Not only had Galena and the James River fleet failed to get past Drewry’s Bluff, but the Army of the Potomac soon came up short, too, in its bid to conquer Richmond, retreating ingloriously down the peninsula a few weeks later.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in Civil War Times magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

Despite numerous puncture holes, Galena remained on the James River through September, lending its guns in support of McClellan’s retreating army during the Seven Days’ Campaign in June and July. After wintering in Hampton Roads, Galena was finally sent north to Philadelphia for repairs. There, it was not only patched up but also stripped of its beat-up iron coat. Whatever its future, Galena would spend the rest of its days as just another wooden gunboat.

Galena soon returned to service as a simple wooden-walled warship, and with none if its former fanfare. In May 1864, it steamed south for duty with the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, in time to join Admiral David Farragut’s long-delayed attempt to capture Mobile, Ala., the Confederacy’s most valuable remaining port city and a center of blockade running activity.

For the run past bristling Forts Morgan and Gaines and into Mobile Bay, Farragut gathered a fleet of 18 ships—including four of the latest ironclads, the powerful Tecumseh and Manhattan and their massive 15-inch Dahlgrens, and Winnebago and Chickasaw, each carrying four 11-inch Dahlgrens. For the Union, success there represented a nail in the Confederate coffin. For Galena—now captained by Lt. Cmdr. Clark H. Wells—the expedition offered a chance at redemption.

Just after dawn on August 5, 1864, Farragut’s ironclads led the advance toward Fort Morgan and Rear Adm. Franklin Buchanan’s small defending fleet—the fearsome ironclad Tennessee and the gunboats Gaines, Morgan and Selma. Trailing closely behind, just to port, were his seven largest wooden warships, each with a smaller gunboat lashed to its port side. Two years after leading a daring charge up the James River on the Confederate capital, Galena’s fate was literally tied to another ship, the Oneida.

Almost immediately, Farragut’s fleet ran into trouble. Led by Brooklyn, his leading wooden vessels, including his flagship Hartford, began slipping beyond the protective screen of Federal ironclads. Fearful of that, lest they become quick fodder for the waiting Tennessee despite the fact all the Union wooden ships had chains hung over their sides for extra armor, a desperate Commander Tunis A.M. Craven ordered Tecumseh, still in the lead, to cut through the minefield to intercept the iron-coated ram. But his gamble failed: At 7:30 a.m., Tecumseh struck a mine and sank with Craven and 92 others within just a few minutes.

Now Brooklyn’s captain, hesitant to proceed in the wake of Tecumseh’s demise, stalled—bottling up the column under the deadly rain of lead issuing from Fort Morgan’s 45 guns. Weighing the risks of remaining in place rather than testing the torpedo field, Farragut turned to his pilot and said, “I will take the lead.” The battle turned on the admiral’s decision. Fortunate to avoid any live mines, Hartford charged ahead into Mobile Bay. Continuing to exchange fire with the fort, Brooklyn and the others followed.

Bringing up the rear of the column, Commander J.R.M. Mullany’s Oneida came under galling fire. One shot damaged its steering gear, while others started fires on its decks. It was nearly out of the fort’s range when, at 7:50 a.m., a 7-inch rifle shell passed through the chain armor and the ship’s side and exploded in the starboard boiler at the water line. Nearly all of the firemen and coal heavers below decks were scalded to death or disabled by the escaping steam. By 8:37, Oneida had lost the use of at least two of its guns when a shot from Tennessee knocked out a third and severely wounded Mullany. “The command of the ship now devolved upon me,” Lieutenant Charles L. Huntington wrote, “and the management of the two vessels upon Lieutenant-Commander Wells, of Galena.”

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to