This week 150 years ago in the Civil War saw Union and
Confederate gunboats vying for control of the lower Mississippi
River and its tributaries. The winter of 1863 brings a
formidable, new player to the fray: a powerful ironclad
riverboat called The USS Indianola. The fortified city of
Vicksburg, Miss., atop bluffs lining the Mississippi River,
remained in Confederate hands at this stage of the war. But
Union forces have eventual hopes of wresting Vicksburg and other
points downriver from the Confederacy to control the entire
river. If the entire waterway could be seized by the Union, it
would effectively split the Confederacy in two. To that end, the
Union in mid-February 1863 sent the Cincinnati-built Indianola
down the Mississippi. On Feb. 13, the Indianola rushed passed
Confederate guns firing from Vicksburg. None of the rebel shots
struck the Indianola. But Confederate gunboats and rebel rams
still plied the river nearby and posed a danger that would doom
the Indianola within days. Elsewhere, winter has