Photo of deck of unidentified monitor?

[chubachus]

Title of photo is "Steamer Metropole in the ice." I assume that the Metropole is the steamboat in the background. Looks a bit like a monitor with iconic turret docked in the foreground. Photo is a daguerreotype by Thomas Easterly said to have been taken during the 1860s when Easterly was probably the last photographer still taking outdoor daguerreotypes. He took most of his photos during this period in and around St. Louis, Missouri.

Source is Missouri Historical Society: https://mohistory.org/collections/item/N17107

 

[Old Black Water]

So assuming we are on the Mississippi, monitor types which served on these waters included the 2 turreted monitors like the Winnebago, and the Canonicus class single turret Manhattan. The chimney spacing / deck layout doesn't match either of those classes. I'm going to guess that this is a photo of a mothballed Neosho or Osage,which had a single turret and a whaleback like deck which sloped off to the waterline. The photo suggests that sloped deck. Thanks for sharing, I love the details like the grinding stone adjacent to the turret and the guy sitting on the capstan on the bow of steamer alongside the monitor. Is that a guy in the background walking across the ice?

OBW

 

[Rhea Cole]

Title of photo is "Steamer Metropole in the ice." I assume that the Metropole is the steamboat in the background. Looks a bit like a monitor with iconic turret docked in the foreground. Photo is a daguerreotype by Thomas Easterly said to have been taken during the 1860s when Easterly was probably the last photographer still taking outdoor daguerreotypes. He took most of his photos during this period in and around St. Louis, Missouri.

Source is Missouri Historical Society: https://mohistory.org/collections/item/N17107

I enjoyed looking around on this image. I especially liked the bell attached to the turret. There appears to be a forge next to the smoke stack.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

My first impression is that this was taken off Mound City (IL) Naval Station-- where riverine monitors were mothballed until 1868 or 1869 -- and that this could be a Casco class vessel, of which there were several examples at Mound City. In about 1868/9, they were transferred down the river to New Orleans, where I doubt the river would have frozen over like this. (Curiously, there is no mention of a steamer Metropole in either of Way's directories.)

ETA: Here's a strong possibility that would revise my initial impression: if we posit that the steamer caught in the ice is instead the Metropolitan (Way # 3916)... that vessel is listed as lost in the ice break-up at St. Louis on December 16, 1865. I will need to look to see what monitors might have been at St. Louis in December 1865.

ETA: Two Casco-class monitors were being built at St. Louis in late 1865 by builder McCord: Etlah and Shiloh. I think it likely it is one of those two vessels.

 

[rebelatsea]

I believe Osage and Neosho had Eads turrets partially sunk into the deck. this vessel clearly has an Ericson turret and appears to be mothballed by the roofing on the turret, so I think Mark is most likely correct.

 

[Oldbill]

Great photo! There is a man walking across the ice, a forge on the Monitor's deck, a sharpening wheel next to the turret, some very good details in this shot. Thanks for posting it!

 

[Lubliner]

Another ambiguity to "Lost at Sea". Good eye!
Lubliner.

 

[Western Reserve Volunteer]

I immediately thought Mound City and a laid up Casco class monitor at first too. Once you mentioned it though it seems to me that the Etlah or Shiloh being built in St Louis rang a bell.

A few years ago I posted a picture of the lay up in Mound City, iirc the Monitors all had their names painted on the turrets when they were mothballed there. So that definitely would make this St Louis.

Didn’t the reconstructed Cascos have a slight whale back deck to correct for the lack of buoyancy caused by the removal of the raft of Ericsson’s design and the substitution of ballast tanks by the Navy? Were the ballast tanks removed in Ericsson’s re-redesign of the class?

Here's a link to my aforementioned thread: https://civilwartalk.com/threads/post-war-mound-city-illinois-union-monitors-laid-up.158428/
How the heck is 2019 now two years ago!?