CHAPTER XIII
FARRAGUT AT MOBILE
THE FORTS AND THE CONFEDERATE SQUADRON THE UNION FORCES WERE COMPELLED TO FACE—THE CONFEDERATE IRONCLAD JUST MISSED BEING A MOST FORMIDABLE SHIP—TEDIOUS WAIT FOR MONITORS—WHEN THE SOUTHWEST WIND FAVORED—THERE WAS A FIERCE BLAST FROM THE FORTS AT FIRST, BUT THE TORPEDO WAS WORSE THAN MANY GUNS—FATE OF THE TECUMSEH AND CAPTAIN CRAVEN—THE LAST WORDS OF THE MAN FOR WHOM “THERE WAS NO AFTERWARD”—TORPEDOES THAT FAILED BENEATH THE FLAGSHIP—CAPTAIN STEVENS ON THE DECK OF HIS MONITOR—WHEN NEILDS UNFURLED THE OLD FLAG IN THE MIDST OF THE STORM—HOW FARRAGUT WAS LASHED TO THE MAST—JOUETT WOULD NOT BE INTIMIDATED BY A LEADSMAN—MOBBING THE TENNESSEE.
Entrance to Mobile Bay.
From “The Navy in the Civil War.”
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.