submerged obstructions, but the rebels had also collected there a formidable fleet, commanded by their highest naval officer-a former captain in the Union navy-who, false to the government and the Union, had deserted his country in the hour of peril, and levelled his guns against the flag which it was his duty to have defended. The possession of Mobile Bay, which you have acquired, will close the illicit traffic which has been carried on by running the blockade in that part of the Gulf, and gives point and value to the success you have achieved. LETTER FROM COLONEL ANDERSON TO REAR-ADMIRAL HEADQUARTERS, FORT GAINES, August 7, 1864. To Admiral Farragut, Commanding Naval Great results in war are seldom obtained without great risks, and it was not expected that the possession of the harbor of Mobile would be se- Feeling my inability to maintain my present cured without disaster. The loss of the gallant position longer than you may see fit to open upon Craven and his brave companions, with theme with the fleet, and feeling also the uselessness Tecumseh, (a vessel that was invulnerable to the of entailing upon ourselves further destruction of guns of Fort Morgan,) by a concealed torpedo, life, I have the honor to propose the surrender was a casualty against which no human foresight of Fort Gaines, its garrison, stores, etc. could guard. While the nation awards cheerful honors to the living, she will ever hold in grateful remembrance the memory of the gallant and lamented dead, who perilled their lives for their country and died in her cause. To you and the brave officers and sailors of your squadron, who participated in this great achievement, the Department tenders its thanks, and those of the Government and country. Very respectfully, etc., GIDEON WELLES, Secretary of the Navy. Rear-Admiral DAVID G. FARRAGUT, Commanding West Gulf Blockading Squadron, Mobile Bay. SURRENDER OF FORT POWELL. FLAG-SHIP HARTFORD, WEST GULF BLOCK ADING I trust to your magnanimity for obtaining honorable terms, which I respectfully request that you will transmit to me, and allow me sufficient time to consider them and return an answer. This communication will be handed to you by Major W. R. Browne. I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, C. D. ANDERSON, Colonel Commanding. JOINT LETTER FROM REAR-ADMIRAL FARRAGUT AND MAJOR-GENERAL GRANGER TO COLONEL ANDERSON. FLAG-SHIP HARTFORD, MOBILE BAY, August 7, 1864. SIR: In accordance with the proposal made in your letter of this morning for the surrender of Fort Gaines, I have to say that, after communicating with General Granger, in command of our forces on Dauphin Island, the only offers we can make are First. The unconditional surrender of yourself and the garrison of Fort Gaines, with all of the public property within its limits. Second. The treatment which is in conformity with the custom of the most civilized nations toward prisoners of war. Third. Private property, with the exception of arms, will be respected. This communication will be handed you by Fleet Captain P. Drayton, and Colonel Myer of the U. S. army, who fully understand the views of General Granger and myself. SIR: I have the honor to inform the Department that Fort Powell was evacuated on the night of the fifth instant. The rebels blew up much of the fort, but we took all of the guns, and those of the best quality, a list of which will be forwarded. We took some covered barges also from Fort Powell and Cedar Point, which do us good service as a work-shop. The Fleet Engineer and Fleet Paymaster came in the Stockdale, with iron, etc., for the repairs of our vessel. On the afternoon of the sixth, the Chickasaw went down and shelled Fort Gaines, and on the morning of the seventh I received a communication from Colonel Anderson, commanding the Fort, offering to surrender to the fleet, asking the best conditions. I immediately sent for General Granger, and in the evening had Colonel Anderson and Major Browne on board, and the agree- ATTACK ON THE DEFENCES OF MOBILE-DETAILED ment was signed by all parties. At seven A.M., August eighth, Fleet Captain Drayton, on the part of the navy, and Colonel Myer, on the part of the army, proceeded to the Fort to carry out the stipulations of the agree ment, and at forty-five minutes past nine, the Fort surrendered, and the Stars and Stripes were hoisted on the staff amid the cheers of the fleet. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, Colonel C. D. ANDERSON, REPORT OF REAR-ADMIRAL D. G. FARRAGUT. U. S. FLAG-SHIP HARTFORD, MOBILE BAY, Aug. 12, 1864. SIR: I had the honor to forward to the Department, on the evening of the fifth instant, a report of my entrée into Mobile Bay on the morning of that day, and which, though brief, contained all the principal facts of the attack. Notwithstanding the loss of life, particularly cumseh, Commander T. A. M. Craven; the Manhattan, Commander I. W. A. Nicholson; the Winnebago, Commander T. H. Stevens; and the Chickasaw, Lieutenant Commander G. H. Perkins-were already inside the bar, and had been board side of the wooden ships, or between them and Fort Morgan, for the double purpose of keeping down the fire from the water-battery and the parapet guns of the fort, as well as to attack the ram Tennessee as soon as the Fort was passed. on this ship, and the terrible disaster to the mander George Brown; Oneida, Commander Tecumseh, the result of the fight was a glorious I. R. M. Mullany, with the Galena, Lieutenant victory, and I have reason to feel proud of the Commander C. H. Wells. The iron-clads-Teofficers, seamen, and marines of the squadron under my command, for it has never fallen to the lot of an officer to be thus situated and thus sustained. Regular discipline will bring men to any amount of endurance, but there is a natural fear of hidden dangers, particularly when so aw-ordered to take up their positions on the starfully destructive of human life as the torpedo, which requires more than discipline to overcome. Preliminary to a report of the action of the fifth, I desire to call the attention of the Department to the previous steps taken in consultation with Generals Canby and Granger. On the eighth of July I had an interview with these officers on board the Hartford, on the subject of an attack upon Forts Morgan and Gaines, at which it was agreed that General Canby would send all the troops he could spare to cooperate with the fleet. Circumstances soon obliged General Canby to inform me that he could not despatch a sufficient number to invest both forts, and in reply I suggested that Gaines should be the first invested, engaging to have a force in the sound ready to protect the landing of the army on Dauphin Island in the rear of that fort, and I assigned Lieutenant Commander De Krafft, of the Conemaugh, to that duty. On the first instant General Granger visited me again on the Hartford. In the mean time the Tecumseh had arrived at Pensacola, and Captain Craven had informed me that he would be ready in four days for any service. We therefore fixed upon the fourth of August as the day for the landing of the troops and my entrance into the bay; but owing to delays mentioned in Captain Jenkins's communication to me, the Tecumseh was not ready. General Granger, however, to my mortification, was up to time, and the troops actually landed on Dauphin Island. As subsequent events proved, the delay turned to our advantage, as the rebels were busily engaged during the fourth in throwing troops and supplies into Fort Gaines, all of which were captured a few days afterward. The Tecumseh arrived on the evening of the fourth, and every thing being propitious, I proceeded to the attack on the following morning. It was only at the urgent request of the Captains and commanding officers that I yielded to the Brooklyn being the leading ship of the line, as she had four chase-guns and an ingenious arrangement for picking up torpedoes, and because, in their judgment, the flag-ship ought not to be too much exposed. This I believe to be an error; for apart from the fact that exposure is one of the penalties of rank in the navy, it will always be the aim of the enemy to destroy the flag-ship, and, as will appear in the sequel, such attempt was very persistently made, but Providence did not permit it to be successful. The attacking fleet steamed steadily up the main ship-channel, the Tecumseh firing the first shot at forty-seven minutes past six o'clock. At six minutes past seven the Fort opened upon us, and was replied to by a gun from the Brooklyn, and immediately after the action became general. It was soon apparent that there was some difficulty ahead. The Brooklyn, for some cause which I did not then clearly understand, but which has since been explained by Captain Alden in his report, arrested the advance of the whole fleet, while, at the same time, the guns of the Fort were playing with great effect upon that vessel and the Hartford. A moment after I saw the Tecumseh struck by a torpedo, disappear almost instantaneously beneath the waves, carrying with her her gallant commander and nearly all her crew. I determined at once, as I had originally intended, to take the lead, and after ordering the Metacomet to send a boat to save, if possible, any of the perishing crew, I dashed ahead with the Hartford, and the ships followed on, their officers believing that they were going to a noble death with their commander-in-chief. As mentioned in my previous despatch, the vessels outside the bar, which were designed to participate in the engagement, were all under way by forty minutes past five in the morning, in the following order, two abreast, and lashed together: Brooklyn, Captain James Alden, with the Octorara, Lieutenant Commander C. H. Green, on the port side; Hartford, Captain Percival Drayton, with the Metacomet, Lieutenant Commander I. E. Jouett; Richmond, Captain T. A. Jenkins, with the Port Royal, Lieutenant Commander B. Gherardi; Lackawanna, Captain J. B. Marchand, with the Seminole, Commander E. Donaldson; Monongahela, Commander J. H. Strong, with the Kennebec, Lieutenant Com- From the moment I turned to the north-westmander W. P. McCann; Ossipee, Commander ward, to clear the middle ground, we were enW. E. Le Roy, with the Itasca, Lieutenant Com-abled to keep such a broadside fire upon the bat I steamed through between the buoys, where the torpedoes were supposed to have been sunk. These buoys had been previously examined by my Flag-Lieutenant, I. Crittenden Watson, in several nightly reconnoissances. Though he had not been able to discover the sunken torpedoes, yet we had been assured by refugees, deserters, and others, of their existence, but, believing that from their having been some time in the water, they were probably innocuous, I determined to take the chance of their explosion. teries of Fort Morgan that their guns did us comparatively little injury. Just after we passed the Fort, which was about ten minutes before eight o'clock, the ram Tennessee dashed out at this ship, as had been expected, and in anticipation of which I had ordered the Monitors on our starboard side. I took no further notice of her than to return her fire. The rebel gunboats, Morgan, Gaines, and Selma, were ahead, and the latter particularly annoyed us with a raking fire, which our guns could not return. At two minutes after eight o'clock I ordered the Metacomet to cast off and go in pursuit of the Selma. Captain Jouett was after her in a moment, and in an hour's time he had her as a prize. She was commanded by P. N. Murphy, formerly of the United States navy. He was wounded in the wrist, his executive officer, Lieutenant Comstock, and eight of the crew, killed, and seven or eight wounded. Lieutenant Commander Jouett's conduct during the whole affair commands my warmest commendations. The Morgan and Gaines succeeded in escaping under the protection of the guns of Fort Morgan, which would have been prevented had the other gunboats been as prompt in their movements as the Metacomet; the want of pilots, however, I believe, was the principal difficulty. The Gaines was so injured by our fire that she had to be run ashore, where she was subsequently destroyed, but the Morgan escaped to Mobile during the night, though she was chased and fired upon by our cruisers. Having passed the forts and dispersed the enemy's gunboats, I had ordered most of the vessels to anchor, when I perceived the ram Tennessee standing up for this ship. This was at forty-five minutes past eight. I was not long in comprehending his intentions to be the destruction of the flag-ship. The Monitors and such of the wooden vessels as I thought best adapted for the purpose, were immediately ordered to attack the ram, not only with their guns, but bows on at full speed, and then began one of the fiercest naval combats on record. The Monongahela, Commander Strong, was the first vessel that struck her, and in doing so carried away his own iron prow, together with the cutwater, without apparently doing her adversary much injury. The Lackawanna, Captain Marchand, was the next vessel to strike her, which she did at full speed; but though her stem was cut and crushed to the plank ends for the distance of three feet above the water-edge, to five feet below, the only perceptible effect on the ram was to give her a heavy list. The Hartford was the third vessel which struck her, but, as the Tennessee quickly shifted her helm, the blow was a glancing one, and, as she rasped along our side, we poured our whole port broadside of nine-inch solid shot within ten feet of her casemate. The Monitors worked slowly, but delivered their fire as opportunity offered. The Chickasaw succeeded in getting under her stern, and a fifteen-inch shot from the Manhattan broke through her iron plating and heavy wooden backing, though the missile itself did not enter the vessel. Immediately after the collision with the flagship, I directed Captain Drayton to bear down for the ram again. He was doing so at full speed when, unfortunately, the Lackawanna run into the Hartford just forward of the mizzenmast, cutting her down to within two feet of the water's edge. We soon got clear again, however, and were fast approaching our adversary, when she struck her colors and run up the white flag. She was at this time sore beset; the Chickasaw was pounding away at her stern, the Ossipee was approaching her at full speed, and the Monongahela, Lackawanna, and this ship were bearing down upon her, determined upon her destruction. Her smoke-stack had been shot away, her steering chains were gone, compelling a resort to her relieving tackles, and several of her port shutters were jammed. Indeed, from the time the Hartford struck her until her surrender she never fired a gun. As the Ossipee, Commander Le Roy, was about to strike her, she hoisted the white flag, and that vessel immediately stopped her engine, though not in time to avoid a glancing blow. During this contest with the rebel gunboats and the ram Tennessee, and which terminated by her surrender at ten o'clock, we lost many more men than from the fire of the batteries of Fort Morgan. Admiral Buchanan was wounded in the leg; two or three of his men were killed, and five or six wounded. Commander Johnston, formerly of the United States navy, was in command of the Tennessee, and came on board the flag-ship, to surrender his sword and that of Admiral Buchanan. The surgeon, Doctor Conrad, came with him, stated the condition of the Admiral, and wished to know what was to be done with him. Fleet Surgeon Palmer, who was on board the Hartford, during the action, commiserating the sufferings of the wounded, suggested that those of both sides be sent to Pensacola, where they could be properly cared for. I therefore addressed a note to Brigadier-General R. L. Page, commanding Fort Morgan, informing him that Admiral Buchanan and others of the Tennessee had been wounded, and desiring to know whether he would permit one of our vessels, under a flag of truce, to convey them, with or without our wounded, to Pensacola, on the understanding that the vessel should take out none but the wounded, and bring nothing back that she did not take out. This was acceded to by General Page, and the Metacomet proceeded on this mission of humanity. I inclose herewith the correspondence with that officer, (marked numbers one, two, three, and four.) I forward also the reports (marked numbers five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, and twenty-one) of the commanding officers of the vessels who par |