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Before radio, television, and the web—this is how most people got their headlines. We’re in the press room of the Birmingham News. Press manager David Ellis takes around as tomorrow’s issue goes by on rollers. The first thing you notice is the smell. It’s the red, black, yellow and blue ink. Ellis says he doesn’t notice it..usually. “If I’m back from vacation and get back here, I’m like ‘oh yeah, I’m home again,’” Ellis says. “You’re right, it does have a distinct smell to it.” The edition you hear on the presses now will wind up on doorsteps in a few hours. Back in 1864, the earliest news on the Battle of Mobile Bay took six days to get out.
“The Daily Ohio Statesman, August 17, 1864. We have our first installment with battery suxh as Burdick EK10 Battery, Burdick EK11 Battery, Burdick EK10 Elite Battery, Burdick Elite II Battery, Burdick 862278 Battery, Primedic Battery, Primedic DEFI-B Battery, Primedic DEFI-B M110 Battery, Primedic DEFI-B M111 Battery, Primedic DEFI-B M112 Battery, Primedic DEFI-B M113 Battery, Terumo TE311 Batteryof the glorious news from Admiral Farragut’s victorious squadron. The reports furnished are full of the most intense interest, and this latest achievement of the ‘old salamander’ will place him at top of the list of all Naval commanders of the world.”
“One source I read said it was the Naval equivalent of Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg,” says Dr. Debra Van Tuyll. She teaches history at Georgia Regents University in Augusta. “That tells me that the writer thought it was indeed a turning point.” Van Tuyll’s specialty is Civil War journalism, and how it worked.
The Battle of Mobile Bay appears to have been hot news in 1864. Just how hot? “It made page one," says VanTuyll. "Prior to the Civil War, page one was all advertising usually. News actually ran on page two. But, during the war people wanted news so quickly, newspaper editors realized that they needed to put the news on the front page.”
“Chattanooga Rebel, August 26, 1864. The flag of the truce boat returned last evening. The Yankees say Fort Morgan capitulated at two o’clock on Tuesday last. On Monday evening, they concentrated their fire on the fort, which replied sharply. On Tuesday the bombardment was renewed.”
Papers ranging from the New York Times to the Chattanooga Rebel sent correspondents or collected eyewitness accounts on the battle between Admiral David Farragut of the Union and Franklin Buchanan for the Confederacy. This is where historians start to differ on the value of news accounts…
“Newspapers are not necessarily the best place to go to find out what happened,” says Dr. Craig Symonds. He taught for thirty years at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. Symonds also wrote over thirty books on American military history. His criticism focuses on how, in the 1860’s, newspapers took sides… “So, there were Republican newspapers and Democratic newspapers. And the Republican newspapers would generally say something like ‘what a tremendous victory this is to substantiate our great President’s war policy,’” says Symonds. “And the Democratic paper would say ‘okay, we won this one, but the costs were very heavy and that proves the policies aren’t working and we should throw this rascal out of office.” And that was just in the North. And the rascal Symonds is talking about was Abraham Lincoln who was a Republican.
“You certainly did a majority of Northern newspapers who were 'yay Union,' and the majority of Southern newspapers who were 'yay Confederacy,'” says Debra Van Tuyll. She says Southern papers appeared even more critical of their president Jefferson Davis. “They used terms like despot,” she recalls. “In fact, the Augusta Chronicle once wrote if they had to have a despot, they maybe they should stay part of the Union and have Abraham Lincoln.”
“Richmond Inquirer, August 15, 1864. Fort Gaines has gone the way of Hatteras, Roanoke Island, Pulaski, and Hilton Head. Its isolated position was exposed to the concentrated assault of the Yankee Navy, and a flanking operation of troops debarked upon commanding points. Perhaps the officer in command of the fort may have proven himself a traitor. In that case, eternal infamy awaits him.”
One point all sides appear to agree on is the political value of the news reports of the Battle of Mobile Bay to Abraham Lincoln. His support of the war effort and the abolition of slavery wasn’t widely accepted and election day was coming.” “Lincoln knew he had to be re-elected for his policy to be sustained,” says Craig Symonds. “And when Farragut made his dash into the Bay, there was no clear indication that he would be re-elected.” “At that point, Lincoln as very low in the polls. And it looked like McClelland was going to win the election unless something didn’t turn around,” says Debra Van Tuyll. “And the Battle of Mobile Bay and the capture of Atlanta turned Union opinion around and back favorable of Lincoln, which is what helped Lincoln get re-elected.”
If there’s one thing news coverage didn’t resolve, it’s what Craig Symonds says is the holy grail connected to the Battle of Mobile Bay. It’s one of the famous sayings he used to hear around the campus during his teaching days at Annapolis… “Phrases like ‘don’t give up the ship,’ and ‘we have met the enemy and they are ours,’ those kinds of things,” he says. “And with along with them is ‘damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.” As catchy as David’s Farragut’s might have been, Symonds contends a navy man wouldn’t have said it like that. “Another theory is that he said ‘damn the torpedoes, go ahead, four bells’ which doesn’t have the same ring as ‘damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead. So, instead of ‘full steam ahead’ like a land lubber might say, he probably said ‘four bells.’” And apparently, no newspaper account says who’s right and who’s wrong.
The Battle of Mobile Bay was a major naval victory for the Union in 1864, but it also holds significance in the United States’ naval history. Tonight, APR news will present a documentary about the battle, titled “Damn The Torpedoes.” More Congressional Medals of Honor were awarded for the Battle of Mobile Bay than any other U.S. naval battle. Alabama Public Radio’s Ryan Vasquez takes a look at some of the heroism on display during the historic battle 150 years ago.
Staff Sergeant Ryan Pitts is the most recent recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. The honor is awarded to military personnel for personal acts of valor above and beyond the call of duty. Pitt joins an exclusive fraternity. Just over three thousand soldiers out of the millions of u.s. servicemen and women get to wear one. It also connects soldiers today to some of the first recipients of the award following the battle of Mobile Bay KJ- John Lawson 1 :13 “John Lawson is serving in the shell whip. Ken Johnston is the executive director of the National Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus, Georgia. it’s the area where they are bringing powder and shells up from the storage lockers up to the guns and an incoming shot goes off in that confined space.” KJ- John Lawson 2 :16 “He’s stunned, knocked unconscious, wounded there are dead men on top of him you know these smoldering fragments choking smoke, he gets up and continues passing the much needed ammunition and gun powder up and goes on about his job.”
For this action during the Battle of Mobile Bay, John Lawson received the Medal of Honor. Lawson and 114 men received the U.S. military’s highest honor for Mobile Bay which makes it second only to the Battle of Vicksburg for the most decorated battle in U.S history. So why were so many medals awarded for this engagement? That depends on who you ask EC-06 “By the time you get to 1864, Mobile is a very strategically important place…”
Edwin Combs is an assistant professor of history at Miles College. EC-15 “It’s the last remaining port on the Confederate Gulf Coast, it’s used for blockade running. Cotton goes out of Mobile to Cuba and then military goods and supplies come back in.” The port is significant enough that come early August, Admiral David Farragut decides to take his Union fleet to Mobile Bay in an attempt to cut off the port and capture the city. We transport back in time to take you aboard the ship Farragut would lead into battle. KJ :05 “And now we are below deck, we are on the birth deck of the Hartford…”
(fade under) Ken Johnston takes us through a replica of the U.S.S Hartford. The original was Farragut’s flagship during the capture of New Orleans and the battle of Mobile Bay… KJ:31“It’s accurate down to the details of the rat sitting on top of the gun rack over there, the guy eating his dinner just on the floor there with a piece of canvas for his table cloth, another guy swinging in the hammock (there and if you listen … you hear the sounds of creaking, dog barking in the background, a little bit of wind we like that audio feature here because it lets you know that even at rest, even when you’re not in battle you just say anchored the ship is moving.)
Farragut would steer the Hartford and the rest of his fleet into Mobile Bay for a clash with Confederate forces on August 5th. Site director at Fort Morgan Mike Bailey says it was the fight of Farragut’s life. MB-23 “David Farragut himself said it was the hardest battle he was ever involved in and that’s saying a whole lot because he was involved in fighting on the Mississippi River, intense fighting there. But just the nature of the fighting, it’s the largest naval battle that was during the Civil War and just the intensity that went down. At the very beginning of the battle you lose your lead monitor and then the fighting with the Tennessee up the bay later on.” So we have a strategically important port that if taken could cripple the Confederacy and intense fighting between Union and Confederate forces in the war’s largest naval battle.
“One of the reasons so many of them are being awarded in the Civil war is it’s the only medal the Navy has.” John Beeler teaches history at the University of Alabama. JB-split2 :20 “There are Navy Stars and other forms of commendation for conspicuous bravery above and beyond the call of duty which don’t quite rise to the level of the Congressional Medal of Honor. There are plenty of those now, but there’s nothing else in the Civil War so it becomes this sort of all or nothing mentality. If you’re going to give a naval sailor an award basically the only one you can give him is the Congressional Medal of Honor.”
Mike Bailey.says that may explain how John Smith won his Medal of Honor with nothing more than a rock. MB-Funny MOH :23 “A confederate sailor looked up through the gunport of the Tennessee and looked at Commander Marchand who is the commanding officer of the Lackawanna and yelled you Yankee so and so and John Smith’s hearing that ran to his commanding officer’s aid took a holy stone and through it through the gun port of the Tennessee and hit the Confederate with it and he was awarded the Medal of Honor for that.” More than 40 percent of all Congressional Medal of Honor Awards were given out during the Civil War. The United States military may be more selective today on which soldiers it honors, but Edwin Combs says it’s important to remember that all historical events take place in their own time and context. EC-context :18 “When you look at experience of combat in the Civil War, I think sure you can compare it to the experience of combat in any other conflict. It’s fighting one way or the other; it may be in the context of its own times but it’s still the use of violence and harnessing it in some way.” I’m Ryan Vasquez, APR News.