The Mississippi River system was the highway of the western part of the Confederate and United States. At the beginning of the war, the South controlled the Mississippi from the meeting of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers at Cairo, Illinois to New Orleans, Louisiana. There were several important rebel strongholds along the Mississippi, including Memphis, Island Number Ten, on the Tennessee-Kentucky border, and Vicksburg, Mississippi. The Union realized that controlling the Mississippi River was essential to their strategy because doing so would divide the South and constrain the movement of troops and supplies from western states.
Having realized the importance of controlling the western rivers, the Union then realized that it needed an inland navy to do this successfully. Samuel M. Pook designed the original river-based ironclads for the Department of War, which intended for construction in Cincinnati. These ships were paddle boats with most of their armor and heavy guns in the......

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Title: The Ironclads: Gunboats Deliver The Mississippi And The Civil War
Approximate Word Count: 2062
Approximate Pages: 9 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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