The Hartford is one of the second- rate screw sloops authorized by the Act of Congress approved March 3, 1857. She is a wooden steamer of 2,790 tons displacement and 1,900 tons burthen, with the following dimensions: length, 225'; breadth, 44'; depth of hold, 18'; draft, 17'. She was built by the government at the Boston navy yard, where she was launched November 23, 1858. Her cost was $502,650.16. She was originally fitted with a direct acting two-cylinder jet condensing engine of thirty-four-inch stroke, driving a single screw, for which steam was supplied by two Martin boilers. The screw was of bronze, two-bladed, and fourteen feet in diameter.[1] Her maximum speed under steam alone was 9.5 knots. In 1880 the Hartford was fitted with new machinery, the engines put in being a pair of Isherwood horizontal compound engines of 785 horsepower and forty-eight-inch stroke,[2] while the old boilers were replaced by two main vertical tubular boilers of more modern design. Her bunker capacity was 260 tons of coal. During the period of her war service, her complement was thirty-four officers and 280 men.
When first commissioned, the Hartford carried a battery of sixteen nine-inch shell guns, but on the outbreak of the Civil War their number was increased to twenty, with two rifled guns and two light howitzers. On March 3, 1862, she received two additional nine-inch guns. In the following year she mounted twenty-four nine-inch, two thirty- pounder Parrott rifles, and one rifled forty- five-pounder. On March 31, 1864, her armament comprised two, one hundred-pounder Parrott rifles, one thirty-pounder rifle, and eighteen nine-inch smoothbores. In September, 1872, she mounted two eleven- inch and sixteen nine-inch smoothbores, two heavy twenty-pounder rifles, and five pieces of smaller caliber. In May, 1882, she was given a more modern armament consisting of one eight-inch muzzle-loading rifle, twelve nine-inch guns, and one sixty- pounder breech-loading rifle, with a secondary battery of two twenty-pounder rifles, two three-inch howitzers, four Hotchkiss revolving cannon and one forty-five caliber Gatling gun. The last change in her armament was made in September, 1899, when she was given thirteen five-inch rifles, eight six-pounders, four one-pounders, with three lighter guns.
The Hartford was placed in commission at the Boston navy yard in June, 1859, by Captain Charles Lowndes, and made her first cruise in Asiatic waters as the flagship of Flag-Officer Stribling commanding the East India Squadron. On the outbreak of the Civil War, she was ordered home, reaching Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the summer of 1861. When Captain David G. Farragut was appointed to the command of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, which was to effect the “reduction of the defences guarding the approaches to New Orleans, and the taking possession of that city,” the Hartford was designated as his flagship. Her commanding officer was Commander Richard Wainwright, and on January 20, 1862, she stood down the Delaware on what was to be one of the most brilliant cruises in history. “She was the admiration of all who could see beauty in a ship,” wrote one of her officers, and “Farragut was enthusiastic about the vessel,” as many of his letters show.
The Hartford reached Ship Island in Mississippi Sound on February 20. With the exception of the vessels already employed on the blockade, the flagship was the first to arrive of the force destined to make the move up the river. One by one they came, and were gradually assembled at the South West Pass. Those whose draft permitted, entered at once; but the heavy deposits of mud brought down by the Mississippi formed a bar at the entrance of each pass, preventing the ingress of the larger ships. “I am up to my eyes in business,” wrote the flag officer on March 10. “The Brooklyn is on the bar, and I am getting her off. I have just had Bell up at the head of the passes. My blockading shall be done inside as much as possible. I keep the gunboats up there all the time.” The Pensacola made five different attempts to enter before she was able to get into the river, but the forty- gun frigate Colorado, which the Navy Department had intended to participate in the attack, was obliged to remain outside.
The squadron assembled in the river consisted of four screw sloops, one side-wheel steamer, three screw corvettes, and nine screw gunboats, in all, seventeen vessels, carrying, exclusive of brass howitzers, 154 guns. Twenty mortar schooners, under the command of Commander David D. Porter, accompanied the expedition. In accordance with the flag officer’s instructions, the vessels were carefully prepared for river service. They were stripped to the topmasts. All spars and rigging that could be spared were sent ashore. Everything forward was brought close in to the bowsprit, so as not to interfere with the forward range of the battery. Guns were mounted on the poop and forecastle, and howitzers placed in the tops. The ships were ordered trimmed by the head, so that if they took the bottom at all it would be forward. The logs of the squadron show constant bustle and movement, accompanied by frequent collisions, owing to the swift current of the river, which was at that time exceptionally high. A hospital was established on shore at Pilot Town, but medical supplies were none too plentiful, and in his letters the flag- officer complained of the "want of everything in the line of munitions of war.” Even fuel was lacking, but the coal vessels "arrived just in time to enable me to go ahead.”
The only serious obstacle to the upward progress of the fleet was at Plaquemine Bend, twenty miles from the head of the passes, and ninety below New Orleans. Two permanent fortifications existed at this point, one on the left or north bank of the stream, called Fort St. Philip, the other on the right bank, called Fort Jackson. The first named consisted of a quadrangular earthwork with brick scrap, rising nineteen feet above the level of the river, and mounting four eight-inch columbiads and one twenty-four-pounder. Two water batteries flanked the main work, the upper having sixteen twenty-four- pounders, and the lower twenty-one guns of various caliber. Fort Jackson was a work of even greater importance. It was a pentagonal casemated fortification, with two ten- inch and three eight-inch columbiads, one seven-inch rifle, six forty-two-pounders, fifteen thirty-twos, and thirty-five twenty- fours. Just outside, and covering the approach to it, was a water battery mounting five guns. Chain and log obstructions were streched across the river, while above the Confederates had assembled thirteen gunboats, including the ram Manassas and the incomplete ironclad Louisiana.
On April 8, a detachment of the coast survey proceeded up the river and began a minute examination of the river banks, with a view to selecting the best positions for the mortar vessels. The work of the surveyors was carried on under the guns of the forts, and often exposed them to the fire of riflemen concealed in the bushes. On the sixteenth the fleet anchored just below the intended position of the mortar schooner, and two days later Commander Porter reported everything ready. At ten a.m. the bombardment began, and for five days and nights it continued with undiminished vigor. The testimony of the Confederate officers is unanimous as to the singular accuracy of the mortar fire. A large proportion of the shells fell within the walls of Fort Jackson. The quarters and citadel were destroyed, and the magazine endangered. The garrison were compelled to live in the casemates, which were partly flooded from the high state of the river and the cutting of the levee by shells.
Mortar firing, however good, would not reduce the forts, nor compel the surrender of New Orleans. It was necessary to pass above, and this, Flag Officer Farragut now proceeded to do. At two a.m. on April 24, the flag-ship made the appointed signal and the leading column weighed. The Cayuga was the first to pass through the booms. In regular order followed the Pensacola, Mississippi, Oneida, Varuna, Katahdin, Kineo, and Wissahickon. The Hartford led the second division of the fleet. According to the report of Commander Wainwright, she was engaged only twenty minutes after the enemy opened on the leading vessels of the first column. She sheered in near to Fort Jackson, “receiving a galling fire from both forts,” and in endeavoring to clear a fire raft coming down on her she took the ground close under Fort St. Philip. The ship caught fire, the flames bursting through the ports and running up the rigging; but the discipline of her crew prevailed over the fury of the element, and the Hartford worked herself clear, her guns keeping up a heavy fire on both forts all the time.
At daybreak Flag Officer Farragut found himself above the forts, with fourteen of the seventeen wooden ships he had started with the night before. The enemy’s flotilla was dispersed or destroyed. The Union fleet anchored for the day at quarantine. The Chalmette batteries attempted to check the advance of the leading ships, but they were soon silenced by the discharge of the Hartford’s broadsides, and, at noon on the twenty-fifth, the vessels anchored before the city. The levee was a scene of desolation and of the wildest confusion. Cotton, coal, steamboats, ships, were ablaze, and it was not without difficulty that the victors avoided sharing the calamity. Among the shipping thus destroyed was the Mississippi, a powerful ironclad, which the rapid movements of the Union fleet prevented from escaping up the river. The United States flag was hoisted on the mint by Captain Bailey, but the next day it was hauled down by a party of citizens. Flag Officer Farragut thereupon landed a battalion of marines, accompanied by a howitzer battery, and this force overawed the population until General Butler arrived on the evening of May 1, when the city was turned over to his care.
Following up his advantage, the flag officer sent seven gunboats, under the command of Captain Craven of the Brooklyn, up the river. Baton Rouge and Natchez surrendered on being summoned; but at Vicksburg the Union commander was met with a refusal. “The Government officials appear to think we can do anything,” wrote Flag Officer Farragut. “They expect me to navigate the Mississippi, nine hundred miles, in the face of batteries, ironclad rams, etc.; and yet, with all the ironclad vessels they have north, they could not get to Norfolk or Richmond. The ironclads, with the exception of the Monitor, were all knocked to pieces. Yet, I am expected to take New Orleans, and go up and release Foote from his perilous situation at Fort Pillow, where he is backed up by the Army and has ironclad boats built for the river service, while our ships are in danger of getting aground and remaining there till next year.” “We have no pilots,” he wrote to Secretary Welles on May 30, 1862. “We take the boatmen who go up in the steamers or flat boats, and generally have to force them, but they know little or nothing of the river’s depth or channel for vessels of our draft.” In fact, the Confederates exulted in seeing the larger ships go upstream, as they were confident none would ever again float in salt water.
But the orders of the Navy Department to “clear the Mississippi” were peremptory, and, like the true seaman he was, the flag officer proceeded to carry them out to the best of his ability. The Hartford joined the fleet below Vicksburg on June 25. The position was by nature the strongest on the river. Twenty-six guns crowned the bluffs above the town, where they could deliver a plunging fire, while themselves above the reach of guns on shipboard. It seemed impossible to reduce the place without the assistance of a sufficient land force, but the government in Washington was urgent and the enemy’s batteries had to be passed. This was the first attempt; many similar dashes were subsequently made over the same spot, but no permanent results were obtained until General Grant appeared on the scene with his army in the following summer.
After a preliminary bombardment by the mortar flotilla, the fleet got under way at three o’clock on the morning of June 28. The vessels advanced in two columns, the Richmond, Hartford and Brooklyn in the order named, forming the starboard column, while the port column was composed of the Iroquois, Oneida, Wissahickon, Sciota, Winona, Pinola, Kennebec and Katahdin. As the flagship came within range of the enemy’s works, her guns opened with “admirable coolness and deliberation,” but she labored under the disadvantage of not knowing the location of the batteries on shore, which were only revealed by the flash or smoke of their guns. At one time the Hartford, which moved slowly, stopped opposite one of the lower batteries, the more effectually to silence it, and during this brief artillery duel she was much cut up in both hull and rigging.
By six o’clock the action was over, and all but three of the vessels were anchored above the enemy’s position. A few days later Captain Davis came down from Cairo, Illinois, with the western gunboat flotilla, and the two flag officers had the satisfaction of reporting that they had effected a junction. But their elation was of short duration. The Confederates sent down an ironclad ram, called the Arkansas, which they were building up the Yazoo River, and the Union vessels were so unprepared for this unexpected visitor, that in a few minutes the enemy passed out of range and found refuge under the Vicksburg batteries. Several attempts were made to destroy the Arkansas, but none were attended with success.
On July 19 the fleet went down the river. This move was made necessary by the falling of the waters and the increased sickliness of the climate. Forty per cent of the crews were on the sick list, and the cases were increasing in number and intensity. The Hartford anchored off New Orleans on July 28, and a fortnight later her colors were half-masted for her commander, who had fallen a victim to the climate. The command of the ship devolved upon Lieutenant Commander James S. Thornton (August 10, 1862), who kept her until relieved by Captain James S. Palmer at Pensacola, Florida, on August 27. Two and a half months were spent at the old naval station, and the change of climate soon got the “crew back to their accustomed tone,” while the flagship was refitted and many of her battle scars removed. The Confederates, however, were not idle during this time, and before many weeks they began to show unusual activity on the Mississippi between Baton Rouge and Port Hudson. Feeling that his presence was necessary, Rear Admiral Farragut decided to return to the Crescent City in the first week in November.
The lack of supplies and the absence of an adequate land force prevented the admiral from making an immediate start up the river. “I am still doing nothing,” he wrote from New Orleans on November 27, “but waiting for the tide of events and doing what I can to hold what I have.” A change in the military commanders further complicated matters, and the reorganization of the army progressed so slowly that three months later the fleet was still waiting at its anchorage. On March 11, 1863, the Hartford moved up to Baton Rouge, and two days later the warships came in sight of Profit’s Island, seven miles below the bend on which Port Hudson is situated. The object of the movement, as shown in the admiral’s General Order to his captains, was to “run the batteries at the least possible damage to our ships, and thereby secure an efficient force above, for the purpose of rendering such assistance as may be required of us by the army at Vicksburg.”
Only six ships could be spared to accompany the flagship: the Monongahela, Mississippi, Richmond, Genesee, Albatross, and Kineo. The larger vessels, except the Mississippi, were directed to take a gunboat on the port side, securing her well aft, so as to leave as much of the port battery as possible clear. Thus, if any one of the ships were disabled, her consort could tow her out of range of the enemy’s guns. The vessels were prepared as at the passage of the lower forts, and in the Hartford the admiral placed his pilot in the mizzen-top, where he could see more clearly, with a voice tube for conveying his orders to the men at the wheel.
At 5:00 p.m. on March 14, the admiral received word from General Banks that his troops were “at the crossroads and all ready to move upon Port Hudson,” and five hours later the squadron weighed anchor. At eleven the Hartford came under the fire of the principal batteries. The smoke from the guns soon enveloped the ship, and the pilot called out that he could not see ahead. The firing was immediately stopped—and not a moment too soon, for the fact was revealed that the flagship was running on shore right under the enemy’s guns. Her stem actually touched the ground; but by her own efforts and the assistance of the Albatross she was backed clear. The Hartford then passed on without further incident, and, at 12:15, according to her log “cheered ship, having passed the batteries, with the loss of one killed and two slightly wounded.”
None of the other vessels succeeded in running past the batteries, and the morning after the action the admiral found himself with his flagship and one light gunboat in the heart of the enemy’s country. As previously arranged with General Banks, signal guns were fired at intervals during the morning; but no answering ones could be heard. The Union troops had driven in the Confederate pickets, but the defenses were found to be too strong, and the garrison too well prepared for them to attempt a serious attack.
Determined that the passage of the batteries should not be altogether barren of results, the admiral headed the Hartford upstream. The following morning he anchored off the mouth of the Red River, and then he proceeded to Vicksburg where he was able to communicate with Rear Admiral Porter’s squadron. On the way the Hartford and Albatross engaged a four-gun battery at Grand Gulf, Mississippi, losing two men killed and six wounded, but met with no other opposition. Admiral Porter was absent on an expedition in Deer Creek when the messenger from the flagship arrived, but communication was held with General Grant and the senior naval officer, who heeded the admiral’s request for reenforcements to the extent of letting two wooden rams go down. Only one, the Switzerland, succeeded in the attempt and she was so roughly handled that a week’s labor was required to put her again in fighting condition. As soon as the repairs were completed, the admiral stood down the river. At Grand Gulf the batteries again opened on the ships, striking the Switzerland twice and the Hartford once; the latter having one man killed. On the evening of April 1, the little squadron reached the Red River, where many skiffs and flatboats belonging to the enemy were destroyed. Five days later the flagship went down again to Port Hudson, as the admiral was anxious for news about the other ships and desired to communicate with General Banks. Ordinary methods of signaling having failed to attain these objects, the admiral’s secretary volunteered to pass Port Hudson in a boat by night. A small dug-out was covered with twigs, arranged to resemble one of the floating trees not uncommon in the Mississippi. At nightfall Mr. Gabaudan stepped into his craft, and lying in the bottom of it, with a paddle and revolver by his side, was committed to the current. This bore him safely by, and at ten p.m. the vessels below signaled his safe arrival with rockets.
The next morning the Hartford returned to the Red River, where a Confederate steamer was captured. The presence of Union vessels interfered with the enemy’s intercourse across the Mississippi, and was a serious menace to the garrisons at Vicksburg and Port Hudson. Notwithstanding the smallness of his force, the admiral was satisfied with his work, as is evident from the following extract from one of his private letters: “Whether my getting by Port Hudson was of consequence or not, if Pollard’s stomach was as tightly pinched for food as theirs at Port Hudson and Vicksburg have been since I shut up the Red River, he would know how to value a good dinner and a little peace.”
Meanwhile, General Grant had been maturing his plans for the campaign by which the Confederate strongholds were eventually reduced. Troop movements began in March, 1863, and in the following month seven ironclads of the upper squadron ran past the Vicksburg batteries and joined the Hartford and her consorts. During the next fortnight the flagship kept up the blockade of the Mississippi between Port Hudson and the Red River, twice intercepting stores crossing in flatboats, besides destroying a large quantity of Confederate commissary stores at Bayou Sara.
The military movements in western Louisiana being now supported by Rear-Admiral Porter’s ironclads, the Hartford dropped down to Port Hudson, where Commodore Palmer was left in charge with the Albatross, Estrella and Arizona to maintain the blockade as long as the Confederates held out. Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, 1863, and five days later the garrison of Port Hudson also laid down its arms. The Mississippi was now open from Cairo to the gulf and on July 8 a merchant vessel left St. Louis for New Orleans, reaching the latter city on the sixteenth without molestation.
The Navy Department having directed that the command of the river as far as New Orleans should be assumed by Rear-Admiral Porter, Admiral Farragut was left in charge of the coast operations and blockade. Towards the end of July the two admirals met at New Orleans, and, the transfer having been made, Rear Admiral Farragut sailed for the north to enjoy a short respite from his labors. Needless to say, he took the Hartford with him, “as she has borne my flag during the whole cruise up to this moment. She is much cut to pieces, and I feel that the ship, as well as those who have so gallantly stood by her, have a right to this consideration, as I doubt if there ever floated a ship that has passed through more perils and come out so well.”
On August 10, the admiral reported his arrival at New York, where the Hartford was sent to the navy yard for repairs. Upon examination it was found that she had been struck two hundred and forty times by shot and shell during the nineteen months of active service she had just passed through.
Early in January, 1864, in the midst of a violent snow storm, the admiral again hoisted his flag on the Hartford, and proceeded to the gulf. After a passage of eighteen days, the flagship came to anchor off the Crescent City, but after a few days in the river she stood to sea again for the purpose of visiting the supply depots at Ship Island and Pensacola. Captain Percival Drayton came on board on February 9, 1864, and relieved Commodore Palmer in command of the Hartford, which now took up her station on the blockade off the entrance to Mobile Bay, Alabama. The admiral desired to attack at once the defenses of this port before the Confederates could complete the ironclads they were building; but the cooperation of an army force was necessary to reduce the forts, and the troops that might have been available had been diverted to Western Louisiana.
The city of Mobile is situated thirty miles from the gulf, at the head of a large bay of the same name. The principal entrance is from the sea direct, between Mobile Point, a long projection from the mainland, on the east, and Dauphin Island, on the west, the latter being one of the chain which bounds Mississippi Sound. The distance between these points is nearly three miles, although the presence of a long sand bank off Dauphin Island narrows the main ship channel to a little less than two thousand yards. This passage was guarded by two works, Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines, while the shallow approach from the westward through Grant’s Pass was covered by Fort Powell, a small earthwork on Tower Island. The most important of the three was Fort Morgan. It was five sided, and built to mount guns both in barbettes and casemates. The armament consisted of eleven eleven-inch, six eight-inch, twenty-two thirty-two-pounder smoothbore guns, and eight 6.5-inch and 5.8-inch rifles. There were also twenty flanking twenty-four-pounder howitzers and two or three light rifles, but these were useless against the fleet from their position. In addition to the shore defenses, the Confederates had a small squadron under Admiral Franklin Buchanan, made up of the ironclad ram Tennessee, mounting six guns, and three small side-wheel gunboats, the Morgan, Gaines and Selma.
The first six months of 1864 wore away in the monotonous routine of the blockade, broken only by an attack upon Fort Powell, made from Mississippi Sound by several light-draft vessels. The gunboats could not get nearer than four thousand yards, but at that time, February 28, General Sherman was on his raid into Mississippi and the attack was believed to be of service as a diversion. The promised cooperation of the land forces, however, was still lacking and on June 14 the admiral wrote to Assistant Secretary Fox, “We are still lying here watching Buchanan. I can hear nothing from the army lately, which we consider a good sign; if there is bad news they send it immediately. If we had one ironclad we could go in any moment (but at present) that is useless because we could not get at their ironclads after we got in, and they could choose their distance on the flats to cut us up.”
Towards the end of July General Canby’s forces arrived “to stop the back door of each fort,” while the wooden vessels lying before the harbor received the long-expected ironclad reenforcements. The Manhattan appeared on July 20 and the Winnebago ten days later, while the Chickasaw and Tecumseh joined the fleet on the eve of the battle. By this increase the fleet numbered twenty-eight vessels, and the admiral now carefully prepared his orders for entering the bay. As at Port Hudson, he determined to take in his fleet lashed in pairs, the heavier ships on the starboard, and the smaller vessels on the port side; the monitors forming a separate column inshore and abreast of the leading ships. The Brooklyn was given the honor of leading the line, followed by the Hartford, which was paired with the Metacomet.
At daylight the flagship made the signal to get under way, and at 6:30 a.m. the fleet was standing in across the bar. Shortly after seven Fort Morgan opened fire, which was answered at once by the Brooklyn, and immediately afterwards the action became general. “About 7:35 I heard a cry that a monitor was sinking, and looking on the starboard bow saw the turret of the Tecumseh just disappearing under the water,” wrote Captain Drayton in his official report of the action. The Brooklyn suddenly stopped, and then began backing, coming down upon the next astern; at the same time her bow fell off toward the fort. The Hartford’s engines were at once stopped, and as she held her way and drifted on with the flood-tide, her bow approached dangerously near the Brooklyn’s stern. While the vessels were thus close the admiral hailed to know what was the matter. “Torpedoes ahead,” was the reply. “Damn the torpedoes!” cried Farragut from his post in the main rigging, “Four bells! Captain Drayton, go ahead! Jouett, full speed!” And the Hartford passed the Brooklyn, assumed the head of the line, and led the fleet to victory.
As the flagship moved across the line the torpedo cases were heard knocking against her hull, but fortunately the primers were corroded and none of the dangerous powder charges were exploded, and the vessel went safely through. “The rapidity of our fire, together with the smoke, so completely disordered the enemy’s aim,” wrote Captain Drayton, “that we passed the fort with no great injury or loss of life, a shell which came through the side and exploded a little abaft the mainmast, killing and wounding a large portion of number seven gun’s crew, being the only one that caused much destruction.”
Beyond the shore batteries, the Hartford came under the fire of the enemy’s gunboats, which from their position were able to deliver a raking and galling fire, to which the flagship could only reply with her bow guns, one of which was soon disabled by a shell bursting under it. At no period of the action did she suffer as now. The quarters of her forward division resembled a slaughter-pen; the explosion of a single shell killing ten and wounding five men, while the splinters and mangled limbs were hurled aft. The greater part of the ship’s company had never been in action, but so admirable was their spirit and discipline that no wavering was seen, nor was there any confusion even in reforming the decimated crews of the guns. “Nothing could be more noble than the spirit displayed by our wounded and dying, who cheered and smiled in their agony, seemingly contented at the sacrifice of their lives for the victory vouchsafed to their country. Such men are our heroes.”
The Metacomet was cast off and ordered in chase of the Confederate gunboats, while the Hartford stood for the Tennessee. The latter tried to ram, but the flagship, having the greater speed, avoided the thrust without difficulty. Two shots were fired by the enemy at the same moment at such short range that it seemed wonderful they missed. The Tennessee then followed up the bay until the Hartford was about a mile from the rest of the fleet, when for some reason she gave up the pursuit and turned to meet the other wooden ships. The Brooklyn, Richmond and Lackawanna were attacked in succession, but the Monongahela thwarted the enemy’s maneuver by suddenly turning and ramming the Tennessee. The blow was only a glancing one, and as the vessels swung around the ram fired a shell which entered the berth deck of the Monongahela’s consort, the Kennebec, wounding five men. The Ossipee and Oneida also suffered from the fire of the enemy, but they were saved from serious injury by the timely intervention of one of the monitors.
The fleet now came to anchor about four miles up the bay, with anchors hove short, and the crews were sent to breakfast, as the movements of the Tennessee caused the admiral to think that the ram had retired under the guns of the fort. He was soon undeceived. At ten minutes before nine, when the men had hardly got seated at their breakfast, the ironclad was reported approaching. The mess gear was hustled aside, and the crews sent to their quarters. The Hartford at once got under way, as did the other vessels that had anchored, and signal was made to the monitors to use their guns as effectively as possible and to the Monongahela, Lackawanna and Ossipee to attack the enemy “not only with their guns, but bows on at full speed.”
The Monongahela was under way at the time, and her commander immediately dashed for the ram. The latter was struck fairly amidships on the starboard side, but the blow caused the ram little injury, while the Monongahela’s shot rolled harmlessly from her sloping sides. The Lackawanna followed, striking on the port side at the after end of the casemates, and causing the Tennessee to list over heavily. As the two vessels swung around, they fired their guns, but the Confederate admiral was intent upon closing with the Hartford, and after giving the Lackawanna two shots he headed directly for the Union flagship.
The two leaders now approached each other, head on, but just before the contact the Tennessee yawed a little, so that the bluff of the port bow in each ship took the blow. The Hartford’s anchor, which was hanging from the hawse-pipe, acted as a fender and was doubled up under the blow. The two vessels rasped by, the port sides touching. The nine-inch broadside guns drove their solid shot with their heaviest charge of powder against the Tennessee’s armored sides; yet at a distance of ten feet they did the ram no harm. The primers of the latter, however, failed her, being heard by the flagship’s people to snap unsuccessfully several times. One gun finally went off, its shell exploding on the Hartford’s berth deck, where it caused several casualties. This was the last shot fired by the Confederate ironclad.
The Lackawanna now came up for another blow at the enemy, but in mid career she ran into the Hartford just forward of the mizzenmast, narrowly missing the person of the admiral, and cutting the flagship down to within two feet of the water. This onset of a friend was too much for the equanimity of Admiral Farragut. “Can you say ‘for God’s sake’ by signal?’’ he inquired of the signal officer. “Yes, sir,’’ was the reply. “Then say to the Lackawanna, ‘For God’s sake get out of the way and anchor!’”
Meanwhile the monitors had come up. The Manhattan and Winnebago opened fire on the Tennessee’s port side, while the Chickasaw took up a position under the enemy’s stern, from which she kept up an unremitting fire with her four eleven-inch guns. The port shutters of the ram were soon jammed, so that the guns could not be used. Then her smoke-stack came down, and the tiller chains were carried away. The Tennessee bore this terrible hammering, without being able to fire a gun in reply, for nearly an hour, when sore beset, and finding further resistance was hopeless, her commander displayed a white flag.
The fight had lasted little over an hour. The loss of the Tennessee was two killed and ten wounded, that of the Union fleet (from the forts and the enemy squadron), fifty-two killed and 170 wounded; the Hartford’s proportion being twenty-five killed and twenty-eight wounded. It was a severe price that Admiral Farragut had been compelled to pay for this glorious victory—“the most desperate battle I ever fought since the days of the old Essex,” as he said to a friend.[3]
3 The Hartford was struck by enemy shot twenty times. Her expenditure of ammunition was as follows: powder 187 charges nine-inch and twenty-seven charges 100-pdr. rifle; shell, 132 nine-inch, twenty-one 100-pdr. rifle, and thirteen twelve-pdr. howitzers; shrapnel, nine nine-inch ; solid shot, thirty-three nine inch and six 100-pdr. rifle, chilled ends.
That afternoon one of the monitors attacked Fort Powell, which was abandoned by the Confederates under cover of darkness. Two days later Fort Gaines surrendered, but Fort Morgan held out for another fortnight. Mobile as a port for blockade running was thus sealed by the fleet holding the bay; but the gigantic struggle going on in Virginia, Tennessee and Georgia delayed the final reduction of the city, as that would have necessitated the withdrawal from other more important theaters a large body of troops for a secondary object. In the meantime, the admiral was ordered north with the Hartford, reaching New York about the middle of December.[4]
After refitting, the Hartford was recommissioned, July 15, 1865, by Commander Robert W. Shufeldt for service on the Asiatic Station, where she remained for several years as the flagship of Rear Admiral Henry H. Bell. Commander Shufeldt was detached in September, 1866, being relieved by Lieutenant Commander Charles C. Carpenter, who was in turn succeeded by Commander George E. Belknap (February 19, 1867). In the summer of 1867, the Hartford sailed for the Island of Formosa in company with the Wyoming, to obtain redress for the murder of the crew of the American bark Rover, which had been wrecked on that island earlier in the year. One hundred and eighty-one officers and men were landed on June 13, under command of Commander Belknap, who drove the savages from their village and burned their huts. The expedition found the natives well armed and equal in courage to the North American Indians. Taking advantage of the high grass, they delivered their fire without being seen by the sailors, who often fell into ambuscades while charging the coverts. Realizing the futility of contending against the crafty savages with men unaccustomed to warfare of such a character, Commander Belknap wisely concluded to re-embark.
From August, 1868, to October, 1872, the Hartford was laid up in ordinary at the New York navy yard, after which she returned to the Far East flying the flag of the Rear
4 She was placed out of commission at the New York navy-yard on December 20.
Admiral Jenkins. This cruise lasted three years, her commanding officers during the period being Captain Edward Y. McCauley (October 26, 1872), Captain Edmund R. Calhoun (August 14, 1873), Captain James C. P. DeKrafft (June 1, 1874), and Commander David B. Harmony (March 1, 1875). On her return to the Atlantic seaboard the Hartford immediately refitted for service in the West Indies, under Captain Stephen B. Luce (November 18, 1875), where she cruised for the protection of American interests. Later she was transferred to the South Atlantic Station, which was her cruising ground for two years, under Captain Henry A. Adams (August 21, 1877, Captain William K. Mayo (June 25, 1877, and Captain James A. Greer (May 19, 1879). On her return north, she was placed out of commission at Boston, Massachusetts, December 4, 1879.
A new commission dates from June 26, 1882, with Captain Charles C. Carpenter in command. Her orders took her to the Pacific station, where the old ship remained for nearly seventeen years, the latter part of the time at the Mare Island navy yard, California, where she was entirely rebuilt in 1898 at a cost of $600,000 and fitted as a training ship for landsmen. She returned to the Atlantic coast in 1899, under Commander John M. Hawley (October 2, 1899), and for the next eleven years she was identified with the practice cruises of the Naval Academy. She was placed in reserve at Annapolis, Maryland, on August 28, 1909, and in the fall of 1912 she was assigned as station ship at the Charleston navy yard, where she now remains.
[1] This was replaced in 1880 by a more efficient four-bladed screw, the original one being diverted to a lasting and appropriate use by being melted and cast into the statue of Admiral Farragut, which stands in Farragut Square, Washington.
2 These engines were built by Harrison Loring of Boston, at a cost of $114,400, and were originally intended for a sloop that was never completed—the Kewaydin.