River monitors prove decisive against Tennessee

The two river monitors looked like unlikely participants in a coastal battle, but their nine-knot speed was enough to outmanoeuvre the five-knot Confederate ram. Chickasaw gained a position astern while the monitors combined their heavy guns with ramming attacks by the wooden ships. Their decisive role came from a local match between speed, position, and firepower rather than from suitability for blue-water service. Chickasaw's post-war conversion to a side-wheel coal and railway ferry, followed by service as a barge, gave the wartime hull a long civilian afterlife. A ship's intended environment does not always predict its tactical utility in a specific battle.