David Glasgow Farragut
NAVAL HISTORY PHOTOGRAPH
BRITISH MILITARY HISTORIAN CYRIL FALLS DESCRIBES DAVID GLASGOW Farragut as “a great naval commander with something of the dash and inspiration of Nelson.”1 Farragut, however, was not so romantic a figure as the famous British admiral. His personal life was above reproach, and he was not mortally wounded during his most famous battle. Nevertheless, to the generation of naval officers that came of age during the Civil War and to the Northern public in general, he was a genuine hero, rightfully compared to the victor of Trafalgar.
Farragut was born on 5 July 1801 at Campbell’s Station, outside of Knoxville, Tennessee. His family moved to New Orleans in 1807. Following the death of his mother and the enlistment of his father in the Navy, David was taken into the family of Commander David Porter, who was in charge of the New Orleans Naval Station.2 After a brief period in school, David, at the age of nine and a half, was appointed a midshipman in the Navy.
When Porter was given command of the frigate Essex in 1811, Farragut sailed with him. After war broke out with Great Britain in 1812, the Essex captured a number of prizes in the Pacific, and Farragut, as prize master, took one of them into Valparaíso, Chile. He was twelve at the time. In 1814, Farragut became a prisoner of war when the Essex was taken after a long and bloody engagement with two British warships. Porter was extremely pleased with Farragut’s performance during the battle and would have recommended him for promotion except for his youth.
After the war, Farragut served in various ships, primarily in the Mediterranean and the West Indies. In 1821, he was promoted to lieutenant; shortly afterward, he briefly commanded the Ferret, his first naval command. In 1823, he married Susan C. Marchant of Norfolk, Virginia. She died in 1840 after an extended period as an invalid, and, three years later, he married Virginia Loyall, also of Norfolk. They had one child, Loyall. From the end of the War of 1812 until the time of the Civil War, Farragut’s career was varied but unspectacular. He received his first important command, the sloop Decatur, in 1842 and his last, the Brooklyn, in 1860. In between, he commanded the Saratoga during the Mexican War. Of his shore assignments the most important was the period from 1854 to 1859, which he spent in California establishing the Mare Island Navy Yard. In September 1855 he was appointed captain. When the Civil War broke out, he was awaiting orders at home in Norfolk. Then sixty years old, he had spent nearly half a century in the Navy.
Career officers with the prospect of promotion on the horizon are usually delighted with the coming of war, yet this was not generally true in 1861. Certainly it was not true for Farragut. His residence was Norfolk when Virginia seceded in mid-April; he then moved his family to New York. There he remained, cooling his heels for nearly four months. As an officer of Southern descent he was under suspicion. In September, he was made a member of a naval board to select incapacitated officers for retirement. Farragut’s chances for active employment were not promising. He was close to retirement age, had been passed over three times for squadron commander, and had spent very little time at sea since the Mexican War. In fact, his greatest accomplishment had been the establishment of the Mare Island Navy Yard.3 Yet, through fortuitous circumstances, he would be given command of the most important naval expedition to be mounted during the war, the opening of the Mississippi River and the capture of the port of New Orleans.
Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles appointed Farragut to this prestigious command for several reasons. Welles was impressed that Farragut had left Norfolk when Virginia seceded and moved his family to New York. He was also familiar with the naval officer’s plan to capture a fortification at Vera Cruz during the Mexican War. Perhaps most important was the endorsement from Commander David Dixon Porter, the son of Farragut’s guardian, who with Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus Fox and Welles, strongly urged Farragut’s selection. Finally, Farragut was the most likely candidate in order of seniority not already assigned to an important command.4
At times, Welles would ignore strict seniority, but he decided to adhere to it in this case. According to the Secretary’s most recent biographer, Welles believed that President Abraham Lincoln would insist on giving the command to Commander John Dahlgren, in charge of the Washington Navy Yard and a favorite of the President, unless seniority were followed. A number of officers consulted by the Secretary had reservations concerning Farragut’s ability to command a large force. Nevertheless, Welles decided to appoint him. “All who knew him gave him credit of being a good officer, of good sense,” Welles wrote.5
On 21 December 1861, Farragut journeyed to Washington, D.C., where he met with Fox and Welles. That night, he elatedly wrote his wife the news of his appointment: “I am to have a flag in the Gulf and the rest depends upon myself.”6 Two days later, he received his official orders to the command with the Hartford as his flagship. Within a month, on 19 January 1862, the Hartford was commissioned and left Philadelphia for the Gulf of Mexico.7
A month later, the Hartford arrived at Ship Island, an islet lying approximately thirty miles to the south of Biloxi, Mississippi. Here, Flag Officer W. W. McKean transferred to Farragut thirty vessels that would comprise the nucleus of his force, the West Gulf Blockading Squadron. Farragut would need far more ships, however, to carry out his responsibilities, which included not only the capture of New Orleans, Louisiana, but the blockade of the Gulf region from Saint Andrews Bay in the east to the Rio Grande in the west. Fox had already written him, “We are crowding everything into your hands so as to give you enough to make sure work.” This would include additional shallow-draft steamers, mortar boats to be commanded by David D. Porter, and even the recently completed revolutionary warship, the Monitor.8
By the beginning of April, Farragut commanded a heavily increased squadron. He had forty-seven warships, not counting mortar boats, with which to carry out the Mississippi River operation while enforcing the blockade throughout his station. A military force of some eighteen thousand men under Major General Benjamin F. Butler had arrived to cooperate in the attack.9 Throughout March, Farragut had concentrated on getting his heavier ships over the bar at Southwest Pass and into the Mississippi River. He had reluctantly delayed the attack until the larger vessels were in the river. There is little doubt that he would have attacked with only his smaller ships and avoided several weeks’ delay had the choice been his, but it was not. The Navy Department expected him to mount the attack not only with his larger vessels but with the support of Porter’s mortar boat flotilla as well.
The department’s orders called for him to reduce the two forts, Saint Philip and Jackson, by using Porter’s mortar boats as long as necessary and then to place New Orleans under his guns until troops could arrive and assault the city. On 18 April, the mortar boats, in position below the forts and supported by the gunboats, opened fire. Almost immediately, Farragut realized that he did not have enough ammunition for a lengthy bombardment. On 20 April, at a conference of officers, he informed them of his decision to run past the forts, even though they had not been rendered ineffective. To the assembled officers, many of whom had strong reservations about his plan, including Porter, he replied: “Something must be done immediately. I believe in celerity.”10
At 2:00 A.M. on 24 April, red lanterns hoisted to the mizzen peak in the Hartford signaled the fleet to get under way. Detachments from two of the smaller gunboats had already cleared an opening in a barrier of dismantled hulks across the river between the forts. Farragut’s original plan called for the sortie to be in two columns with the lighter gunboats shielded by the heavier ones, but the passageway in the barrier was too narrow for ships to pass through two abreast—the advance instead would have to be in one long single column of three groups. The first group, under the command of Captain Theodorus Bailey, consisted of six gunboats and two sloops-of-war. The second was led by the Hartford, followed by the Brooklyn and Richmond. Six gunboats brought up the rear. The battle began immediately after the second vessel, the Pensacola, passed through the barrier. As both forts opened fire and the Union ships replied, Confederate vessels joined in the fight.
The small Confederate naval force above the forts consisted of four wooden gunboats and one ironclad ram, the Manassas. Only the McRae and Manassas posed a serious threat to Farragut’s ships. The Confederates had hoped to reinforce this flotilla with two large armored vessels, the Mississippi and Louisiana, but both were still under construction when Farragut attacked, with only the Louisiana far enough along to be used. On the day that the mortar boats opened fire on the forts, she was towed down the river and moored to the bank above Fort Saint Philip. The day before Farragut’s attack, six guns were mounted on her gun deck facing the river.11
As with so many plans, Farragut’s soon collapsed during the smoke and confusion of battle. Most of the ships got through the barrier safely, although the Brooklyn strayed into a hulk, then into a raft of logs, before emerging in front of Fort Saint Philip. The Kennebec, one of the smaller gunboats, leading the third division, fouled the barrier, and along with two others in this division—the Winona and Itasca—remained below it. Some of the vessels, passing the others, fired on one fort and then the other before finally emerging from the smoke above the forts. There, the Confederate vessels added to the confusion by entering the fray. The Manassas rammed the Brooklyn; the Hartford was set ablaze by a fire raft; first the McRae and then the Manassas attacked the Iroquois.
The Cayuga, challenged by three of the Confederate vessels, escaped unharmed, but the Varuna was not so fortunate; seven miles above the forts, the Governor Moore sank her after a running fight. Shortly afterward, the Governor Moore was herself disabled and run aground by several Union ships. The fleet, less the three vessels that remained below the barrier and the sunken Varuna, assembled at Quarantine Station, seven miles above the forts.
Farragut had won his first major engagement as a fleet commander. Since observing French warships in action against a Mexican fort in 1838, he had been convinced that ships with sufficient speed could bypass forts without sustaining appreciable damage. This laid the basis for his plan of action, and the results justified his expectations. He lost only one ship, with minor damage to the others, and he suffered only 37 killed and 146 wounded. The forts were isolated; with their line of communication cut, it would be only a matter of time before they must surrender. New Orleans was next.12
Shortly after noon on 25 April, Farragut’s fleet rounded the last bend in a drizzling rain and appeared within sight of New Orleans. The spectacle appalled the flag officer. “The levee of New Orleans was one scene of desolation; ships, steamers, cotton, coal, etc., were all in one common blaze and our ingenuity much taxed to avoid the floating conflagration.”13 Shortly after anchoring, Farragut sent his second in command to demand the city’s surrender. After some defiance by Confederate military and civil officials, New Orleans surrendered to the Navy. Farragut then ordered a detachment of marines to raise the American flag over the U.S. Mint. Although the citizens remained hostile, with curses and threats following the U.S. uniforms, the city was taken. That night, Farragut wrote his wife and son: “I am so agitated that I can scarcely write and shall only tell you that it has pleased almighty God to preserve my life and limb. . . . I took the city at Meridian today.”14
Farragut’s haste to take New Orleans without waiting for Butler’s troops had one unfortunate consequence: it allowed the Confederates to remove most of their stores and railroad rolling stock and to dismantle factories. The flag officer’s decision may have been for personal achievement and a race for glory, as Butler hinted in a letter to his wife, but more than likely it was simply a product of Farragut’s aggressiveness, self-confidence, and impatience. Farragut’s victory clearly was important, but just how important it is difficult to say. A modern study has concluded that “without question the capture of New Orleans was the most important Union conquest of the war—strangling Southern commerce on the river and along the Gulf coast.” Another author, in obvious agreement, titled his book-length study of the campaign The Night the War Was Lost.15
It is doubtful, however, that the battle and capture of New Orleans were that decisive, certainly in terms of the war’s outcome. Southern morale was shaken by the fall of the largest city and most important port in the Confederacy; trade virtually ceased to flow on the Mississippi River. But Confederate morale was still resilient, and it would be another year and a half before it would begin to collapse. Also, closing the Mississippi had little effect on trade elsewhere along the Gulf Coast. Yet, Liddell Hart correctly maintained that running past the forts and thereby gaining “the bloodless surrender of New Orleans . . . was the thin end of a strategical wedge which split the Confederacy up the vital line of this great river.” It was the capture of the lower Mississippi, along with Port Hudson, Louisiana, and Vicksburg, Mississippi, that proved decisive. James D. Bulloch, a Confederate naval officer, wrote years after the war, “I have always thought that the consequences which resulted from the operations of [the Union Navy] . . . in the waters of the Mississippi were more fatal to the Confederacy than any of the military campaigns.”16
After New Orleans, what next? Farragut’s original instructions had stressed that he reduce the forts, capture New Orleans, continue up the river possibly as far as Memphis, Tennessee, link up with Union forces descending the river, and finally seize Mobile, Alabama. With New Orleans in Union hands, Farragut initially decided to attack the forts guarding Mobile Bay, but, informed of Farragut’s plan, the Navy Department reacted negatively. Although the capture of Mobile had been in Farragut’s instructions, the evidence is clear that the Navy Department expected him to complete the river campaign before attacking Mobile. On 17 May, Fox wrote to Porter: “Somebody had made a most serious blunder in persuading the Flag Officer to go at Mobile instead of obeying his instructions to go up the Mississippi. . . . It seems extraordinary how Farragut could have committed this terrible mistake. . . . Mobile and the whole Gulf will fall at any time, but the Mississippi is a golden opportunity that I fear is fast slipping through our fingers.”17
Before Fox could communicate his concerns to Farragut, the flag officer had already changed his mind and ordered vessels up the river “to keep up the panic as far as possible.” Why had Farragut reconsidered? One biographer suggests that the flag officer had second thoughts about his orders and realized the priority of moving up the river. Rowena Reed in Combined Operations in the Civil War argues that Butler persuaded the flag officer to change his mind. On 29 April, he wrote to the Secretary of War that he hoped to convince Farragut “to pass up the River as far as the mouth of Red River if possible, so as to cut off [the Confederates’] supplies,” and added that he believed Mobile was not so important as this.18 Whatever the reason, the decision was correct. Opening the Mississippi was far more vital to ultimate victory than the capture of Mobile.
On 7 May, Farragut left New Orleans with the Hartford, two large steamers, and eight small gunboats and arrived below Vicksburg on 24 May. Some two thousand men under the command of General Thomas Williams accompanied the naval force. Convinced that more troops were needed to attack Vicksburg successfully, Farragut awaited reinforcements. When no additional troops materialized, the flag officer left for New Orleans determined to begin the Mobile campaign. Within a few weeks, however, a reluctant Farragut returned upstream under orders to pass Vicksburg and take Memphis if possible.
By the time Farragut reached Vicksburg, Memphis had fallen, and the Union Mississippi Squadron was approaching Vicksburg from upstream. Farragut determined to link up with the descending squadron. On 28 June, his vessels, once again in two columns, got under way and, under the cover of fire from mortar boats, made their way slowly past the fort. Although several vessels were hit, none was seriously damaged, and all but the Brooklyn and two gunboats made it past the city. Farragut’s conviction that ships could run past forts and fortifications without receiving serious damage again proved correct.19 On the last day of June, the Union Mississippi Squadron under Flag Officer Charles Davis joined Farragut at anchor above Vicksburg.
Farragut wanted to return downstream as quickly as possible. Additional troops were still unavailable, the river was beginning to fall, and he feared for the health of his crews in the unhealthy river lowlands. On 4 July, he wrote his wife, “If I can retain my health and get out of this river... I shall be most thankful.”20 He felt that he had accomplished the department’s major objectives with the exception of capturing Vicksburg, and it could not be taken without more troops. His officers and men overwhelmingly concurred. Lieutenant George H. Preble, commanding the Katahdin, complained that the “Squadron has no business up the river at all . . . and for once President Lincoln made a mistake in ordering it.”21
Farragut delayed his decision, however, partly because of news of a Confederate ship under construction up the Yazoo River. On 15 July, a small reconnaissance force was sent up that stream. A few miles above the river’s mouth, the Union ships encountered the Confederate ironclad Arkansas. In a running fight back downstream, one of the Union vessels ran ashore while the other two fled toward the anchored fleets.
Approximately halfway between Vicksburg and the mouth of the Yazoo, the thirty-odd vessels that made up the squadrons of Davis and Farragut were anchored generally in two lines, one on each side of the river. At 7:15 A.M. the two Union ships were observed rounding a bend, followed by the Arkansas. The Confederate ironclad fired broadsides at the anchored Union vessels as she steamed slowly between the lines. Some of the ships returned the fire; others did not. Aroused by the cannonade, Farragut appeared on the flagship’s deck in his nightgown and “seemed much surprised.”22 After running the union gauntlet, the Arkansas successfully reached the protection of the Vicksburg batteries.
The presence of the ironclad between his squadron and the Gulf prompted Farragut to end his indecision and take his vessels back downstream. They would attack and destroy the Arkansas in their descent. “No one will do wrong who lays his vessel alongside of an enemy or tackles the ram,” Farragut said in orders reminiscent of Nelson.23 The attack failed; by the time the vessels got under way, it was twilight, and the ironclad could not be seen. Thus ended what was probably the most humiliating day in Farragut’s career.
On 22 July, a final and futile effort was made to destroy the Confederate ship. The Union warships Essex and Queen of the West attempted to ram the Arkansas, moored below Vicksburg, but heavy fire from the Confederate ironclad and the land batteries forced the two ships to retire, leaving the Southern vessel battered but seaworthy. This failure was the last straw. Two days after the abortive attack, the entire fleet was standing down the river. Farragut went all the way to New Orleans but left several vessels at Baton Rouge to watch for the Arkansas in case she came down. On 6 August, the Confederate ironclad approached Baton Rouge but broke down and was destroyed by her crew.24
Arriving in New Orleans on 10 August, Farragut received official word that he had been promoted to rear admiral, the first in terms of seniority and the first admiral in the U.S. Navy. According to one officer, “a prouder or a happier or more boy like exhilarated little man you never saw.” The following day, the admiral wrote to his wife, “Yesterday I hoisted my flag on the main, and the whole fleet cheered.”25 On 13 August, as the Hartford got under way for the Gulf, the squadron recognized his promotion with a fifteen-gun salute.
Farragut went to Pensacola, Florida, for a period of rest and, during the following weeks, devoted much of his time to improving the blockade. Prior to this time, he had generally neglected this responsibility, though the neglect was not altogether his fault. The Navy Department had made it clear that as important as the blockade was, he was to concentrate his energies on the Mississippi River campaign. In April, Farragut had deployed the bulk of his steamers on the Mississippi but left five steamers plus a dozen or so sailers to blockade the Gulf from Pensacola to the Rio Grande. By the end of the year his squadron had increased to nearly seventy vessels. A third of them, however, were still sailing vessels, of little use in chasing fast blockade runners. During the fall of 1862 and early 1863, Farragut had between twenty-five and thirty steamers on blockade station, approximately half stationed off Mobile and Galveston, Texas, with the remainder scattered throughout the Gulf.26
The Union blockade in the Gulf was not effective, at least not until late 1864. According to one authority in 1862, 65 percent of the vessels attempting to run through the blockade of the Gulf ports succeeded.27 Like blockaders on the Atlantic coast, those in the Gulf were frustrated by their apparent inability to stop blockade runners. In October 1862, one officer wrote from a ship patrolling off Mobile, “Two steamers and seven schooners have run through the blockade last month, and it is a shame.” He blamed Farragut: “It makes me feel cross . . . that our Commodore does not keep up the blockade more strictly.” Although Farragut would insist that few blockade runners were getting through, one British observer thought otherwise. In May 1863, he noted, “Blockade running goes on very regularly at Mobile, the steamers nearly always succeed, but the schooners are generally captured.”28
Farragut was not solely to blame for his squadron’s problems with blockade running; there simply were not enough vessels available. Nevertheless, he had little faith in an outside blockade. Quite early in the war he had advocated blockading ports from inside a harbor, bar, or inlet. In a letter to his wife written before his ships crossed the bar into the Mississippi River the first time, Farragut wrote: “I shall endeavor to keep at the Head of the Passes a sufficient force to hold it against the Rebels without Blockading outside. You know my idea was always to Blockade inside, not outside, and when I show the example I feel satisfied that others will follow.”29
Farragut hoped to employ this tactic at the other Confederate Gulf ports, particularly Mobile and Galveston. In September, Sabine Pass fell to Union forces; early in October, four gunboats under Commander W. B. Renshaw closed Galveston by capturing the harbor’s entrance. The Galveston blockade was effective—that is, until Confederates on New Year’s Eve defeated Renshaw’s flotilla by capturing one vessel, destroying another, and forcing the remaining Union ships to retire outside the bar. Although Farragut immediately reinforced his force off Galveston, the port remained in Confederate hands. To add to the admiral’s distress, one of his ships off Galveston, the Hatteras, gave chase to a suspicious-looking craft and paid the penalty for failing to identify her as the raider Alabama until it was too late. After a brief engagement, the Union vessel was sunk, and the Alabama escaped.30
Farragut was also deeply concerned about another Confederate raider that had entered his area. In September, the Florida slipped past the blockaders and entered Mobile Bay. When Welles dismissed the officer in command of the ship nearest the Florida, Farragut protested to his wife that “almost any man would have been deceived by a vessel coming right down to him with the English flag flying.” The admiral, however, was not so understanding when the Florida again successfully eluded his vessels and escaped from the bay in January 1863. Farragut’s son, Loyall, who was acting as his father’s secretary at this time, wrote his mother: “Pa has been very much worried at these things but still he bears it like a philosopher. He knows that he has done all in his power to avert it with the vessels he has, if the government had only let him take Mobile when he wished to, the [Florida] would never have run out.”31
Farragut was in New Orleans preparing to deploy again up the Mississippi when the incidents at Galveston and Mobile Bay occurred. Jim Dan Hill, in his excellent biographical essay of the admiral, suggests that Farragut decided to return to the river because his ships had been overhauled; the winter was far healthier than the summer along the river; and, most important, a combined expedition was again threatening Vicksburg from upriver.32 Farragut certainly recognized these changes, but given the choice, he would have preferred to concentrate on Mobile.
The problem was that the Army would not commit troops to attack Mobile. Late in November 1862, Farragut had written to Captain Henry H. Bell: “I will not take another place without troops to hold it. . . . As to Mobile I have but little hopes of getting troops for the attack.”33 A few days later, he informed Bell, “By the indications of [General] Butler’s letters [the next operation] will be in the River,” adding that “they appear to be anxious for us to keep the River open up to Red River.” Then on 15 December, he informed Bell that “Porter is knocking at the open door to Vicksburg and we must go to work at the lower door—Port Hudson.”34
In mid-December, Major General Nathaniel Banks replaced Butler. Banks’s orders were vague and conflicting, but Farragut was convinced that he was to cooperate with the general in attacking Port Hudson.35 During the winter months, Farragut assembled his fleet at New Orleans for the movement up-river, but Banks continued to vacillate. Unknown to the admiral, Banks had decided not to attack Port Hudson because of its supposed strength.
As Farragut waited, passing his time in social activities, Rear Admiral Porter, in command of the Mississippi Squadron, ran two of his vessels past the Vicksburg batteries to secure the river between there and Port Hudson. The apparent Union success was mitigated in less than a month when the Confederates captured one of the vessels. Hearing the news, Farragut informed his flag captain: “The time has come; there can be no more delay. I must go, army or no army.”36
Early in March, Farragut led his fleet of eight warships and a flotilla of mortar boats some 135 miles upstream to Port Hudson. There the Confederates had heavily fortified the bluffs overlooking the river with light field pieces and heavy guns, and the garrison numbered more than six thousand men. Banks had promised to provide troops to make a diversion while Farragut’s ships ran by the fortifications, but, unfortunately, the “diversion” consisted of some fifteen thousand troops bivouacking a few miles outside of the Confederate stronghold. Banks had been convinced by a deserter that more than thirty thousand troops occupied Port Hudson.37
On 13 March, Farragut arrived below Port Hudson and intended to take his fleet past the fortifications the following night. As Mahan points out in his biography of Farragut, it was at Port Hudson that the admiral for the first time experimented with “a somewhat novel tactical arrangement,” lashing his weaker vessels to the protected side (the side away from the fortifications) of the more powerful warships. Not only would this protect the lighter gunboats, but it gave each pair of ships the maneuverability of a twin-screw steamer. If one vessel were damaged, the other hopefully could carry it on upstream out of danger.38
It was nearly 10:00 P.M. when Farragut got his vessels in a column and under way. The Hartford led the line with the Albatross lashed to her side, followed in order by the Richmond and the Genessee, the Kineo and the Monongahela, and the old side-wheeler Mississippi bringing up the rear. The Confederates were expecting the Union vessels to attempt to pass Port Hudson and opened fire as soon as the leading vessels got in range.
The Union guns thundered in reply. Gunners on board the ships and in the land batteries had difficulty in spotting targets because of smoke from several hours of mortar fire. Port Hudson was built on a ninety-degree turn in the river, so the admiral feared that poor visibility would result in one or more of his vessels missing the turn and running aground directly under the batteries. The Hartford and her consort barely made the turn; the following ships did not. The Richmond’s machinery was put out of action by a lucky shot, and she drifted back downstream with the Genessee lashed to her side. The smaller gunboat, with merely a single screw, was unable to stem the current. The Monongahela did run aground and, in breaking free, damaged her machinery, a mishap that forced her and the Kineo back downstream. The Mississippi also ran aground and had to be abandoned under fire from several batteries. She burst into flames and was destroyed with heavy loss of life—sixty-four killed out of a complement of nearly three hundred men.
Although the Confederates achieved something of a victory at Port Hudson, it was certainly a mixed one. Farragut was able to get only his flagship and one other ship above the fortified town, but they were sufficient to control the river south of Vicksburg and blockade the mouth of the Red River. Much to his relief, the Navy Department did not censure him for what happened at Port Hudson, although Fox apparently referred to it as a disaster in a letter to Samuel F. Du Pont. Du Pont himself mentioned Farragut’s “repulse” and later wrote, “I am worried about Farragut; he did not know, poor fellow, the difference between running forts and engaging them direct.”39
Farragut was unusually depressed by what happened at Port Hudson. “Oh, how I feel the failure of my ships to get past,” he wrote to his wife, and added, “but it was God’s will and I must submit and be happy that it was no worse.” He wrote to Du Pont the same day, admitting that he had had some “sad disasters, but as the Frenchman said, ‘you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.’”40
Farragut would remain above Port Hudson for nearly two months, patrolling the river, before returning to New Orleans. He had hoped that Porter would send one or two ironclads below Vicksburg to reinforce him, but the Mississippi Squadron commander refused, stressing that he had none “fit for service.” Nevertheless, two of the Army’s “Ram Fleet” did attempt to run the Vicksburg batteries and join Farragut. The Lancaster was sunk, but the Switzerland, under Colonel C. R. Ellet, was successful. Although Ellet wrote that “Farragut and all his officers have treated me with the utmost kindness and cordiality,” he was not happy when the admiral ordered him to blockade the Red River.41
On 6 April, the Navy Department instructed Porter to “occupy the river below Vicksburg” so that Farragut could return to the Gulf. Ten days later, his fleet ran the batteries. This move not only carried out the department’s wishes, but it fitted Ulysses S. Grant’s plan of attacking Vicksburg from below.42 On 4 May, Porter conferred with Farragut; four days later, Farragut left for New Orleans and turned over command of the Hartford to Captain James S. Palmer.
The admiral was not free of the river campaign, however. For two months longer he remained at New Orleans and kept close watch over the river up to Port Hudson. Porter’s squadron, concentrated near Vicksburg, was cooperating with Grant’s army. Banks was laying siege to Port Hudson, and Farragut’s vessels had to support him until either Vicksburg or Port Hudson fell. Vicksburg’s surrender on 4 July finally freed his vessels to return to the Gulf.
Early in August, Farragut, whose health had deteriorated, obtained leave and sailed with the Hartford for New York. During the fall months, while the admiral recuperated, his flagship was overhauled. On 30 December, a telegram from the Navy Department brought Farragut the intelligence that the Confederate naval force in Mobile planned to attack the blockaders off Mobile Bay in the near future. Farragut was urged to expedite his departure. Within a week, he sailed south, with Mobile, finally, his major objective.
While on the East Coast, Farragut had requested that monitors be assigned to his squadron. Ironically, he preferred wooden to iron-armored ships, including monitors. It was not altogether because of “ignorance” or “inexperience,” as a Confederate naval officer later wrote, but because he considered monitors undependable, unseaworthy, and frequently inoperable. Less than a month before the Battle of Mobile Bay, Farragut wrote to his wife, “Monitors and Rifled Guns are in my opinion demoralizers to men—they make them think that men should only fight in Iron cases or at 3 or 4 miles distance.”43 He preferred ships with broadside guns, “high speed, and all good fighting men.”
Monitors were primarily to be used against the forts guarding the bay; against enemy warships, including ironclads, Farragut was quite willing to hazard his wooden ships. “I am tired of watching [the vessels of Confederate commanders Franklin] Buchanan and [Thomas J.] Page, and wish from the bottom of my heart that Buchanan would come out and try his hand upon us,” he wrote his son. “This question has to be settled, iron versus wood; and there never was a better chance to settle the question.” Farragut’s opinion of ironclads was common knowledge, but not accepted, in the Navy. His friend Du Pont wrote, “Farragut will [have to learn] that iron vessels are required to meet iron vessels.”44
Returning to his squadron, Farragut expected to attack Mobile within the next month or so, as soon as troops and the monitors arrived. The troops were tied up in Banks’s Red River expedition, however, and it would be more than six months before the first monitor joined Farragut’s force off Mobile. The admiral’s queries to the Navy Department about ironclads for his squadron finally brought a response from Fox in late March: “I have three letters from you. . . . I have held on to the last moment . . . in hopes to be able to say exactly what we can do for you about iron-clads.” The Assistant Secretary then went on to say that Grant’s campaign—just getting under way in Virginia—would determine when monitors could be assigned to the Gulf. “If [Grant] goes to James River, of course we shall have to keep a force of iron-clads to keep his communications open,” Fox wrote. Finally, in what must have been a bitter pill for Farragut, Fox mentioned, “We have the summer before us and I trust you will not act until you oblige us to give you everything you require.”45 Once again, the Mobile attack was to be delayed.
The Confederate States Navy’s growing strength in the Mobile area finally persuaded the Navy Department to order monitors to the Gulf. The Confederates there had four ironclads either completed or under construction. On 18 May, they succeeded in getting the Tennessee over the bar and into Mobile Bay. From then until a monitor finally arrived, Farragut was worried about the possibility of a surprise attack. Every night, half the crew of each ship remained at battle stations with the batteries cast loose. On 10 May, he informed his ship commanders that leave would no longer be granted “for the next two months.” Later that month, he wrote his wife, “My life is now one of anxiety—I cannot leave here to go beyond a few miles.”46
When the news that the Tennessee was in Mobile Bay reached Washington, Welles ordered the monitor Manhattan at New York to “proceed with all possible dispatch” to the Gulf, and instructed Porter to send the double-turreted monitors Chickasaw and Winnebago from his squadron immediately.47
Even if ironclads had been available earlier in the year, it is doubtful that Farragut would have attempted to enter Mobile Bay without the support of troops. The Army did not consider Mobile Bay to be a priority until the Red River campaign had ended and Sherman’s movement on Atlanta was under way. In June, Grant, who favored an attack on Mobile, ordered that troops be assigned to cooperate with Farragut; however, the first contingent of twenty-four hundred men did not arrive from New Orleans until 3 August.48
In July, with the Manhattan at Pensacola, Farragut received word that a second ironclad, the Tecumseh, was en route, and that the two river monitors from Porter’s squadron had reached New Orleans. On 31 July, the admiral wrote his wife, “My monitors are all here now so that I am the one to attack, and no longer expect to be attacked.”49 On 3 August, the various ship commanders assembled in the Hartford for final instructions. Farragut planned to use the same tactics employed at Port Hudson: each large wooden ship would have a smaller gunboat secured to her disengaged side, while the monitors would move past the forts in a separate column, on the starboard side of the wooden ships. As the channel approached the bay at right angles to Mobile Point where Fort Morgan was situated, the wooden vessels firing broadsides would be unable to fire until nearly opposite the fort. Monitors, with their uninhibited field of fire, would be able to open fire much sooner.
The main channel into the bay, approximately three miles wide, ran between Mobile Point to the east and Dauphin Island to the west. Fort Morgan on the end of Mobile Point and Fort Gaines on the eastern end of Dauphin Island guarded the channel. To the west of Dauphin Island was Grant’s Pass, a smaller, shallower channel used only by light-draft vessels and guarded by Fort Powell, a small earthwork fortification. The main channel was partially obstructed by pilings jutting eastward from Fort Gaines and a mine or torpedo field extending an additional four hundred yards into the channel. The narrowed channel forced ships to pass within relatively close range of Fort Morgan’s powerful batteries. Because of the “configuration of the bottom,” Farragut believed he would have to stay in the main channel. He hoped to make the attack on a flood tide going into the bay, which would help the vessels pass through the channel as swiftly as possible.50
On 3 August, the ships were readied for action. One young officer, flushed with the anticipation of battle, wrote in his diary, “This has been the most exciting day on the blockade . . . sand bags have been piled up around the machinery, guns shifted to the starboard side, shot and shell rooms and magazines placed in readiness.” Anchor chains were ranged along the exposed side of the larger vessels to protect their machinery. These preparations continued after sunset while heavy rains, accompanied by fierce lightning, covered the area.51
During the night, Farragut postponed the attack because the Tecumseh had not arrived from Pensacola. The attack on Dauphin Island to invest Fort Gaines went ahead, however. Under the protection of gunboats, fifteen hundred soldiers were landed on the island and began a fifteen-mile march to the fort. In the afternoon, while another squall was blowing in, the Tecumseh arrived. The attack would be made the following morning.
The fifth of August dawned beautiful and cloudless, with ideal conditions for the attacking force. An early morning flood tide would carry damaged vessels past the fort and into the bay, and a breeze blowing out of the southwest would carry the smoke of battle toward Fort Morgan. At 5:30 A.M., the fleet got under way in two columns. The main column consisted of seven large ships, each with a gunboat lashed to her port side; to starboard of these ships a second parallel column was formed, with the Tecumseh in the lead, followed by the Manhattan, Winnebago, and Chickasaw. Farragut had relinquished the lead position in the main column to the Brooklyn—the only vessel with bow chasers and a minesweeping device on her bow. After the Brooklyn, with the Octorara lashed to her side, came the Hartford and the Metacomet, the Richmond and the Port Royal, the Lackawanna and the Seminole, the Monongahela and the Kennebec, the Ossipee and the Itasca, and, at the end of the column, the Oneida and the Galena.
At 6:30 A.M. the battle began when the Tecumseh fired a 15-inch shell in the direction of Fort Morgan. The fort’s guns replied, and, by seven o’clock, the engagement had become general—each vessel firing as she came within effective range. After firing twice at the fort, the Tecumseh turned toward the Confederate ironclad Tennessee, which was moving slowly into the bend in the channel just clear of the mine field. The monitor crossed the main column about three hundred yards in front of the Brooklyn on a collision course with the enemy ironclad. Farragut’s instructions required the vessels to pass east of buoys marking the end of the mine field, but the Tecumseh, turning to port, penetrated the field.
An hour after the battle began she struck a mine, reeled to port, and went down within two minutes, bow first. Commander Thomas H. Stevens, in command of the Winnebago, wrote that as his ship steamed by the spot where the Tecumseh had sunk, all that could be seen was “the top of the smoke stack and the seething water beneath which she had gone down.”52 The crews of the flagship Hartford and the Metacomet cheered as they observed the three remaining monitors steaming unhesitatingly by the sunken monitor into the bay.
Meanwhile, a lookout on board the Brooklyn sighted suspicious objects in the water ahead. Her captain immediately backed his engines to avoid them. Earlier, Farragut had climbed into the rigging for better visibility, where he was lashed to the after shroud by a piece of line fastened around him, and upon seeing his lead ship apparently backing down, he ordered the flagship to pass her and take the van. As the Hartford steamed by the port side of the Brooklyn, the flagship’s captain informed Farragut that there was a “heavy line of torpedoes ahead.” The admiral is then supposed to have shouted “Damn the torpedoes!” or something to that effect, and the Hartford, followed by the rest of the column, steamed directly across the mine field and into the bay. As most authorities rightly imply, this was the decisive moment in the battle, for the admiral’s courageous decision to ignore the mines—a calculated risk, for he had earlier suspected that if there were any, they were inactive from long immersion—prevented the development of a chaotic situation that might have caused the attack to fail.
As Farragut’s ships entered the bay, they engaged a small Confederate naval force under the command of Rear Admiral Franklin Buchanan. In the ensuing battle, they captured or destroyed every Confederate warship, with the exception of one small wooden gunboat. The ironclad Tennessee continued to fight until rammed by three Union ships, and, with the Chickasaw pounding her mercilessly, she surrendered. By noon, the battle was over and Farragut’s fleet was at anchor in the bay.
Alfred Mahan, an admirer and biographer of Farragut, wrote that “the Battle of Mobile Bay was to the career of Farragut what the Battle of Copenhagen was to that of Nelson.” Mahan was right. As Jim Dan Hill said: “Farragut’s public was not even academically critical. It considered Farragut greater than Nelson.” Yet, Hill himself wrote that the battle was “void of major strategic significance.”53 It had little or no effect on the war’s outcome.
Farragut’s plan of attack was carefully thought out. The decision to place the ironclads in a column nearest to Fort Morgan generally worked as expected despite the Tecumseh’s unfortunate move and demise. The monitors did attract most of the fort’s fire. The tactic of lashing two vessels together had not .worked well at Port Hudson; yet Farragut had adopted the same plan again, and, in this instance, it was far more successful. All of his warships except the Tecumseh made it into the bay.
There has been some criticism of Farragut’s tactics. Hill suggests that it was a mistake to have rammed the Tennessee with wooden vessels. “This repeated ramming injured the cruisers much more than they did the hostile armored craft.” Carroll S. Alden wrote: “Certain English tacticians asserted, and with some show of reason, that Farragut had placed his fleet in an untenable position. For so long as three Confederate forts controlled the approaches to Mobile Bay, the fleet could not be reached by the transports and was cut off from supplies.”54
This criticism is unfounded. Farragut was aware that Grant’s Pass was guarded by a small earthwork fort, and, on 4 August, an amphibious force was landed to take it. The fort was captured the same afternoon as the Battle of Mobile Bay. Supply ships used this entrance until the forts guarding the main channel were taken. Fort Gaines surrendered on 7 August, but it was not until Union troops invested Fort Morgan from the landward side, with a heavy bombardment from both siege artillery and ships’ guns, that the fort finally yielded on 23 August.
Farragut’s victory at Mobile Bay created something of a dilemma for the Navy Department. Fox was urging Welles to place the admiral in command of a naval force to take Wilmington, North Carolina. On 18 August, the Assistant Secretary wrote Farragut, “I do not see the necessity of you remaining to blockade,” and added, “Wilmington . . . is the most important point remaining.” Welles, however, resisted. He was convinced that the city of Mobile should be taken as soon as possible. Farragut was opposed to taking Mobile; he considered it unnecessary “except for the morale effect.”55 Finally, Welles gave in to Fox’s insistence and ordered Farragut to take command of the Wilmington attack force.
Farragut accepted these orders but requested leave to return to the North before assuming the new command. In fact, the admiral was most reluctant to undertake the Wilmington operation. He questioned the suitability of a naval attack up the shallow Cape Fear River, and he also felt that the season was far too advanced to begin such a campaign. Perhaps his greatest reservation, however, was himself. He was physically and emotionally worn out. He recognized this and so did his officers. On 24 August, Lieutenant George Perkins wrote: “I was talking to the Admiral today . . . when, all at once, he fainted away. He is not very well, and is all tired out.” In September, Percival Drayton wrote to Du Pont that Farragut “has not been well.”56 Farragut finally informed the department that he had to have an extended leave of “four or five months,” and Welles assigned the Wilmington operation to Porter.
With the Hartford, Farragut arrived in New York on 13 December. Ten days later, President Lincoln signed a bill creating the office of vice-admiral, and Farragut was immediately named to fill it.57 The admiral would not command an active naval force again during the war. During the final months, he served as president of an officers promotion board. After the war ended, he continued to head the board but spent most of his time at home in New York City. In July 1866, Congress established the rank of admiral, and he was appointed to this office. Early in 1867, he assumed command of the European Squadron.58
Farragut’s appointment to this command surprised many. He was sixty-six years old, a full admiral, and not in good health. Welles does not say in his diary why he appointed Farragut, but the reasons seem obvious: he was the most prestigious officer; the European Squadron was at that time the most important peacetime command; it was a traditional appointment for a senior officer about to retire; and Farragut clearly wanted it. On Bastille Day, 14 July 1867, Farragut arrived in Cherbourg, France, in the flagship Franklin. The following day he relieved Rear Admiral Louis Goldsborough of the command.59
During Farragut’s seventeen-month tour with the European Squadron, no serious problems required attention; in fact, it was one triumphal visit after the other to various countries. On 18 October 1868, the Franklin left for the United States, and for all practical purposes Farragut’s active service in the Navy came to an end.
While Farragut was in Europe, Grant won the presidency.60 The admiral, however, would have little to do with the new administration. He was displeased with the new Secretary of the Navy, Adolph Borie, as well as the influence that Porter had with both Grant and the Secretary. He was also ill during the spring of 1869; in fact, his health, which had been poor since the river campaign in 1863, would continue to be delicate for the remainder of his life. In May 1869, Mrs. Farragut wrote that “the Admiral continues very miserable and I can scarcely leave his side. . . . I am very much discouraged about him.”61 He recovered and visited the Mare Island Navy Yard, which he had started some eleven years before. On the way home, however, he had a heart attack. He again recovered, but, in August 1870, while visiting the Portsmouth Navy Yard in New Hampshire, he died. Farragut had a premonition of his approaching death; when Mrs. Farragut protested his activities, he said that “he would just as well die in harness as any other way.”62
Farragut was the most competent naval officer on either side during the Civil War. He was, as Bern Anderson wrote, “head and shoulders above them all.” He had all the attributes of a great commander: intelligence, knowledge, self-confidence, enormous energy, and courage. “Farragut has always been my ideal of the naval officer,” Admiral George Dewey related in his autobiography. Other officers would reiterate this sentiment. Alfred T. Mahan and Winfield Scott Schley would favorably compare him to Nelson. Army officers and even former Confederates would voice their admiration. Major George C. Strong, who met the admiral in New Orleans, wrote “Farragut is as gallant a man as ever walked a ship’s deck.” James Bulloch agreed that “Farragut showed that he had the qualities . . . which make a great naval commander.”63
Senior officers in the Navy, Farragut’s peers—Du Pont, Goldsborough, Davis, Dahlgren, and others—generally admired and liked him. Even Porter, who was clearly envious of Farragut, had a grudging respect for “his half brother.” Farragut had no particular enmity for Porter, although he was aware of his jealousy. Rear Admiral Charles Davis mentioned in a conversation with Farragut that Porter would give him trouble, and Farragut replied, “Of course he will.”64
S. Phillips Lee is the only Civil War flag officer who is known to have been critical of Farragut’s abilities and performance, but according to one authority, Lee was at times hypercritical of all the senior officers. On 28 May 1862, Lee wrote his wife that Farragut “is a worthy man and gallant officer but deficient in judgment.” Less than two weeks later he declared to her that “for [Farragut’s] want of military mind and knowledge we shall earn some dear experience.” Then, in July, he wrote that “Dr. [Jonathan] Foltz who is on good terms with the Flag Officer says to me privately, that he has served . . . under 3 Flag Officers . . . and that [Farragut] . . . has less mind than either of the others. That Farragut is wholly unstable, not having the same opinion from hour to hour.”65
Farragut and Lee developed an intense dislike for each other that would continue throughout the war. Farragut blamed Lee for the Florida’s success in slipping through the blockade into Mobile Bay in September 1862. Nevertheless, Lee would be promoted to captain and shortly afterward acting rear admiral in command of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron.
Farragut had complete confidence in his own judgment and in his opinion of naval officers, operations, tactics, and just about anything else related to naval affairs. Before the Battle of New Orleans he wrote: “As to being prepared for defeat, I certainly am not. Any man who is prepared for defeat, would be half defeated before he commenced.” Mahan mentions in his biography that Farragut admitted his “unusual self-esteem”—a characteristic that at times irritated both his superiors and subordinates. Irritated or not, they valued his advice, as is demonstrated by the impact on Welles of his recommendation of Porter to command the Mississippi Squadron.
Samuel Eliot Morison, in his biography of Matthew C. Perry, suggests that Farragut “had an irascible side [and that he] disliked being subordinated to anybody.”66 It is true that Farragut was impatient with anyone questioning his judgment and became angry when they persisted. At the same time, he did not get along with Perry, but there is no evidence that any of his other commanding officers considered him insubordinate. This “supreme self-confidence” possibly explains why he failed at times to award credit to his subordinates; at least many of Farragut’s officers, who otherwise admired him, believed this.67
Farragut’s self-confidence was perhaps partly a natural trait, but it also evolved from his intelligence, knowledge, and penchant for careful and thorough planning. Even before the war he was noted for his organizational ability. John M. Brooke, who would head the Confederate Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography, served with Farragut in the Delaware. Brooke later recalled “that he never saw greater skill in administering affairs than Farragut displayed.” Mahan mentions that before Mobile Bay, Farragut “spent hours with his flag lieutenant, studying by the aid of little wooden models, the different positions in which the ships might be placed. Afterwards he had the squadron get underway several times to practice keeping close order, and changing formation and course.”68
The tactics that he employed at New Orleans, Port Hudson, Mobile, and elsewhere were carefully worked out, based on an analysis of his weaknesses and those of his opponent. The lashing of weak vessels to the sides of more powerful warships was a brilliant innovation. He grasped the limitations of land fortifications in naval actions and, on the Mississippi River and in Mobile Bay, utilized this tactical understanding successfully. He also believed very strongly in maximum fire power. “The best protection against the enemy’s fire is a well-directed fire from our own guns.”69
Finally, he had an extremely energetic and aggressive nature, which is absolutely essential for a successful military commander. Farragut’s mental and physical energy was indeed prodigious, particularly during the Civil War years when the strain of conflict seemed to tap new reservoirs of strength. Although in his sixties, he enjoyed demonstrating his physical strength and agility by running up the ratlines or doing handstands before astonished junior officers. His mental vigor was apparent and remarked on by various observers. Nor was it confined to work or professional matters. He was a very social person and took considerable pleasure in conversations. Lord Clarence E. Paget wrote that Farragut was “a great but very agreeable talker.” Commodore Schley agrees that the admiral was an “animated and interesting talker,” and adds that “his information and experience were general, and upon almost all subjects.”70
Farragut was an aggressive commander—in the opinion of Admiral George Dewey, perhaps too aggressive at times. J. C. Watson, the admiral’s flag lieutenant at Mobile Bay, told his son in later years that when the Tennessee “was reported underway and standing out, Farragut at once said to [Percival] Drayton, ‘Get underway and follow him (Buchanan) out’ . . . Never was an order more unwelcomed. Coming over the minefield was enough. They [none of them in the fleet] wished to go out over them.”71
Farragut’s personal courage undoubtedly influenced his aggressive nature. Mahan and Schley, among others, attribute his extraordinary courage to his strong religious beliefs. Yet, his devoutness does not adequately explain his boldness, his willingness to “Damn the torpedoes.” A more acceptable explanation was his sense of duty and his unusually strong desire to succeed in the Navy. Rear Admiral Bradley Fiske wrote, “Duty, in whatever form it came, was sacred” to a naval officer. And Farragut himself said that “He who dies in doing his duty . . . has played out the drama of life to the best advantage.”72
Comparing Farragut to Nelson is probably a meaningless exercise. They were products of their time. Nelson was a brilliant tactician in utilizing sailing ships-of-the-line; Farragut was equally successful in using steam warships. Yet, they both stand out in their chosen profession. As Bern Anderson wrote, the Navy would not produce another officer as gifted as Farragut until the naval leaders of World War II.73
Although David Glasgow Farragut is one of the best known and most successful admirals of the U.S. Navy, few full-length biographies have been written about him. Only two are worthy of attention: Alfred T. Mahan, Admiral Farragut (New York, 1905), and Charles Lee Lewis, David Glasgow Farragut, 2 vols. (Annapolis, Md., 1941–1943). Loyall Farragut’s biography of his father, The Life and Letters of Admiral Farragut, First Admiral of the United States Navy (New York, 1879), should be mentioned because it is the primary source for Mahan’s study and most of the other biographies published before Lewis’s.
Mahan was embarrassed by his biography and considered it mediocre. “The great defect in my Farragut,” he later wrote, “was that I had no data with which to depict the man” (quoted in Robert Seager II, Alfred Thayer Mahan [Annapolis, Md., 1977], 234). Historians have generally agreed with this assessment. Despite the overall quality of the book and Mahan’s assertion, his characterization of Farragut is the most perceptive of any to date.
Lewis’s two-volume work is the more comprehensive. Although deficient in analysis, it is impressively researched and well written. No attempt has been made to duplicate his exhaustive research for this essay. Rather, an effort has been made to supplement Lewis’s work by locating relevant manuscripts that were not available when he wrote it. Few were found. Perhaps the most important are the Farragut Collection, on loan to the Naval Historical Foundation and located at the foundation’s office in the Washington Navy Yard, and a number of Farragut letters acquired in recent years by the Henry P. Huntington Library. Lewis’s bibliography is thorough, but it should be supplemented by works written since its completion in 1943.
There are a large number of biographical sketches of Farragut, the best of these being the ones in Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 20 vols. (New York, 1928–1936), and in Jim Dan Hill’s Sea Dogs of the Sixties (Minneapolis, 1935). Although brief, Hill’s essay well might be the most balanced analysis of Farragut’s Civil War campaigns.
1. Cyril Falls, A Hundred Years of War (London, 1953) 104.
2. For Farragut’s early life and career, see Charles Lee Lewis’s two volumes, David Glasgow Farragut: Admiral in the Making (Annapolis, Md., 1941), and David Glasgow Farragut: Our First Admiral (Annapolis, Md., 1943), and David F. Long, Nothing Too Daring: A Biography of Commodore David Porter, 1780–1843 (Annapolis, Md., 1970).
3. Howard K. Beale and Alan W. Brownswood, eds., The Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy under Lincoln and Johnson, 3 vols. (New York, 1960), 2:116, 134; and John Niven, Gideon Welles: Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy (New York, 1973), 383.
4. Bern Anderson, By Sea and by River (New York, 1962), 118.
5. Niven, Welles, 383–84.
6. Quoted in Lewis, Farragut: Admiral in the Making, 13.
7. Farragut to his wife, 23 December 1861, David G. Farragut Papers, Henry P. Huntington Library (hereafter cited as Farragut Papers, HPH).
8. Fox to Farragut, 11 February 1862, David G. Farragut Collection, Naval Historical Foundation (hereafter cited as Farragut Col., NHF).
9. Hans L. Trefousse, Ben Butler: The South Called Him Beast (New York, 1957), 101–2; and Robert S. Holzman, Stormy Ben Butler (New York, 1954), 74–75
10. Quoted in Lewis, Farragut: Admiral in the Making, 47.
11. William N. Still, Jr., Iron Afloat: The Store of the Confederate Armorclads (Columbia, S.C., 1985), 55.
12. Anderson, By Sea and by River, 124.
13. Quoted in Still, Iron Afloat, 58.
14. Farragut to his wife and son, 25 April 1862, Farragut Col., NHF.
15. Clark Reynolds, Command of the Sea (New York, 1974), 386; and Charles L. Dufour, The Night the War Was Lost (New York, 1968), 246, 284–85. Rowena Reed is critical of the decision in her Combined Operations in the Civil War (Annapolis, Md., 1978), 195. In a letter to his wife written on 25 April, Farragut makes a statement that suggests his intense ambition to take the city: “God has permitted me to make a name for my Dear Boy’s inheritance as well as for my own comfort,” Farragut Col., NHF.
16. James D. Bulloch, The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, 2 vols. (Liverpool, England, 1883), 2:193–94.
17. R. M. Thompson and R. Wainwright, eds., Confidential Correspondence of Gustavus Vasa Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy 1861–1865, 2 vols. (New York, 1920), 2:101–2. Also, see Lewis, Farragut: Our First Admiral, 78.
18. Reed, Combined Operations, 196.
19. Lewis, Farragut: Our First Admiral, 102–4. Farragut relieved the Brooklyn’s commanding officer, T. T. Craven, for his failure to pass the batteries. Farragut wrote his wife a detailed account of the incident and reminded her, “I always told you I knew T. T. Craven.” 4 July 1862, Farragut Col., NHF.
20. Farragut Col., NHF.
21. George H. Preble to Molley, 11 July 1862, George H. Preble Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society (hereafter cited as Preble Papers). Also, see Reed, Combined Operations, 211–12.
22. Still, Iron Afloat, 70.
23. Ibid., 72.
24. Ibid., 76–78.
25. Farragut to his wife, 11 August 1862, Farragut Col., NHF. Also, see Preble to his niece, 19 August 1862, Preble Papers.
26. Diary of H. H. Bell, entry 12 April 1862, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, edited by Richard Rush, et al., 31 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1894–1922) (hereafter cited as ORN), ser. 1, vol. 18, 690. Also, see Farragut to Welles, 1 January 1863, ORN, ser. 1, vol. 19, 478.
27. Marcus Price, “Ships That Tested the Blockade of the Gulf Ports, 1861–1865,” American Neptune 11 (1951): 262–97; Stephen R. Wise, Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running during the Civil War (Columbia, S.C., 1988), 370–435.
28. Walter Lord, ed., The Fremantle Diary (New York, 1954), 105–6; and Carroll S. Alden, George Hamilton Perkins, Commodore, U.S.N., His Life and Letters (Boston, 1914), 106.
29. Farragut to his wife, 15 March 1862, Farragut Papers, HPH.
30. Farragut, extremely critical of Renshaw, wrote to his wife that none of the blockaders were where they were supposed to be. “I cannot make people do their duty when they are demoralized. . . . I suppose that must have been the case with Renshaw.” 1 February 1863, Farragut Col., NHF. He placed Henry H. Bell in charge of the Texas blockade; “don’t have any other disaster if possible for they are abusing us enough at home,” he wrote Bell, 6 February 1863, Farragut Col., NHF.
31. Quoted in Lewis, Farragut: Our First Admiral, 161.
32. Jim Dan Hill, Sea Dogs of the Sixties (Minneapolis, 1935), 41.
33. Farragut to Henry H. Bell, 30 November 1862, Farragut Col., NHF.
34. Farragut to Henry H. Bell, 15 December 1862, Farragut Col., NHF.
35. Reed, Combined Operations, 241; and Farragut to Bell, 30 January 1863, Farragut Col., NHF.
36. Quoted in Lewis, Farragut: Our First Admiral, 168.
37. Reed, Combined Operations, 246. The most detailed account of the battle of Port Hudson is David C. Edmonds, The Guns of Port Hudson, vol. 1, The River Campaign (February–May, 1863) (Lafayette, La., 1983).
38. Alfred T. Mahan, Admiral Farragut (New York, 1905), 212; and Hill Sea Dogs, 43.
39. Du Pont to his wife, 23 March 1863, in John D. Hayes, ed., Samuel Francis Du Pont: A Selection from His Civil War Letters, 3 vols. (Ithaca, N.Y., 1969), 2:508. Also, see Fox to Du Pont, 18 March 1863, in Hayes, Samuel Du Pont, 2:507.
40. Farragut to his wife, 20 April 1863, Farragut Papers, HPH; and Farragut to Du Pont, 20 April 1863, in Hayes, Samuel Du Pont, 3:47–48.
41. Ellet to cousin, 3 May 1863, William D. Cabell Papers, University of Virginia Library.
42. Reed, Combined Operations, 250.
43. 12 July 1864, Farragut Papers, HPH; and Bulloch, Secret Service, 2:205–6.
44. Du Pont to Davis, 29 March 1864, in Hayes, Samuel Du Pont, 3:324–25. Also, see Loyall Farragut, The Life and Letters of Admiral Farragut, First Admiral of the United States Navy (New York, 1879), 402. Franklin Buchanan, former captain in the U.S. Navy, was in command of Confederate Naval Forces, Mobile. Richard L. Page, formerly of the U.S. Navy, was in command of Fort Morgan.
45. Fox to Farragut, 24 March 1864, Farragut Col., NHF.
46. Farragut to his wife, 30 May 1864, Farragut Papers, HPH. Also, see Farragut to Jenkins, 10 May 1864, Farragut Papers, HPH, and Still, Iron Afloat, 204.
47. Lewis, Farragut: Our First Admiral, 246. There is an unsigned letter in the Farragut Col., NHF, dated 24 June 1864, apparently from a naval officer intimately associated with the construction of these ships. The writer assured Farragut of their seaworthiness and that he had convinced Welles of this.
48. Still, Iron Afloat, 204.
49. Naval History Collection, Naval War College.
50. Bartholomew Diggins, “Recollections of the War Cruise of the USS Hartford, January to December, 1862–1864,” New York Public Library. Also, see G. M. Brady, “Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead,” Manuscripts 31 (1979): 86–96.
51. Still, Iron Afloat, 204.
52. Thomas H. Stevens to F. A. Parker, 24 April 1877, Thomas Stevens Papers, Private Collection.
53. Mahan, Admiral Farragut, 239–40; and Hill, Sea Dogs, 61.
54. Quotations in Hill, Sea Dogs, 61, and Alden, George Hamilton Perkins, 195–96.
55. Quoted in Lewis, Farragut: Our First Admiral, 298. Also, see Fox to Farragut, 18 August 1864, Farragut Papers, HPH.
56. Alden, George Hamilton Perkins, 149–50; Drayton to Du Pont, 8 September 1864, in Hayes, Samuel Du Pont, 3:380; and Drayton to Mrs. Farragut, 20 October 1864, Farragut Papers, HPH.
57. On 14 December, Welles had written to Farragut suggesting that he hold off visiting Washington as Congress was considering “a new naval grade” that would affect him. Welles to Farragut, 14 December 1865, Farragut Col., NHF.
58. Farragut to Jenkins, Farragut Papers, HPH.
59. William N. Still, Jr., American Sea Power in the Old World: The United States Navy in European and Near Eastern Waters 1865–1917 (Westport, Conn., 1980), 35.
60. While in Europe, Farragut was approached as a possible Democratic Party candidate in the 1868 presidential election, but the admiral was not interested. See John Cisco to Mrs. Farragut, 7 March 1868, Farragut Papers, HPH; and R. H. Kern to Samuel Jackson Randall, 7 April, 26 May, 3 June, and 6 June 1868, Samuel Jackson Randall Papers, Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
61. Mrs. Farragut to Thomas Welles, 17 May 1869, Thomas C. Welles Papers, Duke University (hereafter cited as Welles Papers).
62. Mrs. Farragut to Welles, 19 January 1870, Welles Papers. Also, see Lewis, Farragut: Our First Admiral, 374–75.
63. Anderson, By Sea and by River, 292; George Dewey, Autobiography of George Dewey, Admiral of the Navy (New York, 1913), 49; Mahan, Admiral Farragut, 307–9; Winfield Scott Schley, Forty-five Years under the Flag (New York, 1904), 28, 50–51; Strong to [unknown], 20 May 1862, Gratz Collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; and Bulloch, Secret Service, 2:192.
64. 5 March 1864, in Hayes, Samuel Du Pont, 3:435.
65. Lee to Elizabeth Lee, 28 May, 10 June, and 12 July 1862, in the Blair-Lee Papers, Princeton University Library. For Farragut’s attitude toward Lee, see letter to his wife, 10 October 1862, Farragut Papers, HPH. Foltz is not critical of Farragut in his autobiography, Surgeon of the Seas: The Adventurous Life of Surgeon General Jonathan M. Foltz in the Days of Wooden Ships, edited by Charles S. Foltz (Indianapolis, 1931).
66. Farragut, Life and Letters of Admiral Farragut, 218; Samuel Eliot Morrison, “Old Bruin”: Commodore Matthew C. Perry, 1794–1858 (Boston, 1967), 240; and Mahan, Admiral Farragut, 327–28.
67. T. Bailey to his nephew, 22 May 1869, Theodorus Bailey Papers, Duke University; Mrs. Farragut to Welles, Welles Papers; and Paulding to Dahlgren, 12 May 1868, John Dahlgren Papers, Duke University.
68. George M. Brooke, Jr., John M. Brooke: Naval Scientist and Educator (Charlottesville, 1980), 12; and Mahan, Admiral Farragut, 327.
69. Farragut to Du Pont, 20 April 1863, in Hayes, Samuel Du Pont, 3:47. Also, see Robert S. Browning III, Two If by Sea: The Development of American Coastal Defense Policy (Westport, Conn., 1984), 116; Lewis, Farragut: Our First Admiral, 316; and Henry N. Sulivan, ed., Life and Letters of the Late Admiral Bartholomew James Sulivan (London, 1896), 428.
70. Sir Arthur Otway, ed., Autobiography and Journals of Admiral Lord Clarence E. Paget (London, 1896), 306–7; and Schley, Forty-five Years, 50–51.
71. Edward Watson to William Rodgers, 14 March 1901, Rodgers Family Papers, Library of Congress.
72. Quoted in Peter Karsten, The Naval Aristocracy (New York, 1972), 250, 261.
73. Anderson, By Sea and by River, 293.
