The Timberclads in the Civil War; The Lexington, Conestoga, and Tyler on the Western Waters
By Myron J. Smith Jr
(February/March 2009 Civil War News)

Illustrated, bibliography, index, 552 pp., 2008. McFarland & Company, Publishers, Box 611, Jefferson, NC 28640, $75 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Patrick E. Purcell
Patrick E. Purcell, a graduate of Northeastern University, is a retired railroad manager. He is a former president of the Old Baldy Civil War Round Table in Philadelphia and was on the Board of Governors of the Civil War Library and Museum in Philadelphia.

Review:
Early in the Civil War, Union authorities realized that a fleet of armed vessels would be needed to control the upper Mississippi, the Ohio and their tributaries. As an expedient measure, three riverboats were purchased and reinforced with oak timber as a protection against rifle bullets. They became known as “timberclads.” Later gunboats were called “tinclads” or “ironclads,” depending on the degree of armor plating.

The three timberclads were to have outstanding careers during the war. (The Conestoga was lost in a collision in March 1864.) The three were together at Fort Henry and in pairs or singly took part in the campaigns at Belmont, Fort Donelson and Vicksburg.

The Lexington was the first vessel in Porter’s fleet to escape the entrapment at Alexandria, La., during the Red River Campaign. At Shiloh the Tyler and Lexington were credited with helping to stem the Confederate attack on the first day of the battle.

Author Myron Smith provides an incredibly detailed account of the timberclads and the role of the “brown water” navy during the war. Readers interested in the Western campaigns will find much information to supplement the standard army accounts and Navy enthusiasts will be grateful for the prodigious amount of data and facts provided.

Unfortunately there are numerous careless mistakes which copy editing should have spotted: “grapeshot from a range of 400 miles,” “Acting Rear Admiral Sherman,” “small squad classes.” The Confederate Tom Green is called a major general on page 451, a brigadier general on the next page, and both a brigadier and major general on page 456. And the name of the noted riverboat pilot (the instructor and mentor of Mark Twain) is Horace Bixby not “Harold” Bixby.

Although reproductions of period maps are included, the book should have more detailed ones, showing the location of numerous points mentioned in the text.