The Huntsville-class ironclads consisted of two casemate ironclads ordered by the Confederate States Navy in 1862 to defend Mobile, Alabama, during the American Civil War. Completed the following year, they used propulsion machinery taken from steamboats, and were intended to be armored with of wrought iron and armed with four cannons. Both CSS Tuscaloosa and her sister ship CSS Huntsville were found to be too slow for practical use, and were relegated to service as floating batteries. Union forces captured Mobile in April 1865, and the sisters were scuttled on April 12, as they were unable to escape due to an inability to steam against the current on the Spanish River.CSS Tuscaloosa was an ironclad warship that served in the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War. Construction began in May 1862, under a contract with Henry D. Bassett. Her engines were taken from the steamboat Chewala, and she was armored with of iron and armed with four cannons. In January 1863, she was launched, and traveled down to Mobile, Alabama for service on Mobile Bay. Both Tuscaloosa and her sister ship CSS Huntsville were found to be too slow for practical use, and were relegated to service as floating batteries. Union forces captured Mobile in April 1865, and Tuscaloosa was scuttled on April 12, as she was unable to escape due to an inability to steam against the current on the Spanish River. Her wreck was discovered in the 1980s.
Background and description
During the American Civil War, the Confederate States Navy determined that it was unable to keep up with the Union Navy's ability to produce traditional warships, and eventually decided to emphasize construction of ironclad warships. Before the war, Mobile, Alabama, had been the second-most important trading port on the Gulf of Mexico, and gained greater importance to the Confederacy after the fall of New Orleans in early 1862. The city lay on the northern edge of Mobile Bay, which opened into the Gulf of Mexico. In December 1861, the state government of Alabama had purchased a cotton lighter and converted her into the ironclad CSS Baltic, transferring her to the Confederate government in May 1862. However, Baltic was a decrepit and ineffective vessel.
For further defense of the Mobile area, the Confederate States Department of the Navy contracted for two additional ironclads earmarked for Mobile to be built at Selma, Alabama. The contract for the construction of Tuscaloosa was given to Henry D. Bassett, and work on the ironclad began in May 1862. The contract, in the amount of $100,000, called for the vessel to be completed by July 1, 1862, and iron armor, cannon, and boilers were intended to be supplied by a developing foundry at Selma. This time frame was not met. Tuscaloosa and her sister ship CSS Huntsville are considered to be Huntsville-class ironclads, which was an improved version of the design used for the ironclad CSS Albemarle. Confederate naval constructor John L. Porter created an alternate design of ironclad known as the "diamond hull". In order to simply construction, the diamond hull ironclads had minimal curvature in their hulls, creating a hull shape whose cross-section resembled a hexagon. Porter is usually given credit for planning Huntsville and Tuscaloosa, but naval historian Saxon Bisbee suggests that someone else designed the two vessels, as they were substantially different from Porter's other diamond hull designs, and incorporate elements of riverboat design that Porter's other designs do not.
No ship plans for Tuscaloosa are known to exist, but the Port Columbus Civil War Naval Center preserves a draft plan for a vessel believed to be a sister ship of Tuscaloosa that was never completed. The Port Columbus draft shows a vessel that would have had dimensions of about long between perpendiculars, a beam of , a depth of hold of , and a draft of about ; Bisbee states that these figures are approximately what contemporary sources suggest Tuscaloosas size was. Naval historian Paul H. Silverstone states that she was long overall, with a beam of , and a draft of . The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS) agrees with Silverstone's figures for length and beam, and with Bisbee's 10.5-foot depth of hold, but gives draft as .