The Rebel Tombigbee Squadron-Civil War and boats on the Tombigbee River

Belle Montgomery

2nd Lieutenant
Joined
Oct 25, 2017
Location
44022
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The Steamer Magnolia as she appeared in the London Illustrated News of May 4, 1861. Before the Civil War, the Magnolia was in the Upper Tombigbee-Mobile trade. During the war she became a transport steamer as part of the Confederate Tombigbee Squadron at Demopolis. Photo by: Courtesy photo

-Two weeks ago I wrote of the poem the Blue and the Gray and Friendship Cemetery on the banks of the Tombigbee River. I quoted the beginning verses of the poem:




"By the flow of the inland river,


Whence the fleets of iron have fled."




I have heard that verse questioned for little has been written or said about the Civil War and boats on the Tombigbee. However, there was activity on the river and "Surrender of the Rebel Fleet on the Tombigbee River" was a headline in the May 23, 1865, New York Herald.



Commercial steamboat traffic on the Tombigbee River, between Columbus or Aberdeen and Mobile, was all but ended by the Civil War. The winter high water of 1859-60 saw nine different steamboats making 53 trips from Columbus to Mobile. Then in 1861 the Civil War erupted.



During the 1861-62 winter season only two boats, the William S. Barry and the Lily, were left in the Aberdeen commercial trade. Two additional boats, the James Dellet and the Georgia Sykes, were in the Columbus trade. By the 1862-63 season, only six steamboats made 10 commercial trips to Columbus and none to Aberdeen.



Steamboats still traveled the Tombigbee but they had become Confederate military transports. The steamers Warrior, Cherokee, Gen. Robert E. Lee, William S Barry, Reindeer, Alice Vivian, Lily, Marengo, Waverly, Magnolia, Ariel, Black Diamond and Cremona, all of which had been in commercial trade on the upper Tombigbee, had begun transporting military personnel and goods.
REST OF ARTICLE:
http://www.cdispatch.com/opinions/article.asp?aid=65775
 
North American Forts

Topozone

This one you have to look for. There is a cannon in the cemetery at Gainesville, Alabama. It actually brings up more than it answers.

There one above it in the list, at Mt. Morgan, is from Choctaw Bluff, described as "north of Mobile"looks as though it was a battery guarding the shipyard.

It was "reactivation" after the malaria outbreak is interesting.
 
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There were 3 important Salt Works along the east bank of the lower Tombigbee River in Clarke County, Ala. Young faults resulting from continuing Salt Dome uplift there carry brine-rich water to the surface where it was easily boiled off for salt. A very under-reported story of this necessary resource for the Confederacy.


http://www.clarkemuseum.com/html/salt_works.html
 
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I live here in Demopolis and during the CW the Magnolia was a common site on the Big Tom as it was called back then. The Black Warrior and the Little Tom come together here to form the Big Tom. The bluffs here were enormous and there were very few places to land a steam boat. When the war started the railroad was not yet completed to this point and was quickly finished to Demopolis and what is know as city landing today. All goods coming and going by rail had to be unloaded and reloaded on to boats at McDowells Bluff. Below is a drawing of the tram at McDowells where the goods had to be hauled up and down the bluff. The CSS Nashville was here for a shirt period at the end of the war. http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1122

Loading-cotton-onto-the-steamboat-Magnolia-ADAH.jpg


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St. Stephens, a ghost town now, was the capital of territorial Alabama . It was located on a very prominent horseshoe bend in the Tombigbee in Washington County, just upstream from Jackson. Prior to the founding of St. Stephens it was the site of a Spanish fort and earlier than that an Indian village, the importance being that was the head of navigation on the Tombigbee.
 
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St. Stephens, a ghost town now, was the capital of territorial Alabama. It was located on a very prominent horseshoe bend in the Tombigbee in Washington County, just upstream from Jackson..
While you are cruising through Jackson, there is an excellent example of a 7" Brooke Gun in front of their City Hall.
 
While you are cruising through Jackson, there is an excellent example of a 7" Brooke Gun in front of their City Hall.
I haven’t been to Jackson, Ala., in many years but stayed there once while the company I was working for drilled a nearby oil well. It was in the Spring, the woods were full of blooming dogwood and many of the yards in town had walks lined with pink flox. Beautiful.
 
I haven’t been to Jackson, Ala., in many years but stayed there once while the company I was working for drilled a nearby oil well. It was in the Spring, the woods were full of blooming dogwood and many of the yards in town had walks lined with pink flox. Beautiful.
I haven't been there in a number of years, but whenever I was there; if you had looked up Charming and gracious Southern Towns,it would have had a picture of Jackson. I was there teaching a class at the paper plant and being chased by the alligators, but I did take time to see the Brooke which had been at Oven Bluffs.
 
I live here in Demopolis and during the CW the Magnolia was a common site on the Big Tom as it was called back then. The Black Warrior and the Little Tom come together here to form the Big Tom. The bluffs here were enormous and there were very few places to land a steam boat. When the war started the railroad was not yet completed to this point and was quickly finished to Demopolis and what is know as city landing today. All goods coming and going by rail had to be unloaded and reloaded on to boats at McDowells Bluff. Below is a drawing of the tram at McDowells where the goods had to be hauled up and down the bluff. The CSS Nashville was here for a shirt period at the end of the war. http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1122

Loading-cotton-onto-the-steamboat-Magnolia-ADAH.jpg


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That is one helll of a loading loading access
 
Nice pics. Neat looking town. Cool maps..
So where did the rest of the boats go and do? Was that moving imports? exports? both? Is all that was heading "out" heading now heading in so to speak?
If so does mobile become irrelevant?
 
The Tombigbee was the interstate of the time. Cotton moved South to the port at Mobile and goods were brought back up. During the CW a lot of the steamers were used to move troops and war materials from Mobile to the East West railroad at Demopolis.
 
Below is a drawing of the tram at McDowells where the goods had to be hauled up and down the bluff.

Great pic! Heck of a ramp. I can see sliding bales of cotton down, (if that is what they did, [and the occasional high-spirited child out for a lark - bet that was one of those 'self-critiquing-actions']), but how do you get stuff back up the ramp? Power source?

Thanks for the help,
USS ALASKA
 
East to Atlanta-ish. West to a defunct ish Vicksburg? North to a strangling northern Alabama. OK. I get it. The north is stretched thin.
 
Great pic! Heck of a ramp. I can see sliding bales of cotton down, (if that is what they did, [and the occasional high-spirited child out for a lark - bet that was one of those 'self-critiquing-actions']), but how do you get stuff back up the ramp? Power source?

Thanks for the help,
USS ALASKA

They used a 20 mule team to haul the cars up and the same mules to lower them down to the river. It was still in use well into the 1920's. The CS Congress gave the Selma & Merdian railroad money to build a RR bridge across the Tombigbee but it never was completed due to the river was a monster to bridge. In fact it took until 1919 to build a bridge across the Tombigbee. It is called Rooster Bridge which has a neat history and we still celebrate it today with our annual Rooster Day.
http://www.westalabamawatchman.com/the-rooster-bridge-how-one-mans-vision-paved-the-way/
 
I live here in Demopolis and during the CW the Magnolia was a common site on the Big Tom as it was called back then. The Black Warrior and the Little Tom come together here to form the Big Tom. The bluffs here were enormous and there were very few places to land a steam boat. When the war started the railroad was not yet completed to this point and was quickly finished to Demopolis and what is know as city landing today. All goods coming and going by rail had to be unloaded and reloaded on to boats at McDowells Bluff. Below is a drawing of the tram at McDowells where the goods had to be hauled up and down the bluff. The CSS Nashville was here for a shirt period at the end of the war. http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1122

Loading-cotton-onto-the-steamboat-Magnolia-ADAH.jpg


l_2zr5z123201660819PM.jpg
Could you please give us the sources for the photo and the engraving?
 
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