Mobile, Alabama, in the Civil War
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Mobile, Alabama, was an important port city on the Gulf of Mexico for the Confederate States of America during much of the American Civil War before falling to the Union army in late 1864 following successful attacks on the defenses of Mobile Bay by the Union Navy.
[edit] Early war years
Mobile had grown substantially in the period leading up to the Civil War when the Confederates heavily fortified it. The 1860 U.S. Census reported that Mobile had 29,258 residents, making it the 27th largest city in the county. When the Confederacy seceded, Mobile became the 4th largest city in the new nation.
Early in the war, Union naval forces established a blockade under the command of Admiral David Farragut. The Confederates countered the blockade by constructing "blockade runners;" fast, shallow-draft, low-slung ships that could either out-run or evade the blockaders, maintaining a trickle of trade in and out of Mobile. The C.S.S. Hunley, the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel in combat, was built and tested in Mobile before being shipped to Charleston, South Carolina.
[edit] Fall of Mobile
In August 1864, Farragut's ships fought their way past the two forts (Gaines and Morgan) guarding the mouth of Mobile Bay and defeated a small force of Confederate gunboats and one ironclad, the C.S.S. Tennessee, in the famous Battle of Mobile Bay. It is here that Farragut is alleged to have uttered his famous "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" quote.
The city of Mobile later surrendered to the Union army in order to avoid destruction. Ironically, in May 1865 as the war was ending, an ammunition depot explosion—called the great Mobile magazine explosion—killed some 300 people and destroyed a significant portion of the city.
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