USS Mississippi (USN Card 23) “Largest Ship in the U.S. Navy”- Perry’s Flagship

The Ships of Rebel Raiders    - The Men o’War

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.

USS Mississippi (USN Card 23) “Largest Ship in the U.S. Navy”- Perry’s Flagship

......and the bane of Confederate Coffee Drinkers!

When Commodore Matthew Perry went to Japan he wanted to make a big impression – and so he chose the biggest vessel he could find for his flagship.  At over 3,300 long tons, in 1861 the USS Mississippi (USN Card 23) was easily the largest ship in the fleet.  Having served in the Mexican War, she was also already a veteran combatant. 

As the Civil War broke out, USS Mississippi was sent to blockade Key West, and within less than a week on station, captured an inbound blockade runner packed with Brazilian coffee (a highly-prized commodity the South would do without for four years). The massive warship was then sent to the mouth of the river whose name she bore -  and while on blockade duty captured another coffee ship, thus depriving the Confederacy of much-needed caffeine.

When David Glasgow Farragut took on Forts Jackson and St. Phillip in April 1862, USS Mississippi was with him – and it was two massive broadsides from her huge Paixhans Guns that wrecked the Confederate ironclad ram, CSS Manassas. (CSN Card 71).  (Farragut is a leader counter in the game and appears on three cards – giving strategic and tactical advantages on USN Cards 33 and 1, respectively, and with his presence on the map allowing play of the card marking his flagship, USS Hartford – USN Card 37).

Despite protestations by Captain Melancton Smith that her displacement and length made her unsuited for operations upriver, in March 1863 Farragut sent her to support the attack on Port Hudson. As Smith feared, she grounded while under enemy fire.  Smith and his exec, George Dewey (of Manila Bay fame over 40 years later), struggled mightily to refloat her – but Confederate gunners could not miss this huge, immobilized target.  Smith finally gave the order to scuttle her – and when the fires he set reached her magazine, the largest ship in the U.S. Navy became a part of the river with which she shared her name.

The Ships of Rebel Raiders - The Ironclads

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 III – The Rebel Ironclads: CSS Manassas  - Dewey and the 1st Rebel Ironclad

The cigar-shaped turtle-shelled iron-sheathed ram CSS Manassas (CSN Card 71 in Rebel Raiders on the High Seas) “amounted to the war’s first ironclad,” says Princeton professor and noted historian James McPherson in his new book, War Upon the Waters. 

The former Mississippi River towing boat was one of three ironclads the South was hurriedly constructing at New Orleans in the late winter and early spring of 1862.  When the Union fleet began to steam upriver, however, only one – CSS Manassas – was ready for action.  (CSS Mississippi was under construction and although CSS Louisiana was fully armed her engines were not working properly – so she was towed downriver to serve as an armored floating battery). 

On April 18 the Union began bombarding Forts Jackson and St. Philip, and on the 24^th the West Gulf Squadron under Farragut (USN Card 1) aboard USS Hartford (USN Card 37) made its move.  The CSS Manassas went out to meet them, supported by half a dozen little gunboats and rams and some fire rafts.  Farragut saw the fearsome monster and signaled to Captain Melancton Smith aboard USS Mississippi (the largest ship in the U.S. Navy, and USN Card 23) to “run her down.”

In their game of “naval chicken” the commander of the ironclad blinked first, and as he veered off the mighty USS Mississippi riddled her with a broadside at 50 yards.  The solid shot pierced her boilers, and CSS Manassas caught fire and sank.

Little Known Fact:  conning the USS Mississippi was a young, 24-year-old lieutenant – George Dewey, of “You may fire when ready, Gridley” fame at Manila Bay in 1898.

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.