining Confederate vessels on the Mississippi to concentrate at Yazoo City, Mississippi, on the Yazoo River. He regarded this harbor as the only safe place remaining on the Mississippi River network for the Confederate Navy to maintain a base.[11]
This remaining refuge did not prove safe for long. In May 1863, Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter ordered a fleet under the command of Lieutenant-commander Walker to destroy Confederate commerce on the Yazoo River. This force consisted of USS Baron De Kalb, Forest Rose, Linden, Signal, and Petrel. With Forest Rose acting as a minesweeper, this force advanced steadily up the Yazoo River, from May 24–31. Fearing the capture of their vessels on the Yazoo, Confederate forces destroyed CSS Ivy, Star of the West, and the transports Arcadia and Magenta.[12]
References
- Abbreviations used in these notes
- Official atlas: Atlas to accompany the official records of the Union and Confederate armies.
- ORA (Official records, armies): War of the Rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate Armies.
- ORN (Official records, navies): Official records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion.
- ^ a b ORN II, v. 1, p. 256.
- ISBN 0-87021-783-6.
- ^ Lindsay (1989). Mechanics Notebook 23, 1880 Ordnance, Ordnance Construction, Gun Carriages, Machine Guns & Manufacture of Ordnance. Lindsay Publications Inc. p. 14.
- ISBN 978-1-84176-307-1.
- ISBN 0-8071-1945-8.
- ^ Hearn, pp. 70–1.
- ^ ORN I, v. 18, p. 131.
- ^ Hearn, pp. 82–3.
- ^ Hearn, p. 169.
- ^ a b ORN II, v. 1, p. 798.
- ^ ORN I, v. 25, pp. 133–4.