flahr-names

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 6/22/01 9:48:32 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
JBaker at STRADLEY.COM writes:

>         I thought Jim Landau was joshing us when he referred to the USS
>  Deluded People Cave In.  The overrated Google.com found nothing, but
>  Alltheweb.com came up with the following, at
>  http://addy.com/mhegener/HEM/173.00/mj_clmn_gs.html, from a review of The
>  Civil War for Kids by Janis Herbert (Chicago Review Press, 1999):

The reviewer you cited, being interested only in scenes that kids could
dramatize, missed the entire point of the USS Deluded People Cave In.  It was
not a practical joke.  Rather the hoax was a desperate (and successful)
attempt to destroy a powerful ironclad that the Confederates had just
captured.  Had the hoax failed, the Union Navy might have lost control of the
Mississippi River at a critical time in the Civil War.

>From the website of the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships
(URL http://www.hazegray.org/danfs/), which is the best on-line source for
ships of the US Navy that I am aware of:

<quote>
Two days later, 16 February, INDIANOLA met prize steamer {NEW} ERA NO. 5
manned by the survivors of QUEEN OF THE WEST which had run aground while
under heavy fire from Confederate shore batteries at Gordon's Landing in
the Red River. Late that afternoon lookouts in INDIANOLA spotted
Confederate steamer WEBB abreast Ellis Cliffs. She promptly cleared for
action and steamed ahead full speed firing at the Southern ship which
proved to be barely out of range. WEBB turned about and dashed down
stream and out of sight around a bend in the river. A heavy fog set in
compelling INDIANOLA to give up the chase and anchor for the night.
Early the net afternoon the fog cleared enabling INDIANOLA to proceed to
the mouth of the Red River where she maintained a strict blockade until
21 February when she began steaming upstream. Her progress was slowed by
two coal barges which she towed so that she might furnish fuel to any
ships sent to reinforce her from above Vicksburg. On the evening of 2 [sic ,
should be 21] February WEBB and QUEEN OF THE WEST, now Confederate-manned,
overtook INDIANOLA and attacked from each side ramming her seven times before
the game ironclad, "in an almost powerless condition" ran her bow on the
west bank of the river and surrendered.

The loss of INDIANOLA was deeply distressing to the Union. It ended
Admiral Porter's efforts to blockade the Red River by detached vessels
while-keeping the body of his fleet above Vicksburg, and it prompted
Farragut's costly run by the South's forts at Port Hudson 14 March 1863.
On the brighter side, it set the stage for one of; the most successful
hoaxes of the war. A dummy monitor was made by building paddle boxes on
an old coal barge to simulate a turret which in turn was adorned with
logs painted black to resemble guns. Pork-barrel funnels containing
burning smudge pots were the final touch added just before the strange
craft was cast adrift to float past Vicksburg on the night of
INDIANOLA's surrender, Word of this "river MONITOR" panicked the salvage
crew working on INDIANOLA causing them to set off the ships magazines to
prevent her recapture.
</quote>

There have been four ships named USS Iris.  The DANFS website has entries for
three of them, plus the USS Daffodil but unfortunately not the USS Jonquil.

                    - Jim Landau