CSS Mississippi

Deck plan of CSS Mississippi, sketch prepared by N. Tift
History
Confederate States of America
Name:	Mississippi
Namesake:	Mississippi (state)
Builder:	Nelson and Asa F. Tift
Laid down:	14 October 1861
Launched:	24 April 1862
Fate:	Burned to avoid capture, 25 April 1862
General characteristics
Displacement:	1400 tons
Length:	250 ft (76 m)
Beam:	58 ft (18 m)
Draft:	15 ft (4.6 m)
Propulsion:	steam, 3 screws
Armor:	4.5 inches (115 millimeters) iron

CSS Mississippi was a projected ironclad warship of the Confederate States Navy, intended to be used on the Mississippi River in the vicinity of New Orleans during the American Civil War. Her design was unusual, as she was built according to house-building techniques. Whether this would have proved to be feasible cannot be known, as she was not complete when New Orleans fell to the Union Fleet under Flag Officer David G. Farragut on 25 April 1862. Rather than let her fall into enemy hands, Captain Arthur Sinclair, CSN, ordered her to be hastily launched and burned. Despite the delays in construction that left her unfinished and untried, her mere existence, together with that of CSS Louisiana, raised thwarted hopes in the defenders of New Orleans, and unfounded fears in Union circles, that affected the strategy of both sides in the campaign on the lower Mississippi. Mississippi is significant to the Civil War therefore not so much as a warship as in the way her reputation influenced events, and as an example of the difficulties the South had in the contest with the industrial North.

At the start of the Civil War, Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory had promptly urged the building of armored warships, to counter by the inherent quality of ships in his Navy the superior numbers the Federal Navy would be able to use. At his prodding, the Confederacy embarked on a construction program that included several armored vessels intended for use on the Mississippi River and other inland waters. The initial plans, prepared after US President Abraham Lincoln had proclaimed the blockade of Southern ports but before the North had taken any major steps to subjugate the South, called for five ironclads to be built in the interior: CSS Eastport on the Tennessee River, Arkansas and Tennessee on the Mississippi at Memphis, and Louisiana and Mississippi at New Orleans. In the end, only Arkansas of these five ever engaged the Union fleet in the intended manner; here we are concerned with why Mississippi was unable to do so.