Mississippi Burning (2)

In BROS (chapter 4, part 1), the twenty-year old paddle frigate USS Mississippi encounters a British squadron consisting of the four-year-old screw battleship HMS Edgar (89), the five-year-old screw sloop HMS Racoon (22), and the six-year-old ironclad HMS Terror (16). As we already know, Edgar, Racoon and Terror should not be where they are. However, this is in many respects a minor problem, compared to what we discover when we examine the events of the battle in detail.


At this point, Mississippi historically would have carried 10 guns: the most guns she ever carried was 21 (with one 10in pivot), for riverine service in the calm, shallow internal waters of the Mississippi. Here, where she's supposed to be serving as a commerce raider in the stormy Atlantic, she is given 22 guns (including two 10in pivots). Notice that the Union is capable of doubling the armament of its ships while simultaneously arming coastal forts and building fleets on inland waters, presumably with the assistance of non-existent arsenals.

One might think that speed rather than firepower was a more important attribute for a commerce raider. Fortunately, despite the additional weight of these guns, Mississippi is still capable of moving 'at 8 knots without a breadth of wind'. This is remarkable, as between October 1845 and March 1847 (when her engines were new and she carried fewer guns) she only averaged 7.06 knots under steam. TFSmith is unusually correct in saying that she had little use for the wind. One of her engineers claimed 'The sails are auxiliary to her steam; with her sails unaided by her engines, she is helpless,' and in December 1842 the secretary of the navy claimed that she burned so much coal that she was 'unsuited to cruising in time of peace'. How she might be suited to cruising in times of war, with useless sails and a vast appetite for coal, is a question that only TFSmith can answer.

It is unclear from where exactly TFSmith derives his belief that Mississippi regularly zipped around at 8 knots. However, the DANFS entry does not include any statement of the ship's speed. As such, it seems likely that it is a reflection of the unsourced Wikipedia article- TFSmith, of course, having prior form with this sort of thing. More importantly, he also has prior form with making Union ships both better armed and quicker than they were historically: something similar happens to USS Powhatan, another elderly paddle steamer repurposed as a commerce raider.

It might well be expected that Racoon would be the faster ship of the two. Not only was she laid down seventeen years after Mississippi (1856 vs 1839), but she recorded 10 knots at full power and 7.28 knots at half power on a pre-commissioning trial in 1863. However, in BROS, Mississippi is able to cross Racoon's T. Had it been remotely clear where either ship was supposed to be, it might have been possible to draw a more detailed conclusion from this. Unfortunately, the battle is so poorly described that we cannot say exactly how wrong this depiction is. However, the fact that crossing another ship's T normally implies a significant advantage in either speed or manoeuvrability, suggests that TFSmith is once again ramping the performance of Union ships.

We can, however, understand the armament of each sufficiently well to understand that Mississippi and Racoon should be fairly evenly matched. Mississippi's up-gunning leaves her carrying 20 8in shell guns on the broadside and two 10in shell guns as pivots. In June 1862, Racoon carried a 110pdr Armstrong and 68pdr smoothbore pivot, 18 8in shell guns, and 2 40pdr pivot guns. There is very little to choose between these layouts, and four out of five of the guns are broadly identical 8in shell guns.

Because TFSmith is writing the encounter, however, the Mississippi is capable of 'firing two or three broadsides to the Racoon’s one'. Given this advantage, it is rather unsurprising that it takes Mississippi only half an hour to sink Racoon. As the 32-gun HMS Doris took half an hour to sink the 11-gun USS Powhatan, we may conclude that the disparity in firepower is intended to be closer to 3-1 than 2-1. TFSmith does not consider it necessary to explain how Mississippi manages to make almost identical guns fire three times as quickly. An impartial observer might well have expected Racoon, with a crew of regular sailors, to fire more quickly than the hastily-trained Union sailors: however, this is Burnished Rows of Steel.

After this remarkable feat, Mississippi then charges Edgar and Terror and is sunk by them in combination. We are told that 'Her shells were just as damaging to the ship of the line and ironclad as they had been to the corvette', which is rather surprising because the ship of the line has much thicker oak sidewalls and the ironclad is, well, an ironclad. Those who are more familiar with modern shells should remember that American Civil War smoothbore shells were a hollow iron sphere filled with gunpowder. Because of this inherent structural weakness, they were liable to break apart without exploding on hitting iron plates as thin as 0.75in. Terror has much thicker iron plates, and yet still manages to be damaged by shells. Once again: Burnished Rows of Steel. Perhaps we should be grateful that Mississippi was sunk at all.

Though the section concludes with the statement that 'both nations had new heroes', only one nation is given almost 200 words of medal citations to round off the chapter. Naturally, the Union crews include awards to Irish and Scottish recipients, neither of whom have any qualms about serving against their native country. This should not be any great surprise, in the light of TFSmith's overall treatment of people committing treason for the Union's benefit, but those who believe that patriotism is not a solely American virtue may choose to raise a weary eyebrow.