Battle at island number 10
To battle
Island number ten at New Madrid or the Kentucky Bend on the Mississippi river. This battle lasted from 2/28/1862 all the way to 4/8/1862.
behind the lines information
The position of the island was at the base of a tight double turn in the course of the Mississippi river. It was an excellent site to set up Union force efforts to invade the South along the river as vessels would have to approach the island bows head on and then slow down to make the turns. For the defenders it also had an innate weakness that it depended on a single road for supplies and reinforcements so that if an enemy force could cut that road the inhabitants would be trapped. With the surrender of the forts Henry, and Donelson in Tennessee and the evacuation of Columbus Kentucky General P.G.T. Beauregard commander of the Confederate Army of the Mississippi. He chose island number ten which had thirty guns and was sixty miles below Columbus Kentucky to be the strong point for defending the Mississippi River.
Nearby was New Madrid, Missouri one of the weak points. Brigadier General John Pope, commander of the Union Army of the Mississippi, left from Commerce, Missouri to attack New Madrid, on February 28, 1862. His force of men marched overland through swamps, lugging supplies and artillery, reaching the outskirts of New Madrid on March 3rd, and laid siege to the city. Brigadier General John P. McCown, the garrison commander, defended both New Madrid and Island No. 10 from the fortifications at Fort Thompson and Fort Bankhead, which housed a total of 21 heavy guns. He launched a sortie, under Brigadier General M. Jeff Thompson, Missouri State Guard, against the besiegers and brought up heavy artillery to bombard them.
1.location-New Madrid
2.date-Feb.18/1862-April 8/1862
3.purpose-to conquer land to more easily attack the south
4.winner-the union won this battle
5.deaths-in the union 23 people died 50 were wounded 5 were missing
confederacy 30 killed and wounded 7000 surrendered
6.important people-John P. McCown, John Pope, Andrew Hull Foote, Henry Walke, Egbert Thompson, David G. Farragut
7. weapons-the Union had six gun boats eleven mortar rafts the Confederacy was about seven-thousand strong
8.transportation-they used boats or walked
9.medical-unknown
10.living conditions-unknown
Nearby was New Madrid, Missouri one of the weak points. Brigadier General John Pope, commander of the Union Army of the Mississippi, left from Commerce, Missouri to attack New Madrid, on February 28, 1862. His force of men marched overland through swamps, lugging supplies and artillery, reaching the outskirts of New Madrid on March 3rd, and laid siege to the city. Brigadier General John P. McCown, the garrison commander, defended both New Madrid and Island No. 10 from the fortifications at Fort Thompson and Fort Bankhead, which housed a total of 21 heavy guns. He launched a sortie, under Brigadier General M. Jeff Thompson, Missouri State Guard, against the besiegers and brought up heavy artillery to bombard them.
1.location-New Madrid
2.date-Feb.18/1862-April 8/1862
3.purpose-to conquer land to more easily attack the south
4.winner-the union won this battle
5.deaths-in the union 23 people died 50 were wounded 5 were missing
confederacy 30 killed and wounded 7000 surrendered
6.important people-John P. McCown, John Pope, Andrew Hull Foote, Henry Walke, Egbert Thompson, David G. Farragut
7. weapons-the Union had six gun boats eleven mortar rafts the Confederacy was about seven-thousand strong
8.transportation-they used boats or walked
9.medical-unknown
10.living conditions-unknown