Naval Battle in Mobile Bay
Fort Pillow and Memphis

Civil War Navy
August 1864

Entrance of Rear Admiral Farragut in to Mobile Bay
August 5th 1864

Chart of the action, prepared by RAdm. D.G. Farragut, Washington, D.C., March 1st, 1865.
"Explanation of Diagram from the five stand points of the Mobile fight." (printed in the lower left):
"No.1. Ships lashed together and running in from Sea, and the monitors running out of "Monitor Bay" to take their station inside or eastward of the line."
"No.2. Running up the channel in line of battle, and engaging 'Fort Morgan' leading ship 'Brooklyn' encounters what she supposes to be 'torpedoes' monitor 'Tecumseh' is struck by one and sinks; Brooklyn backs astern causing confusion; Flag Ship takes the lead and passes up and engages the ram Tennessee and the gun boats of the enemy."
"No.3. Running fight with the enemy's fleet which ends in the capture of one, destruction of another, and the ram and one gun boat take shelter again under Fort Morgan."
"No.4. Fleet passes up and are in the act of anchoring when the ram Tennessee is seen coming out to attack them"
"No.5. Shows the manner the attack was made by the fleet upon the ram by ramming her in succession and keeping up a constant fire upon her at the same time."
"The points of contact are shown by the sketch in the north east corner of the plate."
"De Kraft's flotilla bombarding Fort Powell." (in upper left of the chart).
Ships are (as numbered in "Reference" list at left):
1. Tecumseh ; 2. Manhattan ; 3. Winnebago ; 4. Chickasaw ; 5. Brooklyn ; 6. Octorara ; 7. Hartford , Flag Ship; 8. Metacomet ; 9. Richmond ; 10. Port Royal ; 11. Lackawanna ; 12. Seminole ; 13. Admiral's barge Loyal ; 14. Monongahela ; 15. Kennebec ; 16. Ossipee ; 17. Itaska ; 18. Oneida ; 19. Galena .

Passing Fort Morgan and the Torpedoes
Artwork by J.O. Davidson, 1886, depicting the Union and Confederate squadrons at the moment that USS Tecumseh sank after striking a mine ("torpedo").
Confederate ships (left foreground) are Morgan , Gaines and Tennessee . Union monitors visible astern of Tecumseh are Manhattan and Winnebago . USS Brooklyn is leading the outer line of Union warships, immediately followed by USS Hartford .

Reproduction of an 1864 pen & ink drawing by George Waterman, C.S.N., depicting the action as seen from above and inside the entrance to Mobile Bay.
Confederate ships present are (as identified on the drawing): Selma , Morgan , Gaines (shown twice, in the battle line, and beached off Fort Morgan after the battle) and Tennessee .
Union monitors shown are (from the front of the line): Tecumseh (sinking after striking a mine), Manhattan , Winnebago and Chickasaw . The leading two steam sloops in the Union line are Brooklyn and Hartford .
Small diagram in the lower right represents the various efforts by Union ships to ram the Tennessee later in the action.

USS Monongahela rams CSS Tennessee as other Union warships move into position to engage. The two twin-turret monitors depicted at the right are USS Winnebago and USS Chickasaw .
Civil War vintage artwork, photographed by T. Lilienthal, New Orleans, Louisiana.


CSS Tennessee surrounded by Union warships, near the end of the battle. The two twin-turret monitors depicted off her bow and stern are USS Winnebago and USS Chickasaw .

Line engraving after an artwork by J.O. Davidson, published in "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War", Volume 4, page 378.
Entitled "Surrender of the 'Tennessee,' Battle of Mobile Bay", it depicts CSS Tennessee in the center foreground, surrounded by the Union warships (from left to right): Lackawanna , Winnebago , Ossipee , Brooklyn , Itasca , Richmond , Hartford and Chickasaw . Fort Morgan is shown in the right distance.

"Admiral Farragut's Fleet Bombarding Fort Morgan, August 22, 1864", it depicts the following U.S. Navy ships (from left to right): Lackawanna , Manhattan , Octorara , Brooklyn , Winnebago and Richmond . Fort Morgan is shown in the right center distance, and a battery is at the far left.


The Siege of Mobile--Wreck of the 'Osage' and the Monitor 'Milwaukee'
Line engraving published in "Harper's Weekly", 29 April 1865, depicting USS Osage striking a mine and sinking near Spanish Fort on 29 March 1865.
The wreck of USS Milwaukee , which had been sunk by a mine on the previous day, is in the center middle distance. The twin-turret monitors at right are two of the following: USS Winnebago , USS Chickasaw and USS Kickapoo . Ships in the right distance are "Double-Ender" and "Tinclad" gunboats also engaged in attacking the Confederate-held Spanish Fort.

More on the Battle at Mobile Bay



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DVD DVD Book Book

Quest for the Monitor
The first group of non-governmental divers to dive the Monitor. All diving operations were conducted under the close supervision of NOAA.This was beautifully photographed by veteran lensman Ric O'Donnell and narrated and written by Jackie Stone. The video shows a lot of action both on the deck of the dive boat as well as wonderfully clear underwater views of the Monitor
Raise the Alabama
Known as "the ghost ship." During the Civil War, the CSS Alabama sailed over 75,000 miles and captured more than 60 Union vessels. But her career came to an end in June of 1864 when she was sunk by the USS Kearsarge off the coast of Northern France, where the Alabama had gone for repairs.RAISE THE ALABAMA! descends into the murky depths of the English Channel with the marine archeology team led by the renowned Gordon Watts. 200 feet beneath these foreign waters, the legendary Confederate ship is surrendering her secrets, despite weather conditions that make it safe to dive only a few days a year. The program also documents the Alabama's extraordinary career, from her construction in Liverpool to the surprise attacks that made her the scourge of Union shipping and the valiant, 90-minute battle with the Kearsarge
War, Technology, and Experience aboard the USS Monitor
David Mindell has combined a sensitive and incisive reading of the documentary evidence with insightful historical analysis to illuminate not only his central theme, the experience of battle in an emerging machine age, but also the process of invention, negotiation, and politics that brought the Monitor into existence and the quite different process of narration, memory, and imagination that invested the ship and its exploits so heavily with symbolic meaning.
Life in Mr. Lincoln's Navy
Ringle is among the first to examine the many aspects of sailors' lives during the American Civil War. He examines topics such as the recruiting efforts of the U.S. Navy, compensation and promotion, training, entertainment, and disease to name but a few. The extensive research and sheer fact that this is one of the first books to examine this aspect of CW naval history makes it a must for any American naval library

 

The Complete DVD History of U.S. Wars (1700-2004)
War has always been part of the American experience. From the time the first colonists set foot upon North America's shores, they were in conflict with the Native inhabitants. One hundred years later the colonies suddenly found themselves an extension of the conflicts in Europe. Less than a century later, the Revolutionary War freed the fledgling United States from its British overlords and European entanglements. Born and nurtured in war, America grew in strength and power until at the beginning of the 21st century it was the foremost military power in the world.

 

Sources:
U.S. National Park Service
U.S. Library of Congress
US Naval Archives