An officer of the Hartford wrote in his private journal: "The order was, to go 'slowly, slowly,' and receive the fire of Fort Morgan. At six minutes past seven the fort opened, having allowed us to get into such short range that we apprehended some snare; in fact, I heard the order passed for our guns to be elevated for fourteen hundred yards some time before one was fired. The calmness of the scene was sublime. No impatience, no irritation, no anxiety, except for the fort to open; and, after it did open, full five minutes elapsed before we answered. In the mean time the guns were trained as if at a target, and all the sounds I could hear were, 'Steady, boys, steady! Left tackle a little—so! so!' Then the roar of a broadside, and an eager cheer as the enemy were driven from their water battery. Don't imagine they were frightened; no man could stand under that iron shower; and the brave fellows returned to their guns as soon as it lulled, only to be driven away again."

Farragut, who was a man of deep religious convictions, fully realized the perils of the enterprise upon which he was entering, and did not half expect to survive it. In a letter to his wife, written the evening before the battle, he said: "I am going into Mobile Bay in the morning, if God is my leader, as I hope he is, and in him I place my trust. If he think it is the proper place for me to die, I am ready to submit to his will in that as in all other things." In spite of the universal sailor superstition, he fought this battle on Friday.

One incident of this battle suggests the thought that many of the famous deeds of Old-World chivalry have been paralleled in American history. When the Tecumseh was going down, Captain Craven and his pilot met at the foot of the ladder that afforded the only escape, and the pilot stepped aside. "After you, pilot," said Craven, drawing back, for he knew it was by his own fault, not the pilot's, that the vessel was struck. "There was nothing after me," said the pilot, in telling the story; "for the moment I reached the deck the vessel seemed to drop from under me, and went to the bottom."

ON BOARD THE "HARTFORD," BATTLE OF MOBILE BAY.
(From a painting by W. H. Overend.)

GUN PRACTICE ON A NATIONAL WAR-SHIP.
(From a war-time photograph.)

In all the literature of our language there is but one instance of the poetical description of a battle by a genuine poet who was a participator in the conflict. This instance is Brownell's "Bay Fight." Drayton's fine "Ballad of Agincourt" has long been famous, but that battle was fought a century and a half before Drayton was born. Campbell witnessed the battle of Hohenlinden, famous through his familiar poem, but only from the distant tower of a convent. Byron's description of the battle of Waterloo is justly admired, but Byron was not at Waterloo. Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava," which every schoolboy knows, is another hearsay poem, for Tennyson was never within a thousand miles of Balaklava. Henry Howard Brownell, a native of Providence, R. I., when a young man taught a school in Mobile, Ala. Afterward he practised law in Hartford, Conn., but left it for literature, and at the age of twenty-seven published a volume of poems that attracted no attention. During the war he made numerous poetical contributions to periodicals, some of which were widely copied. One of these, a poetical version of Farragut's General Orders at New Orleans, attracted the admiral's attention and led to a correspondence. Brownell wrote that he had always wanted to witness a sea-fight, and Farragut, answering that he would give him an opportunity, procured his appointment as acting ensign on board the Hartford. During the battle of Mobile, Brownell was on deck attending to his duties, for which he was honorably mentioned in the admiral's report, and at the same time taking notes of the picturesque incidents. The outcome was his unique and powerful poem entitled "The Bay Fight." Oliver Wendell Holmes, in an article in the Atlantic Monthly, said: "New modes of warfare thundered their demand for a new poet to describe them; and Nature has answered in the voice of our battle laureate, Henry Howard Brownell." From Mr. Brownell's poem we take the following stanzas:

Three days through sapphire seas we sailed;
The steady trade blew strong and free,
The northern light his banners paled,
The ocean stream our channels wet.
We rounded low Canaveral's lee,
And passed the isles of emerald set
In blue Bahama's turquoise sea.

By reef and shoal obscurely mapped,
And hauntings of the gray sea-wolf,
The palmy Western Key lay lapped
In the warm washing of the gulf.

But weary to the hearts of all
The burning glare, the barren reach
Of Santa Rosa's withered beach,
And Pensacola's ruined wall.

And weary was the long patrol,
The thousand miles of shapeless strand,
From Brazos to San Blas, that roll
Their drifting dunes of desert sand.

Yet, coast-wise as we cruised or lay,
The land-breeze still at nightfall bore,
By beach and fortress-guarded bay,
Sweet odors from the enemy's shore,

Fresh from the forest solitudes,
Unchallenged of his sentry lines—
The bursting of his cypress buds,
And the warm fragrance of his pines.

Our lofty spars were down,
To bide the battle's frown,
(Wont of old renown)—
But every ship was drest
In her bravest and her best,
As if for a July day.
Sixty flags and three,
As we floated up the bay;
Every peak and mast-head flew
The brave red, white, and blue—
We were eighteen ships that day.

On, in the whirling shade
Of the cannon's sulphury breath,
We drew to the line of death
That our devilish foe had laid—
Meshed in a horrible net,
And baited villanous well,
Right in our path were set
Three hundred traps of hell!

And there, O sight forlorn!
There, while the cannon
Hurtled and thundered—
(Ah! what ill raven
Flapped o'er the ship that morn!)—
Caught by the under-death,
In the drawing of a breath,
Down went dauntless Craven,
He and his hundred!

A moment we saw her turret,
A little heel she gave,
And a thin white spray went o'er it,
Like the crest of a breaking wave.
In that great iron coffin,
The channel for their grave,
The fort their monument,
(Seen afar in the offing),
Ten fathom deep lie Craven,
And the bravest of our brave.

Trust me, our berth was hot;
Ah, wickedly well they shot!
How their death-bolts howled and stung!
And their water batteries played
With their deadly cannonade
Till the air around us rung.
So the battle raged and roared—
Ah! had you been aboard
To have seen the fight we made!

Never a nerve that failed,
Never a cheek that paled,
Not a tinge of gloom or pallor.
There was bold Kentucky's grit,
And the old Virginian valor,
And the daring Yankee wit.

There were blue eyes from turfy Shannon,
There were black orbs from palmy Niger;
But there, alongside the cannon,
Each man fought like a tiger.

And now, as we looked ahead,
All for'ard, the long white deck
Was growing a strange dull red;
But soon, as once and again
Fore and aft we sped
(The firing to guide or check),
You could hardly choose but tread
On the ghastly human wreck,
(Dreadful gobbet and shred
That a minute ago were men)!

Red, from main-mast to bitts!
Red, on bulwark and wale—
Red, by combing and hatch—
Red, o'er netting and rail!

And ever, with steady con,
The ship forged slowly by;
And ever the crew fought on,
And their cheers rang loud and high.

Fear? A forgotten form!
Death? A dream of the eyes!
We were atoms in God's great storm
That roared through the angry skies.

A league from the fort we lay,
And deemed that the end must lag;
When lo! looking down the bay,
There flaunted the rebel rag—
The ram is again under way
And heading dead for the flag!

Steering up with the stream,
Boldly his course he lay,
Though the fleet all answered his fire,
And, as he still drew nigher,
Ever on bow and beam
Our monitors pounded away—
How the Chickasaw hammered away!

Quickly breasting the wave,
Eager the prize to win,
First of us all the brave
Monongahela went in,
Under full head of steam—
Twice she struck him abeam,
Till her stem was a sorry work.
(She might have run on a crag!)
The Lackawanna hit fair—
He flung her aside like cork,
And still he held for the flag.

Heading square at the hulk,
Full on his beam we bore;
But the spine of the huge sea-hog
Lay on the tide like a log—
He vomited flame no more.

By this he had found it hot.
Half the fleet, in an angry ring,
Closed round the hideous thing,
Hammering with solid shot,
And bearing down, bow on bow—
He has but a minute to choose;
Life or renown?—which now
Will the rebel admiral lose?

Cruel, haughty, and cold,
He ever was strong and bold—
Shall he shrink from a wooden stem?
He will think of that brave band
He sank in the Cumberland—
Ay, he will sink like them!

Nothing left but to fight
Boldly his last sea-fight!
Can he strike? By Heaven, 'tis true!
Down comes the traitor blue,
And up goes the captive white!

Ended the mighty noise,
Thunder of forts and ships,
Down we went to the hold—
Oh, our dear dying boys!
How we pressed their poor brave lips
(Ah, so pallid and cold!)
And held their hands to the last
(Those that had hands to hold)!

O motherland, this weary life
We led, we lead, is 'long of thee!
Thine the strong agony of strife,
And thine the lonely sea.

Thine the long decks all slaughter-sprent,
The weary rows of cots that lie
With wrecks of strong men, marred and rent,
'Neath Pensacola's sky.

And thine the iron caves and dens
Wherein the flame our war-fleet drives—
The fiery vaults, whose breath is men's
Most dear and precious lives.

Ah, ever when with storm sublime
Dread Nature clears our murky air,
Thus in the crash of falling crime
Some lesser guilt must share!

To-day the Dahlgren and the drum
Are dread apostles of His name;
His kingdom here can only come
By chrism of blood and flame.

Be strong! already slants the gold
Athwart these wild and stormy skies;
From out this blackened waste behold
What happy homes shall rise!

And never fear a victor foe—
Thy children's hearts are strong and high;
Nor mourn too fondly—well they know
On deck or field to die.

Nor shalt thou want one willing breath,
Though, ever smiling round the brave,
The blue sea bear us on to death,
The green were one wide grave.