MOBILE.
1864.
By the fall of the last and most powerful of the Confederate strongholds
upon the Mississippi, and the consequent assertion of control by the
United States Government over the whole of the great water course, was
accomplished the first and chief of the two objects toward which
Farragut was to co-operate. After manifold efforts and failures, the
combined forces of the United States had at last sundered the
Confederacy in twain along the principal one of those natural strategic
lines which intersected it, and which make the strength or the weakness
of States according as they are able or unable to hold them against an
enemy. Of the two fragments, the smaller was militarily important only
as a feeder to the other. Severed from the body to which they belonged,
the seceded States west of the Mississippi sank into insignificance; the
fire that had raged there would smoulder and die of itself, now that a
broad belt which could not be passed interposed between it and the
greater conflagration in the East.
It next became the task of the Union forces to hold firmly, by adequate
defensive measures, the line they had gained; while the great mass of
troops heretofore employed along the Mississippi in offensive
operations were transferred farther east, to drive yet another column
through a second natural line of cleavage from Nashville, through
Georgia, to the Gulf or to the Atlantic seaboard. How this new work was
performed under the successive leadership of Rosecrans, Grant, and
Sherman, does not fall within the scope of the present work. Although
the light steamers of the Mississippi squadron did good and often
important service in this distant inland region, the river work of
Farragut's heavy sea-going ships was now over. In furtherance of the
great object of opening the Mississippi, they had left their native
element, and, braving alike a treacherous navigation and hostile
batteries, had penetrated deep into the vitals of the Confederacy. This
great achievement wrought, they turned their prows again seaward. The
formal transfer to Admiral Porter of the command over the whole
Mississippi and its tributaries, above New Orleans, signalized the fact
that Farragut's sphere of action was to be thenceforth on the coast; for
New Orleans, though over a hundred miles from the mouth of a tideless
river, whose waters flow ever downward to the sea, was nevertheless
substantially a sea-coast city.
As the opening of the Mississippi was the more important of the two
objects embraced in Farragut's orders, so did it also offer him the
ampler field for the display of those highest qualities of a general
officer which he abundantly possessed. The faculty of seizing upon the
really decisive points of a situation, of correctly appreciating the
conditions of the problem before him, of discerning whether the proper
moment for action was yet distant or had already arrived, and of moving
with celerity and adequate dispositions when the time did come--all
these distinctive gifts of the natural commander-in-chief had been
called into play, by the difficult questions arising in connection with
the stupendous work of breaking the shackles by which the Confederates
held the Mississippi chained. The task that still remained before him,
the closing of the Confederate seaports within the limits of his
command, though arduous and wearisome, did not make the same demand upon
these more intellectual qualities. The sphere was more contracted, more
isolated. It had fewer relations to the great military operations going
on elsewhere, and, being in itself less complex, afforded less interest
to the strategist. It involved, therefore, less of the work of the
military leader which was so congenial to his aptitudes, and more of
that of the administrator, to him naturally distasteful.
Nevertheless, as the complete fulfilment of his orders necessitated the
reduction of a fortified seaport, he found in this undertaking the
opportunity for showing a degree of resolution and presence of mind
which was certainly not exceeded--perhaps not even equaled--in his
previous career. At Mobile it was the tactician, the man of instant
perception and ready action, rather than he of clear insight and careful
planning, that is most conspicuous. On the same occasion, with actual
disaster incurred and imminent confusion threatening his fleet, combined
with a resistance sturdier than any he had yet encountered, the
admiral's firmness and tenacity rose equal to the highest demand ever
made upon them. In the lofty courage and stern determination which
plucked victory out of the very jaws of defeat, the battle of Mobile
Bay was to the career of Farragut what the battle of Copenhagen was to
that of Nelson. Perhaps we may even say, borrowing the words of an
eloquent French writer upon the latter event, the battle of Mobile will
always be in the eyes of seamen Farragut's surest claim to glory.[W]
[Footnote W: "The campaign of the Baltic will always be in the eyes of
seamen Nelson's fairest claim to glory. He alone was capable of
displaying such boldness and such perseverance; he alone could face the
immense difficulties of that enterprise and triumph over them."--Jurien
de la Gravière, _Guerres Maritimes_.]
Up to the time of Farragut's departure for the North, in August, 1863,
the blockade of the Gulf sea-coast within the limits of his command,
though technically effective, had for the most part only been enforced
by the usual method of cruising or anchoring off the entrances of the
ports. Such a watch, however, is a very imperfect substitute for the
iron yoke that is imposed by holding all the principal harbors, the
gateways for communication with the outer world. This was clearly enough
realized; and the purpose of Farragut, as of his Government, had been so
to occupy the ports within his district. At one time, in December, 1862,
he was able to say exultingly that he did so hold the whole coast,
except Mobile; but the disasters at Galveston and Sabine Pass quickly
intervened, and those ports remained thenceforth in the hands of the
enemy. On the Texas coast, however, blockade-running properly so
called--the entrance, that is, of blockaded Confederate harbors--was a
small matter compared with the flourishing contraband trade carried on
through the Mexican port Matamoras and across the Rio Grande. When
Farragut's lieutenant, Commodore Henry H. Bell, visited this remote and
ordinarily deserted spot in May, 1863, he counted sixty-eight sails at
anchor in the offing and a forest of smaller craft inside the river,
some of which were occupied in loading and unloading the outside
shipping; to such proportions had grown the trade of a town which
neither possessed a harbor nor a back country capable of sustaining such
a traffic. Under proper precautions by the parties engaged, this, though
clearly hostile, was difficult to touch; but it also became of
comparatively little importance when the Mississippi fell.
Not so with Mobile. As port after port was taken, as the lines of the
general blockade drew closer and closer, the needs of the Confederacy
for the approaching death-struggle grew more and more crying, and the
practicable harbors still in their hands became proportionately valuable
and the scenes of increasing activity. After the fall of New Orleans and
the evacuation of Pensacola, in the spring of 1862, Mobile was by far
the best port on the Gulf coast left to the Confederates. Though
admitting a less draught of water than the neighboring harbor of
Pensacola, it enjoyed the advantage over it of excellent water
communications with the interior; two large rivers with extensive
tributary systems emptying into its bay. Thanks to this circumstance, it
had become a place of very considerable trade, ranking next to New
Orleans in the Gulf; and its growing commerce, in turn, reacted upon the
communications by promoting the development of its railroad system. The
region of which Mobile was the natural port did not depend for its
importance only upon agricultural products; under somewhat favorable
conditions it had developed some manufacturing interests in which the
Southern States were generally very deficient, and which afterward found
active employment in the construction of the Tennessee, the most
formidable ironclad vessel built by the Confederates.
For all these reasons the tenure of Mobile became a matter of serious
consequence to the enemy; and, as Farragut had from the first foreseen,
they made active use of the respite afforded them by the unfortunate
obstinacy of the Navy Department in refusing him permission to attack
after New Orleans fell. The enterprise then was by no means as difficult
as the passage of the Mississippi forts just effected; and once
captured, the holding of the harbor would require only the small number
of troops necessary to garrison the powerful masonry fort which
commanded the main ship channel, supported by a naval force much less
numerous than that required to blockade outside. The undertaking was
therefore not open to the objection of unduly exposing the troops and
ships placed in unfortified or poorly fortified harbors, which received
such a sad illustration at Galveston; but it was dropped, owing, first,
to the preoccupation of the Government with its expectations of
immediately reducing the Mississippi, and afterward to the fear of
losing ships which at that time could not be replaced. Hesitation to
risk their ships and to take decisive action when seasonable opportunity
offers, is the penalty paid by nations which practise undue economy in
their preparations for war. When at last it became urgent to capture
Mobile before the powerful ironclad then building was completed, the
preparations of the defense were so far advanced that ironclad vessels
were needed for the attack; and before these could be, or at least
before they were, supplied, the Tennessee, which by rapid action might
have been forestalled like the similar vessel at New Orleans, was ready
for battle. Had she been used with greater wisdom by those who directed
her movements, she might have added very seriously to the embarrassment
of the United States admiral.
When Farragut, after an absence of nearly six months, returned to his
station in January, 1864, it was with the expectation of a speedy attack
upon Mobile. On his way to New Orleans he stopped off the bar, and on
the 20th of January made a reconnaissance with a couple of gunboats,
approaching to a little more than three miles from the forts commanding
the entrance. He then reported to the department that he was satisfied
that, if he had one ironclad, he could destroy the whole of the enemy's
force in the bay, and then reduce the forts at leisure with the
co-operation of about five thousand troops. "But without ironclads," he
added, "we should not be able to fight the enemy's vessels of that class
with much prospect of success, as the latter would lie on the flats,
where our ships could not get at them. By reference to the chart you
will see how small a space there is for the ships to manoeuvre. Wooden
vessels can do nothing with the ironclads, unless by getting within one
or two hundred yards, so as to ram them or pour in a broadside." He
repeats the information given by a refugee, that the ironclad Nashville
would not be ready before March, and that the Confederate admiral
announced that when she was he would raise the blockade. "It is
depressing," he adds, "to see how easily false reports circulate, and
in what a state of alarm the community is kept by the most absurd
rumors. If the Department could get one or two ironclads here, it would
put an end to this state of things and restore confidence to the people
of the ports now in our possession. I feel no apprehension about
Buchanan's raising the blockade; but, with such a force as he has in the
bay, it would be unwise to take in our wooden vessels without the means
of fighting the enemy on an equal footing." Having made this
reconnaissance, he went on to New Orleans, arriving there January 22d.
It appears, therefore, that, regarded as a naval question, Farragut
considered the time had gone by for an attempt to run the forts of
Mobile Bay, and that it would not return until some ironclads were
furnished him by the Department. The capture of the forts he at no time
expected, except by the same means as he had looked to for the reduction
of those in the Mississippi--that is, by a combined military and naval
operation. In both cases the navy was to plant itself across the enemy's
communications, which it could do by running the gantlet of his guns. It
then remained for the land forces either to complete the investment and
await their fall by the slow process of famine, or to proceed with a
regular siege covered by the fleet. Without the protection of the ships
in the bay, the army would be continually harassed by the light gunboats
of the enemy, and very possibly exposed to attack by superior force.
Without the troops, the presence of the ships inside would be powerless
to compel the surrender of the works, or to prevent their receiving some
supplies. But in the two years that had very nearly elapsed since
Farragut, if permitted his own wish, would have attacked, the
strengthening of the works and the introduction of the ironclads had
materially altered the question. He was, it is true, misinformed as to
the readiness of the latter. The vessels that were dignified by that
name when he first returned to his station, took no part in the defense,
either of the bay or, later, of the city. He was deceived, probably,
from the fact that the Confederates themselves were deceived, with the
exception of a few who had more intimate knowledge of their real value;
and consequently the reports that were brought off agreed in giving them
a character which they did not deserve.
An attack upon Mobile had been a cherished project with General Grant
after the fall of Vicksburg. It was to that--and not to the unfortunate
Red River expedition of 1864--that he would have devoted Banks's army in
the Southwest; moving it, of course, in concert with, so as to support
and be supported by, the other great operations which took place that
year--Sherman's advance upon Atlanta and his own against Richmond. It
was to Mobile, and not to Savannah, that he first looked as the point
toward which Sherman would act after the capture of Atlanta; the line
from Atlanta to Mobile would be that along which, by the control of the
intervening railroad systems, the Confederacy would again be cleft in
twain, as by the subjugation of the Mississippi. For this reason chiefly
he had, while still only commander of the Army of the Tennessee, and
before he succeeded to the lieutenant-generalship and the command of all
the armies, strenuously opposed the Red River expedition; which he
looked upon as an ex-centric movement, tending rather to keep alive the
war across the Mississippi, which would fade if left alone, and likely
to result in the troops engaged not getting back in time or in condition
to act against Mobile.
As Grant feared, so it happened. The expedition being already organized
and on the point of starting when he became commander-in-chief, he
allowed it to proceed; but it ended in disaster, and was the cause of
forty thousand good troops being unavailable for the decisive operations
which began two months later. Not until the end of July could a force be
spared even for the minor task of reducing the Mobile forts; and until
then Farragut had to wait in order to attack to any purpose. By the time
the army in the Southwest, in the command of which General Canby
relieved Banks on the 20th of May, was again ready to move, Sherman had
taken Atlanta, Hood had fallen upon his communications with Chattanooga,
and the famous march to the sea had been determined. Farragut's battle
in Mobile Bay therefore did not prove to be, as Grant had hoped, and as
his passage of the Mississippi forts had been, a step in a series of
grand military operations, by which the United States forces should gain
control of a line vital to the Confederacy, and again divide it into two
fragments. It remained an isolated achievement, though one of great
importance, converting Mobile from a maritime to an inland city, putting
a stop to all serious blockade-running in the Gulf, and crushing finally
the enemy's ill-founded hopes of an offensive movement by ironclads
there equipped.
[Illustration: Entrance of Rear-Admiral Farragut's Fleet into
Mobile Bay, August 5, 1864.
REFERENCE
1. Tecumseh.
2. Manhattan.
3. Winnebago.
4. Chickasaw.
5. Brooklyn.
6. Octorora.
7. Hartford, Flag-ship.
8. Metacomet.
9. Richmond.
10. Port Royal.
11. Lackawanna.
12. Seminole.
13. Admiral's barge Loyall.
14. Monongahela.
15. Kennebec.
16. Ossipee.
17. Itasca.
18. Oneida.
19. Galena.
------ Course of chasing vessels.
...... Course of chased vessels.
EXPLANATION OF DIAGRAM FROM THE FIVE STANDPOINTS OF THE MOBILE FIGHT.
No. 1. Ships lashed together and running in from sea and the
monitors running out of Monitor Bay to take their station inside
or eastward of the line.
No. 2. Running up the channel in line of battle, and engaging
Fort Morgan, leading ship Brooklyn encounters what she supposes
to be torpedoes; monitor Tecumseh is struck by one and sinks;
Brooklyn backs astern, causing confusion; Flag-ship takes the
lead and passes up and engages the ram Tennessee and the
gunboats of the enemy.
No. 3. Running fight with the enemy's fleet, which ends in the
capture of one, destruction of another, and the ram and one
gunboat take shelter again under Fort Morgan.
No. 4. Fleet pass up and are in the act of anchoring when the
ram Tennessee is seen coming out to attack them.
No. 5. Shows the manner the attack was made by the fleet upon
the ram by ramming her in succession and keeping up a constant
fire upon her at the same time.
The points of contact are shown by the sketch in the northeast
corner of the plate.
D. G. Farragut.
_Washington, D. C. March 1, 1865._
De Krafft's flotilla bombarding Fort Powell.]
The city of Mobile is itself some thirty miles from the Gulf, near the
head of a broad but generally shallow bay which bears the same name.
The principal entrance from the Gulf is between Mobile Point--a long,
narrow, sandy beach which projects from the east side of the bay--and
Dauphin Island, one of a chain which runs parallel to the coast of
Mississippi and encloses Mississippi Sound. At the end of Mobile Point
stands Fort Morgan, the principal defense of the bay, for the main ship
channel passes close under its guns. At the eastern end of Dauphin
Island stood a much smaller work, called Fort Gaines. Between this and
Fort Morgan the distance is nearly three miles; but a bank of hard sand
making out from the island prevents vessels of any considerable size
approaching it nearer than two miles. Between Dauphin Island and the
mainland there are some shoal channels, by which vessels of very light
draft can pass from Mississippi Sound into the bay. These were not
practicable for the fighting vessels of Farragut's fleet; but a small
earthwork known as Fort Powell had been thrown up to command the deepest
of them, called Grant's Pass.
The sand bank off Dauphin Island extends south as well as east, reaching
between four and five miles from the entrance. A similar shoal stretches
out to the southward from Mobile Point. Between the two lies the main
ship channel, varying in width from seven hundred and fifty yards, three
miles outside, to two thousand, or about a sea mile, abreast Fort
Morgan. Nearly twenty-one feet can be carried over the bar; and after
passing Fort Morgan the channel spreads, forming a hole or pocket of
irregular contour, about four miles deep by two wide, in which the depth
is from twenty to twenty-four feet. Beyond this hole, on either side
the bay and toward the city, the water shoals gradually but
considerably, and the heavier of Farragut's ships could not act outside
of its limits. The Confederate ironclad Tennessee, on the contrary,
drawing but fourteen feet, had a more extensive field of operations open
to her, and, from the gradual diminution of the soundings, was able to
take her position at a distance where the most formidable of her
opponents could neither follow her nor penetrate her sides with their
shot.
Between the city and the lower bay there were extensive flats, over
which not even the fourteen feet of the Tennessee could be taken; and
these in one part, called Dog River Bar, shoaled to as little as nine
feet. To bring the Tennessee into action for the defense of the entrance
and of the lower bay, it was necessary to carry her across these
flats--an undertaking requiring both time and mechanical appliances,
neither of which would be available if an enemy were inside to molest
the operations. As the Tennessee was distinctly the most formidable
element in the dangers Farragut had to encounter, and as the character
of the soundings gave her a field of action peculiarly suited to utilize
her especial powers, which consisted in the strength of her sides and
the long range of her heavy rifled guns, it was particularly desirable
to anticipate her crossing the upper bar by the fleet itself crossing
the lower. That done, the Tennessee was reduced to impotence. It was not
done, for two reasons. First, the Navy Department did not send the
ironclads which Farragut demanded; and second, the army in the
Southwest, having wasted its strength in a divergent operation, was
unable to supply the force necessary to reduce Fort Morgan. That the
delay was not productive of more serious consequences was due to the
impatience or recklessness of the Confederate admiral, and to the energy
with which Farragut seized the opportunity afforded by his mistake.
Six months passed before the moment for decisive action arrived. Though
devoid of military interest, they were far from being months of idleness
or enjoyment. The administrative duties of so large a command drew
heavily upon the time and energies of the admiral, and, as has been
said, they were not congenial to him. When the Tennessee crossed Dog
River Bar, which she did on the 18th of May, Farragut felt that he must
be on the spot, in case she attempted to execute her threat of coming
out to break up the blockade; but up to that time he was moving actively
from point to point of his command, between New Orleans on the one side,
and Pensacola, now become his principal base, on the other. From time to
time he was off Mobile, and for more than two months preceding the
battle of the Bay he lay off the port in all the dreary monotony of
blockade service. The clerical labor attaching to the large force and
numerous interests entrusted to him was immense. Every mail brought him,
of course, numerous communications from the Department. "I received your
letter last evening," he writes to a member of his family, "but at the
same time received so many from the Department that my eyes were used up
before I came to yours, so that mine to you will be short and badly
written." A very large part of this correspondence consisted of letters
from United States consuls abroad, forwarded through the State
Department, giving particulars of vessels fitting or loading for the
Confederacy or to break the blockade. "Nearly all my clerical force is
broken down," he writes on another occasion. "The fact is, I never saw
so much writing; and yet Drayton, who does as much as any of them, says
it is all necessary. So I tell them to go on. I do not mind signing my
name. Although I write all my own letters, some one has to copy them. My
fleet is so large now that it keeps us all at work the whole time."
But while he spoke thus lightly of his own share in these labors, the
confinement, the necessary attention to and study of larger details,
even while he intrusted the minor to others, and the unavoidable
anxieties of a man who had so many important irons in the fire, and at
the same time was approaching his sixty-fourth year, told upon him. To
this he bore witness when, after the capture of the Mobile forts, the
Department desired him to take command of the North Atlantic fleet, with
a view to the reduction of Wilmington, North Carolina. "They must think
I am made of iron," he wrote home. "I wrote the Secretary a long letter,
telling him that my health was not such as to justify my going to a new
station to commence new organizations; that I must have rest for my mind
and exercise for my body; that I had been down here within two months of
five years, out of six, and recently six months on constant blockade off
this port, _and my mind on the stretch all the time_; and now to
commence a blockade again on the Atlantic coast! Why, even the routine
of duty for a fleet of eighty sail of vessels works us all to death; and
but that I have the most industrious fleet-captain and secretary, it
would never be half done. It is difficult to keep things straight." "I
know," he writes on another occasion, "that few men could have gone
through what I have in the last three years, and no one ever will know
except yourself perhaps.... What the fight was to my poor brains,
neither you nor any one else will ever be able to comprehend. Six months
constantly watching day and night for an enemy; to know him to be as
brave, as skilful, and as determined as myself; who was pledged to his
Government and the South to drive me away and raise the blockade, and
free the Mississippi from our rule. While I was equally pledged to my
Government that I would capture or destroy the rebel."
Besides his labors and the official anxieties due to his individual
command, he again, as in 1862, felt deeply the misfortunes with which
the general campaign of 1864 opened, and especially in the Southwest.
There was continually present to the minds of the leaders of the United
States forces during the war the apprehension that the constancy of the
people might fail; that doubtful issues might lead to a depression that
would cause the abandonment of the contest, in which success was
nevertheless assured to perseverance and vigor. Grant's memoirs bear
continual testimony to the statesmanlike regard he had, in planning his
greater military operations, to this important factor in the war, the
vacillation under uncertainty of that popular support upon which success
depended. The temperament of Farragut reflected readily the ups and
downs of the struggle, and was saddened by the weaknesses and
inconsistencies of his own side, which he keenly appreciated. "I am
_depressed_," he writes, "by the bad news from every direction. The
enemy seem to be bending their whole soul and body to the war and
whipping us in every direction. What a disgrace that, with their slender
means, they should, after three years, contend with us from one end of
the country to the other!... _I get right sick_, every now and then, at
the bad news." "The victory of the Kearsarge over the Alabama," on a
more auspicious occasion, "raised me up. I would sooner have fought that
fight than any ever fought on the ocean"; and his exultation was the
greater that the first lieutenant of the Kearsarge had been with him in
the same capacity when the Hartford passed the Mississippi forts.
But, while thus sensitive to the vicissitudes of his country's fortunes,
he did not readily entertain the thought of being himself defeated. "As
to being prepared for defeat," he wrote before New Orleans, "I certainly
am not. Any man who is prepared for defeat would be half defeated before
he commenced. I hope for success; shall do all in my power to secure it,
and trust to God for the rest." And again: "The officers say I don't
believe anything. I certainly believe very little that comes in the
shape of reports. They keep everybody stirred up. I mean to be whipped
or to whip my enemy, and not to be scared to death." "I hope for the
best results," he wrote a week before forcing the passage into Mobile
Bay, "as I am always hopeful; put my shoulder to the wheel with my best
judgment, and trust to God for the rest"; or, in more homely language:
"Everything has a weak spot, and the first thing I try to do is to find
out where it is, and pitch into it with the biggest shell or shot that I
have, and repeat the dose until it operates." "The Confederates at Fort
Morgan are making great preparations to receive us. That concerns me but
little"--words used not in a spirit of mere light-heartedness, but
because it was a condition he had from the first accepted, and over
which he hoped to triumph; for he continues, "I know they will do all in
their power to destroy us, and we will reciprocate the compliment. I
hope to give them a fair fight if once I get inside. I expect nothing
from them but that they will try to blow me up if they can."
Amid such cares and in such a spirit were spent the six months of
monotonous outside blockade preceding the great victory that crowned his
active career. The only relief to its weariness was a bombardment of
Fort Powell, undertaken by the light-draft steamers of the squadron from
Mississippi Sound in February, to create a diversion in favor of
Sherman's raid from Vicksburg upon Meridian, which was then in progress.
The boats could not get nearer to the work than four thousand yards, and
even then were aground; so that no very serious effect was produced. A
greater and more painful excitement was aroused by the misfortunes of
the Red River expedition in April and May. Begun on unsound military
principles, but designed politically to assert against French intrigues
the claim of the United States to Texas, that ill-omened enterprise
culminated in a retreat which well-nigh involved the Mississippi
squadron in an overwhelming disaster. The Red River was unusually low
for the season, and falling instead of rising. There was not, when the
army retired, water enough to enable the gun-boats which had ascended
the river to repass the rapids at Alexandria. The army could delay but
for a limited time, at the end of which, if the boats had not passed,
they must be left to their fate. Farragut, who was in New Orleans when
the news arrived, wrote bitterly about the blunders made, and was sorely
distressed for the issue to the navy. "I have no spirit to write," he
says. "I have had such long letters from Porter and Banks, and find
things so bad with them that I don't know how to help them. I am afraid
Porter, with all his energy, will lose some of his finest vessels. I
have just sent him some boats to help him." The boats, however, were
saved by the skill and energy of Colonel Joseph Bailey, the
chief-of-engineers in Franklin's corps of Banks's army; by whom was
thrown across the river a dam, which raised the water on the shoals
sufficiently for the boats to cross.
A more pleasant incident occurred to vary the sameness of the blockade
days, in the presentation to the admiral, by the Union League Club of
New York, of a very handsome sword, with scabbard of massive gold and
silver, the hilt set in brilliants. The gift was accompanied by a letter
expressive of the givers' appreciation of the brilliant services
rendered to the nation, and was a grateful reminder to Farragut, then
watching before Mobile for his last grapple with the enemy in his front,
that his fellow-countrymen in their homes were not wanting in
recognition of the dangers he had incurred, nor of those he was still
facing on their behalf.
The time was now close at hand when the weary and anxious waiting, which
the admiral afterward so feelingly described, was to be exchanged for
the more vigorous action he had so long desired. The co-operation of a
division from Canby's army was assured toward the end of July; and at
the same time the long-promised, long-delayed monitor ironclads began to
arrive. As the want of these and the presence of the enemy's ironclads
had been the reasons which, in Farragut's opinion, had made necessary
the postponement of the purely naval part of the combined operation, a
short description of the vessels which formed so potent an element in
his calculations will not be out of place.
The idea of the monitor type of ironclads, which was then the prevalent
one in the United States Navy, was brought by John Ericsson from his
home in Sweden, where it had been suggested to him by the sight of the
rafts with a house upon them crossing the waters with which he was
familiar. In its conception, the monitor was simply a round fort,
heavily plated with iron, resting upon a raft nearly flush with the
water, and provided with the motive power of steam. The forts, or
turrets, as they are commonly called, might be one or more in number;
and each carried usually two heavy guns, standing side by side and
pointing in exactly the same direction, so that if discharged together
the projectiles would follow parallel courses. Within the turret the
guns could be turned neither to the right nor to the left; if such a
change of aim were wished, the turret itself was revolved by steam
machinery provided for the purpose. When loading, the port through which
the gun was fired was turned away from the enemy; so that if a shot
happened to strike at that time it fell on the solid armor. Above the
gun-turret there was a second of much smaller diameter, which did not
revolve. It was also heavily plated and designed to shelter the
commanding officer and those charged with the steering of the ship. So
much inconvenience was, however, experienced from smoke and from
concussion when these steering turrets were struck, and their dimensions
were so contracted, that many captains preferred to remain outside,
where they could see better, their orders being transmitted to the
helmsmen through the sight-holes pierced in the armor. Of these
ironclads, four accompanied Farragut in his attack upon Mobile Bay. Two,
the Tecumseh and Manhattan, came from the Atlantic coast, and were
sea-going monitors. They had each but one turret, in which they carried
two fifteen-inch guns, the heaviest then in use afloat. The other two
were river monitors, built at St. Louis for service in the Mississippi.
They were consequently of light draught, so much so that to obtain the
necessary motive power they each had four screw propellers of small
diameter, and they carried four eleven-inch guns in two turrets. Their
names were the Winnebago and the Chickasaw. The armor of the two
single-turreted monitors was ten inches thick, and that of the river
monitors eight and a half inches.
The Tennessee, to which these were to be opposed, was a vessel of
different type, and one to which the few ironclads built by the
Confederates for the most part conformed--called commonly the broadside
ironclad, because the guns, like those of ships-of-war generally, were
disposed chiefly along the sides. Her hull was built at Selma, on the
Alabama River, and thence towed to Mobile to be plated; it being
desirable to take her down the river while as light as possible. She was
two hundred and nine feet long and forty-eight feet wide, drawing, as
has been said, fourteen feet when loaded. Upon her deck, midway between
the bow and the stern, was a house seventy-nine feet long, whose sides
and ends sloped at an angle of thirty-four degrees and were covered with
iron plating, six inches thick on the forward end and five inches thick
on the other end and the sides. With the inclination given, a cannon
ball striking would be likely to be turned upward by the iron surface,
instead of penetrating. The sloping sides of the house were carried down
beyond the point where they met those of the vessel, until two feet
below the water. There they turned and struck in at the same angle
toward the hull, which they again met six or seven feet under water.
Thus was formed all round the ship a knuckle, which, being filled-in
solid and covered with iron, was a very perfect protection against any
but the most powerful ram. The Tennessee herself was fitted with a beak
and intended to ram, but, owing to the slender resources of the
Confederacy, her engines were too weak to be effective for that purpose.
She could only steam six knots. Her battery, however, was well selected
and powerful. She carried on each side two six-inch rifles, and at each
end one seven-inch rifle--six guns in all. There were, besides the
Tennessee, three wooden gunboats, and Farragut was informed that there
were also four ironclads; but this, as regards the lower bay at least,
was a mistake.
It will be seen from this account, and from the description before given
of Mobile Bay, that the advantages of the Tennessee were her great
protective strength, a draught which enabled her to choose her own
position relatively to the heaviest of the enemy's ships, and the
superior range and penetrative power of her guns, being rifles; for
while there were cannon of this type in the United States fleet, the
great majority of them were smooth bores. The ironclads opposed to her
had only smooth-bore guns, incapable of penetrating her side, and
therefore only able to reduce her by a continued pounding, which might
shake her frame to pieces. The chief defects of the Tennessee as a
harbor-defense ship, for which she was mainly intended, were her very
inferior speed, and the fact that, by an oversight, her steering chains
were left exposed to the enemy's shot. This combination of strong and
weak points constituted her tactical qualities, which should have
determined the use made of her in the impending battle.
Although the ironclads were, as Farragut esteemed them, the controlling
factors in the defense and attack, the Tennessee was by no means the
only very formidable obstacle in the way of his success. Except the
ironclads, the fleet he carried into Mobile Bay was not substantially
stronger than that with which he fought his way up the Mississippi; but
since that time the enemy had done much to strengthen the works which he
now had to encounter. The number of heavy guns in Fort Morgan bearing
upon the channel was thirty-eight. In Fort Jackson, excluding the
obsolete caliber of twenty-four pounders, there were twenty-seven, and
in St. Philip twenty-one--total, forty-eight; but in caliber and
efficiency those of Morgan were distinctly superior to those of the
river forts, and it may be considered an advantage that the power was
here concentrated in a single work under a single hand. The gunners of
Fort Morgan, moreover, had not been exposed to the exhausting
harassment of a most efficient bombardment, extending over the six days
prior to the final demand upon their energies. They came fresh to their
work, and suffered during its continuance from no distraction except
that caused by the fire of the fleet itself. While, therefore, Fort
Gaines could not be considered to support Morgan by any deterrent or
injurious influence upon the United States fleet, the latter work was by
itself superior in offensive power to the two Mississippi forts.
To the general defense the Confederates had here brought two other
factors, one of a most important and as yet unknown power. As the sand
bank extending eastward from Dauphin Island was to some extent passable
by light gunboats, a line of piles was driven in the direction of Fort
Morgan nearly to the edge of the channel. Where the piles stopped a
triple line of torpedoes began, following the same general course, and
ending only at a hundred yards from Fort Morgan, where a narrow opening
was left for the passage of friendly vessels--blockade runners and
others. Had the electrical appliances of the Confederacy been at that
time more highly developed, this narrow gap would doubtless also have
been filled with mines, whose explosion depended upon operators ashore.
As it was, the torpedo system employed at Mobile, with some few possible
exceptions, was solely mechanical; the explosion depended upon contact
by the passing vessel with the mine. To insure this, the line was
triple; those in the second and third rows not being in the alignment of
the first, but so placed as to fill the interstices and make almost
impracticable the avoidance of all three torpedoes belonging to the
same group.
These arrangements were sufficiently well known to Farragut through
information brought by refugees or deserters. They--the power of the
works, the disposition of the torpedoes, the Tennessee and her
companions--constituted the elements of the problem which he had to
solve to get his fleet safely past the obstacles into the bay. Although
not disposed to lay as much stress as others upon the torpedoes, which
were then but an imperfectly developed weapon, prudence dictated to him
the necessity of passing between them and the fort; and this was
fortunately in accordance with the sound policy which dictates that
wooden vessels engaging permanent works, less liable than themselves to
penetration, should get as close as possible to the enemy, whose fire
they may then beat down by the rapidity of their own. There were certain
black buoys floating across the channel, between the piles and Fort
Morgan, and it was understood that these marked the position of the
torpedoes. The admiral's flag-lieutenant, Lieutenant (now Captain) John
C. Watson, had examined these buoys in several nightly reconnaissances;
but, although he had not been able to discover any of the mines, the
assurances of their existence could not be disregarded. His examination
doubtless had some effect upon the admiral's instant determination, in
the unforeseen emergency that arose during the action, to pass over the
spot where the hidden dangers were said to lie; but in the dispositions
for battle the order was given for the fleet to pass eastward of the
easternmost buoy, where no torpedoes would be found.
The closeness of this approach, however, and the fact that the line of
the channel led in at right angles to the entrance, had the disadvantage
of obstructing the fire of the broadside wooden vessels, in which the
offensive strength of the fleet, outside the monitors, consisted. The
guns of those ships, being disposed along the sides, were for the most
part able to bear only upon an enemy abreast of them, with a small
additional angle of train toward ahead or astern. It was not, therefore,
until nearly up with the fort that these numerous cannon would come into
play, and exercise that preponderating effect which had driven off the
gunners at Forts St. Philip and Jackson. This inconvenience results from
the construction of such ships, and can only be overcome by a movement
of the helm causing the ship to diverge from her course; a resort which
led a witty Frenchman to say that a ship-of-war so situated is like a
shark, that can only bite by turning on its back. The remedy, however
applicable under certain circumstances and in the case of a single ship,
causes delay, and therefore is worse than the evil for a fleet advancing
to the attack of forts, where the object must be to close as rapidly as
possible. There are, however, on board such vessels a few guns, mounted
forward and called chase guns, which, from the rounding of the bows,
bear sooner than the others upon the enemy toward whom they are moving.
To support these and concentrate from the earliest moment as effective a
fire as possible upon the works, Farragut brought his ironclads inside
of the wooden vessels, and abreast the four leaders of that column. The
heavy guns of the monitors could fire all around the horizon, from right
ahead to right astern; and the disposition had the additional great
advantage that, in the critical passage inside the torpedo buoys, these
all-important vessels would be on the safer side, the wooden ships
interposing between them and the sunken dangers, which threatened an
injury far more instantaneous and vital than any to be feared from the
enemy's shot and shell.
The position of the ironclads being determined by these considerations,
the arrangement of the wooden ships for the attack conformed to the
admiral's principle, that the greatest security was to be found in
concentrating upon the enemy the heaviest fire attainable from his own
guns. As at Port Hudson, a large proportion of the fourteen vessels he
purposed to take in with him were of the gunboat class, or a little
above it. Resort was accordingly again had to the double column adopted
there; the seven ships that had the most powerful batteries forming the
right column to engage Fort Morgan. The lighter ones were distributed in
the other column, and lashed each to one of the heavier ships, in an
order probably designed, though it is not expressly so stated, to make
the combined steam power of the several pairs as nearly equal as
possible. Among the gunboats there were three that had side-wheel
engines, the machinery of which is necessarily more above water, and so
more exposed than that of a screw--a condition which, although their
batteries were powerful for their tonnage, emphasized the necessity of
sheltering them behind other ships during the furious few minutes of
passing under the guns of the fort.
The sum of these various considerations thus resulted in the fleet
advancing into action in a column of pairs, in which the heaviest ships
led in the fighting column. To this the admiral was probably induced by
the reflection that the first broadsides are half the battle, and the
freshest attack of the enemy should be met by the most vigorous
resistance on his own part; but it is open to doubt whether one of these
powerful vessels would not have been better placed in the rear. Upon a
resolute enemy, the effect of each ship is simply to drive him to cover
while she passes, to resume his activity when relieved from the pressure
of her fire. The case is not strictly similar to the advance of a column
of troops upon a fortified position, where the head does the most of the
fighting, and the rear mainly contributes inertia to the movement of the
mass. It is at least open to argument that a fire progressively
diminishing from van to rear is not, for the passage of permanent works,
a disposition as good as a weight of battery somewhat more equally
distributed, with, however, a decided preponderance in the van. The last
of the ships in this column received a shot in the boiler, which
entirely disabled her--an accident that may have been purely fortuitous,
and to which any one of her predecessors was in a degree liable, but
also possibly due to the greater activity of the enemy when no longer
scourged by the more powerful batteries which preceded. She was saved
from the more serious results of this disaster, and the squadron spared
the necessity of rallying to her support, by the other admirable
precautions dictated by Farragut's forethought.
Subjected thus to analysis, there seems much to praise and very little
to criticise in the tactical dispositions made by the admiral on this
momentous occasion. But the tactical dispositions, though most
important, are not the only considerations; it is the part of the
commander-in-chief to take advantage of any other circumstances that may
make in his favor. Until the forts were passed the character of the
bottom left Farragut no choice as to the direction of his attack. There
was but one road to take, and the only other question was the order in
which to arrange his ships. But there were two conditions not entirely
within his control, yet sure to occur in time, which he considered too
advantageous to be overlooked. He wanted a flood tide, which would help
a crippled vessel past the works; and also a west wind, which would blow
the smoke from the scene of battle and upon Fort Morgan, thereby giving
to the pilots, upon whom so much depended, and to the gunners of the
ships, the advantage of clearer sight. The time of the tide, in most
quarters a matter of simple calculation, is in the Gulf often affected
by the wind. The wind, on the other hand, in the summer months, blows
from the south during the early morning, and then works round to the
westward; so that the chances were in favor of his obtaining his wishes.
The dispositions taken by the Confederates to meet the assault which
they saw to be impending were more simple; they having but a small
mobile force, and their fortifications being tied to their places. A
seaport liable to attack is a battle-field, in utilizing whose natural
features, so as to present the strongest tactical combination against
entrance or subjection by an enemy, the skill of the engineer is shown;
but, unlike battle-fields in general, much time and study is allowed to
develop his plans. In the case of Mobile Bay, the narrow and direct
character of the approach by the main ship channel left little
opportunity for skill to display itself. To place at the end of Mobile
Point the heaviest fort, enfilading the channel, and to confine the
latter to the narrowest bed, compelling the assailant into the most
unfavorable route, were measures too obvious to escape the most
incapable. To obtain the utmost advantage from this approach of the
enemy, the little naval force was advanced from Mobile Point, so as to
stretch at right angles across the channel just within the torpedo line.
There, without being incommoded by the fire of the fort, or in any way
embarrassing it, they secured a clear sweep for their guns, raking their
opponents; who, being for the time unable to deviate from their course,
could not reply to this galling attack. By gradually retiring, the
Confederate gunboats could retain this superiority during the advance of
their foes, until the latter reached the wide hole within, where there
was room to manoeuvre. This position and the subsequent course of
action described comprise the tactical management of the Southern
vessels during the engagement. It was well devised, and made probably
the best use of the advantages of the ground possible to so inferior a
force. The Tennessee took position with them, but her after action was
different.
As the day of the last and, with the exception of the Essex fight of his
boyhood, the most desperate battle of his life drew near, a certain
solemnity--one might almost say depression--is perceptible in the home
letters of the admiral. Had the action proved fatal to him it could
scarcely have failed to attract the attention which is similarly
arrested by the chastened tone of Nelson's life and writing immediately
before Trafalgar; and although there is certainly none of that outspoken
foreboding which marked the last day of the English hero, Farragut's
written words are in such apparent contrast to the usual buoyant,
confident temper of the man, that they would readily have been construed
into one of those presentiments with which military annals abound. "With
such a mother," he writes to his son a week before the battle, "you
could not fail to have proper sentiments of religion and virtue. I feel
that I have done my duty by you both, as far as the weakness of my
nature would allow. I have been devoted to you both, and when it pleases
God to take me hence I shall feel that I have done my duty. I am not
conscious of ever having wronged any one, and have tried to do as much
good as I could. Take care of your mother if I should go, and may God
bless and preserve you both!" The day before the action he wrote the
following letter to his wife, which, as his son remarks in his Life of
the admiral, shows that he appreciated the desperate work before him:
"FLAG-SHIP HARTFORD,
"OFF MOBILE, _August 4, 1864_.
"MY DEAREST WIFE: I write and leave this letter for you. I am
going into Mobile in the morning, if God is my leader, as I hope
he is, and in him I place my trust. If he thinks it is the proper
place for me to die, I am ready to submit to his will in that as
in all other things. My great mortification is that my vessels,
the ironclads, were not ready to have gone in yesterday. The army
landed last night, and are in full view of us this morning, and
the Tecumseh has not yet arrived from Pensacola.
"God bless and preserve you, my darling, and my dear boy, if
anything should happen to me; and may his blessings also rest
upon your dear mother, and all your sisters and their children.
"Your devoted and affectionate husband, who never for one moment
forgot his love, duty, or fidelity to you, his devoted and best
of wives,
"D. G. FARRAGUT."
A more touching and gratifying testimony of unwavering attachment, after
more than twenty years of marriage, no wife could desire. It was an
attachment also not merely professed in words, but evidenced by the
whole course of his life and conduct. Infidelity or neglect of a wife
was, in truth, in the estimation of Admiral Farragut, one of the most
serious of blots upon a man's character, drawing out always his
bitterest condemnation.
A pleasing glimpse is at this same period afforded of his relations to
the surviving members of his father's family, who still remained in or
near New Orleans, and from whom by the conditions of his profession he
had been separated since his childhood. "My dear sister," he writes,
"has sent me a Holy Virgin like the one Rose gave me. She said it was
blessed by the archbishop, who said I was good to the priests. I only
tell you this," adds the admiral dryly, "to show you that they did not
succeed in impressing the bishop with the idea that I had robbed the
church at Point Coupée." This is not the only mention of his sister
during this time, and it is evident that two years' occupation of New
Orleans by the Union forces had done much to mollify public sentiment;
for immediately after the surrender he had written home, "It is a
strange thought that I am here among my relatives, and yet not one has
dared to say 'I am happy to see you.'"
On the 8th of July General Canby, accompanied by General Granger, who
was to have immediate charge of the land operations against the Mobile
forts, had called upon the admiral to make the preliminary arrangements.
Somewhat later Canby sent word that he could not spare men enough to
invest both Gaines and Morgan at the same time; and at Farragut's
suggestion it was then decided to land first upon Dauphin Island, he
undertaking to send a gunboat to cover the movement. Granger visited him
again on the 1st of August, and as the admiral then had reason to expect
the last of his monitors by the 4th, that day was fixed for the attack
and landing. Granger was up to time, and his troops were put ashore on
the evening of the 3d; but the Tecumseh had not arrived from Pensacola.
The other three had been on hand since the 1st, anchored under the
shelter of Sand Island, three miles from Fort Morgan.
To Farragut's great mortification he was unable to carry out his part of
the programme; but on the evening of the 4th the Tecumseh arrived,
together with the Richmond, which had been for a few days at Pensacola
preparing for the fight. "I regret to have detained you, admiral," said
Craven, the commander of the monitor, "but had it not been for Captain
Jenkins (of the Richmond), God knows when I should have been here. When
your order came I had not received an ounce of coal." In his report of
the battle, Farragut warmly acknowledged the zeal and energy of Jenkins,
to which he owed the seasonable arrival of this important
re-enforcement. "He takes," he said, "as much interest in the fleet now
as formerly when he was my chief-of-staff. He is also commanding officer
of the second division of my squadron, and as such has shown ability and
the most untiring zeal.... I feel I should not be doing my duty did I
not call the attention of the Department to an officer who has performed
all his various duties with so much zeal and fidelity." Farragut has
been charged with failure to notice adequately the services of those
under him; but the foregoing words, which are not by any means
unparalleled in his dispatches, show that he could praise cordially when
he saw fitting occasion.
The night of August 4th was quiet, the sea smooth, with a light air just
rippling the surface of the water. At sundown it had been raining hard,
but toward midnight cleared off, the weather becoming hot and calm.
Later on a light air again sprang up from the southwest. The admiral was
not well, and slept restlessly. About three in the morning he called his
servant and sent him to find out how the wind was. Learning that it was
from the quarter he wished, he said, "Then we will go in in the
morning." Between four and five the lighter vessels got under way and
went alongside those to which they were to be lashed. When daybreak was
reported Farragut was already at breakfast with the captain of the
Hartford, Percival Drayton, and the fleet-surgeon, Dr. James C. Palmer,
who had left his usual post at the hospital in Pensacola to superintend
the care of those wounded in the approaching battle. It was then about
half-past five; the couples were all formed, and the admiral, still
sipping his tea, said quietly, "Well, Drayton, we might as well get
under way." The signal was made and at once acknowledged by the vessels,
which had all been awaiting it, and the seamen began to heave round on
the cables. The taking their assigned positions in the column by the
different pairs consumed some time, during which the flag-ship crossed
the bar, at ten minutes past six. At half-past six the column of wooden
vessels was formed, and the monitors were standing down from Sand Island
into their stations, in gaining which some little further delay was
caused. At this time all the ships hoisted the United States flag, not
only at the peak where it commonly flies, but at every mast-head as
well.
It had been the intention of the admiral to lead the column of wooden
vessels with his own ship; but at the earnest request of many officers,
who thought the fleet should not incur the greater risk consequent upon
having its commander in so exposed a position, he reluctantly consented
to waive his purpose, and the Brooklyn was appointed to this post of
honor. To this selection contributed also the fact that the Brooklyn had
more than the usual number of chase guns, the advantage of which has
been explained, and also an arrangement for picking up torpedoes.
Bitterly afterward did Farragut regret his yielding on this occasion. "I
believe this to be an error," he wrote in his official report of the
battle; "for, apart from the fact that exposure is one of the penalties
of rank in the navy, it will _always_ be the aim of the enemy to destroy
the flag-ship, and, as will appear in the sequel, such attempt was very
persistently made." "The fact is," he said in one of his letters home,
"had I been the obstinate man you sometimes think me, I would have led
in the fleet and saved the Tecumseh"--meaning, doubtless, that, by
interposing between that important vessel and the buoy which marked the
torpedo line, he would have prevented the error which caused her loss.
Some notes upon the action found afterward among his papers contain the
same opinion, more fully and deliberately expressed. "Allowing the
Brooklyn to go ahead was a great error. It lost not only the Tecumseh,
but many valuable lives, by keeping us under the fire of the forts for
thirty minutes; whereas, had I led, as I intended to do, I would have
gone inside the buoys, and all would have followed me." The Hartford
took the second place in the column, having secured on her port or off
side the side-wheel gunboat Metacomet, Lieutenant-Commander James E.
Jouett.
While the monitors were taking their stations, the Tecumseh, which led
their column, fired two shots at the fort. At five minutes before seven,
the order of battle now being fully formed, the fleet went ahead. Ten
minutes later Fort Morgan opened fire upon the Brooklyn, which at once
replied with her bow guns, followed very soon by those of the fighting
column of wooden ships; a brisk cannonade ensuing between them, the
monitors, and the fort. In order to see more clearly, and at the same
time to have immediately by him the persons upon whom he most depended
for governing the motions of the ship, Farragut had taken his position
in the port main-rigging. Here he had near him Captain Jouett, standing
on the wheel-house of the Metacomet, and also the pilot, who, as at
Port Hudson, had been stationed aloft, on this occasion in the maintop,
so as to see well over the smoke. As this increased and rose higher,
Farragut went up step by step until he was close under the maintop.
Here, without losing touch with Jouett, he was very near the pilot, had
the whole scene of battle spread out under his eyes, and at the same
time, by bracing himself against the futtock shrouds, was able to use
his spy-glass more freely. Captain Drayton, however, being alarmed lest
he might be thrown to the deck, directed a seaman to carry a lashing
aloft and secure him to the rigging, which the admiral, after a moment's
remonstrance, permitted. By such a simple and natural train of causes
was Farragut brought to and secured in a position which he, like any
other commander-in-chief, had sought merely in order better to see the
operations he had to direct; but popular fancy was caught by the
circumstance, and to his amusement he found that an admiral lashed to
the rigging was invested with a significance equivalent to that of
colors nailed to the mast. "The illustrated papers are very amusing," he
wrote home. "Leslie has me lashed up to the mast like a culprit, and
says, 'It is the way officers will hereafter go into battle, etc.' You
understand, I was only standing in the rigging with a rope, that dear
boy Watson had brought me up," (this was later in the action, when the
admiral had shifted his position), "saying that if I would stand there I
had better secure myself against falling; and I thanked him for his
consideration, and took a turn around and over the shrouds and around my
body for fear of being wounded, as shots were flying rather thickly."
Shortly after the monitors and the bow guns of the fleet began firing,
the enemy's gunboats and the Tennessee moved out from behind Morgan and
took their position enfilading the channel. Twenty minutes later,
through the advance of the column, the broadsides of the leading ships
began to bear upon the fort; and as these heavy batteries vomited their
iron rain the fire of the defense visibly slackened. Amid the scene of
uproar and slaughter, in which the petty Confederate flotilla, thanks to
its position of vantage, was playing a deadly part quite out of
proportion to its actual strength, the Tecumseh alone was silent. After
the first two shots fired by her, which were rather the signal of
warning than the opening of the battle, she had loaded her two guns with
steel shot, backed by the heaviest charge of powder allowed, and, thus
prepared, reserved her fire for the Tennessee alone. "I believe," wrote
Farragut in a private letter, "that the Tecumseh would have gone up and
grappled with and captured the Tennessee. Craven's heart was bent upon
it."
The two columns, of ironclads and of wooden vessels lashed together in
pairs, were now approaching the line of torpedoes and the narrow
entrance through which lay the path of safety; and the broadsides of the
heavy sloops which led--the Brooklyn, the Hartford, the
Richmond--supported by the less numerous but still powerful batteries
following, and by the guns of the turreted ironclads, overbore the fire
of the works. All promised fairly, provided the leaders of the two
columns pushed rapidly and unhesitatingly in the direction assigned
them. But almost at the same moment doubt seized them both, and led to a
double disaster. As Craven, leading the monitor column, and then about
three hundred yards in advance of the Brooklyn, drew up to the buoy, to
the eastward of which he had been directed to go, he saw it so nearly in
line with the point beyond that he could not believe it possible to
pass. "It is impossible that the admiral means us to go inside that
buoy," he said to the pilot; "I can not turn my ship." Just then the
Tennessee moved a little ahead, to the westward; and Craven, under the
double impulse of his doubt and of his fear lest the hostile ironclad
should escape him, changed his course to the left and pushed straight
for her, the Tecumseh heading to pass the buoy on the wrong side.
The movement thus indicated, if followed by the succeeding monitors,
would throw that column across the path of the wooden ships if the
latter endeavored to obey their orders to pass east of the buoy. At the
same moment there were seen from the Brooklyn, in the water ahead,
certain objects which were taken to be buoys for torpedoes. The ship was
at once stopped and backed, coming down upon the Hartford, her next
astern, which also stopped, but did not reverse her engines. The
Richmond followed the Hartford's movements, and the two ships drifted up
with the young flood tide, but with their heads still pointed in the
right direction, toward the Brooklyn; the stern of the latter vessel, as
she backed, coming up into the wind so that her bows turned toward the
fort. Fortunately, the rear ships were some little distance off; but
Farragut, ignorant of the cause of the Brooklyn's action, saw his line
of battle doubling up and threatened with an almost inextricable
confusion, in the most difficult and exposed part of the passage, under
a cross-fire from the fort and the enemy's vessels. Immediately upon
this frightful perplexity succeeded the great disaster of the day.
Craven, pursuing his course across the suspected line of danger, had
reached within two hundred yards of the Tennessee, and the crews of both
vessels were waiting with tense nerves for the expected collision, when
a torpedo exploded under the Tecumseh, then distant a little over five
hundred yards from the Hartford. From his elevated post of observation
Farragut saw her reel violently from side to side, lurch heavily over,
and then go down head foremost, her screw revolving wildly in the air as
she disappeared.
It was the supreme moment of his life, in which the scales of his
fortunes wavered in the balance. All the long years of preparation, of
faithful devotion to obscure duty awaiting the opportunity that might
never come--all the success attending the two brief years in which his
flag had flown--all the glories of the river fights--on the one side;
and on the other, threatening to overbear and wreck all, a danger he
could not measure, but whose dire reality had been testified by the
catastrophe just befallen under his own eyes. Added to this was the
complication in the order of battle ahead of him, produced by the double
movements of the Brooklyn and Tecumseh, which no longer allowed him to
seize the one open path, follow his own first brave thought, and lead
his fleet in person through the narrow way where, if at all, safety lay.
The Brooklyn, when she began to back, was on the starboard bow of the
flag-ship, distant one or two hundred yards, and falling off to
starboard lay directly in the way athwart the channel. The second
monitor, Manhattan, of the same class as the Tecumseh, had passed
ahead; but the two light-draughts, the Winnebago and Chickasaw, were
drawing up abreast of the three ships thus massed together. As they
passed, the admiration of the officers of the flag-ship was stirred to
see Captain Stevens, of the Winnebago, pacing calmly from turret to
turret of his unwieldy vessel, under the full fire of the fort; while of
Perkins, in the Chickasaw, the youngest commander in the fleet, and then
about twenty-seven years of age, an officer of high position in the
flag-ship says, "As he passed the Hartford he was on top of the turret,
waving his hat and dancing about with delight and excitement."
But as they went thus gallantly by, the position of these vessels,
combined with that of the Brooklyn relatively to the flag-ship, forbade
the latter's turning in that direction unless at the risk of adding to a
confusion already sufficiently perilous. A signal was made and repeated
to the Brooklyn to go ahead; but that vessel gave no sign of moving, her
commander being probably perplexed between his orders to pass east of
the buoy and the difficulty of doing so, owing to the position into
which his ship had now fallen and the situation of the monitors. But to
remain thus motionless and undecided, under the fire of the fort with
the other ships coming up to swell the size of the target offered to its
gunners and to increase the confusion, was out of the question. To
advance or to recede seemed alike dangerous. Ahead lay the dreaded line
of torpedoes; behind was the possibility of retreat, but beaten,
baffled, and disastrous. All depended upon the prompt decision of the
admiral. If he failed himself, or if fortune failed him now, his
brilliant career of success ended in the gloom of a defeat the degree of
which could not be foreseen. In later days, Farragut told that in the
confusion of these moments, feeling that all his plans had been
thwarted, he was at a loss whether to advance or retreat. In this
extremity the devout spirit that ruled his life, and so constantly
appears in his correspondence, impelled him to appeal to Heaven for
guidance, and he offered up this prayer: "O God, who created man and
gave him reason, direct me what to do. Shall I go on?" "And it seemed,"
said the admiral, "as if in answer a voice commanded, 'Go on!'"
To such a prompting his gallant temper and clear intuitions in all
matters relating to war were quick to respond. Personal danger could not
deter him; and if it was necessary that some one ship should set the
example and force a way through the torpedo line by the sacrifice of
herself, he was prepared by all his habits of thought to accept that
duty for the vessel bearing his flag. Describing the spirit in which he
began an arduous enterprise, after once deciding that it should be
undertaken, he said: "I calculate thus: The chances are that I shall
lose some of my vessels by torpedoes or the guns of the enemy, but with
some of my fleet afloat I shall eventually be successful. I can not lose
all. I will attack, regardless of consequences, and never turn back." To
a mind thus disciplined and prepared, the unforeseen dilemma presented
before the barriers of Mobile Bay caused but a passing perplexity. Like
the Puritan soldier who trusted in God and kept his powder dry, Farragut
met the overthrow of his carefully arranged plans and the sudden
decision thrust upon him with the calm resolution of a man who has
counted the cost and is strengthened by a profound dependence upon the
will of the Almighty. He resolved to go forward.
The Hartford was now too near the Brooklyn to go clear by a simple
movement of her helm. Backing hard, therefore, the wheels of the
Metacomet, while turning her own screw ahead, her bows were twisted
short round, as in a like strait they had been pointed fair under the
batteries of Port Hudson; then, going ahead fast, the two ships passed
close under the stern of the Brooklyn and dashed straight at the line of
the buoys. As they thus went by the vessel which till then had led, a
warning cry came from her that there were torpedoes ahead. "Damn the
torpedoes!" shouted the admiral, in the exaltation of his high purpose.
"Four bells![X] Captain Drayton, go ahead! Jouett, full speed!" The
Hartford and her consort crossed the line about five hundred yards from
Mobile Point, well to the westward of the buoy and of the spot where the
Tecumseh had gone down. As they passed between the buoys, the cases of
the torpedoes were heard by many on board knocking against the copper of
the bottom, and many of the primers snapped audibly, but no torpedo
exploded. The Hartford went safely through, the gates of Mobile Bay were
forced, and as Farragut's flag cleared the obstructions his last and
hardest battle was virtually won. The Brooklyn got her head round, the
Richmond supporting her by a sustained fire from her heavy broadside;
and, after a delay which allowed the flag-ship to gain nearly a mile
upon them, the other ships in order followed the Hartford, "believing,"
wrote the admiral in his dispatch, "that they were going to a noble
death with their commander-in-chief."
[Footnote X: The signal in the United States Navy for the
engines to be driven at high speed.]
After the flag-ship had passed the torpedo line the enemy's three
gunboats began retreating slowly up the bay, keeping ahead and on her
starboard bow, where her guns could not bear while their own raked her.
The conditions of the channel did not yet allow her to deviate from her
course in order to return their fire. At no period of the battle did the
Hartford suffer so much as during the fifteen minutes she had to endure
this galling punishment. The Tennessee, being inferior in speed to her
consorts as well as to the Hartford, could not accompany this movement;
and, moreover, Buchanan, the Confederate admiral, had set his heart upon
ramming the vessel that bore the flag of his old friend Farragut. The
Tennessee therefore stood toward the Hartford, but failed in her thrust,
the Union vessel avoiding it easily with a movement of her helm. The ram
then fired two shots at very short range, but singularly enough both
missed. "I took no further notice of her," wrote Farragut, "than to
return her fire." The Tennessee followed some little distance up the
bay, and then, changing her mind, turned toward the column of wooden
vessels that was now approaching, with the three monitors covering their
right flank and somewhat in the rear; these having delayed to engage the
fire of the fort while their more vulnerable companions went by. The
Confederate ironclad passed along the column from van to rear,
exchanging shots with most of the vessels in it. The Monongahela
attempted to ram her, but, being embarrassed by the gunboat lashed
alongside, succeeded only in giving a glancing blow; while the Oneida,
the ship on the fighting side of the rear couple, already completely
disabled in her motive power by a shot through the boiler, received a
raking broadside, by which her captain, Mullany, lost an arm.
At the time the Tennessee went about to encounter the remaining vessels
of the fleet, which was about eight o'clock, the course of the channel
enabled the Hartford to turn sufficiently to bring her broadside to bear
on her puny assailants. By the fire she then opened, one, the Gaines,
was so much injured as to be with difficulty kept afloat until she could
take refuge under Fort Morgan, where she was that night burned by her
commander. All three retreated rapidly toward the shoal water on the
east side of the bay. Farragut then signaled for the gunboats of his
fleet to chase those of the enemy. Jouett, being alongside, received the
order by word of mouth, and the admiral often afterward spoke with
enthusiasm of the hearty "Ay, ay, sir!" he received in reply, and of the
promptness with which the fasts were cut, the men being already by them,
hatchet in hand. The Metacomet backed clear at once and started rapidly
in pursuit. The gunboats in the rear followed as soon as the signal was
made out; but, both from their position and from the inevitable delay in
reading signals, they were at a disadvantage. A thick rain squall coming
up soon after hid both pursuers and pursued from each other's sight. The
Morgan and the Gaines took advantage of it to change their course for
Fort Morgan; the third Confederate, the Selma, kept straight on, as did
the Metacomet. When the squall cleared, the latter found herself ahead
of her chase. One shot was fired, killing the first lieutenant and some
of the crew of the Selma, whose flag was then hauled down. The Morgan
made good her retreat under the fort, and that night succeeded in
escaping up the bay to the city, although she was seen and fired upon by
several of Farragut's vessels.
At half-past eight o'clock, three hours after the first signal was made
to get under way and an hour and a half after the action began, the
flag-ship anchored in the upper part of the deep pocket into which the
channel expands after passing the entrance. She was then about four
miles from Fort Morgan, and the crew were sent to breakfast. The admiral
had come down from his post in the main rigging and was standing on the
poop, when Captain Drayton came up to him and said: "What we have done
has been well done, sir; but it all counts for nothing so long as the
Tennessee is there under the guns of Morgan." "I know it," replied
Farragut, "and as soon as the people have had their breakfasts I am
going for her." These words were exchanged in the hearing of the first
lieutenant of the Hartford, now Rear-Admiral Kimberly, and at present
the senior officer upon the active list of the United States Navy. In
writing home a few weeks later, the admiral said: "If I had not captured
the Tennessee as I did, I should have taken her that night with the
monitors, or _tried_ it." The latter undoubtedly represents the more
deliberate opinion, that would have guided him had Buchanan not played
into his hands by attacking the fleet; for if the Tennessee had
remained under Morgan and there been sought by the monitors, the fight
would have been at such close quarters that in the darkness the fort
could scarcely have joined without imminent risk of hurting friend as
well as foe.
As it was, the Confederate admiral seems never to have contemplated any
more prudent or sagacious course than a single-handed free fight with
the fleet. As soon as the Tennessee had passed the rear of the enemy's
column, Buchanan said to the captain of the ram: "Follow them up,
Johnston; we can't let them off that way." In turning, the Tennessee
took much room, appearing from the fleet to have gone back under the
guns of Fort Morgan; and the various ships, as they came up, were
anchoring near the Hartford, expecting a few quiet hours. They were soon
undeceived. The brief conversation above reported between Farragut and
his flag-captain had scarcely ended when the ram was seen to be moving
out from under the fort. Captain Drayton reported the fact to the
admiral, saying that she was going outside to attack the United States
vessels still remaining there. "Then," said Farragut, "we must follow
him out." The remark indicates an alternative to the course actually
adopted by Buchanan, and one whose issue would depend less upon the
United States commander-in-chief than upon the conduct of the vessels
outside. If these were so imprudent as not to retire, Farragut might
have been forced to run twice again the gantlet of Fort Morgan and of
the torpedo line--once to protect them, and afterward to regain the
position he had just achieved.
It must be admitted that the question before the Confederate admiral,
what to do with one unwieldy though powerful vessel opposed to fourteen
enemies, was hard to solve; nor did he have, in a precise knowledge of
the speed, battery, and other qualities of his opponents, the data
needed for an accurate solution. In a general way, however, he must have
known that the guns of the United States fleet were mainly smooth-bores,
with but moderate penetrative power upon iron-plating such as the
Tennessee's; and during the morning's encounter he had acquired
experimental knowledge of their impotence against her sides, unless by a
continuous pounding such as he was now about to invite. He knew also
that several of the hostile vessels were of too heavy draught to take
any efficient part, if he refused, as was in his power, to enter the
pocket in which they were now anchored; while the general gentle
shelving of the bottom enabled a foot's difference in draught to secure
a very considerable separation in distance. Every wooden ship was
vulnerable to him and impotent against him at the ranges which his
rifles permitted him to use.
With the monitors Buchanan had not yet come into collision; but one of
the most formidable was sunk, and until he had learned something about
their endurance and the power of their guns relatively to those of his
own vessel, it would seem that his action, though immediate, should have
been only tentative. If it proved on trial that the speed of the
Tennessee was greater than that of the monitors, she might yet prove
master of the situation. Despite the beak, which her wretched speed and
exposed steering chains rendered untrustworthy, her great defensive
strength and the fact of carrying rifled guns indicated that long range,
and not close quarters, was the first game of the Tennessee. There she
could hurt, and she could not be hurt. Had she, for instance, hovered at
a distance, firing deliberately at the Union vessels, Farragut must have
attacked; and she could then have retired either into shoaler water,
retaining her advantage in range, or else under the guns of Morgan,
which would have strongly re-enforced her fight. The fact that Farragut,
whose instinct for war was commonly accurate, proposed to attack her at
close quarters and by night, is the best argument that Buchanan should
have sought long range and daylight for his action. As it was, his
headlong charge into the Union fleet was a magnificent display of
inconsiderate bravery, in which such advantages as he had were
recklessly thrown away. Its purpose is not clear. If, as Farragut
thought, it was to sink his flag-ship, it can only be replied that an
admiral's flag is not a red rag for a bull to charge. Had the Hartford
been sunk when the column doubled up an hour or so before, the loss of
the leader at so critical a moment might have decided the day; but to
sink her in the _mêlée_ within would have been a barren, though
brilliant, feat of arms.
As soon as it was ascertained that the Tennessee was really coming up to
attack, the mess-gear was hurried aside and the orders given to get
under way. Some of the fleet had not yet anchored, and the monitors were
not yet arrived at the place where the others were gathered. Dr. Palmer,
the fleet surgeon, was just leaving the flag-ship in a steam-launch, for
the purpose of making a round among the other vessels to see to the
condition of their wounded. Farragut called him alongside and directed
him to go to the monitors with orders to attack the Tennessee. These
Palmer delivered in person to each ironclad. "Happy as my friend Perkins
(of the Chickasaw) habitually is," he wrote in his diary, "I thought he
would turn a somersault overboard with joy when I told him, 'The admiral
wants you to go at once and fight that Tennessee.'" The wooden vessels
at the same time were directed to charge the ram, bows on, at full
speed, as well as to attack her with their guns.
The monitors being, like the Tennessee herself, very slow, the ramming
contest first began. The first to reach the hostile ironclad was the
Monongahela, Captain Strong, which struck her squarely amidships on the
starboard side, when she was still four hundred yards distant from the
body of the fleet. Five minutes later the Lackawanna, Captain Marchand,
going at full speed, delivered her blow also at right angles on the port
side, abreast the after end of the armored superstructure. As they swung
round, both United States vessels fired such guns as would bear, but the
shot glanced harmlessly from the armor; nor did the blow of the ships
themselves produce any serious injury upon the enemy, although their own
stems were crushed in for several feet above and below the water line.
Upon them followed the Hartford, approaching, like the Lackawanna, on
the port side; but toward her the Tennessee turned, so that the two met
nearly, though not exactly, bows on. The Hartford's anchor, which there
had not been time to cat, was hanging at the water's edge; it took the
brunt of the collision, which doubled it up, and the two antagonists
scraped by, their port sides touching. At that close range seven
nine-inch guns were discharged against the sloping sides of the
ironclad, but without effect. The admiral had clambered again into the
rigging, on this occasion into the port mizzen-rigging, whence he
watched the effects of this encounter. Both the Lackawanna and the
Hartford now made a circuit to get a position whence they could again
charge the enemy; but in the midst of their sweep the Lackawanna ran
square into the flag-ship, striking near where Farragut stood, and
cutting the vessel down to within two feet of the water. The immediate
impression among the ship's company was that the injury was fatal; and
the general cry that arose, "Save the admiral! Get the admiral on board
the Lackawanna!" by its ignoring of their own danger, testified how
Farragut's martial and personal qualities had won a way into the
affections of his subordinates. With an activity for which he had been
remarkable in middle life, and retained even now when in his sixties,
the admiral jumped into the chains to ascertain the extent of the
injury; then, finding that the ship was in no present danger, he ordered
her again to be headed for the Tennessee.
Meanwhile the monitors had come up, and the battle had begun between
them and the enemy. One of the Manhattan's fifteen-inch guns had been
disabled; and the slow firing of those unwieldy weapons, with the
imperfect mechanical appliances then used for loading them, prevented
her doing the injury that might have been expected. One shot struck
square, breaking through the port side of the armor; but even so the
missile itself did not enter the vessel, a strong evidence of the power
of the Tennessee to resist a single shot. But she was not equally
invulnerable to the sustained and continuous hammering of even lighter
projectiles. The Winnebago's turrets, being out of order, could not be
turned, and consequently the guns could be brought to bear only by
moving the helm; a circumstance which materially reduced her fire. The
Chickasaw, however, was in better case. Lieutenant-Commander Perkins got
her into position under the stern of the Tennessee just after the
latter's collision with the Hartford; and there he stuck to the end,
never over fifty yards distant, and keeping up a steady rapping of
eleven-inch shot upon the fabric which they could not at once penetrate,
but which they visibly shook. Fifty-two of these projectiles were fired
from the Chickasaw in the short half-hour of her attack. The exposed
rudder-chains were shot away, and at nearly the same time the
smoke-stack came down. Admiral Buchanan was wounded by an iron splinter,
which broke his leg and otherwise injured it to such an extent that the
limb was with difficulty saved. He turned over the command to Captain
Johnston, who stood the pounding for twenty minutes longer and then
reported to his superior that the ship was helpless, could not be
steered, and that for half an hour he had not been able to bring a gun
to bear. "Well," replied Buchanan, "if you can not do them any further
damage you had better surrender."
The Tennessee's flag had been several times shot away, and was now
flying from a boat-hook. Not being very conspicuous, its removal was not
immediately noticed, and Johnston had to show a white flag to put a stop
to the firing. "She was at this time sore beset," said Farragut in his
dispatch to the Navy Department; "the Chickasaw was pounding away at her
stern, the Ossipee was approaching her at full speed, and the
Monongahela, Lackawanna, and Hartford were bearing down upon her,
determined upon her destruction. Her smoke-stack had been shot away, her
steering chains were gone, compelling a resort to her relieving tackles,
and several of her port shutters were jammed. Indeed, from the time the
Hartford struck her until her surrender she never fired a gun." No
stronger evidence can be offered than this last sentence, which
Johnston's account corroborates, of how completely Buchanan
miscalculated, or disregarded, the capabilities of the important vessel
he controlled. Great as was her power to resist a single shot, or the
end-on charge of a heavy vessel, when she surrendered nearly all the
plating on the after side of the casemate was found to be started, and
the after gun-carriage was disabled; there being distinct marks of nine
eleven-inch solid shot having struck within a few square feet of that
port. Three of her port shutters also were so damaged that their guns
could not be fired.
Thus ended the great battle of Mobile Bay, the crowning achievement of
Farragut's naval career; "one of the hardest-earned victories of my
life," to quote his own words, "and the most desperate battle I ever
fought since the days of the old Essex." "You may pass through a long
career and see many an action," he remarked to one of the junior
officers of the Hartford, in the interval between first anchoring and
the conflict with the Tennessee, "without seeing as much bloodshed as
you have this day witnessed." The loss of the flag-ship herself had
been twenty-five killed and twenty-eight wounded out of a ship's company
of some three hundred souls. The Brooklyn, a ship of the same force, had
almost exactly the same number of casualties--eleven killed and
forty-three wounded. Contrasting the equal suffering of the
latter--delayed so long under the numerous guns of the fort, but
supported by the fire of the other vessels--with that of the flag-ship,
inflicted by the batteries of the enemy's gun-boats, few in number, but
worked for the time with impunity, we find an excellent illustration of
Farragut's oft-repeated maxim, that "to hurt your enemy is the best way
to keep him from hurting you." The total loss of the United States fleet
in the battle was three hundred and thirty-five; of whom one hundred and
thirteen were at the bottom of the bay, coffined in the iron hull of the
Tecumseh.
Not quite three hours elapsed from the time that Morgan fired its first
gun to the moment when the Tennessee hauled down her flag and confessed
the United States fleet mistress of the bay. The forts still stood with
the Confederate flag flying from them in defiance; and it is reported
that the commander of Morgan retorted to a summons to surrender, that he
looked upon Farragut's fleet as practically prisoners in a port whose
keys he held. If so, it was the high-hearted resolve of a man determined
to hold his charge to the last, and not the sober conviction of a
soldier, that spoke. Like the river forts when Farragut's fleet forced
its way past and stood between them and their base of supplies, the
defenses of Mobile were isolated by the results of the morning's fight,
and their fall became but a question of time. There was no mutiny of the
garrison, as on the former occasion, for the stern experience of war had
better taught the men the business of a soldier; but it was at once
practicable here to begin siege operations, which in the river would
perhaps have been for a time postponed, owing to the overflowed state of
the country. The preparations for these were pushed with vigor, and the
navy also took a hand against the works. Four hours after the surrender
of the Tennessee, the Chickasaw weighed her anchor and steamed down
toward Grant's Pass to shell Fort Powell. Built to resist an attack from
Mississippi Sound, the work was weak in the direction of the bay. "The
ironclad's fire," reported the officer in command, "made it impossible
to man the two guns in the rear, and I made no attempt to do so." That
night the fort was evacuated and blown up. The following day the
Chickasaw threw some shells into Fort Gaines, in consequence of which,
and of the progress made by General Granger in his approaches, that work
was surrendered on the 7th of August. Morgan still standing out, the
army was transferred from Dauphin Island to Mobile Point, batteries were
constructed, and on the 17th a siege train from New Orleans was landed.
On the 22d, at daylight, the siege guns, the three monitors, the
captured Tennessee, and the ships, both outside and inside the bay,
opened together. The following day Fort Morgan capitulated.
A gratifying feature in these operations, as well as in all Farragut's
official association with the army, was the cordial good feeling and
co-operation which existed between the two services, and which were
equally manifested in the upper Mississippi between Grant and Porter.
General Butler, Farragut's first colleague in the Gulf and at New
Orleans, but who had long since left the department, wrote him a most
enthusiastic letter of congratulation upon receiving the news of the
battle of Mobile Bay; and General Granger, in concluding his report of
the siege operations against Gaines and Morgan, said: "I am pleased to
record the perfect harmony existing between these two branches of the
service. For my own part, I can not sufficiently acknowledge the
assistance rendered by the fleet and the admiral in command in
transporting and disembarking the troops, guns, and materials employed
by me in the operations. In brief, during all our relations, the
officers of the fleet, with their distinguished commander, displayed in
a high degree those qualities which mark their gallant service." To the
officers of the navy the testimonies thus given can not but be most
grateful; not merely as acknowledgments of the important part played by
a service whose work is too often ignored by historians, but chiefly as
giving an added lustre to the brilliant reputation of its two most
distinguished representatives, who successively filled the high position
of admiral of the navy.
After the capitulation of the forts, Admiral Farragut remained in Mobile
Bay until the following November. The lower bay was cleared of torpedoes
and reconnoissances made toward Mobile; but he wrote adversely to any
attempt against the city, now that it was sealed as a port to blockade
runners. "It would be an elephant," he wrote, "and take an army to hold
it. And besides, all the traitors and rascally speculators would flock
to that city and pour into the Confederacy the wealth of New York." He
confesses also his dislike to operations in very shoal water. "I am in
no way diffident about going anywhere in the Hartford, but when I have
to leave her and take to a craft drawing six feet of water I feel
badly."
The admiral's health was now suffering much from the combined effects of
his labors, his anxieties, and the climate. "I am as well as a man can
be who can neither sit, walk, nor stand five minutes at a time on
account of Job's comforters. But, thank God (I have so much to be
thankful for that I am thanking him all the time), I am otherwise in
pretty good condition." Despite this brave effort at cheerfulness, his
letters from time to time began to show symptoms of depression, and he
longed for rest. "This is the last of my work," he said, "and I expect a
little respite." His enfeebled condition drew the attention and excited
the alarm of those about him. "I was talking to the admiral to-day,"
wrote Perkins, of the Chickasaw, the day after Morgan surrendered, "when
all at once he fainted away. He is not very well and is all tired out.
It gave me quite a shock, and shows how exhausted he is, and his health
is not very good, any way. He is a mighty fine old fellow." Captain
Drayton also wrote home to his family that, if the admiral remained
longer in the Gulf, he feared for the consequences.
Under these circumstances an order from the Navy Department, dated the
5th of September, assigning him to the command of the Fort Fisher
expedition, greatly upset him. He had about a week before written to the
Secretary to say that his strength was almost exhausted. "I am
willing," he concluded, "to do the bidding of the department as long as
I am able to the best of my abilities. I fear, however, that my health
is giving way. I have now been down in the Gulf five years out of six,
with the exception of the short time at home last fall; the last six
months have been a severe drag upon me, and I want rest, if it is to be
had."
To so reasonable a request, after such distinguished and valuable
service, the department could not have closed its ears had it been so
disposed. Farragut was authorized to leave his squadron in charge of
Commodore James S. Palmer, a very gallant and efficient officer, and to
come north in the Hartford. On the 30th of November, 1864, he sailed
from Pensacola, and on the 12th of December the flag-ship again anchored
in New York Harbor.