Ellet, Charles (1810-1862)

US civil engineer who designed the first wire-cable suspension bridge in the USA, in 1842. He also designed the world's first long-span wire-cable suspension bridge, crossing the Ohio River at Wheeling, West Virginia. Ellet was born in Pennsylvania and began his career as a surveyor and assistant engineer on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal 1828. In 1831-32 he was in Europe, enrolled at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and studied the various engineering works taking place in France, Germany, and Britain. For his first wire-cable suspension bridge, over the Schuylkill River at Fairmount, Pennsylvania, Ellet introduced a technique he had learned in France of binding small wires together to make the cables. The central span of the suspension bridge over the Ohio River was at 308 m/1,010 ft the longest ever built when completed 1849. The bridge failed under wind forces in 1854; however, Ellet's towers remained standing and the bridge was rebuilt. Following the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, Ellet produced a steam-powered ship for the Union (Northern) forces to ram the Confederates on the Mississippi River. In June 1862, Ellet led a fleet of nine of these rams in the Battle of Memphis. The Union side was victorious, but in the course of the fighting Ellet was fatally wounded.