Rear Admiral David Farragut
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David Glasgow Farragut (b. 1801) was the United States Navy's first rear admiral. By his death in 1870, Farragut was America's first four-star admiral. It was a rank created especially to honor one of the Union's great heroes of the Civil War. Farragut was a career Navy officer of relatively undistinguished merit most of his life, sixty years old at the war's outbreak. By the same token, he was a professional in the art of war, in a conflict where the majority of its officers - North and South - were something else. That "something else" could be good - talented professionals in related fields - but was often the opposite: unqualified men whose rank was obtained via political connections. In such a situation, personal bravery and stupendous tactical errors frequently characterized the field of war. David Farragut distinguished himself as a man of personal bravery. More important, he directed the ships under his command with a solid grasp of strategic priority. He is most remembered today for the famous quote, probably paraphrased, "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" at the Battle of Mobile Bay , but even his fury was based on calculated risk. It was a combination of personal honor and public responsibility that lifted David Glasgow Farragut from the near-disgrace of a sidewater desk job at war's beginning - to become one of its most respected heroes by its conclusion, a conclusion he helped not inconsiderably to ensure. Although born in landlocked Tennessee,
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rragut displayed his own personal heroism several times in order to keep a commander's eye on the progress and strategy of battle, the Southern ships were isolated and destroyed one by one, victims of their own individualistic fighting style. Cut off from supplies upriver, the disheartened forts surrendered a few days later. New Orleans refused to surrender to Farragut, who did not have the manpower to occupy the city by force, but when General Butler's troops arrived on May 1st, the Confederate militia withdrew. The city was taken without battle. Baton Rouge, a short distance upriver, surrender without fight the next week. Only Port Hudson, a heavily armed encampment near the Mississippi borderline, remained as an obstacle to control of the Louisiana stretch of river.
Promoted to Rear Admiral upon his victory at New Orleans, Farragut's success caused him to be put in command of a less cogent Union plan of action: to proceed upriver and capture Confederate cities on the Mississippi. Farragut argued, with justification, that the river was too shallow for his ocean-designed ships - and that Union troops would be needed to hold what he had taken. Worse, at every river bend the South would have strong artillery units to rak
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Approximate Word count = 3513
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page)
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