General Lovell, a gunboat ram, had been a tugboat on the Mississippi River before she was purchased and fitted out at New Orleans for Confederate service. She was part of the River Defense Fleet [See Annex II] under the overall command of Capt. J. E. Montgomery, a former river steamboat captain.
On 22 April 1862, as soon as her conversion was completed, General Lovell, commanded by Capt. B. Paris, left New Orleans for Fort Jackson on the lower Mississippi. General Lovell and the other ships of Montgomery's River Defense Fleet in that area were under the command of Capt. J. A. Stevenson, CSA. On 24 April 1862 they were all destroyed when the Union fleet under Flag Officer D. G. Farragut, USN, ran past Forts Jackson and St. Philip on its way to New Orleans. General Lovell was abandoned by her crew after being set on fire to keep her from falling into Union hands.
