o him it could
scarcely have failed to attract the attention which is similarly
arrested by the chastened tone of Nelson's life and writing immediately
before Trafalgar; and although there is certainly none of that outspoken
foreboding which marked the last day of the English hero, Farragut's
written words are in such apparent contrast to the usual buoyant,
confident temper of the man, that they would readily have been construed
into one of those presentiments with which military annals abound. "With
such a mother," he writes to his son a week before the battle, "you
could not fail to have proper sentiments of religion and virtue. I feel
that I have done my duty by you both, as far as the weakness of my
nature would allow. I have been devoted to you both, and when it pleases
God to take me hence I shall feel that I have done my duty. I am not
conscious of ever having wronged any one, and have tried to do as much
good as I could. Take care of your mother if I should go, and may God
bless and preserve you both!" The day before the action he wrote the
following letter to his wife, which, as his son remarks in his Life of
the admiral, shows that he appreciated the desperate work before him:

"FLAG-SHIP HARTFORD,
"OFF MOBILE, _August 4, 1864_.

"MY DEAREST WIFE: I write and leave this letter for you. I am
going into Mobile in the morning, if God is my leader, as I hope
he is, and in him I place my trust. If he thinks it is the proper
place for me to die, I am ready to submit to his will in that as
in all other things. My great mortification is that my vessels,
the ironclads, were not ready to have gone in yesterday. The army
landed last night, and are in full view of us this morning, and
the Tecumseh has not yet arrived from Pensacola.

"God bless and preserve you, my darling, and my dear boy, if
anything should happen to me; and may his blessings also rest
upon your dear mother, and all your sisters and their children.

"Your devoted and affectionate husband, who never for one moment
forgot his love, duty, or fidelity to you, his devoted and best
of wives,

"D. G. FARRAGUT."

A more touching and gratifying testimony of unwavering attachment, after
more than twenty years of marriage, no wife could desire. It was an
attachment also not merely professed in words, but evidenced by the
whole course of his life and conduct. Infidelity or neglect of a wife
was, in tr