Combat· American Civil War
Fort Pillow Repulse
A sharp river battle that briefly checked the Union advance toward Memphis.
On 10 May 1862, as the Federal gunboat flotilla pressed down the Mississippi below Island No. 10, the Confederate River Defense Fleet, a squadron of converted rams, came out and struck the Union ironclads at Plum Run Bend, near Fort Pillow. In the surprise attack the Confederate rams drove into two of the Federal vessels and put them temporarily out of action before being beaten off. Marines aboard the flotilla manned secondary guns through the engagement. The Confederate attack was repulsed, but it had bloodied the Union squadron and delayed, for a time, the advance on Memphis. No Marine casualties are recorded. The action was one of the few occasions on which the Confederate river rams scored a real success against the more powerful Union ironclads, a brief reversal in a campaign that was steadily going against the South on the western rivers.
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Record no. 443