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The Battle of Lucas Bend took place on January 11, 1862 near Lucas Bend, four miles north of Columbus on Mississippi River in Kentucky as it lay at the time of the American Civil War. In the network of the Mississippi, Tennessee and Ohio rivers, the Union river gunboats under Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote and General Ulysses S. Grant sought to infiltrate and attack the Confederate positions in Tennessee. On the day of the battle, the Union ironclads ''Essex'' and ''St Louis'', transporting troops down the Mississippi in fog, engaged the Confederate cotton clad warships ''General Polk'', ''Ivy'' and ''Jackson'' towing the gun platform ''New Orleans'' at a curve known as Lucas Bend in Kentucky. The ''Essex'', under Commander William Porter, and the ''St Louis'' forced the Confederate ships to fall back after an hour of skirmishing during which the Union commander (which one?) was wounded. They retreated to the safety of a nearby Confederate battery at Columbus, where the Union vessels could not follow. The battle marked one of the first occasions where timberclad warships were convincingly outclassed by the newer ironclad warships, and it would be one of the last naval engagements to see timberclad warships perform a major role. The term timberclad is usually reserved for the Union ships Lexington, Tyler, and Conestoga which had heavy timber attached as 'armor'. Most Confederate gunboats used cotton bales as their armor. See battle of Plum Run where Confederate 'timberclads' fought well against the ironclads. ==Prelude== The USS ''Essex'' had been constructed in 1856. She was a 1000-ton river gunboat, converted from her original role as a timberclad ferry named ''New Era''. She was armed with one 32-pounder cannon, three Dahlgren smooth bores, one Dahlgren smoothbore and a 12-pounder howitzer.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Essex )〕 The USS ''St Louis'' was a City class ironclad built in 1861 at Carondelet, Missouri. She was armed with three 8-inch smoothbores, four 42-pounder rifles, six 32-pounder rifles and one 12-pounder rifle at the time of her service at Lucas Bend. Both ships were sent to Cairo, Illinois, early in the Civil War as part of troop transports moving the army into Tennessee.〔 Illinois, a Union state which contributed 250,000 men to the Union Army, a figure surpassed by only New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, was a key theater.〔Illinois in the Civil War. (Illinois Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery Units ). Retrieved November 26, 2006.〕 Cairo, at the confluence between the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, was a key supply point and headquarters for Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote and General Ulysses S. Grant. It was defended by Fort Defiance. The complex river network provided routes for the Union gunboats into the heart of the Confederate forces; however the water levels – particularly in the Tennessee River – were often not sufficient for gunboats to pass.〔 The Confederate ''Ivy'' was launched in 1845 as a privately owned commercial vessel originally named ''Roger Williams'', and later the ''El-Paraguay''. Originally based in New Orleans following her commission in 1861, she was armed with one smoothbore cannon and one 32-pounder rifle. The CSS ''Jackson'' was another privately owned vessel built in 1849 before being acquired in May 1861 by the Confederacy and commissioned into active service in June. She was armed with two 32-pounder guns, and was ordered to Columbus on June 6, 1861, to join Hollins in the defence of the Mississippi River. She had already seen action against the USS ''Conestoga'' on the river.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Jackson )〕 The floating battery ''New Orleans'' had been towed up from her namesake city in Louisiana. Lastly, the ''General Polk'' was a former side-wheel river steamer named either ''Ed Howard'' or ''Howard''. She was built in 1852, and the Confederacy bought her in 1861. She was the vessel from which Hollins commanded the Confederates during the battle, and was known casually as the "Polk".〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=General Polk )〕 The Union vessels arrived in October 1861, venturing up the Cumberland River, a tributary of the Ohio, on October 30. The ''Essex'' underwent her conversion to a partly ironclad warship in nearby dockyards. Over several weeks between December and January, the Union ships had regularly sailed towards the Confederates on the Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee Rivers in order to provoke an engagement, to be frustrated by blank-cartridge shots from the latter's cannons, the Confederates being reluctant to be drawn into a full engagement.〔 On the evening of January 10, the Union forces in Kentucky having just defeated their opponents at the Battle of Middle Creek, the ''Essex'' and the ''St Louis'' moved off in heavy fog from the ferry landings at Cairo in convoy escorting troop transports carrying Brigadier General John Alexander McClernand's brigade. Their path was blocked for part of the night by a steamer which had run aground north of Cairo, and by Cmdr. William Porter moving off-route to investigate two suspicious, but later revealed to be legitimate, boats moored on the riverside.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Lucas Bend」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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