Carondelet was designed for service on the western rivers, with a combination of shallow draft and variety of heavy guns (and a light howitzer), she was suited for riverside bombardment and ship-to-ship combat against Confederate gunboats.
Desperate naval combat between the confederate Ironclad ram Arkansas and a group of Union ships at the mouth of the Yazoo river, 15th July 1863
Civil War service
Union Army service
Carondelet attacks Fort Donelson
Between January and October 1862, Carondelet operated almost constantly on river patrol and in the capture of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in February; the passing of Island No. 10 and the attack on and spiking of the shore batteries below New Madrid, Missouri, in April; the lengthy series of operations against Plum Point Bend, Fort Pillow, and Memphis, Tennessee, from April through June, and the engagement with CSS Arkansas on 15 July, during which Carondelet was heavily damaged and suffered 35 casualties.[3]
Carondelet running the Rebel batteries at Island No. 10
Union Navy service
Transferred to Navy control with the other ships of her flotilla on 1 October 1862, Carondelet continued the rapid pace of her operations, taking part in the unsuccessful Steele's Bayou Expedition in March 1863.
One of those to pass the Vicksburg and Warrenton, Mississippi batteries in April 1863, Carondelet took part on 29 April in the five-and-a-half-hour engagement with the batteries at Grand Gulf. She remained on duty off Vicksburg, bombarding the city in its long siege from May to July. Without her and her sisters and other naval forces, the great operations on the rivers would not have been possible and the Federal victory might not have been won.[citation needed]
During the Civil War four of Carondelet's crew members were awarded the Medal of Honor: Signal Quartermaster Matthew Arther for actions at the Battles of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, February 1862; Seaman John Dorman for actions in various engagements; Fireman Michael Huskey, for actions during Steele's Bayou Expedition, March 1863; and Coxswain John G. Morrison, for actions in the engagement with CSS Arkansas, 15 July 1862.[5][6]
Post-war decommissioning and sale
She was decommissioned at Mound City, Illinois, on 20 June 1865, and sold there on 29 November 1865.
Subsequent career and sinking
In 1873, shortly before she was to be scrapped, a flood swept Carondelet from her moorings in Gallipolis, Ohio. She then drifted approximately 130 miles down the Ohio River, where she grounded near Manchester, Ohio. Her ultimate fate remained unknown until a May 1982 search operation by Clive Cussler's National Underwater and Marine Agency pinpointed the location of the wreckage, just two days after a dredge passed directly over the wreckage, demolishing most of the wrecked vessel.[7]
Armament
Like many of the Mississippi theatre ironclads, USS Carondelet had its armament changed multiple times over life of the vessel. To expedite the entrance of Carondelet into service, she and the other City-class gunboats were fitted with whatever weapons were available; then had their weapons upgraded as new pieces became available. Though the 8 in (200 mm) Dahlgren smoothbore cannons were fairly modern most of the other original armaments were antiquated; such as the 32-pounders, or modified; such as the 42-pounder "rifles" which were in fact, old smoothbores that had been gouged out to give them rifling. These 42-pounder weapons were of particular concern to military commanders because they were structurally weaker and more prone to exploding than purpose-built rifled cannons. Additionally, the close confines of riverine combat greatly increased the threat of boarding parties. The 12-pounder howitzer was equipped to address that concern and was not used in regular combat.[4]
^The Western Gunboat Flotilla was a unique "joint service" organization. The gunboats were built using funds from the War Department, were manned by Navy personnel, and were under the ultimate command of the U.S. Army theater commander.
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