In 1861 the United States Navy faced the daunting task of taking control of the Mississippi River from the Confederacy, and because it had few ships able to navigate shallow inland waters, necessity produced the Brown Water Navy. This diverse fleet included cottonclads, timberclads, tinclads, and ironclad gunboats such as the USS Cairo, which operated on the muddy Mississippi and its tributaries to disrupt Confederate supply lines, bombard fortifications, and support the Union Army. Its sailors came from varied parts of Northern society and enlisted for different reasons: many were poor working-class men from Northern cities, some were foreign-born people escaping hunger and economic turmoil, and others were formerly enslaved people seeking freedom and a new life. Despite their different backgrounds and often harsh onboard conditions, they served with distinction and made Union victory on the Mississippi possible. Among the vessels were the USS Tyler, a civilian steamer purchased by the War Department in 1861, fitted with thick oak sides and twelve cannon, and active in the Mississippi River Valley at Fort Donelson, Shiloh, and during the Vicksburg Campaign before being sold at public auction in 1865; the 190 ton USS Signal, a tinclad protected by a one-inch iron layer that served throughout the Vicksburg campaign and was lost on the Red River in 1864; the USS Red Rover, a captured Confederate steamer refitted as the U.S. Navy's first hospital ship, with nurses, operating rooms, and modern sanitary conditions, which served the entire war on the Mississippi and was sold in 1865; the 1,020 ton USS Choctaw, one of the most powerful ironclads on the Mississippi, which withstood over 50 Confederate cannon strikes at Grand Gulf in 1863 and was scrapped in 1866; and the 640 ton ironclad USS Essex, which fought throughout the Vicksburg campaign, continued operating on the Mississippi after the fall of Vicksburg, was sold in 1865, restored to its civilian name New Era without armor and guns, and sold for scrap in 1870.
