CSS Arkansas

Type

Ironclad

Period

19th Century

Nation

United States

Overview: CSS Arkansas was a Confederate casemate ironclad ram, lead ship of the two-vessel Arkansas class, built at Memphis, Tennessee during the American Civil War to challenge Union naval dominance on the Mississippi River system. Despite a chaotic, improvised construction, she became one of the most feared Confederate warships of the war's Western theater during her brief 23-day career. Specifications: She measured 165 feet in length with a 35-foot beam and roughly 11.5-foot draft, displacing about 1,200 long tons and making around 8 knots on two shafts driven by direct-acting steam engines. Her casemate was armored with railroad T-rail iron over wood and compressed cotton backing, with a thinner pilothouse and roof, and she carried a mixed battery of roughly ten guns including 8-inch Columbiads, 6.4-inch rifles, 9-inch Dahlgrens, and 32-pounder smoothbores plus a ram bow. Service History: Laid down in October 1861 by contractor John T. Shirley and completed under Lieutenant Isaac Newton Brown after being towed unfinished up the Yazoo River, Arkansas famously fought her way through an entire Union fleet near Vicksburg on 15 July 1862. She then anchored under Vicksburg's bluffs before being sent toward Baton Rouge in support of Confederate land forces; when her engines failed during an engagement with USS Essex on 6 August 1862, her crew ran her aground, set her afire, and abandoned her, and she drifted downstream and exploded. Notable Facts: Her wreck reportedly lies buried beneath a levee above Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and has never been raised. Her sister ship, Tennessee, was burned on the stocks at Memphis to prevent capture before completion, making Arkansas the only vessel of her class to see active service; her original ensign is preserved and displayed at the National Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus, Georgia.