Mobile, and when that occurred many people moved thither. Some of
the oldest families trace their ancestors to Washington County. St.
Stephen’s was almost as much the first site of American Mobile as 27
Mile Bluff was of the French town; and both are now as deserted as
Nineveh. Even an American rival, the younger town of Blakeley, over on
the Tensaw River, has succumbed and joined its people to the Gulf City.
Much of Mobile’s American growth has been due to immigration from the
upriver counties.
[Illustration: PLACE WHERE AARON BURR WAS CAPTURED.]
For the first few years the great Creek War prevailed, which resulted
in driving the Creeks east of a line running southeast from old Fort
Toulouse. It was begun by the massacre of perhaps five hundred men,
women and children at Fort Mims, in the Tensaw district, terrifying
the whole Southwest. It did not reach Mobile, but a blockhouse was
built near the present cathedral. The war was marked by thrilling
scenes in Washington County and the fork made by the Alabama and
Bigbee; by such incidents as the Canoe Fight on the lower Alabama
River and Austill’s night ride; and by Claiborne’s storming of the
Holy Ground. In it Andrew Jackson won his fame up on the Coosa and
Tallapoosa by such battles as that of the Horse Shoe Bend. When he had
made peace with the brave Creek Weatherford, and sent Pushmataha and
the allied Choctaws home, he floated down to Mobile.
And there was need. The British were preparing to invade the country.
Four vessels under Commodore Percy attacked Fort Bowyer at the mouth
of the bay, but Lawrence with the garrison brilliantly repelled them.
His motto was, “Don’t give up the fort.” The _Hermes_ drifted directly
under his guns and was fired, and then the others withdrew. Indians,
under Woodbine, were on land near by, but had no opportunity to
participate.
Jackson reconnoitred around Mobile. His headquarters are said to have
been at an old Spanish building, standing until a few years since at
the southwest corner of Conti and Conception Streets, opposite the
site of the Indian House of former times; but the troops were encamped
south of the town, near Frascati. A tree under which he dined used to
be pointed out over Three-Mile Creek, and a magnificent Jackson Oak is
still shown at the village on the bay above Daphne, commemorating a
stop on the way to the capture of Pensacola. It was from Mobile that he
issued the two famous proclamations to Louisianians, white and black;
and the first stage of his march westward to win the battle of New
Orleans was at that beautiful spot near Cottage Hill ever since called
the Cantonment.
After their defeat at New Orleans, the British reappeared at Mobile
in overwhelming force. Fort Bowyer now had to surrender, and Dauphine
Island was for months occupied by British troops. But the treaty of
Ghent caused its restoration, and Mobile settled down to its long
American development.
“Peace hath its victories no less renowned than war,” but they have
less of incident. The settlement of Alabama, the immigration from the
Atlantic States to the lands won in the Creek War, developed her Gulf
port. Cotton was king, and it made her queen. Even in 1818, the year
before Alabama became a State, Mobile had established her Bank of
Mobile, and primitive steamboats, such as the _Harriet_ and _Cotton
Plant_, built much on the model of Fulton’s _Clermont_, were already
plying the rivers.
Everything was rude, as in frontier towns, but here could be found all
kinds of people. Bertrand, Comte Clausel, the distinguished opponent
of Wellington in Spain, lived for a number of years after 1816 on the
bay, near present Arlington, the possible site of Bienville’s villa.
Here he wrote his _Exposé Justificatif_, explaining that defection to
Napoleon during the Hundred Days for which the Bourbons condemned him
to death; and here he raised vegetables and carried them to market in
his own wagon. Through Mobile passed those other Napoleonic exiles
who, in 1818, ascended the Bigbee to found the unfortunate Vine and
Olive company, in what was called for them Marengo County. Near Clausel
lived Lakanal, the regicide, the creator of the educational system of
revolutionary France. He was for a short time president of the Orleans
College of Louisiana; but with his wife, Marie Barbe, he also spent
most of his American life raising market vegetables in Garrow’s Bend.
Tradition says that he and his neighbor Clausel brought their political
differences with them, and would not associate. He was violently
opposed to Lafayette. That great Frenchman was enthusiastically
welcomed to Mobile in 1825. Arches were erected on Royal Street, and
he is said to have been entertained at the house on Government Street
opposite the Presbyterian Church. Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar,
included America in his _grand tour_, and in January, 1826, he also was
at Mobile. He does not mention Lakanal at all, nor the Protestant Union
Church, built a few years before where Christ Church stands. But the
Catholic Church on Royal and Conti, with its tin altar service, and the
three thousand people,--French, American, Indian and negro,--interested
him; the compress, which by a vise reduced the bale one third; the
thirty vessels in the harbor waiting for cotton; the volunteer company
celebrating the battle of New Orleans; the wooden houses and brick
public buildings, the plank walks and the gambling-houses, the prison,
with its whipping-post, are all recorded. This marks a great advance
on Hodgson’s unpleasing description of the place in 1820, and, in fact,
Mobile had begun that progress which soon distanced the progress of her
rivals and made her in the thirties a great city.
She was the natural result of the growth of the interior, whose
products in those days, before railroads, could go nowhere except to
Mobile. This growth brought trade, and with it immigration. In 1830,
the cotton exported exceeded one hundred thousand bales; in 1837,
over three hundred thousand, and by 1840 was almost four hundred and
fifty thousand. The population grew to twelve thousand. The results
were apparent everywhere. The United States Bank and the State Bank
had branches, and others were organized. There was paper money galore.
Water and gas were introduced; lands for Bienville Square were bought
by the city; the Presbyterian, Christ and other churches were built;
a public school system, the first in Alabama, was organized, and the
Barton Academy erected; Hitchcock’s Press was operated, and the Cedar
Point Railway and Grant’s Pass show attempts to get nearer to Dauphine
Island and the Sound. A lighter side of the same activity was the
formation, in 1830, by Michael Krafft and his merry companions of the
famous Cowbellion de Rakin Society, the predecessor of the Strikers,
O. O. M., and every other mystic organization in the South. It was the
transfer of their celebrations from New Year’s Eve to Mardi Gras which
has made the carnival season famous. The city grew in all directions;
old Creole homes gave way to modern houses, the Orange Grove Tract was
built up in warehouses, and St. Michael Street, because of its shipping
interests, was called the British Channel. New streets were opened,
Spring Hill became a famous summer resort, and handsome residences soon
adorned both shores of the bay.
Then, alas, came the panic of 1837, in which, however, the Bank of
Mobile is said to have been one of the four banks in the whole country
which did not suspend. Everything else seemed to go to pieces. Even
the city government made an assignment. To add to the distress, in
1839 was the most disastrous of all fires, in its two attacks sweeping
Royal Street and Dauphin and St. Francis up to where the cathedral then
stood unfinished. An epidemic of yellow fever the same summer slew the
inhabitants as the fire destroyed their property. The year 1839 is the
blackest in Mobile’s history, and Percy Walker’s picture of that dire
summer, before the Alabama Legislature, deserves to rank high among
American orations.
The depression lasted several years, and before complete recovery
it became complicated with a commercial problem. Railroads had been
invented, and Mobile with all other ports had to face new problems. M.
J. D. Baldwin preached the necessity of building a Mobile road to the
growing West, but long he was laughed at as a Cassandra. He persevered,
and in 1848 the Mobile & Ohio Railroad was begun towards Cairo,
Illinois. It was a magnificent conception, and right fitting it was
that Baldwin should have driven the last spike of its realization. The
result was that by 1860 the cotton receipts had grown to eight hundred
thousand bales, and the next year were about a million.
In 1852 was a disastrous flood, and next year the worst epidemic of
her history; but the results were only temporary. New banks, like the
Southern and Mechanics (afterwards the Mobile Savings), were organized,
the Battle House, Custom-House and other fine buildings erected, and
Fort Gaines faced older Fort Morgan at the mouth of the bay. Society
had long outgrown the crudeness of earlier days, and Mobile hospitality
and refinement were famous. At her Bar were John A. Campbell (whose
sister, Mrs. Chandler, was the grandmother of the Mrs. Maybrick, now
so famous), Daniel Chandler, George N. Stewart, Robert H. Smith,
Peter Hamilton, D. C. Anderson, Philip Phillips, E. S. Dargan and
other splendid lawyers. In literature there was ample atonement for
the neglect of early days. Among Mobile’s books appeared in 1854 Dr.
Nott’s _Types of Mankind_, and in 1859 came Madame LeVert’s _Souvenirs
of Travel_, and Augusta Evans’s _Beulah_. John Forsyth and Charles C.
Langdon were famous editors of the time, and politics, of course, ran
high. The town was generally Whig, and Mr. Clay’s welcome in 1844 was
as cordial as was that of Jackson in earlier years. At that time, by
the way, Macready held the boards, and drawled a strenuous objection to
the announcement on his playbills that Henry Clay would be present at
one of his performances.
[Illustration: JOHN A. CAMPBELL.]
Mobile theatres, except the last, have generally burned after a few
years. The best was built by Caldwell on Royal Street, near St.
Michael, and the best-known manager was Noah M. Ludlow, who, with
Sol. Smith, operated a Mobile-New Orleans-St. Louis circuit. Ludlow
and Smith played a great part in the history of the theatre in the
Mississippi Valley. Ludlow’s memoirs are an invaluable compilation,
and can almost be claimed as a Mobile book, for he long lived here. J.
H. Hackett, Madame Celeste, Ellen Tree, Edwin Forrest, J. B. Booth,
Macready, H. Placide, Charles Kean, Mrs. Mowatt, Julia Dean, John T.
Raymond and Charlotte Cushman were often on the Mobile stage. The
present theatre was opened in 1860, and the late Speaker Crisp was
often about it when his father conducted it during the war.
[Illustration: RAPHAEL SEMMES IN 1861.]
Fortunately for her, Mobile was not the immediate seat of any part
of that great civil conflict; but she was thoroughly loyal to the
Confederate cause, and furnished most of her best blood to its support.
The Mobile Cadets were tendered by Captain Sands immediately on receipt
of President Davis’s call for volunteers, and from there went out,
among others, the 3d, 8th, 21st and 24th Alabama regiments, the two
companies of State Artillery and Charpentier’s and Watters’s Batteries.
There are unmarked graves of Mobile boys from Pennsylvania to Texas.
The Mobile post office in the interregnum issued its much-prized
stamps,--two-cent black and five-cent blue. Later the streets were
alive with Confederate uniforms, for camps were in the suburbs, and
Government Street was the scene of memorable reviews. Society even in
those war times was often gay. Courts, too, continued open, although
litigation was limited.
Groceries and staples changed hands, much as ever, but at prices
measured in gradually depreciating Confederate money. Two hundred
dollars for a barrel of flour, or finally even for a pair of shoes, and
twelve hundred for a suit of clothes, were not unknown. The wits said
that a basket was as much needed to carry the paper money to market as
to bring back what it bought. After a while co-operative associations,
with agents all through the country to buy supplies, became necessary
in order to get things to the city at all. Coffee and some other
articles almost disappeared, and various substitutes were used. Books
and even money were printed on material that once would have been
discarded, and the rough Confederate writing-paper still remains a
curiosity.
One new occupation came into being. While Semmes of Mobile, in the
privateers _Sumter_ and _Alabama_, and Maffitt in the _Florida_, were
destroying all Northern commerce which they could find on the ocean,
the Federal navy was blockading Southern ports. This was designed
to prevent supplies from getting in and cotton from getting out to
Europe, and thus doubly to cripple the South. Blockade-running by swift
Confederate vessels became common and often successful. The destination
of the runners was generally the neutral port of Nassau, in British
West Indies. Among these grayish-white vessels were the _Alice_,
_Denbigh_, and _Red Gauntlet_. They carried, according to the size,
from six hundred to twelve hundred bales of cotton, and brought back
miscellaneous cargoes, in which drugs and war stores usually figured.
Many of them were captured, and there was no insurance; but others
made a dozen or more successful trips. The _Heroine_, now used as a
bay boat, was one of the small blockade-runners. A Mobile Presbyterian
minister took his wedding trip on the _Swan_, bound for Nassau, but was
captured with his bride and taken North.
Fort Morgan, under General Page, was well equipped, and kept the
blockaders at a respectful distance. Shots were frequently exchanged
between them and the fort, and sometimes, when they ventured to anchor
too near the coast, they were surprised by a ball from a cannon, run
out behind a sandhill during the night.
[Illustration: C. S. S. “FLORIDA” ENTERING MOBILE BAY, SEPT. 4, 1862.
FROM A PAINTING BY R. S. FLOYD.]
The cruiser _Florida_ was one of the ships built in England for the
Confederacy, and turned over to its authorities out at sea. Maffitt
took her to Nassau and Cuba, but, as his small crew was sick with
yellow fever, and he needed further equipment, he made for Mobile.
Personating an English vessel, the _Florida_, in broad daylight
on September 4, 1862, ran by the _Oneida_, _Winona_ and _Cayuga_
into Mobile Bay, amid a hail of shot and shell. She remained four
months, mainly in the deep water off Montrose. The Union fleet was
strengthened, and was on the watch for her to come out. But Maffitt, on
January 16th, before day, ran through the blockaders again, to their
great chagrin, and, although chased, got away to capture prizes off the
coast of Cuba. As it turned out, the only way the Federals were able
to capture the _Florida_ was in the neutral port of Bahia, while her
captain was ashore,--a flagrant breach of international law.
About Mobile a line of land fortifications was early built, at first
too far out to be held by a small force. The entrenchments are still
visible two miles from town, the most prominent being Fort Sidney
Johnson, on the bay beyond Frascati. Afterwards one or more lines were
constructed nearer in, and remains lately could be seen near the head
of St. Joseph Street, on both sides of Government east of Ann Street,
near the Bascombe race track and near the Southern Drain. Slave labor
built them under the supervision of Engineers Pillans and Van Scheliha.
These redoubts were never much used, however. The great battles for
Mobile were fought at the mouth of the bay and near Blakeley.
Obstructions and torpedoes filled the channels between Forts Gaines
and Morgan, except for a short distance immediately under the guns of
Morgan. Within the bay lay the Confederate fleet, consisting of three
gunboats and the powerful ram _Tennessee_. This vessel had been built
during 1863 and 1864 at Selma, and was equipped with five-inch iron
armor at Mobile. As she drew thirteen feet, while the Dog River bar
allowed but eight or nine, wooden caissons were sunk and attached to
her, and when they were pumped out they raised and lifted her also. The
whole Confederate fleet mustered but four hundred and seventy men and
twenty-two guns, while the Federal consisted of fourteen steamers and
four monitors, carrying twenty-seven hundred men and one hundred and
ninety-nine guns.
Farragut started on his perilous passage early in the morning of
August 5th, his vessels lashed in pairs, the monitor _Tecumseh_ in the
lead. Then came the _Brooklyn_ with her mate, and next the flagship
_Hartford_, the Admiral in the rigging. As the stately procession
neared the fort, all engaged on both sides in a murderous cannonade.
Suddenly the _Tecumseh_ lurched, and, in a few seconds, sank, struck
by a torpedo. The _Brooklyn_, despite her torpedo protector, wavered
and backed, confusing the whole column, and giving the gunners in
the fort an opportunity of which they made good use. But Farragut
pushed the _Hartford_ to the front, and restored order, leading the
others, amidst a galling fire, into the bay. A little boat had rowed
out to save the few who did not go down in the _Tecumseh_, and the
Confederates chivalrously refused to fire upon them, despite the Union
flag defiantly run up. The fleet, though much damaged, gradually passed
in.
An engagement followed with the little Confederate squadron, but the
odds were too great. One gunboat was sunk, another captured, a third
finally got away to Mobile, and the ram took shelter, apparently for
repairs, under the guns of the fort. And then, to the astonishment
of friend and foe, the _Tennessee_ boldly made straight up the bay to
ram the Federal fleet. Vessel after vessel rammed and fought her, but
she held her own, unwavering, seeking the flagship _Hartford_, which,
however, was too swift for her to overtake. She engaged the whole
fleet at once in one of the most heroic naval combats of history, and
did not desist until her plates were loosened, port shutters jammed,
smoke-stack carried away, many of the crew wounded, Admiral Buchanan
disabled, and the steering apparatus shot away, leaving her as helpless
as a log. Then, at last, she hauled down her flag. Farragut sent
Buchanan and the wounded to Pensacola, a ship peaceably passing the
fort after arrangements had been made for that purpose under a flag of
truce.
Troops landed on Dauphine Island had already driven the Confederates
into Fort Gaines, and it was invested by land and sea. Farragut had
an interview with Col. Anderson, convinced him that resistance was
useless, and thus induced him to surrender the fort with all its
stores. The Pelham Cadets, Mobile’s home guard of young men, had lately
been sent down, and they were captured with the regular garrison.
General Granger landed at Navy Cove with an overwhelming force, and
after approaches, run gradually closer from day to day, by the 22d
Fort Morgan was completely invested by army and navy. The discipline
of the garrison continued perfect, standing the test of an unbroken
bombardment, whose thunders were heard at Mobile, thirty miles away.
Many shells were thrown into the fort, the citadel fired, and at
last the walls were breached in several places. Further defence was
impossible, and after spending a night in destroying everything capable
of destruction General Page surrendered.
General J. E. Johnston is said to have pronounced Mobile the best
fortified city in the Confederacy. If the fortifications on or near the
Tensaw River could be taken, however, transports, if not vessels of the
fleet, could be sent behind the torpedoes and obstructions to the city
wharves.
[Illustration: HOME OF AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON.]
Therefore Canby, with forty-five thousand troops, including a column
under Steele from Pensacola, undertook to overcome about five thousand
Confederates in Spanish Fort, which was named from the bastion built by
Galvez almost a century before. Randall L. Gibson, since Senator from
Louisiana, was there in command, reporting--like Lidell at Blakeley--by
telegraph to D. H. Maury at Mobile. Gibson handled his fifteen hundred
men admirably from Fort McDermott on the right, Red Fort in the centre,
and along the line to the swamp, which was relied on to protect his
left. The principal gun in his Red Fort was an eight-inch Columbiad,
cast at Selma in 1863, and manned by Louisiana artillery, commanded
by Slocum. This gun did terrible execution, and dismantled a whole
fortification. But, while the sand-bags were still removed for that
shot, Federal gunners dismounted her, and killed several men at their
posts by her side.[8] Spanish Fort held out thirteen days against over
thirty thousand men. The riflemen in the opposing pits even became
friendly, and exchanged yarns and courtesies. The fleet, after three
vessels had been sunk by torpedoes, picked up enough torpedoes to get
within range, and the discovery of a passage through the swamp made it
necessary to abandon the whole fort. Blakeley, with its garrison of
about three thousand, was finally stormed on April 9th, the day Lee
surrendered in Virginia.
Maury felt that he could not hold Mobile with only four thousand five
hundred men, for the Federals could now attack from the river and land
at once; and so he withdrew to Meridian. Blakeley was the last great
battle of the war.
The Federal troops occupied Mobile immediately upon the surrender by
Mayor Slough on April 12th, camping in the suburbs, on Government
Street and elsewhere. One unfortunate result was the terrible explosion
on May 25th, from careless handling of ammunition in a warehouse on
Water and Lipscomb Streets. There were hundreds killed, more than
$700,000 of warehouse property was destroyed, and the whole business
section of the city was injured. Such was the return of peace!
* * * * *
Mobile, since the Civil War, offers a fruitful field for study. The
few flush years, when commerce first revived; Reconstruction, with
slaves over masters; bond issues from 1870 on railroads that were never
built, resulting in bankruptcy in 1879; the panics of 1873 and 1893,
the first of which depressed everything, while the other showed that
Mobile had become sound again; new railroads and commercial growth in
every line, consequent on the Government’s cutting the ship channel,
twenty-three feet deep, through the bars to the lower bay; the growing
rivalry of the Gulf port with Eastern harbors for the Western trade to
Latin America and even Europe; the passing of the once dreaded yellow
fever; the good relations which have existed between the negroes and
whites since they were relieved of outside interference; the Cuban War,
with its American soldiers (some from Mobile) encamped on ground once
occupied by Confederates, and the picturesque embarkation of troops
for Santiago; extensive municipal improvements; impressive public
structures, such as the Y. M. C. A. Building, new hotels, and the
Semmes statue; the advance of literature, also, which has kept Augusta
Evans as Mrs. Wilson, and added Madame Chaudron, Father Ryan, T. C.
De Leon, Amélie Rives, Hannis Taylor, and others:--these things are
important, but are too recent for detailed treatment.
[Illustration: AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON.]