Mobile Bay Falls

In the Battle of Mobile Bay on August 5^th, David Farragut ran his ships past the forts and sunk the Confederate flotilla, but he still had to deal with three Confederate forts. Forts Gaines and Morgan guarded the entrance to the bay, and the smaller Fort Powell was positioned inside. Powell was the first to fall. Lt. Col. Williams, her commander had been ordered to hold out as long as possible, but, “when no longer tenable, save your garrison.” It did not take Williams long to decide it was untenable. Without even undergoing heavy pressure from the Federals he spiked his guns, blew up his powder and waded to the mainland with his men.

Fort Gaines

Fort Gaines was under the command of Colonel Charles Anderson. He had 818 troops in the garrison while Major General Gordon Granger had 3,300 troops besieging him. The fort had also been badly positioned. The sand dunes on the island offered cover for the Union troops to approach very close to the walls. Brigadier General Page, the Confederate commander in Mobile, ordered that the fort not be surrendered, but Anderson ignored him. He sent out a flag of truce, and surrendered to Granger and Farragut on August 8^th.

Fort Morgan

After Fort Gaines surrendered the Federal infantry was moved to face the last Confederate fort – Fort Morgan. It was an old massonry force garrisoned by 618 men under General Page himself. The Federals began a formal siege with regular lines of approaching trenches. Meanwhile, several of the monitors bombarded the fort, along with the Tennessee, which had been repaired and assimilated into the Federal fleet. On August 22 cannon and mortars on land joined the ships, and the fort was subjected to a day long bombardment. Page was afraid that the Union balls would hit his magazines, so he ordered them to be flooded. The next day he decided that further resistance was useless. He spiked his guns and raised the white flag.

Page

After Page surrendered he was arrested by the Federal forces. They accused him of violating the laws of war by destroying the guns and ammunition of the fort after he surrendered. A court of inquiry was formed in New Orleans to investigate. They found him not guilty, determining that he had destroyed the equipment of the fort before its surrender,.

The surrender of Fort Morgan marked the completion of the Federal capture of Mobile Bay. With Union ships holding the mouth of the bay, they could stop the flow of blockade runners coming too and fro. The town itself was still in Confederate hands, and would remain so until the next year.

Fort Morgan Today

Battle of Mobile Bay

Battle of Mobile Bay

In the summer of 1864 the ever advancing Union arms had left the Confederacy in possession of only a handful of major ports. One of these was Mobile, Alabama, and the Federals began to develop plans to capture it also. Leading the effort was Rear Admiral David Farragut, who had led the naval forces in the capture of New Orleans and Vicksburg. His fleet was composed of 18 ships of various types. Five were ironclad. They were up against three Confederate forts. Forts Morgan and Gaines guarded each side of the entrance to the bay, and the smaller Fort Powell was inside the harbor. The Confederates also had the CSS Tennessee, an ironclad built by the commander of the CSS Virginia, as well as three small gunboats.

Sailing past the forts

On August 3^rd 1,500 Federal infantry under General Gordon Granger were landed near Fort Gaines to attack it from the land. Farragut delayed the attack two days so one of his Monitors, the Tecumseh, could arrive. His fleet went out to battle at dawn on August 5^th, 150 years ago today. The four ironclad monitors led the attack, followed by the rest of the ships. The Tecumseh opened fire first at 6:47 AM., and the battle soon opened on all sides.

The Tecumseh sinks

The USS Tecumseh headed straight for the Tennessee, as Farragut had ordered. But her commander failed to avoid the minefield that the Confederates had place in the water. It was not long before she ran into a torpedo. It blew a harge hole in her side, sending her to the bottom within minutes with most of her crew still aboard. Seeing the fate of the first Federal ship, the Brooklyn slowed and signaled Farragut for orders. According to legend the admiral replied, “D--- the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” Farragut believed that the Confederate torpedoes had been in the water too long to be of much use, and it had been an unlucky hit that sunk the Tecumseh. He decided to risk taking the rest of his ships through the minefield.

The Tennessee

Although the CSS Tennessee was greatly outnumbered by the Union fleet, she moved slowly forward to try to ram the enemy vessels. The Federal boats easily avoided her with their greater speed, and they themselves tried to ram. However, their rams and cannon balls just bounced off the rebel boat's iron sides. Although the Union fire could not pierce her hull, many of her accessories were shot away. With his steamstack perforated, her rudder chains cut and many of her gun shutters jammed, the Tennessee was left nearly helpless in the water. Soon the Union monitors arrived, and they fired ball after ball into the Confederate vessel. Finally with her sides bending under the heavy pressure and with some of the crew down from splinter injuries, the captain of the Tennessee hauled down his flag.

Having run into the bay and dealt with the Confederate naval threat, Farragut could now turn his attention to the siege of the forts. A short Federal bombardment left them still mostly intact at the end of the day. 

A World War I recruitment poster showing Farragut at Mobile Bay

Streight Surrenders his Mule Cavalry to Forrest

Col. Abel Streight

As Grant was preparing to cross the Mississippi River, he arranged for several feints to try to distract the Confederates from his beachhead. One of these was a raid by Abel Streight and his “Mule Cavalry.” Streight was from Indianapolis, and was a printer before the war. He rose to the rank of Colonel, but had seen no combat. He did, however, serve as part of a unit in Union-held Alabama. There he met the Union sympathizers of the area, but this contact caused him to overestimate the number of men in Alabama who supported the Union.

He proposed a plan to his commanding officer to take a mounted brigade into Alabama and strike the Western & Atlantic Railroad, an important Confederate supply line. The scheme was approved, and he was assigned 1,700 soldiers from two cavalry and four infantry regiments. But the problem was that the army didn't have enough horses to mount these troops. Instead, they were assigned mules from Tennessee farms as their mounts. Much amusement was had at the would-be cavalry's expense as they attempted to train these mounts. It didn't bode well for Streight's raid.

Streight's raid

The expedition began on April 19, 1863. Notwithstanding a temporarily shielding by 8,000 real Union cavalry, soon Nathan Bedford Forrest was on his track with the gray troopers. On April 30 he caught up with him at the Battle of Day's Gap. Forrest tried to surround him, but he was repulsed by Federal charges. Although they had a temporarily reprieve, Streight's men were doomed. Their mules couldn't keep ahead of the Confederate horses, and their position was betrayed by loud braying.

Streight burned the bridge across Black Creek after he crossed. He hoped he could make it to Rome, Georgia, ahead of Forrest, and turn and face in in the town's entrenchments. But a Confederate girl, Emma Sanson, directed Forrest to a ford across Black Creek that allowed him to continue the pursuit, and a local ferry operator made it to Rome before the Union. The citizens came out of the town and beat back the Federal advance.

Nathan Bedford Forrest

His 1,400 exhausted men were soon surrounded by Forrest, who actually had only 400 men. But Forrest paraded his men over and over again before Streight during negotiations, convincing him to surrender. When he discovered the trick Forrest had played on him, he tried to change his mind, but Forrest would have none of it. Many of the Union prisoners, including Streight, were sent to Libby Prison in Richmond. But after a year he was able to escape along with 107 others, in one of the most dramatic prison stories of the entire Civil War.

Videos courtesy of Cullman County Museum and Kelton Design.

Davis on the Defense of the Confederacy

150 years ago today, Confederate president Jefferson Davis wrote to Alabama Governor John Gill Shorter in response to a letter requesting more resources to defend Mobile, and in his reply he touched on some of the Confederacy's greatest problems.

My Dear Sir: Your letter of October 22 has been received, and I have given it my earnest consideration. I entirely concur with you as to the immense importance of Mobile and the adjacent county and the unfortunate results that would follow its fall. I have felt long and deeply the hazard of its condition and an anxious desire to secure it, but have vainly looked for an adequate force which could be spared from other localities. The enemy greatly outnumber us and have many advantages in moving their forces, so that we must often be compelled to hold position and fight battles with the chances against us. Our only alternatives are to abandon important points or to use our limited resources as effectively as the circumstances will permit.

Jefferson Davis Inaugurated

Davis's Inauguration

Jefferson Davis was inaugurated on February 18th, 1861 as President of the Confederate States of America. The ceremony took place in Montgomery, Alabama, the capital of the new nation. At the same time as this event was occurring, Abraham Lincoln was traveling from Illinois to Washington, DC for his inauguration which would happen on March 4th.

After being escorted to the steps of the capital building by a military guard in a carriage drawn by six horses, Jefferson Davis gave a short speech. He affirmed the right of the South to secede according to the principles of the Constitution of the United States. While Davis hoped that war would be avoided, he knew that it must be prepared for. He declared that if war came, it would be the North's responsibility:

Should reason guide the action of the Government from which we have separated, a policy so detrimental to the civilized world, the Northern States included, could not be dictated by even the strongest desire to inflict injury upon us; but, if the contrary should prove true, a terrible responsibility will rest upon it, and the suffering of millions will bear testimony to the folly and wickedness of our aggressors.

He concluded his speech with:

It is joyous in the midst of perilous times to look around upon a people united in heart, where one purpose of high resolve animates and actuates the whole; where the sacrifices to be made are not weighed in the balance against honor and right and liberty and equality. Obstacles may retard, but they cannot long prevent, the progress of a movement sanctified by its justice and sustained by a virtuous people. Reverently let us invoke the God of our fathers to guide and protect us in our efforts to perpetuate the principles which by his blessing they were able to vindicate, establish, and transmit to their posterity. With the continuance of his favor ever gratefully acknowledged, we may hopefully look forward to success, to peace, and to prosperity.

After taking the oath of office, Jefferson Davis became President of the Confederacy and undertook the duties of organizing the government and preparing for possible war with the United States.

Montgomery Constitutional Convention

Montgomery

When Alabama seceded, they called for a convention of the Southern states to form a Confederacy. This convened on February 4^th, 1861 at the same time as the Washington DC Peace Conference, in which they did not participate. Six of the seven states that had seceded sent delegates, the only one that did not was Texas which was waiting for a vote of the people to confirm secession.

The delegates to the convention were leading politicians elected by state conventions. Many of the delegates were moderates. They were not the ones who were working to push the South to leave the United States.

The delegates wrote and adopted a provisional Constitution which was quickly put into effect, and the official Constitution that was used after it was ratified by the states. Tomorrow we will look at the changes they made to the U.S. Constitution.

More States Secede

Mississippi's representatives in Congress

In the past few days, 150 years ago, three more states seceded from the Union. First Mississippi on January 9th, then Florida on January 10th, and Alabama on January 11th. Mississippi was the only one of the three to publish a lengthy document declaring the causes that impelled them to desire to leave the Union of the United States. I will discuss some of the most interesting and important reasons that they gave in A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union here. You can read the complete document from which these quotes were taken here.

Slavery

Mississippi started out by acknowledging that they were leaving the Union because of slavery - "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world." While there may have been other minor reasons for the first states to leave the Union, the major one was that the Federal Government was trying to abolish slavery. However, as we will discuss later, just because they seceded because of slavery did not mean war. The real question was whether the states had the right to secede.

Fugitive Slave Law

It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.

The rights of slaveholders were protected in the Constitution by it declaring that escaped slaves had to be returned. However, this part of the Constitution was ignored by the North and the legislatures of the states passed laws saying that escaped slaves did not have be returned. Since the Northern States had broken the Constitution, Mississippi believed that they no longer were required to stay in the Union.

Abolition

It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.

It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.

Several times Mississippi pointed to the fact that there was division in the Union – one half was trying to overthrow the other. It was not to their benefit to remain a part of a nation which was trying to overthrow the Southern States.

John Brown

It has invaded a State, and invested with the honors of martyrdom the wretch whose purpose was to apply flames to our dwellings, and the weapons of destruction to our lives.

In this argument they were trying to show that the Northern states really desired to overthrow the South by pointing out John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. John Brown, a fanatic criminal, was sent and financed by six prominent Northern abolitionists. While the raid was a failure, it spread fear through the South because the abolition movement had reached a point where some would attack the South rather than continue to leave the Negroes in bondage. At first the Northern papers called the attackers what they were – criminals, but eventually the view changed through the speeches and writing of men like Ralph Waldo Emerson, the famous author, who said: "[John Brown is] that new saint, than whom none purer or more brave was ever led by love of men into conflict and death,--the new saint awaiting his martyrdom, and who, if he shall suffer, will make the gallows glorious like the cross." Mississippi believed that it could separate from states who were glorifying men who had been sent to murder them and take their slaves.

Conclusion

Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.

Our decision is made. We follow their footsteps. We embrace the alternative of separation; and for the reasons here stated, we resolve to maintain our rights with the full consciousness of the justice of our course, and the undoubting belief of our ability to maintain it.

Alabama's representatives in Congress

Alabama

Also of note is that when Alabama passed its resolution to secede, it invited at the same time all of the slave holding states to a meeting on February 4th to consider forming a union. This meeting of course resulted in the Confederate States of America, but we will wait to discus that until the proper time.