ners
valued, with their cargoes, at nearly $30,000,000.

In the spring of 1863 it was determined to attempt the capture of
Charleston, and Admiral Dupont was sent with a naval force to assist the
army in the work. It was a perilous undertaking, for the harbor was
guarded by heavy batteries aggregating three hundred great guns, and the
channels were strewn with torpedoes. The navy had a terrific battle.
"Such a fire, or anything like it, was never seen before," wrote an
eye-witness. The little Monitors sustained the battle bravely, while
tons of iron were hurled upon them from Fort Sumter and the shore
batteries. During the battle of forty minutes the Confederates sent 3500
shots. The attempt to capture the city failed, and the fleet was
withdrawn. It was renewed the following summer, when General Gillmore
with troops on Morris Island, and Admiral Dahlgren with a fleet,
attacked its most powerful defenses. They jointly attacked Fort Wagner,
on Morris Island, and Fort Sumter, not far off. They drove the garrison
from the former, and reduced the latter to a heap of ruins. But they did
not take Charleston.

Porter, with a fleet of gun-boats, went on a remarkable expedition up
the Red River, for the invasion of Texas, in company with a land force
under General Banks, in the spring of 1864. Nothing of importance was
accomplished. The greatest exploit of that expedition was the passage of
Porter's fleet down the rapids at Alexandria. While he was above, the
river had fallen. It was now dammed by Michigan troops, and from an
opened sluice the gun-boats were passed over the rapids, as logs are
borne down a shallow stream by lumbermen.

In the summer of 1864 the government determined to close the two
Southern ports yet open to British blockade-runners, namely, Mobile,
near the Gulf of Mexico, and Wilmington, on the Cape Fear River. For
this purpose Admiral Farragut appeared off the entrance to Mobile Bay,
with a strong naval force, in August. He entered the bay on the morning
of August 5, four iron-clad vessels leading the way, and immediately
followed by the _Hartford_ (the flag-ship) and three other wooden
vessels bound together in couples.

In order to observe every movement of his fleet, Farragut had himself
lashed to the mast in the round-top, and thence gave his orders through
a speaking-tube extending to the deck. In that position he endured the
terrible tempest of shot and shell while passing the forts guarding the
e