In January, 1861, three months before the start of the Civil War, a side-wheeled, commercial packet was making her normal run down the Ohio River from Cincinnati to the Mississippi and New Orleans.  As she steamed her way by Vicksburg, Mississippi, a cannon shot flew across her bow.  After several shots, Captain John Collier obeyed the universal signal to heave to.  The boat was detained and searched for a rumored cache of weapons and ruffians called “wide-awakes” thought to be planning a raid on the city.  When a search revealed neither weapons nor ruffians, she was permitted to proceed to New Orleans.  The boat was the A.O. Tyler, named for her owner, and the shots might have been the first of the war to come.

War did come in April, and in early June, three merchant steam boats in Cincinnati were purchased for immediate conversion into army gunboats.  The plan was to add firepower along inland waterways in support of United States Army forces soon to be deployed.  The largest of these boats was the A.O. Tyler at 180 feet from stem to stern and a width of 45 feet across the beam.  Her upper decks would be removed, the vulnerable boilers and machinery lowered into the hold, and remaining decks strengthened to support six thousand pound naval cannons.  High white oak bulwarks or walls 5 inches thick would serve as protection for the crew from small arms fire.  Two steam engines would supply power to the individual side wheels producing a maximum speed of roughly 10 knots or 12 miles per hour against the current.  The side wheels enabled her to turn on her own axis.  At top speed, she would consume nearly 400 gallons of river water per hour.

Her heavy armament was to consist of six 8 inch smooth-bore cannons capable of hurling an anti-personnel, 52-pound, explosive shell over a mile or sending a 65- pound, solid round shot into land fortifications or enemy vessels.  Two 32-pounder smooth-bores were added, one fore and one aft, as chasers.  The armament would change throughout the course of the war, but this timberclad vessel was the most heavily armed and fearsome of the hastily refitted ordnance platforms.

The complement was to number 67 men with transfers from army artillery units forming the gun crews while the cadre of officers was to be regular navy.  Navy Commander John Rogers, the actual procurer of the vessel, was assigned as her initial commanding officer.  Some records show her referred to as the “Taylor” in protest to the implied link to former President John Tyler an outspoken secessionist, but the name was never officially adopted.

In August, 1861, the gunboat Tyler was underway as part of the U.S. Army venture known as the Western Gunboat Flotilla.  On the 21^st, the Tyler exchanged fire with Confederates near Commerce, Missouri.  This engagement became the first in which shots were fired in anger in the Western Theater of operations.

In November, General Ulysses S. Grant, recently placed in command of the Western Theater, launched an attack on Confederate positions at Belmont, Missouri, while the Tyler engaged the fortifications across the Mississippi River at Columbus, Kentucky.  Tyler’s guns also covered Grant’s hasty retreat.

The Tyler would participate in General Grant’s campaigns against Fort Henry on the Tennessee and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River.  She would fire 200 explosive rounds into Confederate positions during the Battle of Shiloh, and though outmatched, would later engage the ironclad CSS Arkansas on the Yazoo River in Mississippi near Vicksburg.

The Army’s Western Gunboat Flotilla was transferred to the Navy as the Mississippi Squadron in October, 1862.  Now, as a commissioned naval war vessel, she officially became the USS Tyler.

She saw heavy fighting at Hayne’s Bluff, Mississippi, and supported General Sherman’s attack on Fort Hindman at Arkansas Post on the Arkansas River.  Assigned to guerrilla suppression and patrol duty between the mouth of the White River and Memphis, the USS Tyler was in place to provide support to U.S. forces occupying Helena, Arkansas.  On the 4^th of July, 1863, she fired 413 explosive rounds into the charging ranks of Confederates and was credited with being the deciding factor against the numerically superior attacking force.

In defense of General Steel’s supply terminal at DeValls Bluff on the White River, USS Tyler engaged Confederate forces at Clarendon, Arkansas.  Intense fighting at point blank range led to the withdrawal of General Jo Shelby’s Confederate troops.

The remainder of the war saw the USS Tyler on patrol duty on the Mississippi River.  At war’s end she was stationed in Memphis where her crew was discharged.  In April she scrambled together a voluntary crew and assisted in the rescue efforts for the pitiful victims of the Sultana explosion at Mound City, Arkansas, just upstream from Memphis.

On August 17, 1865, the bold military career of this unheralded, unsophisticated-looking but important timberclad came to an end on the auction block.  She sold for $6,000 as her service record closed, and she faded from view into civilian use.

(Helena, Ark.) The May 11, at 12 o’clock noon, dedication of a massive Union fort replica begins Helena’s Civil War Sesquicentennial commemoration of a multi-faceted heritage that includes Federal occupation, seven Confederate generals, and an encampment of thousands of freed slaves.

The block-long reproduction of Fort Curtis completed at the corner of York and Columbia streets recalls the historic river city’s occupation by Federal troops from July 1862 through the Civil War’s end in 1865, as well as the Confederacy’s failed attempt on July 4, 1863, to return the city and its strategic position along the Mississippi River to Southern control. The Battle of Helena would leave 206 Union and 1,636 Confederate forces dead.

Today, many in the Delta community hope the fort and the interpretation of more than 27 other Civil War sites throughout Phillips County can act as a catalyst for economic growth through increased tourism. The May 11 event, slated to begin at noon, will include local and state officials, historians, re-enactors, and numerous civic leaders and members of the public focused on building the area’s future through closer attention to its heritage.

The United States is observing the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War through 2015. With an estimated 600, 000 men losing their lives, the four-year period marks the bloodiest period in the history of the nation.

Members of the Helena community are working together to become a Civil War tourism destination during the sesquicentennial, presenting the entire story of Civil War Helena through exhibits, restored and reproduced historic locations, and interpretive signage. The reproduction Union garrison will be the only replica fort of its kind in the region.

In 2005, a long-term strategic plan for Phillips County outlined options for economic development and identified the Civil War as one of the county’s most significant cultural heritage resources. Over the next three years, citizens and organizations came together, committed to formulating a plan focusing on the community’s heritage in an effort to make Helena and Phillips County a Civil War tourism destination.

In 2009, the plan was unveiled, giving voice to those affected by the Civil War – Union and Confederate, black and white, soldier and civilian, men and women. As the plan states, “It is a story of people who lived through our nation’s most trying time, a story woven from the unique thread of events that form Helena’s past and make it such a special place. It is a story of courage, passion, terror, death, hope, and sadness. It is a story some would rather forget, but it is an important story; it is Helena’s story and it should not be forgotten.”

During 2013, additional interpretive exhibits and signage will be placed throughout the historic city:

• Freedom Park will feature five major exhibits that explore the African-American experience in Civil War Helena, following the progression from fugitive slave to Contraband to freedom, and, for some, enlistment in the Union Army.
• Estevan Hall, the oldest remaining family structure in historic Helena, will serve as a Civil War Helena visitors’ center and provide guests with insight into how families were impacted by the Federal occupation of the city.
• Other locations include the four batteries (A, B, C, and D) from 1863’s Battle of Helena – still clearly visible on Helena landscape; the Civil War era Moore-Horner House; the Helena Confederate Cemetery; Court Square Park; Delta Cultural Center, a museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage; and Helena Museum of Phillips County.