CAPTURE OF CSS TENNESSEE

By August 1864, the last remaining Confederate seaport not in Union hands was Mobile, Alabama.  At 0530 this morning, VADM David G. Farragut’s Union squadron “damned the torpedoes” and forced their way past Fort Morgan into Mobile Bay.  Each ship had to sidestep the vaunted Confederate ironclad CSS TENNESSEE waiting inside the Bay.  She was formidable, the centerpiece of Mobile’s defenses, a 208-foot monster.  The sloping sides of her casemate bore five inches of plate iron covering two feet of oak and were holed for six rifled cannon in broadside.  But her most feared weapon was the iron-plated ram just under the waterline at her bows.  Her captain was Confederate VADM Franklin Buchanan, a respected and experienced veteran of the pre-Civil War US Navy who had “gone South” in 1861 and had skippered CSS VIRGINIA in her famous battle against USS MONITOR in Hampton Roads.  TENNESSEE’s armor rendered Union guns impotent, but her Achilles heel was her comparatively weak machinery that condemned her to a best speed of under six knots.  At Farragut’s entry she sheltered under the guns of Fort Morgan, where all expected she would lie until the cover of night brought her forth again.  But Buchanan was a realist.  He eschewed the invincibility myth the citizens of Mobile ascribed to his vessel.  About 0900 this morning, while daylight would provide better vision, he moved toward the Union squadron.

Farragut’s plan was to fight ram with ram–use his own ships to repeatedly crash the rebel into submission.  The Union screw sloop MONOGAHELA was the first to reach TENNESSEE.  She struck squarely but succeeded only in smashing her own bow.  As she recoiled from the collision, two shells penetrated her berth deck doing terrible damage.  The sloop LACKAWANNA struck head-on just aft of amidships with the same result as MONOGAHELA.  As she spun abreast, each crew hurled musket shots, insults, holystones, and even a spittoon at each other through gun ports only 10 feet apart.  HARTFORD struck a glancing blow then collided with LACKAWANNA.  The monitor MANHATTAN scored the first Union success when one of her 440# bolts fired from 10 yards crashed through TENNESSEE’s casemate.  USS CHICKASAW stood off the enemy’s stern, skillfully shooting away the rebel’s steering chains and jamming closed the shutters of her gunports.  Buchanan’s smokestack was riddled, reducing the draft in his inadequate boilers, and with his steering and power cut, he recognized the inevitable.  The specter of OSSIPPEE now bearing down at full speed brought out a white flag.  OSSIPPEE veered off at the last second, her Acting ENS Charles E. Clark accepted a wounded Buchanan’s surrender.  TENNESSEE was pressed into Union service for the duration of the Mobile campaign.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  11 AUG 24UCHANONU

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, pp. IV-96-97.

Lewis, Charles Lee.  David Glasgow Farragut:  Our First Admiral.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1943, pp. 273-82.

Silverstone, Paul H.  Warships of the Civil War Navies.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, pp. 208-09.

Still, William N., Jr.  Iron Afloat:  The Story of the Confederate Armorclads.  Columbia, SC: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1985, pp. 209-10.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  TENNESSEE survived the war.  She supported the successful Union attack on Fort Morgan on 23 August, then joined the Mississippi Squadron at New Orleans for the remainder of the war.  She was sold for scrap in 1867.  Franklin Buchanan was taken captive this day.  Twice severely wounded during the Civil War, he survived to die peacefully at his home in Maryland in 1874.  USS BUCHANAN (DD-131, DD-484) remembers the sailor honored for his service both in the US and Confederate navies. 

LACKAWANNA, MONOGAHELA, and OSSIPPEE were wooden-hulled, full-rigged, steam-powered screw sloops constructed for the Union Navy in 1862.  CHICKASAW and MANHATTAN were turreted monitors.  The names of all reflect Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles’ opinion that it most befitted and honored our warships to bear the names of Native American tribes.

ENS Charles Clark of OSSIPPEE would later earn undying fame as skipper of the battleship OREGON (BB-3) on her epic voyage around the Horn at the outset of the Spanish-American war.

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                                     THE PASSING OF FARRAGUT

It is hard to overstate the reverence our Navy holds for David Glasgow Farragut.  He entered our Navy at age 9 through the influence of his adoptive father, CAPT David Porter, in 1810.  He quickly saw action serving under his father in USS ESSEX, 32, in the War of 1812, aboard whom he was wounded in the engagement with HMS PHOEBE, 36.  He was the first Commandant of the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in 1853 and went on to command the West Gulf Blockading Squadron of the Civil War.  The victor at New Orleans, Vicksburg, and Mobile Bay, he was our Navy’s first RADM in 1862, first VADM in 1864, and first ADM in 1866.  Following that war, he commanded the European Squadron and remained our Navy’s senior ranking officer.  Not until George Dewey, a generation later, was another officer so widely honored.

But Farragut’s later years were plagued by ill health.  When an invitation from the Commandant of the Portsmouth Navy Yard, NH, was received in 1870, the 69-year-old Farragut perceived a chance to breathe what was thought to be the healing New England air.  He made the journey aboard the sidewheel double-ender USS TALLAPOOSA, confined to bed for most of the voyage.  When TALLAPOOSA entered Portsmouth Harbor on Independence Day, she fired a gun salute to her embarked admiral, inspiring Farragut to arise, don his uniform, and climb to the quarterdeck.  There he was heard to comment, “It would be well if I died now, in harness…”  During his visit he went aboard the 30-year-old, 16-gun sailing sloop-of-war DALE–like Farragut, an aging veteran of the Mexican and Civil Wars.  Upon disembarking he remarked with affection to her caretaker, “This is the last time I shall ever tread on the deck of a man-of-war.”  His words were prescient.  Only days later he again took to bed, and two weeks later, on this day, ADM Farragut died.  It was a peaceful Sunday.  Eight bells had just tolled noon.  One humble man’s 60 years of service to the Flag had ended.  The cause of death was listed as apoplexic stroke.

On the 17^th the city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, paused for a public funeral.  A flag-draped rosewood coffin preceded a mile-long procession of military officers and public officials.  The Admiral was laid to rest in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Brox. 

Five warships have remembered David G. Farragut, including our current Arleigh Burke-class destroyer DDG-99.  A respectful city of Washington DC apportioned Farragut Square, where, on 16 April 1872, the US Congress commissioned the statue that today centerpieces that square.  The bronze propeller of Farragut’s Civil War flagship, USS HARTFORD, was melted down and used to cast his likeness, whose understated inscription simply reads, “Farragut”.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  21 AUG 23

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 2 “C-F”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, pp. 394-96.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 7 “T-V”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1981, pp. 23-24.

Lewis, Charles Lee.  David Glasgow Farragut:  Our First Admiral.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1943, pp. 366-78.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History:  An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3^rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 84.

ADDITIONAL NOTES: To die “in harness” is an old expression that means to die while working, or, when used in a military context, to die on Active Duty.  It alludes to the use of the word “harness” to describe the armor worn by soldiers of antiquity.  “Apoplexic stroke” is an outdated medical term for sudden cerebrovascular demise.  Alternatively, medical historians postulate today that Farragut’s death may have been the result of cardiac arrest after a prolonged decline in cardiovascular health.

The other US warships honoring Farragut are:  TB-11, DD-300, DD-348, and DLG-6.

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                                            200^th ANNIVERSARY

                                                 21-22 JULY 1823

                    USS BEAGLE AND GREYHOUND (cont. from 11 JUL)

The demise of Diabolito ten days earlier did not bring piracy along the coast of Spanish Cuba to an end.  Far from it.  Piracy remained rampant and American ships continued to fall victim.  So too, were those of many other nations.  Our West India Squadron, commanded by Commodore David Porter, included several small, fast schooners capable of operations in the shallow bays and coves of the region.  On 21 July 1823 two of these schooners, USS BEAGLE, 3, and USS GREYHOUND, 3, were working along the southern coast of Cuba searching for pirate activities.  Wishing to inspect the region about Cape Cruz more thoroughly, LT Lawrence Kearny, skipper of GREYHOUND, rowed ashore with his counterpart from BEAGLE, LT John T. Newton.  They carried a couple muskets and a fowling piece that might add a tasty game bird to the dinner fare that evening.

Finding nothing initially, they rowed further around the Cape.  As they did so they noted several huts sheltered between large rocks and high bushes.  Then shots suddenly rang out in their direction!  Indeed, the officers found themselves in a well-laid crossfire clearly planned by nefarious actors, probably pirates.  Newton and Kearny beat a hasty retreat.

This following morning the officers returned, this time flying the American flag from their transom.  They were again fired upon.  Convinced they had stumbled into a pirate nest, the schooners were warped into position in the shallow bay near the ambush site.  A shore party of seamen and Marines led by one of Kearny’s junior lieutenants, David G. Farragut, was quietly landed to work into the rear of the pirate position.  Then a frontal assault began with the schooners opening fire and a second assault party hitting headforemost on the beach.  The pirates found themselves trapped between two forces and briefly put up a fierce battle.  Then as was so often the case, they fled into the jungle with their women and children.  Farragut’s men chased the pirates to the point of exhaustion, their clothing torn by the undergrowth and their shoes shredded on the sharp rocks.  But alas, the pirates’ knowledge of the trails and terrain allowed their escape.

Back on the beach, Farragut’s men discovered plundered goods in the huts.  Eight pirate skiffs along with a swivel gun (a favorite pirate weapon) and small arms were discovered.  A search of nearby caves revealed more plundered goods as well as human remains.  Convinced a major pirate lair had been located, Kearny burned the buildings and carried off the weapons and boats.  He returned to cruising until an outbreak of yellow fever gripped the area that autumn.  As was Porter’s custom facing such disease, the Squadron waited out the epidemic to the north, in the States.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  25-28 JUL 23

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Allen, Gardner W.,  Our Navy and the West Indian Pirates.  Salem, MA: Essex Institute, 1929, pp. 53-54.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 1 “A-B”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1959, p. 107.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 3 “G-K”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, p. 158.

“Naval Register for the Year 1822.”  AT: http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/USN/1822/NavReg1822.html, retrieved 1 April 2013.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History:  An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3^rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 38.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  “Commodore” was not an official Navy rank until the Civil War.  Porter’s military rank was CAPT, though officers in charge of major squadrons were customarily permitted to use the informal title “Commodore.”  No additional pay was authorized.

BEAGLE, GREYHOUND and several other similar schooners had been built or purchased specifically for duty chasing Caribbean pirates.  After the area was secured in the latter 1820s, these schooners were sold.

Farragut was a brand new junior LT, having just been promoted the year before.  Farragut’s full brother, William A.C. Farragut, was also serving as a LT in the Navy at this time, having also been taken in by the family of CDORE Porter after the Farraguts’ destitute father nursed Porter’s father in a critical illness.  David G. Farragut was thereby step-brother to David Dixon Porter and William D. Porter, CDORE Porter’s natural children.  Farragut’s step-uncle, Master Commandant John Porter, was also serving in our Navy at this time.

The Kearny surname is perhaps better known as that of Stephen W. Kearny, a US Army officer of the California campaign in the Mexican War.  Stephen, the namesake of Kearny Mesa north of San Diego, was Lawrence’s 2^nd cousin.  KEARNY (DD-432) and WILLIAM D. PORTER (DD-579) remember (later) Commodores Lawrence Kearny and William Porter.  Newton is not remembered with a warship (two WWI era ships bearing that name had their civilian names retained).

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                                                    5 JULY 1801

                  DAVID (JAMES) GLASGOW FARRAGUT BIRTHDAY

Jordi Farragut Mesquida was a Minorcan-born sea captain sailing Spanish merchant ships between Vera Cruz, New Orleans, and Havana in the 1770s.  With the outbreak of our Revolutionary War, Mesquida anglicized his name to “George Farragut” and came to our newly declared nation to fight against King George III.  Serving with the South Carolina State Navy, he was wounded and captured during the British siege of Charleston.  A prisoner exchange allowed him to fight again at the battle of Cowpens.  He finished the war as a MAJ in a light horse company of the North Carolina State Regiment.  With the peace, George married his North Carolina sweetheart, Elizabeth Shine, and the couple moved west to Tennessee.  Their first of five children, James Glasgow Farragut, was born this day.

With the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Spanish-speaking George was selected for an administrative position in New Orleans.  Son James had his first nautical adventure on the 1700-mile flatboat trip down the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers.  In 1808, during a yellow fever outbreak, family friend LT David Porter, Jr., USN, brought his ailing father (and Revolutionary veteran), David Porter, Sr., to the Farragut home.  The elder Porter had Consumption (tuberculosis), complicated acutely with sunstroke.  Despite Elizabeth’s ministrations, the elder Porter died on 22 June.  Indeed, Elizabeth died that same day of yellow fever.  A distraught George Farragut consigned the care of his children to friends–James to LT Porter.  When James reached 9 years of age, Porter arranged an appointment as a midshipman, taking him under his wing and into combat in the War of 1812 aboard ESSEX, 32.  James changed his Christian name to David to honor his adopted father and steadily rose through the officer ranks.

A southerner by birth, David Glasgow Farragut nevertheless distinguished himself as a Union Navy commander during the Civil War.  To be sure, on 16 July 1862, Farragut was the first officer appointed a Rear Admiral with Congress’ creation of that rank.  Later, on 5 August 1864, from his flagship USS HARTFORD, RADM Farragut entered the Confederate held waters of Mobile Bay.  When the guns of the Confederate forts opened, the lead ship backed down in the channel, threatening to ruin the operation.  In his typical fiery style, Farragut ordered HARTFORD to pass around BROOKLYN–through a known mine field (mines in these days were called “torpedoes.”)  With the order, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” Farragut gambled that months of submersion had waterlogged the devices.  HARTFORD’s crew could hear the primers of the torpedoes snapping, but Farragut’s daring paid off, and the squadron went on to rout the Confederates.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  11 JUL 23

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Cogar, William B.  Dictionary of Admirals of the U.S. Navy, Vol 1 1862-1900.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, pp. 60-61.

Hoehling, A.A.  Damn the Torpedoes!  Naval Incidents of the Civil War.  Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair Pub., 1989, pp. 105-20.

Lewis, J.D.  “American Revolution in North Carolina.”  AT:  https://www.carolina.com/NC/Revolution/nc_patriot_military_major_s.html, retrieved 16 June 2023.

Lyons, Renee Critcher.  Foreign-Born American Patriots: Sixteen Volunteer Leaders in the Revolutionary War.  New York, NY: McFarland & Company, 2013, p. 91.

Potter, E.B.  Sea Power: A Naval History, 2^nd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1981, pp. 104, 147-48.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History: An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 2^nd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1991, pp. 31-32, 74.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  History records little about David Porter, Sr.’s Revolutionary War naval service.  His son, David Porter, Jr., and David, Jr.’s son, David Dixon Porter, are remembered with our warships PORTER (TB-6, DD-59, DD-356, DD-800, DDG-78).  David Glasgow Farragut has become an icon of our service’s heritage and is remembered with FARRAGUT (TB-11, DD-300, DD-348, DDG-37 (DLG-6), DDG-99).

Historians have since debated the actual words used by Farragut to command HARTFORD forward at Mobile Bay–but his intent is accurately portrayed with the quote above.

The use of “torpedo” for an underwater mine derives from the name of a fish.  The torpedo ray is native to the shallow waters of our Atlantic shores.  Like the electric eel, the torpedo ray can generate an electric shock and does so when stepped upon by waders.

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