Flag Officer Charles H. Davis, USN and Col. Charles Ellet, USA
Capt. James E. Montgomery, CSN and Brig. Gen. M. Jeff Thompson, CSA
Seven Union ships engaged a larger number of individually weaker Confederate vessels.
Casualties were light, but lop-sided: 1 Federal and 180 Confederate
After the Confederate River Defense Fleet bested the Union ironclads at Plum Run Bend, Tennessee, on May 10, 1862, they retired to Memphis. After learning of Halleck’s occupation of Corinth, Mississippi, Beauregard ordered the evacuation of Confederate forces from Fort Pillow and Memphis on May 30. By June 4 all but the rearguard were gone, and that night they set fire to what they couldn’t evacuate.
Thompson’s few troops, camped outside Memphis, and Montgomery’s fleet were the only force available to meet the Union naval threat to the city. From Island No. 45, just north of Memphis, Flag-Officer Davis and Col. Ellet launched a naval attack on Memphis starting at 4:00 am on June 6. Arriving off Memphis about 5:30 am, the battle began. In only 90 minutes, the Union fleet, a mix of Navy ironclad gunboats and Army rams sank or captured all but one of the Confederate vessels; the General Van Dorn escaped. (The Confederates didn’t have enough coal, or maybe the coordination to get the coal where it was needed, to save the whole fleet.)
Immediately following the battle, Col. Ellet’s son, Medical Cadet Charles Ellet, Jr., met the mayor of Memphis and raised the Union colors over the courthouse. Later, Davis officially received the surrender of the city from the mayor. The Indiana Brigade, commanded by Col. G.N. Fitch, then occupied the city. The lone Federal casualty was Colonel Ellet: wounded by a pistol ball, it seemed insignificant but infection killed him fifteen days later.
Memphis, an important commercial and economic center on the Mississippi River, had fallen, opening another section of the Mississippi River to Union shipping. With the southern end of the Mississippi open, Vicksburg was now the key to the entire river.
Content provided by:
eHistory Staff
Selected sources:
American Battlefield Protection Program, Heritage Preservation Services, National Park Service.
