USS Mound City was a City-class ironclad gunboat built for service on the Mississippi River and its tributaries in the American Civil War.

At Fort Pillow, she was rammed by Confederate vessels of the River Defense Fleet and averted sinking only by retreating into shoals.

On the White River during the Battle of Saint Charles, a chance Confederate shot penetrated the steam drum of her engines, resulting in 105 of her sailors being killed.

Following the capture of Vicksburg and consequent opening of the Mississippi, she took part in the ill-fated Red River Expedition, from which she and the other ships were rescued only with difficulty.

Chief of the Bureau of Construction and Repair John Lenthall provided some initial plans, but the pressure of other duties soon forced him to turn the task over to Samuel Moore Pook.

Faced with the limitations of the technology of the day, Pook decided that the hull should be built with three keels, the outboard pair somewhat longer than the one on the centerline.

Propulsion would be provided by a single paddlewheel, immediately aft of the center keel; perhaps unintentionally, this meant that it would be somewhat protected from enemy projectiles by the armor carried along the sides.

Because of design changes during construction, the boats were not completed until nearly the end of the year, and the cost per vessel, $191,408, was more than double the contracted amount.

He insisted on greater thickness on the forward face of the casemate, and also that the pilot house, wheelhouse, and main deck be given some cover.

By this time, Rodgers had been replaced in command of the Western Gunboat Flotilla by Captain Andrew H. Foote, who directed the final modifications.

Mound City was completed and delivered to the Western Gunboat Flotilla in early 1862, with Commander Augustus H. Kilty, USN as her captain.

However, an army raiding party, assisted by several crew members from Mound City and four other gunboats, successfully overran a Confederate battery on the night of 1 April and spiked the guns.

In the aftermath of the Confederate surrender, Mound City captured the Rebel steamer CSS Red Rover, which had been used for accommodating the crew of the floating battery New Orleans.

Rather than assault the fort, Major General Henry Wager Halleck, commanding the Army west of the Appalachians, had moved into the interior of the states of Tennessee and Mississippi.

However, the Confederate forces were augmented by eight cottonclad rams of the River Defense Fleet, and these surprised the bombarding mortar boat and its single accompanying gunboat Cincinnati on the morning of 10 May 1862.

Mound City was with other gunboats at anchor a short distance upstream when the sounds of battle were heard, and she promptly got up steam and was the first to come to the aid of the vessels already involved in the fray.

By this time, several other Federal gunboats had gotten up steam and were entering the battle, so Confederate commander James E. Montgomery withdrew his fleet.

[16] With intent only to slow down the progress of the Union vessels and not to make a determined stand, the Confederates had set up a pair of batteries on the bluffs near St. Charles, Arkansas, some 80 miles (130 km) above the river mouth.

On 17 June, the Federal flotilla arrived at that point; the soldiers went ashore to attack the batteries from the land side, while the two armored gunboats came up the river, Mound City leading.

After the initial failure of his traditional overland approach, he devised several plans aimed at bypassing the fixed defenses of the city.

Mound City was one of eight gunboats, three army transports, and a tug that ran past the river batteries at Vicksburg and Grand Gulf on the night of 16 April 1863.

[22] The gunboats then were in position to assist the Army of the Tennessee, which already had marched down the west bank of the Mississippi to New Carthage, Louisiana, roughly halfway between Vicksburg and Grand Gulf on the other side of the river.

[23] Grant initially intended to cross the river at Grand Gulf, but the two Confederate batteries there would have to be eliminated before his soldiers could go ashore.

Once this was accomplished, the four gunboats moved upstream to join three other members of the Mississippi River Squadron in the bombardment of the upper battery, Fort Cobun.

[24] At the end of the day, Fort Cobun had only a single gun still operational, but it was sufficient to cause Grant to decide not to make his river crossing at Grand Gulf.

The most memorable incident concerning the Navy was the near-stranding of several of the ironclads owing to low water in the Red River.

The operation had already been canceled and the fleet was in retreat down the river when Mound City, two of her sisters, three other ironclads, and two tugs were almost trapped at rapids above Alexandria, Louisiana.

They were saved only by an impressive engineering feat, the construction of wing dams to raise the water level high enough that the vessels could pass through.

The man responsible for building the dams was Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Bailey, whom Admiral Porter credited with saving a fleet worth nearly $2,000,000.