"Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!"—
Admiral David Glasgow Farragut (1801-1870), issuing the command to his Union fleet at the Battle of Mobile Bay, August 5, 1864
The “torpedoes” would today be called “tethered mines,” invisible from the surface but still deadly enough to constitute a threat in the 21st century to navies. And the admiral’s son claimed that Farragut’s actual words were “Damn the torpedoes! Four bells! Captain Crayton, go ahead! Joucett, full speed!"
Whatever the case may be, “Old Salamander” became the greatest naval hero of the Civil War with his defiance of the odds in taking the last Confederate stronghold on the Gulf of Mexico.
If you want to understand how and why Farragut earned the gratitude of the North, consider the following:
* A native Southerner who had lived with his wife in Virginia, he pledged his loyalty to the Union at the outbreak of hostilities—unlike Matthew Maury and Franklin Buchanan, who lent their considerable talents to the South.
* Experiencing combat during the War of 1812 (he had only barely reached his teens by the end of that conflict), he endured 45 years of mostly humdrum duty before the Civil War gave him the opportunity to put his skills to work in a crisis.
* His seizure of New Orleans was instrumental in gaining Union control of the Mississippi and cutting the Confederacy in two.
* The highest ranks in the navy—rear admiral, vice admiral, and admiral of the Navy—were all created especially for him.
For a college art humanities class, I had the choice to write about one of several sculptures in the New York area. I picked the one of Farragut captured in the image accompanying this post. You’ll find it at the northern end of Madison Square Park.
Dedicated on Memorial Day 1881, this was the first public commission of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and you can already sense the artist’s genius.
Notice, for a start, the placement of the statue: facing south, as if to protect the North from the threat to the Union in that direction. But also observe the way the bottom of his coat is curled up, as if blown by the wind.
Finally, there’s the facial expression: granite determination that will not be swayed by fear.
“Spring came that year like magic and like music and
like song. One day its breath was in the air, a haunting premonition of its
spirit filled the hearts of men with its transforming loveliness, wreaking its
sudden and incredible sorcery upon gray streets, gray pavements, and on gray
faceless tides of manswarm ciphers. It came like music faint and far, it came with
triumph and a sound of singing in the air, with lutings of sweet bird-cries at
the break of day and the high swift passing of a wing, and one day it was there
upon the city streets with its strange sudden cry of green, its sharp knife of
wordless joy and pain.”—Thomas Wolfe, “The Train and the City,” in The Complete Short Stories of Thomas Wolfe,
edited by Francis E. Skipp (1987)
