The ingoing cargoes brought huge profits; and the cotton, laden with which the blockade-runners came out, was better than a gold-mine. It was no uncommon thing to clear one hundred and fifty thousand dollars each way. With such gains possible, blockade - running was profitable even though the vessel made only a trip or two before capture. To captains and crews such bounties were paid that they could soon retire with fortunes. The spirit of adventure was reinforced by the love of gain, and owners were never at a loss to man their ships. The Robert E. Lee, from Nassau, ran the blockade twentyone times within six months, bringing out six thousand bales of cotton and carrying in a miscellaneous assortment of merchandise to a voracious market.1

Though the South had at the start few ships to defend her coast, and almost no ship-yards, machineshops, or skilled labor, the Confederacy showed, as has been explained, most noteworthy ingenuity in supplying this lack. In coping with the results of this skill, the monotonous life of the Federal blockaders was sometimes relieved. Such was the conflict with the Virginia, and certain other achievements of the monitors. At last, in the summer of 1864, came one of the few general fleet engagements on a great scale."

At this time the only port of the Gulf available

'Soley, Blockade and Cruisers, 156, 166.

2 See above, p. 62 et seq.

3 Battles and Leaders, IV., 379 et seq.

to blockade-runners was Mobile. New Orleans had fallen long before; the ports of Texas since the sundering of the Confederacy by the Federal occupation of the Mississippi were of little service; at Pensacola the Federal garrison at Fort Pickens prevented entrance. Farragut had long desired to attack Mobile, which Grant, Sherman, and Banks had threatened from the land side. But not until the midsummer of 1864 did Farragut range his fleet, the West Gulf blockading squadron strongly reinforced, before the sandy capes between which opened the strait that he must force.

1

Mobile itself lies thirty miles from the Gulf, between which and the city extends the bay, a sheet of water in some parts fifteen miles in breadth, in many places too shallow for ocean-going ships, but in its lower part affording the necessary depth and space. To defend this bay, on Mobile Point, the cape to the east, stood Fort Morgan, an old-fashioned fort of brick, supplemented skilfully by earthworks and sand - bag facings, and heavily armed. To the west, guarding shallow inlets, lay smaller works, Fort Gaines and Fort Powell, too distant to be effective. The main reliance for defence was Fort Morgan, aided by four vessels, of which by far the most formidable was the Tennessee, the most powerful of the several rams constructed by the Confederates during the war, craft always inspiring terror and often inflicting disaster. Upon a low'Mahan, Gulf and Inland Waters, 218 et seq.

lying hull was mounted an iron-plated casemate two hundred feet long, its sides sloping at an angle of forty-five degrees, built of solid oak and pine two feet thick, and covered with six inches of iron. Noticeable was the projecting rim or "knuckle" of iron which surrounded the hull, projecting well beyond, and which at the bow was prolonged into the beak which was her principal means of offence. She carried six large Brooke rifled guns, and was commanded by Franklin Buchanan, who commanded the Virginia at Hampton Roads. Fatal defects in what otherwise was a most menacing instrument of war, were a weak engine, and steering-gear exposed without protection to shot and shell. More dreaded perhaps than even fort or iron-clad were the torpedoes, then instruments unfamiliar and almost untested. It was known that these were thickly scattered about the harbor, and that a line of them crossed the channel where the ships must pass.

To encounter these obstacles, Farragut had a fleet of eighteen ships; four of these were monitors, and seven wooden ships of over a thousand tons, one, the Brooklyn, over two thousand. The Hartford, as at New Orleans, was the flag-ship, and several of her consorts with their crews had also taken part in that action. In the early morning of August 5, 1864, the fleet was ranged for battle, the monitors, led by the Tecumseh, forming a line by themselves nearer the fort than the wooden ships. As at Port Hud