CSS Tennessee

Type

Ironclad

Period

19th Century

Nation

United States

Overview: CSS Tennessee was a casemate ironclad ram built for the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War, widely regarded as one of the most powerful Confederate ironclads produced. She served as flagship of Admiral Franklin Buchanan, commander of the Mobile Squadron, and is best known for her lone, defiant stand against Farragut's fleet at the Battle of Mobile Bay in August 1864. Specifications: As built she measured roughly 209 feet long with a 48-foot beam and 14-foot draft, displacing about 1,273 long tons, though contemporary sources give slightly different figures depending on configuration. Her armament comprised two 7-inch and four 6.4-inch Brooke rifles, and her casemate carried 5-6 inches of iron armor over heavy wood backing with a 2-inch armored deck. Power came from two shafts driven by engines salvaged from the side-wheel steamer Alonzo Childs, giving a top speed of only around 5-6 knots despite a design speed near 9 knots, making her notoriously slow and hard to maneuver. Service History: Laid down in Selma, Alabama in October 1862 and launched in February 1863, she was commissioned in February 1864 and became the most expensive warship completed by the Confederacy. On 5 August 1864 she single-handedly engaged Farragut's fleet of ironclad monitors, wooden warships, and gunboats at Mobile Bay; after her steering was disabled and she was battered and rammed repeatedly, she was forced to surrender. She was subsequently recommissioned as USS Tennessee, took part in the Union's Siege of Fort Morgan, served until 1865, and was ultimately sold for scrap in 1867. Notable Facts: A distinctive and somewhat eccentric design feature was a hot-water system connected to her boilers, intended to scald away boarders attempting to storm the casemate. Her rudder chains were run exposed outside the casemate rather than protected within it, a design flaw historians and modelers alike have noted as a key weakness exploited during the battle. Her capture, along with Buchanan, made her one of the most famous single-ship engagements of the Civil War and a popular subject for scale modeling due to her unusual trapezoidal casemate silhouette, shared with sister designs like CSS Virginia.