page_title: Battle of Mobile Bay
section_title: Union Navy
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Mobile Bay / The United States / Union Navy
caption_attribution_description: English: Admiral David Farragut, from wet collodion glass negative. Restored version of Image:AdmFarragut.jpg with scratches and artifacts removed, missing sections replaced, and levels adjusted. Français&#160;: Amiral Farragut, tirage d'un négatif en Collodion humide sur verre. Italiano: L'ammiraglio David Farragut; foto ricavata da un negativo su lastra di vetro.
context_page_description: The Battle of Mobile Bay of August 5, 1864, was an engagement of the American Civil War in which a Union fleet commanded by Rear Admiral David G. Farragut, assisted by a contingent of soldiers, attacked a smaller Confederate fleet led by Admiral Franklin Buchanan and three forts that guarded the entrance to Mobile Bay. Farragut's order of "Damn the torpedoes! Four bells. Captain Drayton, go ahead! Jouett, full speed!" became famous in paraphrase, as "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"
  The battle was marked by Farragut's seemingly rash but successful run through a minefield that had just claimed one of his ironclad monitors, enabling his fleet to get beyond the range of the shore-based guns. This was followed by a reduction of the Confederate fleet to a single vessel, ironclad CSS Tennessee.
  Tennessee did not then retire, but engaged the entire Northern fleet. Tennessee's armor enabled her to inflict more injury than she received, but she could not overcome the imbalance in numbers. She was eventually reduced to a motionless hulk and surrendered, ending the battle. With no Navy to support them, the three forts also surrendered within days.
context_section_description: The man who led the Union fleet at Mobile Bay was Rear Admiral David G. Farragut, no longer Flag Officer Farragut. The U.S. Navy had undergone an organizational change in the second year of the war, one feature of which was the creation of the rank of Rear Admiral. The new rank implied that the ships of the navy would be employed as members of a fleet, not simply as collections of vessels with a common purpose.
  The ships that made up his attacking fleet were of several distinct types, including some that had not even existed when the war began. Of the 18 vessels selected, eight were conventional wooden-hulled ships carrying large numbers of guns that fired broadside. Four of these had been with the West Gulf Blockading Squadron from the start (flagship Hartford, Brooklyn, Richmond, and Oneida) and had fought in its battles on the Mississippi. Two smaller gunboats had likewise been with Farragut since the capture of New Orleans: Kennebec and Itasca.
  Galena was now very much like the others, but she had begun life as an experimental ironclad. Her armor had been found to be more hindrance than help, so it was removed. Three were double-enders (Octorara, Metacomet, and Port Royal), a type of warship that had been developed during the war to navigate the tortuous channels of the interior rivers. Finally, four were representatives of the New Navy: ironclad monitors. Of these, Manhattan and Tecumseh were improved versions of the original Monitor, featuring two large guns in a single turret. The Chickasaw and Winnebago were twin-turreted river monitors of light draft; each mounted four guns that were smaller than those carried by the other two.
caption: Rear Admiral David Glasgow Farragut, USN
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