tle, but they might work as
floating batteries. Moreover, in
the fall of 1862 other contracts
had been closed, one of which
was a powerful screw ship that
would become one of the most
powerful and famed Confeder-
ate ironclads, the Tennessee. All
hope was staked on her.
Rear Admiral and historian
Alfred Thayer Mahan called the
Tennessee“the most powerful
ironclad built from the keel up
by the Confederacy.” She was
probably the most potent craft
that sailed from a Confederate
navy yard during the war. Her
displacement was 1,273 tons;
she was 209 feet long with a 48-
foot beam, and was fitted with
a casemate 79 feet long. The
internal structure of the case-
mate was of yellow pine 18.5
inches thick, augmented by 4
inches of oak. This was covered
by 5 inches of iron plate,
increasing to 6 inches forward.
Her outer decks were armored with 2-inch
sheet iron. The lower reaches of the case-
mate descended under the waterline and
formed a solid angle that would make it
very difficult to ram the ship. She carried a
battery of six Brooke rifles; two of 7.5
inches forward and astern, pivoted so that
they could be fired either from a porthole
in front or from two ports on the sides. She
carried the other four, of 6 inches, in broad-
sides. Her shallow draft would allow her
to find refuge in the broad expanses of 14-
foot water that was not accessible to Far-
ragut’s heavy warships.
Nevertheless, the Tennesseehad some
serious flaws that would impair her at crit-
ical times. First, she was very slow because
her engines, recovered from a river
steamer, had been patched together and
adapted by a system of connecting gears
to give her screw propulsion, resulting in
a great dissipation of power. Even though
in her engine trials she had logged 8 knots,
when fully loaded she could barely make- Second, her port shutters, 5 inches
thick, were hinged high; under enemy fire
they might fall and obstruct the portholes.
Last and most serious, through some
unbelievable oversight, the tiller chains
passed over the deck astern and were
therefore fully exposed to enemy fire. As
her captain said, “We were compelled to
take the consequences of the defect, which
proved to be disastrous.”
The South had little to work with: Old
locomotive boilers were cut and pressed
together in new shapes to serve new pur-
poses while once-careful mechanics looked
the other way in embarrassment at their
tired handiwork; and fatigued machinery
of memorable steamers was dismembered
and made to serve purposes its designers
could not have foreseen. Furthermore, the
Tennessee’s advantage of shallow draft
could be checkmated if Farragut had mon-
itors of similar or even lighter draft.
After the loss of New Orleans, theSouth’s hero of Hampton
Roads, Admiral Franklin
Buchanan, had been ordered
to Selma to supervise the build-
ing of the Tennessee and the
creation of a fleet that would
break the Federal blockade.
Mallory originally had sent his
most aggressive senior officer
to Mobile, not only to raise the
blockade off that city, but also
to cooperate in a combined
effort to regain New Orleans
and the lower Mississippi.
Therefore, his building opera-
tions were essentially offensive
in motive, but were defensive
in fact. For “Ol’ Buck”
Buchanan, the battle to come
meant victory or defeat for the
entire Southern navy. The Mis-
sissippi was lost, for which
Galveston and other Texas
ports were useless; Charleston
and Savannah were bottled up
and would stay that way.
During the night of May 17,
Buchanan succeeded in getting the Ten-
nesseeover Dog River bar below Mobile
and into the lower bay. His plan was to
run through the blockade and capture
nearby Fort Pickens and Pensacola, Fla.
But the ironclad ran hard aground in the
lower bay after crossing the sandbar, and
was discovered by blockaders the next
morning. Anxious days passed, but neither
belligerent made a move. Buchanan
seemed overawed by the Union fleet and,
believing an attack was imminent,
dropped all pretense of offensive action,
preparing for the expected blow. Farragut
fully believed that Buchanan, who had
been refloated at high tide, was waiting for
a dark night and smooth sea to renew his
sortie.
“No doubt is felt of his success. Coming
on the heels of the rebel successes on the
Red River, the public mind is in such a
state of excitement,” Farragut wrote to
Welles. It was believed that if the ram
destroyed the blockade off Mobile in the
wake of General Bank’s failure on the RedMap © 2015 by Philip Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping, Minneapolis, MNThe Confederates had planned well. In order to
avoid mines, ships had to steer close to the guns
of Fort Morgan.CWQ-EW16 Mobile Bay_Layout 1 10/22/15 1:09 PM Page 60