The Gulf and Inland Waters Part 12

They opened that day on the enemy's works, which were invested by the army the same night.

Before and after crossing, the bay had been thoroughly swept for torpedoes, and it was hoped that all had been found; but, unfortunately, they had not. On the 28th the Winnebago and Milwaukee moved up toward Spanish Fort, sh.e.l.ling a transport lying there from a distance of two miles. As the enemy's works were throwing far over, they were ordered to return to the rest of the fleet when the transport moved off. The Milwaukee dropped down with the current, keeping her head up stream, and had come within two hundred yards of the fleet when she struck a torpedo, on her port side forty feet from the stern. She sank abaft in three minutes, but her bow did not fill for nearly an hour. No one was hurt or drowned by this accident. The next day, the Winnebago having dragged in a fresh breeze too near the Osage, the latter weighed and moved a short distance ahead. Just as she was about to drop her anchor, a torpedo exploded under the bow and she began to sink, filling almost immediately. Of her crew 5 were killed and 11 wounded by the explosion, but none were drowned. The place where this happened had been thoroughly swept and the torpedo was thought to be one that had gone, or been sent, adrift from above.

The two vessels were in twelve feet water, so that the tops of the turrets remained in sight. Lieutenant-Commander Gillis, after the loss of his vessel, took command of a naval battery in the siege and did good service.

On the 1st of April the light-draught steamer Rodolph, having on board apparatus for raising the Milwaukee, was coming near the fleet when she too struck a torpedo, which exploded thirty feet abaft her stem and caused her to sink rapidly, killing 4 and wounding 11 of the crew.

The siege lasted until the evening of the 8th of April, when Spanish Fort surrendered. Up to the last the enemy sent down torpedoes, and that night eighteen were taken from Blakely River. Commander Pierce Crosby, of the Metacomet, at once began sweeping above, and so successfully that on the 10th the Octorara and ironclads were able to move abreast Spanish Fort and sh.e.l.l two earthworks, called Huger and Tracy, some distance above. These were abandoned on the evening of the 11th, when the fleet took possession. Commander Crosby again went on with the work of lifting torpedoes, removing in all over one hundred and fifty. The way being thus cleared, on the 12th Commander Palmer with the Octorara and ironclads moved up the Blakely to the point where it branches off from the Tensaw, and down the latter stream, coming out about a mile from Mobile, within easy sh.e.l.ling distance. At the same time Admiral Thatcher, with the gunboats and 8,000 troops under General Granger, crossed the head of the bay to attack the city, which was immediately given up; the Confederate troops having already withdrawn. The vessels of the enemy, which had taken little part in the defence, had gone up the Tombigbee.

The navy at once began to remove the obstructions in the main s.h.i.+p channel and lift the torpedoes, which were numerous. While doing the latter duty, two tugs, the Ida and Althea, and a launch of the ironclad Cincinnati were blown up. By these accidents 8 were killed and 5 wounded. The gunboat Sciota was also sunk in the same manner on the 14th of April, the explosion breaking the spar deck beams and doing much other damage. Her loss was 6 killed and 5 wounded.

The rebellion was now breaking up. Lee had laid down his arms on the 9th, and Johnston on the 24th of April. On the 4th of May General Richard Taylor surrendered the army in the Department of Alabama and Mississippi to General Canby; and the same day Commodore Farrand delivered the vessels under his command in the waters of Alabama to Admiral Thatcher, the officers and crews being paroled. Sabine Pa.s.s and Galveston, which had never been retaken after their loss early in 1863, were given up on the 25th of May and the 2d of June.

In July, 1865, the East and West Gulf Squadrons were merged into one under Admiral Thatcher. Reasons of public policy caused this arrangement to continue until May, 1867, when the attempt of the French emperor to establish an imperial government in Mexico having been given up, the Gulf Squadron as a distinct organization ceased to be. Thus ended the last of the separate fleets which the Civil War had called into existence. The old cruising ground of the Home Squadron again became a single command under the name, which it still retains, of the North Atlantic Squadron.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] Report of the United States Ordnance Officer of Department, dated October, 1864.

[23] Report of the United States Ordnance Officer of Department, dated October, 1864.

[24] See Appendix.

[25] Of these guns twelve 32-pounders were at the southwest angle of the covered way. This is believed by the writer to be the battery known to the fleet as the lighthouse battery.

[26] 24-pounder smooth-bore guns rifled.

[27] In a paper read in 1868, before the Essayons Club, at Willett's Point, N.Y., by Captain A.H. Burnham, U.S. Engineers, it is stated that there were three VII-and VIII-inch rifles in this battery. If this is correct, they had probably been moved from the barbette of the main work.

[28] The Richmond, while at Pensacola, built a regular barricade of sand-bags, extending from the port bow round the starboard side to the port quarter, and from the berth to the spar-dock. Three thousand bags of sand were used for this defence which was in places several feet thick.

[29] For particulars of batteries, see Appendix.

[30] Sixty pounds; one hundred pounds have since been used in these guns.

[31] The evidence for this singular and striking incident is, both in quality and quant.i.ty, such as puts the fact beyond doubt. The same sounds were heard on board the Richmond. The tin torpedoes were poorly lacquered and corroded rapidly under the sea-water. There is good reason to believe that those which sunk the Tec.u.mseh had been planted but two or three days before. A story recently current in the South, that she was sunk by a torpedo carried at her own bow, is wholly without foundation.

[32] Farragut was in the port main rigging of the Hartford, Jouett on the starboard wheel-house of his s.h.i.+p, so that there were but a few feet between them.

[33] This was told the writer by the officer himself.

[34] Commander Stevens had given up the command of the Oneida at the request and in favor of Commander Mullany, whose own s.h.i.+p was not fitted for such an engagement, and who had heretofore been less fortunate than his friend in having opportunities for distinction thrown in his way by the war. Stevens, being an old ironclad captain, took the command of the Winnebago, which was vacant.

[35] This was said in the hearing of Lieutenant-Commander (now Captain) Kimberley, the executive officer of the Hartford. Commodore Foxhall A.

Parker (Battle of Mobile Bay) mentions that Farragut had written in a note-book after the engagement: "Had Buchanan remained under the fort, I should have attacked him _as soon as it became dark_ with the three monitors." The statements are easily reconciled, the latter representing the second thought.

[36] Lieutenant-Commander Perkins and the executive officer of the Chickasaw, Volunteer Lieutenant William Hamilton, were going North from other s.h.i.+ps on leave of absence, the latter on sick leave, but had offered their services for the battle. The fire of the Chickasaw was the most damaging to the Tennessee. In her engagement with the ram she fired fifty-two XI-inch solid shot, almost all into the stern, where the greatest injury was done. The Metacomet went to Pensacola that night under a flag of truce with the wounded from the fleet and the Tennessee, and was taken out by the pilot of the latter. He asked Captain Jouett who commanded the monitor that got under the ram's stern, adding: "D----n him! he stuck to us like a leech; we could not get away from him. It was he who cut away the steering gear, jammed the stern port shutters, and wounded Admiral Buchanan."

[37] It is not easy to fix the exact times of particular occurrences from the notes taken in the heat of action by different observers, with watches not necessarily running together; yet a certain measure of duration of the exciting events between 7 and 10 A.M. in this battle seems desirable. From a careful comparison of the logs and reports the following table of times has been compiled:

Fort Morgan opened 7.07 A.M.

Brooklyn opened with bow guns 7.10 A.M.

Fleet generally with bow guns 7.15 A.M.

Fleet generally with broadside guns 7.30-7.50 A.M.

Tec.u.mseh sunk 7.45 A.M.

Hartford took the lead 7.52 A.M.

Hartford casts off Metacomet 8.05 A.M.

At this time the rest of the fleet were about a mile astern of the flag-s.h.i.+p, crossing the lines of torpedoes, and the Tennessee turned to attack them.

Tennessee pa.s.sed rear s.h.i.+p (Oneida) 8.20 A.M.

Hartford anch.o.r.ed 8.35 A.M.

Tennessee sighted coming up 8.50 A.M.

Monongahela rammed 9.25 A.M.

Lackawanna rammed 9.30 A.M.

Hartford 9.35 A.M.

Tennessee surrendered 10.00 A.M.

[38]

Killed. Wounded.

Hartford 25 28 Brooklyn 11 43 Lackawanna 4 35 Oneida 8 30 Monongahela 0 6 Metacomet 1 2 Ossipee 1 7 Richmond 0 2 Galena 0 1 Octorara 1 10 Kennebec 1 6

[39] The Tensaw branches off from the Alabama thirty miles up, and the whole really forms a bayou, or delta, system.

APPENDIX.

BATTERIES (EXCEPT HOWITZERS) OF VESSELS AT NEW ORLEANS, APRIL, 1862.

-------------------+----+----+----+-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ XI- X- IX- VIII- 32- 100- 80- 50- 30- 20- in. in. in. in. pdr. pdr. pdr. pdr. pdr. pdr. NAMES sm.-bore. rifled. -------------------+----+----+----+-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ Hartford 22 2 Brooklyn 20 1 1 Richmond 22 1 1 Pensacola 1 20 1 1 Mississippi 1 15 1 Oneida 2 4 3 Iroquois 2 4 1 Varuna 8 2 Cayuga[40] 1 1 Clifton 2 4 1 Jackson[41] 1 1 4 Westfield 1 4 1 Harriet Lane 3 Miami 2 1 1 1 -------------------+----+----+----+-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+

BATTERIES (EXCEPT HOWITZERS) OF VESSELS[42] AT PORT HUDSON, MARCH, 1863.

-------------------+-----+-----+-----+------+------+------+------+ XI- X- IX- 32- 150- 100- 30- in. in. in. pdr. pdr. pdr. pdr. NAMES smooth-bore. rifled. -------------------+-----+-----+-----+------+------+------+------+ Monongahela 2 5 1 Genesee 1 4 2 Albatross 4 1 -------------------+-----+-----+-----+------+------+------+------+

BATTERIES (EXCEPT HOWITZERS) OF VESSELS AT MOBILE, AUGUST, 1864.

---------------+----+----+----+----+-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ XV- XI- X- IX- 32- 150- 100- 60- 50- 30- 20- in. in. in. in. pdr. pdr. pdr. pdr. pdr. pdr. pdr. NAMES sm.-bore. rifled. ---------------+----+----+----+----+-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ Tec.u.mseh 2 Manhattan 2 Winnebago 4 Chickasaw 4 Hartford 18 2 1 Brooklyn 20 2 2 Richmond 18 1 1 Lackawanna 2 4 1 1 Monongahela 2 5 1 Ossipee 1 6 1 3 Oneida 2 4 3 Galena 8 1 1 Seminole 1 6 1 Port Royal 1 2 1 2 Metacomet 4 2 Octorara 3 2 1 Itasca 1 2 2 Kennebec 1 2 2 ---------------+----+----+----+----+-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+

BATTERIES (EXCEPT HOWITZERS) OF MISSISSIPPI SQUADRON, AUGUST[43], 1862.

-------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+ Army 42's X- IX- VIII- 32- 70- 50- 30- in. in. in. pdr. pdr. pdr. pdr. NAMES smooth-bore. rifled. -------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+ Benton 2 8 4 2 Cairo 3 6 3 1 Carondelet 4 6 1 1 1 Cincinnati 3 6 2 2 Louisville 3 6 2 2 Mound City 3 6 2 1 1 Pittsburg 3 6 2 2 St. Louis 3 6 2 2 Ess.e.x* 1 3 1 2 Conestoga 4 Lexington 4 1 2 Tyler 6 3 Eastport* 4 2 2 Gen. Bragg* 1 1 Sumter* 2 Price* Little Rebel 1 -------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+ * Rams.