Left side: Lady; right side: Henry Von Phul
History
United States
Launched1860
Acquiredc. 1863
Decommissionedbefore 1866
FateBurned, November 29, 1866
General characteristics
Displacement709 tons
Propulsion

Henry Von Phul was an American 709-ton sidewheel steam packet built as a merchant and passenger vessel in Paducah, Kentucky and St. Louis, Missouri in 1860.[1][2][3][4] During the Red River campaign of the Civil War she served as a Union transport on the Mississippi River and the Red River, and on December 8, 1863, she was twice heavily bombarded by Confederate guns.[5] On November 15, 1866, she caught fire on the Mississippi with 3,800 bales of cotton and was run ashore near Donaldsonville, Louisiana.[1]

Military service

Henry Von Phul in low water.[6]

On the morning of December 8, 1863, while en route to St. Louis from New Orleans, Von Phul was shelled by a Confederate shore battery of 6 guns about 5 miles (8 km) from Morganza.[4][7] Captain Patrick Gorman, commanding, was killed by a shell which entered the pilot house, killing him instantly; a barkeeper and a deckhand were also mortally wounded.[4][8] The damaged ship then made for the nearby Union anchorage off Morganza and was from there escorted by Neosho, a 523-ton river monitor.[4] After continuing only a few miles, she was targeted again: this time by some 4 pieces of horse artillery which waited for the monitor to pass by them before firing on the transport from the levee; they struck Von Phul some twenty times, wounding nine and disabling the ship.[4] Neosho turned to fire upon and scatter the gunners, and was supported by Signal.[4] Meanwhile, Captain Harry McDougall's Atlantic, a 2,668-ton side-wheeler en route to New Orleans from St. Louis, came alongside the Von Phul, at considerable risk to herself, and towed the crippled transport to safety.[5]

Fate

The steamer Henry Von Phul, with 3,800 bales of cotton, burned at 3 a.m. on November 14, 1866, above Donaldsonville, Louisiana.[9] The fire spread to the cotton from the pipe of a deck hand, and was soon under full headway.[9] The boat was immediately run ashore.[9] There were 101 persons aboard, including a number of women, nearly all of whom escaped ashore with the loss of all their baggage and clothes, many of them having only their night clothes.[9][10] The boat was owned in Memphis, Tennessee, and was not insured.[11]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 University of Wisconsin–Madison.
  2. ↑ The New Orleans Crescent (Nov. 26, 1860), p. 3.
  3. ↑ The Daily Picayune (Dec. 7, 1860), p. 4.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Smith (2010), p. 154.
  5. 1 2 Smith (2010), pp. 154–5.
  6. ↑ Marleau (2016), p. 150.
  7. ↑ Civil War Naval Chronology (1961–66), 3, p. 163.
  8. ↑ The Evansville Daily Journal (Dec. 19, 1863), p. 1.
  9. 1 2 3 4 The Missouri Republican (Nov. 14, 1866), p. 3.
  10. ↑ The Daily Picayune (Nov. 14, 1866), p. 1.
  11. ↑ Public Ledger (Nov. 14, 1866), p. 2.

Bibliography

  • Gibson, E. Kay; Gibson, Charles Dana (1995). Dictionary of Transports and Combatant Vessels, Steam and Sail, Employed by the Union Army 1861–1868. Camden, ME: Ensign Press. ISBN 0960899642.
  • Marleau, Michael H. (2016). "'Cooling Our Bottom on the Sand Bars': A Chronicle of Low Water Trips on the Mississippi River, 1860". Mark Twain Journal. 54 (2): 150.
  • Smith, Myron J. Jr. (2010). Tinclads in the Civil War: Union Light-Draught Gunboat Operations on Western Waters, 1862–1865. United States of America: McFarland & Company, Inc. pp. 154–5.
  • Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861–1865. Vol. 3–1863. Washington, D.C.: Navy Department. 1961–66. p. 163.
  • "Henry Von Phul (Packet, 1860–1866)". University of Wisconsin–Madison.

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