AT 7:15 A.M. on August 5, 1864, cannon shells from the heavy gun batteries of Fort Morgan began raining down on the eighteen-ship Union fleet. The Federal fleet was attempting to penetrate the minefield blocking the channel entrance to Mobile Bay. The objective was to isolate and close the harbor of Mobile, Alabama, the Confederacy’s vital port and railroad center. Beyond the mines, known as torpedoes, the dreaded rebel ironclad Tennessee lay in wait to attack any Union ship that survived the torpedoes and the cannon bombardment. A fleet of armored gunboats reinforced the Tennessee.
The dense, acrid smoke coming from the barrage from the forts and the ships of both fleets was so thick that Union gunners feared hitting their own ships.
In the rigging of his flagship, the Hartford, high above the mantle of smoke, stood sixty-three-year-old Rear Admiral David Farragut. It was the only location aboard ship that afforded a panorama of the battle. He held a spyglass firmly in one hand and a megaphone in the other. Bound securely to the mast, Farragut deftly directed the action of his fleet in what would be one of the most important naval engagements of the Civil War. He periodically raised the spyglass toward the bay, keeping a watchful eye on the Tennessee and her able commander and his old friend, Confederate admiral Franklin Buchanan. Had a rebel shell struck the Hartford’s mast, a prized target of every Confederate gunner, Farragut would have crashed to the deck, or been catapulted overboard.
The image of Farragut directing the battle from the rigging of the Hartford was quickly immortalized in an illustration titled “American Naval Officer Going into Action” in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. The notoriety bolstered a reputation that was quickly outstripping those of all previous American naval officers other than the legendary John Paul Jones.
JAMES GLASGOW FARRAGUT – he later changed his first name to David - was born on July 5, 1801, on a farm near Campbell’s Station in Knox County, Tennessee, a dozen miles southwest of Knoxville. James’s father, Jorge (Anglicized to George) Anthony Magin Farragut, had emigrated from his ancestral home on Minorca, one of the Balearic Islands off the east coast of Spain. The Farragut family had a long history of close military and civilian ties to Spanish royalty. George had been born in September 1755, on an estate bestowed on the Farragut family by King James I of Aragon. It was awarded in recognition of the services of Don Pedro Farragut, who helped drive the Moors from Majorca and Valencia in the thirteenth century. Following his tenth birthday, George abandoned his formal schooling in Barcelona and went to sea aboard a merchant ship plying the trade routes of the Mediterranean.
By 1773, the young, adventurous sailor became bored with the routine of Mediterranean life, which consisted of visiting the same ports over and over, and ventured to the New World as captain of a merchant ship. On a brief stop at New Orleans in 1775, Farragut learned that the American colonies had revolted against Great Britain. Inspired by the idea of a people rising en masse to gain their independence from a foreign power, he sailed to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where he exchanged his cargo of commercial goods for muskets, cannons, and ammunition. By the time he arrived at the Charleston, South Carolina, harbor in early 1776, the American Revolution had become a full-fledged war, and his ship and its precious cargo were well received.
George Farragut sought and received an appointment as a first lieutenant in the North Carolina Navy. He commanded a war galley in the valiant yet unsuccessful defense of Savannah, and then a shore battery in the defense of Charleston. When the latter fell to the British on May 12, 1780, Farragut was taken prisoner.
Released in a prisoner exchange a short time later, Farragut joined a privateer out of Philadelphia, but soon found himself ashore after a musket ball shattered several bones in his right arm during a battle with a British warship. Although a surgeon managed to save the arm from amputation, the resulting handicap prevented George from finding duty on either a warship or a privateer. Instead, he joined a Continental Army cavalry company and participated in the campaign against British general Cornwallis’s army in the Carolinas. By the end of the war, he had risen to the rank of major.
As with so many veterans of the American Revolution, Farragut’s selfless service left him near poverty. Despite the limited use of his right arm, he turned to the work he knew best and spent the next seven years at sea, devoting most of that time to the lucrative West Indies trade. His sailing days ended in 1790 when an old friend, William Blount, governor of the Southwest Territory, invited him to Knoxville and appointed him a major of militia. The next several years were consumed in fighting the Creeks and Cherokees over disputed land boundaries. During this time, George was the recipient of several land grants in Knox County for his services during the Revolution.
In 1795, the forty-year-old George Farragut married Elizabeth Shine, ten years his junior. Elizabeth came from a North Carolina family of some reputation and position. Descendants of an Irish immigrant, Elizabeth’s father and uncle had both served as officers in the Revolution. During the first five years of their marriage, George and Elizabeth lived in a house George built with his own hands on Emmerson Street in Knoxville. Their first son, William, was born there. By the close of the century, George had sold off several parcels of land he had acquired, and had purchased the 600-plus-acre farm near Campbell’s Station on which his son James was born.
The Tennessee farm remained their home until the sea again beckoned to George. The summons came from another of Farragut’s old friends, William Charles Claiborne. President Thomas Jefferson had appointed Claiborne governor of the new Territory of Orleans, which was a portion of the vast region acquired from France that was known as the Louisiana Purchase. In 1807, the Farragut family, along with all their portable possessions, sailed down the Holston, Tennessee, and Ohio rivers, and finally the Mississippi, to New Orleans. The voyage, made in a large, flat-bottomed riverboat, took over two months.
In New Orleans, Governor Claiborne obtained an appointment for George Farragut as a naval sailing master, as well as commander of a gunboat patrolling the Mississippi River. Farragut soon became friendly with another sailing master, David Porter, Sr., whose son was a naval officer. In late spring of 1808, the elder Porter fell ill from sunstroke while fishing and was taken into the Farragut home, where Elizabeth nursed him. His condition, complicated by consumption, which had already taken a severe toll on his health, worsened, and he died while in Elizabeth’s care. In a strange turn of fate, Elizabeth, who herself had been stricken with yellow fever while caring for him, died the same day, June 22, 1808. Elizabeth Farragut and David Porter, Sr., were both buried two days later in the same cemetery.
A few months after his father’s burial, Commander David Porter, Jr., who had taken command of the New Orleans naval station three days before his father’s death, visited the Farragut home. In gratitude for the kindness shown his dying father, Porter offered to take one of George’s sons into his own home and train him as a naval officer. James was eight years old at the time. Awed by the impressive uniform worn by Porter, and a little envious of his older brother William’s recent appointment as a midshipman, James quickly accepted the offer. The Farragut children had been scattered to the homes of friends following the death of their mother. George, who was having difficulty finding someone to care for them while he worked, agreed to the arrangement. Residing in New Orleans with the Porters was made palatable for the little boy because James could still visit his father and sisters often.
James’s separation from his father was made permanent in June of 1810, when Porter was reassigned to duty in Washington, D.C. He now had a new family, and his childhood would be anything but normal. When Porter introduced James to Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton, the nine-year-old expressed his desire for an appointment as a midshipman. Hamilt
on, who took an immediate liking to Farragut, agreed to make the appointment as soon as the boy reached the age of ten. As it turned out, Hamilton’s promise was fulfilled by a commission dated December 17, 1810, six months before Farragut’s tenth birthday. One reason for the early appointment as midshipman may have been the navy secretary’s desire to fill all available warship berths as war clouds thundered across the Atlantic.
Great Britain had been at war with revolutionary France since 1793, when Napoleon drove British forces from Toulon. The conflict regularly spilled over to involve ships of neutral nations. Friction arose between the United States and Great Britain as a result of the British government’s policy of having Royal Navy warships stop American merchant ships on the high seas, or in neutral harbors. British naval officers would then board the merchantmen with press gangs, and remove any seamen suspected of being a British subject. Often these sailors would be American citizens who, for whatever reason, could not provide adequate proof of their citizenship at the time. Hundreds, if not thousands, of sailors were taken from American merchant ships in this way. This method of manning British warships blatantly disregarded the rights of foreign citizens. Despite efforts by American diplomats to avoid war with Great Britain, British arrogance held sway. When Britain stationed two frigates near the entrance to New York Harbor in February 1811, war was not far off. Despite protests, the British warships stopped all merchantmen leaving New York, taking as prizes of war those bound for French ports, and impressing American sailors who were unable to prove they were not British citizens.
In May 1811, Commodore John Rodgers was ordered to assemble a squadron to patrol the coast and protect American merchant ships from British assaults. David Porter was assigned to command the thirty-six-gun frigate Essex and to join Rodgers’s squadron. In early August, Porter and Farragut, the latter resplendent in his new midshipman’s uniform, boarded the Essex at Norfolk. Soon after, the frigate set sail to join the Commodore’s patrol.
On June 18, 1812, President James Madison signed a declaration of war against Great Britain. Midshipman Farragut, not yet eleven years old, went to war as an officer in training. Much of the War of 1812 was conducted at sea, between the mighty Royal Navy and the tiny and inadequately equipped United States Navy. The Essex, with the daring and resourceful Porter in command, saw more than her share of action, and young Midshipman Farragut received a comprehensive education in seamanship and the art of war at sea. During the first four months of the war, the Essex sailed the Atlantic from Bermuda to Newfoundland. She captured eight merchantmen and the first British warship taken in the conflict, the twenty-gun sloop-of-war Alert.
David Porter’s reputation as a naval commander grew as a result of the Essex’s successes. Following this first war cruise, the Essex lay in the Delaware River being provisioned. Porter, with Farragut in tow, visited his wife at the Porter homestead in nearby Chester, Pennsylvania. During that visit, they read in the Philadelphia Democratic Press that Porter and his ship had been challenged to a one-on-one duel by Sir James Yeo, captain of the British frigate Southampton. Yeo named the date and place the ships were to meet. Porter responded immediately. With his young protégé at his side, he rushed back to his ship and set sail for the open sea. When the Southampton failed to appear, the Essex returned to her anchorage to await further orders.
Orders arrived soon, and on October 28, 1812, the Essex slipped past the Royal Navy cruisers blockading the harbor and sailed out into the Atlantic. She headed for the Cape Verde Islands and a planned rendezvous with the forty-four-gun frigate Constitution and the eighteen-gun sloop-of-war Hornet. Together they were to form a squadron under the command of Commodore William Bainbridge. The commodore sent Porter instructions to prepare his ship for “a long cruise.” As she set off, the Essex proudly and defiantly flew her banner proclaiming “Free Trade and Sailor’s Rights.”
Bainbridge’s squadron was to sail the South Atlantic in search of British merchant ships, and destroy or capture as many as possible. Once they accomplished this, they were to sail down the east coast of South America, around Cape Horn, and into the Pacific Ocean. There they were to do as much damage as possible to the as yet unmolested British whaling fleets.
But the rendezvous never took place, because the Constitution and the Hornet had a successful engagement with two British cruisers, which they seized and returned to the United States for use by the navy. Consequently, taking full advantage of instructions to operate at his own discretion should the rendezvous not occur, Porter cruised the South Atlantic for the next few weeks, where he captured several British merchantmen. One particularly satisfying prize was the ten-gun Royal Navy packet Nocton, which was discovered to be carrying $55,000 in British specie. The coins were placed in a secure location aboard the Essex, to be used to help defer the costs of her cruise. An American crew was placed aboard the packet, along with a dozen British sailors who were paroled in return for their services, and she sailed north for the United States. Unfortunately, she was captured by a British warship near Bermuda and returned to His Britannic Majesty’s service.
Life aboard the Essex, especially for Farragut and the twelve other midshipmen, comprised long periods of boredom and routine duty occasionally broken by furious pursuits of enemy merchant ships, some successful, others less so. Years later, Farragut would recall this cruise, and the lessons he learned from studying how Porter handled his ship and crew, always aware of the dangers of allowing boredom or disease to reduce the ship’s efficiency. Porter’s reputation as a captain who looked after the health and well-being of his men was well earned, and Farragut learned the value of this concern. It meant a fit and efficient ship, and the generally unquestioning loyalty of her crew.
Captain Porter kept a watchful eye on his young protégé, whom he took to calling by his middle name, Glasgow. This by no means meant that Farragut received special treatment from the ship’s commander. On the contrary, Porter was determined that his education be complete, including punishment for misdeeds, which were actually few. On one such occasion, Porter discovered the boy chewing tobacco, a habit he personally disliked. Farragut attempted to conceal the tobacco by keeping his mouth closed, but the telltale black liquid seeped from the corner of the boy’s mouth. Without a word, Porter clamped his hand over Farragut’s mouth, forcing him to swallow the tobacco. It was a lesson well learned, for throughout his long life Farragut never again used tobacco in any form.
It was during this long and dangerous cruise that Farragut decided to honor Captain Porter by changing his first name to David. Hardly anyone called him James anyway, and most of the officers and crew preferred to follow Porter’s lead in calling him Glasgow. Changing his first name had little immediate effect, for the crew and officers continued calling him Glasgow throughout the Essex’s long cruise.
Several failed attempts to rendezvous with Bainbridge’s squadron, along with reports from neutral Portuguese merchantmen that British warships were extremely active in the area, convinced Porter that the time had arrived to sail for the Pacific. On January 26, 1813, Porter turned south, and the Essex prepared for the 2,500-mile journey that would take them through the dangerous waters off the coast of Tierra del Fuego and into the Pacific.
On February 13, the Essex approached the entrance to the Strait of Le Maire and for almost three weeks battled furious seas, howling gales, and bitter cold. More than once the ship was nearly driven onto nearby rocky shoals. The Essex was badly battered by the sea and the winds in what Farragut described as “dreadful weather.” It was, he later wrote, “the only instance in which I ever saw a regular good seaman paralyzed by fear at the dangers of the sea.” As water crashed over the Essex and rushed down her hatchways, several of the men dropped to their knees and prayed what they expected to be their last prayers. This beating of the ship and men went on almost continuously, day after day, night after night. At long last, the ordeal ended on March 5, when the ship finally rounded the long, narrow finger of South America and en
tered the South Pacific Ocean. The gales subsided, and the seas settled from their fury. The crew quickly set about making badly needed repairs to the Essex. Porter turned north and sailed along the coast of Chile.
The cruise of the Essex in the South Pacific was a historic one. Until her arrival, the only American ships in those waters were twenty-three whalers. Most were unarmed since they had sailed prior to the outbreak of the war. The twenty British vessels in the region were heavily armed since their government had been at war for almost twenty years. Also plaguing the American ships were several Peruvian privateers, who were little more than licensed pirates. One of these, the fifteen-gun Nereyda, had captured and sent into port as prizes, several American whalers. Flying a British flag to allow himself to get close to the privateer, Porter deceived the Peruvian captain long enough to effect his capture and the release of the crews of two American whalers held aboard her as prisoners. The guns and ammunition of the Nereyda were dumped overboard, and the ship sent home with a message to the Spanish viceroy at Lima, threatening naval bombardment of coastal towns if Peruvian attacks continued. This effectively halted the Spanish-instigated seizures of American ships.
During the next few weeks the Essex, accompanied by a small fleet of captured British whalers and American whalers released from Peruvian ports, wreaked havoc on British commerce in the Pacific. One of the whalers was turned into a war cruiser when she was outfitted with an assortment of twenty guns taken from the British ships. Captain Porter christened her the United States Ship Essex Junior, and placed Lieutenant John Downes of the Essex in command. Porter had no difficulty manning his small fleet from among the many American sailors who had been illegally pressed into British service and were rescued by the Essex.
A few days after the fleet celebrated July 4, 1813, off the coast of Peru, the Essex Junior parted company with the Essex and sailed south for Valparaiso, Chile. She convoyed four captured British whalers, which were now the Essex’s prizes. These were the Montezuma, the Catharine, the Hector, and the Policy. Also in the convoy was an American whaler, the Barclay, which had been recaptured from Peruvian privateers. Downes’s mission in Valparaiso was to make the best deal he could for the sale of the British whalers and request safe refuge in the port for the Barclay. He was then to meet Porter at the Galápagos Islands. Chile had revolted against Spain, which had been nominally an ally of Great Britain since British troops drove Napoleon’s forces out of Spain. The Chileans had set up their own government. The newly independent Chile made clear its intention to maintain friendly relations with the United States.
Lincoln's Admiral Page 1