Memphis
Civil War Tennessee

American Civil War
June 6, 1862

After the Confederate River Defense Fleet, commanded by Captain James E. Montgomery and Brigadier General M. Jeff Thompson (Missouri State Guard), bested the Union ironclads at Plum Run Bend, Tennessee, on May 10, 1862, they retired to Memphis.

Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard ordered troops out of Fort Pillow and Memphis on June 4, after learning of Union Major General Henry W. Halleck's occupation of Corinth, Mississippi. 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 Charles H. Davis and Colonel Charles Ellet launched a naval attack on Memphis after 4:00 am on June 6. Arriving off Memphis about 5:30 am, the battle began. In the hour and a half battle, the Union boats sank or captured all but one of the Confederate vessels; General Van Dorn escaped.

Immediately following the battle, Colonel Ellet's son, Medical Cadet Charles Ellet, Jr., met the mayor of Memphis and raised the Union colors over the courthouse. Later, Flag-Officer Davis officially received the surrender of the city from the mayor. The Indiana Brigade, commanded by Colonel G.N. Fitch, then occupied the city. 

Memphis, an important commercial and economic center on the Mississippi River, had fallen, opening another section of the Mississippi River to Union shipping.

Result(s): Union victory

Location: Shelby County

Campaign: Joint Operations on the Middle Mississippi River (1862) Previous Battle in Campaign Campaigns

Date(s): June 6, 1862

Principal Commanders: Flag-Officer Charles H. Davis and Colonel Charles Ellet [US]; Captain James E. Montgomery and Brigadier General M. Jeff Thompson [CS]

Forces Engaged: U.S. Ironclads Benton, Louisville, Carondelet, Cairo, and St. Louis and U.S. Army Rams Queen of the West and Monarch [US]; C.S. Navy Rams General Beauregard, General Bragg, General Price, General Van Dorn, General Thompson, Colonel Lovell, Sumter, and Little Rebel [CS]

Estimated Casualties: 181 total (US 1; CS 180)


"The Total Annihilation of the Rebel Fleet by the Federal Fleet under Commodore Davis."
"On the Morning of June 6th 1862, off Memphis, Ten."

Lithograph by Middleton, Strobridge & Co.
In the foreground, the print depicts the Confederate ships (from left to right): General M. Jeff Thompson (shown sinking); Little Rebel (shown burning); General Sterling Price ; General Beauregard (shown being rammed by the Ellet Ram Monarch ); General Bragg (shown aground) and Colonel Lovell (shown sinking).

In the background are the Federal warships (from left to right): Queen of the West ; Cairo ; Carondelet ; Louisville ; Saint Louis ; a tug; and Benton .
The city of Memphis is in the right distance, with a wharf boat by the shore.

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Sources:
U.S. National Park Service
U.S. Library of Congress.

Civil War History Book Club Reading Titles


The bloodbath at Shiloh, Tenn. (April 6-7, 1862), brought an end to any remaining innocence in the Civil War. The combined 23,000 casualties that the two armies inflicted on each other in two days shocked North and South alike. Ulysses S. Grant kept his head and managed, with reinforcements, to win a hard-fought victory. Confederate general Albert Sidney Johnston was wounded and bled to death, leaving P.G.T. Beauregard to disengage and retreat with a dispirited gray-clad army. Daniel (Soldiering in the Army of Tennessee) has crafted a superbly researched volume that will appeal to both the beginning Civil War reader as well as those already familiar with the course of fighting in the wooded terrain bordering the Tennessee River. His impressive research includes the judicious use of contemporary newspapers and extensive collections of unpublished letters and diaries.
An act of love but also of careful scholarship, This Great Battlefield of Shiloh tells the story of the construction of a National Military Park there and of the people who made it. Everyone interested in the battle will want to read what happened there after the fighting stopped, and anyone interested in the process of reunion after the Civil War will learn that a field of such carnage became a site of reconciliation and nationalism
The first major battle in the Western theatre of the American Civil War, Shiloh came as a horrifying shock to both the American public and those in arms. For the first time they had some idea of the terrible price that would be paid for the preservation of the Union. On 6 April 1862 General Albert Sidney Johnston caught Grant and Sherman by surprise and very nearly drove them into the River Tennessee, but was mortally wounded in the process. Somehow Grant and Sherman hung on and the next day managed to drive back the hordes of grey-clad rebels.
By mid 1862, Union gains in the Mississippi Valley and in Tennessee and Kentucky had brought the Confederacy to a point of strategic crisis. This valuable addition to the growing literature on the Civil War in the West tells how the Union then failed to press home its advantage while the Confederacy failed to force Kentucky into the Confederacy. The climax of these events was the little-known Battle of Perryville, in which a greatly inferior Southern force under Braxton Bragg managed a draw against Don Carlos Buell's Union army but also effectively terminated the Confederate invasion of Kentucky. McDonough has researched thoroughly and written clearly, making this book informative and accessible to a wide range of Civil War students.

Cozzens follows up his magisterial account of the Battle of Chickamauga, This Terrible Sound (1992), with an equally authoritative study of the Chattanooga campaign that followed it. Braxton Bragg (who sometimes seems unfit to have been at large on the public streets, let alone commanding armies) failed to either destroy or starve out the Union Army of the Cumberland. In due course, superior Northern resources and strategy--not tactics; few generals on either side come out looking like good tacticians--progressively loosened the Confederate cordon around the city. Finally, the Union drove off Bragg's army entirely in the famous Battle of Missionary Ridge, which was a much more complex affair than previous, heroic accounts make it. Like its predecessor on Chickamauga, this is such a good book on Chattanooga that it's hard to believe any Civil War collection will need another book on the subject for at least a generation.