ortrait of Admiral Farragut _Frontispiece_

General Map of the scene of Farragut's operations 115

Passage of Mississippi Forts 127

Passage of Vicksburg Batteries 187

Passage of Port Hudson 213

Battle of Mobile Bay 247

* * * * *

ADMIRAL FARRAGUT.

CHAPTER I.

FAMILY AND EARLY LIFE.

1801-1811.

The father of Admiral Farragut, George Farragut, was of unmixed Spanish
descent, having been born on the 29th of September, 1755, in the island
of Minorca, one of the Balearic group, where the family had been
prominent for centuries. One of his ancestors, Don Pedro Ferragut,
served with great distinction under James I, King of Aragon, in the wars
against the Moors, which resulted in their expulsion from Majorca in
1229, and from the kingdom of Valencia, in the Spanish Peninsula, in
1238. As Minorca in 1755 was a possession of the British Crown, to which
it had been ceded in 1713 by the Treaty of Utrecht, George Farragut was
born under the British flag; but in the following year a French
expedition, fitted out in Toulon, succeeding in wresting from the hands
of Great Britain both the island and its excellent fortified harbor,
Port Mahon, one of the most advantageous naval stations in the
Mediterranean. It was in the course of the operations which resulted in
this conquest of Minorca by the French that the British fleet, under
the command of Admiral Byng, met with the check for which the admiral
paid the penalty of his life a few months later. At the close of the
Seven Years' War, in 1763, the island was restored to Great Britain, in
whose hands it remained until 1782, when it was again retaken by the
French and Spaniards.

George Farragut, however, had long before severed his connection with
his native country. In March, 1776, he emigrated to North America, which
was then in the early throes of the Revolutionary struggle. Having grown
to manhood a subject to Great Britain, but alien in race and feeling, he
naturally espoused the cause of the colonists, and served gallantly in
the war. At its end he found himself, like the greater part of his
adopted countrymen, called to the task of building up his own fortunes,
neglected during its continuance; and, by so d