The fleet followed and anchored above the forts, which, now isolated, surrendered one by one. He swung his own ship clear and headed across the mines, which failed to explode. As disaster seemed imminent, Farragut gave the orders embodied by these famous words.
When the lead monitor Tecumseh was demolished by a mine, the wooden ship Brooklyn stopped, and the line drifted in confusion toward Fort Morgan. Aboard Hartford, Farragut entered Mobile Bay, Alabama, 5 August 1864, in two columns, with armored monitors leading and a fleet of wooden ships following. Admiral David Glasgow Farragut (1801-1870).
