murderous
fight in which, after losing three fifths of her crew, she was captured
by two British vessels. Step by step he rose in his profession, but
never had an opportunity of distinguishing himself until, when he was
sixty years old, the Civil War broke out. He was then made flag officer
of the Gulf squadron; and the first success which the Union forces met
with in the southwest was scored by him, when one night he burst the
iron chains which the Confederates had stretched across the
Mississippi, and, stemming the swollen flood with his splendidly-handled
steam-frigates, swept past the forts, sank the rams and gunboats that
sought to bar his path, and captured the city of New Orleans. After
further exciting service on the Mississippi, service in which he
turned a new chapter in the history of naval warfare by showing the
possibilities of heavy seagoing vessels when used on great rivers,
he again went back to the Gulf, and, in the last year of the war,
was allotted the task of attempting the capture of Mobile, the only
important port still left open to the Confederates.

In August, 1864, Farragut was lying with his fleet off Mobile Bay. For
months he had been eating out his heart while undergoing the wearing
strain of the blockade; sympathizing, too, with every detail of the
doubtful struggle on land. "I get right sick, every now and then, at
the bad news," he once wrote home; and then again, "The victory of the
Kearsarge over the Alabama raised me up; I would sooner have fought that
fight than any ever fought on the ocean." As for himself, all he wished
was a chance to fight, for he had the fighting temperament, and he knew
that, in the long run, an enemy can only be beaten by being out-fought,
as well as out-manoeuvered. He possessed a splendid self-confidence,
and scornfully threw aside any idea that he would be defeated, while he
utterly refused to be daunted by the rumors of the formidable nature of
the defenses against which he was to act. "I mean to be whipped or to
whip my enemy, and not to be scared to death," he remarked in speaking
of these rumors.

The Confederates who held Mobile used all their skill in preparing for
defense, and all their courage in making that defense good. The mouth
of the bay was protected by two fine forts, heavily armed, Morgan
and Gaines. The winding channels were filled with torpedoes, and, in
addition, there was a flotilla consisting of three gunboats, and, above
all, a big iro