Battle_of_Memphis_I.png
|
Battle of the rams.
Ward, A. R., artist
|
|
| Battle of Memphis I
|
| Conflict | American Civil War
|
| Date | June 6, 1862
|
| Place | Shelby County, Tennessee
|
| Result | Union victory
|
| Combatants
|
| United States of America
| Confederate States of America
|
| Commanders
|
Charles H. Davis
Charles R. Ellet
| James E. Montgomery
M. Jeff Thompson
|
| Strength
|
| U.S. Ironclads Benton, Louisville, Carondelet, Cairo, and St. Louis and U.S. Army Rams Queen of the West and Monarch
| C.S. Navy Rams General Beauregard, General Bragg, General Price, General Van Dorn, General Thompson, Colonel Lovell, Sumter, and Little Rebel
|
| Casualties
|
| 1
| 180
|
|
| Joint Operations Against New Madrid, Island No. 10, and Memphis
|
| New Madrid – Island No. 10 – Memphis I
|
|
The Battle of Memphis was a naval battle fought on the Mississippi River on June 6, 1862 during the American Civil War. After defeating the Confederates at the Battle of Island Number Ten, the Union fleet was able to steam downriver to threaten Memphis, Tennessee. The battle lasted one and a half hours and was watched by the civilian population from the Chickasaw Bluffs. Confederate gunboats, some of them converted paddleboats armored with cotton bales, were pitted against Union ironclads and rams. The Union fleet quickly captured or sunk most of the Rebel forces, with the survivors retreating southwards down the river towards Vicksburg, Mississippi. Casualties were extemely lopsided with 180 Southerners killed or injured and only one casualty for the North. The battle ended with Union commanders landing at the city docks and taking control of Memphis, giving the Union army a port for moving supplies down the river.
Another Civil War military engagement also took place in Memphis. In April, 1864 Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest led a nighttime cavalry raid on his hometown of Memphis with the intent of freeing Confederate prisoners and capturing General Washburn, then encamped in Memphis. Washburn barely escaped capture out a back alley behind his headquarters.
The Total Annihilation of the Rebel Fleet by the Federal Fleet under Commodore Davis." "On the Morning of June 6th 1862, off Memphis, Ten References
- Foote, Shelby. 1958. The Civil War: a narrative. New York : Random House.
|
