The Ships of Rebel Raiders - The Gunboats

Rebel Raiders on the High Seas is a strategic game of the Civil War which focuses on the role of the navies on the rivers, along the coasts and on the oceans.  While most ships are represented by generic counters for Ironclads, Blockade Runners, Gunboats, Screw Sloops and, of course Raiders, there are cards and corresponding counters for many individual vessels.  This series presents those cards and offers a glimpse into the history of these storied ships.

Part II – The Gunboats:  A Victory for The Mosquito Fleet Rams

Not all of the Confederacy’s gunboats were more boat than gun, to paraphrase one of their commanders.  The Rebel River Defense Fleet under Captain James Montgomery (who appears in Rebel Raiders as one of the two Confederate naval leaders counters) had one very good day – that day was May 10, 1862, in what became known as “The Battle of Plum Point Bend.”

In preparation for the attack on Fort Pillow, the Union ironclad USS Cincinnati was escorting a mortar boat (of the type portrayed in Rebel Raiders by USN Card 2 – David Dixon Porter & His Little Mortar Boats) when they were suddenly surprised by all eight ships of  Montgomery’s flotilla.  Three rams steamed quickly to hit the USS Cincinnati in succession (CSS General Price, CSS General Bragg and CSS General Sumter).

 The Union ironclad USS Mound City tried to come to the aid of the sinking USS Cincinnati, but was in turn set upon by another ram,  CSS General Van Dorn, which despite being pounded by “broadside after broadside” from the Union warship, as an officer aboard recalled, the Rebel ram came on, struck and “tore away nearly half of our forecastle (and) opened an awful hole in our bows.” To save the ship and crew, the captain of the USS Mound City ran her aground on a sandbar.

 Montgomery, promoted to flag officer for his victory, upon his return to Memphis boasted that after Plum Point Bend the Union fleet would “never penetrate farther down the Mississippi.”

He was wrong.  The Union raised the USS Cincinnati and repaired both her and USS Mound City, brought in their own rams  (as depicted by USN Card 38 – USS Queen of the West or Ellet’s Ram) and drove down the river to take on Montgomery and his Mosquito Fleet (CSN Card 81) in full view of the citizens of Memphis.  Montgomery went out to meet them, bravely announcing as he left the dock that “you may see Lincoln’s gunboats sent to the bottom by the fleet which you have built and manned.”

That was June 6, less than a month after his victory at Plum Point Bend.  Within minutes of the engagement three of his eight ships were sunk; the other five, with Montgomery aboard, fled downriver, the Yankees in hot pursuit.  During the 10-mile running fight four of the Rebel ships were sunk; only the CSS General Van Dorn got away.

    

The Ships of Rebel Raiders - The Gunboats

Rebel Raiders on the High Seas is a strategic game of the Civil War which focuses on the role of the navies on the rivers, along the coasts and on the oceans.  While most ships are represented by generic counters for Ironclads, Blockade Runners, Gunboats, Screw Sloops and, of course Raiders, there are cards and corresponding counters for many individual vessels.  This series presents those cards and offers a glimpse into the history of these storied ships.

Part II – The Gunboats: The Mosquito Fleet Rams at New Orleans

“The Mosquito Fleet” (CSN Card 81) represents the rag-tag little squadrons the South hastily cobbled together to defend their ports from the Union Navy.  One such force supported the ironclad CSS Manassas in the battle at Forts Jackson and St. Philip below New Orleans in late April 1862.

While the CSS Manassas is represented in the game (as CSN Card 71), the vessels that accompanied her are represented by the generic Gunboat counters, one or two of which may be added to a Confederate defense by play of The Mosquito Fleet (CSN Card 81).   General Mansfield Lowell had purchased and armed 14 civilian craft for his flotilla in the late winter of 1862 – but was ordered to send more than half of them upriver to Memphis to join Commander Montgomery’s river defense force (see my posting for July 15: http://markgmclaughlin.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-ships-of-rebel-raiders-gunboats_15.html)

When David G. Farragut and his massive Union fleet made their move on the forts below his city, Lowell had only six of his armed riverboats left, a force that even the Confederate secretary of war lamented was “a peculiar one.”  (Lowell himself admitted that his group had “little or no discipline” and was “too much ‘steamboat’ and too little of the man-of-war’ to be very effective.”  Still, when Farragut’s gunboats and screw sloops broke through the barrier of Hulks, Rafts and Chains (as represented in Rebel Raiders by CSN Card 110) Lowell and his makeshift flotilla were there to meet him.

While the turtle-shaped ironclad CSS Manassas   was the spearpoint of Lowell’s counterattack against the screw sloops (notably the massive USS Mississippi – represented in the game by USN Card 23), his gunboats closed with their Union counterparts.  The J.C. Breckinridge and Governor Moore worked together to each ram and sink the USS Varuna, then headed for the USS Cayuga – but were driven off by the fire of another Union gunboat, USS Oneida.  (USS Cayuga broke through the line of Rebel ships, surprised five companies of militia in their camp, who after taking a few rounds from the gunboat became the first Confederate regiment to surrender to a Union gunboat).

Lowell fought on, sending fireships down the river, but after the USS Mississippi’s guns pummeled and set afire the CSS Manassas, the fight was over.  Farragut  (USN Card 1) in the USS Hartford (USN Card 37), along with the USS Brooklyn (USN Card 13) and the rest of the fleet steamed forward, the forts already partially silenced by David Dixon Porter and his Little Mortar Boats (USN Card 2).   From there, it was on to New Orleans for the Union fleet.   As for Lowell, all but one ship in his Mosquito Fleet was lost.

The Ships of Rebel Raiders - The Gunboats

  

Rebel Raiders on the High Seas is a strategic game of the Civil War which focuses on the role of the navies on the rivers, along the coasts and on the oceans.  While most ships are represented by generic counters for Ironclads, Blockade Runners, Gunboats, Screw Sloops and, of course Raiders, there are cards and corresponding counters for many individual vessels.  This series presents those cards and offers a glimpse into the history of these storied ships.

  

Part II – The Gunboats: The Mosquito Fleet (Continued):  “Old Buck” at Mobile Bay

“The Mosquito Fleet” (CSN Card 81) represents the rag-tag little squadrons the South cobbled together for the defense of Memphis and Mobile Bay.  Civilian vessels to which a gun or two and crew were hastily added, and to which bales of cotton, stacks of lumber or other makeshift defenses were added, these hopelessly outclassed and outgunned little ships and their brave crews performed far better than any could expect or demand. 

Commander James Montgomery led one of these rag-tag fleets at Memphis (see yesterday’s post), while Admiral Franklin Buchanan or “Old Buck” as he was known to his former comrades in the U.S. Navy, led a similarly cobbled-together fleet at Mobile Bay in August 1864.   In addition to three gunboats (one of which, CSS Gaines – CSN Card 72 is in the game) Buchanan at least had the mighty ironclad ram CSS Tennessee as his flagship  (also in the game as CSN Card 86). 

Unfortunately, just as Montgomery’s fleet was outmatched by Colonel Charles Ellet’s ironclads and rams at Memphis in June 1862, so was Buchanan’s force outnumbered and outclassed by the massive force Admiral David G. Farragut brought into Mobile Bay.

Farragut, like Buchanan, is represented by a stand-up Leader counter and Fleet Command Box – as well as three cards in the deck:   “Damn the Torpedoes…Full Speed Ahead” (USN Card 1),  The Grand Fleet (USN Card 33) and his flagship, USS Hartford (USN Card 37).    Another of Farragut’s ships that fought in the battle, USS Brooklyn (USN Card 13) also appears in the game.  All told, Farragut had a dozen big warships, four ironclads and a pair of gunboats to battle “Old Buck,” and to batter through the extensive harbor defenses (which, in Rebel Raiders, would be represented by three Battery counters for the Confederacy as well as such defensive cards as “Infernal Machines” (CSN Card 56)