Charles Ellet Jr. (1 January 1810 – 21 June 1862) was an American civil engineer from Pennsylvania who designed and constructed major canals, suspension bridges and railroads.

[2] He studied at the Bristol school[3] and worked as a rodman, measuring for the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and making drawings.

[7] Another relative, nephew John A. Ellet, served as a lieutenant colonel, commanding the ram USS Lancaster.

Their son Charles Rivers Ellet also served as a colonel in the Union Army and commander of the United States Ram Fleet.

[11] In 1842, he designed and built the first major wire-cable suspension bridge in the United States, spanning 358 feet over the Schuylkill River at Fairmount, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

[14] From 1846 to 1847, he worked as president of the Schuylkill Navigation Company in Pennsylvania and supervised improvements to the canal used for transporting anthracite coal.

[16] In 1850, the Secretary of War, conforming to an Act of Congress, directed Ellet to make surveys and reports on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers with a view to the preparation of adequate plans for flood prevention and navigation improvement.

George Perkins Marsh published Man and Nature 14 years later, but it was Ellet who first noted in writing that the artificial embankments created an overflowing delta.

This incident convinced Ellet that with the development of steam propulsion, ramming could be a very effective form of naval combat.

The Crimean War was underway and Ellet offered his services to the Russian government to build a fleet of ram ships to help them defeat the naval blockade in the Black Sea during the Siege of Sebastopol.

Ellet became enthusiastic about the possibility of a ram fleet and wrote to the U.S. Navy with his plan, but was unable to persuade them of the benefit.

[20] He published the pamphlet Coast and Harbor Defenses, or the Substitution of Steam Battering Rams for Ships of War in late 1855, hoping to gain public interest.

[21] When the Civil War broke out, Ellet renewed his advocacy especially in light of the Confederate build up of ram ships.

He even wrote directly to President Lincoln urging him to increase funding for the United States Army Corps of Engineers and offered to his knowledge of Virginia's terrain and infrastructure to cut off Confederate supply lines and to build steam-powered ram ships to protect northern ports.

[22] The Confederate forces captured the USS Merrimack at the Norfolk Navy Yard and converted her to a ram ship.

[4] The Navy still ignored him, but in March 1862, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, familiar with his work on the Wheeling Suspension Bridge and other projects, appointed Ellet colonel of engineers and authorized him to form the United States Ram Fleet on the Mississippi River.