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West Wind, Flood Tide
THE BATTLE OF MOBILE BAY
By Jack Friend Naval Institue Press
Copyright © 2004 Jack Friend
All right reserved. ISBN: 1-59114-292-X
Chapter One
Ram Fever The news was depressing. On 17 January 1864, as the Hartford dropped anchor in Pensacola Harbor twelve days after leaving New York, Farragut was met with "ram fever," confirming Secretary Welles's belief that Buchanan was about to steam out and raise the blockade. As soon as the boarding ladder was lowered, Capt. Thornton Jenkins, commander of the Mobile blockade, came aboard and reported to Farragut that the rebel squadron at Mobile was now superior to his own and was indeed making plans to attack the blockade.
In a letter written three days before to Commo. Henry H. Bell, commander pro tem of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron during Farragut's absence, Jenkins had informed him that Buchanan was making active preparations to attack the squadron. He then enumerated the dire results should the attack be successful, concluding with the following admonition: "The raising of this blockade by driving off or totally destroying all of our vessels ... is too great a temptation to an active and enterprising enemy, not to say a desperate one, to be fully disregarded by us." Jenkins then took a jab at Napoleon III of France, whose troops had occupied Mexico, purportedly to settle an overdue national debt. "Whatever may be the intention of the enemy inside Mobile Bay or of their friends elsewhere who have threatened to come to their assistance at this point," he wrote Bell, "it certainly is our duty to be well prepared to act, not only on the defensive, but to attack with the assurance of possible, if not probable, victory in case the opportunity is presented."
Nine vessels, including the Richmond, were assigned to the Mobile blockade: three small screw steamers, "only better than none"; three small screw gunboats with "inferior armaments," and two side-wheel gunboats, having "fair armaments" but much in need of repairs. Furthermore, as many as three of these vessels were usually away coaling, procuring supplies, or undergoing repairs. In Jenkins's opinion, the total firepower of the gunboats and steamers on blockade should at minimum be equal to that of all the enemy's wooden vessels, plus at least two wooden vessels of heavy armament for each of the enemy's ironclads.
Having received Jenkins's letter, Bell followed up with a dispatch to Welles, which included additional details about the proposed attack: "Although we have frequent reports of the rams in Red River and Mobile being failures, we do not confide in them, and are prepared to meet them with every prospect of success on our side, if they shall come, although the Pensacola and river boats are the only available vessels; the machinery of all other steamers here being apart and undergoing repairs."
Assessing the situation, and believing it to be credible, Farragut ordered the Hartford to proceed to Mobile as soon as her bunkers were topped off. He also directed the frigate Colorado to leave the mouth of the Mississippi and steam for the same destination. With this done, he penned a note to Commodore Bell in New Orleans announcing his arrival at Pensacola and informing him that he was going to Mobile to see firsthand the situation, then on to Ship Island and New Orleans. "I should go direct to New Orleans," he added, "but for the report that it is Buchanan's intention to come out with the rams and attack the blockaders."
by 10 February, having visited the Mobile blockade, Ship Island, and New Orleans, Farragut was back in Pensacola, convinced that the rebel squadron was still in Mobile. However, while in New Orleans, he learned of a plan by Gen. William T. Sherman to "strengthen the Union position in Vicksburg by destroying the two primary railroads of central Mississippi," which converged in Meridian. Sherman wanted Farragut to keep troops tied down in Mobile while he moved toward Meridian with an army of twenty-five thousand. After returning to Pensacola, the admiral informed Welles that he intended to assist Sherman by feigning an attack on Mobile, "unless the ironclads should come out, as the refugees all say they will, so soon as the Tennessee and the Nashville are ready. I shall continue to keep a good lookout for them, and whenever the army can give us 5,000 men we will see what can be done with the forts."
On 11 February, Farragut wrote Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks, commander of the Department of the Gulf, and told him that he was "going ahead with my part of the programme to assist General Sherman. I will have six mortar boats pounding away at the fort in Grant's Pass by the time this reaches you, as they all leave here to-day for the Mississippi Sound." The bombardment of Fort Powell commenced 16 February and continued intermittently through the twenty-ninth, the last day of the month, throwing "near 2,000 shot and shell" at the little fort. The next day, however, Farragut brought the operation to an abrupt stop: The Tennessee had crossed the bar and was "in full view in the bay opposite Grant's Pass," or so he thought.
On 1 March, prodded by Maj. Gen. Jeremy Gilmer, the Confederacy's chief engineer, Buchanan had ordered the ironclads Huntsville and Tuscaloosa-both smaller versions of the Tennessee-and the ram Baltic to proceed down the bay and take positions in the rear of Fort Powell. If Farragut were planning to assault Fort Powell and enter the bay, these vessels would serve as a deterrent, despite their unsuitability for operations in the lower bay.
by now, however, it had become apparent to General Maury that the attack on Fort Powell was a feint to draw Confederate troops from Sherman's front in central Mississippi. Others, however, were not so confident. Kate Cumming, a visitor in the city, attributed the concern to rumor: "While I was in Mobile the cry that 'the enemy is coming' was raised two or three times. There was a report that an immense army was coming through Florida, another through Mississippi, and another by Pascagoula, and at the same time the fleet was to attack the forts down the bay. For a while, poor Mobile seemed as if it was going to be gobbled up all at once but the enemy have found a few stumbling blocks in their way."
When the ironclads left Mobile, the Tennessee was still trapped above Dog River Bar. Buchanan had tried to solve the problem with "camels," the name given to boxlike structures used to lift a vessel and decrease its draft. By attaching camels, partially filled with water, to both sides of the Tennessee's hull, then pumping them free of water, the Tennessee was raised a mere "twenty-two inches, a good three feet short of what would be necessary" to cross the bar. Disappointed, but not discouraged, Buchanan wasted little time in ordering a new set of larger camels.
* * *
Farragut was despondent. He had been expecting the Tennessee to make an appearance in the lower bay since returning from New York. On 2 March he wrote his son, Loyall, that the Tennessee had come down the bay the day before and appeared very formidable, adding that a "norther was blowing" at the time and he would take a better look when the weather cleared. The same day, Farragut wrote Banks and told him the bad news: The Tennessee was "full in sight of us off Grant's Pass, lying in the middle of the bay." Despairingly, he added that an attack on Mobile would now have to be postponed until the arrival of ironclads, and "God only knows" when that will be.
Four days later, still believing he had seen the Tennessee, Farragut wrote Commo. James S. Palmer, the commander of the squadron's First Division in New Orleans: "We are in the dark as to the fate of the ram Tennessee; some say she has not yet crossed Dog River Bar; some that she has come down, I among the latter; those who were looking at her when the norther struck her say (some of them) that she went down, others that she went up the bay in tow of the other steamers. The deserters I send you will say that she never came over the bar, but I saw a vessel that I do not believe could be anything but the Tennessee."
On 9 March, Farragut admitted to Welles that he was wrong. An intelligent refugee-an engineer-had confirmed that the Tennessee was in Mobile at the time, her camels a failure. The admiral now believed that he had seen either the Tuscaloosa or the Huntsville.
Two months later, Farragut reported to Welles: "All the late accounts from Mobile agree in representing Buchanan as making exertions to get camels large enough to float the ram Tennessee over Dog River Bar, and no doubt is felt of his success." Expressing his anxiety, the admiral told Welles that he was in "hourly expectation of being attacked by almost an equal number of vessels, ironclads against wooden vessels, and a most unequal contest it will be." He closed with a sobering thought: "should we be unsuccessful, the panic in this part of the country will be beyond all control. They will imagine that New Orleans and Pensacola must fall."
When Buchanan hurriedly left Mobile on 29 February to personally command the vessels supporting Fort Powell, the Tennessee was anchored at the mouth of the Spanish River opposite the city, where camels were being attached to her hull. When the camels were pumped free of water, it was hoped that the ram would ride high enough to cross Dog River Bar, several miles down the bay. Unfortunately, the effort was a failure, lifting the Tennessee two feet short of the required four.
In a letter dated 13 March, Buchanan described the challenge to John Mitchell, his friend in charge of Office Orders and Detail in Richmond: "I am doing all I can to get the Tennessee over the bar. You will see by Myer's report of the Huntsville how difficult it is to get over that bar drawing only 9 feet 4 inches, her draft. She was nearly a week before we could get back after getting over. You may judge how difficult it will be to take a heavy flat vessel over drawing more than 13 feet. I hope Farragut will not get here before I am ready. If he does the Tennessee must meet him when she is ready. Everybody has taken it into their heads that one ship can whip a dozen, and if the trial is not made, we who are in her are d-d for life, consequently the trial must be made, so goes the world." Never one to waste time bemoaning a setback, Buchanan ordered a new set of six camels to be constructed, but bad luck struck again. On 3 April an accidental fire destroyed two of the six. Reacting with greater determination than ever, the admiral ordered another pair to be constructed and attached to the Tennessee by mid-May. In the meantime, he would continue looking for experienced seamen and artillerymen to man the Tennessee's guns.
On 6 April, to facilitate attachment of the new camels to the ram's hull, the ship was moved from the Spanish River back to a mooring on the Mobile River opposite the navy yard. Several days later, Buchanan wrote Cdr. Thomas ap Catesby Jones, commandant of the Naval Gun Factory and Ordnance Works at Selma, that he was "driving on" with the two new camels because he believed Farragut would attack Mobile any day now. "He is in Pensacola with a large force. Page thinks Forts Morgan and Gaines very weak. I don't agree with him. They might be stronger, but still they are very strong, I think." Shifting to the national scene, he then expressed a belief that was gaining in popularity throughout the South: "A battle on the Potomac is inevitable, 'tis said, and if we whip them the war will soon close. God speed."
Three weeks later, Buchanan reported that the camels had been completed and were being attached to the Tennessee's hull at the navy yard. By 16 May they had been pumped free of water, decreasing the ram's draft of thirteen feet to nine, barely enough to clear the bar's nine and a half feet. The next day, he came aboard and ordered the Tennessee to proceed to Spanish River and anchor just inside the row of piling that obstructed the approaches to the city.
On 18 May, as the sun edged above the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, the Tennessee weighed anchor and passed hawsers to the gunboat Morgan and the steamer Magnolia. At 4:00 P.M., having successfully cleared the bar, the Tennessee came to anchor about six miles north of Fort Morgan, where workmen began to remove the camels. By daylight the next morning, the camels had been set adrift, but Commander Johnston, the ram's captain, reported to Buchanan that the tide had fallen so much that the Tennessee was "hard and fast aground." What was worse, the enemy was now aware of her presence. "Here was an insurmountable and most unlooked-for end to the long-cherished hope of taking the enemy by surprise, dispersing the blockading fleet, and capturing Fort Pickens at the entrance of Pensacola Bay."
On the twenty-second, confirming the rumor that he still intended to attack the blockade, Buchanan came aboard the Tennessee, still aground above Fort Morgan, and addressed the crew. He told them that tonight the Tennessee would steam out and attack the enemy, that he expected every man to stand by his guns until death and never surrender "for the eyes of the people of the Confederacy were turned upon them and they expected much." Three cheers from both officers and men echoed across the wind-swept waters of the lower bay, indicating their willingness to follow him wherever he led. At sundown, however, the Tennessee's pilots reported that the weather had been worsening and it now was too rough to go out. Disappointed, but agreeing with the assessment, the admiral canceled the attack. A night sortie amid the numerous shoals off Mobile Bay, risky enough in calm waters, was unthinkable in a running sea, especially when the enemy was anticipating an attack.
The next morning, as the Tennessee's crew was preparing the ram for another attempt to raise the blockade, the lookout reported that a steamboat was approaching from the north. Much to the astonishment of the crew, the steamer St. Nicholas came alongside with a large party of ladies, purportedly to watch the battle. Recognizing the inappropriateness of such a venture, after a most polite explanation by Commander Johnston, the steamer turned around and returned to Mobile.
At 3:30 p.m. the pilots returned from Fort Morgan and reported that conditions were favorable for an attack, which set off a frenzy of activity clearing for action. The admiral, however, who knew as much about the weather as his pilots, had some misgivings about the report; the wind was picking up and waves could be seen breaking over the shoals off Fort Morgan.
Continues...
Excerpted from West Wind, Flood Tide by Jack Friend Copyright © 2004 by Jack Friend. Excerpted by permission.
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