The Battle for Mobile, Alabama
August 5, 1864 to April, 1865
The Battle for Mobile was really a campaign that included a series of smaller battles lumped togather under the rubric of one name. Mobile Bay was too large and heavily defended for the Union Army to swarm over everything in one large attack the way they did at Port Royal in 1861.
Mobile Bay
Otherwise, there were many similarities between Fort Royal and Mobile, both were large bays that were protected by forts blocking the entrance; both were deep within Confederate territory and would have to be attacked from the sea; both were large deep bays where ships could maneuver freely once inside. The big difference between the two was that the Confederates realized their mistake in allowing Port Royal to fall and of allowing the Union Navy to gain a foothold so deep in Southern territory and were not going to repeat that mistake with Mobile Bay. Mobile was the last large harbor open to the Confederate blockade runners. If runners could get in under the guns of the forts they were home free to offload their cargo and get need repairs in the Port of Mobile. Getting out was an issue of course but the Union ships had long stretch of coastline to watch and a fast ship, traveling at night, could usually get through.
The Union fleet passes the fort and takes on the Confederate fleet attempting to block the bay. Fort Graines ends up not being a player in the battle because it was to far way.
The lead up to the battle
Grant had been arguing for an attack on Mobile for much of the war. Banks had been collecting forces for such an attack when he was rerouted into Louisiana by Lincoln. The disastrous Red River Campaign was the result, nothing was gained what so ever and a fleet was almost lost. By the time Lincoln finally allowed an attack on Mobile the war was all but over and an argument could be made that it was no longer needed. I think it should have been launched in 1862 or 63 by the latest, but it wasn't.
This buoy marks the final resting place of the Monitor U.S.S. Tecumseh and 90 of it's crew members.
Anaconda, the North's plan to strangle the South worked, it won the war for the North. While the South focused its attention on Virginia and the East their economy was crushed from the edges by a steady process of erosion. For most of the war this process was carried on in North Carolina and on the Mississippi; it was slow but it never stopped. By degrees the access the South enjoyed to the world markets was chocked off as ports were occupied by the Union.
Once the Union ships were into the bay the Confederate Navy was no match for the Union ships and fled, with one exception, the iorn clad ram the C.S.S. Tennessee; considered by some to be the most powerful ship in the world, at the time. After inflicting a gread deal of damage on the Union fleet the Tennessee found itself surrounded with her rudder chains and smoke stack shot away, and 4 of its 10 gunports jammed. Unable to steer, move or even keep up her rate of fire, the Tennessee surrendered.
The South did not have the manufacturing base required to not only to fight the war but also to provide the basic goods required by 1860’s society: So those things needed to be imported. Lincoln was less worried about a few blockade runners than he was about France controlling Mexico and while he agreed with Anaconda he also had to concern himself with matters larger than the Civil War itself. While the Civil War was a big issue for the United States it was not the only thing going on in the world and Lincoln still had to concern himself with international affairs. Lincoln's Texas invasion was message directed at the French in Mexico rather than the Confederacy. It should have given the South pause to consider that Lincoln could fight the war on may fronts AND send an army off to threaten Mexico.
Dauphin Island across the bay from the battle site.
By the time Lincoln approved the attack on Mobile the Confederates had four good years to prepare their defenses. Besides the three forts built at the two mouths of the bay, double rows of pilings had been driven forcing any ships enetering either open channel to pass point blank in front of one of the forts. The channels were further narrowed by torpedo fields (mines) layed on the bay side of pilings forcing any attacking ship to stay well in close to the Confederate guns until past the guns of the fort.
The Confederates backed up their coastal defenses with a small fleet of their own that could aid whichever fort the Union showed up at. The Confederate fleet was to act as the cork in the bottle at the restricted entrance. While the fleet was small, it was mighty, the Confederate flagship was a monster sized ram, the CSS Tennessee. The Tennessee was considered by many to be the most powerful warship in the world, at the time, and was commanded by Admiral Buchanan the former captain of the CSS Virginia (Merrimac).
Mobile Point from Dauphin Island this shot includes much of the battlefield the fighting way all over on the far side of the bay, leaving Fort Gaines a spectator with a front row seat.
The Battle for Mobile Bay - Damn torpedos, lets get outa here!
I know, the line is "Damn the torpedos full steam ahead", supposedly yelled by Adm Farragut lasted to rigging of his flagship the USS Hartford. The truth is it was quite noisy and nobody wrote down what was said by anyone, at the time. A couple of different people were given credit for the line later, and not everybody agreed exactly what was said, but "Damn the torpedos" was a great line especially in a close election year, and it got lots of air play in the Northern press. My line "lets get outa here" is actually the message Farragut was trying to send because his ships were being hammered hard by Fort Morgan at the time and one of the lead ships of his fleet had stopped in the middle of the channel blocking everyone behind it from moving forward and to get around the stopped ship they were going to have to go into the minefield.
My visit was during the hight of the BP oil spill.
The battle proper for Mobile Bay took place on August 5th, 1864 with Admiral David Farragut's drive into Mobile Bay past Fort Morgan and through the Confederate fleet. Farragut had three big obstacals in his path, Fort Morgan, the CSS Tennessee and the Confederate minefield. Mines were called torpedos at the time and a large field of them had been placed behind the double rows of pilings driven to narrow the channel opening in front of the guns of Fort Morgan.
There were boats pulling skimmers everywhere. But the photo's of these boat were taken where Adm. Farragut forced his way through the entrance to the bay and fought the CSS Tennessee.
Fort Morgan couldn't miss the sitting duck ships trapped right in front of them, especially when the lead ship just stoped, blocking the channel; a whole battery of cannon had been set up to fire right over the top of the water and hit the ships with a straight shot at the waterline. The fleet was not without its own punch and sent volley after volley into the fort defenses, but on board the decks of the ships trapped in front of the fort, the slaughter was terrible.
The fleet was supposed to steam into the channel and pass the fort as fast as possible, but the ironclad monitors that were leading the charge were quite slow. The USS Brooklyn stopped to keep from over running the slower monitors and when his ship stopped the Captain froze, he didn't want to face the Tennessee by himself so he just sat still, drifting sideway across the channel, jamming up everyone else behind him. Meanwhile the Captain of the lead monitor the USS Tecumseh was worried about running aground and ordered his ship turn hard aport, right into the torpedofield. The Tecumseh hit a torpedo and quickly sunk. The Captain of the Brooklyn was not going anywhere, Farragut was going to have to do something quick or the fleet was doomed. Accordingly, he ordered the fleet to steam around the Brooklyn risking the torpedofield. When a watch reported, "torpedo ahead", Farragut yelled something that had gone down in history as, "Damn the torpedos, full steam ahead", or "let's get outa here".
This barge is what the Tennessee must have looked like to the Captain of the Brooklyn and he was having none of it.
Whatever Farragut said, turning into the torpedos was the right thing to do, the Confederates had laid them early in the war and had never serviced them afterward. Sitting in the saltwater for several years had done nothing good for their firing mechanism. Men working bellow decks heard torpedos striking the hull of their ship, but other than the first one that struck the Tecumseh, none of them exploded and Farragut's fleet passed into the bay. All of this and it was only eight o'clock in the morning.
Of course Farragut's troubles weren't over, he still faced the Confederate fleet. The smaller Confederate ships were easly scattered by the more powerful Union ships, but Union salvos bounced off the Tennessee without making a dent. Buchanan made a tactical mistake choosing to fight the whole Federal fleet after the rest of his ships were driven off. There were a couple of design flaws in the construcion of the Tennessee, the worst of which was the steering chains were exposed to Union fire and were shot away as the battle progressed. During a salvo a bolt broke and shot through the Tennessee striking Buchanan and breaking his leg, carried to his bunk he learned that the Tennessee could no longer steer and was floating helplessly; accordingly, Buchanan ordered the ram to surrender. It was still morning so Farragut ordered his fleet west and attacked Fort Powell which was evacuated later that night.
Regardless of what he said, or who actually said it, Adm. Farragut had a very full day.
Next: Fort Powell