Yazoo River Operations
In February 1863, Marmora joined four other ships in preparations for the Yazoo River Expedition, departing Helena on 27 March. The joint Army-Navy Expedition captured CSS Fairplay and destroyed newly constructed Confederate batteries 20 miles up the Yazoo.
For the next few months, Marmora concentrated on patrol duty and supply runs. Guerrilla activities caused Marmora to stop at Gaines' Landing on 13 through 15 June to burn houses. Steaming up the White and Little Red Rivers on 8 August, the ships sought information on the location of General Sterling Price's army, the ships found St. Charles, Arkansas, deserted as Union forces had taken it on 16 June and had control of White River. Cavalry from the ships did encounter Confederate resistance on landing at Devall's Bluff on 17 August. In November Marmora worked at the mouth of the Yazoo to prevent Confederate blockade of the river.
Although Union forces had taken Yazoo City, their position was not secure. Confederates attacked the city en masse on 8 March 1864, causing Marmora and other rams to steam to the rescue. Marmora remained off this point with the other ships for several months, as Union forces mounted the campaign in Red River. Three of her sailors were awarded the Medal of Honor for going ashore with a howitzer and assisting in the fight at Yazoo City on 5 March. These men were Seaman William J. Franks, Seaman Bartlett Laffey, and Seaman James Stoddard.
Marmora next returned to Mound City and was placed in reserve while still in commission. After fighting stopped, she decommissioned on 7 July 1865 and was sold at Mound City, Illinois to D. D. Barr on 17 August 1865.
Read more about this topic: USS Marmora (1862)
Famous quotes containing the words river and/or operations:
“There is a river in Macedon, and there is moreover a river in Monmouth. It is called Wye at Monmouth, but it is out of my prains what is the name of the other river; but ‘tis all one, ‘tis alike as my fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in both.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“A sociosphere of contact, control, persuasion and dissuasion, of exhibitions of inhibitions in massive or homeopathic doses...: this is obscenity. All structures turned inside out and exhibited, all operations rendered visible. In America this goes all the way from the bewildering network of aerial telephone and electric wires ... to the concrete multiplication of all the bodily functions in the home, the litany of ingredients on the tiniest can of food, the exhibition of income or IQ.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)