CSS Ivy
| History | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Name: | Ivy |
| Namesake: | V.H. Ivy |
| Owner: | Confederate States Navy |
| Builder: | Burtis |
| Launched: | 1845 |
| Commissioned: | May 16, 1861 |
| Fate: | Destroyed to prevent capture at Liverpool Landing, Yazoo River, May 1863 |
| General characteristics | |
| Length: | 191 ft (58 m) |
| Beam: | 28 ft (8.5 m) |
| Draft: | 9 ft (2.7 m) |
| Propulsion: | Side paddle wheels, one vertical condensing beam engine; cylinders, 44” diameter, 11’ stroke |
| Speed: | 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) |
| Complement: | 60 officers and men |
| Armament: | 1 8”-smoothbore, 1 32-pounder rifle |
CSS Ivy was a sidewheel steamer and privateer purchased by Commodore Lawrence Rousseau for service with the Confederate States Navy, and chosen by Commodore George Hollins for his Mosquito Fleet. The Mosquito Fleet was a group of riverboats converted to gunboats, and used to defend the Mississippi River in the area of New Orleans during the American Civil War.
As a privately owned commercial vessel, the Ivy had been known as the Roger Williams and the El-Paraguay. The CSS Ivy began her Civil War career as a New Orleans-based privateer V.H. Ivy, sent out to capture Union commercial vessels after Jefferson Davis authorized the distribution of letters of marque and reprisal to private citizens after hostilities began in April 1861. The Ivy did well at this, capturing four northern registered vessels, one of which was the ice breaker Enoch Train, which was purchased by private investors and rebuilt as the privateer ironclad ram Manassas. This vessel in turn was commandeered by Commodore Hollins as the CSS Manassas.
The Union Blockade arrived at the mouth of the Mississippi on May 27, 1861, when the USS Brooklyn took up position. This event energized defense efforts in New Orleans and led to the replacement of Rousseau with Commodore Hollins in July 1861 to command the river defense. By August Hollins had established his mosquito fleet for defense of the river in the area of New Orleans. The fleet consisted of the CSS McRae, the flagship CSS Tuscarora, CSS Livingston, CSS Calhoun, CSS Jackson, and the Ivy.
The Ivy, due to her large, sophisticated walking beam engine and multiple boiler propulsion system, was the fastest ship of the fleet. Because of this, Hollins made her the reconnaissance vessel of the fleet, and increased her firepower. As a privateer the Ivy was armed with two brass 24-pounder smoothbore howitzers. Hollins increased her armament to an eight-inch smoothbore mounted aft, and a 32-pounder rifled gun mounted on a forward pivot position on the bow. The conventional description of "rifled 32-pounder" is misleading, however. This gun was a former 32-pounder smoothbore that had been "modernized" by rifling the barrel, and machining and shrinking a single layer of red hot bands of wrought iron onto the breech of the barrel to allow it to operate at much greater breech pressures. This rifling and banding allowed the gun to fire a 100-pound (6.4 inch diameter) conical shot or shell at much greater ranges than would be possible with 32-pound round shot fired out of a smoothbore barrel. This modification was similar to the James rifle process used to produce siege guns, and the resulting gun tube resembled a Parrott rifle. This gun could be much more accurately described as a 6.4-inch (162 mm) banded rifle, and was the most powerful, long range weapon in the mosquito fleet.
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