I had been searching for the Milwaukee class twin-turreted monitor (Panzerschiffe C-407); I found the class in REGISTER OF SHIPS OF THE U.S. NAVY, 1775-1990, Major Combatants by Sauer and Roberts. There's four twin-turreted ironclads in this class: Winnebago, Chickasaw, Kickapoo, and the Milwaukee. Oddly enough, it was the USS Milwaukee that had been seriously damaged during the War, at the mouth of the Blackely (or Blakely) River, Alabama on March 28, 1865, sunk by torpedo (mine). I found out immediately why I wasn't able to find the same class in the WARSHIPS OF THE CIVIL WAR NAVIES by Silverstone. The inherent reason was that I had search the index of the aforementioned volume with only "Milwaukee" as my reference word. Later, I searched the same volume with another monitor of the class and found where it was located. Sure enough, it's listed in the "River Fleet" section in WARSHIPS OF ... Anyhow, some of the statistics I had to investigate the Sassacus class. In the REGISTER, the list of these doubleender sidewheelers is only 27, vessels long with the Algonquin never mounted with armaments and never commissioned. In WARSHIPS, I had counted 28 vessels in this same class. I suppose this will have to be cleared up later. The Sassacus class was termed a True Sassacus class, the earlier vessels, such as the Miami, being the older version. The True Sassacus class measures out to 240' in length, while their earlier cousins have irregular lengths, the Miami measuring out to only 208' in length. There appears to be about 12 vessels that could be considered early Sassacus-type sidewheel double-enders. Some of these vessels have lengths similar to the Miami, such as the Maratanza (209' length) and the Octorara (205' length). But the overall length does not exceed 240' in length, and many of the earlier vessels had their sidewheels "aft of amidships." Back to Dispatch June 2001 Table of Contents Back to Dispatch List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by HMGS Mid-South This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com