Mobile Bay lies like a great bell open to the south—a bell that is thirty miles long, fifteen wide at the mouth, and six at the head. It is a shoal-water bay, save for a rather deep hole (twenty-one feet) just within; the two sandy islands that stretch out from either side across its mouth almost meet. That is to say, they reach within 2,000 yards of each other, and between them lies the entrance to the channel. In these days a wide ditch carries twenty-three feet of water from the deep hole inside the islands clear to the town of Mobile; but at the time of the Civil War that had not been dredged, and the water shelved gradually from the ripples at the beach to twelve feet at the centre line above the hole. There was a bar outside; but ships drawing twenty feet of water could pass. The main point of land at the entrance to Mobile Bay lay on the east, and was called Mobile Point. On the west lay Dauphin Island, and the water between this island and the mainland was and is called Mississippi Sound—a stretch of shoal water that gives inland navigation to New Orleans. The Confederate defences, ashore and afloat in 1864, are described by Mahan as follows:

“The entrance from the Gulf was guarded by two works, Fort Morgan on Mobile Point, and Fort Gaines on Dauphin Island. The approach by Mississippi Sound was covered by Fort Powell, a small earthwork on Tower Island, commanding the channel which gave the most water, known as Grant’s Pass. Gaines was too far distant from the main ship channel to count for much in the plans of the fleet. It was a pentagonal work mounting in barbette three X-inch columbiads, five 32-, two 24-, and two 18-pounder smooth-bore guns, and four rifled 32-pounders; besides these it had eleven 24-pounder howitzers for siege and for flank defence. In Fort Powell there were one X-inch, two VIII-inch and one 32-pounder smooth-bore and two VII-inch Brooke rifles; these bore on the sound and channels, but the rear of the fort toward the bay was yet unfinished and nearly unarmed. The third and principal work, Fort Morgan, was much more formidable. It was five-sided, and built to carry guns both in barbette and casemates; but when seized by the Confederates the embrasures of the curtains facing the channel were masked and a heavy exterior water battery was thrown up before the northwest curtain. The armament at this time cannot be given with absolute certainty. The official reports of the United States engineer and ordnance officers, made after the surrender, differ materially, but from a comparison between them and other statements the following estimate has been made: Main fort, seven X-inch, three VIII-inch and twenty-two 32-pounder smooth-bore guns, and two VIII-inch, two 6.5-inch and four 5.82-inch rifles. In the water battery there were four X-inch and one VIII-inch columbiads and two 6.5-inch rifles. Of the above, ten X-inch, three VIII-inch, sixteen 32-pounders and all the rifles, except one of 5.82 calibre, bore upon the channel.

“In the waters of the bay there was a little Confederate squadron under Admiral Franklin Buchanan, made up of the ram Tennessee and three small paddle-wheel gunboats, the Morgan, Gaines, and Selma. They were unarmored, excepting around the boilers. The Selma was an open-deck river steamer with heavy hog frames; the two others had been built for the Confederate Government, but were poorly put together. The batteries were: Morgan, two VII-inch rifles and four 32-pounders; Gaines, one VIII-inch rifle and five 32-pounders; Selma, one VI-inch rifle, two IX-inch, and one VIII-inch smooth-bore shell-guns. Though these lightly built vessels played a very important part for some minutes, and from a favorable position did much harm to the Union fleet in the subsequent engagement, they counted for nothing in the calculations of Farragut.

“The Tennessee was the most powerful ironclad built, from the keel up, by the Confederacy, and both the energy showed in overcoming difficulties and the workmanship put upon her were most creditable to her builders. The work was begun at Selma, on the Alabama River, one hundred and fifty miles from Mobile, in the spring of 1863, when the timber was yet standing in the forests, and much of what was to be her plating was still ore in the mines. The hull was launched the following winter and towed to Mobile, where the plating had already been sent from the rolling mills of Atlanta.

“Her length on deck was 209 feet, beam 48 feet, and when loaded, with her guns on board, she drew 14 feet. The battery was carried in a casemate, equidistant from the bow and stern, whose inside dimensions were 79 feet in length by 29 feet in width. The framing was of yellow pine beams, 13 inches thick, placed close together vertically and planked on the outside, first with 5½ inches of yellow pine, laid horizontally, and then 4 inches of oak laid up and down. Both sides and ends were inclined at an angle of forty-five degrees, and over the outside planking was placed the armor, 6 inches thick, in thin plates of 2 inches each, on the forward end, and elsewhere 5 inches thick. Within, the yellow pine frames were sheathed with 2½ inches of oak. The plating throughout was fastened with bolts 1¼ inches in diameter, going entirely through and set up with nuts and washers inside. Her gunners were thus sheltered by a thickness of five or six inches of iron, backed by twenty-five inches of wood. The outside deck was plated with two-inch iron. The sides of the casemate, or, as the Confederates called it, the shield, were carried down to two feet below the water line and then reversed at the same angle, so as to meet the hull again six to seven feet below water. The knuckle thus formed, projecting ten feet beyond the base of the casement, and apparently filled in solid, afforded a substantial protection from an enemy’s prow to the hull, which was not less than eight feet within it. It was covered with four inches of iron, and being continued round the bows, became there a beak or ram. The vessel carried, however, only six guns; one VIII-inch rifle at each end and two VI-inch rifles on each broadside. These were Brooke guns, made in the Confederacy; they threw 110-pound and 90-pound solid shot. The ports were closed with iron sliding shutters, five inches thick; a bad arrangement, as it turned out.

“Though thus powerfully built, armored, and armed, she had two grave defects. Her engines were not built for her, but taken from a high-pressure river steamboat, and though on her trial trip she realized about eight knots, six seems to be all that could usually be got from her. She was driven by a screw, the shaft being connected by gearing with the engines. The other defect was an oversight, her steering chains, instead of being led under her armored deck, were over it, exposed to an enemy’s fire. She was therefore a ram that could only by a favorable chance overtake her prey, and was likely at any moment to lose the power of directing her thrust.”

While Banks was on the useless Red River expedition Farragut had been anxious to attack Mobile, but had been unable to do so because no troops could be spared for use against the forts and to hold the place when it should be taken. For six months, in fact, the admiral had to lie idle while the Confederates strengthened their works—even watching them while they brought the Tennessee down the river on which she had been built, and then carried her over the shoal waters of the upper part of the bay, just as Perry carried his two brigs out of Erie harbor on Lake Erie when he went out to win his great victory. It was in March, 1864, that the Confederates began this slow task under Farragut’s eyes (figuratively speaking; Farragut was not with the fleet constantly), and it was not until May 18th that they had her anchored in the deep water within the forts guarding the channel.

As a matter of fact, Buchanan, the Confederate admiral, intended to go out and attack Farragut’s fleet that night, as the Merrimac had attacked the wooden fleet in Hampton Roads. What he would have accomplished may not now be guessed; but Farragut had wooden ships only to meet the Tennessee, although he had done everything he could to get ironclads. However, the Tennessee grounded, and when she was floated Buchanan, for some reason unknown, changed his mind.

Meantime the Confederate had anchored forty-six beer-keg torpedoes and 134 torpedoes made of tin, all fitted with percussion fuses, across the channel, leaving a pass, marked by a red buoy, near Fort Morgan (on the east side) for the blockade-runners. The pass was about 100 yards wide and at the most deadly range from the fort.

After six months of tedious delay four monitors came with the assurance that a sufficient number of troops would coöperate. Two of these monitors had single turrets, armored with ten inches of iron and carrying two fifteen-inch Dahlgren guns—guns that used sixty pounds of powder (and might have used a hundred) behind solid-steel shot weighing 440 pounds. The others had eleven-inch Dahlgrens.

Eventually a day for landing the troops on Dauphin Island was fixed—August 4, 1864—and Farragut was to pass the forts and anchor in the bay before daylight. The troops were landed, but Farragut had to wait for some of his squadron that had failed to arrive. But during the day they were all there. The wooden ships were prepared much as they had been at the battle of New Orleans, and then all that was wanting was a flood-tide to help sweep the ships, and a southwest wind to blow the smoke of battle into the eyes of Fort Morgan’s gunners. As fortune turned, Farragut got both early on the morning of August 5, 1864. It had been raining the night before, and it is recorded that Farragut could not sleep well. At 3 o’clock in the morning he sent a man on deck to ask how the wind was, and the man brought word that it was southwest.

“Then we will go in this morning,” said Farragut, and a few minutes later the boatswains were turning out all hands on every ship of the fighting squadron. It was not a long task to get the men to quarters, but the ships had to be lashed together two and two,—the little Octorara on the off side of the Brooklyn, and the little Metacomet on the off side of the flagship Hartford, and so on, to protect the little ones from the fire of Fort Morgan.

When this was done the line was formed in two columns, the monitors on the right, next to the fort, in the following order of battle:

Monitors—starboard column: Tecumseh, 1,034 tons, two guns, Commander T. A. M. Craven; Manhattan, 1,034 tons, two guns, Commander J. W. A. Nicholson; Winnebago, 970 tons, four guns, Commander Thomas H. Stevens; Chickasaw, 970 tons, four guns, Lieut.-commander George H. Perkins.

Wooden ships—port column: Brooklyn, twenty-four guns, Capt. James Alden; Octorara, six guns, Lieut.-commander Charles H. Greene; Hartford, twenty-one guns, Rear-admiral David G. Farragut, Capt. Percival Drayton; Metacomet, six guns, Lieut.-commander James E. Jouett; Richmond, twenty guns, Capt. Thornton A. Jenkins; Port Royal, six guns, Commander Bancroft Gherardi; Lackawanna, eight guns, Capt. John B. Marchand; Seminole, eight guns, Commander Edward Donaldson; Monongahela, eight guns, Commander James H. Strong; Kennebec, five guns, Lieut.-commander William P. McCann; Ossipee, eleven guns, Commander William E. Le Roy; Itasca, five guns, Lieut.-commander George Brown; Oneida, nine guns, Commander J. R. M. Mullany; Galena, ten guns, Lieut.-commander Clark H. Wells. The Octorara, Metacomet, and Port Royal were side-wheel double-enders; the others were screw ships. All had been built for the naval service.

The signal to move rose to the Hartford’s masthead at 5.30 o’clock, and by 6.10 the leaders were crossing the bar, heading for the narrow passway marked by the red buoy just under the heaviest guns of Fort Morgan.

“It was a glorious sight to see those brave fellows wearing a smile of joy upon their faces in view of such odds against them, and not knowing how soon they and their comrades would be lying at the bottom of the bay. All could not hope to escape this trying ordeal, when several of the coolest officers calculated that at least six of the ships would be blown up. They never stopped to consider whose fate this would be; all they desired was to grapple with the enemy, and see the Union flag floating over the forts that had been taken from their lawful owners.”

Slowly—too slowly, the squadron steamed in, the American flag fluttering at every peak until within easy range, when the Tecumseh, the leading monitor, hurled two fifteen-inch shot at the fort. There was no reply, and the squadron continued slowly on with the monitors blazing away.

The silence of the fort was ominous, for its garrison were waiting for the shortest range; but at 7.7 o’clock, as the head of the squadron drew in to make the turn at the red buoy, the time had come, and a roaring blast of iron hail struck the leading ships. But ominous as the silence of the fort had seemed, the result of their best aim was insignificant, for only one shot did any damage worth mention, and that one killed nearly all of a gun’s crew on the Hartford.

All the guns of the fleet that would bear were now opened on the fort, grape and canister being chiefly used in order to drive the men from the guns, and so steady was the rain of the small projectiles through the fort’s portholes that the fire there was instantly slackened.

And then came the Confederate squadron from behind the fort to take a position above the line of torpedoes to help repel the fleet. As the Tennessee opened fire the monitor Tecumseh, at the head of the Union line, had her turret turned with portholes from the fort while the guns were loaded. Captain Craven, intent on reaching the Tennessee as quickly as possible, saw that if he had to pass between the red buoy and the fort, his route would be a crooked one, and turning to the pilot at his side in the pilot-house, he said:

“It is impossible that the Admiral means us to go inside the buoy; I cannot turn my ship.” He knew that outside the red buoy lay the torpedoes, but saying “starboard” to the man at the wheel, he headed the Tecumseh straight for the Confederate ram. For a few minutes she held her course undisturbed, but as the red buoy was brought abeam, her bow was suddenly lifted out of water, she lurched heavily from side to side, and then down she went bow first, her screw lifted up to view, and with a minute or two of time between the shock and the sinking. A torpedo had ripped open her hull. A few men in the turret climbed out. Craven and Pilot John Collins both started for the opening in the pilot-house, and then Craven drew back and said:

“After you, pilot.” But there was no afterward for Tunis Augustus Craven. There was a chance for one, but not for two. “When I reached the uppermost round of the ladder,” said Collins, “the ship dropped from under me.” In all, ninety-two good men went down with their immortal captain.

Farragut, who had climbed into the port main rigging of the Hartford, where he could see over the smoke of battle, saw the Tecumseh sink, and turning to Capt. J. Jouett, of the little Metacomet alongside, asked him to send a boat to rescue some of the Tecumseh’s crew. But Jouett had already ordered the boat away, and it carried another hero of that battle—Ensign H. C. Neilds. Neilds was only a lad, but he sat unmoved in the stern of the frail craft as it passed out from the shelter of his ship into the hurtling storm that ripped the water into a misty spray. A moment later he remembered that his flag was not flying, and standing up, as a Perry might have done, he unfurled the flag, set it to its staff in the face of friend and foe, and then sat down quietly to guide the boat on her mission.

Over on the monitors was still another hero—Commander Stevens, of the Winnebago. He was of the old school of seamen, who believed that the captain’s place was on the quarter-deck. The double-turreted monitor had no quarter-deck, but Stevens, restive in the iron box, got out on the deck between the turrets, and pacing to and fro alone in the storm, gave his orders now to one turret and then another. And what was more, the monitors were all driving ahead in the wake of the lost Tecumseh—driving toward the torpedoes.

But just then the captain of the Brooklyn, being in the lead of all, saw some little floats that marked the location of a nest of torpedoes, and first stopped and then backed his engines. It was not the right move for a ship in Farragut’s squadron to make, and it threw the line into confusion, and held the ships under the hottest fire of the fort—held the Hartford in particular where the shot from the enemy turned her gun-deck into a slaughter pen so that blood ran in streams from her scuppers, and the splinters of her walls and bits of flesh and clothing from the dead were scattered in a shower over the deck of the gunboat lashed alongside.

As the Hartford ranged up near the Brooklyn, Farragut, from his perch in the rigging, asked what was the trouble, and the one word “torpedoes” came back to him.

“D——n the torpedoes! Follow me,” said the admiral, and as the Hartford took the lead of her column, he signalled for “close order.”

A moment more, and the Hartford had reached the torpedo nest. The torpedo cases were distinctly heard striking against her bottom, and their primers were heard snapping, but not one exploded.

It was at this time that Captain Drayton, of the Hartford, seeing Farragut clinging to the shrouds just under the maintop, sent a sailor up to make fast a slender rope from one shroud to another in such a way that the admiral could not fall in case he was struck. It is so far literally true that Farragut was “lashed to the mast.”

And then came the Richmond with her consort to narrowly escape a collision with the Brooklyn, but as she turned away, her broadside was brought to bear fairly on the fort, and she opened such a rapid fire that she was wholly hid from view. Admiral Buchanan, who had watched her with more than ordinary interest because of a personal friendship for Captain Jenkins, was led to say:

“What became of Jenkins? I saw his vessel go handsomely into action, and then lost sight of her entirely.”

Nevertheless, Jenkins was there, and in a most active condition of health. With the other larger ships, she helped to silence the forts so far that the last ships of the line passed in with but slight damage.

But once inside the line of torpedoes—torpedoes that had failed because made of tin that rusted away or because of other defects in make—the Union squadron had to face the Confederate ships. The Confederate gunboats had seemed of no moment at first, but as the Hartford advanced they retreated slowly, keeping within about 700 yards, and delivering an effective fire. Farragut sent the Metacomet after them, and she disabled the Gaines, drove another flying back to the fort, while the third, the Selma, kept on, with Jouett eager in the chase. The two were soon in shoal water, and the man at the lead on the Metacomet called out a foot less water than she drew. It was reported instantly to Jouett.

“Call the man in,” said Jouett. “He is only intimidating me with his soundings.”

Fortunately, it was a soft mud bottom. The Metacomet kept on. A squall came to hide the Selma, but when it passed, Jouett was upon her, and her flag came down.

Meantime the Tennessee had run amuck among the Union squadron. Her first attempt to ram was on the Hartford, but the Hartford was swifter and handier, and so escaped. Then she passed the Brooklyn, the Richmond, and the Lackawanna, and turned toward the Monongahela. Captain Strong of this ship strove in turn to ram the Tennessee, and each glanced from the other. Thereafter the Tennessee passed clear through the fleet, doing and receiving but little damage. Then she turned near the fort to follow up the Union squadron.

At about this time (8.35 o’clock) Farragut ordered the men on the Hartford sent to breakfast. Captain Drayton 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,” said Farragut, “and as soon as the people have had their breakfasts I’m going for her.”

The mess kits were on the deck when word came down that the Tennessee, instead of staying near Fort Morgan, as Farragut had supposed she would do, was coming. In a jiffy the scouse and coffee were sent back to the galley, and the men ran to their guns. The anchor was slipped, and with signals flying to direct the Monongahela, Lackawanna, and Ossipee to ram the Confederate ship, and the monitors to attack her, the Hartford headed at full speed to lead the ramming gunboats. In this the spirit of Farragut was shown even more faithfully than when he braved the fire of the forts, for the Tennessee was a much more powerful ship than the Merrimac, and the Hartford was not so powerful as any of the steamers that lay in Hampton Roads when the Merrimac made her first raid. Indeed, one involuntarily compares the action of Farragut on this day with that of Goldsborough on the day that the Merrimac ran down within range of the Rip Raps, and defied a squadron gathered especially to ram her.

There was no hesitation at Mobile. The Monongahela was the first to reach the Confederate ship. Two raking shots were received, but at full speed the Monongahela struck her amidships on the starboard side, and a minute later, as the two swung side by side, the Monongahela gave her a broadside.

And then came the Lackawanna to ram the Tennessee on the port side. A good blow it was too; but as the Hartford approached to give a third blow, the Tennessee turned so that she and the Hartford struck bow to bow, but both glanced clear.

A broadside from the Hartford also proved harmless, but the Tennessee, that had been unable to return the fire for some time on account of defective primers, managed to discharge one shell that entered the Hartford, though it did no material damage. And then the danger of mobbing a ship, as the Tennessee was mobbed, became apparent, for the Lackawanna, in coming around to ram again, struck the Hartford instead of the Tennessee, and narrowly missed sinking her, while Farragut, by an equally narrow margin, escaped death, for he was standing near where the Lackawanna struck.

Meantime the three monitors were coming with all speed, the Chickasaw burning tallow and tar to get up steam faster. Passing along the Tennessee’s port side, the Chickasaw got under the stern of the Confederate, and there she hung, working her four eleven-inch guns with deadly accuracy. The monitors Manhattan and Winnebago both attacked the Tennessee, but one of the former’s guns was accidentally spiked, and the latter’s turret machinery failed, and it was the Chickasaw that did the work.

“D——n him!” said the Tennessee’s pilot afterward. “He stuck to us like a leach; we could not get away from him. It was he who cut away the steering gear, jammed the stern port shutters and wounded Admiral Buchanan.”

And that was true. Both the bow and the stern port shutters were jammed so that the guns of the Tennessee could not be worked at the ends of the ship. Her smoke-stack was shot away, and the smoke from the stump poured down through the upper-deck gratings to fill the casemate, where the temperature had risen to 120 degrees. Buchanan, to clear one of the port shutters, sent for a machinist and personally superintended his work for a few moments, when one of the Chickasaw’s projectiles struck the iron plating just outside where the machinist was at work, and the concussion, although the shot did not enter, reduced the man to a pulp, so that his remains were shovelled into buckets to be carried away. Worse yet for the ship, an iron splinter was driven through the admiral’s leg, breaking the bone.

It was near this time that the tiller chains were carried away, and that completed the needed work of destruction. Capt. J. D. Johnson took command of her when Buchanan fell, and for twenty minutes longer endured the hammering while wholly unable to return the fire or steer the ship. But to hold out longer under such circumstances was useless, and the flag was hauled down.

As it happened, the flag had been shot down before, and it was flying from a boat hook thrust up through a deck grating. The Union forces, supposing the flag had been shot away again, continued firing, and to end the matter Johnson went on the upper deck and waved a white flag.

Just then the Ossipee came slicing through the water at top speed to ram the Tennessee. Captain Le Roy was out on deck, and recognized Johnson instantly as an old friend. Sheering the Ossipee to one side, he shouted cheerfully:

“Hello, Johnson, old fellow! How are you? This is the United States steamer Ossipee. I’ll send a boat alongside for you. I’m Le Roy; don’t you know me?”

The boat was sent. The American flag was hoisted on the Tennessee. The battle was ended.

Farragut, in his report, gave special praise to the following men: Capts. Percival Drayton and Thornton A. Jenkins; Commanders Mullany, Nicholson, and Stevens; Lieut.-commanders Jouett and Perkins; Lieutenants Watson and Yates; Acting-Ensigns Henry C. Nields, Bogart, and Heginbotham; Ensign Henry Howard Brownell, Secretary McKinley, the pilot Martin Freeman, Acting Volunteer Lieuts. William Hamilton and P. Giraud. Of his crew he said: “I have never seen a crew come up like ours. They are ahead of the old set in small arms, and fully equal to them at the great guns. They arrived here a mere lot of boys and young men, and have now fattened up and knocked the 9-inch guns about like 24-pounders, to the astonishment of everybody. There was but one man who showed fear, and he was allowed to resign. This was the most desperate battle I ever fought since the days of the old Essex.”

A consideration of this fight shows that the Union forces had their blood up, and that nothing but an impregnable ship could have withstood this onslaught. The Tennessee was not that kind of a ship. The defects in the shutters and the steering gear, and the inability to keep up the fires after the smoke-stack fell, ruined her chances. These matters must be emphasized because such defects are inevitable in ships built during actual war. The Confederacy lacked ships just as the United States would lack them in case a war with a first-class nation were suddenly precipitated upon us, and the ships we should then build would very likely fail, as the Tennessee failed. It is worth noting that not one shot penetrated the Tennessee’s casemate, but one from the Manhattan bulged the wood backing of the armor into a mass of splinters.

The Tennessee lost two killed and ten wounded. The Union forces lost fifty-two killed by shots, 120 drowned in the Tecumseh, and 170 wounded.

The Chickasaw shelled Fort Gaines on the 6th, and it surrendered next day. The fort on the other point was invested by the troops as well as the ships, the shelling beginning on the 22d of August, and the next day it surrendered. This effectually closed Mobile harbor as a port for blockade-runners, but the city was not taken until the middle of the next spring. The naval forces helped in bombarding the defences about the city, but the only incidents of real importance to history of this kind were the various losses from torpedoes. The bay was swept for torpedoes thoroughly, and yet the Milwaukee ran on one on returning from a trip up to shell a fort near the city, and was sunk. The Osage, in shifting her anchorage in a fresh breeze, was sunk in like fashion. The wrecking steamer Rodolph, while going to raise the Milwaukee, struck another and went down. Even after the Confederate troops withdrew and 150 torpedoes had been removed from the Tombigbee channel, two tugs and a launch struck torpedoes and were destroyed. The danger from such obstructions had never been so well shown as at Mobile.