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George Farragut continued to live in Pascagoula, and there he died on the 4th of June, 1817, in his sixty-second year.

She was commanded by Buchanan, a very gallant and able officer, who had been on the Merrimac, and who trusted implicitly in his invulnerable sides, his heavy rifle guns, and his formidable iron beak. As the ram came on, with splendid courage, the ships got under way, while Farragut sent word to the monitors to attack the Tennessee at once. The fleet surgeon, Palmer, delivered these orders.

Andrew Johnson, had been induced to take an excursion into the north and especially into the State of New York. He was accompanied by Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State; General Grant, with his laurels fresh from the Civil War; Admiral Farragut, who had so greatly distinguished himself during the same epoch, and others of great merit.

Of these ironclads, four accompanied Farragut in his attack upon Mobile Bay. Two, the Tecumseh and Manhattan, came from the Atlantic coast, and were sea-going monitors. They had each but one turret, in which they carried two fifteen-inch guns, the heaviest then in use afloat. The other two were river monitors, built at St. Louis for service in the Mississippi.

Immediately after the surrender of New Orleans, Farragut had desired to proceed against the port of Mobile, Alabama, which was so strongly fortified that all attempts to close it had been in vain, and which was the only important port left open to the Confederates. But the government decided that Mobile could wait a while, and sent him, instead, to open the Mississippi.

Admiral Farragut had boldly and successfully run the forts at the entrance to Mobile Bay, which resulted in the capture of Fort Morgan, so that General Canby was enabled to begin his regular operations against Mobile City, with a view to open the Alabama River to navigation.

Rear-Admiral David D. Porter, who then commanded the North Atlantic Squadron, was fully occupied at the time with the bombardment of Fort Fisher and capture of Wilmington, North Carolina; and as the hostile attempt threatened a very serious annoyance to the communications of the army, Farragut, who was then in Washington, was ordered to proceed to the spot.

During the following year, on his cruise to the Mediterranean, he was messmate with a midshipman named William Taylor, a young man of singularly fine character, which seems to have been the chief cause of the influence he exerted upon Farragut.

In person, Admiral Farragut was not above the medium size about five feet six and a half inches high, upright in carriage, well-proportioned, alert and graceful in his movements. In early and middle life he was rather slight than heavy in frame; and it was not until the war, with the prolonged physical inactivity entailed by the river and blockade service, that he took on flesh.

The claim was resisted by the new owner; but his messmates, always ready for a lark, insisted that so doubtful a question must be decided by trial of battle. A ring being formed, Farragut, after a short contest, succeeded in thrashing his opponent and regaining the pig, and with it a certain amount of complacency in that one Briton at least had felt the pangs of defeat.