CSS General Beauregard
CSS "General Beauregard" was a cottonclad sidewheel ram of the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War. Built in Algiers, Louisiana in 1847 as a towboat, the paddle steamer "Ocean" was selected in January 1862 by Capt. James E. Montgomery, former river steamboat master, for his River Defense Fleet. At New Orleans, on 25 January, Captain Montgomery began her conversion to a cotton-clad ram, installing oak and iron sheathing over her bow, with cotton bales sandwiched between double pine bulkheads to protect her boilers. Service history. Battle of Plum Point Bend. Conversion completed on 5 April , and now renamed CSS "General Beauregard", the ship steamed to Fort Pillow, Tennessee, to defend the approaches to Memphis. On 10 May 1862, "General Beauregard", Capt. J. H. Hart, and seven more of Montgomery's fleet, attacked the Federal Mississippi ironclad flotilla. The Battle of Plum Point Bend witnessed effective ramming tactics by the Confederates, although "General Beauregard" succeeded only in keeping her four 8-inch guns bravely firing in the face of a withering hail of Union shells. Montgomery's force held off the Federal rams until Fort Pillow was safely evacuated, 4 June, then fell back on Memphis  to coal, on the fifth. Battle of Memphis. After Fort Pillow fell, Flag Officer Charles Henry Davis, USN, commanding the Mississippi River Squadron, lost no time in appearing off Memphis, on 6 June 1862. Montgomery, with a smaller squadron short of fuel, was unable to retreat to Vicksburg; unwilling to destroy his boats, he fought against heavy odds. In the ensuing Battle of Memphis, "witnessed by thousands on the bluff," "Beauregard" unluckily missed ramming and "cut away entirely the port wheel and wheel-house" of her partner, CSS "General Sterling Price", also engaging "Monarch". "General Beauregard", backing out, gave Union  flagship a close broadside with a 42-pounder, and "Benton" replied with a shot into the Confederate's boiler, killing or scalding many of her crew, 14 of whom, in agony, were rescued by "Benton". "General Beauregard" exploded and was sinking fast as "Monarch" captured the rest of her complement and took her in tow towards the Arkansas shore, where the wreck remained for a short time partially visible in shoal water. External links.