April 10, 1865. |
April 11. |
 |
| Battery Gladden. |
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So ended, in triumph to the Nationals, the battle of Blakely.
By seven o'clock; or within the space of an hour and a half from the time the assault began, they had possession of all the works, with Generals Lidell, Cockerell, and Thomas, and other officers of high rank, and three thousand men, as prisoners of war. The spoils were nearly forty pieces of artillery, four thousand small-arms, sixteen battle-flags, and a vast quantity of ammunition.
The Confederates lost, in killed and wounded, about five hundred men. The National loss was about one thousand.
The Nationals were now in undisputed possession of the whole eastern shore of the bay. The army and navy spent all the next day
in careful reconnoitering, preparing for an advance on Mobile.
Some of the gun-boats attempted to go up to Blakely, but were checked by a heavy fire from Forts Huger and Tracy.
From these island batteries full two hundred shells were thrown at the navy during that and the next day, when, as we have seen, the garrisons of both spiked their guns, and fled in the shadows of night.
Meanwhile the Thirteenth Army Corps had been taken across the bay, for an attack on Mobile, in connection with the gun-boats, which went from place to place, taking possession of abandoned batteries here and there.
But the army found no enemy to fight.
On the day after the fall of Blakely, Maury ordered the evacuation of Mobile; and on the 11th, after sinking the powerful rams Huntsville and Tuscaloosa,1 he fled up the Alabama River, with nine thousand men, on gun-boats and transports.
General Veatch took
possession of Batteries Gladden and McIntosh, in the harbor, and Battery Missouri, below the city; and on the evening of the 12th, after a summons to surrender, made by General Granger and Rear-Admiral Thatcher, the authorities formally gave the place into their hands at Battery Missouri, below the town.
On the following day Veatch's division entered the city, and the National flag was hoisted on the public buildings, thereby disgusting the rebellious inhabitants, who closed their stores, shut up their dwellings, and kept from the streets; and the publication of four of the newspapers was suspended.
General Granger followed the army into the city, and General Canby and his staff entered soon afterward.2 So Mobile was “repossessed” a little more
1 It is a curious fact that a very large proportion of the most powerful iron-clad vessels constructed by the Confederates, were destroyed by their own hands. Only a few days after the evacuation of Mobile the Confederate ram Webb, from the Red River, freighted with cotton, rosin, and other merchandise, went down the Mississippi, passing New Orleans on the 20th of April, so unexpectedly that she received but two shots as she went by, from batteries there, the vessels of war being yet in Mobile Bay. The Webb was pursued by gun-boats from above, and was hurrying toward the Gulf, when she encountered the corvette Richmond, coming up the river. The commander of the ram, seeing no chance for escape, ran her ashore and blew her up. He and the crew took refuge in the swamps, but nearly all of them were captured.
2 A very full, faithful, and well-written account of the capture of Mobile and its dependencies, may be found in a volume of nearly three hundred pages, by General C. C. Andrews, one of the most active of the officers of the West. It is entitled, History of the Campaign of Mobile, including the co-operative Operations of General Wilson's Cavalry, in Alabama. It is illustrated by maps and delineations of scenes.
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