HomeMilliken's BendGunboat casualties at Milliken’s Bend

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Gunboat casualties at Milliken’s Bend — 2 Comments

  1. Why I asked the question…you had stated the boats helped with the battle. But if no harm done, how could that be what slowed the Rebels down? If canister, I understand. But when records say not, makes me wonder even more.

    • Right. There are a couple of pieces to this, I think. First – and this is important from both sides – is that the Union gunboats were firing blind. The river level was down, and the main part of the battle was taking place on the other side of two levees. The gunners on the gunboats could not see their targets, and were having their fire directed by infantrymen on shore. The Choctaw arrived first, and was engaged the longest. Lexington came up later. In some accounts it also seems that some Rebel soldiers mistook the smoke stacks of the transport vessel that the 23rd Iowa was on for a gunboat. One reason McCulloch gave for his withdrawal was his anticipation that additional gunboats were on their way, and this may have been prompted by the Lexington arriving mid-way through the battle. Confederate General Richard Taylor saw McCulloch’s withdrawal as bordering on cowardice, writing that he had not seen such fear of gunboats since the beginning of the war.
      As to the type of ammunition being used, it wasn’t canister. It seems to have been mostly shell. That would make sense as they’d need to have trajectory in their firing, in order to fire over the heads of their own men and the levees. Having shells bursting in air would rain down shrapnel on the troops below, without the need for specifically identifiable and visual targets.
      I base my assessment of the gunboats halting the Confederate advance, in part, on McCulloch’s own report about the battle, and also on the basis that due to the collapse of the Union line, there really was nothing else to prevent the Confederates running all the Yankees into the river, quite literally. To be sure, the two companies of the 11th Louisiana on the far right of the Union line held their ground, and undoubtedly caused casualties, but I don’t think their stand alone would prompt a withdrawal. I think their efforts coupled with the gunboats’ fire is what made the Confederates pull back to await reinforcements.
      Granted, the casualties caused by the gunboats may have been minimal, but I do think that the sheer mayhem of taking a prolonged shelling – esp. if the Rebs were kind of caught between two ranges of shells (ones falling behind them, firing long, and ones falling short in front of them, into Union lines) might have made them think it was only a matter of time before the gunboats found the right range.

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