A Hundred Years Under Mississippi Mud
The Sinking of the USS Cairo
The Sinking of the USS Cairo
(This Week in the Civil War) – On December 12, 1862, the Union gunboat U.S.S. Cairo was leading an expedition up the Yazoo River in an effort “to remove some torpedoes which had been placed in the channel by the enemy.” Included in the flotilla were four gunboats, a steam ram, and some light draft vessels. The expedition was in preparation for a Union advance towards Vicksburg, Mississippi. The ‘infernal’ torpedoes consisted of five-gallon demijohns filled with black powder and set with an artillery friction primer.
These devices were the brainchild of Acting Masters Zedekiah (Zere) McDaniel and Francis M. Ewing, who had persuaded Isaac Brown, commander of the C.S. Yazoo River defenses, to allow them to experiment with this new way to sink Yankee ships. To prevent the possibility of being executed as spies, Ewing, a Kentucky-born engineer, and McDaniel, a former private in the Raymond Fencibles who had lost an arm in battle, applied for commissions in the C.S. Navy, which was approved in August 1862 in a letter from Naval Secretary Mallory to Flag-Officer William F. Lynch.
“Mr. F.M. Ewing and Z. McDaniel have been strongly recommended to the Department for previous service, I have given their appointments as Acting Masters to report to you for secret service. They will detail their plans for using submarine batteries and you will grant them such aid as your judgement may approve in…
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