On this day in Alabama history: Battle of Mobile Bay rages

Aug. 12, 1864

Union forces advanced on Mobile Bay, one of the South’s most well-defended ports, on Aug. 5 as Confederate guns fired from Fort Morgan on the fleet of Admiral David Farragut. The ironclad USS Tecumseh hit a mine and sank to the bottom of the bay with 94 men. Legend has it that Farragut tied himself to the rigging of the USS Hartford and exclaimed “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” By 10 a.m., the Union ships had captured the Confederate’s major threat, the USS Tennessee and her 190-man crew. Fort Gaines and its soldiers continued to battle before being captured Aug. 8.  Fort Morgan’s larger artillery batteries held fast for two weeks before a steady bombardment Aug. 22 led to surrender. On April 12, 1865, the city of Mobile surrendered, exactly four years after the start of war.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Admiral David Farragut of the U.S. Navy in uniform. (Photograph by C.D. Fredricks & Co., Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

Reproduction of an 1864 pen and ink drawing of the Battle of Mobile Bay by George S. Waterman, C.S.N., depicting the action as seen from above and inside the entrance to Mobile Bay. (U.S. Naval Historical Center, Wikipedia)

A print of Battle of Mobile Bay, painted by J. O. Davidson, 1886. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, courtesy of U.S. Naval Historical Center)

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