← Back to the front page

Odd Solutions to Historic Problems

Khalid Elhassan December 9, 2020 32 min

United States - American Civil War — Young recruits during the Vietnam War, circa 1967. History

8. The Confederates’ Capture of a Powerful Union Warship Posed a Serious Problem for the Union

During the US Civil War, the USS Indianola was a powerful ironclad river gunboat employed by the Union. She served in the Western Theater with the US Navy’s Mississippi Squadron, operating in the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers. The Indianola ran past Confederate batteries in Vicksburg to reach the Red River and help block Confederate supplies from sailing down its waters. However, once she reached her destination, she was attacked by Confederate rams on the night of February 24^th, 1863, ran aground, and was captured.

The Indianola’s capture derailed the Union’s plans to blockade the Red River. Its presence in Confederate hands was too great a threat to Union operations in the region to be endured. Plans were thus made to recapture the ironclad or destroy it to prevent the Rebels from using it. The solution to the problem of just how to go about doing that involved one of the Civil War’s most successful deception operations and hoaxes.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.