CSS ''Colonel Lovell'' was a

cotton-clad Cottonclads were a classification of steam-powered warships where a wooden ship was protected from enemy fire by bales of cotton lining its sides. Cottonclads were prevalent during the American Civil War, particularly in the Confederate States Navy ...

ram ship of the Confederate States Navy during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

Service history

The ship was built in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, in 1843, as ''Hercules'', and was owned by the Ocean Towing Co. of

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

. She was taken over in 1861 by General Mansfield Lovell, commanding the New Orleans military district, and converted to a cottonclad ram by installation of double pine bulwarks filled with compressed cotton and one-inch iron plates on each bow. She operated under the direction of the Confederate War Department and was attached to the Mississippi

River Defense Fleet The River Defense Fleet was a set of fourteen vessels in Confederate service, intended to assist in the defense of New Orleans in the early days of the American Civil War. All were merchant ships or towboats that were seized by order of the War De ...

, commanded by Commodore J. E. Montgomery, a former river steamboat captain.

Battle of Plum Point Bend

On 10 May 1862, while operating off Fort Pillow, Tennessee, in defense of the river approaches to Memphis, ''Colonel Lovell'', in company with seven of Montgomery's vessels, attacked the ironclad gunboats of the Federal Mississippi Flotilla. The action of Plum Point Bend which followed witnessed successful ramming tactics by the Confederates, though each of their vessels mounted at least four 8-inch guns. The Federal gunboats and were run on the banks in sinking condition. Later, Montgomery's force held off the Federal rams and gunboats until Fort Pillow was successfully evacuated on 1 June, and the Confederate rams fell back on Memphis to take on coal.

Battle of Memphis

Following the Federal capture of Fort Pillow Flag Officer Charles Henry Davis, USN, commanding the Mississippi Flotilla, pressed on without delay and appeared off Memphis with superior force on 6 June 1862. Included in his force were two of the Federal Army's rams, commanded by Colonel Charles Ellet, Jr. Montgomery, unwilling to retreat to Vicksburg because of his shortage of fuel and unwilling to destroy his boats, determined to fight against heavy odds. In the engagement that followed, one of ''Colonel Lovell''s engines malfunctioned and she became unmanageable. She was then rammed amidships by , and immediately struck again by , both of the Ellet fleet. ''Colonel Lovell'' sank in deep water in the middle of the river. Capt. J. C. Delancy and a number of his crew were able to swim ashore.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Colonel Lovell Cottonclad rams of the Confederate States Navy Shipwrecks of the Mississippi River Shipwrecks of the American Civil War Ships sunk in collisions Ships built in Cincinnati 1843 ships Maritime incidents in June 1862