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Civil War Campaigns and Commanders Series
Last Stand at Mobile
Admiral David Farragut eyed a potentially lethal minefield guarding the entrance to Mobile Bay, Alabama, as his attack column of ironclad monitors rushed forward, opening the assault against the Confederate citadels on shore.
One vessel, the U.S.S. Tecumseh, looked every inch an invincible monster. As the sleek, turreted warship drew close to its Rebel enemies, a geyser of water shot up on its starboard side followed by a muffled rumble. The ship heeled over and sank in seconds, carried to its watery doom by its own war-speed and momentum.
Crewmen aboard the rest of the Union ships looked on in horror. "Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!" Admiral David Farragut shouted from the bridge of the U.S.S. Hartford as he sensed the growing panic among his sailors. As the vessel churned forward the primer caps of primitive but deadly naval "torpedoes"—dubbed "infernal machines" by the men who faced them—snapped and popped beneath the Yankee ships but failed to explode. Despite the threat of instant and violent death, the Hartford pressed on, inspiring the fleet and leading toward ultimate victory. Farragut's words, some of the most famous in American history, were written in fire and blood that August day as the United States Navy came of age.
Award-winning author Jack Waugh takes a fresh look at the stirring land and sea battles surrounding the capture of one of the Confederacy's most important cities, Mobile, Alabama.
One vessel, the U.S.S. Tecumseh, looked every inch an invincible monster. As the sleek, turreted warship drew close to its Rebel enemies, a geyser of water shot up on its starboard side followed by a muffled rumble. The ship heeled over and sank in seconds, carried to its watery doom by its own war-speed and momentum.
Crewmen aboard the rest of the Union ships looked on in horror. "Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!" Admiral David Farragut shouted from the bridge of the U.S.S. Hartford as he sensed the growing panic among his sailors. As the vessel churned forward the primer caps of primitive but deadly naval "torpedoes"—dubbed "infernal machines" by the men who faced them—snapped and popped beneath the Yankee ships but failed to explode. Despite the threat of instant and violent death, the Hartford pressed on, inspiring the fleet and leading toward ultimate victory. Farragut's words, some of the most famous in American history, were written in fire and blood that August day as the United States Navy came of age.
Award-winning author Jack Waugh takes a fresh look at the stirring land and sea battles surrounding the capture of one of the Confederacy's most important cities, Mobile, Alabama.
120 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2002
About the author
John C. Waugh
22 books15 followersA Brief Self-Serving Bio
I'm a journalist turned historical reporter:
1956–1973, staff correspondent and bureau chief on The Christian Science Monitor. Honors included the American Bar Association’s 1972 Silver Gavel Award for the best national reporting, for a series on American prisons.
1973–1976, media specialist on the staff of Republican Vice President Nelson Rockefeller of New York.
1983–1988, press secretary to Democratic U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico.
Since 1989, writing about history full-time — books on the Civil War era.
Covering the past is not unlike covering the present, except all my sources are dead (I prefer it that way). It also means I can return to my favorite century, the 19th, on a daily basis.
Between stints in the newspaper and political worlds, and since, I've contributed to periodicals, including Civil War History, American Heritage, Civil War Times Illustrated, Columbiad, The Washington Post Book World, The New York Times, The New Republic, The Nation, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald American, and Country Magazine.
Over the years I've also been a consultant to various organizations — National Archives and Records Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Atlantic Richfield Company, President’s Council on Environmental Quality, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and West Virginia Public Radio.
My first book, The Class of 1846, published in 1994, won the New York Civil War Round Table’s Fletcher Pratt Literary Award for the best non-fiction book of that year.
I have now written 11 books since flunking retirement in 1989. Number 12 will be out in October 2014. I have discovered over the years that if you put one word after another long enough, they add up.
I was born in California, reared in Arizona, and now live in North Texas. I'm a product of the Tucson public schools and the University of Arizona (1951, journalism major, history minor) plus graduate work in history and political science at UCLA and St. Johns College. I'm married to Kathleen Dianne Lively, a social work administrator and a Texan. We have two grown children, Daniel, a lawyer in Providence, Rhode Island, and Eliza, a teacher in Austin, Texas, and four grandchildren.
I'm a journalist turned historical reporter:
1956–1973, staff correspondent and bureau chief on The Christian Science Monitor. Honors included the American Bar Association’s 1972 Silver Gavel Award for the best national reporting, for a series on American prisons.
1973–1976, media specialist on the staff of Republican Vice President Nelson Rockefeller of New York.
1983–1988, press secretary to Democratic U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico.
Since 1989, writing about history full-time — books on the Civil War era.
Covering the past is not unlike covering the present, except all my sources are dead (I prefer it that way). It also means I can return to my favorite century, the 19th, on a daily basis.
Between stints in the newspaper and political worlds, and since, I've contributed to periodicals, including Civil War History, American Heritage, Civil War Times Illustrated, Columbiad, The Washington Post Book World, The New York Times, The New Republic, The Nation, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald American, and Country Magazine.
Over the years I've also been a consultant to various organizations — National Archives and Records Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Atlantic Richfield Company, President’s Council on Environmental Quality, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and West Virginia Public Radio.
My first book, The Class of 1846, published in 1994, won the New York Civil War Round Table’s Fletcher Pratt Literary Award for the best non-fiction book of that year.
I have now written 11 books since flunking retirement in 1989. Number 12 will be out in October 2014. I have discovered over the years that if you put one word after another long enough, they add up.
I was born in California, reared in Arizona, and now live in North Texas. I'm a product of the Tucson public schools and the University of Arizona (1951, journalism major, history minor) plus graduate work in history and political science at UCLA and St. Johns College. I'm married to Kathleen Dianne Lively, a social work administrator and a Texan. We have two grown children, Daniel, a lawyer in Providence, Rhode Island, and Eliza, a teacher in Austin, Texas, and four grandchildren.
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December 22, 2018
A neat little book on a campaign dear to me, having grown up on Alabama's Gulf Coast. The narrative in truth is nothing special. I give it four stars rather than three because Waugh supplies technical data for the ships, and his side bios of the important leaders involved are interesting.
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