“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.”
The Confederate Ram Tennessee, Captured at Mobile.