CSS ''Colonel Lovell'' was a cotton-clad ram ship of the

Confederate States Navy The Confederate States Navy (CSN) was the Navy, naval branch of the Confederate States Armed Forces, established by an act of the Confederate States Congress on February 21, 1861. It was responsible for Confederate naval operations during the Amer ...

during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

Service history

The ship was built in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

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

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

. 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 D ...

, 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.

First Battle of Memphis

Following the Federal capture of Fort Pillow

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 that officer exercises command. Different countries use the term "flag officer" in different ways: * ...

Charles Henry Davis Charles Henry Davis ( – ) was a Autodidacticism, self-educated American astronomer and Rear admiral (United States), rear admiral of the United States Navy. While working for the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, United States Coast ...

, 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 American Civil War shipwrecks in the Mississippi River Shipwrecks of the American Civil War Ships sunk in collisions Ships built in Cincinnati 1843 ships Maritime incidents in June 1862