A MODERN NAVAL COMBAT.

419

The combat with the Rebel ram "Tennessee," the "Dragon of iron shell," commanded by Admiral Buchanan, (the same who commanded the "Merrimac " in her brief but brilliant career in Hampton Roads,) was as fierce as any of the old seafights, but wholly unique and modern.

“ Half the fleet, in an angry ring,
Closed round the hideous Thing,
Hammering with solid shot,
And bearing down, bow on bow:

He has but a minute to choose;
Life or Renown? — which now
Will the Rebel Admiral lose?

"Cruel, haughty, and cold,

He was ever strong and bold:

Shall he shrink from a wooden stem?

He will think of that brave band
He sank in the 'Cumberland,'

Ay, he will sink like them!

"Nothing left but to fight
Boldly his last sea-fight !

Can he strike? By Heaven, 't is true i
Down comes the traitor Blue,
And up goes the captive White!

Up went the White! Ah, then,
The hurrahs that once and again
Rang from three thousand men

All flushed and savage with fight!
Our dead lay cold and stark,
But our dying, down in the dark,
Answered as best they might,
Lifting their poor lost arms,

And cheering for God and Right!”

CHAPTER LIX.

MOBILE.

ABOVE the forts the merchant fleet lies at anchor, twentyfive miles from Mobile, the shallowness of the bay preventing at all times vessels drawing more than ten feet of water from going up to the city. The extensive gulf coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, presents not a single first-class. harbor. The first you meet with is that of Pensacola.

Steamers were plying between the ships and the city, receiving and delivering cargoes. We met or passed them as we kept on our course. Blueish lines of forests enclosed the Bay. Four miles below the city we came in sight of the Rebel defences. On our right were the bastion and extensive fortifications of Spanish Fort, commanding Minetta Bay and several miles of the coast of Mobile Bay. This work, originally built by De Soto more than three centuries ago, was finally invested by our fleet and land forces on the day of the fall of Richmond. It surrendered on the ninth of April, and on the eleventh Mobile was evacuated. The water approaches to this fort, and to the other defences of the city, were strewn with torpedoes, by which four or five vessels of our fleet were blown up.

We passed a line of obstructions, consisting of piles and sunken wrecks thrown across the channel; and Mobile, a smoking, sunlit city, lay before us on the low shore. By the direct channel it was less than three miles distant; but, in order to reach it, we were compelled to ascend Spanish River to the Mobile River, and descend that stream, a circuit of over twenty miles. It was four o'clock when we reached the wharf.

Mobile is a level, shady town, regularly laid out, and built on a dry, sandy plain. It is the principal city of Ala

THE TERRIBLE EXPLOSION AT MOBILE. 421

bama, and the second city in importance in the Gulf States; its commerce ranking next to that of New Orleans. For several years before the war its annual exports of cotton were between six and seven hundred thousand bales. It endured a four years' blockade, falling into Federal hands only at the latter end of the war.

But its great catastrophe did not occur until some time after the termination of hostilities. It would seem as if the genius of Destruction was determined to strike a final blow at the city. The explosion of the lately captured Confederate ammunition was one of the most terrible disasters of the kind ever known. It was stored in a large three-story warehouse one street back from the river. The last of Dick Taylor's shells were going in, when, it is supposed, one of them accidentally ignited. Twenty brick blocks, and portions of other blocks, were instantly blown to atoms. Four or five hundred persons were killed, it was never known how many. A black volcanic cloud of smoke and fragments went up into the sky: "It was big as a mountain," said one. It was succeeded by a fearful conflagration sweeping over the field of ruins. Ten thousand bales of cotton were burned. The loss of property was so immense that nobody ventured to estimate it.

In the vicinity of the explosion, citizens were thrown off their feet, chimneys knocked down, and windows and doors demolished. Lights of glass were broken all over the city, a mile or more from the scene of the explosion.

'I was lifted from the ground, and my hat thrown off," said one. "Then I looked up, and there were great black blocks of something in the air, high as I could see, and shells exploding."

Said another: "I was riding out a mile and a half from the city. I heard a sound, and at the same time my head and shoulders were thrown forward on my horse's neck, as if I had dodged. That's the first time I've dodged a cannon,' I said, ' and that's after the war is over.' I looked around, and saw the strangest cloud going up slowly over the city. Then I knew it was the shock that had thrown me down."