Terry

ORN. ser 1, Vol 23, pages 199 - 201 is Lieutenant Dunningtons after action report of the Battle of St. Charles, Ar. on June 17th, 1862. This report is addressed from the CSS Gunboat Ponchartrain at Little Rock, June 21st, 1862.

Now my problem is this, if the CSS Ponchartrain was in the White River at the time of the Battle of St Charles, As Hindman and a couple of Union commanders seem to relate in their reports, on the 17th of June. How did it get to Little Rock by the 21st of June, over shoals too shallow for her draft and past the Union Navy Gunsboats then on the White River?

Dunnington does not relate that Ponchartrain took any part in any of the actions on the White River or any details of any excape from the White River and up the Arkansas, In his report. And I assume that he would have placed such information in his report if it had occurred.

I still stand by my previous statement that the CSS Ponchartrain was never in the White River for any significate period of time. And if it ever was in the White River at all, it could have only been during the later part of May 1862 and it exited the White River before the Union Attempt to accend the White River in June of 1862 which lead to the engagement at St. Charles, June 17th, 1862.

The Ponchartrain could not have been in two places at the same time, and the dates and time of these several reports and the conditons of the White River as related in these same reports do not conform reasonable to indicate that the CSS Ponchartrain was in the White River in mid to late June of 1862.