he knew the Confederates were building a massive iron-
clad ram ship there whose armor would make her almost
invulnerable to the Union fleet. He also knew that Mo-
bile Bay was protected by two heavily gunned forts: Fort
Gaines and Fort Morgan, three miles apart with a field
of floating mines (known as torpedoes) laid in the wa-
ters between them. The only clear channel passed under
the guns of Fort Morgan. Reconnaissance by night had
revealed that many of the torpedoes had been rendered
useless by water seeping into them, but Farragut knew
there were still enough active to cripple his fleet.
At 5:30 a.m. on 5 August 1864, Farragut’s squad-
ron sailed into the bay in two columns side by side, with
Farragut in his flagship, the Hartford. As he had done at
New Orleans, the 63-year-old climbed up the rigging
to see over the smoke of his ship’s guns, and his flag
captain sent a sailor up behind him to tie the admiral
to the shrouds. As the leading Union ship, Tecumseh,
reached the narrowest part of the channel, its captain
altered direction away from Fort Morgan’s guns into the
minefield and struck a torpedo (mine) a moment later.
As the Tecumseh sank, the ship behind her, Brooklyn,
stopped her engines and was swung round by the cur-
rent, blocking the ships behind her as well as the column
to her right. The entire squadron was then at a halt with
the guns of Fort Morgan firing at them at close range.
Disaster threatened, but Farragut signaled the Brooklyn
to proceed and ordered the squadron to alter course and
sail through the minefield. When someone cried a warn-
ing about the “torpedoes,” he answered with the shout
for which he is still remembered: “Damn the torpedoes.
Full speed ahead, Drayton.” The whole squadron fol-
lowed him through the minefield into Mobile Bay with
torpedoes bumping against their sides, but not one ex-
ploded. Once inside the bay, they made short work of
the Confederate warships facing them, though it needed
the firepower of the entire squadron to force the massive
ironclad Tennessee to surrender.
After his victory at Mobile Bay, Farragut resumed
his blockade duties in the Gulf, but he was now a tired
man and sought to be relieved of duty. He returned to
New York, and in December 1864 Congress created the
new rank of vice admiral for him. On 25 July 1866, he
became the first admiral (four stars) in American his-
tory. It was as admiral that he made a goodwill visit to
Europe in 1867–68, flying his flag on the USS Franklin.
He retired shortly afterwards and died at Portsmouth,
New Hampshire, on 14 August 1870.
One of the officers who had sailed in Farragut’s
squadron as he fought his way upriver to New Orleans
was Lieutenant George deWey. When, as Admiral
Dewey, he steamed into Manila Bay nearly 40 years
later to face a Spanish fleet far larger his own, he said his
plan of attack was based on the simple question: “What
would Farragut have done?”References: Murphy, J. K., The Lincoln Gunboats (Mar-
holm, Peterborough, U.K.: Schoolhouse Publishing,
1999); Schneller, Robert John, Jr., Farragut: America’s
First Admiral (Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 2002); Duffy,
James P., Lincoln’s Admiral: The Civil War Campaigns of
David Farragut (New York: Wiley, 1997); Hearn, Chester
G., Admiral David Farragut: The Civil War Years (Annap-
olis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1998); Martin, Chris-
topher, Damn the Torpedoes! The Story of America’s First
Admiral: David Glasgow Farragut (London and New York:
Abelard-Schuman, 1970); Bruce, Anthony, and William
Cogar, “Farragut, David Glasgow,” in An Encyclopedia of
Naval History (New York: Checkmark Books, 1999), 132;
North, Bruce, “Farragut, David Glasgow,” in Encyclopedia
of American War Heroes (New York: Checkmark Books,
2002), 89–90.Fisher, John Arbuthnot, Baron Fisher of
Kilverstone (1841–1920) British admiral
Born into a naval family in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka)
on 25 January 1841, John Arbuthnot Fisher joined the
Royal Navy in 1854 when he was 13, beginning his ser-
vice on the HMS Victory. His first major military action
came during the Crimean War. On 30 October 1874,
he was promoted to captain, and he went on to com-
mand a series of ships. He was also named to a commit-
tee that drafted a revision of The Gunnery Manual of the
Fleet. On 11 July 1882, while commanding the battleship
HMS Inflexible, Fisher shelled Alexandria, Egypt, during
a minor war with that nation. In 1887, he was named di-
rector of naval ordnance, serving until 1890, when he was
appointed as Third Sea Lord to the Board of Admiralty.
He later served as superintendent of the Portsmouth ship
yard, and commander in chief of the North American
and West Indies Station, and he commanded the Medi-
terranean Fleet. Knighted in 1894, he was promoted to
Second Sea Lord in 1902. In 1904, he was named to the
panel known as Lord Esher’s Committee, which exam-
ined ways of reforming the War Office Department. FiSheR, John ARbuthnot, bARon FiSheR oF kilveRStone