The Ponchartrain in 1863 was in the process of being armored with railroad rails. The mear presence of such a gunboat would have presented a major problem to the Union Supply lines on the Mississippi R.

Another one of the Ponchartrains original guns (other than the two at St Charles) still exist today. It is called "Lady Baxter" located on the Old State House Museum lawn in Little Rock. For some reason the part of that Guns history that was played during the war is not told. That to me is more "historical" than the part it played in the "Brookes-Baxter War"