CSS General Lovell
{{Distinguish|CSS Colonel Lovell}}
| {{Infobox ship begin}}
{{Infobox ship image |Ship image=File:Naval Triumph on the Mississippi below New Orleans 1862 lithographh76369k.jpg |Ship caption= Attack of the Union fleet, April 24, 1862; Fort Jackson at left and Fort St. Philip is shown at right }} {{Infobox ship career |Hide header= |Ship country= |Ship flag= |Ship name= |Ship namesake= |Ship ordered= |Ship builder= |Ship laid down= |Ship launched= 1845 |Ship sponsor= |Ship christened= |Ship completed= |Ship acquired= |Ship commissioned= |Ship decommissioned= |Ship in service= |Ship out of service= |Ship renamed= |Ship reclassified= 1862 |Ship refit= |Ship struck= |Ship reinstated= |Ship homeport= |Ship motto= |Ship nickname= |Ship honors= |Ship fate= Refitted as a ram |Ship notes= }} {{Infobox ship characteristics |Hide header= |Header caption= |Ship type= Sidewheel tug |Ship tonnage= |Ship length= |Ship beam= |Ship draft= |Ship depth= |Ship hold depth= |Ship propulsion=Steam engine, side-wheels |Ship speed= |Ship complement= |Ship armament= |Ship notes= }} {{Infobox ship career |Hide header= |Ship country= |Ship flag={{shipboxflag|Confederate States of America|1862}} |Ship name=General Lovell |Ship namesake=Mansfield Lovell |Ship ordered= |Ship builder= |Ship laid down= |Ship launched= |Ship sponsor= |Ship christened= |Ship completed= |Ship acquired= |Ship commissioned=March 1862 |Ship decommissioned= |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= Abandoned by crew and burned, 24 April 1862 |Ship notes= }} {{Infobox ship characteristics |Hide header= |Header caption= |Ship type= Sidewheel ram |Ship tonnage= |Ship length= |Ship beam= |Ship draft= |Ship depth= |Ship hold depth= |Ship propulsion=Steam engine, side-wheels |Ship speed= |Ship complement=40–50 |Ship armament=1 × 32-pounder gun |Ship armor= |Ship notes= }} {{Infobox service record |is_ship=yes |label= |partof=River Defense Fleet |codes= |commanders= |operations=*Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip |victories= |awards= }} |
CSS General Lovell was a cotton-clad sidewheel ram of the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War.
Originally built in 1845 as a steam tug in Cincinnati, the ship was purchased for service in the Confederacy and refitted at New Orleans, where she was converted into a cottonclad ram with cotton bales sandwiched between double pine bulkheads to protect her boilers and machinery and iron casing over her bow.{{cite book|title=Official records of the Union and Confederate navies in the war of the rebellion|year=1904|publisher=Washington Govt. Printing Office|location=Washington, DC|pages=249–252, 291|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x001914384;view=1up;seq=285|accessdate=4 September 2017|chapter=Series I Volume 18}} She was recommissioned in March 1862, and named for Major General Mansfield Lovell, commander of the defenses of New Orleans.{{cite book|author=Angus Konstam|title=Mississippi River Gunboats of the American Civil War 1861–65|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wqWdCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA42|date=20 January 2013|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-1-4728-0095-4|page=42}} She became part of the River Defense Fleet, under the overall command of Captain J. E. Montgomery, at New Orleans.{{cite book|author=David J Eicher|title=The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1p94XzYASDAC&pg=PA238|date=30 March 2002|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=978-0-7432-1846-7|page=238}}
Service history
General Lovell{{'}}s conversion was completed on 22 April 1862. Under Captain B. Paris she was detached from Montgomery's main force and sent to Forts Jackson and St. Philip on the lower Mississippi to cooperate in the Confederate defense of New Orleans. There, with five other vessels of Montgomery's fleet, all under Capt. J. A. Stevenson, she joined the force under Capt. J. K. Mitchell, CSN, commanding Confederate naval forces in the lower Mississippi.
On 24 April 1862 a Union fleet under Flag Officer David Farragut, USN, ran past Forts Jackson and St. Philip on its way to capture New Orleans. General Lovell was abandoned by her crew after being set on fire to keep her from falling into Union hands.{{cite book|author=W. Craig Gaines|title=Encyclopedia of Civil War Shipwrecks|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=90d2LcmfpCcC&pg=PA65|year=2008|publisher=Louisiana State University Press|isbn=978-0-8071-3424-5|page=65}}
See also
References
- {{DANFS|https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/confederate_ships/general-lovell.html}}
{{reflist}}
{{CSN cottonclad rams}}
{{1862 shipwrecks}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:General Lovell, CSS}}
Category:Cottonclad rams of the Confederate States Navy