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Island Number Ten
Island Number Ten was an island in the Mississippi River near Tiptonville, Tennessee and the site of a major eponymous battle in the American Civil War. [1]
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Island Number Ten was an island in the Mississippi River near Tiptonville, Tennessee and the site of a major eponymous battle in the American Civil War. [1]
In the mid-19th century the United States Government began to adopt a uniform numbering plan for islands in the Lower Mississippi River (that part of the river below its confluence with the Ohio River near Cairo, Illinois). This system assigned each major island a number, which increased in the downstream direction. The purpose of this system was to create a level of certainty in documents describing islands in the river as to exactly which island was meant. To a large extent, however, the system had an unintended, and at times almost reverse effect. The numbering system was based on the premise that the islands were relatively permanent, static features when in fact the opposite is true. Due to erosion and accretion, the islands in the lower Mississippi are in a constant state of flux, ever growing, shrinking, and at times disappearing entirely, particularly after major floods.
Today, the land described in the mid-19th century as "Island Number Ten", as is the case with many of the islands of the Lower Mississippi, no longer really exists. Some of what constituted it is now part of the floodplain near New Madrid, Missouri as the river's channel changed; the bulk of it has simply been eroded away. For this reason, the Battle of Island Number Ten monument, which references this fact, is located on State Route 22 approximately three miles north of Tiptonville; the cemetery where some of the combatants were interred is across the river in Missouri.
The Mississippi River is the primary river and second-longest river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it flows generally south for 2,340 miles (3,766 km) to the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian mountains. The main stem is entirely within the United States; the total drainage basin is 1,151,000 sq mi (2,980,000 km2), of which only about one percent is in Canada. The Mississippi ranks as the thirteenth-largest river by discharge in the world. The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
The Missouri River is a river in the Central and Mountain West regions of the United States. The nation's longest, it rises in the eastern Centennial Mountains of the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Mountains of southwestern Montana, then flows east and south for 2,341 miles (3,767 km) before entering the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, Missouri. The river drains semi-arid watershed of more than 500,000 square miles (1,300,000 km2), which includes parts of ten U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. Although a tributary of the Mississippi, the Missouri River is slightly longer and carries a comparable volume of water. When combined with the lower Mississippi River, it forms the world's fourth-longest river system.
Lake County is a county located in the northwest corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 7,005, making it the fifth-least populous county in Tennessee. Its county seat is Tiptonville. It shares a border with Kentucky to the north and is separated from Missouri to the west by the Mississippi River.
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It was officially named the North Central Region by the U.S. Census Bureau until 1984. It is between the Northeastern United States and the Western United States, with Canada to the north and the Southern United States to the south.
Tiptonville is a town in and the county seat of Lake County, Tennessee, United States. Its population was 2,439 as of the 2000 census and 4,464 in 2010, showing an increase of 2,025. It is also home to the Northwest Correctional Complex, a maximum security prison, known for once housing mass murderer Jessie Dotson.
The 1811–1812 New Madrid earthquakes were a series of intense intraplate earthquakes beginning with an initial earthquake of moment magnitude 7.2–8.2 on December 16, 1811, followed by a moment magnitude 7.4 aftershock on the same day. Two additional earthquakes of similar magnitude followed in January and February 1812. They remain the most powerful earthquakes to hit the contiguous United States east of the Rocky Mountains in recorded history. The earthquakes, as well as the seismic zone of their occurrence, were named for the Mississippi River town of New Madrid, then part of the Louisiana Territory and now within the U.S. state of Missouri.
The Battle of Island Number Ten was an engagement at the New Madrid or Kentucky Bend on the Mississippi River – forming the border between Missouri and Tennessee – during the American Civil War, lasting from February 28 to April 8, 1862. Island Number Ten, a small island at the (Tennessee) base of a tight double turn in the river, was held by the Confederates from the early days of the war. It was an excellent site to impede Union efforts to invade the South by the river, as ships had to approach the island bows on and then slow to make the turns. For the defenders, however, it had an innate weakness in that it depended on a single road for supplies and reinforcements. If an enemy force managed to cut that road, the garrison would be isolated and eventually be forced to surrender.
The New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ), sometimes called the New Madrid Fault Line, is a major seismic zone and a prolific source of intraplate earthquakes in the Southern and Midwestern United States, stretching to the southwest from New Madrid, Missouri.
The Missouri Bootheel is a salient (protrusion) located in the southeasternmost part of the U.S. state of Missouri, extending south of 36°30′ north latitude, so called because its shape in relation to the rest of the state resembles the heel of a boot. Strictly speaking, it is composed of some or all of the counties of Dunklin, New Madrid, and Pemiscot. However, the term is locally used to refer to the entire southeastern lowlands of Missouri located within the Mississippi Embayment, which includes parts of Butler, Mississippi, Ripley, Scott, Stoddard and extreme southern portions of Cape Girardeau and Bollinger counties. The largest city in the region is Kennett.
The Kentucky Bend, variously called the New Madrid Bend, Madrid Bend, Bessie Bend, or Bubbleland, is an exclave of Fulton County, Kentucky, encircled by the states of Tennessee and Missouri. It is a portion of a peninsula defined by an oxbow loop meander of the Mississippi River, and its inclusion in the state of Kentucky stems from uncertainties of the course of the Mississippi River when the boundary between Tennessee and Kentucky was established.
The American Bottom is the flood plain of the Mississippi River in the Metro East region of Southern Illinois, extending from Alton, Illinois, south to the Kaskaskia River. It is also sometimes called "American Bottoms". The area is about 175 square miles (450 km2), mostly protected from flooding in the 21st century by a levee and drainage canal system. Immediately across the river from St. Louis, Missouri, are industrial and urban areas, but nearby marshland, swamps, and the Horseshoe Lake are reminders of the Bottoms' riparian nature.
Bird's Point is an unincorporated community in Mississippi County, Missouri, United States. It lies on an island or former island in the Mississippi River, near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and is situated directly across from Cairo, Illinois. This is the point where the U.S. Route 60 bridge connects with Cairo.
Wolf Island is an unincorporated community in eastern Mississippi County, Missouri, United States. It is located on Route 77, approximately nine miles east of East Prairie.
Louisiana, or the Province of Louisiana, was a province of New Spain from 1762 to 1801 primarily located in the center of North America encompassing the western basin of the Mississippi River plus New Orleans. The area had originally been claimed and controlled by France, which had named it La Louisiane in honor of King Louis XIV in 1682. Spain secretly acquired the territory from France near the end of the Seven Years' War by the terms of the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762). The actual transfer of authority was a slow process, and after Spain finally attempted to fully replace French authorities in New Orleans in 1767, French residents staged an uprising which the new Spanish colonial governor did not suppress until 1769. Spain also took possession of the trading post of St. Louis and all of Upper Louisiana in the late 1760s, though there was little Spanish presence in the wide expanses of what they called the "Illinois Country".
CSS New Orleans was a floating battery used by the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War. Converted from a floating drydock in 1861, she was commissioned on October 14, 1861. The vessel was unable to move under her own power and lacked facilities for her crew to live aboard, so CSS Red Rover was used to move the floating battery and house her crew. She was then sent upriver to assist in the Confederate defense of Columbus, Kentucky, arriving there in December. After the Confederates abandoned Columbus in March 1862, New Orleans was moved to Island No. 10 near New Madrid, Missouri. The Confederate defenders of Island No. 10 surrendered on April 8, and New Orleans was scuttled that day. Not fully sunk, the floating battery drifted downriver to the New Madrid area, where it was captured by Union forces. In Union hands, New Orleans was used as a floating drydock until the Confederates burned her in August or September 1863.
Belmont is a ghost town in Mississippi County, on the eastern border of the U.S. state of Missouri at the Mississippi River. The GNIS classifies it as a populated place under the name "Belmont Landing".
Wolf Island Township is an inactive township in Mississippi County, in the U.S. state of Missouri.
Fourteen Bend is an extinct town in Pemiscot County, in the U.S. state of Missouri.
CSS Maurepas was a sidewheel steamer that briefly served as a gunboat in the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War. Built in 1858 in Indiana as Grosse Tete, the vessel was used in commercial trade until 1860 and then delivered mail until 1861, when she was acquired by the Confederate Navy.
CSS Pontchartrain was a gunboat that served in the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War. Built in 1859 for passenger and cotton trade, she was purchased by the Confederates in October 1862. After seeing action against Union land positions during the campaigns for New Madrid, Missouri, and Island Number Ten, she was transferred to serve on the Arkansas River and the White River. In June 1862, two of her cannons were taken to a land fortification at St. Charles, Arkansas, where part of her crew saw action in the Battle of St. Charles while manning the guns. Her other cannons were then offloaded at Fort Hindman, where more of her crew were captured while fighting on land at the Battle of Arkansas Post in January 1863. Pontchartrain herself remained inactive at Little Rock, Arkansas, and was burned to prevent capture in September 1863 when the Confederates evacuated the city.
36°26′53.82″N89°28′05.80″W / 36.4482833°N 89.4682778°W
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