Combat· American Civil War
Pass Christian and Apalachicola engagements
A small gunboat action on the Gulf coast.
On 4 April 1862 the steamer USS New London, with a Marine detachment under a sergeant aboard, engaged a pair of Confederate steamers off Pass Christian, Mississippi, and after a running fight of nearly two hours drove them off. Related operations took place at the same period at Apalachicola, Florida, as the Union squadron tightened its grip on the Gulf coast in the weeks before the move on New Orleans. The Marines aboard the New London served her guns in the engagement, the kind of small ship-to-ship action that filled the Gulf blockade. No casualties are recorded. These were minor affairs, neither a great victory nor a serious loss, but part of the steady pressure by which the Union squadron cleared the Confederate coastal craft from the Mississippi Sound and prepared the way for the larger operations to come.
Podcast episodes on American Civil War
Record no. 434