![]() The attacking Union ships were part of Rear Admiral David Glasgow Farragut's West Gulf Blockading Squadron. The Battle of Mobile Bay pitted some of the best ships in both Union and Confederate Navies under some of their most prominent officers. By July 1864 both requirements could be met, and Farragut finalized plans for an attack. Farragut needed ironclads to pass Fort Gaines and Fort Morgan, and Army troops to assist in capturing the forts themselves. Farragut, Union naval commander in the Gulf of Mexico, had been urging an expedition against Mobile since early 1864. Grant in 1863 proposed the city's capture, and Rear Admiral David G. The Union high command recognized Mobile's importance. The splitting of the Confederacy by the surrenders of Vicksburg and Port Hudson in July 1863 only increased Mobile's value as a port and access point for Confederate trade. ![]() In addition, the Confederate garrison at Mobile blocked access to the roads and rivers Union forces needed to advance into southern Alabama and Mississippi. It was a haven for numerous blockade runners and the commerce raider Florida, and her shipyards had serviced all of these ships in their activities. Up to this point in the war, Mobile had proven to be a valuable port for the Confederacy. ![]() By 1864 Confederate mines (known as torpedoes) blocked almost the entire width of the channel except for a few hundred years of open water next to Fort Morgan. Two prewar stone forts, Fort Gaines on Dauphin Island and Fort Morgan on the mainland, guarded the entrance. The navigable part of the bay is shaped like a partially-inflated balloon, with the mouth entering the Gulf of Mexico through a narrow (3-mile-wide) channel between the mainland to the east and Dauphin Island to the west. Mobile sits at the northern end of Mobile Bay, an estuary 30 miles long by 24 miles wide with an average depth of 10 feet. By the spring of 1864, only two major Confederate ports were still open east of the Mississippi River: Mobile, Alabama and Wilmington, North Carolina. Army and Navy forces combined in a series of campaigns to both blockade Southern ports and capture key points along the Confederate coast. Since the Civil War's outbreak in 1861, a primary Union objective had been to cut off Confederate ports from outside communications. The clash at Mobile Bay also illustrates the fact that while naval warfare involves the intersection of policy, strategy, and technology, ultimately the human factor is decisive. The engagement was one of the iconic naval battles of the Civil War, and occupies a significant place in the American lexicon and national consciousness today. Union forces won a decisive victory in less than four hours of fighting. The Battle of Mobile Bay on Augpitted two powerful naval forces against each other for control of one of the Confederacy's last links to the outside world. Mobile itself surrendered in March 1865 to a Union expedition led by Major General R. Union forces were not strong enough to take Mobile but they did render the harbor unusable and tied up 10,000 Confederate troops in defense of the city. Over the next few days fighting continued to secure Mobile Bay with Fort Gaines falling August 8 and Fort Morgan surrendering August 23. The Union force lost 151 men killed and 177 wounded, the Confederates 13 killed, 22 wounded and 1,587 captured. The Confederate on Confederate ship sank, two struck their colors and one retreated to Mobile. The union ship Tecumseh was sunk by a Confederate torpedo (mine) and observing this Farragut issued his famous order “Damn the torpedoes” leading the union force through the Confederate minefield to engage the Confederate ships in Mobile Bay. At the mouth of Mobile Bay, Fort Gaines was engaged by a Union force of infantry 2,000 strong while Fort Morgan was attacked by Farragut’s 14 ships. Defending Mobile was the responsibility of Admiral Franklin "Buck" Buchanan, the Confederate Navy's first admiral.
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