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USS Cairo
USS ''Cairo'' is the lead ship of the City-class casemate ironclads built at the beginning of the American Civil War to serve as river gunboats. ''Cairo'' is named for Cairo, Illinois. In June 1862, she captured the Confederate garrison of Fort Pillow on the Mississippi River, enabling Union forces to occupy Memphis. As part of the Yazoo Pass Expedition, she was sunk on 12 December 1862, while clearing mines for the attack on Haines Bluff. ''Cairo'' was the first ship ever to be sunk by a mine remotely detonated by hand. The remains of ''Cairo'' can be viewed at Vicksburg National Military Park with a museum of its weapons and naval stores. Service in the American Civil War ''Cairo'' was built by James Eads and Co., Mound City, Illinois, in 1861, under contract to the United States Department of War. She was commissioned as part of the Union Army's Western Gunboat Flotilla, which had US Navy Lieutenant James M. Prichett in command. ''Cairo'' served with the Army's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cairo, Illinois
Cairo ( , sometimes ) is the southernmost city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the county seat of Alexander County, Illinois, Alexander County. A river city, Cairo has the lowest elevation of any location in Illinois and is the only Illinois city to be surrounded by levees. The city is named after Cairo, Egypt's capital on the Nile and is located in the river-crossed area of Southern Illinois known as "Southern Illinois, Little Egypt". It is Coterminous municipality, coterminous with Cairo Precinct, Alexander County, Illinois, Cairo Precinct. Cairo is located at the confluence of the Ohio River, Ohio and Mississippi River, Mississippi rivers, the largest rivers in North America, and is near the Cache River (Illinois), Cache River complex, a List of Ramsar Wetlands of International Importance, Wetland of International Importance. Settlement began in earnest in the 1830s and busy river boat traffic expanded through the 1850s. Fort Defiance (Illinois), Fort Defiance, a American ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
River Gunboat
A river gunboat is a type of gunboat adapted for river operations. River gunboats required shallow draft for river navigation. They would be armed with relatively small caliber cannons, or a mix of cannons and machine guns. If they carried more than one cannon, one might be a howitzer, for shore bombardment. They were usually not armoured. The fictional USS ''San Pablo'' described in Richard McKenna's '' The Sand Pebbles'' is an example of this class of vessel, serving on the US Navy's Yangtze Patrol. Stronger river warships with larger guns were river monitors. Chinese river gunboats Various European powers, the USA, and Japan, maintained flotillas of these shallow draft gunboats patrolling Chinese rivers. These gunboats were enforcing those nations' treaty rights under the treaties that China had started to sign following her defeat during the first Opium War with Britain. The advantages of steam power and shallow drafts meant that the new European vessels initially vast ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
War Department (US)
The United States Department of War, also called the War Department (and occasionally War Office in the early years), was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army, also bearing responsibility for naval affairs until the establishment of the Navy Department in 1798, and for most land-based air forces until the creation of the Department of the Air Force on September 18, 1947. The secretary of war, a civilian with such responsibilities as finance and purchases and a minor role in directing military affairs, headed the War Department throughout its existence. The War Department existed for 158 years, from August 7, 1789, to September 18, 1947, when it split into the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force under the National Security Act of 1947, joining the United States Department of the Navy, Department of the Navy to form the National Military Establishment (NME). In 1949, the NME ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Gunboat Flotilla
The Mississippi River Squadron was the Union brown-water naval squadron that operated on the western rivers during the American Civil War. It was initially created as a part of the Union Army, although it was commanded by naval officers, and was then known as the Western Gunboat Flotilla and sometimes as the Mississippi Flotilla. It received its final designation when it was transferred to the Union Navy at the beginning of October 1862. History American Civil War The squadron was created on May 16, 1861, and was controlled by the Union Army until September 30, 1862. John Rodgers was the first commander of the squadron and was responsible for the construction and organization of the fleet. Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote relieved Rodgers and encouraged the army commander in the west, Major General Henry W. Halleck, to authorize an expedition down the Tennessee River against Fort Henry. Operating in conjunction with Ulysses S. Grant's Army of the District of Cairo, Foot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Department Of War
The United States Department of War, also called the War Department (and occasionally War Office in the early years), was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army, also bearing responsibility for naval affairs until the establishment of the United States Department of the Navy, Navy Department in 1798, and for most land-based air forces until the creation of the United States Department of the Air Force, Department of the Air Force on September 18, 1947. The United States Secretary of War, secretary of war, a civilian with such responsibilities as finance and purchases and a minor role in directing military affairs, headed the War Department throughout its existence. The War Department existed for 158 years, from August 7, 1789, to September 18, 1947, when it split into the United States Department of the Army, Department of the Army and the United States Department of the Air Force, Department of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vicksburg National Military Park
Vicksburg National Military Park preserves the site of the American Civil War Battle of Vicksburg, waged from March 29 to July 4, 1863. The park, located in Vicksburg, Mississippi, flanking the Mississippi River, also commemorates the greater Vicksburg Campaign which led up to the battle. Reconstructed forts and trenches evoke memories of the 47-day siege that ended in the surrender of the city. Victory here and at Port Hudson, farther south in Louisiana, gave the Union control of the Mississippi River. Battlefield The park includes 1,325 historic monuments and markers, of historic trenches and earthworks, a tour road, a walking trail, two antebellum homes, 144 emplaced cannons, the restored gunboat USS ''Cairo'' (sunk on December 12, 1862, on the Yazoo River), and the Grant's Canal site, where the Union Army attempted to build a canal to let their ships bypass Confederate artillery fire. The ''Cairo'', also known as the "Hardluck Ironclad," was the first U.S. s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Controlled Mines
A controlled mine was a circuit fired weapon used in coastal defenses with ancestry going back to 1805 when Robert Fulton termed his underwater explosive device a torpedo: Robert Fulton invented the word torpedo to describe his underwater explosive device and successfully destroyed a ship in 1805. In the 1840s Samuel Colt began experimenting with underwater mines fired by electric current and in 1842, he blew up an old schooner in the Potomac River from a shore station five miles away. History "Torpedoes" were in use during the American Civil War when such devices were made famous with the order given by David Farragut at Mobile Bay. After that war similar mines were being contemplated or put into use by other nations. In 1869 the United States Army Corps of Engineers was directed by Secretary of War William Belknap to assume responsibility for torpedoes for coastal defense. That responsibility continued through the formation of the U.S. Torpedo Service as part of the United Sta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Haines Bluff
Haines may refer to: *Haines (surname), ''includes partial list of people with the surname'' * Haines (character), a character in James Joyce's ''Ulysses'' Places Antarctica * Haines Glacier, Antarctica * Haines Mountains, mountain range in Antarctica Australia * Haines, South Australia, a locality on Kangaroo Island * Hundred of Haines, a cadastral unit in South Australia Canada * Haines Junction, Yukon, town in Yukon Territory, Canada :* Haines Junction Airport United States * Haines, Alaska, city in Haines Borough, Alaska, US :* Haines Airport, an airport in Haines, Alaska, US :* Haines Seaplane Base, a seaplane base in Haines, Alaska, US * Haines Borough, Alaska, US * Haines, Oregon, town in Baker County, Oregon, US * Haines City, Florida, city in Polk County, Florida, US * Haines Mission, an alternative name for Fort William H. Seward, Alaska, US * Haines Falls, New York, town in Greene County, New York, US * Haines Township, Pennsylvania, town in Centre County, Pennsylv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. Situated along the Mississippi River, it had a population of 633,104 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in Tennessee, second-most populous city in Tennessee, the fifth-most populous in the Southeastern United States, Southeast, and the List of United States cities by population, 28th-most populous in the nation. Memphis is the largest city proper on the Mississippi River and anchors the Memphis metropolitan area that includes parts of Arkansas and Mississippi, the Metropolitan statistical area, 45th-most populous metropolitan area in the U.S. with 1.34 million residents. European exploration of the area began with Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto in 1541. Located on the high Chickasaw Bluffs, the site offered natural protection from Mississippi River flooding and became a contested location in the colonial era. Modern Memphis was founded in 181 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Union (American Civil War)
The Union was the central government of the United States during the American Civil War. Its civilian and military forces resisted the Confederate State of America, Confederacy's attempt to Secession in the United States, secede following the 1860 United States presidential election, election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States. Presidency of Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln's administration asserted the permanency of the federal government of the United States, federal government and the continuity of the Constitution of the United States, United States Constitution. Nineteenth-century Americans commonly used the term Union to mean either the federal government of the United States or the unity of the states within the Federalism in the United States, federal constitutional framework. The Union can also refer to the people or territory of the states that remained loyal to the national government during the war. The loyal states are also known as the North, although fou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
