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Continued: Lt. Hampton Rice assisted in the capture of the Union gunboat Indianola in 1863. In January 1863 the 31st Tennessee infantry was transferred from the defense of Vicksburg to the towboat Webb whose captain had taken it upriver to safety at the surrender of New Orleans. The Webb assisted in the capture of the Queen of the West which was repaired and added to the Confederate Navy. Later they were joined by the transport Dr. Batey. Since iron was scarce, the Confederate Navy used bales of cotton (as effectively as Andy Jackson had done in 1815 at the Battle of New Orleans) to protect their ships and transformed the prows of these cottonclads into battering rams In Feb 1863 near Natchez they encountered the new Union ironclad gunboat Indianola which had successfully run past the batteries at Vicksburg.
The Queen of the West rammed the Indianola but hit a coal barge tied alongside for just such instances. The barge sank and the Queen of the West and the Webb rammed Indianola several more times. The Webb went upstream to get a running start, turned and steamed at full power at the Indianola for the third strike. "All this time our riflemen [Lt. Rice and Lt. Carson's Tennessee backswoodsmen], who were so instructed, never ceased their volleys into the portholes, keeping back the gunners within so that they only got one shot at us.... With a crash, our little Webb struck the great ironclad in the wheelhouse, tearing wood into splinters and rolling great bars of iron as if lead. We plowed our way several feet into the Indianola, sinking her within twelve feet of shore and in twelve feet of water." The men of the Dr. Batey prepared to board. The Indianola immediately surrendered.
The three confederate ships left with the prisoners and most of the soldiers, leaving a small group including Lt. Rice and two other lieutenants to either repair the Indianola or to sink her. The Confederate Veteran article says the small group had few tools and supplies, considered the task hopeless, stripped the ship of food and supplies, and spiked the guns and lit the fuse [too short for safety] as they left.
Admiral Porter was most upset by the loss of one of his newest and best ships. But the Union forces created one of "the most successful hoaxes of the war. A dummy monitor was made by building paddle boxes on an old coal barge to simulate a turret which in turn was adorned with logs painted black to resemble guns. Pork-barrel funnels containing burning smudge pots were the final touch added just before the strange craft was cast adrift to float past Vicksburg on the night of INDIANOLA's surrender, Word of this "river MONITOR" panicked the salvage crew working on INDIANOLA causing them to set off the ships magazines to prevent her recapture."
Editorial Comment: If the ship's magazines had gone off, I doubt that there would been enough of the ship left to justify an attempt to salvage it at the end of the war. I think the cold, hungry Tennesse sharpshooters had no idea how to salvage a ship of that size and that the timing of the dummy monitor and the spiking of the guns were coincidental.
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