USS General Lyon
CSS De Soto
Confederate and Union Naval Ship

USS General Lyon

A 390-ton side-wheel river steamer, was built in 1860 at New Albany, Indiana, as the civilian ship De Soto . After serving as the Confederate gunboat De Soto in 1861-62, she was captured by Federal forces at Island Number Ten on 7 April 1862. The U.S. Army employed her as a transport until the U.S. Navy acquired her in September 1862. Changing her name from De Soto to General Lyon in October 1862, the Navy's Mississippi Squadron used her as a ordnance, stores and dispatch vessel during the remainder of the Civil War. General Lyon was decommissioned and sold in August 1865. Renamed Alabama as a civilian steamer, she burned on 1 April 1867 at Grand View, Louisiana.

CSS De Soto (1861-1862)

De Soto , a 390-ton side-wheel river steamer, was built at New Albany, Indiana, in 1860. In 1862, Confederate forces employed her as a gunboat on the Mississippi River. She was captured by the United States at Island Number Ten on 7 April 1862. In October 1862, after briefly serving as a U.S. Army transport, she became USS General Lyon .


12 Pound Howitzer on upper deck of the USS General Lyon

Line engraving, based on a sketch by Alexander Simplot, published in "Harper's Weekly", 1862
depicting ships sunk by the Confederates off their fortifications at Island Number 10, circa 7 April 1862.
As identified on the engraving, the ships are (from left to right): Champion , Yazoo , Grampus , John Simonds , Red Rover , Prince , Admiral , Ohio Belle , De Soto , Kanawha Valley , Winchester and Mars . Most of these vessels, some of which were not sunk, were later employed by the Union forces.


War, Technology, and Experience aboard the USS Monitor
The experience of the men aboard the Monitor and their reactions to the thrills and dangers that accompanied the new machine. The invention surrounded men with iron and threatened their heroism, their self-image as warriors, even their lives





Naval Strategies of the Civil War: Confederate Innovations and Federal Opportunism
Compare and contrast the strategies of the Southern Secretary of the Navy, Mallory, against his rival in the North, Welles. Mallory used technological innovation and the skill of individuals to bolster the South's seapower against the Union Navy's superior numbers


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American Civil War Naval Book Titles

Wolf of the Deep: Raphael Semmes and the Notorious Confederate Raider CSS Alabama
In July 1862, the Confederate captain Raphael Semmes received orders to report to Liverpool, where he would take command of a secret new British-built steam warship. His mission: to prey on Union commercial vessels and undermine the North's ability to continue the war

The Hunt for the Albemarle: Anatomy of a Gunboat War
The Confederate ironclad Albemarle was the key to the river wars in North Carolina.

Ironclad of the Roanoke: Gilbert Elliott's Albemarle
The story of a Confederate Ironcald that was a powerful force until sunk by a Union Torpedo Boat after its brief stormy life. Ironic in the fact it was built in a Cornfield. Confederate Ingenunity at it finest!

Ironclads and Big Guns of the Confederacy : The Journal and Letters of John M. Brooke
Information about the Confederate Navy's effort to supply its fledgling forces, the wartime diaries and letters of John M. Brooke tell the neglected story of the Confederate naval ordnance office, its innovations, and its strategic vision.

Civil War History Documentary DVD Movie Titles

Halls of Honor
The U.S. Navy Museum takes you on an informed and entertaining romp through one of North America s oldest and finest military museums. The museum has been in continuous operation at the Washington Navy Yard since the American Civil War

Raise The Alabama
She was known as "the ghost ship." During the Civil War, the CSS Alabama sailed over 75,000 miles and captured more than 60 Union vessels. But her career came to an end in June of 1864 when she was sunk by the USS Kearsarge off the coast of Northern France

The Civil War - A Film by Ken Burns
Here is the saga of celebrated generals and ordinary soldiers, a heroic and transcendent president and a country that had to divide itself in two in order to become one

Civil War Combat: America's Bloodiest Battles
The violent mayhem of the hornet's nest at Shiloh, the valiant charge on the sunken road at Antietam, the carnage in the wheat field at Gettysburg, and the brutal fighting at Cold Harbor

 

Sources:
U.S. National Park Service
U.S. Library of Congress
US Naval Archives


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