privileged. soon, some of this material will be on the soon this material will be on the web. i can't wait to read your papers. thank you all for your attention. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> you are watching american history tv, all weekend every weekend on c-span3. to join the conversation, like us on facebook at c-span history. quarstein discusses

the battle of mobile bay in august of 1864, and the leadership roles of union rear admiral david farragut and confederate admiral franklin buchanan. it closed one of the last major ports. the victory, coupled with the gave a boost to president abraham lincoln's bid for reelection just a couple of months later. the mariners museum host this 45 minute event. [applause] john: there is an unseen battlefield in every human breast where to opposing forces me to and where they seldom rest. the battle of mobile bay is actually the story of a contest between the two highest ranking naval officers in the civil war, and franklint buchanan. if you think of two opposing

wills, that is what you have the battle of mobile bay. first, i want to talk about who these characters are. start with franklin buchanan, since he was on one of our ironclads here in hampton roads. franklin buchanan was born on seven -- on september 17, 1800 in baltimore, maryland. his father was founder of the maryland medical society and his grandfather was a signer of the declaration of independence. he comes from a well-heeled family. he will become a mid-shipment at age 18. distinctione with by1844 -- with distinction 1844. promoted to captain, and he will be named the first superintendent of the united

states naval academy in annapolis. many the founder in ways of that school. he will resign from that post so he conserve actively in again hean war, which does with distinction, gaining the attention of flag officer matthew perry. -- will decide in buchanan as flag captain and commander of. flagship.y's it is said buchanan was the first naval officer to step foot in japan. let me tell you about buchanan. he is five foot 10 to he is bald -- he is 5'10", he is bald.

he was just as arbitrary as nelson. bay theid in tokyo chinese pilot would run the susquehanna brown -- the susquehanna ground. buchanan would cut such a fierce look that the chinese pilot would jump overboard. back from japan, the two voyages, he would be of thed as commandant washington naval yard, and that is where he would be at the out rake of the civil war. i will tell you right now that be canon, native maryland are, when the baltimore riots 1861,ed on april 19, buchanan will resign his commission, saying he cannot lift his sword against his native state. as you all know, maryland does not leave the union.

buchanan, thef secretary of the navy with the united states says that was a little hasty, can i have my job back echo of course he gets a job back? of course he gets a big no. on buchanan's letter, "you are dismissed from the service or co-he's a free agent -- from the servants -- from a service." he's a free agent. then he becomes the commander of the james river defenses with the css virginia as his flagship. it is buchanan, who on the morning of march 8, 1862 will calleds ship on what is a shakedown cruise. when they get to craney island

he will call the men onto the gun deck and say, men, today we will do not just our duty but more than our duty. today we will attack the union fleet. to your cannon, to your death, we will sink before surrender." we are supposed to be practicing our ship, not fighting. as a result of buchanan's virginia would come out and sink the uss cumberland by 3:30 on the afternoon of march 8. that moment really creates that ironclad revolution that was so finally talked about. buchanan,n -- however, late in the afternoon, after forcing congress to surrender -- and i want to tell you, buchanan's brother is on board the congress. thomas buchanan.

when the congress surrenders he sends some boats over to take off the wounded and the officers as prisoners. the shoresoldiers on start firing at the congress and the confederate gunboat's and so buchanan gets so enraged -- gunboats. .nd so buchanan gets so enraged buchanan gets out and starts shooting at the troops on the shore. he is shot in the thigh, grievously wounded. grazes his femur artery. as he is taken below he shouts to the men, "don't worry, men. the wound is not mortal. i will soon be back amongst you." "plug her with hotshot ." buchanan has one the greatest confederate victory -- has won

the greatest confederate victory at the time. he would recover from his promoted towould be rear admiral, and then would be detailed to take command at mobile bay. now let's talk a little bit about david glasgow farragut. 18ragut was born on july 5, hundred. these guys are both 64 years old when they fight the battle of mobile bay. farragut was born in campbell station, tennessee. farragut --george george farragut is actually from mallorca. he becomes a sea captain and then won the revolution takes place he becomes a lieutenant in the south carolina navy, then a lieutenant in the continental navy. he runs aservice

fairy -- runs a ferry in ten nessee. actuallyrragut would moved to new orleans, where he becomes a collector of the u.s. customs in new orleans be at inld move there in 1804 -- new orleans. he would move there in 1804. his real name is james glasgow farragut. what would happen is when george farragut is in new orleans, his will actuallyfe tend to his friend's father, who is suffering from yellow fever. his friend is david porter, the famous naval officer, whose father is head of the naval station at new orleans. what happens is david porter comes down with yellow fever. mrs. fairy get treats him --

mrs. farragut treats him. he dies, she contracts yellow fever, she dies. they have 11 children, so what is george farragut owing to do? david porter says i will take one of them. volunteers farragut and becomes the foster son of david nixon porter senior -- david dixon porter senior. and william porter, later captain of the u.s. navy. toragut becomes a midshipman in 1810. when he ishis name detailed as a mid-shipment to david glasgow porter in honor of david porter raising him up. the war of 1812, the you know

who is going to be the great hero? it happens to be farragut. he will beears old given command of a captured merchant ship area he is -- merchant ship. he is described as being 5'6", 120 pounds. those pounds are uniform and pistols, and 20 pounds is fairy get -- is farragut. and the crew mutinies on him. theuts down the mutiny with help of the boats mate. and with his sword and his pistol bearing, the mutineers lay down. captured by british naval grievouslyragut is wounded.

he is 13 years old, if you can imagine fighting a fierce naval battle and you are 13. on.agut would go he would be exchanged at the end of the war and go back into naval service. he would fight pirates in the 1820's and 30's. he would be in command of the silent, which is one of the -- siren, excuse me. that is serving along the mexican coast. he takes command of the saratoga. he is a bona fide hero. he is at the gosport navy yard as inspector of ordinance. he actually tests naval ordinance out at portman road, they have a test ground there set up on the beach. that is what they -- that is

what he was due for an entire year, testing new styles of shell guns. this is a choice assignment. , in 1854, will be island navalayor station. farragut is sent there to create the naval station. he does so in excellent fashion. he will return to nordic -- to two novrvick in 1850. trunk, farragut is not, they do not get along very well. and farragut would be a part of the forces that abandon gosport navy yard.

he is living where his wife is from. both his two wives -- not at the same time, mind you. .he sister to benjamin loyal , he is let you know considered to be a southern sympathizer, born in tennessee, grew up in new orleans, wives in norvick. they move up to hastings, new york. you are trying to remake the navy, and some people suspect farragut. a special assignment from assistant secretary of the navy. he goes to talk to farragut and says, "david, we want to

consider giving you command of the next addition to capture norvick." he says that would be a very hard assignment to accept. said, "youer are not the man we thought you were. -- you were here go -- you were." he is the man of an even important -- even more important job, and that is the capture of new orleans. farragut would become commander of the west gulf squadron. she would orchestrate running two coastalssed the defense ports. destroys this week confederate

fleet, the confederates are not organized well enough to stop fire get -- to stop farragut. orleans, he is elevated to the rank of rear admiral. he serves around vicksburg. he is taking oceangoing ships way up the mississippi river. he is going to be surprised by the css arkansas, which is another fascinating story. farragut would eventually go back down river. in marchome to operate gibson, whereort he tries to run past the batteries at fort gibson. there he will have several ships damaged. two have to float down river. the uss mississippi will run aground and be destroyed by

confederate shore batteries. farragut didn't always get away with everything. farragut goes back down river, he gets the assignment of attacking mobile bay. meanwhile, franklin buchanan is , and he takes the place of a man known as victor randolph. buchanan says you are just an old woman, out the way. victor randolph leaves and buchanan writes secretary mallory, the confederate secretary of navy stephen is shambles here. is a paddlewheel with one

inch of armor. worthless." he advocates pushing for new ironclad construction. the first one they will build is the css tennessee. let me tell you about the tennessee, it is 210 feet in ,ength, it has a built-in ram it has six inches of armor forward and five inches along the sides and stern. she is powered by an old ship called the alert engine, so she is slow. she has a draft of 13 feet, which means she has difficulty in getting over the bar. they have to build camels to float her over and get her into mobile bay. she will be armed with six rifled guns, two of them are seven inch guns.

she is a powerful ironclad. she only makes five not -- five knots. is trying to finish and other ironclad because his goal is to get into the mississippi sound and going recapture new orleans. he plans with this one little to sneak out of mobile bay and to attack the union of fleet. -- the union fleet. buchanan is one of the fiercest officers of the civil war. i will tell you that farragut would be in command of the west coast blockading squadron. he's keeping his ships at pensacola. assignment is to capture mobile bay.

this is a huge assignment. he feels he can only achieve this with the help of monitors. rumors are about about how powerful the tennessee is. and so he waits to receive monitors. he gets two sent down the coast -- they areually improved monitors, as we would call them. tecumseh. each one of those ways 43,000 pounds. you have the tecumseh, then the manhattan, that also has 215 two 15ns -- also has inch guns. and they are armed with four 11 inch dog grins -- 11 inch guns.

he has his captured ships, which are the harvard class steam screwed groups. confederate, the but confederates have great defense. they have this massive coastal defendant -- defense port. inchmorgan has 11 seven brook guns. those are death to iron ships as well as wooden ships. fort morgan regarding the main entrance to the main channel. they closed part of the channel by putting in a field of torpedoes. torpedoes.aid 67 torpedoes are what we call mines .ow you have a narrow entrance. over on the island you have 18

guns and another phone -- ,nother fort armed with 11 guns guarding what is called grants .ass farragut decides he is going to put his ships into two lines. the monitors are going to be inward starboard. they are going to, number one, go past fort morgan to deal with the tennessee. that is the job of the tecumseh and the manhattan. those two other river class monitors are supposed to come in and fight more -- and fight fort morgan so that the wooden ship column can pass. farragut would take two ships, lash them together. the first in line would be the brooklyn, commanded by james alvin. to another boat.

the idea is if one ship gets the sable, the other one can keep it moving past the guns of the port. next in line is the heart forward, lashed to the medic on hartford.he .he mungo gila are the main ships coming in. galena remember the fought there with the monitor is she was hold -- with the monitor. they figured her armor didn't work so they took it off and she is a wooden frigate. they are going to come into line.

flag captain says, " we are going to put them into their battle stations, should we give them whiskey?" no, i'm going to have coffee and that is good enough for them. they can face the shock like i do." would begin their approach to mobile bay. tecumseh,hip is the the tecumseh opens fire at 6:47. the lighthouse, which you can see right there. you can see the lighthouse next to the american -- next to the confederate flag. then she trains her guns on the water battery.

she is moving because the current is so strong. farragut is bringing in his steamers at cap's bead -- at cap speed because the current is so strong and he is coming in with the tide. that is propelling his ships in a far better fashion. also the wind is blowing in from the southwest, so as you see from this the smoke is going onto the porch, so they can't see as well. farragut wants to see everything. he is a lashed to the mainmast halfway up the rigging. .e actually climbs up there lashnds a sailor up to farragut, not to keep him there, but in case he gets wounded he won't fall down on the deck and die. here he is looking over the battle.

the line comes in and commander of the tecumseh will, because he is fighting the current, and his job is to go after the tennessee, he will move into where these buoys are, which shows where the torpedoes are. he is running ahead, the brooklyn, the first ship in line, stops its engines because he wants to keep the tecumseh ahead. the last thing you want to have been is having engine stop in front of a port. would come forward, and all of a sudden the tecumseh hits a mine. it blows up. it says the tecumseh popped out of the water, came back down, then she flipped up like this, then they saw propeller churning and down she went like an arrow.

actually stood at the hatch. he had to go up this latter. the pilot comes along and craven says, after you pilot. ofse were the last words craven. out of the crew of 117 men, only 21 survived. that is shocking everybody. confederates from the side of their batteries, to see an ironclad sink. of the union fleet has virtually stopped in front of the the unione canyon -- fleet has virtually stopped in front of the confederate canon. one crew member has his legs taken off by a shot. he throws his arms up and a another shot whizzes through and takes his arms off.

farragut shalt -- farragut submits -- what's amiss?" "torpedos." ee says, "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. -- ahead." the hartford swings out of line, and he doesn't want to swing toward the monitors because they are in a tight spot. they've stopped as well. farragut swings the hartford out and they go across the

minefield, so to speak. there are 67 of them there, and it is said the crew could hear the snapping of the primers on the torpedoes against the hull of the hartford. but guess what? none ofthe them work. they have been out there too long. this is basically farragut luck. the manhattan turns to go toward the tennessee. buchanan and the other gunboats that are with him, the soma with four guns, the gain with six guns, and the morgan with six , the hartford actually rakes her.

a shell will burst one of the paddle wheels. the selma is struck through her boilers. and the morgan hides under the guns of fort morgan. buchanan busts out. he wants to ram somebody. his ship is too slow. he can't get there as the federal ships pass through. they are under those guns until about 8:00. you can see they thought fort morgan for almost an hour and a half. the federals have lost, 140 men killed, 170 wounded. if you think about civil war battles, all these guys dying. you get your legs blown off on a naval ship, blood train -- blood, brains, and bone are

going to be everywhere. nevertheless the federals will steam in. they run past the tennessee and they go to an anchorage known as bay.iddle ground in mobile that is where you are supposed to wait to go into port itself. kind of like hampton roads going into portsmouth. farragut gets there, drops anchor, and tells his men, "let's go to breakfast." they all start to get something to eat and all of a sudden someone says to farragut, "i think you should look over there." and there comes the tennessee. he took on an entire union fleet in 1862. what does he want to do today? take on the entire union fleet. he does not care. he says if you do not act you will be shamed for the rest of

your life. he tells his men the same type of speech. today we are going to do our duty, not just our duty. we are going to destroy the federal fleet today. if i am wounded, lay me down to the side and keep on fighting. we will sink before surrender. wow. and here comes the tennessee. farragut, when he sees this, he says, "i did not think old buck as such a fool." this comes to the high point of the battle, as you can see from your little maps. the tennessee has a huge problem, and that is speed. he tries to come up to ram the hartford, but the hartford would ramp the tennessee instead. the brooklyn has a metal added to her bow so she can actually smash into the tennessee. all will happen is free for

while the manhattan and chickasaw layoff off both ends of the tennessee, firing at her. chickasawn of the claims to have knocked over the smokestack of the tennessee, meaning no more draft for the engines. the chickasaw also swept away the anchor chains, so you can't turn your ship. tennessee virtually dead in the water as the manhattan comes up and starts pounding her. the manhattan had two 15 inch guns. i'll tell you right now, and of theiver fell into one 15 inch guns and doesn't work. they spiked their own gun. they are just firing one of these huge 15 inch guns. the hartford would come to ram the tennessee and the lackawanna

would come and ram the hartford inset of the tennessee. farragut is back up there, tied to the rigging, looking over. the lackawanna rams right where he is up on the mast. they crack the hartford all the way down to the waterline. farragut shouts, "get out of my way." -- the monicao circle to bramg -- to ram the tennessee again. ramming the tennessee doesn't do any damage to her. at this time the manhattan has gotten her ring. she is 50 feet off the

tennessee. she will send a 15 inch solid shot into the case of the tennessee, which crack's feedback and the five inches of iron. it andck said -- crack's light started coming into the deck. buchanan had these nets set up so splinters to not injure anyone. however when that section of the -- the bolt that bolted the iron plate right to the wood across theld shoot gun deck of the tennessee, and guess who it hits? buchanan. leg broken, has his

grievously injured, they lay him down to the side. the commander of the tennessee would go to farragut and -- would go to be cannon -- would go to be cannon -- go to buchanan. what should we do? three of our guns have been jammed. buchanan agrees to a surrender. sheet andup a white the action is over. this battle is over by 9:45. -- lastedor hours four hours. the battle of mobile bay is this huge competition between these two tremendous naval officers, who were friends before the war and finds themselves on opposite sides. i will have to say the

tennessee, when she surrenders, there is nothing they can do. however the federals repair her, putting new smokestack on her, and usee port shutters her to shell fort morgan, commanded by brigadier general commander -- whose his brother is commander of the css stonewall. they joined the navy because there weren't enough assignments. he is in command of fort morgan. when he is forced to surrender he breaks his sword and throws it into the ocean. he says, "i refused to give it to the accursed northern invaders." he gets court-martialed but is acquitted in a court-martial in new orleans. takes him to pets --

buchanan, they taken to pensacola and the doctors are worried about his leg. they ask, do you mind if we amputate? buchanan says you captured the leg, you decide. bay is ae of mobile tremendous engagement. it comes at the perfect time for the lincoln administration. the war's not going well. grant is losing all those men during the overland campaign. no outstanding union victory. sherman is struggling to get at atlanta. , mobile bay,sudden the last freeport on the goals -- on the gulf, is now closed. other outside -- now the only other outside link the confederate have would be

wilmington. buchanan is the founder of the university of maryland. he tries to run it like a navy ship, so he only lasts two years . he goes down to mobile, where he is president of an insurance company. he returns to eastern maryland, and he will die there. whitehall -- at y hall. died in buchanan would 1874. david glasgow farragut would be promoted to full admiral. he would be in command of the european squadron. person would be the only to be allowed to hold a full

admiral rank in the u.s. navy he stays on active service. visiting the portsmouth naval facilities in new hampshire, and he will drop dead from a heart attack. what an active career of these naval history. these men wanted to fight like nelson. hugo to the nelson gallery here at the mariners museum, they were proud to serve and ready to fight, ready to do what it took to achieve victory against all odds. men, that iese think are the most famous naval officers of the american civil war. in the words of franklin buchanan, i want to ride you all -- to remind you all to always think before you surrender. thank you. -- always sink before you surrender. thank you. [applause]

>> anyone have any questions you go -- questions? he was a prisoner of war, he was exchanged in february 1865, but he goes back home. his leg is not removed. survived thehe war. he was taken to pensacola, he was in a naval officer there. he is badly injured. considering what happened to him , your body can only take so much. i just think buchanan didn't care. >> any other questions? the union renamed the tennessee a lot of merrimac and

virginia? john: no, then explain what they do. -- merrimac is an and and and abandoned to ship by the u.s. navy. the confederates bring it up and turn it into a totally different type of ship. you can learn about that in ironclad revolution. tennessee, they rechristened her teat of later as the uss tennessee. they didn't have to change any names. we like to make things confusing and virginia sometimes. >> i'm familiar with the falklands war. we sold a ship to argentina that later became -- it was sunk with 2000 sailors on board. the united states navy did not .ame it the belgrano although it was never changed in its function. but by selling it is meant that -- john: but by selling it admit

that the argentines could rechristened it. the confederates have a french maid ironclad, the stonewall. the confederates tried to buy it. they said, you can't i add. -- can't buy it. the ironcladed anymore, they sell it to the confederates. the confederates tried to bring it across the atlantic, which they do. they only get it to havana in may of 1865. page sells the stonewall to pay off his crew to cuban authorities. the americans then buy it from the spanish. frenchalize it is a bad maid ship, so they sell it to the japanese, who then --mission it has the

commission it as the azura. it is outdated. they keep it in commission until 1908. >> me again why we have a monitor at merrimac bridge? john: number one, they misspelled it. he u.s. navy spells merrimac ack, as in the merrimack river. it was no longer called the virginia. i think the brilliance comes out -- quite a for you lot. if there are not any other questions i appreciate you being here today.

we have just started the uss monitor foundation. million is to raise $20 to ensure that the uss monitor, all those things relating to civil war ironclad that we work on here at the mariners museum is well preserved and well interpreted. we just set up a membership foundation. i think you all got a form. i have lots of ways people can help. andou like ironclads appreciate the american civil those ironclads changed naval warfare forever, then please stop by our desk. or myself would be happy to help you create until i see you all again, i want to give you a great huzzah. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]