Engagement at St. Charles

On June 17, 1862, one cannonball made St. Charles one of the deadliest shots of the war. A Union flotilla was escorting the 46th Indiana when a round from the Confederate batteries pierced the ironclad Mound City's casemate and hit a steam drum. Of about 175 aboard, sources say 105 or 125 died, most of them scalded. Two of the Confederate guns, 32-pounders from the gunboat Pontchartrain, were worked by her sailors. Captain Joseph Fry's order to fire on sailors swimming to safety led to the arrest of twenty Confederate prisoners, Fry among them.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Louisiana Purchase State Park — 19 mi
  A National Historic Landmark in a headwater swamp where Phillips, Lee and Monroe counties meet, marking the initial point of every survey of the Louisiana Purchase lands.
• Arkansas Post National Memorial — 28 mi
  The site of Arkansas's first European trading post, opened in 1686 beside the Quapaw town of Osotouy, later a territorial capital and the scene of a January 1863 Union victory.
• Mississippi River State Park — 32 mi
  A state park and gateway to the St. Francis National Forest, where the river, Crowley's Ridge and the Delta meet, with a Trail of Tears site at the Mississippi and St. Francis confluence.

More markers nearby

• Monroe County First Courthouse — 24 mi
• Clarendon in the Civil War — 24 mi
• Battle of Arkansas Post — 28 mi