June 19, 1862

June 19, 1862:  ---Battle of St. Charles.  In Arkansas, a Union attempt to establish communications by river to Gen. Samuel Curtis’s army in Central Arkansas, results in an expedition up the White River, with the ironclads Mound City, St. Louis, timberclads Lexington and Conestoga, and two transports carrying the 46^th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Reg.  At a bend in the river at St. Charles, Arkansas, the Rebels have set up two batteries of guns, and have sunk a gunboat in the river as an obstruction.  A lively artillery duel begins, with the Mound City taking the lead.  At one point, however, a Confederate solid shot pierces the Mound City’s armored casemate, killing several men and piercing the ship’s boiler.  The escaping steam kills or badly scalds most of the crew.  A few are able to escape, but Rebel riflemen shoot many of them in the water.  Only 25 men of the crew remain uninjured, but 125 are killed, and another 25 badly burned or wounded, including Commander Kilty, the skipper of the ironclad.  Strangely enough, the ship’s boiler is soon repaired, and the expedition continues upriver---but eventually gives up and returns to base.

U.S.S. Mound City

---Gen. Hunter, commander of the Dept. of the Southeast, in South Carolina, gives orders to arrest Gen. Benham for disobedience to orders and the fiasco at Secessionville, and appoints Gen. Horatio Wright to command in Benham’s stead.

---Gen. John Pope is summoned to Washington  by Sec. of War Edwin Stanton.