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.