The Battle of Island Number Ten was an engagement at the
New Madrid or
Kentucky Bend
The Kentucky Bend, variously called the New Madrid Bend, Madrid Bend, Bessie Bend, or Bubbleland, is an exclave of Fulton County, Kentucky, encircled by the states of Tennessee and Missouri. It is a portion of a peninsula defined by an oxbow ...
on the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest Drainage system (geomorphology), drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson B ...
during the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...
, lasting from February 28 to April 8, 1862.
Island Number Ten, a small island at the base of a tight double turn in the river, was held by the
Confederates from the early days of the war. It was an excellent site to impede
Union efforts to invade the South by the river, as ships had to approach the island bows on and then slow to make the turns. For the defenders, however, it had an innate weakness in that it depended on a single road for supplies and reinforcements. If an enemy force managed to cut that road, the garrison would be isolated and eventually be forced to surrender.
Union forces began the siege in March 1862, shortly after the
Confederate Army
The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighti ...
abandoned their position at
Columbus, Kentucky. The Union
Army of the Mississippi under
Brigadier General
Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointe ...
John Pope made the first probes, coming overland through Missouri and occupying the town of
Point Pleasant, Missouri, almost directly west of the island and south of
New Madrid. Pope's army then moved north and soon brought siege guns to bear on New Madrid. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen.
John P. McCown
John Porter McCown (August 19, 1815 – January 22, 1879) was a career officer in the United States Army, fighting in the Mexican–American War and in the Seminole Wars. He also served as a general in the Confederate Army during the American ...
, decided to evacuate the town after only one day of heavy bombardment, moving most of his troops to Island No. 10, abandoning his heavy artillery and most of his supplies.
Two days after the fall of New Madrid, Union
gunboats and mortar rafts sailed downstream to attack Island No. 10. Over the next three weeks, the island's defenders and forces in the nearby supporting batteries were subjected to a steady bombardment by the flotilla, mostly carried out by the mortars. At the same time, the Union forces at New Madrid were digging a canal across the neck of land east of the town to bypass Island No. 10. Several transports were sent to the Army of the Mississippi when the canal was finished, which provided the army with a way to cross the river and attack the Confederate troops on the Tennessee side.
Pope persuaded Flag Officer
Andrew Hull Foote
Andrew Hull Foote (September 12, 1806 – June 26, 1863) was an American naval officer who was noted for his service in the American Civil War and also for his contributions to several naval reforms in the years prior to the war. When the war cam ...
to send a gunboat past the batteries, to assist him in crossing the river by keeping off any Southern gunboats and suppressing Confederate artillery fire at the point of attack. The , under
Commander
Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countries this naval rank is termed frigate captain. ...
Henry Walke, slipped past the island on the night of April 4, 1862. This was followed by the , under
Lieutenant
A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations.
The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often ...
Egbert Thompson two nights later. With the support of these two gunboats, Pope was able to move his army across the river and trap the Confederates opposite the island, who by now were trying to retreat. Outnumbered at least three to one, the Confederates realized their situation was hopeless and decided to surrender. At about the same time, the garrison on the island surrendered to Flag Officer Foote and the Union flotilla.
The Union victory marked the first time the Confederate Army lost a position on the Mississippi River in battle. The river was now open to the Union Navy as far as
Fort Pillow, a short distance above
Memphis. Only three weeks later,
fell to a Union fleet led by
David G. Farragut, and the Confederacy was in danger of being cut in two along the line of the river.
Background
Geography
Island No. 10 owed its name to the fact that it was at one time the tenth island in the Mississippi River south of its junction with the Ohio. An evanescent product of the river, it was an enlarged sandbar, roughly long and wide at its maximum width, and standing about above low water.
More important than the island itself was the course of the river in its neighborhood. Island No. 10 was at the southern extremity of a clockwise turn of the river through 180°, which was followed immediately by a counterclockwise turn that left the river moving almost parallel to its original course, but displaced to the west by about . The turns are quite tight; the distance from the southern limit of the first turn to the northern limit of the second is only by air, or measured along the river channel. The double bend, which still exists in almost the same location, is known as the New Madrid Bend. However, the area across the Mississippi River from New Madrid, Missouri on the Kentucky and Tennessee shore was known during the Civil War simply as Madrid Bend. The town of
New Madrid (pronounced MAD-rid), which gives the bend its name, is at the northern apex of the second turn.
The mainland behind the island on the south side was connected to the town of
Tiptonville, Tennessee, by a good road on the natural levee of the river. This was the only approach to the island on dry land through Tennessee, as the region is otherwise a mixture of lakes, sloughs, and swamps, with the nearest high ground nearly to the east.
Reelfoot Lake, the largest of these, was long and in places wide. In low water, the northern end of Reelfoot Lake was near Tiptonville, but in high water such as was present in the spring of 1862, it extended north to beyond the bend. The water was nowhere very deep, so individual soldiers could cross it by wading or using makeshift rafts, but an army trying to do so would not be able to move its heavy equipment, and also would lose cohesion. For these reasons, Island No. 10 was considered to be invulnerable to land attack from the Tennessee side. It also meant, however, that the only route for either reinforcement or escape was the Tiptonville road.
The land on the Missouri side was higher, although not high enough to give guns mounted there the advantage of
plunging fire
Plunging fire is a form of indirect fire, where gunfire is fired at a trajectory to make it fall on its target from above. It is normal at the high trajectories used to attain long range, and can be used deliberately to attack a target not susce ...
. The river banks, about above low water, were only about one-third as high as the bluffs that had aided the Confederate defense against gunboats at the
Battle of Fort Donelson
The Battle of Fort Donelson was fought from February 11–16, 1862, in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. The Union capture of the Confederate fort near the Tennessee–Kentucky border opened the Cumberland River, an important ave ...
. At high water, although shore-based guns would not be drowned as they had been at the
Battle of Fort Henry, they would nevertheless be no higher than the guns of vessels on the river.
Confederate command
During the first year of the war, the Confederate forces in the West went through a series of command changes that are often confusing, and left responsibility for particular actions hard to pin down. Although New Madrid was in Missouri, it was in a pro-Southern part of the state, and therefore fell within the purview of Confederate Department No. 2. In command of the department was
Maj. Gen. Leonidas Polk
Lieutenant-General Leonidas Polk (April 10, 1806 – June 14, 1864) was a bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana and founder of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America, which separated from the Episcopal Ch ...
. The region of the bend was brought to official notice by one of Polk's subordinates,
Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow
Gideon Johnson Pillow (June 8, 1806 – October 8, 1878) was an American lawyer, politician, speculator, slaveowner, United States Army major general of volunteers during the Mexican–American War and Confederate brigadier general in the Amer ...
. Neither Pillow nor Polk was actively involved in developing the defenses at the bend; the latter assigned an army engineer, Captain Asa B. Gray, to the task, but he was not given adequate resources. On September 15, General
Albert Sidney Johnston
Albert Sidney Johnston (February 2, 1803 – April 6, 1862) served as a general in three different armies: the Texian Army, the United States Army, and the Confederate States Army. He saw extensive combat during his 34-year military career, figh ...
superseded Polk in command of Department No. 2, with Polk remaining in a subordinate position. Like his predecessor, Johnston took no active interest in Island No. 10. In early February, just in time for the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson, General
P. G. T. Beauregard was sent to the West to command the Army of the Mississippi, and became in effect Johnston's second in command. He recognized the importance of Island No. 10, and issued the orders to abandon Columbus and move its garrison there. His health failed him at this time, so he could not take personal charge. When he recovered, he and General Johnston were preoccupied with preparations for the forthcoming
Battle of Shiloh. Transferred from Columbus to Island No. 10 was Major General
John P. McCown
John Porter McCown (August 19, 1815 – January 22, 1879) was a career officer in the United States Army, fighting in the Mexican–American War and in the Seminole Wars. He also served as a general in the Confederate Army during the American ...
, who thereby became local commander. He remained in charge until after New Madrid was taken by the Union Army of the Mississippi; on March 31, 1862, he was replaced by Brig. Gen.
William W. Mackall.
Through all of these command changes, the vessels of the Confederate States Navy along the entire length of the Mississippi were led by Flag Officer
George N. Hollins. Because the river lay in two military departments, Hollins had to work with both the man in charge at the New Madrid Bend and the man in charge of the defenses of New Orleans.
Union command
At this time, command of the Union forces was also in flux, but it had little bearing on the issue. From the time the campaign against New Madrid began, in late February 1862, the Army of the Mississippi was led by Maj. Gen.
John Pope. The army was a part of, first, the Department of the Missouri, and after March 11, the Department of the Mississippi, both under Maj. Gen.
Henry W. Halleck
Henry Wager Halleck (January 16, 1815 – January 9, 1872) was a senior United States Army officer, scholar, and lawyer. A noted expert in military studies, he was known by a nickname that became derogatory: "Old Brains". He was an important par ...
. The name change represented organizational changes in the army that did not affect the campaign.
The warships employed in the campaign were part of the
Western Gunboat Flotilla
The Mississippi River Squadron was the Union brown-water naval squadron that operated on the western rivers during the American Civil War. It was initially created as a part of the Union Army, although it was commanded by naval officers, and w ...
, led by
Flag Officer
A flag officer is a commissioned officer in a nation's armed forces senior enough to be entitled to fly a flag to mark the position from which the officer exercises command.
The term is used differently in different countries:
*In many countries ...
Andrew Hull Foote
Andrew Hull Foote (September 12, 1806 – June 26, 1863) was an American naval officer who was noted for his service in the American Civil War and also for his contributions to several naval reforms in the years prior to the war. When the war cam ...
. Foote was a captain in the US Navy, but the flotilla was organized as part of the U.S. Army, so he reported to, and was subordinate to, Halleck.
Early defense preparations
The widespread publicity given to Union General in Chief
Winfield Scott
Winfield Scott (June 13, 1786May 29, 1866) was an American military commander and political candidate. He served as a general in the United States Army from 1814 to 1861, taking part in the War of 1812, the Mexican–American War, the early s ...
's
Anaconda Plan
The Anaconda Plan is the name applied to a strategy outlined by the Union Army for suppressing the Confederacy at the beginning of the American Civil War. Proposed by Union General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, the plan emphasized a Union blockade ...
made the Confederate government aware of the threat that would be posed to the Mississippi Valley by a water-borne invasion along the course of the river. In response, they set up a series of defensive positions along the river. Among them were Fort Pillow, north of
Memphis, and
extensive works at
Columbus, Kentucky, both of which positions were important in relation to Island No. 10.
Construction of the batteries on and near the island began in mid-August 1861, directed by Captain Asa B. Gray. He began by laying out a battery on the Tennessee shore about above the island. This battery, known as Battery No. 1 or the Redan Battery, commanded the approach to the bend. Vessels coming down the river would have to move directly toward its guns for more than a mile. It was not very effective, as it was sited on low ground subject to flooding. Almost as soon as work was started, however, the attention of Maj. Gen. Leonidas Polk was diverted to the capture and fortification of Columbus. Work continued at Island No. 10, but it was not regarded as urgent and so was denied both equipment and workers.
The importance of the New Madrid Bend rose dramatically when
Fort Henry and then
Fort Donelson
Fort Donelson was a fortress built early in 1862 by the Confederacy during the American Civil War to control the Cumberland River, which led to the heart of Tennessee, and thereby the Confederacy. The fort was named after Confederate general Da ...
fell to Union forces in early February 1862. Columbus was cut off from rest of the Confederate Army, and faced capture by Union troops advancing overland from the Tennessee River to the Mississippi. To avoid losing the garrison and its equipment, General Beauregard ordered that the position be abandoned as quietly as possible. The process began on February 24, when the first members of the Columbus garrison arrived at Island No. 10. Two days later, its new commander, Brig. Gen.
John P. McCown
John Porter McCown (August 19, 1815 – January 22, 1879) was a career officer in the United States Army, fighting in the Mexican–American War and in the Seminole Wars. He also served as a general in the Confederate Army during the American ...
, arrived, and immediately set to work to strengthen the position from Battery No. 1 to Point Pleasant.
McCown, with adequate resources, was able to transform the island and nearby mainland into a formidable obstacle for any fleet attempting to pass. By the middle of March, five batteries containing 24 guns had been built on the shore above the island; 19 guns were in five batteries on the island itself; and the floating battery ''New Orleans,'' with nine guns, was moored at the west end of the island. In addition, two forts had been set up at New Madrid: Fort Thompson to the west, with 14 guns, and Fort Bankhead with 7 guns to the east, where St. John's Bayou met the Mississippi.
The Confederate Navy also supported the position. Flag Officer
George N. Hollins commanded six gunboats in the river between Fort Pillow and Island No. 10. All of these were unarmored; the armored ram CSS ''Manassas'' would have been there also, but she was found to be unable to operate in the relatively shallow water. She was damaged by running aground on the way north, so she was sent back to New Orleans.
Union preliminaries
Preparations by the Union for the attack on New Madrid and vicinity began before the evacuation of Columbus. On February 23, 1862, Maj. Gen. Pope was placed in command of the (Union) Army of the Mississippi, assembling at
Commerce, Missouri. It was common practice at that time to go into winter quarters and await the arrival of good weather in the spring, but Pope soon had his army, which at this early stage of the campaign numbered 10,000 men, on the march, corduroying roads when necessary. The army arrived at New Madrid on March 3, but were not yet prepared to attack the Confederate positions. Preparing for a siege, Pope requested that his army be supplied with some heavy artillery, which arrived on March 12.
The
gunboats
A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies.
History Pre-stea ...
under Flag Officer
Andrew H. Foote
Andrew Hull Foote (September 12, 1806 – June 26, 1863) was an American naval officer who was noted for his service in the American Civil War and also for his contributions to several naval reforms in the years prior to the war. When the war cam ...
were not ready to cooperate with the Army of the Mississippi at this early date, as the damages they had received at Fort Donelson were still being repaired. They were finally sent down from Cairo on March 14, with Foote yet believing that they were not ready for combat. The Union fleet was augmented by the addition of 14 mortar rafts, vessels that each mounted a single mortar. The mortars were a semi-autonomous unit under the command of (Army) Captain
Henry E. Maynadier
Henry Eveleth Maynadier (1830 – December 3, 1868) was a United States Army officer known for his field work in Montana during the Raynolds Expedition and his work to set up peace talks with the Oglala and Brulé tribes at Fort Laramie in 1866 ...
.
Opposing forces
Union
Confederate
Battle
First contact
Unwilling to waste his troops in an assault on the forts at New Madrid, Pope sent a brigade under Colonel (later Brigadier General)
Joseph B. Plummer to occupy the town of
Point Pleasant, on the right bank of the river almost directly opposite Island No. 10. The movement was contested by the Confederate gunboats, but Plummer's troops soon learned that they had only to withdraw out of range when the gunboats appeared, and return as soon as they left. The brigade occupied Point Pleasant on March 6, and the boats shelled their positions for the next three days. In this period, the Confederate Army remained within their fortifications, offering no support to Flag Officer Hollins.
The siege guns arrived on March 12, surprising McCown and Hollins almost as much as the winter march of Pope's army. They effectively closed the river to the unarmored gunboats, and prevented reinforcement of the artillery companies at New Madrid by shifting troops from Island No. 10.
The big guns opened fire on the New Madrid defensive positions on March 13, and continued throughout the day. McCown realized that Pope would try to attack his forts by
regular approach
The term regular can mean normal or in accordance with rules. It may refer to:
People
* Moses Regular (born 1971), America football player
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* "Regular" (Badfinger song)
* Regular tunings of stringed instrumen ...
es. He felt that his reduced artillery companies would be too exhausted to resist, so he decided not to wait for the inevitable. On the night of March 13–14, orders were given to abandon the town and its two forts. A heavy rainstorm hid the troop movements from the enemy, so the evacuation was accomplished without incident. There was some confusion (which seems to have been exaggerated in Pope's reports), and the departure was so sudden that the guns in the forts had to be spiked and left behind, but most of the troops were successfully removed and redistributed. On the morning of March 14, two deserters appeared bearing a white flag, and informed Pope that the town was deserted.
Following the loss of New Madrid, some of the units at the bend were withdrawn to Fort Pillow, not quite 70 air miles (113 km) to the south, but almost twice that by the river. McCown was replaced in command at the island by Brig. Gen.
William W. Mackall. Although this looks like a reprimand for his poor defense of New Madrid, McCown actually was promoted to major general.
The siege
![Battles of New Madrid and Island Number 10](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Battles_of_New_Madrid_and_Island_Number_10.png)
The gunboats and mortars arrived on March 15, and the siege is dated from that time. Pope, in New Madrid, and Foote, upstream of the bend, were kept apart by Island No. 10. From the first, they did not agree how to go about conducting the operation. Pope wanted immediate action; Foote hoped to subdue the island by the slow process of bombardment. Foote was hampered by ambiguous or even contradictory orders from Halleck, who was distracted at the time by preparations for the advance along the Tennessee River that soon culminated in the
Battle of Shiloh (or Pittsburg Landing). As early as March 17, Pope was asking that two or three gunboats run past the Confederate batteries, to enable him to cross the river and trap the entire garrison. Foote demurred, arguing that his boats were not invincible, that a chance disabling shot would deliver a boat into Confederate hands, and that gunboat could then threaten all the Northern cities along the Mississippi and its tributaries. Foote's thinking may also have been affected by the wound he had received at
Fort Donelson
Fort Donelson was a fortress built early in 1862 by the Confederacy during the American Civil War to control the Cumberland River, which led to the heart of Tennessee, and thereby the Confederacy. The fort was named after Confederate general Da ...
, which was not healing properly and kept him in pain and on crutches.
For the next two weeks, fighting consisted of bombardment of the island at rather long range, mostly conducted by the mortars, and occasionally replied to by the Confederate batteries. High expectations that had been held for the mortars were dashed; they did very little harm to the enemy position. The most significant damage incurred in this period was in fact self-inflicted: during a bombardment on March 17 in which the gunboats took part, a gun on exploded, killing three members of the crew and wounding a dozen others.
After Foote had flatly rejected Pope's request that gunboats run past Island No. 10, someone on Pope's staff suggested that perhaps a canal could be cut to enable Union vessels to bypass the batteries. The canal was completed in two weeks, but it was not deep enough to provide passage for the gunboats. It proved useful, nevertheless, in that transports and supply vessels could use it, so that Pope did not have to depend on land communications.
Gunboats pass the batteries, complete the siege
Pope still insisted that he needed a gunboat to cover his projected landing on the Tennessee side of the river. Foote called two councils of war among his captains; in the first, on March 20, his decision not to risk running past the batteries was confirmed. When Halleck wrote to Foote, saying, "Give him (Pope) all the assistance in your power," Foote called a second council, on March 29. This time, Commander
Henry Walke, captain of , thought that the risk was worth the candle, and volunteered to take his boat through. Foote gave the necessary orders, and ''Carondelet'' was prepared for the run. She was covered with rope, chain, and whatever loose material lay at hand. A coal barge filled with coal and hay was lashed to her side. Her steam exhaust was diverted from the smokestacks (called "chimneys" on river craft) to muffle the sound. She then had only to wait for a sufficiently dark night to make her run.
To reduce the danger as much as possible, a raid by sailors in the flotilla and soldiers from the 42nd Illinois Infantry, under Colonel
George W. Roberts overran Battery No. 1 and spiked its guns on the night of April 1. On April 2, the flotilla, including both mortars and gunboats, concentrated its fire on the floating battery ''New Orleans.'' She was hit several times, and her mooring lines were parted. She drifted downstream, out of the war. On April 4, conditions for running past the remaining batteries were satisfactory. The night was moonless, and after dark a thunderstorm came up. ''Carondelet'' made her way downstream, and was not discovered until she was abreast of the Confederate Battery No. 2. She might have escaped detection completely had not her smokestacks blazed up; the buildup of soot, no longer dampened by escaping steam, caught fire and revealed her position. The batteries opened, but their fire was inaccurate, and ''Carondelet'' completed the run unscathed. Pope continued to press Foote for another gunboat, and two nights later made a similar run.
Pope now was able to cross the river with his army without prospect of interference from Confederate gunboats. He could also suppress enemy fire that may have opposed their landing. On April 7, he made his move, and sent the gunboats to destroy the batteries at Watson's Landing, the place he had selected for the attack. When this was accomplished, the transports carried the troops across, and the landings proceeded without opposition.
A few hours elapsed until Mackall was able to decide what to do next. Realizing that his position was hopeless, he put the men on the mainland in motion in the direction of Tiptonville. The motion was detected by Pope's spies, who gave the information to Pope. Pope then diverted his soldiers to Tiptonville, and the operation became a footrace rather than the expected battle. Mackall's only hope was that the gunboats would not interfere, but they did, and the retreat of his army was delayed long enough for Pope's men to get to Tiptonville first. The defenders were trapped, with no prospect of victory, so Mackall decided to surrender.
While this was taking place, the demoralized garrison of Island No. 10 surrendered separately to Flag Officer Foote and his gunboats. The river was then open as far as Fort Pillow.
Conclusion
The destruction of the Confederate garrison was complete. Only a few hundred individual soldiers managed to escape by wading or rafting across Reelfoot Lake and later rejoining the army. The number who were captured became a matter of controversy. Pope asserted, in his official reports, that he had taken 273 officers and 6,700 private soldiers captive. This is almost certainly a great exaggeration. Confederate records (admittedly incomplete) indicate that not more than 5,350 men were present. The number captured would then likely have been less than 4,500.
Aside from the prisoners taken, the number of casualties in the entire campaign was very low. From the fall of New Madrid to the surrender at Tiptonville, the Union army and navy had lost only 7 men killed from all causes, 4 missing, and 14 wounded. During the entire campaign, losses in the Army of the Mississippi were reported as 8 killed, 21 wounded, and 3 missing. Confederate losses in killed and wounded were not reported, but seem to have been similarly low. Although Beauregard sought early release for the men captured at Island No. 10, the offer was declined and several soldiers' wives who had been employed at the island choose to go north into captivity alongside their husbands. About 1,400 of the captured Confederate soldiers (many from the
1st Regiment Alabama Infantry
The 1st Alabama Infantry Regiment was a Confederate volunteer infantry unit from the state of Alabama during the American Civil War.
Organization
The 1st Alabama Infantry Regiment completed its organization at Pensacola, Florida about the 1st ...
) were transported by railroad to what was previously a Union Army training field in
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...
. This marked the beginning of
Camp Randall
Camp Randall was a United States Army base in Madison, Wisconsin, the largest staging point for Wisconsin troops entering the American Civil War. At this camp fresh volunteers received quick training before heading off to join the Union Army. Also ...
's use as a
prisoner-of-war camp
A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured by a belligerent power in time of war.
There are significant differences among POW camps, internment camps, and military prisons. ...
. From the end of April to the end of May, 140 of the prisoners died at Camp Randall, due to its unsanitary conditions, and are buried at
Confederate Rest.
Because April 7 was the second day of the far bloodier
Battle of Shiloh, the campaign for Island No. 10 soon fell from public notice. It has become memorable principally for the run of USS ''Carondelet'' past the batteries, whose passage marked the introduction of a new tactic in warfare. The use of steam for driving ships meant that they no longer had to slug it out with fixed forts. The tactic later became commonplace in the Civil War, being employed by Farragut at New Orleans, Port Hudson, Vicksburg, and Mobile, and by
David D. Porter at
Vicksburg. Consequently, the value of fixed fortifications was much diminished. The South did not learn this lesson, continuing to rely on forts until the end of the war, but the restored nation had to consider it when designing its defense system after 1865. In addition, the impact of season and weather should also be recognized for aiding Union efforts; if the federals had arrived later in the summer after the spring freshet of high water, then their naval options would have been much more limited, no back channel could have been carved out, and Confederate chances for defense or withdrawal likely much improved.
[Gerleman, David, "The Campaign for Island No. 10 (February 28, 1862 – April 8, 1862," Essential Civil War Curriculum]
Notes
Abbreviations used in these notes:
: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.''
References
*Daniel, Larry J. and Lynn N. Bock., ''Island No. 10: Struggle for the Mississippi Valley''. University of Alabama Press, 1996.
*Gerleman, David J., "The Campaign for Island No. 10 (February 28, 1862–April 8, 1862," The Essential Civil War Curriculum.
*Johnson, Robert Underwood, and Clarence Clough Buel, ''Battles and leaders of the Civil War.'' Century, 1887, 1888; reprint ed., Castle, n.d.
*Keller, Allan., "Admiral Andrew Hull Foote," Civil War Times Illustrated, Vol. XVIII (December 1979), p. 6-11; 43-47.
*Melton, Maurice., "Smoke Across the Water: The Struggle for Rebel Island No. 10," Civil War Times Illustrated, Vol. XVIII (April 1979), p. 4-11; 43-46.
*Stewart, David, and Ray Knox, ''The earthquake that never went away: the shaking stopped in 1812, but the impact goes on.'' Marble Hill, MO: Guttenberg-Richter Publications, 1993.
*U.S. Navy Department, ''Official records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion.'' Series I: 27 volumes. Series II: 3 volumes. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1894–1922. Series I, volume 22 is most usefu
*U.S. War Department, ''A compilation of the
Official Records of the American Civil War, official records of the Union and Confederate Armies.'' Series I: 53 volumes. Series II: 8 volumes. Series III: 5 volumes. Series IV: 4 volumes. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1886–1901. Series I, volume 8 is most usefu
''The War of the Rebellion''
See also
*
Battle of Fort Henry
*
Battle of Fort Donelson
The Battle of Fort Donelson was fought from February 11–16, 1862, in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. The Union capture of the Confederate fort near the Tennessee–Kentucky border opened the Cumberland River, an important ave ...
*
Troop engagements of the American Civil War, 1862
*
List of costliest American Civil War land battles
This is a list of the costliest land battles of the American Civil War, measured by casualties (killed, wounded, captured, and missing) on both sides.
Highest casualty battles
See also
* List of American Civil War battles
* Timeline of events l ...
*
Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps
The Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps concerns both the actual stamps and covers used during the American Civil War, and the later postage celebrations. The latter include commemorative stamp issues devoted to the actual ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Island Number Ten, Battle of
Battles of the Joint Operations Against New Madrid, Island No. 10, and Memphis of the American Civil War
Battles of the Western Theater of the American Civil War
Union victories of the American Civil War
Naval battles of the American Civil War
Sieges of the American Civil War
Battles of the American Civil War in Missouri
Battles of the American Civil War in Tennessee
Battle of Island Number Ten
The Battle of Island Number Ten was an engagement at the New Madrid or Kentucky Bend on the Mississippi River during the American Civil War, lasting from February 28 to April 8, 1862. Island Number Ten, a small island at the base of a tight dou ...
Battle of Island Number Ten
The Battle of Island Number Ten was an engagement at the New Madrid or Kentucky Bend on the Mississippi River during the American Civil War, lasting from February 28 to April 8, 1862. Island Number Ten, a small island at the base of a tight dou ...
1862 in the American Civil War
Battle of Island Number Ten
The Battle of Island Number Ten was an engagement at the New Madrid or Kentucky Bend on the Mississippi River during the American Civil War, lasting from February 28 to April 8, 1862. Island Number Ten, a small island at the base of a tight dou ...
Riverine warfare
Battles commanded by Ulysses S. Grant