s at each other. Blazing fire-ships came drifting down.
The foremost boats were fiercely fighting with the Confederate craft.
The hindmost boats were fighting with the forts. The uproar seemed
enough to drive the very moon from the sky.

But soon victory began to hold out her hand to the Union fleet. For all
the ships passed the forts, some of the Confederate vessels were driven
ashore and others fled up stream; and in a little while only three of
them were left, and these were kept safe under the guns of the fort. The
battle had been fought and won, and the triumphant fleet steamed up the
river to New Orleans. The forts were still there, but what could they
do, with Union forces above and below? Four days after the fight they
were surrendered to Porter and his mortar fleet.

There was one final act to the great Mississippi battle. For as
Commander Porter, in his flagship, lay near Fort Jackson, down on him
came the iron-clad _Louisiana_, all in a blaze. But just before she
reached his vessel she blew up; and that was the end of the _Louisiana_
and the fight. The river was open and New Orleans was captured. Thus
ended the greatest naval battle of the Civil War.

Two years and more afterward Farragut fought another great battle. This
was in the Bay of Mobile, then a great place for blockade-runners. These
were swift vessels that brought goods from Europe to the South. The
Union fleet did all it could to stop them, but they could not be stopped
at Mobile from outside, so Farragut was told to fight his way inside the
bay. And that is what he did.

Mobile Bay is like a great bell, thirty miles long and fifteen miles
wide. There are two islands at the mouth, so that the entrance is not
more than a mile wide. And on each of these islands was a strong fort,
which had been built by the government before the war. The Confederates
had taken possession of these forts and had big guns in them.

The first thing to do was to pass the forts. No chain could be put
across the channel here, but there was something worse, for nearly two
hundred torpedoes were planted in the water near the forts. Some of
these were made of beer-kegs and some of tin; and they were planted so
thickly that it was not easy to get in without setting them off. Then,
when the fort and the torpedoes were passed, there were the ships. Three
of these were small gunboats, of not much account. But there was a great
iron-clad ship, the _Tennessee_, which was twice