“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.
Farragut and Drayton on Board the Hartford at Mobile Bay.
Drawn by I. W. Taber from a photograph.