USS Cairo
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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.
USS Cairo at anchor
USS Cairo in her final resting place at Vicksburg National Military Park. A wooden framework has been built to support what remains of the ship.
One of the cannons on the side of the Cairo. The framework for the paddlewheels is in the background.
Capstan of the Cairo, used to lift the anchor, and to pull hawsers taut.
Battle of Plum Point Bend
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The Battle of Plum Point Bend took place on the Mississippi River in Tennessee, U.S., between ships of the Confederate River Defense Fleet and the Union Western Flotilla on May 10, 1862. Fighting for control of the Mississippi River had been ongoing since the prior year, and Union forces had pushed downriver to Fort Pillow, which was 50 miles (80 km) on the river north of Memphis, Tennessee. The Union had been using mortar boats to bombard Fort Pillow, and had settled into a regular routine. Each day, a single mortar boat guarded by an ironclad took a position further downriver to bombard the fort, while the rest of the fleet remained upriver. On the morning of May 10, the Confederates attacked, in the hope of capturing the guard ironclad and then surprising the rest of the Union fleet.
Battle of Plum Point Bend, Tennessee, May 10, 1862. The Confederate vessels are to the right, while the Union ironclads are in the center and left
USS Cincinnati, a stern-wheel casemate gunboat, built in 1861.
CSS General Sterling Price, converted from a Mississippi steamboat in 1862.
Ironclad battle on the Mississippi River near Fort Wright, May 10, 1862 (Currier & Ives lithograph)