Part 10 (1/2)
wrote the ad to a noble death with their conal in the United States Navy for the engines to be driven at high speed]
After the flag-shi+p had passed the torpedo line the ene slowly up the bay, keeping ahead and on her starboard bohere 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 alling punish inferior in speed to her consorts as well as to the Hartford, could not accompany this movement; and, moreover, Buchanan, the Confederate ad 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 helularly enough both ut, ”than to return her fire” The Tennessee followed so her mind, turned toward the colu, with the three ht flank and soe the fire of the fort while their more vulnerable co the colu shots with ahela atteunboat lashed alongside, succeeded only in giving a glancing blohile the Oneida, the shi+p on the fighting side of the rear couple, already coh the boiler, received a raking broadside, by which her captain, Mullany, lost an arm
At the ti 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 eneside, 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 pro already by them, hatchet in hand The Metacounboats in the rear followed as soon as the signal was made out; but, both fronals, they were at a disadvantage A thick rain squall co up soon after hid both pursuers and pursued froe of it to change their course for Fort Morgan; the third Confederate, the Selht 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 so was then hauled down The Morgan ht 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 et under way and an hour and a half after the action began, the flag-shi+p anchored in the upper part of the deep pocket into which the channel expands after passing the entrance She was then about four an, and the creere sent to breakfast The ad 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 a 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 feeeks 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 uided hi the fleet; for if the Tennessee had reht by the ht would have been at such close quarters that in the darkness the fort could scarcely have joined without i friend as well as foe
As it was, the Confederate adacious 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 the, the Tennessee took one back under the guns of Fort Morgan; and the various shi+ps, as they ca a few quiet hours They were soon undeceived The brief conversation above reported between Farragut and his flag-captain had scarcely ended when the ra out from under the fort Captain Drayton reported the fact to the ad outside to attack the United States vessels still reut, ”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 iht have been forced to run twice again the gantlet of Fort Morgan and of the torpedo line--once to protect theain the position he had just achieved
It must be admitted that the question before the Confederate adh 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 uns of the United States fleet were mainly smooth-bores, with butsuch as the Tennessee's; and during the e of their i 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 bottoht to secure a very considerable separation in distance Every wooden shi+p was vulnerable to hies which his rifles permitted him to use
With the monitors Buchanan had not yet come into collision; but one of theabout their endurance and the power of their guns relatively to those of his own vessel, it would seeh immediate, should have been only tentative If it proved on trial that the speed of the Tennessee was greater than that of the ht 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 as commonly accurate, proposed to attack her at close quarters and by night, is the best arguht for his action As it was, his headlong charge into the Union fleet was a nificent display of inconsiderate bravery, in which such advantages as he had were recklessly throay Its purpose is not clear If, as Farragut thought, it was to sink his flag-shi+p, it can only be replied that an ade Had the Hartford been sunk when the column doubled up an hour or so before, the loss of the leader at so critical a ht have decided the day; but to sink her in the _h brilliant, feat of arms
As soon as it was ascertained that the Tennessee was really coear 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 Pal-shi+p in a stea the other vessels to see to the condition of their wounded Farragut called hio 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 hiht that Tennessee'” The wooden vessels at the sae the ram, bows on, at full speed, as well as to attack her with their guns
The , like the Tennessee herself, very slow, the raan The first to reach the hostile ironclad was the Monongahela, Captain Strong, which struck her squarely amidshi+ps on the starboard side, when she was still four hundred yards distant from the body of the fleet Fiveat full speed, delivered her blow also at right angles on the port side, abreast the after end of the ar 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 shi+ps theh their own stems were crushed in for several feet above and below the water line
Upon the, like the Lackawanna, on the port side; but toward her the Tennessee turned, so that the two h not exactly, bows on The Hartford's anchor, which there had not been tie; 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 ad, on this occasion into the port , whence he watched the effects of this encounter Both the Lackawanna and the Hartford now e the enemy; but in the -shi+p, striking near where Farragut stood, and cutting the vessel down to within two feet of the water The i the shi+p's coeneral cry that arose, ”Save the adnoring 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 nohen in his sixties, the admiral jumped into the chains to ascertain the extent of the injury; then, finding that the shi+p was in no present danger, he ordered her again to be headed for the Tennessee
Meanwhile the un between theuns had been disabled; and the slow firing of those unwieldy weapons, with the i theht have been expected One shot struck square, breaking through the port side of the armor; but even so theevidence of the power of the Tennessee to resist a single shot But she was not equally invulnerable to the sustained and continuous hao's turrets, being out of order, could not be turned, and consequently the guns could be brought to bear only bythe helm; a circumstance which materially reduced her fire The Chickasaever, was in better case Lieutenant-Coot 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 ounded by an iron splinter, which broke his leg and otherwise injured it to such an extent that the limb ith difficulty saved He turned over the co for twenty er and then reported to his superior that the shi+p 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 thee you had better surrender”
The Tennessee's flag had been several ti very conspicuous, its removal was not i to put a stop to the firing ”She was at this tiut in his dispatch to the Navy Depart 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 sone, co 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 coarded, 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 casee was disabled; there being distinctstruck within a few square feet of that port Three of her port shutters also were so dauns could not be fired
Thus ended the great battle of Mobile Bay, the crowning achieveut's naval career; ”one of the hardest-earned victories of my life,” to quote his oords, ”and the ht since the days of the old Essex” ”Youcareer 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-shi+p herself had been twenty-five killed and twenty-eight wounded out of a shi+p's company of some three hundred souls The Brooklyn, a shi+p 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 nuuns of the fort, but supported by the fire of the other vessels--with that of the flag-shi+p, inflicted by the batteries of the eneun-boats, few in number, but worked for the time with iut's oft-repeated maxim, that ”to hurt your ene 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 froun to theand confessed the United States fleet mistress of the bay The forts still stood with the Confederate flag flying from thean retorted to a suut's fleet as practically prisoners in a port whose keys he held If so, it was the high-hearted resolve of a e 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 ht, and their fall becaarrison, as on the forht 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 ti 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 Chickasaeighed her anchor and steamed doard Grant's Pass to shell Fort Powell Built to resist an attack from Mississippi Sound, the eak in the direction of the bay ”The ironclad's fire,” reported the officer in couns in the rear, and I ht 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 er in his approaches, that as 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 froht, the siege guns, the three monitors, the captured Tennessee, and the shi+ps, 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 ar 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 departratulation 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 a between these two branches of the service For e the assistance rendered by the fleet and the ad the troops, guns, andall our relations, the officers of the fleet, with their distinguished coree those qualities which allant service” To the officers of the navy the testirateful; not ments of the inored by historians, but chiefly as giving an added lustre to the brilliant reputation of its two uished representatives, who successively filled the high position of admiral of the navy
After the capitulation of the forts, Ad November The lower bay was cleared of torpedoes and reconnoissances ainst 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 a 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 ad 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 sohiood condition” Despite this brave effort at cheerfulness, his letters froan to show syed 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 alar 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 sho exhausted he is, and his health is not very good, any way He is a hty fine old fellow” Captain Drayton also wrote hoer in the Gulf, he feared for the consequences
Under these circumstances an order fro hireatly upset him He had about a week before written to the Secretary to say that his strength was al,” he concluded, ”to do the bidding of the depart as I am able to the best ofway I have now been down in the Gulf five years out of six, with the exception of the short time at ho upon me, and I want rest, if it is to be had”