Laurent Millaudon (1856)

CSS General Sterling Price
History
private
Name:	Laurent Millaudon
Launched:	1856
Confederate States
Name:	CSS General Sterling Price
Commissioned:	1861
Fate:	sunk 6 June 1862 at the battle of Memphis
USS General Price off Baton Rouge, LA, 18 January 1864
United States
Name:	USS General Price
Commissioned:	30 September 1862
Decommissioned:	24 July 1865
Fate:	sold 3 October 1866 to W.H. Harrison
General characteristics
Displacement:	633 tons
Length:	182 ft (55 m)
Beam:	30 ft (9.1 m)
Draft:	9.2 ft (2.8 m)
Propulsion:	steam engine
Armor:	4 inch oak sheath with a 1 inch iron covering on her bow double pine bulkheads filled with compressed cotton bales

Laurent Millaudon was a wooden side-wheel river steamboat launched at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1856 operating in the New Orleans, Louisiana area, and captained by W.S. Whann. At the beginning of the American Civil War she was taken into service by the Confederate Navy as CSS General Sterling Price. On 6 June 1862, she was sunk at the Battle of Memphis. She was raised and repaired by the Union army, and on 16 June 1862 was moved into Union service as USS General Price and served until the end of the war. (Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships 1968 p525)

CSS General Sterling Price, often referred to as General Price or Price, was built as Laurent Millaudon, (or L. Millandon or Milledon) at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1856. She was acquired for Confederate service and fitted out at New Orleans, Louisiana, for the River Defense Fleet (See DANFS appendix II) and was renamed after the Confederate general Sterling Price. On 25 January 1862, Captain Montgomery began to convert her into a cottonclad ram by placing a 4-inch oak sheath with a 1-inch iron covering on her bow, and by installing double pine bulkheads filled with compressed cotton bales. (This evidently increased her displacement from the 483 tons specified for the Laurent Millaudon to the 633 tons specified for the General Price.) On 25 March, General Price commanded by Captain J. H. Townsend, sailed from New Orleans to Memphis, Tennessee, where she stayed until 10 April having her ironwork completed. She was then sent to Fort Pillow, Tennessee, where she operated in defense of the river approaches to Memphis.

On 10 May 1862, off Fort Pillow, General Price under First Officer J. E. Henthorne (or Harthorne), in company with seven other vessels under Captain Montgomery attacked the ironclad gunboats of the Union Mississippi River Squadron. In the action of Plum Point Bend, which followed, the Confederate ram CSS General Bragg struck Cincinnati halting her retreat. This allowed General Price to violently ram the Federal gunboat, taking away her rudder, stern post, and a large piece of her stern, decisively disabling her. At the same time General Price's well directed fire silenced Federal Mortar boat No. 16, which was being guarded by Cincinnati. General Price was heavily hit in this action. Her upper works were severely damaged, and she was struck by a 128-pound shell which cut off her supply pipes and caused a dangerous leak.