rams but allowed the fleet to accompany his gunboats down the river to Memphis. On June 6, Colonel Ellet led the rams in the Battle of Memphis as captain of with his brother Alfred W. in command of the USS Monarch. The Ellets had not coordinated a plan of attack with Davis and when the flotilla approached Confederate forces, the two rams steamed ahead of Davis' gunboats. The Queen of the West rammed and sank the Confederate flagship . After the collision, the Queen of the West came under attack from the CSS Sumter and the CSS Beauregard. The attack sheared off one of the paddle wheels from the Queen of the West and forced her to ground on the riverbank. The Monarch rammed and disabled the CSS General Price and forced her to ground on the riverbank also. Ellet sent a boarding party and captured the General Price. Ellet was wounded in the knee by a Confederate sharpshooter during the battle. His wound was the only serious casualty received on the Union side during the battle. The Confederate forces suffered a severe loss at the Battle of Memphis with heavy casualties and the loss of seven of their eight ships. Death and legacy Ellet refused to consider amputation for his injury. His wound became infected and he died 15 days later of a blood infection in Cairo, Illinois. His body was taken to Independence Hall in Philadelphia, he was given a state funeral and interred at Laurel Hill Cemetery. Command of the ram fleet went to his brother Alfred W. Ellet. The U.S. Navy named a destroyer to honor the Ellet family. USS Ellet (DD-398) was in service in 1939-46 during World War II. In 1994, Stanford University received a gift of Ellet's Civil War letters from Elizabeth Ellet Nitz and Frances Ellet Ward. The papers are housed in the Department of Special Collections at Stanford University Library. On November 6, 1999, the Wheeling, West Virginia chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution placed a commemorative plaque on the western abutment of the Wheeling Suspension Bridge recognizing Ellet's accomplishments and his daughter, Mary Virginia Ellet Cabell's, role in founding the Daughters of the American Revolution. In 2000, Ellet was inducted into the National Rivers Hall of Fame at the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium. Bibliography An Essay on the Laws of Trade, in Reference to the Works