Maurice Bell.
Mobile and Wilmington were the only important Confederate ports still open, and early in August, 1864, Admiral Farragut appeared off Mobile with a fleet of eighteen vessels. The entrance to the harbor was strongly defended by forts on both sides, but Farragut determined to run past them. On August 5 the fleet advanced, but the Tecumseh, leading the fleet, struck a torpedo and sank instantly, carrying down nearly all her crew, including T. A. M. Craven, her commander, who drew aside from the ladder that the pilot might pass first.
[August 5, 1864]
Over the turret, shut in his ironclad tower,
Craven was conning his ship through smoke and flame;
Gun to gun he had battered the fort for an hour.
Now was the time for a charge to end the game.
There lay the narrowing channel, smooth and grim,
A hundred deaths beneath it, and never a sign;
There lay the enemy's ships, and sink or swim
The flag was flying, and he was head of the line.
The fleet behind was jamming: the monitor hung
Beating the stream; the roar for a moment hushed;
Craven spoke to the pilot; slow she swung;
Again he spoke, and right for the foe she rushed
Into the narrowing channel, between the shore
And the sunk torpedoes lying in treacherous rank;
She turned but a yard too short; a muffled roar,
A mountainous wave, and she rolled, righted, and sank.
Over the manhole, up in the ironclad tower,
Pilot and captain met as they turned to fly:
The hundredth part of a moment seemed an hour,
For one could pass to be saved, and one must die.
They stood like men in a dream; Craven spoke,—
Spoke as he lived and fought, with a captain's pride:
"After you, Pilot." The pilot woke,
Down the ladder he went, and Craven died.