CSS General Beauregard
{{Short description|Confederate Navy ship}}{{More references|date=February 2024}}
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{{Infobox ship image |Ship image= Image:Memphis h42367.jpg |Ship caption=The General Beauregard (center right) rams the Monarch while other Confederate ships sink, burn, or run aground in the First Battle of Memphis. }} {{Infobox ship career |Hide header= |Ship country=Confederate States |Ship flag={{shipboxflag|Confederate States of America|1861}} |Ship name=General Beauregard |Ship namesake=General P.G.T. Beauregard |Ship ordered= |Ship builder= |Ship laid down= |Ship launched=1847 |Ship sponsor= |Ship christened= |Ship completed= |Ship acquired=January 1862 |Ship commissioned=April 1862 |Ship in service= |Ship out of service= |Ship renamed= |Ship reclassified= |Ship refit= |Ship struck= |Ship reinstated= |Ship homeport= |Ship motto= |Ship nickname= |Ship honors= |Ship fate=Sunk at action, 6 June 1862 |Ship notes= }} {{Infobox ship characteristics |Hide header= |Header caption= |Ship tonnage={{convert|454|LT|t|0|lk=in|abbr=on}} |Ship length= |Ship beam= |Ship draft= |Ship depth= |Ship hold depth= |Ship propulsion=Steam engine, side wheels |Ship speed= |Ship complement= |Ship armament=4 × {{convert|8|in|mm|abbr=on}} guns |Ship armor= |Ship notes= }} |
CSS General Beauregard was a cottonclad sidewheel ram of the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War.
Built in Algiers, New Orleans Louisiana in 1847 as a towboat, the paddle steamer Ocean was selected in January 1862 by Capt. James E. Montgomery, former river steamboat master, for his River Defense Fleet. At New Orleans, on 25 January, Captain Montgomery began her conversion to a cotton-clad ram, installing {{convert|4|in|mm|adj=on}} oak and {{convert|1|in|mm|adj=on}} iron sheathing over her bow, with cotton bales sandwiched between double pine bulkheads to protect her boilers.
Service history
=Battle of Plum Point Bend=
Conversion completed on 5 April, and now renamed CSS General Beauregard, the ship steamed to Fort Pillow, Tennessee, to defend the approaches to Memphis. On 10 May 1862, General Beauregard, Capt. J. H. Hart, and seven more of Montgomery's fleet, attacked the Federal Mississippi ironclad flotilla. The Battle of Plum Point Bend witnessed effective ramming tactics by the Confederates, although General Beauregard succeeded only in keeping her four 8-inch guns bravely firing in the face of a withering hail of Union shells. Montgomery's force held off the Federal rams until Fort Pillow was safely evacuated, 4 June, then fell back on Memphis to coal, on the fifth.
=Battle of Memphis=
After Fort Pillow fell, Flag officer Charles Henry Davis, USN, commanding the Mississippi River Squadron, lost no time in appearing off Memphis, on 6 June 1862. Montgomery, with a smaller squadron short of fuel, was unable to retreat to Vicksburg; unwilling to destroy his boats, he fought against heavy odds. In the ensuing First Battle of Memphis, "witnessed by thousands on the bluff," Beauregard missed ramming {{USS|Monarch|1862|6}} and "cut away entirely the port wheel and wheel-house" of her partner, CSS General Sterling Price, also engaging Monarch. General Beauregard, backing out, gave Union flagship {{USS|Benton|1861|6}} a close broadside with a 42-pounder, and Benton replied with a shot into the Confederate's boiler, killing or scalding many of her crew, 14 of whom, in agony, were rescued by Benton.
See also
References
- {{DANFS|http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/cfa4/general_beauregard.htm}}
External links
- [https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/nh-series/NH-58000/NH-58891.html NH 58891 "The Great Naval Battle before Memphis, June 6, 1862"]
{{CSN cottonclad rams}}
{{1862 shipwrecks}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:General Beauregard}}
Category:Cottonclad rams of the Confederate States Navy
Category:Ships built in New Orleans
Category:Shipwrecks of the American Civil War