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Updated: June 4, 2025
During the movement from Mobile toward Meridian occurred the last engagement of the civil war, in a cavalry affair between the Federal advance and our rear guard under Colonel Spence. Commodore Farrand took his armed vessels and all the steamers in the harbor up the Tombigby River, above its junction with the Alabama, and planted torpedoes in the stream below.
Near the Tombigby River, to the east of Meridian, were many thousands of bales of cotton, belonging to the Confederate Government and in charge of a treasury agent. It seemed to me a duty to protect public property and transfer it to the United States, successors by victory to the extinct Confederacy.
The Mobile River, forty miles long, and formed by the Alabama and Tombigby, is but the estuary at the head of Mobile Bay, silted up with detritus by the entering streams. Several miles wide, it incloses numerous marshy islands in its many channels.
General Maury had some excellent officers under him, and the sequel will show how well they discharged their duty to the end. From Mobile to Meridian, and after some days to Selma, ninety miles east. The railway between these last places had been recently laid down, and was very imperfect. There was no bridge over the Tombigby at Demopolis, and a steam ferry was employed.
The shallow waters of the bay were thickly planted with torpedoes, and many heavy guns were mounted near the town, making it safe in front. Mobile had excellent communications with the interior. The Alabama, Tombigby, and Black Warrior Rivers afforded steam navigation to central Alabama and eastern Mississippi, while the Mobile and Ohio Railway reached the northern limit of the latter State.
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