This study investigates the adaptation and purpose-built construction of the vessels used by the Federal government to conduct riverine warfare on the waters of the American Mississippi River drainage basin. The study concentrates on the technology, geography, hydrography, and convention which shaped the construction of the vessels comprising the Federal Western Gunboat Flotilla; an organization which after October 1862 became the United States Navy Mississippi Squadron. The ability of an organization to adapt is equipment to conditions encountered during wartime is often a contributing factor in ultimate victory or defeat. During the Civil War, the process adopted by the Navy to adapt and furnish vessels for its riverine force was flawed. This study emphasizes these facts and explores the response of the Navy chain of command to lessons learned in combat about the vulnerabilities of the vessels of the Western Gunboat Flotilla. The study is not intended as a treatise on tactics or the organization of the United States Navy. However, it does address both with regard to their effect on the performance and adaptation of the vessels of the Western Gunboat Flotilla.

A Scottish immigrant to Illinois, Joseph Brown made his pre-Civil War fortune as a miller and steamboat captain who dabbled in riverboat design and the politics of small towns. When war erupted, he used his connections (including a friendship with Abraham Lincoln) to obtain contracts to build three ironclad gunboats for the U.S. War Department--the Chillicothe, Indianola and Tuscumbia. Often described as failures, these vessels were active in some of the most fer"documents the life and career of Joseph Brown, a miller and steamboat captain who built three ironclad gunboats for the US War Department"ocious river fighting of the 1863 Vicksburg campaign. After the war, "Captain Joe" became a railroad executive and was elected mayor of St. Louis. This book covers his life and career, as well as the construction and operational histories of his controversial trio of warships.

Two Civil Wars is both an edition of an unusual Civil War--era double journal and a narrative about the two writers who composed its contents. The initial journal entries were written by thirteen-year-old Celeste Repp while a student at St. Mary's Academy, a prominent but short-lived girls school in midcentury Baton Rouge. Celeste's French compositions, dating from 1859 to 1861, offer brief but poignant meditations, describe seasonal celebrations, and mention by name both her headmistress, Matilda Victor, and French instructor and priest, Father Darius Hubert. Immediately following Celeste's prettily decorated pages a new title page intervenes, introducing "An Abstract Journal Kept by William L. Park, of the U.S. gunboat Essex during the American Rebellion." Park's diary is a fulsome three-year account of military engagements along the Mississippi and its tributaries, the bombardment of southern towns, the looting of plantations, skirmishes with Confederate guerillas, the uneasy experiment with "contrabands" (freed slaves) serving aboard ship, and the mundane circumstances of shipboard life. Very few diaries from the inland navy have survived, and this is the first journal from the ironclad Essex to be published. Jeffrey has read it alongside several unpublished accounts by Park's crewmates as well as a later memoir composed by Park in his declining years. It provides rare insight into the culture of the ironclad fleet and equally rare firsthand commentary by an ordinary sailor on events such as the sinking of CSS Arkansas and the prolonged siege of Port Hudson. Jeffrey provides detailed annotation and context for the Repp and Park journals, filling out the biographies of both writers before and after the Civil War. In Celeste's case, Jeffrey uncovers surprising connections to such prominent Baton Rouge residents as the diarist Sarah Morgan, and explores the complexity of wartime allegiances in the South through the experiences of Matilda Victor and Darius Hubert. She also unravels the mystery of how a southern youngster's school scribbler found its way into the hands of a Union sailor. In so doing, she provides a richly detailed picture of occupied Baton Rouge and especially of events surrounding the Battle of Baton Rouge in August 1862. These two unusual personal journals, linked by curious happenstance in a single notebook, open up intriguing, provocative, and surprisingly complementary new vistas on antebellum Baton Rouge and the Civil War on the Mississippi.

This work describes riverine combat during the Vietnam War, emphasizing the operations of the U.S. Navy’s River Patrol Force, which conducted Operation Game Warden; the U.S. Army-Navy Mobile Riverine Force, the formation that General William Westmoreland said “saved the Mekong Delta” during the Tet Offensive of 1968; and the Vietnam Navy. An important section details the SEALORDS combined campaign, a determined effort by U.S. Navy, South Vietnamese Navy, and allied ground forces to cut enemy supply lines from Cambodia and disrupt operations at base areas deep in the delta. The author also covers details on the combat vessels, helicopters, weapons, and equipment employed in the Mekong Delta as well as the Vietnamese combatants (on both sides) and American troops who fought to secure Vietnam’s waterways. Special features focus on the ubiquitous river patrol boats (PBRs) and the Swift boats (PCFs), river warfare training, Vice Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., the Black Ponies aircraft squadron, and Navy SEALs. This publication may be of interest to history scholars, veterans, students in advanced placement history classes, and military enthusiasts given the continuing impact of riverine warfare on U.S. naval and military operations in the 21st century. Special Publicity Tie-In: Commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War (Commemoration dates: 28 May 2012 - 11 November 2025). This is the fifth book in the series, "The U.S. Navy and the Vietnam War." TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction The First Indochina War The Vietnam Navy River Force and American Advisors The U.S. Navy and the Rivers of Vietnam SEALORDS The End of the Line for U.S. and Vietnamese River Forces Sidebars: The PBR Riverine Warfare Training Battle Fleet of the Mekong Delta High Drama in the Delta Vice Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr. Black Ponies The Swift Boat Warriors with Green Faces Suggested Reading