USS Romeo

The USS Romeo was a 175-ton tinclad gunboat that saw action during the Civil War on the Arkansas, White, and Mississippi rivers.

The U.S. Navy purchased the Romeo at Cincinnati, Ohio, on October 31, 1862. The wooden stern-wheel paddleboat was 154 feet long, measured thirty-one feet wide, and had a four-foot six-inch draft. The vessel was fitted out as a tinclad gunboat at Cairo, Illinois, where it was armed with six 24-pounder howitzers. It was commissioned on December 11, 1862, and assigned to the Mississippi Squadron.

The Romeo went to Helena (Phillips County), where an expedition was preparing to go up the Yazoo River in Mississippi as part of the campaign against the Confederate stronghold at Vicksburg. Heading into the waterway on December 23, the tinclad and other light-draft vessels cleared mines from the river to make way for troop transports and larger gunboats. The Union effort on the Yazoo failed, and the flotilla withdrew on January 3, 1863.

The USS Romeo next took part in Brigadier General John McClernand’s attack on the Confederate base at Arkansas Post, where a vastly superior Union force crushed the Confederate garrison of Fort Hindman, which surrendered on January 11, 1863. The vessel then joined a smaller flotilla that headed up the White River, capturing St. Charles (Arkansas County) on January 13 and DeValls Bluff (Prairie County) and Des Arc (Prairie County) on January 18 before returning to the Mississippi River after determining that the Grand Prairie was too flooded to allow operations against the capital at Little Rock (Pulaski County).

The tinclad participated in the Union campaign to capture Vicksburg (which surrendered on July 4, 1863), before joining a small fleet that ascended the White River in August to meet Brigadier General John Wynn Davidson’s cavalry at Clarendon (Monroe County) during the Little Rock Campaign. While other gunboats ascended the Little Red River to capture the Confederate steamers Tom Sugg and Kaskaskia, the Romeo was reported as “leaking severely, and otherwise out of repair.” Further investigation of the gunboat “found the leak of such a nature that it would be impossible to repair her without going on the dry dock.” The repairs were completed by October 1863, after which the Romeo saw service on the Tennessee River.

The tinclad was again serving on the Yazoo River by February 1864 and was back on the Mississippi River when Confederate colonel Colton Greene’s troops attacked Union shipping from locations in Chicot County. The Romeo encountered them on May 24 and was roughly handled, with Greene reporting that “she was quickly disposed of; struck seventeen times; greatly damaged; got out of the way.” An ensign on the warship was wounded in that attack.

In August 1864, Confederate general John Sappington Marmaduke’s troops were in Chicot County, and on August 10, they opened devastating fire on the unarmed steamboat Empress, which was soon drifting out of control until the Romeo arrived and towed it to safety. The tinclad came back the next day and shelled the woods as the USS Prairie Bird engaged the Confederate forces.

The USS Romeo patrolled the Mississippi River between Natchez, Mississippi, and the mouth of the Arkansas River for the bulk of the remainder of the war. In May 1865, it was ordered to Cairo, then steamed to Mound City, Illinois, where it was decommissioned on June 30, after which Nathaniel Williams bought it at auction on August 17, 1865.

For additional information:
“Full Details of the Attack on the Steamer Empress.” Daily True Delta, August 16, 1864, p. 1.

“Romeo.” Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs.html (accessed October 10, 2024).

Simons, Don R. In Their Words: A Chronology of the Civil War in Chicot County, Arkansas and Adjacent Waters of the Mississippi River. Lake Village, AR: D. R. Simons, 1999.

The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies. Vol. 25, pp. 354–355, 433, 480, 678; Vol. 26, pp. 327, 504–508, 805. Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1912, 1914.

Mark K. Christ
Central Arkansas Library System