The fleet he had assembled of nine vessels were not armed and were all old riverboats, it included the stern-wheeled towboats Fulton and T.D Horner, which were not intended for fighting.

During this complete Union victory, Queen of the West and Monarch both rammed and sank the Confederate flagship CSS Colonel Lovell.

Ellet wounded during the battle (the only Union casualty), died of his injuries hospital at Cairo, Illinois fifteen days later on 21 June.

The rams had 300 hand-picked sharpshooters with them from the 53rd Illinois Infantry Regiment, an observer described the fleet as dark, silent, and sinister.

[6] In March 1863 she was commanded by First Master S. Cadman, she had been recently repaired and was at the Yazoo Pass with the ram Lioness, and the tinclad Petrel.

They entered Tallahassee on 10 March and met and destroyed the heavily cotton-laden sidewheel steamer Thirty-Fifth Parallel.

[3]: 126  On 11 March the squadron attacked Fort Pemberton and rammed Star of the West which had previously been scuttled as a defense mechanism.

Porter was not to use the vessel again in a meaningful way other as low key escort work, Fulton from that point was used as a tow boat.

[3]: 128 After the Confederacy's naval capability declined she then went onto serve in the successor to the Ram Fleet, the Mississippi Marine Brigade.