DAVID GLASCOE FARRAGUT 386 for this ship. This was at forty-five minutes past eight. I was not long in com- prehending his intentions to be the destruction of the flag-ship: The monitors and such of the wooden vessels as I thought best adapted for the purpose, were immediately ordered to attack the ram, not only with their guns, but bows on at full speed ; and then began one of the fiercest naval combats on record. " The Monongahela, Commander Strong, was the first vessel that struck her, and in doing so carried away her own iron prow, together with the cutwater, without apparently doing her adversary much injury. The Lackawanna, Cap- tain Marchand, was the next vessel to strike her, which she did at full speed ; but though her stem was cut and crushed to the plank-ends for the distance of three feet above the water's edge to five feet below, the only perceptible effect on the ram was to give her a heavy list. " The Hartford was the third vessel that struck her ; but, as the Tennessee quickly shifted her helm, the blow was a glancing one, and, as she rasped along our side, we poured our whole port broadside of nine-inch solid shot within ten feet of her casement. " The monitors worked slowly, but delivered their fire as opportunity offered. The Chickasaw succeeded in getting under her stern, and a fifteen-inch shot from the Manhattan broke through her iron plating and heavy wooden backing, though the missile itself did not enter the vessel. " Immediately after the collision with the flag-ship, I directed Captain Dray- ton to bear down for the ram again. He was doing so at full speed, when, un- fortunately, the Lackawanna ran into the Hartford just forward of the mizzen- mast, cutting her down to within two feet of the water's edge. We soon got clear again, however, and were fast approaching our adversary, when she struck her colors and ran up the white flag. " She was at this time sore beset ; the Chickasaw was pounding away at her stern, the Ossipee was approaching her at full speed, and the Monongahela, Lackawanna, and this ship were bearing down upon her, determined upon her destruction. Her smoke-stack had been shot away, her steering-chains were gone, compelling a resort to her relieving-tackles, and several of her port shut- ters were jammed. Indeed, from the time the Hartford struck her, until her sur- render, she never fired a gun. As the Ossipee, Commander Le Roy, was about to strike her, she hoisted the white flag, and that vessel immediately stopped her engine, though not in time to avoid a glancing blow. " During this contest with the rebel gunboats and the ram Tennessee, which terminated by her surrender at ten o'clock, we lost many more men than from the fire of the batteries of Fort Morgan." The rebel Admiral Buchanan was severely wounded, and subsequently lost a leg by amputation. Admiral Farragut, as humane in his feelings toward a wounded foe as he was gallant and daring in action, immediately addressed a note to Brigadier-General Page, the commander of Fort Morgan, asking per- mission to send the rebel admiral and the other wounded rebel officers by ship, under flag of truce, to the Union hospitals at Pensacola, where they could be
