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Mobile, Alabama

Mobile, Alabama. Battle of Mobile Bay August, 1864. Civil War. After the fall of New Orleans in 1862, Mobile was the Confederacy's premier cotton port and the leading destination in the Gulf of Mexico for blockade runners.

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Mobile, Alabama

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  1. Mobile, Alabama Battle of Mobile Bay August, 1864

  2. Civil War • After the fall of New Orleans in 1862, Mobile was the Confederacy's premier cotton port and the leading destination in the Gulf of Mexico for blockade runners. • The export of cotton, shipped through the Port of Mobile to Europe by way of Havana, helped to finance the Confederate war effort. Importation of armaments, powder, salt, medicines, blankets, iron, rope, machinery, and other goods, including luxury items, did much to sustain that effort and Confederate morale. • From January to August 1864, Mobile saw more blockade running activity than any port in the Confederacy except Wilmington.

  3. "Blockade-running had become an art, like card-playing and other games of chance, and many a fortune was made and perhaps as many lost. • To run a vessel with any safety through the line of blockaders involved a conjuncture of various elements that sometimes required long waiting. • The night must be moonless and the sky shrouded in clouds. The wind must blow a full sail breeze - better if more - out of the north and if the tide is ebbing through the outer channel, so much the better."   -William Rix, Mobile merchant

  4. War Factories • Mobile had a ship-building industry even before the war, but by 1864 it had become a significant center for manufacturing the tools of war. • The City also had a torpedo factory. Finally, more torpedo boats and submarines were tested at Mobile than anywhere else in the South.

  5. CSS Hunley • The CSS Hunley was built in Mobile and tested in the Bay before it was shipped to Charleston where it sank the USS Housatonic in 1864.

  6. CSS Hunley • "An infernal machine, consisting of a submarine boat, propelled by a screw which is turned by hand, capable of holding five persons and having a torpedo which was to be attached to the bottom of a vessel and exploded by means of clockwork, left Fort Morgan at 1 p.m. in charge of the Frenchman who invented it. • The intention was to come up at Sand Island, get the bearing and distance of the nearest vessel, dive under again and operate on her; but on emerging found themselves so far outside of the island and in so strong a current that they were forced to cut the torpedo adrift and make the best way back. • The attempt will be renewed as early as possible, and three or four others are being constructed for that purpose."

  7. Ft. Morgan • Under the early light of dawn, Union Adm. David Farragut began his attack on Mobile Bay, Alabama. Aware of the danger near Fort Morgan, Farragut ordered his captains to stay to the "eastward of the easternmost buoy" because it was "understood that there are torpedoes and other obstructions between the buoys."¹ • Unfortunately, the lead ironclad, the USS Tecumseh, unable to avoid the danger, struck a mine and sank into the oceans depths. • Yet, against all odds, the seasoned admiral ordered his flagship, the Hartford, and his fleet to press forward through the underwater minefield and into Mobile Bay.

  8. Although Farragut was a champion of the "wooden navy," he agreed to include four new ironclad ships modeled after the USS Monitor in his attack fleet. It was widely believed that these warships were unsinkable. • But the Tecumseh indeed sank that summer morning, August 5, 1864, unexpectedly killing the majority of its crew and demonstrating the deadly effects of advances in technology such as the torpedo.

  9. Sources • http://battleofmobilebay.com/ • http://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/73morgan/73morgan.htm

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