Hardluck Ironclad
Bearss, Edwin C. / Bears, Edwin C.
On the morning of December 12, 1862, the Union gunboat Cairo, nosing her way up the Yazoo River north of Vicksburg, Mississippi, triggered two Confederate demijohn mines. Within minutes the 512-ton ironclad had sunk six fathoms to the muddy bottom with no loss of life-the first armored war vessel ever downed by an electronically activated mine. A whole new era of naval warfare had begun.In Hardluck Ironclad Edwin Bearss tells how he and two ot...