the Tecumseh. But no more torpedoes were encountered; while the fire of the fort, now checked by the grape of our ships, became comparatively harmless, from the moment that he had fairly passed its front.

broadside of solid 11-inch shot, which seemed to have much the same effect on her that a musket-wad or pop-gun pellet might be expected to produce on a buffalo's skull. Not satisfied with this, Capt. Jenkins drew off and came at her again, with the net result of losing his own beak and cut-water.

The Lackawanna next struck the Rebel monster at full speed; crushing in her own stem to the plank-ends, but only giving the ram a heavy list, without doing her any perceptible harm.

The Hartford came on next; but her blow was evaded by an adroit motion of the Tennessee's helm, so that the Hartford merely hit her on the quarter and rasped along her side: pouring in a broadside of 10-inch shot, at a distance of ten feet.

Our monitors had now crawled up, firing when they could do so; and the Chickasaw ran under her stern; while the Manhattan, also coming up behind her, gave her a solid 15-inch bolt, which struck her on her port quarter, carrying away her steer

The Rebel fleet had opened fire directly after the fort; and the Tennessee, at 7:50, rushed at the Hartford, which simply returned her fire and kept on. The three Rebel gunboats, still ahead, poured their shots into the Hartford; the Selma getting a raking fire on her, which she could not return. Farragut, therefore, at 8:02, ordered the Metacomet to cast off and close with the Selma; which she captured, after an hour's fight: the Selma's captain, P. N. Murphy, with 9 others, being wounded; her Lieut. Comstock, with 5 more, being killed. She had 4 great pivot guns and 94 men. The Morgan and Gaines now took refuge under the guns of the fort; where the Gaines, badly crippled, was run ashore and burned. The Morgan escaped, and ran up to Mobile under cover of the ensuing night. Farragut now supposed the fighting-gear, and breaking square through over, and had ordered most of his vessels to anchor; but he was undeceived when the Tennessee, at 8:45, stood bravely down the bay, and, trusting to her invulnerability to shot, made for our flag-ship, resolved to run her down. At once, our ironclads and stronger wooden ships were signaled to close in upon and destroy her; our fire, save of the very largest guns, seeming scarcely to annoy her. The Monongahela gave her the first blow; rushing at her at full speed, striking her square in the side, and, swinging around, pouring into her, when but a few feet distant, a

her iron plates and their wooden backing, but doing no harm inside.

Farragut had ordered Drayton to strike her a second blow; and he was proceeding to do so, when the Lackawanna, already badly crippled, in attempting to ram the enemy a second time, came in collision with the flag-ship, doing her considerable injury. Both drew off, took distance for another pass at her, and were coming on at full speed, when the Rebel alligator, sore beset from every side--her smoke-stack shot away, her steering-chains gone, several of her port-shutters so jammed by our shot

GRANGER CAPTURES FORT MORGAN.

of them battered to fragments, with the Chickasaw boring away at her stern, and four other great vessels coming at her full speed-saw that the fight was fairly out of her, with no chance of escape, and, hauling down her flag, ran up a white one, just in time to have the Ossipee back its engine ere it struck her; changing its heavy crash into a harmless glancing blow. On her surrender, Admiral Buchanan was found severely wounded, with 6 of his crew; 3 being killed. Of prisoners, we took 190 with the Tennessee, and 90 with the Selma.

653

that they could not be opened, and one | the Rebel forts were intact. Farragut sent the wounded of both fleets to Pensacola in the Metacomet, and prepared to resume operations. During the ensuing night, Fort Powell was evacuated and blown up, so far as it could be; but the guns were left to fall into our hands. Fort Gaines was next day shelled by the iron-clad Chickasaw, with such effect that Col. Anderson, commanding there, next morning sued for conditions. He might probably have held out a little longer; but, being on an island, with the fleet on one side and Granger's army on the other, there was not a possibility of relief or protracted resistance. At 9 A. M., the Stars and Stripes were raised over the fort, and Anderson and his 600 men were prisoners of war.

Our total loss in this desperate struggle was 165 killed (including the 113 who went down in the Tecumseh) and 170 wounded: the Hartford having 25 killed, 28 wounded, and the Brooklyn 11 killed and 43 wounded. The Oneida had 8 killed and 30 wounded, including her commander, Mullany, who lost an arm: most of them being scalded by the explosion, at 7:50, of her starboard boiler by a 7-inch shell, while directly under the fire of Fort Morgan. Nearly all her firemen and coalheavers on duty were killed or disabled in a moment; but, though another shell at that instant exploded in her cabin, cutting her wheel-ropes, her guns were loaded and fired, even while the steam was escaping, as if they had been practicing at a target. The Tennessee passed and raked her directly afterward, disabling two of her guns. A shell, in exploding, having started a fire on the top of her magazine, it was quietly extinguished; the serving out of powder going on as before.

Gen. Page, commanding in Fort Morgan, had much stronger defenses, and was on the main land, where he had a chance of relief; at the worst, he might get away, while Anderson could not. He telegraphed the latter peremptorily, "Hold on to your fort!" and his representations doubtless did much to excite the clamor raised against that officer throughout Dixie as a coward or a traitor. But when his turn came-Granger's troops having been promptly transferred to the rear of Morgan, invested" it, and, after due preparation, opened fire" in conjunction with the fleet-Page held out one day, and then surrendered at discretion. He doubtless was right in so doing; since-unless relieved by an adequate land forcehis fall was but a question of time. Yet his prompt submission tallied badly with his censure of Anderson.

The Rebel fleet was no more; but Before surrendering, he had damaged

his guns and other material to the | taken 104 guns and 1,464 men—not

extent of his power.

Thus fell the last of the defenses of Mobile bay; sealing that port against blockade-runners thenceforth, and endangering the Rebel hold on the city. With those defenses, we had

without cost certainly; but there were few minor successes of the year which were won more cheaply, or which contributed more directly and palpably to the downfall of the Rebellion.

XXX.

POLITICAL MUTATIONS AND RESULTS.

THE PRESIDENTIAL CANVASS OF 1864.

As, since McClellan's recoil from | day. The victory of Mission ridge, the defenses of Richmond, the judgment of the loyal States was divided concerning the probabilities of National success or defeat, so the fortunes of the contending parties reflected closely the changing aspects of the military situation. The Fall elections of 1862 had resulted in a general Opposition triumph; because the reflecting and unimpassioned had been led, by our recent reverses and our general disappointment, to doubt the ability of the Government to put down the Rebellion. Those of 1863, on the other hand, had strongly favored the Administration; because the National successes at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Helena, &c., the reopening of the Mississippi, and the recovery of East Tennessee, with a good part of Arkansas, had induced a very general belief, which our reverse at the Chickamauga did not shake, that the Union would surely triumph, and at no distant

followed by the appointment of Gen. Grant to the chief command of all the National forces, strengthened this belief into conviction; so that, though there were still those who did not desire the overthrow of the Rebellion, as there had been, even in the darkest hours, many whose faith in the National cause never faltered nor was shaded by a doubt-the strongly prevalent opinion of the loyal States, throughout the Spring of 1864, imported that Gen. Grant would make short work of what was left of the Confederacy. Hence, the Spring Elections were scarcely contested by the Opposition: New Hampshire opening them with an overwhelming Republican triumph;' Connecticut following with one equally decided," though her Democratic candidate for Governor was far less obnoxious to War Democrats than his predecessor had been; and, though Rhode Island showed a falling off in the Republi

2 Total vote: Republican. Democratic Governor.. Buckingham, 89,820 O. S. Seymour, 34,102

KENTUCKY AND PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

can majority,' it was simply because, | prehend that they must choose bein the absence of any election for tween Emancipation and Disunion. Congress, and in view of the certainty that the Republican ascendency would be maintained, no serious effort was made to call out a full vote, and personal considerations exerted their natural influence in so small a State when no special or urgent reason is presented for a rigid respect to party lines.

25th, and there choose delegates to the Democratic National Convention which was to assemble at Chicago for the nomination of a Presidential ticket-a call which insured the vote of this State in November to the candidates of the Opposition.

Government-that nation, of which that Constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the nation and yet preserve the Constitution? By general law, life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt must be amputated to save a life; but a life that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the ConstituGov. Bramlette, accompanied by tion, through the preservation of the nation. ex-Senator Dixon and Col. A. G. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and Hodges, soon visited Washington, ex-best of my ability, I had even tried to prenow avow it. I could not feel that, to the pressly to protest against, and (if possible) to obviate, this enrollment of negroes, or at least to render its execution less offensive and annoying to their masters-finding the President disposed to do whatever he could to reconcile the Kentuckians to the bitter prescription. Mr. Lincoln was induced to put the substance of his observations at their interview into the following letter:

}

"EXECUTIVE MANSION, "WASHINGTON, April 4, 1864. "A. G. HODGES, Esq., Frankfort, Ky.: "MY DEAR SIR: You ask me to put in writing the substance of what I verbally said the other day, in your presence, to Gov. Bramlette and Senator Dixon. It was about as follows:

"I am naturally anti-Slavery. If Slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think and feel; and yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. It was in the oath I took that I would to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power. I understood, too, that, in ordinary and civil administration, this oath even forbade me to practically indulge my primary, abstract judgment on the moral question of Slavery. I had publicly declared this many times, and in many ways. And I aver that, to this day, I have done no official act in mere deference to my abstract judgment and feeling on Slavery. I did understand, however, that my oath to preserve the Constitution to the best of my ability imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every indispensable means, that

serve the Constitution, if, to save Slavery, or any minor matter, I should permit the wreck of Government, country, and Constitution, altogether. When, early in the war, Gen. Fremont attempted military emanci think it an indispensable necessity. When, pation, I forbade it, because I did not then a little later, Gen. Cameron, then Seeretary of War, suggested the arming of the Blacks, I objected, because I did not yet think it an indispensable necessity. When, still later, Gen. Hunter attempted military emancipation, I again forbade it, because I did not yet think the indispensable necessity had come. When, in March, and May, and July, 1862, I made earnest and successive appeals to the Border States to favor compensated emancipation, I believed the indispensable necessity for military emancipation and arming the Blacks would come, unless averted by that measure. They declined the proposition; and I was, in my best judgment, driven to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, and, with it, the Constitution, or of laying a strong hand upon the colored element. I chose the latter. In choosing it, I hoped for greater gain than loss; but of this I was not entirely confident. More than a year of trial now shows no loss by it in our foreign relations, none in our home popular sentiment, none in our White military force-no loss by it anyhow, or anywhere. On the contrary, it shows a gain of quite 130,000 soldiers, seamen, and laborers. These are palpable facts, about which, as facts, there can be no caviling. We have the men; and we could not have had them without the measure.

"And now let any Union man, who complains of this measure, test himself by writing down in one line, that he is for subduing the Rebellion by force of arms; and in the next, that he is for taking 130,000 men from the Union side, and placing them where they would be but for the measure he condemns. If he can not face his case so stated, it is only because he can not face the truth.

"I add a word which was not in the verbal conversation. In telling this tale, I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity.